Holmes and Watson End Peace: A Novel of Sherlock Holmes

  Title Page

  HOLMES AND WATSON: END PEACE

  By

  David Ruffle

  Publisher Information

  First edition published in 2012 by MX Publishing

  335 Princess Park Manor, Royal Drive,

  London, N11 3GX

  www.mxpublishing.com

  © Copyright 2012 David Ruffle

  The right of David Ruffle to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.

  All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and not of MX Publishing.

  Cover layout and construction by www.staunch.com

  Dedication

  Dedicated to Duncan.......

  ......who left us far too soon.

  Frontispiece

  Over the last three to four years I have enjoyed writing the occasional short Holmesian pieces involving Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, particularly those that portray them in their later years. These range from Victorian/Edwardian Christmas pieces to those that involve in some way the deaths of these fine men.

  There is something that appeals to me about viewing them in their old age with a lifetime of shared experiences and shared friendship. How would they have changed, if at all? Would they have mellowed?

  I especially enjoy writing dialogue for Holmes and Watson and try as far as I am able to replicate the rhythm and pace of speech which Conan Doyle endowed his characters with and it’s that which gave me the idea of writing a Holmesian/Watsonian piece which would be dialogue and nothing but dialogue.

  You have been warned!

  In ‘His Last Bow’ set in 1914, Holmes implores Watson to, ‘Stand with me here upon the terrace for it may be the last quiet talk that we shall ever have’. Shortly afterwards, Holmes declares that Watson is the ‘one fixed point in a changing age’. And change it did. The horrors of the Great War swept away the last Edwardian high summer. The halcyon days would never return.

  Here we are, fifteen years on and that terrace has given way to the quiet of a hospital room and the stillness of night. The dawn is fast approaching and time is short, but there will be time still for that ‘last quiet talk’.

  David Ruffle March 2012.

  Chapter 1

  1929. A small hospital somewhere in Dorset. An ante-room off a dimly lit corridor. It is night and there is not even the smallest amount of light penetrating the room from the outside. In the room itself a dim light enables us to see a figure in a bed. The pipes, tubes and all the trappings we associate with keeping someone alive have been removed. The man, for it is a man, lies prone and still. Still, but not silent...

  “Holmes!”

  “Yes, Watson, I am here.”

  “Sorry, I must have dropped off again. I cannot seem to stay awake at the moment. It is so good to see you though.”

  “If you need to sleep, then you really must.”

  “Is it really you, Holmes? The light is so bad in here and I thought...”

  “Yes, my friend, it is me. It’s still night time and the illumination in here is not as it should be, but it is sufficient for our needs.”

  “The dim light puts me in mind of our very first meeting in the depths of Barts, the lighting there was somewhat lacking although that did not prevent you making those, to my mind, startling deductions about me.”

  “Ah, yes the first of those parlour tricks I was prone to inflicting on you. I came to be convinced that you were never as completely taken in as you claimed or indeed appeared to be to be.”

  “Maybe in the later years I did catch on a little, Holmes, but not early on; I was every bit as baffled as I appeared I assure you. Was it fate that brought us together that day? I often wonder that.”

  “I am no great believer in fate as you know. I am of the belief that we shape events rather than events shaping us. It was certainly fortuitous we met the way we did at that perfect time for both of us. But, truth be told, given the parlous state of my finances, I might easily have ended up sharing digs with virtually anyone although of course in that case I may have had to fend without a trusty chronicler.”

  “I have to confess that I was a little wary of you initially. Stamford considered you a little eccentric to put it mildly, as did I until I finally realised what line of business you were in.”

  “I hardly made matters easy for you with my secretive ways and even more secretive guests.”

  “I was very puzzled by all the comings and goings. I formulated several scenarios which I thought may provide the solution, but failed miserably in my deductions, which of course became the pattern for my life with you.”

  “You treat yourself too harshly I feel. You always had a tendency to elevate whatever gifts I possessed to the detriment of your own. And yes, I am well aware that I was impatient with you on far too many occasions; that was my way and I meant no harm to you by it nor did I mean at any time to devalue your friendship and assistance. But, tell me; would you do it all again, Watson, if the chance were to present itself?”

  “Yes, certainly. I have never regretted throwing in my lot with you. My life was enriched in so many ways. I am convinced I would never have met any woman as wonderful as Mary had I not been involved in one of our cases, although I hesitate to use the word our.”

  “Your use of the word is entirely valid, Watson. I felt quite keenly your absence when you were unavailable to assist me; when domestic bliss for instance took over your life.”

  “Even now, Holmes, I believe you begrudge me the happiness I felt during my marriages; perhaps if you had experienced love yourself, your outlook would be different and more understanding.”

