Chapter Text
Few things are quite as frustrating to a man of an academic mindset as matters of a pecuniary nature. That was one of my firmest beliefs during the early years of the second decade of my life. Since leaving my family's home for the University of London, I had become acutely aware of the things a man could be forced to do because of money, or a lack thereof. Very quickly, my own monetary needs came to odds with the necessity to devote my time to developing my professional skills. After more than a year of residency in the city, I had managed to limit my expenditures to only three things of any consequence: food, rent, and the cost required to gain access to the University's texts and laboratory equipment. To my great irritation, I found myself in possession of funds sufficient for only two of the three. After being told in no uncertain terms by the University's night patrolmen that policy forbade students from kipping in the library after hours, I decided that my only course of action was to refrain from indulging in anything more extravagant than cold meat sandwiches and tea until such time as I managed to procure for myself a partner willing to suffer my idiosyncrasies--or at least one desperate enough for fiscal assistance that he wouldn't mind some late-night violin playing.
Unfortunately, such an undertaking was easier to propose than to accomplish. Five months of searching for such a man had left me the better part of a stone lighter and no closer to finding a fellow student willing to share the unseemly burden of expenses. More than once in that time, my brother, out of some misplaced sense of filial obligation, had offered to assist with my debts, insisting that I looked positively haggard. It wasn't just personal pride that caused me to turn down Mycroft's generosity. While I would like to say that it was because he was only making enough to support himself in his London flat, in truth my motive was far less altruistic. Despite familial pressures to become a barrister or a judiciary or to take up some other acceptable profession, I had always known in what manner I wished to make my livelihood. As a young lad, I may not have been entirely able to foresee the exact direction in which events would unfold, but my life had only ever held one passion. My time in London, every available moment of it, had been devoted to crafting an entirely new and otherwise unheard of profession. In order for my chosen field to command any respect, it had to be capable of supporting me on its own merits. Accepting handouts or charity, even from my own brother, would have diminished the accomplishments that I had been working so arduously to achieve.
At the moment, all incoming funds were immediately turned around to purchase the materials necessary for my trade. Oh, how my father would have hated that word: "trade". Not even my brother, the only person in the entire Holmes clan whose company I could endure for long stretches of time, not even he understood the necessity of sweating or becoming dirty in order to put food on the table for the day. Or that people who cannot afford outlandish fees are typically those most in need of those charging for their services. For that reason, I made it my practice to turn no one away who came to me for assistance. For that reason, all manner of Londoners had crossed my doorstep over the past year. At this point in my fledgling career, most of my clients were taken on not to pay my own bills but to spread the word of my ability and the quality of my service. Those people sent to me by private inquiring agencies, typically had such mundane and dreadfully boring problems that I could hardly be bothered to answer their questions. It was a rare and wonderful thing when one had a mystery so profound that I actually had to leave my sitting room in order to deduce the proper solution. No, it was with men such as Gregson and Lestrade that I should one day make my mark. For the present, they took all the credit for my deductive reasoning, and I gained little notoriety, but a great deal of invaluable experience --though not from the men themselves. To my great dismay, I was reminded time and again that Scotland Yard's finest were woefully out of their depth. But Gregson and Lestrade granted me access to crime scenes from robbery to murders, and association with them allowed me to form a network of contacts within the constabulary of the Yard – even if most of them were a pack of thick-skulled imbeciles without a modicum of common sense.
Which brings me back to the subject of my classmates. In the end, I suppose it was for the best that I could find no one willing to go into diggings with me. Even at the best of times, the small-mindedness of others taxes my patience. Though it was of supreme injustice that not twenty-four hours after my latest rejection, I found the most remarkable set of rooms imaginable. The landlady, one Mrs Hudson by name, had opened the upper level of her home to take on renters. She had said, in the brief interview that I had with her, that it was a waste to let the space go unused now that her children were all grown. However, it was my supposition that with the recent death of her husband, the lady was eager for some occupation to keep her mind and hands busy. Regardless of the fact that I could not bring to mind the name of a single individual left to ask about sharing lodgings, I gave Mrs Hudson every coin in my possession not absolutely necessary to pay for the use of the hospital laboratory. In exchange, she agreed to hold the rooms for me until I could find a suitable flatmate, and she had most obligingly consented to a two-week stay on the remainder of the cost to allow me such time. Once I found a suitable man of sufficient means, we would be able to move in immediately. Otherwise, the funds would be returned to me, and the most perfect set of rooms would be given to another party. I made quite certain to leave her with no impression that I had completely run out of acquaintances to whom I could propose such an arrangement.
