As some of you noted from last chapter, the plot thickens! Here we have my first attempt at some classic Sherlockian deduction, and we introduce our client for the case. Lots of references to the original Scandal in Bohemia here, for the sharp-eyed canon fans among you!

I am sure my attempt at deductions is not as sharp as either Arthur Conan Doyle or Gatiss/Moffat, but I gave it my best! Thoughts are most welcome!

And thank you to those of you who said the characters are spot on. I am trying so hard to keep them themselves, because I love them that way!

Oh, and an important note: In the last chapter, the email addresses wouldn't format properly. I wouldn't care except it's crucial for the deduction scene in this chapter, so just for better reading:

Sherlock's email address is sherlocksh AT scienceofdeduction DOT co DOT uk (Anyone know where I got SherlockSH from? ^_^)

The client's email address is wo AT epg DOT com.

Chapter 3 – The Story of Chris Kramm

Sherlock was exactly where John had left him when he returned to the flat.

"Find a good book?" Sherlock offered.

"You know bloody well I didn't get to the bookstore. What's this email about?"

Sherlock smiled and sat up. "That's what I'm hoping you can help me with, John."

"Well, if nothing else, it's a case, isn't it? At least you'll have something on. It's been a while since…" John trailed off and Sherlock didn't complete the statement. Both men had settled into an uneasy silence surrounding the incident at the pool that had been the culmination of Sherlock's last case. They had also reached some kind of tacit agreement not to speak about the fact that Moriarty was, for all they knew, still very much at large.

Sherlock had tried, of course. While John was convalescing, Sherlock had collected every scrap of information he could find about James Moriarty (Professor James Moriarty, John reminded himself – Sherlock had discovered that someone had actually awarded that psychopath a Doctorate in Criminology, of all things). But the trail had soon gone ice-cold and Sherlock had let it go. Data, he'd said, I've got barely any data. Dangerous to hypothesize without data.

Sherlock finally spoke, breaking the tension. "You're right, it's a potential case. Now granted, I generally hate playing PI for people. Chasing down unfaithful lovers, clearing up people's financial woes, it's all so utterly beneath me." He reached over, grabbed his phone, and pulled up the email. "But this…this is very interesting indeed. I might just take this on."

John cocked his head to the side. "Just because of this email? What's so special about it?"

Sherlock smiled sideways in that smarmy way that made John just a little bit uncomfortable. "Come on John, have a go. What can you deduce from it?"

"What, from this? It's just an email, Sherlock, there's obviously nothing—"

"Right, and when people choose to ingest poison it's obviously suicide." Sherlock fixed John in a stare. "Come on, John."

John rolled his eyes. There was no getting out of this one. "Um…ok." He pulled up the email on his phone screen again. "Well, for starters, I don't recognize the address on the email account. Must be a company email address or something."

Sherlock nodded. "Good, John. Anything else?"

"The writer has spelled 'mister' using a full stop. American, then?"

"Punctuated."

"What?"

"He punctuated 'mister' with a full stop. Not spelled. But yes, American, good catch, John," Sherlock offered. Not sure whether to be insulted or pleased at Sherlock's reaction, and still waiting for the other shoe to drop, John continued to scan the email.

"I—I don't know, Sherlock, I can't get anything else. There's nothing in any of these sentences that's unusual, nothing that jumps out."

Sherlock sighed. "Really, John, I've seen you do better than that." He stood up, and John braced himself for what was coming.

"John, remember my methods. Now, what do you notice about the style of writing?"

"Um, I dunno, it's normal, I guess."

"Exactly, John! When you write an email, how often do you use phrases like 'would very much like to', take the trouble to type out dashes, capitalize everything, punctuate properly? Really, when was the last time you sent an email with a salutation?"

"Couldn't he just be being polite? He is looking to hire you, after all."

"Does someone looking to be polite simply announce that he's coming and expect you to be present and waiting for him?"

"Good point."

