Chapter two: Games
Sherlock put his coat on in a rush walking up to 221b. Sherlock noticed john shivering slightly as the wind blew towards then. It was colder out then either of them had originally expected.
"Sherlock, what's that? On the door." Sherlock heard john call over the noise of the street and the whistling of the wind . Sherlock glanced at the small note on the door. It was not as Nicely written as the last one so it must have been done in a rush. It was placed here less then half on hour ago because the ink smudges haven't fully dried yet and it hadn't been blown away by the wind. John approached the letter and took off the small string attached to it that was being used to keep it hanging from the door.
" Sorry lock, got a bit tied up with work..literally. Ropes are extremely difficult to get out of. Don't you worry though you will be seeing me soon enough, you too john as I presume you will be the one reading this to lock.
Lots of love
VH" Sherlock hadn't moved from where he stood on the street.
"Sherlock who is VH?" He stood silent for a moment before his face became slightly red.
"There is no one with the initials VH! She is dead she is not alive! This is some trick or prank! Violet Holmes is dead! She died!" Sherlock snapped at john as he barged past him and into 221b. Sherlock roughly slammed the door behind him leaving john out side.
John stood on the street. Cold. Shocked. He glanced back down at the note reading it over and over again in his mind. She? He thought to him self. Maybe it's Sherlock's wife who faked her death or something crazy like that. That has to be it, Sherlocks wife.
He concluded his sad excuse for deductions as he opened the door to 222b and walked in. He bounded up the stairs-pausing before entering the flat. John saw something he never wanted to see. He saw something he never saw before. Something he thought was impossible-not capable of being done or happening. He saw
Sherlock Holmes
Crying
His pale blue eyes were glassy as tears spilled out of them. He faced the wall but john could see his reflection in the mirror.
"...Sherlock? What are you doing?" John asked hesitantly.
"Think-ing" Sherlocks voice cracked. He cleared his voice
"Thinking" he repeated more steadily this time. He wiped the tears from his face quickly and got up like Nothing had happened. If there's was one thing he was going to keep it was his dignity. Although his face was still red and stained with tears.
"Nineteen eighty-nine, a young kid - champion swimmer - came up from Brighton for a school sports tournament; drowned in the pool. Tragic accident."
Sherlock pulls up a photo of a the front page of a news paper.
"You wouldn't remember it. Why should you?"
"But you remember."
"Yes."
"Something fishy about it?"
"Nobody thought so - nobody except me. I was only a kid myself. I read about it in the papers."
"Started young, didn't you?"
Sherlock couldn't help but wince as all the memories of Violet came flooding back into his head. She was the one who showed him it in the news papers.
Sherlock could remember it like it was yesterday.
"Lock! lock, come look at this! Carl powers drowned!" Violet yelled from the living room as Sherlock approached her. "So? what about it?" Violet smiled.
"Can we go check it out, pleeeeeeeease!" She begged. "Fine" Sherlock grabbed his coat an headed out the door. The pool wasn't too far away from their house so they both decided to walk after Telling there parents they were going out. "What makes Carl powers so important?" Sherlock asked on their way down the road. "He was a great swimmer then all of a sudden he has a fit in the pool and drowns? Seems suspicious to me." she said looking down at the news paper an reading it over again. "I suppose but he could have just hit his head against the wall of the pool or something."
She looked up from the paper
"Once again trained swimmer" she said matter-of-factly. Sherlock rolled his eyes "yes, yes I know."
They arrived at the pool to see it was completely empty. The only sound that could be heard was the water Lapping at the edges of the pool. "I'll check around here, lock You go check his locker" she snickered. "Lock, check the LOCKer" Sherlock simply turned around at headed to the lockers ignoring her comment. He ran his hands across the metal until he came to the label that said in bold. 'Carl powers' he opened up the locker and began emptying out the contents. 'Shirt pants socks...' he listed in his mind.
'Socks. Sock and no shoes?' He thought.
"Vi!" He called out. Not a moment to soon Violet came running up to him soaking wet.
"Violet what did you do?" He asked starting at her. "I jumped in the pool" she said trying to catch her breath.
"Why in earth would you do that?!" He got up and held her shivering body close to him to warm her up.
