First, let me say you've got the characterization down perfectly in this. It's not easy to get that ACD-ish vibe down, but you've done very well. Also, kudos to sounding very British, another difficult task. Had you not used American spellings, I might have guessed you yourself were a Brit. ;P

Anyway, I really loved the case. It kept me on the edge of my seat, and as usual, I found myself a bit baffled along with Watson the exact answer to the who, what, where, and why until the very end. I felt very bad for Miss Hunter in all this, as she was an innocent party in all this, and her friend was using her for information, though she had no idea what he was doing. It's too bad that Mr. Carmichael would betray her for a job, but I quite liked Holmes' answer as to why. Not only that, isn't that so true? Morality usually goes out the window with the promise of success and financial gain.

The only thing I felt I'd have liked to know is what exactly happened to Mr. Carmichael's hand, but I guess it wasn't pertinent. It also shows that every great criminal (or con man, whatever we want to call him) always screws us somewhere. So the fact he left blood everywhere was a pretty dumb mistake. Holmes might have still pegged him for it, considering the boot prints, but it might have taken him longer had Mr. Carmichael taken the precaution to either ensure he didn't get blood everywhere or to clean up afterwards.

Also, I'm wondering if Miss Hunter and Mr. Tawley were able to continue their romance after all this? I'm hoping so, but he might have shied away, worried someone else would try to grill her for information to his investments.

I quite liked the ending. It's too funny how Holmes is always teasing Watson about his poor observation skills, and I love that he wants to take him to the opera to help drill it into his skull the fact that people are not always what they seem to be. I'd love to see if he learned, but at least he agrees to go. I really loved this, EE. Well done! :)

/worried that whatever excursion my companion had planned would end in scrambling through mud or dust/ I like how this shows how unpredictable Holmes can be. He’s not afraid of getting dirty, and there’s no telling what he might be up to. He might not even be sure what he’s up to until he figures what needs to be explored next for a case.

/for my now unfortunately famed cases./ Very in-character that Holmes appreciates that Watson has given him an easy way to refer to his cases, but of course doesn’t like the popularity.

Some of Holmes’ observations seemed a little subjective – as in being able to tell that the writer was a man. A woman could very well have handwriting similar to a man’s (especially since it was so messy) or have large hands (though I suppose his observations fit in well with canon and the thoughts of the time period.) /No self-respecting, let alone wealthy, writer would have sent this out unless they were either in a rush or unable to procure a fresh sheet./ He makes a very good point here though. A wealthy writer, especially one who wrote the content of the letter, would probably want it to look as nice and neat as possible. And they’d be able to afford another sheet.

/On the bright side, this clay crumbles easily" – he pinched a handful to dust – "and its bright, distinctive, red color will make identification of the shoes simple."/ Good thing Watson didn’t wear his nice clothes. ;) He got his mentioned dust, although it seems that the adventure won’t be as strenuous as he was fearing. And now Holmes has a nice lead that feels very reminiscent of the Doyle series.

/Men will do anything for their own advancement."/ Unfortunately very true, and a reminder that Holmes sees so much of the darker side of human nature that a case like this doesn’t really surprise him, while Watson plays more of the part of observer, and his views are closer to that of the audience (which makes him easier to relate to that Sherlock Holmes).

Nicely done, this was an enjoyable adventure. :)

And here is my first review to deviate from your “De” fics. :p

Within in the first paragraph, I feel like you’ve captured Watson’s voice. The syntax and diction and even how you’ve constructed the sentences remind me of Doyle’s stories.
I think your characterization of Holmes is great. Of course, he wouldn’t greet Watson as soon as he walked in the door if there was something as interesting as the old letter to distract him. “It’s quite a pleasure to watch your development, Watson, however slow.” Ha this is something that I could hear Holmes saying: complimentary, but patronizing in the same moment.