"So, we have a formal writing style but someone who doesn't necessarily feel a sense of formality toward the person to whom he's writing. Therefore, the man we're dealing with is—"

"Snotty?"

"John, you're not even trying, I know it. He's intelligent. And not just intelligent, that particular kind of intelligent that finds things like proper grammar and capitalization very important. We're dealing with a – oh, what's the common parlance again - a 'nerd' here, John."

"I seem to recall you being rather fixated on my grammar and punctuation this morning, Sherlock. What does that make you?"

"It makes me the world's only consulting detective. Now—" he continued, barreling through John's comment like it never happened, "—someone smart, someone detail-oriented, someone, yes, nerdy, sends this particular email from this particular email address. Wo at EPG dot com. You deduced, correctly, that this isn't a common email server, therefore it is likely a company email address. And if epg-dot-com is the email server, then…" a few clicks on his phone and Sherlock had the website. He brandished the phone screen before John like an athlete who'd just won a medal.

"Electronic Programming Group?"

"EPG, exactly. It's a programming company, a tech start-up, out of Silicon Valley."

"So a computer programmer." John nodded. "That would fit the nerd assumption."

Sherlock groaned. "It's a deduction, John, not an assumption, and please try to go deeper. Look at the actual address. Wo? What kind of address is that, especially for a company email address? Most companies assign full name email addresses to their employees. Then there's the extremely important fact that this particular employee, with the very odd company email account, is reaching out to me on a matter of importance requiring discretion, and feels free and easy enough to determine when and where we'll be meeting without my answer. Who in the world would fit that description?"

"Enough, Sherlock. Can you just tell me?"

"No, no, I think I'll let him tell you himself," Sherlock said, smiling out the window.

"Wait, he's here?" Sure enough, John heard the rumble of an automobile engine stopping below their windows. John checked the clock on his phone. "It's a quarter to one! Why didn't you tell me what time it was?" John shot out of his chair. "The flat's a bloody mess!"

Sherlock smiled and stared out the window as John raced around the living room, tidying piles of papers and tossing old dishes—some very old dishes, judging by what was growing on them—into the sink.

There was a ring at the doorbell. John took a spin around and decided that was as good as it was going to get. "Right, that must be him. I'll just be in my room then."

Sherlock glanced at him, puzzled. "And miss all the fun? That would be a pity. Stay, sit." Sherlock grabbed the Union Jack pillow from the sofa, plopped it onto the easy chair, and gestured grandly. John couldn't help but smile.

"Fine. But if anyone comments on the state of the flat, you're taking the blame."

Moments later there was a knock on their living room door, and Sherlock offered a "Come in!"

The man who entered did not at all fit John's image of the stereotypical computer nerd. He was tall, taller than Sherlock even, though with John's muscular build. The only detail of his wardrobe that would have given away his computer career was his thick—very thick, unusually think, John thought—plastic-rimmed glasses, which distorted his face and made it hard to get a good look at his features. The rest of his outfit, though—scuffed trainers, jeans, a loose-fitting Yale hoodie worn over an oversized t-shirt—was every bit the American tourist in London. He took in the flat at a glance—John saw his eyes land briefly on the skull on the mantelpiece and mentally kicked himself for not stuffing it into the sofa cushions—and then the stranger spoke.

"Got my email?" he said in his American accent. "I tried to be on time."

"Please, sit," Sherlock said, smiling and waving a hand toward the sofa. John tried to keep from laughing—Sherlock the sociopath could certainly pretend, at least, to have social graces when it was to his benefit. Why doesn't he ever think it's to his benefit to be a little nicer to me? John wondered absently.

Sherlock continued. "As you know, I am Sherlock Holmes, detective, and this is my friend and colleague, Doctor John Watson. You are?"

The tall man blinked. "Oh yeah, I suppose I haven't introduced myself. Kramm, Chris Kramm, nice to meet you both." Chris shook hands with Sherlock and reached over to shake John's, but hesitated a moment, eyeing John strangely.

