The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Whitechapel Horrors by Edward B. Hanna

dismally gray one at that, the two of them stayed indoors in front of the fire, content to while away the hours in the homey clutter of their sitting room with the newspapers and their respective books and journals to keep them occupied. More than once Watson cast an anxious glance in Holmes’s direction, half expecting at any time to see his arm reach out for the little bottle on the corner of the mantelpiece, for the syringe in its neat morocco case. For in those years Sherlock Holmes’s customary solution to inactivity and depression was almost always his “seven percent solution.”
    But he refrained, much to Watson’s relief. Indeed, his mood was such, his manner so lethargic, it was almost as if he hadn’t had the energy for even that. To his credit, he did his best to hide his true feelings behind a mask of imperturbability, even from Watson — particularly from Watson — for he knew his friend was upset for his sake. But of course it didn’t work. Watson saw through him in a minute. Unlike Holmes, he gave vent to his emotions and was visibly outraged by Warren’s behavior.
    “The man’s an ass, Holmes!” he argued in an effort to cheer up his friend. “You must consider the source!”
    Holmes merely nodded and did his best to smile, but it was a thin, rueful smile tinged, understandably, with more than a touch of bitterness. And it was obviously rendered more for Watson’s benefit than out of conviction.
    “Man despises what he does not comprehend,” Watson quoted, but even Goethe’s wisdom encountered an unreceptive mind. Holmes’s response was an apathetic shrug and another feeble nod. 29
    The subject was dropped, Watson not wishing to belabor the pointand Holmes not wishing to discuss it at all.
    Watson knew that even more than the insult to Holmes’s pride, more than the damage to his self-esteem, it was the sudden lack of activity that put him into his present state of depression. He could withstand almost any deprivation, almost any insult — he could go for days without food and even sleep; but he could not go without mental stimulation. He lived for the sudden trample of footsteps on the stairs, the unexpected knock at the door. He lived for the chase; his sole passion was the game, always the game.
    And now? Now, for the moment at least, there was nothing. Now there was an emptiness. There was no mystery to solve, no puzzle to unravel. His life was devoid of challenge and was therefore barren. And he, therefore, was miserable.
    “My mind rebels at stagnation,” he once said. “Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere.” 30
    So naturally, given Holmes’s mood, Watson was more than a little surprised (and greatly relieved) when at day’s end the bottle still remained on the shelf and the syringe in its case, and not for the first time did he marvel over the one facet of Holmes’s personality that was totally predictable: his unpredictability.
    They both retired early that night, after a light supper: It was a day that was best done with quickly.
    Fortunately, the days and weeks that followed were to be better ones for the lodgers of 221B Baker Street. Holmes’s plea for activity, for work, happily was to receive a quick response. He was to become involved in two of the most important cases of his career (along with one or two less so), was to encounter the notorious Jonathan Small, and do battle with the “hound of hell” at Baskerville Hall; and, with a mixture ofamusement, pity, and sadness, was to see Watson fall hopelessly, deeply in love — with a woman whom even Holmes, with all of his expressed disinterest in the fair sex, admitted was “one of the most charming young ladies I have ever met.” 31
    During all of this time, Scotland Yard’s investigation of the two Whitechapel murders was to run its course — and a short, bumpy course it proved to be.
    The newspapers were full