766. Chapter 766

After Nanny Mc Dead

Episode 1.02

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: What can I tell you? Rating: K Time: See above.

As the sun rose into the soot filled skies of London, a hansom cab pulled up before 221A Baker Street, the home of Kate Holmes, the world's foremost consulting detective and her husband, Dr. Rick Watson, who also chronicled the adventures of the gorgeous detective. A lone figure alighted from the cab, paid the driver, carefully counted his change and trudged up the stairs he had come to hate so much.

The landlady, Mrs. Victoria Hudson, took him upstairs and gently knocked on Holmes' door.

"Yes, Mrs. Hudson, please send Detective Inspector Demming in, if you please." Called a pleasant voice.

"Dash it, Holmes. How did you know it was me?" Demming demanded.

"I'm very much afraid that your sorrowful tread on the stairs is quite unique."

"I suppose I must thank you for your part in getting me promoted back to Detective Inspector from Probationary Constable." Demming said with very little grace.

Holmes shrugged. "The head of the Metropolitan Police had you demoted because you've never been able to solve a case without my help. He thought you were irremediably stupid." Which he was, of course, but Holmes didn't mention that. "I suggested a few games of Scrabble to Sir Mortimer. After beating him handily while blindfolded, playing twelve games simultaneously, and while juggling six bottles of nitroglycerin with one hand, he saw that everyone's intelligence pales in comparison to mine."

"She's not bragging. It's true." Said her ruggedly handsome husband. "She's never lost a game of Scrabble."

Holmes smiled, recalling that Rick was not, strictly speaking, being accurate. She had lost innumerable games of strip Scrabble to her husband. Although perhaps she had actually won those, in a manner of speaking.

"But, I will be happy to help Scotland Yard solve the case of the murder that took place early this morning at the Belgravian mansion of Lord Phillip Punksey-Tawnee."

Demming shot to his feet. "By God! How did you know that, Holmes? Everyone involved was sworn to utmost secrecy."

Holmes shook her head. "You must know by now that the Baker Street Irregulars, as they are called in my husband's books, are my eyes and ears all over London. The wagon used to remove the body, hastily wrapped in a fifteenth century Persian carpet, was a police vehicle. Covering the sides with canvas might have worked, but the back door of the wagon had bars on the windows. Plus all of the gentlemen involved were in plain clothes, but had on issue police boots. Quite simple, actually."

"Amazing, Holmes." Rick said.

"Easy peasy." Holmes replied.

Rick Watson frowned. "I think you should use another term, my dear." His manly brow furrowed in thought. "Simple? Simplicity itself? Nothing to it? Elementary? Child's play? No problemo? I'll think of something for the next book."

Holmes rolled her eyes. "One of the Irregulars, Leonardo by name, made an excellent drawing of the scene. The deceased was obviously the children's nanny, Miss Jacinda Popp-Inbed. A member of the rural aristocracy whose family had fallen on hard times."

"How could you possibly know that?" Demming demanded. "The body was covered."

Holmes smiled at the lack of understanding of her methods by Demming."Most of the body was covered. However, the boots worn by Miss Jacinda were both low quality and badly worn, indicating she was a servant. The cook, Mrs. Rolley-Polley, weighs eighteen stone. Even your burly police could hardly have carried her out. The maid, a French citizen, Mam'selle Serena de'Kay was also present. However, she was seen making love to Lord Punksey-Tawnee after the body had been removed. And before you ask, I have already destroyed the drawings Leonardo made of the two of them."

Demming choked back a tear, but decided to pay the Frenchwoman a visit once he was off duty.

"What can you tell me further, if anything?" Holmes asked.

"The rest has been declared Most Secret by the highest authority. I can tell you no more."

Holmes smiled. "Ah, but you have told me a great deal. The highest authority, you say. Very well, Demming. I'll send you a message once I've solved the case."

Demming left 221A Baker Street in a foul mood, knowing that Holmes would show him up again.

Holmes sighed deeply. "Sadly, dear Rick, this means I'll have to go to my smarter older brother, Mycroft."

"I'm finally going to meet Mycroft?' Rick got to his feet. "Let's went, Cisco! The game is afoot! Hi ho, Silver, away!"

The two went to the Diogenes Club where they were to meet Mycroft Holmes, known in certain circles to be the real power in the British Empire due his ability to absorb tiny bits of intelligence from all over the world and work them into a coherent whole, and then presenting the government of the day with the only solution to a problem that they had only lately discovered.

However, when the two walked into the visitors' room at the, Rick did not see Mycroft Holmes. "Dash it all, Holmes, Mycroft isn't here."

Holmes merely pointed to the only inhabitant of the room, a slender redheaded girl, who must have still been in her teens.

