A/N: I've been away a while, unexpectedly distracted by real life's constrains. I'll have to leave the last one on hold for now, and pick up something simpler I can chew, to get me started again.
Because I've been on this site for a lopsided eternity, I'm trialling using correct speech marks and dialogue related grammar. It feels... off, but I suppose I will eventually get used to it. (Still not British or a writer, remember that? Good, keep hold of that thought.)
Small idea, easy to play with, on this one. Apologies as it's not spectacular in any way. -csf
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Sherlock's nimble fingers ghost the binders of the nearest books, lined up in a stack of shelves. He studies them attentively under the dusky moonlight and the piercing halo of his flashlight.
"How do you hide a book in a forest, John?" he asks, in a rhetoric tone of voice. At least I think it's rhetoric; I'm never entirely sure with Sherlock.
It was an odd question, made odder by Sherlock's impending mysteries tone of voice. Particularly effective when we find ourselves breaking and entering into the Bethnal Green Library.
"Sherlock, do you mean a tree in a forest?"
"Originally, I suppose it will have been, but why go back so far?" he asks me with a feline glint in his eyes. "At some point in the last decade the cellulosic tree fibres have been recombined into aligned sheets of paper carrying information on a specific topic or narrative; a book. Just like an electronic book reading device, but it never runs out of batteries at the best part."
I roll my eyes, he just misses it. "Gee, can't you be more specific than that? Talking about a tree in a forest, there are hundreds of books in here alone!"
"John, you're not asking the right question."
"Like can't we order the book online and have it delivered to the flat?"
He snaps and slides out a book, shakes his head, and hands it to me. I take it out of shock, just like the next three, piling up in my arms. A frustrated grunt echoes in the library.
"Why this book?" I amend. "Great story?"
He shrugs airily. "I don't know, never read it."
I scratch my arm, impatient, as best as I can, balancing a growing pile of books.
"Why is this book important for our case?"
"It holds a cipher, John, left by a secret society, inside its back cover."
I frown. How are we ever going to check all the inside covers of all the books in a public library?
Sherlock easily reads my mind. "Oh, please, John, give a secret society a bit more credit than that!"
"Stop pilling up the books!" I hiss.
He negligently dismisses, "Oh why are you hugging that pile of books? Just drop it, John!"
The books get dumped unceremoniously in the nearest trolley. My eyes narrow. "Should I give any credit to an extinct secret society?"
"They marked the book's binding to identify this particular book. Wouldn't you, in case you ever needed to find your way back to it?"
I guess. But what if—
"Sherlock, what if someone requisitioned this book, took it home? I mean, it's not a blank book, someone will try to read it at some point, presumably."
Sherlock straightens as if poked by an electric rod.
"Don't worry your pretty blonde head, John, we'll cross that bridge if it comes to that," he snaps, absent-mindedly crouching again, before another set of bookshelves, observing them intently.
Pretty? I guess that means lift-off. Sherlock is no longer listening to his co-thief. His mind will be filling with statistics, codes, symbols, diagrams, mathematical probabilities, the lot. A usual Tuesday for Sherlock Holmes.
Repressing a yawn I take the nearest seat at a reading table. The night sky really is clear and scintillating outside the narrow windows above the rows of bookshelves in a wooden framework. Maybe Sherlock could borrow a book or two about the Solar System, come the morning.
"Honestly, John!" he huffs.
Still with the mind reading act, I see. Let's experiment with that then.
"Try the third book from the left next."
Sherlock's eyes grow wide as dishes in a quick glance, and he hastes to comply. His total confidence in his sidekick is a complete surprise to me. Since when does Sherlock even listen to me? Before I can think back on how I managed to trick Sherlock with a silly hunch, he rounds up on his lying sidekick. Uh-oh, he's upset now. I guess the third book on the left was a dud.
"John, our case depends on this book! Will you be serious?"
"Sorry, Sherlock," I volunteer honestly. "By the way, what is our case? You never told me."
