"Sherlock!" John called down the stairs of flat 221B. "Sherlock!". John stood in his room as he waited for an answer, which of course he didn't get. He walked over to the door of his bedroom, grabbed his dressing gown and dragged himself down the stairs to the living room. He tied his dressing gown and peered into the living room. Dead still. He stepped into the room and looked out the window. It was a beautiful morning outside - although it was hard to see because Sherlock refused to let dust around the windows and shelves. John listened to the silence that filled the apartment for any signs as to where Sherlock was. Suddenly he heard the tap of fingers on the wooden table in the kitchen. He walked through to find Sherlock sitting, staring at what appeared to be one of his experiments, tapping his fingers on the table with one hand and cradling his face in the other. "Sherlock. I called you from upstairs and you didn't reply." Sherlock sat in silence for a few seconds until finally speaking.
"Oh sorry I didn't hear you".
"What the hell is all of this? What are you doing?" John was staring at the equipment on the kitchen table. There were 5 petri dishes lined up next to one another, a small package box that had been opened, and what appeared to be a broken mug, among Sherlock's usual science equipment that he kept in the kitchen instead of food. Sherlock remained silent and stopped tapping his fingers. John was getting pretty irritated. "Sherlock! Will you answer me?" Sherlock sensed the tone and replied. "Last night after I got back from my case I found this box at our doorstep. It didn't have an address on it so I figured that someone might have left it there by accident. But why would someone leave a small, unopened package outside our door? People know me John, they know what I do. It's clearly a sign for another case! Now I just need to figure out wha-"
"Ok I'm sorry, let me get this straight. You saw an unopened package at our door with no address on it, decided it must be a clue of some sort, took it upstairs and smashed the contents to bits for evidence?!" Sherlock looked straight up at John and gave him a look as if he were the dumbest thing on earth. "I didn't break it John, it was already broken. Completely shattered, parts of it almost like dust left over from the ceramic. Now people say that the postal services aren't all that great but they certainly didn't fling this box back and forth so much that it turned partly to dust. It was done on purpose. I don't know why, yet."
"So we had a box with a broken mug at our door and that must mean we have a new case on our hands, huh?" John said sarcastically while preparing his morning coffee, "When did you find it there anyway? Was it earlier this morning?"
"Last night, around 9 o'clock. I told you already, don't you listen?" "9? Did you stay up all night looking into this?"
"Yup."
"Sherlock! It's just a bloody mug, what's the big deal? It was clearly there by mista-"
"It was not a mug, it was a teapot. You can see from some of the larger pieces that they would've fit together in the shape of one, and there are clear remainders of a lid. Also there are patterns along some of the pieces, that have been cracked open. I swabbed the inside of cracks along it and found that this teapot was at least 130 years old. Don't you see John? This must mean something!" John looked into Sherlock's crazy eyes with a look of utter confusion on his face. He sat down at the other side of the table with his coffee, took a quick sip and sighed. "I can't believe I'm saying this but, what do you think it could mean?" Sherlock looked back down at the table and frowned slightly. "I don't know. Not yet anyway. But I'll get more evidence. I'm just gonna need a few more petri dishes."