Prompt: A Rubber Duck, from Riandra

"Watson?" Holmes called up the stairs. "I hope you are not opposed to having a houseguest for some time?"

Of all the questions posed to me by Sherlock Holmes, which often included sudden inquiries about poisons and requests to get up at ungodly hours to travel to unknown locations for a case, this was perhaps the strangest. Holmes despised society of any sort, and only submitted to visits when he had no choice or thought it useful to stay at a client's home for the duration of a case. Aside from myself, I had never seen him extend an invitation to stay at our Baker Street rooms to anyone. There remained also the matter of space. With only two bedrooms, I had little idea of where we would be able to host a guest.

Still, long experience told me that his asking was a mere courtesy, and he was likely already accompanied by said guest. I have no objections to houseguests, so long as we could find the space, and answered, "Not at all, Holmes."

"I thought not," Holmes said, opening the sitting room door. "Come, Toby. Inside. Good boy."

I laughed aloud and went to greet Toby, who had assisted us on several cases. He licked my hand happily before circling around in front of the fire and promptly falling asleep.

"His owner is away on business for the next month," Holmes explained. "In exchange for Toby's help with certain investigations, I have agreed to watch him when needed."

"I was getting worried about where we should put a human houseguest," I said. "I suppose I ought to have known better."

Holmes laughed in his odd silent way. "Toby will be no trouble. He is very well trained. I have never worked with a dog as intelligent."

Intelligent he might be, but Toby was still a trifle too large for our small rooms. It felt, at times, as if we were sharing space with a small horse. One who was inordinately fond of sausages at breakfast, at which Holmes proved to be the softer of us two by giving Toby far more than necessary every day. "He is acting as if he has not eaten in days!" I said. "Toby, you know very well you had a treat this morning when you woke up and an excellent dinner last night." Mrs. Hudson also seemed to find it her mission to spoil our canine visitor, saving cookies and leftover chicken for him.

Toby barked happily. He appeared to be thoroughly enjoying how much we were intent on spoiling him.

"I suppose if you are on holiday," I said, tossing him a piece of my biscuit, which he deftly caught in midair.

"See, Watson!" Holmes cried. "An exemplary specimen. Aren't you, Toby?" He scratched Toby under his chin, which he seemed to enjoy very much, as when Holmes stopped he pushed his nose into his lap so he might continue, causing the entire table to move.

Still, Toby was an excellent companion, and when not engaged on a case, he wanted nothing more than to lay on the settee with whichever of us was willing to sit there with a newspaper and pet him. Soon it felt as if our rooms had never been without a dog, perhaps because Holmes had taken it upon himself to acquire a multitude of dog toys for Toby to enjoy on his daily walks in the park.

"He ought to feel at home, Watson," Holmes said. "A dog needs to be stimulated, and we would not want him to be bored."

"Certainly not," I said, imagining what destruction such a large dog would wreak if he was not occupied. Still, I thought the small pile of stuffed mice, lengths of rope and rawhide bones that had appeared in our sitting room to be a bit much for a visit of a mere few weeks.

"We shall be prepared for future visits, then," Holmes said when I mentioned this. "Besides, I have often thought of getting a dog myself. Imagine how I could train my own tracking dog, Watson, to assist me on cases!" At this, I was certain Toby gave Holmes a disparaging look, and my friend added, "Only once you retire, I mean."

Toby barked happily, giving chase to a length of rope that Holmes threw down the stairs. This was becoming a favorite game, however much it caused the light fixtures to shake.

In no time at all, Toby's toys were soon strewn about the sitting room, much like everything else we owned, and I took it upon myself to put them in some sort of order, lest we begin to find slobbery dog toys in among the criminal records. Holmes seemed to have acquired more than even I knew about, as I picked up a heavy duck made out of some sort of rubber. "Holmes?" I asked. "What is this?"

"Oh, I found that at a little shop some three blocks away, specializing in hunting equipment," Holmes said. "I imagine it is to train a dog to bring back water fowl."

I looked skeptically at the duck. "It is far too small to stand in convincingly for a real duck," I said. "And too heavy to float."

"Yes, the fellow said it has been rather a failure," Holmes said. "Luckily, Toby does not need to know how to retrieve water fowl and merely likes to chew it."

Hearing his name, Toby appeared at my elbow and nudged my hand. "You want the duck?" I asked. Toby barked, and I threw the duck across the room, where it clunked heavily against the wall. Toby brought it back, tail wagging happily, so I might throw it again.

"I do hope it does not make a mark on Mrs. Hudson's walls," I said, as the duck hit the wall again with a heavy thud.

"It can hardly be as bad as that," Holmes said, gesturing vaguely to the V.R. which dotted the opposite wall in bullet holes.

"No, I suppose not," I said.

"For heaven's sake, what is that racket?" A tiny voice demanded. "Endless clunking and thudding-oh. Hello, Toby."

I had forgotten that the noise of Tony's newest toy, loud enough to us, would be more of an earthquake to our tiny fellow-lodgers, Basil and Dawson, who had crept out of their hole to investigate. "I apologize. Toby has been visiting and enjoying his new toy," I said.

"Yes, I can see that, Doctor," Basil said, climbing up upon Toby's head and scratching his ears. Toby panted happily.

"You know each other, I presume?" I asked.

"Certainly, Doctor," Dawson said. "Toby has helped us on many a case, hasn't he, Basil?"

"You did not think Holmes was the only consulting detective to find a dog useful, did you?" Basil asked. "Why, who do you think trained Toby?"

"Now, Basil, I do not object to you sharing his use, but you cannot claim to have trained him when we all know-" Holmes bounded out his chair, only for Basil to cut him off with his tiny nose in the air.

"I certainly can, Holmes, as you are well aware-"

"They will go on for hours now," Dawson whispered to me.

"Yes," I said. "Perhaps we ought to take Toby for a walk. It is not as if they would notice he is gone." The two consulting detectives had, indeed, forgotten about petting Toby and were in the middle of an intense argument about methods of dog training.

Dawson laughed and I put him safely on my shoulder where he might see the sights and fastened Toby's lead. I do not believe either Holmes nor Basil noticed us leave, or even realized we were gone, as we returned twenty minutes later to find them still engaged in their argument, now with books about training dogs left open throughout the room. I did not know we owned that many books about training dogs.

"Come, Toby," I said, leaving them to it. "Let's find your duck, shall we?"

A/N: Rubber ducks were actually invented in the late 1800s as chewable toys made from much heavier rubber, before turning into bath toys in the 1930s. Who knew?