Prompt: The admiral's son. (Stutley Constable)

Holmes and I bid farewell to Miss Marple and Mrs. Watson in the parlour of the inn and found ourselves faced with Inspector Lestrade.

"Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson, just who I was looking to see before I left. I thought you might want to know that we've tracked down the owner of that little cottage with the sticky doors. He's the son of an admiral, currently working on ships, and we've finally found him on a manifest. If he thinks he can just skip town, but he's got another thing coming. I'm catching the next train to cut him off."

"Thank you, Inspector, we are much obliged to you for keeping us abreast of matters," Holmes said, and turned to me. "What do you say, Watson? Have you had your fill of the fresh country air?"

"I do feel as though we have become entangled in the case, and I'd like to see it through to the end." In truth, I could never refuse Holmes when his eyes shone with the eagerness of the chase, and his quick answering smile seemed to have a knowing tilt.

We packed our bags much faster than we had unpacked them, and caught the next train.

Holmes and I were fortunate to have a first class cabin to ourselves for the journey. Holmes stretched himself out languidly across the seats, so that he took up the entire row, but I had no objection to his head resting against my thigh, my hand absently tracing lines through his hair.

Holmes's eyes were closed giving him a peaceful air, the low afternoon sun drawing broad lines of gold light and dark shadow across his smooth cheek. However, I was not fooled; his body may have been in repose, but that was only to give free reign to his active mind.

However, I was surprised when Holmes eventually remarked, "You may be surprised to find, Watson, that for all of my travels, I have never gone to sea." He leaned back a little further against my leg, so that he might look up at me with his bright, sharp eyes.

I chuckled. "If my own small experiences are anything to go by, you have not missed much, though I was only ever on troopships."

"No, I have missed only a few continents," Holmes said with a wry smile.

"Do you have some sudden desire to travel?" I asked, though I suspected his intention had rather been to draw me out.

"It would afford a change of pace," he answered with a shrug against my leg, confirming my suspicions, "but Miss Marple is probably correct."

I put a hand upon his arm and firmly met his gaze. "I'm not going to run off to sea, if that's what's troubling you, Holmes."

He gave a sharp barking laugh. "You do not fancy yourself a ship's doctor or first mate? I thought of becoming a cabin boy once, before brother Mycroft instead decided we ought to instead become respectable gentlemen."

I chuckled at the thought of Holmes as a roguish young sailor. "It is a romantic image," I confessed.

"Is that so?" Holmes said with eyes that missed nothing and gleamed with an inviting sort of mischief.

I ran my thumb delicately down his arm, raising subtle goosebumps in its wake. "From what I have heard," I said, "in truth it gets dull being out at sea with the same few men for weeks at a time."

Holmes tutted at me. "What is it Miss Marple said? That a little village is like a microcosm of the world, and the same ought to be so of a steamship."

"If you are fond of gossip and rum."