As Sherlock Holmes paced the floors of his house in Baker Street, he could see no light at the end of the tunnel in his latest case. Some wretched thief had stolen in in the night, and stolen his beloved Slazengari violin, and he was muttering angrily to himself about the theft, when his colleague Dr. Watson entered the room.
'Morning, Holmes', the doctor said, 'any news about your fiddle?' 'Those bunglers at Scotland Yard have done nothing, nothing, I tell you! My violin, my friend in times of anguish -' and Dr. Watson remembered the anguish of hearing the howling and the scraping of that tortured instrument many an evening - 'plucked out of this home like a turkey plucked out of a turkey farm in Texas, and made into a President. We must think, think ...'
'What if -' 'Silence, Watson, my mind needs to be clear, to be precise. Wait!', he suddenly shouted, 'we must go to Fortnum and Mason's to purchase some cheese!', and without another word the sleuth walked out into the street, with the doctor hastily following him.
At the emporium near The Strand neither of them had any money, so Watson had to pretend to have a fit, while Holmes stole a square of red Leicester cheese, and soon they were drinking tea in Elsie McSpelsie's Tea Shoppe.
'Why the cheese?', Dr. Watson asked Holmes, and the detective took out a jewlellers' eye piece from his pocket. 'Because', he replied, 'this cheese holds the vital clue to the disappearance of my violin', and as usual the doctor was baffled.
'But why the eye glass?' 'Watson, you have no imagination, or even any perception at all. The cheese will lead us to Professor Moriarty.' 'What!' 'Yes, for it is that madman who has half-inched my violin!'
'You're not going to say 'elementary' again, are you, Holmes?' 'Come on, Watson, we have no time to spare', and the two dashed out of the tearoom, fast enough to avoid paying the bill.
Carefully avoiding the eye of a passing Peeler, Sherlock Holmes explained his theory to his companion. 'Don't you see how it all fits? Moriarty has taken my violin, and is now using the strings to slice mozzarella cheese for pizzas.'
'I hear he's opened the Mori Arti pizza and pasta house in East Cheam.' 'But we must go and retrieve it!' 'And we shall, Watson, or my name isn't Siegfried von Oppenheimer the Third.'
As the duo took their seats in the Italian bistro, which strangely smelt of Bisto, a waiter appeared to take their order. 'Two margaretthatcha pizzas, please', Holmes said, 'with -' and here he paused to look Sherlockholmesy - 'extra cheese', and the waiter left as quickly as a Bill Clinton looking for a laundromat. 'Why are we here'?, Dr. Watson asked him. 'All will be revealed', the sleuth quoted from a Beatles' song, and soon it was.
'Waiter!', Holmes suddenly shouted. 'Yes, sir?' 'There's a hair in my pizza!' 'I will get the chef', and when that person arrived it was clearly Professor Moriarty, dressed up like a chef.
'You!', Moriarty roared, and soon he and Holmes were grappling for control of the fish knife that Moriarty had snaffled up off the table. 'Do something, Watson!', and that doctor ran into the kitchen and found his friend's violin, being used by a commis chef to batter a steak with.
'Hand that over!', he shouted, grabbing the instrument, and then ran back into the dining area. 'Come on, Holmes, no time to waste!', and belting Moriarty with the Slazengari the two left the restaurant, caught a train to Edinburgh, and were just in time to chop down a tree to donate to some eejit who wanted to celebrate Sherlock Holmes's 150th birthday anniversary.
'You see, Watson', Holmes said, 'analyse and deduce, and all becomes lucid. Isn't that Alastair Darling?', as what he thought was the Labour MP for the area went into a nearby chip shop. 'No', said Dr. Watson, 'it's quite elementary - he lives in London, to get his hands on all the expenses claims he can.'
'You mean a child could work out that he's more or less a thief?' 'Yes', and the pair wandered into Arti Mori's fish and chip emporium in Slateford, but not, of course, hand in hand, as Holmes and Watson were the same person.
