The white room began to shrink as the sound of tapping heels and clinking champagne glasses echoed resolutely and filled the space with vibrating anticipation. The gallery opened its oak doors for the first time, and within an hour guests in long gowns and tuxedos had trickled up the steps and filtered into the wide room. The gallery was elegantly lined with framed paintings, and columns displaying intricate sculptures in a variety of mediums. The chatter of the guests wandering around the marble floor to examine them, created a dull hum occasionally interrupted by an obnoxiously loud laugh, or a voice filled with pretentious enthusiasm. One man in particular caught the attention of people who drifted by to stop at a painting of a blocky skeletal figure, twisted within a vine of colorful paint splatter. The man's height, roughly handsome features, and distinguished charcoal suit almost concealed the graying hair at his temples and his chin. Around him gathered a small crowd of men and women who nodded and sounded their agreement to his claims.
"Christanza's piece here really is intriguing. Look at the carelessness of the paint, at the splatter, and the saturated choice of color palette". His smooth voice drawled, "The achromatic scheme he uses for the background and the figure-a slight cubism inspiration—conveys a contrast between spontaneity and structure, truly capturing his ideas behind this collection—"
The man was stopped short by a poised feminine voice, tinged with cordial airiness to hide her annoyance.
"I should hand you a microphone. You could do my job for me," asserted the accented tone of Meredith Dandurant. The blonde woman in her silver evening gown moved forward into the group of people with intimidating grace.
"Meredith Dandurant," She said and struck out a cold hand towards the man as an offerance.
He scrutinized the thin fingers and manicured nails briefly and then took it into his own much stronger hand with unwavering attitude.
"Bruce Hartford," he replied. They studied each other's eyes and shook with a matched firmness.
"American," she noted.
"French," he observed.
"I understand you are the gallery director. Am I correct?" he questioned. Although the group of people he had previously been entertaining had departed, they still kept in a generally close radius out of curiosity. Their eyes darted between the man and woman over their bubbling flutes of champagne, mumbling thoughtlessly in lowered tones.
"You are correct. Are you in the art business?" she asked in return. A smirk quirked at the edge of the man's mouth. It lifted his face on one side in a way that revealed wrinkles underneath his left eye.
"You could say that," was his only response to her question "Congratulations on acquiring Christanza. He is a shining new artist. A gem."
His smirk broadened to a grin that was so apparently fake that Meredith thought that it might shatter at any given moment. She gave him an equally transparent smile and thanked him for his comment and for attending.
"Of course," he said simply "I couldn't pass up the opportunity to view this event tonight."
"Oh…" she said simply. Her mind whirred with the possibilities behind this stranger's abrupt attendance. Her confusion must have been evident on her face because the man seemed to pick up on it.
"I'm just here to wish you luck, as another art enthusiast and member of the industry," he justified and attempted to make his smile more genuine in appearance. Meredith looked at him quizzically but nodded regardless. Her vision traced his face where something was inexplicably familiar to her but was interrupted.
A short woman in a little black dress scuttled towards her with a clipboard and whispered something in her ear which Bruce couldn't distinguish, but he was sure he heard the word 'schedule'. The short woman hurried away the same way she came and instantly her interruption was forgotten.
"It was lovely meeting you," she said with empty words. The man nodded with another quirked smile and raised his champagne glass in cheers.
"Charmed, Ms. Dandurant."
She shuttered at the sliminess of the man and the sound of her name on his tongue.
"If you will excuse me I have to give the opening speech now," She said before thankfully escaping the man's presence, leaving him looking after her direction while he sipped his champagne. She felt his unreadable expression boring into the back of her head. She resolved to have her assistant Cara research him later.
Within minutes the lights in the gallery room dimmed. The guests gravitated toward a spotlight set on a small stage in the center of the room on which stood a podium where Meredith waited patiently with a warm smile for silence. The crowd settled from its dull roar to a quiet murmur and finally to a vast soundlessness. She cleared her throat lightly and began.
"Thank you, guests and patrons. My name is Meredith Dandurant, the art director of the London Galerie de l'art humain. I am honored to formally invite you to the opening of this truly unique gallery of art. We hope that by the end of this special night you'll find knowledge, inspiration, enlightenment, and a new understanding of the human experience. Friends, I will now introduce you to a man with a vision, a passion, and an unparalleled talent for modern art, the man whose pieces you have seen tonight featuring his debut collection, Leo Christanza."
The French woman raised her arm toward the left and an awkwardly lanky man climbed the steps on the opposite side of the stage. A burst of applause erupted and the man squinted through the glare of the spotlight to smile at the people below. He nervously crossed the stage to the podium where Meredith relinquished her place. When the applause had ended he shakily started to speak.
