"John, while it pains me to no end, I fear I must ask you this question: what are you doing?" "Working on my blog. Why?" "I know that. Obviously. The point at hand is, what exactly are your intentions with that blog?" "I'm a writer, Sherlock. I like to write, and you are kind enough to supply me with endless material. Why?" "Precisely that. To the man who loves art for its own sake, it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived." "Are you insulting my blog right now, Sherlock? Or is this about that awful gallery they've put up in the West wing." "It is pleasant to me to observe, John Watson, that you have so far grasped this truth that in these little records of our cases which you have been good enough to draw up, and, I am bound to say, occasionally to embellish..." "Nobody would read them if I didn't." "...you have given prominence not so much to the many causes celebres and sensational trials in which I have figured but rather to those incidents which may have been trivial in themselves, but which have given room for those faculties of deduction and of logical synthesis which I have made my special province." A small memo popped up on John's computer with an equally small bingly-beep sort of noise. He opened it while Sherlock continued. "You have erred, perhaps, in attempting to put color and life into each of your statements instead of confining yourself to the task of placing upon record that severe reasoning from cause to effect which is really the only notable feature about the thing," Sherlock said, plucking out a series of random notes on his violin. He had paused in his speech, so John assumed that it was his turn to comment. "I thought I'd done well enough feeding your ego," he said, still not looking away from the screen. "No, it is not selfishness or conceit," Sherlock protested. "If I claim full justice for my art, it is because it is an impersonal thing-a thing beyond myself. Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore, it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell. You have degraded what should have been a course of lecture into a series of tales." "What on earth," John said, finally looking up from his computer, "do we need another series of lectures for? I'm already blown out for the week as it is, and it's only Tuesday." "I thought you liked lectures." "Hardly." "Why do you spend so much time at them, then?" "Because you never come." "At the same time," Sherlock continued, choosing to ignore this last comment, "you can hardly be open to a charge of sensationalism, I suppose. Out of these cases which you have been so kind as to interest yourself in, a fair proportion do not treat crime, in its legal sense, at all. The small matter in which I endeavored to help the Headmaster of Larkton, the singular experience of Miss Mary Sutherland, the problem connected with the man with the twisted lip, and the incident of the noble bachelor, were all matters which are outside the pale of the law. But in avoiding the sensational, I fear that you may have bordered on the trivial." "I thought you were criticizing my blog for being too interesting. Sherlock, if you're going to do this, at least pick one angle to come at me from and stick to it. Anyways, it's the way you solve the mysteries that makes it interesting. Not the mysteries themselves." Sherlock made a disgusted snorting noise. "My dear John, what do the public, the great unobservant public, who could hardly tell a weaver by his tooth or a compositor by his left thumb, care about the finer shades of analysis and deduction!" "Now you're sounding like your brother." "Thank you. But indeed, if you are trivial, I cannot blame you. The days of the great cases are past. Man, or at least criminal man, has lost all enterprise and originality. As to my own practice, it seems to be degenerating into an agency for recovering lost lead pencils and giving advice to young ladies from boarding-schools. I think I have touched the bottom at last, however. This note I had this morning marks my zero-point, I fancy. Is that what you were reading just now?" "'Dear Sherlock,'" John read. "'I wanted to ask your advice on an offer to join Laurel House which I received the other day. I'll visit you at half-ten tomorrow if that's alright with you. Yours faithfully, Morgan Lane.' Sherlock, this IS an agency for finding lost pencils and giving advice to young ladies from boarding school. Perhaps you've forgotten, but this happens to BE a boarding school. It's only by coincidence that we keep getting these actual criminal cases." "What do you think of that, though?" "Do you know the girl?" John asked. "Not at all. It seems she's in a lower class than ours. You don't expect me to notice such people, do you?" "It's 10:30 now." "Yes, and I have no doubt that is her knock." He got up from his chair and headed for the club room door. "It may turn out to be much more interesting than you think," John said. "You remember that the matter of the cheerleader's blue earrings developed into a serious investigation, and you thought that it was nothing more than a whim. This case might be the same." "Well, let us hope so," Sherlock said, pausing with his hand on the doorknob. "But our doubts will very soon