I'm incredibly sorry for not updating soon but no need to worry. As of today, this whole story is finished to make up for it. 'The Adventure of the cardboard box' won't be done as I've found it difficult to integrate Luna into the story itself.

However, please don't be sad.

Of course, School is starting in 2 days but I will begin a sequel for this sometime in the future.

I would like to dedicate this chapter to: Alcene, Crazylily1007 , jessieanne412, Lulu-fifi, Mammps, MissGuardianAngel, romana45 and TheGoldenHairedMockingjay. A big thank you to you all adding this story onto your favourites list.

I'd also like to dedicate it to : arabbitheartofgold, Crazylily1007, fifim007, Fukuko-chan, Hitsugaya Aiko, Lulu-fif, Mammps, Phantomhawk-writer, romana45, TheGoldenHairedMockingjay, TrashedAndScatteredSidwinder and White Alchemist Taya. Thank you all for following this story! I really appreciate it.

Last, but not least, Guest,McCoy'sGirl and HarryWho is my best word. Thank you all reviewing, as well as the others who took the time to review on the chapters. I love you all and I will see you again with the sequel!

It may have been a comedy, or it may have been a tragedy. It cost one man his reason, it cost me a blood-letting, it cost my sister the use of her left hand and it cost yet another man the penalties of the law. Yet there was certainly an element of comedy. Well, you shall judge for yourselves.

I remember the date very well, for it was in the same month that Holmes refused a knighthood for services which may perhaps someday be described. Of course, when that happened, Luna had yelled at him for a whole week, claiming him to be a stupid, idiotic, moronic ignoramus but he made matters worse by reminding her that she used different adjectives for stupid which resulted in silence for two days. I only refer to the matter in passing, for my position of partner and confidant; I am obliged to be particularly careful to avoid any indiscretion.

I repeat, however, that this enables me to fix the date, which was the latter end of June, 1902, shortly after the conclusion of the South African War. Holmes had taken my sister and spent several days in bed, as was his habit from time to time which he then enforced with Luna, but he emerged that morning with a long foolscap document in his hand and a twinkle of amusement in his austere grey eyes that matched that of my sister's.

"Ah, there seems to be a chance for you to make yourself some money, my dear Watson," he said. "Have you ever heard the name of Garrideb?"

I admitted that I had not.

"Well, if you can lay your hand upon a Garrideb, there's money in it."

"Why?"

"It's a long story John." Luna claimed with a small sigh.

"A rather whimsical one at that."

"I don't think that in all our explorations of the human complexities, we have ever some upon anything more singular."

"The fellow will be here presently for cross-examination, so I won't open the matter until he comes. But, meanwhile, that's the name we want."

All I could do was look at them in amusement, finding the way they spoke fluently from each other an amazing feat and a clear indication of how they felt about each other. Not even Mary and I could do such a thing and we had been together for a year, expecting to get married in a few months. To share such a connection was unheard of, yet it completely fit the pair as they weren't considered normal by others and if they were to fall in love, they would do it 'properly' or not at all.

The telephone directory lay on the table beside me, and I turned over the pages in a rather hopeless quest. But to my amazement there was this strange name in its due place. I gave a cry of triumph.

"Here you are, Holmes! Here it is!"

Holmes took the book from my hand.

" 'Garrideb, N.,' " he read, " '136 Little Ryder Street, W.' Sorry to disappoint you, my dear Watson, but this is the man himself. That is the address upon his letter. We want another to match him."

Mrs Hudson had come in with a card upon a tray. I took it up and glanced at it.

"Why, here it is!" I cried in amazement. "This is a different initial. John Garrideb, Counsellor at Law, Moorville, Kansas, U. S. A. "

Holmes smiled as he looked at the card. "I am afraid you must make yet another effort, Watson," said he. "This gentleman is also in the plot already, though I certainly did not expect to see him this morning. However, he is in a position to tell us a good deal which I want to know."

A moment later he was in the room. Mr John Garrideb, Counsellor at Law, was a short, powerful man with the round, fresh, clean-shaven face characteristic of so many American men of affairs. The general effect was chubby and rather childlike, so that one received the impression of quite a young man with a broad set smile upon his face. His eyes, however, were arresting. Seldom in any human head have I seen a pair which bespoke a more intense inward life, so bright were they, so alert, so responsive to every change of thought. His accent was American, but was not accompanied by any eccentricity of speech.

