This is in answer to a request to describe a typical evening in 221B Baker Street. Thanks for all the reviews and suggestions! I welcome more input into this series of stories.
000
She followed her friend with much trepidation, unsure of her welcome here. She was with Mary, but this was, after all, not Mary's flat. It was Sherlock's. The fact that Mary was staying here temporarily did not automatically give her the right to bring just anyone into Sherlock's realm, did it?
"Hullo, Sweetheart," Mary greeted the back of a curly head bowed over a microscope at the kitchen table. A grunt barely acknowledged her entrance. "I've brought Molly home to dinner," she continued, unfazed.
"Hello, Molly," he intoned without looking up, and Molly felt flattered that he had actually spoken to her rather than grunting again. Then he held out an expectant hand. "Mary, I'll have my lock picks back now."
Mary dimpled. "Will you?" she chirped cheekily.
Now Sherlock looked up from his work, his face stormy. "You stole them," he accused crossly.
"And you told me I should practice my pick-pocketing," Mary reminded him unrepentantly.
"I didn't mean for you to pick-pocket ME," Sherlock complained, but without heat, as he turned back to his slides. "I meant for you to pick-pocket Lestrade. I was on a case today. What if I'd needed those?"
Mary snorted unsympathetically. "You were on an embezzlement case. I, on the other hand, was house-breaking. So who needed the lock picks more, I ask you?"
Sherlock now turned his entire attention upon her, his face changing from annoyance to delight in an instant. "Were you, now? And I understand you also stole John's handgun this morning. Turning to a life of crime, are you?"
"In two days' time, John's endowing me with all his worldly goods. I just sort of. . . . "
"Jumped the gun?" Molly suggested, feeling unexpectedly impish. The girls giggled together, while Sherlock rolled his eyes.
"Molly and I did a bit of sleuthing today," Mary informed Sherlock when she had caught her breath. "I suspected one of my patients had been poisoned, but I had no proof. We had to break into her house to find some evidence. Then Molly came up with the idea of strychnine in eye drops, and there it was! Greg's looking into it as we speak."
Sherlock looked at Molly as if truly noticing her presence in the room for the first time. "Creative deduction, Molly," he approved, filling Molly with warmth. "You two show some promise, for amateurs." Then he added, with his hand out again, "I'll still have my lock picks back, Mary."
Smiling, she dropped the leather wallet holding the lock picks into his hand. "They work like a dream," she noted. "I knew you wouldn't mind my borrowing them for a worthy cause." He chose to ignore her impudence, turning back to his microscope.
Mary smirked at him, then turned to Molly. "I'm running John's you-know-what upstairs to put it away. I'll be right back." Before Molly could object, her friend had trotted up the stairs to John bedroom, leaving her alone with Sherlock.
Molly sighed nervously, wishing she could be more like Mary. Mary wasn't nervous around Sherlock at all. Oddly, Mary talked to Sherlock as if he were just anybody. Unlike most people, John's fiancée was not intimidated by the detective at all. His superior intellect and penetrating gaze did not overawe her. Most of the time, she looked as if she were laughing at him; not in a cruel way, but the way one laughs fondly at a toddler who is trying something new and muffing the job.
"What. . . . what are you working on?" Molly stuttered, trying to start conversation.
"A case," Sherlock muttered impatiently.
Molly knew that at this point Mary would scold Sherlock for being rude. But Molly could not bring herself to scold. She looked at the floor, flushed and disconcerted. "Can I . . . help?" she asked at last, expecting him to reply that she could help best by shutting up. Instead, he looked at her curiously and said, "You could prepare the next slide if you like."
He explained briefly what he was doing, and by the time the now unarmed Mary skipped back downstairs, the two of them were absorbed in the work. Molly looked up and smiled gratefully at her friend, who winked at her and grinned broadly.
Mary started a fire in the fireplace, then put the kettle on and brewed a pot of tea. And Molly was in heaven. Evening in the Baker Street flat was just as she had always imagined: cosy and warm and interesting.
The street door opened and slammed shut, and John's voice carried up the stairs. "Mrs. Hudson! I've bought food enough for an army. Come upstairs and eat with us!"
"My sweet boy! You're so thoughtful," was Mrs. Hudson's muffled reply through her door. "I'll be up in a moment, dear." John trudged up the steps, the scent of various Chinese dishes wafting before him.
Molly noted that Mary did not even attempt to clear a space on the kitchen table, but just picked up the few items that cluttered the coffee table and set them aside on the floor so that John could put his many fragrant packages upon it. Once his arms were empty, Mary exuberantly filled them again with herself.
"You're looking so much better, Captain," she noted happily. "Fresh air did you good, did it?"
"And having a bit of exercise," he agreed. "I've had my fill of rest, I believe. How was your day?"
"Mary and Molly have been committing crimes together all day," Sherlock noted dryly.
"Well, as long as it keeps them out of trouble," John smiled. "Some women spend their days off running up debt on their credit cards or spreading gossip about the neighbours."
Mary began pulling plates and cups and saucers out of the kitchen cupboards and piling them on the coffee table as she explained in some detail how she and Molly had conducted their private investigation that day. Then Mrs. Hudson appeared and she and John unpacked the food from the bags and stuck serving spoons into the cartons.
