9.

"It's an ancient number system!" Sherlock said triumphantly, he and John striding down the street with Elspeth close behind. "Hangzhou."

"Bless you," Elspeth muttered. John grinned at her.

"These days, only street traders use it. Those were numbers written on the wall at the bank and at the library."

Walking over to the greengrocers, which had some of its wares on display outside, Sherlock saw that there were several handwritten signs with the cost of each item in both Hangzhou and English. He picked up several of the signs, checking the symbols.

"Numbers written in an ancient Chinese dialect," he finished.

Elspeth spotted a sign with an upside eight and a line above it, along with the English equivalent, and she picked it up, showing it to Sherlock.

"Fifteen," she said incredulously. "It isn't a tag, it's the number fifteen!"

"And the blindfold – the horizontal line? That was a number as well." Sherlock showed John and Elspeth a price tag with the slash at the top, along with £1 written underneath. "The Chinese number one," he said, grinning. Elspeth grinned back.

"We've found it!" John said happily.

Beaming, Elspeth walked with Sherlock down the street and John smiled to himself, turning to follow them. As he did so, he spotted a woman – the same woman he had spotted earlier outside 221B when he got a taxi to Scotland Yard – with a camera that was pointing in John's direction. Someone walked past her, obscuring his view, and when they moved away, the woman had disappeared.

"Are you alright?" Elspeth asked him when John caught up with her and Sherlock.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said distractedly, glancing over his shoulder. Frowning, Elspeth turned around and looked over her shoulder as well, glancing up at John with her eyebrows raised.

"What are we looking at?"

"Uh – nothing. Come on."

John put his hand on Elspeth's shoulder, guiding her back down the street even though she kept looking behind her, straining to see what had distracted John. Sherlock frowned at her.

After a short walk, Sherlock led John and Elspeth into a restaurant that was across the street from a tourist shop. Her stomach rumbling, Elspeth realised how hungry she was.

The three were showed to a table by the window. Elspeth sat down by the window with Sherlock by her side and John sat across from them, once again struck by how similar the father and daughter were. A waitress took John and Elspeth's orders but Sherlock insisted he didn't want anything despite his daughter gently nagging him.

"Two men travel back from China. Both head straight for the Lucky Cat emporium. What did they see?" John mused, writing notes. Sherlock started scribbling on a napkin, which he had taken from in front of Elspeth, once again ignoring her when she protested. She laughed at John.

"It's not a conspiracy, John," she said, grinning.

"It's not what they saw; it's what they both brought back in those suitcases," Sherlock said.

"And you don't mean duty free. Thanks," John added when the waitress put down his plate in front of him. Elspeth thanked her as well, biting happily into her spring roll.

"Think about what Sebastian told us about Van Coon – about how he stayed afloat in the market."

"Lost five million . . ."

"And make it back in a week," Sherlock finished. "That's how he made such easy money."

Elspeth asked something around a mouthful of noodles, and though John couldn't understand her, Sherlock seemed to; he nodded.

"Yes, Ellie, he was a smuggler. A guy like him – it would have been perfect. Business man making frequent trips to Asia. And Lukis was the same, a journalist writing about China. Both of them smuggled stuff out, and the Lucky Cat was their drop-off."

"But why did they die?" John asked. "I mean, it doesn't make sense. If they both turn up at the shop and deliver the goods, why would someone threaten them and kill them after the event, after they'd finished the job?"

"Maybe someone stole something," Elspeth suggested, twirling noodles around her fork. Looking up, she frowned at Sherlock. "What?"

"Stole something . . . stole something from the hoard," Sherlock said thoughtfully. "You brilliant girl."

Elspeth grinned. "I know."

"And the killer doesn't know which of them took it, so he threatens them both," John concluded with a nod. "Right."

Sherlock looked out of the window towards the shop across the street and then at the windows above it before back to the shop, his gaze sharpening.

"Remind me," he said. He focused on a Yellow Pages phone directory sealed in a plastic wrapper outside the door to the flat that was next to the Lucky Cat. "when was the last time that it rained?"

