The Progress of Sherlock Holmes

Too Long

Murder weapon: a knife. (Just an old kitchen knife, made only slightly more interesting by two careful letters on the bottom of the handle, in ink, covered over by a coat of clear nail varnish. Someone cared for this knife, shared a kitchen, didn’t want to lose her things (a woman, obviously). A kitchen knife, for making dinners and salads, not for stabbing fourteen year old boys in dark alleys. This knife belongs to a woman who shared a kitchen; lived in a group home. A shelter. A battered woman’s shelter. Brought her own things with her. But that was years ago now. In her own place now, polish is coming off and not been replaced. And her son; he’s sixteen. A history of violence. Someone’s picked up this knife in anger before. Fingernails dug into the wooden handle. Male. Her son’s? Her husband’s?)

CCTV footage rolling on the screen; two boys wandering into an alley; one, fourteen (the victim, lying in hospital now, stab wounds, critical condition) the other, sixteen (convoluted story about a tall man in a waistcoat who shouted threats; too convoluted, too detailed. Who remembers a waistcoat, other than me?). No one else on the street at all. One boy runs out (the elder). The attempt. Clearly. Caught just off screen. A silent street, the testimony. Stop the footage and pick up phone, text Lestrade.

Arrest 16 year old. Still have chat logs to sift through for motive. SH

The sound of throat-clearing. John. (Obvious. I can hear the edge of his voice, even in the clearing of his throat. Impossible to mistake.)

Spin around and see him standing by the door. Half-hidden behind the coat rack. Looking small. Bit ashamed. Hiding, but not consciously. Why? John. (How long have you been there?) Turn to face him. Smile. Haven’t seen him in three weeks. Off mooning around with Mary. Missed him. Can feel just how much I’ve missed him now that I see him. (A shocking amount.) Something looks wrong.

He’s had a haircut. (That’s not it.) It suits him.

“You’re late.” Hold out the weapon, still in the evidence bag.

“Took me a while to get here,” John says, sheepish, and moves toward me. Limping. Limping badly, using a cane. (New one now: wooden. Gift. Oh. Gift from Mary. She had to purchase it recently because John’s limp returned while they were away from London. She picked it out for him, thinks he likes it. He hates it. Makes him feel like an old man with an old man’s cane. His grandfather had a cane like that. The ugly metal one was better, more medical, less geriatric. More hopeful that the limp is temporary. This one suggests that he’ll just have to live with the limp, pretty it up a bit with a gnarled and bourgeois-polished stick of wood. No. It won’t do at all.)

Of course it took him a while to get here. On the fifth floor of the old police building. No lift. Oh, John.

That’s what it is, that’s what’s wrong. Knows it’s all in his head. Expecting me to tease him? Mock him? Look down on him for letting it creep back? (Would I do that? Maybe once. Not now.)

Frown. Can’t help it. Concerned. Why does the limp come back? Thought I’d cured that. Shocked it out of his system. His mind is tenacious and stubborn. Wants to punish John, somehow. Make him suffer. “I see.”

He limps heavily across the room toward me. Limp as bad as it ever was, possibly worse. Three weeks away from a case (away from danger, running in terror, having to pull out his illegal handgun) is too long.

(But consider: five weeks minus a case, living with me, didn’t bring his limp back. Six weeks, even. His normal workaday life, dinners out, watching telly, folding hospital corners, having nightmares: six weeks, no limp. Now: three weeks away. Terrible limp. So: the cure not just danger. But the potentiality of danger. Waking up every morning not knowing if today is the day we get shot at again, have to leap from a high place, hide from murderers or break into houses for evidence. Not just danger. Me. Three weeks away from me brings back his limp.)