Title: The Haunting of Sherlock Holmes
Author: Pompey
Universe: alternative
Rating: PG
Warnings: some crackiness
Word count: 1352
Summary: Tonight on Unsolved Mysteries – Is a famous street in London, England haunted the ghosts of two people who never existed? People are coming forward to say "yes."
Prompt: July 9 – creepy music Youtube link
Author's Note: the creepy music prompt made me think of "Unsolved Mysteries" with theme music so iconic to my childhood that it's part of my Halloween playlist. (Am I dating myself? Yes, but seriously, check it out watch?v=iox57lTnJDc)
[CLOSED CAPTIONING IS PROVIDED BY THE NATIONAL BROADCASING COMPANY]
NARRATOR: This program is about unsolved mysteries. Whenever possible, the actual family members and police officials have participated in recreating the events. What you are about to see is not a news broadcast.
[THEME MUSIC BEGINS]
ROBERT STACK: Tonight on Unsolved Mysteries – Is a famous street in London, England haunted the ghosts of two people who never existed? People are coming forward to say "yes."
On a cold, rainy night in October of 1990, a family in Oklahoma was heading home. They never made it. Can you help the police find these missing persons?
Barbie Banner was an up-and-coming starlet in the 1960s, with enough talent and beauty to become the next Marilyn Monroe. But her career and her life were cut short by a fatal car crash. Was it an accident, or was it murder?
The small town of Forks, Oregon is being plagued by a mysterious group of pale-skinned strangers. Could vampires really be stalking the residents?
For every mystery, there is someone somewhere who knows the truth. Perhaps it's you.
[OPENING CREDITS]
ROBERT STACK [VO OVER SCENES OF LONDON]: Sherlock Holmes is perhaps the most famous detective in the world. Together with his companion, Dr. Watson, Holmes solved the unsolvable mysteries of Victorian London. And yet, neither he nor Watson ever existed. They are nothing more than fictional characters invented over 100 years ago by a Scottish doctor, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Or are they? Eyewitnesses have come forward to claim that they have seen the famous duo still inhabiting Baker Street, more than 60 years after their creator's death. Could Holmes and Watson have escaped the pages of the stories and taken on real lives of their own?
WOMAN #1: I moved into 223 Baker Street about two years ago. And even though I know nobody's lived at 221 since I've been here, some nights I'll hear violin coming from next door. But nobody's there.
MAN: I've lived at 219 Baker Street for near eleven years. I've heard violin music, or at least violin sounds, played in the night, coming from 221. It's never made any difference whether or not there are actual tenants at 221. Anyway, none of the tenants of 221 have ever been violin players so long as I've lived on Baker Street.
WOMAN #2: I seen shadows across the windows of 221. Silhouettes, sometimes. Two men. Daytime, nighttime, even when there ain't supposed to be anyone living there. I called the police once 'cause I thought maybe there was intruders. The police found nuffin. Not even footprints in the dust, even. And not fifteen minutes after the police was there, the shadows was back.
ROBERT STACK [VO]: Noises and shadows are one thing. They're easy to explain away. Not so easy to explain are the experiences of Nigel Clark, formerly a tenant of the famous 221 B Baker Street apartments.
NIGEL COWL: I've heard the violin music, of course. I had thought it was neighbors but everyone I spoke to denied it. It certainly wasn't me; I haven't a musical bone in my body. So I chalked it up to echoes from somewhere or some classical music radio station being picked up. I paid it no mind.
Then the shadows started.
NIGEL COWL [VO RE-ENACTMENT]: And those were a bit harder to explain, because I hadn't seen them to start with and as far as I knew, there was no new lightening or construction in the area to start causing them. But the more I noticed them, the more . . . solid, I suppose, they became. There were two distinct figures. They didn't always appear together and they both seemed to be men but I could easily tell them apart. One was much taller and very thin and the other was shorter and more of a medium build. I could always get a whiff of tobacco with either of them.
NIGEL COWL: So that was rather unsettling. But neither of the figures caused me any harm or tried to interact with me. I didn't have rattlings or moanings or things moving about on their own. So eventually I just became used to the shadow figures.
ROBERT STACK [VO]: Used to them, until one fateful day, when Nigel misplaced his keys.
NIGEL COWL [VO RE-ENACTMENT]: I thought for sure I had put my keys on their little hook by the door, where I always do. But they weren't there. I nearly turned the place upside looking for them but I couldn't find them. I was just about beside myself so in a fit of frustration, I shouted, "I don't suppose either of you lot know where my keys are!"
NIGEL COWL: I was talking to the figures directly. I don't know why I did that. I was just so frustrated. But I got an answer.
UNSEEN VOICE #1 [RE-ENACTMENT]: Your keys are behind the little bookshelf beneath the key hook.
UNSEEN VOICE #2 [RE-ENACTMENT]: The hook was not secured properly into the wall. Eventually the constant weight of the keys pulled it downward until the keys fell off and slipped between the bookcase and the wall. If you had observed the hook properly, you would not have wasted an hour on a fruitless search.
NIGEL COWL: I can tell you, I have never been that close to soiling myself since I was toilet trained. I was absolutely frozen with fear for I don't know how long.
NIGEL COWL [VO RE-ENACTMENT]: Eventually I got some of my nerve back and looked behind the little bookcase. There were my keys. And the little hook was in fact almost pulled out of the wall. Exactly as the voices had said.
NIGEL COWL: I didn't stay at 221 much longer after that. I don't think anyone does stay long there. I certainly don't blame them.
ROBERT STARK: Some folks would find it hard enough to believe that 221 B Baker Street is haunted by "regular" ghosts. But haunted by ghosts who never existed in the first place?
RICHARD FINROE: [screen subtitle: Richard Finroe, Sherlock Holmes Researcher] The thing to remember about Sherlock Holmes – and Dr. Watson – is that they really have become larger than life. Conan Doyle himself used to bemoan the fact that Holmes was eclipsing all his other writings. He actually resented Holmes for taking attention away from what Doyle thought were his more serious works like The White City. He even tried to kill Holmes off by throwing him from a waterfall. It didn't take, obviously. [Laughs] The public wanted more Holmes and eventually, Doyle gave in and brought him back to life.
I don't know if he ever fully came to terms with it, though. In 1912, Doyle was criticized for having Sherlock Holmes say some derogatory things about other fictional detectives – in poem form! – so Doyle wrote a responsive poem called "To An Undiscerning Critic" that ends with the line, "The doll and its maker are never identical." Which is true, but Doyle was the one literally putting words into Holmes' mouth. At least at the time. Now that Sherlock Holmes is mostly in the public domain, there are even more movies and books and stories and TV shows. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that the characters of Holmes and Watson, who took on lives of their own even while their creator was alive, have gone on to become real entities in their own right. I wouldn't say that they haunt Baker Street but, that their spirits are real and existing in 221 B? Yes, I can believe that.
ROBERT STARK: There have been no tenants in 221 B Baker Street for the past three years. No living ones, at any rate. But whether or not you believe in ghosts, or that fictional characters can come to life on their own, there is something reassuring in the thought of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson residing on Baker Street, still watching out for Londoners and their mysteries.
Join us next time, for another episode of Unsolved Mysteries.
[OUTRO MUSIC]