The payments were small. It was no job to support yourself on, but they were regular coming every two weeks on a Wednesday. Maddy began to feel almost like a regular person and not a blight on society as the mean security guard had told her when he found her trying to keep warm inside of an abandoned storage shed.
Catherine was nice, and never asked questions about Maddy's sudden disappearances. Sherlock's calls were always unexpected and usually urgent. Once it was a missing child that was being held by a particularly savage killer. Once a lost bag containing a book worth five hundred thousand pounds. Imagine it, that much for one book!
She also began to notice that Sherlock Holmes was somewhat well known. She never bought newspapers, but people left them around, and she was able to see that he was a minor celebrity.
One morning, early she received a text.
[Alert all news Irene Adler sengoifkjaol]
This worried Maddy. The Man in the Coat, that's what she called him in her head even though she knew his name, was always very precise with his instructions. This gibberish was worrying. Maybe he was being strangled and couldn't type properly. Of course that was ludicrous. Who would text while being strangled, and even if he would, he would probably text something like
[Help I'm being strangled] instead of asking about some woman.
Thirty minutes later, a text came saying
[disregard last message]
Maddy looked at her phone. She wanted to ask the man if he was alright, but she knew better. Instead she decided to go to Baker street and look herself.
As Maddy wasn't in central London, she decided to brave the underground. Once, someone had cornered her there, and she had gone off trains ever since. She wedged herself in the corner of the car glaring at everyone with distrust, and wasn't happy until she breathed the surface air again. She hurried down the walkway making it to the front of Speedy's cafe in ten minutes, then she looked up. Nothing odd appeared to be happening.
Then Maddy smelled the food from the cafe. She was considering going in to grab a bite when the door to 221B opened and a man walked out. It wasn't the man in the coat or the short one. This man looked like he had walked directly out of the back cover of a finance magazine. He wore a black pinstriped suit with a red tie, a gold chain hung from his waistcoat pocket, and his dark coat was very fine with a red lining. He stood at the top of the step leaning on an umbrella as he gazed up and down the street.
Maddy stared at him as if he were an alien. It wasn't that she hadn't seen people dressed even finer than he, it was just that he wore the clothes as if he had done so all his life. A child of entitlement born with a silver spoon on his mouth.
Maddy wondered what it would have been like if she had been born rich and stayed that way. If she had never been forced to live on the streets. Despite what Sherlock Holmes said about not being rich, he had certainly been born rich just like this man. If Maman Mildred were alive, she would have called them 'Two posh boys who don't know the price of milk'. Maddy smiled.
A black car pulled up to the door from around the corner where it had been waiting, and the man walked toward it. Just before he stepped in, the man looked her straight in the eye as if he recognized her. Then he turned his gaze to the window above him and Maddy could see that Sherlock Holmes was looking out. He was holding a violin of all things.
Maddy looked back to see the fancy man smiling at her. Then he got into the car and drove away.
A few minutes later, Sherlock Holmes came to the door wearing a white shirt and a red robe. He handed her a message wrapped in a fifty pound note, and then wordlessly closed the door. The note said.
Find out everything you can about the American who was shot at 44 Eaton square. Be careful.
"Be careful?" Maddy looked around nervously deciding to skip the cafe after all. She walked away briskly in search of information and a more comfortable breakfast.