One morning in mid-October I had arisen late to find that Sherlock had already breakfasted and gone out.
"Where have you been then?" I inquired when he returned several hours later.
"Mycroft summoned me."
Mycroft Holmes is Sherlock's older brother by seven years.
They have what I can only call a very touchy relationship. Mycroft is a top advisor to the SIS and Sherlock views our government's attempts to meddle in domestic citizens' lives or influence the destiny of other nations with contempt.
In his opinion, this involves the kind of deception he has set himself at odds with. He nevertheless finds his brother's powerful connections valuable.
Conversely, Mycroft often calls upon his younger brother to unravel top-secret complications involving insiders.
His relationship to Sherlock is even more of a mystery to me. We know that he remotely monitors our every move. I would resent this, except for the fact that he did save our lives during the confrontation with Moriarity at the pool.
If Mycroft hadn't been monitoring Sherlock's web site, he wouldn't have seen Sherlock's post: I have a gift for you. Bruce-Partington missile plans. Please collect. The pool Midnight. And I probably wouldn't be alive to be writing this now.
Most likely, we both would have died at the hands of James Moriarity, the brilliant consulting criminal who would have had us both assassinated had not Mycroft's agents shown up at the last minute to surround the public pool where we were being kept hostage and either kill or arrest the snipers who had us in their sites.
Moriarity escaped, however, and we were arrested for conspiring to sell government information.
But that is another story.
"I thought you didn't like helping Mycroft," I said.
"I don't, but at least he has the common sense to know that he needs me."
"What is it this time, then?"
"Security leak. A hacker apparently has broken into an MP's website. I've been recruited to find out who it is. I'll get my people working on it."
"Your people?"
"Of course. I work the cyber networks, just as I work the street network. And it's time to get in touch." Turning his luminous gray eyes on me, he said. "Coming?"
Sherlock sat down before his laptop, signed on and typed in the password "Porlock." A screen of cyber code opened, which he studied intensely. I studied it too, over his shoulder. Not being familiar with computer language, I could make nothing of it.
He typed more code in at locations that apparently were agreed upon, which opened new screens.
"The codes are keys that open back doors," he explained. "Only those who know the code can enter. Our government has plenty of similar secret sites."
"Are you saying this is a government site?"
"No, not at all. This site is used by an entirely different organization. It's a brotherhood of hackers, a group I've found supremely useful in numerous ways. They have allowed me to keep tabs on 'him,' for one thing."
"Is 'he' involved in this?"
"I wouldn't be at all surprised."
By "he" we meant Moriarity. He had because the "he" of whom no one spoke. I know there was no one in the world my friend would rather have tracked down and put handcuffs on.
But Moriarity was as expert at disappearing as a shadow that disappears when the light comes on. Although the search for him kept my restless friend occupied between cases, I knew the whereabouts of Moriarity weighed upon his mind.
It weighed upon both of our minds.
Sherlock sat back and steepled his fingers again, then folded them and twisted them together thoughtfully.
"John, kindly get your laptop and look up a conservative MP named Cyril Goddard. It was his website that was hacked into."
"Goddard, I've heard of him," I remarked. "Rabidly pro-military. He supports expanding the powers of the secret service to spy on private citizens."
"Ahhhhh! That may prove to be a factor here."
"How?" I asked.
"That is what we must learn. This is my first step."
It was then we heard our landlady Mrs. Hudson's knock on our open flat door and her signature call of "Hoo hoo!"
"I brought the mail up and all…of…Sherlock's…newspapers." She grunted, dropping the daily pile of them onto our coffee table with a thud.
"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson," I said.
Picking up the top one, she read a headline.
"A rash of car thefts in Bloomsbury," she commented.
"I can hardly contain my excitement," Sherlock remarked with sarcasm.
"What's he working on then?" She said, approaching.
"Nothing you'd remotely understand, Mrs. Hudson," Sherlock retorted, busily typing out messages in code. "Isn't it time for your afternoon soother?"
"Oh, don't be such a badger," she said.
Sherlock pulled a desk drawer open, rummaged, found a memory stick and inserted it in the hard drive.
"This is their most recent decoder program, the group updated it yesterday. With any luck, they will not have changed the code since then."
A message appeared on the screen: 2400jeeaye/0ayelJ(=114 HB.
"Ah!" He breathed. "He's watching."
"Who's watching?"
"One of my contacts."
Using the decoder program, Sherlock typed in a reply and got one back.
"I'm conversing with a hacker who goes by the code name Gandalf...What is that scent you're wearing?"
"Who? Me?" I exclaimed.
"Of course not. You," he looked up at Mrs. Hudson.
"Oh! My friend Mrs. Turner brought it back for me from Hawaii. She says it was quite pricey. Like it?"
Sherlock lifted Mrs. Hudson's wrist to his nose and sniffed it like a connoisseur quaffing a famous vintage. "Sandalwood…vanilla…cedar…and…some sort of flower."
Mrs. Hudson shot me a sidelong glance and winked.
"But do you like it?"
"No." He dropped her hand. "It's too distracting, get rid of it."
"I will not!"
"Then go away, I need to concentrate."
She exhaled with mock exasperation. Then she snapped her fingers.
