If anyone still out there is interested, the July Watson's Woes daily ficathon has just started. You get a prompt every day and write a fic using, however loosely, the prompt. It's great fun and if you haven't done it before, c'mon over and >consider joining us https://watsons-woes.dreamwidth.org/.

Title: And the Third Continent Was...
Author: tripleransom
Rating: G
Character(s): Watson and Holmes, Granada-verse (by default)
Warnings: None!
Word Count: Heh. 666

And the Third Continent Was…

It was a dark and stormy night. Outside, the rain lashed at the window-panes and the wind sobbed – as it was wont to do – like a child in the chimney. Inside our cozy sitting-room in Baker Street, however, the fire was burning cheerily and Mrs. Hudson had just brought tea. I sat before the grate, nursing my old wound, which was acting up in this kind of weather, and read a sea-novel. Sherlock Holmes was moodily pondering his case-notes at his desk, where he had been most of the evening.

“It won’t do, Watson, it simply won’t do, “he ejaculated suddenly and flung himself into the other arm-chair. “I can’t make heads nor tails out of this confounded woman’s story. Perhaps you can give me the benefit of your insight, my boy, I know you have an experience of women that extends over three separate continents. Europe and Asia would be the first two, but which is the third?”
‘You cannot deduce it, Holmes?”

“I can’t make bricks without clay. You have never spoken of it, I suppose preferring to maintain a proper gentlemanly reticence and you know I never guess.”
“Actually, I did let it slip once, but you were preoccupied. Do you remember when we first stood upon the grounds of Pondicherry Lodge, how they were all dug up by the Sholtos in their quest for the treasure and I remarked that I had seen something like it near Ballarat?”
“Ah, Australia, of course!” cried Holmes. “Now, that is cleared up!” As I hesitated on the verge of speaking further, he went on hastily, “You needn’t, of course, go into details of your experiences, Doctor.”

“But Holmes, I do have something of a confession to make,” I said, as he looked alarmed. “Not about the women, Holmes – what do you take me for – but there is something else you should know about my experience in Australia. I – I have kept it a secret all these years, but now I think it only right to tell you. Do you remember old John Turner?”

“Of that little adventure you so romantically titled ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’? Certainly I do. He had styled himself ‘Black Jack of Ballarat’ when he was a desperado back in his early days.”

“Well, he wasn’t quite telling the truth. He was protecting someone.”

“Of course.” Holmes said dismissively. His daughter.”

“Well, yes, but someone else as well.”

“And who might that have been? Really, Watson. That mystery came to a perfectly satisfactory solution with old Turner’s confession.”
“Satisfactory, perhaps, but not valid.” I said. It was seldom I could surprise Sherlock Holmes, but I could see that this time I had. He looked at me, thunderstruck.

“What is the correct conclusion, then?” he asked with a little hesitation.

“Well, you know, Mary used to sometimes call me ‘Jack’. I asked her to stop, because it brought back too many memories. But when I was young and wild, I was often called so…”

Holmes had leaned back in his chair and was looking at me with undisguised horror on his face. “You don’t mean to say…?” he asked faintly.
“Yes,” I nodded. Turner always had delusions of grandeur, even as a young man, but I was the real leader of that gang. Although,” I hastened to add, “it was indeed he who shot the guard. But I was the REAL Black Jack of Ballarat!”

Holmes lept to his feet and poured himself a stiff brandy from the bottle on the sideboard. Turning back to me, he squared his shoulders. I could see him visibly steeling himself, so I hastily intervened. “As to the women, well, there was an Aborigene girl in Woomera…”

Here Holmes cut me off decisively with a wave of his elegant hand and tossed back his brandy in one gulp. As he turned to refill his glass, he said “I never will get your depths, Doctor, and I do not believe I want to.”