The Adventure of the Man Who Never Laughed

John H. Watson, M. D. Discovered by J. N. Williamson

It was past the middle of December, in the year '94, that I woke one morning with a start and a distinct impression that some uncommon sound had disturbed my slumber. The clock on the mantelpiece indicated it was not yet seven, and I lay quite still for some seconds attempting to expel a vague presentiment of danger. My friend Sherlock Holmes rarely rose before I was ready for my medical rounds, but there was no question that he still had enemies whose dearest desire was his extermination. After all, it had been only the spring of the present year when Colonel Sebastian Moran had endeavoured to slay Holmes with a powerful air rifle.

Persuaded that my fears were probably the product of having again read Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" before falling asleep, I slid from bed, donned my robe, and tiptoed across the bedroom floor to the door. I opened it as quietly as possible and descended the stairs even more noiselessly to the sitting room.

"My congratulations, old fellow," a voice called. "You have single-handedly proved the contention that some aging faculties may improve in compensation for the deterioration of others."

"Holmes!" I cried as I stepped into the room. "You are already up and around."

"Very good, Watson." He glanced up with a wry smile. "Perhaps the acuity of your vision has not diminished to the degree I feared."

His remarks perplexed me. "My eyesight is normal for a man in his middle years," I said. I drew my robe more tightly round my waist as I walked toward my chair. "Or was that a jest, an allusion to my occasional failure to perceive things as swiftly as you do?"

"You are as astute as if it were midday," he murmured, and returned his attention to his previous activities.

Sherlock Holmes was seated cross-legged in the centre of the floor, barefoot but wearing his favourite mouse-coloured dressing gown. His hawk-nosed face was in profile and I marvelled anew at his capacity for concentration so keen it rendered the rest of the world invisible.

Sitting, I saw several incoming letters were open to his left, another roughly half a foot to the front. Several sheets of his own writing paper and envelopes were to Holmes's right, while two of his letters were ready to be posted and he seemed in the midst of a third. I had no idea why he had not chosen to use the writing desk.

"You could apologize for waking me," I said with pique.

"And if I do not do so," Holmes answered, "you may be assured there is a reason for my apparent rudeness." His moving pen stopped for an instant. "I should think you would be pleased to find me with an amiable disposition. For years you have tried to wheedle me into assuming your relentlessly cheerful seasonal mood."

The thought passed my mind to say I had not realized he was cheerful, but the desire to ask Mrs. Hudson for breakfast combined with curiosity overcame the impulse. "To what may I attribute this phenomenon in you, Holmes? Have you been sought to investigate a scandal linked to one of the royal families of Europe?"

"Not at all," he replied, chuckling. "On the one hand, Watson"—he clapped his left palm on the stack of open letters, his right on his sealed envelopes—"I have two intriguing new correspondents for whom civility requires a response." He pointed to the letter separate from the others, a brow rising. "On the other hand is the prospect of a client whose problems may be marginally more challenging than their domestic nature implies. She will call on us within the hour."

"Just yesterday you complained about a complete dearth of cases," I reminded Holmes. "You cited, if memory serves, 'this endless period of Yuletide sentiment.' "

"So I did, Watson," he said agreeably. A long, panama-clad leg shot out and he wriggled his pale toes. "But the special post only today brought the letter in question, knocking me up in the process. I daresay you were awakened in similar fashion, although it took you somewhat longer to break the spell of Morpheus."

"Ah!" I exhaled, nodding. "That is why you did not apologize for rousing me."

"Because I was merely the instrument of your inconvenience, not the cause," Holmes said. "Once afoot, I elected then to begin responding to my mail." He snatched up a letter to him, wafted it aloft. "Is the name 'Thomas Nast' at all familiar to you, Watson?"

I ransacked my memory. "Is he not an artist of some kind?"

"Precisely. Mr. Nast is an American newspaper artist whose cartoons have used satire to attack the New York politicians of what is termed 'Tammany Hall.' For some time we have exchanged letters of mutual regard. I see Nast as having cleverly extended the arm of the law, and he perceives me in the same light."

