Illustrated Fic for stardust_made and fabelschwester: Drawing Conclusions

[methylviolet10b]

Title: Drawing Conclusions
Recipients: stardust_made and fabelschwester
Author/Artist: methylviolet10b
Beta: The fantastic monkeybard. And now updated with vastly improved French, courtesy of the very kind belphegor1982, with additional suggestions from med_cat. Thank you both!
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Of truth, art, writing, and Reichenbach.
Disclaimers: Original passages from “The Empty House” written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Original photographs owned by the artists depicted (everyone owns their own likenesses) and those photographers who took the photographs. Manipulations of those photographs are my own, done under fair use doctrine; no disrespect intended, and certainly no profit made.
Warnings: None apply
Canon referenced: FINA, EMPT, SIGN, REIG, DYIN, GLOR, BASK

 

I stared at the words that had flowed from my pen mere moments before. Their meaning slowly sank into my brain, far less rapidly than the ink absorbed into the paper. Far less willingly.

Simple, innocuous words, on their face. Nothing to cause the slow tightening I felt in my gut, the gradual burn of emotions I wanted neither to name nor acknowledge.

Nothing, that is, except that I recalled other words. With a dreadful mix of reluctance and determination, I shuffled through my papers until I reached the passage I remembered writing down earlier:

Yes, there it was, just as I wrote it. Holmes spoke of three dangerous men remaining in Moriarty’s organization, men who had to believe him dead if Holmes was to have any chance to survive.

Yet how could they believe him dead, when one of Moriarty’s top lieutenants had tried to kill him on the ledge, after Moriarty’s fall, after witnessing Holmes’ avoidance of that same fate?

Was I misremembering Holmes' words?

That momentous, soul-shaking day was more than a month in the past. A very eventful month. Between Holmes' miraculous resurrection and reappearance in my life, readying my practice for sale and finding a buyer, and moving back into my old rooms at Baker Street, not to mention several complex cases, there had been very little time for reflection, much less for making a record of events. I had jotted down what sparse notes I could, but nothing like a coherent narrative. Not until this evening, with Holmes engaged to dine with his brother Mycroft, undoubtedly to discuss the more sensitive points of the recently-completed matter of ex-President Murillo's papers, and possibly other political matters deemed (by Mycroft, at least) too delicate for any but the Holmes brothers.

Or perhaps Mycroft surmised – correctly, I had to admit – that I still bore him some hard feelings over his role in deceiving me. I had yet to reconcile myself to his part in the matter. The elder Holmes disliked emotion even more than his younger brother, and he might want to avoid anything that could disturb his digestion.

Strange, how I could still resent the elder, yet had so rapidly forgiven my Holmes, the originator of the deception.

Or I'd thought I had. Now, however, I wasn't so sure. Fight them though I might, anger, resentment, and bitter hurt seethed through my veins, far more strongly in this moment than they ever had the day of his return from the grave.

Because as much as I might wish otherwise, my memory of Holmes' words that day was razor-sharp, indelibly impressed upon my brain – and even Holmes admitted that my facility in remembering spoken conversations is extraordinarily good. I could hear his distinctive tenor speaking the words as if he was in the room with me, even now.

That unforgettable afternoon, with the remnants of his disguise on my desk and sincere apology in his voice, Holmes had told me that after he had escaped Moriarty's clutches at the precipice, he had realized three dangerous men remained in Moriarty's organization, and that unless they thought him dead, he was certain to be killed. It was the entire justification for his deception there at Reichenbach, and for allowing me to believe him dead for three years.

Later that night, with adrenaline from the battle with Moran still running through our veins and a fierce draught from the broken window chilling the sitting-room, with a shattered head of a wax dummy illustrating the power of the air-gun and the Colonel's deadly accuracy with it, Holmes told me that it was Moran whom he had feared most in London, after Moriarty himself. That it was Moran who had been Moriarty's second in command, and Moran who had accompanied Moriarty to Switzerland, as I had accompanied Holmes.

That it was undoubtedly Moran who had tried to kill him, as Holmes lay concealed upon his little ledge.