"But…But…He's a she." Rick said.

"True, Dr. Watson." The girl said. "However, my parents wanted a boy so badly that I was raised as one from birth. It wasn't all bad. I did get to go up to Oxford for several months until I had learned everything they had to teach me. But now I live as a girl except when I'm advising the government. Please call me Alexis."

"But you can't be Kate's older…sibling. You're a teenager."

Alexis sighed. "Another of my parents fantasies, I'm afraid."

"So what have you been up to today, sis?" Kate asked.

"The usual. I settled that Fashoda scrap in the Sudan with the French, to our advantage of course. I made peace with the Boer Republics in southern Africa. I convinced the German Kaiser not to build a fleet to challenge ours. Oh, and I suggested to that nice President Roosevelt that he ought to set aside some land for public use. Parks or something. Not much of a day. But why are you here?"

Holmes explained the murder to Alexis and asked her for any information she had, especially who the "highest authority" was who had classified the matter Most Secret.

"That would be the Queen, of course. It involves…a somewhat indiscrete member of the royal family."

Holmes sighed. "Of course. The Prince of Wales, the scoundrel. I assume the nanny was with child by him?"

"I'm afraid so. The child, a boy, was taken, of course."

"The child would be in line for the throne if he were legitimate, but…"

Alexis shrugged. "More than one European king was born on the wrong side of the blanket as they say. William the Conqueror, who successfully invaded England in 1066, was illegitimate. Who knows what an ambitious and ruthless person could do with such a child in their power."

"Any other evidence?"

"Just that two words were written in the nanny's blood, presumably by the killer. Two words in Latin: Salve Regina, or greetings, queen."

"Of course!" Cried Holmes. "I know who the killer is!" She turned to her husband, "Once more unto the breach, dear friends."

As he hurried after her, Watson said, "I like the use of the Bard and Henry V, but I think you could use a different line."

They took a hansom cab to a shabbily gentile home on the outskirts of London. Holmes ran up the front steps and, displaying her lovely legs, kicked in the door. This aroused her husband to no end. Once inside they faced a familiar figure.

"Former Detective Inspector Colin Hunt." Holmes said. "I thought I might find you doing the dirty work for your betters."

Hunt sneered at her. "You cost me my position with the police just because I was selling drugs to under aged girls. A man needs a hobby!" Hunt drew his saber." I was the finest swordsman when I attended the University of Heidelberg. There's a saber beside you. Take it. I intend to kill you both."

Watson nodded, drew his pistol and shot Hunt. "There's a moral there. Something about bringing a saber to….Something."

But Holmes was already running through the house, headed towards the sound of a baby crying.

She entered the room slowly, facing her foe. "So, it is you, Gina."

"That's Regina! Latin for Queen. Which we should have been." The somewhat blowsy blonde said. "For generations my female ancestors spread their legs for every damned member of the royal family going back to King William's time. And what did we get? Honors? Money? Estates? No, we were ridiculed by our so-called betters. Shamed, shunted aside, ignored. Well, now that I have England's future king, they won't ignore me."

"I never ignored you." Kate said. "I stopped the girls at Miss Mumbley-Pegg's School for Odd Gentlewomen from bullying you."

"Oh, yes! The perfect Miss Katherine Holmes, putting her nose in everywhere. If you'd have left me alone I would have put them in their place. Do you remember the small fire that you put out? If it wasn't for you, I would have roasted all of them. All of them! And you stole my love away from me."

Kate frowned. "Your love? The only boy I ever saw socially was little Tommy Gheek-Knerd. We played chess together. Fifteen games at a time, while blindfolded and sitting on a lit keg of dynamite so we wouldn't dawdle."

"No!" Gina screamed. "Professor Moriarty."

"The Greek and Latin teacher?" Holmes said, confused. "I don't understand. We never saw each other socially."

"He loved you! He worshipped you. You were the best student he'd ever had. The best he'd ever seen. The best here ever was. And he had no time for me!"

"And for that you want to plunge England into a civil war?"

Gina smiled evilly. "The bloodier the better." Gina drew her revolver and aimed at Kate. Regrettably for Regina, Kate had been tutored by one James Butler Hickok, known as Wild Bill. Kate just creased Gina's skull with a bullet. Hopefully, she could be rehabilitated while in prison.

Much later at the Diogenes Club, Alexis entertained Kate and Rick. "No word of this must ever be revealed."

"Of course not." Kate assured Alexis. "But what will happen to the child?"

"He's being adopted by a loving family who'll be able to raise him properly. He will never know his true lineage, of course. And what will you and Rick do now?"

"I thought we'd go home and play some Scrabble." Kate said with a smile.