Sadly I do not own The Picture of Dorian Gray or the Sherlock Holmes books. I can only lay claim to the character of John Nelson, whom I invented for this story. The first line is an adaptation of the first line of The Picture of Dorian Gray, for which I deeply apologise to Mr Wilde.

Anyway, I hope you find this story interesting. It will not have smut or slash or anything like that, and is rated T only for mentions of violence.

The living-room was filled with the rich odour of tobacco-smoke, even though the window was open, bringing in a light breeze and the sound of clattering hooves upon the cobblestones. It was one of those cold November days that is darkened by a bank of grey clouds, clouds that do not yet bring snow, but which herald it. It was cold: the window was open more at Mrs Hudson's insistence than anything else, for Holmes was an increasingly heavy smoker and the smell had begun to sink into every surface in the house.

But the fire was lit, and the living-room was cosy, so that the two men who sat opposite each other could huddle into the comfort of their armchairs and occupy themselves each with his own thoughts, in that marvellous fashion that Holmes found immensely conducive to clear thinking, and Watson found greatly relaxing and one of the things that he looked forward to on coming to Baker Street. Perhaps they could have gone to sleep, or at the least sunk into something between a daydream and a light slumber, had they not been interrupted by a quiet knock on the door.

Recognising this as one of the landlady's knocks, Sherlock Holmes opened his eyes and called out: 'Come in, Mrs Hudson.'

The landlady entered, and announced a visitor; she handed over the card to the detective who studied it quickly. It bore the name John Nelson, a name that he did not recognise. He hesitated for barely a second before asking that he be shown up.

When Mrs Hudson had left the room, Dr Watson said with a slight sigh: 'I was hoping we wouldn't get a case this weekend.'

'Cases are unpredictable,' replied Sherlock Holmes dismissively, trying to hide his delight at the prospect of a new mystery to solve. He rather hoped it was a murder.

A minute later, Mrs Hudson entered with their latest client.

John Nelson was a thin young man, tall, but with a weak constitution, Holmes guessed. The fact that he was pale and looked visibly shaken was not necessarily a clue to him having witnessed some dark event. No, he looked more as if he had been confused or worried by something that he did not quite understand, or that he had been told. He had caught a cab here, which suggested he had come in a hurry, but he had not run towards 221 Baker Street, nor up the stairs, as some clients did, so his business could not have been as urgent as if he had seen a murder, or thought one was about to take place, or something.

'Pray sit down,' Holmes said, indicating the chair that faced his and Watson's, onto which John Nelson more fell than sat. Mrs Hudson left, closing the door behind her, and Holmes invited his client to tell whatever story seemed to boil within him.

'My name is John Nelson,' he began, somewhat superficially, 'and I came to London only about a year ago, to pursue studies in –'

'– fine art,' Holmes finished, only a little rudely.

John Nelson nodded in surprise, and Watson waited for Holmes's run-down as to how he had arrived at this conclusion, but it did not come, replaced only by a slight smirk on Holmes's face.

'I took lodgings in a set of rooms that occupied the second floor of a house on the Strand; the first floor was already inhabited, by an artist whose acquaintance I had made a while ago, Basil Hallward. I didn't know him well, but he had recommended the house and its charming landlady to me, and told me that these second floor rooms were up for sale. So I took up the offer, and moved in.'

It was obvious from Holmes's face that this story was becoming long-winded already. The detective was leaning back in his seat and looking vacant. Watson glared at him and in this way aroused him from whatever daydream had distracted him.

'Hallward is older than me, older enough for us not to be friends, but we get on well enough, and we speak when we meet in the stairwell, and sometimes take dinner together. He lives a fairly quiet life for an artist – did I mention he's a painter, and a remarkable one at that? – but he leaves the Metropolis fairly often, and four days he left for the Continent. He went off in the early evening meaning to take the train to Paris.'

'On the 9th of November?' Holmes asked. John Nelson nodded, and Holmes furrowed his brow, as if processing and filing this piece of information.

'He said that he would return on the morning of the eleventh,' John Nelson continued, 'that is, two days ago. But we have not seen him since he left.'

'We?' asked Holmes quickly.