Moran had to have been one of those three dangerous foes Holmes mentioned, the ones who had to be fooled into thinking him dead if he was to have any chance of surviving long enough to bring them to justice. Even if he hadn’t been, as Moriarty’s lieutenant, he would have known how to contact those others, and how to convince them of Holmes’ continued survival. Any reasonable hope of fooling his enemies would have vanished the moment Holmes understood that Moran knew he still lived.

And yet by Holmes' own admission, Moran had known Holmes was alive all along.

The conversations were irreconcilable.

Either my memory was at fault, or Holmes had not told me the entire truth about his reasons for deceiving me.

Either way, I must learn the truth.

I capped my inkwell, ordered my papers, poured myself a large brandy, and settled down in my chair to wait.

 

Some interminable time later – I do not know exactly how long – I heard Holmes' light, quick tread on the stairs. He entered the sitting room quietly, a smile upon his face. "Ah, Watson," he greeted me as he made his way to the pipe-rack. He plucked his favourite clay pipe from its place and moved towards the Persian slipper where he kept his tobacco. "Did you pass a pleasant evening with your pen? I warn you, my prohibition against your publishing any more cases is quite firm."

I had not told him I had been writing, but I was unsurprised that he deduced my activity all the same. Doubtless I had some tell-tale ink spot on my hands, or my cuffs showed an extra sheen from rubbing against the leather pad of my writing-desk, or something of the sort. Holmes was in a cheerful humour, as he often was after those rare occasions when he and his brother socialized. I almost hated to do anything to change it. But my need was too great to remain silent.

"Why did you lie to me about Reichenbach, Holmes?"

I had not meant to introduce the subject so directly. I had intended to lead him into discussion by asking him questions about Moran's role in Moriarty's organization, or telling him that I couldn't quite recall all the events of the day of his return. But in my turmoil, my blunt soldier's honesty overrode my doctor's careful questioning. And in Holmes' sudden, utter stillness, his momentary speechlessness, I had a more decisive answer than a thousand questions could have produced.

Ever quick, even when completely surprised, Holmes recovered himself in an instant. "My dear Watson, what do you - ?"

I silently handed him two sheets of my manuscript with the relevant passages underlined. It took Holmes scarcely ten seconds to read their meaning, and less than that for the colour to drain from his face. I knew he understood the implications immediately, but I could not help speaking my inferences aloud.

"You told me that save for your brother Mycroft, everyone thought you dead.” My voice sounded strangely flat in my ears. “You led me to believe that only the necessity of utter concealment kept you from contacting me, either immediately afterwards, or in the following three years. Yet from what you also told me – indeed, from Colonel Moran’s own actions and words – he must have known you survived all along.”

“Watson…” Holmes’ voice, too, sounded queer, almost half-strangled.

I ignored the mingled protest and plea I heard in the way he spoke my name and forced myself to continue. It was that, or succumb to the turmoil that threatened to burst my chest asunder. “Mycroft knew the truth. Moran knew the truth, and through him, so must have all of the remnants of Moriarty’s organization.” I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. “Why, then, did you keep me in the dark?”

I stared at him, hoping against hope that Holmes would laugh, or scoff, and a ready explanation would fall from his lips that would assuage my fears, explain the inexplicable. But he remained silent as a statue, and nearly as colourless. Only the rapid blinking of his eyes gave any indication that he might be anything other than his usual collected self.

The seconds ticked past, and with each one, with each thud of my pulse in my veins, hope died. My eyes flickered shut involuntarily as I realized I could no longer avoid the truth. “Never mind, Holmes. I know why.” A slight sound, and my eyelids sprang open once more. Holmes’ pipe-stem had snapped in his grasp. A sign of surprise? Anger? Guilt? It didn’t matter; it didn’t change the truth that stared out at us from my own manuscript. “You don’t trust me. You never have.”

I had scarcely uttered the words when Holmes at last broke his silence. “No!” he barked, his voice nearly a shout as he flung his broken pipe to the carpet. “Watson, as usual you have come to entirely the wrong conclusions. Of course I trust you!”