With no one left to call upon, I decided to sequester myself away for a day or two before tackling the arduous task of accosting complete strangers in order to find a flatmate. Typically, any amount of time spent in the laboratory was enough to raise my spirits from whatever occasional black cloud might settle upon me; however, with the threat of utter destitution looming in my immediate future, there was no spring in my step as I made my way to the chemical storeroom, despite the prospect of several hours of intense research. As I entered the room, I found one of my fellows there, having just finished up. Samson was his name; that, or Stamford; perhaps Standish. I couldn't recall anything beyond the memory that he was a dull and uninquisitive man. In proper observance of social niceties, he hailed me, and we exchanged pleasantries. It turned out that he was at the hospital for a series of seminars on advanced surgical techniques being given by a number of visiting scholars.
When he inquired after my health, I couldn't help lamenting my current living arrangements, the Baker Street lodgings, and my lack of an obliging partner. Thankfully, he only offered his condolences and went about his business, leaving me to mine. I was grateful for that, as I had an incredibly complex and long-standing project to take up. Since coming to London and having access to sufficiently delicate equipment, I had been attempting to devise a method by which different types of blood could be perceived from one another. My success in this matter would lend immeasurable aid to police investigations. While Lestrade and Gregson currently benefitted from my direct assistance in their cases, a breakthrough of this magnitude would allow those unable to seek my advice to differentiate human blood from animal blood or to precipitate it out of a larger body of liquid. So many innocents could be spared, and just as many villains could be sent to the rope, if only I could improve upon the inadequate Guiacum test currently in place.
The elementary aspect of the experiment was, of course, to isolate the contents of the blood cells. When immersed in water, red blood cells lyse and spill their contents into the solution. An alkaline state causes the hemoglobin to denature, and such can be achieved by adding a base solvent. The trick of the matter had been determining exactly which solvent--or combination thereof--to use. Fortunately, mine is a temperament that thrives upon such challenges. Even a short time among my glassware and chemicals and lamps put me in a much improved state of mind. It is understandable to me how one not in the profession might not fully comprehend either the magnitude of such a discovery as that of which I was on the cusp, or my enthusiasm at discovering the proper mixture at long last. The hours bent over the bench that afternoon had, rather unexpectedly, produced the very effect that I had desired. The process began with seven milliliters of distilled water in a clean and sterilized test tube, to which a single drop of blood was added. The number of plaster squares upon my hands attested to the many trials I had given to this endeavor. From there, I mixed one gram of crystalline sodium hydroxide which, once fully dissolved, turned the solution a dull mahogany color. The true touch of genius was the stroke of insight that led me to use that in combination with two and a half milliliters of saturated ammonium sulfate. I was barely able to contain myself as I watched the brownish dust precipitate out.
So overcome was I by my discovery, that I leapt to my feet the moment that I heard another enter the laboratory. "I've found it!" I shouted, holding up the test tube for all to see. Standish-whomever had returned to the lab along with a gentleman perhaps only a few years his senior. Upon cursory observation, I presumed him to be associated with the seminar of which my classmate had spoken, as the man was clearly a surgeon recently returned from Afghanistan. The slight limp in his gait and the stiff manner in which he carried himself as he walked spoke of having been wounded in battle, and the degree to which he tried to cover the signs of his injuries suggested that he either wanted no one to know of his wounds or that he wished to play them down in an effort to be returned to active duty at the front. Either way, surgeon or not, military men held very little of my regard at the moment, and so I wasted no time in latching myself upon my classmate's arm to tell him of my discovery.
"I've found it," I repeated with no less exuberance than the first time. Once again, I held up the test tube for his inspection, and I couldn't bring myself to care in the slightest that I was beaming like a child on Christmas Day in front of a total stranger. "At great length, I have finally found a reagent which causes the precipitation of human hemoglobin from a solution, and nothing else."
Without so much as a remark on my magnificent accomplishment, Stamford made a point of reminding me of my manners. "Doctor Watson," said he, "this is Mister Sherlock Holmes." Having been put in my place regarding proper etiquette, I extended my hand in greeting, though the doctor did seem taken aback when I made a casual observation about his background. Regardless of his curiosity on the matter, I wasn't to be swayed from the more important matter at hand: my experiment. A dismissive remark on my discovery had hardly left the doctor's lips before I had seized him by the coat sleeve to draw him over to where my chemicals and vials were still set up.