'Any of the friends of his, or acquaintances, that I have spoken to. He is widely reported to be missing.'

'Is there any possibility of a delay?' asked Holmes.

John Nelson shook his head very definitely. 'That's the thing. I wired to the hotel he said he would be staying in, and received a reply saying that nobody of that name was staying there, or had stayed there, indeed.'

'Indeed,' murmured Holmes. 'And you come to me, rather than taking this to Scotland Yard?'

'He's been reported to Scotland Yard as missing,' said John Nelson, 'but they are reluctant to investigate with so little evidence, and with him having been missing for such a short while. I along with numerous others am worried enough about him not to be able to wait for them to sort out the matter, so I came to you, apparently the best detective in London.'

'Curious,' said Holmes, 'that you should already be so worried. Naturally you would be anxious, because you do not know where he is or whether he has been delayed unexpectedly by some unknown circumstance. But, Mr Nelson – what is it in particular that troubles you about the matter?'

Holmes's eyes narrowed, and seemed to look directly into his client. John Nelson, disconcerted, did not speak for more than a moment; then he said:

'The thing that troubles me – has troubled me for a while now – is his association with Dorian Gray.'

'Dorian Gray?' said Holmes: and it was his own self that he asked more than John Nelson, consulting his mental records to see if he recalled the name. It was unusual enough to be memorable. He could have sworn he had heard it somewhere. But it couldn't have been a remarkable circumstance, otherwise he would remember it more clearly. 'Who is Dorian Gray?'

'A man – I was going to say a young man: he's thirty-seven, I believe,' John Nelson said. 'I haven't heard much about him except that he's something of an Adonis, on the outside at least. It is suspected, though few can prove it, that on the inside he's rather less than perfect. Anyway – I don't know him personally, I've never seen him; and Hallward's never mentioned him; but I happened to see a letter from him in Hallward's rooms. Hallward isn't terribly private; I know a good many of his acquaintances, their names if not their faces. It struck me as odd that a letter to him from Very truly yours, Dorian Gray should be, well, from a man whose name I had heard only because of the suspicions about him.'

'What are the suspicions about him?' demanded Holmes.

'Oh, that he is far less innocent than his face would suggest,' John Nelson shrugged. 'Nobody knows really. Not that I know of. But, if you don't mind me saying, sir, might we not sit here talking for too long? I feel this is a matter that needs to be resolved quickly, if we are to find Hallward safe and well.'

'It may be too late for that,' murmured Holmes suddenly, and, without a further word, went to get his coat.

Holmes left the two Johns back in Baker Street. He had a plan, and it required just the one person to execute it. He set off in a hansom to the corner of Grosvenor Square; just before he entered the square, he called over a rugged urchin, spoke briefly with him, and pressed a coin into a dirty hand before letting the lad run off.

He then threw a glance around this square in which Dorian Gray was said to live. The centrepiece was a wide spread of lawn, and still from this there emanated the fresh scent of grass, though November was speeding ever onwards; and the houses that surrounded this square were pretty without being tasteless. It could be inferred from this that Dorian Gray was the same: rich, attractive, but not excessively showy or remarkable.

At the same time, John Nelson had called him an Adonis, which made Holmes deeply curious. An Adonis at thirty-seven? That was hard to come by, if indeed such comments referred to a natural appearance. And it meant that Dorian Gray, unlike this house, must be fairly striking, if not beautiful.

The house belonging to Dorian Gray had all its curtains drawn, though it was not lifeless, for somewhere from within one of the rooms there came the sound of a piano being played well, though in a bit of a stilted fashion. Holmes recognised the Schumann piano-concerto, and pondered the fullness and darkness of the piece, which did not seem to match Dorian Gray's depiction as a frail, precious Adonis. Still, he could not judge the character until he had seen it for himself, and so rang the bell and waited on the step.

It was answered by a young maid whose face was a little haggard, but who nevertheless kept up a perfectly professional manner as she asked who this visitor was.

'Please announce John Nelson to Dorian Gray,' Sherlock Holmes replied, and handed over the card that he had acquired earlier.

The maid disappeared into a side-room. The piano-playing stopped abruptly, and the maid re-emerged at length. 'The master will meet you in the living-room.'

