Day 27: One of Those Days

Geoffrey Michael Lestrade started his day with the discovery that Jones was down with influenza. What was cause for the other inspectors’ sympathy was cause for Lestrade’s frustration, for he found himself inundated with Jones’s caseload. Gregson drawled some remark about “nobody but the best” getting the largest caseload, his tone arrogant and condescending but his posture radiating relief.

Of course, the Chief Inspector’s “favourite son” doesn’t have to worry about being flooded with work, Lestrade thought darkly as he stomped into his office.

Bradstreet, bless the big oaf, offered to take some of the load off Lestrade’s shoulders. What he ended up doing was knocking over a stack of cases-to-be-filed-away. It was the sort of stack that fell under the much-too-high-to-be-safe category, and Lestrade had long been meaning to take care of it. He’d simply not had the time for the past several weeks, so the stack had grown to a precarious height on the desk.

Roger had apologised profusely and attempted to help Lestrade pick them back up... then Police Sergeant Manning had darted into the office to inform Lestrade that his boys had made an arrest but lost the criminal. The criminal in question was one Isa Vance, whom Lestrade had been working to apprehend for the past two weeks for a jewel theft. Constable Parsons was now being treated by Dr. Watson for a concussion.

All this before nine o’clock.

Lestrade was nearly ready to give himself a concussion to escape it all.

But policemen have their responsibilities, and they stick to them. That had been Lestrade’s mantra for two decades, and, by George, he wasn’t abandoning it now.

Still, he was sorely tempted when he received a telegram from Mr. Know-It-All Sherlock Bloody Holmes, who required search and arrest warrants. Lestrade couldn’t even consider refusing - he owed Holmes too many cases to turn down a request for a favour. Ha. Less a request and more calling him on a debt. Several, if one was to get purely technical. Fool amateur detectives and their two-edged largess.

“I’m certain he needs them, sir,” Hopkins offered tentatively. “He...”

The boy would’ve been better off keeping his mouth shut, for Lestrade shot him a glare that could have flayed a man alive. The senior detective then promptly sent Hopkins (crying to his hero) to Baker Street with said warrants.

PC Harry Murcher attempted to help Lestrade with his impromptu snowfall, but the big man ended up making the mess worse. (As Lestrade knew he would, but Murcher had been one of his mates when Lestrade was patrolling his own beat years ago. Who was he to refuse such an old friend?)

Davy Wiggins, of all people, dropped by after his English lessons with Lestrade’s wife, Annie, to inform him that his eldest boy Jeremy was coming down with a cold. Wiggins insisted on paying for the cough syrup himself, and Lestrade found it difficult to argue with a pair of bright blue eyes that reminded him uncomfortably of a certain pair of bright grey ones...

To top it all off, Lestrade was called in for a meeting with Mycroft “British Government” Holmes. (Not that he would ever say it or even knew it for an indisputable fact, but - contrary to the younger Holmes’s opinions - he was neither blind nor stupid.) Mycroft ended the meeting by apologising for pulling Lestrade away from his duties on such a bad day - certainly, no Holmesian genius need apply: the inspector knew he looked as harried and world-weary as he felt. Whitehall’s Mr. Holmes then suggested that Lestrade get Baker Street’s Mr. Holmes to help him out; Lestrade thanked him for the suggestion and left.

As if he would ask Sherlock Holmes for yet another favour when he was already up to his ears in debt! That wasn’t even counting the fact that Annie’s tuition fees for Wiggins’s lessons were coming straight out of the madman’s pocketbook!

At the end of the day, Hopkins, Holmes, Watson, and - did wonders never cease - Isa Vance showed up at the Yard. Vance was promptly escorted to a cell, Hopkins slunk off to avoid his superior, and Holmes assured Lestrade once again that his name need not be mentioned in conjunction with the case. The amateur strode off in high spirits, leaving his personal physician standing beside his erstwhile personal caretaker.

“As if I can actually lie that blatantly in the report,” Lestrade muttered sourly.

Watson patted his shoulder more out of empathy than sympathy. “Lestrade.”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“There comes a time in a man’s life when, at the end of the day, he has to seek solace in a public establishment by liquid means.”

The young veteran sounded as if he was at that point in time, himself. Lestrade cocked an eyebrow. “One of those days, eh?”

“The same for you, yes?”

“However did you deduce that?”

The two men shared a long look. “I hear The Crooked Arrow carries an excellent black cider,” Watson suggested.

Lestrade felt a grin creep up on him and grab hold. “Actually, John, I was thinking of something a bit stronger...”