Title: Night at the British Museum
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (bookverse)
Genre: Mystery, AU, Supernatural(ish), Friendship, Gen
Rating: T for room to play
Disclaimer: Main plotline and plot device directly stolen from the Hollywood films Night at the Museum and Night at the Museum II: Battle for the Smithsonian. Plot, relevant details, and anything else you may or may not recognize probably belongs to 20th Century Fox. Holmes and Watson belong to the estate and heirs of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, though the characters themselves are in public domain now. All other characters are historical figures; their lives and actions are in no way being construed as fact in this work of fiction.
Summary: Sherlock Holmes, an amateur consulting detective struggling to eke out an existence in late 19th-century London, is made an offer he cannot refuse (for various reasons, one of them being that he must pay his rent or be evicted from the tenements of Montague Street); a position as a night watchman at the British Museum, temporary employment due to a recent influx of new exhibits. What he does not realize, is that strange things are about to happen in London, and that much higher powers than he or the Museum estate managers are involved. With the assistance of a certain British army doctor from the new Kandahar exhibit, he must unravel the museum's deadly secrets, and expose his century's most terrifying, elusive killer – Jack the Ripper.
A/N: Well, it's been over a month since I wrote anything, due to personal issues with life, amongst other things. And I suddenly realized I have far, far too many WIPs; so my New Year's writing resolutions are to simply finish the WIPs I have. This one may be a long, slow time in coming, but I am trying, I promise. Written in the same format as Worth and Choice, because that seems to work for me. Hope you like. :)

Chapter One

November 2, 1884
11:51 p.m.

"Absolutely not. Now be a good fellow and run along, do."

Mr. Mycroft Holmes, advisor to the British Government and (most unfortunately) my elder brother, is without question one of the most annoying individuals to ever waddle the streets of the London metropolis. Whilst brother mine and I both inherited the brains of our family, he unfortunately inherited the family title, estate, and fortune, what there remained of it at my father's untimely passing. And, like all underworked and over-appreciated government officials, he cares little about my own pecuniary shortcomings.

A most unfortunate trait, as at the time of which I speak I was desperately in need of financial aid, for the purpose of staving off my Medusa of a landlady for another week and preventing my few belongings from being dumped summarily into the gutter outside. Montague Street, despite its rise in property value due to the opening of the White Wing (1), is no Pall Mall, and my landlady something that might be less ferocious on display in Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors. Mrs. Dudley (2) is a woman who can best be described as elephantine, and her tolerance for struggling unofficial consulting detectives falling behind on their rent is less than none.

Hence, my visit to my brother's rooms in Whitehall for the purpose of a bit of pride-swallowing, in asking for a small loan. The familial investment opportunity he promptly denied, followed by threatening to see me on the first outbound freighter for South America if I dared to interrupt his private sanctum at luncheon any time in the near future. Evidently, a man and his sandwich must ne'er be parted.

After being brusquely deposited on the street by a disgustingly well-fed footman, I made my way home – if said hell-hole can be termed such – and spent the evening perusing the various news-papers I managed to procure (by that meaning, bought or borrowed from my fellow-lodgers before they were awake this morning; old Mr. Sawyer across the hall was highly perturbed but cannot prove a thing) in an effort to unearth something in the personals or criminal news which might drum up a bit of business for a struggling amateur investigator.

Unfortunately, my search revealed as much food for thought as my cupboard did actual edibles, and I was driven once more to the streets that evening in an effort to not go stark raving mad from boredom (or be forced to listen to the Dudley woman nattering on for hours with the old crones with whom she plays bridge every Tuesday eve). The evening passed in relative uniformity; by that, meaning no more excitement than ever happens when one is actually seeking the outré and extraordinary. I returned to Montague Street after eleven, thoroughly out of sorts, and managed to make my way upstairs without disturbing the row progressing in my landlady's sitting room over the night's winnings.

As I entered my room, carefully shutting the door just so in the only way it will remain closed without falling off the one working hinge, my foot fell upon a paper and I nearly tumbled or slid across the room. It was an envelope, without any distinguishing details or points of interest – which was in itself a point of interest – plain white with cold, precise lettering.

It was from my brother, and in it he merely enclosed a newspaper advertisement with the scrawled addendum If you are so desperate for employment, may I suggest you busy yourself with something a little closer to home and more practical than your fanciful theories and investigations? (at least I presume that is what it said; even my powers of deduction stagger to a halt in trying to decipher his atrocious hieroglyphic scrawl).

The advertisement was simply a modest half-column in the Standard, stating that the British Museum is interested in temporarily hiring a new night watchman or two, as the recent influx of valuable artifacts and displays (I vaguely recall more than one paper informing the populace that a fragment of what was assumed to be the legendary sword Excalibur is part of the new medieval section – pure rot, the lot of them) required a closer security than before.

At first I discarded the note with no thought other than how I could best bribe brother mine's cook to burn his meals for more than three days running (a harsh revenge, indeed); but then my mind began slowly working upon the advertisement and its sender. Mycroft rarely communicates with me, even when he is as annoyed as he was this afternoon – and yet he took the time to send me this advertisement? I am far more interested in the unexplained atrocity committed in the East End last night, the horrifically gruesome murder of a lady of the evening, than in waxworks and Egyptian artifacts…but then again, speculation does not stave off the grim Mrs. Dudley, and I have not had a case in weeks. A temporary employment, even if not the ideal profession, is better than unemployment, and is definitely better than incurring that woman's wrath. In addition, it is a remarkable opportunity for increased knowledge, even if said knowledge might never be useful in the unique profession I have chosen.

