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“We seem to have found ourselves in something of a predicament Watson,” Holmes mused as he floated by. I had to laugh, watching my friend’s bemused expression take shape on the visage of a bright yellow duck made of rubber, costumed in his usual coat and hat.
“Indeed we do.” I agreed, for we had one minute been sitting comfortably in our flat, and had been miraculously transformed and transported to heaven (and hopefully Holmes) only knew where the next.
“It is a strange shape we have taken on,” Holmes continued as though I had spoken my confusion aloud. “But it is not a strange place, for this is the supposedly jilted lover, Mrs. Barrow’s, kitchen and here is Mrs. Barrow now.”
“You are taking far too long to find my husband,” Mrs. Barrow boomed as she scooped us up, “so I have decided to teach you a lesson in time wasting.”
She peered at us intently, then set us back down in the tub. We floated round and round, and as we watched, the door swung open and her husband stumbled in, blood dripping from his forehead into his shirt collar.
For a long moment Mrs. Barrow just stood and stared at him, and a harried Lestrade behind him, and then she whirled on us.
“I see I was right, kidnapped.” Holmes said, as I rushed across the room, newly grateful for my legs, to aid Mr. Barrow. “Your husband no sooner would have left you than you him. We were merely giving Lestrade time to retrieve him.”
“Oh thank you!” Mrs. Barrow sobbed, and there was a rush of fabric. I did not look, too absorbed in my work, but I had to assume that she, so recent our detractor, had thrown herself at Holmes and embraced him.