Just another bit about our Dear Martha. I don't own her or Holmes or Watson, I do however own the large iron frying pan that makes an appearance in this story.
It was the thunder that woke her first, partially, the lightening coming through the window woke her the rest of the way. She frowned, and then got up, pulling on her tartan robe and slipping her feet into her slippers. Getting up, she quietly made her way out of her bedroom through the door that led to the kitchen and went to the back door without needing to light a lamp. She knew the way by heart, of course, having been in this house most of her life. Opening the back door to look onto the enclosed porch of her row house she looked over the site before her and sighed. Eight of them, no, nine tonight and one dog. She stepped went back in and pulled a pile of blankets from an old trunk she kept near the door. Stepping carefully back out into the porch she proceeded to cover the small sleeping forms that lay every which way on the sparse furniture and the floor, seeking protection from the rain and a safe place to sleep for the night. She knew in the morning they would be gone before she could offer them breakfast. They were children and homeless, but they still had their pride. She decided as she came back in that tomorrow would be a baking day, and she knew word would spread quickly when plates of pasties would be left unattended on the porch for whoever happened to need them.
She shut the door behind her and was about to head to her room again when she heard the creak of the 12th stair. It was not a tread she recognized and she reached instinctively to the stove and took up her heavy iron frying pan. She looked back to the porch door and had a moment of indecision. The children were sleeping out there, but no one knew but her, while her lodgers were upstairs and that was known to whomever was climbing her stair. She crept out the door and through the parlor, which gave a view of her bedroom door and the stairway. Her door was still shut, and there was a figure at the top of the stair, just entering the sitting room. It was not a figure she recognized. She waited a moment, then she heard the sounds of someone rustling through papers and the opening of drawers. She frowned, "I'll bet whomever it is will be making more of a mess of things up there for me." she thought as she went to the stairs, glaring even more when she saw the mud tracked on them. She made it up them quickly and without a sound, again, years in her house she knew exactly where to step.
Peering in the sitting room she saw the stout figure of a man going through her lodger's books and papers, looking for who knows what and tossing things to the floor when it wasn't what he wanted. The sound of the rain and thunder were doing a good job of hiding the noise of it all. She looked and saw that Mr. Holmes' door was shut, as was the one going to his room from the hallway. Glancing up the stairs she saw Dr. Watson's door was open, though. Looking back into the sitting room she saw the figure start making towards Holmes' door. She covered her mouth quickly when she saw the glint of a knife light up in the lightening. Her moment of fear turned to anger very quickly, and her mothering instinct kicked in as she stepped through the door and came up behind him. He barely had time to turn before his face met with the backside of the frying pan. She didn't bother to wait to see if that's all it took before she smacked him with it again on the back of the head, only hastening his fall to the floor. She looked down and kicked the knife away and it scattered across the room. Then for good measure she tapped him again, just not as hard this time. "That's for mudding my stairway." she said and stepped over him.
She opened the door to Holmes' room and stepped inside. As soon as the door opened Holmes sat up and another figure in the bed disappeared onto the floor on the other side with a thump. "It's only me, Dr. Watson, you can get up, dear." Mrs. Hudson said and lit the lamp. Holmes just stared at her with a shocked look on his face, Watson carefully peered over the edge of the bed, clutching the coverlet to him. "Um..Nanny?" was all Holmes could seem to say. Normally if she needed to wake him she knocked, but now here she was, in her nightclothes, standing next to his bed with a large frying pan in her hands.
"You'll need to get up, both of you. We've have a visitor, he's in the sitting room, dears." she said and went back out the door. Holmes and Watson turned and looked at each other, not knowing what to say. Watson rubbed his eyes and looked again, no, he wasn't dreaming. When they had composed themselves and came into the sitting room she was stoking the fire and saying something about it being a dreadful night. Watson looked and saw no one sitting in the room and was about to ask about the supposed visitor when Holmes nudged him and said, "Well, this is unexpected." He looked to where he was looking at saw the man on the floor. Watson dropped to him quickly and checked him over. "He's breathing, but not through is nose and I doubt he will be for some time. That's quite the egg on the head, too." he said and looked up at Mrs. Hudson and then to the frying pan she had picked back up. "What? He had a knife and was heading straight for Mr. Holmes' room. Would you rather I'd just gone back to bed?" she said. Watson couldn't help but smile at her. She stepped over the body and said, "Besides, he'd already made a muddy mess of my stairs, I don't need to be cleaning blood up tomorrow besides. I have other matters to attend to, you know, this house doesn't care for itself." Then she turned and went to go back downstairs. "You can whistle for the bobbie yourself, I've got to get up early and do some baking. Good night, my boys." she said and went down the stairs.
"You know how I say I'll never get your depths, Watson?" Holmes said and watched her go with a smirk. "Yes, Holmes?'' Watson said and stood up again. "I have the feeling our Dear Nanny's run even deeper." Holmes said and raised an eyebrow.