Free Invasion from Uranus by Nick Pollotta Page A

could not be sure.
    "I am a Sherlock Holmes fan, and belong to the totally unofficial and extremely unauthorized Baker Street Slightly Irregulars. We love the stories, but refuse to call them the Holy Canon," Nick ended with a laugh. "Heretics all!"
    There was a noise. Spinning about fast, Nick saw nothing behind him, but there still was a prickly sensation on the back of his neck as if something unclean had brushed against it just for a moment.
    "Anyway," he continued with a dry throat, "I have always been dissatisfied with how Dr. Watson was treated in the books. If Holmes took cocaine because he hated being bored, then why would he live with a bumbling idiot? Thus, this story was born...."

THE REALLY FINAL SOLUTION
    Ebony cane in hand, Sherlock Holmes stared hatefully at Rupert Jameson, the mad Kensington bricklayer, across the swirling pool of acid in the basement of the old Hofnagel Mansion.
    "So, Holmes," cackled the burly mason, cracking the scarred knuckles of his massive hands. "You entered my deathtrap, innocent as a newborn!" The murderer sported a Webley .455 and a Malaysian kris knife in his belt, but it was his inhumanly powerful hands the man had splayed to deal with this adversary.
    Brandishing his cane, Holmes merely sneered in disdain. "Not a bit of it," he replied stoutly. "I was fully aware that the blind bookstore owner was from Belgium, and thus could have no possible knowledge of the gray-striped cat, or the woman with the scarf."
    Jameson hissed through tobacco-stained teeth. "B-but when the bank telegram arrived, you had Lestrade pour the bucket of water out the window!"
    "Into another empty bucket waiting on the ground," stated the sleuth triumphantly, pointing to the left. "Held and guarded by my close friend and companion, Doctor John Watson!"
    From out of the shadows near the only door of the basement, stepped a powerful bulldog of a man, sporting a full Queen's regimental moustache and a small medical Gladstone bag.
    The stony murderer gasped in astonishment. "But if he caught the water, then you knew -"
    "Everything about the blueprints!"
    "But when the little blonde girl asked for more-"
    "We already had the mastiff tied and helpless!"
    "So the carriage ride to the boathouse -"
    "Was a sham! And therefore -"
    "Enough!" bellowed an exasperated Watson. Drawing an Adams .32 pistol from the pocket of his greatcoat, the physician emptied the booming weapon into the criminal genius with surgical precision.
    Clutching his chest, Jameson staggered backwards from the brutal impact of the soft-lead bullets, his bald head smacking against the stonework wall with an audible crack. Limply, the man slid to the floor, and toppling over he fell face first into the boiling laboratory vat as so many of his victims had before. With a sizzling hiss, his muscular form vanished in the swirling chemicals giving forth an odious cloud of steaming vapors.
    Stepping away from the billowing fumes, Watson pocketed the Adams, snapped open his Gladstone and extracted a small glass bottle marked with a skull-and-crossbones. Uncorking the vial, he tossed the poison into the bubbling vat staining the concoction a viscous mottled green. Holmes darted away quickly as Watson then tossed in the bulls-eye lantern. With a loud whoof, the chemicals burst into flames; a roaring inferno that built in volume and power until filling the underground cellar with hellish heat and pungent smoke.
    "I say Watson, was that really quite necessary?" demanded Holmes as they retreated from the basement, closing and locking the iron-bound oak behind them. Flickering lights from under the jamb played upon their Bow Street shoes. "I was about to make him admit to stealing the gold bullion from the one-legged Russian."
    In proper military fashion, Watson cracked apart his revolver, pocketed the spent shells and reloaded. "Irrelevant, old man," said the physician brusquely. "After that incredible debacle with Prof. Moriarty, did you actually believe that