I think you’ve captured Holmes deduction ability wonderfully. I also liked that he gave Watson a first attempt. Something, I believe, that happened often throughout the stories and usually culminated in the same way: with Watson seeing a few of the clues and then Holmes pointing out what he missed. I liked that you included Holmes complimenting Watson about writing about their adventures. He’s usually so negative about how Watson “embellishes” things. So I thought that was nice touch and nod to the canon. (Though, then again, he was only pleased because it got him a new case. )

I got so involved with the rest of the story that I ended up reading through to the end. I’ll try to summarize my thoughts. First thing, just wow! That was great. There was suspense, action. I felt nervous when Holmes and Watson snuck into Carmichael’s house, and grew even more concerned when he started firing at them. You kept me on my toes throughout and in the dark the entire story until the reveal at the end. I can tell you put a lot of thought into this story. I think you covered every aspect of the mystery you first presented in the letter, and gave a plausible and reasonable explanation.

Really, really loved this!

Hiya EE! )

I have to say when I first began this that your writing immediately caught my attention. I'm sure Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would be happy to read this if he were still alive. The language used here is quite similar to the original writings of Sherlock. It's nice to see someone not use the BBC version (though I quite like it), but write the ACD very well.

When I saw how well you wrote in this older style English, the way that you picked up the dialect that ACD used, I had to check and see if you were a Brit, yourself... and man, I was quite surprised to see that your profile says that you're American.

After some apologetic (and, I fear, tiresome) words of parting, I left Mary for a rented carriage. - This line here made me fall in love you as a writer. It had nothing to do with what was said, but how it was said that impressed Neo's little heart and soul. I feel as though I am reading straight from the old books when I'm reading this. You carefully picked up his pattern of pauses, breaks in thought, the minute details that he picks up as he watches others and moves with the narrative.

The room was stifling, due, no doubt, to the fire in the grate. He seemed not to notice, so absorbed was he by the letter in his hand. - The description here is nice, and I love the language used. Again, this is a very nice representation of ACD and John's writing. Anyways, getting the writing off the subject here, there is very nice "showing" here in the personality.

"You smell of chimney smoke," he lazily added. - Haha. I chuckled at this line. Classic Sherlock. He's not one to try to be nice and whatever, but he's honest to a social fault... and he sees no need to be anything less than that.

After eyeing me for a moment, he laughed. - I love this characterization of him. It's so accurate. I feel that he often knows he annoys John, but he takes pleasure in his patience and his dear friend's kindness.

"is that whoever wrote this letter was most certainly not the wealthy, well-bred sibling claimed." - I love how you broke down the letter simply and clearly. I was actually thinking the same thing as the letter seemed like nothing of the sort that any female I know would send out.

While I was (and am) by no means so experienced a sleuth as my companion, I deduced that Violet had had some sort of falling out with her family, rendering her unable to ask them for funds. Holmes himself, as was his wont, gave no attention to the dreariness of our surroundings, instead focusing wholly on his witness. - The focus on the differences of John and Sherlock were very nicely done. I love how John is taking notice of the surroundings and despite not being a sleuth as his companion, he was able to make his own deductions. What was nice is how you differentiate how they do and think.

We emerged in a parlour which, after a cursory summary by Holmes, was forsaken for an ill-equipped and grimy parlor. A confused jumble of planks that might have once been called a desk crouched in a corner, having been shoved aside to make room for two mismatched chairs. A coffee table contained three notes, two of which were covered by the crabbed hand of our unknowing host. Having picked one up to check the penmanship, Holmes stared at the page. He ran through the other two. - The description here is wonderful. It is just beautifully written and easy to envision. It didn't become boring and you stayed in character of the narrative while describing. Awesome job.

He knocked before losing patience and beginning to toy with the lock. - beginning goes against the tense of "knocked" so maybe you should changing beginning to "began."

"Tempest in a teapot, really," mused Holmes over the receptacle that had inspired the metaphor. "Of course, had Miss Hunter not come immediately to me, it would have become far more serious." - I can't tell you why for I don't even know but I love this line. I love the musing Holmes. lol.

"Good man." He decisively slammed his cup to the tray. "Now let's go. It starts in twenty minutes, and I have balcony tickets." - Perfect characterization of Sherlock and nice way to make a perfect ending and get the reader's mind off the crime/mission and also ends on a light note which is perfect.