“No you don’t,” I snapped back, unable to bear the deception one minute more. “And I am the worst kind of fool, for I had evidence of this over the course of your cases, at Baskerville, and at Reigate before that, not to mention that appalling business with Culverton Smith. Evidence I have always allowed you to persuade away, at least until now. But you cannot explain away this.” I saw something desperate in Holmes’ expression then, and it shook me. Stubbornly, I clung to my anger as a better alternative to what lurked beneath it. “Not unless you mean to tell me that I am wrong, and that Moran did not know. Do you?”

Holmes opened his mouth, then shut it with a snap and stood in tight-lipped silence.

The remnants of my temper trickled away like sand running out with the tide. “At least you have the decency not to utter the lie,” I remarked. The heat of my emotions had been far preferable than the cold numbness that now engulfed me. I rose unsteadily to my feet. “I suppose I should thank you for that much.”

An icy hand seized my wrist in a grip of iron. Holmes leaned towards me until his face was mere inches from my own, and when he spoke, his voice was a hiss. “Watson, I understand your anger. It is very natural. I admit that I have not been entirely forthcoming in my explanations, but you must believe me, what I have done, I have done for the best. And I can explain - ”

A bitter laugh escaped my lips before I could control myself. “Of course you can explain. You can always explain. But what remains underneath all your words is this: you ask me to believe you, to trust you, beyond reason and evidence. Yet what faith do you show me in return?”

Holmes jerked back as if I had struck him. I took advantage of it and wrenched my wrist free of his hold. We stood a few feet apart, staring at each other. I searched his countenance, trying to read it, but although I could see some faint signs of emotion on his usually impassive features, I could not read his expression any more in that moment than I ever could.

As usual, I presented no such enigma to him. Doubtless he read even more on my face than I myself was aware of in that moment, for he stared at me with the intensity he usually reserved for evidence that contradicted his theory of a case. “You truly believe this,” he observed at last.

“What else should I believe? You told me yourself, Holmes, that when you have eliminated the impossible, what remains must be the truth, however improbable. And your lack of confidence in me is hardly improbable. It is established fact.”

“No, Watson! It is folly – mine, not yours,” he amended hastily. “My error, repeated over the course of years. I cannot fault your logic, merely the incompleteness of the information from which you derived your conclusions. And that too is my fault.” He cleared his throat. “It is late, and your emotions are understandably disturbed. I too am somewhat discomposed. We shall accomplish nothing tonight by continuing this discussion. I beg you, as a personal favour, to set your questions aside for just a few more hours. Retire for the evening, and I swear to you, I will make all clear in the morning.”

My bruised spirit protested against this, yet another example of Holmes high-handedness. “Holmes…!”

He cut me off with a single word. “Please.”

Even now, I could not refuse him. “Very well. Good night, Holmes.”

Was it my imagination, or did his shoulders droop slightly? And if so, was it out of resignation, or relief? The gas-light was too dim, and my mind too much in turmoil, to be certain of anything. “Thank you, Watson. Good night.”

Despite our words, I doubted it would be so for either of us.

 

Sleep eluded me. I changed into my nightclothes and lay down in my bed, but my mind kept replaying the events of earlier that evening. My realization. Holmes’ behaviour, and his promise to “make everything clear.” How could he clarify what was already so painfully obvious to me, in any way that would matter?

And dear God, what was I to do? In the depths of the night, I bitterly regretted having sold my practice and my former residence. By doing so, I had unwittingly placed myself into a trap just as I most needed an escape. There would be no quick and easy way to extricate myself from 221B, or from my interactions with Holmes. Yet remaining here, now that I understood Holmes’ true estimation of me, was impossible. Pride, self-respect, and honour all revolted against the idea. It would be better for all concerned if I could absent myself immediately. Perhaps I might make a modest journey to Bath, or to Edinburgh, and while there, investigate any practices that might be for sale in those places. Surely the funds I had received for the sale of my practice in London would go much further away from the capital. And I could not imagine remaining in London with Holmes there, prowling its every corner on his cases as of old, but no longer my friend. My supposed friend. He had always claimed that I was his only one.