Perhaps I shall see about it in the morning.

-00-

November 3
12:05 a.m.

Mrs. Dudley found it necessary to pound upon my door moments ago and tell me to 'turn the bleedin' light off, it's shining through the cracks in the floor'. If the creature would actually replace the flooring when it rots through instead of simply acting as if she does not notice the holes the rats have chewed in the floor-boards, then she would not have my lamp-light shining down into her bedroom. QED.

I truly, desperately, must get out of this house.

-00-

November 3
6:10 p.m.

After ten minutes of attempting to continue my previous entry, echoed all the while by the vigorous application of a broom-handle to the ceiling by the stalwart (meaning, as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar, and weighing only a half-stone less) Mrs. Dudley, I abandoned the attempt and instead settled in for the night. This morning, the woman simply glared at me as she poured the milk for breakfast, and the rest of this household's peculiar lodgers regarded me with some measure of sympathy.

I lost no time in eating what parts of the meal were not scorched beyond human palatability, and soon exited the flat into the relatively fresh air, my busybody elder brother's missive secured in my coat pocket. I was not, and am still not, keen upon the idea of becoming a mere night watchman in the British Museum; such an occupation must rank in the lowest of the rates of mental stimulation of all jobs available. I cannot see how such a task will in any way keep my mind from destroying itself from the sheer madness of ennui, but at least for the two weeks in which I shall be employed I shall at least be free of the Dudley woman's fire-breathing.

But I tell my story out of order; a deplorable habit, and one which I shall rectify. For what purpose, as this is a private diary, I have no idea; but one must do something to distract one's self from the smell of Mrs. Dudley's meatloaf cooking (her dish of specialty, and the ingredients of which no detective on this earth or beyond would be capable of deducing).

When once I had fled the house this morning, I spent the hours before luncheon hanging about Scotland Yard, worming my way into and out of a post-mortem before anyone realized I was there, investigating this fascinatingly gory East End killing, and generally annoying Inspector Lestrade until he finally shouted at me and slammed his office door so hard the paint flaked off the door-jamb. The little fellow has a drolly irascible temper, but he is a good sort. Certainly nowhere near on the same mental plane as myself, but at least his heart is in the right place (his mind, another matter, but no one is perfect). The next hour I utilized in strolling the streets of Soho in the guise of a half-besotted Lascar, in an attempt to gather information regarding the mystery murderer of the previous evening.

I had no luck at all, unfortunately; more's the pity, for the Yard are certainly baffled and are doing their usual best in denying the fact most vehemently. With nothing better to occupy my time, and with the threat of eviction hanging over my head like Damocles's sword, I reluctantly changed into my best (meaning, least rumpled) suit and made my way through the Museum to the offices indicated on the advertisement.

When I saw the two-dozen people waiting in line, obviously for the same interview I was after, I turned to go – but a little, bespectacled fellow with a nervous tic in his left eyelid and an affinity for fresh seafood (but not breath-peppermints, unfortunately) caught my attention and waved me over most eagerly. The young man before me in the line was highly put-out that I was waived the trouble of having to stand there.

I will not deny, the oddity of the fact that I seemed to attract this little fellow's attention and that he was so insistent upon my remaining for an interview did not escape my notice; I am not the most brilliant deductive reasoner in London for nothing.

Mr. A. W. Franks (3) is a most interesting person; a venerated historian and collector, and the curator of the museum. He was a quite polite individual; eccentric, as most of these fellows are, but pleasant enough.

And he is also, quite obviously, hiding something.

I should not be at all surprised to learn that Mycroft has some ulterior motive in pointing me to this particular occupation, as even a Scotland Yarder could see that the ease with which I was interviewed and accepted bespeaks either of great stupidity or great desperation. Something is most certainly rotten in the state of the Empire, and brother mine is up to his podgy neck in it. The depth of the conspiracy, I am uncertain; no doubt the night tomorrow shall speak for itself.

-00-

November 5
11:15 a.m.

I am uncertain as to whether or not I should even place this here, in this journal, for the events of the night have left me doubting my own sanity. But for the sake of clarity, and for the sake of a record to which I may return in the event I decide I am not quite mad, I shall recount the events in the order they occurred.

I met Mr. Franks this evening, at 7:55 sharp; the Museum was about to close for the evening, and would re-open the next day at ten. Franks was glancing about him, shooing stragglers out of the reading room and flitting about to straighten books and the odd knick-knack which had been shifted an inch out of place.

Finally the bell rang, the last warning for the doors to be locked in sixty seconds, and he turned to give me my instructions…

(1) Oddly enough, this is true fact; but if my details are ever in doubt and any true Londoner knows for sure, feel free to tell me as information I can locate is a bit sketchy. The White Wing of the British Museum did front onto Montague Street when the Wing opened in 1884. (Hence this insane plot bunny.)

(2) The infamous Mrs. Dudley is my own creation, from the early days of my story Worth and Choice. She plays no major role in this story, but she is my own creation.

(3) A. W. Franks was the British Museum's curator until his death in 1897.