A./N. Sooo... here comes part 4. There are 2 more parts to the thing. I strayed a bit from the path in terms of the Culverton Smith character. In the canon he is very different... but I liked to imagine him as a spoiled geeky person (and make him younger than he is in the original). A bit more of surprising detail in here, too, I guess. Hope you like it. Let's go!

I was cursing the third cab that had passed me by with its light on but ignoring my wave as usual, when a familiar car stopped in front of the house.

"How is he?", Greg Lestrade asked as soon as he had turned the motor off and opened the door.

"Ill", I said. "Very ill actually."
He looked at me and for a second I thought there was a pang of sadness in his eyes.

"Donovan was saying something like that. Said Molly had tried to call him bout a corpse this morning and Mrs Hudson had told her he was not well."

I sighed.
"It pretty much looks like he might be dying."

Greg stared at me.

"Are you serious?"

"As serious as I ever was."
"Where are you headed?"

I told him and he nodded.

"I'll give you a lift. Faster than the tube. And you'll be back in no time. Guess you don't want to leave him alone for too long if it's as bad as you say."

I realized he was right. I did not want to leave Sherlock alone for a single second. But I needed to fetch the miracle man from the middle-east. Greg did not talk whilst driving but I noticed he was drumming on the steering wheel at every single red light. He also did not give any consideration to tempo limits and by that arrived at Lower Burke Street – which turned out to be a line of fine houses in the borderland between Notting Hill and Kensington – five minutes early.

The particular house I was looking for had an air of old aristocracy. There were old-fashioned iron railings, a massive folding-door and a lot of shining brass work. A security guard appeared, one of these guys who wear suits but look like they wear armour, asked what I wanted and bade me follow him inside.

He left me to wait in the entrance hall which was huge. The walls were covered with horrible green wallpaper. A dog – a Pekinese or some other over-bred mini-pet which had nothing to do with its noble wolfish ancestors any more – watched me from one of the corners but could not be bothered to say hello.

I could hear the security announce my coming to someone on the upper floor and in the next moment hear Mr Culverton Smith's voice for the first time, a high-pitched over-drawn squeal that was supposed to sound upper-class but only made me cringe as it was a mixture of Perez Hilton and the sound a cat makes when you step onto its tail.

"Who is this person? What does he want? Dear me, how often have I told you I don't want to be disturbed when I am working?"

The guard murmured some explanation but Culverton Smith cut him short.

"Nonsense. I won't see him. I am busy. Tell him to come back tomorrow morning if it's really important. But not before eleven."
Again a murmur.

"Tell him he can come in the morning or he can stay away. I am in the middle of an experiment and can't come down."

I was already clenching my fists. This peacock...

The picture of Sherlock tossing upon his sickbed talking about oysters was still vivid in my mind. He didn't have much time left and I was pretty sure he did not have a whole night. It was not a time for peacocky idiots to be snobbish. Before the security guard returning from the upper floor had opened his mouth, I had run past him and was up the stairs through a door in a white-walled room that looked a lot like the lab in St Bart's and had the thin geeky type who had to be the very person I had come to see tackled to the ground.

"What is this?", he asked with his high-pitched voice, struggling to free himself.

"I am sorry", I said, standing up, casually drawing my revolver, "but the matter cannot and will not be delayed. Sherlock Holmes..."

The mention of the name rather than the drawing of the gun made the guy flinch. The anger faded from his face and made room for something tense and alert.

"Have you come from Holmes?", he asked.

"I have just left him."

"And what is the purpose of your visit?", he asked.

"Sherlock Holmes is terminally ill", I managed to say. "He might be dying and he is convinced you are the only one who can save him."

The door in my back was opened and the security guard joined us. He could not see the pistol and Culverton made no attempt to have me arrested but signalled the intruder everything was okay.

"I find this matter is really demanding my attention right now", he told the guard. "You can walk the dog now."
As soon as the guard had left he motioned to one of the chairs in the room and turned to pull up one for himself. For a second I thought he was grinning but put it down to his nervousness. I lowered the pistol to show him I was not an actual threat and when he looked up again his features showed nothing but genuine concern.

"I am sorry to hear he is unwell", he said. "I only know Mr Holmes through some business dealings we had but I have a lot of respect for his talents. He is an amateur detective just as I am an amateur in biomedicine. For him the villain for me the virus", he continued pointing to a small bottle which held a yellowish fluid. "Powerful treatments for horrible diseases distilled from natures green inhabitants."

"It was on account of that special knowledge of yours that he asked me to fetch you", I explained. "He thinks that you are the only man in London, possibly the only man in the world who could help him."

He frowned.

"Why should he think that I – a man of no medical training – could help him out of his trouble?"
"Because you have a profound knowledge of a certain SARS-related corona virus originally contracted by bats in the middle-east", I responded.

"But why should he have contracted that disease? It is not spreading very easily from human to human and he has not been in the area, where the animals live that carry it."
"He has done some experiments on a new virus, some fusion-product of the bat virus and genuine swine flu."

Culverton Smith smiled and began to fiddle around with a pipette, klicking the throw-off button again and again.

"Oh, so we are talking about the hybrid here", he nodded. "I bet he's not as close to pushing daisies as you think he might be. How long has he been ill?"

"About three days. That's what our landlady tells me. I have not been around for a while. The work..."

"Is he delirious?"

"He talks about the world being invaded by oysters."

He leaned back in his chair and sighed.

"It sounds serious. And it would be inhuman not to answer his call. I really don't like to be interrupted when I am working. But I will make an exception. I will come and see him. I will need to collect a few things, so don't hesitate to go ahead. I bet you don't want to leave your companion alone for too long."

The way he stressed the word companion and the way he winked at me, made my usual retort make its way to my lips. But I did not say it. There was no need to keep telling everyone we were not a couple when nobody seemed to care what I said. I decided to leave Mr Culverton Smith with his false perception and rushed out to get back into the car, back to Baker Street, back to Sherlock.

"Did you convince him to come and have a look at him?", asked Greg before he let me out in front of Speedy's Sandwich Bar. I nodded.

"Good."

He hesitated for a second.

"Call me as soon as you have news... whatever they may be. Okay?"

I nodded in consent, happy to know someone outside of our house was worried too.