The Warm Up
The cab left Sherlock and John in front of the museum's black iron fence. The lack of tourists and visitors made it obvious that it was closed to the public.
Sally Donovan was guarding the entrance, one hand on the yellow tape. "Look who's here! The freak and his friend."
"Good day, Donovan. I see you're having trouble with the cat sitting, you should really have those scratches looked at." Sherlock said, nodding to the three red lines near her wrist.
"Not your business," Sally said, lifting the yellow tape. She turned to address the uniformed officer to her left. "Sign them in."
"Bet you a tenner that Anderson is on forensics," John said as they headed to the east lawn.
"He is. Donovan doesn't have a friend with a Turkish Angora, but Anderson's neighbor does. He is the one on cat-sitting duty."
"So? That doesn't mean he's here now."
"They had to share the bathroom, taking twice as much time to get ready, so she didn't have time to attend to the scratches."
John rolled his eyes. "Right."
"Sherlock! John!" Lestrade waved at them from the crime scene. "It's good you could make it, we really could use your opinion on this one. Come have a look."
John let out a low whistle. The body had fallen head first from a great height and gray matter and blood decorated the stone floor.
Sherlock went to take a closer look while Lestrade spoke. "Harold Black. He was a janitor here, his supervisor said he was scheduled to work the evening and night shift yesterday. No address or family contacts."
Sherlock snapped his magnifier closed and rejoined them. Lestrade opened his mouth to ask if he got anything from his brief examination of the body when Sherlock grabbed his right forearm and took a look at the wet rim of Lestrade's sleeve before sniffing around the shocked man's hand. "Generic lemon-scented soap."
"Yes, I just washed my hands." Lestrade firmly withdrew his arm.
"The victim smelled too strongly of this for it to be a result of his job. That and the dryness of his skin means that he has been using this cheap soap as shampoo and shower gel."
"He was living here in the museum," John said.
"After that girl you mentioned at in The Blind Banker I guess it's possible to live in a museum without anyone noticing," Lestrade said.
Sherlock barely refrained from rolling his eyes at the reference to John's blog. "Yes, not only he was living here but he spent most of his time drinking going by the state of the soles of his shoes and uniform's stretched buttonholes-"
"It was a suicide," Anderson interrupted, removing the his plastic gloves with a snap. "As you said, he was a poor, drunk, and homeless man that got tired of this life and decided to jump. Look, there are no signs of struggle and the body is too close to the wall. The man wasn't pushed, he jumped. Textbook suicide, Holmes."
"It wasn't suicide. Take your input to someone who doesn't mind being wrong." Sherlock didn't wait to hear the man's reply before turning back to Lestrade. "When can we go up there?"
John followed the detective's gaze to the highest balcony of the nearest tower, the last place the victim stood alive.
Lestrade shrugged. "We can go now, if you like. A forensic team is already up there."
Sherlock only spoke once in the lift, and it was to ask Lestrade about the previous suicides. He was promised a copy of each file. When they arrived to their destination, the place was swarming with techs in blue protective gear.
A young man approached Lestrade. "Sir, we found another body."
Lestrade gaped. "What? My God, where?"
Sherlock wasted no time and was already looking over the stone balustrade. The body of another man was impaled on an iron spike of the Romanesque roof of the main building. He began typing on his phone while walking to the opposite side of the balcony, glancing at Harold Black's body below and a glaring Anderson. "I've seen enough. Let's go, John. We still have to talk to Sam Dawson."
Sherlock listed his observations in the lift. "According to the museum's website, that man on the roof was Vincent Ward, an exhibition curator. No one has noticed his absence so he has been dead approximately the same amount of time as the janitor, Mr. Black."
"Okay."
"Now, Black was wearing a small radio and earphones when he fell. The radio was still functioning after the fall but it was on mute-"
"So he heard something before he fell and he turned down the volume to listen better."
"Very likely. He also had a waxy substance on the soles of his shoes– he wanted to keep his footsteps silent, and on this floor the easiest way to do so is to coat one's shoes in wax. Think about it, John. A janitor is the perfect position to go unnoticed here, especially if people think he can't hear anything with earphones on."
"So he liked to sneak up on people?"
"No. He liked to eavesdrop. He listened to other people's conversations all the time."
"And then he listened to one that got him killed."
"Exactly."
