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My dear Watson is as good and honest as the day is long, and has not a shred of duplicity in his entire substantial body. He knows me as no other soul on this Earth does. He knows my penchant for working incognito and has seen me at my makeup table as I disappear to be replaced by a sour sea-captain or a grimy beggar. So when I disguise myself away from his gaze and do my work so well that he does not recognize me until I speak to him in my usual voice, I know that that disguise will work out in the world.
”Ev-e-ryone delights to spend a summer ‘ollyday
Down beside the side of the silvery sea!”
I in return am very glad for the man’s own version of subterfuge – that is, his carefully-crafted set of falsehoods in his written accounts of our cases that build a particular image of me in the mind of the public. Every ordinary Londoner thinks they know what Sherlock Holmes looks like and how he behaves – tall, elegant, dignified, an English gentleman at all times.
“I do like to stroll along the prom-prom-prom
Where the brass band plays ‘Tiddly-om-pom-pom!’”
In other words, if anyone were to tell them that this prancing music-hall performer was Sherlock Holmes they would simply not believe.