So I started rewatching some stuff for comfort reasons and I gotta say that the old Sherlock Holmes movies with Ronald Howard are still one of my favs. His portrayal of Holmes is just so soft, unique and loveable.
This Holmes is so smart and yet so so stupid, so clumsy and relatable, I just love everything about it.
The fact that he breaks into random houses in like every second episode, he constantly gets himself into trouble and he is seen as kind and humble even by Lestrade, giving off that Hufflepuff vibe, lol.
I also love how the only time he really looses it and snaps at Watson is when he's trying to protect him.
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1. An Obvious Trifle
I dimly heard Watson from one corner of my attention, the remainder being fixed on the evening edition of the London Times. A heavy rain hissed down on London outside the window of the sitting room, deftly reflecting my opinion of the annoying lull that inevitably occurs between cases, in one of which I now found myself. My mind was whirring with nervous energy, and I had no place to apply it - Watson had, through sheer persistence, broken me of my former habit of cocaine usage during these lulls, so I quite naturally sought other sources of stimulation. As such, I had been following a story about a series of break-ins that had been plaguing one of the higher-class neighbourhoods of London. In each, the modus operandi was the same: No forced entry, no obvious clues, no suspects. I expected Lestrade would be asking my help before too long, but in the meantime...
"I don't know how I could have lost it," Watson lamented. The pocket of his waistcoat where he usually kept his watch was turned out, and the loop of watch-chain was absent. I was really not in the mood for such an obvious trifle. I roughly folded the newspaper and twisted round in the wicker chair to face him properly.
"I trust you have reported your lost pocket-watch to the authorities?" I queried, then turned back and re-opened the paper.
"I didn't think you were even listening," he admitted, sounding a bit calmer but more than a little amazed.
"You are ten feet away from me, and you have been carrying on for the past half-hour. I daresay I had no choice in the matter."
"Well, to answer your question: yes, I did report it to Scotland Yard, since I thought it might have been a pick-pocket, but they wouldn't give me any assurances they'd ever find it. You know how Lestrade is."
"Yes," I replied dryly, "I know exactly how Lestrade is." I returned my attention to the article, of which I had read the fourth sentence seventeen times since Watson came home. As I started it for the eighteenth time:
"It was a gift, you know. From my wife, for our anniversary. It was monogrammed and everything."
I glanced sideways in Watson's general direction, knowing now that I probably wouldn't ever finish this article until I agreed to hunt down his watch, or until he went to bed, whichever came first. I crumpled the paper in the general direction of closed and tossed it at him with mild asperity, at which he reciprocated by throwing his hat at me. I, then settled back in the wicker chair and steepled my fingers.
"Criminal masterminds run loose in this city," I muttered, "and new crimes are committed everyday by men who believe that justice cannot touch them. Wickedness and corruption hang over London like a fog... but the most engaging case to reach my attention is a stolen pocket-watch." All the same, that Watson was my friend obliged me to at least make a token effort to help. Aloud I said: "Where and when do you last remember having your watch, Watson?"
He rubbed his moustache in thought. "It was a bit past eleven," he said finally, "Yes - ten past. I remember because I glanced at it on my way home from seeing a patient. But I put it right back," he added pointedly, "I know I didn't leave it anywhere."
I made a noncommittal noise of reassurance of his continuing power of memory. "Did anything else notable happen during the - what is it, three miles? - walk home?" I had, of course, noticed the road grime on his boots and trouser-cuffs... about three miles' worth, give or take.
After another thoughtful silence, he answered in the negative.
"Did anyone attempt to shadow you?"
"Not that I saw."
"Did anyone jostle you or bump into you?"
"N- wait. There was one gentleman... It had started to rain, and I was hurrying for cover, when I collided with someone coming the other way."
"Forcefully?"
"We were both running. The impact nearly knocked me to the ground. He was very polite about it, though, and he apologised and said that he was late to catch a train. Then he glanced at his watch and hurried off through the rain."
My eyes, which had been half-closed during his description, opened fully. "What did he look like?"
"I didn't see his face very well, since I was more concerned with getting to a dry place than with memorising details. But I do know that he was built like a stone wall."
I agreed; Watson himself is not a small man, and it would take some considerable force to knock him off-balance as he described.
"What did the watch look like?"
"My watch? Holmes, you've seen-"
"Not your watch. His watch - what did it look like?" "It was gold, with a thin watch-chain. I did notice that the end of the chain had come loose in the collision."
"Indeed. Watson, your description of his watch sounds remarkably similar to your own watch."
There was a brief silence as he digested this; I preferred letting him try to figure out minor puzzles such as this.
"Oh no," he said, mournfully, at last.
"I'm sorry, Watson," I said honestly, "You couldn't have known that a forceful collision with a victim is one of the stealthier methods used by pick-pockets. It masks the warning sensation of you being relieved of your valuables."
He sank onto the couch sadly.
"On the bright side, I doubt a common criminal will be able to get very far with a gold pocket-watch monogrammed with 'J. H. W.', particularly if his name does not match the initials."
I did not add that by the time the police found the first miscreant, the watch would undoubtably have passed through the hands of a long chain of recipients by theft, robbery, murder, or fencing.
As it happened, this could not have been further from the truth.
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