/
"You'll think I'm crazy, but things move overnight, and sometimes there are strange noises coming from the halls." Sam Dawson turned out to be an overweight, fidgety security guard in his mid-thirties, who with little prompting took John and Sherlock to the place he had seen the strange occurrences. "This is The Vault. And this is Vince's exhibition-"
"Was," Sherlock said.
"Yes, he fell victim to the diamond's curse." Sam bowed his head. "That damned rock is here in The Vault. It was part of Vince's exhibition."
"Here it is, The Black Orlov." Sherlock's nose almost touched the reinforced glass that contained the black diamond. After a few minutes, he straightened and said, "What things in this room have moved overnight?"
Sam pointed out a bench on the corner of the room that moved about 20 centimeters to the left, and a couple ornamental vases in other corners of the room, all moving a few centimeters away from the nearest columns by night but back in their corners by morning.
Sherlock moved quickly around the room, trying to see exactly what Sam saw during his nightly rounds. "I have everything I need. Let's go back to Lestrade."
/
Sherlock moved around the balcony with pictures of the previous crime scene in his hand while John, Lestrade, Sam, and the Museum director, Walsh, looked on. There had been two bodies; a young woman, Katy Astor, and a young man, Josh Morgan, roughly in the same spot where the janitor lay dead now. He noticed the discoloration on Ms. Astor's ring finger and her high heels, which were under Morgan's body. He was wearing a black track suit with sneakers.
"So... have you got a theory?" Lestrade was the first to break the silence. All eyes were on Sherlock as he moved to the balustrade and looked down again at what were now three overlaid chalk silhouettes.
"No, not a theory." Sherlock handed the pictures back to Lestrade and took out his torch. "I know what happened. John, come here."
"What happened then, Mr. Holmes?" Sherlock's proximity to the ledge was making Walsh nervous.
His heart almost stopped when Sherlock said, "John, hold my legs."
John gaped. "Wha-?"
Then Sherlock let himself fall head first, torch in hand, off the edge of the balcony.
John leaped forward to wrap his arms around Sherlock's legs. The sudden impact with the balustrade knocked the air out of him but his grip was firm enough to stop them from free falling into Anderson's shaking arms five stories down. With Lestrade's help they held Sherlock's weight over the balustrade.
"Found it! You can pull me up now, John." Sherlock said calmly.
"I should just let you fall. You almost gave me a heart attack, you idiot!" John and Lestrade manhandled Sherlock to safety.
"I'm too old for this, mate! Never do that again." Lestrade leaned against the wall and wiped his brow.
"Here's what happened." Sherlock ignored them and began shaking the terracotta dust off his Belstaff. "Everything began and ended with a gem, just not the one everyone is thinking. It wasn't about the Black Orlov, it was about this one." Sherlock held up the ring he had just retrieved from the intricate façade beneath the balcony.
Lestrade whistled. "That is one huge rock."
"How much is it worth?" said Walsh, groping his pockets for his glasses.
Sherlock showed them a picture of the ring on his phone. "A few million. It was stolen from a museum in the Hague in 2002." Sherlock carelessly tossed the ring to Lestrade, who fumbled and caught it.
"But how did it get here?" said John.
"Josh Morgan, the second victim, stole it back in 2002. He was a talented thief and a romantic man. Ms. Astor, the first victim, was his fiancée and that was her engagement ring."
"Who gives a stolen diamond worth millions as an engagement ring?" John said.
"Lucky girl," Lestrade muttered.
"I guess that's why he was so angry when she dumped him, on this same balcony, two days ago."
"So the lad killed her?"
"Correct, Detective Inspector. He pushed her and she couldn't keep her balance in those high heels, so she fell to her death. She was murdered."
"And she took her fiancé down with her?" John said.
"No. During their row, she removed the engagement ring and extended her arm over the balcony, then opened her hand and let it fall. After he pushed her, he leaned over to see if she was dead-"
"And he saw the ring stuck down there. It was close enough to try to reach for it, " said John.
"Correct. But Morgan was too short to reach it and too stubborn to give up, so he lost his balance and fell as well."
"So, one murder and one accident. What about the Janitor?" said Lestrade.
"The janitor was a clever eavesdropper. One of the most entertaining conversations to someone of such a nosy disposition is a couple fighting. So he followed them up here that night, saw the fight but more importantly, when he went to investigate after Morgan's fall, he saw the ring as well, but he had already called the police-"
"So he waited until we cleared the crime scene before trying to reach for the ring himself."
"You're catching up, Lestrade. Yes, he waited until last night to try to reach for the ring."
