Prompt was from Kitschgeist: Red herring. My brother also challenged me to include a million dollar bag, and make it about romance. Hopefully this has fulfilled all of those!
"But what about the bag?" I asked. The million dollar bag had been my first introduction to this mystery, and Holmes had not mentioned it at all. It seemed unlikely he had forgotten it, both as he was not a man prone to forgetting, and a stolen bag, valued at one million dollars and which the police force had been hunting for the last two days, was a very difficult thing to forget.
"The bag is meaningless," Holmes said, a slight smile on his lips.
"Meaningless?" Lestrade blustered. "That bag has been at the very centre of this mystery, and still has not been found! I don't know what a million dollars means to you, but to me and Scotland Yard, it is very far from meaningless!"
"It is meaningless because it never existed."
Lestrade gaped.
"The million dollar bag was only ever a ruse," Holmes elaborated. "A red herring, meant to distract us while the young man searched for his bride."
Wilson loosened his grip on his young lady long enough to look at us, tears in his eyes. "I couldn't lose Elsie, I just couldn't!" he choked. "I knew if I said there was a million dollar bag missing, the police would be too busy searching for it to question where Elsie went."
"My father has been looking for me," Elsie continued, wiping at her eyes. "He has been trying to take me back to America, away from my Richard. I said I wouldn't leave my husband behind, but he seemed so determined to take me, I was afraid of Richard getting hurt, so I ... I ran."
Lestrade gave the young lady a sharp nod, collecting his wits in the face of a tearful woman. "You'll be safe now, miss. You and your husband can return to your store, and if there's any more trouble with your father, the police can handle it. As for you," he turned to Wilson, "you'll need to make an announcement about that bag. It has caused rather a lot of fuss."
Wilson nodded, blinking rapidly. "Of course, of course I will, whatever you say." He turned to his wife joyfully. "We're free, Elsie! It'll be just the two of us from now on, no father, no running, just us!" He picked her up and twirled her around as they both laughed in joy and relief. "We're free!"