A/N: The main purpose of this shortened version of "Hound" was to allow me to use the title below.

Holmes and companions do not belong to me.

Spoilers: for "The Hound of the Baskervilles".

And thanks again to medcat for beta reading :)

Watson POV

Less Verse

A walking stick, a manuscript,

Huge footprints on the moor,

A trip, as Holmes is occupied,

What else are sidekicks for?

A death beside a moorland gate,

Those prints, our only clue.

No prints from Frankland's daughter,

As she missed the rendezvous.

The granite hall of Baskerville,

Strange sobbing in the night,

A very friendly botanist,

And sister (well not quite!)

A convict loose from Princetown jail,

A "hermit" on the tor,

An unsuccessful midnight chase,

Strange howling from the moor.

The hermit's real identity,

My partner in disguise.

So, yet again, forgiveness

For subterfuge and lies.

And then, more eerie howling,

And another moonlit chase.

A body! Not Sir Henry?

No, a convict in his place.

The sympathetic botanist

Just happens to arrive,

And tries to look delighted

That Sir Henry's still alive.

Then, back to meet Sir Henry,

See the portraits on his wall

The botanist's bland features

Match the cruellest one of all.

Lestrade then joins our party,

We set off across the moor.

Sir Henry meets the botanist,

Not knowing what's in store.

We wait; a thick white fog descends,

Obscuring sight and sound.

Our friend appears, then at his heels

A monstrous glowing hound!

Dramatic pause…then action

As we fire upon the beast.

Judging by its change of cry,

We've wounded it at least.

We rescue poor Sir Henry

From a bloody canine death,

And watch the monstrous hound of Hell

Howl one last dying breath.

So, now to find the botanist;

We find his sister/wife,

Who finally has recognised

Her loveless wasted life.

We rest, then in the morning

Head for Grimpen mire again.

Apart from one discarded boot,

No trace or prints remain.

The mire has claimed the botanist,

On his final, panicked flight.

We leave the moor, but take with us

The horrors of that night.

Much later, back in Baker Street,

A bleak November day.

A box to see "Les Huguenots",

Marcini's on the way.

End :)