"I nearly forgot, the package you ordered also came today. I signed for it while you were away. I'll run get it."
"Later, Betty," Sherlock said, growing more annoyed.
"I'll give it to John then."
She clattered down the stairs, returning a short time later. She handed me a small packing box about a foot square.
"Thank you," I said. "I'll be sure he gets it."
She was back down the stairs again.
I set the box on Sherlock's desktop.
He glanced at it and exclaimed "Ahhh! It came!"
"Erm, yes, Sherlock, that's what we've been discussing for the past five minutes."
He retrieved his pocketknife from the mantel and split the box open, removing a small, cylindrical device.
"Do you have any idea what this is, John?"
I studied the device in his hands.
"Why, of course! I recognize it. It's a miniature, solid-state, heat capacity laser. Only ten kilowatts and it's only good for one shot, but the military uses these to blow up roadside bombs or trucks or to blow the doors off the hideouts of a terrorist cells. It has any number of uses…wait a minute…"
I narrowed my eyes at him.
"Civilians are not allowed to own these. How could you possibly have gotten hold of this?"
He just grinned.
"Connections, John, connections." He plugged the device into the wall to charge it.
"Why are you charging it?"
"I have to test it, don't I?"
"Well for God's sake don't burn down our building with it!"
Mrs. Hudson was bustling back into the room at that moment and when she heard this stopped dead in her tracks.
"Who is burning down my building?" She exclaimed.
Piqued, Sherlock picked up his laptop, stormed off to his room and slammed the door.
I laughed. "I will make sure your building remains safe."
"It had better be! I just stopped up again to warn you I'm out with Mrs. Turner tonight, so for supper you are all on your own."
"I'll take care of it," I said, knowing perfectly well at this point that my flat mate probably wouldn't be eating anyway. He never did, when he was completely absorbed in a case.
I returned with takeout from Angelo's and knocked on Sherlock's closed door.
"Are you still eating?"
"No, go away."
"There's risotto," I attempted.
The only answer was furious tapping on the keyboard.
Three hours later I was lounging in the front room reading when Sherlock finally emerged from his bedroom. It was nearly midnight.
And I've rarely seen him look so grim.
"There may be much more to this," he said. "At least my source claims there is."
"What do you mean?"
He took his coat and scarf from the hook on the back of the door. "Do you remember the mysterious drowning about a month ago of David Habersley, the Labor Party MP?"
"Oh yes, indeed."
"Investigators ruled it accidental. My source is telling me it was murder. What's more, he says he has evidence to prove it."
I was at first stunned, then electrified. "Do you really think there's something in it?"
"That's what I need to find out. I'm meeting him in half an hour."
"Would you like me to come?"
"It could be dangerous."
I immediately was up and out of my chair.
"Thank you, John. Bring your revolver."
He quickly descended the stairs, me following.
We hailed a cab and he gave our destination as Bushy Park near Hampton.
He was reluctant to give out details en route, so I was forced to wait until the cab had dropped us at our destination.
The night was beautiful, but bitterly cold and a slight mist rose from the ground. We could see little of the lovely park as we threaded our way to our destination amid ancient trees and low stands of shrubbery.
"My online source – Gandalf - belongs to a group of underground journalists who call themselves the Hounds of Baskerville," he said.
"He claims that a member of their group, Sandy Patel, watched Habersely's murder take place in this very park. What's more, he captured it on his cell phone.
He claims the men responsible stowed Habersely's body into the back of an unmarked government van and drove away. The next morning he read about Habersely's 'suicide' in the newspapers.
Gandalf said the photos proved the drowning was really a deliberate murder ordered by our Secret Service."
"But why did they kill him?"
"Apparently because his vote stood in the way of legislation that would give national security more power to spy on private citizens."
"And you believe him? Oh really, Sherlock! If this is true, how is it that the details haven't come to light by now?"
"Because the Secret Service learned about the photos, tracked Patel down, confiscated his phone and Patel mysteriously died in a 'traffic accident' before he could make news of it public. Before that happened, however, he managed to tell this group about it."
"Sherlock! Are you suggesting that your brother knows about all this?"
At first he did not reply and we walked in silence. It was clear he was seething.
"If he does, it represents a new low for my brother," he said, with more emotion than I'd ever heard from him before.
"But if he knew about it, why would he put you on the case?"
"He may not realize that the security breech yesterday and this incident are connected."
"Why did this group hack into Goddard's email, then?"
"To look for more evidence that would prove their accusations. They found some, too, apparently. Thus the meeting tonight."
"Have you ever met this Gandalf?"
"No, I never have."
"Then how will you know it's him?"
"I'll know."
Our rendezvous apparently was at the very heart of the beautiful park – but we were in for yet another surprise.
It wasn't a man who stepped from behind a copse of bushes, but a slender, dark-skinned young woman wearing a leather jacket and jeans.
Sherlock looked every bit as startled as I was.
"Uberskullage?" My companion said doubtfully.
"She took mine," the young woman replied.
I've rarely seen Sherlock look so taken aback.
"You're Gandalf?" He exclaimed.
"I don't see why you should be so surprised."
"It's just that you weren't quite what I was expecting."
"Neither are you," she retorted. She held out her hand anyway. "Name's Irene Adler."
To Be Continued…