She led Holmes into a comfortable lounge that was decorated in a very curious fashion. It looked more as if it was for show than for living in. Still, if he had chosen this room as that in which to receive guests, he could not really blame him. A well-informed choice of books lined a set of shelves set into the wall by the fireplace – those classics that everyone claims to have read, but which few have in fact ever picked up, and fewer still have enjoyed. The fire had the appearance of not having been lit for several weeks.

After a minute the door opened, and Sherlock Holmes turned to see this supposed Adonis. Dorian Gray was a remarkable individual indeed, if only because he did not look even close to his thirty-seven years. The face of his youth was unmarred by those wrinkles that already creased Holmes's forehead, though the detective himself was then younger than this man; and though he was not the best judge of these things, Holmes saw that Dorian Gray could be described more as beautiful than as handsome, and that he merited this description as an Adonis more than anyone else who had been given this title: because of his flawless appearance, and because of the naïveté that still filled his eyes, a naïveté that should have vanished years ago, if he had lived a normal life.

'Mr Dorian Gray, I presume,' Holmes greeted him, standing and holding out his hand.

'Mr John Nelson,' Dorian Gray replied vaguely, shaking. He came to sit down opposite the detective, studying him with distracted interest. 'Do you know, sir, I do believe I know your name from somewhere, but I can't think where.'

He sounded like a boy whose voice had scarcely broke, which was a disconcerting sound from a man whom Holmes knew to be almost forty. But he did not dwell on the matter, instead imitating remarkably the timid stance that John Nelson adopted naturally, and saying in a voice less confident than his own: 'I'm an acquaintance of Basil Hallward's. I live in the rooms above his.'

If Dorian Gray's reaction to this mention of Hallward was anything more than minor surprise, he did not show it, and replied: 'Ah – Basil must have mentioned you at some point. I'm sorry, I have a terrible memory for names.' And he smiled a charming smile that did not quite suit him. 'What brings you to my house?'

'I wanted to meet the man whose name has been spoken so often by my acquaintance Hallward,' Holmes replied. 'I had heard that you were a charming gentleman, and that you looked remarkably well for your thirty-seven years.'

'Thirty-eight,' Dorian Gray murmured, more to himself than to his guest. 'I had a birthday on the tenth.'

'Thirty-seven, thirty-eight,' shrugged Holmes, 'there is no difference when one has the appearance of a twenty-year-old.'

'Perhaps not,' replied Dorian Gray, still with a half-absent look on his face. 'But come!' he cried a moment later. 'Look at my impoliteness. I have not asked if you wished for refreshment.'

'I will take tea,' replied Holmes. 'Black, two sugars, if you would.'

'I'll tell Abigail,' Dorian Gray said, and Holmes guessed that he was referring to the maid by whom he had been greeted on his arrival. He left the room and went a short way down the corridor, judging by his footsteps.

As quick as a wink, Holmes sprang up and crossed to the mantelpiece, on which there stood a small box with a metal-plated keyhole. He took a small piece of metal from his pocket and slid it into the hole; there was a click, and the box sprang open. There was a key inside.

Holmes managed pocket the key, close the box again and sit back down before Dorian Gray returned, saying that the tea would be just a minute.

'Thank you,' said Holmes.

'I do believe I recall your name,' Dorian Gray said after a moment. 'Yes – I believed you were a student.'

'Indeed. A graduate,' Holmes explained. He had known that he might have to account for the difference in age between him and John Nelson, but the master of disguise is never fazed. 'And I believe I wear my age rather less well than you do,' he added, and Dorian Gray laughed, not especially kindly.

But he did not pursue the matter of his appearance, and instead said: 'What is it you study? – oh, of course, it's art, isn't it?'

Holmes nodded. 'It's a fascinating topic. Quite fascinating.'

'Indeed,' Dorian Gray replied: but perhaps he did not quite believe what he said, for his voice seemed to tremble a little. He had not until now broken his composure: he had a confident air about him, an air that did not seem entirely natural now that it had been on the edge of crumbling. Holmes did not comment on this, indeed he pretended not to notice, but it was small things like this that were beginning to intrigue him.