"And his present letter?"

Holmes, remarkably, chortled with glee. "He has accepted my proposed image for sketches he means to create depicting Father Christmas!"

"Congratulations, old friend!" I said sincerely. "But what image did you suggest?"

"My brother, Mycroft!" Holmes retorted, exuberantly pounding the floor with his fist and laughing. The mail on the floor bounced. "You yourself described his 'absolute corpulence,' his 'great bulk.' I recalled his wish to be of service to the government—in short, to others. And we are all mere children before my older brother's genius, or his size! Nast says he will add a beard and, in all probability, a smile! Come, what do you think of an old colleague who has reminded you of Ebenezer Scrooge now that he has made such a contribution to your precious Yuletide!"

I was at a loss to do more than add further congratulations. I added, "May I ask the identity of your second new correspondent?"

Holmes stretched his arms until he could lock his fingers round his toes. An affable gleam was in his eyes as he rocked lightly to and fro, exercising. "He is an extraordinary fellow who also lives in America, virtually in libraries, where he compiles lists. He haunts the files of old newspapers and other publications for oddities—anomalies of nature, and those of man."

"Odd chap." I fear I spoke hastily for I had heard Mrs. Hudson bustling around below us and I was eager to inform our landlady we were ready for breakfast. "I suppose he has other qualities you find interesting."

"Not one," Holmes replied immediately, freeing his toes and peering over at me with some annoyance. "I cited his single appeal to my intellect. In Charles Fort I sense a kindred spirit in some particulars. Fort is sceptical, understands that facts are what they wish to be and lack all flexibility. Well, it happens that I added to his collection of queer data which Fort calls 'damned.¹ "

I had gone to the landing, leaving the door ajar, and succeeded in signalling Mrs. Hudson. Now, closing the door, I returned my attention to my friend. "Good Lord, Holmes, why does the man call facts such a thing?"

He uncoiled from the floor like some magnificent jungle cat, brushing at his dressing gown before stooping to don his slippers. "Innumerable facts are despised by the close-minded, therefore effectually ostracized; ignored." He strode briskly to a shelf of his commonplace books and pulled out the volume labelled "K" in his own distinct penmanship. He held it out to me. "I sealed my letter to Fort. However, if you should like to see for yourself what obvious yet largely ignored fact I am sending him, do be my guest."

I opened the book, my gaze falling upon such entries as "Kaolin clay and its potential for concealing and preserving fingerprints," "Knights of the Golden Circle—link to the hooded Neal family victims?" and "Kisner and Koontz, outside the Valley of the Howl." I glanced at the detective. "For what am I looking, Holmes?"

"The town of Kottenforst, Germany," he called, seemingly about to resume his correspondence while seated at the desk. "It is a short distance from Bonn."

Leafing through the pages, I felt an honour had been bestowed upon me. Holmes often asked me to read telegrams and newspaper items aloud but rarely invited me to peer into his great, erratically organized commonplace books. Under the heading of Kottenforst I learned of an unrusted metal column called the Iron Man rising fewer than five feet from the ground and running some ninety feet deep—for no purpose anyone living has discovered! Amazingly, records of its existence have been found in writings from the late fourteenth century. "Plunging it through limestone and rock," Holmes's scrawl continued, "would have been virtually impossible five hundred years ago. Who put it there, and how? Why does 'the Iron Man' exist at all?"

There the entry ended and I turned to my friend with a mixture of inexplicable apprehension and irritation. "This is damned nonsense!" I exclaimed.

Holmes did not look up but simply patted his sealed letter to Charles Fort, not quite concealing his satisfied smile. I experienced a measure of relief when, a few minutes later, our reliable landlady tapped on the door with breakfast.

I ate silently while Holmes, at the desk, scribbled letters at a pace I knew from years of association would render his writing almost illegible to recipients unversed in his hand. He paused now and again to gulp hot tea or take bites from the slices of toast provided by Mrs. Hudson until they appeared to have been nibbled upon by tentative rodents. Finished at length with letters and meal, Holmes darted upstairs to dress for our expected caller.

