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Authors: Loren D. Estleman
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from a crest of severe chalk cliffs similar to those which are commonly associated with Dover. Keenly I anticipated this lonely (and unapologetically masculine) stretch of English coastline, and a reunion with the man with whom I had shared so many adventures. I disembarked from the train at Newhaven and engaged an automobile and driver to convey me along the twenty miles of seacoast ahead, light in heart.
Chugging along at a brisk fifteen miles per hour, I held on to my hat with one hand and the side of the Daimler with the other, remembering when a clattering ride in a horsedrawn hansom towards the scene of some impending tragedy represented the height of excitement for a man of any age.
We were slowing for the turn to the villa when I recognised the gaunt figure approaching at a trot with the sea at his back.
“Watson—good fellow, is that you? I am only just in receipt of your wire. We are but one more scientific improvement away from outdistancing even the genius of Mr. Morse.”
Holmes wore a terry robe, untied, over a bathing costume. Plastered to his skeletal frame, the damp wool told me that retirement from public life had neither increased his appetite nor lessened his distaste for inaction. But for the grey in his hair and the thinning at the temples, he did not appear to have aged a day since the attempt was made on his life by the blackguard Count Sylvius ten years before. It was the very last investigation we shared, and my final visit to our dear old digs in Baker Street.
I, meanwhile, had grown absolutely stout, a victim of my comfortable armchair and the bill of fare at Simpson’s. We remained as separate in our habits as at the beginning.
Years and weight notwithstanding, I alighted eagerly from the passenger’s seat and seized his hand, which was iron-cold from his late immersion in the icy Channel. At close range I observed the creases at the corners of his razor-sharp eyes and the deep furrows from his Roman nose to his thin mouth, cut by time and concentration. He put me in mind of a Yankee cigar-store Indian left out in the weather.
“I hope I have not inconvenienced you,” I said.
“Not nearly as much as you have inconvenienced your dog. I trust the kennel in Blackheath is a good one.”
I was so astounded by the mention of Blackheath that for a moment I could not recall if I’d ever told him I owned a dog.
He laughed in that way which many thought mirthless. “Time has not changed you, nor age sharpened your wits. An old athlete such as yourself cannot resist a visit to the rugby field of his youth, hence that particular dark loam adhering to your left heel. Fullness of age and greatness of girth might prevent a casual excursion, but you would travel that far to board your dog; a bull, if I am any judge of the stray hairs upon your coat.”
“It would appear an old detective such as yourself cannot resist the urge to detect, whatever his circumstances.”
Again he laughed. “A very palpable hit.” Before I could protest, he had paid my driver, relieved him of my Gladstone bag, and started up the path towards the house.
Presently we were in his parlour, he having bathed and put on the somewhat shabby tweeds of a country gentleman. The room was small but commodious, with a bay window overlooking the water and sufficient memorabilia strewn about to create the sensation that we were back at 221B. Here was the dilapidated Oriental slipper, from which he filled his pipe with a portion of his old shag; there the framed photograph of Irene Adler, and she in her grave these twenty years. I recognised the harpoon that had slain Black Peter Carey and the worn old revolver that had saved our lives upon more than one occasion, now demoted to a decoration on the wall above the hearth. A library of tattered beekeeping manuals filled the bookpress which had once contained his commonplace books. I asked him how his bees fared.
“Splendidly. Later I shall bring out the congenial mead I’ve
Chugging along at a brisk fifteen miles per hour, I held on to my hat with one hand and the side of the Daimler with the other, remembering when a clattering ride in a horsedrawn hansom towards the scene of some impending tragedy represented the height of excitement for a man of any age.
We were slowing for the turn to the villa when I recognised the gaunt figure approaching at a trot with the sea at his back.
“Watson—good fellow, is that you? I am only just in receipt of your wire. We are but one more scientific improvement away from outdistancing even the genius of Mr. Morse.”
Holmes wore a terry robe, untied, over a bathing costume. Plastered to his skeletal frame, the damp wool told me that retirement from public life had neither increased his appetite nor lessened his distaste for inaction. But for the grey in his hair and the thinning at the temples, he did not appear to have aged a day since the attempt was made on his life by the blackguard Count Sylvius ten years before. It was the very last investigation we shared, and my final visit to our dear old digs in Baker Street.
I, meanwhile, had grown absolutely stout, a victim of my comfortable armchair and the bill of fare at Simpson’s. We remained as separate in our habits as at the beginning.
Years and weight notwithstanding, I alighted eagerly from the passenger’s seat and seized his hand, which was iron-cold from his late immersion in the icy Channel. At close range I observed the creases at the corners of his razor-sharp eyes and the deep furrows from his Roman nose to his thin mouth, cut by time and concentration. He put me in mind of a Yankee cigar-store Indian left out in the weather.
“I hope I have not inconvenienced you,” I said.
“Not nearly as much as you have inconvenienced your dog. I trust the kennel in Blackheath is a good one.”
I was so astounded by the mention of Blackheath that for a moment I could not recall if I’d ever told him I owned a dog.
He laughed in that way which many thought mirthless. “Time has not changed you, nor age sharpened your wits. An old athlete such as yourself cannot resist a visit to the rugby field of his youth, hence that particular dark loam adhering to your left heel. Fullness of age and greatness of girth might prevent a casual excursion, but you would travel that far to board your dog; a bull, if I am any judge of the stray hairs upon your coat.”
“It would appear an old detective such as yourself cannot resist the urge to detect, whatever his circumstances.”
Again he laughed. “A very palpable hit.” Before I could protest, he had paid my driver, relieved him of my Gladstone bag, and started up the path towards the house.
Presently we were in his parlour, he having bathed and put on the somewhat shabby tweeds of a country gentleman. The room was small but commodious, with a bay window overlooking the water and sufficient memorabilia strewn about to create the sensation that we were back at 221B. Here was the dilapidated Oriental slipper, from which he filled his pipe with a portion of his old shag; there the framed photograph of Irene Adler, and she in her grave these twenty years. I recognised the harpoon that had slain Black Peter Carey and the worn old revolver that had saved our lives upon more than one occasion, now demoted to a decoration on the wall above the hearth. A library of tattered beekeeping manuals filled the bookpress which had once contained his commonplace books. I asked him how his bees fared.
“Splendidly. Later I shall bring out the congenial mead I’ve
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