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"You do realise Mother Hen," Holmes drawled from the chair he was sat in a pile of papers in his lap "That you've got the ending of this one all wrong."
As he was supposed to have been reviewing some documents for Mycroft, searching for a very skilful forger the revelation that he had been reading at least one of the published accounts of our cases came as something of a shock. He generally regarded them as "Over sentimentalized twaddle" although his mockery has grown less caustic over the years.
"Really Old Cock, which one?" I asked suspeciously, with Holmes I have found it pays never to take anything he says at face value.
"That business with the American killer and the forgers kit," Holmes flipped the papers back a page "The three Garridebs you called it."
There was something odd in his tone, and odder in his eyes which were fixed on the papers in his lap almost as if he was gripped by strong memory, true my exact recollections of events where a bit confused and there were gaps but search as I might I could find nothing in my memory of the case that should have caused so strong a reaction.
"I can't imagine why you think that Holmes, it was simple enough. We stalked up behind him once he'd opened the cellar, a floorboard sounded and he popped up his head to be stopped by the sight of our revolvers." I shot him a sharp glance "Seeing as you had for once remembered to bring yours with you. He fired on us and clipped me."
I stopped, Holmes face had twisted into grimace of remembered terror.
"Holmes? " I asked the gaps in my memory which hadn't troubled me now took on a sinister cast, "I know I had concssion but I'm sure I'd remember anything serious that happened."
He cleared his throat his eyes flicking up to meet mine, "He fired three shots, caught you in the leg as you say here and."
As he stopped again I could see him suppressing a shiver, I ran a quick tally of my scars. An adventurous youth, active service in the army and years of running into trouble with Holmes have all left there marks but I couldn't remember anything that would have caused Holmes such trouble.
"As you went down his second bullet caught you in the temple," Holmes said in a voice that trembled almost as much as I remember it doing at the time, "and just as I reached him his third hit you in the chest."
I stood there taken aback, shot in the chest? How could I have missed that? The damage should have been enormous and very painful.
"You twisted as you fell, the bullet gouged a slice in your pectoral muscle," Holmes whispered, "but when I had the brute out cold and turned back to you."
I could picture the sight that had greeted my friend all to clearly, bleeding profusely from head and chest and probably unconscious to boot it would have seemed to him all to probable that he was looking at my corpse. I had wondered why, at the time and then afterwards, he had shown so much emotion over what I had thought to be a minor wound it had changed our friendship, drawing us closer in many ways than we had been before. Now I knew, and the knowledge was shocking. To know that I had come so close to death and yet remembered nothing of it is an uncomfortable feeling.
We sat in silence for a while, Holmes apparently absorbed in his papers again and I working through the emotions his words had raised.
"I think," I said weighing my words with care, "that I'll let the account stand as it is. No reason to give the public any cause to call my memory into question, they might start to think that you're not quite the genius I've made you out to be."