  “I have felt love, Watson; it’s not the romantic love that you were prone to falling under the spell of, but something intense and equally binding.”

  “Perhaps you may care to enlighten me at this late juncture in our lives. So much of your life still remains hidden from me.”

  “I will consider doing so and I am well aware that I kept many secrets and aspects of my life from you, but I am what I am and who I am. My single mindedness has its roots in that childhood of mine that you know so little of and it has carried me forward from that day to this, but believe me Watson, you have seen more of what you may term the real me than any other living person and yes I do include Mycroft in that statement.”

  “Then I feel privileged, Holmes and humbled too. It is uncanny, but I remember our adventures in so much detail; I linger and luxuriate in those memories and yet as to recent events my mind remains a fog which I cannot penetrate. I fear my reason is flying from me and my life is no longer mine to control. The thought scares me and yet I profess to be a courageous man.”

  “You are a courageous man; I have encountered none braver in my life. Your fear of course is of the unknown. Put a man with a cudgel in front of you with mischief on his mind and there would be no q
uestion of your bravery, but the adversary you face now is an unexplored quantity and any man would, I believe, feel as you feel. If you feel the need to rest then please do so, I will be here when you wake.”

  “I am tired admittedly, but equally I feel the need to talk, particularly as you have come all this way to see me.”

  “If you are sure.”

  “I am sure.”

  “Good old Watson. Even at this late juncture you continue to play the game. You have so many qualities I admire; your patience for one.”

  “My patience? Surely you possess that in greater abundance than I. Look at the time you would spend poring over your chemicals or cracking ciphers. That’s what I call patience. Although when the chase was on you could be as impatient as anyone.”

  “Admittedly, but I was really referring to the patience you displayed towards me which was rarely reciprocated. As fellow lodgers go I must have been one of the worst imaginable. I believe I drove you to distraction on many occasions.”

  “There were times, Holmes, when I could have gladly throttled you and smiled through the process. Firing bullets into the wall is hardly an action guaranteed to endear oneself to one’s fellow lodger, nor might I add, to our equally long-suffering landlady. Dear Mrs Hudson, it pained me that I was unable to attend her funeral, yet another example of my body letting me down.”

  “She would have understood, my dear fellow. You were there in spirit and I was fortunate enough to say our goodbyes to her in person and I felt privileged to do so.”

  “If anybody was driven to distraction, it would surely have been Mrs Hudson. Comings and goings at all hours. An endless array of ‘ne’er do wells’ ascending the stairs. Fisticuffs, gun play, fires in the room and tobacco smoke wreathing her sitting-room so thickly, you could cut it with knife. It’s a wonder we were not both given notice to quit so she could take in a couple of tame schoolmasters who surely would have given her a much quieter life.”

  “Well, you are right in what you say, but I suspect that she warmed to us very quickly in spite of our eccentricities and idiosyncrasies. There was an unspoken mutual respect.”

  “Our eccentricities and idiosyncrasies? And yet at times, you treated her appallingly in my opinion.”

  “I have to concede that point to you. I was given to rashness of thought and action on far too many occasions, from this far remove I can see and admit that freely. A fundamental fault in my character, something I could not control? I don’t know, but I do know and also readily admit the hurt I did to you, Watson.”

  “I did feel used by you, Holmes and I feel I was treated very shabbily at times. My extreme joy at your return from ‘death’ in 1894 was greatly tempered by my feeling of abandonment. Even now, I feel the gorge rising in me that you felt able to live your life as you wished for three years, travelling the world over, while I remained here convinced you were dead. Can you imagine how I felt? And yet, our friendship was to survive even that.”

  “If I truly was the ‘great thinker’ that you portrayed me to be through your written word then I would have thought through my actions and treated you how a good friend should be treated, but I was both weak and selfish, manifestly so. So many times in that period I wanted to send you a message or a sign that I still lived, but I always stopped short of doing do.”

  “I found your explanation that I might be prompted to some kind of rash action and your further statement that my talents do not lie in dissimulation rather insulting to one who always accorded you the greatest loyalty and respect. What did you think I might do? Take out full page advertisements in all the newspapers the length and breadth of the country, proclaiming you live? Run down the whole length of Baker Street shouting with delight? I know this is neither the time nor the place, but you should have trusted me far more than you did.”

  “You are right of course, Watson. I should have put my trust in those qualities of yours that I admired the most. It has pained me all these years that I did not.”

  “The past is the past, Holmes. It’s all we have now. So forgive me opening up an old wound.”

  “There is nothing to forgive. I am the one who should be asking forgiveness of you.”

