The Hounds of Baskerville: Part Three
They stayed that way for a while, until her breathing had returned to normal, allowing her to speak coherently once more, "Thank you, John. I can't remember the last time someone hugged me."
He had never heard something so heart-breaking. How could someone like her put up with living with Sherlock who could be so cold and indifferent? When they had first met John would have said that Scarlett was Sherlock's miniature just with a slightly better social understanding. Now, it was like he was looking at a completely different person. He wondered briefly if she'd let anybody else she her like this.
She pulled away, clearing her throat. She made to stand up and a silent understanding passed between them that this would never be talked about.
He too cleared his throat and stood, "So…so what now?"
"I don't know about you but I'm going back to London on the next train. Sherlock asked me to leave if I got to emotionally traumatised and that's exactly what I'm doing," she walked back towards the pub to head upstairs, "See you after the case is over, John."
She took her over-night bag from under her bed in her hotel room, slinging in vigorously on the mattress so in bounced before resting. Walking across the room she grabbed a handful of her clothes with one hand whist she booked train tickets via an app with the other. There was a night train leaving in about an hour. She finished packing her bag, zipped it up and yanked it down the corridor after locking up. She was quick to get down the stairs, refusing to look in the pub as she passed the door.
So what if he didn't know she was leaving?
She got outside and started to walk swiftly for the station, not bothering with a taxi. Her breath rose in little puffs of white as she pulled her case behind her, pulling her collar tighter around her. Never in a million years did she suspect that she'd be leaving the case because Sherlock had caused her emotional disquiet.
It was more than disquiet, he had scared her. Sherlock was the one that kept calm during investigations. He kept them on the straight and narrow. What had they seen? What was in the Hollow? It was real. That she couldn't deny. There had to be a better explanation than demon dog, though. There had to be.
She stopped mid-way down her path, collapsing the handle of her case as she thought. He was being stupid, he hadn't meant to yell. She knew it wasn't aimed at her, that it was just pure frustration. Still… he'd told her to leave if anything unsettled her. Yes, she was just following orders. Did his orders deserve to be followed though?
She didn't know what to do as she stood in the middle of the pavement, late at night, freezing and at a loss. Hound. Why had Henry called it that? A Hound…
-Break Line- POV Change- Break Line-
After spending the morning up on the moors keeping an eye on Baskerville and Dewer's Hollow, Sherlock decided to confront Henry. Knocking on his front door energetically he made his was in the moment Henry opened the door to him. He vaguely wondered where Scarlett and John were, but put it to the back of his mind.
"Morning!" he was about to head straight for the kitchen but suddenly stopped himself. In this situation it would be good to ask Henry how he was doing, at least that's what Scarlett would have done, if she were there.
"Oh, how are you feeling?" in truth he looked retched, Sherlock ducked his head down to get a better look at his face.
He sounded just as terrible, "I'm...I didn't sleep very well."
"That's a shame. Shall I make you some coffee?" he looked up at the ceiling above the door and pointed in an attempt to make conversation. Scarlett would have nodded her approval, "Oh look, you've got damp!"
He grinned falsely until Henry turned his head to look, then dropped the smile and turned, walking away towards the kitchen. Hurrying over to the cupboards, he started opening and closing each one rapidly. Finally he found the metal jar that he'd been looking for and took it out, rummaging inside it as he elbowed the cupboard door closed. He made sure to get a sample of the sugar, slipping it into his coat pocket. He then went over to the sink and picked up a couple of mugs, taking them over to the central island just as Henry tiredly wandered in.
"Listen...last night…" Sherlock gave him an attempt at a friendly smile as he took the top off the coffee tin. "Why did you say you hadn't seen anything? I mean, I only saw the hound for a minute, but..."
Sherlock stopped dumping spoonful's of coffee into the mugs without even looking. He locked his eyes onto Henry, slamming the coffee tin down onto the surface before stepping closer to him, "Hound."
"What?"
"Why do you call it a hound? Why a hound?"
"Why – what do you mean?"