'Hallward and I keep each other in good company,' Holmes added, 'him being the remarkable painter he is.'

Dorian Gray blinked and pretended that he hadn't inwardly started. The maid arrived with a tray, and Dorian took one of the cups of tea. Both were black, and the sugar was in a pot to one side. Dorian Gray didn't bother to put sugar in his tea, instead gulping it down strong, as if to steady himself. Holmes sipped delicately from his own cup.

'Speaking of Hallward,' Holmes said at length, 'you haven't heard from him lately, have you?'

'No; why?' asked Dorian.

'Oh! because he went to Paris the other day, and said he would return in two days, and he's been four. I wondered if he had wired back to explain the delay.'

'He is probably captivated by Paris,' replied Dorian with a small smile.

'The flowery ethereal destination of those with no imagination?' Holmes countered, chuckling. 'I suppose it is an objectively beautiful city. Plenty to paint. Yes... I was quite worried about him when he did not return when he said he was going to. He didn't tell you he would stay longer, did he, when he came here before leaving for the station?'

Dorian Gray started. 'You know he came here?'

'He left his rooms in the early evening of the 9th of November. That night's train to Paris did not leave until midnight. I did not know it, I assumed it.'

'Yes...' murmured Dorian. 'He came here, and we sat chatting for a while, and then he left for his train. I didn't think his every movement was being tracked.' He chuckled a little, but nervously.

'It was a cold night that night,' continued Holmes. 'I'm surprised you didn't light the fire in here. It's a badly-designed room.'

'It is rather,' said Dorian, answering the second statement but still visibly reacting to the first. 'It was a brief enough stay not to require lighting the fire... You are very observant, Mr Nelson.'

Holmes smiled then, a smile more of victory than anything else. 'Indeed. I believe I have observed more than you might have liked.'

'What do you mean?' asked Dorian sharply.

'The horror in your voice then is enough,' Holmes said, very calmly, a great contrast to the man across from him, who was gradually descending into some lesser form of the self that had greeted him but half an hour ago. 'Dorian Gray, I am going to tell you some things that you already know, and which you probably do not realise I know. I am going to narrate the events of the evening of the 9th of November.'

'Sir,' said Dorian, paling. 'Mr Nelson, what do you mean?'

'Basil Hallward,' Holmes continued nonchalantly, 'left his rooms after dinner on the 9th. He said goodbye to the two people who shared his house, repeating his intentions to go to Paris by the late train, and assuring them that he would return by the 11th. He then went to visit a man who, it can be assumed, was among his more intimate friends. It was a simple trip. Grosvenor Square is on the way to the station. He came to your house, then, before going to the station – and if I am correct, he never left.'

His eyes burned into those of Dorian Gray, who looked away.

'Stop it, do stop it. This is quite ridiculous,' he insisted. But though his voice was perfectly composed, a moment later his whole self started to shiver. 'I don't understand what you are talking about.'

'You do,' replied Holmes. 'That much is obvious. Basil Hallward never went to Paris. A telegram to the hotel he would supposedly stay in suggested that strongly. He did however come to your house, where you did not greet him as you usually do guests, instead presumably – doing away with him, for some motive that I have not yet deciphered.'

'Mr Nelson,' said Dorian Gray with a shudder.

'You may as well stop referring to me as Mr Nelson,' Holmes said. 'Mr John Nelson is back at my rooms in Baker Street. I fancy I have done a reasonable impression of him – though that was easy, as you have never met him. My name is Sherlock Holmes.'

'The consulting detective?' said Dorian Gray automatically, standing. 'Good God.' And then, unable to help himself, he commented: 'You don't look like your illustrations.'

'My illustrator is rather on the optimistic side,' shrugged Holmes, noting with no small amount of surprise the effect that these words had on Dorian Gray. Every time art was mentioned, he seemed to start. Perhaps it was because of Basil Hallward's occupation as a painter. And if Holmes was correct, and Dorian Gray had murdered Basil Hallward –

'He saw something,' said Holmes then, coming quickly out of a short daydream. 'He saw something he wasn't supposed to. Something you are keeping in the top room.'

