No Surprises

Sherlock Holmes perfected the art of deduction to the point that he wielded a peculiar form of omniscience over existence. Through his careful, some would say obsessive, calculations and observations, Holmes anticipated even the most esoteric of events before they occurred.

Centuries later, chaos theorists would pour over his extant journals. They became fascinated by his predictions, sometimes so specific that his diary entries anticipated their own research into his system of ideas.

But what they saw as a nearly divine intuition of the universe, Holmes viewed as a curse.

He lived his life bereft of the pleasure of surprise.

The Great Detective

It was the case that made him. No motives. No suspects. The victim was by all accounts universally beloved.

When Detective Byrne linked the brand of cigarette ash, the stray button made of gold-lip oyster pearl, and the Stratford Street haberdasher, he was hailed as the living embodiment of Sherlock Holmes.

Within the decade, Byrne was supervising the entire London department. The Haberdasher was eventually executed.

So when the poor widow received an unsigned letter--explaining how her late husband hired an ex-soldier to murder him before Sarcoidosis left him completely debilitated--it was twenty years too late to matter.