A soft stamping of footsteps traveling up stairs was clearly audible over the rhythmic croaking of a rather uncomfortable toad in 221B baker. Sherlock stood over the kitchen counter trying to ignore the soon to come visitor and focused upon his work. A small clock ticked nervously nearby, the second hand passed the twelve. The small victim filled the entirety of his left hand bellowed in an odd way as the tiny needle that occupied his right hand entered its belly. Sherlock set down the syringe and brought the unhappy creature towards his face, attempting to memorize exactly what was about to occur, when Mrs. Hudson entered the living room.
"Sherlock dear, I've just been having a chat with the postman. You've got a package." She poked her head around the corner holding the package out as a sort of offering before taking in the whole scene. "Sherlock! What are you doing to that poor frog." As if in accent to being victimized the small beast croaked loudly and squirmed out of his hand, hopping away and rapidly hiding itself among a pile of books. Sherlock stared at Miss Hudson for a moment before shutting his eyes quickly and exhaling.
"Toad. Not Frog." He took the package and chucked in on the top of a paper pile, before getting down on his hands and knees, feeling around for the specimen. "You've just ruined my experiment. Now another toad is sentenced to an unlikely death just so you could bring in a package." He gave her an annoyed sideways glance before hopping up and fetching another toad from a noisy little box, and picking up another syringe.
"What are you trying to achieve by this?" She threw her hands up in the air, turned around and left the apartment just as a rather pleased looking John walked it. She threw a warning glance at him before disappearing all together.
"Sherlock?" John rounded the corner, stopping in the doorway to look on the scene Mrs. Hudson had just witnessed. "Why is there a fr-"
"Not Frog. Toad." He looked over the small animal, making sure this time not to let go. Instead he brought it right up to John's face, with his just on the other side, taking in every detail. "You remember that case brought to us this morning, about the woman and the croaking."
"Yes, but what does this have to do with it." He pushed the toad down to look him in the face.
"This will prove-" A small popping sound went off in the other room followed by a horrible smell. "It worked!" He looked ecstatically at John, again proffering the huge toad in his face. "I deduced she was murdered by a closely related cousin of this fine chap here. Remember the weird goo on her bedside table? Their little girl being sick, but loved to go an collect frogs? What if she got her hands on a toad, a really big one, that happened to be poisonous if you touched it. Well I thought, what if someone planted it there, and called the girls attention to it. She would have been really proud of it so she took it to show her mother, who was busy napping. So the little girl set the toad there to freak out her mother when she woke up."
"You think she was killed by a frog."
"Not think, know. Not frog. Toad. Not just any toad either. A toad that had been drugged, injected with a certain gas, that when mixed with the toads toxin made it potent enough to kill. All I had to prove was how the gas could be released. Now the goo at the side of the bed, was the remains of a toad that exploded, releasing the toxin and killing the mother." John pushed the toad down again, looking him straight in the face.
"Seriously. A woman killed by an exploding toad." His eyes locked onto Sherlock's. Searching for the missing joke.
"Look at it." He growled through clenched teeth and brought it to eye level once more. The creature was wriggling faster, its breathing hurried and shallow. "Its stomach," He flipped it over and the toad irrupted, showing both the men in various juices. Sherlock stood up straight, grabbed a towel and cleared off the slime off of his face. "Oh and by the way, that small pop we heard," He passed a clean towel over to Watson, "was one that tried to escape… I think he exploded close to your books." Johns face hardened, eyes tightly closed and lips pressed together in a very unfortunate straight line. He sighed, finished mopping his face and took his grocery bag to the fridge.
"What did you pick up?" Sherlock asked, as he typed up an email via his mobile to Scotland Yard explaining how their most recent murder was conducted.
"Milk, and jam."
"It took you an awful long time at the store to pick just those two items… You were gone for how long? Two hours? How was brunch with the mysterious grocery gal?"
"Nice, simply lovely. Devoid of exploding amphibians." He slid into the other room trying to see what damage the mischievous toad had done.
"That sounds dreadful." Sherlock followed him, only to lie down on the sofa to mope. "Have you seen my cigarettes?" The shorter companion glared over towards the other, only to notice his laptop. Laying on the floor, cracked open just enough for a small animal to try to hide under. Little bits of slime oozed out from the sides onto the rug.
"SHERLOCK!"
"What!" Sherlock's eyes widened and his shoulders did a small roll as his attention fixed on his exasperated friend.
"You killed my laptop! I no longer have a computer! How're we supposed to get clients without my blog?"
