Sorry for wait - I know this took a bit longer than I'd predicted. Anyway, enjoy:


Chapter 4 - An edifying encounter:

Watson

The morning following our visit to the Winters' home, I was somewhat rudely awakened by an individual insistently shaking my shoulder. Disoriented, I blinked into the early morning light, then decided it was far too early to be up yet and, stifling a yawn, turned my face back to the wall. "Holmes, it can't be more than six o'clock - surely, whatever it is, it can wait?"

My friend's voice answered me. "I'm afraid not, Watson. I wish to get this business over with as soon as possible, and it appears you are rather more indispensable to me than usual at present." The combined high-pitched sound of said voice and and the realization of just how small the hand on my shoulder actually was served to recall to me the events of the last two days and I quickly sat up - only to recoil immediately when my sleep-blurred gaze settled on a rather unflattering picture of a bald, threatening-looking man, identified by the tag underneath only as "The Butcher of Soho".

I shuddered while I pulled back my blanket. "Really, Holmes, I cannot imagine how you are able to find any measure of restful sleep in this room - this is worse than the criminals' archives at Scotland Yard!" My friend merely snorted. "Very amusing, Watson. Now do make haste and get ready - I would prefer to arrive at Edgeworth's premises before he leaves to distribute more of that nefarious elixir among the unsuspecting populace." Having spoken, he turned around and swept out of the room, cutting a by far less impressive figure in his knee-breeches than he would have under normal circumstances. As I watched his retreating back, I sighed - two days without the respite of tobacco had certainly not improved his temper.

My friend's plan of a swift departure, however, was almost thwarted by the appearance of Mrs. Hudson, who swept into our sitting room not long after I had finished dressing myself. After gracing me with a cursory greeting and a scathing glance - apparently, she had not yet forgiven me for yesterday's transgression -, she bent down to Holmes' current level and started straightening his collar. While she spoke, I could see his mouth tighten in disdain at her action.

"You are going to be a good boy and keep me company today, aren't you - not going to go off gallivanting around at all hours, like some people?" The last part, with the accompanying withering look, was clearly aimed at me. Yes, it would definitely be some time before I was in our landlady's good graces again.

While I endured her scorn, my friend's mind was already at work trying to contrive a way to evade the fate of having to spend the day in our kitchen, being fussed at by Mrs. Hudson. Finally, he seemed to have found an appropriate excuse. Effecting an air of the most exquisite innocence, he looked up at her wide-eyed: "But Mrs. Hudson, I can't! Doctor Watson has promised to take me to Hyde Park today - we're going to feed the swans!"

As he spoke, he had started bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet excitedly. At the sight of this convincing display of youthful exuberance, a small smile stole onto our landlady's features, and her resolve crumbled noticeably. She sent me another disapproving stare but then turned back to "Sherrinford" and relented: "Well, alright, I suppose a bit of fresh air can't hurt." From the tone of her voice, it was evident that she had only yielded in order to avoid disappointing the little boy she seemed to have grown quite fond of.

At this thought, a sudden flash of horror came over me as I realised that, if all went well, I would return tonight without said little boy - a rather undesirable prospect, if the dressing-down I had received last night was anything to go by. Really, one would have thought that I, not my friend, had been turned back into...

The sound of Mrs. Hudson voice brought me back to the present: "Doctor? Doctor, are you listening? Really, one does fear to leave the child with you - you are so absent-minded lately, not at all yourself..." Before I could respond, she had tutted once, reached out to ruffle Holmes' hair - despite making the effort, he had not managed to evade her in time - and left the room, presumably to prepare our breakfast.

As the sitting-room door swung shut, I was suddenly not sure anymore whether I should be more worried about what would happen if our efforts didn't succeed - or about what would happen if they did.

--

Not quite an hour later, we stood on a busy street corner in one of the shadier parts of London and stared at the building Edgeworth was supposed to reside in according to the information Wiggins had given me. Across the street before us, three floor's worth of crumbling red brick, grimy windows and chipped paint rose into the dark, overcast sky. To tell the truth, it did not look particularly confidence-inspiring, and the weather, which had taken a decided turn for the worse since yesterday, did nothing to soften this impression.

"Holmes, what will we do if he can't help you?" When no immediate answer was forthcoming, I turned my head to my left, blinked once when I was offered an unobstructed view of the corroding drainpipes of the house next to us, realised my mistake and lowered my gaze. "Holmes?"