I had just followed suit and rejoined Holmes in the sitting room when, with a great moan, he tumbled back on the sofa, forearm slung across his face.

"What is it, Holmes?" I cried, rushing to his side. "Are you in much pain?"

"Only the agony of one who can mark the difference between the profound and the superficial," he groaned. The message delivered by special post dangled from his fingertips, and that arm was out flung in despair. "Only the torment of a man who has been to the brink with Moriarty, outsmarted the second most dangerous man in London, and has destroyed his career by striving for perfection and reaching it. I cannot lie to myself about this matter or its simplicity."

He appeared to be seeking to hand me the letter and so I took and read it.

My dear Mr. Holmes:

I am well aware that you are accustomed to using your vast knowledge for personages far more important than my poor brother and me. However, I love Sydney with all my heart, and his mysterious disappearance means I have no one left to whom I may turn for guidance.

Briefly stated, the facts are that my brother's disposition changed greatly in a short period of time though he assured me he has done nothing wrong. Sydney was one who always loved me, and looked forward yearly to joining with other carolers at Christmastime. During the period of his change, he began avoiding me without animosity between us, and his vanishing convinces me he is in danger of some variety. I beg you to find and help him.

I haven't contacted the authorities because, despite my brother's spotless reputation as an aspiring author, some illness may have caused him to behave rashly. It may be of interest to read that Sydney, who took rooms in Montague Place since this all started, cannot smile or laugh.

A consulting detective such as you. Mr. Holmes, might be able to deduce my brother's whereabouts in a very short period and return expeditiously to matters of state.

The letter's writer mentioned the hour at which she would visit Baker Street, and signed herself Eleanor Chesterfield. I noted her address was on Mildenhall Road.

Sighing, Holmes was struggling into a resigned seated position. "What do you make of this, Watson?"

I studied the message closely. "They are doubtlessly impecunious since Montague Place has declined. The fact that the brother is attempting to become a writer makes it rather likely he has acquired debts which he has hidden from sister." I studied the letter line by line, even held it up to the light. "Poverty and debt often conspire to remove the smile from a man's face and turn him solitary."

Holmes said, tonelessly, "Is that all?"

"It's mere surmise, Holmes, but I would not hesitate to say the message is a most disciplined effort on the part of an aging maiden woman rendered virtually helpless by Sydney's absence." I shrugged. "If he is ill, it may be that the poor old soul has wandered off due to his mental infirmity. Do you follow my conclusions?"

"Only with peril, Watson." Holmes stood at the mantel examining his tobacco dottles from the previous day. As a rule he used them for his day's first pipe, but answering letters had preoccupied him this morning. "Both sister and brother lived on Mildenhall Road with its well-to-do residences until he moved, to be on his own. That deed, coupled with the decision to pursue a new career, suggests the thinking of a younger man. Not one afflicted with senility." He had his pipe going and his head was wreathed by pungent smoke. "At least your hearing has not suffered."

I was annoyed as I poured myself a final cup of tea and found it cold. "I suppose you deduce a great deal more from Miss Chesterfield's letter?"

"Quality means more than quantity in the art of deduction." Holmes crossed to the bow window, drew back the curtains, and peered out at Baker Street. "My client is a young, intelligent woman of considerable persuasion, accustomed to being her sibling's prevailing influence. Her reference to my skill at the outset and close of her missive demonstrates the former, her lack of understanding of his ambition the latter. The two resided together until the demise of their parents, who willed the property to them. I also know that Sydney has either led a double life throughout his adult years or is, indeed, strangely ill and in the depths of misery."

"It could be both," I said helpfully.

Holmes was lost in his track of thought. "It is embarrassment that prevented the lady from seeking official assistance. She preferred to contact no one about her brother's apparent disappearance until overcome both by sisterly love and the same sentimental attachment to this season which infects so many people each year."

"How can you deduce the latter. Holmes?" I asked.

