A note: The title of this story, "The Face Is Familiar," originally held no meaning to the story whatsoever; the inspiration came from a volume of Ogden Nash which is sitting quite snug on the bookshelf over my computer. Later, however, I realized the title is rather fitting for the story I am about to tell.
Please read and review! I would love to hear your opinions.
[Currently listening to The xx's Intro/Shelter]
*Apologies as I make continuous edits (for the sake of continuity, of course, but I'm changing smaller details as well) so I hope that won't bother anyone. Thanks.
Click. A pause. Click, click, click. Another pause. Click, click, cli—
Sherlock groaned loudly and shifted his position on the couch. For a moment, it was still. He was hoping that the clicking had finally ceased, but to his frustration, the clicking continued at a pace even more unsteady than previously, with greater emphasis on each click.
"John, please."
John looked up from the laptop on his knees and gave Sherlock an innocent face: "Oh, I'm sorry, Sherlock. Does my typing bother you?"
Sherlock sat up and leaned forward, glaring at John who was comfortably seated in his favorite chair across the room: "Yes, actually, it does. Could you please explain to me why a man in his thirties, with the steady hands of a seasoned soldier and the poise of a well-trained doctor, taps at the keypad, one pathetic key at a time, like a stupid, technologically-challenged seven-year-old? It is a mystery that has been haunting me day and night—for several weeks now—but the answer has yet to reveal itself to me."
John rolled his eyes, biting back a cheeky response before answering, "I'm afraid I can't help you there, Sherlock." Sherlock gave a short laugh at this statement.
"Would you like me to stop typing now?"
"Yes!" Sherlock shouted, gripping his dark curls tightly in his hands.
"Tough," John shrugged, "I still have to reply to four more e-mails." The clicking resumed once more.
Sherlock mumbled something to himself and stood up, walking over to the fridge to check up on one of his ongoing experiments which concerned several severed tongues. (John had voiced his discomfort earlier upon discovering the presence of the tongues beside the leftover chicken, but Sherlock argued the fridge was the only appropriate place to hold them—especially as they were tongues.) He frowned when he found that Mrs. Hudson had already cleaned out the refrigerator and replenished the boys' supply of food for that week. Sherlock slammed the refrigerator door and John, still typing on his laptop, gave a little snicker.
Sherlock opened his mouth to say something particularly scathing and condescending regarding John's typing, but the beep of his phone (which had been all but forgotten due to its unusual, disconcerting silence) interrupted him.
Sherlock dashed over to his desk, rummaging through all the various contents until he uncovered his phone. At the touch of a button, the screen flashed with light, illuminating Sherlock's face.
"It's Lestrade," he announced gleefully.
As a matter of course, John set aside his laptop and hoisted himself out of the chair, leaving his jacket as it was a rather warm spring evening: "Right, crime scene. Let's get to it then, shall we?"
The drive seemed incredibly long. Sherlock was anxious to arrive at the crime scene, though this was a serious understatement. Thrice he tried to correct the cab driver in his route, mumbling an incomprehensible insult as the driver overruled Sherlock's objections with the threat, "Well, if you think you know better than me, you can bloody well get there without my help!" John calmed the cabbie and assured him that Sherlock would not interrupt again, just please drive to the destination as quickly as possible.
The remainder of the ride was silent as Sherlock had shifted to look out the window, surveying the passing streets and traffic while ignoring John and the driver. The cab pulled up to a set of double iron gates which were fixed at the end of a long but well-paved drive. Official police vehicles were parked to the side in the grassy lot so that the path would be clear for the ambulance. Standing next to his own car was Detective Inspector Lestrade, waiting for the arrival of the consulting detective and his assistant.
Sherlock stepped out of the cab wordlessly, leaving John with the responsibility of paying the affronted cab driver.
"Waited a rather long while for you two," Lestrade grinned.
Sherlock chose not to fall for the bait and instead asked, "What is going on here?" Leaving no time for Lestrade to explain, he endeavored to find the answer himself: "Several cars parked throughout the property; many are expensive, recently cleaned and waxed. Service vans, as well," he noted as the three men walked by a flock of identical white vans painted with the words "Felix's Fine Cuisine: elegant catering and top-notch service" in a swooping, silver font. "A party of some sort, obviously. Perhaps it is a birthday or even a reunion, though that's rather unlikely, in view of the large attendance. Judging by the flowers placed about the grounds and extravagant amount of alcohol being served"—Sherlock raised his eyebrows at a young man dressed in the uniform of the catering company transporting a heavy crate of champagne—"this is in fact—"
"It's a wedding. Wedding reception," John finished wearily, his annoyance with Sherlock from the cab ride mounting as his friend tried to show-off his talents. "Come on, Sherlock, even I figured that one out." He followed swiftly after Lestrade through a back door of the building, catching the door before it swung back to hit him.
Sherlock hesitated for a moment, considering John's behavior, before entering through the same door and saying, "Well, I am certainly glad to hear my presence has made some effect upon your observations."
Out of hearing distance from Sherlock, John glanced at Lestrade—whose smile had remained, though more subtle than before—muttering, "Yeah…whatever."
The inside of the building, which might be speculated to have been an old manor, was much more spacious than it appeared from the outside; the rooms were well-furnished and all the fixtures recently updated, though the drab brick exterior did not express the same sense of attention and style. The theme of flowers continued inside, matching the luxurious gold and blue colour palette of the wallpaper and furnishings. The ceilings were high, very likely to accommodate for grand crystal chandeliers, such as the one which the three men passed underneath in the hall. The flight of stairs leading to the first storey was carpeted and divided by a landing which was occupied by a pair of sitting chairs, resting together with their backs facing a large window.
