Prompt: Footprints in the snow (mrspencil)
By the time we departed at the end of the evening, the temperature had dropped so that the mud had turned to ice and slush, and the rain to snow, which had even begun to accumulate in colder or drier patches. Watson and I trod delicately down the street to the hotel, arm in arm for balance as much as camaraderie. The snow crunched beneath our feet, leaving conspicuous tracks in our wake—but we had nothing to fear.
"You of course recognized the young Captain Bond," I remarked.
"He and the rest of your young relations are not so young any more," Watson said. "He seems to have made some name for himself in the service."
"Yes," I said with a dismissive wave of my hand, "Mycroft has found him to be a reliable man."
"That's high praise," Watson said pointedly; I could hear in his voice that he knew my doubts as well as I, but did not share them. "Did he really tamper with your experiment?"
I could not but smile, as Watson had surely known I would at the mention of my work. "Yes, apparently Mr. Marcus's troubles have become a delicate matter of state, which Captain Bond insisted not be revealed at an informal gathering."
Watson gave a gratifying chuckle. "But what were Mr. Marcus's troubles?"
"Captain Bond did not see it necessary to tell me, and I confess I was no more aware than you that he was involved in anything out of the ordinary for a young man down on his luck—or had you deduced that it was a matter of state?"
"Hardly," Watson insisted. "I only knew that he was involved in a murder, though it explains an admiral's son living under a false identity."
"Yes, I had merely presumed that he had fallen into some bad business of the sort which only grows deeper with time and inevitably leads to danger when the wrong person is slighted. However, I should have known from the first that the involvement of an admiral's son would make it a state affair as a matter of course."
Watson patted my arm in humorous consolation. "Just think of how it will be for Inspector Lestrade. What will you tell him?"
"What else? That the case is solved," I said, opening the door to the hotel to let Watson and myself inside, out of the snow.