A Study In Satin

Part 1 - Semper Cogitus


by Tigger



Chapter 2 - Life After Death?

"Mr. Holmes?"  The piercing sound of a feminine voice calling out
his name roused him, but he didn't want to wake up.  "Mr. Holmes,
are you all right?" the voice called out again, louder this time
and with some discernable emotion backing it.

"Who. . ?" Holmes growled, burrowing down into his bed linens.

"'tis me, Mr. Holmes, Miss Hudson.  I was just finishing up my
cleanin' of your rooms, but you weren't up for me to change your
beddin'." her voice made the last an accusation.  "I have to be
getting on to my own home, sir."

An incredible stench assailed Holmes' nose, forcing him awake,
and with wakefulness, came recognition.  The *last* thing he
wanted was for Miss Hudson to realize what had happened.  "No,
that's quite all right, Miss Hudson.  You just leave out the
clean linens and I will see to the bedding myself when I get up."

"Are you all right, then sir?  I've never known you to be a lay-
a-bed, sir," Miss Hudson's voice was less strident now, more
uncertain.  "Not in all the years I've known you."

"Just a bit of the ague, Miss Hudson.  My doctor prescribed a
concoction that made me sleep.  I am better now, but you should
keep your distance. I would not want you to become ill yourself
and possibly pass the illness to your mother or sister."

"No indeed, Mr. Holmes," Miss Hudson quickly agreed.  "I've left
some soup simmerin' on your stove, sir.  It should do you up
right and tight if you've got the strength to go get it."

Holmes got another whiff of his soiled bed linens and nearly
gagged.  The thought of food only made the growing nausea worse. 
"That will be quite all right, Miss Hudson.  I am feeling much
more the thing.  A hot bowl of soup will be exactly what I need
once I have had a chance to bathe." *The bath, at least, is the
truth of the matter,* he thought.

A thought occurred to Holmes and he called out, "Did you come a
day early for some reason, Miss Hudson?"

"Early?  Why, today's my regular day, Mr. Holmes," Miss Hudson
replied before pausing, "Oh, I see.  That potion your doctor gave
you made you sleep longer than you thought, Mr. Holmes."

*I've been unconscious for more than thirty six hours?* Holmes
asked himself. *That explains the condition of my bed, but I
expected my rest to be far longer than that.  What happened?*

Holmes reveries were interrupted by his housekeeper. "Well, since
you're feelin' able, Mr. Holmes, I'll be on my way.  Hope you
feel better.  Just leave the dirty linens in the hamper in the
kitchen and I will see to them next time.  Good day, Mr. Holmes. 
Don't worry about the stains.  My mum has the same problem, her
bein' of an age, y'know, and I know just how to get them white
and sweet again."

Holmes growled a 'thank you' and a farewell and then listened
carefully for her departure.  Quickly, he got out of his bed, as
much to escape the foul odors as to ensure the door was securely
bolted.  Whatever was happening, it was definitely NOT what
Holmes expected, and until he understood what was happening, he
wanted no more guests.

Unfortunately, no sooner was he out of bed, then the world began
to spin giddily.  Urgently, Holmes reached out toward his bedside
table to steady himself, but it was too far away and too late.

Sherlock Holmes fell to the floor in a swoon.

~--------------~

When next Holmes awoke, this time from his impromptu bed on the
floor, he stood more carefully. Whatever residual effect of the
drug had overcome him on his first arousal would not surprise him
again. What did surprise him, as he carefully stood, was the
absence of pain. Arthritis had begun to attack the old man's
joints in the last year. Mornings had always been the worse.
Knees, hips and elbows that had been permitted to remain
relatively stationary over the course of a long, damp London
night tended to argue vigorously against being forced to move
again.

*Perhaps there is a heaven, after all,* Holmes thought in wonder
before two other circumstances seemed to refute that.  The sewer-
like stench of his own bodily wastes again assailed him bringing
back the memories of his conversation with Miss Hudson.

Quickly, he turned to leave the room and its foul odors only to
trip and fall two steps later.

On the hem of his nightshirt. 

Slowly, but still without any pain, Holmes eased himself once
again to his feet. He looked down at the hem of his robe and
momentarily gawked. The nightshirt's hem, which had just that
night before been well above Holmes' ankles, now pooled on the
floor about his feet. "Definitely a mystery is afoot here," he
said aloud before turning towards his laboratory. He nearly
tripped again, but caught himself. Deftly, he gathered up a
handful of the nightshirt up in one hand and pulled the garment
off, tossing it to the floor by his bed.  Grimly, Holmes took in
the multiple stains marking the nightshirt that had not been
there when he'd first donned it - how long ago had that been? By
the look of the dawn and taking into consideration Miss Hudson's
earlier revelations, Holmes concluded that he'd worn that garment
for at least two days and three nights. *One mystery at a time,*
he told  himself as he donned his dressing robe before striding
off again.

Holmes snatched up a pencil and a book as he moved past his desk
towards a large empty wall on the far end of the lab. Holmes
stood, back to the all and rested the book on his head. Holding
the book in place, Holmes stepped out from under the book and
used the pencil to mark the book's position on the wall. A ruler
confirmed what the detective's trained senses had already
discerned.

Sherlock Holmes had somehow shrunk almost three and a half inches
since he'd gone to his bed three nights past.  "Amazing," he half
whispered to himself before rushing off to his dressing room
again, this time nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste.

One look in his reflecting glass showed that he was much more
than not dead. In addition to his decreased stature, Holmes saw
that he looked visibly younger. His skin had not been so . . so
smooth and supple in decades.

