sunset on Holmes

After being summoned by Holmes' laconic telegram at the start of The Creeping Man (the famous "if inconvenient...") Watson is given a quick summary of the matter at hand. But Holmes adds "I had hoped for a longer chat".

Is this purely because he wanted to go into greater detail? I think not, as the client arrives immediately thereafter to give a more than ample account. I think there were other things Holmes wanted to discuss with his old friend.

I think he was finally considering retirement and he was hoping to get Watson's opinion. We are told that this was "one of his very last cases" - perhaps even the last? Watson himself is rueful at the opening of the story as to how he had become simply a part of the furniture. Clearly things had lost some of their sparkle and the now re-married Watson himself had less time for gallivanting about with his detective friend (we're a far cry from the early days of The Adventures). With Watson summoned to 221b again Holmes probably was keen to chat about the pros and cons. Perhaps he even wanted to see if he'd try to talk him out of it...

This may also tie into RETI -  if that too was a latter case (it comes right at the end of The Casebook after all), he is "in philosophical mood" - not only considering retirement himself but wary of a new generation of "hated rival"(s), be they on or off the Surrey Shore.

Holmes was intelligent enough to foresee a time when he may not even be needed, if up and coming 'tecs like Barker were indeed following in his footsteps. He was possibly even then secretly looking forward to enjoying his fading sunset years writing his books and keeping his bees... which, give or take the occasional brush with a killer jellyfish or the pleading of a pre-War Government, is exactly what he did.