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Holmes was lazy on this day: caseless, purposeless, but not incapacitated as usual. It was almost as if something were mitigating his natural disposition. It was almost as if he were drugged.
    They set out on the case together as a matter of habit, but the ride out to Mr. Holder’s home was unnaturally silent. Holmes did not blather on about music as was his usual wont during an up-swing, and Watson did not bother him for his initial impressions of the mystery at hand. According to what Watson told me of it years later, even Holder, in his agitated state, noticed the chill in the cab. Watson saw the man’s mouth guppy a few times, as if he wanted to utter something to break the ice, but he didn’t dare. The silence was miles above his head.
    The situation only degenerated from there. Holmes did his whole routine at the scene of the theft, sniffing around the house, questioning the principle players. During the return trip they were alone, and Watson started to probe the situation. As he explained discreetly to the public: “Several times during our homeward journey I endeavored to sound him upon the point, but he always glided away to some other topic, until at last I gave it over in despair.” For as much as having the attention of Holmes is the sun and it is celestial and it is electrifying, having him ignore you is equally devastating. Suddenly it is night, and the stars have gone out, and the world is ending. Or so Watson has told me.
    Holmes could read Watson like a child’s book; he knew of Watson’s suspicions, that Watson was monitoring him like a nanny, but it wasn’t his concern if Watson was left in the dark! Had he learned any of Holmes’s methods in the nearly six years they’d shared a roof, he would have known full well what Holmes was up to, what he was hiding. If he couldn’t figure it out himself, Holmes wasn’t about to tell him and receive a lot of criticism. I believe that Sherlock Holmes was ashamed, as much as he has the capacity for it. He was hiding his new habit from the beginning because he knew Watson would never approve.
    Arriving home from Mr. Holder’s upset household, Holmes disappeared into his room and reemerged in full costume as a common loafer (not a real stretch for him to pull off, if you ask me—what is Holmes most days if not an uncommon loafer?). But if Watson was going to watch him critically rather than with the hero-worship that Holmes had come to feed off of, then Watson would not be invited further on the case. Holmes could not stand that sideways look of suspicion; he got it enough from the police in his professional life, he didn’t need it in his personal life as well.
    “I only wish that you could come with me, Watson,” he said insincerely, tweaking his collar in the glass over the mantle. “But I fear that it won’t do.” It was a clear message, and Watson let Holmes leave without a word. There is no real stopping him, after all, and Holmes was back soon enough, just to twist the knife.
    “I only looked in as I passed,” he said. “I am going right on.”
    Watson made polite chit-chat with him, noticed that his true twinkling fire was kindled with the pursuit of the case, and Watson made up his mind that something was influencing Holmes unnaturally. The difference was too distinct. When Holmes left once again, this time without saying any goodbye other than the slamming of a door, Watson resolved to do some detecting of his own. And he found something.
    It’s just below the surface of Watson’s narrative, but there’s an unevenness that I can explain. Watson said, “I waited until midnight, but there was no sign of his return, so I retired to my room. It was no uncommon thing for him to be away for days and nights on end when he was hot upon a scent, so that his lateness caused me no surprise.”
    The poor thing waited up with the evidence he had unearthed, the morocco case and a bottle of seven percent cocaine solution. He wanted to confront