My first Sherlock Holmes story, and one of my first proper novel-type stories in general, I encourage a critical eye and all constrctive feedback. I cannot make any promises as to where this creation of mine may wander in the future, only that I promise to see it through. A prequel may follow somewhere along the line, as it was a Sweeney Todd crossover which (along with the Flogging Molly song Tenement Square) originally inspired this piece. I refuse any purposefully injustice against Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's work or characters, and will not shy away from any subtext. My rating is in line to some mild violence, unpleasentries, and language use as forseen in the early chapters. The rating will undoubtably be subject to change in the future, whether because of graphic content or adult themes, and may only raise from here. Rest assured, my writing style does not always reflect this terribly proper and dull tone of my note writing, and there are times when my note-voice is horrificly zany.
I hope you will enjoy my work, both present and future, and wish you the best of fortune.
Cryowen
Tenement Square
Following Inspector G. Lestrade; beginning in the August of 1894, at the conclusion of the Norwood Murder case… Which was not really a murder at all.
Chapter One
Cradling his head in his hands, Inspector Lestrade groaned in agitation. How in heaven's name was he supposed to finish this report? The case itself had been absurdly simple—in hindsight—but trying to string together the monologues of Sherlock Holmes into the weakest semblance of a proper investigation? Impossible. Simply stating, "Mister Holmes said so." and expecting a conviction was positively foolish (especially since the man had recently come back from the dead). As if to compound matters further, Lestrade had felt his stomach trying to turn over for the past two hours. This attempted purge of his digestive tract made no sense what so ever, seeing as the poor man hadn't eaten a bite since his highly rushed breakfast early that morning. It was, by now, ten o'clock… in the evening.
Setting his pen aside, the inspector picked up his notebook and glanced over his notes once again. I got the whole damn thing wrong. It was so simple! How could I have missed the whole sodding point?
Scrubbing a bony hand over his face—feeling the perspiration that had gathered and dried upon his brow as a thin film of salt—it was with a half-defeated sigh that the small, dark-eyed man dropped his notebook back onto the desk.
The office was dark, curtains drawn in an attempt to block out the blazing heat of an August evening, and only the flickering of a single gas jet offered Lestrade the light he had been attempting to write by. "Hang it all…"
"I would certainly say so. A mite gloomy in here, isn't it?" Standing in the doorway, Bradstreet offered a genial grin in response to Lestrade's scowl.
"What are you after Bradstreet?"
"Just passing through. Of course, that groan of yours is indicative of a man who has been seeing a little too much of a certain detective."
It was with a bitter laugh that Lestrade waved a hand at the chair opposite his desk. "Seen, heard, and been trodden on. Would you have a moment to spare? I really don't know how I will be sorting my way through this."
Graciously accepting the seat offered to him, Bradstreet balanced his hat on his knee as he took account of his friend's disgruntled appearance. Indeed, he was the closest thing Lestrade had to a friend—a confidant at the very least—and had come to know Lestrade's few and barely perceptible moods. Annoyance and defeat were not only the most obvious, but also the ones the smaller man worked hardest to hide. An obviously failing battle. "This wouldn't be that Norwood Murder case, would it?"
Feeling his stomach finally manage to turn itself over while invading his chest-cavity, Lestrade had to literally swallow his nausea. "Yes, actually. How—How much have you heard about it?" My god. If those damn journalists have already gotten a hold on this… I'm doomed.
"No more than anyone else, I suppose. Anyone inside the force, I mean." Leaning forward in his seat, Bradstreet raised an eyebrow. "You let McFarlane go."
"Yes."
"And you have Mr. Jonas Oldacre in custody?"
"Yes."
"You have the murdered man in custody!?"
"I do. Well… He wasn't actually murdered."
Leaning back, Bradstreet rubbed at the furrow that had formed between his brows. "I think I'm starting to see where your headache came from."
"You weren't even there!" Lestrade's voice had shot upwards nearly a full octave in agitation. "I had Mr. Holmes beaten! I had the entire case sealed tight, and then he goes and produces Mr. Oldacre out of the wall in a cloud of smoke!"
"My god-"
"He's made a right git out of me this time. I was about to send the wronged party off to the gallows. The gallows, Bradstreet! What are you laughing at, man?!"
Indeed, Bradstreet was wiping at his eyes in a near-fit of laughter. After a moment, he managed to sober himself enough to pull a straight face and an unsteady smile. "It seems that Mister Holmes has made things right difficult for you this time."