  “As I said, this is not perhaps the time and place to look back on sorrowful occasions especially as there were so many high points in our friendship.”

  “No regrets then, Watson?”

  “On the whole, very few. Association with you brought me Mary as I have just said. It brought me excitement and a purpose to my life. And a literary career as unexpected as it was beneficial to both of us.”

  “Oh yes, your writing!”

  “I say now as I said then; despite your occasional, nay, more than occasional denigrations of my scribbling, I believe I did you full justice in the matter.”

  “I don’t believe you ever took my chiding of your literary attempts to heart; if you had, you would surely have desisted from inflicting any more lurid tales on a gullible public who appeared to have a never-ending appetite for such adventures. I jest of course, Watson. I came to appreciate in time how much skill and no small ability had gone into writing up our adventures. I tried it for myself so I know!”

  “I wish that I had been able to summon up enough energy, not to mention time, to put other cases before the public instead of which they will have to be satisfied with the tantalising mentions of unrecorded cases. Who knows, perhaps one day these notes of mine will be brought to life by other writers; perhaps of a more literary bent than me.”

  “God forbid, Watson! I have already seen representations of myself on the London stage and in the cinema, which is more than enough recognition for me, I assure you! This fame and adulation does not sit easily with me.”

  “And yet, Holmes I deduce that you are really quite flattered by this attention. You have a susceptibility to flattery which is at odds with other aspects of your character.”

  “Well, perhaps there is something not entirely displeasing about it, Watson. Well deduced, but then you were always a lot more astute than you ever gave yourself credit for. By elevating my own humble powers you gave scant attention to your own abilities. Despite my occasional grumblings to the contrary, I was always aware of your keen, natural intelligence and the great help you offered me in the cases that we worked together.”

  “I am gratified to hear you say so, Holmes... after all these years!”

  “A touch. Watson! A distinct touch! You look sleepy again my friend. Am I tiring you?”

  “A little. Would you mind if I napped for a few minutes?”

  “No of course I would not mind. I am used to your naps, remember.”

  “You’ll be here when I wake?”

  “Yes, Watson, I will be here. Rest.”

  Interlude

  “Nurse Harrison what are you giggling at? You are in a hospital not at the gaieties.”

  “Sorry, Matron. It’s just that Lucy was telling me about Mr Travers and how, when she went to give him a bed bath...”

  “That will do! Nurse Pollett, if you were to pay the same attention to your nursing skills as you do the spreading of tittle-tattle and engaging in humour of the basest sort, then you might get somewhere.”

  “Yes, Matron. Sorry, Matron.”

  “Now, is everyone quiet and settled down in your section, Nurse Harrison?”

  “Yes, Matron.”

  “And yours, Nurse Pollett?”

  “Yes, although that Dr Watson is talking in his sleep again, non-stop this time, rabbiting on about this and that.”

  “That would be the morphine doing its job, Nurse. Is he comfortable enough?”

  “He seems to be, Matron.”

  “Thank you girls, now go about your duties... without giggling like hyenas please.”

  “Yes, Matron”

  “Stop getting me into trouble
, Lucy.”

  “You’re the one who was giggling! Anyway, like I was saying...”

  Chapter 2

  “Ah, the slumberer doth slumber no more.”

  “Sorry, Holmes, I am just so infernally tired.”

  “If you need to sleep, then you must, do not let my presence deter you.”

  “I am willing myself to stay awake, Holmes. This conversation and unexpected visit of yours has gone some way to rejuvenating me although I know that effect must perforce be temporary.”

  “Then my visit must be adjudged a success for that was the end I had in mind. Tell me, my friend when you think back over our long association, what cases spring to your mind as being of especial interest or have a special resonance for you?”

  “My mind can’t help, but wander to the dreadful affair of the Giant Rat of Sumatra.”

  “I see your sometimes frivolous nature has not left you. You know full well there was no such case; the title was a complete invention of yours to keep your faithful readers guessing. And, may I add, that was not the only one!”

  “It worked, for there has been much interest expressed in many quarters about that particular problem. I have been asked many times about the details of the case and have been offered extraordinarily large sums of money to make the tale available to the public. Perhaps I should have taken the money offered and concocted a tale which would do credit to the lurid title.”

  “I believe your innate honesty would have prevented you from doing so, but I do foresee that perhaps others will seek to take up ‘your’ pen and embellish such a fiction on the ever more undiscerning public. An action such as this would not surprise me at all.”

  “I think there is some truth in what you say, Holmes. I am of the mind that at some time in the future we will only be seen as fictional characters.”

  “I fear that is already the case, but we know where to apportion blame do we not? But my question to you has gone unanswered.”