"The Beeswing from Two Glasses".
(An Altamont/Malpaso/Studio Canal/Penthouse Production.)
Contrary to popular perception (not to mention Natural Law) the Brothers Holmes are still alive today.
Well into their second centuries by now (and happy as sandboys) they occupy a penthouse suite added atop the Diogenes Club upon the cessation of hostilities in 1945.
From this vantage point (as of old) Mycroft can look across at his former rooms and both may observe the workaday World's ebb and flow far below. "To anyone who wishes to study mankind this is the spot," the elder is wont to repeat for the umpteenth time since 1888. |
| Jeremy Brett & Charles Grey in Granada's 'The Greek Interpreter' (from the Holmes Family Album). |
Sherlock wearied of bee-keeping after the
Von Bork affair but still maintains enough hives on the roof-garden above (Brownie point Jonny Lee Miller!) to harvest the Royal Jelly to which their longevity is indebted.
These precious secretions of the worker bees (prepared by Sherlock alone) not only prolong their lives: both men enjoy as yet undimmed powers of reasoning, deduction and observation.
An unforeseen side-effect (experienced thus far by Mycroft since turning 160) is a novel, late flowing of the libido. Mycroft is as a magnificent Merlin engine suddenly (in his case for the first time) roaring into throbbing life on Nature's factory floor.
One of Sherlock's myriad memory-sticks is devoted to charting the onset and progress of his priapic, centenarian brother's libidinal levels - purely in the interests of Science (he insists). Privately, there can be little doubt the younger brother savours with anticipation his next but one birthday (Another Brownie point, Mr. Miller!).
Dr. Watson calls in from time to time to check on their (robust) health, consume the Club's dwindling cellar of Imperial Tokay and wonder anew at some penetrating passage of observation conducted by the old men from their perches above the city.
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| Once Upon A Time. |
This is not THE Watson, of course. John H. Watson M.D. lived out his allotted span with modest content. Not for him the artificial stimulant: "Who Wants To Live Forever" would have been the good doctor's choice of ring-tone had he owned a mobile phone. Martin does.
After a baptism of fire on the occasion of his first visit to the Diogenes (caught here on Club-Cam and gleefully replayed to his embarrassment on every visit), Martin has been taken under the wing of his forebear's intimates.
In the family tradition, Martin is a doctor in private practice, specialising in war injuries. He is as yet unmarried, but Mycroft is working on this through his own select circle of "cuties" , as he chooses to describe all ladies of his newly-acquired acquaintance. "Hobbit-like, but a good soul!" is Mycroft's view of "Doc Martin".
Good soul that he is, young Martin has of late sought to dissuade "S & M" (his endearingly naive collective term) from future roof-top exploits.
More precarious still seemed the gaunt silhouette of Sherlock poised at the roof's very edge, arms aloft outspread.
'Had the Great Detective wearied of life at last?' mused the frozen Hobbit far below.
"You know my methods, Watters. I simply put myself in the position of Mr. Cumberbatch. Consequently I now know precisely how IT was done!" ( Altamont's note: no spoiler here).
To his credit, M appears to have taken the hint and is submitting a proposal to the Members' Committee for 'a small observatory' from a design unearthed amongst Google Images.
"See that Steampunk Cameron Cutie, Sherlock?" M is gesturing right now away down Pall Mall, with an eye lasering in like a hovering hawk surveying terrain.
S glances up from the drawer he is currently ransacking for THE long-misplaced Cabinet Photograph - a daily hunt ( 'The matter grows ever more urgent.' he opines.)
"You mean the one cycling past the BBC scriptwriters holding an al fresco panic meeting? You can surely descry the tell-tale words 'Rat. Wedding. Bow' scribbled upon that august Corporation's crested post-it notes, friend Martin?"
"No. She's an M.P. all right, I give you that. (House of Commons pass pinned to her chezzy). Green Party, though: symbol for On-The-Go Air-Quality Checking decorating the mobile phone case (breast pock'). Always look at a Cutie's chezzy first, Sherlock. Observe and learn!"
