holmes_minor | Fic: Untold Cases (No. 2): G

Title: Untold Cases (No. 2)
Rating: Gen
Length: 468
Notes: Holmes & Watson; the untold cases; one-sentence stories
Author's Note: a second batch of one-sentence stories; the fffc prompt is in bold; also for the Holmes Minor monthly prompt of flowers

7. “Don’t reproach yourself, Watson, for one is easily misled; even I was confused initially, for, you see, she was given a branch of currants, which, of course, in the language of flowers means ‘thy frown will kill me,’ but it was a round, not a frown, from the newly-coined Mrs. Ricoletti’s shotgun that brought about her husband’s death.”

8. Work may be an antidote for sorrow for some, but on nights such as these, I empathise with the widower Tarleton and am without balm, far from sympathy and find the prospect of the morning's work as comforting as an array of deep red carnations arranged for a woman who will never again sigh over them.

9. “The anger of Vittoria the circus belle was, I think, justified Holmes, as was her decision to unleash her faithful companion Uglee the hissing tarantula upon you, for you compared her most unfavourably to the Cornish whin, yellow capped, showy, and with a long flowering season!”

10. “You’ll grant that Morgan the poisoner couldn’t have chosen her victims much better than that, a brute in a chute with her bridegroom’s hat; oh, pray don’t look at me like that, Watson, you know how low I’ve sunk, from world’s greatest to London’s hated-est, horridest, sad buttercup of a verse-spewing drunk.”

11. “That bogus laundry affair was really quite remarkable, Watson, not for its dramatic conclusion, no, but for the fact it brought the big, powerful, energetic Aldridge across the path of the Inspector Lestrade, and look there, the latter is tenderly tucking a peach blossom behind the former’s ear.”

12. “So you see, Watson, Colonel Warburton’s true madness was that he was a man born before his time; his dream of a hyper-loop, a pneumatic railway to the moon, which he oddly referred to as his pretty little Hollyhock, may one day be realised, and, yes, before you interrupt, I do realise the poison in the wallpaper played an important role as well.”

13. The Pope was quite pleased at Holmes’s quick and discrete resolution of the intrigue surrounding the sudden death of Cardinal Tosca, save for that His Holiness’s own penchant for his most intimate of clerical vestments be embroidered with sunflowers, the tall ones, not the dwarf ones, mind you, became common knowledge in the Holy See.

14. The real tragedy of Woodman’s Lee, Holmes, was how horrifically the white lily on your hat clashed with the plunging scarlet neckline of your dress bodice; I was thankful no other ladies were present when we made our debut.

15. The adventure of the Paradol Chamber is a caution, Watson, a child’s mischievous prank with Guinea pepper, like a schoolyard taunt with a sprig of burning nettle, can have most serious consequences, and, yes, you may guard my handkerchief as I doubt your sneezing will abate until nightfall.

16. Like the blue iris to the bee, so that lovely bottle of Montrachet is to me, my dear Watson, promising bliss; oh, I ought to be disturbed that the Sultan of Turkey knows my weakness so well, but, for the moment, I am too athirst for my first sip of nectar to care.