Castle Rouge by Carole Nelson Douglas Page A

already discerned it, Watson, given your superior experience in certain hidden corners of life.”
    “Well, I—” I had certainly not discerned where Holmes was leading me and was not eager to claim residence in his “hidden corners of life” without knowing to what he referred.
    “Tut. Modesty does not become you, Watson, a stout-hearted, hale, and handsome fellow like you. In one area your expertise far exceeds my own, and no doubt that of most men. And I do not refer to the practice of medicine.”
    “I know my field, certainly, and something of human nature, as any good physician must.”
    Holmes held up a quelling hand. “I will hear no demurs from you on this topic, Watson. When it comes to women you are a Daniel come to judgment.”
    “Women! This case is about women?”
    “Indeed. And what men do with them. As you know, I have always been somewhat mystified on that subject. Oh, I know the ways of the world, I simply do not understand why they are that way. Nor do I really care to.”
    “A man with no use for his fellow man is called a misanthrope. A man with no use for women is called—”
    “A misogynist. I know the term, Watson. And I am not sure that having no ‘use’ for women makes me a misogynist when I see evidence of the ‘use’ most men put women to.”
    I sipped the excellent Tokay while I floundered for words. Though I had often twitted Holmes about his indifference to what certain coy writers call the fair sex, we had never really plumbed the vast chasm between myself as a married man and Holmes as the quintessential bachelor. Moreover, Holmes was a bachelor who did not use his freedom to ‘play the field’ with the ladies, but instead indulged his solitary, almost monkish, celibate bent.
    There. I had used the word, even if only to myself, about the one condition in my friend I had never approached or explored. Celibate. Had he been religious, that would have explained much. But Holmes was a logician, and as indifferent to organized religion as he was to women. He was an ascetic esthete, an undebauched Bohemian, if such a contradiction in condition exists. Holmes was unique, and exulted in that fact. So did I, when I was not being irritated by it.
    “Can you not guess,” Holmes asked quietly, “what case I pursue?”
    “No, I cannot!”
    “It is the Ripper.”
    “The Ripper! You mentioned the case to the rabbi, but I thought those were comments in passing. You swore to me in this very room that you were not involved. ‘Mere butchery, Watson,’ you said. I have made notes. Besides, there has not been a Ripper slaying in several months. Surely the matter is dead.”
    “Apparently,” he said cryptically through an immense huff of smoke. I could see that my indignant charges had hit home.
    “It was necessary to mislead you, Watson. I was called into the case last autumn, although late, by a Personage of such eminence that even to hint at the name and position would be a betrayal any true Englishman would face an execution squad rather than reveal.”
    “Oh,” I said, understanding immediately that he referred to Her Majesty, the Queen, herself. Sometimes Holmes ran the danger of being most transparent when he most wished to bemuse.
    “I deeply regretted the necessity. You have been a most loyal old fellow and deserved more. But you do have a tendency to write down the particulars of my cases and are even eager to publish them. However, now—”
    “Yes, I suppose old Toby and I do deserve a small treat now and again.”
    Holmes flashed me a look of impatience over the bowl of his favorite black clay pipe at my reference to the scent-hound he occasionally used on his cases. “No need to be testy about it. The matter was of national secrecy, and now it has grown into a matter of international discretion.”
    He had me there, hooked like a salmon in an icy Scottish stream. “International?”
    “Indeed,” he murmured to his oil-stained pipe bowl, his favorite accessory for