"Or is this how the afterlife occurs?" he asked himself. "If this
is heaven, however, I would have preferred to keep my normal
height.  And I most *definitely* would have preferred not to have
lost control of my bodily functions in so humiliating a manner."

Only a sudden, undeniably urgent call from Nature pulled him away
from his glass, but once in the water closet, another shock
greeted him. It was not just his body's height that had changed.
He was. . . smaller - all over. In fact, he was a great deal
smaller. Although not a vain man, at least where physical prowess
and size were concerned, Holmes was still greatly taken aback
when he opened his dressing gown to relieve his bladder. 

His manhood had shrunk, too. Actually, it had *more* than merely
shrunk in proportion this new stature, it had all but
disappeared. Heavens above, but Holmes had seen infants with
greater . . .masculine endowments than he now possessed. 

After that momentary shock, Holmes forced his intellect to
reassert itself.  He needed to determine whether his mind might
be similarly afflicted.  Holmes tested himself by first by
recalling the design and results of a recent chemical experiment
he'd conducted and then by mentally constructing the classic
proof of the Theorem of Pythagoras.  Neither problem proved to be
at all difficult, thus confirming that Holmes' mind, at least,
remained . . . adult.  That concern dealt with, Holmes was all
the more determined to deal with this situation with his famous
rationality and powers of deduction powers.

Returning to his looking glass, Holmes inventoried and catalogued
his person, comparing it to the old body he remembered so well. 
Like his manly parts, the rest of his body had also become
smaller, although by no means as much as had his genitals. His
hands, which had always been long and fine fingered for a male,
were now thinner, almost dainty, and tipped with surprisingly
long nails. Slippers that had once fit him as perfectly as. .
.well, as a well worn slipper, now foundered about a much
smaller, more slender foot. 

About the only thing besides his fingernails that was longer
about him was his hair. He'd gone to bed a balding old man, but
now two to three inches of thick, luxuriant almost-black hair
covered his head, and framed a face that while it was still
slender was also somehow less. . .saturnine. . somehow more. . . 

"Juvenile is the word you are attempting to deny, Holmes," he
said aloud, not at all surprised to hear a voice markedly
different from his own issue forth from his mouth.

"No, that's not right either," Holmes realized, still speaking
aloud, trying to understand the changes in his voice. "My face,
even when I was much younger, never looked like *that*! In fact,
this face looks like none of the men of my lineage, as recorded
in the paintings in Mycroft's old house.   Which means that
whatever has occurred, it not merely a simple age reversal.  My
understanding of that monk Mendel's work on heredity is that such
features are statistically very unlikely unless I am somehow no
longer of the Holmes family line.  Which I would have thought
impossible were it not for the evidence of my own eyes." 

The curiosity that was part and parcel of Sherlock Holmes came to
the fore and focused his full attention on this new and
fascinating problem.  The detective studied his reflection as
though it was the face of a stranger's face, using his powers of
observation to assess age, ethnic background, fitness  and
physical attributes. 

"Age, hmmm," he said as he began to assess the changes he saw in
his mirror, " a bit of a conundrum, that.  The size of the head
relative to stature of the total body would seem to be consistent
with adult proportions, yet there is no evidence of beard growth. 
Quite peculiar, that."  Holmes ran those incredibly soft fingers
over his cheeks.  "Not even the slightest indication of stubble
although it has been more than two days since I last shaved. That
factor combined with the significant diminution of my masculine
development would also indicate a pre-pubescent condition. 
Rather contradictory indications, all around." 

Holmes turned his attention to his torso and bodily extremities,
turning and twisting this way and that so he could examine
himself from every possible angle. "Remarkably supple," he
murmured to himself with a touch of pleasure, "Certainly more so
than I can remember in many a year.  On the other hand, muscular
development is also slight.  While such an apparent lack of
muscle tissue is often a sign of a rapid growth spurt in the
underlying skeletal structure, there is no evidence of the
corresponding gauntness."  Holmes gently pinched the flesh of his
smooth thigh and watched the skin spring back when he released
it.  "In point of fact, it seems to be just the opposite as this
body has a smoothing layer of fat - much more than I have ever
possessed before, and certainly more than that aging relic that
went to bed three nights past."

"The face retains a distinctly English appearance. Though the
nose is much shorter than before, it is still quite narrow. The
eyes are slanted upward slightly, not through the presence of an
oriental epicanthic fold, but as though it were a more natural
shape. This is accented by higher than normal cheekbones. It is
almost as if . . . "  

"Oh, dear God. I refuse to believe it!" 

Shocked at the direction his inquiries seemed to point, Holmes
pulled on a clean dressing gown over the offending body. Thus
attired, Holmes made his way back to his laboratory where the
apparatus he'd used to concentrate the fatal dose of cocaine
still stood. Dazed, Holmes sank slowly onto his favorite chair. 

"Is this what happens when you die?" he asked aloud. "You stay
behind as something or someone other than who or what you were in
your previous life? Are the Buddhists of India correct and this
is some type of reincarnation?  Is *this* what heaven entails??
Or perhaps more correctly, this is my first taste of hell?" 

"Oh," a harsh voice said from the parlor, "I rather suspect that
you will find hell quite pleasant by comparison - when you
finally arrive there.  But for the time being, you are,
unfortunately for you, my dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes, quite alive
upon this earthly pale." 

Holmes spun out of his chair and saw a large figure coming
through the door; the intruder's features lost in shadow due to
the backlighting of the parlor windows. 

"Who *are* you?!?"