The cabbie ahead didn't seem to realize they were following behind.
"Boyfriend leave ya, miss?" Maggie's driver asked, eyeing her from the mirror.
She shook her head.
"What we following for, then?"
She frowned, trying to make an excuse. "Uh, my brother. He's a drug addict," she said, thinking back to the 'drugs bust.' "I'm making sure he's not going to buy some more. We just searched his place. Intervention. He stormed out."
The cabbie nodded. "My sister's the same. Rehab might help, ya know."
She nodded as though listening, although she was in her own mind, her thought process racing. It all makes sense now, she thought. A cabbie. Unseen in a crowd. Everyone trusts a cabbie to get them where they wish to go, even though they are complete strangers. This man had the perfect job to become a serial killer.
Maggie wished now more than ever that she had a mobile. She needed to call John, Lestrade, someone. She sighed. Even if she had a phone, it wouldn't matter. She didn't know anyone's numbers.
The taxis turned left and entered a quieter part of town. She watched the scenery pass by.
"Eh, miss," the cabbie said. "He's stopping."
She leaned forward, looking out the windshield at the tail lights.
"Keep going another block and stop there."
The other cab pulled off to the side as theirs passed by. Maggie caught Sherlock's eye as they passed while his cabbie got out. They'd stopped at two seemingly identical buildings.
"Oh, that's Roland-Kerr Further Education College," her cabbie said, pulling to a stop. "Maybe he's trying to go back to school, miss."
"No, he doesn't need to," she murmured, her head turning to keep an eye on where the other cab had stopped. The cabbie was walking in, leaving Sherlock behind. Run, she thought.
He did run. Into the college, after the cabbie.
"Dammit!" she yelled as the cabbie looked back at her.
"What's wrong, miss?"
"Nothing," she said, a scowl on her face. That idiot. "Here." She pulled her half of Mycroft's money out, dropping into the cabbie's hands.
"Miss, this is too much…" the man began, but it was too late. She'd left her door open as she ran off down the sidewalk, back toward the college.
She ran toward where the entrances were, stopping. The buildings were identical. There was no difference in structure, and she hadn't seen which one they had entered. But as she examined the doors, she noticed something. On the window of one door, there was a handprint, dissipating in the cold. Someone had pressed their hand to it in the last minute or so, the heat creating a fog on it. She stepped closer and recognised the size of the hand. Sherlock. She pushed the door open slowly so not to alert the cabbie to her presence in the building.
Travelling down the halls, she came to a crossroad. She could go forward, or either side direction. She sighed, deciding to go right. She opened a few doors and looked into the windows of ones that were locked, but there was no sign of the two men. Finally she reached a dead end and had to turn around. She turned this way and that, eventually getting a bit lost in the halls. There was still no sign of the men.
She found the staircases and travelled up, searching more halls on the second floor. She saw a clock on the wall. It had been forty-five minutes since she left the flat. Roughly thirty since she'd began searching. She thought of the poison the victims took. It could already be too late.
She shook her head, moving the thought away. Just then she heard a voice.
"I'll have the gun, please."
She moved forward, recognising the detective's voice. It was coming from the room just ahead on the left. Reaching its door, she stood on her tiptoes to peek into the window. Sherlock was sitting at a table in the classroom, facing her. Another man - the cabbie - was sitting across from him, a gun in his hand, pointed at Sherlock's forehead.
"Are you sure?" the cabbie asked.
Sherlock was looking straight at the cabbie's face. He hadn't noticed Maggie in the window yet. He smirked. "Definitely," he said. "The gun."
Maggie covered her mouth to keep from shouting out. What the hell are you doing, Sherlock?
"Don't want to phone a friend?"
"The gun," Sherlock said forcefully.
Maggie couldn't see the cabbie's face, but as she watched, his finger began to squeeze the trigger.
"No!" she yelled, bursting into the classroom.
The man turned in shock, his hand tightening on the gun. His finger squeezed the trigger all the way to it's click, and a small flame burst from the barrel. It was a lighter.
Sherlock didn't even look up at Maggie, who was standing in disbelief. From the window, the gun had looked real, but closer, she could tell. The plastic. She closed her eyes in aggravation.
"I know a real gun when I see one," Sherlock said.
"Who is this?" the cabbie asked.
"She's with me," Sherlock answered, standing and straightening his jacket, buttoning the front. "Well, this has been very interesting. I look forward to the court case." He began walking toward Maggie. The cabbie put the gun down and turned in his seat.
"Just before you go, did you figure it out? Which one's the good bottle?"
Sherlock froze at the door, his hand on Maggie's arm as he had just began to pull her with him.
"Of course," he said. "Child's play."
"Well, which one then?"
