Nicholas Meyer (2 page)

appendices.) Knowing that footnotes are especially irksome in the course of a narrative, I have deliberately kept them to a minimum and made the necessary ones as informal as possible.

For the rest, I have left well enough alone. The doctor is an experienced hand at telling a tale and needs no help from me. Aside from succumbing to the irresistible temptation to telescope or streamline an awkward phrase here and there (which the good doctor no doubt would himself have corrected in his revisions), all is as the faithful Watson set it down.

Nicholas Meyer

Los Angeles October 30th, 1973

Introductory

For many years it was my good fortune to witness, chronicle, and in some instances to assist my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, in a number of the cases which were submitted to him in his unique capacity as a consulting detective. Indeed, in 1881,* when I committed to paper the substance of our first case together, Mr. Holmes was, as he said, the world's
only
consulting detective. The ensuing years have seen that situation remedied to the satisfactory degree that today, in 1939, consulting detectives (if not actually known by that name) flourish both within and without the police contingent of nearly every country in the so-called civilized world. Many of them, I am gratified to see, employ the methods and techniques first developed by my singular friend so long ago—though not all of them are gracious enough to give his genius the wealth of credit it deserves.

*
A Study in Scarlet
, written by Watson after the case took place in 1881, was not published until December, 1887, when it appeared in the Beeton's Christmas Annual under the pen name A. Conan Doyle.

Holmes was, as I have always endeavored to describe him, an intensely private individual, reclusive in certain areas to the point of eccentricity. He was fond of appearing impassive, austere, and somewhat aloof: a thinking machine not in direct contact or communication with what he considered the sordid realities of physical existence. In truth, this reputation for coldness was deliberately and completely of his own manufacture. It was not, moreover, his friends—he admittedly had few—nor yet his biographer whom he sought to convince regarding this aspect of his character. It was himself.

The ten years since his death have provided me with ample time for reflection upon the question of Holmes's personality, and I have come to realize what I always really knew (but did not know that I knew)—that Holmes was a deeply passionate human being. His susceptibility to emotion was an

element in his nature which he tried almost physically to suppress. Holmes certainly regarded his emotions as a distraction, a liability, in fact. He was convinced the play of feelings would interfere with the precision demanded by his work and this was on no account to be tolerated. Sentience he eschewed; those moments during his career when circumstances forced open floodgates of his reserve were rare indeed, and always startling. The observer felt he had witnessed a brilliant flash of lightning on a darkling plain.

Rather than indulge in such explosions—whose unpredictability threw him off balance as much as it did any witnesses—Holmes possessed a veritable arsenal of resources whose specific purpose (whether he acknowledged it or no) was to relieve emotional stress when such relief became imperative. His iron will having cauterized the more conventional outlets of expression, he would resort to abstruse and frequently malodorous chemical experiments; he would improvise by the hour upon the violin (I have stated elsewhere my admiration for his musical talents); he would adorn the walls of our residence in Baker Street with bullet pocks usually spelling out the initials of our gracious sovereign—the old Queen—or of some other notable whose existence was then calling itself to the attention of his restless mind.

Also, he took cocaine.

It may seem strange to some that I am beginning yet another chronicle of my friend's brilliant achievements in this roundabout fashion. Indeed, the fact that I am proposing to relate another history of his at this late date may seem strange in itself. I can only hope, before commencing my narrative, to explain its origins and to account for my delay in setting it before the public.

The origins of this manuscript differ sharply from those of past cases recorded by me. In those accounts I made frequent mention of the notes I kept at the time. No such notes were kept during the period occupied by the present narrative. The reasons for this apparent dereliction of duty on my part are two-fold. Firstly, the case commenced in so peculiar a manner that it was well under way before the fact was borne in upon me that it was actually a case at all. Secondly, once I realized what was happening I became convinced that it was an adventure which, for many reasons, should never see the literary light of day.

That I was mistaken in this assumption, the present manuscript happily bears witness. Fortunately, though I was morally certain that the occasion would never arise when I would find myself recording this history, the case is one which I have good reason to recall in almost every particular. I may say, in fact, that the fixtures of it are engraved in my memory and will be until my death and possibly after, though such metaphysics are beyond my competent speculations.

The reasons for the delay involved in setting this narrative before the public are complex. I have said that Holmes was a private person, and this is a case that cannot be set down without some exploration of his character, an exploration that would certainly have been distasteful to him when he was alive. Let it not be thought, however, that his being alive was the only obstacle. If that were true, there was nothing that should have prevented my writing this history ten years ago when he breathed his last amongst his precious Sussex Downs. Nor should I have felt qualms about writing the case "over his dead body," as I believe the phrase runs, for Holmes was notoriously sceptical about his reputation in the hereafter and entirely careless of the repercussions to his character on earth, once he himself had journeyed to that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns.

No, the reason for delay is that there was another party in the case, and it was esteem for this personage and a sense of delicacy on Holmes's part where this personage's reputation was concerned that caused him to enjoin me—under the strictest series of oaths—to disclose nothing of the matter until such time as this second party had also ceased to breathe. If that event did not occur before my own demise, then so be it.

Fate, however, has resolved the matter in favor of posterity. The party in question has died within the last twenty-four hours, and while the world resounds with eulogies of praise (and from some quarters, with utterances of damnation), while biographics and retrospectives are hastily printed and published, I

—while I have still the strength of hand and clarity of mind (for I am eighty-seven and that is old)—

likewise hasten to set down what I know no one else knows.