"It's odd, isn't it? Strange choice of words – archaic. It's why we took the case. 'Miss. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound.' That's what you told my niece. Why say 'hound'?"
"I don't know! I… You know, she asked the exact same thing?"
"Who asked you?"
"Scarlett, she came to see me last night. Bag in hand, she said she was returning to London, that something had come up. She said she wanted to check up on me though, before leaving. She asked me that just before she left. Why I said 'Hound'. I just don't know why I call it that."
Scarlett had left. She hadn't told him. He wondered if Henry had finally gotten to her, "Actually, I'd better skip the coffee," he ran from the kitchen as Henry sighed wearily.
Later, Sherlock was walking back through the village but stopped as he saw John in the church graveyard, sitting on the steps of a war memorial and looking through the notes in his notebook. Sherlock went through the kissing gate and walked along the path towards John, who looked up as he heard him approach. His expression became uncomfortable as he tucked his notebook into his pocket. Sherlock stopped in front of him, also feeling awkward.
"Did you, er, get anywhere with that Morse code?"
As he stepped down off of the memorial he said, "No."
He started to walk away, "U, M, Q, R, A, wasn't it?" John kept walking and Sherlock followed along behind him. He voiced the initials as a word, "UMQRA."
"Nothing."
In Sherlock's mind, he put full stops in between the letters but still voiced it as a word, "U.M.Q..."
"Look, forget it. It's ... I thought I was on to something. I wasn't."
"Sure?"
"Yeah."
"How about Louise Mortimer? Did you get anywhere with her?"
"No."
"Too bad. Did you get any information?"
John smiled at him briefly and glances over his shoulder but still kept walking, "You being funny now?"
"Thought it might break the ice a bit."
"Funny doesn't suit you. I'd stick to ice."
Sherlock looked at John's retreating back, feeling pained, "John..."
"It's fine."
"No, wait. What happened last night... Something happened to me; something I've not really experienced before..."
"Yes, you said: fear. Sherlock Holmes got scared. You said."
Sherlock caught his arm as he began to walk away, forcing John to face him, "No-no-no, it was more than that, John. It was doubt. I felt doubt. I've always been able to trust my senses, the evidence of my own eyes, until last night."
"You can't actually believe that you saw some kind of monster."
"No, I can't believe that. (He grins bitterly for a moment.) But I did see it, so the question is: how? How?"
"Yes. Yeah, right, good. So you've got something to go on, then? Good luck with that." John turned and started to walk away again. Sherlock turned and called after him.
"Listen, what I said before, John. I meant it," John stopped, turned back to face him.
"I don't have friends. I've just got one."
John looked away as he took in the statement in for a moment, then he nodded briefly and glanced back at Sherlock, "Right." He turned and walked away again. Sherlock looked down, then instantly raised his head again as his eyes begun to flicker in realisation of something.
"John? John!" he started to chase after him when he didn't respond. "You are amazing! You are fantastic!"
He still didn't stop, "Yes, all right! You don't have to overdo it."
-Break Line- POV Change -Break Line-
Scarlett sighed, watching from the gate as Sherlock chased John. He overshot the doctor and ended up walking backwards in front of him. He took out his notebook, wrote something, showing it to the doctor.
If Sherlock was smart then he would have come to the same conclusion as her; Hound was an acronym. That was the reason she'd stayed, she'd figured it out after visiting Henry the previous night. There was even more to the case then they'd taken at face value, she didn't want to miss the opportunity to be involved in a case like this.
She leant against the metal fence with her left arm meaning all she had to do was look to her left and she'd see the pub and a certain Detective Inspector attempting to look casual and discreet. She stared at the road ahead of her for a second before looking back into the graveyard on her right. Sherlock spotted her and did a double take, she sighed again. She stayed, that didn't mean that she wasn't annoyed at him for scaring her like that.
John turned to see why Sherlock had stopped talking and spotted her as well. She flicked her fringe from her face as they walked toward her, John looked happy, Sherlock's face was deliberately unreadable. She smirked coldly.
So he wanted to play that game did he?
"Scarlett!" John said as he made it to her side of the gate.
"John," she gave a brief smile.
