Wow…didn't take long for me to update…what, two hours? That must be a record for me. *giggles*
This one was inspired by the bartender in the Cursed Mermaid scenes; why did he reveal to Holmes and Watson all of that information, unless perhaps he saw something in the way they treated both each other and their fellowman…?*biggrin*
Strange
He'd seen some strange things in his lifetime. One had to be prepared for such when his occupation was that of a barman in a place called Cursed Mermaid just a measly twelve steps away from the most putrid, unclean parts of London - the dockyards.
In fact, all the evening long an eighty-year-old man had been staring sluggishly up at him through red-rimmed eyes, choking down his eight bottles of liquor, waving the hook he had instead of a right hand, explaining, through slurred speech and broken phrases, that last summer he'd had worms and used the wrong limb when an attack hit in the middle of the night…and couldn't sit down for three bloody weeks.
Yes, he'd seen some odd goings-on. But this was the first time he'd had two well-dressed West End gentlemen walk into his pub twice within thirty minutes - the first time, requesting how to find a man whose name they didn't even know, the only description they had narrowing it down to half his customers; the second time, they were looking for "Dirty" Sommers, examining the table behind the curtain he'd gathered his sailors in the night before, and asking where to find the customs agent called Beddoes.
He was debating on whether to throw these two out of his pub, for it was obvious they had something to do - or were trying to have - with "Dirty" and his unsheathed-knife meetings, when the shorter, mustached man - had the taller one called him "Watson"? - nudged his companion as he turned toward the door, giving him a reprimanding look and motioning toward the package the first held under his arm.
When the drunkard sliced open the parcel and pulled out his missing wooden hand, he thought, amid the cries of "Thank-you!" and the awkward "You are welcome, my dear sir," that perhaps the strangest ones out there might also be the best.
Random game stuff: Did anyone else notice Holmes' expression when the drunk man told the "worms and hook" story?? "Well, gentlemen...again, thank you. Have a nice day." *giggles*