"Deadly Secret Society, I'm afraid all the last members were secretly beheaded by secret contraptions of their own making. Only the fowl scent had the police catch up with the macabre finding of their remains. Elusive to the end, it's befitting in a way."
"Ugh, that's awful. Mechanical failure at the secret meeting site or were they targeted by rivals?"
"No," he replies, absent-mindedly. "John, there's got to be a sign!"
"Or the books got taken out."
"The secret the Secret Society wanted to guard depended of having the message secure in a public location, do you really think they chose the juiciest romantic drivel hardcover they could find in the Thermodynamics section of the public library?"
Sherlock is not too precious not to flash his torch upwards to the Thermodynamics sign above the shelves, then to my face, making me raise my hands to block the blinding light.
Usually Sherlock makes a quick point, it's really not like him to linger revengefully; so I know something is wrong even before he chuckles throatily, amused and apparently thinking me pretty again.
"John, you are indeed my conductor of light!" he reminds me, finally relenting and moving away the torch light. "UV light," he mentions, searching deep in his coat's pockets. "How do you mark a tree in a forest do that only the insects can see it?"
Nah, he's stretching the analogy too far now.
Sherlock turns on a different torch, this time dark and blue and deep beyond our capacity to see naturally.
Only one book binding shines back in eager response (ignoring a few biological stains in the seat of the chair I had occupied, eww!) and it's easy to discern letterings made in the invisible ink.
"It says This One, really?"
The detective takes out the book, shuffles the pages and glimpses at the ending. Then he snaps the book shut and puts it back neatly.
"It's highly effective publicity, John! Mycroft will be pleased. A crisis has been averted. We can go home now." Sherlock's coat swishes as he twirls away.
Wait—
"Aren't we taking the book?"
Sherlock shrugs, his bony shoulders animating the shoulder pads on the beloved coat as he starts descending a flight of stairs. "You can sign it out tomorrow, John, once the library opens. Or later, of you wish to sleep in. I don't believe the world is full of holidaying students desperate to learn Thermodynamics."
I frown. "You memorised the back cover message already."
"Naturally, John!"
"And it's safe to leave the book there? Won't it – I don't know – start a war?"
"Books aren't inherently dangerous, John! People are. A soldier should know."
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The third book from the left. Of course it was the wrong book. But Sherlock fell for the ruse. And that bewilders me. That, for a fleeting moment, Sherlock really believed I had it, I had solved it; done, dusted, call Lestrade and let's go home. As if I was a proper detective, deducing away.
Nah, I'm the sidekick.
And a doctor, and a soldier. Plenty to be going on with, don't you think?
Only a good friend like Sherlock could see me at his level so naturally. I know I've been in this game far too long, years of keen friendship with the world's only consulting detective. Unfortunately, it seems the Science of Deduction does not do proxy. No matter how close and interested I've been, I couldn't explain Sherlock's successful methods.
But the third book from the left proves Sherlock still tries to lead me along his teachings, his unique, nearly patented, methods of higher reasoning in crime solving.
"We both know what is going on here." "Think, John, think!" "I'm putting my best man on the case."
The Science of Deduction isn't much useful in decent tea making for Sherlock Holmes, though. But fairly spectacular in the crime solving world.
And if Sherlock has tried to teach me his ways, I wonder if that makes me unique, special even. Has he genuinely tried to explain his gift to detective inspector Lestrade? Forensics Technician Anderson? The skull on the mantelpiece? Anyone?
Did we listen? Or did we put Sherlock so high up in a pedestal that it's got to feel lonely up there.
I sigh and rub my weary eyes in the cab on our way to 221B, to our home.
Sherlock, I assume, has again been reading my mind with his near telepathic ways. Because he leans closer, so that his words remain just between the two of us, and he whispers to me:
'Soon, John. We'll start with a two, I think, and build it up."
I blink, a flutter of eyelids as I try to negotiate what I just heard.
"And you can teach me how to diagnose exotic maladies, John. One can never know too much on the rare ones."
I smile, an eager smile. Suddenly I'm not even tired anymore. "Deal."
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