"You're not leaving for London," Sherlock stated.
"Clearly not."
"May I ask why?"
"You may. That doesn't mean I'll answer," the atmosphere was thick between them as John looked on in discomfort, after a stare down with him Scarlett broke Sherlock's gaze by saying, "You're wanted In the pub."
Sherlock looked over her shoulder before stalking over to the entrance of the bar, "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Well, nice to see you too!" Lestrade said with mock cheer, "I'm on holiday, would you believe?"
"No, I wouldn't," Sherlock said as she and John entered the bar.
Lestrade removed his sunglasses, looked around Sherlock, "Hullo, guys."
"Greg!" John called, pleased to see the man. Scarlett grinned, gave him her customary awkward wave.
"I heard you were all in the area," he picked up his pint, "What are you up to? You after this Hound of Hell like on the telly?"
"I'm waiting for an explanation, Inspector," Sherlock ignored the question, "Why are you here?"
"I've told you: I'm on holiday."
Scarlett laughed, "You're brown as a nut."
"So you're clearly just back from your 'holidays'," Sherlock concluded before glancing at Scarlett, she made sure to instantly give him the cold shoulder, making her face smooth and unreadable.
"Yeah," Lestrade attempted to sound nonchalant, "well maybe I fancied another one,"
"Oh, this is Mycroft, isn't it?" Sherlock said, annoyed.
"No, look..."
"Of course it is! One mention of Baskerville and he sends down my handler to ... to spy on me incognito. Is that why you're calling yourself Greg?"
"That's his name," Scarlett sighed.
He replied with a frown, "is it?"
"Yes – if you'd ever bothered to find out. Look, I'm not your handler..." he turned away to take a sip of his pint, "...and I don't just do what your brother tells me."
"Actually," Scarlett said, feeling in her coat pocket for the receipts she had plucked from the bar on yesterday's arrival. "You could be just the man we want."
"Why?" Sherlock looked at her.
"Well," she said trying her best to mask her irritation, "Unlike some people I've not been rocking back and forth in the corner." She took out the receipts and recognition sparked in John's eyes, "I think I might have found something."
She showed Sherlock the sales invoice from Undershaw Meat Supplies which she stole off the bar while they were checking in. "Here. That is an awful lot of meat considering they're a 'vegetarian restaurant'."
There was a brief pause before Sherlock told her, "well done."
"Nice scary inspector from Scotland Yard…" John started, piecing her plan together and she nodded.
As Sherlock and Greg exchanged looks, John slapped his hand down on the bell on top of the bar, "Shop!"
Later, in the small Snug next to the bar, Greg was sitting at a table looking through paperwork – previous invoices from Undershaw – while Gary and Billy sat at the other side of the table looking at him anxiously. Nearby, Sherlock was taking it upon himself to pour a cup of coffee from a filter machine before stirring it. He ostentatiously tapped the drips off of the spoon into the cup and then picked it up and carries it over to John, offering it to him.
"What's this?"
"Coffee. I made coffee," she heard him say.
"You never make coffee," she stated bluntly as she eyed the two bed and breakfast owners.
"I just did," Sherlock told her just as bluntly whilst John looked between the pair uncomfortably. He was clearly aware that they were in some discreet dispute, he looked back at Sherlock as he continued, "Don't you want it?"
"You don't have to keep apologising. At least, not to me."
She made a point of deliberately turning her head away from them, walking instead over to the 'interrogation table'. He wasn't being nice to John, he had the same theory as she did. Henry was being dosed with a drug. Most likely introduced to his system through the sugar. Everybody in the party last night had drunk and eaten the same thing, apart from one small fact, John didn't take any sugar in his coffee. She grimaced at the very idea of the sugarless beverage.
"These records go back nearly two months," Lestrade said to the two men as she stood to the side of him. Behind her John was falsely complementing Sherlock's coffee making skills. "Is that when you had the idea," Lestrade continued, "after the TV show went out?"
"It's me. It was me," Billy tried to own up, turning to his partner, "I'm sorry, Gary – I couldn't help it. I had a bacon sandwich at Cal's wedding and one thing just led to another..."