Sherlock could see the tread marks left on the eggshell carpet from the shoes of the members of the police force; the mud which they had stepped through stained the fabric which had been vacuumed nine, no, ten hours previous. If this is any evidence of their carelessness, Sherlock thought bitterly of the imbeciles from Scotland Yard, I would hate to see how much they have destroyed at the actual crime scene.
So far, Sherlock had not seen anybody walking through the house, save for the occasional staff which belonged to the caretaker of the venue and the catering company. The party, however, could still be heard from the beyond the immediate rooms; exuberant music and drunken laughter rang throughout the premises. The celebrations, it seemed, would not quit for anything—not even a tragic death!
"I should have probably mentioned this earlier," Lestrade began, "but the guests, er, don't really know much about the death. Obviously, they know something's up, but the bride thought it best to keep things quiet for the time being. Didn't want to stir too much fright, I suppose, with the possibility of a murderer running around. Supposing it is a murder," Lestrade added, looking back at Sherlock. "No one's allowed to leave. Not that many of them would be able to, anyway. Whole crowd's far too pissed to drive off by themselves.
"We are about to go into the room reserved as the groom's dressing room," Lestrade explained, adopting a more official tone. "The groom was found around quarter past five by the best man, who says that he was barely breathing when he called in the emergency. Didn't quite notice when the victim finally gave out; he estimates it to have been about fifteen minutes before we got here. He and the bride are sitting in the next room. You can talk to them when you've finished collecting evidence from the scene."
At that point, Lestrade had led them past the final corner, revealing a corridor swarming with police, most of which were standing around chatting as they waited for the Great Sherlock Holmes to arrive. Sergeant Donovan, who had been ordered by her superior, Lestrade, to keep the team relatively quiet and under control, leaned against the threshold of the door, arms folded across her chest. Sherlock tried to walk through the door but she stepped further in his way.
"Remember, freak," Donovan spat at him; "you do your job and get out of here. Let's keep the disrespect and the heart-stomping at a minimum, ok?"
Sherlock smiled from the corner of his mouth: "My, Sally, you set awfully high standards for yourself. Perhaps you should just focus on being a nearly-competent police officer."
His retort earned him a scorching look, but Sergeant Donovan made way for his entrance and resumed her earlier position as she monitored the activity within the room and along the corridor.
In general, the room was similar in style to the other rooms of the old house. There were three doors in the room: the door from which Sherlock had entered, a door to the toilet and a door which connected the room adjacent. As the room was situated at the front left of the manor house, the north, there were several windows—always remaining shut, for time had caused the latches to stiffen—facing the front lawn and street; however, the thick gold curtains had been drawn for privacy during the investigation. Though it was perhaps a bedroom a long time ago, the room had been converted to act as a sort of sitting room; bookshelves lined the south wall and in the center of the room a scarlet divan and two matching sitting chairs circumscribed a dark mahogany table. A locally-made rose-scented candle was placed on a small dish, yet to be lit. In contrast, the trolley of whiskey did not contain a single bottle untouched and three glass tumblers were distributed throughout various surfaces in the room. Rings of condensation formed around the edges of the sweltering glasses and saturated the polished wood tables.
Having taken in all this information about the layout of the room, Sherlock finally turned his attention to the dead man collapsed behind the divan. He slowly walked over to the body, taking care not to disturb the rug in the center of the room which was partially stained in two separate spots by the victim's vomit and urine. Makes for a very unattractive corpse, he caught himself thinking.
Sherlock knelt down beside the body and, latex gloves donned, proceeded to examine the victim's formal clothing and shoes, which he observed to have been changed since the wedding ceremony that took place in the morning; smooth, manicured hands that had not seen a day of real labor; hair styled with far too much product. Not gay, Sherlock admitted; just a vain little rich boy.
The groom's face was more elusive. The mouth was distorted in pain; the green eyes portrayed a sense of panic. But, more intriguingly, Sherlock could feel the knowing in the man's expression; the knowing of a certain death and more importantly, a certain killer. Unfortunately, Sherlock was not given to trust simple feelings, the evidence of his eyes producing ample information with which to work. It was more reliable, too.
John, sitting on his haunches, was bent over the body as well, conferring his own medical opinion of the man's death with Sherlock. They agreed the cause of death was likely tied to some lethal poison, accounting for the dark, bloody vomit and the lack of injuries elsewhere.
Deep in discussion over the body of the victim, which mainly consisted of Sherlock abusing John for not noticing something about the man's pockets (though it seemed rather trivial to John), the two men did not notice the commotion amongst the three or four officers in the room who tried to calm the temperamental bride. Apparently, she had grown bored of trying to console her husband's sniveling best friend and demanded to know the reason the medics had not yet carted away the body. She appeared to have gotten over the initial shock of her husband's death, or else she had never let it affect her in the first place.
The bride pushed away the officers guarding the scene and stood before Sherlock Holmes, now inspecting the seams of the wooden floorboards a few feet away from the body.
Sherlock glanced up from his work to see a pair of black pumps impatiently tapping, bidding for his attention. With an inward sigh, he slowly turned his face towards hers. He instantly regretted taking this case.