Author's Note:

This was going to be part of Jottings from a Doctor's Journal but it grew a bit too long. Extrapolated from the beginning of The Reigate Puzzle. 'The Black Dog' is a common euphemism for depression.

THE BLACK DOG

HOTEL DULONG, LYONS, APRIL 1887

I knocked upon the door, but there was no response.

After waiting a few moments and trying again with more force, only to receive the same lack of reply, I went against my better judgement and slipped the key I had been given by the concerned concierge into the lock. Normally I would not dream of violating my friend's privacy in such a way, but if the staff of the hotel had been worried enough to contact me then there was little point in yielding to my sensibilities. And I had not raced across the Channel to be at his side only to stand dithering upon the wrong side of a locked door.

"Holmes?" I called quietly as I stepped into the room. It was dark, the thick curtains pulled across the window to block out the bright afternoon sunlight; the window itself was closed despite the warmth of the day, I could smell as much in the close and stuffy atmosphere. In the resulting gloom I moved cautiously forward to find the carpet crackling strangely beneath my feet – squinting, aided by the glow from the landing, I could just make out that I was ankle-deep in paper, a mess which would have put our Baker Street sitting room after one of Holmes's frantic searches for information to shame.

There was no apparent sign of life, though I was peripherally aware of it in the airless chamber. Carefully I waded through the sea of parchment and reached the window, drawing back the drapes a little to allow the light to penetrate and throwing up the sash. The birdsong which immediately drifted through the gap was starkly at odds with the previous silence. As my eyes adjusted I could at last see that the great drift of paper I had traversed was made up of letters written upon every shade of paper, telegrams and postcards, most of them opened and all, I had no doubt, addressed to Mr Sherlock Holmes. I glanced around the room to see discarded clothes amongst the detritus, thrown to the floor with no care whatsoever, and a used dinner plate some days old stood abandoned upon the writing desk. It was quite clear that the room had not seen the attention of a maid in some time.

"Holmes?" I called again, looking for him but unable to find a clue as to his whereabouts. He must be there, for upon my arrival at the hotel I had been told that he was ill, and had shut himself up in his quarters as soon as the Maupertuis case was concluded. My eyes roved the room, which was not large and could not boast many places for a grown man to hide, and it was from the corner of one that I at last spotted him almost without realising it, as one might glimpse an elusive wild animal at the very back of its cage.

He sat on the bed, tucked into the corner where it met the wall, hunched over with his knees drawn up to his chest and his forehead resting upon them. His posture reminded me forcibly of a child trying to hide from the world in the mistaken belief that if he could not see it then it must not be there. Putting down my hat and bag on the armchair by the window, I approached him – he made no sign that he was even aware of my presence. Gently, not wishing to startle him, I sat down upon the bed at his side.

"Holmes," I said softly, "Holmes, it's me, Watson. I came as quickly as I could."

Had he been feeling himself I knew that he would have taken one look at me and deduced every stage of my hurried journey from the splashes on my coat and the mud upon my shoes. In truth, I wished he would, for his continued silence unnerved me. This was not the comfortable, companionable silence of evenings at home, or the precise, smoke-filled silence of a contemplated problem – it was cold, distant, and deeply unsettling. He did not appear to be in the room with me at all.

Eventually, slowly, he lifted his head, and revealed to me a face that was shocking in its aspect. His aquiline features were gaunt, his skin chalk white beneath a week's worth of stubble, the eyes which peered from under the uncombed mop of black hair which fell across his forehead rimmed with red, the sockets deep in shadow. It was the expression in those eyes which cut me to the quick, however – I had never seen him look so utterly bleak in all the years I had known him. He stared at me like a lost little boy, and I barely restrained my gasp at the sight of him. This was not the Holmes I knew, the man whose housekeeping might be horribly untidy but whose fastidious cat-like neatness of person was legendary. He had never been so dishevelled, so uncaring of his appearance, as he was now, huddled there in just a crumpled shirt and trousers, the collar and cuffs hanging open and the creased waistcoat unbuttoned, without even a pair of socks.

He blinked at me for several moments, as though trying to focus upon my face, before he said in a voice like sandpaper, "...Watson?"

"Yes, old man, I'm here," I told him, marshalling my physician's detachment and attempting to inject some cheer into my voice. I phrased my next words carefully, "I came as soon as I received the telegram. They told me that...well, that something was wrong."

