Beta'd by the awesome BrokenKestral. You can thank her for how long this story turned out. She suggested adding another chapter to what I had written :D
"The Strand will not leave me alone," the note read. "Every time I bring my own work to them, they repeatedly ask for yours. When will you send me another case?"
I set the note aside without a reply. I had told Doyle multiple times that Holmes had not granted permission for me to resume publishing, and he knew that asking again would not change that. I doubted Holmes would ever grant permission. He vacillated between enjoying and despising the attention when someone recognized us, but he would not allow the public to learn more about our work when that recognition had interfered with more than one of our cases.
That hardly mattered when I had been unable to string two sentences together in days, however. I hated writer's block.
The front door slammed open, then shut, and Holmes' steps sounded on the stairs. I quickly reshuffled papers to hide that I had written nothing all afternoon.
"Anything?" I asked as he entered the sitting room. Holmes had been tracing leads on our most recent case for nearly a week, with frustratingly little luck, and I could not even help. Someone had seen through my disguise two nights ago. We could not risk me trying again for a few more days.
He scowled instead of answering, and I turned back to my desk with a sigh. Rattling near the fireplace announced he had grabbed his pipe, and he began pacing a moment later, thinking through the case brought by a young dockworker. The young man suspected a smuggling operation based around one of the ships currently at port, and Holmes was frantically searching for clues before the ship left again.
Either the dockhand was wrong, or the crew was concealing it well, because Holmes had yet to find anything despite his own suspicions.
"What can I do?" I finally asked after nearly ten minutes of listening to his repetitive steps. I had been trying to hide that I focused more on his pacing than on the papers on my desk, but now I turned around to face him.
He waved me off, still pacing.
"You cannot go back to the shipyard yet," he replied.
"There must be something else I can do." Anything would be better than sitting here staring at a blank sheet of paper.
He shook his head. "Albert will report soon, but I have found no indications of anything besides legitimate trade."
"Then why are you frustrated?"
"Because there should be!" he snarled, the irritation still making him pace finally escaping in words and tone. "Our client is right. The Mary Sue must be smuggling something, but there is nothing about them that raises true suspicion. The captain is congenial and open, the crew easily come and go from the ship, and there have been no midnight deliveries. It appears to be just another cargo ship."
"What about the strange lights?"
"Easily explained as the crew throwing a party for their families," he answered without looking up. "They plan to leave port soon, and I have found nothing."
Silence fell as I thought, searching for another question that might either allow me to help or illuminate something for him, but I could think of nothing. We simply had no proof that the crew of the Mary Sue was doing anything wrong.
I turned back to my desk, but I had no reason to continue trying to write when the words refused to come. I sought to lose myself in a book as his pacing grew more irritated. He was going to work himself into a foul mood if he continued, but I could understand his frustration. We had unraveled many smuggling cases over the years, and very few—if any—had presented as few clues as this did. That was what had caught the dockhand's attention. The Mary Sue's record was too perfect: no dispute, no misconduct, no drunken brawls at the local tavern their first night back. The crew seemed to be one, big, happy family.
Ship crews always had some underlying tension, whether between themselves, with the captain, or with others at dock. Even the loyal ones who had sailed together for decades had something kindling tempers at any given time.
Except this one, apparently. The crew's families had come to live on the ship the first days it was in port instead of the crew leaving the ship. The captain had personally given Holmes—in the guise of an artist wanting to paint the ship's many rooms—a tour then let him explore himself, and the first mate had spent nearly an hour discussing the workings of a cargo ship. The utter lack of friction was more noteworthy than several arguments would have been.
A knock finally sounded downstairs, and Al appeared in the doorway a minute later.
"Doctor," he said in greeting as he noticed me, his thick Cockney distorting the word only slightly. "There's nuthin' there, Mr. 'Olmes," he continued. "It's jus' a normal 'ouse 'n' shop."
"Access to the dock?" Holmes asked.
"No more 'r less than any other in th' area," was the shrugged reply.
Holmes barely refrained from scowling at the boy, irritated at the lack of information. "Watch at the bar again tonight," he ordered, flipping a shilling that Al caught easily. "Be in place by sundown."
Al nodded, pocketing the coin on his way out the door. He would have enough time to eat and sleep for a few hours before taking his place outside the seedy bar near the docks, and Holmes resumed his pacing, growing more and more frustrated as the answer eluded him.
"Perhaps voicing what you know would help," I ventured after several minutes had passed. He frequently talked through a case to get the facts in order, and he had not yet done so with this.
"Talking will not bring new information," he nearly snapped.
I returned to my book with a sigh, not in the mood to argue with him. I knew he was merely frustrated, and I tried again a few times over the next quarter hour, but he met my every attempt with a scowl or a rude comment. When the smoke from his pipe grew too thick for comfort, I finally climbed the stairs to my room. His pacing never slowed.
I settled on my bed, intending to read, but I found myself unable to focus. My thoughts wandered without censure, drifting from recent patients to what I knew of this case and how I might be able to help, and when I realized I had no idea what the last page had said, I set the book aside. What did I want to do?
Write, I thought with a wry grin, but the desire to write did not mean I could find the words. I usually edited when I could not write, but I had already edited my other manuscripts in recent days. There was nothing more to do on them for now. Leaving them alone for a day or two would help me find any lingering mistakes before I put them away for good.
Every case I converted to a publishable form I kept in my desk drawer. The small space contained several finished cases—plus many sheets containing outlines, pieces of narrative, and ideas—but that made no difference. They would never be published, anyway. I wrote them for the simple enjoyment of putting plot on paper.
That still did not answer my question, however. Without anything to write, and with no interest in my books, what did I want to do?
Absolutely nothing. There was nothing in this room I wanted to do, and I had no wish to let Holmes start an argument in the sitting room simply because he was irritated. I could not even leave the flat, as that risked being unavailable should Holmes solve the case. A compromised disguise would not prevent me from helping in the denouement.
I debated for a moment before shrugging and getting comfortable on the bed, a medical text in front of me to deflect questions if I did not wake by supper. One patient had kept me out late last night, and another had knocked early this morning. Perhaps a few hours' sleep would help.
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