Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes et al belong to Arthur Conan Doyle and all things Narnia belong to Clive Staples Lewis.

Thanks to: The Happy Islander for issuing the challenge to write a story involving a lamppost. Even if I took much longer than fifteen minutes to do it.

I remember the scene well. It was over on Oakview Avenue in front of the whitewashed fourplex with the tiled roof. I've seen a good many accident sites, particularly when I was in the war, but this looked like it could have been fatal.

The cab had barely rolled to a stop before Holmes flung open the door and leaped out. I ordered the cabbie to wait, then followed suit, but though the crowd seemed to part like the Red Sea for Holmes, it then came crashing back in on me.

"Now, Lestrade," Holmes was saying, "I want you to repeat that. In the King's English, if you please."

"It's the gospel truth!" the inspector insisted. "The lads can tell you the same. We don't know where they went. I'm a practical man, Mr. Holmes, but it's like they disappeared into thin air."

Holmes brushed past him and passed his critical eye around the site, though what he expected to find, I did not know. There was nothing to study but a hansom cab turned to matchwood in an encounter with a lamppost.

"Who's missing?" I asked.

Lestrade opened his mouth, but it was Holmes who answered. "A lady, the owner of this unfortunate hansom, and his horse."

Lestrade directed his gaping mouth at Holmes. "But I haven't even told you –"

Holmes waved his hand dismissively. "The horse and the cabbie are clearly missing; a child could come to that conclusion. As for the lady, her dress had snagged on this splinter – and a fine silk it's made of – and it seems a rope of pearls had also fallen victim to the violence done here."

"My dear Holmes!" I blurted, searching for evidence of the pearls.

"Is there anything else, Mr. Holmes?" said Lestrade, almost expectantly.

Holmes turned his eyes upward, then back down on the inspector. "I have only one question and then I will release you to take the rest you need."

"Rest?" Lestrade interjected. It was in that moment that I noticed that the inspector's complexion was unusually pale.

"Was it the cabbie or the lady?"

Lestrade reached up to his dented helmet and reddened, chasing away the pallor.

"Ah, the lady then," Holmes smiled. "Take my cab back to the station and remedy that as you will; I'll take another cab home. No, no, Inspector, I insist. You should not still be out here."

"But there's something you've missed!" Lestrade exclaimed. I could swear I read triumph in his face.

"My dear Lestrade, I miss nothing."

"There was a gentleman in the hansom and –"

"Mr. Andrew Ketterly. Two children – whoever they are – took him inside just as I came up – yes, Lestrade, this is his home. But it would be useless to question him at this time for the old gentleman was very much out of sorts and his dignity quite… muddied."

Lestrade gaped at Holmes. I'm sure he would have eventually found something to say, but the pasty complexion returned. He didn't resist when I began to escort him from the scene.

"Oh, and Lestrade?" Holmes added. "Don't waste your time looking for them."

"You know where they are?" I asked, incredulous. But he only waved us off and I wasted no time in trundling the inspector into our cab. "Scotland Yard," I told the cabbie. "And please help him in when you get there." He nodded and took the money I proffered. The moment the cab rattled away, I hurried back to Holmes. "So where are they?"

Holmes did not seem to hear me. He was staring at the second house in the fourplex and intently so.

"Holmes?"

"It's a strange thing, Watson. They can never be found."

"Why ever not?"

He pointed his chin at the house. "I expect only the old gentleman knows."

"Then why don't we ask him?"

"He's had enough for one day, I think. That's what comes of dabbling in things one doesn't know of."

"What things?"

"Magic, Watson. Mr. Andrew Ketterly has been dabbling in magic."

I stared at him. "Magic, Holmes. How do you come to such a conclusion?"

Holmes turned around toward the street and waved down an approaching cab. "Because of the lamppost." He brushed past me.

"The lamppost?" I called as I trotted to his side.

"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" He swung into the cab.

I looked at the lamppost the hansom had crashed into. "What about the lamppost? I don't see what –"

Holmes poked his head out of the cab. "Observe, Watson. The bar is missing. Torn off."

I saw – or rather, observed – that it was so.

"Tell me, Watson, what woman would be able to tear iron from iron and to use it against a police inspector unless she was from another world? The only logical conclusion is that she's now out of this world."

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