„Now, Emily, tell me, do you think you might have enemies outside of the film crew?", Sherlock asked the trembling girl as soon as they had settled in her room.
"Enemies?", she repeated, shocked. "No!"
"But there must be some people who dislike you, right?"
Silence.
"I'm not talking about your one night stand", Sherlock bluntly stated, disrupting the silence.
Watson looked at him startled. For all he knew Emily had not answered.
Blushing Emily looked at Sherlock. "I… What?"
Rolling his eyes and sighting Sherlock nodded at her. "You blushed when I asked you about people who dislike you and hesitated. If you were thinking of an ex-boyfriend you'd have told us. Since you look like a pretty decent girl you wouldn't remain silent about something important. Except of course it would be something you are ashamed of"
"Actually..",Emily wanted to start explaining, but Sherlock cut her off mid-sentence.
"Emily, don't waste your breath. It's not one of your ex-boyfriends who's threatening you"
A bit irritated Emily shrugged. "If you say so".
"Well of course", Sherlock said matter-of-factly. "Your boyfriend stories are all too far in the past to be relevant for us. None of them considered you important enough to stalk you over a long time in order to ruin this film for you. Plus none of them really expected you to become successful so if they would have decided to plan ahead they wouldn't really have had something they were planning towards to, would they?"
Emily was too shy to interrupt Sherlock or to comment his skills. He was right, of course he was.
"So if it were one of them, he would have been around you bugging you all the time even before you took the film. But since you didn't mention any of that- not one of your boyfriends"
Since Emily wasn't much use in the conversation Watson started interfering: "But who would threaten her then?"
Sherlock continuously walked up and down the small room. Ignoring his companion's question he asked "Are you sure the room was locked?"
"Yes, absolutely", Emily said softly.
"Then whoever did the little teddy-bear trick had a key"
"I don't know how easy it would be to get a key", Emily muttered. "But wouldn't I have heard whoever came in?"
"Obviously you didn't"
"But why?"
"Probably because you were asleep?"
"Impossible. I usually stay awake at strange hours, I like to read at night, I don't have a common rhytm on bedtimes, how would he or she have known when I'd be asleep?"
Sherlock looked a bit annoyed, then he answered "because he spent time watching you" Sighting he walked to the door and opened it. "Watson!"
John hurried towards him.
"It's okay Emily", Sherlock promised. "It's probably just somebody who wants to get the job"
"I don't think so", she replied quietly, looking down at her hands. "It feels different, it feels as if there was a story behind all of it, more … personal… you know.."
"You said you couldn't think of anybody who would hate you enough to do this, right?"
"yea.."
"Then how would you know how personal revenge feels like? Emily, don't freak out, but nothing happened yet. If they lay hand on you, whoever "they" are, I'll come back and take care of this. But until then, sorry, but there are worse things happening and I am certain you are safe"
They left the girl on her own and took a cab back to Baker street. Before they got back in Watson left to get some of the stuff they needed, orange juice, milk, eggs, simple things.
Mrs Hudson was at one of her weekly visits in the cafè opposite the street. But as soon as Sherlock went inside he noticed that somebody else was in, he could see that.
Whoever entered 221B had been careful not to make mistakes, but Sherlock noticed the position of his most recent files changed slightly. Whoever was in was clearly interested in his cases and not his possessions. But then again, so were nearly all of his burglars.