She grinned without humour, "Nice try."
"Look," Gary defended, "we were just trying to give things a bit of a boost, you know? A great big dog run wild up on the moor – it was heaven-sent. It was like us having our own Loch Ness Monster."
"Where do you keep it?"
Gary looked at the inspector, "There's an old mineshaft. It's not too far. It was all right there."
"'Was'?" she looked briefly to Sherlock before Gary continued with a heavy sigh.
"We couldn't control the bloody thing. It was vicious," he sighed once more, "And then, a month ago, Billy took him to the vet and, er... you know."
"It's dead?" John asked.
"Put down," Gary corrected.
"Yeah," Billy agreed, "No choice. So it's over."
"It was just a joke, you know?"
"Yeah," Lestrade sarcastically agreed, "hilarious!" He stood up and looked down at them fuming, "You've nearly driven a man out of his mind."
They all followed each other out of the small room, heading out of the pub to the front, just passed the main benches, "You know he's actually pleased you're here?"
"Secretly pleased," she added.
"Is he? That's nice!" she smiled at his sarcasm, "I suppose he likes having all the same faces back together. Appeals to his... his..." He stopped, searching for the right word. John provided an appropriate suggestion before her.
"Asperger's?"
"Inner control freak?"
Sherlock came out of the pub and glowered at the pair of them, having heard the last words.
"So, you believe him about having the dog destroyed?"
"No reason not to," Scarlett shrugged covering her eyes from the bright watery sun.
"Well, hopefully there's no harm done. Not quite sure what I'd charge him with anyway. I'll have a word with the local Force." He nodded to them as he started to walk backwards, "Right, that's that, then. Catch you later," he smiled, "I'm enjoying this! It's nice to get London out of your lungs!"
"So that was their dog that people saw out on the moor?" John said.
"Looks like it," Sherlock replied, tone clipped.
"But that wasn't what you saw. That wasn't just an ordinary dog."
"No," his gaze became distant, "It was immense, had burning red eyes and it was glowing, John. Its whole body was glowing." She scoffed as he shuddered, shaking off the memory, then turned and walked towards the car park, "I've got a theory but I need to get back into Baskerville to test it."
"How? Can't pull off the ID trick again."
"Might not have to," he got his phone out and hit a speed dial, lifting the phone to his ear, voice full of insincerity, "Hello, brother dear. How are you?"
-Break Line- Break Line- Break Line-
"Afternoon, sir. If you could turn the engine off," the guard said as they drove back up to the gates of Baskerville. Sherlock handed over his ID pass and switched the car off.
"Thank you," as he went over to the gate room to swipe the card the other soldiers checked the vehicle over from the outside, Sherlock spoke quietly to them.
"I need to see Major Barrymore as soon as we get inside. Scarlett's coming with me."
"Right," John nodded. Scarlett didn't want to leave him, she knew what Sherlock was planning and she didn't want John to go through it. But…they needed to see how the drug worked.
"Which means you'll have to start the search for the hound," Sherlock continued, looking in the rear-view mirror he spotted the stony look Scarlett was giving him. "In the labs; Stapleton's first."
The guard brought the ID card back and handed it over, "Could be dangerous." She watched from the back seat as the doctor's muscles tensed, his body preparing him for the task ahead as they drove onto the base.
Later on the three of them had split up, Scarlett was still in a bad mood with her partner and wasn't talking to him. She wouldn't until he realised that his reaction towards last night's events were unforgivable. She leant against wall of Barrymore's office as he and Sherlock spoke, "Oh, you know I'd love to. I'd love to give you unlimited access to this place. Why not?!"
"It's a simple enough request, Major."
"I've never heard of anything so bizarre."
"You're to give me twenty-four hours. It's what I've..." he paused looking for the right word.
"Negotiated," she offered.
"Not a second more," he said sternly, "I may have to comply with this order but I don't have to like it," he swung round to his computer on the desk behind him as Sherlock started to leave the office. "I don't know what you expect to find here anyway."
Sherlock turned back to him, "Perhaps the truth."
