JWP #31

And To Think That It Happened On Montague Street: Whether it involves Holmes' old rooms or just the general location, include Montague Street somehow in today's work.

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Indirect sequel to JWP #22: Lessons

"Whatever possessed you to go back to your old rooms?"

"I did not go to them. Just near them."

Watson rolled his eyes. "Fine. What possessed you to go near your old rooms? You had to have known you would not be welcome."

Holmes scowled, still gently inspecting the swelling around his eye as they walked down the sidewalk. "It is less than half an hour after noon. She was supposed to be at her sewing circle, and I needed to remove a few things I had hidden around back."

Watson glanced up with a smirk. "How many times have you lectured me about making sure surveillance information is current?"

The scowl deepened at his teasing. "It is current. On the third Tuesday of every month, my old landlady has a sewing circle she goes to at noon."

Watson shook his head, deciding not to ask why his friend had been keeping such close tabs on a landlady he had hated—and that had hated him in return, as evidenced by Holmes' coloring eye, courtesy of a frying pan. "Well, you probably should have removed whatever you hid before you moved. If she hates you enough to hit you with a frying pan so many years later, you know she will be watching for you to return. And no," he answered the thoughtful look Holmes directed at him, "I am not going for you."

Holmes harrumphed. "She would not recognize you, though."

"Nor will she get a chance to. I am not going."

"But I need those supplies!"

"No. You want those supplies," he replied, unlocking the front door to Holmes' Baker Street rooms. Mary was visiting with Mrs. Hudson, and he would walk home with her after supper. "You will just have to replace whatever was there, because you are not sending an Irregular either. I may not live at Baker Street anymore, but I can still watch where those children go. You are not sending any of them to that part of town."

"They live in the East End!"

"I don't care. You are still not sending one of them to Montague Street, and you know I will be telling Wiggins to ignore any pleas from you to go down there. They hate that area. He would rather listen to me on this than to you, and you know it."

The door closed behind them, and Watson covered a smirk as Holmes tried to think of a way to get around Watson's declaration. There was no reason for Holmes to retrieve supplies that he had not needed for several years from a place where he could expect an attack. Whatever was there, he could simply replace.

An idea crossed Holmes' face, and he opened his mouth to reply, but whatever he would have said was cut off as a gunshot echoed throughout the flat.

Horror replaced Watson's amusement, and he never hesitated, pinpointing that the shot had come from Mrs. Hudson's rooms and sprinting down the hall before the echo died completely. He pulled his revolver from his pocket, peripherally aware of Holmes running a couple of steps behind him as he slipped into battle-readiness. Gunshots could be expected upstairs when Holmes was bored, but never from Mrs. Hudson rooms.

Another shot sounded as he threw open the door, and he bolted for Mrs. Hudson's spare room—where the sound originated—looking frantically for the two women. Had someone broken in? Were they hurt? Who was shooting?

The spare room's door was closed, and he plowed into it, shoving it open as he barreled into the room, expecting to find an intruder. Expecting to find his wife and landlady under attack.

He found something very different. Mary looked up from where she reloaded a revolver, and Mrs. Hudson spun where she was standing near the opposite wall.

His gaze darted around the room, checking for a threat as Holmes skidded to a stop in the doorway behind him, but there was no one else in the room. He slowly lowered his revolver, turning to look at Mary as understanding lit her gaze.

"Sorry, dear," she said quietly, setting the revolver down to walk towards him. "I did not hear the door."

His frantically racing pulse finally started to slow, and he put the revolver back in his pocket and wrapped her in a hug. "I thought—"

"We are fine," Mary assured them, leaning into him while glancing up to include Holmes in her words.

"You were practicing." Holmes leaned against the door frame, studying them both intently.

Breaking the quick embrace, Watson glanced over in time to catch a flicker of a smile on Holmes' face, and Mary nodded.

"She is teaching me how to shoot," Mrs. Hudson answered, crossing the room with the target that had been propped on the opposite wall.

Watson raised an eyebrow as he saw the grouping on the target. "It seems you take to shooting as you took to knife fighting."

She smirked. "Mary is an excellent teacher."

A faint huff came from where his wife still stood next to him. "I could say the same about you, Martha."

Mary moved away as he glanced between them. "What did—" He broke off, catching a glint of a pommel in Mary's skirts, and chuckled. "Knife lessons for shooting lessons?" he asked.

