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‘So you are truly a consulting detective?’ I said.
‘The only one in London, or perhaps the world,’ said my friend. ‘I do not take cases. Instead, I consult. Others bring me their insoluble problems, they describe them, and, sometimes, I solve them.’
‘Then those people who come to you...’
‘Are, in the main, police officers, or are detectives themselves, yes.’
It was a fine morning, but we were now jolting about the edges of the rookery of St Giles, that warren of thieves and cutthroats which sits on London like a cancer on the face of a pretty flower-seller, and the only light to enter the cab was dim and faint.
‘Are you sure that you wish me along with you?’
In reply my friend stared at me without blinking. ‘I have a feeling,’ he said. ‘I have a feeling that we were meant to be together. That we have fought a good fight, side by side, in the past or in the future, I do not know. I am a rational man, but I have learned the value of a good companion, and from the moment I clapped eyes on you, I knew I trusted you as well as I do myself. Yes. I want you with me.’
I blushed, or said something meaningless. For the first time since Afghanistan, I felt that I had worth in the world.
‘The only one in London, or perhaps the world,’ said my friend. ‘I do not take cases. Instead, I consult. Others bring me their insoluble problems, they describe them, and, sometimes, I solve them.’
‘Then those people who come to you...’
‘Are, in the main, police officers, or are detectives themselves, yes.’
It was a fine morning, but we were now jolting about the edges of the rookery of St Giles, that warren of thieves and cutthroats which sits on London like a cancer on the face of a pretty flower-seller, and the only light to enter the cab was dim and faint.
‘Are you sure that you wish me along with you?’
In reply my friend stared at me without blinking. ‘I have a feeling,’ he said. ‘I have a feeling that we were meant to be together. That we have fought a good fight, side by side, in the past or in the future, I do not know. I am a rational man, but I have learned the value of a good companion, and from the moment I clapped eyes on you, I knew I trusted you as well as I do myself. Yes. I want you with me.’
I blushed, or said something meaningless. For the first time since Afghanistan, I felt that I had worth in the world.
<A Study in Emerald> Neil Gaiman, in short story collection《Fragile Things》 (2006)