A/N: I just had a few sips of angst-tea over at W.Y. Traveller's place.
Prompt from W. Y. Traveller: Christmas at the Thames
It was a dark moonless night, stars choked out by a blanket of clouds. It was bitterly cold. The breath of the two gentlemen standing along the pebbly bank on the Thames condensed into personal miniature clouds. The tall slender man crossed his hands behind his back. The other form was shorter and sturdier but his arms hung limply at his sides, a tremble in his fingertips. The crisp wind tugged at the tall man's coattails. It knifed the ache in the trembling man's shoulder. The river flowed unceasingly, eddies whirled round the debris, small tufts of white foam tumbled rebelliously through the turbulent black waters. The pale body of the deceased young lady lay decomposing in a heap upon the riverbank.
"We're too late," Holmes frowned.
"It all seems so senseless," Watson frowned. "She's the third victim that's washed up from the Thames this Christmas."
"No explanation can justify such violence. The killer will be brought to pay for his crimes." Holmes eye's narrowed, his chin set firmly. "Come, Watson, Christmas can wait. The game is afoot!"
~o~
"What is the meaning of it, Watson?" said Holmes solemnly as he laid down the paper. "What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.
The Adventure of the Cardboard Box, ACD