holmes_minor | Fic: Dylan ail Don: Gen

Title: Dylan ail Don
Rating: Gen
Length: 500
Warning: mention of off-screen murder and the death of a woman/mother/wife
Characters: Watson, OCs, and an unrepentant feline.
Notes: the monthly prompt: wait; Dylan ail Don is the name of a Welsh sea god.
Summary: In investigating the murder of a caroler, Watson stumbles upon another more unsettling death.

“You’re a member of the late Mister Masterston’s wait, that is to say, his caroling group?”

“Yeah, going on ten years.”

“You were singing the night he was killed?”

Tom Bayley nodded.

Holmes was hunting down more interesting clues. I was delegated the necessary but banal task of verifying earlier statements.

Three young children played happily by the fire. A big black cat watched from an armchair.

“What route did the group take?”

The man launched into the itinerary, but then threw an anxious glance at the stove.

“Excuse me, the morgy-broth’s ready. Children! You’re welcome to join us, Doctor.”

The aroma of the fish stew was rich. I accepted.

The children sat as their father ladled out the stew into bowls.

“Forgive me, Mister Bayley, but are you a widower? I only ask because I am as well.”

“Yes, sir. A year ago, tomorrow.”

“Oh, dear. I am dreadfully sorry.”

The three young faces did not appear nearly as grief stricken as one might imagine.

“Don’t want to speak ill, you know, but she’s resting easier now than she ever was. Us, too. Yeah, last Christmas Eve, t’were when Dylan ail Don slew her.”

Only my training and experience as a doctor prepared me to keep a composed expression during that revelation.

“She was murdered?”

He inclined his head. “Some might call it that.”

“Did the police catch him?”

He laughed. “They can try, but he’s a slippery one. Dylan! Supper!” The man put a plate on the floor. “Smoked ling’s his favourite.”

The cat leaped from his perch with grace and padded to the foodstuffs.

“A cat!” I cried.

The children, all three, grinned.

“The missus leaned over the stove. Dylan fell on one end of the spoon and shot a whole cabbage up.” Tom Bayley made an arcing motion with his hand. “Cabbage hit the skillet.” He waved at a heavy iron pan which was hanging above the stove. “That came down, cracked her poor head like an egg. And if we hadn’t had Father over for supper and if he hadn’t witnessed the whole thing, well, I’d probably be hanging from a rope because who would’ve believed all that?” He shook his head.

I nodded and, for wont of anything better, said, “Indeed.”

“She were always a hard woman. Hard about everything. She was going to get rid of Dylan. Said he was eating too much and we’d have more money for a proper Christmas goose if we didn’t have one more mouth to feed.”

The cat looked up from his plate and turned his face towards me.

I ate the excellent stew, chatted with the Bayley family, and verified the wait’s movements on the night of interest, but it was a pair of round green eyes set in a mask of black fur that I was thinking of when I returned to the inn.

Round green eyes and the way Dylan ail Don licked his very sharp teeth in a manner that suggested a smile.