"My dear fellow," he murmured, "what other conclusion is possible when Miss Chesterfield presents no reason for waiting to consult me, then does so suddenly by special post—early on a day when groups of carolers are beginning to move into the streets? It is clear she felt Sydney would return to his digs in time for the annual festivities, but her preference for privacy gave way to love and genuine concern." He released the curtain and went rapidly to his chair. "The same reasoning leads to the deduction that both of them lived in Mildenhall until their parents died, when, at last, he chose to pursue his literary career. An older man would have struck out on his own sooner." Holmes sat down, drummed his fingertips on the arms. "A carriage has arrived, Watson. We should hear the lady's footsteps on the stairs—now."

The unmistakable noise of woman's heels reached our ears simultaneously. My friend fell back in his chair, smiling and smoking. I was unaware he was listening closely enough to count the seventeen steps to our rooms until, before there was a rap, Holmes called, "Please, Miss Chesterfield—come in!"

The woman who entered did so before I was able to open the door for her. She stared at Holmes and then at me. "You have described Mr. Holmes exceptionally well," she said in genteel accents. As she allowed me to take her black winter coat, I saw that she was petite and fine featured, with blonde hair swept up from the neck. "I would have known you anywhere, Mr. Holmes."

"And I you, madam," my friend said, rising but briefly before falling back into his chair. He raised a single, golden hair doubtlessly plucked from the lady's letter. "Observe, Doctor, that Miss Chesterfield is some eight and twenty years of age. I take it your brother Sydney is not yet in his dotage?"

Her laugh, I confess, was that of a properly reared lady. "He is three years my junior. I become twenty-eight in June. Pray tell me what else you know about me, Mr. Holmes, and from what you accomplish your deductions?"

Holmes drew heavily on his pipe. "As to the latter, my sole sources of data are the letter you dispatched, and your person. As to the former, I informed Dr. Watson that your parents perished before your brother departed the home, that you imagined his problems not sufficient to keep him from a homecoming, and that you concluded his inability to smile or laugh lies near the root of his situation." Holmes's eyes narrowed. "I also have reason to think you fear for his sanity and what he may do, to others or to himself."

I was studying her refined features and saw her turn uncommonly pale. "Holmes, that is exceedingly direct and personal, even if you are correct."

"Yet he is correct, Doctor," Eleanor Chesterfield said, mustering a courageous smile I thought admirable. "The matter is both personal and delicate."

"Then I certainly commend your judgment in scorning the official police. And," Holmes added, "rest assured that what is spoken here will remain confidential." He pressed his fingertips together. "Comprehension, however, is my ally. Did your brother leave his family home because you disapproved of his ambitions or for any other point of contention between you?"

"Absolutely not, except I desired Sydney to consult a physician. Apart from that, I knew that the inheritance left equally to us finally gave him the opportunity to pursue his talents."

"Yet is it not curious for him to take rooms in a less comfortable residence?" Holmes relit his pipe. "Wouldn't Mildenhall have had a room suitable as a study?"

One of her pale hands fluttered. "I have no explanation for his choice apart from his impairment." She sat forward. "Sydney was never a jovial or sociable child and our father expressed his dissatisfaction clearly that my brother's aptitudes leaned more to the creative than to finance. Sydney was animated only with me, or in song. But even before he left home his moods had darkened. He denied anything was wrong even though he scowled and rarely spoke. Then, dwelling alone, his attitude seemed swiftly to deteriorate." Her voice faded and she appeared unable to continue.

"Please, proceed," Holmes said levelly.

"He refused most of my invitations," Miss Chesterfield resumed. "Several weeks ago, when he relented and came for dinner, I was obliged to make most of the conversation. Yet when he was otherwise amused by something I said to make him smile, his face remained expressionless, and ..." She broke off speaking.

"You really must tell us everything," I said from my chair beside her, patting her hand.

She gazed desperately at Holmes. "Sydney was able only to make strange, grunting noises in lieu of laughter." She made the effort not to sob. "They sounded quite—porcine. He was aware of it, too, I'm sure. He averted his face, then leapt to his feet and bolted for the door. I have not seen or heard from him since then."

