21. THE CASE OF THE AFFAIRE DE COEUR

Holmes famously never fell in love with a woman ... or did he?

Holmes was in a strange mood. I’d never seen him like this before, and I’d seen him in some unusual moods over the years, to say the least.

“Watson, I feel we should take a turn in the park,” he said, suddenly, out of the blue, and Holmes absolutely never took any kind of turn in any park unless he was on a case, and even then he usually preferred to go in some kind of outlandish disguise in his endless pursuit of evil.

“What’s got into you, Holmes?” I asked.

He looked at me with that odd quizzical expression he sometimes adopted and then he shook his head.

“If I were to tell you it’s certain that you wouldn’t believe me,” he said sharply.

“Try me,” I suggested.

“Watson, how would you react if I were to tell you I’ve spotted a particularly lovely young woman who enjoys a turn in the park and who appears to be on her own and possibly hoping to attract the attention of a bachelor?” he asked, eyeing me as if ready to pounce on any reply I might make.

“I’d say about time too, Holmes,” I replied cautiously. “A man proceeds through life much better if he has a better half to concern him, to care for, to provide for. It’s a story as old as life itself. Mr Darwin expressed it particularly well in his little book.”

“I’m not thinking of the long story,” said Holmes, “but of gratification, which is often a temporary thing. I seek it when I resort to cocaine to relieve the drab monotony of daily life, but I have become almost acquainted with a lady of decent standing who, as I said, enjoys a turn in the park on her own.”

“Almost acquainted, Holmes?” I asked. “There appears to be a contradiction somewhere in the combination of almost and acquainted!”

“It fits our relationship exactly!” he snapped. “I, er, I chanced to be on the park the other day, on business, you understand, meeting Mycroft under the willow where he wished to consult me on the efficacy of morphine as a means of forcing the truth out of the sort of villainous creatures as operate in the darkest recesses of human society, and when he had gone and I was left contemplating more deeply what I had suggested to him, what I might describe as one of the most radiant creatures I have ever seen drifted past me.”

“Say more, Holmes. Describe her to me. I may, after all, know of her,” I suggested, more out of curiosity than because I actually believed it possible that I had attended on her during my working day as a medical man.

“Twentyish, maybe a little older, I’ve never been what you might call precise in my assessment of the ages of the fair gender, blonde of hair and clad in a dress in the modern style, which is to say a little shorter than of yore so as not to pick up muddy stains from the recent rains, and floral in appearance, with little pink flowers decorating a lime green tone. Very pleasing. Very appealing. Very pretty.”

“You say a great deal more of her dress than of her actual self,” I ventured, “and you still haven’t quite suggested what almost acquainted actually means.”

“You are being tiresome, Watson,” he said sharply. “Now, are you going to accompany me on a stroll through the park or not? I might need your advice before I actually venture to approach the lady, for you define yourself as a man of the world and you have, after all, been married!”

“I’m no expert, though, Holmes,” I told him. “There are some men who have a vast repertoire of experience when it comes to their conquests of the fair sex, but I’m afraid my own experience is somewhat minimal.”

“That’s as may be, but I should imagine it’s more comprehensive than my own,” he retorted. “As you know, my own experiences have been of a, what shall I call it, cerebral nature. I have studied females from the point of view of crime, both as criminals, which they can be from time to time, and as victims, and not once given much thought to what I believe might be called their tender side...”

“Nobody knows anything like all the answers when it comes to the fair sex,” I murmured. “The thing about them is the simple fact that they’re all different from each other. Yet they have some things in common, amongst them a firm belief in families and their offspring and a powerful wish to control the destinies of their men.”

He laughed nervously when I said that. “Control the destinies of their men?” he snorted, “What arrant nonsense! Men control their own destinies! It is what we can be most proud of! Look at me, Watson, I have no woman at my elbow, no little floral-scented delight in my heart, and yet I am in perfect control of my destiny! It is the most notable aspect of maleness!”

“Get yourself a wife and see if you can still say that,” I told him. “Anyway, if we are to take a turn on the park it would be best if we do it now! I have a sense that there might be rain to come, and that’s one thing that drives both men and women away from walking in leafy bowers and enjoying the world of nature!”

“Come then, Watson,” he almost shouted, and he pulled his cape on. “Would you say that I am shaved well enough?” he asked, nervously, “and is my appearance acceptable? Come, Watson, you can be honest with me over such matters. I would hate for my appearance to interfere with a closer and possible amorous acquaintance with the fair maiden.”

I was astounded. Holmes was surely smitten in a way I would have hitherto have thought impossible for him to be. It was against everything I knew of his nature. It was, I thought until that moment, an impossibility

“You’re absolutely fine,” I said. “Now come on before the weather changes and let’s see if your lady is also out, also taking the air.”

It didn’t take us long to walk to Regent’s Park, and to my amazement Holmes was more nervous than I’ve ever seen him before, adjusting this or that, ensuring that he could never be described remotely as untidy in appearance.

“My shoes. They are clean, Watson, are they not?” he asked more than once as he adjusted his tie with a nervous hand.

We reached the area that he said he’d been with Mycroft, and his pale face and odd nervous twitch told their own story of a Holmes so unHolmeslike that I was truly astounded. It was as if I was in the company of another man entirely.

“Here she comes!” he hissed suddenly, and he seemed to seek the shelter of my own shadow as a woman approached from our left.

From a fair distance she was roughly how he had described her, having traces of blond hair escaping from an elaborate florally-inspired hat and a dress, not quite full in length, and as inspired by flowers as was her hat. And she walked along slowly, on her own, face turned up as if to catch the sun.

“I have a problem, Holmes,” I said in the quietest whisper I could manage.

“You have, Watson? Tell me: is she not the most ravishing creature you have ever seen?”

“Holmes, what has happened to your famed deductive powers?” I hissed. “Can’t you see what is coming towards you?”

“A fair creature,” he sighed.

“Really Holmes!” I said, louder, “consider the care you took with your own appearance. Don’t you think that … madame Lestrade would have had a more thorough shave before putting that hat on?”

“Why, Mr Holmes,” said the woman in Inspector Lestrade’s voice, “sorry I can’t stop to pass the time of day, so to speak, but I’m in disguise. There’s a mad man at loose, one as gets joy from displaying to ladies those parts of a man best kept hidden, and I’m after tempting him to flash in front of me before I arrest him!”

“Really, Watson, what are we doing here?” snapped Holmes, “when rain is so obviously due! My lady doesn’t look as if she’s coming. Not at all! Maybe another day?”

Then he turned to the detective in a frock and nodded. “Good to see that you’ve got your best hat on, Lestrade, on a day lie this,” he muttered and stalked off.

“Now what’s got into him?” asked Lestrade. “Good morning then, doctor,” he added, and sauntered off, the very image of a whiskery angel from Heaven.

© Peter Rogerson 08.08.17