"I wanted to see how easily I could drown." Sherlock took off his jacket and put it around her shoulders. "Well I found his shirt pants and socks in his locker but not his shoes."
Violet took a second. "No shoes?"
"No shoes" he repeated.
.
"The boy, Carl Powers, had some kind of fit in the water, but by the time they got him out it was too late. But there was something wrong; something I couldn't get out of my head."
"What?" John asked sitting on the couch.
"His shoes."
"What about them?"
"They weren't there. I made a fuss; I tried to get the police interested, but nobody seemed to think it was important. He'd left all the rest of his clothes in his locker, but there was no sign of his shoes ..." Sherlock leaned down and picked up the bag containing the trainers. "Until now"
Sherlock shut himself in the kitchen and sat at the table with the trainers nearby - still in the bag - while he looks through photographs and printouts of newspaper reports of Carl Powers' death from 1989. In the living room, on the other side of the closed doors, John is pacing back and forth and finally stops and slides one of the doors open.
"Can I help?" John asks clearly annoyed.
Sherlock didn't react to him at all.
"I want to help there only three hours left" john said as his text alert rang. "It's your brother he's texting me now, how did he even get my number?"
"Must be a root canal." He said thoughtfully
Putting his phone away, John comes into the kitchen.
"Look, he did say 'national importance'."
Sherlock snorts, not looking up from his research.
"How quaint."
"What is?"
"You are. Queen and country".
"You can't just ignore it." John states sternly
"I'm not ignoring it. Putting my best man onto it right now."
"Right. Good.
He folds his arms and nods in satisfaction, then looks at Sherlock in puzzlement.
"Who's that?" John asks as Sherlock smiles.
Sherlock sat at home looking through his microscope. He had sent john out to meet mycroft for him although he didn't really care about the missing missile plans. Sherlock stood up abruptly and began pacing around the room. "How, how!?" He muttered angrily to him self. He had to figure this out. Who ever this was- and who ever had been leaving his notes was just trying to frustrate him make him upset and watch him fall apart It was working. "Agh!" He yelled as he roughly shoved the small coffee table over. "Where are you when I need you Violet!" He yelled at he sat back down in his chair letting the anger simmer down. He looked back into the microscope hoping that he could just burry himself in his work. Just like he always had. If he wasn't on a case he would be remembering-remembering thing he wanted so badly to forget. To forget the pain and the loneliness. But at the same time be didn't want to forget. He wanted to hang on to the shreds of memory he had of pleasant times. He snapped out of his thoughts noticing something that wasn't there before. "Poison." He muttered to him self. The door clicked as john walked in. "Poison." Sherlock said louder this time so john could hear.
"What?" John asked.
"Clostridium botulinum! It's one of the deadliest poisons on the planet!"
John stared at him blankly.
"Carl powers!"
"Oh, are you saying he was murdered?"
Sherlock stood up and walked over to where he had hung up the laces to the trainers.
"Remember the shoe laces?"
"Mmm" john nodded his head.
"The boy suffered from eczema. It'd be the easiest thing in the world to introduce the poison into his medication. Two hours later he comes up to London, the poison takes effect, paralyses the muscles and he drowns."
"What - how-how come the autopsy didn't pick that up?"
"It's virtually undetectable. Nobody would have been looking for it."
Sherlock walked over to where the flipped over coffee table was and picked the computer up from the ground.
"Sherlock why is the coffee table on the ground?" John asked setting it up right again. "I got frustrated"
"Of course you did"
Sherlock opened up the computer to his own website 'the science of deduction'
He began typing in the message box
'FOUND. Pair of trainers belonging to Carl Powers (1978-1989).'
Sherlock points to the laces.
"But there were still tiny traces of it left inside the trainers from where he put the cream on his feet.
He bended down and continued to type
'Botulinum toxin still present. Apply 221b Baker St.'
He send the message and straightened up.
"That's why they had to go."
"So how do we let the bomber know ..."
"Get his attention ..."
"stop the clock."
"The killer kept the shoes all these years."
"Yes". He looks at John. "Meaning ..."
"He's out bomber" john concludes.
Little did they know of Violet standing in the street watching them. She carefully dialed the number on her phone- her hands shaking It rang for a few moments before it was answered.
"They solved it." She said simply.
End of chapter two: games
