Prompt: Knives, from zanganito

The women of Baker Street met every Thursday afternoon for tea and biscuits. It would have been considered an informal gathering by anyone's standards; most brought their knitting with them and sat around the sitting room of whoever was hostess that week discussing their husbands, children, and for some of them, their lodgers. Each took her turn hosting their little gathering, with the lone exception of Mrs. Hudson of 221a, after they had all agreed that the constant interruptions by various ill-dressed people, the too-frequent smell of noxious chemicals and the ever present noise emanating from 221b made their meetings impossible.

Mrs. Hudson was the first to admit that she was rather glad not to have to host her neighbors anymore. If she told the truth, she had not enjoyed these weekly meetings while her husband, Tom, had been alive, feeling that she spent enough time dealing with washing, sewing, darning and cooking to want to discuss it with her neighbors when she had a brief reprieve. But this, like so many other things, had changed when he had suddenly passed. Mrs. Hudson's neighbors had kept her in a steady supply of casseroles and cakes, as well as providing many ready shoulders to cry on and some truly sound financial advice. She was not the only woman on the street who needed to take in lodgers to maintain her independence, and had it not been for Mrs. Turner in 223, she would not have formed the idea that she could be a landlady in the first place.

So with the loss of her husband Mrs. Hudson not only gained two lodgers but the firm friendship of her neighbors, and found she enjoyed meeting them weekly. She did, of course, feel a special kinship with those women who, like herself, had lodgers to look after instead of (or in some unhappy cases, in addition to) husbands. Though her life was still dominated by cooking, sewing, darning and washing, Mrs. Hudson found that doing such tasks for lodgers who paid her for them was a sight better than being expected to do them for free for a husband. However much she had loved dear Tom, she could see the inequality now better than she had then, though it was a hard won lesson that had cost too much.

"Martha, did you hear me?" Mrs. Hudson looked up from her mending, a waistcoat of Dr. Watson's that he'd managed to tear a frightful snag in while on a chase through an abandoned warehouse (her lodgers rarely told her of their adventures but she read the papers and could put two and two together, thank you). Mrs. Edwards, who lived across the street from Mrs. Hudson in 220, was looking at her expectantly. "I said they're having a sale on beef at Mr. Grant's, the butcher."

"Oh, Mr. Holmes does like a steak. I shall have to go find a decent cut," Mrs. Hudson said. Mr. Holmes's appetite often disappeared on cases, and was nonexistent when he was bored without one. She had become an inventive cook in an effort to tempt him to eat, though at first she had only done so because she could not stand to see Dr. Watson look so worried. That was before she had become quite as fond of her eccentric lodger as she was now.

"Jeremy picked one up for me this morning," Mrs. Jenkins, who was hosting this week in 213, said. She sounded exasperated and added, "Though we've never had enough for a good set of knives, and I don't know how he means me to carve it with this." She held up a small bread knife. The other women exchanged glances. They had their opinions of Mr. Jenkins' cheapness and tendency to believe he was right about everything when he was usually wrong, opinions his wife told them every week she secretly shared. Tom had not been like that, but Mrs. Hudson knew too many who were, and she thanked her lucky stars that while Mr. Holmes often acted as if he knew everything, he was at least usually right about it.

"I've seen a bread knife do a bit of damage," Mrs. Hudson said, squinting as she finished off the repair to Dr. Watson's waistcoat. "The serrated edge is quite strong and if you cut the meat thinly you should find it easy to prepare. A knife just like that did a decent job of Dr. Watson's arm only recently."

Thirteen women stared at her in silence. Mrs. Hudson's cheeks grew warm. She had had Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson as her lodgers for so long now that she sometimes forgot that having lodgers did not necessarily mean having to deal with knife wounds and late-night investigations that ran the risk of injury or even death. "Though I've a good steak knife you can borrow if you like," she added. Then she thought better of it. "Actually, perhaps you should not. I recall now Mr. Holmes brought it with him to St. Bart's the last time he conducted experiments there and it's certainly no longer fit for use. I shall have to replace it." He would have to replace it, she thought. He had been most decent so far about replacing any of her belongings he may have inadvertently destroyed.

"Why should that matter?" Mrs. Trent from 216 asked.

"He conducts his experiments in the morgue," Mrs. Turner from 223 said matter-of-factly. She, as Mrs. Hudson's next-door neighbor, knew a bit more of the dealings at 221b than the others. Mrs. Hudson hid a smile as Mrs. Trent and Mrs. Jenkins both looked properly horrified. Mrs. Hudson, however, had long ago begun to consider a day at St. Bart's as one of the better ways Mr. Holmes could spend his time.

"He says it's best for cutting through bone," Mrs. Hudson said nonchalantly.

"Martha, please!" old Mrs. Hubbard of 210 said, looking scandalized. "You may be used to such goings-on but this is a respectable house!"

Mrs. Hudson raised her eyebrows at the collective drawing of breath. It had stopped bothering her long ago whether she was considered "respectable" or not. An insult was not an insult if the one being "insulted" did not consider it as such, and Mrs. Hubbard's opinion did not matter to her in the slightest. The old bat (as Mrs. Hudson had once heard one of Mr. Holmes's Irregulars call her) was only included because as the oldest woman on the street they felt they couldn't very well leave her out. "Are you saying I am not respectable?" she asked innocently. "Mr. Holmes may have his faults but I daresay your husband has not been offered a knighthood recently?" That shut Mrs. Hubbard up quick, and Mrs. Hudson saw more than a few of her other neighbors smile. Mr. Holmes had generated more goodwill than he knew, though perhaps that was more due to Dr. Watson's willingness to make house calls the length of Baker Street at any hour of the day or night. Then, remembering, Mrs. Hudson reached into her pocket and pulled out the small dagger she now always carried. "Here, Molly, borrow this," she said. "It's quite strong enough to butcher whatever slab of beef your husband brought home."

Mrs. Jenkins's eyes flew open. "Do you really carry this at all times?" she asked.

"Mr. Holmes insists," Mrs. Hudson said seriously. She did not say it was a result of an attack on the house in the early days, when he had made some rough enemies but not yet had the reputation that cloaked all of Baker Street in safety. Both her lodgers, upon finding her locked in her own pantry while they were out, had insisted she take precautions. But there was no reason to scare her neighbors by relaying the story, when in reality they lived on the safest street in London thanks to him.

"But do you know how to use it?" Mrs. Jenkins asked, her voice growing quiet in awe.

"Certainly," Mrs. Hudson said. "I'm not a natural but I'm comforted in knowing I should be able to wield it if needed."

"I suppose Mr. Holmes taught you himself?" Mrs. Edwards asked.

"Goodness, no," Mrs. Hudson said. "He's fair with a knife in his hands, but better with a sword. No, it was Dr. Watson who taught me to use it. Apparently learning to wield a knife passes the time for our soldiers in Afghanistan."

The looks she received told Mrs. Hudson that her neighbors, who had previously been under the impression that she only had one of the worst tenants in the city, now believed she had the great misfortune to have the worst two.

They could go on believing that, if they wanted. It was her quite literal good fortune not to. Not only was very fond of the Doctor and Mr. Holmes, but they now paid her a good three times what the rooms were worth monthly, which was really only fair considering how often she had to replace the wallpaper to cover up the bullet holes.