15 A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA 4) Drawing the Veil

"He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer -- excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw doubt upon all his mental results." [A Scandal in Bohemia]

I opened the door to our rooms feeling like a battered ship fleeing from a storm into a sheltered harbor, only to find myself under fire from a shore battery. Which is to say that I have taken up Watson's habit of overblown metaphor. A sure sign of disintegrating objectivity.

Others might have said they felt another presence in the house, but what I detected was a little damp sand upon the stair, no more than a few grains, and slightly higher ambient light, suggesting that the door to Watson's room was open - it had been closed when I had left. There was no sound of movement, I could imagine Watson standing frozen, having heard my key in the front door. We both stood, out of sight of each other, as I steeled my courage. Then I heard him sit upon the edge of his old iron-framed bed, awaiting me.

As I ascended the stairs, my thoughts formed and dissolved like wind harried clouds with each footstep, then deserted me entirely at the top. Watson sat upon a bare bed, and in the center of the chamber sat his large traveling chest. I noted that all of his possessions fitted neatly back within the chest that bore them hence. It looked as if I might lose my long accustomed companion within a few more minutes. His expression was drawn, but resolute; mine, I could only imagine.

I shut the door behind me and pretended to turn the key in the lock before drawing it out. Watson looked on with incomprehension as I took three steps, opened the window and tossed it out into the back yard.

"It is fickle of me," I added blandly. "But I find I am not able to let you go so easily."

Truly I had no idea of what I was going to say or do from one moment to the next. Others' motivations have so often been revealed to me by the broad bands of their passions, the crooked threads of their reasoning - but I was nothing but loose ends and desperation. My last ploy was haphazard and poorly thought out. I backed away again to stand just before the door. I could not let him desert me.

"You let me go ... years ago," Watson said solemnly. "I just did not have the sense to leave."

"I *need* you Watson. I would be lost..." I had not the words for such things. I understood what I said only as I heard it emerge, like some archeologist brushing away the dust and sand to find what had lain, long undisturbed within. "I beg you, Watson. Do not go."

Watson looked up at me solemnly. "You have done without me for years at a time and should not suffer too much by it now. I will still be in the city, the address of my new rooms is written on a card which I left on the mantelpiece. As you said, should you need assistance in your work I shall still be available."

Watson looked out the window, and I could not help but note his calm demeanor - truly he lost much less than me by dissolving our partnership. He turned his gaze to me, a piercing and honest as any gaze I had ever met. "So I suggest you behave reasonably and open that door," he concluded. He believed it locked as I had intended, I needed to keep him here, long enough at least to try and work out what it was I wanted - let alone how to achieve it. Strangely I was unwilling to actually lock the door, to use the brute presence of the door rather than the more subtle manipulation of his perceptions of it.

"What if," I said. "For once in my life, I do not choose to be reasonable."

Watson stood and stepped towards me. "Shall I convince you?" he said. "It should not be hard, merely to remind you of what disgusts you so greatly."

He put his hands on me and for a moment an irrational part of my heart thought he would resort to violence; I should have known better. He kissed me. No doubt it is something he had long wished to do. It was a sad and bitter gesture intended to provoke in me, nothing more than distaste - sufficient distaste to make me open the door - most locks being little barrier to my skills. My response ... was no response. I did not know what I felt; I don't know to this day exactly what I felt. Nothing, I suppose. The ground seemed to sway a little beneath my feet and all I could do was wonder what had happened the world I thought I lived in and the person I thought I had been.

Watson's right hand fell quite incidentally on the door handle, and it turned under that weight. The door fell open. Watson stepped back from me. "Oh, Holmes," he said with strange humor and despair. And he left me.