Sherlock took a long blink, and John knew it was to hide an exaggerated eye roll. "Mr Kramm, my colleague is a man in whom I have the utmost trust and on whom I rely utterly. He was absolutely essential to my success in the Bank of London case. I'm certain that you can—"

"If it'd be better for me to leave—" John began, rising from his seat.

"I'm certain that you can say before this man anything you wish to say to me," Sherlock finished, shoving John back into the chair with a heavy hand on his shoulder. The visitor seemed to consider this for a moment.

Sherlock smiled his best I'm-losing-my-patience-and-trying-not-to-show-it smile. "It is both or none, I'm afraid."

John tried to keep his features neutral—there was a potential paying client in the room, after all, he should try to look professional—but Sherlock's words made him strangely warm inside and he had to fight to suppress a smile. Friend and colleague? Absolutely essential? Both or none? How many people had Sherlock spoken of like this in his life? John's reason told him that Sherlock was being warmer than usual, politer than usual, because he wanted to ensure the case, but something other than reason—something that came from the same place as the too-familiar pang of worry—made John hope that these weren't outright lies.

Despite himself, John Watson cared that Sherlock cared.

"All right, I suppose that's OK," Chris said after a moment, nodding. "I really do need your help, and your work with the Bank of London really was sensational. The news made it all the way back to the States." He sat himself on the sofa. "Hey, is that a real skull?"

Sherlock put his hands in his pockets. "The sooner you tell me the details of your situation, the sooner I can begin to help you and your company, Mr Chairman."

"OK, well, see, I have—" Chris began. The next moment he stood, a strange look on his face. "Mr Chairman? What are you talking about? I'm—I'm not the chairman of anything, I'm just an employee, you see, I never—"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. Chris paused. He then rolled his eyes, removed the ridiculously-huge glasses from his face, and sat back down, rubbing his eyes with his hands. "Oh, who am I kidding?"

John looked back and forth between the two men. "Um, what just happened?"

Sherlock was beaming. "John, I'd like to introduce you to William Ormstein, President, Chairman, and CEO of EPG, one of the most successful computer programming and consulting firms based in Silicon Valley."

John gaped as Chris—no, William—laughed. "Well, they told me you were the best, and clearly you've got my number. I probably shouldn't have even bothered."

Sherlock nodded. "It's true, I knew who you were before you even walked in the door. I'm sure you thought your personal work email address was vague enough not to give you away, but Doctor Watson and I saw through that very quickly."

John whistled softly. Now, of course, it all made sense—the email address was William Ormstein's initials, the kind of email address only a CEO or other major company executive would or could choose for himself. This also explained the easy way with which the man had assumed the time of his visit—someone with a vast tech fortune was probably used to setting his own terms, even if he meant it in a non-threatening way. But it was one thing to understand it all now, with the man in front of him. To figure it all out sight unseen—John, even after all this time, never failed to be astounded by his flatmate's deductive abilities. What astounded him even more was Sherlock's continued insistence that John had had anything to do with it. He decided to take it as a compliment, smiling to himself as the conversation continued.

"My what?" William said, then realization dawned. "Oh, yes. Funny, that's never given me away before. Most people don't pay attention to that sort of thing."

"That's why most people aren't consulting detectives. Now, Mr Ormstein—"

"Please, call me William."

"William, I am very, very curious to know why an American tech billionaire is seeking the services of a British consulting detective, far from home, under a false name, demanding a face-to-face meeting, and avoiding the attention of the media and the police. Now please, there's no more need for subterfuge."

William sighed. "All right, here goes. Before I started EPG, maybe a decade or so ago, I was a freelance programmer, taking on temp work here and there, trying to make ends meet—god, the rents in the Valley were so—" he paused, and John didn't wonder why, Sherlock's impatience was palpable—"well, anyway, around that time some friends and I, well…we got bored."

Sherlock smirked. John inwardly groaned. The word bored was fast becoming his least favorite in the English lexicon.

