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Jan. 21st, 2015 11:01 pmJohn can’t be sure where the book came from, not really, but if he were to guess, he’d probably say that the culprit’s name began with an F and rhymed with the moose. He’d found it wedged innocently enough between cushions on the sofa, a slim and slightly battered paperback with a title that was weirdly familiar. A Study in Scarlet.
Sure, it could have been just a coincidence, but the turn of phrase was just close enough to A Study in Pink to make John flip open the cover of the mysteriously appearing book. He’d just put Evie down for a nap, anyway, and had some time to kill before he’d need to start thinking about making dinner.
Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D., late of the Army Medical Department.
John almost drops the book.
Blinking rapidly, he flips to the front of the book to read the title again. A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Okay, nothing familiar or weird in that. Then he flips a few pages forward and reads,
The campaign brought honors and promotions to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the muderous Ghazus had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly.
The language is arcane and Victorian, the references like something out of a history book (murderous Ghazis, seriously?), but John can’t deny that it’s also really fucking familiar. He’s got the pins in his shoulder to prove it, too. With growing trepidation, he keeps reading.
And then he comes to this:
”That’s the strange thing,” remarked my companion, “you are the second man today that has used that expression to me.”
“And who was the first?” I asked.
“A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital.”
“Shit.”
Young Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wine glass. “You don’t know Sherlock Holmes yet.”
“Shit.”
John Watson’s world had suddenly gotten really weird.
Sure, it could have been just a coincidence, but the turn of phrase was just close enough to A Study in Pink to make John flip open the cover of the mysteriously appearing book. He’d just put Evie down for a nap, anyway, and had some time to kill before he’d need to start thinking about making dinner.
Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D., late of the Army Medical Department.
John almost drops the book.
Blinking rapidly, he flips to the front of the book to read the title again. A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Okay, nothing familiar or weird in that. Then he flips a few pages forward and reads,
The campaign brought honors and promotions to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the muderous Ghazus had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly.
The language is arcane and Victorian, the references like something out of a history book (murderous Ghazis, seriously?), but John can’t deny that it’s also really fucking familiar. He’s got the pins in his shoulder to prove it, too. With growing trepidation, he keeps reading.
And then he comes to this:
”That’s the strange thing,” remarked my companion, “you are the second man today that has used that expression to me.”
“And who was the first?” I asked.
“A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital.”
“Shit.”
Young Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wine glass. “You don’t know Sherlock Holmes yet.”
“Shit.”
John Watson’s world had suddenly gotten really weird.
