For what I assume was hours after the Scotland Yarders left the sitting room, I remained in my chair, smoking furiously and trying to make headway in this most extraordinary case. At some point in the evening I vaguely heard Mrs. Hudson asking if we would be wanting dinner, to which I waved impatiently and Watson murmured a decline, thanking the good lady for her trouble.

She squawked something or other about our not eating regular meals and fussed over Watson's cough, insisting she would bring up a pot of chamomile tea, etc., etc., but I barely heard her or Watson's protests, so involved was my mind in its own intricacies, trying to wrest the threads of the problem into all weaving together.

There simply was not enough data to draw conclusions! I refilled my pipe and drew my legs up once more, locking my fingers on the other side of my knees and closing my eyes, immersing myself in the formidable abyss that was my mind and oblivious to all else for a time.

It was, I thought with a small smirk of rueful amusement, thoroughly incongruous that I had been lying on the settee only this morning, bemoaning the dearth of originality in the criminal realm and wishing more than anything in the world for someone of brains to test my skill against. Now, my unseen opponent was teasing me, testing my mettle, and heaven knew where he would strike next. How was I to go about finding him?

I supposed I could attempt to locate the printer of those calling cards, though I doubted the task would be easy. Honestly, businesses these days…one would think that a man ordering cards for a famous personage would be checked out before they would be printed!

That was a good point, actually. Surely someone would have wondered at Sherlock Holmes having someone else order his calling cards for him?

Or perhaps, as Watson occasionally was fond of pointing out, perhaps I believed myself to be more famous than I really was, and no one knew of me or cared in this instance. Bah. Humanity as a whole was remarkably stupid.

Since I was getting nowhere fast with that train of thought, I cast back slowly in my mind to the beginning of the case this very morning, scanning and re-scanning every detail with a fine-toothed comb in my mind.

Very well, then. The beginning.

Lestrade had arrived with the news that a man had only just been fished out of the Thames not a half-hour before, and that the fellow had been stabbed, shot, strangled, and poisoned. He had gotten the call within the first ten minutes of going on duty, and after fishing the body out had come straight round to Baker Street…

…wait…

If he had gotten to the Embankment fifteen minutes after going on duty, and then had made it here less than a half hour later…

And if, as Watson corroborated, there were no external signs to indicate the man had been poisoned…

That meant less than fifteen minutes had elapsed between fishing the body out and hailing a cab for Baker Street…

No external signs of poison…

A five minute ride to the Yard (at the least) left ten remaining minutes (at most) after the body would have arrived…

The necessary paperwork would have taken that long at least…

No visible signs of poison…

Certainly no time for an autopsy in the five or so minutes unaccounted for…

Which meant that there was no possible way that Lestrade could have known the body had been poisoned when he told me it was a half-hour later!

With the dawning of this sudden realisation came a light bursting into the darkness of my mind. How I loved, longed, and lived for these moments when the euphoria of discovering a loophole or that all-important overlooked clue overtook me in a rush far more enticing and exciting than that of the cocaine-bottle!

"Watson!" I fairly shouted, flinging my cramped legs out of my chair to stretch for an instant.

Apparently he had dozed off in his armchair, pulled up close to the fire with his feet outstretched, for he jumped in startlement at my enthusiastic cry.

"Wh-what is it, Holmes?" he mumbled, rubbing his eyes slowly.

"I've found a hole in Lestrade's story – listen to this, old fellow!" I paced back and forth in front of the fire excitedly whilst I detailed the outline of my thought processes to him in rapid staccato bursts, so completely ecstatic was I at finding a lead at last that the words spilled from my mouth in a flood.

When I had finished, I whirled about to face him, expecting that grin of admiration and excitement that so often adorned his face after hearing of some breakthrough on a case.

Instead, I was surprised to see his face flushed, either from the fire or his bout of coughing or something else, and then a blank stare was directed at me.

"Is it not clear to you, Watson?" I demanded impatiently, going for my coat.

"Well…yes, Holmes…it makes sense…" he broke off to sneeze suddenly and then glanced back up at me, some lurking worry hidden in the back of his eyes. "But…you don't suspect Lestrade of tampering with evidence, do you?"

"Not at the moment, no," I replied, retrieving my hat and stick. "I am certain there is a logical explanation for it all, perhaps a body mix-up – but that would be an all-important clue. I'm going to go see Johnson and give him the murdered man's description – if he was dispatched in the last forty-eight hours in that peculiar manner Johnson will be sure to have something on him. Then I shall go and confront Lestrade with what I know. Come along, old fellow, we've work to do!"

So excited was I that I did not notice until he coughed again how very flushed his face really was…perhaps that cold was worsening.

It must have been, for he looked pleadingly up at me. "If you're not going anywhere dangerous, would you mind terribly if I just stayed home tonight?" he asked hoarsely.

I frowned, the voice of my conscience pricking me, quite hard, for not noticing before now how perfectly miserable he looked.

"Of course, my dear fellow," I made a special effort to make my voice more gentle than I was accustomed to being. I probably was completely unsuccessful due to a lack of practise, but regardless he slumped back with a relieved sigh and a murmured word of thanks before closing his eyes once more.

I shut the door softly and then bolted down the stairs to the street, whistling shrilly for a cab as I burst out the door in my excitement.

