The Adventure at Baskerville Hall & Other Cases

intimated discreetly that, since the distressing discovery of her convicted brother living wild out on the moor, his wife had been throwing herself into her cooking with a single-minded focus. The results of this, as I could personally attest, rivalled those of the chef at Marcini's on the Strand, an establishment that was a firm favourite with Holmes and myself. Naturally, Sir Henry and I had every sympathy for Mrs. Barrymore's distress, but I would be a liar if I said that we had not been enjoying the fruits of her efforts. Dessert that night had been a chocolate mousse – one of the most divine I had ever tasted – and after I stirred up the glowing coals of the fire and sat next to Holmes he offered it to me with a wicked smile.
    It had been years since I had been forced to subsist on Army rations, but even so I had still not lost my opinion that anything more than the most basic, slapdash attempts at cooking were a luxury and now, as the bittersweet dark chocolate slid over my tongue, I could not suppress a small noise of appreciation.
    "I wonder if Mrs. Hudson would take it amiss if I asked Mrs. Barrymore to write down how to make this," I sighed guiltily. "I am sure that Mrs. Barrymore would not object to sharing it. But Mrs. Hudson already makes excellent desserts of her own."
    "I'll offer it to her," Holmes said, his eyes twinkling at me. After years of living together, he was well aware of my appreciation for fine cooking. "I shall come up with some pretext, and if I can't ... well, she will sigh and put it down as yet another of my trials on her patience, in addition to indoor target practice and the endless string of rogues arriving on her doorstep at all hours."
    I grinned at him in response and then, as I took another spoonful, Holmes said quietly, "I did miss you at Baker Street. It hasn't been the same without you."
    I did not intend to be cruel, nor to fish for compliments, but I could not stop myself saying, in wonderment, "And here I thought that it was all one to you whether I was there or not."
    "Never," he said fervently and, catching sight of my foolish smile, added, "You will find that I shan't say it often enough, and will doubtless still go for days without speaking, and fall prey to my "black fits", as you call them. But never doubt that I long for your company; I can't think how I ever got by before I met you."
    "And I yours," I admitted. "I have missed you terribly since I left."
    "So it was not just for the case that you invited me down here?"
    He arched an elegant brow at me and it was on the tip of my tongue to give a jesting reply to his rhetorical question but I could see, behind his habitual façade of calm detachment, the same shy wonder at the expression of my sentiments that I felt at hearing his.
    And so I leaned over to kiss him briefly before saying, quite seriously: "I have thought about you every day since I came here and, despite my best efforts to cut you from my heart, I have missed you constantly. Indeed, it began even before I left Baker Street – you know that it is possible to be in the same room as someone and yet feel that he is miles distant, gone somewhere you cannot follow him."
    "I do," he admitted softly, watching me with gray eyes that seemed almost luminous in the firelight. The intensity of his regard made me slightly uncomfortable, and I tried to change the subject as lightly as I could.
    "So then, where are you up to in your deductions regarding the case? Doubtless the whole affair is clear to you."
    "Ah, Watson," he shook his head and smiled at me affectionately. "As always, you downplay your own talents far too much. It is clear to you too, or at least it would have been after a couple of days of further investigations on your part. Perhaps it will help if I tell you that my investigations turned up the rather interesting fact that Stapleton is in fact also a descendant of Sir Hugo Baskerville."
    "Good God!"
    "Yes, you begin to see it now. Downstairs there is a portrait that I shall point out to you tomorrow, a portrait of the old villain that looks incredibly like Stapleton, to the extent that it might be the man himself. It is almost enough to convert a man to the doctrine of reincarnation."
    "But what will you do next?" I asked, agog to hear my friend's next move and he started to reply before hesitating.
    "You don't want to tell me," I said dryly, after a few silent moments of watching him shred his lip with his teeth. "You know perfectly well