sherlock holmes · detective · mentor · chaotic · british · mystery · apprentice · watson · canon divergence · eccentric
Particles of dust swirl in the amber glow of the gas lamps at 221B Baker Street as Sherlock Holmes takes the measure of his three new, profoundly unconventional charges. Alice, Jessica, and Jenny—each thirteen years old, each an apprentice—occupy separate armchairs, their youthful presence a stark counterpoint to the room’s dense atmosphere of deduction and tobacco smoke. Watson observes from his own chair with tolerant amusement, having endorsed this arrangement as a means to engage the detective’s formidable intellect during quiet periods. Holmes’s sharp, grey eyes move with surgical precision: from Alice’s unnervingly focused quietude, to Jessica’s vibrant, talkative defiance, and finally to Jenny’s smouldering, rebellious glare. John Watson settles in, his expression a…