Prompt: Innovation. Involve an invention, creation, or novel approach to a problem in your work today.
"Holmes!"
His friend's call echoed down the stairs, roaring its irritation for even the neighbors to hear. He merely smirked. That should serve as ample payback for last week.
"Holmes, what have I told you—"
The question abruptly cut off beneath an uncomfortable silence, and his smirk just as quickly became a slight frown. Even such an obvious hiding place should have held far longer than that. Why had Watson stopped yelling at him?
Low grumbling carried through the floor, then uneven footsteps descended the stairs. Rather than entering the sitting room to scold Holmes, Watson continued toward the entry without pause. Something was wrong.
And if something had gone wrong, he knew better than to let his friend avoid him for too long. He would never forgive himself if he lost his first and only friend to a simple prank.
"Watson?"
Silence answered him. Long strides left the sitting room just as Watson reached the entry. Holding himself with rigidly precise posture despite his bowed head, his every movement announced roiling anger for all to see. Holmes started down the stairs after him.
"Alright, Watson?"
No, by the brief pause, but Holmes had known that. He did not expect the rude gestures, however. Both hands ordered him not to follow before his friend slammed the door behind him, and Watson had disappeared into the crowds by the time Holmes reached the front step. Holmes could start following the trail, or he could figure out what went wrong, give his friend time to cool off, then follow the trail—preferably with a reparation of sorts in hand.
And he knew better than to put himself on the wrong side of Watson's temper. Especially in public. He took himself upstairs.
Dingy cloud light rendered the room a mess of shadows. Books lined a low shelf in the corner, and Watson's bed remained neatly made—as always—but Holmes focused on the desk.
Where more than manuscript pages rested in the primary workspace.
He moved closer, trying to make sense of what he saw. A moment's search should have easily found the deception—Holmes had wanted a minor scare, after all, not an irreplaceable loss—but where he had expected to find two sets of manuscript pages, instead he found one illegible set alongside a destroyed book.
What—
He looked again. Yes, that was a book, and sticky ink covered it just as badly as the manuscript pages, but he had not touched a book. How had the ink found it?
A cracked inkwell in the back of the drawer. Setting up his prank had involved moving things around as if looking to borrow a pen, but hurried rummaging had failed to notice the inkwell behind the stack of papers tossed into the drawer. The impact must have rattled the well just enough to finish a crack already started, which in turn had utterly destroyed the book at the bottom of the drawer. Replaceable or not, Holmes had already learned Watson's opinion on anything happening to his library. No wonder Watson had grown so angry.
Something he would have to rectify, Holmes reminded himself, and the best place to start with that would be to reveal the undamaged originals Watson should have found, followed by running a quick errand to the bookshop up the street.
Maybe by the time he returned, Watson would be waiting to lay into him in the sitting room. Even if he was not, however, Holmes could always follow whatever trail Watson had inadvertently left. His friend would not go far.
He hoped.
Hope you enjoyed! Don't forget to review :)