Prompt #1: Answer the question: "Who are you?"
As the first, and even to this date, likely the world's sole consulting detective, my name is well-renowned. My fame precedes me both from well-deserved accolades, but also from the overly-romanticized published accounts of my various cases which my friend and long-standing partner Dr. Watson has seen fit to share with the world. What could the public possibly not know about me, the best-known detective of the 19th and quite possibly 20th Centuries?
Quite a lot, in fact.
Firstly, my name is not Sherlock Holmes. It may come as some surprise to note that it was Watson's friend and "literary agent" Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who was so recently knighted for his treatise on the British activities regarding the Boer War who suggested the nom de plume. As there is no harm in telling of it now seeing that the pseudonym is for ever etched in the minds of readers, my true Christian name is William Scott Holmes. However, for many years my calling card has bore the name "Sherlock Holmes" for sake of simplicity.
Sir Arthur, then known as Dr. Doyle, a GP who had later turned unsuccessfully to Ophthalmology before becoming a full-time author, had been introduced to Watson via a mutual friend. At some juncture, Watson shared his original manuscript and admitted a desire to publish his scribblings of his first case with me, then titled "A Tangled Skein." Dr. Doyle had already a few publications under his belt and certain contacts he felt would be most hospitable to the manuscript, although he felt Watson's narrative somewhat lacking in the ultimate sense of adventure. He offered his advice and services as a writer, and thus "A Study in Scarlet" was published under his name, with Watson's "punched up" narrative as its foundation.
Initially, Dr. Doyle wanted to change our names entirely, offering up Sheridan Hope and Ormond Sacker as replacements. I could have cared less one way or the other, but Watson simply balked at the idea. Watson's name, like my own, has been changed as have most others in Doyle's reformation of the tales. For instance, Watson's and my residence was never Baker Street and so forth. However, for sake of simplicity as well as protection of others' privacy, I will write this journal with the names and places made popular by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
It was Dr. Doyle's idea to offer up monthly descriptions of my cases. Considering the lacklustre response to the first two novels, I saw no difficulty in a series of shorter tales. How was I mistaken! Suddenly I was catapulted into infamy, my person thought of as a mere literary figure while countless spectators debated every aspect of my life, real or imaginary.
While at first Watson had a hand in the writing of the tales, Dr. Doyle did more and more of his own brand of weaving from rather sparse notes given to him by my compatriot. The stories currently being published in The Strand hold no basis of fact other than perhaps a few tenuous snippets the newly-knighted doctor may have jotted down when Watson briefly discussed my cases with him. However, I hold no grudges against Sir Arthur. He has expressed similar exasperation of being tied to the character of my person as I am to his creation of me. Although like Watson he has a love of adventurous tales and fiction, it is historical passages that hold his interest, yet the people clamour for more of this fantasy world.
In the end, one good thing has come from the exaggeration of my character and publication of my work. I am pleased to note that Scotland Yard and other crime investigative agencies around the world seek to achieve the same level of scientific methodology as I have tried to work out. This will likely be the most enduring legacy of my career, and as a lover of Supreme Justice, it is one I gladly bestow upon the future of mankind.
I have come to Hotel Voici on advice of my physician, Dr. Moore Agar, who has more than once in my career warned me of a pending breakdown if I failed to subject myself to absolute rest. It would seem that that day has come, for I am absolutely forbidden to take on any new cases or even to leave this room until the good doctor declares I am in a state to do so. I am also not to receive visitors without his express permission.
To say this forced isolation is extreme in the least, I must admit it is not without just cause. I have suffered from nervous breakdowns before. In 1887 I worked myself into a frenzy that had Watson intervening on my behalf to rescue my failing health. It was again in 1891 I suffered greatly, a delusion which has for ever linked me with my former mathematics tutor, the man now known as the great Napoleon of crime, Professor Moriarty.
Despite my three year absence in which Watson, his agent Sir Arthur, and my brother Mycroft pronounced me dead to the world so that I had no other choice but to recuperate, I fell prey once again after returning to my practice in 1897. Now shortly after the turn of the new Century, I find myself facing an extraordinary ultimatum.
I have been forced into this "retirement" with the express intention that I shall never return to my old habits. I have been sent away to America at this strange and isolated location and have been given this journal as the only means of expressing myself. Dr. Agar has arranged to slip notes under my door periodically with "prompts" for my journal writings. When I have completed them, I must place the pages with my meal tray (which I have been forcibly told to eat every scrap of food on pain of never receiving another telephone or wire from my friend Watson; I doubt he would ever make good on such a threat) where they will be turned in to Dr. Agar who will assess my "progress."
With little to nothing more to stimulate my mind, I will surely go mad!
So be it. In my lifetime, I have been subjugated to far worse, including Watson's determined weaning of my dependency on chemical stimuli. How I would welcome a vial and my Morocco case now! But perhaps my friend and good doctor is right. It is time to purge myself of my insatiable appetite for stimulus and activity. I must learn to appreciate the quieter things in life.