be solved, for here, unless I am much mistaken, is the person in question." He pulled open the door to reveal a girl with a freckled, oval face and quite a lot of strawberry blonde hair. She carried herself well, but seemed at least a little bit embarrassed to be there. Sherlock's eyes moved quickly up and down her, taking in everything about her-yes, everything-and then quite suddenly, his entire demeanor changed. "You're Sherlock Holmes?" she said, peering about the room beyond him. "Quite," Sherlock said, gesturing for her to come in. "Pray take a seat, Miss Lane. I shall be happy to do anything that I can to serve you." Watson rolled his eyes, and turned back to his computer as Sherlock pulled out a seat for Morgan, brushing dust off of it before she sat down. Then he situated himself on the other side of the table and rested his chin on steepled fingers to listen to her story. "I'm a sophomore here-" "I know," Sherlock cut her off. "Right..." Morgan said. "Well, at any rate, last year I was housing at the Violet House, and I liked it there a lot. I had a lot of friends there, and I liked the dorm matron. This year, though, I had to transfer to Olive House because my grades weren't good enough to stay in Violet. It was alright at first, but the other girls there have started bullying me recently because I'm... a bit different. So, I put in a petition to transfer houses. "Well, this last week, I got the reply, and the only house that offered to accept me was Laurel House, which makes no sense whatsoever. I mean, even you haven't gotten an offer from Laurel House, and you must be the smartest, most popular kid in school!" "Who says I haven't gotten an offer?" Sherlock said quickly. "He didn't," John put in. "Anyways, I don't know where you get the notion that I am popular." "Everyone always comes to you for advice and stuff," Morgan said, looking surprised. "Mm, appearances can be deceiving. Continue." "Well, I got the offer to move to Laurel House, and I wasn't sure what to make of it, so I went to speak to the dorm prefect," she said. "That's that James Moriarty bast- er, fellow, isn't it?" John said. "Mhm," Morgan nodded. "He said that the dorm head allows in students with extreme talents as well as those with good grades who win the student votes. So, apparently, they've decided to let me in for my theater experience. But that's just the thing: I don't actually have that much theater experience. I mean, I do, but mostly outside of the school. So, there's no reason that Moriarty or the dorm head would know about it." "The head of that dorm is Prof. Rucastle, correct?" Sherlock said. "Yes, he happened to come looking for Moriarty while I was speaking with him, so I got to ask him about it too." "And what did he have to say?" "Well, I'm pretty sure he was checking me out the entire time." John nearly fell over backwards out of his chair at this information, but it didn't seem to phase Sherlock at all. He just continued watching Morgan with that piercing half-smile of his. "He asked me: 'You're looking for a new house to join, correct, Ms. Lane?'" Morgan continued. "So I told him, 'Yes, sir.' "And he says, 'What kind of perks did you get at your last dorm?' "And I told him we didn't have any perks at Olive Dorm except that the dorm matron lets us stay up extra late on Friday nights. "So he says to me, 'Well, that's no good! A girl like you should be having the best kinds of perks like high speed internet, private bathrooms, no lights-out curfew, free cable on an HD screen, and two free meals a day!'" "Laurel House gets private bathrooms?" John cut in. "Of course they do. Stay focused, John," said Sherlock without looking away from Morgan. "So, what makes you hesitant to accept the offer?" "I was still suspicious," Morgan explained. "I mean, I know they say not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it's simply too good to be true. Why do they want me of all people in Laurel House? Well, that's when it occurred to me: all the girls in Laurel House, they're pretty good-looking, aren't they?" "Mhmhmm," John chuckled. "Focus, John. I said focus." "And I couldn't notice how much Prof. Rucastle's eyes kept wandering all over me," Morgan continued. "So, I started thinking: what if there's some kind of fishy business going on with the girls at Laurel House?" "What? Wouldn't someone have noticed that sort of thing by now?" John said. "Not necessarily. If enough of the faculty and prefects were in on it and the girls themselves were being either threatened or well-compensated for it, then there wouldn't be much difficulty keeping it on the low down. This sort of thing is far more common than you think, John," Sherlock said. "But then all the same, it seems that you have more reason for suspicion than you have given us so far." "Yes," Morgan said. "I knew that there had to be some kind of catch in such a perfect-sounding situation, so I asked Prof. Rucastle about it. Well, he did this kind of creepy little smile, and said that of course if I was going to be a Laurel House girl, then I would need to keep up the appearances. Most of that I don't mind, since apparently it means the dorm will be buying me a new wardrobe and stuff like that. But the part that