Mary had been quite fond of Bath. We had made several trips there, including two in what proved to be the last autumn of her life.

She was fond of Holmes, too, tolerating his eccentricities with aplomb, encouraging him to visit, and urging me to visit him. She had mourned his death sincerely, if not as deeply as I.

What I wouldn’t give to hear her sensible, loving advice now. But I doubted even my Mary could have helped me swallow the bitter pill that lay before me.

These thoughts, and others like them, kept vigil with me until the murky light of a fog-drenched morning made its way past my drawn curtains. It was still early, but I could no longer tolerate remaining in bed. Mechanically, I arose, put on fresh clothing, and did my best to chase away the cobwebs by splashing my face with water from the ewer. I ran a comb through my hair, smoothing it into something close to its usual order. Finally I squared my shoulders as best as I could and marched downstairs to our sitting room.

Despite the hour, Holmes was there before me. Indeed, it looked to me as if he had not slept at all. My years with Holmes led me to see far more than I would have done before our acquaintance. He still wore the same clothes he had been in the evening prior, with the addition of his old dressing-gown thrown across his shoulders. The air was hazy with pipe-smoke, evidence that he had spent at least part of the time smoking, but it was not as thick as it would have been if he had spent all night in that activity. Nor was he relaxed in his chair, as he usually was after hours spent thinking with his pipe between his lips. Instead he sat rigidly upright on the edge of his cushion. He held a small box and two dusty, well-worn notebooks on his lap.

“Mrs. Hudson has already brought up coffee and a light breakfast,” he greeted me. “And I have told her that we are not to be disturbed at all this morning, no matter who might come to call.”

The idea of food made me feel ill, but I knew that whatever was about to pass, I would face it better if I fortified myself beforehand. I nodded to him and went to the sideboard. The plates and coffee-pot were still warm. I forced myself to fix a cup and eat a few pieces of ham. Thus braced, I made my way to my usual chair and sat down, feeling rather like I did when I sat the examinations for my degree. “Well, Holmes. You promised me an explanation this morning.”

“I did.”

“I am ready to hear it.”

“And I…” Holmes broke off, an entirely uncharacteristic expression of uncertainty on his face. “I will try to give it, but you must be patient with me, Watson. I must lay out my case methodically. If I seem to digress, know that I have excellent reasons for doing so.”

My first instinct was to try and put Holmes at ease. I squelched the impulse firmly. “Go on.”

Holmes’ hands tightened around one of the notebooks. “Thank you. To begin with, I believe I told you once that my grandmother was sister to the French artist Vernet.”

This was a significant digression, but I did my best to bear it stoically. “You did. You said that you thought your tendency for observation might have come from her blood.”

“Yes, I believe I did say something of the sort. What I did not mention was that she was a regular summertime guest to our home when I was a boy.” My surprise must have shown on my face, but Holmes went on as if he did not see it. “She, too, was an artist, if not one of such renown as her brother. She preferred to experiment with other media rather than paint with oils, for one thing, and the raising of a family does not leave a woman the time to hone her skills the way a man can. Nonetheless, she had a gifted eye and a swift hand, and as keen a power of observation as Mycroft or myself at our finest. It was she who first taught me the rudiments of chemistry, in setting me to grind pigments and mix up colours for her. And it was she who taught me how to hold a pencil and draw what I saw.”

This was news indeed. “You can draw?”

Holmes shrugged, but I could tell at once from his diffidence that this was a sensitive subject. “After a fashion, yes. As a child, I harboured…ambitions, that I might one day become an artist like my great-uncle. It was one of many such fancies, along with being an explorer, or a great scientist, or a composer. Children are often fanciful. To her credit, grand-mère encouraged me to consider all of these possibilities, and not just art alone. My parents did not entirely approve of her teaching me, or Mycroft for that matter - ”

“Mycroft!” The exclamation burst from my lips.

