Title: The Debriefing
Author: Pompey
Universe: ACD
Rating: PG13
Warnings: blood
Word count: 1095
Summary: Not everything that happens end up in a police report
Prompt: July 20 - turn a light tone to dark or a dark tone to light
The commissioner steepled his fingers and contemplated the three disheveled policemen standing at attention in front of him. "I know the bare bones of what happened. I have read your reports," said he ponderously. "But now I want to hear what you did not put into the reports. How did it all begin?"
Constable Bingham wiped his scratched-up palms along his trouser legs and cleared his throat. "Well, sir, it started when Mr. Sherlock Holmes grabbed me shoulder as I was rounding me beat. In a terrible tizzy, he was. He was shouting that the slaughterhouse had too many flies buzzing about."
The commissioner's eyebrows rose. "Too many flies?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you believed him?"
"It was Mr. Holmes, sir," replied Bingham as though that were a self-explanatory answer. Which, truth be told, it rather was.
The commissioner waved it away. "Go on."
"As I said, sir, he was in a terrible state. It seemed that Dr. Watson had been nabbed off the street and Mr. Holmes was convinced that his disappearance and the slaughterhouse flies were connected."
"Of course he did," muttered the commissioner, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Sir?"
"Never mind. Continue."
"Well, it being Mr. Holmes, I thought I'd best look into it even if it did sound daft. So I got Constable Mosley - " Bingham nodded towards the tall young man sporting an impressive black eye – "and we went with Mr. Holmes to the slaughterhouse."
"Mr. Holmes went tearing about the place, peering and peeking into everything," said Constable Mosley, picking up the narrative. "And that's when he said that the extra flies weren't actually in the slaughterhouse, they were at one of the high windows of the warehouse next door."
Bingham rather hurriedly jumped back in. "So Mr. Holmes went running out and around the building to get to the stairs to the high window. And . . . . and we followed him."
The commissioner narrowed his eyes. "What did you leave out just now?"
Bingham flushed. "Well, sir, the ground being soaked in blood, it was slippery-like, and with Mr. Holmes running so quick, we had to run to catch up too . . . . "
"You slipped and fell?" asked the commissioner, reading between the lines. Both men nodded sheepishly.
"And Constable Bingham accidentally hit me in the eye while falling," added Mosley, which earned him a very brief but dark glare from that policeman.
The commissioner closed his eyes and sighed deeply. "Continue," he said wearily.
"We did try to tell Mr. Holmes he was entering the warehouse illegally, sir," Mosley quickly said, "but either he didn't hear or didn't care."
"Oh, he heard," the third policeman, Sergeant Hill, muttered so quietly that the rest of the men could pretend he hadn't spoken.
"At any rate," Mosley went on, "we figured following an illegal trespasser did fall within our duties, so we did. Follow him, that is, up the stairs to the high room. That's when Sergeant Hill joined us, seeing us chasing a man into the warehouse. And that's when . . . . " The young constable trailed off and looked faintly upset.
"When?" the commissioner promptly, somewhat gently, as he knew what was coming.
"We heard it. The flies buzzing at the door to the high room," Bingham answered quietly. "They was near as bad as the slaughterhouse. They was thickest at the floor, sir. That was where the blood was leaking out."
"You could smell the stink of old blood from ten feet away," Mosley added, equally as muted. "It was even worse when Mr. Holmes got the door open."
"And how did Mr. Holmes get the door open?" the commissioner asked, even though he knew full well how.
Bingham sighed. "He shot the lock open, sir. He said he had no time for picking it open. Which we wouldn't have allowed him to do anyway, sir," he added hastily, "but he had the gun out and used before we knew it."
The commissioner brushed away the excuses. "And after the door was opened?"
All three men's faces hardened with anger and disgust but it was Sergeant Hill who spoke. "We found Dr. Watson, who was being held prisoner by a Mr. Saul Danvers. Danvers was in the room when we entered. He put up a struggle but we successfully took him into custody. We then sent for the Black Maria to transport Dr. Watson, who was very badly injured, to St. Bart's. Mr. Holmes accompanied Dr. Watson to hospital."
The commissioner frowned slightly at the near-verbatim quotation from Hill's own report. "Was Danvers taken into custody with excessive force?"
"Excessive, sir?" Bingham asked, a touch too innocently. "I wouldn't say that. The bloke was fighting us good and proper, and we couldn't go gentle with him thrashing about like a fish on a line."
The commissioner nodded, expressionless. "Thank you, gentlemen. That will be all." Then, as the men filed out of the office, the commissioner called, "Sergeant? One more moment, if you please."
Sergeant Hill stopped and turned to face his superior's superior again. "Yes, sir?"
"You said in your report that you believe Dr. Watson was not the first of Danvers' victims," said the commissioner slowly. "Do you have evidence of that?"
"Not evidence exactly, sir," Hill replied, choosing his words with care for the sake of clarity and honesty. "Only . . . there were layers to the blood in that room, like . . . . like coats of paint. Much of it was Dr. Watson's. Too much of it. But not all that blood was his. Couldn't have been. There was too much of it. He would have been dead long before we reached him. And . . . . "
Hill stopped, brow furrowed in concentration. The commissioner waited patiently.
"The injuries on Dr. Watson," Hill said finally. "Just a few wounds but bad ones. Deep and always at arteries. Danvers did that on purpose, so the blood wouldn't just flow out but fly. He knew what he was doing. But to know how to do that so easily without any training in medicine or butchery . . . ." Hill looked directly into the commissioner's eyes. "I think Danvers has been practicing, sir, and that he started well before he took Dr. Watson."
The commissioner nodded. "I think, Sergeant, we would do well to investigate Danvers and the warehouse further. I want at least one murder charge brought against that animalistic madman, and I don't want it to be Dr. Watson's."
A/N: A companion/prequel to my July 19 story "Hearts"