vocab_drabbles | 069: Sherlock Holmes (ACD): Gen

Title: Stygian
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD)
Rating: Gen
Length: 300
Summary: Watson approaches a gloomy house.

The driver dropped me and my case at the front gate and beat a hasty retreat.

Left alone, I checked the scrap of paper Holmes had entrusted to me against the battered ironwork sign. Yes, this was the place.

The house loomed in the distance. A gloomier edifice I’d yet to see and in my time, and as the companion to the great detective Sherlock Holmes, I’d seen my share.

The gate wasn’t locked. It was barely hanging on the hinges. Said hinges made a series of eldritch shrieks as I passed by.

Really, the front lawn looked like a cemetery, but cemeteries, in my experience, were much better tended.

A storm was on the horizon, casting a menacing pallor on the land below. My boots crunched on the gravel walk. A trio of crows, a murder of crows, my mind supplied helpfully, cawed a kind of welcome then landed in the boughs of a gnarled tree and watched me.

Could anyone blame me for having a growing sense of foreboding as I approached the stygian manor?
What would I find here?

I forced my feet to move, to advance. It was a case, I reminded myself, a case like any other.

I thought I saw a flutter of curtain in an upstairs window. I thought I felt eyes on me.

I lifted my hand to the knocker, and the door swung open.

“Doctor Watson!” cried a jolly voice. “We’ve been expecting you. I hope the journey wasn’t too taxing.” The plump aproned woman who greeted me glanced at a watch which was fastened to a chatelaine of sundry items. “That 12:40. Always late. So vexing.”

“How do you do?” I began. Then I smelled the fresh bread and suddenly things didn’t seem so bad.

“Tea’s ready! Do come in!”