"About what?" Barrymore turned in his seat, "Oh, I see. The big coat should have told me." Sherlock frowned and she smirked, "You're one of the conspiracy lot, aren't you?" She grinned as Sherlock rolled his eyes."Well, then, go ahead, seek them out: the monsters, the death rays, the aliens."
"Have you got any of those?" she asked, a cool eyebrow raised. It was Barrymore's turn to roll his eyes. "Oh, I was just wondering."
Barrymore leant forward secretively, aiming to indulge her, "A couple. Crash landed here in the sixties. We call them Abbott and Costello." He straightened up and turned back to his computer, "Good luck, Mr. Holmes."
As they left Barrymore's office Scarlett couldn't help but think of Henry. They walked in silence to the office that had cameras linked to Stapleton's lab. They both took chairs, watching John as he walked around, stopping as he saw a door with a note on the front:
KEEP OUT UNLESS YOU WANT A COLD!
She wished he'd recognise her handwriting as he walked into the decontamination zone. She sighed, having lost the visual on John. She leant back in the quiet, thinking whilst at the same time, coming up empty handed.
Sherlock cleared his throat, "You're quiet."
"Yes."
"Is there…" awkward clearing of the throat, "is there something… wrong?"
She just looked at him, debating whether or not to bring up last night. She decided she must, "Last night, I'm disappointed in you. All the time we've been together you've told me to keep a level head. Then last night, you lost it, started to rave about some damned hound. You honestly scared me. I didn't know how to deal with that."
They sat in silence for a while, watching John run around the lab as the drug took effect. He ran to the lab entrance, swiped his access card. Scarlett watched Sherlock press some buttons on the control panel in front of them, denying John his exit. She picked up the tannoy machine, played a sound bite of a dog growling. In a panic the poor doctor ran into an open cage after spotting something behind the camera they couldn't see. That in truth wasn't really there.
"It can't be real," Sherlock said as John tried to call him. He wasn't looking at her but the screen instead, talking about the hound.
"It's not. He's going mental, Sherlock. Call him."
Sherlock sighed, "Yes, you're right. That's enough." He got out his phone, dialled the doctor back.
"It's here. It's in here with me," John whispered into his receiver as Sherlock hit the loud speaker.
"Where are you?" Sherlock said.
"Get me out, Sherlock," he almost pleaded, Scarlett's heart went out to him. "You have got to get me out. The big lab: the first lab that we saw." He breathed heavily.
She stood up whispering so John couldn't hear, "That's proof enough, he's been drugged. We all have. I'll go get him."
Sherlock nodded, "John? John?"
Scarlett ran through the halls, rushing to the lab where she'd find her deluded friend. She swiped her key card and entered the room. It was dark and the red lights were still on, casting everything in a sickly, distorted light. She spotted the covered cage that she saw John run into, walked over slowly, he probably thought her approaching figure was the 'hound'.
"I can see it," she heard him say, terrified down his phone. "It's here," he continued flat-toned as she reached out for the sheet covering his cage. "It's here."
She pulled it off, and her eyes widened when she spotted John right in the corner, shaking, "Oh, good, you're all right!" John stared at her in utter bewilderment as she bent down to him and put a hand onto his shoulder. "John..."
"Jesus Christ..." he grabbed the bars and pulled himself to his feet, hurrying out of the cage, stuffing his phone away as he turned back to her panic-stricken and breathless. "It was the hound, Scarlett. It was here. I swear it, Scarlett. It must..." he looked around the lab which – now fully illuminated – revealed no large monster. "It must..." his voice became high-pitched, "did ... did ... did you see it? You must have!"
She shook her head as she placed a hand on his arm, began to walk with him to the exit. She felt like a horrid person, "John, I'm sorry. But it's all right now. It's okay."
John still high-pitched, frantic and hysterical cried, "NO IT'S NOT! IT'S NOT OKAY! I saw it. I was wrong!"