My friend clutched the bag of breadcrumbs meant for the swans Mrs. Hudson had gifted him with tighter to his chest and unclenched his jaw: "Once again, I must ask you to refrain from theorizing without data. Now pray come on." Before he had even finished speaking, he had started weaving his way through the morning traffic, discarding the brown paper bag behind the back wheel of a parked carriage on the way.

By the time I had caught up with him on the other side of the road, he had already tried out the doorbell, found it broken, and settled for knocking instead. For a while nothing happened. I was just about to try my own luck when there was a sudden commotion behind the front door. At length it slowly creaked open, and an elderly woman peered up at me suspiciously from beneath an old-fashioned lace pinner. "What d'ye want?"

I chose to ignore this impertinent mode of address. "Good morning. We are here to see Doctor Edgeworth. Is he in, Mrs...?" "Baird. Mrs. Baird." She muttered something underneath her breath, peeked down at Holmes, up at me again and finally opened the door fully. "Well, I suppose you're not a copper, having the boy with you and all."

As I took a moment to digest that statement, she turned around and preceded us into the building. It would be a lie to say that its interior was a vast improvement over its exterior. The hallway was littered with a large slew of household paraphernalia in varying states of disrepair, and the whole place seemed in urgent need of the application of a broom, a washing rag and some water.

She stopped at the foot of the stairs and motioned upwards. "He's up there - second floor, first door on the right. Though I don't know what business a gentleman like you would have with the likes of him." Then, before I could even introduce myself properly, she had disappeared into one of the rooms off the side of the hall, probably her own parlor.

While I was still standing there, pondering these new developments, Holmes brushed past me. "Let her go, Watson - it's him we want, not her." With that, his small frame bounded up the rickety stairs in front of me. I followed much more carefully, dreading what we might find behind the door that now slowly came into view above me.

When I arrived upstairs, Holmes was already waiting on the second floor landing, the inner nervousness he must have been feeling only betrayed by the fact that his left hand kept straying to a piece of loose thread hanging down from his sailor collar - as I had predicted, it had already started to unravel.

On the ride here, we had agreed that, barring complications, I would be the one to do most of the talking, since - for obvious reasons - Holmes was currently rather unfit for the position of spokesman. Now, I stepped forward, sharing one last doubtful look with Holmes, and gave a sharp knock. Almost immediately, there came an answering grunt from within, then somebody was fiddling with the lock and the door swung open.

On first view, nothing about the individual introducing himself to us as Doctor Edgeworth gave the impression of being particularly noteworthy to me. I am sure that, had I been Holmes, I would have been able to deduce his plans for the day by the way his cravat was pinned or the quarters he frequented from a glance at the mud on his trousers. As I am not, however, Sherlock Holmes, I merely noticed that his cravat was tied rather shoddily and that the amount of dirt on his trousers would have been enough to make Mrs. Hudson give us a thorough scolding had either of us come home to Baker Street that way.

Banishing all thoughts of our landlady's ire from my mind, I focused my attention once more on Edgeworth. From the way his eyes kept darting apprehensively back and forth between me and my friend, he was clearly suffering from the same misapprehension that had afflicted his landlady as to my occupation. Well, in that respect, the man could be helped.

Once I had enlightened him as to our identity, apologizing for our abrupt and unheralded visit, he appeared much more willing to let us enter his flat. While we shuffled into the rather cluttered room and foraged through it in search of some style of seating accommodation, our host unceremoniously took up an armful of papers and dumped them on the floor, uncovering a red plush sofa whose better days were incontestably behind it.

While I sat down, I took a second look around the room and became aware that, despite the overt chaos, this seemed to be a kind of sitting room. I almost resolved on the spot never again to bother Holmes about his comparatively neat tidying habits.

As I shifted to relieve the pressure of a loose spring that was digging uncomfortably into my posterior, I noticed my friend's newly too-short legs swinging underneath him as he perched on the ledge of the settee, a habit he had recently taken up. This was as sure a sign of his patience wearing thin as the pointed glare he was bestowing me with. Accordingly, I declined Edgeworth's offer of refreshments and decided to come straight to the heart of the matter.

"We are here about your Anti-Aging Elixir...", I had scarcely vocalized this sentiment when the elder man gave what can only be described as a joyous squeak and sprang up.