One corner of Holmes’ mouth lifted in a brief smile. “My brother, like yourself, is a man of hidden depths. He used to spend hours sitting in one place, observing and re-creating a scene down to the tiniest detail. He does not practice the art now, I believe, but he drew a formal sketch of the front walk of his boarding school that was considered good enough to frame and hang in the visitors’ parlour as a prime example of student work. I believe it is still there.

“As I was saying, my parents did not entirely approve, more because of grand-mère herself than because they had no appreciation of art for its own sake. My mother, her daughter, in particular was peculiarly sensitive to beauty. But as often happens in families, her personality took a different direction than her mother’s. My grand-mère was an independent woman, a widow of means, and something of a free spirit; very French in every way. My mother, on the other hand, while half-French by blood, was entirely English in her mind. She was as fond of routine and order as Mycroft, and had no desire for any of her children to develop what she considered foreign eccentricities. She was a good match for my father, who was intelligent and conventional in equal measure. It was he who insisted that I consider drawing as a craft, a tool that might prove useful in the course of more scientific pursuits. He also insisted that I learned to box and to fence, for a man who did not know how to fight was unfit for any occupation. In that much, at least, I was able to please him.”

“I see.” I did not actually see what this had to do with Reichenbach, but I wanted Holmes to continue his story. If nothing else, this explained some of the more unconventional aspects of his character. It was evident that his Bohemian personality owed much to his French artist grandmother.

As usual, Holmes picked up on my thoughts. “I tell you this, Watson, so that you might have a clearer understanding of the young man I was, and why it so happened that when I went up to University, I had no set subject of study in mind. I was as much inclined to art as to chemistry, as equally enthralled by the precision of equations as the clear notes of my violin. Being too interested in everything, I excelled in nothing, and formed no strong ties with any of my fellow students, with one exception.”

“Victor,” I remembered. “You spoke of him once.”

“And you wrote down what I told you very faithfully.” Holmes’ tone was dry, but there was something else behind it, something that made the short hairs on the back of my neck prickle. “I was quite surprised to read of the ‘Gloria Scott’ while studying coal-tar derivatives, I assure you. At least you had the sense to change the name of the ship and the location of the family estate, as well as his last name, before publishing your tale.”

“I am always careful to change any revealing details,” I retorted stiffly. “And in any case, you were not here to raise any objections.”

Holmes nodded once, accepting the rebuke for what it was. “Be that as it may, I left out much when I told you of him – both of the beginning of our friendship, and of its end. And – and of its nature.”

The uncharacteristic stammer caught me by surprise. “You said you were close friends.”

“Very.” Holmes’ hands fidgeted on the cover of one of the notebooks he still held in his lap. “Victor and I shared an interest in art and architecture. His father was as supportive of his interests in art for art’s sake as mine was dismissive. And we shared other interests, as well, ones that encouraged us to seek each other’s society as much as it discouraged us to seek out the company of others. By the end of my first year, we were nearly inseparable.”

I heard what Holmes was carefully not saying. It was something I had long suspected, given my friend’s general dislike towards the fairer sex. My experiences in the Army had exposed me to other men with similar inclinations, lifelong bachelors who found no comfort in the company of women. Who found happiness, and satisfaction, only in the company of other men.

I had never considered myself one of their number, for I was no stranger to the joys of women. But I had never been blind to the appeal of masculine company, either. Had even taken brief respite in it a time or two, long ago. That was a fact that Holmes was unlikely to know, although he might have gleaned some insight as to my likely tolerance during our stay with Colonel Hayter. I chose my next words with care.

“That’s natural enough.”

A high, strained bark of laughter greeted my remark. “Many would disagree with you, Watson!”

“Then they don’t know their Catullus from their Cicero.” I kept my rejoinder mild.

Holmes stared at me, his piercing eyes darting over my every feature. Finally he relaxed slightly in his chair. “I never do get your depths, Watson.” He shook his head. “I had not expected this reaction.”

My anger, which had lain quiescent while engrossed in Holmes’ story, rose up again at this. “You should have trusted me.”

