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holmes_minor2022-04-10 08:18 pm
gardnerhill) wrote in holmes_minor2022-04-10 08:18 pm
"The Fourth of January" - Holmes Minor Monthly Promptfest for April 2022)
Title: The Fourth of January
Author: gardnerhill
Fandom: ACD
Pairing: None
Word Count: 221b
Rating: G
Warning: None.
Summary: A fateful day in one man’s notebook.
Author's Notes: Written for the April 2022 Holmes Minor monthly prompt “HOT and CROSS.”
***
He passed sumptuous display cases to music provided by an elegant string quartet, eyes eagle-sharp as he perused the wares. Gems gleamed from spotless black velvet; lovely, perfectly set. And paste, the lot of them – substitutes for the originals. The invitation for him to preside over security had come too late.
He followed the trail left by the actual precious stones and metals. He traversed London from slopshop to pawnshop to auction-house, marveling at the jewelry’s ability to social-climb with an ease denied human beings. This was no tuppenny-ha’penny heist – the fence reported to another fence, who reported to still another fence, each step a class higher than the last. This was clearly how the criminal turned “hot” plunder into cool transactions and then into cold hard cash.
The auction broker broke himself under questioning, especially after the interrogator casually dropped a half-dozen deductions about the debts rotting his splendid-looking estate from within. He could say nothing except that the beneficiary of the sold merchandise was a business company, its owner unknown.
Sherlock Holmes smiled grimly as the blubbering man was led back to his cell. “Well, Monsieur Napoleon,” he murmured to himself. “There’s one of your colonels captured.”
***
04 Jan. 1891. The day for SH finally to cross my path. Urquhart gems are lost. First shot across my bow.
Author: gardnerhill
Fandom: ACD
Pairing: None
Word Count: 221b
Rating: G
Warning: None.
Summary: A fateful day in one man’s notebook.
Author's Notes: Written for the April 2022 Holmes Minor monthly prompt “HOT and CROSS.”
***
He passed sumptuous display cases to music provided by an elegant string quartet, eyes eagle-sharp as he perused the wares. Gems gleamed from spotless black velvet; lovely, perfectly set. And paste, the lot of them – substitutes for the originals. The invitation for him to preside over security had come too late.
He followed the trail left by the actual precious stones and metals. He traversed London from slopshop to pawnshop to auction-house, marveling at the jewelry’s ability to social-climb with an ease denied human beings. This was no tuppenny-ha’penny heist – the fence reported to another fence, who reported to still another fence, each step a class higher than the last. This was clearly how the criminal turned “hot” plunder into cool transactions and then into cold hard cash.
The auction broker broke himself under questioning, especially after the interrogator casually dropped a half-dozen deductions about the debts rotting his splendid-looking estate from within. He could say nothing except that the beneficiary of the sold merchandise was a business company, its owner unknown.
Sherlock Holmes smiled grimly as the blubbering man was led back to his cell. “Well, Monsieur Napoleon,” he murmured to himself. “There’s one of your colonels captured.”
***
04 Jan. 1891. The day for SH finally to cross my path. Urquhart gems are lost. First shot across my bow.