Prompt: Scandal! Murder! Outrage! The papers are reporting crimes that never happened, but to what nefarious end? from ThatSassyCaptain
"Holmes, have you seen the papers this morning?" I asked, directing my attention toward my friend, who was currently stretched across our settee in a cloud of smoke.
"Not yet, Watson," he answered. "Why? Has there been something of note?"
"I should think so," I answered, folding the paper so his attention might be directed toward the story I had just read. "I cannot believe you have heard nothing of this."
Holmes took the paper and after a few moments reading of it, sat up straight. I had often likened my friend's manner when on a case to that of a bloodhound after a scent, and I recognized the signs of a new problem to solve on him. "The heiress to a substantial fortune in American steel, in London for the season, was left on the eve of her engagement with a note listing only five different species of tropical birds? Even more, Watson, the name of the suitor is not given. Evidently the lady and her family wished to keep it all quiet, for the newspapers not to print the man's name."
"He must undoubtedly be wealthy and well-regarded himself, to have met and won such a lady," I remarked.
"Indeed, Watson, indeed, we must not forget that it is perhaps his family that wishes to keep things silent," Holmes said.
"What do you think it is, Holmes?" I asked. I cast my mind back to similar cases, my imagination taking hold of the facts of the case. Perhaps the man had had a nervous break that he wished to conceal, that might even be because of a family history of mental instability they wished to keep hidden. Or, perhaps there had been a previous affair that would cause embarrassment to the family and prevent the current match from taking place. It would not be the first time Holmes had intervened in such an event, I thought, recalling the story I had titled "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor."
"It is a capital mistake to theorize before obtaining the facts, and we know nothing but what has been published in the newspapers," Holmes said grandly. From downstairs, we heard a knock at the door, and he added, "Though I wager that is Lestrade right now to ask for my assistance."
It was indeed our friend Lestrade of Scotland Yard, and no sooner had he arrived then Holmes was pulling on his traveling cloak. "Well, Lestrade? Have you any further word on the case?"
"It is a strange business, Mr. Holmes," the inspector said. "In fact, I daresay you've never seen one like this! The family was most anxious to have the whole business cleared up at once."
"That is understandable," I said. "Surely it is a matter of great embarrassment to them, for their daughter to be left nearly at the altar!"
"But that is just it, Dr. Watson," Lestrade said. "She hasn't been left at all! When we arrived, the lady and her fiancé were most happily engaged in plans for their wedding next week!"
"There was no disappearance?" Holmes asked.
"None at all," Lestrade answered, shaking his head. "What the family is most anxious to clear up is the matter of who allowed such a story to be published in the first place."
"Who indeed?" Holmes mused, sinking into the armchair with his coat still on. "It is a puzzle, Lestrade."
"Perhaps it was an honest mistake," I said, "and it was some other lady whose fiancé left her, and the newspaper merely mixed up the names."
"Perhaps," Holmes said, though his tone left little doubt he thought this unlikely. "It does not do to take form any theory until I have more data."
With no other facts forthcoming, Lestrade took himself back to Scotland Yard to write up his report and Holmes sank further into the armchair in a cloud of darker smoke, from which he did not emerge until it was nearly dinnertime, during which he espoused at length about the unique phrasing used in tenth-century Germanic chants.
I opened our newspaper the next morning and was not surprised to find no mention of the unfortunate lady from yesterday, though I noted with mild concern that a successful break-in had occurred at the British Museum yesterday afternoon, in broad daylight. According to the curator, several valuable pieces of Egyptian art had been taken. "Holmes, this must have happened exactly as we were occupied with yesterday's false case," I said.
"What did you say, Watson?" Holmes asked, and as I prepared to repeat myself, our door burst open to reveal Inspector Lestrade, again.
"Mr. Holmes - a murder reported in Piccadilly - you must come!"
"I've heard nothing of a murder," I said, holding up my newspaper. "Surely it would have been printed!"
"It was in the Telegraph," Lestrade said. "Not the Times."
