Sherlock watched John frantically punching buttons on his phone from the corner of his eye as he studied the fresh black paint covering his wall full of clues. There was no way to get them back, no way to remove the paint covering them.
He wanted to blame John, for wandering off and leaving them unprotected, but he had a feeling now would be a bad time, though he wasn't exactly sure what had John so upset. No, it was time to focus on the essentials, not passing unnecessary blame. John had been wrong, of course, but he had no doubt done what he thought was best. What was important now was to try to reclaim whatever they could of the clues.
"John."
John barely glanced up from his phone. "What is it, Sherlock?"
"I need you to concentrate," Sherlock said, taking three long strides over to where his flatmate stood.
"Not now, Sherlock," John said, but Sherlock ignored him and put both hands on his shoulders and spun him around, focusing on his face, striving to capture his full attention. "What are you doing?"
"I need you to focus on your visual memory, John. You saw the clues, that means you can remember them." John struggled to get away, but Sherlock held tight (mindful of the scar tissue on John's left shoulder). "Just close your eyes, John."
"What? No!" John wrenched himself away, clutching at his phone. "I don't care about your clues right now, Sherlock. I'm more interested to know where my son is."
"Your … what do you mean?"
"Christ, don't you listen to anything? Ian, Sherlock. I left him here with Raz, and now not only are the clues painted over which I could care less about except for the fact that it proves someone was here, because now neither is my son, and forgive me, but I think Ian's safety is a little more important!"
Even as this information sank in, Sherlock was scanning the area. "Where did you last see them?"
"Right over there," said John, pointing briefly before letting his arm fall to his side. "Jesus, this is all my fault … and yours!"
"Mine?" Sherlock asked, raising one eyebrow but refraining from saying more since John appeared to be in a fragile emotional state.
"Yes, yours. If you had bothered to answer your bloody phone when I called, I wouldn't have had to leave your precious clues and my more precious son to come find you!"
Sherlock blinked. Had John tried to call him? Surely he would have heard his phone if it had rang, he thought, as he pulled it out of his pocket. There must be some … oh. No mistake. It said right there, three missed calls, right next to a string of texts from John saying he'd found them, why wasn't he answering, was he all right?
He ran his torchlight along the wall, looking for signs of struggle, but saw nothing but traces of footprints braced in front of the wall, balanced for even spray-painting. Playing it out into a wider arc, he could see where Ian had stood, trainers making clear imprints, next to the more smudged ones nearby—belonging to Raz, whose shoes had more wear.
He was just turning his head to call to John, telling him he'd found a trail, when a shout came from up ahead.
"Dad?"
"Ian?" And then John was standing next to Sherlock, practically quivering with the effort not to run over and hug his son (a rule for "public" upon which Ian had been most insistent). Apparently there were acceptable occasions, though, because Ian came straight to John and let himself be drawn in for a quick, brusque, manly embrace.
Sherlock looked at Raz, expecting to see scorn on his face, but instead there was a glimmer of … jealousy? Envy? But then John and Ian broke apart and John was asking what had happened.
"We were waiting where you told us, Dad," Ian said, "Honest, but then Raz said he heard someone coming and that we had to move."
"Heard?" asked Sherlock, sceptical. They were dealing with a thief light-footed enough to could scale walls. He had a hard time believing he would walk heavily enough to be heard.
Raz was nodding, though. "Yeah, or saw, or something. Like … instinct, you know? There was a shadow moving over there, and it just gave me a bad feeling, and since I told the doc I'd watch after the kid, here…"
"Hey!"
Raz ignored Ian and kept talking, staring at the black wall, now. "I figured it was better to get outta the way. Sticking around just didn't feel right and, looks like it was the right thing, yeah? Since the tags are gone?"
"Sadly, yes," said Sherlock, focused again on the lost clues now that he knew Ian was safe.
"So, you two hid, then?" asked John. "Did you see anything?"
Ian shook his head. "Just a … shadow, like Raz said. It must have just been one person, but I didn't see him walk. It was more like … he just moved, like a glide. It was eerie. We didn't stick around to watch."
