"No, it serves me well," Holmes agrees. "It is the defining point of my character, I should say in fact." Without it, he would have little enough with which to recommend himself.

He draws in a breath, then lets it out with a puff of smoke.

"I would apologize for misjudging you, but that I had so little evidence with which to make any judgment at all," he says at length. Not that he's entertaining thoughts of going after Random just now, either. A breach of trust is still a breach, no matter to whom a secret has been told.