Author's Note:

Thanks particularly to Mysterylover17, and to amalcolm1 for pointing out my blind spots.

I have every desire to fix the errors and typos that you've been recommending, and I think that I have gotten most of the plot problems of my previous story already. My computer went up in smoke, however, and I'm going to have to wait to edit the little things like commas and typos until I'm on a machine that can connect to my large-screen monitor. Bear with me, I will take all of your suggestions to heart as soon as I can. ;)

Chapter Two: The Violin Music

I slept soundly for some hours, until I was awakened by the sound of music coming from downstairs. It was not unusual for this to occur, and in fact most of the time recently I had been able to sleep soundly through all of Holmes' improvisational spells with his violin. This time, however, I found myself surprisingly intrigued by the drifting melody, which, unlike most of my friend's late-night attempts, was somber, mournful, and deeply moving. I found that even as I lay restlessly in my bed, the sound of the violin meshed so well with my own thoughts, which I was able to comfortably introspect with the violin as my background.

After several moments of this, I got up, and padded as quietly downstairs as I could, so as not to disturb the musician.

He was lying across the arms of his favorite chair, the one piece of furniture which he had insisted on keeping, even after the terrible fire which destroyed everything else in our sitting room.

I stopped on the bottom of the stairs, and waited. Holmes did not look up, and, to my deepest concern, I found that echoed on his face was an almost exact copy of the very turmoil and emotion which I myself felt, and had felt ever since the arrival of Mary's letters. His features were drawn tightly down, and his lips were a single taught thin line. His eyes were open and bright, and yet they swam with a sort of unspoken resignation that seemed to speak of a great conflict underneath. It was easy to see why the music was so appealing to me, as it was an almost perfect copy of the innermost thoughts of my heart. It occurred to me that perhaps this was normal of two men who had lived so long and so intimately in each other's company.

"Ah, my dear Watson," said my friend, without looking up, so that I could only assume that he had known for some time that I was present. "I am sorry to see that I've woken you after all."

"Not at all," I insisted, with a shake of my head, crossing to take the chair opposite to his own. "I was lying awake when I heard your stylings, and I thought I'd come down to keep you company."

"Very kind of you," nodded Holmes. "I think that I have perhaps composed something that might be even to your liking this time. I am rather proud of it, although it is contrary to my usual more triumphant pieces."

"I am very much impressed by it myself," I agreed. "I have spoken before of my feelings about your musical talents."

"Very kind," murmured Holmes again, and then he carefully laid the violin against the foot of the chair, straightening up to meet my eyes.

Even in half-sleeping musical reverie, Sherlock Holmes was a striking man. He was partially folded into his armchair, perched quietly between the arms, gazing at me out of his large, inquisitively dancing eyes, long fingers resting lightly on his lap. There was a lingering sense that he was in the midst of a fantastical introspection of his own, which had crept out of his brilliant mind in the form of the tunes of his instrument, and I was a privileged man, I thought, to have witnessed any of it.

He had erased all traces of the sadness which I had thought that I had observed upon his features, almost to the point of making me think that I had imagined it. And yet, I knew that I had not been so sleepily delirious as to make up such a thing, something I had almost never seen on my friend's face before. It was something other than the disappointment of a failed case, or the disgruntled lethargy that came from more than a single hour of boredom. Instead, it seemed to be an almost hopeless longing, a loss dealt with in silence.

"Perhaps you'd smoke a pipe with me," Holmes said after a moment. "My fingers grow tired of the strings, and I think that both of us are too much awake now to return to bed."

I did not refuse, and we sat there, the two of us, in the middle of the night, with the only lights in the room being those of the occasionally struck match. It was not long before I noticed that Holmes had fallen asleep in the chair which he was occupying, the haze of tobacco smoke drifting around him. It was not unusual, and I let him lie there, conscious of the genuine peace of the moment. Then I tiptoed upstairs to bed, and got myself an hour or so of sleep before morning.

