Isabel saw John reaching the house and called out to him. "John, wait!" John saw her and helped her with the bags she had been carrying.
"Did you get everything you needed?"
"Except the five cabbage head that Sherlock wanted. I have no idea what he wanted them for, but he will not be able to do it in the house. Not while I'm around." Isabel smiled up to John.
"Thank God I'm leaving him behind with someone with a good head on her shoulders," he said laughing at her. They walked into their house laughing thinking about old times when they both had been able to stop Sherlock from exploding the house. Also about the few times they weren't able to stop the explosion from happening. Isabel entered her home for a minute thinking that she had looked at herself in a mirror. That's when she heard it.
"Hold the door. Thanks doctor."
Leaving the bags in the kitchens both Isabel and John turned with a nut in their stomach. They met Sherlock half way toward the office.
"Sherlock what are you doing?"
"Nothing."
"Is that a false…"
"Nose, no."
"Tell me that wasn't …"
"It wasn't."
And with that Sherlock jumped out a window. Another crash then he called out. "Watson, Isabel." She on her part had enough. With a sense of satisfaction she closed the window and locked it then walked up into her husband's office with John behind her laughing as they enter the office.
As Sherlock washed his face in a basin as Isabel sat next to John who was reading the paper with a smug look on his face.
"Look at you two she is here no more than fifteen minutes and she has you both in a twist already."
"Allow me to explain," said Sherlock as he turned toward his companions.
"Yes please," the tone alone should have been a warning to Sherlock, but the look that she sends his way meant one thing and one ting only; she was mad.
"She entered without my knowledge. I was asleep."
"Yes because you don't jump half a mile every time I enter a room you had been sleeping in."
"That's because I'm always waiting for you to come back. Her not so much."
"Yeah because she was here for just a few minutes. I wonder what she did while you were asleep."
"Listen to me, nothing happen she just made me a picnic."
John could see Isabel's face turning red. That was the problem with Sherlock. Ask him to lie his way out of a life or death situation he's out of it in less than a minute. Ask him to talk his wife out of a fit of rage; he would probably make it worse with three words. That's why John decided to intervene.
"What's she after, anyway?"
"Now it's time to press on."
"Go on. I won't interrupt."
"It doesn't matter –"
"What could she possibly need? An alibi, a beard, a human canoe. She can sit on your back and paddle you up the Thames..."
"John please," Isabel implore John.
"Sorry Isi...I already read it," called out John to Sherlock after apologizing to Isabel. Sherlock had been trying to take the envelope back. "Luke Reordon, four foot ten, red hair, missing two front teeth. Case solve!" John said once again going back to his paper. "Your sister has a weird taste. She likes ginger dwarfs." He said back to Isabel.
"Midget!" called out Sherlock.
"So you agree?"
"No, I don't agree. It's more than a technicality. You're misrepresenting the dimensions of foreshortened people."
"I don't think she's interested in him in that way John," said Isabel who had calmed down more by hearing the whole story. "Unless he has two times the money the last one did. It's the only way she would be interested in him." Both Sherlock and John looked at her questioning. "It's the missing front teeth. She could get over the whole midget height thing, but not the missing teeth."
Sherlock Holmes strummed one more chord on his violin, thinking.
"This man intrigues me, Watson. He's got Adler on edge," said Sherlock taking his wife in his arms.
"Which is no mean feat."
"She's intimidated, scared..."
"And yet she works for him. That's bad money. It's nothing to do with me, but leave this case."
"Well, I may not have a choice. A man has to make a living." Sherlock looked at Isabel thinking of everything that had to be done now that John was leaving. "After all, I'll be paying the rent entirely on my own. Thanks to you," said Sherlock pointing at John.
"Get that out of my face."
"It's not on your face is in my hand."
"Get what's in your hand out of my face."
Lowering Sherlock's hand trying to maintain peace Isabel sat back into her husband. She didn't want to bring Irene back into their lives. The last time she had talk to Irene they had a fight were Irene told her she had to choose between Irene and Sherlock. The problem was Isabel was smart, really smart; it was one of the things she shared with Sherlock and Irene. Yet she was not a bad person. Yes she knew how to fight, but how things were these day the woman who didn't know how to defend herself was in big trouble. Of course she had stolen some things trough out her life. Yet she did not like to actually steel anything. Through the years she had done what was necessary to survive. Irene on the other hand like what she did, she truly live for the moment of the next job. So when the time came it wasn't too hard to walk away from a life of crime and into the arms of a great man. Her thoughts were interrupted by Sherlock.
"Clarky!"
"Mister Holmes, sir...? Inspector Lestrade asks that you come with me, at once."