Without waiting for a reply, Sherlock rose to his feet and strode out of the restaurant. John looked at Elspeth, who was gazing at her plateful of food mournfully – she'd only had a few bites – and sighed in exasperation before getting up and dutifully following Sherlock.

Sadly, Elspeth picked up her last spring roll and bit into it, taking it as she crossed the road to join Sherlock and John. She stood to the side, watching Sherlock bend down to run his fingers over the wet exposed pages of the directory.

"It's been here since Monday."

"We'll take your word for it," Elspeth muttered, glancing irritably towards the restaurant. She could see the waitress clearing their plates.

Sherlock straightened up and pressed the doorbell, waiting only a couple of seconds before heading off to the right, down an alleyway. Elspeth trailed after him.

"No-one's been in that flat for at least three days."

"Could've gone on holiday."

"Do you leave your windows open when you go on holiday?"

He reached the rear of the building and looked up to see a metal fire escape above his head. Following his gaze, Elspeth watched as Sherlock took a short run and jumped up, grabbing the end. He pulled until it touched the ground, running up the steps towards an open window of the flat. As Sherlock reached the top, the ladder swung back into its horizontal position.

"Sherlock!"

"Dad!"

John knew he was too short to mimic Sherlock, running back to the front of the building. Elspeth took a long look at the ladder, stepped back and then ran.

Leaping up, Elspeth's fingers brushed against the bottom of the ladder before she fell to the ground. Her knees scraped against the concrete, ripping her jeans and grazing the skin so that when she stood up, they were bloody. Elspeth scowled and limped after John.

"Do you think maybe you could let me in this time?" John called, not noticing Elspeth's bleeding knees. There was a short pause before he bent down to push open the letterbox, calling through the gap. "Can you not keep doing this, please?"

Sherlock called back but with the busy street behind him, John couldn't hear.

"What?"

"Somebody's been in here before me!" Sherlock shouted, his voice still muffled slightly even as John put his ear to the open letterbox.

"What are you saying?"

"Don't bother, John, he's in the zone," Elspeth muttered, leaning against the wall and stretching her leg out. "Does this look infected to you?"

Turning around, John tutted when he saw Elspeth's knees. "What did you do?"

"Tried to copy Dad and failed miserably. I think we have some plasters at home."

"I have some in my room." He glanced back down at the letterbox and sighed. "I'm wasting my breath."

"Am I going to lose my leg?"

"What? No."

Seemingly satisfied by the answer, Elspeth continued to examine her knees. John frowned at her, unsure if he felt confused or amused by her, and flipped open the letterbox again.

"Any time you want to include me."

"I'd over to pick the lock but we're in public and it's generally frowned upon," Elspeth said. "Plus I don't have any hairclips on me."

John straightened up, shook his head and began to pace in frustration.

"No, I'm Sherlock Holmes and I always work alone because no-one else can compete with my massive intellect!"

Elspeth raised her eyebrows, looking at John, and he looked back at her irritably. He didn't care that he'd just insulted her father in front of her because he was too angry.

A moment later, the front door opened and Sherlock stood in the doorway. John glared at him.

"The, uh, milk's gone off and the washing's starting to smell. Somebody left here in a hurry three days ago," he said, his voice rough and croaky, almost like he had a cold. Elspeth frowned.

"Somebody?" John asked.

"Soo Lin Yao. We have to find her."

"But how exactly?"

Bending down, Sherlock picked up a folded envelope. On the back was a note:

SOO LIN. Please ring me, tell me you're OK. Andy.

Sherlock unfolded the envelope and looked at the front of it; printed in the corner were the words NATIONAL ANTIQITIES MUSEUM.

"Maybe we could start with this," he said, walking out and shutting the door behind him.

"Are you getting a cold, Dad?" Elspeth asked innocently as they strode down the street. Sherlock glared at her and she smiled back.

"I'm fine."


"When was the last time that you saw her?" Sherlock asked as he paced around a display area.

"Three days ago, um, here at the museum," the young man who'd introduced himself as Andy – the Andy who had left a note for Soo Lin Yao – stammered. Sherlock stopped and focused briefly on a glass case containing clay teapots. "This morning they told me she'd resigned just like that. Just left her work unfinished."

