Sherlock Holmes and Rupert Jameson, the mad Kensington bricklayer, stared hatefully at each other across the swirling pool of acid in the basement of the old Hofnagel Mansion.

"So," cackled the burly mason, cracking the scarred knuckles of his massive hands. "You entered my deathtrap, innocent as a newborn!"

In return, Holmes merely sneered in disdain. "Not a bit of it," he replied stoutly. "I was fully aware that the blind bookstore owner was from Belgium, and thus could have no possible knowledge of the gray-striped cat, or the woman with the scarf."

Breath hissed through tobacco-stained clenched teeth. "But when the bank telegram arrived, you had Lestrade pour the bucket of water out the window!"

"Into another empty bucket waiting on the ground," stated the sleuth triumphantly. "Held and guarded by my close friend and companion, Doctor John Watson!"

And from out of the basement shadows stepped a powerful bulldog of a man, sporting a full Queen's regimental moustache and a small medical bag.

The murderer gasped in astonishment. "But if he caught the water, then you knew -"

"Everything about the blueprints!"

"But then, when the little blonde girl asked for more-"

"We already had the mastiff tied and helpless!"

"So, the carriage ride to the boathouse -"

"Was a sham! And therefore -"

"ENOUGH!" bellowed an exasperated Watson. Drawing the Adams .32 pistol from the pocket of his great coat, the physician emptied the weapon into the criminal genius.

Jameson staggered backwards from the brutal impact of the soft-lead bullets, his bald head smacking against the stonework wall with an audible crack. Limply, the man slid to the floor, toppled over and fell into the boiling vat. With a sizzling hiss, his muscular form vanished into the swirling chemicals.

Stepping away from the billowing clouds of fumes, Watson poured a small open bottle of poison into the vat, staining the concoction a vicious mottled green and then tossed in his bullseye lantern. With a loud whoof, the chemicals burst into flames; a roaring inferno that filled the cellar with hellish heat and pungent smoke.

"I say Watson, was that really quite necessary?" demanded Holmes as they closed and locked the cellar door behind them. Flickering lights played upon their shoes from under the jamb. "I was about to make him admit to stealing the gold bullion from the one-legged Russian."

In proper military fashion, Watson cracked apart his revolver, pocketed the spent shells and reloaded. "Irrelevant, old man. After that incredible debacle with Prof. Moriarty, did you actually believe that I would ever again allow you to play dice with these master criminals?"

"But Watson, it is for the intellectual conflict that I play this dangerous game!"

"Not justice?"

Throwing open the front door and allowing his associate to exit first, the consulting detective sullenly admitted that justice was a consideration in the matter. At least to some small degree. Holmes pouted as Dr. Watson knelt by an elderberry bush and retrieved a small wooden box. Meticulously, the physician attached two bare end wires to the screws atop the coal miner's tool and pulled the plunger fully upwards.

"Never again will we face a lunatic genius twice."

Holmes gasped. Watson flamboyantly rammed the plunger downward. In a chemical thunderclap, the house was erupted with strident flame. The windows disintegrated into twinkling shards. The burning building began to collapse inward upon itself to the sound of ancient splintering wood.

"Finito!" sighed the doctor, painfully straightening from his work and dusting off his hands. Ouch. His old wound was acting up again. Bedamn that Jezail bullet! The war in India had been much safer than his chronic romances.

With the dancing light of the conflagration illuminating the English countryside, the great detective blinked in somber thought. Then slowly, ever so slowly, Holmes turned to stare at his old friend with new found respect shining in his eyes.

"Indeed," murmured Sherlock Holmes softly, an excited smile playing on his lips, "it has just occurred to me this very night, what a truly excellent opponent you would make."

"Eh? What was that?" Dr. Watson gasped.

"Out of curiosity, John, you don't have any secrets in your past in which Scotland Yard would be interested, have you?" Holmes started closer. "A crime of passion, perhaps? Exactly from whom, and under what circumstances, did you receive your bullet wound? And precisely what happened to the person or persons who gave it to you?"

Seeing that infamous hunting expression on the thin man's face, the physician swung up his Adams for protection. But Holmes knocked it from his hands with an ebony walking stick. Watson rushed for the hansom, but Holmes tackled him. The two men grappled as they fell wrestling to the hard ground.

Struggling for supremacy, each man realized that this could be the end of a beautiful friendship.