Chapter Text
Watson’s ability to read his Holmes and especially his fascination with Holmes’s eyes were pointed out many times. The Adventure of the Abbey Grange is a fine example of that—one can trace the way Holmes’s moods fluctuate from peaks to pits and back again.
In the beginning Holmes is all anticipation. Also, one of the instances of Holmes coming to Watson’s bedroom:
“I was awakened by a tugging at my shoulder. It was Holmes. The candle in his hand shone upon his eager, stooping face and told me at a glance that something was amiss.”
As soon as the case started to look like a commonplace burglary with a murder, Holmes is disappointed. Note the simile Watson uses as a medical man:
“The keen interest had passed out of Holmes’s expressive face, and I knew that with the mystery all the charm of the case had departed. There still remained an arrest to be effected, but what were these commonplace rogues that he should soil his hands with them? An abstruse and learned specialist who finds that he has been called in for a case of measles would experience something of the annoyance which I read in my friend’s eyes.”
Later Watson mentions Holmes’s eyes again. It seems like Watson indeed pays more attention to Holmes than to anything else in the room:
“A change had come over Holmes’s manner. He had lost his listless expression, and again I saw an alert light of interest in his keen, deep-set eyes.”
Of course the doctor does notice the details of the crime scene, etc, and undoubtedly ACD used this device to give readers a clear image of Holmes, but what he achieved was ultimately incredibly slashy.
The following passage is quite curious because: a) it shows that not only Holmes can deduce Watson’s train of thoughts by observing his features, but Watson does it with him as successfully; b) Holmes apologises to Watson for his sudden compulsion. Contrary to the popularised image, Holmes of the canon is actually a nice and polite person (despite being curt sometimes). First and foremost, he respects his Watson.
“During our return journey I could see by Holmes’s face that he was much puzzled by something which he had observed. Every now and then, by an effort, he would throw off the impression and talk as if the matter were clear, but then his doubts would settle down upon him again, and his knitted brows and abstracted eyes would show that his thoughts had gone back once more to the great dining-room of the Abbey Grange in which this midnight tragedy had been enacted. At last, by a sudden impulse, just as our train was crawling out of a suburban station, he sprang on to the platform and pulled me out after him.
“Excuse me, my dear fellow,” said he, as we watched the rear carriages of our train disappearing round a curve; “I am sorry to make you the victim of what may seem a mere whim, but on my life, Watson, I simply can’t leave that case in this condition.”
By this point Watson has known Holmes for years, but his admiration of the man never wanes:
“Seated in a corner like an interested student who observes the demonstration of his professor, I followed every step of that remarkable research.”
And lastly, this famous part where Holmes appoints Watson as the jury, again speaks volumes of the respect Holmes has for Watson (not to mention how romantic it is to reunite lovers out of one’s own code of honour rather than abiding the law):
“Watson, you are a British jury, and I never met a man who was more eminently fitted to represent one. I am the judge. Now, gentleman of the jury, you have heard the evidence. Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?”
“Not guilty, my lord,” said I.
“Vox populi, vox Dei. You are acquitted, Captain Croker.”
So, both the Sleuth and the Doctor read each other easily, and there are always mutual respect and admiration, no matter how many years pass. Relationship goals™, really.