The watch was beautiful. Truly, it was. It sat in a black velvet box, handed over with another smile by the man – he still needed to ask him his name; he'd just been "the delivery man" in John's head the whole time. Opening the small box, John was blown away. It was silver, but of the finest quality. The circular face was made of some sort of white pearled material, with a black ring of pure jet stone surrounding it. The numbers were embossed on the face, along with the brand name, Omega, in what looked like pure gold, and when John turned the watch over he could see the intricate clockwork inside the case. It was expensive; there was no doubt about that. Whoever sent it obviously had good connections or a fair amount of money themselves – John had to say it was worth about £2000 at the very least.
John searched for the piece of paper he had come to expect, with a note to John written on. He found it beneath the velvet bed the watch sat in. Picking it up, John could see that it wasn't what was meant to be in there – it had obviously been put there by accident. The paper used was completely different to the normal, and there was no block print on it. It was blank, except for some impressions of letters on the paper, where someone had obviously written on another piece of notepaper and it had gone through to indent this sheet.
Quickly, John ran to his desk and searched through the drawers for some kind of pen he could use. He found a think wooden pencil towards the back taking it and shading over the impressions in the paper so the words formed.
The handwriting wasn't particularly legible as it was just a copy, but John could see the words clearly enough.
Letter O gift. 6th of 8. 29th March.
29th March – that was the date. Sixth of eight – that must refer to the number of gifts. But "letter O gift"? What on earth could that mean? It seemed to be referring to some sort of lettering system, but O certainly wasn't the sixth letter in the alphabet.
It must be a code, John thought to himself, a shot of excitement buzzing through him at the idea of this new clue. Maybe it would help him work out who was sending them. He knew that the sender of the gifts obviously wanted to remain anonymous, and that obviously wasn't the point of the gifts, but still…he had to be curious.
John placed the watch on the desk and took a piece of paper from his notepad, pausing with the tip of the pen on the paper. It was harder than he thought. He didn't really know what the code would be. A letter represented each gift – O must stand for Omega, the watch - that much was fairly certain, but it was hard to decipher what each gift actually was. The first one, for example. Music. Violin. Notes. What could that be?
He moved onto the next gift. Hedgehog. It had to be hedgehog, John mused as he looked over to Hamish, who was snuffling around his cage as usual.
Yes, hedgehog.
John scribbled it down and underlined the H. Eight gifts meant eight letters. Well, he had the second and the sixth for sure. But what were the others. The third gift was most likely tea, he supposed he could write that down. And rose was the fourth gift. What did that give him so far?
John's heart sank. Well that didn't look like anything at all.
Just then, there was a quick knock on the door, and Mrs Hudson let herself in, grinning amiably at John and carrying a few bags full of cat food.
"I was at the shop today and I got some more food for Hamish, in case you've run out."
John stood up. "I have a good 20 cans left!" he chuckled, "But thank you."
Mrs Hudson set the bags down by the cage, waggled her fingers at Hamish and then crossed to John at the desk.
"What are you doing there, dear?" she asked, "Something for another case?"
John had told Mrs Hudson all about his success the week before with the case, and she'd seemed rather taken with the whole idea. She'd remarked on how "lovely it is to see you up and about again, John, like you used to with Sherlock."
"It's for these gifts," John replied, "I think there's some sort of code involved, one letter for each gift, but I can't quite work it out."
"Let me have a go," she said, sitting down at the desk and picking the pen up, looking delighted at the prospect.
"Let's see," she murmured to herself, "You had that song first, didn't you? You were given a song."
John nodded in reply, and she scribbled down on the paper.
"And of course Hamish came next," she chuckled, "What was after that?"
"The tea," John replied, gesturing to the large box he'd placed in the kitchen which was still half-full of tea bags.
"Ah yes," Mrs Hudson smiled, "The Earl Grey. You've grown rather fond of that again, haven't you? I'm glad you stopped the silly nonsense you had when you would drink the tea I made you. What was the fourth present you got?"