I really enjoyed your entire story. It was a masterpiece, I must admit.
Thank you for writing,
Until Next Time,
Neo

Hi there! A Sherlock fic that emulates the ACD style of writing? I’m intrigued since I’ve only really read our Giry’s style of Sherlock (on top of the original works from ACD, of course) :) The first thing I like is that you keep it in the style of ACD with it being in the First person, from John’s POV. John’s voice feels very much like that voice I get in my head whenever I read ACD (very stiff, and British sounding, almost like Mr. Carson’s from Downton). Okay, I honestly did not expect you to create such a fabulous detective story within a one-shot, but seriously, this impressed the hell out of me. I really felt at times that I was reading something from ACD. Now, I could easily sit here and say that you should totally spin the story out into a MC deal with more depth and what have you, but it would ruin the piece. Major kudo’s, seriously on creating an evocative and wonderful story in just one chapter.

Ah poor Watson: ((I took care to dress simply, worried that whatever excursion my companion had planned would end in scrambling through mud or dust.)). Sherlock does tend to drag him off into the most obscure and dirtiest places at times. That Watson is cognizant of that fact and plans for it by dressing or it just showcases the level of friendship and partnership between he and Sherlock. He reads between the lines, realizes that the summons could well end up in a sewer, and so dresses for that possibility.

(("You smell of chimney smoke," he lazily added.))—well, this is what someone wants to hear. That Sherlock lacks a censor and just says what he thinks has always been the appeal of his character for me. He’s an intelligent rebel, the sort who cares nothing about social niceties and just focuses upon whatever his agenda happens to be. I also love how this is from Watson’s POV, so the (lazily added) is something we know that Watson projects as Sherlock’s tone and appearance. If this was in Sherlock’s POV it would clearly be different.

You don’t mess with a huge mass of fussy details or images but I have to say that I liked this one: ((A large thumbprint in the same blue as the text obscured the upper right-hand corner.)). It is just a striking image because I can imagine spilled ink on my thumb and how it gets on everything that I touch. It sparks a notion of haste, or a lack of caution and care by whomever wrote the letter. That you only had the print specified as being ‘large’ drew my attention and made me become like Sherlock—a detective trying to analyze how large the thumbprint was, how it got on the letter being penned, and whether or not the proportion of the print fit with the idea of the writer being feminine.

The letter you write: (("Dear Miss Hunter,)) is fantastic at setting up the entire plot of the piece. I love how you illustrate the redacted pieces and fit in what Watson or Sherlock have to say in regards to that redaction. I had already began to form my own speculations for how you were going to take things (from a lover no longer wanting his mistress to a wife wanting the mistress gone). Imagine how pleasantly surprised I was that it was none of those and actually something much more nefarious in nature! Really great job of actively engaging me in the narrative and feeding me small clues meant to make me consider what actually was happening as it happened.

Again, another lovely piece of description here: ((The area was surprisingly ramshackle for a young governess, riddled with crumbling tenements and small, hunchbacked houses.)). Again, you don’t paint a waxing picture of what the neighborhood looks like, you give just enough details for me to create it in my head out of what I know.

Astute as always here Watson: ((We left a bit too quickly for good taste, but then, Holmes was never a man of obsequious manners.)). Again, coming from Watson’s POV we get that this is a more objective view of Holmes. If this was Holmes, such a description would have been unimportant and likely not even included in the entry. It shows the differences between Watson and Holmes clearly: Watson looks at the big picture and the details while Holmes looks at the facts and creates the picture.

Oho, the plot thickens here: ((His left hand was covered by a bandage.)). I thought the entire breakdown of the final scene, with Sherlock and Watson breaking into Carmichael’s home and finding the damning letter that ultimately reveals his being the one behind the note penned to Miss Hunter was just fabulous. Loved the element of danger and how Sherlock and Watson reacted to it in a nearly unflappable manner. You definitely had me on the edge of my seat as I read it.

Just a small pointer:

This here: ((He seemed not to notice, so apparently absorbing was the letter in his hand.)) seems a bit odd sounding. Can I suggest: (He seemed not to notice, so absorbed was he in the letter in his hand)?

In all, I greatly loved this piece. Absolutely wonderful job!

