"You've seemed distressed the past few days, Holmes," Doctor Watson observed, "what's up?".
"It's these damn hemorrhoids, Watson," Holmes adjusted the pillow on his chair, "I didn't realize they could be such a pain in the ass."
"Hemorrhoids have always been that, Holmes," Watson remarked.
Just then there was a knock at the door.
"I believe we have a visitor, Watson," Holmes lit his pipe.
"Brilliant deduction, Holmes," Watson smiled.
"Thank you, Watson," Holmes smiled.
Dr. Watson got up and answered the door.
Standing there was a man without a head.
In one hand, he held a ventriloquist's dummy.
"Pardon me," the dummy said, "but I appear to have lost my head. If it wasn't for this ventriloquist's dummy I found, I'd have a next to impossible time trying to communicate with people."
"How did you lose your head?" Holmes piped up.
"I lost it during the English Civil War," the spectral headless figure replied through the ventriloquist's dummy.
"That wasn't very civil of someone to cut your head off," Holmes put his pipe down.
"No, it wasn't," the spectral figure agreed, "but I found a pumpkin as a replacement. I've roamed the Yorkshire Moors with it through centuries on my horse. You may have heard of me, the Headless Horseman of the Yorkshire Moors?".
"I'm afraid I haven't," Holmes confessed.
"It's that damn Hessian cavalryman who lost his head during the American Revolutionary War," the spectre shook his non-existent head, "he gets all the press. The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. Thanks to Washington Irving, he gets all the glory. I wish I had a better PR agent."
"What's a PR agent?" Doctor Watson blew his nose.
"Public Relations, Watson," Holmes started tapping his fingers impatiently, "I suppose you'd like me to find your pumpkin head for you?".
"Yes, please," the spectre smiled through the ventriloquist's dummy.
"I once knew a lady of the evening who wanted to find her lost maiden head," Watson quipped.
"Yes, well we won't get into that now, Watson," Holmes grabbed his coat, his deerstalker cap and his walking stick and headed out the door, "Come Watson. The game's afoot."
"That's funny," Watson grinned, "I thought it was a head."
* * *
Dr. Watson sported a large nasty bump on the head after Holmes hit him with his walking stick for telling such an atrocious pun.
Watson was stopped by a French police bobby who was over here on a Paris-London Police Exchange program, "Pardon me, monsieur but that's quite a nasty boomp you have on your head."
"So I've noticed," Watson nodded.
"Great Scott, Watson," Holmes suddenly stopped in his tracks.
"Are you talking about that man standing over there in a kilt with a huge erection?" Watson queried.
"No, Watson," Holmes pointed to a sight in the window, "do you see in the window there? It's a jack o' lantern- a pumpkin bearing the carved initials HHOTYM- Headless Horseman of the Yorkshire Moors."
Holmes and Watson knocked on the door of the house with the jack o' lantern in the window.
The door opened.
"Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson," a cockney voice greeted them, "what are you doing here?".
"Lestrade, you total ass," Holmes wagged his finger at the Scotland Yard police inspector, "what are you doing with the Headless Horseman's head?".
"The 'Eadless 'Orseman's 'Ead?" Lestrade frowned, "what are you babbling about, Mr. Holmes? Are you drunk?".
"Drunk with the fount of knowledge, yes," Holmes rubbed his hands together, "for we have found the Headless Horseman's Head."
Lestrade had bought the head from a used pumpkin salesman.
Lestrade swore he'd never buy from a used pumpkin salesman again.
And so the Headless Horseman of the Yorkshire Moors got his head back.
The ventriloquist's dummy was elected to a seat in Parliament.
And Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson lived happily ever after.
That is until the next time someone else called upon them at their haunts at 221B Baker Street, London.
* * *
A Sherlock Holmes short short story for Hallowe'en
written by Christopher Dracul Van Helsing
Sunday, October 17th 2010.
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