"But Harold was tall, he didn't lose his balance like Josh, did he?" said Walsh.
"The problem was not his height but his shoes. He used wax on his soles to silence his footsteps. The slippery soles and a fright caused him to lose his balance and fall as well. Another accident."
"What about Vince? And what about the things moving overnight?" Sam said.
"Yes, what about Vince the curator? He couldn't have been trying to get the ring, he was found on the opposite side of the tower." Sherlock stood straighter with both hands behind his back before addressing Sam. "The strange noises and moving objects was Morgan. As I said, he was a thief preparing his next heist. At night, he moved the benches and vases to make space for a stepladder under the cameras and motion sensors in order to tamper with them."
"So when Vince found out Morgan was going to rob his exhibition, he confronted him and... Morgan killed him?" Sam's voice broke.
"Morgan died two days before Vince." John said.
"Vince's death was an accident. He was under the influence of some substance, and he tripped and fell. The noise frightened our dead janitor, causing his fatal slip. The exact substance should appear in the toxicology report."
John recognized that as Sherlock's farewell and followed his friend to the lift. They were waiting for it to arrive when Walsh rounded the corner in a hurry.
"You said Morgan was going to rob this museum, what was he trying to steal?"
"Oh, your former security guard was going to steal the Black Orlov." Said Sherlock as he and John stepped into the lift. "Too bad someone beat him to it." Sherlock smirked and pressed thebutton.
"What do you mean?" gasped Walsh.
"The diamond you have on display is a fake."
/
Alice pressed down on the latex, trying to feel her cheekbones under it. She opened and closed her mouth while scrunching her nose, pleased that her range of facial expressions was not hindered by the make-up. Even under the dresser's bright lights, the prosthetics' edges were completely invisible. She raised the white bathrobe's sleeve to scrub the inside of her left forearm with her thumb. No matter how hard she tried, the paint didn't even smudge. She leaned back in her chair and let her gaze wander over the blank wall before closing her eyes. She wanted time to focus and get used to her new identity.
She heard the door open and the room fall into a tense silence. She opened her eyes to see Jim dismissing the makeup artists with a wave of his hand. As usual, Sebastian stayed by the door, his muscular frame blocking the exit. Only the three of them remained in the room.
Jim stood behind the chair and placed his cold hands on her shoulders. "Let's take a look at you, puppy." He took a lock of her just dyed blond hair and began playing with it, moving it between his fingers, staring at its new golden color. He abruptly dropped it and turned her chair to face him.
"What do you think, Jim?" Alice looked up at him and rested her hands on her lap, a confident smile on the edge of her lips.
"They changed your nose and your chin has a rounder look." He cupped her cheek, his thumb moving softly over it. "I liked your sharp cheekbones better, and your skin now has a perpetually innocent blush." His tone was soft and gentle, but she knew one of his explosions was coming. His comments started to come faster. "Look at you– flowing blonde hair, big blue eyes, round face, you look like-"
Alice could see his heartbeat in the vein on his forehead and the chair creaked under his grip. She had to stop the explosion before it happened. "I am not on the side of the angels, Jim," she said, raising her new, round chin. "I am your Planner, I am on your side." She placed her hand on top of his.
"Yes." He placed his hands around her head and leaned over to place a soft kiss on her forehead. "You are my puppy."
Alice nodded. "This is all liquid latex and makeup, it's not permanent. I need this for the plan, Jim."
"At least they didn't make you look like a whore."
"This look has been carefully designed with a specific purpose in mind," she said defensively, pointing towards a computer generated picture tucked in the mirror's corner that the make-up artists were instructed to use for reference. She didn't like her new appearance either, but defeating Sherlock was more important than her feelings.
"Yes, I read the overview of your plan and I have to say–" A wicked smirk appeared on Jim's face as he gave her chair a sharp tug so she faced the mirror again. "Watching you place the apple of discord between Sherlock and his dear doctor is going to be simply delightful. I can't wait to read the full report." Leaning over her he placed another kiss on top of her head. "I knew you had it in you, Puppy."
Alice closed her eyes for a couple of seconds to enjoy warmth the small gesture brought, but quickly shove it away. She shouldn't be craving his attention. She cleared her throat to compose herself. "My game with Sherlock Holmes begins in a few hours and I still need to arrange some minor details. Did you come to see me off?"
"We did. That and to remind you that this is not all fun and games, you have a job to do, remember?" He was standing closer to the door now, hands in his pockets.
"Yes, Jim."