The Adventure at Baskerville Hall & Other Cases

found that not all of the moisture on my cheeks was perspiration. I dashed roughly at my eyes and got out of bed to change my nightshirt, hoping that if I acted as though my heart was not pounding fit to burst then it would eventually stop doing so.
    Baskerville Hall was a large, sprawling old manor, and my room was some way from those of Sir Henry and his servants, the Barrymores. Another man might have been made uneasy by the distinct sensation that he was the only one in the wing but I was glad of it, for if I cried out in distress while asleep then there was no chance I would be overheard and have to suffer the embarrassment of explaining myself.
    Once attired in a clean, dry nightshirt I shied away from immediately returning to my bed lest I plunge straight back into the throes of my nightmare. It was not the first time in recent months that I had had that dream, but familiarity had dulled neither its clarity nor its power to upset me; it was as profoundly unsettling as anything I had experienced even after my return from Afghanistan. I glanced uneasily at my medical bag, sitting unobtrusively in the corner of my room. I certainly had something in there that would help me sleep, but chemically induced slumber was not a road upon which I wished to set my feet.
    Instead, I pulled on my dressing-gown and went to sit by the hearth and poke up the fire. Sir Henry Baskerville had asked Barrymore and his wife to ensure that there was always a plentiful supply of fuel in my room, no doubt recalling our conversation on the train about how an extended stay in a warm climate can leave one intolerant of England's damp cold. I stirred the fire into life, and sank back into the armchair with a heavy sigh.
    The whole wretched business with Culverton Smith had been months ago, and yet I still witnessed, in my mind's eye, Holmes's battle for life with distressing frequency. Thank God that the reality had been very different, and that Holmes had been merely shamming illness in the same way I have seen a bird feign a broken wing to lure a predator toward some greater danger. I sternly castigated myself, for the hundredth time, that I ought to be thankful that Holmes had not been seriously ill and it was true that, at first, I had been.
    When he had bounded out of bed and declared that three days of taking only sips of water had left him famished, relief had weakened my knees and I had sat down hard on his rumpled blankets. He had been too busy calling for Mrs. Hudson to notice, and I was heartily glad of it, for the relief that had left my whole body limp was mingled with a most alarming swell of emotion that was making me blink rapidly and press my thumb and forefinger to the corners of my eyes. The rational part of me knew that it was merely the after-effects of twenty-four hours without sleep, and the very real threat of losing someone who had become dearer to me than my own life. But all the same, when Holmes returned to his room to dress I was quick to make my exit, averting my face and replying to his desultory query that I was fine, that I needed to unpack after being called home so abruptly from my old orderly's rooms in Bath, and that I needed to rest after being up all night tending him. Once I was safe in my room, my clothes neatly stowed in their usual places, I went to bed, utterly exhausted.
    I slept all through the remainder of the day and on into the night. I did not stir until the following morning, when dawn began to lighten my room, and I descended to breakfast to find Holmes already at the table and tucking in with an uncharacteristically hearty appetite.
    "Watson," he smiled at me, setting down his knife and fork to pour me a cup of coffee. "Good morning. Did you sleep well?"
    I looked at him silently. My repose the previous night had not been a soothing, restorative sleep; it had been a near collapse from total physical and emotional exhaustion, all on behalf of someone who was even now regarding me with not a trace of contrition over the deception he had committed.
    You knew he would be like this, I told myself. You knew it when you began your liaison with him. He doesn't care for you, not as deeply as you care for him. He cannot. It is not in his nature. If you've been a fool and gone and fallen in love with someone who will break your heart and never even notice, then you've no-one to blame but yourself.
    "Yes, thank you, I slept very well." I could not resist adding, with just a touch of asperity, "I was