acdholmesfest | Fic for our pinch-hitter: Head to Toe (G)

Head to Toe

Three stories inspired by the prompt: ‘clothing’

For: [our esteemed, and jolly speedy, pinch hitter]
Author: [redacted]
Rating: G
Notes: Specific to each section

1. Irregular Endings

Notes – written before I had actually read your story. Consider this another possibility amongst many.
Beta thanks to: [redacted]

We had waited in places like this at other times, on other occasions, I thought as I stamped on the iron earth in the mists of a late December morning, trying to keep my feet from freezing.

Holmes sat perched on the end of a worm-eaten bench. Ancient gravestones jostled and tilted about him, vying for the attention lost with the names and affections scoured from them by two hundred winters.

He glanced at the church door. “Almost time.”

St Dunstan and All Saints’, Stepney, was once a village church amongst green fields and market gardens, long since swallowed by the teeming city. The churchyard soil is perpetually wet and rank from London rain and London rot. Generations of worshippers have trodden it from first toddling steps to the bent hobble of old age: then to slip, finally, below the grey grass to sleep in swelling crowds beneath their children and grandchildren’s feet.

Some had a far shorter journey.

I did not know all of their names, the street arabs Holmes had taken under his wing, but never been a father to, for he did not know how. Some came and went with each job, bobbing up like fallen apples in a barrel, only to sink out of sight almost at once. The core, however - some of whom were even now inside St Dunstan’s, attention fixed greedily on the tale from the pulpit, just as they might have been at one of Holmes’ war briefings on the rug at Baker Street - remained steady, and each time one was taken, he was mourned.

Bob Pledge, lying crow-picked on the African veldt with a battered bugle round his neck. Tall, laughing Phipps, scalded with boiling lead as he watched the vats at night for sixpence. Billy the Shrimp, his sharp little face with the sky-blue eyes that my own hands had closed, struck down with five of his eight siblings by scarlet fever. McGuinness, whom I always suspected of really being a girl, and who disappeared one day in circumstances that sickened me with the possibility of confirmation.

My public knew but one name. When we are dust, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, I am assured we shall be immortal, thanks to the stories. So then, perhaps, may he.

The organ struck up, the congregation rose with a scuffle as a fat verger flung open the doors and peered down his nose at the two unbelievers loitering on consecrated ground. I reached into my pocket for the packet of rice I’d stowed there. Holmes shifted a large box from the ground and tucked it under his arm. He had steadfastly refused to tell me what it contained.

We had seen him grow, audacious urchin to swaggering youth to steady, confident manhood. Now the end of the journey – and a different beginning – was upon us. They emerged from the porch into a ray of winter sunshine, thronged by well-wishers mostly three sheets to the wind already with merry-making, his bride shivering in her shawl but warming the world with her smile. As the shower of rice surprised her, she turned toward us, tugging on his arm.

“Look, John, look. They’ve come!”

“Mr Holmes! Doctor! I’m glad to see you, my eye! You’ll come to the breakfast, I hope? At the Britannia, down Cable Street. ”

“Certainly we shall. But first, do you not think you are a trifle ill-dressed for a married man just out of church?” my friend asked, cocking his eyebrow at the other’s bare head.

The groom dipped an apology and set a venerable old bowler over his flaming beacon of red hair. Holmes clicked his tongue, shook his head and offered up the wooden box. Plucking off the lid with a magician’s flourish and giving it to me, he took out an object wrapped in a thick veil of tissue paper. A fine, black, silk plush top hat was underneath.

It was not quite new.

“I think we are of a size; try it and see. I got it at Lock’s last month, and I am assured it is the very latest style. Perhaps a little too fashionable for a…” he directed a sly smile in my direction, “prim dresser approaching his middle years. A couple of outings, and I began to feel conspicuous. Not an advantage for a detective.”

The assembled company gaped and whispered. A hat from Lock & Co, St James’ Street, meant the price of a month’s rent for most of them. As an outright gift, new, it might have been an insult: charity, born from lack of imagination and sympathy. As a hand-me-down from a famous head, it was a point of conversation, a fount of storytelling, a memento of a treasured association.

Holmes had not lost his own style with the approach of ‘his middle years’. Nor his accurate eye: as he had predicted, the hat was a perfect fit; with it the groom was transformed from fish porter (which is what he was, and no shame in an honest trade) to gentleman. He spoke in a bashful mumble around the evident lump in his throat.

“I don’t know what to say, Mr Holmes.”

“Well, that makes a change, John,” put in the bride, and he laughed and kissed her cheek.

“See what I’ve got in store?” he sighed dramatically. “No respect from me own wife.” Then he kissed her again.

Holmes saluted them with a forefinger to the brim of his own comfortably worn, but briskly-brushed, hat.

“Your servant, Mr Wiggins; Mrs Wiggins.”

2. The Continuity of Empires

Beta: [redacted]

Mr. H. H. Asquith was not the first Premier ever entertained in Sherlock Holmes' house during his long lifetime, but he was the first to step through the door in Sussex and not London. He and Sir Edward Grey, at that time the foreign secretary and one of the newest Knights of the Garter, sat at Holmes' table and considered him and their offered tea and honey grimly. They expected an answer. Only ten minutes earlier, Holmes had expected breakfast.

