A/N: Again, all ACD quotes are in italics. The boys' dialogue about the blog entry is in brackets.

000

["This is exactly the sort of lurid melodrama I've been complaining about!" Sherlock snarked. "Why not just say that he looked up and saw Geoffrey in the window? That is, after all, what happened."

"Godfrey," John corrected him, rolling his eyes. "And yes, that covers the facts of what happened. But the reader wants to be drawn into the emotions of the experience. They want to feel that same chill down their spines that James felt when he looked up and saw his friend's white face in the window."

"Chill!" Sherlock snorted derisively. "How does indulging in pointless emotion help in understanding the case?"

"It doesn't," John agreed amenably. "But it does help in understanding James. If people want to read facts, they can look up the military records of the case. But people want adventure in their lives. They want what we have—a bit of excitement, something interesting to do. Most people will never experience a true adventure. They go to work, day after day, and do all the little, mundane, vitally important things that civilisations need to keep going. They repair our plumbing, they sell us things in shops, they drive our taxis, they haul off our rubbish. If not for them, the nation would fall apart. But they may never get to have the excitement of a real adventure. So they read about ours, instead. They don't read my blog just to find out how clever you were to discover the solution to a mystery. They read it to feel they were along for the ride, experiencing everything right along with us. Or with our clients, as the case may be."

Sherlock sat and thought about that. "So in a way, you are also helping the nation survive by supplying the needs of the ordinary citizen for excitement and adventure," he said slowly.

John looked pleased. "I hadn't thought of that. I think you're right!" he grinned.]

James Dodd pulled himself together with an effort and continued his harrowing tale. "When a man has been soldiering for four years with terrorists as playmates, he keeps his nerve and acts quickly. Godfrey had hardly vanished before I was casting about, looking for a way up to the window. But it was impossible. So I tore back around the building and into the entrance I had left such a short time before.

"I went to the front desk and said I was a visitor for Lance Corporal Godfrey Emsworth. I thought the clerk had a rather guilty air as he told me no such person was in hospital. And he kept watching me as I walked away, and then picked up a telephone and called someone, stilling looking at me. It was unnerving, I can tell you!

"But there was nothing more I could do. The hospital was so large and so rambling that a regiment might be hid away in it and no one the wiser. And the hospital personnel were not about to allow me to wander the corridors at liberty. Every door was closed to me, every person who saw me turned me back, and no one would answer any questions I had.

"I went outside again to have another look at Godfrey's window, but the curtains were now pulled shut without a crack. As I stood there, contemplating the logistics of bringing a ladder round from my family's farm, security arrived to escort me from the grounds. I was adamant that I would not leave until I had discovered what had happened to my friend. The security guards threatened to call the police if I didn't leave quietly.

"At this, I lost my temper, Mr Holmes, and I spoke with some heat. 'I have seen Corporal Emsworth, and I am convinced that for some reason you are all concealing him from the world. I have no idea what your motives are in hiding him away, but I am sure that he is no longer a free agent. I warn you! Until I am assured as to the safety and well-being of my friend I shall never desist in my efforts to get to the bottom of the mystery, and I shall certainly not allow myself to be intimidated by anything which you may say or do to me.'

"And then I left, with full intention of coming straight to you and asking for your advice and assistance."

Such was the problem which my visitor laid before me. It presented, as the astute reader will have already perceived, few difficulties in its solution. Still, elementary as it was, there were points of interest and novelty about it which may excuse my placing it upon record. I now proceeded, using my familiar method of logical analysis . . . .

["Damn. I meant to go back and alter that paragraph," John muttered, this time interrupting his own narrative. "I took out the solution you revealed below it but forgot to delete this introductory bit. It makes you look such a prat."

Sherlock was confused. "You deleted my solution to the mystery? But why? This is exactly when I solved it. After this, it was only a matter of gathering evidence to prove what I already knew I would find."

"I know, Sherlock, but it isn't fair to the reader to give away the ending in the middle of the story," John explained distractedly, his fingers hovering over the keys as he contemplated whether to delete the paragraph entirely or merely it change it a bit. "After all, he is a prat. Perhaps I should leave it as it is," he murmured his thoughts aloud.

"But I was relating the case in chronological order!" Sherlock objected, ignoring John's mutterings. "This is when I deduced the answer. The rest is just clearing up details!"

"I know, I know," John soothed. "And you want to look clever by having solved the case early on. But you can't cheat the reader like that. You have to give them a chance to solve it, too. That's part of the fun of reading a mystery-trying to find the solution from the clues, just like the detective."

"Why? The interest is in finding evidence that proves my solution to be the correct one," Sherlock was bewildered.

"For you, that is the interest," John nodded patiently. "For the reader, the mystery itself is interesting, as well as the people involved. The solution should be the climax of the story, right at the end, after all the evidence is presented. That gives everyone a fair chance at deducing the answer."

Sherlock sulked. "I'm sure none of the imbeciles that read your blog ever discover the solution," he protested.

The corner of John's mouth slipped up into a half-smile. "Perhaps not. But they enjoy trying. And this is meant to be entertainment, Sherlock, not a lesson in how clever Sherlock Holmes can be."

"I thought you said it was advertising," Sherlock groused.

"That, too. But advertising must be interesting. Otherwise, no one pays it any attention." John turned back to his laptop. "I think I will leave this bit in after all," he mused. "That should make you happy, Sherlock. The readers will know that Clever Clogs Holmes solved the mystery at this point, but I won't let on what the solution is; I'll give them a chance at finding it out."

Sherlock wanted to feel gratified that he had won this round of the ongoing disagreement. But somehow, he felt John had got the better of him after all.]