“I trusted Victor.” Holmes’ answer was as unexpected as it was quiet. “I had thought – I trusted in what was between us. Believed that it could withstand anything. But things were never the same after I accepted his invitation to spend the summer with him, not from the night when I used my habits of observation and inference to accidentally send his father into a faint. I told you that his father was suspicious of me from that moment on, but it was equally his son who grew uneasy and cold in my presence. I would not have willingly left otherwise.

“But leave I did, and it was a very different Victor who summoned me back to help him solve the mystery surrounding his father’s passing. I told him that his father’s error was made up for by the good life he had built up for himself afterwards, that hard work and atonement had more than balanced out his initial crime. But Victor did not see it – see himself – that way. He saw – he thought – that there were natural consequences of his father’s bad blood. That he was tainted by it, and its inherent malignity had taken particular form in the son, if a different one than the father, then surely just as evil. A form that was equally evident in me.”

Holmes broke off. The subject was clearly a painful one for him, even now. I sat frozen, wishing to comfort him, but uncertain whether anything I could say would serve. “He was grieving the loss of a father he loved,” I managed at last. “He was probably not thinking clearly.”

“Neither was I, to have deluded myself so,” Holmes snapped. “I stuck with him to the end, even saw him off onto his ship, still believing that I could change his mind. To no avail. I returned to University at the start of term and threw myself into my work, but nothing seemed worth doing compared to what I thought I had lost. Finally, I spent an entire night working, painting Victor as I had last seen him. And in the cold, clear light of morning, I finally realized several things I should have seen all along.”

Holmes opened one of the notebooks, the larger of the two. To my surprise, it was not a bound journal, as I had thought, but rather a folio, a container for a number of loose sheets. Holmes lifted the top one out and handed it to me by the edges.

I held it with care. It was heavy artist’s paper, treated with something that made it stiff in my hands. The paper showed the effect of time and of careless storage. At some point damp had crept in, darkening one corner, and some of the colours had run slightly. But it was still a very fine image of a handsome young man, dressed for travel, with a furled umbrella in one hand and gloves clutched in the other. He stood firmly on what looked like a gangplank, although that part of the image, and the background, remained unfinished.

“You painted this?”

“Drew as much as painted, but yes.”

“Holmes.” I set the paper down across my knees. “You’re very talented. The texture of his shirt, the shine on his shoes, the crease in his trousers – why, it’s amazing.”

Holmes smiled again, but it was a bitter one, almost acrid with derision. “You have put your finger on it precisely, Watson. The clothes are indeed finely detailed. I noticed them particularly, and as they were clear in my memory, they show clearly on the page. But look at his face. Look at his hands.”

I looked again as he bade me. Compared to his garments, the face was rather blank. And the hands did not fare well when subjected to close scrutiny. The left was barely a suggestion, and the right looked subtly wrong. “Those parts are not quite as well done as the rest, true…”

«C'est simple d'être un artiste. Il faut seulement avoir un œil d'aigle, un cœur de lion, les mains d'un amant, et l'esprit rusé d'un général. Sans tout cela, tu n'es qu'un imbécile qui peint. Et n'importe quel imbécile peut peindre.»

I blinked. French was not my language, but I recognized it when I heard it, and Holmes spoke it like a master. He recognized my confusion, and some of the sardonic lines around his mouth softened.

“It is something grand-mère told me, something I have found to be true. What is true in art is often true in life, after all. And she told me this more than once. To render the sense of it in English, then, as you don’t understand the original: ‘To be an artist is easy. You just need the eye of an eagle, the heart of a lion, the hands of a lover, and the mind of a general. Otherwise you are just a fool who paints. And any idiot can paint.’”

I laughed despite the tension I felt in the room. “I think I would have liked your grandmother very much.”

Holmes relaxed a fraction more. “I think you would have. You are far too English to have ever pleased her, but she would have seen past that within a few minutes, and I think she would have liked you despite your nationality.” His mouth tightened into a thin line. “But in my youthful enthusiasm I forgot her advice, or perhaps it was merely my arrogance that made me believe I could live up to the truth of her words. Believed until that morning, when I looked at what I had made and realized that I had recorded more details in Victor’s garments than I had ever managed to capture in his face.”