"The matter is dire, Mr. Holmes. The safety and continuity of the very Empire lies at stake."

Undoubtedly it was, for these men of stature to travel out to the empty shores of Sussex unaccompanied by even servants or protection, as incognito as politicians can ever possibly be. The shabby wrinkling of their jacket sleeves was particularly compelling. They had stayed the night prior in the wretched Little Spotted Hen inn down in Fulworth, undoubtedly under fictitious names. It was all a remarkably long way for ministers of the Crown to go to lure an old man out of his pleasant rural hermitage.

The explanation was curt when it finally came. English agents of the international spy game were disappearing, presumed captured or killed. All attempts to root out the cause were failures, although they pointed to a single central and powerful force pulling the strings on the marionettes of foreign intrigue. What needed to be answered was who this puppeteer was and how he could be stopped.

It was obvious Sherlock Holmes was their second choice for this task, of course, although the men sitting at his kitchen table had the tact not to say as much. In years past, a different Mr. Holmes would have been asked to discover the culprit at the bottom of this conspiracy of espionage through pure thought, but that particular gentleman was long unavailable, lounging himself now in a cozy pine box instead of an overstuffed chair in the Diogenes. His inferior replacement would have to be accepted in his stead. That is, if he was willing to acquiesce to it.

"I am retired. You gentlemen do realize that."

The Prime Minister spoke with his hands, sweeping them through the air. "No one else in all the world can be trusted for such an intricate operation, sir. If England is to weather this crisis, we must find this leak now and plug it before more time and more agents are lost. These are tenuous times for all nations, Mr. Holmes, and without proper intelligence, we are running blind. Your country calls you, a great man of honour and justice, into duty once more for the sake of all her citizens."

They were lofty words, but unnecessary. Holmes saw the pressing need for his skills. That was clear the moment he'd seen the foreign secretary rubbing thoughtlessly but ceaselessly at the brim of his hat in his hands in the doorway, worrying his way through the fabric. But another factor had yet to be considered.

"I rather doubt the queen would approve of any efforts on my part for you."

Looks of sudden consternation darkened the countenances across the table in an instant. Asquith and Grey passed a nervous glance between themselves, hesitating on a reply as it dawned on them that the genius they believed they were speaking to was now very possibly only a doddering old man, unaware any longer of the world outside the walls of his mind.

"Ah, with due respect, sir, the King himself requested your assistance in this matter."

"Did he, now? That explains a few things. But I was not speaking of the monarch of our land, gentlemen. I was referring to the leader of that other expansive empire, the one out there in the field." He pointed through the window at a set of three white boxes standing resolute in a clearing. "Well, one of them, at any rate. Come, and we'll discover her answer together. I have work to do this morning and we can better ponder the issue with the clarity offered by the cooling sea breeze."

The enthusiasm Holmes had seen for his participation in this affair evaporated rapidly as he made his preparations. Sanity was questioned outright, albeit nonverbally, when simple straw hats with veils were handed to heads and shoulders more accustomed to silk top hats and knighting swords. An admonition about keeping hands in pockets brought open stares of disbelief.

Holmes walked out into the sunshine toward his hives without once looking back at his unexpected company. Asquith and Grey would follow him if they wanted his help; it was that simple. Either way, he had work this morning, whether or not he had an illustrious audience behind him for it.

They came, of course, in due aghast aristocratic time. By then, Holmes was in mid-shove with a crowbar, breaking up the sticky propolis to open the hive with the benefit of his weight and the thick leather of his work gloves. The ministers stood at as far a distance from the buzzing throng in the air as they could manage without needing to shout their national secrets across the fields.

"Please, Mr. Holmes. We require an answer. England herself requires an answer, not these theatrics. If you do not believe you are up to the task, you must say so."

In his younger years, Holmes would have been offended by that remark, or at least Watson would have been offended for him. Now, he did not even grace the statement with a glare. He was busy.

"I shall have my answer in but moments and you shall have yours. Have patience, gentlemen."

With the frames exposed, the atmosphere thickened with honeybee guards testing the newly open air for intruders. The smoker calmed the cacophony somewhat, just enough, and Holmes tugged the hard leather gloves off his hands and tossed them aside.

As he reached to lift the first frame out in search of the young queen, a gasp rose from the gallery under the shade of the oak tree.

"Sir! You have forgotten your gloves!" the voices cried. "Mr. Holmes!"

"I have forgotten nothing," Holmes said calmly as he pulled a comb pulsing with Apis mellifera out into the daylight with his bare fingers. "Harsh treatment with heavy and clumsy gloves leads to angry bees, but a light touch preserves their docility, as you see."

"But they are crawling onto your skin!" came the horrified reply. So they were. Many dozens of tiny workers' legs scrambled across his knuckles and scurried down the backs of his hands to his wrists in widening, exploratory circles. "Mr. Holmes, they'll sting you!"