"What's he done now, lost his way to Scotland Yard? Watson, grab a compass. You mean us." Sherlock said smiling at his friend.
"Us means you."
"It's Lord Blackwood, sir. It appears he's come back from the dead," said Constable Clark. Isabel likes Clark he was a sensible man and of all the officers in the Yard he was the one that respected her husband the most. Yet even she took on a look of skepticism when she heard Clark's words.
"Well that's clever seeing as how I pronounced him dead myself." John was offended, who dared tell a doctor that he didn't know what he was talking about. Sherlock on the other hand had lean forward to the point she almost fell from his lap.
"What are the facts?" asked Sherlock.
"A grounds man saw him walking through the graves, just this morning," responded Clarkie. Isabel could see the fear in his face.
"I'll leave this one in your capable hands," John said getting up and patting his friend on his knees. "I have an appointment with Mary and her parents this evening."
Isabel could see it coming; she knew John had walked into the trap all by himself. "It is not my reputation at stake here."
"Don't try that."
"Have the papers caught wind of this yet?"
"That's what we are trying to avoid sir."
"Certainly. What is the main concern?"
"Panic, cheer bloody panic, sir."
"Indeed."
"You are not taking this seriously are you Holmes?"
"Yes as you should," said Sherlock standing up making sure Isabel was steady with a hand on her back. "This is a matter of integrity. No woman wants to marry a doctor who can't tell if a man is dead or not."
Isabel looked at John. They both knew what Sherlock was trying to do. They also knew that it was working.
It seemed every man from Scotland Yard was at the cemetery. The three companions got out of the cab behind Clark. As they walked up to the crime scene they all looked around.
"Who do you think won the match Clarkie?"
"Sir?"
"The rugby match. Your boys have done a magnificent job at obliterating evidence."
"But at least they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."
As they walked up to the crypt they hear a voice from within.
"You took your time Holmes."
"And on the third day..." said Sherlock in an ominous tone as he walked closer to the opening of the crypt.
"These slabs are sand stones, they are half a pound each and they were blasted from the inside. "
"Lestrade what of the coffin?"
"We are in the process of bringing it up."
"At what stage of the process, contemplative?
Isabel had been looking around at the graveyard. She couldn't see anything amiss. Then again Watson had been right the men from the Yard had destroyed any chance at finding anything useful for the detectives, yet she could see other things. Like a man hiding from everything and everyone.
"Anyhow where is our witness?"
"Over here," Isabel called back to her husband as she walked up to the shivering man. She heard John walking behind her as she approached the man.
"Hello my name is Isabel this is Doctor Watson," she said as John started to check the man.
"He is in shock he is going to need a few minutes."
"It's alright John go to Sherlock I will stay with him."
"The witness stated that he saw Lord Blackwood rise from the grave. Well? You pronounced the man dead."
"He had no pulse." John was stressed. Isabel knew John loves being a doctor and having his reputation question was actually insulting.
That's when Isabel saw it. Finally the officers had brought up the coffin. She walked back to Sherlock as John and Lestrade used crowbars to open it. The coffin was filled with earth, to a point of overflowing. There was also a dead body in it. The body was a man smaller than Blackwood in cheap everyday clothes, with red hair
"That's not Blackwood," said Lestrade in an obvious voice.
Sherlock look almost pained at his words. "Now that we have a firm grasp of the obvious... Time of death?"
Isabel usually didn't have anything to do with the bodies so she stepped back and watch her talented husband and friend working.
"Lividity is late stage. Diptera deposits are approximately - three quarters of an inch, putting the time of death at ten to twelve hours ago."
"Inspector, may I see your pen?" After wiping the pen of Sherlock used it to pry open the corpse's mouth, revealing: two missing teeth in the man's jaw. Now this was interesting for Isabel.
"Missing two incisors in the upper jaw..." she said looking at her two companions.
"Adler's dwarf."
"Midget."
Isabel knew her husband. After the whole mishap at the beginning of their relationship, Sherlock had romance her trying to make everyday an adventure. Then one day he tried a magic trick. It wasn't much just a trick of the eyes but she had been train to detect those kind of thing in others and how to make sure others didn't notice them on her. Back then on their date she had laugh and clap asking how he had done it, trying to make sure he didn't notice she knew the trick. To these day he didn't know she figure out the trick while he was doing it. Just like at that moment when with just a trick of the hand he had taken a pocket watch from the dead man.
"I know what I saw. It was Blackwood. As clear as I see you. And when the dead walk, the living will fill these coffins."
Standing up Sherlock took his wife arm in his and with John they walked away from the scene.
"You didn't really think his back from the dead."
"The question is not if but how. The games afoot."
"Follow your spirit, and upon this charge," both men said together. "Cry for Harry, England and Saint George.