Sherlock pushed the door open a bit, but Maggie saw no sign he was actually going to leave the room. He wouldn't look at the cabbie, but was gnawing his lip again. He glanced to her, and she begged him with her eyes to just go.
"Which one would you 'ave picked?" the cabbie asked. "Just so I know whether I could have beaten you."
Sherlock let the door shut, but still didn't look the cabbie's direction. Maggie's eyes squeezed shut. This cabbie was trying to lure Sherlock back in, and it was working. The cabbie chuckled.
"Come on. Play the game."
Sherlock let go of her arm and slowly walked back toward the cabbie.
"I you lose, the girlie there can still take me right to the police. I won't fight 'er."
Sherlock's eyes narrowed at the man, but he said nothing. He reached the table and swiped up the bottle nearest the cabbie, then walked past him. The cabbie looked at the other bottle.
"Oh," he said. "Interesting." His voice gave away nothing. He picked up the other bottle as Sherlock began examining his own.
"Don't do it, Sherlock," Maggie said.
"Be quiet," Sherlock said. "I've got him beat."
The cabbie said nothing, opening his bottle and tipping it, letting the capsule inside fall into his hand. He held it up and looked at it closely.
"What d'you think, Mr. 'olmes?" he asked, looking at Sherlock. "Shall we?"
Sherlock gave him a dark look before looking back to his bottle.
"Can you beat me?" the cabbie asked, standing up. "Are you clever enough to bet your life?" He held his pill up to his mouth. "I bet you get bored don't you? A man like you, so clever."
Sherlock twisted the lid of his bottle and shook out the capsule, examining the pill in the light for a few moments.
"But what's the point of being clever if you can't prove it?" the cabbie asked, watching Sherlock. "Still the addict, you are. But this… This is what you're really addicted to, innit?"
Maggie was watching with horror as Sherlock began to raise the pill to his mouth, his fingers trembling.
"You'd do anything, anything at all to stop being bored. You're not bored now, are you?"
Each man's hands got closer to their mouths. Maggie couldn't take it.
"STOP!" she yelled. It wouldn't have mattered if she hadn't said anything anyway, however.
A gunshot rang through the air. Maggie watched in slow motion as the cabbie's body jerked and a bullet came through his back, impacting the door only a few inches from her head, close enough to make her hair move. The cabbie fell, and Sherlock dropped is pill in surprise. Maggie dropped to her knees in shock. as Sherlock turned and slid over the desk behind him to look through the window where the bullet had come through. After looking through the bullet hole in the glass, Sherlock straightened. The cabbie's heavy breathing could be heard, along with him coughing. Sherlock turned back, looking to Maggie, who was still sitting there. He saw one of the pills on the table and snatched it up, kneeling over the cabbie.
"Was I right?" Sherlock asked. "I was, wasn't I?" No answer. "Did I get it right?"
The cabbie still didn't answer. Sherlock angrily threw the pill across the room, standing up. "Okay, Sherlock said. "tell me this. Your sponsor. Who was it? The one who told you about me - my 'fan'. I want a name."
Maggie looked up as the cabbie weakly muttered a "No."
Sherlock's face contorted in anger. "You're dying, but there's still time to hurt you," he threatened. "Give me a name."
The cabbie shook his head. Sherlock lifted his foot and set it onto the dying man's shoulder. The man gasped in pain. Maggie stared in horror. What was Sherlock doing?
"A name," Sherlock said. "Now."
The man only whined in pain.
"Sherlock, please," Maggie said. "Stop."
Sherlock didn't look at her. He leaned some of his weight onto the man's shoulder.
"The NAME!" he yelled.
The man let out an agonised cry. "MORIARTY!"
Sherlock stepped back off his shoulder. The man's head rolled to the side and he stilled. Sherlock stared down at him, mouthing the word. 'Moriarty'. He turned from the body, freezing when he saw Maggie sitting there.
"Dear God," he said. "I forgot you were there."
She looked up at him.
"You shouldn't have seen that," he murmured.
She shook her head, as if to say, No, I shouldn't have.
"I'm sorry," he said, walking over and helping her up. She took his hand appreciatively.
"You know why, don't you?" he asked. "Why I had to do that?"
She shook her head again.
"There's someone sponsoring criminals. He was doing it for this man. I needed the name," he said, "so I can stop him."
She stared at him in shock. Who would sponsor criminal activity? She closed her eyes for a moment, taking in the information. "Moriarty," she whispered.
"Do you know anything about it?"
She shook her head. "No, I don't."
Sherlock nodded, obviously thinking.
"Come on," she said, turning to leave the room after glancing at the body still lying there. Sherlock looked at the bullet lodged in the door, squinting at it before following her.