Prompt: Doppelgangers, from V Tsuion
It was shortly after Holmes's return from when all believed him dead, but before I had returned to sharing rooms at Baker Street, that I arrived to meet Holmes for dinner and was instead nearly accosted by Mrs. Hudson nearly as soon as I knocked upon the door.
"You must convince him to dispose of that thing! I shall go mad if I see it one more time!" I had seen our good landlady in states before, usually because of some antics of Holmes, though usually her patience extended further. Often, simply because it had to. One could not live at 221 Baker Street, A or B, without exceptional patience for eccentricity and odd goings-on at all hours of the day.
My confusion must have been evident, for Mrs. Hudson calmed down some. "I am sorry, Doctor, to throw you to the wolves the moment you arrive, but you have often been able to convince him to stop his more annoying habits when all else fails."
My success rate in convincing Holmes to do anything was perhaps not as great as she believed, though I wisely did not say this.
"It is just that he leaves the cursed thing all over the room and I have near been frightened to death five times this week alone!"
"I will do what I can," I promised, though I still had no idea as to what Mrs. Hudson was referring. Like much else with Holmes, I expected I would find out soon enough.
"Holmes?" I asked, opening the door to the sitting room. I saw my friend's shadowy form seated at his chemistry table, and I smiled. "Mrs. Hudson was quite upset about something, have you any idea what it is?"
"Ah, Watson!" Holmes's voice came not from the chemistry table, but the entrance to his bedroom. I turned around, startled, then looked back at the chemistry table.
"I have found a use for my doppelganger, as you can see," Holmes said. For seated at the chemistry table was, indeed, the wax figure of himself he had used to throw Colonel Moran off his trail. Up close, the likeness was uncanny and it was now immediately evident what was causing Mrs. Hudson's distress.
"To frighten Mrs. Hudson?" I asked mildly. "How many times has she come across it?"
"Six, to my count," Holmes answered. "It is not always in the same place, I have moved it several times for my own amusement, which no doubt accounts for some of Mrs. Hudson's reactions."
"No doubt," I said dryly.
"Lestrade even talked to it for five minutes straight the other night," Holmes said, laughing to himself. "Granted, it was dark both inside and out, but he was quite put out when he realized."
I have said before that Holmes's ideas of humor were strange, if not outright offensive at times, and this was surely one of those occasions. I could easily see how moving his eerie wax twin to different parts of the room to fool his acquaintances would appeal to him. "Perhaps you should find a permanent home for Holmes, Jr.," I said.
"I know I have little space for something so large," Holmes said. "I find myself strangely attached to it."
I could not see why; its likeness was so eerily like my friend that it was akin to having a corpse in the room. "If I am to return here, Holmes, I must insist that it goes," I said. "I will not have such a thing in our rooms. I should feel as if it were alway spying on me."
"Oh, very well," Holmes said. "I suspect Mrs. Hudson would find a way to dispose of it herself if I did not. I cannot imagine where I shall find to put it, though."
"Perhaps you can donate it to Madame Tussaud's," I said. "It was one of their wax artists who constructed this for you, was it not?"
"It was," Holmes confirmed. "I do not know if I relish the idea of crowds of people going to see my likeness."
"And I am sure they will," I said laughing. "You will likely draw many more people to the museum. Especially as it featured in a case."
"Of course you are correct," Holmes said. "We shall go tomorrow, then."
"Mrs. Hudson will be pleased," I said. "As will anyone else who seeks to visit 221b in the near future, including myself." I was not sorry to see the wax dummy go, eerie as it was.
"It can join the other wax doppelgangers in the museum," Holmes said. "I may always visit it in future if I wish. Now come, Watson, let us go to Simpson's before all the tables are filled."
