Sherlock and the Little People
By Doctor Napalm
Chapter 1
Even though she didn't feel cold, Molly Hooper shivered a bit as she looked at the outdoor thermometer in her window. Mid-March and it was only 4°C outside. It was warm in her flat, but she couldn't wait for the weather to warm up as well. She looked at the clock on the wall, and frowned. It was time to leave for work. Molly worked as a pathologist in the morgue at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, the oldest hospital in London. Taking her coat off its hook, she shrugged into it and checked to see that her cat Toby's food and water bowls were full. Making sure the door locked behind her, she headed for the underground.
As she settled into a seat on the tube, she glanced at the young man across from her who was wearing an enormous bright green bow tie with tiny shamrocks printed on it. His hair was tinted a matching shade of green. Molly blinked a couple of times and then realized today was Saint Patrick's Day. The man noticed her looking at him and smiled. He lifted the lapel of his jacket to reveal a large button with "Kiss Me, I'm Irish!" printed on it and smiled again. Molly blushed a bit and turned her head away. She spent the rest of the time in transit trying to avoid looking at the strange man sitting across from her.
Walking into her office at Bart's, Molly looked at a small pile of papers on her desk, the daily mail along with other assorted official documents. On the top was an autopsy order from the Metropolitan Police. As a pathologist, performing autopsies was one of her primary duties. She skimmed over the details of the corpse waiting for her to cut it open as she took off her coat and draped it over the back of her chair.
The customer was one Patrick Kavanagh from Dublin, aged 43 with red hair, a height of 0.95 meters, weight…Molly paused. Less than a meter tall? Apparently Mister Kavanagh was a dwarf, midget, pigmy, or whatever terminology was politically correct these days. The blank for cause of death was left empty because determining cause of death was her job. The body had been discovered in an alleyway overnight and had been sent directly to Bart's for her to examine. Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade's bold signature was at the bottom of the form.
Molly quickly leafed through the other papers. None of them were as interesting as Patrick Kavanaugh's autopsy order, so she decided to make that her first order of business. She picked up the order, put on her lab coat, and headed for the autopsy room.
Billy the intern was sipping coffee from a mug that said "Property of Superman" on it when Molly walked in the room. "Good morning, Doctor Hooper!" he said in a cheerful tone.
"Good morning, Billy," she answered. "Ready to start the day?" Billy reminded Molly of the character "Shaggy" from the old Hannah-Barbera cartoons; tall and thin with a fluffy light brown head of hair, a few hairs on his chin that he wished would someday turn into a goatee, and a penchant for slogan t-shirts. Today's shirt was dusty brown in color and had a drawing of a bone with the words "I Found This Humerus."
"I sure am," he said, "who's on first?"
"I think we'll take a look at Patrick Kavanagh first. Based on his stats, it might be very interesting."
Billy pointed to a body bag towards the far end of the room. "That's him over there. He just came in a little while ago, the body hasn't been prepped yet."
Molly moved over to the body bag on the autopsy table. Billy sat down his coffee mug and followed her. She could tell the body inside was that of a diminutive person without even opening it because half of the bag lay flat on the table. The only other time a bag looked like that was when a major portion of the body was missing.
Billy moved to the other side of the table as Molly said "Let's take a look at you, Mister Kavanagh," and started to pull down the zipper. She was startled when a long purple feather suddenly popped up out of the bag.
"Oh!" she blurted out and jerked her head back. Looking in the bag, she saw that the feather was attached to a dark green velvet caubeen cap on the head of her customer. Taking the cap off revealed thick coarse red hair that matched a full red beard.
Pulling the zipper further down, Molly examined the rest of the body. Kavanagh was wearing a jacket made of matching green velvet with zebra striped lapels over a white shirt with lace cuffs, black knickerbocker trousers, a wide black belt with a large, square silver buckle, white knee length silk stockings, and black leather shoes with silver buckles that matched the one on his belt.
Molly and Billy looked up from the body at the same time and their eyes met. "Leprechaun!" they both screamed.