A Close Shave

I made the mistake of reviewing my most recent entry before beginning this one; and now, I am daunted. Compared to our remarkable adventures on board the Gilded Lily, our thrilling combat with the crew of that ancient smuggler's sloop, the astonishing discovery of Holmes inside that--coffin--and our mad scramble off the ship to escape detection, the events that seemed, when I awoke this morning, so momentous that they should be graven on stone tablets and displayed in the British Museum, paled to insignificance. If Holmes were awake, he would perhaps reassure me by reminding me that even trivial details are often of immense importance in the unraveling of even the most sensational mysteries. Holmes is, however, asleep in the quaint old four-poster bed in this sloping-roofed upper-story room.*****Alone in an empty house in Cornwall, Watson tends to a convalescing Holmes, who desperately needs a bath and a shave. This is either fluffy angst or angsty fluff. You be the judge.