tripleransom

tripleransom

I crumpled up yet another abortive story attempt and threw it in the general direction of the grate and sighed, wearily scrubbing my hands over my face.  The house was quiet - too quiet - and I was getting nowhere with trying to write.  Reaching a decision at last, I pulled a telegraph form to me, addressed it,  and scribbled a few quick words. 

Have you holiday guests?. If not, may I come? 

JW

Hastily, I rang the bell for Susan before I could change my mind.  

When she appeared, I handed her the form and told her to have it sent immediately.  She curtsied and left with it. 

I poured myself another drink and awaited the reply with some trepidation. 

Some hours later, Susan reappeared at the door with a telegram on the tray.  "Your reply, sir," she said and handed it to me.  I looked at the envelope for several minutes before I screwed up the courage to open it.

Come at once [it read] Train arrives ten o'clock am weekdays

SH

*********

I had not seen Holmes more than  a handful of times in the several years since his retirement to the Sussex Downs and my subsequent remarriage.  He had been invited to the wedding, of course, and had duly arrived, shaken my hand, kissed Emmaline's hand and departed.   Oh, we corresponded occasionally and I had not meant to let the time go by, but there was Emmaline to consider and there always seemed to be some demands on my time that prevented me from going down to the country. 

Having made the break, Holmes seemed not to wish to return to London at all, except on the infrequent occasion when he had some urgent business to conduct.  We met for lunch, but our old easy cameraderie was missing.  We seemed uneasy with each other, as if we were nothing more than polite acquaintances fulfilling some social duty.   

In the old days, our conversations had been free-ranging, covering any and all topics that came to Holmes's brilliant mind.  Now, there seemed to be so many subjects that both of us shied away from.  It made for stilted encounters that devolved into banal small talk and trended to awkward silences.  I mourned the loss of our old easy friendship, but I could not think of any way to regain it.  When we parted, we always pledged not to make it so long until the next time, but the times between meetings grew longer rather than shorter.

Then a telegram came from Holmes at a time when I happened to be away from the house and Emmaline somehow misplaced it.  When she remembered it, the time for our meeting had passed.  Torn between loyalties, I was loath to try and explain to Holmes what had happened and so the distance between us became a yawning chasm.

In any case, Holmes seemed happy enough with his new life and I began to think that he missed me not at all.  I certainly missed him - fiercely at first, then with a sort of steady slow ache, like the pain from a missing limb that never quite went away.  Marriage, I found - at least to Emmaline - was no sort of substitute for the companionship I had lost.

In the beginning, I had optimistically hoped that she and Holmes might at least tolerate each other, or form some alliance as he and Mary eventually had, but that hope was dashed at the wedding when they took each other's measure at a glance and the hostility was as plain as if battle flags had actually been waved.  Emmaline eventually began  to resent my continued publication of our adventures together, even though the resulting revenue formed a large part of our income.   It was that which drove the first wedge between us, although I suppose our separation was inevitable in any case. 

Eventually, Emmaline, no doubt weary of my tendency to live increasingly for my writing - for there, at least, I could re-live some of Holmes's and my vanished closeness -  announced that she was leaving for an extended visit to her relatives in America.  Neither of us was under any illusions that she really intended to return.  With myself as the sole occupant, I found the house too quiet and as the Christmas season approached, I grew increasingly low in spirits, until finally, driven to desperation, I chanced it all on a telegram to Holmes.

***************

So it was that I found myself, suitcase in hand, standing on a deserted platform in the small hamlet of Eastbourne,  watching my train disappear into the wooded landscape and wondering if I had made a colossal mistake. 

TBC…