A Bizarre Proposal, Part 3A
Title: A Bizarre Proposal, Part 3A
Author: shes_a_geek
Rating: G/PG
Pairing: Holmes/Watson (with Moriarty/Moran in other installments)
Warnings: Alternate history/sexology. (And a bit of angst)
Summary: Re-imagining of FINA (with some dialogue borrowed)...Watson receives a surprise visit from Holmes.
Disclaimer: They’re not mine. Oh, how I wish they were…
Author's Note: The second piece of this unbetaed jumble of crackiness is coming...soonish, I hope!
“’Despite recent changes in certain Continental statutes,’ an unnamed Government representative said Thursday, ‘all British citizens should remain aware that the laws and moral codes of this nation are not going to change any time soon.”
I threw the copy of the Times onto the table with great force. To be separated from Holmes due to the wagging tongues of gossips and potential blackmailers was bad enough. To see a reminder of why, precisely, I had left Baker Street printed in my evening paper was more than I could stomach in one night.
I had seen very little of Holmes since my marriage announcement was published in the daily papers. Although Mary Morstan was a pseudonym for a real client, our nuptials were utterly fictitious. Holmes, it seemed, had been having trouble with distressing letters, most of which alleged with uncanny accuracy to have some…intimate knowledge of our true relationship. Our saving grace was that their authors were not inclined to address any to my publishers.
At Holmes’s request, and out of a fear of such an eventuality, I moved out and began practicing once more. It was with some surprise, therefore, that I saw him walk into my consulting-room upon the evening of April 24th. It struck me that he was looking even paler and thinner than usual.
"Yes, I have been using myself up rather too freely," he remarked, in answer to my look rather than to my words; "I have been a little pressed of late. Have you any objection to my closing your shutters?"
The only light in the room came from the lamp upon the table at which I had been reading. Holmes edged his way round the wall and flinging the shutters together, he bolted them securely.
"You are afraid of something?" I asked.
“You have read the papers, Watson, and can guess what must be on the mind of nearly every man like us.”
“Holmes! You are not suggesting…?”
Despite my…formerly intimate relationship with Holmes, I did not waver from my previous claim that he loathed all forms of society with his Bohemian soul. If he was proposing what I thought…
“You have heard me speak of Professor Moriarty?”
Moriarty.
It had nothing to do with me, then.
I intend no disrespect to Sherlock Holmes, but that question was perhaps the most absurd thing I had heard from his lips. Of course I had heard of Moriarty! Holmes only mentioned the man whenever there was a case not solved to his satisfaction. It had become something of an in-joke among the various police inspectors of our acquaintance.
“Holmes…what is it?”
“For years past I have continually been conscious of some power behind the malefactor, some deep organizing power which forever stands in the way of the law, and throws its shield over the wrongdoer. Again and again in cases of the most varying sorts-forgery cases, robberies, murders-I have felt the presence of this force, and I have deduced its action in many of those undiscovered crimes in which I have not been personally consulted. For years I have endeavored to break through the veil which shrouded it, and at last the time came when I seized my thread and followed it, until it led me, after a thousand cunning windings, to ex-Professor Moriarty of mathematical celebrity.”
I groaned. “Holmes, we’ve been through this all before. What is happening?”
“I have it on good authority that Professor Moriarty and his second-in-command will be embarking for the Continent in a matter of days. This could be our chance, Watson!”
“Our chance to…net Moriarty, then? He has done something you can prove to Scotland Yard?”
Holmes frowned, staring straight past me. I wondered if he had heard me, and began to repeat the question. I had hardly opened my mouth when he spoke.
“Do you remember, Watson, when I told MacDonald about my, ah…visit to the professor’s house?”