A/N: Continuation from the previous chapter.

From W. Y. Traveller: Ashes

From A Very Holmesian Christmas: Séance: To humor the Baker Street Irregulars, Watson and Holmes attend a séance

From Domina Temporis: Include Arthur Conan Doyle in a story

Colonel Warburton's home was dimly lit and dismal. An elderly butler showed me through to his bedroom, where the curtains were half-drawn so that his bed was shrouded in shadow.

"Sherlock Holmes." He smiled tremulously at me as I took my seat by his sickbed. "Doctor Watson said you would investigate my problem. It is most kind of you."

He was an older man, but by no means elderly. He had perhaps ten years older on Watson, but his poor state of health made it seem far more. Regardless of the man's frailty, I have never been one to beat about the bush.

"I have hit something of a dead end with your case." I had, in fact, spent the past four days carefully tracking all who had been at the Colonel's séance and may have had an opportunity to steal his daughter's ashes. I sent a note to Watson informing him, but received no reply - or at least Mrs Hudson had passed on none, in those rare moments I was back at 221B between my investigations. "Was there anyone else there that night?"

Warburton's eyes bulged. "A dead end? What do you mean?" He leant forward as if to grab me, but his failing strength wouldn't allow him and he toppled back upon the pillows with a wheeze. "I need those ashes, Mr Holmes. Without them..."

The door creaked open. It was the butler again, carrying a silver tray with the Colonel's lunch. Seeing him gave me an idea.

"Excuse me," I stopped him. "Were you here the night of the Colonel's last séance?"

"Of course he was there! Simmons is always there!"

The butler - Simmons - inclined his head. "I was. I didn't see anything though, I was busy serving the Colonel's guests." He hesitated, sparing a brief glance to Warburton before he continued, "Of course, Master Phillip was in the house too, although he didn't attend the séance."

Warburton scoffed. "Phillip has nothing to do with this! He has no interest in his sister."

"Phillip? Your son?" Watson had mentioned Warburton's poor relationship with his son. "Perhaps-"

"This is nonsense!" This time Warburton did manage to sit up, face grown purple with rage. "It is one of the men from The Ghost Club!" His face crumpled and he folded in on himself, sliding back against the bedstead with a violent sob. "Now they have succeeded in taking her... They have taken my daughter from me!"

I do not believe I had ever seen a man fall apart so utterly. "Colonel Warburton..." I was at a loss.

"Leave me, Mr Holmes!" I ducked as he flung a book from his bedside table. Simmons pulled me by my arm from the room, leaving the Colonel screaming behind us.

"Best let him calm down," Simmons murmured once we were safely outside. "Colonel Warburton is prone to these sorts of fits, Mr Holmes. I apologise, I thought Doctor Watson might have told you." He sighed and shook his head sadly. "You should have known the Colonel in his youth... so full of life, and so full of love for the old mistress... his grief has destroyed him."

"It was my mistake," I said, though it was poor reassurance to Simmons. "Please, when he has calmed down, apologise on my behalf and tell him that I have every hope of finding the culprit."

The conclusion was not a dramatic one. I tracked Phillip Warburton easily enough. He lived not too far from Baker Street, and when he saw me at his door his expression melted into one of weary resignation.

"You were expecting me?"

He smiled ruefully. "I expected some manner of investigator, although I must confess I did not expect the great Sherlock Holmes." He stepped back and gestured me into his home. "Come in, please. I can explain everything."

"Delilah was my twin sister." Mr Warburton's eyes were dark with memory, fingers steepled before him as he told his tale. I myself was upon the sofa, the ceramic urn I had been searching for sat between us on the living room table. "I am not prone to suspicion, not like my father is, but I swear I felt it when she died. My wife and I were at a dinner hosted by one of the partners in my firm, when I was overtaken by a feeling such as I have never known before. A terrible chill, a sense of dread I couldn't shift. I couldn't stop shaking. When I eventually recovered enough to return home, there was a telegram waiting for me, with news of Delilah's death."

