The Adventure of the Flying Blue Pidgeon

Lestrade panted, getting to his feet as the gang of Cheathams fell back. “Right now I can think of worse things than rescue by an amateur detective.”

“My dear Lestrade, we’re simply ensuring the fight is fair.” Sherlock Holmes somehow dissuaded the truth of that by the way his lips were coiling up at the edges (without letting go of the pipe in his teeth). Perhaps it was because he was clearly in disguise as a seedy deckhand in Dutchman’s sailing clothes.

From behind him the little professional could see Dr. Watson, tarred like a sailor and armed with a wicked-looking blackthorn.

“Well, then!” Lestrade crowed with his fist up and parallel to the looming swarm over the tavern. “Who is next?”

“Marcia Wilson has discovered Scotland Yard’s Tin Dispatch Box.”

David Marcum, Pasticheur, Editor, and Creator of The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories