WATSON: I say, Holmes.
HOLMES: Yes, Watson?
WATSON: Any more news on the Dark One?
HOLMES: Well, my wacky quacky, it is most curious that you should mention it, because but half an hour ago I discovered a photo of her when she was in the buxom flame of her youth.
WATSON: But Holmes, I thought you'd burnt all those old photos.
HOLMES: This particular photograph was deputising as a bookmark in Dostoyevsky's Crime And Punishment.
WATSON: But why on earth, pray, were you poking around in Fyodor's masterpiece?
HOLMES: I was in philosophical mood with the coming of the equinox and I was trying to remember a certain profundity that I had encountered in that most excellent of literary works.
WATSON: Good Lord! And did you find it, old man?
HOLMES: Indeed I did, Botty Watty. It was bookmarked with the Dark One's photo at the very spot.
WATSON: And what is this profundity that led you there, may I enquire?
HOLMES: "Talk nonsense, but talk your nonsense and I shall kiss you for it. To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's."
WATSON: Good Lord! Why, that's deeper than Hudders' lemon drizzle cake. Tell me, old man, do you feel terribly upset now that you've found it?
HOLMES: The photo or the quote? I feel neither regret nor sadness for either. Both belong to a past I neither care for nor regard with interest.
WATSON: Oh, really, Holmes, you do tell the most whopping porky pies at times, you know. I can clearly see that you are not yourself. Tell you what, let's go for a stroll in the park and see if we can come upon that Mrs Hester and her fair bosom. It'll take your mind off the remnants.
HOLMES: My dear Watson, when I want titillation I shall settle down with a good book and some Horlicks.
WATSON: Suit yourself, old man. Just trying to help.
HOLMES: Anyway, why did you broach the subject of the Dark One?
WATSON: Oh, well, no reason, really. Well, if you must know Hudders stumbled on a photo of her in my bedside table whilst dusting and all hell has broken loose. A woman scorned...,
HOLMES: Not you as well, Watty? Caught under her spell.
WATSON: 'Fraid so, old chap. What is this monstrous pull she has over the male species of a certain tendency and waywardness?
HOLMES: One favourable glance in one's direction was sufficient to turn one's internal organs into blithering jelly. Most curious. I trust you explained to Hudders that she is of the night and shall never return to our light?
WATSON: I did, Holmes. It seemed to smooth things over some what what what.
HOLMES: And to think that she and I nearly...
WATSON: And she and I...
HOLMES: In the potting shed of all places.
WATSON: In the shrubbery of all places.
HOLMES: With no regard for the gardener.
WATSON: Ditto.
HOLMES: (sighs deeply) What nonsense did we descend to that day, Watson?
WATSON: 'Twas definitely the wrong way. But our way.
HOLMES: But I have no wish to kiss anyone for it.
WATSON: Nor I, old man.
HOLMES: We were but a nanowhisker away from total ruin.
WATSON: Or a threesome even, but permit me to elucidate no further.
HOLMES: Indeed. And that, as Fyodor would say, is the beginning of a new story.
WATSON: Yes, quite.
HOLMES: And we have yet to solve the mystery of the missing one-legged pygmy Doberman and the headless tabby cat on Brewer Street.
WATSON: Point well made, Holmes.
(both hold their respective photo of the Dark One aloft)
WATSON: Into the fire, old thing?
HOLMES: Irrefutably, old bean.
BOTH: Crinkle and burn o Dark One!
WATSON: Crumpet at eleven?
HOLMES: Not half!
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