The great and powerful ACD owns it. Pay no attention to the fangirl behind the laptop.
The borrowed jacket smelled heavily of stale ale, and I tried not to wrinkle my nose as I accepted the tankard from the barman. Settling into a chair, I nodded politely to the grungy sailor next to me.
"You brought your revolver?" he asked as he flicked away a spent match.
"Of course." I replied readily, allowing my gaze to sweep over the dimly lit pub. "Who are we following tonight?"
"The dockworker."
My eyes strayed to the rather raucous group around us. "Which one?"
"The rather careless bachelor who was painting three weeks ago," Holmes replied mischievously.
"Really, Holmes, I – !" the retort trailed off thoughtfully when I spied a man sitting at the bar. I could see a splash of white on the underside of his boot, as though he had stepped in white paint and not cleaned it up. It was fairly old, partly covered in a thick layer of mud.
I frowned thoughtfully, shooting Holmes a suspicious glance. It had not rained in some time, not hard enough to cake a man's heel in mud like that. And it was indeed a careless and lonely man who did not bother to clean his muddy boots in three weeks.
"Could you not have simply said he was wearing a grey bowler?" I asked grumpily.
Holmes smiled. "Why bother?"
A/n: My spellchecker says 221 words, and fanfiction dot net says 231. I am slightly annoyed. Anyway, according to Microsoft Word, this is a 221b, and that's what I'm gonna go with.
Feel free to review. :)