Work Text:
I had not intended to help capture one of Professor Moriarty’s men.
For years I’d managed the household while John was away with Mr. Holmes, and soon discovered how very little a woman may legally do in her husband’s absence; I went from objecting to that state of affairs to wishing to change them to realising that voting is how they change. By 1890 I regularly attended suffrage meetings.
Small, shallow men often assault suffragists. Our leaders taught us how to deal with such brutes, warning us not to fear striking back even at police. They stressed that we must seem as ladylike as possible, for the element of surprise can mean the difference against masculine strength. I carried myself in preparation, always.
So when a knife-wielding ruffian confronted me during a solitary stroll one evening in early April of 1891, I acted without hesitation. I struck him across the face with my folded, flowery parasol, and dropped him screaming – for the flowers concealed that the parasol was wrapped in barbed wire. I fled without difficulty even as the police appeared.
Both men were home in hours; John held me tightly, and Sherlock thanked me for stopping a murderer who worked for Moriarty.
All three of us took to the Continent. Together, in similar fashion, we ambushed and captured his boss.