You have an inkling.

You. Wat­son.

He used to call you Wat­son. Wat­son never had inklings. That was Sher­lock’s job.

He’d be Sher­lock, of course.

You hated it.

It’s not that you weren’t the world’s biggest Sher­lock Holmes fan–you were. You knew every line from every story.

But while he may have loved the idea of Sher­lock Holmes, he did not know the sto­ries as you did.

At the time, you found this oh so of­fen­sive. Now, you miss the ill-in­formed fun.

The funny thing is…

Now you’ve for­got­ten it all any­way. You can barely re­mem­ber how to spell Mo­ri­arty.

But you have an inkling.

He kept talk­ing about Mo­ri­arty, be­fore his… be­fore he was killed.

He said Mo­ri­arty would like your room. He did not like your room. He did­n’t feel com­fort­able in­side it. Yet, he said, Mo­ri­ar­ty wanted to stay.

Mo­ri­arty. A re­al Mo­ri­arty.

Mo­ri­arty, his evil per­son­al­ity. Mo­ri­arty, his evil side. Mo­ri­arty, his evil voice.

Mo­ri­arty, his evil in­ner de­mon which he in­sisted must never be seen by the world.

But you have an inkling.

You did­n’t tell the po­lice or even The De­tec­tive about Mo­ri­arty.

You don’t think Mo­ri­arty was evil.

Oh, he was def­i­nitely a bad guy in the Sher­lock Holmes uni­verse. But this is re­al­ity, and Mo­ri­arty did­n’t get named Mo­ri­arty on his own.

He named Mo­ri­arty “Mo­ri­arty.” He de­cided that this part of him­self must be wrong; must be evil.

He de­cided never to let Mo­ri­arty see the light of day.

But you have an inkling.

You al­ways thought that was a mis­take.

Now, you’ll never know. Mo­ri­arty will in­deed never see the light of day, and nei­ther will Sher­lock.

They’re gone.

But you still have an inkling.