A DOGGED MEMORY
by elfin

Part One - Henry Baskerville


There are, for reasons that will become obvious, two accounts of the strange and terrible events at Baskerville Hall and on the surrounding moor.

There is the one that has been under such public scrutiny for a great many months. 

And then there is this one. 

This is the unknown story, the background to the events that transpired as well as detailing certain truths.  Ironically, it is these unknowns that fully explain the reasons for the seemingly absurd risks that a casual observer might have spotted in Holmes' actions during this time.  Also explained is my apparently hostile behaviour towards my friend at one or two points in the story.

But despite that, the public that so adores reading about every aspect of his cases will never set eyes on these words.

For it is only now, and only for a handful of readers, that I am writing up my private notes on this, the most instructive of all the cases I have chronicled for my dearest friend, Sherlock Holmes.  And it is only because, in the dim light of the candle's flame as it dances over our deliciously naked forms, he asks me to.

~~~

Dr John Mortimer came to us one week before Christmas.  Up until that morning, we had planned to spend the holiday together in Baker Street, as we had once before.

The events of the case itself are well documented and even better known, and I will not recount them again.  Suffice it to say that during a late breakfast at the Northumberland Hotel, with Mortimer and his new ward, Sir Henry Baskerville, Holmes swore me to his client's side for an unknown period.

So many see Holmes as incapable of emotion, of being cold in his heart.  It is true that many of the sympathies he displays for those unfortunate souls who engage him are an act, the necessities of his chosen profession.  He has an analytical mind so delicately tuned, that the merest imbalance can lead to a total collapse of his reason.  But he is far from emotionless.

He just hides his feelings behind a mask so perfectly constructed that very few even realise that it is there.

I know, because I have seen it slip, just slightly, on several occasions.  Most of these have been while he has lain in the grip of the narcotic he relies on so heavily to alleviate... what?  I had, at the time, no idea.  Although I know now.

I had no reason to dispute his decision to send me away with Sir Henry.  Indeed, I had taken to the Canadian's company almost upon sight and had no issues with spending a couple of days with him, protecting him from whatever horrors waited on the moor.

But as Holmes bade goodbye to us outside Baker Street, as he again warned Sir Henry to take the greatest of care, I noticed something odd in his countenance.  And when he glanced at me I saw a darkness in his grey eyes the like of which I had never seen there before.

I pondered on it for the first part of our journey.  But Sir Henry's company, concerns about the deteriorating weather and the unknown peril towards which we were heading, all served to wipe such a seemingly trivial thing from my mind.

Only much later did I think back, and realise that the thing I'd seen there was fear.  I couldn't have known that when we'd been foolishly chasing that cab along Baker Street, he'd seen more of our enemy than I had.  Neither could I have known that he'd recognised the man, despite his disguise.

~~~

Baskerville Hall, as the public knows well, is a foreboding place at night.

As we approached, it loomed out of the thick moor fog like a rising fortress, injecting a chill into our hearts.  It was a chill that did not dissipate as we sat in the cold of the dining room and ate a fine dinner under the disapproving gazes of the Baskerville ancestry.

But I'm ahead of myself.  For I have missed a most important exchange.


When we arrived at the Hall, Barrymore - the butler - showed us to our rooms.  Mine was the guest suite across the landing from Sir Henry's.  It was comfortable and later, once a fire had been lit, it was warm.

After unpacking my clothes and writing implements, I dressed for dinner and went to knock on Sir Henry's door.

He is a familiar man, one who innately invites small intimacies.  Indeed, I didn't hesitate when he suggested, in an ironic tone, that I should try his bed.  It was as hard as a rock, as if the sheets were laid over a great stone slab.

"How are you ever meant to sleep on that, I wonder?" I mused, without even a fleeting thought as to what possibilities the question might entertain.

He glanced around at me, and smiled such a smile that I might have blushed.  But it was so quick and he returned his attention to the mirror and his bow tie so easily, that I imagined I had misinterpreted his expression.

I berated myself, for my wandering fantasies regarding my closest friend were beginning to seep into my every day thoughts.

He was obviously having problems with the specifics required to tie the bow around his neck, and eventually I could watch him no more.  Crossing to him, I took the ends of the fine silk strip in my fingers and performed the hardly complex manoeuvre.  When I was satisfied that he looked all the respectable Lord of the Manor that he was set to be, I smiled up at him.

"There."

The word faded. 

I had meant to step away, but the sheer hold of his eyes upon me froze me in place.  He didn't speak, but raised his hand and caressed the smooth tips of his fingers across the light stubble of my cheek.

"Do I have a chance with your heart, John?" he asked quietly, unexpectedly, his voice a little rougher, but still as gentle as I'd been hearing it all day, "or does another lay claim to it?"

How he knew what I'd kept from even Sherlock Holmes for so long was beyond me.  But so certain was he with his question that I saw no point in insulting him by lying about my nature.

"No man lays claim to it," I told him truthfully, refusing to be a coward by turning from his eyes, even as they seemed to bore into my very soul.

