The Facebook of Sherlock Holmes (Pt 5): The newshounds and the hermitage
It struck me as I sat beside his bed that I had never seen my fastidious friend in pyjamas before, despite more than two decades of cohabitation and almost numberless excursions out of London. True, now and then he would emerge from his study in dressing grown and slippers, violin, perhaps, in one hand, pipe in the other – but the dressing gown would always be braided and elegant, the slippers Persian, perhaps turquoise, delicately stitched in leather. And between the one and the other were never pyjama bottoms, but invariably a trouser of corduroy or cavalry twill, acutely pressed. But here was Mr Sherlock Holmes, in bed and asleep, in rather shabby flannel pyjamas, grey with a laurel stripe. An absurd jingle formed in my head and rang round and around while I quietly ate my cereal: “Not sure you’ll keep her keen with pyjamas striped in evergreen...” “Really, Watson, must you make the consumption of muesli sound like the mixing of concrete? Shut your mouth, man, shut your mouth.” ...