Chapter 13

His mobile's ringing from his pocket made John jump in surprise. He glanced at the caller ID and was surprised to find it to be Greg. The DI should be at work; it was nine in the morning.

"What's wrong?" he said in lieu of a greeting.

Lestrade sighed. "Official business, I'm afraid. There's been a murder, an earl was killed earlier. Our ME is on leave for the week and we need to work now. High-profile case and all that."

An icy tremor traveled down his spine. "Greg, I can't. I have to watch Sophie today. I can't just leave."

"John, please," the DI asked. The stress was audible in his voice. "A personal favor. None of the other MEs are available on such short notice. Please."

The doctor sighed. "I will ask Mrs Hudson to watch Sophie for me. But, Greg. I'm not…I'm not Sherlock."

The silence on the line said more than words ever could. Eventually, the DI sighed. "I know. I know you're not, John. But you're the closest thing we've got."

John told him, "Text me the address and I'll take a cab."

He was less than pleased to see that it was Sergeant Donovan outside the crime scene—a lavish and opulent townhouse on Park Lane in Westminster.

The sergeant pursed her lips at the sight of him but held the tape up for him to pass. "Upstairs, first room on the left, Doctor Watson," she advised, her politeness forced.

John said nothing as he passed her.

No one dared say a word to him until he finally found Greg upstairs, outside a room upstairs, the room to which Donovan had pointed him.

The DI came right over. "John, thank you for coming," he said with a grim smile. "I'm sorry for all this, but…you know. I appreciate it."

He shrugged as he put on the forensics suit (trying not to remember the first time he'd gone to a crime scene and had to put a similar one on). "You owe me one, Greg. Alright, what have you got?"

"Ronald Adair, thirty-seven. He was an earl and a cousin of the royal family," he informed John as they entered the room. "Hence the urgency. Found this morning by his sister, with whom he shares the house. She was staying at a friend's the other night and he wasn't up as usual. No sign of forced entry or robbery. Oh, er, they had to bust the door open; it was locked from the inside."

The office was fairly simple. A desk was in front of an open window. The victim had been seated in the desk chair, but (presumably after being shot) had fallen backwards in the chair.

John knelt beside the body.

"Shot in the left temple. The soft-nosed bullet mushroomed out, you can see here," he pointed for Lestrade and the other officers to see. "Instantaneous death, I'd say."

With a gloved hand, he reached to the man's face and opened an eye. "Died twelve hours ago, I'd say; the cornea's cloudy already so at least that…" he continued his examination. "Died between ten and eleven-thirty last night."

He stood, glancing around the room. "The shooter was probably standing to the victim's left," he positioned himself to illustrate. "The man was looking forward, so got shot in the temple. Probably trusted his killer then, I'd say."

"How'd the murderer get in, then?" asked one of the agents. "The window?"

John glanced to the open window, examined its sill and poked his head out of it to look around. "No, he couldn't have. It's a twenty foot drop to the ground. Look at the flowerbed, there's no sign of disturbance in it."

The doctor looked down at the desk, upon which rested a small pile of bank notes and a sheet of numbers and names. A glance at the names gave away nothing: Hiddleston, Scarrow, Moran, Brown, Asher. A poker player, maybe, judging by some of the figures.

Lestrade sighed. "Wonderful. No one heard a shot. There's no sign of the weapon nor the killer. And the door is locked from the inside. And so far, no one has a motive. Wonderful. This'll make for a lovely press conference."

In times like this, John didn't envy the Met one bit.

He returned to Baker Street an hour later, after paperwork, (literally) running into an apparently homeless man outside the scene, and catching a cab home. After a knock on 221A's door, John came in to find Mrs Hudson in her kitchen in front of the oven and Sophie at the table, cheerfully eating from a small plate of biscuits.

"Thanks, Mrs H," he said. "It really couldn't wait. Greg's ME was out and it was a high profile case."

She looked at him curiously. "Oh, was it that earl? What was the name—Adair? It was in the paper."

John nodded grimly. "Yeah. I don't envy the Yard. Not a simple case. I think," he added quietly, "Sherlock would have liked it."

The landlady smiled sadly and patted his shoulder. "He always did like the funny ones," she remarked and shook her head fondly.

"Sophie, are you coming upstairs or would you like to stay here with Mrs Hudson for a bit?" he asked.

The little girl looked to the older woman, who smiled and told her, "You may take the plate of biscuits with you, dear."

With a bright smile, Sophia hopped down from her chair, holding the plate, and hurriedly went upstairs.

"Thanks again," John said. "How's your hip? You said it was acting up yesterday."

She shrugged. "Still aching, but nothing too bad. Now, go on upstairs before that girl digs out on of her father's chemistry sets."

John chuckled to himself at the image that came to his mind, of little Sophie at the kitchen table with a pipette in hand and a flask giving off smoke and heat in a chemical reaction.

I've got a future chemist in my future, he thought to himself. Just like Sherlock, that one.