"What the hell?"
John Watson stared at his favorite oatmeal jumper, trying to remember the last time he had petted a cat, or even been in the same room as one. Nothing came to mind. Well, if he hadn't come in contact with a cat recently, where on Earth could the massive amounts of black fur on his good jumper have come from?
He made a feeble attempt to brush some of it off. The slender hairs drifted into the air, coming down to rest over his pillow and bedspread. This simply wouldn't do. Cat hair always made him sneeze. He had to find the source of the stuff, and quick.
Might as well put Sherlock to some use, he thought to himself. I don't room with a consulting detective for nothing.
"Sherlock! I've got a bit of a mystery for you to solve." John called, striding into the sitting room with the offending jumper clutched in one hand.
Sherlock, without looking up from the newspaper, deigned to reply. "Yes, you did leave it at Sarah's flat. The bathrobe, I mean." He looked up. "That was what you were going to ask me about, wasn't it?" His eyes narrowed. "Why aren't you wearing a jumper? You almost always wear a jumper."
"Well, I-"
Sherlock got up and pulled the jumper out of John's hand, plucking off a single hair and holding it up to the light.
"Why, it's covered in cat hair!"
John sighed.
"Yes, Sherlock, cat hair. D'you have any idea where it came from? I can't go out wearing a jumper covered in cat hair."
Sherlock jumped up and dashed into the kitchen, wrenching open a cardboard box with a loud groan. "Damn! It's gotten away."
John blinked. "What? I'm sorry - what's gotten away, Sherlock?"
Sherlock was now busy pulling things out of cupboards and wrenching open drawers, muttering to himself as he did so.
"Animal. Experimenty thing. No time to explain, John. You have to help me find it."
"What exactly are we supposed to be looking for?"
Sherlock stopped his rummaging with a dramatic sigh. "For God's sake, John, use your brain! We already know it's a cat, because of the hair on your jumper. The hair on your jumper is black, so now we know it's a black cat. Go and look for the bloody black cat!"
John frowned. "What's so special about this cat, anyway?"
"I injected it with a delayed-action combustible fluid. We need to find it and treat it with a solution that will counter the chemical reaction or the whole flat could go up in flames."
John closed his eyes. "You mean the cat's a time bomb."
"You could put it that way, yes."
John opened his mouth, closed it, and shook his head in disbelief.
"I can't believe you, Sherlock. You've gone mad."
"No, just worried about our survival." He paused. "Wait a moment. You found hair on your jumper, correct? Nowhere else in the room?"
"Not that I know of. I wasn't exactly looking for cat hair, you know."
"And you keep your jumpers in your closet."
"Well, yeah."
Sherlock stroked the jumper absent-mindedly. "Soft fabric," he muttered. "Warmth. The solitude and comfort of a dark closet. Of course. Perfect place for a cat to run to. God, I've been stupid."
He looked up sharply.
"Come on, John, I know where he is."
Sherlock crept as quietly as he could to John's room (with John himself following close behind, trying deperately to remember if he had picked up his spare drawers from beside he bed) swung the closet door wide open, reached into a dark corner and pulled out a tiny black cat by the scruff of its neck. It had been nestled among several of John's uglier jumpers, blending in perfectly with the dark wool. It opened its glowing yellow eyes and mewed at the two reproachfully, as if protesting the sudden removal of warmth and darkness.
"And here we are." Sherlock breathed, rubbing the tiny cat with a single long finger. "Let's get this little fellow injected before he explodes us all, shall we?"
John let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding in. "Yes, I think that would be the proper thing to do."
The two chuckled in relief and made their way back to the kitchen, the kitten purring enthusiastically all the way.