As a break from the boring chronology posts, here's another bit from my DIM novel. Recall that there's a love triangle going on between Holmes, Watson, and Helen Stoner in the 1880s, during their bachelor days. However, Holmes has rejected Helen Stoner since Chapter 21, when he visited her in New York and briefly met Irene Adler in 1884.

Since 1886, Watson has become friends with a fellow doctor, who is also an author. In fact Conan Doyle helped write the Mormon part of A Study in Scarlet, and got the novel sold to a publisher, though they lost the copyright in the deal. The publisher is holding the novel for a year due to the glut of "cheap fiction", and will publish it in December 1887. Meanwhile, the two writers correspond and discuss which other case they should make into a novel next, because then they can keep the royalties and maybe make money. So Watson has written up "sample stories" of some cases such as the Copper Beeches to show to Doyle. As they discuss Holmes in their letters, Doyle asks a question about Holmes's drug use, and this is Watson's response. Notice that he carefully lies and suppresses the full truth about his "strange brief affair" with Holmes in 1887.

Fandom: Sherlock Holmes

Story: Deeper in Memory, partial chapter 22

Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/Helen Stoner, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson

Warnings: mentions of drug use, rated PG-13

Watson's Letter to Doyle

In answer to your question, Doyle, Holmes's cocaine use has fluctuated over the years. Indeed, as you read in my Study in Scarlet pamphlet, I at first believed that Holmes lived too cleanly to indulge in drug use at all. The first time I saw any injection scars on his arm was 2 years after we met, when we stayed at a local inn in Stoke Moran. (We had to nap before our all night vigil in the Speckled Band case, so we undressed in the afternoon.) Holmes noticed that I noticed his scars, but he said nothing. He just got into his bed across the room. After we turned out the lights, I finally asked him about the needle scars, and he confessed that he had used morphine injections for years to help him sleep after cases that overstimulated his mind. When I suggested that laudanum could serve as easily, he said that he still had fleeting pains from the dog bite on his ankle. (This was Victor Trevor's dog, though at the time, Holmes had not yet told me about Trevor's case at university.) Holmes would not answer further questions, then we went to sleep. (At least I did; Holmes's sleep was fitful and restless, that afternoon and the next morning.) In any case, we were too busy with Miss Stoner's mystery to return to the subject of morphine for days afterward.

I forgot about it until after the inquest in Surrey when Roylott's death was ruled as an accident with a pet snake. After reading the news accounts, I noticed Holmes pacing his room restlessly. I ventured to prescribe him something so he need not self-medicate any more. He has always resisted my attempts to doctor him. He instead said he was going down to Harrow to get Miss Stoner's payment for her case. I offered to go with him, but he told me no. He in fact became offensive, suggesting that I wished to romance the lady before she got properly wed to her fiancé. I replied that I merely wanted to stop him from speaking callously about her stepfather's death or her mother's death or her sister's--it was quite a tragic life she led--so he must be sensitive to her feelings of grief. He said with a sneer that he was perfectly capable of being "sensitive" and he rushed off to catch the train. So Holmes got her payment but returned in a strange mood from Harrow. He told me not to hold out hope for a formal wedding invitation, for the lady had postponed her wedding date. She was in fact going on vacation. He said that word, not "holiday." (He uses many American terms like buffalo and lawyer. He told me once that he spent some instructive time in America doing research, but would not give me more details than that.) He told me he was "sensitive" enough to Miss Stoner that he suggested she go away to New York to recover from her grief. I commended him for this, but he asked me if I was not sad to see her leave England. I was sad for her postponed wedding, but pleased that she would have a much-needed holiday from her troubles. I said that she had looked like a hunted animal the other day, given all her recent stress and anxiety. "I'm happy for her." He didn't believe me apparently. "Really, Watson? You don't… miss her?" He often seemed to imply that I was infatuated with her, when in fact it was he that Never mind. I do not want to get into private things about a former client. In any case, Holmes has a definite streak of secretiveness, which is why it is so difficult to discover the details of his drug use.

He did eventually decide to open up to me again; he told me the tale of Victor Trevor, the dog bite, and the mystery that motivated him to leave university and become a detective. He let me examine his ankle scar at last, so I ventured to ask him again about his morphine use. He let me see the scars on his arm then. I told him he should switch to laudanum for sleep and I could prescribe him something else if he still had pain. He seemed amenable for a while, but then he distracted me with tales of more cases, opening his case records to me so that I became preoccupied with writing up those tales. You see how manipulative he is? Later in the year I began to see through his efforts. At that point, I began a project to try to introduce Holmes to eligible women, as I thought he needed to get over his infatuation with Miss Stoner.

Unfortunately, I talked him up so much at a social event, that we got a bunch of new cases instead. So we were busy that autumn and winter. Holmes and I had frequent arguments about his general health, what with his irregular meals, lack of sleep, and continued drug use. Yet after his visit to Miss Stoner in 1884--she was still living in New York and he had been writing her letters--Holmes returned early due to illness. I offered to examine him but he would not let me. Given his surliness, I wondered if he might be having symptoms of morphine withdrawal since he could not indulge around her and had not packed his syringe and supplies when he went to New York. Holmes certainly seemed in a black mood. Later in the spring, we had that case with Violet Hunter, and I was cheered that Holmes seemed impressed by the lady's independence and bravery in investigating the Copper Beeches. I had hopes then that Holmes was now over Miss Stoner and might be infatuated with another client. But to my disappointment he showed no further interest after the case, and Miss Hunter became the headmistress of a school. I suppose Holmes rather thought of Miss Hunter as a sister instead of a helpmate.