"Good evening. I appreciate your a-attendance tonight at my first public collection viewing..." he looked down at the podium where his notes lay hidden from view. He licked his lips and struggled on.
"The inspiration behind my art always originates from the same place. It is the place of infinite complexities, in diversity of ideas. It is a web we are all part of. It is both a desire and a challenge. The human experience."
He paused for effect and also to read his next few sentences of notes. He glanced anxiously at the covered display case behind him which would be unveiled in a matter of moments. He wiped his sweaty palms on his stiff tuxedo, which was much too formal for his taste, and then his eyes returned to the dark faces in the shadows beyond.
"I request that as you view my work, you do not define its perfections, nor its flaws, but identify with the art as a whole. Each of us is a work of art. Not to be set apart to be judged, but to be appreciated for our equal human qualities. These qualities will stand against the test of time and fleeting ephemeral life, they will be preserved in art and culture and persevere forever. And now I shall reveal the main installation of my collection, a work really defines my identity as an artist. I introduce the statue, The Woman."
His words slipped from his lips and into the soundless room, the syllables bounced in an echo across the walls and drifted to a stop in the minds of the observers just as the curtain covering the case on the stage began to fall. The red fabric rippled softly in its descent. At first the room remained completely silent and it seemed that even breathing had ceased among the audience. Time slowed, stuck in a single second, stretching it out into infinity. Meredith's anticipating expression had not changed. Even Bruce's composure had not been shocked. Even the drop of sweat on the artist's forehead had not dripped. Then like a gunshot, the moment was shattered with a bloodcurdling shriek from a middle aged woman near the center of the crowd. The sound was the catalyst to an event of horror and chaos. People swung into motion, high pitched screams were contained by the gallery walls and reflected back in endless cycle of cacophony, high heels scraped the marble floor harshly, creating claw marks on the clean new surface, and desperate elbows pushed passed people in a crazed pressure for release from the densely packed and panicked bodies. Minutes later the beautifully decorated room, recently glorified, was left vacant. Fragments of glass littered the floor from champagne flutes discarded in the scramble. Sparkling pieces of fabric from torn evening dresses mingled with crumpled napkins. An abandoned shoe waited in vain for its owner to return. An ornately detailed sculpture which once stood pristinely admired on a display column was now a scatter of remains. The only thing which was static throughout the chaos, the only thing which stood resilient, was the glass display case sitting on the elevated stage in the center of the room. The decayed eyes of the seven corpses within watched from their place as the world unfolded before them.
*Sherlock Theme Song*
...
It's been said that there are some things which you should never do with Sherlock Holmes, that is, unless you have accepted the inevitable headache you will receive. One of these aforementioned things is playing Scrabble. Any kind of game actually, but above all, Scrabble. John learned this the hard way.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Blue eyes locked on cooler blue eyes.
A brown eyebrow rises, quizzical but intent. Daring. Teasing.
Steepled fingertips rapped against one another to the beat of the ticking clock.
The blonde gazes back unwaveringly. Bold.
Eye sex.
Tick Tick Tick...
"Form" The word floated out into the space between them and drifted above their heads in Verdana point 18 font.
"F.O.R.M. 9 points and double letter score for O. 11 points total," John narrated as he placed his letters in the uniform grid. He looked up at his curly headed game opponent, sitting cross legged on the other side of the board. Sherlock never took his eyes off John. He stared with his previous intensity of concentration. John remained locked on him as well. Somewhere under a pile of carelessly tossed aside papers, a phone rang, but the men easily ignored it.
"Boring," the consulting detective drawled and began adding letters to it instantly with rapid, sensitive, moving fingers "Chloroforms. 21 points plus two triple word scores totals 126 points."
There was no sound in response. Sherlock looked up at him to see that John was still staring back but this time with a more dangerous boldness in his eyes. His lips quirked on one side in a look that said he was tediously close to punching his flat mate in the face.
"John," Sherlock began, perhaps to calm him down. John's expression gleamed with challenge and stubborn determination, "Maybe we should play Monopoly inste-"
"I see how it is," He interrupted "This is war now Sherlock and I am still a captain in case you've forgotten. I'm ready for it."
He cracked his knuckles then his neck. Sherlock stifled a laugh at the short man's feisty challenge against his momentous intellect, but could not do so successfully, and it came out as an incredulous "pfft!" sound. This only made John narrow his eyes, in what he probably assumed was a menacing glare.
"Oh John you are so amusing," he laughed. John's serious face didn't falter but there was a twitch in his cheek below his eye. Sherlock stifled another laugh under a humored smile and then cleared his throat, becoming straight faced again.
"If you think you can challenge me then let's do this," he said, holding out the silk bag of letters to John.
