Prompt from mrspencil: A new Yarder meets Holmes for the first time
"Wait up, Johnston!"
Johnston obligingly slowed to allow the new constable, Stuxley, to catch up with him. They walked in silence for a few moments, before Stuxley asked with studied indifference, "That Mr Holmes, he always like that?"
"What, telling the inspector things only a magician should know like it's staring him right in the face, and then once you explains you feel a bit of a fool for not seeing it? Yep, he's always like that. I've only been here a year meself, but join us at the pub after the case, you'll hear some right old tales. Thompson's got this one about a fish you have to hear to believe."
"A fish?" Stuxley shook his head to shake off his distraction. "But no, I knew Mr Holmes has his deducing, my dad reads Dr Watson's stories in the Strand. I meant the way he got all intense, didn't say a word to anyone, just crawled around on the floor peering at who knows what. Does he always do that?"
"Sometimes, yeah."
"I thought he mostly just sat there and figured things out." Stuxley was quiet for a moment, continuing to walk along beside Johnston, then shrugged in apparent bewilderment.
Johnston shook his head. "Not with us, he doesn't. He's always looking at something, moving all over the place. Never still for a moment, that man. Heavens only knows what he sees everywhere, but he sure does see it." He lowered his voice, looking conspiratorially around the quiet street then leaning close. "Only time I ever saw him stand still was when the doctor was having one of his bad days. He didn't have his cane, so Mr Holmes let him lean on him till the inspector called them a cab back to Baker Street." He straightened up again, but kept his voice low. "Don't let that get about, though. Doctor doesn't like people fussing over his injuries."
Stuxley gave a stout nod. "My dad was navy. I know what it's like."
Johnston looked at him approvingly. "Good man. My brother was army too. There's a few of us who know what it's like. D'you know Mainsend?"
The conversation rolled into other channels as the constable kept walking back towards the Yard.