The Peculiar Case of Socrates Holmes

Prologue - Chemistry

There are three important points to the beginning of my story. Firstly, it isn't about me at all, but rather about a close personal friend of mine, who I have not introduced yet. The second is the Right Honourable Duke of Buckingham's birthday party, and the many events that happened there. The third, and the most important, is a mysterious package delivered to 221b Baker Street on a crisp Tuesday in the middle of April.
I should probably begin with the party, which is what, let's face it, begins most stories. The guest were many, diverse, and all very honourable. (Of course, none of them were - anyone who claims to be honourable very rarely is.) The most important amongst these guests was obviously General Cribbins, the best friend of the Duke. And, as he was such an important guest, he took the liberty of taking a couple of friends with him. These being the two friends who had recently helped him when his wife's favourite necklace had vanished - spoilers, he had pawned for gin. To avoid a scandal, he had elected to take the detective to the nearest fancy party.
This was the first mistake that was made around this party, as these two men were Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson. Their presence would be inconvenient later on. The second mistake was the invitation of the Duke's fiancé. In most cases, it would be strange not to invite her, but any chemist will tell you that you don't add a catalyst to a volatile mixture. Miss Agatha Pattison, formerly Mary Jefferson, formerly Felicity Flitwater, formerly Irene Adler, prided herself on being a catalyst. She was not particularly happy that for her latest venture she had to pretend to want to marry a 70-year-old man with cholera - however, he was a very rich 70-year-old man with cholera. ( You can accuse her of being heartless and manipulative, because she is, but she was doing much better than any other woman in England in1899).
So it was that Sherlock Holmes, John Watson and Irene Adler were scattered around the ballroom of the Duke of Buckingham's Gothic château. Sherlock was making a point of having an awful time, whereas John was trying hopelessly to have a decent one. Meanwhile, Irene was drinking as much wine as was humanly possible. The third mistake involved a confusion of drinks. Sherlock Holmes had asked the butler to bring him a glass of water. Sherrinford Hunt, the 3rd Marquess of Solsbury, had requested a very strong glass of vodka to distract himself from the social faux pas he had made at brunch. The butler was new to the job, and naturally assumed that all clear liquids were interchangeable, so did not bother to memorise the glasses. That is why, at 12 minutes past 8 o'clock, Mr Holmes started to feel strangely light-headed and had to excuse himself.
The fourth mistake was courtesy of Sherlock. Whilst leaving, he accidentally knocked an expensive and delicate vase containing several novelty ceramic flowers off the mantlepiece onto the exceptionally hard marble ballroom floor. This attracted the attention of everyone in the room, including Irene Adler. This was several years after her and the detective had met during an unfortunate incident involving the prince of Bohemia. They had met on a few other occasions - the incident with the Romanian Emerald, the incident on top of the Eiffel Tower, and the incident with the penguin (none of these cases had been made public, and Holmes was adamant that they be kept that way.)
After this embarrassment, Sherlock Holmes went upstairs to regain his rarely disturbed composure. Three minutes later, Irene Adler also went upstairs. Any chemist is sure to know that if you take a mixture of highly reactive elements - old acquaintances, a dull party, and vodka - and add a powerful catalyst - Irene Adler - in most interesting cases, you get an explosion. This was one of those cases. The exact nature of the explosion would be best left unexplained, as it is not our story to tell.
At 10 o'clock in the evening, Mr. Holmes called a cab to take him back to Baker St. Watson noted that he seemed distracted and, for want of a better word, flustered. Fifteen minutes later, Irene also left the party. She seemed to be in good spirits, apart from the fact she had gone bright red. At 12 o'clock, everyone was bored and wanted to go home, so the Duke of Buckingham's birthday party ended.

Now, onto the package. The year was 1900, and nine months had passed since the many and, as far as Holmes was concerned, secrets events of the party had occurred. It was Tuesday, the middle of April, and Evelyn Mary Abigail Hudson had just sat down to read a very nice book about vampires, and drink an extremely nice cup of tea, when the doorbell rang. Muttering angrily under her breath, she went to answer, expecting to find a terrified heiress, or a distressed banker, or perhaps a scared socialite. Instead, sitting there on the doorstep, was the aforementioned explosion.
Even the greatest deductive mind in the world gets accustomed to certain norms. For Sherlock Holmes, a corpse, a stolen earring, or a criminal mastermind was normal. Mrs Hudson rushing in to announce that a baby had been left on the doorstep was not. So, this news came as a complete shock to Holmes and Watson (who had come over from his wife's house for tea). However, such were the great detective's skills that by the time they had all got to the front, he knew perfectly who the baby was, why it was there, and who it's parents were.
This was all confirmed by a note in the basket were the baby lay, which read:

"This belongs to you Mr. Holmes"

Then began a lengthy discussion (argument) about what to do with the baby boy - for, on closer inspection, it was a boy. The first suggestion was to send him to an orphanage, or to a responsible friend, but it was eventually decided - despite the protests of the great detective - that the child would be raised at 221b Baker Street. And so he was, very happily, for about seven years.
There was some debate over what the young Holmes would be named. Mrs. Hudson wanted something nice and normal, such as Norman, or perhaps Phillip. Dr. Watson expressed no preferences, but strongly implied that he would quite like the child to be named after himself, the self-appointed godfather. Sherlock desired the child to be named after his own grandfather. After a compromise was reached the baby became Socrates Phillip John Holmes (unbaptised).