He barked a mirthless laugh and threw his head back. "Wrong? Why should anything be wrong?" he asked of the ceiling. "I am the most celebrated man in Europe, Doctor – do you not see the telegrams? They have been pouring in for the last week, all to tell me how brilliant I am." His face fell, all the animation leaving it as quickly as it had come, and his dull eyes stared straight ahead of him, at nothing. "I am a genius, Watson, so they tell me. Everything is wonderful. Can you not see that?"

His gaze was vacant, so far away from the incisive one I knew so well that I felt my heart clench at the sight. "Are you not pleased with attention?" I ventured. "After all, it is only your due. It was a spectacular achievement - "

His head quite suddenly whipped round, like that of a viper readying itself to strike. "What do the general public know of the work that goes into such a case?" he spat. "What do they know of the hours, days, even weeks of unrelenting toil? They have no conception of the depravation of those facets of existence they take for granted which I have been forced to endure in order to reach such a conclusion! How dare they think to congratulate me, to imagine that their fatuous words might mean something to one such as I?"

I found myself involuntarily moving away from him, startled at such an outburst, so at odds was it with his disinterested lethargy of mere moments before. He was breathily heavily, his face flushed. I was used to his tempers, but this was more than the natural ebb and flow of his curious equilibrium. I put a hand on his arm, expecting him to dash it away and grateful when he did not.

"It's all right," I said. "I won't say another word about it, I promise."

With a sigh, he slumped back into the corner, the furious energy dissipating with the same speed as it had arrived. "Thank you." He closed his eyes, and as I watched seemed to retreat into himself once more, leaving behind the shattered outer shell of my dear friend.

I will confess to finding myself somewhat at a loss. It was quite obvious that Holmes was in a pit of blackest despair, and I did not know how to help him out of it. Broken bones, physical ailments I could mend, but what could I do to heal such tangible misery?

I did the only thing I could: I turned my attention to the state of the room. Over the next half an hour I moved about, picking up the dirty clothes and consigning them to the laundry, glancing back constantly at the hunched figure upon the bed. He did not move, and when he opened his eyes I might not have been there at all for he did not seem me, his gazed turned inward to the private world within his head which I was not privileged to enter.

I took refuge in practicalities. "When did you last sleep?" I asked.

After a moment he sighed once more, and a deep, unhappy chuckle released itself from his chest. "I cannot sleep. Ironic, is it not, that after weeks during which I have denied myself sleep, as soon as an opportunity for rest presents itself Morpheus does not oblige."

"That is because you have exhausted yourself," I told him. "Let me make the bed for you, so that you can lie down and rest. You must rest, Holmes."

He was not listening to me. "What have I done?" he murmured. "Have I suppressed those emotions I did not regard as necessary to my occupation so far that I have been reduced to this?"

Icy fingers crept down my spine despite the warmth of the room. I took a few steps closer to the bed and crouched down, bringing my face level with his. "Reduced to what?" I asked softly.

I have no idea whether he heard my interruption or merely continued with his own train of thought, but he said, "At the moment when Europe is ringing with my name, when I have reached the very pinnacle of my career to date, why is it that I feel...I feel..." His voice cracked and he bowed his head, sinking it into his hands.

I reached out and put my hand over one of his. "Feel what?"

His voice was muffled, but I still made out the words, and they were chilling. "Nothing. Nothing. There is nothing to be felt. Nothing but...dust." His breath hitched in his throat and he made a strangled sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob. The thin shoulders shook and I scrambled up to sit beside him on the bed as his control finally shattered under the stresses of the past few weeks.

"Holmes..." I gathered him up in a clumsy embrace, wanting to comfort him but not wishing to destroy what little remained of his dignity. He stiffened for a moment, unused to such physical contact, but then the emotions he usually kept so well hidden overwhelmed him and he wept upon my shoulder like a child.

Never before in the years we had known each other had I seen Holmes break down. His incredible self-control would never allow it, keeping a mask firmly over the inner reaches of his soul. But, despite what he preferred the world to believe, my friend was not an automaton and his iron constitution had buckled and finally collapsed under the enormous strain he had placed upon it. I mentally diagnosed nervous exhaustion coupled with the black depression to which he was prey; demons circled his head like carrion crows while he lacked the resistance to fight them.

I held him awkwardly, my hand rubbing his upper arm, as I would have done with a patient in the same situation. I thought no less of him because he had shown himself to be human. He clung to me as eventually the storm subsided, and as he raised his head and looked at me through a tear-stained haze he suddenly seemed to realise exactly what had happened. Obviously mortified at having shown his weakness, even to me, he backed away abruptly, curling into himself.