"I am sure the Times will be most upset they missed out on such a story," Holmes drawled. "Come, we are wasting time." I hastened to find my coat and hurried out the door after Holmes, who was already hailing a cab when I joined him.
However, when we arrived at the location of the supposed murder, we found only a guardsman, who seemed thoroughly confused to find multiple Scotland Yard inspectors and Sherlock Holmes at his doorstep. "No, there's been no murder here," he said.
"How can there be no murder?" Lestrade asked heatedly, before turning to my friend for an answer. "Holmes?"
Sherlock Holmes did not answer, merely swept the inspector aside and turned in the other direction. I hurried to follow, and was not surprised when he began discoursing to me about the matter. "There is no sense to be made of this, Watson. I am missing something. How is it in two days there have been two reported crimes, both sensational, and yet neither is real?"
I knew better than to answer, for it helped Holmes to lay the facts of a case out rather than go over them in his head, though he undoubtedly did much of that as well. He relapsed into silence as we walked, disappearing into his bedroom as soon as we returned to Baker Street. I settled in front of the fire with the evening edition of the paper, where there was little to interest me, other than a mysterious railway delay that resulted in the loss of several passengers' luggage. The loss was deemed substantial, as the travellers were transporting some very fine pieces of jewelry. My mind, however, was caught up in Holmes's case, and I could not concentrate on anything else, wondering if there should be another such false crime or if he would solve it first.
The next morning, the lost train luggage was forgotten in favor of the assault on a Member of Parliament who represented a wealthy district not far from London. The outrage was splashed across every morning headline, for the man was seemingly well-liked by his colleagues and popular in his district for the many good works he had done for the poor. "I expect you will be called for again, Holmes," I said, motioning to the headline.
Holmes barely glanced at it. "First the Times, then the Telegraph, today it is the Scotsman. I daresay tomorrow there will be another false crime advertised."
"You do not think it is true?" I asked.
"I know it is not true, Watson, for I have received a telegram from the very man at the center of the case. He is perfectly alright, but is anxious to know why the papers have said he was the victim of an attack when he spent the night peacefully at home." Holmes paused to light a cigarette, then went on, "Undoubtedly someone is behind these false stories, but I cannot see the reason for it! I cannot see why would anyone go to such trouble to falsify newspaper accounts; for you know, Watson, how difficult that is, to create a trail for a journalist to follow before a story is printed. There would seem to be no purpose in it!"
"Perhaps there is none," I suggested. "Perhaps whoever is behind it merely finds some perverted sense of enjoyment in it."
"There is always a motive, Watson," Holmes said.
I turned back to my newspaper and left him to mull over the facts of the case. "It seems odd to me that it should be different newspapers each day," I said, as the thought occurred to me.
"Well, once he fools one newspaper they will certainly be on their guard for any more false stories, so he must necessarily switch to another one," Holmes said. "That is the easy part, Watson."
Disappointed, for I thought I had hit on an important clue, I left to go on my rounds and did not return until midday, to find Holmes still where I had left him, in the armchair thinking over the false newspaper stories. No sooner had I arrived then Billy the pageboy knocked on our door. "Telegram for Mr. Holmes!"
"Thank you, lad," I said. Holmes showed no interest in the telegram, so I opened it and read it with increasing alarm. "Holmes, it says this morning a police archive was set afire."
"What?" Holmes asked. He jumped up and read the telegram himself. "Watson, I have been a fool! The motive, Watson! The fiend behind the false crimes reported by the newspapers was hoping to distract me so he might be free to conduct his true crimes elsewhere! Do you see? The burglary at the British Museum, the theft of the luggage on the train, and now this!"
I had to admit I did not. I had not thought he had even noticed such little stories, buried as they were, but it seemed that he had. "You think the fiend was directing these stories at you?" I finally asked.
"Well, perhaps at Scotland Yard as well," Holmes conceded. "But any criminal capable of planning and executing this must know of my existence and be willing to go to any length to keep me off his trail. I know of only one man who could do such a thing."
"Holmes, you cannot mean-!"
Holmes nodded solemnly. "It can only be Moriarty, Watson."