"You don't need to believe me, Mr Holmes." He had looked up and no doubt spotted my expression of skepticism. "If I were you I doubt I would believe it either. But my point is that the connection between my sister and I was strong. And I know that, were she here to speak for herself, she would not want our father to waste his life like this. In sheer madness, living in the past." He reached forward and lifted the lid from the urn - it was empty. "I scattered them. A little place in Regent's Park, a place we visited as children with our mother and father. Delilah liked it there. And perhaps... Perhaps this is what my father needs. To finally bring him back to the world of the living."

"Perhaps," I responded blandly, but as I thought of the Colonel screaming and sobbing in the pure agony of grief, I found I did not align with Phillip Warburton's convictions.

"You don't agree with what I've done." Again, Warburton had shrewdly spotted my shift in expression. "What do you think then? Should I replace the ashes? Maintain his delusion?"

"That is not for me to say," I answered carefully and rose to leave. "Good day, Mr Warburton. I hope that you and your father find some peace."

"He isn't in I'm afraid," Watson's maid informed me, with a glance back into the house that betrayed her lie. "If you leave a message-"

"Watson! I know you're in there!"

The maid shuffled her feet. "Sir, I really don't-"

"It's alright, Anna." Watson appeared at her shoulder and she fairly sagged in relief. "Thank you for trying, but I'm afraid Mr Holmes can be rather insistent. Not to mention rude."

I frowned at that. "I have come to apologise."

"Yes, I received your notes." He sent the maid away and stood in the doorway in her stead. "What do you want, Holmes?"

"I have solved the case."

Reluctantly, he stood aside to allow me entry. "Then I suppose you had best come in and tell me all about it."

We retired to Watson's living room, where he puffed his cigar with an inscrutable expression. The fire was unlit, the room very cold as a result, but he did not mention it and neither did I. Once I had finished telling my tale, he rose to pour himself a glass of whisky. He handed me a glass of my own - a welcome indication that the frost between us was thawing - and returned to his chair.

"I suppose grief can be its own kind of madness. It was grief for our mother that drove my brother to drink. And drink that drove him to his own death." Watson's eyes drifted to the opposite armchair where his wife must have once sat. " When you died, and then Mary... I thought I might go mad."

Guilt hollowed out my chest and I had no idea what to say aside from, "But you did not."

"No." He smiled bitterly. "There is that, I suppose."

How must it have felt, I wondered, to have grieved alone?

"My mother-" I tried to explain, but nearly choked on the word as my throat tightened. I had not thought of her in years. Not allowed myself. "She... she died young."

Watson did not probe further, and mentally I thanked him for it. There were some things I could not discuss. Would never discuss.

"To your mother." Watson raised his glass. "And my Mary."

I raised my own glass in a silent toast and together we drank.

"I don't think grief is madness," I told him, once the whiskey had finished burning its way down my throat. "I think it is reality. Stark, unflinching reality, which we are suddenly forced to confront. In the face of such a thing, I can understand why one might turn to drink, or delusion."

"Perhaps you are right." Watson rose to his feet. "But now it is late, so perhaps-"

"I truly am sorry, Watson, for how I acted at the seance," I cut across him. "What you said was right. I have no right to judge any man for the manner in which he chooses to grieve. I hope you can forgive me."

"Although it is good to hear the all-knowing Sherlock Holmes admit he is wrong once in a while," Watson said with a wry smile. "I had already forgiven you. Truly, there is very little for which I wouldn't forgive you."

"Come, stay the night at Baker Street," I ordered imperiously, noting that his smile only widened at my insistence. "Mrs Hudson has made it her goal, and I quote, to 'fatten you up'."

He laughed at that. "Has she indeed? Well, I should not like to disappoint her."

"Alright then." I steered him toward the door. "Grab your coat and we shall be off."