"Good choice," said John, his hand on Ian's shoulder.
"Yes, yes, very prudent," said Sherlock, "But what are we going to do about these lost clues?"
"That's not a problem, Sherlock," John told him.
"Not a problem? John, the entire case could hinge on those numbers."
To Sherlock's surprise, John was nodding, attention again focused on his mobile. "I know. That's why I took a picture. See?"
And, grinning, he held up the phone to show the photograph while Ian and Raz laughed.
Sherlock sighed. Sometimes he was surrounded by children.
#
"No, Sherlock."
"But, John…"
"No." John was firm. "You're not putting the overflow upstairs. You're the one who wanted all these books delivered. If they're not sufficiently spread throughout the sitting room, you may put the extras in your bedroom. You're not stashing them upstairs. Why did you want them all, again?"
"The code, John. The numbers are in pairs, giving the location of each word. All we need to do is find the right book."
"Something both men owned?" Ian asked from the doorway, looking as if the last thing he wanted to do was enter the room.
"Yes," said Sherlock. "Exactly."
"Wouldn't it be faster to just make a list of all the book titles and compare them for books they both had? Instead of searching through all the books?
John glanced at Sherlock. "What do you think? Faster? With three of us? Ian could type the titles into a spreadsheet and then we could compare?"
Sherlock considered a moment, then said, "Then we'd need to go through each box twice, once to record the titles, and then again to weed out the duplicates. The net difference in speed would be minimal."
John sighed and looked at Ian. "I was afraid he was going to say that. You don't need to help, if you don't want to, but you can keep us company. Maybe find enough room for your homework somewhere? Because don't try to tell me you've got it done."
Ian just grinned. "Homework is boring. Murder is interesting."
"Oh God," groaned John. "Two of them."
#
"The circus? I'm not eight, Sherlock."
"What's this?" asked John as he yawned his way across the sitting room to the kitchen. Coffee this morning, he thought. Lots of coffee.
"Simply that I thought we deserved a break," said Sherlock. "This circus is only in town for one performance and it looks too good to miss."
"Too good to … Sherlock, we're in the middle of a case. You don't even eat during a case, and now you're taking time off for a circus?"
"All knowledge gathering, John," his flatmate said, "It's always useful to know what skills to expect from visitors to our shores. Besides, Ian seems bored."
If anything, thought John, Ian looked entertained as he listened to the two of them bickering. "Ian," he said, "Needs to get to school. That's why he was lucky enough to get to bed at a decent hour last night, unlike the rest of us. It's a shame to waste it now. Go. We'll talk about Sherlock's circus idea later."
Dragging his feet, Ian picked up his school bag and slouched toward the doorway. "Just when it gets interesting," he grumbled.
Sherlock just lifted his eyebrows. "You find this interesting? I would have thought the chase through the dark last night with a murderer would have been the interesting part of the last 24 hours. Not a mundane conversation at breakfast about a circus."
"Please don't remind me of the murderer out in the dark near my son, Sherlock," John said, as he waved Ian out the door. "I'd really rather not think about that." Because, truly, those moments of not knowing where he'd been when the killer had been close enough to paint over the clues … he didn't want to think about it.
"Of course, John." To his surprise, Sherlock actually looked abashed. "I'm actually surprised to see you up so early."
"I needed to make sure Ian got off to school, didn't I?"
"What? I was awake."
"Yeah, but you were busy arguing about the circus instead of making sure he actually left on time," John said, "And what's with this circus, anyway? What makes it important?"
"I told you, I thought Ian would enjoy…"
"Don't give me that," said John, cutting him off. "What's the real motive?" He plucked the clipping from Sherlock's hands. "Oh, a Chinese circus. One which has performers that can walk through walls, perhaps?"
"Perhaps," said Sherlock, pulling his dressing gown tighter around him. "The only way to know is to go. And it does seem like something Ian would enjoy."
