Sherlock seemed to get an idea after staring at the pictures intently for a few minutes, and this idea led to the trio leaving for Trafalgar Square. Walking through it by a fountain, Sherlock began speaking to them.
"The world is run on codes and ciphers," he said as he continued at his quickened pace. "Everywhere, from the security system at the bank worth a million pounds to that PIN machine you took exception to at the store, John, cryptography inhabits our every waking moment."
"Yes," John said. "Okay, but?"
"But it's all computer-generated," Sherlock continued. "Electronic codes, electronic ciphering methods. This is different. It's an ancient device, so-"
"So modern code-breaking methods won't unravel it?" Maggie asked.
"Exactly."
"So where are we headed?" John asked.
"I need to ask some advice."
"What?" John asked, his eyebrows shooting up just as Maggie's did as well.
"Sorry?" she asked, thinking she heard him wrong.
Sherlock turned his head as they made their way up the steps of the National Gallery to give them each a dark look.
"You heard me perfectly," he said in an annoyed tone. "I'm not saying it again."
John gave him a joking smile. "You need advice?"
"On painting, yes," Sherlock said, continuing up the steps as they followed. "I need to talk to an expert."
John and Maggie shared an amused look behind the detective's back as he led them toward the Gallery, but were surprised to find that instead of an expert inside the Gallery, Sherlock had an expert all the way around it, at the rear of the building in the alleyway. They were even more surprised to find that his expert was a young man spray painting an image on one of the metal doors that led into the back of the gallery.
The image was of a policeman holding a rifle, but instead of a human nose, the man had a pig's snout. His tag was below the image, the name RAZ painted in black, just like the rest of his artwork. The man was holding a can of paint in both hands, adding the final touches to the paint. A large canvas bag lay near his feet, filled with even more cans of paint in various colors. He continued his work as they approached, not even looking up to see who they were.
"Part of a new exhibition," he commented as they reached him.
"Interesting," Sherlock said, his voice showing that he was particularly uninterested.
The man sprayed in a few spots before leaning back to look at the work as a whole. "I call it: 'Urban Bloodlust Frenzy,'" he said, shaking the paint cans with a smile. He chuckled a bit.
"Catchy," John said, a bit of sarcasm slipping into his voice.
Raz ignored him, continuing to spray away. "I've got two minutes before a Community Support Officer comes round that corner," he said.
"I'd say one and a half," Maggie commented, looking at the alley way entrance as she remembered seeing the officers in the square.
Raz stopped sprayed for just a moment as he looked round to Sherlock. "Can we do this while I'm workin'?" he asked.
Sherlock pulled his phone from his pocket and unlocked it, holding it out to Raz. Raz looked at the phone then back up to the detective before turning to toss one of his paint cans to John, who caught it instinctively. As John looked at the men in slight shock, as if wondering why he had to hold the paint can, Raz took the phone from Sherlock with his now free hand. The image on the screen was of the graffiti from the bank.
"Know the author?" Sherlock asked.
"Raz shook his head slightly as he squinted at the picture. "Recognise the paint," he said. "Looks like Michigan. Hardcore propellant. I'd say... zinc."
Sherlock nodded once. "What about the symbols? Do you recognise them?"
Raz squinted once more at the screen. "I'm not even sure if that's a proper language," he mumbled.
Sherlock frowned. "Two men have been murdered, Raz. Deciphering this is the key to finding out who killed them."
Raz looked up. "What, and this is all you've got to go on?" he asked, gesturing to the screen with his other can of paint. "It's hardly much now, is it?"
"Are you going to help us, or not?" Sherlock asked.
Raz sighed, handing the phone back to Sherlock. "I'll ask around," he said.
"Somebody must know something about it," Maggie murmured.
"Oi!" a voice came from behind them.
All of them turned to see two Community Support Officers making their way towards them. Maggie looked down at her watch.
"Huh," she said. "Right on time."