I have been looking for excellent examples of stories written in the first-person POV, and I have finally found one! I was also thankful that you used an existing character from an original Holmes case (Violet Hunter). Thanks for a great story.

Excellent - an actual case for Holmes!
And elegantly fitted into a short space: not least by virtue of reusing a familiar client and thus removing any need to establish that part of the story...

My first thought at the opening paragraph was that this sounds exactly like Watson; actually, I really like the Watson you've written in this story. This is a man who has been acquainted with Holmes over a not inconsiderable period, and profited by that association to second-guess some of his methods: he's no bumbler and acquits himself respectably in their mutual jousting. "It is quite a pleasure to watch your development" is muted but sincere praise where Holmes is concerned.

"I wish the recipient of this letter (Violet Hunter, apparently) were similarly disposed" - upon re-reading, I'm assuming that the disposition in question was that of being apt to take pleasure rather than apt to make deductions, but I was initially somewhat confused. (Also, does Holmes really have a *gilded* - that is, covered with gold leaf - magnifying glass? It seems an atypical extravagance.)

I was both convinced and amused at Holmes' reluctant gratitude for the doctor's bestowal of memorable titles on past cases - for reference purposes only, of course!

A nice set of deductions: I wasn't entirely convinced by the idea of a convenient right-hand thumbprint (a left-handed script is obvious anyway, so perhaps Watson was somewhat remiss in not spotting that), but in fact on experimentation I find that one does indeed tend to secure the page when writing with the thumb of the opposing hand, a habit of which I was not previously aware. I feel that the term 'palimpsest' may be misleading here, however, since to me this suggests a sheet of parchment or vellum which has been literally scraped clean of ink in order to be reused: Holmes appears to be suggesting that the paper originally held some other content which was deleted before the letter was written upon it, whereas from the context it would seem that the intent was only to imply that this was a first draft.

Grammar: "whoever" is the subject of "wrote this letter", so cannot be "whom" as this applies only to the oblique cases. (Parallel: "the implication is that he who wrote this letter was a fraud")

"Her face was abnormally red" - this struck me as a trifle ungentlemanly an observation on Watson's part, if not outright medical in its implications: the lady sounds scalded or sunburned. I take it she was merely heightened in colour, or otherwise flushed...

I believe that Miss Hunter was specifically stated on her first appearance to "have no parents or relations of any sort", so no falling-out with her family would be needed for her to find herself in reduced circumstances, alas. If the appearance of a starving dog or patch of weeds raised the status of her neighbourhood rather than demeaning it, this must have been a truly parlous area!

I note with approval that she is displaying her canonical attributes of deduction while seeking alternative explanations here...

We take it, I assume, that Holmes' abstracted examination of the floor is related to his subsequent observations on the local soil, rather than a mere quirk of thought. (In point of fact London clay is commonly yellow-grey-blue - the colour of cheap housing - rather than the 'brick red' of the Midlands, but there may well be isolated instances.)

How very convenient of the forger to leave a blood trail - though I'm not quite clear how it happened to end at the edge of the road, when it subsequently transpires that the culprit lives opposite. Perhaps intervening spots were obliterated by passing traffic?

(I'm afraid that bus stops were not introduced into England until after the Great War - according to the London Transport Museum there were only 57 in existence in 1919 - so a more likely supposition might be that the suspect hailed a passing cab on reaching the roadside... Victorian omnibuses operated with passengers mounting and alighting at will by means of the open platform at the rear: an Act was passed in 1867 which limited buses to pulling over on the near side of the road, implying that they had previously stopped on whichever side passengers wished to descend!)

A terrace of London houses would normally have doorsteps leading directly onto the street without any front garden, especially in a poor area as described: perhaps it was a row of potted plants that Carmichael was so assiduously tending? And I'm a little puzzled as to why the stove had migrated from the kitchen into the parlour: a coal-fired range would be quite hard to move in any case. They tend to be plumbed into the kitchen chimney.

Very typical behaviour of Holmes to announce "I see" on perusing the letters without bothering to explain his deduction or even allow Watson a glimpse of the evidence :-) (And of course entirely necessary tactics by the author in order to prolong the mystery...)