John groaned. "You know what? I'm going back to bed. I'll eat later."
He walked over to the door and glanced back at his disgruntled flatmate. "After all, if it's going to be another late night, I need at least some sleep."
#
"That was amazing," said Ian. "Totally, absolutely amazing. I've never seen anything like it! And, Chinese! Like the case we've been working on!"
John and Sherlock exchanged amused glances at the boy's enthusiasm. "I thought you were too old for a circus," John said.
"Well, yeah, but … this wasn't an ordinary circus, was it? And that crossbow thing? That was so cool! I would have loved to get a closer look at it, but…"
"Sherlock got into trouble," John finished for him. "Typical."
"John, I'm offended. I'd hardly count my little contretemps as being 'trouble,' after all."
"You were wrestling with an acrobatic murderer in the middle of a circus performance, Sherlock. If it weren't for Ian here, you'd have been throttled. And you," he said to Ian, "Don't do that again. No taking on assassins. My heart can't take it."
Ian snorted. "Don't be silly, Dad. Your heart can take anything. You're a Brandon, aren't you? We can trace back to Lionheart himself."
John reached forward and gave his son a little tap on the shoulder, "Don't push it, kid."
"Why do you have different surnames? I thought Ian used his mother's name, but that's Morstan," Sherlock blurted out, looking almost relieved that he finally had an opening to ask the question.
"No, Ian gets his name from me," said John, "I just use my mother's name professionally, ever since I started studying medicine. My full name, though, is John Hamish Watson Brandon. Simple."
"But, why would you need to drop your surname?" Sherlock asked, just as they reached 221B.
"Too much of a mouthful," John said with a shrug, heading up the stairs after Ian and hoping Sherlock would leave it at that. "Jesus, it's a mess in here. Isn't there something we can do about that?"
"Why'd they have so many books, anyway," grumbled Ian, slouching into the chair at the desk. "Haven't they heard of Kindles? IPads?"
Sherlock looked thoughtful. "That's a good point, actually. Lukis' flat was overflowing with books, but Van Coon's wasn't. His is a much smaller group to sample for the code."
"It looks like you've got some of it, though," said Ian, paging through the papers on the desk.
"What? Where?"
"Right here," he said, pointing to the photo in the evidence bag. "See? Nine Mill."
"I…" Sherlock all but snatched the bag from Ian's hand. "This was from Soo Lin's desk … Of course, she knew the code … and knew the book!" He leapt up and reached for his coat. "John! I'm going back to the museum. Whatever book we need is on Soo Lin's desk. Don't wait up."
John just shook his head as he watched his flatmate dash out the door. "Typical," he said, "He gets a flash of inspiration and runs off and leaves us with the mess. Heaven forbid he just call the museum and ask someone to look at her desk. What do you say we just order some food and leave the books for Sherlock when he gets back?"
"Anything to avoid having to clean these up," Ian said. "You know, I'm kind of the in the mood for Chinese."
"Go get the menu."
#
Sherlock ran back up the stairs. "John! John, I've got the code! It's the London A-Z."
He paused as he realized the living room was empty. The kitchen table had been cleared of books and had three trays laid for food, but where were…? He turned to look at the sitting area again and froze as he saw the slashes of yellow paint on the windows.
Dead.
Man.
Oh, no. John. And Ian. It was only now that he was looking that he realized there were signs of a struggle amidst the clutter. Stupid! How had he missed them! For that matter, how had this happened so fast? He'd only been gone a few minutes, hadn't he? They can't have gone far.
For a moment, he wanted to charge out the door to try to chase them down, but that was illogical. His only hope was to take the code he'd (thankfully) broken and figure out where they had been taken.
If something happened to Ian, John would never forgive him.
Sherlock considered calling Dimmock, but there wasn't time. The explanations would eat too much of what little time he had. Mycroft? His CCTV could be useful for a change … but no, again, there wasn't time. He needed to figure out where they were going, not where they were right now.
He scrabbled at the desk, digging out his detailed London street map and began to search.
#