'Mr Holmes,' cried Dorian Gray, now half in despair. Perhaps he might have flung himself out of the room, out of the house, out of London, indeed: but the detective's iron gaze, and the paralysis that fear had brought upon him, meant that he stayed rooted to the spot.

Holmes smiled vaguely. 'I thought so. It struck me as I arrived that the top curtains were in a particularly bad state. Like you don't use that room often. Like it's some sort of attic, except that there is an attic above it. You don't let the maids in there, else they would have cleaned it. You keep a key around your neck – not a door key, but the key to the chest on the mantelpiece. In that chest you keep the key to the door to the top room.'

Dorian Gray's eyes flicked towards the box. He said nothing. He did not need to. Holmes was correct... Too correct.

'What do you keep in the top room, Dorian Gray?' asked Sherlock Holmes. 'I imagine the body of Basil Hallward is still there –'

'Don't,' shuddered Dorian Gray.

'The body of Basil Hallward is still in there,' Holmes said again, 'and there is something else, something you are hiding. Something that might tell me the secret of your double existence.'

'I don't have a double existence,' said Dorian sullenly. Holmes would know he was lying, he knew that, but his immediate reaction was to lie, always to lie.

'An innocent Adonis also being a murderer is enough of a double existence,' Holmes said. 'But there is more... John Nelson feared Hallward's association with you. He said there were suggestions... that there was talk... Reported hearsay is nothing to go on, of course, but genuine fear upon people's faces most definitely is.'

'I shan't let you see,' said Dorian Gray. He ran to the mantelpiece and took the box, clutching it to him.

'Well, you will have to do better than that,' replied Holmes. 'I extracted the key a while ago.'

And taking Dorian by the arm he led him upstairs. The boy – no, the man who so bizarrely resembled a boy – submitted himself entirely to the detective's will: the young Adonis was no more, replaced by a crooked-faced coward who looked as if he might cry, if only to try to arouse pity. He knew he was defeated. He had given himself entirely over to fate.

The top landing was little frequented by anybody: that much was plain to see. There was a thin layer of dust upon the carpet, one that had been accumulating since a few days ago: the maids had evidently been expressly forbidden from coming up here.

Holmes unlocked the door, prepared himself, and then stepped in.

The room was fairly dark, but he could see clearly the figure slumped over the desk in the corner. He did not know what Basil Hallward looked like, but he knew that this was him. There was crusted blood at his head and neck and on the table. A small knife was beside the corpse's ear, still stained with the blood it had drawn.

But though Sherlock Holmes looked first towards this body, which from the look and smell of it had indeed been there since the evening of the 9th, Dorian Gray's eyes fell upon the only other thing in the room. There was in the corner something covered by a large sheet of fabric. It was rectangular, and the imprints in the fabric showed the engraved pattern of a picture-frame.

Holmes stopped in his tracks – he had made to study the body – and he stared at this hidden frame. Suddenly Dorian's reactions to mentions of art started to take on a new tone. Was there a painting behind there? Almost certainly. Who had painted it? Basil Hallward – there was no doubt about that. What did it show? – Holmes wasn't sure he wanted to find out.

Dorian Gray stared for a moment more, and then fell to his knees sobbing. Holmes ignored him and strode over to the picture. His curiosity overwhelmed him – he for a moment considered that it was a picture of Dorian Gray – he tore away the fabric and saw that his fleeting thought had been right.

Except that it wasn't Dorian Gray. Not the Dorian who sat crying on the floor, in a manner that made Holmes even more merciless towards him. This was an image of an older man; only the eyes and slim fingers were the same. This man painted here was far more convincingly thirty-eight.

It was an extraordinary picture. Never had art depicted a life in greater detail. This painted man was a clear criminal, with the haggard face of a man who has done a good deal of unfavourable things, but the smirk of a man who did not much care that he did them. But there was also a certain amount of fear in his eyes, and if Holmes hadn't been so reluctant to study art in great detail he might have noticed that, somehow, this image almost looked as if, given life, it would have fallen to the floor and begged.

