A.N. First of all, kudos to Ennui Enigma for betaing (sorry about last chapter, dear!) and thank you so very much to James Birdsong for the flattering review!

"(...)his [Holmes'] time is divided between philosophy and agriculture" - Preface to His Last Bow...now why is that? Watson's pov, this time.

I count myself lucky to have been witness to one curious accident while I was visiting my old friend, Sherlock Holmes, at his Sussex cottage. The post had brought a voluminous letter from Lestrade. Since our relationship had always been work related, and I knew he was retired now (we were in a different century, after all), I wondered what he could want. Out of the envelope came what I thought would be a case file. Holmes was supposedly retired, too, but his was more a lifelong calling than a job: everyone knew and tried anyway, even if (until then) without success. I was surprised when Holmes skimmed the accompanying letter and dropped it as if it scorched his fingers like burning coals. "Of all the outrageous things..." he began, and I picked up the missive, to see for myself what had upset him so. I'm copying it:

Mr. Holmes,

I know you expect a request of consultancy, but this is not. I can't help myself, though...

You know (or you don't, I don't think I've mentioned, but you used to know everything anyhow) my eldest son, Herb, has grown up into a philosopher. Where he took the inclination from, I cannot say, certainly not from me, but I've learned it's mad to stifle one's predisposition because you don't like it. So he goes on forever studying (he's found a work at a little university, even) and knows better than talking about it with me. And I know you're annoyed with me already.

The point is, he mentioned you a few years ago, saying a contemporary philosopher – I'd think it was an impossibility if not for Herb – decided there was a new line of reasoning or something, and my son thought it was exactly yours. He called it abducting – at least that's what it sounded like – and I replied you had not that in your crimes' list, at least to my knowledge. I've not written to give cold news, though.

A few days ago, he was back home again, and he said that man who'd accused you of abducting had thought the matter over a few decades, and come to a conclusion. He's slow on the uptake, for sure (any Yarder could have told him so when he first started), but he doesn't know you, so I think he's justified. Anyway, he's finally realized the pretty thing you used to do is nothing more than guessing.

So I asked Herb to give me an article of this fellow, to prove the matter to you. Remember how angrily you protested whenever we even hinted at it? I've enclosed the evidence. Have a pleasant read.

Yours (even if you hate me now),

G. Lestrade

I chuckled. Just like Lestrade, I couldn't help myself.

Holmes interrupted his rant (I admit I had tuned him out) to protest, "Not you too, Watson!".

"Come on, old fellow, it's not so bad..." I replied.

"Not bad?" he echoed, clearly indignant.

"Quite well-timed, I'd say. After all, you do need a pastime for the rainy days. But for the violin, your indoor hobbies used to be...hazardous, to say the least," I explained. I still remembered some experiments which ended in small (luckily) fires or an half-asphyxiated sleuth.

"They weren't all that dangerous," Holmes objected.

"Compared to the rest, certainly not, but this bloke needs to be proven wrong anyway, doesn't he? If this...philosopher backpedals, Lestrade, the old and the young both, will have to acknowledge it. If you don't, I doubt anyone else will care to demonstrate to an old academic how stupid he is," I goaded my friend.

"I suppose a response is in order," he agreed.

"Let me know how it proceeds, will you?" I queried.

"Of course, Watson," Holmes acquiesced "you didn't need to ask".

P.S. A philosopher (who would have been fifteen years Sherlock's senior...if Sherlock were real) named Charles Sanders Peirce added a third genre of reasoning to induction and deduction, Abduction, which is the one Sherlock really utilizes. It is the use of a known rule to explain a result. This kind of inference originates a hypothesis by concluding in an explanation, though an uncertain one (hence it will need confirmation), for some anomalous observation stated in a premise.

One example of abductive hypothesis I found on both Wikipedia and the book I discovered Peirce on, so I think it's a classic:

Rule: All the beans from this bag are white.

Result: These beans [oddly] are white.

Case: These beans are from this bag.

It is weird enough to deserve being used for a casefic, I think...but I have no idea how to do it, so you're welcome to it.

...Around 1900 Peirce decided Abduction could be defined as guessing.

Honestly, the main difference I find with deduction is that abduction is always about something specific (and odd), while deduction can give conclusions about whole categories (and be desperately obvious- check any syllogism example you can find). But no professor explained Peirce to me (I was tricked into buying a book with articles on him by Sherlock's name on the cover), so I may be wrong.