Fic: The Case for a Driftwood Fire: Gen
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holmes_minorTitle: The Case for a Driftwood Fire
Length: 500
Rating: Gen
Notes: for monthly prompt. Case is Agatha Christie's "Ingots of Gold."
Summary: Holmes and Watson enjoy a driftwood bonfire post-case.
“See, Watson?” Holmes’ tone was pure vindication. “There’s nothing like a driftwood fire when it gets started at last, and our little one is on its way.”
Holmes’s features were both devilish and childlike in the glow. He continued his diatribe as he poked and stoked the panting embers.
“They get lots of driftwood here on the Cornish coast, Captain Braddock says. A driftwood log must be a valued companion on this lonely stretch. Still a great many wrecks in those waters.”
“Don’t remind me,” I whined, then added, trying to soften my complaint, “The salt in it does make pretty sparks.”
“Watson…”
I sighed.
“I was a dupe, Holmes. If you hadn’t arrived, that blighter Newman’s scheme would have worked perfectly. All that talk of a Spanish galleon!”
Holmes left the fire and sat beside me. He laid his arm across my shoulders, a weight as welcome as the light and heat and perfume of burning driftwood before us.
“Is it any consolation that Newman chose you because you have such an impeachable reputation? An alibi of a soldier and a doctor, well, no one would question it, not even the police.”
“Are you certain that it wasn’t because I gave every appearance of a gullible, half-witted fool?”
“Your choice of reading material on the train probably gave Newman some indication that your imagination was a muscle well-exercised, but there’s no shame in that, Watson, for all that I tease you, there isn’t.”
“Newman was not a fortune-hunter, at least not in the sense he claimed. He was trying to hide the bullion he had stolen under the guise of recovered treasure, and he would’ve succeeded, he and his accomplices, if it hadn’t been for you. That business of switching the wheels of the wagon to muddy the tracks, so to speak, was very clever.” I made a resigned noise. “Ah, well. Newman and his crew didn’t get away with it.
“Indeed, they did not, but I still maintain you are judging yourself too harshly. Look out there, Watson,” Holmes gestured to the dark, churning waves in the distance, “what human being wouldn’t be tempted into at least a tiny reverie, a fleeting thrill, at the suggestion of a wrecked ship of fortune and heaps of gold and jewels at the bottom, just waiting for the resurrecting?”
Holmes’s voice mingled with the crackling driftwood fire and the shore winds and distant voices and was, as often, uttering charming.
I surrendered to his arguments.
“A good companion, hm?” I said, taking the stick from his hands and rising to my feet and giving the driftwood a sharp stab.
Holmes was quick to recognise my change in humour. He reverted to the original topic of conversation.
“A driftwood fire is an excellent companion, but second to you, my dear Watson. You did what no bonfire could do: brought me a puzzle, helped me solve it, and now, are helping me celebrate. A trove above rubies, lost, found, or thrown before swine.”
Length: 500
Rating: Gen
Notes: for monthly prompt. Case is Agatha Christie's "Ingots of Gold."
Summary: Holmes and Watson enjoy a driftwood bonfire post-case.
“See, Watson?” Holmes’ tone was pure vindication. “There’s nothing like a driftwood fire when it gets started at last, and our little one is on its way.”
Holmes’s features were both devilish and childlike in the glow. He continued his diatribe as he poked and stoked the panting embers.
“They get lots of driftwood here on the Cornish coast, Captain Braddock says. A driftwood log must be a valued companion on this lonely stretch. Still a great many wrecks in those waters.”
“Don’t remind me,” I whined, then added, trying to soften my complaint, “The salt in it does make pretty sparks.”
“Watson…”
I sighed.
“I was a dupe, Holmes. If you hadn’t arrived, that blighter Newman’s scheme would have worked perfectly. All that talk of a Spanish galleon!”
Holmes left the fire and sat beside me. He laid his arm across my shoulders, a weight as welcome as the light and heat and perfume of burning driftwood before us.
“Is it any consolation that Newman chose you because you have such an impeachable reputation? An alibi of a soldier and a doctor, well, no one would question it, not even the police.”
“Are you certain that it wasn’t because I gave every appearance of a gullible, half-witted fool?”
“Your choice of reading material on the train probably gave Newman some indication that your imagination was a muscle well-exercised, but there’s no shame in that, Watson, for all that I tease you, there isn’t.”
“Newman was not a fortune-hunter, at least not in the sense he claimed. He was trying to hide the bullion he had stolen under the guise of recovered treasure, and he would’ve succeeded, he and his accomplices, if it hadn’t been for you. That business of switching the wheels of the wagon to muddy the tracks, so to speak, was very clever.” I made a resigned noise. “Ah, well. Newman and his crew didn’t get away with it.
“Indeed, they did not, but I still maintain you are judging yourself too harshly. Look out there, Watson,” Holmes gestured to the dark, churning waves in the distance, “what human being wouldn’t be tempted into at least a tiny reverie, a fleeting thrill, at the suggestion of a wrecked ship of fortune and heaps of gold and jewels at the bottom, just waiting for the resurrecting?”
Holmes’s voice mingled with the crackling driftwood fire and the shore winds and distant voices and was, as often, uttering charming.
I surrendered to his arguments.
“A good companion, hm?” I said, taking the stick from his hands and rising to my feet and giving the driftwood a sharp stab.
Holmes was quick to recognise my change in humour. He reverted to the original topic of conversation.
“A driftwood fire is an excellent companion, but second to you, my dear Watson. You did what no bonfire could do: brought me a puzzle, helped me solve it, and now, are helping me celebrate. A trove above rubies, lost, found, or thrown before swine.”
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