Sherlock Holmes was up early the next morning, despite his late night musical endeavors. He dressed hurriedly, and wolfed d own a peremptory breakfast, before looking pointedly at me, as I was still in my dressing gown, with drowsy eyes.

"Well," he said, raising an eyebrow. "You're not coming?"

"Oh," I said, startled, shaking the sleep off of me as best I could, "I thought you'd be going alone. I'll just go up and get dressed, then."

"Hurry up," admonished Holmes, as I disappeared upstairs. "We're going to be late as it is."

My friend rushed me along all the way to Pall Mall, so eager was he to get to the scene of his summons. He seemed rather flushed, and I thought that it was a mixture of his being excited over a case which he had sensed was imminent, and of his musical exertions of the previous night. As we approached the house, Holmes apparently noticed the disreputable state he was in after so much exhaustion, and began to pull at his clothes, attempting to straighten creases that I myself could not see.

It was most unlike my companion to be overly concerned with his appearance, and I began to suspect that this errand we were on was of more import than I had previously thought. Perhaps Mycroft and Miss Fairchild were to introduce us to one of the numerous more illustrious men whom Holmes occasionally came in contact with in his duties as a consulting detective. Mycroft Holmes had a way of knowing the most unexpected people, so that it would not be at all strange for Holmes to wish to look his best under such circumstances. Suddenly, I was conscious of my own appearance, and hoped that our late-not vigil would not cause us to look the worse for wear.

"Ah, Sherlock, and the good Doctor Watson," Mycroft boomed out, as we stood upon his front steps. "Just ten minutes late, just ten minutes. I was beginning to wonder if you were to come."

"Five minutes," Sherlock assured him with a smile. "your appointment, I beleive, was for ten o'clock, and it is five past ten now."

"Five minutes," agreed Mycroft, with a wave of dismissal. "Five minutes, then. And perhaps you'd like to come in off the step and take more comfortable seats while I recount to you my troubles, or would you prefer that we do it right here in the cold?"

We arranged ourselves comfortably in his sitting room, and Mycroft himself occupied the sofa on which I had spent a week or so previously after having received some rather worrisome injuries during the Baker Street fire. Holmes made himself perfectly at home, and I felt that he seemed even more at home here than he did in our own familiar rooms, almost as if he rose to the presence of his intellectual equal. I found myself wishing that I could claim to be endowed with such powers, and realized for the first time in my acquaintance with Sherlock Holmes that I was in no way suited to be his intimate companion. The thought was a black one, and I missed, in my revelation, the first words of Mycroft's dilemma.

"You see," he was saying, with a bit of an abashed smile, "the problem may seem an extremely commonplace one to such as yourself, but for me it is quite a troubling matter. I purchased a diamond bracelet, some time ago, of excellent craftsmanship, from a friend of mine who knows the right people. It was to be a wedding present for my Anne, although I had hoped to be able to conceal it form her, as it was to be a surprise until the time of our marriage. It was of course," and now he gave a heavy, almost theatrical sigh, which shook his great bulk and the sofa below it, "it was of course discovered before I had intended it to be. Anne found out in one of the drawers of of my cabinets, when she claims she was looking for a letter than she had begun while here in my sitting room, although if you ask me, I think that the shrewd girl knew that I was hiding something, and couldn't bear to let it go without taking a peek." He smiled, and Sherlock Holmes rolled his eyes for my benefit. "Of course, she shrieked with delight, and brought it to my attention, and I was forced to make up some story about how it was a present for some friend of the family that I'm sure I've never had. It was most awkard, Sherlock, I believe you'd have enjoyed the scene."

"Well," he continued, "you can imagine my suspicions, then, when yesterday morning I awoke to discover that the bracelet had vanished from the drawer. I assumed that Anne had taken it off somewhere to play with it or try it on, since I suppose my story abou the family friend was hardly convincing. When I confronted her about it, however, as gently as I could, she flew into a rage, and admonished me for ever accusing her of having done such a thing. It was with some difficulty, then, that I got a straight answer out of her as to whether or not she had taken it, but she holds to this moment that she never touched the bracelet beyond when I saw her myself, and I am inclined to believe her, as one hardly steals one's own wedding present."