"Cameron Cuties!" sniffs S. "How are the mighty fallen! Gladstone would never have countenanced a 'party cutie'. Nor can one imagine such a species as 'the Rosebery or Balfour Cutie!'. Ahh! I see her now -recently returned from the Antipodes (Walkabout tan...designer khakis...Croc' Dundee hat..."
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| Nadine Dorries M.P. down under. |
"Got her Out of There, they did. See? Still itching. No wonder. She's illegally imported at least two visible species of creepy-crawly hitherto unknown in our Hemisphere. And to think I voted her out!"
"Only because you wanted to keep in the one with the...err...unmissable mammaries."
"So? So? Wait till you're my age, Number Two. Number One Son see more of World! Oh, there goes that Canadian banker chappy. Spring in HIS step, I should coco! Heading for The Old Lady and a peerage."
Martin Watson quietly helps himself to another glass of Tokay.
"Nor could one fail to recognise... (don't shake up the beeswing,Watters!)...Lord Justice Sir Brian Henry Leveson weaving betwixt the November traffic beneath that precarious column of dossiers destined for the current Queen's Centre, no doubt," murmured S, resuming his search.
I had better explain the esoteric reference just encountered.
Such is their formidable vitality and unquenchable curiosity the brothers are characteristically engaged on multiple research projects. This week the topics are as diverse as Tantric sex ( with Mycroft at the helm); The New Mentalism (Sherlock's focus) and A Filmography of Charlie Chan to which both are equally addicted.
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| Charlie with Number One Son. |
In a Private Message tweet, he also offers to 'guest' in Sherlock Series 3 and/or Dr. Who (should the leads be unavailable), as long as THE Woman ( Lara Pulver) plays the Cutie.
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| Lara reads Mycroft's Love-Tweet. |
Since the earliest days in Baker Street a Mrs. Hudson has 'done for' Sherlock Holmes. Except that is for the Great Hiatus years of '45 to '07. It was, as we have learned, in the latter year that Mycroft attained his 16oth birthday and began to display tumescent sexual stirrings.
An emergency meeting of all Members was called which resulted in a revolution. Quite in the grip of what he called his 'little fads and fancies', founder Member Mycroft single-handedly dragged the Diogenes into the 21st Century, gaining permission to receive lady guests in his penthouse suite.
Forestalling any protests on the grounds of impropriety, it was Sherlock who suggested the employment of a mature female to cook and clean for the aging brothers, one who would be a respectable presence as chaperone to Mycroft's cuties.
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| Una Stubbs aka Mrs. Hudson. |
The Club acquiesced, stunned by the seismic change in Mycroft and the brothers fairly took the field having it enshrined in a revised constitution that:
a) The appointee must ever bear the name 'Hudson'.
b) That (as with Highlander & Dr. Who)"There Can Only Be One" Mrs. Hudson.
c) That no other female may cross the Diogenes threshold except she be a 'Violet', a 'Mary', a 'Lara' or 'Esmeralda'. (In a sub-section Sherlock's foresight leads to the addition of 'Irene' & 'Molly'.)
d) The words 'of any known sex' were to be added to the long-standing bar against redheads.
So! They still live for all that love them well in an increasingly romantic penthouse, keeping vigil over our great Metropolis.
And! "Perhaps our lives are not wholly in vain," muses Number Two Son, "if we can fill the brief hiatus before Sherlock Season 3 with occasional observations from Two Sons of Note which may be of some slight interest and diversion to an international Fandom momentarily deprived of Holmesian pleasures."
Thus philosphises S, the one and only living, breathing, Baker-Streeting Holmes.
"There's cuties in this, Sherlock, if nothing else!" adds Mycroft, licking 165 year old lascivious lips.
"The Game's Afoot!" they chime in cackling fraternity. "We've Only Just Begun!" They launch upon a word perfect rendition of The Carpenters' classic (imagine, if you will, the singing voices of Old Testament prophets).
"That Karen! There was a cutie!" Mycroft ejaculates as he jigs away merrily to more private activities through the great oaken door labelled "Number One Son".
"Coming!".
********
(More Private Activity)
('Esmeralda' is reading "Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen" (first, signed, limited, illustrated edition.).
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