I do not own any of the Sherlock characters or stories, only my own OC's and ideas.

"Should any of you require the services of either of us, I will solve your murder but it takes John Watson to save your life. Trust me on that. I should know. He's saved mine so many times and in so many ways."

—Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of Three

From the Personal Blog of Dr. John H. Watson

18 February 2012

I've been looking forward to blogging about this case. And so you know, I did change a few names and careers to protect certain individuals' privacy. It began two weeks ago as just another chilly winter morning. I had worked a late shift at the surgery the night before, trying to make up for some of the times that Sherlock had me busy with a case, so I was still asleep, snuggled warmly under the duvet, when this…sound…worked its way into my mind. I opened one eye. The cloudy sky had finally stopped raining. I rolled over, pulling the covers over my head. There it was again!

Twang-thud.

My eyes narrowed.

Twang-thud.

I sat up on the edge of my bed, rubbing my face, noting that I needed a shave—badly.

Twang-thud.

Shuffling out of my room, I descended the stairs and peered around the corner to the sitting room. There stood Sherlock in his pajama bottoms, inside-out T-shirt, and dark blue dressing gown, with what appeared to be an ancient English longbow in his hands. A human-shaped target was propped against the wall near the window. Several arrow-shafts had pierced its torso and one protruded from the head. Sherlock's laptop sat open on the desk, and a table of indecipherable data glowed from the screen. He drew the bow slowly, its limbs creaking under the strain, and let another arrow fly. Twang-thud.

He didn't turn to face me, but bent to enter more data into the computer. "I know you're there, John."

I crossed my arms and leaned against the doorframe, amused by my flatmate. "Sherlock," I said, "What are you doing?"

"Solving a six hundred eighty-three year-old case."

Shaking my head, I had to smile. "What?"

Sherlock laid the longbow carefully on the desk and ran his fingers through his hair, then twirled dramatically across the room and threw himself onto the couch. "Bored!" he declared loudly to the room. "No new cases in the past ten days, so I thought I would clear the name of Sir Richard Bartley."

"Who's Sir Richard Bartley?"

He turned from his study of the ceiling and gave me one of those looks, the My God, I can't believe you're this dense kind of looks, and put his forearm over his eyes. "Sir Richard was convicted of murdering his lord, Sir Henry de Puttinham, in 1328, with a longbow. From the written testimony it's obvious he was innocent. By measuring the depth of penetration of the arrows, I've been able to determine that Sir Richard was far too distant to Sir Henry to have fired the arrow that killed him. Too bad I wasn't there. They beheaded him. Case closed."

"Well," I said, "I suppose I should be happy you haven't been firing my gun at the wall this morning, Sherlock." I turned into the kitchen. "Coffee?"

"Yes."

The coffee maker sat, not entirely incongruous, among a collection of flasks and beakers from one of Sherlock's latest forensic experiments. I threw a filter into the machine and flipped it on, then reached into the refrigerator for the carton of milk, praying that I wouldn't find a severed foot in there.

There was a knock on the door, followed by Mrs. Hudson's voice. "Boys! I have the post!" I rushed to the hall to let her enter. She handed me the small stack of letters, mostly bills, which I took over to the mantel to sort. Sherlock keeps important papers there, pinned to the mantel with a multi-tool knife. I pulled out the knife, tossed the bills onto the mantel, and plunged the knife into them, smirking a bit because I wanted to shock Sherlock a little. I then turned my attention to the letters. The first was from Sherlock's Mum. I placed it on the mantel with the others (though I didn't impale it). The other was also addressed to Sherlock, but had no return address. I flipped it over, searching for some identifying marks. It was postmarked London. The handwriting consisted of bold, elongated letters, black ink. Of course, Sherlock would certainly make much more of it, probably could tell that the ink was made in Budapest or some other damn place. In fact, he had probably written a treatise on international inks.

Mrs. Hudson entered, bearing a tray with coffee and pastries. "Oh, ta, Mrs. Hudson," I said gratefully, and snatched one of the sweets from the tray. She placed it on the desk, rolling her eyes at the target and the arrows. "Have a good day, boys," she said. To me she added, nodding in Sherlock's direction, "Make sure he eats something. You know how he gets."

As she left, I poured myself a cup. "Letter for you," I said, tossing the envelope to him. It landed on his chest. He picked it up to inspect and came over to sit at the desk, stepping right over the top of the coffee table as usual, and helped himself to a pastry.

Sherlock turned to me and held up the envelope. "Well—what do you see here?"

I took a sip of the hot coffee. "From London, sent first class, handwritten, possibly by someone who seems to be self-assured. Other than that, I really couldn't tell much more."

"A good start, John," Sherlock returned with a slight smile. "There may be hope for you yet. I agree, the handwriting indicates a strong personality. And…being handwritten, no one had their secretary type this out. A personal letter, then. Not sent via email, too easy to hack. Let's find out." He deftly slit the envelope with a knife and extracted a letter, which he handed to me. "Go ahead and read it—I want to think." And he closed his eyes as I read.

"Dear Mr. Holmes,

I need your help with a blackmail problem. My job places me in the public eye on a regular basis. I cannot afford to allow this to continue, nor can I allow this information to be revealed. Please consider meeting with me at my home, 15 Queensberry Place, Chelsea. You may call upon me there at 10 a.m. any time this week, at your convenience.