“You were creating from memory, and a painful memory at that,” I protested at once.

“I had let emotion blind me to the truth,” he retorted at once. “I never really saw him clearly, not the truth of his body or his character. I had let what I wanted close my eyes to what actually was.” He drew a deep breath. “And I had proof of it.”

He dipped his hand into the small box that had rested atop the pile. This time, when he withdrew it, he held a plain silver watch fob, perhaps two inches long and an inch in diameter. He twisted the top in a peculiar fashion, and to my surprise it sprang open, revealing a hidden compartment with an image inside. He handed it to me, and I stared at it in wonder.

It was the face of the same young man as before, painted in three-quarter profile on a jet-black background. His hair was dishevelled, his improperly bare neck exposed, a glimpse of naked chest visible before vanishing behind the suggested vee of a scholar’s robe. I could clearly make out the scrollwork of the man’s ear, the hint of a cleft in his chin. So much fine detail, captured with what must have been the smallest of brushes, and yet there was something blank about the man’s expression, unfinished, empty. And the eyes…

“Working in miniature must be an exacting task,” I said, trying to justify what I saw. “Overall, it seems extraordinarily good to me, although I admit something seems odd about the eyes.”

“An unforgivable error, wouldn’t you say, to be unable to capture what is supposed to be the essence of a person’s soul, not to mention one of his most distinguishing features?” Holmes’ assessment was as clinical and cold as I had ever heard him. “And I had no excuse of lapse of memory or lack of access to the subject for this work. Victor sat for the portrait in my own room. I looked at my fob, and then I methodically went back through every sketch I had ever made of him, every painting. There was no lack of material; I had been quite prolific. And there I saw incontrovertible evidence of two truths: that I was a fool who painted, and that no amount of ‘eagle’s eye’ availed a man who was too preoccupied by what he wished for to acknowledge or remember what was actually there to see.”

It was the harshest condemnation I had ever heard from his lips.

“I learned a powerful lesson that day, Watson. I discovered that I could not be trusted when it came to the softer emotions. That sentiment, friendship, deeper feelings, all could render me as blind and witless as the average Englishman blundering about the streets, oblivious to the world around him. That lesson was only brought home further in the months after his departure, when Victor never wrote. Worse, for all the care I thought we had taken, I had thoughtlessly exposed myself to suspicion and ridicule from my fellow students. Not enough to draw official censure, true, but more than enough to make my second year a misery. I left without finishing a degree, but with far more valuable knowledge drummed into me, self-knowledge that I put to good use ever after. I gave up any pretence to artistry and instead concentrated my talents where they proved most useful: in the prevention and redress of crime. My skills with paints I adapted to makeup, with no little success for my disguises, as I think you must agree. The eye I had trained with long hours of staring at an object in order to capture the littlest detail turned instead to understanding how the conglomeration of details revealed facts others missed. And I made no friends, or at least intended to avoid obtaining any. The necessity of a fellow-lodger put paid to that intention, no matter how I struggled against it at first.

“You accused me of not trusting you, Watson. I can understand how it must have seemed so. But it was me I never trusted, not you. I knew how easily I could fool myself, and how that blindness might endanger you as well. So I took every precaution against sentiment. In doing so, I failed in other obligations of friendship, and for that I must apologise. I was shaken by your obvious care and concern for my health during the Reigate matter, and that led me to withhold my confidence, play up my physical weaknesses in hopes of concealing my mental ones. Much of my behaviour in later cases had similar origins. I was always wary of becoming too dependent on your friendship, and of how I might lie to myself, blinker my perceptions and falsely colour reality. And in doing so, I did you many small injustices.”

Some small, and some not so small. I knew that; I had felt the sting of them, after all. But I had also felt his many kindnesses, the warmth of his friendship, his unwavering support when I needed it. I tried to balance it all together, fairly weigh it in my mind. “It does explain a great deal, Holmes,” I told him at last. “I think I understand, at least a little. But my dear fellow, none of this tells me why you let me believe you dead at Reichenbach Falls.”

