madimpossibledreamer

also I’m really surprised there’s not a ton of hurt/comfort about the fish/hook scene in A Game of Shadows.

Dream: Sherlock Holmes. Kind of a Caterina di Sforza situation with a strong female lead who called them in. Someone wanted something from her, one person was murdered, she was being blackmailed, there was an attempted arson, and the thing that was making Holmes go ??? was that these are all very different approaches, so after the third or fourth attempt he decided that there are at least 2 perpetrators, 1 who doesn’t mind bloodshed and another who’s trying less violent means.
Right before they ended up captured, and Holmes had his left elbow shattered. “If it weren’t for the fact that I still have some opium in me, I’d probably be incoherent,” he admits.

         Dr. John Watson is of two minds when it comes to reporting the theft (he wants to know, but it’d poorly repay the man), but then, he wasn’t the only one involved, and his driver is furious, having been thrown off his own cab.  The police end up questioning him.
         “I got the feeling,” he ends up explaining slowly, “…that our cab thief was helping the police.  He mentioned something about a bounty.”
         The policeman groans and mutters a name.  “Jacob…”
         “What was that?” Watson asks, and the man shakes his head.
         “Could you give a description of the man?”
         He’s hardly liable to forget, though the description he uses is more general.  He doesn’t mention, for example, the scars, through the man’s eyebrow and beard—positive identifiers, if ever he saw them.  He doesn’t mention the coin on the necklace dangling against the man’s chest.  He doesn’t mention that despite the fingerless gloves, the rest of the clothing is at least a good approximation of a gentleman’s, if a little cheaper.  He doesn’t mention that he’s well-spoken, or that despite his actions, the man still comes off as well-educated, a gentleman rogue.  Brief and incomplete though his description might be, it’s apparently enough for the officer to rub at his head, as if a headache is coming on, thank him for his help, and refuse to ask any more questions.
         As far as he can tell, the case is dropped entirely, further lending credence to his theory that this Jacob, for whatever reason, had been telling the truth, but he doesn’t hear of the man again until sheer coincidence once again brings them together.