As the officers broke into a run, Raz dropped the spray can in his and and kicked his bag toward John before running off. Sherlock grabbed Maggie's arms rather roughly to pull her into a run after Raz. John, however, the idiot, stood stock still as the others ran and the officers reached him. He turned toward them as Maggie was pulled around a corner, and she could no longer see what happened to him.
"We shouldn't have left him!" Maggie said to Sherlock as he continued to pull her along.
"He should have run!" the detective answered back.
A few hours later, Maggie was in her room downstairs, speaking on the phone with Mycroft Holmes.
"We're on a case," she was telling him. "Two blokes murdered after seeing a certain set of graffiti symbols. We're trying to figure out what they mean."
"Is he eating?" Mycroft's voice came through the phone. "Sleeping?"
"He's been sleeping, as far as I know," she said. "I moved out of his room awhile ago, so he has his bed back. As for eating, I don't think so. Not much, at least. He had tea earlier, but no biscuits."
Mycroft's annoyed sigh came to her ear. "He never eats on a case. Says it slows him down."
"It?"
"Digesting," he answered.
"Ah."
"Anything else to report?" he asked.
"Nothing out of the ordinary," she said.
"Is there an ordinary with him?"
She let out a short chuckle. "No, I don't think so."
"No drugs?"
"None," she answered.
"Good. I'll speak to you again soon," he said. The phone hung up before she could say anything else.
She had wondered at first how he had gotten ahold of her new number, but didn't question it after remembering what Sherlock said before. He is the british government.
Suddenly she heard the front door slam and listened for a moment, hearing John's distinct footstep pattern. He still moved that one leg a bit slower than the other. Probably always would.
She left her room as she heard him going up the stairs, and had just begun up them herself when she heard 221B's kitchen door slam just as hard as the front door had. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that the man was mad as all hell.
She could hear John speaking to Sherlock as she entered the flat to find John with his fists clenched, looking at Sherlock, who was looking at a book.
"Just formalities," the soldier was saying. "Fingerprints, charge sheet. And I've gotta be in Magistrate's Court on Tuesday."
"What?" Sherlock said absently, clearly having not been listening.
"What?" Maggie asked from the doorway, concerned.
John gave her a short look before turning back to the detective, who was still absent from the conversation. "Me, Sherlock, in court, on Tuesday," he said. His voice dropped low with anger. "They're givin' me an ASBO!"
"Good, fine," Sherlock said.
"Listen, Sherlock," Maggie said tightly.
"You can tell your little pal he's welcome to go and own up anytime," John said.
Sherlock slammed the book shut. "This symbol," he murmured. "I can't place it."
Maggie rolled her eyes and fell into a seat on the couch, giving up. John walked toward the dining table, beginning to take off his coat, apparently having given up as well.
Sherlock turned. "No, no," he said loudly, hurrying over to the soldier and grabbing hold of the jacket, pulling it back onto the man's shoulders. "I need you to got to the police station." He turned the man round and steered him toward the door.
"Oi!," John exclaimed.
"Ask about the journalist," Sherlock ordered.
"Oh, Jesus," John said, exasperated, adjusting the coat that had been put on him roughly.
Sherlock hurried over and picked up his own coat. "His personal effects will have been impounded. Get hold of his diary, or something that will tell us his movements."
"Sherlock, come on," Maggie said. "Let him have a break."
The detective ignored her comment. "You," he said, pointing her way as he put on his coat. "Come with me."
She sighed with annoyance as he walked by, pulling her up from her seat and handing her coat to her. She put it on as they went down the stairs, once again fixing the bit of puff from the loosened patch.
"May I ask where we're going?" she asked as they exited the building.
"Gonna go see Van Coon's P.A.," he said. "If we retrace their steps, somewhere, they'll coincide."
He pulled her along down the street as she looked back to see John hailing a taxi. She didn't notice what he did, however. A woman across the street with dark hair, sunglasses over her eyes, was holding up a camera in the soldier's direction, seemingly snapping a picture of him.
