A/N2: I'm going by the Russellian (is that how it's referred to?) timeline as Holmes is fifty-something in 1915, though it's been several years since I've read The Beekeeper's Apprentice and don't remember if they give an actual age there and have never seen (doesn't mean it's not there, I just haven't noticed it) any actual age put on Holmes (except in Baring-Gould's storyline). So for the sake of this story (unless anyone can correct me and preferably give me the story I can look it up, being either of the Cannon or the Mary Russell books) I'm going to say that Holmes was born in 1859. Lovely? Lovely. Because I just spent as much time working the numbers out to match what I would guess would just about fit the dates I know as I will spend writing this story. IE: too much time on the number. Anyway, onto the story!
The Case of the Haunted Room
I
I've always had a bit of a flare for the dramatics, but never a sense to write them down. It is Mycroft, my elder brother, who has suggested that I put my thoughts down on paper. So here they are.
It was the year 1872 when my father decided to settle down from his wanderings about Europe and found his home in London, England. Of course, Mother and I followed, as we always had. He said that in his aging days (forty-five is aging?) he wished to be nearer to his middle son, my brother Mycroft, who was currently in Oxford, but often traveled to London. Truly, I believed the city had its claws into him since he was young and his father would only take him there once a year.
I did not protest this final move. In fact, I accepted it without pout. London had far more than the country side when it came to my interest. Heavens, Scotland Yard was there. Surely God could not have been smiling down on me more than the day of my father's decision to move to London. Though don't believe for a moment he did it on my account.
As soon as we came to London I was promptly shuffled to a new school. As I had little idea of where I was going, Mycroft accompanied me. I said my farewells to him at the gates.
"Good luck to you, Sherlock."
"I should need it?"
"At this school, yes."
I laughed lightly at him. Mycroft simply smiled and hurried me through the gates. I stared upward toward the top of the school building, taking it all in. The building was larger than any school house I had been near to and seemed somewhat gloomy to me, though it never bothered me once I was in. I was shown to my bed where I lay my trunk at the end and placed my violin case on the pillow. I scanned each person that I passed, making notes in my mind to double check the quickly gathered data that I claimed from a brief glance at each individual.
"You're the new boy?" a voice asked from my left and I turned to see a round lad close in age to myself.
"Yes."
He grinned a goofy grin as he extended his pudgy hand to shake mine. "Sam Wallace," he introduced himself cheerfully.
I reached forward and grasped his hand. "Sherlock Holmes."
"So," said he, "you just moved to London, I hear."
"News travels quickly."
"It does indeed. Rumour has it that you're the younger brother of Mycroft Holmes."
"I am indeed."
"So perhaps you can solve the mystery here at our school?"
My ears perked at this. Mycroft, in all of his rambling about his former school, had never mentioned a mystery lurking about it. Ah well… "Mystery?"
"Aye," Wallace answered. "Been strange noises coming from this one room. There's always been an old legend about it being haunted, you see…"
"Yes, yes, Mycroft mentioned that."
"Well the legend has been brought to life as of late. Not many enter the room. Someone died in there, or so the elder students say. Sounds have been coming from it, lately. Frightening sounds."
I raised an eyebrow at this. "And you believe a ghost is haunting it?"
"I do."
I suppressed a chuckle. For an educated boy, he was easily duped. "And what would you have me do, Mr. Wallace?"
"Well take a look at it, of course! If you've half the brain your elder brother had, you'll figure this all out in no time."
I must admit I warmed a bit more to the boy after this comment. After all is said and done, I am, like any other living and breathing human being, susceptible to flattery. "Well shall we take a look at this room, my dear Wallace?"
"Now?" he asked, his round face colouring a bit with what appeared to be fear.
"Indeed now."
He nodded hastily and scurried off, allowing a pace that I could follow at without getting lost in the many turns that the maze-like school had. We turned right and then left, right and left and then left and strait for a bit. I followed and stopped when he did. He introduced me to this person and that, the names I paid little attention to at the present time, merely storing them in the back of my mind for the time being as they were not important at that exact moment.
By the time we reached the door to the infamous room, we had a small crowd gathered around us. Apparently Mycroft was well known in this school for his own deductive reasoning skills, though I'm sure he was, even then, less active than I am at the young age of thirteen.
"This is it," Wallace said, not touching the door but motioning to it.
I stepped up to it without hesitation and pushed it to open it. "Does it always stay locked?"
"Yes."
"Then we shall need it opened if anything is to be discovered."
"Certainly if you are what they say your brother was then you can guess what it is from out here," an obnoxious sounding voice said from a ways into the crowd.
"First off, I don't guess. One never guesses. Well, that is if he wants the end results to be right. Making 'guesses' without data will only produce results that are coloured by biased opinions."
"The professors won't let us open it," Wallace explained to me quietly. "They say it will only feed our foolish talk."
"Surely they know that to keep it secret will only do so more," I answered, frustrated with their lack of logic in the situation.
Wallace shrugged. "We don't always have to understand their reasoning, just accept it. It is how it is."
I frowned at this and glanced back at them. It wouldn't do to have such a group if I were to pick the lock to get into the room. I turned to Wallace, looking at him intensely before whispering into his ear, "Should I have reason to trust you?"
"Why, I should think so," he answered in hushed tones back.
I turned to everyone. "There's nothing to be seen here. I cannot get in, and that is that, as Mr. Wallace said a moment ago."
The group of young boys groaned loudly, trudging off with an air of irritation around them. "We'll come here tonight after the lights go out."
"What?" Wallace asked in surprise. "But you just said-"
"They needed to be gotten rid of."
"But the teachers surely won't allow-"
"Would you like to know or wouldn't you?" I asked irritably.
"I would," he answered, sulking a bit.
"Then meet me here after the lights go out."
Wallace and I parted ways at that moment and the bells for dinner rang clearly a few minutes later. I had only been at the school a few hours and I had been thrown into something that had started to spark my interest, if only a bit. Surely no ghost lay behind the door, but a childish curiosity caught my mind and drove with such intensity that I found myself longing to find what was behind that tightly shut door. I would meet my new friend there later on that night, but first came dinner. No need to show the professors that we were up to mischief. If they knew me to be Mycroft's brother, they would expect something of me, but certainly not to be done directly by me. Mycroft always had a way of manipulating others to do his work for him. I, though, enjoy the thrill of the game first hand.
Dinner ended with little event and I found little time for my violin before the lights were ordered snuffed out. That evening I rummaged through my trunk for my makeshift picklocks that I had hidden from my father during the move and placed them carefully in my pocket. Tonight would hold much interest, that was certain.
A/N: Okay, this is a short thing that probably won't be more than a chapter or two more long. I've written very little mystery in my twelve years of writing, so please stay with me as I venture through this and hope that I don't ruin the wonderful Sherlock Holmes in the process. I'm really much more comfortable writing snippets about Holmes and Russell, but I like a firm idea of a character's past before writing too much of the present setting for them, so I suppose that's what this is. If anyone has any critique, be it possitive, negative, or simply insightful, please let me know!
TS