Coming back from the Tesco, John bumped into Portia Porco and Charles in front of 221b Baker Street.
" Hello, Portia, Is it time?"
"Yes, is William ready?"
"I'll check."
John opened the door and yelled, "William!"
There was a rumble on the stairs like thunder. "I'm coming!" William shouted as he descended, rushing past his father with a black and white ball under his arm. He leaped over the threshold and bounced the ball up and down on his knee.
"Well, goodbye," Portia said with a wave as she herded the boys away.
John closed the door with a nudge of his shoulder and carried the groceries up the seventeen steps to the flat.
He entered to find Sherlock kneeling on the ground pouring water on a piece of paper balanced on a doll's face. Violet knelt beside him watching.
"What are you doing?"
"Oh hello Daddy. Sherlock is showing me how to kill Patty."
"You're killing your doll?"
"Mrs Joanna Furbisher killed her abusive husband with a newspaper and a cup of tea. He had fallen asleep with the paper over his face. She poured tea carefully on the newspaper soaking it so that it conformed to the area around his nose and blocked the air from coming in. He suffocated."
"Would that even work?"
"Normally no, the mouth will automatically open if the nose is sealed, but he had just gotten his jaw wired shut to help him lose weight, and she had locked his mouth closed with a pin used to open cans of sardines. It was the pin that helped me figure out what had happened."
John sighed and walked into the kitchen. "Sherlock, do you have to teach my children how to kill people?"
"She's the one who asked asked. Besides, you're going to write about it in your blog some day. I was just giving her a demonstration. Don't you care about your daughter's education?"
"Of course I do. That's why... oh never mind. Thanks by the way. I do appreciate you watching the children."
"Yes, uh...William is gone but I don't know where."
"He left with Mrs Porco. Football tryouts."
"You're letting him play football?"
"What's wrong with football?"
"It's just so...Plebian."
"He's an active boy. He should go out for football. He'll learn how to get along with others. Be a mate. Besides, I like football."
"Then why don't you encourage Violet to play?"
John turned and looked at Violet. She was pressing another sheet of paper over the doll's face. "Violet doesn't want to play football."
"Have you asked her? And it is well past the time they should have started taking music lessons. Studies have shown that music is tied to cognitive abilities. They are much too smart for that boring school. You should reconsider Mycroft's offer to get William and Violet into public school."
John put the milk that he was carrying down on the counter and held up his hand. "Sherlock, while I appreciate your opinion, there is one thing about my children that I want you to remember."
"What is that?"
"That they are MY children, and I will make decisions about their future, not you, and certainly not Mycroft. Since when have you started talking to Mycroft anyway? I thought that you were still feuding with him over that Greek ambassador case."
"I started talking to him again when he invited Gustaf's orchestra to participate in the London International Composition Showcase this summer."
"London? Do you mean that I can hear your symphony without going to Croatia? That's wonderful."
Sherlock smiled.
John leaned over and hugged Sherlock. He whispered in his ear, "I know that it will be just brilliant."
When leaned back, Violet was at his side looking up at him. "Daddy, are we going to a concert?"
"Yes Violet. This summer we'll get to hear Sherlock's symphony."
"I think that I might like to learn to play Violin one day." Sherlock looked knowingly at John but didn't say a word. "Daddy, the milk will go bad if you leave it on the counter."
John picked up the milk and put it in the fridge. Then the doorbell rang. Sherlock and John raised their heads listening to the silence and said together, "Client."
"I'll get it!" Violet yelled running out of the room and down the stairs to open the door.
By the time that she had returned leading the client behind her, John had the room set up for the interview. It was a woman in her forties with blond hair streaked with white. She was tall, but she hunched over as she stood. Her blue patterned dress dripped limply below a navy peacoat edged in red embroidery.
"Thank you, Violet. Please go to your room now."
Violet nodded and walked out of the room as dignified as one of Mycroft's assistants. John closed the door behind her, but not before watching to see that she actually entered her bedroom and closed the door.
He sat in his chair, "So how can we help you?"