It must be said that my esteem for Dr John Watson improved by leaps and bounds in the minutes that followed. Stamford's disinterest in my work wasn't surprising in the least, but Watson looked on with rapt attention as I lanced a fresh finger to demonstrate. As my brother can attest, I always do my best work with another of a like mind looking on, and Watson proved to be a most obliging audience as I repeated the steps necessary to isolate the hemoglobin in my blood. The ability to test dried blood days, weeks, even months old had been, until now, an impossibility for Scotland Yard, as unmanageable a task for them as it was for my classmate to imagine a reason for needing such a test. It was only my great strength of character and the presence of a guest that kept me from making any untoward remarks about his intelligence. I realized anew why it was that he and I never spoke outside of the chance encounter at the hospital, although his friend, Watson, was quickly grabbing more and more of my interest. His sharp eyes were kept keenly on my labors as I went about producing another precipitation of the brownish cells. Had Watson been staying long, I should have been tempted to invite him back to participate in future experiments. Now that I had isolated human blood, there was still much work to do in order to differentiate other types of blood as well for the purposes of police testing. From the way Watson continued to examine myself and the materials laid out about me on the workbench, it seemed like a pursuit he might be taken with. However, I did not then have a chance to fully form the idea.
While I was applying a bit more plaster to my hand, Stamford, whom I'd very nearly forgotten was even there, uttered the only words that could have possibly made me more pleased than I already was. "We came here on business," said he as he seated himself on a high stool and rather casually offered the other to his companion by sliding it over with his foot. "My friend here wants to take diggings, and as you were complaining that you could get no one to go halves with you, I thought that I had better bring you together."
I was nearly floored by the news. Not only had the prospect arisen of a person with whom I could share the most perfect set of rooms, but he was both a gentleman and a scholar. I was so positively giddy at that moment that it's a wonder I didn't send the man running from the room with my inability to properly articulate a thought. Everything said from that point, it seemed, made me laugh and smile, which might have given Watson something of a skewed perspective of my usual disposition. It all seemed too perfect to be true: a quiet, studious man with a certain military pension who was interested in expanding his mind and didn't know any better than to go halves with me on a very reasonably priced set of rooms. Rather than having him change his mind only a few short weeks into our partnership, I decided it best to lay out my vices plainly for him to see. Standish must not have told him much of my character, for Watson still seemed to be intent and amiable about taking up with me. I was somewhat close to the subject for total objectivity, but I did point out to him what I felt were my greatest faults. I smoke constantly when the fit is upon me, I surround myself with experiments and chemicals, and I keep the oddest of hours.
"Would that annoy you?" I inquired of him, hopeful that there would be no reason for objection. When none was forthcoming, I felt compelled to add, "Sometimes, I get down in the dumps and don't open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when I do that. Just leave me alone, and I'll soon be right again. My melancholy and periodic fits of insomnia are typically brief and passing." Standish was trying to reign in his expression, stating clearly in his silence that he felt I had a number of other faults as well. Which was only fair, I suppose, that my peers should think less of me, as I consider them all to be imbeciles. "What have you to confess now? It's just as well for two fellows to know the worst of each other before they begin to live together."
My classmate's silence didn't deter Watson from his own enthusiasm as he listed inconsequential factors about himself that were far cries from being 'faults', most of which overlapped with my own. Beyond that, the injuries he had sustained in the war made him a bit sensitive to excessive ruckus, and his continued convalescence caused him to have some difficulty sleeping easily. The only minor point of concern was his ownership of a pup. I wasn't entirely certain how Mrs Hudson would feel about the matter, but there was no harm in asking her if the animal might be permitted.
I don't typically consider myself to be a vain person, no more so than the typical man, but I must admit to taking a great deal of pleasure in the way that Watson hung on my every word and even turned back again to take in my experiment once more. It was amazing, I thought just then, how one can start a day in such a foul mood, wondering how one would eat that evening, only to finish the day with a chemical discovery that would revolutionize the modern policing practice as well as having obtained a new flatmate. A flatmate, moreover, who not only needed my assistance as much as I needed his, but who also held the promise of a true companion with whom I could pleasantly share my days. "I think we may consider the thing as settled," I said with another merry laugh, clapping my hands once at the prospect. "That is, of course, if the rooms are agreeable to you."
"When shall we see them?" The slight note of anxious excitement in his tone did wonders for assuring me that he felt that this matter would go smoothly as well.
"Call for me here at noon, tomorrow," I replied, taking his hand once more as Stamford rose to take his leave. "Meet me here, and we'll go 'round together and settle everything."
*****