From Winter Winks 221 - Accident
I found him huddled on the bottom step, still in a snow-soaked coat and his cane at his feet. He was shuddering with cold, but seemed not to notice and he registered neither the sound of the door opening or my own voice as I said his name.
"Watson?" I shook his shoulder gently. "Watson?"
He jolted at my touch.
"Easy old fellow, it is only me."
"Oh... Holmes." He squinted through the darkness - he had not thought even to light a lamp - and his eyes sharpened onto mine. "Sorry I... there was an accident... a carriage, the snow-"
"I know, Watson." I had seen the carnage on the way home from Scotland Yard. I knew it was Watson's usual route for his rounds, but I had not been certain he had witnessed the incident until I had entered our shared lodgings just now. "You saw it happen?"
"No, no I... I heard it. The crash and the- the screams... The horses..." He wrapped his arms around himself and stood. "Sorry. I only meant to sit for a little while."
"You should take your coat off," I suggested and, once he had done so, I picked up his forgotten cane and handed it over to him. "Would you meet me in the living room in a few moments? Once you are dry and changed, of course."
"Of- of course," he said. He hesitated, on the verge of asking for more detail, but having simple instructions must have been something of a reassurance, as he eventually turned and limped upstairs.
The snipers, they would target the horses... I wished more than ever for my revolver, and I imagined putting a bullet through the poor creature's head as I had done so many times in Maiwand. Doctors were already seeing to the people trapped in the wreckage but the horses-
"Watson?"
I jumped, and my awareness slammed back into the present. I was in the living room of Baker Street, and Sherlock Holmes was standing in front of me with a steaming cup of tea. He pushed it into my unresisting hands.
"It isn't up to Mrs Hudson's usual standards I am sure." His voice betrayed not a flicker of emotion. "But it will have to do. I require your assistance tonight."
"My- my assistance?" My mind was still consumed with the sound of horses whinnying in pain. "I don't-"
"I have had a lead come through from Wiggins' gang." Holmes had settled himself into his armchair with his own cup of tea. "As it transpires, Davies had a twin brother, who died at birth."
The horse's screams mingled with the people trapped and the soldiers shot and even through the searing pain as a bullet tore through my own shoulder I could hear- I could- I could-
"A twin brother?" I exclaimed, finally taking in what Holmes had said. "A twin?"
"I have one of Mycroft's men arriving with practically an archive of birth certificates; you see I have an inkling that the twin brother is still alive."
"Which would mean-"
"Davies is innocent." Holmes's eyes twinkled above the rim of his own teacup. "It shall be slow work, I confess, but we could very well save a man from hanging. What do you say, Watson?"
I agreed, as he had known I would, and the rest of the night was filled with the sound of rustling paper and quiet conversation. When we had at last located the missing birth certificate - which proved as we had expected that Mr Davies' twin was alive - I retired to my bedroom where I slipped into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.
