JWP #26:

Good Old Index: Holmes' index is full of suggestive entries, including but not limited to Victor Lynch, the forger, a venomous lizard or gila, and Vittoria, the circus belle. Take one as a starting point, or make up your own!

Watson!"

I looked up at the frustrated call, dropping a fever reducer in its place in my bag as I saw him frantically looking through his shelf.

"What is it, Holmes?"

"The C book is not where it is supposed to be. Did you move it?"

"You tossed it in one of your desk drawers after the Carmichael case last week."

He nearly pounced on his desk, rifling through the many papers and books he stored there before an "Aha" carried from where he knelt. He flipped through the pages hurriedly, nearly tearing some of them in his haste.

"What are you trying to find?" I asked as I leaned against my desk, watching to see which pages he scanned and wondering if he was about to find what I had done. It was barely after ten, and he had been pacing in front of the fireplace all morning, thinking and muttering about I knew not what. I had thought he was between cases—he rarely pulled a prank such as the one in my wardrobe the day before when a case was keeping him busy—but he also usually ignored his index unless needed for some case.

"Something Ms. Carmichael said does not match what I know of her family history," he answered distractedly, flipping slowly between pages as he sought the case notes.

I smothered a grin and moved across the room, preferring to be out of easy throwing distance when he found the right pages. His index was going to read slightly different than how he remembered.

The sound of pages turning halted, and he read for a moment, then flipped back one page, then forward, reading the notes in a handwriting very like his own.

"Did you find it?" I asked when the silence stretched too long.

"Carmagnole, Carmelite, carminative…" he muttered, running his finger down the list of entries. He paused, then read through them again. "Watson?" His voice was low, nearly a growl, and I hid a smirk.

"Hmm?" I answered, as if paying more attention to the bookshelf I was facing.

"Why does my index match the dictionary?"

I pretended confusion, desperately trying not to laugh at the irritation in his voice. "Is that not what an index is? A dictionary?"

"Watson."

That was a growl, and my smirk grew. "What? Do you not like the update?"

He did not answer, and I glanced up at him to see him staring at me, irritation beginning to overtake the amusement in his gaze.

"Holmes?" I had expected a small amount of irritation, but not the amount in the glare he was leveling at me.

I ducked a cushion from the settee and looked back up to see him still glaring at me.

"Calm down," I started, matching my tone to my words.

"Calm down?" he growled. "That was years of research!"

Oh. That explained his irritation.

"And it still is," I replied. He opened his mouth to continue, and I cut him off. "Look at the book, Holmes."

He frowned at me, but did as I said, examining the book inside and out and gently turning the pages he had been reading.

It took him a moment—I had done my best to conceal it—but he finally noticed the double corner on one page.

"The man you hid in my wardrobe yesterday suggested it," I told him with a smirk. He had arranged my clothes to look like a man taking a smoke break in my wardrobe, complete with a pipe and a book, and the dictionary he had tucked in the jacket pocket had provided the idea for a return prank.

His irritation faded as he gently peeled back the extra layer, and his frown nearly turned into a smirk as he glanced up at me just in time to avoid taking a pillow to the face.

"I know better than to damage your index, Holmes," I admonished. "You would throw more than a pillow at me if I did."

He tossed the pillow the settee next to him and nodded a silent apology, amusement returning as he studied the extra page he held in his hand.

"If I ever need to copy someone's handwriting," he finally told me, "I know who to ask."

I smirked, deciding not to tell him that I had so many examples it was harder not to. I had copied from different portions of the book he held, sometimes finding entire words that I carefully mimicked. The page had taken little more than an hour to write the night before, after he had gone to bed thinking I was inventorying my medical bag.

Silence fell again, and I returned to my desk and he to the index, though I did notice he began checking the corners of nearly every page as he scanned his notes.

My smirk remained, but I said nothing. He would find the other page I had altered eventually.