Sherlock never panicked. It was an irrational response to a problem. Problems always had solutions, and running around gabbling incoherently was never the best way to find them. Panic was, to him, a sign of lesser intelligence, of a lower capacity for logical thought.

He would never admit that he had got pretty close, though.

His quick footsteps led him round the room once more; his brow furrowed as he squinted at every nook and cranny, at every irregularity in the floorboards. He did not even seem to pay any attention to the corpse in the middle. Indeed, his eyes seemed to avoid it consciously, where everyone else could not help but glance towards it.

It was a locked-room murder straight out of a novel. A moderately rich young man, single, with little family to speak of, found killed in his bathroom, of which the door had been locked from the inside. Window unbroken, and of the sort that couldn't be opened. There were numerous theories as to how the murderer had got in, none of would be particularly satisfying until the evidence had been found. It was a difficult case, certainly, but Lestrade hadn't thought that it would be beyond Sherlock Holmes.

He was therefore surprised to see the detective's face distorted by a grimace, and his footsteps suggestive of an immense frustration.

'Why the bathroom?' he said in that carrying voice of his.

'Element of surprise,' Lestrade replied, a little lamely, for about the hundredth time that morning. 'An opportunist, presumably.'

Sherlock shook his head, not out of disagreement with Lestrade, but out of disagreement with the entire case. They'd been here a couple of hours now. He ought at least to have found a lead. It looked from the outside like the simplest of cases, but it was turning out to be entirely baffling.

'Get that body to Molly Hooper,' Sherlock said at last, and, with a disdainful sniff, swished out of the house.


'Stumped, Sherlock?'

Mike Stamford's somewhat bitterly cheerful attitude was not helping. Sherlock always came to Bart's when he was thinking about how to solve a case, finding his own ramshackle "digs" not especially conducive to deep thought. But being at Bart's meant being around a number of other people who seemed to want to talk to him all the damned time, Mike Stamford, one of the lab workers, among them.

'Of course I'm stumped. I wouldn't be setting fire to eyeballs with no good reason if I wasn't stumped.'

'Molly not brought you your tea this morning?' Stamford chuckled good-naturedly. 'I was just going to boil the kettle, actually, if you wanted some.'

'Black, two sugars,' Sherlock said vaguely. He watched Stamford disappear from his line of sight, and then, with a sigh, cast a half-melted eyeball onto the mat next to his Bunsen burner. This damned case! It invaded his thoughts even when he tried to push it from his mind. He had got to the point of wondering if it had a blindingly obvious solution that he had missed. Locked-room murders were usually his favourite, because the police hated them, and because they nearly always had either a very simple or a very clever solution. But this one...

'Here's your tea.'

Sherlock murmured some vaguely grateful response, and sipped from the mug that had just been offered to him.

'Any news from Molly?'

'I just saw her in the kitchen, actually,' Stamford said. 'Says she's just got to the corpse in question... She'll be able to tell you more later.'

Sherlock nodded and gulped down the rest of his tea, an impressive achievement, as it was still almost scaldingly hot. He didn't seem to notice.

Stamford stood a little awkwardly for a long few moments, and then, absently going to sort out some papers at the end of the desk, said: 'Got any further with that – was it a flat you were looking at?'

'Yes. Baker Street... Martha Hudson offered to lower the price quite significantly, because, well, reasons... Still can't afford it.'

'I was thinking – you could go halves with someone.'

Sherlock's brow furrowed. 'What do you mean?'

'You know – get a flatmate. Someone else who can't afford a whole flat. You said it was two bedrooms, didn't you?'

Suddenly Sherlock laughed. 'You're not serious. Who'd want me as a flatmate?'

'Well,' Stamford said with a small chuckle.

Sherlock Holmes was a curious sort of man, he knew that much. After however long spent flitting between various jobs, solving crimes both at home and overseas, and spending a lot of time in a seedy sort of second life involving drugs and dirt and the wrong side of the city, he had re-appeared at Bart's, and seemed to be making a lot of offhand comments about housing prices in London. He wouldn't be an easy man to live with - but he would certainly be an interesting one.

'You might find someone,' Stamford said at length, and the topic was dropped for the moment.


Mrs Hudson greeted Sherlock with an unwelcome hug on which he didn't comment, and the offer of a cup of tea (which was, of course, most definitely welcome). Sherlock had to admit that he appreciated the apparent liking she seemed to have taken to him, even if it was expressed in what seemed to him like the most bizarre forms. He made sure to drop in on her occasionally, because she insisted, and because he wanted to keep his reservation on the flat for as long as possible.

This was why he went straight to Baker Street after leaving Bart's that afternoon, and now found himself in 221A, Mrs Hudson's flat, absently studying the wallpaper. The case was still on his mind. He hadn't been back to the scene of the crime, but he had endlessly wandered its double in his mind palace, and he was still half there.

'Two sugars, isn't it?' Mrs Hudson asked as she bustled around her kitchen.

Sherlock gave a positive-sounding grunt.

A minute later the landlady fed him his seventh cup of tea that day, and sat down with her own.

'So, you're still interested in 221B?' she asked.

'Of course,' Sherlock replied. 'I... well, actually, someone suggested to me this afternoon that I go halves on it. You know, to reduce the financial burden. Not that anyone would ever agree to share a flat with me, but – if they were – would you be able to accommodate that?'

Mrs Hudson nodded. 'There's a bedroom on the second floor that I can attach to 221B. If 221C is sold, the attic bedroom can be incorporated into that lease... Or something. I can make arrangements.'

'If 221C is sold...' Sherlock hesitated, studying Mrs Hudson closely. 'Someone's considering buying it?'

Mrs Hudson sipped at her tea. 'There was a young man looking at it earlier. He seemed quite interested.'

'Who is he? Would he prefer to go halves on 221B?'

'Sherlock!' Mrs Hudson laughed. 'I was actually telling him about you, you know. Your mannerisms, and things. Just things he might want to consider if he ends up living above you.'

Sherlock's eyes insisted that she continue.

'He didn't seem to mind. Said that he would be fine with it.'

'Then he'll be ideal. Tell him I'll go halves. If he doesn't bother me, I won't bother him. I can move in immediately.'

'Oh, Sherlock! You're very... quick. What if this poor young man doesn't want to go halves?'

'It's cheaper. Why wouldn't he?'

'Well, he'd be sharing the space with someone he didn't know.'

'Oh, he'll get to know me quickly enough.'

Mrs Hudson had to concede that he was right on that point. 'I'll tell him. But don't get too annoyed if he refuses. It's his choice.'

Sherlock nodded, just a little reluctantly. 'Very well.'

They both finished their tea in silence. Sherlock squinted at an irregularity in the wallpaper. At length he emerged from some sort of daydream, and said: 'What's this man's name?'

'Oh!' Mrs Hudson paused. 'It was something unusual... oh, what was it? I thought it sounded Welsh. It'll come to me. – Oh, of course, that's it. Merlin Ealdor.'

Sherlock agreed that this was rather an unusual name. Though to be perfectly honest, the name Sherlock wasn't all that usual either. 'And he's young, you say?'

'I didn't ask, but he looks fairly young.'

'Very well. It doesn't really matter. I can live alongside most people. Tell him my offer. I'm pretty certain it's one he can't refuse.'