When I returned to 221B, I found the curtains closed and Holmes deep in rumination within the darkness. Only his hawk-like features were visible, seemingly perched on the armchair, lit by the flickering blaze of his pipe. He didn’t seem to notice me enter and I wondered what else, besides tobacco, he’d been ingesting in my absence.

“Had a good day, Holmes?” I tried. Then, when no response was forthcoming, I said, “The Royal Family have all been murdered and really it seems an impossible affair. If only someone were interested in investigating.”

Of course, Holmes was too lost in his own morphine dreams to hear a word I had to say. There was a chill in the air. I drew the curtains then went to make the fire.

”Watson, you’re back,” said Holmes, as I adjusted the logs.

”It seems so,” I said.

”I have a question. What does death of the author mean to you?”

”Mm. Apart from a pretentious attempt at furthering literary criticism?”

”Yes. Apart from that.”

”Apart from that, I’d say it’s what‘ll happen to me if you can’t stay off the damned substances and bring yourself to solve something.”

”Droll,” he said.

”I mean it though, Holmes. If not for my sake, for your own. Your mind is being wasted here. It’s rotting away. And your mind is too great to waste.”

”What if it’s not my mind solving these cases, Watson? What if it’s never been?”

“Then I’d like a little more credit for my part.”

”Droll again. You’re on a roll.”

I lit a match and threw it on the fire. The fire’s crackle merged with rain tapping on the window and created something of a soporific atmosphere. I stretched, yawned, and toppled myself into a leather armchair next to my friend.

“Anything good in the paper?” I asked, picking it up.

“Good? What constitutes good, exactly?”

”A murder, a robbery — anything to to give you purpose and get you out of this room for an hour or two.”

”Watson, here, do you not find it funny that every story you have documented — well, perhaps documented is too strict of a term — that every story you have embellished into your particular form of entertainment has a most satisfactory ending for the reader?”

”Reluctantly, I do think the credit for the endings goes to you.”

”But they’re all so neat, Watson. So perfect. Each one like a sheet of origami creased along the exact correct lines until it folds into a complete solution.“

I didn’t know what to say to that. “I suppose they are neat. And what’s wrong with that, pray tell?”

”Nothing for readers of the Strand, I dare say. But for real life? Everything! What about chaos theory, Watson? What about the mess that is itself life. Not everything we do is a string with two ends. Sometimes scissors cut the string into pieces and the pieces become lost and can never be stitched back together.”

”You’ve overdone the morphine, and the metaphor.”

”I’ve not touched any morphine!” he rebutted, indignant. “Cocaine on the other hand…”

”Ah, I should have known.”

”But my thoughts have been brewing far longer than the cocaine has been inside me. The world is too neat by far. The stories you write are too satisfying. They are as if you are tracing over letters already written.”

I placed down the newspaper. “What are you trying to say Holmes? That someone has set up all these crimes for you to solve? Some mastermind of criminality?”

”Not of criminality. Just a mastermind.”

”And your evidence is solely that you solve almost every case?”

”Precisely.”

I considered this a while. Imagined that we were characters in a book. In a series of stories. That someone had the good sense to place the two of us together. To set a crackling fire and let the clouds open and to place a bottle of whiskey on the table by my side.

I yawned as I poured us each a drink.

”If we’re but characters in stories,” I said passing Holmes a glass, “then here’s to many more being written. For the writing is indeed worthy of more stories, wouldn’t you say?”

Holmes’s frowned. Then smiled. He took the glass, a sip, and a long look out of the window. “Quite, Watson. Quite.”