What Does the "F" Stand For?

There was a broad corridor there, which ran outside three empty bedrooms. At one end of the corridor we were all marshalled by Sherlock Holmes, the constables grinning and Lestrade staring at my friend with amazement, expectation and derision chasing each other across his features. Holmes stood before us with the air of a conjurer who is performing a trick.
"Would you kindly send one of your constables for two buckets of water? Put the straw on the floor here, free from the wall on either side. Now I think that we are all ready."
Lestrade hesitated, but then complied with Holmes' request, whereupon Holmes turned to me.
"Might I ask you, Watson, to open that window, and then to put a match to the edge of the straw?"
I did so, and driven by the draught, a coil of grey smoke swirled down the corridor, while the dry straw crackled and flamed.
"Now we must see if we can find the missing witness for you, Lestrade. Might I ask you all to join in the cry of 'Fire!'? Now, then; one, two, three -"
"Fire!" we all yelled.
"Thank you. I will trouble you once again."
"Fire!"
"Just once more, gentlemen, and all together."
"Fire!" The shout must have rung over Norwood.
It had hardly died away when an amazing thing happened. A door suddenly flew open out of what appeared to be solid wall at the end of the corridor, and a little, wizened man darted out of it, like a rabbit out of its burrow.
"Capital!" said Holmes calmly. "Watson, a bucket of water over the straw. That will do! Lestrade, allow me to present you with your principal missing witness, Mr Jonas Forbes."
The detective stared at the new-comer with blank amazement. The latter was blinking in the bright light of the corridor, and peering at us and at the smouldering fire. It was an odious face - crafty, vicious, malignant, with shifty, light-grey eyes and white eyelashes.
"What's this, then?" said Lestrade at last. "What have you been doing all this time, eh?"
Forbes gave an uneasy laugh, shrinking back from the furious red face of the angry detective.
"I have done no harm."
"No harm? You have done your best to get an innocent man hanged. If it wasn't for this gentleman here, I am not sure that you would not have succeeded."
The wretched creature began to whimper.
"I am sure, sir, it was only my practical joke."
"Oh ! a joke, was it? You won't find the laugh on your side, I promise you. Take him down and keep him in the sitting-room until I come. Mr Holmes", he continued, when they had gone, "I could not speak before the constables, but I don't mind saying, in the presence of Dr Watson, that this is the brightest thing you have done yet. You have saved an innocent man's life, and you have prevented a very grave scandal, which would have ruined my reputation in the Force."
Holmes smiled and clapped Lestrade upon the shoulder.
"Don't give it a second thought, my good sir. All you need is change your report a little, and all will be well."
"But I am still at a loss for one thing", Lestrade declared. "How on earth did the man think to escape from the grounds? The area is completely sealed off, and the army would have kept it up for a year, if need be, on the express instructions of the War Office."
Holmes smiled. "You forget the Balrog in the backroom", he said.
Lestrade stared at him. "The Balrog? What about it?"
"As you know, the Balrog refused to budge from the backroom, and could not be evicted because it could prove that it was an orphan. Well, our clever Mr Forbes had planned to fly out tonight on its back."
Lestrade sputtered. "But that is preposterous" he managed at last. "All educated people know that Balrogs can't fly."
"Just so; but Mr Forbes is, like all his relatives, not only an unscrupulous criminal (his sister Laurie is the proprietress of an infamous opium den down by the Thames) but also, again like all his family, badly informed and ignorant. He believed that the Balrog actually could fly."
"Amazing!" declared Lestrade. "What will we hear next? That Elves have cauliflower ears?"

Öjevind Lång

		Holmes
Sherlock