"I intend to," John said simply and took four letters. He lined them up on his rack and stared at them intently. In turn, Sherlock stared at John, staring intently. A moment of silence passed except for the ticking of a distant clock hidden in the debris of the apartment. They continued to stare.
"May I give a suggestion that might-"
"No," John said sternly and automatically before he could finish. This was going to take a while, Sherlock thought.
...
Meanwhile back at Scotland Yard a familiar inspector paces his office as he tries to make a call go through on his mobile phone. The ringing pattern continued and the call reaches the voice mailbox again. He punches in the numbers reflexively but the result is the same.
"What on bloody earth could they both have been doing for forty minutes? John always answers his phone," Lestrade muttered with evident frustration. He frowned down at the glowing screen in his hands. Sally leaned against his desk with crossed arms and watched him move from one side of the room to the other.
"They're probably making out somewhere," she snarked. Lestrade stopped pacing and glared.
"This is no time for jokes Donovan! We need them now. This is major." He gestured with his phone clad hand toward her. She gave him her best self-satisfied smile.
"Who said I was joking? Ever since Dr. Watson has moved in with him it seems like he's been harder to contact. And you can't even pretend to deny the eye sex they have."
"Ew. He just has a life now that John's showed him how to be a somewhat normal bloke," he explained. Sally quirked her eyebrow at him like what he just said was utter bullshit.
"I said somewhat. Now we need to focus on the case. We can't wait any longer for them so I need you to take the team to the gallery to do the initial inspection and documentation. I'll meet you there in less than twenty minutes. I'm going to go look for them."
He gathered his jacket from the coat hook and slipped his badge into his pocket.
"Right," Sally nodded in affirmation and set out to complete his requests. After she disappeared through the office door Lestrade muttered to himself as he slipped into his jacket.
"God help us we need Sherlock Holmes."
When he arrived at the black door marked 221B he looked up to see light flooding through the upstairs windows. He huffed and knocked on the door. He waited a moment but no one came, not even Mrs. Hudson. He finally turned the knob and found the door was unlocked, something that neither of them ever did. He entered quickly, panic starting to surface within him. He was ascending the staircase when he heard yelling overhead.
"Shit," he swore. He got emergency services ready on speed dial then dashed up the steps two at a time, mentally preparing himself for a gory scene in which Sherlock probably dissected his flat mate for some twisted experiment. When he got to the entrance of their flat however, there was no gore in sight. In fact what he did see was confusing. There John and Sherlock were sitting cross legged in front of the fireplace, red faced and heavily concentrating on...Scrabble?
"Nurse-practitioner is one thing! Why doesn't it count as a word?"
"Hyphens aren't allowed John."
"It doesn't say that anywhere Sherlock!"
"Its common knowledge, they didn't think they would have to explain it to even a novice. They didn't anticipate you ignorance John."
"You arrogant git, you're making up rules to cheat! This is just like when we played Happy Families last Friday!"
He yelled and Lestrade was taken aback by this completely unexpected but ironically completely normal event, looking back and forth between the two men as they argued. Neither of them even noticed his entry into the room.
"I was not cheating I was using statistical probability and that is not mentioned in the rules at all."
"Neither are hyphens in Scrabble!"
"John stop being stubborn just because you want to beat me. You can't. I'm 500 points ahead of you."
"If you shut your damn loud mouth for a moment I'd be able to catch up!"
A smile quirked the side of Lestrade's mouth, then a grin. Suddenly the inspector burst out laughing at the scene of the two men having a quarrel like primary school children, eyes glowing with amusement. Clearly it wasn't the scene he was expecting to find. As usual he gave them a slight disapproving shake of his head.
His outburst finally got John and Sherlock's attention and they remained where there were, stopped dead in their tracks in the middle of their dispute.
"Sorry to break up this very amusing domestic but I've been trying to get a hold of you for 45 minutes. We have a case and you're going to want to see this one right away."
"What case?" Sherlock asked and he got to his feet.
"Seven bodies found in an art gallery," he replied. Sherlock jumped with excitement at the idea and the board on the floor flipped over, scattering the letters into an incoherent mess. John gaped in horror at their ruined game.
"Sherlock..." he uttered low. Sherlock paid no attention, already absorbed in the possibility of a new crime to solve.
"Seven.Oh. Oh this simply delicious! John come on and get your coat on at once!" Sherlock demanded. "Oooh Seven murders!"
John continued to look at his scattered pieces on the floor and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath to calm himself down and when he opened them he was ready for action. He stood up and grabbed his jacket off the chair.
"Well alright. Let's go! It sounds pretty damn urgent to just be sitting around."
"I didn't tell you two the best part," Lestrade said. "The bodies have been turned into statues."