"You are?", he repeated, gleefully rubbing his hands together and giving us an alarmingly wide grin. I answered him with a weak one of my own, not sure whether to take this as a positive or a negative sign, and resumed my explanation: "Well, you see.."

Unfortunately, Edgeworth did not seem particularly inclined to listen to what I had to say. Instead, he launched into a lengthy tirade about the Elixir's effectiveness (something Holmes and I, of all people, surely did not need a lecture on), apparently believing me to be a prospective costumer.

By the time he had finished extolling the virtues of this particular product and moved on to something he referred to as his "Vanish-Me-Varnish" - making me shudder at the contemplation of what other helpful fluids he might have in circulation - we had, by our host's invitation and to my relief, vacated the derelict sofa and proceeded to the adjoining room, which had the appearance of being a surprisingly well-kept laboratory.

There, without slowing the incessant flow of his words, he rounded a big oaken work-table occupying most of the room and laden with all sorts of chemical equipment, including a Bunsen Burner currently employed in heating a large beaker containing, of all things, a blue liquid and emitting the corresponding smoke. Remembering when I had last seen this particular arrangement, I decided immediately to keep as far away from whatever substances we might find in this room as I reasonably could.

Holmes, on the other hand, did not seem to harbour similar inhibitions. In the time it had taken Edgeworth to locate a footstool, climb on it and start rummaging through an overhead shelf on the far side of the room, my friend had closed the gap between the table and himself and started to examine a row of test tubes, a rather comical sight, as his shoulders were barely level with the edge of the table.

I was just about to prevent any further exploration - after all, I had no desire to be the one to explain to Mrs. Hudson why the boy Sherrinford suddenly happened to be the baby Sherrinford - when the man responsible for this mess, evidently alerted by some noise the detective must have made, paused in his ramblings and threw me a look over his shoulder: "You might want to keep the lad away from that."

Instantly, Holmes ceased his investigations, the humiliation of being talked about rather than talked at manifestly more effective than anything I could have done. Before I could so much as snigger at this, my friend's impatient gestures reminded me of my more pressing responsibilities.

Dutifully, I began again: "Doctor Edgeworth..."

"Oh, do drop the title - it merely makes the merchandise sell better." Well, at least we knew now that Holmes had been right in that point. This, however, did not help with the fact that I was slowly starting to despair of ever getting a word in edgewise with the man.

In the meantime, our host had finished rifling through his cabinets, producing a rather large jute sack as the reward of his efforts; at once, my eyes were drawn to one of its corners, which was intermittently leaking blue powder. Robin-egg blue powder.

I took a deep breath, preparing to brave Edgeworth's prattle (who now had gone over to discuss payment) yet another time, when the inevitable happened and Holmes' sorely tried patience snapped at last. Suddenly, his boyish voice filled the room in a most un-boyish manner: "For heaven's sake, man, we're looking to reverse it, not to buy more of the blasted thing!"

Thankfully, such brashness from a child finally succeded where all else had failed and shocked our host into silence, which I swiftly took advantage of.

"He is right - we are indeed not looking for the elixir as such, but much rather for a remedy."

The elder man scratched his balding scalp forlornly. "Reverse the effects? To tell the truth, sir, you're the first person to ever ask me that."

As Holmes gave an exasperated snort beside me, I strove to make Edgeworth see the seriousness of the situation. "The matter is fairly urgent. There has been a rather unusual accident, you see," at this point, I heard Holmes give another snort, "and we really do need something to counteract the elixir's consequences."

Our host still did not seem completely convinced. "What kind of accident could one have that would require them to counteract youth?", he asked, his voice coloured by a shade of incredulity that made me wonder whether he feared us to be spies from a rivalling business. Clearly, at this point, only the truth would set us free.

While I was still reluctant to lay bare the details of our little problem, I was sure Holmes had already behaved atypically enough for a child to merit suspicion. I was just about to start explaining when I noticed Edgeworth's eyes wandering from me over to my friend and then back to me again.

Daring to hope I would be spared the duty of having to expound on so absurd an affair, I gave a slow but firm nod.

Edgeworth's eyes wandered back to Holmes and rested on him for a long time.

Then, with an air of amusement entirely unbefitting the situation, he perplexedly declared: "Well, that's never happened before!"


All comments and constructive criticism very welcome!