"I wrote a virus—a computer virus. It was a thing back then, you know—the ILOVEYOU virus had just swept across the country, national headlines, and all of us, we wanted to see if we could beat it, make a better one. We all gave it a try. Mine," John found that William couldn't surpress a smile, "mine was the best. Would read your browsing history, take screenshots of your most-visited websites and then send infinite copies to your inbox and those of your email contacts."

John's eyes widened, thinking about the potential damage—not to mention embarrassment—such a virus would cause. "Wow, that has a lot of potential to be very…not good."

Sherlock stood at the window, running a hand over the sill. "But you never launched it?"

William looked up. "No, oh jeez, no. It was all about the skill, the programming. Being smart. None of us really wanted to, you know, get in trouble." William swallowed, wringing his hands. "We shared copies with each other, on CD-ROM, tried them out on old, garbage computers on a protected intranet. Just fooling around."

John groaned. "Copies?" He thought he saw where this was going, and it wasn't anywhere good.

William winced, confirming John's suspicions. "A few months went by, we got tired of the game, the news faded from the headlines. About a year or so later we all got together to destroy the CD-ROMs. The programs had never been run on internet-enabled machines, and I could have sworn we'd destroyed all the copies, but—"

"—but one's still out there." Sherlock finished.

William nodded. "Someone's got a copy of my virus, Mr Holmes. Contacted me, showed it to me. And they're threatening to use it."

"He or she."

"What?"

"Someone is a singular noun. The pronoun to match it must also be singular. Not they. He. Or She."

William sighed. "She."

"Name?"

"Irene Adler."

"And who is this Irene Adler to you?"

William blushed. John didn't need to be a consulting detective to get a sense of what was going on. "She wasn't really one of the group, she was so young at the time. She was my—well, we never really—it was kind of, you know, friends with benefits?"

Sherlock sighed. "So how much does she want?"

"That's the thing, Mr. Holmes. She hasn't asked for any money. I even offered to buy her off, but she won't sell."

"Interesting. And if she uses this virus, the damage will be catastrophic."

William nodded. "Exactly. And that's not all."

"Not all?"

William blushed deeper, this time out of shame. "It was part of the game, you see. What good was writing the world's most effective and painful computer virus if no one knew you had done it?"

"Oh, I see. It's got some kind of signature in it."

"An e-signature. Certain patterns in the code, certain nuances of program performance. Anyone with a passing familiarity with programs I'd written would be able to trace it directly back to me."

John shook his head. No wonder this bloke didn't want to go to the police. Sherlock, for his part, kept his features blank. "So, the facts are these. Irene Adler has your computer virus, got it from you on a CD-ROM. If she uses it, and she's threatening to do so, she not only causes millions of pounds of computer damage worldwide, and probably damages some reputations along the way, but you get implicated in the crime because the evidence would suggest you had sent out the virus."

William sighed. "I'd be completely ruined. EPG would be destroyed. Oh, all my employees…" he dropped his head into his hands. John found himself thinking poor sod and then remembered that this poor sod had written a dangerous virus just to show up his friends. Could you think someone a poor sod and a complete tosser at the same time?

Sherlock continued. "I take it Irene is in London or the vicinity, which is why you came to me."

"Yes, she's been living in London for a while. Only contacted me recently though."

"What would have induced her to suddenly reach out, after all those years?"

"I have no idea. Like I said, she hasn't demanded money."

"You're certain of that?"

"Yes. I've offered so, so much, and still no."

"Have you tried taking the disc back from her?"

"You mean, breaking into her home and stealing it?"

His face held indignation, but as Sherlock stared him down, it melted into a surly compliance. "We tried. Twice. Hired men. No luck. We couldn't even find a computer in her flat. We also tried a purse-snatcher, once, in case she was keeping it with her. Still nothing."

Sherlock laughed dryly. "Well, this is a pretty little problem."

William scoffed. "It's a bit more than that to me, and really, to the world if she does what she threatens to do."

