LOST WATSON

“Mrs Hudson! MRS HUDSON!!!”

When the loyal housekeeper failed to appear, Holmes ran around the apartment, bellowing like a man possessed, his previous torpor forgotten, his eyes fiercely darting to and fro about the smoke-fugged chamber, as if seeking out one of the few clear spots remaining available upon which to alight some important document and examine it.

After failing to achieve his goal, he impatiently swept the tea things aside with a savage fury, and the silver and china clattered against each other as if in protest at such a loutish manhandling, but mercifully failed to slide off the edge the dining table and crash to the ground. If anything were likely to summon the redoubtable Mrs Hudson, and bring down her ire upon them, then it would most likely be the breaking of some of her finest china for no good reason.

Dr Watson sat calmly behind his newspaper, comfortable in his favourite armchair beside the roaring fireplace, and stoically continued smoking his way through half an ounce of finest shag whilst trying to retain an air of aloof calm as the chaos erupted about him. His patience was sorely tried as the newspaper was snatched from his very fingers just as he’d reached a particularly juicy announcement regarding the Duke of Northumberland.

“Holmes!” he ejaculated, “Must you…?” before noticing that the old fellow’s enquiring face was now exactly where the newspaper had been, the tip of his nose mere inches from his own less aquiline one. The wild eyes were instantly locked on his, burning deep into his soul as if seeing him for the first time, or, at the very least trying to ascertain that he was indeed his faithful companion and not some fiendish interloper who had snuck in and hidden himself behind the mighty organ that was known as “The Thunderer”.

“Have you read this morning’s Times newspaper, Watson…?”

“I think your powers of deductive reasoning might be starting to fail you, old man…”

“Really Watson? How so?”

“It was this morning’s Times that you just ripped from my very grasp!”

“Quite so, Watson, quite so…”

“In the old days you would have been able to answer your own question by merely observing the ink upon my fingertips just as soon as you entered the room…”

“Very true, my dear fellow, very true, and yet, as ever, you have failed to pay attention to my question. Naturally, I properly observed that the newspaper was in front of you, but your failure to remark upon a certain article within it rather proved to me that you had not actually read it thoroughly…”

“Well I was rather hoping to…” Watson attempted to interject, but Holmes ignored his protestations with a dismissive wave of the hand.

“You had, at best, merely scanned through the scandal pages and, if I may be so bold, there was a quite reasonable chance to suppose that you had indeed fallen into the arms of Morpheus whilst hidden behind its pages…”

“I was smoking this rather fine shag…” Watson protested.

“All the more reason for my alarm! You might very well have fallen into a slumber and burnt the very house down about our ears! Really, Watson, you ought to be more careful!”

“Honestly, Holmes…” Watson began to bluster indignantly, however Holmes immediately shushed him with a firm gesture that implied that the matter was ended. Then Holmes expertly refolded the newspaper in order to leave it showing the appropriate article, and handed it back to him.

“I trust then that you have not yet consulted the obituary column…?” he queried.

“I must confess that I hadn’t yet got around to it,” replied Watson, rather sheepishly. Normally he would head straight for that very page before consulting any other, as it often meant that some harm had befallen somebody and that one of their desperate acquaintances would be, as likely as not, probably to be found crossing their own threshold later on that very same day. Sadly, the scandalous affairs in Northumberland had so pricked his curiosity upon recent mornings that he had found himself instead to have been quite distracted by those goings on and had been somewhat neglectful towards his more professional duties.

“Then I suggest you do. You might find something of great interest to you…” prompted Holmes, enigmatically.

Watson read the page set out before him, and, when he reached the item that had already stimulated Holmes’ thoughts that morning, he cried out. “Good Lord!” he said, with an air of regret and disbelief, “Old Edward Hardwicke’s passed away! Well I’ll be…”

“Yes! Interesting isn’t it? said Holmes, once more scrutinising his old friend as if he were a bug under a microscope, “He was some kind of thespian, was he not?”

“Indeed he was. A stout fellow, too. He portrayed me once, you know…?” said Watson, puffing out his chest with a certain amount of pride.

“Did he? Did he really?” said Holmes, his eyes twinkling with mischief.

“Oh yes!” replied Watson obliviously, “In a television adaptation of our greatest adventures… and a fine job he made of it too, I feel, if I may be so bold…”

“You may,” said Holmes slyly.

“He had rather a tough time of it, I seem to recall. Some other fellow had played the part beforehand and chose not to continue with it, so into the breach stepped old Eddie Hardwicke and a jolly fine fist of it he made! Excellent fellow…” Watson smiled fondly at the memory.

“Hmmm!” said Holmes, noncommittally.

“What?” queried Watson.

“So much better than the other fellow then,” remarked Holmes stiffly, “the one portraying me…”

“Oh! I thought he was rather good. Got you down to a ‘T’ I thought…”

Holmes sniffed, “He was adequate I suppose…” he paused and continued, “But of course I would never have failed to notice if you had been replaced by a completely different chap, no matter how many years had passed by since Reichenbach…”

“Is that what this has been all about?” asked Watson incredulously. “Honestly, Holmes, it was only television, you know, old fellow…”

Holmes positively twinkled with glee, and glanced impishly across the room at his most faithful friend.

“I know, but  thinking about it quite distracted me from the story for some moments…”

In memory of Edward Hardwicke (1932 – 2011)