Sherlock turned around to face him. "What was the last thing that she did on her final afternoon?"

Andy hesitated slightly, his eyes flickering towards John and Elspeth, both of whom were waiting for his response, before gesturing for the three of them to follow him as he strode away.

"I thought exploiting the work force was a bit not good," Elspeth muttered under her breath.

"I'm hardly exploiting him," Sherlock retorted quietly.

"You and I both know that he has a crush on Soo Lin and you're using that to your advantage. That's exploiting him."

Sherlock glared at Elspeth and strode ahead of her. Elspeth stuck her tongue out.

Andy took the three of them to the basement archive, turning on the light as he led them in.

"She does this demonstration for the tourists – a-a tea ceremony. So she would have packed up her things and just put them in here."

Sherlock, John and Elspeth followed Andy to the open stack and turned a handle to widen the gap; John stood behind him, watching, but Sherlock found something more interesting in the shadows further along the room. He walked closer to it.

Looking over her shoulder, Elspeth realised that Sherlock had crossed the room and frowned, trailing after him.

On a stand, in the shadows of the room, was a life-sized sculpture of a nude woman with yellow spray paint on it. An almost horizontal line went across the eyes and on the body was an open upside down eight.

"Oh," Elspeth said quietly.


"We have to find Soo Lin Yao," Sherlock said as they strode out of the museum.

"If she's still alive," Elspeth said glumly.

"Ellie! Sherlock!"

"Oh look who it is," John muttered under his breath, scowling as Raz ran over towards them; he was still annoyed that he was getting an ASBO for Raz's actions.

"Found something you'll like," Raz said with a wide grin in Elspeth's direction. Sherlock and Elspeth quickly followed him when he trotted off, and John reluctantly trudged after them.

"Tuesday morning, all you've got to do is turn up and say the bag was yours," John told Raz as they strode across Hungerford Bridge, heading towards the south side of the river. Elspeth, who was walking next to Raz with her hands stuffed into her coat pockets – Raz had been subtly brushing his hand against hers – smirked, looking like she was trying not to laugh.

"Forget about your court date," Sherlock said.

John turned and glared at Sherlock in annoyance, grumbling under his breath, and Elspeth quickly disguised her laughter as a fit of coughing. Sherlock glanced at her in amusement.

"So where are we going, Raz?" Elspeth asked when she finally calmed down, grinning at him.

"The under-croft," Raz replied with a wide grin of his own. "You remember it, right?"

"Vaguely," Elspeth replied, her cheeks turning pink. She, Raz and a few other people had gotten drunk there the year before, and she couldn't remember much of the evening even to this day. She never told Sherlock, but she didn't need to. He already knew.

The under-croft walls were covered in graffiti and there were teenagers everywhere, spraying the walls and riding their bikes, drinking and smoking; John looked around, feeling rather out of place as he strode after Raz, but Elspeth smiled and waved at several of the people who greeted her. Looking at her, John never would've guessed that she even associated herself with those kind of people.

"If you want to hide a tree in the middle of a forest, this is the best place to do it, wouldn't you say?" Sherlock asked, looking at John. "People would just walk straight past, not knowing, unable to decipher the message."

"Just thinking it's another damn teenager's tag," Elspeth added with a grin.

"You'd know all about that."

Pretending to look offended, Elspeth strode after Raz. He pointed at a particular area on the heavily- graffitied wall.

"There. I spotted it earlier."

Amongst all the paint were slashes of yellow paint that formed the same Chinese symbols. Some of them had already been painted over by other tags and pictures.

"They have been in here," Sherlock said. He looked at Raz. "And that's the exact same paint?"

"Yeah."

"So what now?" Elspeth asked Sherlock.

"If we're going to decipher this code," he replied. "we're going to need to look for more evidence."


Thank you xxxMadameMysteryxxx, Bookworm45669, Starcrier, AlieCat, TheDoctor'sAmazingCompanion, Adrillian1497, SmilingDreams and IAmRahaf for reviewing!