Johnson was thoroughly intrigued by the description of the dead man (once I had finally chased him down an hour later) and promised to find out within twenty-four hours who he was and why he was killed, if the information were to be found anywhere in the London criminal fraternity.

After thanking the fellow I went on to Scotland Yard, to straighten out the mess with the times regarding the dead man. The sergeant on duty at the Yard at this hour was half-asleep himself and doubtless ready to go off-duty; he gave me only a cursory nod and motioned me back towards the office wing without question. I must remember to speak to Lestrade about the lack of security here…were I an assassin it would be only too easy to get in here this late at night disguised as Sherlock Holmes and murder anyone I so chose.

Not an altogether unpleasant hypothesis, actually…

The light was on in Lestrade's office. Good, he was still in then. I grinned in anticipation of confronting the little man with what I had found about his time discrepancies (a chance to make an official squirm was always thoroughly enjoyable)…but then I heard raised voices inside the office and, being a curious (Watson's term for it was nosy) individual, I stopped to listen with interest.

"How could you have made such a colossal blunder in the time, Lestrade!" a low-pitched, hoarse voice hissed.

"Doctor, I swear I didn't think about it until you just said it! How was I to know he'd picked up on the time difference?" That was definitely Lestrade's baritone, raised into more a tenor now with rampant panic.

Wait…

"Inspector…"

"Shut up, Cummings. What am I going to do, Doctor?"

"You'd better be thinking deucedly quickly, Lestrade – I've got to get out of here as he's due here any minute to confront you with it!"

Surely not…I would not believe it…

"You can't leave it in my lap, Doctor!"

"I did my part, and you blundered yours, Lestrade. What are you wanting me to do about it?"

Surely, surely not…

Suddenly the last remaining pieces of this extraordinary puzzle fell neatly – far, far too neatly – into place, and with them a cold burning fury swept through my mind, destroying the previous thrill of finding what I had thought to be a key component in the drama.

I'd been had. The entire affair had been a hoax for my benefit.

I turned the knob, nearly taking it off the wood in the sudden bitter anger that surged through my veins, and flung the door open to let it slam against the wall.

The four occupants of the room sprang up in surprise and consternation, staring at me.

"Holmes, I can explain, I swear –" Watson began, his flushed face darkening with high embarrassment.

"I take back all the times I said you were not skillful at deception, Doctor," I shot back on the instant, feeling myself fairly quivering with suppressed anger. "For you had me thoroughly convinced that you were too ill to accompany me an hour ago."

He opened his mouth to say something but then shut it without a word, collapsing miserably back down in his chair with a small moan.

"Mr. Holmes –"

"So, Lestrade. Tell me, where did you get the body that you showed me in the morgue this morning?" I demanded calmly…far too calmly, I knew. I could feel my anger roiling below the surface like a boiling pot with the lid about to blow off from the sheer pressure.

The fact did not bother me in the least.

Lestrade gulped and also sat, very slowly. Cummings and Hopkins followed suit without a word, while I remained standing in the position of advantage, forcing them to look upward at me.

Finally Watson broke the silence, his eyes refusing to meet my gaze.

"The body in the morgue wasn't fished out of the Thames this morning but last night, Holmes. Lestrade went to the Embankment this morning because we knew you'd be able to check his story just by looking at him," he said in a hoarse, low tone. "There was no poison in the man's system; I filled the report you read out myself. He was a gang member who was shot and knifed last night in a brawl over a…woman…in the Whitechapel district."

I took this information in and digested it slowly, and Lestrade glanced warily up at me. "We already had him identified and so on, so no actual police procedures were broken," he offered feebly.

"The description Lofton gave of the man who hired him for the purse-snatching could fit either you or Hopkins," I said to Watson through clenched teeth.

"I did it," he whispered. "Since he knew me by sight. And of course the stationer's never had a second thought about my buying calling cards in your name."

"The cab today?"

"All you had was my word for that, Mr. Holmes," Hopkins said uncomfortably. "There was a cab taken and found, but your cards weren't actually on the seat."

"And the other man killed was just that, a common dockyard knifing, and you made up the story about the cards?"

"Once he'd been processed and identified we emptied his pockets and put your card-case into one in case you wanted to inspect his clothes," Lestrade agreed.

"That's why Lofton looked so shocked when he'd heard of the murder – he thought the entire thing was a joke at my expense – and that's why he kept looking at you when we were talking," I accused Watson, and was meanly glad to see him fidget uneasily before nodding, his eyes downcast.

For a moment there was deathly silence, broken only when Watson coughed into his handkerchief. He finally raised his head to look at me, his eyes over-bright.

"It wasn't supposed to end like this…" he began faintly.

"No, I have no doubt you never intended me to find out this soon. Just how long were you going to lead me on this merry rat-race, hmm? I do hope you enjoyed watching me run in circles and make a complete fool of myself." I realised my voice had taken on a tinge of bitterness and decided to leave before I showed more feeling than I had already.

"Holmes, please –"

"I hope you enjoyed your little joke at my expense, gentlemen," I snapped, cutting him off with a sharp motion of my hand…why was it shaking, was I really that angry? "I trust you will not be offended when I wish you all a good night."

Lestrade's mouth opened and closed three times in the moments it took me to fumble angrily for the door-knob, and I ignored both his movements and Watson as he got to his feet and reached out in remonstration, beginning to follow me.

Or tried to; I shut the door before he reached it. Hard.

Now, you can't tell me you didn't see that coming! To be concluded...