"I am sorry, Doctor," he mumbled, fumbling through his pockets for a handkerchief, "I did not mean - "

"It doesn't matter," I said, handing him one of my own.

"It does matter! I should not - " His face crumpled, and he took a deep shuddering breath, teetering upon the edge once more.

I got to my feet. "You need food, and rest. Your body has nothing upon which to run," I told him. "It is no wonder that you have been reduced to such a state. Your nerves are in shreds – you have pushed yourself too hard, old fellow."

"That..." He sniffed, and I turned to the window, not wishing to intrude further upon his vulnerability. "That is your...diagnosis?"

"It is." I rang the bell to summon a maid and then went to the wardrobe to find him some fresh clothes. When there was a knock at the door I opened it a crack and asked the girl who stood there for hot water and towels. My French is not of the best but I managed to get my point across and she hurried off to fetch them.

Holmes was sitting up when I returned to his side, his eyes red but considerably more alert than they had been when I entered the room. He could not look at me, no doubt ashamed of having broken down in my presence. As one who always kept such a tight rein upon his feelings, to have them laid bare before another, even a friend, must have been incredibly painful for him.

"I am going downstairs to see about some food," I said, keeping my voice deliberately light. "While I am gone I want you to clean yourself up. Do you think you can do that?"

I half expected him to argue with me, to remind me that he was not a child, as he would have done had he been himself, but instead he just nodded and said hoarsely, "Thank you, Watson."

There was a tap at the door and I went to accept the hot water from the maid, taking care not to open the door far enough to allow her to see inside the room. I would not add to my friend's distress by allowing the servants to see his sorry condition. After pouring the water into the basin on the washstand and placing the new, fluffy towels within reach, I turned and found Holmes struggling up from the bed. I took his arm and helped him, for he was as unsteady as a newborn colt.

When I asked if there was anything else he needed, or if he required further assistance he quickly shook his head, averting his eyes from mine. Though his hands were shaking badly he would not submit to the indignity of being helped to wash himself. I deliberately did not lay out a razor, knowing that he would not permit me to shave him and in his current state he would likely injure himself. His trembling fingers found the buttons of his shirt but he would go no further until I left the room and so I did, heading below to the hotel restaurant where I caused no little consternation by refusing a table and requesting some dry toast and tea on a tray.

The perplexed waiter tried to remonstrate with me in a flurry of rapid French, most of which I did not understand, quite obviously thrown by a guest asking something of him which could have been easily obtained from the room attendants should I have the courtesy to ring for it. This I would have done, but I wished to spare Holmes further interruptions. When I mentioned my friend's name the waiter's attitude changed in an instant and he hurried off with alacrity to do my bidding. Though Holmes might currently reside in the depths of despair, it seemed his standing with the public had never been higher.

The meagre meal was brought to me in record time, and I carried it back up to my friend's room, knocking softly upon the door before entering. Holmes sat curled up in the chair by the window, the sunlight glancing from his newly-brushed hair, wrapped tightly in his mouse-coloured dressing gown as though it were a kind of armour. His eyes were closed, but there was a kind of tranquillity in his haggard features which had not been there half an hour earlier. Allowing himself to at last let go and release his pent-up distress had had a calming effect upon him, for which I was grateful.

As I crossed the room the old letters and telegrams crackled once again under my feet and I resolved to do something about them as soon I was sure that Holmes would be all right. I laid the tray down upon the side table, and the sound of the china rattling prompted him to open his eyes. His gaze alighted upon the plain repast, and I thought that he cocked an eyebrow, though it could just have been a trick of the light.

"Am I an invalid, then, Watson?" he asked.

"It will take a little time to regain your strength," I replied, pouring the tea. "You need light food, sleep, and then..."

"And then?"

"Then I am taking you home. A friend of mine, Colonel Hayter, has asked me to come down and stay with him for a few days and he has extended his invitation to you. He lives near Reigate, in Surrey, a lovely part of the world. Reigate is not London," I added, "You will find no new cases there. It will be perfect – peace and quiet, something of which we are both in sore need!"

I must have looked and sounded stern when I made the final pronouncement, for I am sure that Holmes glanced at me almost in amusement over his teacup. His long fingers reached for the toast. "Yes, Watson," he said.

"Good." I smiled, relieved that he was apparently on the road to recovery. "I will wire Hayter when we return to Baker Street..."

FIN