She looked at Sherlock and then back at John. Then she pulled a handkerchief out of her purse and blew her nose. "My name is Meridith Mitchell, and it's about my daughter. She's gone missing."
Sherlock who had been sitting back in his chair, sighed and then kicked his legs out, "Boring! Not interested, go away!"
"Sherlock!"
"The woman is from Yorkshire. Her daughter came to London to go to Uni, but she has checked there and found that she is no longer enrolled. Your daughter is fine. She just doesn't want to talk to you. Go to the police if you want to find her. We are not interested."
"But Sir, I have gone to the police, and they won't help me."
"Why not?" John asked.
"Because she's technically an adult, and she sent me a letter just last week. They say it proves that she's okay, but ... She's my daughter. She would never send me a letter like this unless something was wrong."
"Like what? Can I see the letter?"
"John, can we please get rid of her, you were about to make me some tea."
"Excuse my friend. He gets a bit irritable when he is in caffeine withdrawal. Please, let me see that." The woman gave the card to John who looked at it carefully. "Hmmm, London postal mark. No return address. Plain white card. For Margaret. For Margaret? What does that mean?"
"Well when it arrived it had some money in it. I think that it was for..."
"Margaret is her younger sister, John. Like I said, it's obvious. She came to London. She dropped out of school and yet still remembered her sister's birthday by sending her money that she would need because she knows that her mother can't have made enough as a seamstress to pay for the tuition to the school that she goes to. Your younger daughter does well in school, does she not?"
"Oh yes, sir. She's one of the smartest there. They say that with a little work she may win a grant to a top university."
"Thus the money. Go back home, madam, and take care of the daughter that you still have."
The woman turned to John then, "That girl, is she your daughter?"
"Yes, she is."
"She seems a fine girl. Well my girl, Annie, is a fine girl too. I gave her everything that I could: An expensive schooling, dance lessons, tutoring in Maths. It was the proudest day of my life when I heard that she had been accepted to a University in London to study accounting. She used to write, but then I heard less and less from her. I hadn't heard a word from her in four months, and then this shows up on Margaret's birthday, so I came to see her, and she's not here. She hasn't been a student for the last two terms!
"Please sir, you have a daughter. You know what it's like to worry. There are so many things that can happen to a young girl alone in the big city. I'm not naive. I've seen things in my day, and the fact that she's not giving me a return address, it suggests that she's afraid, and if she's hurt or in pain then I want to know about it. Please, from one parent to another. Please help me."
John glanced over at Sherlock who rolled his eyes before rising to his feet. "Alright, we'll consider your case. You just go back to the seamstresses conference and if we hear anything then we will leave you a message at the Ambassador hotel."
"How did you...?"
Sherlock opened the door and pushed the woman out of the room, "Good day, Mrs Mitchell," he said before shutting the door and leaning against it.
"Sherlock..."
"I could see that you wanted to take the case. God knows why, tedious. But I'll do it, if that's what you want."
"Thank you. So, where do we start?"
"With the card. Let me see it."
Sherlock picked up the envelope. He looked at it carefully, and even tasted the ink before pulling out the card and holding it to the light. "This card came from a store near a University. The paper, the size the weight the cut, all correspond to the type favored for writing the outlines of papers. It is an old technique in this world of computers, but there are still a few schools who require their students to learn to write papers the old way."
"So you think that she's gone into writing?"
"No. She's just gone to a store near the University which means that although she has dropped out of school, she did not move out of the area. She probably lives very close to where she was before. We need to go to the University and ask about Annie Mitchell. Come along, John."
Sherlock jumped up and reached for his coat.
"Violet!" John called.
She came out of her room and looked over the banister. "Sherlock and I are going out on a case. Please stay with Mrs Hudson, and you are on yellow protocol until I return. What's the codeword, pick one."
"Suffocate."
"Good word," Sherlock said.
"Take care, "John said to her before closing and locking the front door. "Really, Sherlock. She's more and more like you everyday."
Sherlock smiled, reaching up to flag down a taxi. Then he climbed it with John following on his heels.
