The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger: The End of Reason

[vaysh]

Dear friends, I am currently in a wonderful place in the Black Forest without internet access, posting from a nearby restaurant that has wifi. My apologies for not yet having read all your drabbles and clerihews. I am looking forward very much to them. Here is my take on last week's story.

Canon Story: The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger
Title: The End of Reason
Author: vaysh
Rating: PG
Words: 2 x 60
Author's Notes: Set in 1917. Watson is still practicing in London; Holmes is living in the Sussex Downs. I apologise for the double length; it was just impossible to fit this drabble idea into 60 words.


'He is young, Holmes, barely nineteen. The side of his face – shot of. Nothing left but halves, half mouth, half nose, one eye, one ear. It's a miracle he lived. I am doing what I can for him. It isn't much.'

Holmes' hand was on my shoulder as he looked towards the mantle-piece. I recognised the bottle of prussic acid, the gift Eugenia Ronder had bestowed on him twenty-five years ago.

'Logic, reason, our powers of deduction – those alone have endured through this Great War,' my friend finally said. 'And sometimes, the release this bottle holds is the only logic left to us.'

The sunlight streaming through the window of the cottage seemed unreal, a golden light from the past.