"No one in their right mind will believe me!" Lestrade watched in a sort of bewildered horror as Bradstreet took to his feet, walking away from the desk and back towards the door. "Where are you going? Bradstreet—What the hell am I supposed to do with this?" Half standing from his chair, Lestrade paused when his fellow Inspector turned to look back at him from just beyond his office door.
"It isn't as if you've never stolen another man's credit before, is it Lestrade? Go home; you are in no fit state to be working on anything. It doesn't take any amount of deductive ability to see you're on the edge of a mental break."
And with that, Bradstreet was gone.
Stunned by the bitterness in Bradstreet's voice, the sallow-faced man all but fell back into his seat. He's right. I should just go home and sleep… I'll go senile before I turn fifty at this rate.
Gathering up his papers—the copy of his report as he had drawn it up in Norwood that afternoon, a few extra scraps of foolscap for drafting, and a short written copy of Holmes' explanation from Dr. Watson—the Inspector tucked them all in a worn and beaten leather folder which he placed under his arm before gathering up his coat and hat.
The hallways of Scotland Yard were decidedly silent—or as close to silent as they could really be, given the time of night—but Lestrade opted for the back exit anyhow. It was more of a janitorial stairwell, which took him down to street level and out into a side alley. Hat pulled low over his eyes and collar up, to shield his face from the hot wind that brought with it the stink of stagnant water from the Thames, the small man walked three blocks towards home before hailing a cab. "Crane Court, off Fleet Street." Lestrade fished around in his coat pocket, relieved that he'd left a few spare notes and coins for just such an occasion. Too often did he have to sleep in his office because he'd left his rooms without any money, and strolling down the Strand at this time of night was suicide once you passed Essex Street… but at least it wasn't Whitechapel. Thank God it wasn't Whitechapel.
Settling into the seat with only the slightest trepidation (he was convinced he would die in one of these infernal contraptions, as he had seen enough crashes) Lestrade let out a shaky breath as they took off towards the Strand. The hansom rattled along with all the unease of Lestrade's insides. In all honesty, he simply felt too shaken and ill to even think about food. Just a sandwich, he told himself. Just a sandwich, a drink, and some sleep. That had always been his mother's fix for stomachaches, after all—the drink and some sleep—even if his sisters never had the head to keep their eyes open after a single shot of gin.
Letting his forehead fall against the surprisingly cold glass window, Lestrade felt the vibration—which originated in the wheels of the hansom—travel through the windowpane, into his skull, and which began to settle his thoughts like so much sediment…
Until they hit what must have been a loose cobblestone.
Lestrade's head smacked against the glass with a sickening crunch, causing him to drop his hat and folder as he clutched at the quickly forming bruise on his temple. A man can't expect always to have it his own way… God damnit!
The irony was palpable.
This was what he got every time he defied Holmes' methods, every day he laughed in the man's face at the thought of a final and decisive victory. Every time. Every day. Period.
The hansom shambled on, and once he had collected his hat and folder back into his lap, Lestrade let his head rest back on the padding with only some reservation. At least the up-turned collar kept his throat from being totally exposed—a minor point of paranoia which had followed him since childhood.
Despite the throbbing in his head to match the roiling of his stomach, the rest of Lestrade's ride back to his lodgings was notably uneventful. It was because of this lack of distraction, however, that the Inspector barely had his foot through the door of his lodgings before he felt his stomach heave. He swallowed hard behind gritted teeth, his throat burning and his head spinning, and staggered up the narrow flight of stairs to his rooms.
The house was quiet, dark, and eerily peaceful. Were it not for the yellow lamplight that spilled in through the narrow windows, Lestrade would have surely tripped over his toppled desk chair as he entered the sitting room. The room was in a controlled sense of disarray. Although the chairs around the breakfast table had been knocked over on their sides, the papers on Lestrade's desk—as well as those tacked to his bulletin board—were so neatly arranged it would seem a horror if even one were out of place. And so, rather than throwing his leather folder onto the writing-desk in question, Lestrade set it down gently before setting his chair upright and folding his coat over the back. Tossing his hat onto the settee, the small man took leave to his room without even noticing the crumpled note, which had been left for him on his pipe rack over the mantelpiece.
I hope you enjoyed, and look forward to all comments and fedback (barring flames). If anyone is interested in helping me edit and refine my work, either as a literary friend or a beta, I would be thrilled to recieve a PM from you.