Holmes turned. Dorian Gray still knelt on the floor. Like a beggar, like some dishonest mendicant. But as Holmes turned, so he looked up, and, snarling, he stood suddenly and rushed to the table. The knife swooped towards Holmes, clutched by Dorian, or some feral shadow of Dorian. Holmes threw himself to the ground before the boy could strike him; Dorian stumbled, but did not hesitate to repeat his attempt at assault.

'Mr Holmes, you've seen too much,' he cried between tears of anger.

'I have seen what should have been seen a long while ago,' replied Holmes, fending off the attacks with an agility than even the young-bodied Dorian could not hope to match. 'I do not know what this portrait is, or how it came to age instead of you, but if this is what you are supposed to look like, then those accusations of a lesser innocence are rather on the optimistic side, don't you think?'

Dorian came at him again; Holmes staggered backwards, narrowly avoiding the body of Basil Hallward. He shot a glance at the artwork and the artist. Both were repulsive sights, and yet the one repulsive character in the room looked like a child. It was bewildering, so much so that Holmes could scarcely think straight.

'I hope they come soon,' he murmured.

'What was that?' asked Dorian suddenly. 'Who's coming?'

'Scotland Yard,' said Sherlock Holmes.

And as if on cue, three policemen stepped into the room, having rushed up the stairs; they had been summoned by the urchin, and dashed into the house when the sounds of tumult began to come from upstairs. Two of them were armed with pistols. The other – Lestrade – came over and restrained the mad Dorian, and forced the knife from his hand. It clattered to the floor, and after that a deep silence seemed to fall. Holmes stepped back, still catching his breath.

'What has happened here?' asked Lestrade then, his eyes going from the knife to Dorian, then from the painting to the corpse.

'It will take a lot of explaining,' gasped out Holmes. 'But arrest this man, because he has committed so many crimes that he ought to look more like that man in the painting. I don't understand how, but Dorian Gray is not the man he seems.'

The aforementioned Dorian was then slumped in the man's arms, but without warning he made a supreme effort to escape. He evaded Lestrade's clutches, picked up the knife, and, before anyone could restrain him again, ran to the painting with a shout and slashed the blade through it.

There was a horrifying pause – it lasted but a half-second, but it seemed to last centuries – and then Dorian Gray let out the most horrifying shriek. His image, which he had stabbed in the dead centre, seemed to change before their eyes, into a perfect reflexion of his current self. The man himself collapsed to the floor with a very final thud.

At his shriek, the servants had come running; the two officers with pistols prevented them from entering the room whilst Lestrade ran over to Dorian Gray. He turned him over – he stepped back in shock.

The Dorian Gray they had known was in the painting. The Dorian Gray from the painting now lay dead on the floor, and the knife was thrust deep in his heart. That horrible, haggard face that had born every dark emotion was framed with locks of hair gone grey before their time; he looked like the perfect criminal; yet there was also a certain peace to the expression he wore in death that neither Dorian nor his painting had shown in life.

There was a very long silence. All four of the men were utterly shocked. At last Sherlock Holmes, clearing his throat, said very quietly: 'Murder followed by suicide. I believe the case is closed.'

221 Baker Street was quiet that evening.

As Sherlock Holmes had said briefly to Watson on returning, it had been less of a case, more of something straight out of the pages of a novel. He was beginning to wonder if he had dreamt it all. He could barely speak, and so didn't, instead staring into the middle distance from the comfort of his armchair.

At last Watson spoke. 'John Nelson had to leave at eleven. He said to wire him if we managed to solve the case. What ought I to tell him?'

'That Basil Hallward is dead, and so is Dorian Gray, and that is the end of the matter,' Holmes said absent-mindedly.

'He also said that he could only just afford your services, and would a painting or portrait be a suitable payment?'

'Most definitely not,' said Holmes sharply, looking up. Watson, who had heard none of the details of the case, was much astonished, but did not question Holmes's response. He thought that Holmes might sink into deep thought once again: but the detective continued a moment later: 'At any rate, what would I do with a painting? I have uses for money, but – all art is quite useless*.'

And both of them chuckled; and Watson returned to thinking about normal things, but the picture of Dorian Gray does not leave one's mind so easily, and it could be reasonably said that the matter was never truly forgotten by those who had managed to stumble upon it.

* Apologies to Oscar Wilde for borrowing this quote.