Yours,

Sterling Armistead"

"Good Lord," I muttered. "Now that's really something."

Sherlock opened his eyes to look at me. "Should I be excited about this?"

"Yes…yes, indeed. I know you don't watch much telly, Sherlock, so I'll enlighten you. Sterling Armistead is one of the most well-respected newsreaders in the country."

"But it's blackmail, John," he said, disgusted. "As a rule, I generally hate blackmail cases. I know, I've taken them before, but usually they're so dull. It's hard to find one any better than a 5."

"Sherlock," I said, tossing the letter on the desk in front of me, "A few minutes ago, you were complaining that you were bored. Not only that, but you've bills to pay, same as me. Besides, a famous newsreader—could be interesting. Come on—you know that some of our most intriguing adventures began as simple blackmail cases."

His head fell back and I heard a sound of chagrin. "All right," he conceded. "The sacrifices I make. It's nearly ten now." He got up and headed for his room. Five minutes later, he emerged, dressed, with coat and scarf in hand.

As usual, we took a cab to Chelsea. Sherlock was silent throughout much of the ride, though he did determine that the driver was returning to university but was worried that he wouldn't be able to afford the tuition; that he held down a job as a male dancer on the side and that he hadn't revealed this to his family. By the time the driver turned from Sloane Street onto King's Road, I knew the man's life history. The cab finally came to a stop outside a townhouse on a quiet side street.

"Nice," I said. Sherlock was quietly studying the house; he stood still for a few moments, then jogged up the steps to ring the bell.

A maid answered the door. "Good morning," Sherlock announced. "We're here to see Mr. Armistead."

"Whom shall I say is calling, sir?"

"Sherlock Holmes," he said. "I believe I'm expected."

She disappeared into the house, then returned a minute later and beckoned us inside. We stepped into a well-appointed entrance hall, and she led us into a sitting room. Sterling Armistead rose from his chair and strode quickly across the room to greet us.

"Mr. Holmes," he gushed, shaking Sherlock's hand, "I am so glad you agreed to come." He turned to me. "And you must be Dr. Watson. A pleasure, sir."

I admit I was initially surprised, but we'd already found out that royalty read my blog, so I guess it wasn't so surprising after all. I held out my hand and he wrung it in a firm grip. Armistead was the typical picture of a newsreader—perfectly coiffed dark hair, square jaw, deep voice.

"Won't you both sit down?" he asked, and gestured to a set of Victorian chairs near the fireplace. Sherlock and I took a seat opposite Armistead, who gripped the arms of his chair nervously.

Sherlock spared a glance at me before saying, "Mr. Armistead, what can I do for you?"

"As I said in my letter, I'm being blackmailed, Mr. Holmes," he said. "I began receiving anonymous letters about 6 weeks ago. In each, there was a copy of a photo of me in a compromising position with a young lady. An apparently underage young lady. They were," he hesitated, "shall we say, high-def."

"Do you still have any contact with the woman in question?" Sherlock asked.

"No, and I hate to admit that…unfortunately, I didn't even know her before that night." Armistead's face flushed with embarrassment. "We'd had a party at the newsroom that evening, and a group of us went out in Soho after. We were bored, what can I say?"

"Where did you meet her?"

"We went to a club—one of those new trendy spots—all thudding music, flashing lights, probably a lot of ecstasy being thrown down in dark corners. It was called Hot Rave. Three of us had some drinks at the bar, just girl-watching and having fun, you know? Before I know it, this bird's right next to me, getting really friendly. She said her name was Bridget…Bridget Shaw. We had a few drinks, and I remember leaving with her. After that, I really have no recollection of what happened. Woke up in a room at the Dorchester the next morning. She was gone." His head dropped into his hands.

Sherlock leaned back in his chair. "Who went to the club with you?"

Armistead shrugged, "Bill Walters and Jim Richman. Bill's the morning show guy, and Jim's one of our producers."

"And they didn't see you leave?" inquired Sherlock.

"I talked to both of them. Jim saw me dancing with Bridget, but left to go home. Bill said he went to get another drink and that we'd disappeared by the time he returned."

"What else did the letters say?" I asked.

Armistead smiled unhappily. "Only that I need to pay £10,000, per month, indefinitely. I was to drop it at a locker at Waterloo Station and leave. They said I was being watched, and that if I remained in the station after the drop or didn't make the payment on time, they would release the photos to the press."

Sherlock nodded. "I want to see the letters," he said.

"I assumed you would," said Armistead. He opened a large envelope which lay beside him on a table and removed three letters which, hands shaking a little, he handed to Sherlock and me. I noticed Sherlock's eyes widen slightly as he perused his copy. My eyes widened a bit as well. The letters were printed by a laserjet printer. There was the photo, in which Armistead, completely nude, cavorted (for lack of a user-friendly internet term) with the similarly-revealed young Bridget, who appeared no older than sixteen to me. It was pretty obvious that Armistead's high-profile career would be finished if these images saw the light of day.

Later, Sherlock and I sat in the back of another cab, headed back to Baker Street.

"How do you want to start with this, Sherlock?" I asked.

A corner of his mouth turned up in a mischievous smile. "We need to smoke out young Ms. Shaw. How do you feel about going clubbing tonight?"