holmes_minor | Fic: Deductions by the Loyal Companion: G

Title: Deductions by the Loyal Companion
Form/Word Count: 360
Characters/Pairing: Dr Watson, Inspector Lestrade, Sherlock Holmes (in absentia)
Rating: G
Warning/Content: Watson has been making his own deductions

Some days it does not require a consulting detective to make deductions, for it can be left to the consulting detective’s loyal companion to do so. Today was one such day. I had returned to our rooms shortly before lunch and having made a swift deduction had departed again, for lunch at my club. It was there that Inspector Lestrade found me in the early afternoon. I congratulated him on having presumably made the same deduction as I had.

“Although I had to go one step further than you, Doctor,” Lestrade said.

“But you had assistance,” I replied.

“Only that Bessie told me you had returned from your rounds. It was left to me to deduce where you had gone to, when I discovered you no longer in your rooms.”

I nodded in agreement, although that step had not been a difficult one to make. “You saw the thumb print,” I said.

“Only one, but it was quite sufficient,” he replied.

“And there was the smell of fresh paint.”

He nodded in turn. “What is Mrs Hudson painting?” he asked.

“I believe it is the doors of the kitchen cupboards.”

“Bright green?”

“Indeed. Bright and cheerful.”

“And now with a thumb print on one of the doors.”

“That is my deduction, and from seeing the print on the back of the dining chair, I can assume it was Holmes,” I said.

“An assumption which will also be made by your landlady, and even if it wasn’t she will blame him, so the end result will be the same.”

“Quite. And therefore she would be in no mood for making our lunch, which is why I decided to come here.”

“Do you have any idea where Holmes has gone to?”

“No, but I assume he has decided to make himself scarce for the next few hours.”

“When you do see him next, could you ask him,” Lestrade hesitated, clearly searching for the right words, “if he had agreend a time” (he paused to ensure I had heard correctly) “we could meet the jeweller about the fake emeralds.”

I looked at him and replied, “I fear those jokes will quickly become jaded.”