It was a quiet morning at 221B Baker Street. Sun was out and shining quite brilliantly at those who walked in its beams, birds were singing and the cheerful and warm weather perfect for family outings and picnics. Unless of course you were part of the Holmes’ family for such mundane activities were far below their standards of being superior to all they met. For that particular family, the weather was perfect for dropping your daughter off at a relative’s house who she never met before to stay for two weeks while you went off to Cabo on holiday. But Shirley Elizabeth Victoria Holmes was a tough girl and very used to her father, Mycroft Holmes, depositing her at a random, unknown location for days or weeks at a time while he went off for ‘work purposes’. Yeah, work purposes for him quite often involved beaches, sun and going to exotic locations far away from London.
However, most times the young woman was accompanied by her father’s assistant who she was to call Anthea. If not the former, it would an elderly gentleman she was to address as Mr. Moran. This visit, much more unusual than all the others, not for the fact that it would change her life forever, but that the young woman would be unaccompanied for the first time since she was five. Of course, this fact Shirley pushed aside, more focused on the duties that came to a girl who’s father was involved quite deeply in the British government and shifted one of her nine bags onto the crook of her elbow before knocking sharply on the door to which an elderly woman who smelt faintly of nicotine, chamomile tea and an herb Shirley couldn’t quite place. Obviously medicinally-related for the way she avoided full use of her hip. Oh, that’s it, marijuana.
“Wotcher! You’re Mrs. Hudson, I presume. Pleasure to meet you. I’m Margaux but most everyone calls me Mara. It’s lovely to finally meet you. I’ve been told much about you. But they didn’t do your beauty justice. Tell me, how old are you? 40?” Shirley grabbed all nine pieces of luggage and entered as Mrs. Hudson stepped aside, brow knitting as she tried to talk.
It wasn’t very strange for unusual people to show up to 221B Baker Street but for peculiar looking and sounding people to show up with luggage was very odd indeed. As far as she was concerned, neither of her tenants had any relatives besides Sherlock, who only had a rather pudgy brother, his ever-growing waistline due to the fact he ingested quite a substantial amount of cakes.
But the girl before her, quite well versed in flattery from the way she blatantly ignored the fact that Martha Hudson was deep into her sixties and had the wrinkles, due to old age and stress, to show for it, was not the man she had seen arguing with Sherlock Holmes on every occasion he had been over.
However, if Martha Hudson had paid closer attention as Sherlock had always advised her, he’d have noticed there was some, not a substantial number but some all the same, similarities between Mycroft Holmes and the young girl who introduced herself as Margaux. The foreheads of the two English citizens in question, for example, were both of the same height if one ignored the fact that the former had a greatly receding hairline making the protruding forehead seem much more ample in the space it took up.
The eyes were another, the same tinting that caused their appearance to take on different colors, all depending on the colors that they reflected on which would only happen between blood-relatives, more likely between a parent and a child.
Only one similarity remained between the pair, who were nothing alike in mind or appearance save for the facts already given to you and the following which I am to tell you know, was the girl and the man were both extraordinarily well-versed in the fake science called ‘The Science of Deduction’ in which a person could come to a very precise conclusion based of behaviors, appearances and logic if they only paid close attention to such details and could easily recall which of the former related to which conclusion they were aware of. But as Mrs. Hudson had not been subjected to the last of the deductions, her obliviousness to the comparison is quite forgiven for it is easily missed if one was not looking for it.
All these thoughts and more raced through her mind as Miss Holmes told to me of her meeting with our landlady and her first visit, with the knowledge of many more to follow at any given time, which lead to her first ever case, which was solved quite soon after being given it, another talent which seemed to only appear in the Holmes family. But I fear I am getting ahead of myself, for we’ve only just begun.