"Some questions of extreme importance," said Holmes. Erect in his chair, his authority could not have been denied. "On that evening, did your brother say or do anything whatsoever that was unmistakably irrational? In short, despite your concern that his condition might cause him to behave 'rashly,' is there a logical reason apart from the expressionlessness, inappropriate vocal sounds, or his leaving your house, to believe he was suffering a mental breakdown?"

"Why, no." A glimmer of hope restored some colour to the lady's cheeks. "Furthermore, I know of no one he hates or fears, and I begged him to admit it if he had made some unwise investment, but he denied it." She paused. "The only peculiar statement he uttered was made while climbing into a carriage for the trip back to his rooms. 'Don't you know, sister,' he said, 'I'm the one person you cannot take at face value?' Then," Miss Chesterfield finished, shuddering, "he grimaced hideously as he was borne away."

My friend accepted a photograph of Sydney from a few years in the past, then mystified me with two last questions. He asked whether the brother sang tenor or baritone, and the name of the church that the family attended, which proved to be Saint Agnes in Cricklewood.

"Please locate him," Miss Chesterfield said while I held the door open for her. "Assure him I shall stand beside him whatever the nature of his problem."

"Find him, I shall, madam," Holmes promised from in front of his chair. "Perhaps just as 'expeditiously' as your letter so persuasively implored me to do. You may expect to hear from me."

When I no longer heard her heels striking the stairs, I turned to Holmes with some exasperation. "I cannot recall when you have sworn to solve a case, Holmes. Or for that matter, responded less warmly to a client's difficulties."

"But I did not promise Miss Chesterfield a happy Christmas, old fellow, merely to locate Sydney. He is plagued by an enigmatic malady, indeed." He was slipping into a topcoat. "As for the rest, I failed neither to observe that the lady is comely nor that you did, as well. Her attractiveness means little to me and does not make the case a fraction more challenging to me."

"May I inquire where you are going, Holmes?"

The door opened and he paused. "Why, I am going to church, Watson. I believe such attendance was a prominent element of the Christmas season before the giving of gifts and the consumption of certain fowl became de rigueur"

And so for the next many hours I was alone with no patients on my schedule that day. I found all this irksome with so much leisure time bestowed upon me at such an early hour. I found a publication containing a medical paper I had meant to read, and settled into my chair. Entitled "The Psychic Mechanism of Hysterical Phenomena," the paper written by Dr. Freud and another Austrian, Josef Breuer, startled me by carrying Freud's sudden change of method in his treatment of hysteria. Rather than hypnotism, announced the article, the famed Viennese psychiatrist laid a foundation for analyzing a patient's psyche through something termed "free association."

I continued reading, attempting to absorb the pertinent points, until a mixture of lost sleep and the morning's excitement caused me to doze in my chair.

I awoke to music and straightened, knuckling my eyes. It took another instant to perceive both that Holmes was not present and the melodic noises came from a chorus on the street outside, singing carols. Squinting down from the window, I saw a goodly number of singers just two buildings away. Marvellous to discover, too, London was enjoying its first snowfall of the season!

Moments later, humming, I was dashing down the steps, pausing only long enough to ask Mrs. Hudson to put on hot chocolate for our music makers. Then I was out the front door, ready to greet them with my beaming audience of one and a baritone I had once believed rich enough for a life on the stage, a fact I had told no one.

Some sixteen singers of equal sexual character were completing a hearty rendition of "Good King Wenceslas" as they approached 221. Spying me through the flurries of this wintry late afternoon, the carolers began a particularly rousing "God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen," to which I now and then added my sonorous baritone. Most of the time, however, despite plummeting temperatures, I was happy to listen. The spiralling whiteness reminded me of lightning with its fury spent. Memories of this doorway, this house, also materialized in my mind's eye. Even while married, I had rarely been more than the distance of a telegram from Baker Street, and Holmes's adventures that were the nearest I would come again to the perils and thrills of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers and the Second Afghan War.

