Sherlock Holmes and the Engineer's Thumb 1 | Page 21

Sophie Appleton
I stood, gun in one hand, the other one swinging slowly of it’s own accord. The man
before me looked scared. There was faint recognition in his teary eyes, sweat racing
down his glowing face. He was cowering in a corner, his hands gripping his face as if
they could somehow protect it from it’s re-written fate. A fleeting feeling of regret
entered my mind, only to be poisoned by the revenge that grows ever still inside my
soul. These people deserved everything they were going to get. These people had
caught my dreams and ripped them into a thousand, million pieces, like shards of
broken glass. My finger was now present over the trigger, the cold metal pressing
like a bullet into my pale skin. I had done ​ this ​ before, I can do it again.
BANG!
And another life was taken unwillingly, as easy as that. Blood trickled down his face
like a stream of ruby red teardrops, tears that the man was unable to keep any
longer. The feeling was- fulfilling. There was only one thing to do left. I grabbed the
knife, and sliced through the man’s still-warm flesh as if it was a loaf of bread. The
sound of death echoed, an unbreakable, unforgivable silence.
There was no turning back now.
***
The door of 221B Baker’s Street was pristine and dark, the knocker glimmering
against the distant moonlight. Four frosted panes of glass were arranged neatly in a
symmetrical grid, by the growing darkness meant that all I could see was a fleet of
shadows, standing as tall and as proudly as ships. I looked around, but could see no
one but myself voyaging at this hour, into a street I barely knew nor recognised.
Raindrops were beginning to fall, as nervous as the tears I was straining to withhold.
Below me the pavement was littered with autumn leaves, like snow the colour of
garnets and gold. It had took a while to muster the courage to come here, for I was
already captivated in a bewitching state of shock. I held my hand upwards, hesitated
for a minute, and then knocked. Maybe the detective could bring the closure I longed
for so deeply, something that I felt was countries away from my grasp…..
“Sherlock.”
“Sherlock, we have a client.”
“What?”Sherlock grumbled, his hands furiously gripping a mug of hot chocolate. He
was an extremely intellectual fellow, although in his blue checkered nightgown and
tousled brown hair he did not look that way. I think looking normal was part of his
disguise. “We have a client,” I repeated, indicating the entrance of a woman cloaked
in dark, midnight blue. As she pulled down her hood, I could see threads of her