"Of course. I wanted to know how to fight without running out of ammunition, she wanted to know how to shoot, and with the two of you continually running off and getting yourselves into trouble, we decided to use the time to practice."

Watson's grin remained. "You want to participate in more of Holmes' cases?"

"Maybe she should," Mrs. Hudson answered, helping Mary disassemble their target and clean up. "It might prevent some of those crazier plans you have told me about, if you have a third person with you."

"Most of those are Holmes', and I take leave to doubt that even Mary can get him to not run headfirst into danger. I have been trying for years, now."

Holmes rolled his eyes. "I am not the only one. I did not run into a burning building last month."

"Only because I got there first."

Holmes huffed at him, but Mrs. Hudson cut in. "It doesn't matter who got there first, neither of you should have been in it!"

Watson shrugged. "Someone was trapped in there, and it would have taken too long to wait for the fire brigade. Holmes waited outside so that if something went wrong, he could direct the fire brigade to me."

"We will have to get a new piece of wood next time, Martha," Mary said over Holmes' muttered "more like go in after you," barely glancing up from where she inspected their backstop. "This one is almost shot through."

Holmes spoke before Mrs. Hudson could respond. "You realize that after this you cannot scold me for shooting inside, right?" he asked with a smirk.

"Keep your bullets out of my plaster, Mr. Holmes, and I might agree with you," was the tart reply. "There will be another in the alley in a day or two, Mary. The neighbors always throw out large blocks of wood."

"You mean the neighbors that complain the most provide your backstop?" Mary asked, and Mrs. Hudson nodded, her grin widening.

Watson chuckled. "How many times have the neighbors complained?"

"Today or since we started?"

Watson's chuckle turned into a laugh at Mary's question. "How about today?"

Mary smirked. "Seven. Martha has sent them away every time."

Holmes suddenly straightened. "You are telling them it is me! I was not even here!"

Both ladies laughed. "I told them I had no idea what they were hearing," Mrs. Hudson answered, adding primly, "You were not home, and I would certainly never shoot inside."

Watson shook his head as he grinned. "Where did you get the revolver?"

"It's mine," Mary answered. "I've had it for years."

"Is it the one you have mentioned before?"

She nodded. "My father gave it to me when I turned thirteen, after I asked him how I could keep up the skills he had taught me in India when I was stuck in a boarding school in England."

"I imagine the matrons did not know you had it," Watson answered, his grin widening.

"Goodness, no!" Mary waved off the comment with a large smirk as she cleaned the spent brass from the table they had been using. "Those stuffy old seabirds would have taken it away. 'Young ladies do not use weapons, Ms. Morstan,'" she primly imitated. "They never liked it when I told them my ayah had called me a young terror instead of a young lady."

Mrs. Hudson laughed. "One day, you will have to tell me more of your time in India," she said, glancing at the clock. "Dear me, I lost all track of time. I intended to have supper cooking by now."

"It is alright, Martha." Setting the brass aside, Mary continued with a smirk, "I am sure Mr. Holmes would love to tell us about his black eye while we cook."

Holmes scowled as Watson laughed. "Yes," Watson replied. "Tell them where you went today, Holmes, and who took exception to it."

"Montague Street," Mary announced. "Didn't you say you used to live down there?"

"How did you—?"

Mary laughed at the surprise on the detective's face. "You were bemoaning the fact that you left something on Montague Street as you left earlier, Mr. Holmes, and you mentioned your old landlady in that story you told me at the concert last month. It is not much of a leap that you left something at your old rooms and tried to get it back. I am guessing your old landlady chased you away?"

Holmes made no immediate answer, and Watson laughed at the speechless consulting detective. "I guess your deductive skills are not as unique as you thought, Holmes," he said with a large grin.

Holmes' surprise changed to a scowl at the pawky remark, but he nodded at Mary. "You are correct. She did not appreciate finding me in the alley behind her building."

"The frying pan she brought with her suggests it was a bit more than a lack of appreciation, Holmes," Watson said dryly. "Maybe she did not want to risk bullet holes in her plaster."

He ducked Holmes' halfhearted swat as Mary and Mrs. Hudson laughed, and Holmes' answer prevented any chance of further discussion. Watson just made himself comfortable. Mrs. Hudson and Mary would have plenty of entertainment while they cooked, if the bickering that filled the room was as entertaining for them to watch as it was for Watson to instigate.