during the writing of SIGN in 1889, Watson writes concerning cocaine, Milverton, Moriarty, and Helen Stoner.
Paddington
Dear Doyle,
In answer to your question, Holmes has had both good and bad years with the cocaine. Several times I had hopes, and some encouraging signs, that his "artistic" interest in the drugs would give way to his reason, thereby preventing a steady and inevitable decline in his health. As matters presently stand, I believe Holmes's abundant supply of cases will reverse the abominable trend I witnessed last summer, when the weight of Moriarty's blow seemed to crush him. Mary smiles and tells me she is pleased to know that her case could have been so helpful in disrupting Holmes's dangerous routine. (I always answer her by affirming that the only disruption that really mattered was her sweet descent like an angel into my life.) Please excuse the overflow of a heart which still exuberantly behaves as if it were on honeymoon!As an example of a good year for Holmes, I'd say that 1884 was one of his best. He'd been fairly busy that spring, to the point that I began to fear for his health in the opposite direction. That rather than succumbing to a lethargic clinging to drugs, he seemed to be wearing himself out with those remarkable bursts of energy that make it difficult for even me to keep up with him. I cautioned him to slow down a little, and for once he took me seriously in my medical advice. He agreed to take a month-long holiday to America, staying in the company of --Oh, did I tell you of his correspondence with Miss Helen Stoner? I'm quite sure by now that I've mentioned to you her case. The snake and the bell-rope, you remember? As it happened, he kept up a correspondence with the woman after she had ceased to be a client, and was continually engrossed in one of her letters if not in one of his cases. She had gone to New York, you see, where he had once resided. I often suspected that he had, as I, a pet curiosity about Americans which he regularly fulfilled through her. (Though of course, he has been most unwilling to discuss the subject with me. Perhaps one of these days you might be able to prompt him to expand upon that subject. I feel that I've lost much of a hold on him lately.)
But I was speaking of 1884.
Early in May, I entered the sitting-room to find him lounging on the floor upon several cushions, yet again occupied with an epistle dispatched from New York. He didn't bother to get up and leave this time, but just patently ignored me while I tried to coax him to finish his barely touched breakfast. I attempted to comment on the furiously swift pace of his last case, but I might as well have spoken to air. At last he deigned to raise an eyebrow at me over the top of the pages. I told him that he simply couldn't be human to not feel the slightest need for a respite from his latest flurry of activities. One cannot live on half-hearted breakfasts, gruelling work, and the reading or writing of letters alone. He looked at me with sleepy eyes and yawned, smiling. He agreed that I pointed out the obvious, and said he did feel a craving for a change of habits. "Since I am obviously distressing your terribly sensitive sympathies for my health around here," he said, "I shall go away a while and leave your sympathies in peace. There are certain contacts that I would do well to make again in New York."
Thus he left within the week. I have never had from him the tale of his prior excursion into America, but he seemed quite happy and excited to return. In his absence, I worked more closely upon my writings again, finding it easier to appreciate those qualities in him that are not so easy to enjoy within his actual presence. I wrote a story--I think I can dig it up one of these days if the practice will slow down a little-- But in any case the trip seemed to leave Holmes the worse for the wear. He came back abruptly and quite early, in a foul mood. Some bout of illness seemed to have spoiled his holiday, for he sulked within his bedroom for days. (He always had such a strange refusal to admit any infirmity in his iron constitution. I think it touched his pride to be seen to be weak in front of anyone.) He refused any attentions from myself or Mrs. Hudson, and even violently threw out several telegrams which came from Miss Stoner. The mere presence of humanity seemed hateful to him then, perhaps out of some groundless suspicion that acknowledging his condition would be surrendering to it.
When he revealed himself to the light of day again, he came to breakfast huddled in his dressing gown, his expression thoroughly black and suffering. He still refused to let me touch him, so I tried convincing him to consult some other doctor instead. But Holmes shrank away and vehemently declared that his malady would not linger, that it would be banished from his system before anyone else would see him this way.
I feared the consequences of his attempting to combat his illness with sheer willpower. I remained agitated and worried about what steps I might take, until I noticed that Holmes was slowly breaking out of his uneasy spell. Through the summer, Holmes resumed his cases with energy and determination. It seemed to me at the time that he'd reached the perfect state of health, balancing a diligent regimen of meals, work, sleep, and leisure. Even concerts and walks through the city with me had replaced his artificial cure to ennui. Holmes was clean and sober in every way.
Then in December, the tide turned again. I have said that Holmes has an artistic temperament, easily impressed by his environment. So it was that a bleak reaction overtook Holmes soon after the end of the Chas. A. Milverton case, and I began having my suspicions as to Holmes's behaviour. Possibly it was a contemplation of the human misery long wrought by that late blackmailer which impressed Holmes so deeply. He was withdrawn and solitary, and I could occasionally hear him mumbling moodily in his room about the futility of the world at large and the disastrousness of love, adultery, and other excesses of passion.
By January, I knew with certainty that the good year had ended. He had gone back to his addiction. The symptoms were all there, and his comings and goings had become erratic. Several times he stayed out all night just walking and walking, never stopping anywhere to put his feet up at a fire or to shake off the muddy snow encrusted on his shoes, as the condition of their soles indicated. Thus my initial doubts about the Moriarty theory came largely out of Holmes's state of mind at the time. Time of course confirmed Holmes, but back then my only dread was for his much more real and ever-present foe--his health.
I hope that that sufficiently answers your question, Doyle. I cannot bring myself to describe a bad year, except in what you find already in my notes of 1888.
Yours,
Watson
Though understandable, many of Watson's perceptions in this letter are incorrect, mostly due to the fact that Watson has no knowledge of the occurrences of Chapters 8 or 9.
My personal view of Holmes's cocaine use is that, even though in SIGN Holmes only takes a relatively innocuous 7% solution intravenously, there is still no proof that Holmes's habit remained at this constant throughout his career. The scene from SIGN may be only a representative scene chosen by Watson. It may even have been that Holmes had earlier taken more frequent or more potent doses, weakening his constitution so that resuming even a small dosage later would have a great enough effect to alarm Watson. I tend to take Watson at his word when he describes Holmes's past "drug mania" in MISS. In DIM, I see Holmes initially taking cocaine for the sake of ennui, as he said, but then developing a sporadic addiction which greatly unnerves Watson and reminds him of his older brother, whose life deteriorated due to alcoholism. "Drifting from week to week between cocaine and ambition," Holmes inspires much resentment in Watson that, paired with Holmes's general superior and dismissive treatment of his partner, culminates in a bitter breakup in 1887.