Such a revelation is bound to stir up controversy in several quarters, the more so as it involves my declaration that two of the cases I penned concerning Holmes were total fabrications. Attentive students of my writings have pointed out my apparent inconsistencies, my patent falsification of a name or a date, and have proved to the satisfaction of all that the man who wrote these cases down was a blundering fool, or, at best, an absent-minded dotard. Some more astute—or more charitable— scholars have suggested that my seeming errors were in fact deliberate sins of commission and omission, designed to protect or disguise the facts for reasons that were either obvious or known only to myself.

It is not my intention here to enter into the lengthy process of correction and restitution of data. Let an apology suffice, and the timid explanation be advanced that when the cases were often set down in extreme haste, it chanced that I frequently chose what seemed to me to be the simplest way out of a difficulty imposed by the need for tact or discretion. In retrospect, this practise has proved more cumbersome than the truth would have been, had I been so bold, or in some cases so unscrupulous, as to write it.

Yet these same astute scholars mentioned earlier have never with a certainty branded as spurious the two cases which I spun almost entirely of whole cloth and have separated them from the others. I speak not here of forgeries by other hands than mine, which include such drivel as "The Lion's Mane," "The Mazarin Stone," "The Creeping Man," and "The Three Gables."

I refer to "The Final Problem," with its account of the death duel between Holmes and his archenemy, the fiendish Professor Moriarty, and to "The Adventure of the Empty House," the companion case, which relates the dramatic reappearance of Holmes and details briefly his three years of wandering through Central Europe, Africa, and India, in flight from the minions of his deceased opponent. I have just re-read the cases and marvel, I must confess, at my lack of subtlety. How could attentive readers have missed my overbearing emphasis on "the truth" that I claimed to be telling? And what of all the theatrical flourishes in the prose, so much more to Holmes's taste than my own? (For though he protested his love of cold logic, he was at heart an unreconstructed dramatist of the most romantic and melodramatic turn.)

As Sherlock Holmes remarked on more than one occasion, evidence which seems to point unerringly in one direction, may, in fact, if viewed from a slightly altered perspective, admit of precisely the opposite interpretation. So, I venture to suggest, it is in writing as well. My repeated emphasis in "The Final Problem" on the undiluted truth which it contained should perhaps have aroused the suspicions of my readers and served to put them on their guard.

It is just as well, however, that nothing of the sort occurred, for secrecy, it will shortly be seen, was essential at the time. Now the real story may be told, the conditions stipulated by Holmes so long ago having at last been met.

I have remarked parenthetically that I am eighty-seven, and though I comprehend intellectually that I am in the general vicinity of death's door, yet emotionally I am as ill-equipped to grapple with oblivion as a man half or even a quarter of my age. Nevertheless, if the narrative which follows occasionally fails to bear the impress of my usual style, age must partly share the blame, along with the fact that years have elapsed since last I wrote. Similarly, a narrative which is not based on my usually copious notes is bound to differ significantly from previous works, however perfect my memory. Another cause for variation is the fact that I am no longer actually writing—arthritis having made the attempt impossible—but rather dictating this memoir to a charming typist (a Miss Dobson), who is taking it down in some sort of coded abbreviation which she will subsequently transcribe to English—or so she promises.

Lastly, my style may appear dissimilar to that of my earlier writing because this adventure of Sherlock Holmes is totally unlike any that I have ever recorded. I shall not now repeat my earlier mistake and attempt to overbear the reader's scepticism by stating that what follows is the truth.

John H. Watson, M.D.

Aylesworth Home

Hampshire, 1939

Part 1—The Problem

*1*—Professor Moriarty

As I stated in the preamble to "The Final Problem," my marriage and my subsequent start in private practice wrought a subtle but definite alteration in the pattern of my friendship with Sherlock Holmes.

At first his visits to my new home were regular and it was not infrequent that I repaid these calls with brief sojourns at my old Baker Street digs, where we sat before the fire, smoked a pipe or two, and Holmes caught me up on his latest investigations.

Soon, however, even this arrangement underwent a change; Holmes's visits grew increasingly sporadic and their duration lessened. As my practise increased, it became a matter of greater difficulty to manage my reciprocations.

During the winter of '90-'91, I saw him not at all and only learned from the papers that he was in France on a case. Two notes from him—dated Narbonne and Nimes, respectively—were all the information he volunteered upon the subject, and they were terse, showing me that his time was demanded elsewhere.

A wet spring served to increase yet again my little but sturdy practise and it was well into April without a word from Holmes in many months. It was April 24th, in fact, and I was just clearing out the day's debris from my consulting room (not yet being in the position to afford the luxury of a clerk), when into it stepped my friend.

I was astonished to see him—not, I hasten to add—because of the lateness of the hour (for I was used to his odd comings and goings), but because of the change in him. He seemed thinner and paler than usual, which was thin and pale indeed, for he was habitually gaunt and white. His skin had a positively unhealthy pallour and his eyes were without their usual twinkle. Instead they roved restlessly in their sockets, aimlessly taking in their surroundings (it seemed) and yet registering nothing.

"Have you any objection to my closing your shutters?" were almost the first words out of his mouth.

Before I could answer he edged his way quickly along the wall and, with an abrupt effort, flung closed and securely bolted the shutters. Fortunately there was a lamp burning in the room, and by its light I saw beads of perspiration trickling down his cheeks.

"What is the matter?" I asked.

"Air guns." He drew out a cigarette and with twitching hands was fumbling in his pockets for a vesta. I had never known him to be so jumpy.

"Here." I lit the cigarette for him. He looked at me keenly for a moment over the wavering flame, no doubt discerning my surprise at his behaviour.

"I must apologize for calling so late." He sucked the smoke in gratefully, his head thrown quickly back.

"Is Mrs. Watson in?" he went on before I had time to digest his apology. He was pacing about the small room now, oblivious to my stares.

"She is away on a visit."

"Indeed! You are alone?"

"Quite."