"How do you know she hasn't done it yet?"

"Oh, we'd know. Everything with a microchip and an internet connection would be frozen and unusable within hours."

John thought of lifts, hospital equipment, the Ministry of Defense…and then he noticed Sherlock absently stroking his Blackberry. Of course his first thought would be for his text-message-machine.

"You'll be staying in London for the time being, William?"

"Yes, the Hilton at Paddington Station."

"Then we shall contact you there when we have a result."

"Please do. I won't be able to sleep until this is resolved." William stood and turned toward the door.

"And—" Sherlock continued, "—expenses?"

John shot a look at Sherlock, but William just cocked his head to one side and pulled a billfold from the pocket of his jeans. "Here—" he said while counting, "—is $15,000. Sorry it's in American dollars, I didn't have time to hit the exchange on my way. Consider it an advance."

John boggled. That was very close to £10,000—and that was just the advance? Sherlock, unflappable as always, took the bills with his left hand and shook William's hand with his right. "And one more thing, William," Sherlock finished. "You do have Irene's London address, don't you?"

Moments later, Sherlock had the address keyed into his Blackberry contacts and William Ormstein was driving back to his Paddington hotel. John, for his part, was holding an embarrassingly-large stack of American currency and trying to do the math on how many months' rent he held in his hands.

"Well, John, I'd say that was a bit more interesting than crossword puzzles, wouldn't you?" Sherlock said, that big, charming I-have-a-case grin spreading across his cheeks.

John tried to keep his features deadpan. "Well, it's not a good healthy murder, but creative theft, with a side of blackmail and a dash of international high-tech danger will do in a pinch, I suppose." He threw a sideways glance at Sherlock. "Ten thousand quid buys an awful lot of puzzle books, though."

Sherlock stared at him for a beat. Then the detective laughed, placed both hands on the side of John's face, pulled him in and—what in bloody hell—placed a rough kiss on the top of his head before shoving him away and whirling to face the window. "Oh John, I do so love it when you're in top form. Now, all we need to do is—"

"Did you just kiss me?"

"All we need to do—" Sherlock continued, ignoring him, though John couldn't miss a slight rising pinkness in the other man's cheeks, "is visit this address and see what we can learn, and of course, see if the Yard can be of any help. You never know, they could surprise us."

"Did you just—"

"John. I need you to go to the Yard, talk to Lestrade, ask about Irene Adler." Sherlock crossed the room in two strides and threw John his coat.

"Wait, Sherlock."

"No waiting! You go! I need to get to Adler's address." Sherlock was shoving him out the door, with all his usual haste and a little bit extra besides.

"No, Sherlock, wait a tic, for heaven's sake!"

Sherlock did, in fact, pause for a moment. He caught John's eye and something seemed to soften, just a bit, in his expression. John thought he saw a hint of something like fear—something that brought to mind laser sights and Semtex vests—but it was gone in a heartbeat. "John, I'm sure you've noticed my tendency to get rather excited when in the midst of my practice. I assure you, I had no intention of bruising your frankly alarmingly-fragile male ego, and it won't happen agai—"

"No no, Sherlock, forget it," John waved away Sherlock's train of thought. "You go mental when you're on a scent, it's good, it's all fine. What I meant to say—"

"We're good then?"

"What. I. Meant. To. Say. Was. If this Irene Adler wanted some kind of revenge, she'd have used the virus by now. If she wanted William's money, she could have had it. So, what on earth does she want?"

Sherlock's expression was strange, difficult to read. "I think once we know a little more about Miss Adler, we'll get to understanding her motives." He trailed off. "Where did I leave my mobile?"

"Next to the skull, I think. Shall I off to the currency exchange, then?"

Sherlock nodded, his back to John. John shrugged, checked his pockets to make sure the money was safely stowed, and started down the stairs. The prospect of ten thousand quid was quite pressingly on his mind. For ten thousand quid, Sherlock can kiss me as much as he wants, he thought with a smile.