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Sherlock Holmes was not the sort of man who had anything so petty as a phobia, thank you very much. He had faced the worst of the criminal underworld, blackmailers and poisoners and wife-beaters and child-killers and not batted an eye. Many a sleepless night-vigil he had kept in cramped, dark, moldy, dripping estates to rival something out of the most bone-chilling contemporary Gothic literature. I had seen him run across rooftops without so much as looking down as he jumped the gaps that represented a two-story fall to the cobblestone below, stare down the barrel of a gun as though it were the morning paper, fight off men twice his weight and bulk with nothing more than a chuckle.
So, when one mid-morning after a refreshing constitutional at the park, he entered our flat in high spirits, still spouting off some witticism over his shoulder at me, I did not anticipate what happened next. It was all in the space of an instant: he turned into the doorway, already shucking off his overcoat, still grinning to himself. Then, as if the smile had been struck from his face by some invisibly hand, he went ashen, let out a most undignified shriek that I’m certain he would deny now, and leapt nearly a foot in the air.
“Holmes!” I cried, and ran in, anticipating some foul trap. What I found instead was a small, brown snake coiled up at the base of the stairs, lazily flicking its tongue out to taste the air.
I turned to my companion in some shock—surely this hadn’t been the cause of his outburst. He was sorely affected, braced up against a wall with all the color fled from his face and goose-flesh prickling up his neck and the backs of his arms. He’d turned his face away from the stairs—and the snake—and had his eyes tightly shut, as if he could will the creature away.
“Oh, Holmes,” I said, and knelt to pick up the creature. It coiled lazily in my hand, no doubt enjoying the warmth even through my gloves. “It’s only a grass snake. See here, it’s entirely harmless.”
I made a move to step closer to him, but, with a yelped curse, he pushed himself further into the wall, flaring his nostrils and baring his teeth like a spooked horse.
“Oh for God’s sake, Watson!” he cried. “Get rid of that thing!”
I backed away, not wanting to scare him any further. The commotion had not gone unnoticed, and Mrs. Hudson bustled in, wiping her hands on her apron, with Billy at her heels.
“What’s all this shouting about?” Mrs. Hudson said, and caught sight of the reptile in my hands. “Oh, Doctor, really, you ought to know better than to bring something like that in. It’s dirty.”
“I didn’t bring it in,” I protested, coloring up like a chastised schoolboy.
Billy peeked around Mrs. Hudson, whistling.
“Blimey, Doctor, can I see?”
Holmes had mastered himself somewhat, though he was still quite pale, and he retreated a safe distance away, scowling fiercely at the little snake.
Mrs. Hudson batted Billy away and fixed her stern gaze on me.
“Really, Doctor, it isn’t right of you to tease Mr. Holmes like that. You know how he is.”
Holmes flushed up at that and shoved his hands down into his trouser pockets in a childish fit of temper. I raised my hands in contrition and the sudden movement of the snake had Holmes flinching away. Sheepishly, I lowered the creature.
“I was just taking it out,” I swore. “Here, Billy, go set it loose in the back garden.”
The lad brightened at the opportunity to handle the snake and was off in an instant, grinning from ear to ear as he held his prize. Mrs. Hudson huffed and departed with a pat to Holmes’s elbow and a disapproving glare at me. Once again alone, in the hall, a silence fell between us. Holmes, flushed up to the roots of his hair, hung up his hat and coat mechanically and pushed past me on his way up to our rooms before I could intercede. Quickly hanging up my own outer garments, I followed him.
By the time I’d made it up the seventeen stairs to our sitting room he was already smoking up a storm, lounged in his chair with his legs crossed underneath him and his face twisted with vexation.
“Holmes,” I said cautiously.
“Oh, go on and laugh,” he spat around the stem of his pipe, sinking deeper into his chair and refusing to look at me.
“Laugh?”
“Yes, go on. Sherlock Holmes, famous detective and sleuth-hound, afraid of a petty little reptile. Bah!” he released a dark cloud of smoke into the air.
“Holmes,” I entreated. “I’m not going to laugh at you. There’s nothing wrong with having a phobia.”
He opened one eye to regard me curiously, his face slack with surprise for a moment before he regained control of himself. I took his silence as permission to continue.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I wouldn’t have brought it closer if I had.”
He shifted awkwardly, bringing his legs up to his chest. The wind seemed utterly taken out of his sails.
“Ah. Well, my dear fellow, you needn’t apologize, really. You couldn’t have known.”
“Nonetheless,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
He looked down at his folded hands for some time, his brow creased. When he finally spoke, it was scarcely above a whisper.
“When I was younger—that is, when I was a boy away at school for the first time, I was not a popular fellow. I suppose I was...offputting. My classmates saw fit to play a prank on me by capturing a snake and leaving it in my bed. I awoke-” here, his voice tightened, and I could see the goose-flesh beginning to crawl up his pale forearms once again. “-to the thing crawling over me. I haven’t been able to abide the creatures since.”
“My God,” I muttered. “What monsters little boys can be.”
He shuddered, drawing his arms around his legs a little tighter. Then, in an uncharacteristic moment of weakness, he looked to me, a shadow of insecurity passing over his face.
“You don’t think it stupid then?”
“Certainly not,” I replied. “You’re the bravest man I know, Holmes. Your being afraid of snakes won’t change that.”
He flushed up at that, and turned his gaze to the fire. It was some time before he spoke again, and I barely caught it when he did.
“...Thank you, Watson.”