Prompt: Exit stage left
From: Kitschgeist
...
Mrs Hudson had to deal with the comings and goings of her tenant's clients for quite some years now.
They were irregular, unexpected. She opened the door to all manners of strangers; may they be beggars and vagrants with only rags on their backs and a penny naught, or government officials and even members of European royal families, as well as all classes of London society in between.
Many a soul she had taken up to Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson to allow them to discuss their cases with the detective and the doctor before leaving the room to make tea or coffee for the shaken clients.
Much respectful nods had been made and then, before she could blink twice, she would be closing the door behind her, shutting out the interesting details of their visitors' problems; not that she would resort to eavesdropping on people in a plight and needed to explicitly confide in her tenants in full confidentiality.
Over the years, she had mastered her departure just when Mr. Holmes would begin his deductions of that poor soul in dire need of his help, so that she would not distract anyone in the room.
Although she was rarely acknowledged for her efforts, she was not forgotten by the consulting detective, who said that Mrs. Hudson was as gifted in making timely exits, or 'exits stage left' as he put it, just as much as the doctor was extremely gifted with silence.
Honestly, that man had a bizarre notion of what the term gifted meant when it came to anyone besides himself, Mycroft and Moriarty.