Holmes and Watson End Peace: A Novel of Sherlock Holmes by David Ruffle

you.”
    â€œIndeed, Watson. There were the odd cases that came my way, that of Reginald Musgrave and the age old ritual of Hurlstone for instance. As bright as I may have shone in that case, as in a few others, there was to be no great financial reward forthcoming. I spent a great deal of my time in perambulations of London, getting to know its nooks and crannies intimately. The city became a friend to me and I reckoned I knew every inch of it. I believe as a cabbie I would have risen to the top of that profession such was my knowledge of the city’s byways, lanes, squares and alleyways.”
    â€œI was always in awe of your encyclopaedic knowledge of London.”
    â€œIt was a hard earned knowledge, blisters and worn out shoe-leather testified to that.”
    â€œWas your early work as a consulting detective your only source of income at that time?”
    â€œI supplemented it occasionally with the odd bout as a prize fighter; my lanky frame somewhat belied my strength and skill, meaning I was able to pick up the odd few shillings in prize money as a result. Occasionally there were greater financial rewards that came my way from grateful clients; my recovery of the opal tiara when acting for Mrs Farintosh brought with it a few pounds to add to my dwindling coffers, but it was transient because for the most part, that money was owed elsewhere and disappeared as fast as it came into my possession. Mortimer Maberley, one of my early clients, was kind enough to offer up as his reward for my assistance, tokens which could be exchanged for square meals at Willoughby’s in Great Russell Street.”
    â€œThey were hard times for you, Holmes. Could you not have appealed to your brother for help?”
    â€œMy pride would not allow it and besides our relationship was still strained, markedly more so than when you first met Mycroft. He had his own life and was making his way in government circles where they recognised his genius and omniscience. We were so far apart in those days that he never once came to Montague Street and I never set foot in his Pall Mall lodgings.”
    â€œYou were truly alone then?”
    â€œYes, Watson. My only contact with my fellow human beings was through prize fighting, where the contact was of course extremely physical or through my researches at the British Museum where the contact was slight and of course entirely cerebral. Other than that I was quite a solitary animal given to huge bouts of introspection and, you may be surprised to hear it, long periods of self-doubt.”
    â€œI am not as surprised as you may imagine. I was always fully aware of your contradictory nature. Your precision and concentration of thought was often balanced with a restlessness and impatience. Your emotionless state that often bordered on cold-bloodedness was at odds with the nervousness and excitability I saw sometimes manifested in you.”
    â€œI am hardly alone in displaying such a contradictory nature, Watson.”
    â€œTrue, but it was very marked to my eyes because of whom and what you are. The failures, as you saw it in others, were often mirrored in you; sometimes I doubt that you were even aware of it. You decried haughtiness in others yet you were often contemptuous of those you perceived as mental inferiors. In fact I always thought your most obvious weakness was your impatience with less alert intelligences than your own, although having said that, you did have a remarkable ability to put clients at their ease, particularly the more humble clients.”
    â€œThe exalted clients we encountered were too puffed up with their own pride; they had no need to have their egos massaged further. The humbler clients as you describe them, were more in need of reassurance and very often their stories had to be coaxed from them, little by little.”
    â€œI suppose you could say that in essence you were all things to all people.”
    â€œI endeavoured to be so. I am glad