"Are you sure you're not more worried about your collection of naked woman photos." His eyes scrunched up as the comment passed negatively from his lips. John's face crumpled as he picked up his computer. He stood there for a moment, the machine held apart from his body as he wrestled with the correct response for his damaged unit. He shook his head and blew out a small bout of air, frowning, then plodded into the kitchen. Sherlock watched his struggle wearily when his phone started buzzing; he sat up straight before answering.
"Hello."
"Hi," Lestrade's voice danced across the phone line, "want to deduce why I'm calling?"
"Lemme guess, murder?" A smile darted across his face. "Details please."
"Middle aged man, tall, and a little on the porky side. His wife woke up to him dead this morning. It almost seems like suicide, he died from asphyxiation, but the wife claims he's too happy to kill himself, and he fell asleep before she did. Also that because of his weight she always wakes up if he gets out of bed, so he couldn't have done it himself."
"Send me pictures, ever think it was from natural cause." He sounded irritated. "He probably did it himself; I'll let you know if I'm interested." He closed the phone without awaiting a response. Sherlock fixed his gaze at his partner in the other room, who just let out a yelp and jumped back from his ex- computer. "Need help?"
"No."
"Just to be clear, this is not my fault but the fault of Mrs. Hudson. He wriggled free when she dropped off the package. So if you want to go even further, blame the post man for delivering the damned thing." He walked in to help with the device, to which John was getting nowhere with.
"The guts got into the motherboard and fried it. If you try to turn it on it shocks you."
"Best get a new one then?" he turned and walked right back into the other room.
"You're going to buy me a new computer… And what was in the package?"
"Dunno. Don't care unless it's interesting." With that thought he picked up the package and examined it. It was a smallish brown box that fit easily in the palm, there was no return label or even his address on it. Just his name written in large black letters. With care he tore the tape off and opened the box. Wrapped inside the packing peanuts was a black chess piece pawn.
"Oh look! We have someone who thinks they are clever! This is obviously so original I should applaud whoever thought of the idea." He rolled his eyes over at John who looked up from morning the loss of his computer.
"What's it?"
"Chess piece." He tossed it to John, who caught it and looked it over. Flipping it upside down he noticed a silver piece had been glued to the bottom.
"Did you notice the silver?" He walked back towards Sherlock and pressed the pawn back into his hand. Sherlock examined the bottom piece. He peeled at it until it fell lose from the wooden pawn and fell into his hand.
"It's, not quite flat, but raised in the middle and rounded on the side. Almost like a pancake. Obviously handmade. Roughly the size of an American quarter, and," he brought the piece up to his nose, sniffed it, then brought it to his tongue momentarily, "made of pure silver. Scribed onto one side is that stupid hat, the other has a pipe. Made by a person who was rejected from art school, judging by how messy the lines are. The side the messy lines veer to are to the right, suggesting right handed. They knew the process of how to shape the silver supports rejected artist. Also noting its silver suggests rich. Handwriting on the box is male. Person who made it thinks they are smart, because its hand crafted and the lack of any address we know he wrote on the box."
"What do we gain from this information?" John asked, pulling out his phone that just went off.
"We know that a rich, egotistical man in power, sent me, a detective, a declaration of war." Sherlock's phone went off. He broke his attention away from the coin to examine several pictures from Lestrade that blinked into existence of a dead fat man.
"How is it war?"
"Obvious, the chess piece." Sherlock searched the photos for something that would suggest foul play. It only took a few seconds for him to notice the little silver coin that seemed out of place on the night table.
"Okay." John picked up a newspaper and began perusing its pages. "What does Lestrade want?"
"Us, and we might actually be needed." He closed the picture and opened a text box to Lestrade. Close up on the silver coin on the night table. –SH, he clicked send and moved to put his phone down when it went off again.
"What's happened?"
"Other than death, not much. He can't decide whether or not it's a murder." He clicked on the new message, an email.
Oh, all are rather important,
But can also be easily replaced.
Please dance for me ~3
BAG EM
Your Beloved
"Moriarty's back." He looked over at John dangerously. The tension in the room was nearly tangible. "John, he's back."
"I wasn't aware he had left." John said, while clearing his throat and nodding in a slight worried way. "What does he want?"
Sherlock's phone buzzed again, a close up on the coin revealed the head of a lion with a snake slithering out of its open maw. Made by the same person who just delivered the chess piece, judging by the same tell signs. He re-opened Lestrade's texts. Will take the case. Need the address. -SH
"John, get a jacket, we've got a big one."