consulting detective.
* * *
This turn of events – Holmes’s reappearance – left me in a quandary. I realised I would only ever be second best, now that he was back. Who would go to Clarence Barker when the great Sherlock Holmes was once again available? I wondered whether I should carry on regardless, tenaciously ploughing my furrow, or present myself to Holmes and suggest we set ourselves up in a partnership.
I opted for the latter. I plucked up my nerve and paid a call on him in his rooms at Baker Street. How small and cramped and cluttered the place seemed to me then, as I returned to it some half-dozen years after my last visit. To my boyish eyes it had been a sprawling wonderland of books, chemistry apparatus, knickknacks and oddments. Now it was like some queer museum of intellect, admirable but stuffy, bewildering in its chaotic disarray. Holmes’s landlady Mrs Hudson had not allowed his lodgings to be let during his three-year absence. She had kept the place untouched and undisturbed, almost as a shrine. Perhaps, through some preternatural womanly instinct, she had known he was not really dead. Or could it be that she was privy all along to the fact that he was alive, as was his brother? She must at least have wondered why Mycroft Holmes continued to pay the rent on the rooms.
Holmes greeted me warmly enough. He was alone, Watson elsewhere. He performed his customary trick of evaluating details of my recent past from my appearance and attire. He was spot-on in his assessments as always. He was even aware that I was now pursuing the same line of work as he.
“I do not mind another detective in my orbit,” said he as we smoked a pipe together. “London is a vast, populous city. There is surely room for two of us. There will be plenty of clients to go round.”
“Indubitably,” I said.
He must have registered a hesitation in my voice, for he then said, “But that is not the reason for your visit, pleasant though it is for the two of us to catch up and compare notes. You are wishing to propose an alliance, are you not? A merging of the streams. Holmes and Barker, Consulting Detectives, no?”
“Astute as ever, sir. It would seem sensible. Where one man can achieve great things, two together can achieve still greater.”
“Out of the question.” This was accompanied by an airily dismissive flap of the hand.
“You will not even consider the idea?”
“I already have a partner, Barker. You may have heard of him. Name of John Watson. Physician, ex-serviceman, courageous, trustworthy.”
“Yes, but with all due respect, Holmes, Dr Watson is not a peer. He is your scribe. Your amanuensis. He trots at your heel as faithfully and eagerly as any dog. You snap at him, you belittle him, you mock him openly, yet his obedience to you remains undimmed. By all means he should remain at hand, taking notes about your exploits to turn into reading fodder for the masses. But I could be more useful than him by far. I could be a sounding-board, an accomplice to share ideas with, a chess player of near equal skill with whom you may hone the excellence of your own game.”
“Excellence at chess,” said Holmes, “is one mark of a scheming mind.”
“It was merely a metaphor. You are rejecting my overtures outright, then, I take it. That is your final judgement on the matter.”
“Watson is all I need or could ask for in a cohort, Barker. I do not require any other. I nonetheless wish you luck in your career. May you flourish to the best of your abilities. May you prosper to the extent that you deserve.”
To anyone else’s ears it would have sounded like encouragement, but I could read between the lines. Holmes was exhorting me to accept my limited prospects. He was telling me the scraps from his table were mine to scoop up and devour. He was consigning me to the fate of forever living in his shadow. London would lavish its acclaim on one consulting detective – and it would not be me.
* * *
That settled it. I resolved there and then to stick at the job. I would take whatever cases I was offered. I would not be proud. I would be content even if any clients came to me and said they had chosen me because Mr Holmes had refused to help them; or Mr Holmes charged too much;