makes no sense is that... he wants me to cut my hair short." "What? No!" Sherlock suddenly snapped out of his concentration, frowning at Morgan as though she had just said something offensive. "Focus, Sherlock," John muttered. "I'm sorry?" Morgan said, blinking across the table at him. "Just that... Well, you have such lovely hair, you know?" Sherlock said. "What kind of scurvy knave could possibly want to cut that off and still call himself a man?" "There are all types around in this world," John said. "Personally, I like short hair, but yours is quite nice. It seems such a shame to ruin it when it must have taken years to grow out that long." "About three. And thank you," Morgan said. "Well, I felt like there was no way I could cut my hair no matter what kind of perks Laurel House was going to offer, and told him as much. But then I received a note in my mail box just the other day, which makes me consider changing my mind." She pulled a note card of the sort that the professors often used to convey messages to their students when necessary, and began reading it: "Dear Ms. Lane: I am writing to ask if you might reconsider your decision at all. The other students here at Laurel House are very eager to have you as one of their sisters. Moriarty tells me that you have been seeking part time employment to supplement your savings for university. In addition to the other perks of Laurel House, I would be willing to employ you as a secretarial assistant in my office for the remainder of the school year. You are welcome to choose your own hours provided you work at least 10 per week, and the pay will be 6,000 pounds for the year. As for your hair, it is a great pity, especially as I couldn't help noticing how beautiful it was during our short meeting the other day, but I am afraid that we must remain firm on that point. Hopefully, the wardrobe provisions that come with residency at Laurel House will ease your mind somewhat on that matter. Now, do try to come. The papers for dorm transfer will be waiting in my office at any time. We are all so excited to have your bright face and personality join our little family here at Laurel House. Yours faithfully, Prof. Jephro Rucastle." "Strange first name," Sherlock remarked as she came to the close. "Oh, really?" John said, eying him sarcastically. "Well, after I got that letter, I started thinking that maybe I'll accept the offer after all," Morgan said. "I'm getting desperate to escape from Olive House. I found tacks in my shoes this morning and someone stole my towel and dropped it in a toilet while I was showering. If there isn't anything weird going on at Laurel House, then it would be nice to go somewhere that I'm wanted." "Well, Ms. Lane, if your mind is made up, that settles the question," said Sherlock, smiling. "So, you don't think I should refuse it?" "I confess, had I a sister, I wouldn't advise her to accept it. Then again, if you had a brother here, perhaps you wouldn't be in this situation." "I had a sister, but she graduated last year." "More's the pity," Sherlock said. "At any rate, I would advise you this: take the offer, and if anything suspicious develops, feel free to call on me once again. My door is always open." "Having an ally would make me feel a bit better about it..." Morgan confessed. "Indeed. I assure you that your little problem promises to be the most interesting which has come my way for some months. There is something quite distinct and fresh about some of the features. When you find yourself in danger-" "So, you do think I'll be in danger!?" "Not at all. Did I say that?" "You said 'when you find yourself in danger.'" "If you find yourself in danger. I meant to say if. Simple slip. Anyways, rest assured that any danger you could possibly find yourself in would instantly cease to be a danger as soon as you contact me. I'll even give you my cell phone number so that any time, night or day, a text message is all it will take to bring me to your aid." "That does make me feel like I can rest more easily," Morgan said, and she gave them a beaming smile that seemed to light up the whole room. Sherlock coughed slightly and proceeded to relay his cell phone number to her. Once he had, she rose quickly from her chair. "I'm going to Prof. Rucastle to sign those papers now," she said. "Thank you so much! I'll text you in a bit so you have my number, too." And with that she swept out of the room, all the anxiety and timidness she'd had upon entry completely gone. John and Sherlock stared at the door after her for a while before John turned to Sherlock. "You seemed strangely eager to help that one, Sherlock," he said. "What do you mean?" "You even gave her your number! You never give out your number. You get other people to give you theirs so that you can text them obnoxious messages as suits your fancy." "I daresay I don't know what you're getting at John," Sherlock said. "But at any rate, doesn't it seem interesting to you?" "Well, certainly. I've always thought there was something fishy about the girls at Laurel House. Now we finally have an inside eye to discover their secrets." "More importantly," Sherlock said, getting up and walking to the window with a gleeful expression, "we get to mess with Moriarty!"