The following five chapters are dedicated to I'm Nova. Without her continual, gentle encouragement to get around to writing for these five prompts, I would never have re-engaged my fan fiction writing skills.

A Complicated Case

Sometimes knowing the answer to the mystery does not guarantee an automatic solution to the problem. Set in the 1930s.

Written for the prompt, "AU: Historical".

Warnings: medical jargon perhaps


Sherlock Holmes, the famous consulting detective, leaned against the mantel of the fireplace, considerately refraining from lighting up his customary tobacco pipe given his client's unusual objections.

Mrs Mary Scott was a force of nature not to be taken lightly. Her fiery red hair bespoke of an equally strong and opinionated woman. And yet, her characteristic zeal was somehow smothered under a shroud of sorrow as she sat opposite Holmes and dabbed the corners of her eyes with her lace handkerchief.

"I'm do apologise, Mr Holmes, for imposing on your customary smoke. Normally it doesn't bother me, but for these past 9 months, I just can't seem to stomach the odour of the fumes."

Mr Holmes made no comment but merely nodded in acknowledgement of her statement. "Pray, continue your story, Madam."

Another tear rolled down Mrs Scott's face as she began. "You see, my husband and I have been married for 5 years now. I have been to the police begging for their assistance but they will not believe me, or else they seem not to care. You are my last hope, Mr Holmes, to find my baby!"

Holmes startled ever so slightly from his reverie at this rather incongruous statement in light of her present pregnant condition.

"You see," she continued, "little Thomas has been missing for one week, as of today. I am desperate to find him as my husband and I have been wanting a child ever since we were married."

Eagerly she pressed on with her tale while Holmes remained passive and Watson found himself seated more erect and on-edge in his chair. "Last week, Doctor Brown delivered baby Thomas at the hospital. He claims that the child died during the birthing process. At first, I was devastated when I work up from the anesthesia. I cannot begin to tell you how much I cried." Her eyes welled up with tears again and her petite frame shook with silent sobs.

Holmes cleared his throat and impatiently gestured for her to focus on the facts of her story.

Mrs Scott took a deep breath and resumed. "After a few days of crying, I began to think. I asked my husband if we might have a proper burial for my baby in spite of his premature demise. But, my husband said it wasn't possible. There was no body. So, I began to doubt. I went back to Dr Brown's office. The nurse who assisted the doctor in deliveries was evasive. Finally, I confronted Dr Brown."

She looked up at Holmes at that point. Her tear-stained faced suddenly took on a granite determination.

"Mr Holmes, I may be a simple housewife, but I know when a man is lying. Dr Brown lied to me when he said little Thomas was stillborn. When I demanded to see the corpse, I was told it was not possible."

A smouldering fire kindled in her eyes as she continued. "I must find my baby – dead or alive – I must know what happened to him. I know Dr Brown is withholding the truth. I don't know why but I will find out. I will pay whatever it takes. Will you help me?"

Holmes stood motionless before the mantle for a considerable amount of time. At last, he opened his eyes and refocused them on the client. "Mrs Scott, your story has several peculiar facets that may prove to be most interesting. I thank you for coming and bringing your case to my attention. I accept your case."

"Oh, thank you so very much," Mrs Scott gushed with such enthusiasm that Watson feared Holmes might change his mind after all.

Suddenly though, their fiery redheaded client let out a loud exclamation of pain. "Ooo…" she moaned.

Dr Watson, his clinical instincts instantly on the alert, arose to her assistance.

"No, no, doctor. You mustn't disturb yourself. Really. It's just a contraction. My labour pains have been increasing in frequency today. Perfectly normal labour just like last time, I assure you. Everything is under control."

From the alarmed expression on Holmes' face, he did not appear comforted by Mrs Scott's assurances.

"Madam," he asked, his voice a touch higher in caliper than perhaps Watson was used to, "you say that labour pains are upon you now?"

"Yes, of course, Mr Holmes," the very pregnant client explained calmly. "Don't worry though. I have everything prepared. I will not be going back to Dr Brown for my delivery either." She clutched the small of her lower back as she struggled to rise from her seated position.

As she rose, Watson couldn't help himself. "But, Mrs Scott, I understand you to say that you want my colleague to help you find your missing infant, Thomas, whom you delivered a mere one week ago?"

"Yes, that's correct, Doctor," Mrs Scott innocently replied. "Don't you see? The baby I'm carrying right now deserves to grow up with his twin brother. Dr Brown delivered my first baby, Thomas, last week. This is the second baby, his twin that I'm sure I will soon deliver. I must have both my babies."

Without noting Holmes' surreptitious arch of an eyebrow and narrowing of his keen, grey eyes, Mrs Scott wrapped her cloak about her protuberant belly and exited the flat.

"Well, what do you think of that, my dear Dr Watson?" Holmes flopped into his chair and promptly lit his pipe. His eyes lighted with unexpected excitement. "Clearly the biological facts do not add up to the sum of the story that meets our, as yet, superficial observations. Even for the non-medical, one knows that babies are born at nine-month intervals, not every one or two weeks. What kind of tangled tale is Mrs Scott trying to spin?"

Watson rose and walked over to his desk, leafing through his medical journals for a full ten minutes before replying. "Holmes, I do believe this case calls for a professional chat with the much put upon Dr Brown, don' t you agree?"

"He is a man that has been falsely accused, if I'm not mistaken, and who might be given praise if circumstances were otherwise, for his creative solution to a very complicated medical diagnosis."

Watson frowned. "And, his solution, though it must be given high marks for singular ingenuity, unfortunately, did not quite succeed."

Several hours later, Holmes and Watson returned from a long chat over tea with the must bespoken about Dr Brown.

"Watson, I must confess, I feel I shall never quite get your limits, " the austere detective looked over at his friend and flat mate. "There are times you continue to amaze me."

In a rare burst of humility, he admitted, "I would not have deduced the solution to this case without your clinical acumen. I fear that the lady's lack of a protruding naval did not enter my mind as the vital clue to which this entire case hinged upon."

Unused to such praise, Watson blushed. "As you have so oft quoted to me, Holmes, 'once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth'. It was a simple matter of asking Dr Brown whether he noticed if Mrs Scott had a bulging umbilicus or not. The good doctor had observed her anomalous concave naval in spite of her swollen abdomen. Quite accurately, he deduced my own suspicion that she was suffering from the rare, but not unheard of, clinical condition called pseudocyesis or false pregnancy."

Watson and Holmes exchanged knowing glances. "She wanted a baby so desperately that her brain tricked her body into creating the correct cocktail of pregnancy hormones in her bloodstream that induced the physiological changes of pregnancy - skin mottling, mammary milk-production, lower belly swelling, even the sensation of fetal movement. The clue is that the victim's naval fails to protrude outward as in a true pregnancy."

"When you've eliminated the impossible pregnancy, whatever remains…" Holmes muttered under his breath.

Watson sat quiet a moment, thinking. Finally, he smiled over at his friend. "What about titling this case, 'The Sign of the Naval"?


A/N: This story is based on a clinical case described by Silas Weir Mitchell in 1932. Pseudocyesis or false pregnancy is not a new phenomenon though. It has been described as far back as 300 B.C. by Hippocrates. Apparently, Mary Tudor, Queen of England was afflicted twice by this condition!