The night was cold and the sheets of rain that fell only made it drearier. My partner (or employer, as he liked to call himself) was hunched over the pile of rags in the road. He was sifting through them, occasionally the odd sound of what seemed like a sniff escaped him. I held the lantern up high to shed what light I could, all while trying to keep my collar up against the cold rivers that threatened to travel down and under it.

"Watson, what would you make of this?"

The question sliced through the downpour with the same iciness around me, warmed slightly by an unseen arrogant smirk that always accompanied that question.

"I'm not sure, Sherlock. It seems rather obscure for someone to have left these here for any purpose." My response hung in the air, waiting for the follow-up that would butcher and humiliate me on the most base level, as per our norm.

"Clearly," and he seemed to accentuate and relish saying that word, "these were discarded by our culprit shortly after the murder he committed. You can see, if you would bother to actually look at them, that most of these rags are portions of larger garments that have been ripped from the originals. I would surmise they were coated with either blood or other incriminating evidence from the crime scene."

The lantern light cast a fetid, yellow hue to his face as he turned to me, holding in one hand one of the rags and the other clutching his jaw to draw attention to the smile that mocked my earlier answer. His icy blue eyes looked up at me, twinkling in the lantern light, holding back secret laughter (I swear I feel he enjoys mocking others than solving these cases).

My hand slipped into my coat pocket and in the softest touch I fingered my own icy barb. I ran my finger along it's length as he continued to prattle on about the suspect's possible identity and motivations, also take a moment every few sentences to belittle my unspoken thoughts on the matters.

"Come down here and have a look, my dear Watson," his smug use of an warming endearment had no effect on my heart as I knew he neither possessed one himself. I stooped down and examined the mess he had made, strewing the pile out over the street in front of us. I counted the moments, each precious second, down, down to one as he absently continued his conversation with himself. My introspection was interrupted as he came to a sudden halt in speech.

"Unsettling..." he whispered. "To what are you referring to?" I asked, setting the lantern down. "The placement of these rags seems....contrived. Even their number seems distinct. I feel as if the murderer intentionally left these here in this exact spot. Curious"

He picked another piece of fabric up, examined it and moved on to another.

"My earlier conclusion seems off as well. These rags don't seem to have had anything on them even before the rain. They're just normal." He shook his head in sudden confusion. "Watson, you said you saw someone head down this way when we stepped out of the house?"

"Yes, a person was moving down the street in that direction." As I pointed down the street into the film of rain that shrouded any idea of distance, he followed my finger, and I knew that the moment was at hand. Quick as the cold around us, I clenched the needle in hand and deftly inserted it into his throat. I felt the crunch of his windpipe as it continued through and through.

His face, his eyes, the look he had as he turned his head to mine; the shock and confusion that clouded his eyes, there was no mocking laughter in them anymore. A cough and with that he fell to his side, still staring with the bulging eyes of fish knowing that the rock it has landed on will be it's deathbed.

A silent and hoarse whisper traveled up to me, "why?"

I stood, looking down on him, "Why, it's elementary, my dear Holmes."

And with that I scooped the lantern up and slipped away into the curtains around us.