Holmes half-smiled sideways at the beleaguered politicians but left his vision on his active colony. "No, they won't. Not if I am careful."

Despite themselves, Asquith and Grey stepped forward, mesmerized by the casual spectacle before them. It was highly unlikely they had ever before watched a beekeeper at his work, and without a doubt these men had never seen one like Sherlock Holmes.

"I do not understand," the Prime Minister stammered. "How are you doing this?"

"It is the direct result of patience, skill, and a practiced, delicate hand that remains steady under any duress. There is a reason you gentlemen came today to me."

Taking his time, Holmes gently rotated the brood frame in his hands, never with any startling movement and never trapping an insect under his palm where it might feel the need to sting.

And there she was at last, his young and handsome queen. All the commotion had her out of her natural routine, and she stepped irregularly across the comb, accompanied by her vigorous attendants. He would not keep her stressed for any longer than was necessary. A quick count was made of capped cells, new larvae, and freshly laid eggs. This new queen's reign, still so early in its first season, was progressing impressively well. She would have years left before her era would come to an end and a transition to a new queen would begin.

Which meant Holmes had years as well. Although he could not bear to miss the coronation of another successor, there was time enough for him to conduct other necessary work in the interim. Time enough to concoct a new identity for his own spycraft on another continent. Time enough for infiltration into treacherous enemy territory. Time enough for an old bloodhound to sniff out one last trail in the grand service of justice.

"I will take England's case, Mr. Asquith. I shall require passage to America, and enough resources to sustain me for the next several years. You'll have your man. On that, you have my word."

3. Brought to Heel

Beta: [redacted] and [redacted]
Author’s Notes: Thank you for being so awesome!

My mind whirls, one possibility crashing in on top of another, thoughts tumbling senselessly without anchor. I need data, facts to work with, but there is nothing here to help me with the problem consuming me.

I told Watson once that without sufficient stimulation, my mind tears itself apart like an engine without oil. My friend thought I was speaking metaphorically, but I am not the writer of romantic tales he is. Stagnation is as dangerous to me as the lack of water is to a fish. I am not designed to thrive in placid, ordinary existence. I need occupation for my mind. Cases, chemistry experiments, music: all can serve that function and give me that essential combination of distraction, interest, and stimulation that allows me to scintillate instead of shatter. Without them, I flounder. It is better with Watson, true, far better than it has ever been; he is an endless puzzle himself, far more fascinating than he has any idea of. He calls himself my friend – is my friend, however little I deserve it at times, and like the steadfast, loyal man he is, he provides yet another bulwark between me and the stifling depths that drag me down. Yet even with Watson’s best efforts, he cannot always help me. And there is nothing and no one here to help me now.

My hands seize desperately on a nearby object. I force my eyes to focus upon it, and my mind automatically starts processing what I see.

A brown boot. A man’s brown boot, leather, hastily wiped to remove the worst of the muck and stains that recently fouled it, but well maintained before that. Waxed linen laces newer than the boot itself (boot styles vary less than other articles of clothing but this is not new, possibly even several years old), replaced recently, but not so recently that traces of the preferred method of tying (double bow) haven’t started wearing a readable pattern into the weave. A consistent knot, placed in almost exactly the same place every time: a methodical man with ingrained habits. A careful man, to have replaced the original laces before they could wear to the point of failure (wear pattern on the hooks and grommets insufficient to have worn through the originals): a man who knows the importance of his footgear. I turn the boot automatically, fingers absorbing the texture of the grit and grime that foul the wet leather, noting the composition automatically, comparing it to the feel of a thousand other samples of soil and mud and detritus. Wear pattern on the sole indicates a relatively even stride, but eccentricities in two of the treads suggest either occasional heavy unbalanced loads (not borne out by the leather above, which would have buckled in different creases) or a weakness in one leg that is compensated for by the other and a change in gait…

I resist the urge to hurl the boot away from me. It tells me nothing, nothing I do not already know, nothing I need to know –

The door opens, and I am on my feet before I know that I am standing. The local doctor’s face is tired, but his lips are relaxed, and there’s a satisfied air to his manner that releases some of my inner tension before he ever says a word. I only listen to his description and prognosis with half an ear, most of my attention fixed on the room behind him, straining to detect any sounds or indications of the state within. At the first possible moment I shake his hand, utter the appropriate thanks, and edge past him, through the door and inside the chamber.

He is dreadfully pale, but familiar eyes are open and meet mine in hazy recognition. His moustache twitches with the hint of a relieved smile. “Holmes. You’re all right?”

“Perfectly, my dear fellow,” I assure him even as I take in every detail, every wretched indication of what he has endured, every grateful sign of his continued survival. A slight frown creases his brow, and I hastily move forward where it will be easier for him to see me. “I was never in any danger.” A lie, one we both know, but an expected one, an offer of comfort in its own way. I reach out to smooth the coverlet, and only then realize that I still have his boot clutched in my hand.

“Ah,” Watson says, his eyes catching on the one lone boot dangling uselessly from my fingers, the only one recovered with him: the other lost, as he too so easily could have been. “Good. For you owe me a new pair of boots.”