Holmes bit his lip. “I did not understand that myself, not at first,” he admitted. “I watched you there before the Swiss officials arrived; heard you calling for me, sounding as if your world had ended. Several times I drew breath to answer only for the sound to freeze in my throat, choking off all expression. I could not fathom why. In the immediate aftermath I told myself that I must have instinctively sensed that I might be observed, and in failing to respond, I had undoubtedly saved both our lives.”

I thought about Moran’s accuracy and vengeful spirit. “That seems likely.”

“There is truth in it, undoubtedly, but I know now that it was not the underlying cause.” Holmes’ posture lost any trace of relaxation, and when he next spoke, his words were clipped, staccato with tension. “I had reason to be grateful for the skills grand-mère imparted to me in the first weeks following my flight from the Falls. Itinerant artists are as common as wildflowers in that part of the world, and I used my pencil and notebook to earn food and lodging without suspicion until I could contact Mycroft. Even afterwards, it often proved a useful disguise. Men who are being watched are far less suspicious if the fellow doing so has a large sketch-pad in hand and sheets of drawings for sale weighted down by rocks around his feet. And it helped in other ways, too, when I felt all the weight of my predicament pressing upon me, and dared seek no other relief. I drew mountains and chalets, tourists and churches. And many times, I found myself drawing from memory, when life would not serve.”

Holmes set aside the folio and the box, then handed me the remaining notebook with noticeable reluctance. “I have marked some pages for you, for your convenience.”

Puzzled, I began leafing through it. As Holmes had said, there were many scenes such as any itinerant artist of no little talent might draw, varying landscapes, close-up details of flowers, gentlemen drinking on a rustic veranda. The first marked page was an artist’s practice drawing, pencil sketches of a pair of hands in various poses. I looked it over carefully, but came away even more confused than I had been before.

The second marked page was another study, this time of eyes, some hastily done, little more than suggestions, others so detailed they might have been used in anatomical studies.

I am not a vain man. Nonetheless, the proper maintenance of a moustache requires some time spent before a mirror every morning, and I am tolerably well acquainted with my appearance. Although I had never seen my own eyes in some of the attitudes thus illustrated – certainly I had never seen myself asleep or squinting against the sun – I had no difficulty instantly recognizing that these were my eyes drawn upon the page. My eyes, narrowed in suspicion, looking up with laughter, widened in horror, gazing in admiration, looking on with fondness and warmth.

My eyes. All drawn from memory, full of life and emotion, captured in perfect detail. Holmes had even picked away at the paper with some kind of sharp blade in a few spots, to suggest sunlight glinting off the hairs of my eyebrows.

I turned back to the first marked page. Those were my hands, I realized, the small mole near one wrist, the old scar across two of my knuckles.

There were more marked pages, but their importance faded into insignificance compared to the taut, rigid man awaiting my judgment. His hands gripped the armrests so tightly I expected to see marks in the wood from his fingernails.

“I cannot draw to save my life,” I told him bluntly. “But if I could render anything with paint or pencil, I would create such pictures of you, as you have of me.”

Holmes’ chin trembled, and a spasm wrenched through his lean frame. The next moment he was on his knees before me, both of my hands gripped in his, the notebook forgotten and fallen to the floor. “You have drawn me in a thousand words, in a million sets of type,” he whispered. “I just refused to see it until after I found the same truth emerging under my pencils.”

 

Later – much later – I touched on the subject one last time. “I understand now, about so many things,” I murmured softly. “But I still don’t understand why you never sent word.”

Holmes ran a gentle hand through my hair. “My dear Watson, you were married, and to a wonderful woman who deserved you and the happiness you brought each other. And Colonel Moran, for all his viciousness, was also in many ways a man of honour. You said yourself that his record was that of a career soldier. He still carried some traces of the morality of the uniform Her Majesty’s Army had hammered into his soul. He saw – with his own eyes – that you were out of the game, that you believed me dead. As long as you remained ignorant in London, you and Mary were safe, no matter what might happen between myself and the Colonel.”

There was no answer I could make to that, not in words. So I did not use any.

The hands of a lover, indeed.