While the carolers sang a second chorus, Mrs. Hudson arrived with refreshments and a number of mugs. I had been rubbing my hands together for warmth and took a cup myself. It was then I noticed one tenor voice stood out above the others. His clear if rather insistent harmony on the line, "Oh, tidings of comfort and joy" made the fellow easy to locate. When they finished the carol and several of them shared Mrs. Hudson's capacious mugs, I was surprised when the tenor sidled over beside me. He was an elderly person   with    mutton-chop   whiskers,   robust   enough   despite rounded shoulders and a hitch in his gait. I supposed he desired to thank me for arranging a repast.

Instead, he gave me an audacious wink. "I really don't think you should be on the pavement without protection against the cold, Watson," he offered sotto voce. "You may perchance have observed it is snowing?"

I almost cried "Holmes!" but swiftly realized my friend must be in disguise on behalf of Eleanor and Sydney Chesterfield. "You did not leave home in disguise, Holmes," I said softly, impressed once more by his remarkable makeup skill.

"You were snoring too loudly when I returned from Saint Agnes church even to have heard the caroling group of which I have become the latest member had we practiced by the mantelpiece." He took my hot chocolate mug from my hand and drank the rest with his head thrown back, a gesture I had never seen Holmes make before. "This was our practice, by the bye—necessary because / am the replacement for young Mr. Sydney Chesterfield!"

"Your violin playing is masterful," I said, "yet I have no recollection of your singing. How can this possibly serve to locate your client's brother?"

Holmes put the mug back into my hands airily and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "I may have a visitor before I return at the end of the early evening, old fellow, a gentleman with the sense to have wound a scarf round his face to guard against Jack Frost. Please admit him and ignore a surly or caustic disposition." In a louder, unfamiliar voice, he said, "Many thanks for the libation!"

All the carolers including Sherlock Holmes wished me season's greetings and were off to serenade Baker Street!

I spent the next hour or so completing an alert reading of the Freud and Breuer paper, then consumed a lonely evening meal. Of course, my thoughts reviewed the events of the day and I attempted to apply my professional training to the problems of our lovely client's brother and the symptoms we had heard described.

I recalled that it had been just six years ago, in '88, when Waldeyer-Hartz suggested the nervous system was built from separate cells with frail extensions. Disruption of them, I theorized, could account for an inability to smile or laugh. Some Italian had named the cells "neurons," the minute gaps between them—

My ponderings were interrupted by a strong, sharp knock at the door.

A slender man bundled from head to foot—a Scotch bonnet on top, a scarf concealing his face but for striking deep brown eyes, Navy frock coat buttoned at the neck to pinion the lower portion of the scarf, matching trousers, and boots—stood in the doorway. "Is this the residence of that arrogant dilettante/' the chap demanded, "who thinks he can make a single appearance and lord it over the regular carolers?"

His hands were fisted, but this was not morning and John H. Watson may be depended upon in a pinch. "My friend is out, but expected shortly," I said evenly and stood back from the door. "I'm sure he would like to make your acquaintance, and explain. Come in, please."

He paused, then entered, his manner still truculent. "He won't like to see me, sir." Following my gesture, he took a chair. Perched on the edge, he glared up with outraged eyes. "Not even a member of Saint Agnes, but he told Mr. Calhoun, the conductor, he could 'sing rings around your last lead tenor'—right before the other singers! I wouldn't even know of the slander if a friend who was present hadn't come to me."

"May I have your coat and hat," I asked politely, "and your scarf?" Virtually certain the caller was Sydney Chesterfield himself, I was filled with medical curiosity to inspect his face. An idea occurred to me. "Something to drink?"

He gave me a curt shake of the head, relaxed, and leaned back. "My apologies for the rudeness. It's not your fault what a friend does." A heavy sigh. "Nobody can account for people's behaviour, and that is why I am striving to become a writer. To understand their natures better."

"And your own as well, I trust?" Holmes stepped quickly through the door and strode across the room. Our guest did not leap up, as I had feared, because Holmes was conspicuously peeling off his mutton-chop whiskers and removing both white eyebrows and twenty years of age. Snapping to his erect, full height, he put out a hand to the younger man. "I am Sherlock Holmes, and the gentleman who admitted you is my colleague, Dr. Watson." He lifted the artificial whiskers. "Perhaps you, too, would like to end the charade, Mr. Chesterfield? I doubt your face would alarm two gentlemen whose activities have left them fairly shock-proof!"

