221B: His Last Post
This has been lurking for ages, and I thought I ought to post it at last.
ACD Sherlock/Parade's End
Rating: 12
Diogenes Club, May 1920
My dear Sherlock,
Please excuse me breaking in on your retirement, but I have had a request from my previous Department which seems to require the sort of legwork that has always been more your forte than my own. My friends are interested in re-employing a former government official, but they need to be assured first of his soundness.
Getting down to business: the fellow's name is Christopher Tietjens, once the bright hope of the Department of Imperial Statistics. He left there under a cloud at the start of the War, and after a chequered army career, is now living in your neck of the woods down in Sussex, engaged in the second-hand furniture trade. He's of decent Yorkshire stock, but according to some of the gossip going round, he's a pimp, a wastrel, and possibly even a traitor. I need you to investigate and find out the truth about him. I'm not expecting him to be a saint, but I don't want any more boodlers in the Service. I rely on you to find out the truth about the matter.
your affectionate brother,
Mycroft
PS: By soundness, I mean of course financial and political. Provided Tietjens can keep his mouth shut, I see no need to worry about his current possession of a mistress and bastard.