"The letter for that is R," John said quickly, not wishing to divulge the fact he'd got a rose to Mrs Hudson – she'd only try to suggest the person sending the gifts was a secret admirer, "You can just write R down."
Mrs Hudson gave John a curious look, but continued all the same.
"And what about the case?" she asked after she had written down the next entry, "C, would you say?"
Suddenly, John remembered what the man had said the week before.
My employer says that this gift is giving you London.
Did that mean that London was the gift? It could be – Omega wasn't obvious, after all.
"Try L for that," John suggested to Mrs Hudson, "I think it's London. And then this one is O, I know that for sure."
Mrs Hudson scribbled down the letters, then sat back, frowning slightly.
"Now John," she said cautiously, "I don't want you to jump to conclusions here. Whoever's sending you these presents is trying to be nice, I'm sure, but they could also be leading you on a bit. You must remember reason."
"What is it?"
John looked down at the piece of paper she was writing on, to see the letters of the code which were written there. What he saw all but knocked the air out of him.
…
During the next week, John tried to be reasonable with himself – like Mrs Hudson had said, he shouldn't be too hasty in his assumptions, and it could easily be the case that this was all a big trick to get John into a weaker state.
But still…he couldn't stop hoping…couldn't stop wondering.
He was torn, most of the time, between telling himself how ridiculous he was being, but also letting himself believe.
It all fit, after all. The violin music – Sherlock played the violin and often composed. The black colour – Sherlock was no stranger to black. Someone like Sherlock would certainly have information about a case, knowingly given or not. And if anyone had access to a wealth of funds that could be used to buy something like the watch, it was Sherlock's brother Mycroft.
By Friday, John had had about 40 arguments with himself over the situation. At one point, he'd started to entertain the idea that maybe – possibly – the gifts were from Sherlock. But what would that mean? Was Sherlock alive? Impossible. John had seen Sherlock, dead on the ground in front of him, no pulse. And yet…he couldn't help hoping.
The trouble was, every time he started believing that Sherlock – maybe, possibly, at all – was alive, his brain was torn. One half told himself how crazy he was – the sender could either be doing it as a joke, or carrying out tasks Sherlock gave before the fall at St Bart's – but the other was fully animated, excited even. The moment he let himself think like that, the blood rushed to his head and he felt himself go dizzy at the prospect that somewhere, somehow, Sherlock could possibly be alive.
John had dreamt again of Sherlock the night before the Friday of that week. This time he'd come closer than ever to breaking the empty air in between their two dream bodies to embrace, lip on lip, soul to soul, rather than simply the desperate holding that filled the dream scenarios. He'd woken up when his face was mere centimetres away from Sherlock's in the dream, and he'd woken up with more conflicted thoughts than ever.
He tried to push thoughts of a living Sherlock to the back of his mind – they were simply ridiculous without further proof. He tried, instead, to consider what the seventh gift would be.
The delivery man arrived at nine o'clock on the Friday, this time not accompanied by Mrs Hudson. He carried only a small envelope in his hands, and handed it over to John without a word, turning to leave almost immediately.
"Wait," John called out after him, "Can I ask you something?"
The man looked concerned, but nodded slowly.
"I was wondering if you could tell me anything about your employer? There's only one gift left after this one, so I thought it could be safe enough."
The man shook his head. "Sorry," he sighed, "I can't tell you anything. I've literally been sworn to secrecy. He says I'm not to reveal anything."
"So it is a man?"
The man looked angry at himself.
"Oh shit, yes," he said, "But I can't say anything else. I have to go before I really put my foot in it."
He hurried away, leaving John standing in the doorway.
Well it's a man, John thought to himself as he opened the black envelope and a ticket fell into his hands. It was made of a fine quality card, and the end of the ticket was frayed such that it looked as if another ticket had been printed with it and torn off. The event was a strings concerto – concerto; that must be the C, if the code did in fact exist – in a concert hall in Barbican, which was happening the next evening.
John was intrigued. He hadn't really been expecting that, if he was honest, but he reasoned that all of the other gifts had been good and had helped him, and if he was going to find out who was sending these presents and what it had to do with Sherlock, this would be the way to do it.
