tremendousdetectivetheorist

This happens: Watson is about to call on Mrs. Forrester and *ahem* Miss Morstan, but doesn’t mention the latter until Holmes does.

“Then I shall run over to Camberwell and call
upon Mrs. Cecil Forrester. She asked me to, yesterday.”

“On Mrs. Cecil Forrester?” asked Holmes, with
the twinkle of a smile in his eyes.

“Well, of course Miss Morstan too. They were
anxious to hear what happened.”

Way to try and hide that you were going to visit Mary Morstan. I take it that Holmes knows Watson has a crush and was teasing him about it. And now Watson is smiling sheepishly and shifting his feet.

After Watson makes his call, this is what Mrs. Hudson tells him upon returning to Baker Street:

“After you was gone
he walked and he walked, up and down, and up
and down, until I was weary of the sound of his
footstep. Then I heard him talking to himself and
muttering, and every time the bell rang out he
came on the stairhead, with ‘What is that, Mrs.
Hudson?’ And now he has slammed off to his
room, but I can hear him walking away the same as
ever…”

Watson: ”I have seen him like this before. He has some small matter
upon his mind which makes him restless.”

So Watson went to visit his lady friend and Holmes became pacey and irritable. I get that his anxiety is case-related (and that Watson wouldn’t ring the bell, he’d have a key to get in Baker St.) but might some of this be jealousy? And then this happens:

I walked over to Camberwell in the
evening to report our ill success to the ladies, and
on my return I found Holmes dejected and somewhat
morose. He would hardly reply to my questions,
and busied himself all evening in an abstruse
chemical analysis which involved much heating of
retorts and distilling of vapors, ending at last in a
smell which fairly drove me out of the apartment.

Then Holmes wakes up Watson at dawn, dressed in sailor costume, and tells him he’s heading to the docks, and tells Watson to stay home.

The last paragraph of the chapter is Holmes inviting Athelney Jones to stay for dinner, ending with: “Watson, you have never yet recognized my merits as a housekeeper.”

Is he showing off to Watson as if to say, you may like Mary Morstan, but see what is in front of you/you have a good thing going with me? I mean, oysters and wine, sounds like he’s showing off!