Chesterfield froze but he did not remove the concealing scarf. "How do you know me or my problems? Why did you deride my singing in front of the choir and join our caroling group?" His eyes narrowed. "Was my sister, Eleanor, here?"

Holmes, sitting, began a new pipe. "So many questions! Your sister engaged me this morning to find you. She was quite concerned and implied your enjoyment of caroling is so considerable you would not fail to participate unless a 'problem' made it impossible." He shrugged. "It was a simple matter to speak privately with your conductor, discover that a friend of yours was present who should know where you were, and—believing you could be taunted into showing yourself—express a scornful assessment of your vocal skills. I take it Mr. Calhoun was good enough to divulge my address?"

"I fail utterly to see what my well-being or interests have to do with either of you," Sydney said angrily. "But since your intrusion has gone this far, you may as well know that, living alone, I lost the last control I had of my facial muscles." He removed the Scotch bonnet, began to unwind the scarf. I had glimpsed the picture of him handed to my friend by Chesterfield's sister and found an amiably moustached face many women would have called handsome. Even knowing he was afflicted, I was unprepared for what I now saw in our guest chair.

He still had his mustache and was as fair as his sister. His features, however, were locked in a grimace that expressed depths of frustrated fury. That was not the worst of it. But for the flashing, wary eyes, Chesterfield's face might have been in the grips of rigor mortis. "You have suffered this condition increasingly," I began, "since you were a small lad. Is that not true?"

"It is," he agreed, surprise in his eyes. "However, my parents chose to think I was slow, sullen, given to dark moods, so I saw no physician and ceased to mention it." His lips moved sufficiently for him to speak clearly. "I disappointed Father so much that, when he died, our home seemed haunted. I could not stay and took inexpensive rooms rather than depend upon Father's money. Guilt over him made my writing progress slow, turned me resentful. I fear Eleanor thought I blamed her, when she was all I ever truly had." Tears shone in his eyes. "I knew no way to explain my need to discover if I could fend for myself, or that a friendship I formed with another caroller was—as you know, Mr. Holmes— with a young lady. And without her interest I should never have been able to survive without Eleanor, my church, or my caroling group."

I was taken aback when Eleanor Chesterfield was abruptly among us, and then I realized Holmes must have fetched her from Mildenhall Road. Without my noticing, he had signalled her to enter and now stood puffing beside the door, smiling watchfully and thinly.

"Sydney, I understand," Eleanor said, clasping her brother's hand."You clearly possess our father's independent streak." She stooped to kiss his forehead. "And I am eager to meet your lady friend when you decide the time is right." She turned prettily to Sherlock Holmes. "You, sir, are everything Dr. Watson has claimed you are! To think it was just this morning I consulted you for your assistance!"

"Well, well," Holmes said with a courteous bow, "I had the 'matters of state' you mentioned in your letter and had to work swiftly. It was instantly clear that your brother was a sensitive fellow with artistic tastes—a variety with which I am somewhat familiar. Such men cling dearly to their realms of talent, and guard them zealously. If Sydney knew a meddlesome stranger was speaking derogatively of his musical talent, he would emerge from the shadows to answer his critic—if he lived, of course."

Young Chesterfield clung to his older sister's hand. "I have been a vain fool, and two women have made that clear," he said. Sydney made a guttural sound in his throat that recalled Eleanor's accurate description of his attempt at laughter. "It is a pity I'm too much a fright to go caroling, yet it seems I still have my sister and a sympathetic friend. Name your fee, Mr. Holmes, and I shall pay it myself with gratitude."

"Ah, but this case is not over!" Holmes answered. "Dr. Watson's question to you about your condition's origins in childhood implies that he concurs." He motioned to brother and sister to sit, his pipe making a layer of smoke upon the ceiling. "When I found no evidence of criminality or madness on your part, Mr. Chesterfield, my logical conclusion was that something is amiss in the functioning of your brain or nervous system. They are man's most complex of organs and systems, and damage to either can topple even the giants among us as if we were intellectual saplings."