Next year, during a frosty winter, we had a blackmail case in which Holmes rather callously romanced a housemaid while in disguise. For ten days he was frequently gone at night courting her and even getting engaged! When he told me afterward, I was shocked at his behaviour, but he claimed to have a rival for Agatha's affections. After the case, I thought of enquiring after her welfare, but I worried it would draw suspicion on us about Milverton's murder. So I asked the Baker Street Irregulars to report to me on the maid instead. They told me that Agatha was initially suspected by the police as an accomplice for locking up the dogs that night, but when the police found that Escott the plumber did not exist, other than the disguised man seen walking with her so many nights, they believed that she was innocent after all. Witnesses had seen two well dressed men after all, and not a man and woman, the night of the murder. Agatha understandably cursed the fellow who duped her and risked implicating her. So she married her other man after all. --But you are not interested in that. Anyway, Holmes was quite the unfeeling cad, and if anything he was worse after this blackmail case. I no longer tried to introduce him to ladies, for fear of how he would mistreat them.

Holmes was quite averse to women at this time, too. He would lock himself in his room and rant about love being destructive to the mind, how foolish people were to succumb to excesses of passion, and the unfairness of life. But often he was not home. Holmes was restless in those days, frequently walking about London at night alone. We used to go together for long walks where he would deduce things about various people in the street. At other times our walks were silent and intimate; I thought he was just enjoying my company and not needing me to be his amazed audience. I thought As I was saying, after 1885 he indulged in long, all-night walks without me, such that I feared for his safety, wandering into crime-infested neighbourhoods. He said he was perfectly safe, that he had five small refuges all over London for changing into disguises. He was as at home as Captain Basil in the docks, as anywhere else. I thought of hiring the Irregulars again, but Wiggins told me that they did see him often, staying the night in the house that he had bought for them. So I was able to worry a little less and was glad he was taking care of them.

Eventually Holmes began to tell me his theory about Professor Moriarty then, and I did not believe him at first, thinking him paranoid and ill. The police were also sceptical. Holmes became obsessed now with reading the man's academic papers and finding out information on his finances. Anyway, I found out about Holmes's cocaine use in 1886, and he claimed that it helped him get out of his depressions; after cases ended he would often have a slump. I tried to tell him that if he needed stimulation, he only had to talk to me. Then he began taking cases without me. Going to the Continent, corresponding with that French detective le Villard. He was withdrawing from me, and I realised after all I had no official position with him beyond being his flatmate. He had, save for that time in 1883, discouraged my chronicling his cases. He had no use for me now even as an aide in his investigations. I'm sorry to say that I became depressed myself and wallowed in the pain of it. I slowly shook this off by taking up locum work and joining a club in town. I met Thurston and we played billiards. It helped to discuss Holmes with someone else, to get out of the close atmosphere of Baker Street. You recall, that's how we met through the cricket club? You encouraged me to write again and I showed you my pamphlet, and the newspaper clippings about the Mormon history. As you were writing the other half to help me complete the novel, Holmes was growing irritated with me. He did not want me to publish after all, having evidently thought I would never succeed.

He had the nerve to accuse me of using him to make myself famous. I took offence and that was when I moved out, going to my club at first before I found a hotel. Mrs. Hudson was most distressed about this, while Holmes left once again to France without me. (That was the Netherland-Sumatra case with the colossal schemes of the villainous Baron Maupertuis.) For months I only heard of him through newspaper accounts, or letters from Mrs. Hudson asking me to come back, or suggesting I go to him in France. I received the telegram in April and finally went to Lyons, where I discovered that he had indulged in cocaine to a disgusting degree. He asked me to help him through his withdrawal and agreed to let me be his official doctor at last. He apologised to me and seemed to miss me. He convinced me to return to Baker Street and take care of him. I tried to do my duty despite my still being angry with him. When he recovered enough, I took him for a week in the country to Colonel Hayter's house, but then he took a murder case there and blatantly malingered, completely disregarding how I would feel. I was so angry at him afterward, that I let him cut short the visit so that we could leave there and I could fume at him in private. I fumed at him on the train and at Baker Street too. [The ink dries, indicating a long hesitation before the next paragraph.]

I managed to convey how much his deception had hurt me, and I threatened to move out again. He apologised and begged me to stay, and we--well, because I was upset, because--well, he somehow persuaded me--that is, we agreed to go back to France for a proper holiday; we spent some weeks in a hotel and he finally obeyed me not to take a case. His mood lightened and he was relaxed, even playful. We were--I thought we were happy for a time. Finally in a good, easy relationship. But it was all false, of course. Not real. He claims he was never deceiving me then, that he meant the things he said. I think, even if he did not deliberately lie to me, that he was just confused in his feelings. He didn't know better, for he has not had intimate friendships with other men. The closest was that time with Victor Trevor, and it was only a matter of months, not the years that Holmes and I had shared. He was... lost, foolish. New to emotions. Not knowing how to express that he cared for me or needed me, other than... Well the peace was not to last, because after we returned to Baker Street, everything changed again. I could not go on with the charade, and he was upset by my rejection. All through the summer he alternated between cocaine and morphine, rather petulantly injecting in front of me to earn my ire. I tried not to take the bait, but eventually I argued with him heatedly. Even after Mary Morstan's exciting and satisfying case, Holmes went back to the cocaine without waiting even a day. So as I said, his drug use has fluctuated over the years.

So that's the letter. I'm not sure if it should be mailed, or if Watson would decide not to finish it and throw it in the fire, for being so close to revealing his intimacy with Holmes. Actually, I need to insert VALL in between their "strange brief affair" and SIGN, which I think will need to stay in 1888 within this novel, even though my chronology is different.