Holmes began to "toy with the look"? Typo, I assume.

Somewhat pointless of Carmichael to fire into the closed front door (rather than, say, at the face of Watson appearing at the neighbouring window!), but presumably the time-lapse was briefer than it would sound and he had hoped to catch the fleeing intruders before the door closed. A desperate character indeed to keep a loaded firearm in his home and to fire willy-nilly into the house of the woman opposite... "Why?" indeed, as Violet proceeds shakily to enquire.

I love the idea that Watson's "characteristic calm" - well, he does routinely have a lot to put up with! - is described being under strain less from the attack than from Holmes's infuriating reticence :-p

"off of" - a grammatical solecism Watson would never commit.

Again, I like the way that Miss Hunter's understandable disquiet is steadied by an intellectual challenge: this is the lady in whom Watson had such hopes that Holmes might show an interest of his own :-)
Meanwhile the letter proves completely unexpected in content, confounding the reader both in-story and outside it: Holmes's explanation is convincing but entirely unforeseen. A nice bit of plot-work.

"He drew his pistol": I'm surprised that Holmes didn't prompt Watson to bring his own Service weapon if he planned to go armed... although the image of his absently 'conciliating' his client with a hand holding a weapon primed to fire is irresistable :-)

"sixth-month relationship" - typo

I'm a bit confused by the geography of the house: I interpreted 'foyer' (a term I associate with hotels) as meaning the hallway onto which the front door and all the rooms would open, but the presence of an armchair immediately put paid to that assumption! I'm guessing that the reference to broken glass implies that Carmichael made his entrance via the window through which Watson had earlier glimpsed him, and that the shoot-out takes place in the front room or parlour?

The impatient "Watson!" followed by "Right, coming" is a wonderfully characteristic exchange between the two men... although apparently the unarmed Watson is required as distraction rather than reinforcements :-p It works, anyway...

"Tempest in a teapot, really," mused Holmes over the receptacle that had inspired the metaphor - a lovely sentence

It is hard not to sympathise with Watson's bemusement over the lengths to which Carmichael was prepared to go... but Holmes' cynical view is also convincing (and again, very characteristic). I'm not sure I follow the allusion to "Norma" - isn't that a classic case of trading a well-worn lover in for a younger model, rather than of career ambition? - but given Holmes' confusion over the title of the opera, he may well have muddled up the plot as well!

He purchased a pair of tickets in advance: that man takes a lot for granted, doesn't he? :-)

A few more 'Brit-picks': "Emily Post" is an unknown quantity on this side of the Atlantic (I only know of her via references to "Emily Postnews" in a Usenet context), so not an allusion that would have sprung to Watson's lips.
A young lady in the 19th century would *never* have been referred to as "Ms." - that didn't come in for another hundred years.
Miss Hunter would be more likely to offer a hot cup of tea rather than coffee to her breakfast-time visitors...
I suspect that "executive" meaning a high-ranking businessman is also anachronistic - perhaps Tawley was a junior partner?
And, more awkwardly, the 'letterbox' plot appears to be predicated around an American-style external mailbox: a letterbox is a metal flap in the front door through which post falls directly to the mat behind. It's not a freestanding box made of wood and it doesn't have a knob... (Although thinking about it, I *have* actually injured myself pushing leaflets through a letterbox with an sharp inner hinge, though the wound would be on the back of the hand rather than the palm: still, it's possible to bleed that way!)

Punctuation: where a speech continues on over several paragraphs (e.g. Holmes' deductions) you haven't used fresh opening quotes at the start of each new paragraph as is the convention.

"...across the street." "He's lived in the neighborhood for years": this is the same speaker, so you can't really close and then re-open the quotes without any other text in between - even if it is supposed to be a hasty follow-up to the original statement.

Favourite lines (out of context):
"People do not open letterboxes with their feet, Watson"
"While I was (and am) by no means so experienced a sleuth as my companion"
"Really, Watson, where do you get your view of human nature? It is unconscionably naïve."

Vivid in-character writing, a general good grasp of the idiom, and an impressive selection of classic plot elements in the space of a short piece!