"So you say.  But I cannot help wondering if you desire one to."  For a moment, he held me in the barest of trances.  And then he stepped back and smiled at me with an expression of deep affection, despite having known me for no more than a matter of hours.  "Come," he exclaimed in a jovial manner his demeanour had only hinted at before, "Let us not keep the good servants waiting."


Calling it simply 'an important exchange' seems to distract from its significance.  After that, I knew Sir Henry's interest in me was not completely innocent, nor legal, for the reason I have kept my secret for all of my life was the brutal nature of the law when it came to physical love between two men.

I had thought on it for many an hour over the lingering years.  I could find nothing immoral in an attraction for a member of the same sex.  As long as both parties consented and no one was hurt, only the transparent and ill-founded fears of an ignorant society were in any danger.

Living with Holmes, then, had been a blessing.  He thought nothing of love.  His only ventures into the deconstruction of passion and desire were in line with a couple of his investigations.  Indeed, I heard him once described as 'sexless', although I know that not to be true.

He is, in fact, well sexed, as frequent visits with him to the baths, and indeed living under the same roof, had transpired to inform me.

(He reads that last over my shoulder and as he reaches for his cigarettes he laughs joyously.  What he says, I will not repeat as a part of this account.  Although I might later be persuaded by its few readers to disclose the lurid and quite arousing comment.

He has successfully derailed my train of thought.)

~~~

Over dinner, Sir Henry spoke nothing of what had occurred between us in his bedroom.

The portraits in the dining room are now famous and very well known for being such an important clue in the solution to the mystery.  But that night, sitting under them as the flames of the lamps flickered on the rough canvases and their eyes seemed to scrutinise us as we ate, we were both uncomfortable in their company.

We sat at either ends of the long table, as the places had been prepared, and we said little to one another.

Though the dinner was superb, and the wine expensive, we were both in melancholy spirits by the end of the meal, and he retired early to bed without a hint of an invitation for me to join him.

I surprised myself, I think, for being just faintly disappointed.  He was an attractive fellow.

In my time with Holmes I have done a few things that are illegal.  Deception, Breaking and Entering; small felonies that always advanced our cause and were overlooked by the police on each occasion, when they should come to know about them.

But to be caught nude with another man, to be engaged in sexual practices, was, until so very recently, a hanging offence.  Prison was the norm now, an irony that never failed to send a shudder down my spine.  For as much as I desired to feel a man's hands upon my skin, a man's hard body pressed to mine, I had absolutely no desire to be raped daily by caged criminals who had no other means of relief.

I sat at the table long after the servants had gone to bed.  I sipped the wine, looked around at the accusing stares of Sir Henry's dead relatives, and made a decision that might have been borne from the madness of family that surrounded me, or from the desperate, unfulfilled needs within me.

Taking a candle, I climbed the stairs to our rooms.  Mine was on the right, but upon reaching the landing, I turned left and crossed the narrow hall to stand outside Sir Henry's closed door.

For a few long moments, I contemplated.  He had made an advance on me, and although nothing had immediately come from it, neither had any tension been created by it.  Surely if my own advance were to be rebutted, we could still be friends?

With a trembling hand, I knocked quietly on the heavy wooden door. 

He would be sleeping, I told myself.  If he didn't wake, I wouldn't knock louder.  I would go to my own bed and forget these fanciful, deviant notions.

But the door opened upon just my second knock.

He seemed simply relieved to see me standing there.

"John!"  He swung the door wide and gestured to the ruffled sheets of the bed.  "That mattress is impossible!"  Tilting his head, the candle's flame catching in his brown eyes, he smiled a wicked smile.  "I couldn't sleep on yours, could I?"


Closing and locking my bedroom door, I set the candle down on the nightstand and regarded my new friend steadily.

"My heart may well be reserved for another," I told him, my voice quiet and low, rough with arousal, "but my body is not.  If that is enough...."

He grinned, and came to stand before me.  "It is more than enough.  I don't look to steal you from the one you are bound to, rather I crave the pleasures of your company."

Again, his fingers touched my cheek.  But instead of kissing me, which I'd imagined he would, he backed off and shed his nightgown.  I divested myself slowly of all my clothes, remaining under his warm regard as I did so.

Only when I bent to remove my underwear did I allow myself to glance at his groin.  His manhood was standing thick and proud.  It bobbed as he noted my curiosity and laughed quietly.  As if to show himself off, his slipped his hand down and palmed his phallus, holding himself out to me.

My own reaction was equally as prominent, and he beckoned for me to go to him.  I was powerless to do anything but.

When he pulled me into his embrace, his lips at last finding mine, I felt the erotic shiver of the most exquisite of pleasures.  His sculptured chest against my own, the hard nubs of his nipples pressed to my own chilled skin, the silky steel of his erection duelling with mine; all these were sensations I desired greatly.

His tongue had its fill of tasting me before he led me to the bed and we climbed in.  He rolled us so that I lay over him, and claimed first my mouth, and then the rest of me.

~~~

fin part one