Having Sherlock yell at her was one thing, John was something else entirely. She knew what he needed. She pursed her lips, drew her hand back and slapped him across the cheek. "Don't get stressy with me, Watson," she said, danger in her voice before she sighed as the lab door opened and Sherlock joined them. John looked shocked, covering his cheek as she continued, "Snap out of it. Of course you were right, we both were. We've all been drugged. Tell me what you saw."
"I told you," he continued to rub his cheek, "I saw the hound,"
"Huge; red eyes?" Sherlock said.
"Yes."
"Glowing?"
"Yeah."
"No."
"What?"
"I made up the bit about glowing. You saw what you expected to see because I told you. Scarlett's right. We have all been drugged."
"Drugged?"
"Can you walk?"
"'Course I can walk."
"Come on, then. It's time to lay this ghost."
Scarlett gave the lab a final once over before heading out with them to find Stapleton. They found her not long after in a small room full of cages. She was examining a fluffy white rabbit on a metal table. She looked up as the three of them came through the door.
"Oh. Back again? What's on your mind this time?"
"Murder, Doctor Stapleton," Scarlett told her, "Refined, cold-blooded murder." Sherlock reached back and turned off the light switch by the door. The limited lighting coming from the window at the end of the room was just enough to show that the rabbit was brightly glowing green. Sherlock turned the lights back on again.
"Despite little Kirsty being my client I think it'd be for the best, as her mother, if you tell her poor Bluebell's demise, don't you?" she smiled unpleasantly at her and the scientist sighed.
"Okay. What do you want?"
She smiled brightly, "Can Sherlock borrow your microscope?"
Having now relocated to a larger lab Scarlett watched Sherlock stare down the end of the microscope at the sample of sugar from Henry's kitchen. Unhappy with what he was seeing, he turned away from the equipment and crushed another crystalline substance into smaller pieces with a little hammer for comparison. She watched him as she came to stand in between John and Stapleton, Sherlock began to draw chemical equations on his work surface with a marker pen.
"It was the GFP gene from a jellyfish," the female doctor told her, "in case you were interested. In the rabbits."
She smirked, "Oh, I know. In fact, I knew that was the case the moment I read Kirsty's email. I just couldn't figure out how it had gotten into Bluebell. I figured one of her parents must have worked in genetics but I didn't want to ask her. I doubt she even knows that you're a scientist, am I right?"
"You are really something, you know that?"
"So I've been told."
"You could have told her."
"And ruin her childhood fantasy of the existence of fairies? No, I leave that to you. I'm empathetic towards my clients, not brutal."
"The species was Aequoria Victoria," Stapleton said with pride after looking her for a second longer, "if you really want to know."
"Why?" John asked, still looking peaky from his time in the lab.
"Why not? We don't ask questions like that here. It isn't done." Scarlett noticed Sherlock look increasingly irritated as he picked up another slide and put it under the microscope, "There was a mix-up, anyway. My daughter ended up with one of the lab specimens, so poor Bluebell had to go."
"Your compassion's overwhelming."
"I know," Stapleton said cynically, "I hate myself sometimes."
"So, come on then. You can trust me – I'm a doctor. What else have you got hidden away up here?"
Exasperated, Sherlock took the slide out again. Stapleton sighed, "Listen: if you can imagine it, someone is probably doing it somewhere. Of course they are."
Sherlock was staring intently at his latest slide but his eyes drift across towards them briefly and Scarlett knew he was listening for the words 'super dog'.
"And cloning?"
"Yes, of course. Dolly the Sheep, remember?"
"Human cloning?"
"Why not?"
"What about animals? Not sheep...big animals."
"Size isn't a problem, not at all. The only limits are ethics and the law, and both those things can be ...very flexible. But not here – not at Baskerville."
Furious, Sherlock snatched up the latest slide out from under the microscope and hurled it against the nearest wall, which happened to be behind him. He was livid as he spat, "It's not there!"
"Jesus!" John cried.
She walked towards him, "Stop throwing things around and talk to me."
"Nothing there!" he raged, "Doesn't make any sense."
"What were you expecting to find?" Stapleton was clueless.
Sherlock began to pace, "A drug, of course. There has to be a drug – a hallucinogenic or a deliriant of some kind. There's no trace of anything in the sugar."