"You echo my thinking, Holmes," I said, meaning to mention my recent study.

"And yet, my dear fellow," Holmes continued, "your little records of my cases often suggest my intellect is 'cold'! In truth, intellect is that which makes each of us most human." He returned his gaze to our clients. "Watson is a practicing physician. You need not visit Harley Street in quest of medical assistance when, sir, a preliminary examination may be conducted without further delay." Holmes clapped my arm. "I have often placed my life in his hands, and there is no abler man!"

"How generous of you, old friend," I said. "The fact is, I have become aware only today of a course of treatment described by Dr. Sigmund Freud himself. There are no promises, but I think it is not unreasonable to surmise that, using this treatment, I might be able to return you to your group of carolers in time for next Christmas!"

When I had asked the young lady and Holmes to absent themselves briefly, I got my bag and gave Sydney Chesterfield his long-belated physical examination. Exactly as I expected, his health was sound and his problems lay elsewhere. I asked Miss Chesterfield and my friend to rejoin us, and presented my plan of treatment.

"See me regularly here, Sydney," I said while I tucked my stethoscope into place, "and I won't use hypnosis but the power of suggestion as Freud describes it. My intention is to encourage you to speak freely until we know your innermost memories, can deal with them, and you learn how to laugh or smile appropriately. Because I, too, am an author, I will discuss your writing efforts. The muscles of your face and mouth will, in my judgment, relax, and the rest will follow."

Brother and sister volubly expressed their appreciation. It was only when I had seen them out that I perceived Holmes had already wended his way to the writing desk. A trifle full of myself, I fear, I approached him in uncharacteristic bantering.

"Holmes, the young man was on the verge of paying your fee. You, however, volunteered my services and it appears now we are both out of pocket! A remarkable oversight, my dear fellow, for so astute a fellow as you."

"No oversight, Watson," Holmes said without glancing up from an envelope he was addressing. I noticed the name of his correspondent, Charles Fort. "I intended our deeds to be regarded as gifts. Those of the season, to be precise." His smile was fleeting. "I take it that you have no grave objections?"

I was taken aback and did not respond. A nod of my head indicated the envelope. "You remember mailing a letter to Mr. Fort today, I'm sure?"

"This is an addendum." He was scribbling the new letter as we conversed and he amazed me anew with the ability to come close to doing two different things simultaneously. "Fort will be fascinated by Mr. Chesterfield's peculiar infirmity. I wager he will discover further identical ailments, but never more than fifty to sixty in any given year. It is an observation of mine that nature repeats herself merely as a cautionary advertisement, but rarely places her notices haphazardly until the circumstances are dire."

With that, Holmes arose and glanced about the room. His new information for Fort was in its envelope, sealed and ready. "Did you happen to see where I left the disguise I used today?"

I pointed it out while he was again donning his coat. "Where are you going now, if I may ask?"

"Why, back to Saint Agnes in Cricklewood," Holmes replied, transforming himself once more into a robust but lame old man. "Your Freudian magic cannot be fulfilled immediately, and I am a man of my word. Mr. Calhoun called for a practice tonight, when we shall learn of tomorrow's schedule. I can scarcely let him down."

I peered at him in astonishment. "You are continuing to be a ... a caroller?"

Sherlock Holmes paused at the door without reaching for the knob. "It is my commitment. And I might add, Watson, that Calhoun asked us to keep an eye and an ear open for an especially strong baritone."

I headed across the floor with alacrity, and my friend was holding my hat and coat out to me before I had taken more than a few paces. "I think it may be a happy Christmas, Holmes," I said.

"Or if not that," he said as we descended the stairs at a trot, "perhaps one that is marginally less tedious than the rest." We stepped out upon Baker Street and into swirling snow, and Holmes summoned a passing four-wheeler. "The game may not be afoot, my dear fellow, but at least we are!"

(With appreciation to Tracy Knight, Ph.D., for telling me about the extremely rare Moebius syndrome.)