"Quite true. And so you think therefore that someone made their way into your drawers and took away the bracelet? And you have no idea who that might be?" My friend asked.

"No, no idea."

"Perhaps while you were out at the club, or out on a morning walk?"

"I really couldn't say."

"Was anything broken into, or in disarray yesterday morning, whne you found the bracelet missing?"

Mycroft thought about this, and let his eyes rove around his sitting room, scanning each piece of furniture quickly before turning back to his brother. "No," he said, "nothing was touched but the bracelet. And before you ask, no, there were no traces, nor prints, no cigar or tobacco ash, nothing that would arouse your particular suspicions, and it is because of that lack of trace that I am so very puzzled. It is not so uncommon a thing for jewelry left in an unlocked place to be stolen, and perhaps it was foolish of me, but I haven't the foggiest idea who might have taken it. You know well that I never take any visitors, other than Miss Fairchild and yourselves. "

"You did not, then, misplace it?" Holmes asked, with a wry smile. "There's no need for you to be ashamed of having done so, although Watson might choose to go off on one of his tirades about the virtues of tidy living."

Mycroft shook his head, and folded his arms in his lap with a slightly offended air. We took that to mean that he had not misplaced it, and Sherlock Holmes turned to me with a shrug and a smile. "I suppose we shall have to make a sweep of the house ourselves, Watson, if you wouldn't mind assisting me. It should be more to your liking, as Mycroft's recent engagement seems to have done good things for his living arrangements and habits." Indeed, the room was much cleaner and more inviting now that Miss Fairchild had taken her feminine hand to it.

Holmes stood, and I was about to follow suit when a cheerful female voice came in from the doorway which he had left open behind us.

"You're quite right, Mr. Holmes. It was a pigsty before I got here, and probably will become so again once we have gotten used to married life, and my word no longer holds any sway with my dear Mycroft."

Miss Fairchild smiled at us as she entered the room, and stood by Mycroft's sofa, leaning one elbow on the arm.

Mycroft Holmes laughed good naturedly, and smiled up into Miss Fairchild's face with an expression of such genuine contentment that I think both Holmes and I were somewhat taken aback. Used as we were now to the idea of his engagement, it was something else to see the emotion flow between the two of them in front of our eyes.

Holmes himself was looking very keenly at Miss Fairchild, I thought, with a slight frown, not of displeasure, but of concentration I saw, or at least, I thought I saw that twinge of longing for just one tiny moment, before he composed his features perfectly into a state of amused skepticism.

I stared at my friend in shock for a moment, my lips parted stupidly and my eyes wide in the face of this display of emotion. "Come, Watson," he said, "let us make our rounds of the room, and then we can head home for lunch, unless Mycroft and Miss Fairchild would be so good as to retain us for their own meal."

We got up and started around the room, examining into corners, checking under carpets, and treading carefully around any patches of dust that might contain footprints. We were forced to admit, after a very short period of time, that no one at all had been in the room, other than Mycroft himself, and a pair of smaller, lightly marked feet, which could only have been Miss Fairchild's. There was, however, quite obviously nothing else of any note in the room, and this was quite unusual. There was always something, in our previous cases, which left some sort of trace, but even the magnificent Sherlock Holmes admitted with an eager thrill that he could find nothing. It did not so much bother him that he had been usuccessful as it stimulated him that he was faced with a challenge.

"Excellent, Watson," he said with a rueful grin. "We've completely lost the trail of our jewel thief."

As for myself, I found it impossible to tear my mind from the image of my friend's eyes as they had rested on Miss Fairchild only moments before. The jewel thief and his completely miraculous escape could not have interested me less for the world.