Mary carried the tea tray into the lounge and set in on the desk. "Come on, you two, stop slaving over the slides and be sociable," she called. It took Molly a second to realize that she was one of the 'you two' Mary was talking about. Again she felt that warmth spread over her; Mary had paired her with Sherlock, as if they were . . . a pair. Molly rose and moved onto the sofa beside Mrs. Hudson. John was in his accustomed armchair, poking at the fire. She felt as if she were in a dream, sitting in Sherlock's flat having dinner just like a normal person dining with family. Well, perhaps not quite normal: a skull grinned down at her from the mantelpiece, beside a knife that skewered a pile of bills; books were stacked precariously on nearly every flat surface; a mannequin was hanging from the ceiling by a noose; and of course, the kitchen table was covered with toxic chemicals in vials and microscope slides. Still, it felt quite homelike to Molly.
"Come along, Sweetheart," Mary insisted, walking over to where Sherlock remained stubbornly gazing into his microscope. "You need to eat a proper meal."
"I'm not hungry," Sherlock informed her firmly.
"I'm not at all surprised," Mary replied pleasantly, "after that stunt you pulled yesterday. I imagine you have a bit of a tummy-ache, don't you?" She turned to Molly and explained, "Mrs. Hudson and I made my wedding cake yesterday evening. I mixed up a lovely buttercream icing, then went downstairs to get the layers out of Mrs. Hudson's oven. By the time I came back up, half the icing was gone!"
"You exaggerate," Sherlock objected, and Mary sniggered.
"He tried to tell me it wasn't him that ate it, all the while smelling quite suspiciously of buttercream," she chortled fondly. She patted Sherlock's head and coaxed, "Come on, now, Sweetheart, you need some real food today to offset all that sugar." Grumbling, Sherlock left the table and threw himself into his armchair.
Molly was quite taken aback. Not only had someone dared to pat Sherlock Holmes on the head and call him by an endearing pet name, and he endured it; he had done as he was told, albeit reluctantly. Molly began to wonder if Mary were a witch or a fairy of some kind.
Mary poured out the tea and Mrs. Hudson filled plates as John regaled them with an amusing story about a patient he had once treated who was certain her husband was poisoning her, but as it turned out she was just allergic to strawberries. He told it so well that he soon had the women purple with laughter, and Sherlock rolled his eyes impatiently and suggested that the husband had known of the allergy and had been feeding her strawberries on purpose.
"Quite possibly," John said agreeably. "To be honest, the woman was such a harridan, I would have been sorely tempted to poison her myself."
As he was talking there had been a knock on the street door, and Lestrade, file folder in hand, let himself in and was coming up the stairs just as John finished speaking. "Sorry to interrupt your dinner," he began as he came into the room.
"Pull up a chair, Greg, and join us," John offered. "There's plenty."
"I'll get you a plate," Mary told him, bustling back into the kitchen.
"Don't mind if I do." Lestrade seated himself at the desk after greeting all present. "Mary, your anonymous tipster knew what's what, all right. I only just mentioned eye drops, and the mother-in-law spilled the beans almost immediately. Although, from what the family all said, I almost couldn't blame her for doing away with the victim. What was that word I heard you use as I came in, John? Harridan? That describes her exactly, from what they tell me." He accepted his filled plate from Mrs. Hudson with a polite thank-you.
Mary looked at Molly with a seriously. "Perhaps we should have left things well-enough alone," she suggested.
Lestrade looked from one young woman to the other. "Molly, do I have the honour of addressing 'Ms. Anonymous'?" he asked with amusement, and she coloured with embarrassment.
"Not that I know what you're talking about, but if I did, It would certainly have been Mary's idea to investigate, not mine," she demurred.
"If I knew what he was talking about, it might have been my patient and my suspicions, but it would have been your deductive reasoning that showed us the answer," Mary said firmly. "If, in fact, we knew anything about this case at all."
"And I don't even want to know how you might have confirmed your suspicions, if, in fact, you had been involved; and fortunately, I have no proof that you were," Lestrade said hastily with upraised hands. "I didn't notice any obvious signs of a break-in, mind you, so I have no reason to believe anyone did anything illegal today. But there were two unsavory-looking characters reported hanging around the bus stop in the St. John's Wood area today."
Mary snorted with laughter. "That's funny. We were in that area for quite some time today, and I didn't notice any unsavoury characters about."
Lestrade smiled at her fondly. "Well, good. I'm glad to hear it," he chuckled. "We'll just have to be thankful for anonymous, civic-minded do-gooders."
As they were speaking, Sherlock had been looking through the file Lestrade had brought. Now he spoke up. "It wasn't the mother-in-law. It was the husband," he announced.
Lestrade looked at him, all seriousness now. "Are you sure? How do you know?"
Sherlock pointed out several discrepancies in the woman's confession, and Lestrade nodded. "You're probably right. She's covering up for her son. I'll get my team on it tomorrow. Thanks."
"You might have them look into a rash of petty theft that has been occurring in Baker Street lately," John suggested seriously. "Oddly, it started about the time Mary moved in."
"Don't even bother," Sherlock said observed wryly. "Lestrade would look the other way if Mary were discovered to be the next Jack the Ripper."
"That's Jill the Ripper to you, Sweetheart," Mary twinkled at him.
It was a typical evening at 221B Baker Street. Chinese food was consumed. Experiments were performed. A crime was solved.
Molly was indescribably happy to be included in it all.