"Mr Holmes?" he asked, glancing from him to me. "ah, yes! Your pictures are not unlike you, sir, if I may so say. Oh, and who is this fine young lady?" Taking a step forward, he picked up my sister's hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it.

"This is my wife, the sister of my colleague here and also aids me in the solving of cases, Luna Holmes. Now, I have received a letter from your namesake, Mr Nathan Garrideb so please, sit down. I fancy that we shall have a great deal to discuss." He explained, taking up his sheets of foolscap.

Now, I can take a shot at what you're thinking but no, they're not engaged. Ever since the 'Red Circle' case, it had become part of their charade enforced by… him. By lying to everyone, no men attempted anything with my sister and no women tried anything with him.

"You are, of course, the Mr John Garrideb mentioned in this document. But surely, you have been in England some time?"

"Why do you say such a thing, Ms Watson?" I seemed to read a sudden suspicion in those expressive eyes of his.

"Well for the start, you have no American mannerisms in your speech patterns, though you do speak with the correct accent."

"And, your whole outfit is English." Sherlock finished, causing Mr Garrideb to force a laugh.

"I've read of your tricks, Mr Holmes, but I never thought I would be the subject of them. Where do you read that?"

"The shoulder cut of your coat," he began, allowing my sister to intercept seamlessly.

"The toes of your boots,"

"Could anyone doubt it?"

"Well, well, I had no idea I was so obvious a Britisher. But business brought me over here some time ago, and so, as you say, my outfit is nearly all London. However, I guess your time is of value, and we did not meet to talk about the cut of my socks. What about getting down to that paper you hold in your hand?"

Holmes and my sister had in some way ruffled our visitor, whose chubby face had assumed a far less amiable expression.

"Patience! Patience, Mr Garrideb!" said my friend in a soothing voice. "Dr Watson would tell you that these little digressions of mine sometimes prove in the end to have some bearing on the matter. But why did Mr Nathan Garrideb not come with you?"

"Why did he ever drag you into it at all?" asked our visitor with a sudden out flame of anger. "What in thunder had you to do with it? Here was a bit of professional business between two gentlemen, and one of them must need call in a detective! I saw him this morning, and he told me this fool-trick he had played me, and that's why I am here. But I feel bad about it, all the same."

"There was no reflection upon you, Mr Garrideb. It was simply zeal upon his part to gain your end - an end which is, I understand, equally vital for both of you. He knew that I had means of getting information, and, therefore, it was very natural that he should apply to me."

Our visitor's angry face gradually cleared.

"Well, that puts it different," said he. "When I went to see him this morning and he told me he had sent to a detective, I just asked for your address and came right away. I don't want police butting into a private matter. But if you are content just to help us find the man, there can be no harm in that."

"Well, that is just how it stands," said Holmes. "And now, sir, since you are here, we had best have a clear account from your own lips."

"Also, my brother has yet to hear the details."

Mr Garrideb surveyed me with not too friendly a gaze.

"Need he know?" he asked.

"We share everything with my colleague and future brother in law."

"Well, there's no reason it should be kept a secret. I'll give you the facts as short as I can make them. If you came from Kansas I would not need to explain to you who Alexander Hamilton Garrideb was. He made his money in real estate, and afterwards in the wheat pit at Chicago, but he spent it in buying up as much land as would make one of your counties, lying along the Arkansas River, west of Fort Dodge. It's grazing-land and lumber-land and arable-land and mineralized-land, and just every sort of land that brings dollars to the man that owns it."

"He had no kith nor kin - or, if he had, I never heard of it. But he took a kind of pride in the queerness of his name. That was what brought us together. I was in the law at Topeka, and one day I had a visit from the old man, and he was tickled to death to meet another man with his own name. It was his pet fad, and he was dead set to find out if there were any more Garridebs in the world. 'Find me another!' said he. I told him I was a busy man and could not spend my life hiking round the world in search of Garridebs. 'None the less,' said he, 'that is just what you will do if things pan out as I planned them.' I thought he was joking, but there was a powerful lot of meaning in the words, as I was soon to discover."

