Today's Prompt: Holmes visits his family (from PowerOfPens).
He was by all appearances an elderly man - for age was easier to emulate than youth - ambling down the streets of Paris. Perhaps it was fitting that he would return to such a place when he had nowhere else to go. In truth, he had seen many places since he had left the only city he could call home, but perhaps it was fitting that he would end up here, in the place of his ancestry.
He paused beneath a towering lattice of iron, ostensibly to catch his breath. It was a recent addition to the city, built for the World's Fair. He craned his neck to see the geometric layers; metal connecting to metal all the way to the top, a hereto believed impossible thousand feet above his head. It was a herculean triumph of human industry, if it perhaps lacked some artistry in the process.
But he could not linger. He was not an ordinary tourist, and the city held other, more personal attractions. So, he meandered a little ways down the green Champ de Mars, past even rows of carefully trimmed trees in the French style - geometric prisms to compliment the tower presiding over them. It was a lovely day, a mild respite in the height of summer, and he could only think how pleasant it would be to wander through the gardens with his dear friend upon his arm.
Instead, he turned onto the city streets and continued his wanderings along the narrow avenues of Faubourg Saint-Germain, past boulangeries and cafes and distinguished old manor houses, once populated by the French nobility and still home to the ebullient life of the upper class. He shuffled by ladies in their finest dresses and proper gentlemen. He laughed to himself at the sight of a to-let sign in the window of a manor - it would be much too ostentatious a hideout now, but once it would have been just the place for a pair of gentlemen to base their operations and split the cost.
He wound his way past the grand Hotel des Invalides, where he could see veterans and recovering soldiers strolling about the grounds - it was no doubt a much more comfortable place for recuperation than the base hospital at Peshawar - and in the distance he spied the grave of Napoleon. From there, he followed along the bank of the Seine, lined with merchants of all kinds selling their wares. He stopped to buy a flower before continuing on his way.
As he crossed the river at Ile de la Cite, he passed in the shadow of the grand cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. On the other side, he soon came upon the Place de la Bastille, where the Bastille prison once stood. Now, it was an open square crowned with a tall tower commemorating the July Revolution.
For another hour, he ambled on through the city, always heading West. Until, at last, on the outskirts of the city, he came to the gates of a small cemetery. The street outside was busy, but inside all seemed muted. He carefully shut the gate behind him and made his way between the gravestones. At last he stopped and laid down his flower upon a marker bearing the inscription, "Vidocq 18."
Note: I took a rather liberal interpretation of "family" (since I have complicated ideas for what Holmes's family is actually like that wouldn't fit in a short). Along with some normal sight-seeing, Holmes visits the area where Poe's detective, C. Auguste Dupin, would have lived in Faubourg Saint-Germain and the supposed grave of the real criminal turned detective, Eugene Francois Vidocq.