My Dear Watson by L.A. Fields Page B

mood with his incessant though understandable worry. Watson only once got him off the track of his own problems by saying, “You’re not the first to wonder all this about Holmes you know! He’s a mystery to all of us.”
    Phelps had taken in the breath for his next frantic question, but let it out noiselessly. He studied Watson for a moment before asking, “You weren’t like this at school, were you?”
    “Like what?” Watson asked moodily. He thought Phelps would scold him for being impatient, and so what if he was a little short now? Was he not a full grown man? Had he not been shot enough times to make his own small demands on the world?
    But that was not Phelps’s meaning.
    “This way you are with Holmes,” he said.
    Watson clammed shut, and shifted uncomfortably. “How do you mean?” he murmured.
    “Most men grow out of it, not into it, don’t they?”
    “I have a wife,” Watson pointed out to him.
    “And well you should, friend Watson. Well you should.”
    Phelps couldn’t keep his mind off his own troubles any further than these few comments, and Watson eventually insisted they go to bed to get away from the incessant worrying of his friend. Watson wrote that he tossed all night, ostensibly over the case, but he was rather more concerned about Holmes, always Holmes.
    Watson was so conflicted that night. Privately, he missed Holmes but still remembered what drove him away. None of it was changed, Watson knew that intellectually. Phelps had noticed that Holmes was inscrutable? He had no earthly idea. What logic lies beneath letting Watson marry and then starting to work so desperately to bring him back? Why not treat him properly all the while, or reform before it was too late?
    And then there were the social troubles relative to Holmes. Not just in the lonely way he lives, or how being his only friend tends to isolate one from the world, but these suspicions of even his oldest friends, how were those to be avoided? Was he not careful enough? Did he give himself away so obviously that even a woman, a wife, was not enough to assure the public of his vigor?
    Watson was just as anxious as Phelps for the return of Holmes the next day. He felt that laying eyes on him again would bring some clarity, and it did. Holmes was injured, roughed up and with a bandage around one hand. His instant sympathy for Holmes, his concern for the man’s well-being, that told Watson just how deep his involvement went; consequences be what they may, Watson was entwined tightly here.
    Holmes was not at all concerned by the damage his body received, he never could be bothered, whether the injury came from assault or addiction. He was high on a case well-reasoned, and he revealed Phelps’s treaty with significant theatrics, concealing it under a dish cover and nearly giving the unfortunate man a heart attack.
    “There there!” said Holmes. “It was too bad to spring it on you like this; but Watson here will tell you that I never can resist a touch of the dramatic.” He winked at Watson over Phelps’s head, but was distracted when Phelps seized his hand and kissed it. Holmes burst out laughing, told Phelps how he had battled the man’s future brother-in-law for the document, and sent him home.
    “Nicely played, Holmes,” Watson told him. “Now let me see your hand.”
    Holmes smiled and handed it over. Watson unwrapped the bandage and winced at the cut across Holmes’s knuckles.
    “You’ve got to be more careful, Holmes!” he scolded. “If this cut had been deeper you might have lost the use of your fingers. How would you like to hold a pipette then, hmm? Or play the violin? You should have more consideration for yourself.”
    “Your consideration will have to sustain me, Watson,” Holmes said quietly.
    Watson sat with Holmes and re-wrapped the wound. They glanced at each other all the while, quiet, but while blood roared in Watson’s ears. This small touch meant so much more than even a full body press—the