In Van Coon's office at the bank, Sherlock was speaking to the man's P.A., standing beside her to look at his calendar on the computer. Maggie stood just outside, but could hear what was being said.
"He flew back from Dalian on Friday," Amanda, the P.A., said. "Looks like he had back to back meetings with the sales team."
"Can you print me a copy?" Sherlock asked.
"Sure," she said.
"What about the day he died?" the detective asked. "Can you tell me where he was?"
She looked at the screen. "Ah, sorry. Bit of a gap. I have all of his receipts," she said.
Maggie entered the office as the woman pulled all the receipts out, spreading them on the desk, assuming Sherlock would need her help to look through them. Amanda gave her a small smile that she slowly returned.
"What kind of boss was he, Amanda?" Sherlock asked. "Appreciative?"
Amanda paused. "Um, no. That's not a word I'd use. The only things Eddie appreciated had a big price tag."
Sherlock kneeled down on the floor to see the receipts better and Maddie rounded him to get a better look herself. As she moved, she noticed a bottle of lotion on the desk.
"Like that hand cream?" she asked the assistant. "He bought that for you, didn't he?"
The woman fiddled nervously with a small pin in her hair, giving Maggie a surprised look, not answering.
Sherlock picked up a receipt from the desk and handed it to Maggie.
"Look at this one," he said. "Got a taxi from home on the day he died."
"Eighteen pounds fifty," Maggie sad, looking at the slip of paper.
"That would get him to the office," Amanda offered.
"Mm, not rush hour," Maggie said. "Check the time." She showed the paper to the woman, pointing to the time stamp. 10:35.
"Mid-morning," Sherlock said. "Eighteen would get him as far as…"
"The West End," Amanda said quickly. "I remember him saying."
Sherlock held up another receipt. "Underground," he said. "Printed at one, in Piccadilly."
"So, he got a Tube back to the office," Amanda said as Maggie took the receipt from Sherlock. "Why would he get a taxi into town and then the Tube back?" she asked.
Sherlock didn't pause in his search through the receipts. "Because he was delivering something heavy," he murmured.
"Didn't want to pull a package up the steps," Maggie said quietly. "Of course."
"Delivering?" Maggie asked, looking between them.
"To somewhere near Piccadilly station," Maggie said. "Dropped the package, delivered it, and then came back."
"No," Sherlock said, picking up another receipt. "Delivered it and stopped on his way. He got peckish," he said with a smirk.
Maggie took the receipt from him, reading the print. Piazza Espresso Bar Italiano.
Some time later, Sherlock and Maggie were walking past the espresso bar they had found. Sherlock was talking, more to himself than to her.
"So you bought your lunch from here, en route to the station, but where were you headed?" he asked the air. "Where did the taxi drop you?"
He spun around to look at the other shops around as Maggie looked into the diner, wondering what food they had. She was beginning to feel peckish, just like Van Coon must've. Her attention was snapped back to the detective as he grunted, slamming into someone else on the sidewalk. Surprisingly, it was John, who was holding what looked to be Brian Lukis's diary. The soldier looked fairly surprised to have run into the detective, and not just in the literal sense. Sherlock speaking immediately, telling the man all they had found out since seeing him last.
"Eddie Van Coon brought a package here the day he died," he said quickly. "Whatever was hidden in that case in his flat. I've managed to piece together a picture using scraps of information -"
"Sherlock," John said, trying to stop him.
"-credit card bills, receipts," the man continued, ignoring him. "He flew back from China, then came here."
"Sherlock," the soldier said again.
"Somewhere on this street, somewhere near," the detective continued. "I don't know where, but -"
"That shop, over there," John interrupted him, pointing across the street.
Sherlock looked over, then back to John, a frown on his face.
"How can you tell?" Maggie asked.
"Lukis' diary," he said, turning the book to show it to them. "He was here too. Wrote down the address."
Turning, he began toward the shop, leaving the other two behind.
"Oh," Sherlock said quietly.
Maggie gave him an amused smile before grabbing his arm to pull him along after the other man.