Today's Prompt: The inspectors have an initiation procedure (from PowerOfPens).
The young man paced back and forth across the sitting room of 221B Baker Street as many had before him. However, this level of nervous excitement, typical for a client whose own life or reputation lay on the line, was rare for an officer of the Yard.
"Pray, sit and tell us your tale," Holmes said with those soothing tones he often applied with his more anxious clients.
Glancing desperately between Holmes and Watson, the young man finally perched upon the divan, though he appeared ready to leap back up at any moment.
"I know you are a promising young officer, recently initiated into the detective force of Scotland Yard. What would send such a level-headed young man as yourself into such a frenzy?" Holmes leaned forward in curiosity, his fingers tented before him.
The young man wrung his hands. At last he exclaimed, "It's absurd, truly absurd. You'll think me mad for just suggesting it. And yet, my superiors…" he trailed off. "We're supposed to be a detective force, investigating crimes! And yet, there is no crime, perhaps not even an incident."
"Perhaps it would be best if you started at the beginning," Holmes suggested.
"You're right." The young man took in a deep breath and let it out. "It has always been my ambition to become an inspector of the Yard; to solve mysteries and catch criminals who would otherwise evade justice. And at last, after years of work, I've made it. But I fear my first case will be my last. And it is not even a case!"
"The facts, if you please."
"That's the trouble! I don't know if there are any facts!" He collected himself once more. "The report goes this way: it was just before midnight last night that Mrs. - saw a light coming from her garden. She describes it as an ethereal light, which struck her instantly as in some way unnatural. Even as she was afraid, she felt compelled to leave her bedroom and investigate the source of the light.
"Upon going into the garden, she claims to have found it full of little fairies, twinkling with this unnatural light. At first they flitted about her, seemingly harmless. She began to dance with them and found that she could not stop until she collapsed. And she awoke this morning, collapsed in the garden."
Holmes and Watson exchanged a glance, neither entirely succeeding at stifling their laughter.
"I can make neither head nor tail of it!" the young officer exclaimed. "I would dismiss it as a dream, one of many such nonsense reports made to the Yard each day, and yet her husband attests that his wife slept that night in the garden and my superiors plainly seem to think there is something afoot. I beg of you, what am I missing?"
"I fear," Holmes said, "That you are missing the joke."
"The joke?"
"I have heard the inspectors of the Yard speaking in passing about jokes played upon new officers as a sort of initiation, but you are the first to have brought the matter to me. I suggest you mark the case as solved, inform your superiors that the fairies in question have been arrested, and consult me again when you have been assigned a real case."
"Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!" the young man exclaimed. He shook Holmes's hand and Watson's for good measure, before running out the door a much happier man than when he arrived.
Only then did Holmes and Watson burst into laughter.
"I presume the lady in question was sleepwalking," Watson remarked.
Holmes nodded. "Yes, I imagine she dreamed it all up, but was so startled by having awoken in the garden, she reported it to the police. She is not the only one to believe in fairies, at least our young visitor knew better than that. He is rather excitable, but if he continues to heed my advice so eagerly I am certain he will have a distinguished career."