"For he died within a year of saying them, and he left a will behind him. It was the queerest will that has ever been filed in the State of Kansas. His property was divided into three parts and I was to have one on condition that I found two Garridebs who would share the remainder. It's five million dollars for each if it is a cent, but we can't lay a finger on it until we all three stand in a row."

"It was so big a chance that I just let my legal practice slide and I set forth looking for Garridebs. There is not one in the United States. I went through it, sir, with a fine-toothed comb and never a Garrideb could I catch. Then I tried the old country. Sure enough there was the name in the London telephone directory. I went after him two days ago and explained the whole matter to him. But he is a lone man, like myself, with some women relations, but no men. It says three adult men in the will. So you see we still have a vacancy and if you can help to fill it we will be very ready to pay your charges."

"Well, Watson," said Holmes with a smile, "l said it was rather whimsical, did I not? I should have thought, sir, that your obvious way was to advertise in the agony columns of the papers."

"I have done that, Mr Holmes. No replies."

"Dear me! Well, it is certainly a most curious little problem. I may take a glance at it in my leisure. By the way, it is curious that you should have come from Topeka. I used to have a correspondent - he is dead now - old Dr Lysander Starr, who was mayor in 1890."

"Good old Dr Starr!" said our visitor. "His name is still honoured. Well, Mr Holmes, I suppose all we can do is to report to you and let you know how we progress. I reckon you will hear within a day or two." With this assurance our American bowed and departed.

Holmes lit up his pipe, pulled my little sister into his lap then sat there for some time with a curious smile upon his face. Every few minutes he would offer it to her, despite what he had told me in a previous case, but she declined every time which made him chuckle quietly.

"Well?" I asked at last.

"I am wondering, Watson - just wondering!"

"At what?"

Holmes took his pipe from his lips.

"I was wondering, Watson, what on earth could be the object of this man in telling us such a rigmarole of lies. I nearly asked him so - for there are times when a brutal frontal attack is the best policy - but I judged it better to let him think he had fooled us. Here is a man with an English coat frayed at the elbow and trousers bagged at the knee with a year's wear, and yet by this document and by his own account he is a provincial American lately landed in London. There have been no advertisements in the agony columns. You know that I miss nothing there. They are my favourite covert for putting up a bird, and I would never have overlooked such a cock pheasant as that. I never knew a Dr Lysander Starr, of Topeka. Touch him where you would he was false. I think the fellow is really an American, but he has worn his accent smooth with years of London. What is his game, then, and what motive lies behind this preposterous search for Garridebs?"

"It's worth our attention, wouldn't you say Sherlock?" Luna asked, looking up at him. He gave a nod in reply.

"Yes. Granting that the man is a rascal, he is certainly a complex and ingenious one. We must now find out if our other correspondent is a fraud also. Just ring him up, Watson."

I did so, and heard a thin, quavering voice at the other end of the line.

"Yes, yes, I am Mr Nathan Garrideb. Is Mr Holmes there? I should very much like to have a word with Mr Holmes."

My friend took the instrument and I heard the usual syncopated dialogue.

"Yes, he has been here. I understand that you don't know him... How long? ... Only two days! ... Yes, yes, of course, it is a most captivating prospect. Will you be at home this evening? I suppose your namesake will not be there? . . . Very good, we will come then, for I would rather have a chat without him... Dr Watson and my wife will be accompanying me... I understand from your note that you do not go out often... Well, we shall be round about six. You need not mention it to the American lawyer... Very good. Good-bye!" The moment he placed the phone down, my sister began speaking.

"And why, if you don't mind me asking, am I still your wife? I thought that charade was to be dropped after our last case."

"Then you thought wrongly my darling. To the outside world, you're my wife for I find that women tend to respond better to a married couple than a mere courting pair. Now come on, we must get to Mr Garrideb's home but we have a few stops on the way." Rolling her eyes, she picked up her cane then walked over to the door, only to be stopped by her 'husband'.

"Yes, my love?"

"Take my coat. It… reinforces the illusion that we're married by… showing other men that you belong to me." He explained, draping the heavy black coat over her shoulders. Of course, as he was around a head taller than her, it covered most of her dress which was made from blue velvet, a gift from a case that involved a dressmaker's son. The fabric itself was rather expensive for her taste but she wore it with pride. If anything, the coat my friend had placed on her actually complimented it, matching the thick black lace which lined the hem.

"Thank you."