The Chase
A/N: Has anyone ever heard the song "Beep Beep?" It is this strange song from this equally strange album called Dr. Demento… anyways. This fic is based on what I imagined it would be like if it happened to Holmes and Watson. R&R!
The lonely moor road was deserted. The only traffic its two lanes held was Holmes and I traveling in our cab from the station to Lansfield Park to investigate a strange rash of thefts. The driver was driving at a leisurely pace and my companion and I were content to relax and admire the landscape rolling by. I was looking out the window when I caught glimpse of a fine buck bound past us; I craned my neck to watch it disappear over a rise when I noticed the dog cart on the road behind us.
It was barely visible, sometimes in view over the top of the small undulating hills we traveled over, and sometimes not, but never entirely disappearing. I drew Holmes's attention to it.
"Who could it be?" I asked. Holmes did not look troubled.
"No doubt a fellow traveler, going from the station to a house somewhere farther along the road." I consulted my map, and looked up in astonishment from it.
"But Holmes, Lansfield Park is the last dwelling in this direction, and the nearest town after it has its own station and could easily be reached from it." Holmes's interest was perked in our mysterious follower, and he dug in his coat for a second before pulling out a small hand mirror and holding it out the window to spy on the dog cart. He withdrew it and called sharply to the driver,
"Speed up a bit, my good man. Just for a moment." He then resumed watching through the mirror. I tried to stick my head out the window and observe myself, but a sharp tug on my waistcoat brought me back inside. Holmes admonished me,
"Please do not make yourself conspicuous, Watson. I do not wish them to know we are observing them." I admitted to myself that I should have realized this by the use of the hand-mirror, and obligingly regained my seat.
Holmes uttered a small cry of surprise and turned to me eagerly.
"It appears they are indeed following us, Watson. When I told the cabby to pick up speed, I lost sight of the dog-cart for a good minute or so before they caught up to us once more. I think it is obvious they intend us some mischief, or why trouble to hang back?" He called once more to the driver to speed up. Holmes gazed through the hand mirror at the cart, and I craned my neck to see also. They were gaining on us, encroaching on our progress steadily but surely.
"Faster, cabby! Faster!" I heard the crack of his whip as he obliged. The moorland road was by no means smooth, and the ride was becoming bumpy, but no doubt as bumpy as it must be for the poor man in the dog cart. Finally Holmes grew frustrated with the limited range of the mirror and thrust it back into his pocket, leaning dangerously far out the window to watch our quarry. I followed suit, and could see that the cart had approached even closer. He was less than two hundred feet from us.
Holmes called, I fear in vain, for the driver to go even faster, and I was forced to withdraw inside as a dip in the road nearly caused me to pitch completely out of the cab. My last fleeting glimpse showed that the cart had closed half again the distance between us, with the advantage of speed with less weight to pull, as it only carried the driver and we carried three. Holmes joined me inside now and asked me calmly,
"Watson, do you have your revolver?"
"Always, Holmes," I said as I took it out. "But do you think it will come to that?"
"I do not know what it will come to. I merely think it prudent we be prepared." The dog cart was almost alongside us, and we at top speed could still not outpace it. It drew level with us finally, and as I lifted my revolver I heard the driver call to us through the open window,
"Excuse me, gentlemen! Could you slow it down a bit? I am rather lost, and greatly in need of some directions!" I exchanged a glance with Holmes that could only be described as embarrassment at our marked misinterpretation of the man's motives, and we obligingly slowed and sent the fellow on his way.
A bit later, as we were finishing our business at Lansfield, Holmes remarked to me thoughtfully,
"You recall the incident in the cab, Watson?"
"Of course," said I.
"Please take it as a prime example of the fallibility of the human race, and remember that however much you may like to paint my portrait as a calculating machine in your romantic writings, I am after all only human and prone to such mistakes."
I smiled and assured him that I would remember.