Sherlock Holmes is the singular and exceptional creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This story is a work of fan fiction, written by a fan, for the pleasure of other fans, and no harm is meant or intended by its creation.

The sequel to 'The Abominable Adventure of the Charming Chiromancer'

The Particular Problem of Postern Prison

Prologue

I awake, shivering, exchanging darkness for the grey light of a winter's morn. I am on my back, hard boards pressing into my shoulder blades and the heels of my bare feet, and staring at a ceiling laced with cobwebs, cocooned flies and green shadows of damp that reach out from the corners. Somewhere in the distance a bells tolls the hour in eight long sonorous notes. A crow rasps a grating challenge to the morning, slow to wake on this bitter day. My name is Sherlock Holmes, but beyond that fact, I know nothing.

It is my business to know what other men do not, but today I am as bereft of knowledge as I am of warmth. No one who ever said that ignorance was bliss could have ever experienced the state for themselves. To know something would be tolerable, however bad the situation may be. To know nothing is terrifying.

I feel certain, although why I cannot say, that in whatever constitutes my life terror is not something in which I indulge on a daily basis. I am also certain that I am a controlled individual, disdainful of extraneous emotion and a devotee of that path of logic which leads to truth. This morning, however, I am as a new-born babe, aware that a world exists, flooded with sensation and overwhelmed in equal measure.

I would cry out for help if my voice was at my command. Somewhere between larynx and brain, the message becomes confused and nothing emerges from my gaping mouth but a thin, strangled moan. My breathing is slow, appalling so, requiring all my concentration to do little more than draw one breath after another. As my senses awaken, bringing to my nose the sharp bile-ridden stink of cold vomit and dank linen, the impression hardens that it would be in my best interest to escape this place, although why and for what reason eludes me still.

Putting thought into deed is difficult enough. I roll from the bed, expecting my arms and legs to respond to the impending drop, but instead find myself landing face down on the floor with my cheek bruising against a flagstone. If not for this insane impulse, I would remain where I am, fanned by a breeze wafting below the door ahead of me, carrying with it the smells of human presence and the icy blast of the outside world.

Something stirs in the back of my mind, and I know this should carry some relevance for me. Once, it would have meant something, before… before what? If one cannot define the problem, then a solution is impossible. This insane urge to lift myself from my stupor and struggle on is meaningless. Without my reason, I am nothing, and if I am nothing then there is no reason to wage this war against limbs too leaden to respond to the simplest of commands. I yearn to sleep, and it is only that imperative voice that keeps my eyes from closing and the suspicion that if I do, I shall never wake again.

Something tells me that Sherlock Holmes, whoever he is and whatever he does, whether he is nothing in this world or something, would not wait for whatever it was that was about to happen to simply overtake him. An annoying fellow, I thought, someone for whom I would be reserving a few harsh words should I ever make sense of my situation.

I muster what energy and control I have and start to crawl crab-like across the floor. My pace would put a snail to shame, but by the time the bells ring again, I am only a foot from the door. Having got this far, it presents a formidable obstacle. Solid, hinged from the outside and with no handle or lock on the inside, as I look at it I feel a wave of despondency wash over me, out of proportion to the problem in sight. A door is made for opening, after all, and all I can think is that sooner or later, open it must.

I do not have long to wait. The draught increases, footsteps rap outside and a key rattles in the lock. The door opens and I see six boots before me, four polished and gleaming, the remaining two made of soft, expensive leather that bends and creases as the wearer moves around me. Inexplicably, I feel apprehensive as though I know this man and have learnt to be wary of him. Could I lift my head to look at him, I feel sure that I would recognise his face. For the present, however, all I can be certain of is that his taste in footwear is exquisite.

"Look at the state of him," says a gruff voice from above, belonging to one of the wearers of the polished boots. "I ask you, would you Adam and Eve it?"

"That's enough, Andrews," says leather boots. I find myself cringing at the quiet authority in his voice. "Fetch a stretcher. We go ahead as planned."

Polished boots obeys and presently returns. Their superior leaves, his sharp footsteps receding into the distance as I am rolled onto my back and hauled onto the stretcher. Two faces, one blond, brown-eyed and scarred, the other pale as a ghost and young, stare down at me, part mocking, part contemptuous, part disgusted. Suddenly I know them, not their names or their positions, but what they represent. I give way to panic and my feeble attempts at resistance are met with derision.

"Now, now, sir, this is no way to be carrying on," says the blond man. "You want to try showing some dignity. I don't want to have to be rough with you, not today of all days, but if you don't quieten down, you'll be getting what for."

Forced down, lifted against my will, I am transported from the room, a pathetic, helpless creature, unable to speak or move. Onwards I am carried, beneath a low ceiling with small windows set high up in the walls, streaked with damp where the rain has found entrance and as cold as the grave. Ignorant of many things I may be, but I know what awaits me at the end of my journey. I know too that unless Sherlock Holmes decides who he is and devises a plan to extricate me from this mess, I will not live to hear the church bells chime the next hour.

To find out how this alarming situation came about, onwards to Chapter One!