Ah, damn… which meant John had been exposed somewhere else. They were back to square one. The three of them had barely left each other's side during the trip. In order for them to all be drugged as well as Henry they must have been somewhere together.
"Sugar?"
"The sugar, yes. It's a simple process of elimination. I saw the hound – saw it as my imagination expected me to see it: a genetically engineered monster. But I knew I couldn't believe the evidence of my own eyes, so there were seven possible reasons for it, the most possible being narcotics. Henry Knight – he saw it too but you didn't, John. You didn't see it. Now, we have eaten and drunk exactly the same things since we got to Grimpen apart from one thing: you don't take sugar in your coffee."
"I see. So..."
They weren't drugged in the flat in London. Henry had already started to see things. She had to think… where had they all been?
"I took it from Henry's kitchen – his sugar," he glared down at the microscope almost in an accusing fashion, "It's perfectly all right."
"But maybe it's not a drug."
"No, it has to be a drug," Scarlett insisted, hand on her chin as she started to pace.
"But how did it get into our systems. How? Think, Scarlett!"
"I am," she waved her arms about to indicate her pacing.
"There has to be something..."
"Hound. Henry keeps saying it. H.O.U.N.D…"
Taking a sharp breath through his nose, Sherlock turned and pointed imperiously at John and Stapleton, "Get out. I need to go to my mind palace."
"Your…what?" Stapleton looked bewildered.
Scarlett shrugged at John in a non-committal type of way as he nodded but sighed, "He's not gonna be doing much talking for a while. We may as well go."
"His what?" Stapleton repeated.
"Oh, his mind palace. It's a memory technique – a sort of mental map. You plot a map with a location – it doesn't have to be a real place – and then you deposit memories there that... Theoretically, you can never forget anything; all you have to do is find your way back to it."
"So this imaginary location can be anything – a house or a street."
"Yeah."
"But he said 'palace'. He said it was a palace."
John looked back towards Sherlock for a moment as Scarlett smiled, "Yeah, well, he would, wouldn't he?"
"You know, mine 'palace' is actually the flat?" she called after the pair, "I'm not so full of myself," John smiled as he lead Stapleton out of the room.
Finding a suitable clear spot on the floor she sat, closed her eyes, steadied her breathing. When she opened her eyes again she was no longer in the lab, but in her room in Baker Street. She uncrossed her legs, got off of her bed and looked around. If she had subconsciously picked something up and not realised, it would be here in the flat. Her room was clean so she ventured out, down the stairs and into the living room.
She was met with Henry. He looked right at her, "'Miss. Holmes, they were the foot prints of a gigantic hound'." He then walked passed her into the kitchen, started to make coffee, "'I keep seeing two words: 'Liberty' and 'In'. What does it mean?'"
"'Liberty in death,'" she heard John's voice echo around the room.
"No, shut up, John," in the physical world Scarlett's face screwed up and she flicked at thin air around her head, trying to get him to shut up, "You're throwing me off."
She span in the flat, trying to think: 'Liberty', 'Liberty in'.
The phrases stuck themselves to the wall, next to the yellow smiley face underneath each other. Underneath 'in' other words with the same beginning letters began to generate. Much like a slot machine. She was looking for the equivalent of three sevens. 'Inn', no. Gone, replaced with 'Ingolstadt', no. Gone, replaced with 'Indium (atomic number = 49)', no. Gone, replaced with 'India', almost but…no.
The words were slowing down as one word finally slotted into place on the wall. The message revealed:
'Liberty, Indiana: H.O.U.N.D.'
She smiled and opened her eyes in the physical world looking across to Sherlock she knew he had come to the same outcome.
Without a word they both stood and headed out of the lab.
Hi!
Over two months! Guys I'm so sorry! I didn't forget you, I promise! I've just been so busy! Anyway - Part 3 for you. If you're still out there let me know what you think! I hope I did this one justice as it stumped me writing wise in parts. Writers block is far from fun!
Please Read, Review and everything else :)
Disclaimer back in chapter 1
Yours,
H.H.
