Hello there! As Sherlock would say - I AM ON FIRE! I didn't honestly expect to put another chapter up so soon, finally I gathered some inspiration and I just enjoy writing this story again! Thank you all for any kind of support, love you all 3

(I do not own anything from Sherlock, all rights to BBC and AC Doyle)

Chapter 3: Urban bloodlust frenzy

SARAH WINSTON

When we came back to 221B, we printed the photographs of the cipher and Sherlock added the to the photos on wall above the fireplace. I decided to make us all some tea in the boys' kitchen. I was thinking about how rapidly my day has changed. Just this morning, I met up with Lestrade for a chat, now I'm here, solving the most intriguing case I've ever had with the world's only consulting detective and an army doctor. I wasn't sure of this whole situation first, with Greg warning me that Sherlock Holmes is a strange man who might not like me meddling in, but he turned out to be on the same page as me. I felt that even though he did have his untacfulness and he wasn't very good with human emotions, we worked well together. I had a feeling he might even tolerate me in the end. I decided to clean up their kitchen a bit while waiting for the kettle to boil and I heard Sherlock recapitulate the events in the living room. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, leaned on the kitchen table as he stood in front of the mirror with John.
"So, the killer goes to the bank, leaves a threatening cipher for Van Coon, Van Coon panics, returns to his apartment, locks himself in. Hours later, he dies."
"The killer finds Lukis at the library, writes the cipher on the shelf where he knows it'll be seen and Lukis goes home," John joined him.
"Later that night, he dies as well," Sherlock concluded.
"So why did they die, Sherlock?" I asked as I walked into the living room carrying tea for the three of us.
"Only the cipher can tell us," Sherlock gently touched one of the pictures on the wall, then his expression sharpened. It seemed like he got an idea.

We had to leave Baker Street again and we made our way trough the Trafalgar Square, and I noticed we were heading towards the National Gallery. Sherlock turned to face John and I, walking backwards. I was just hoping he won't bump into someone.
"The world runs on codes and ciphers. From the million-pound security system at the bank, to the PIN machine you took your exception to, John. Cryptography inhabits our every waking moment."
"Wait a second, what PIN machine, John?" I asked John with a confused smile.
"Oh it's nothing. I just had a little row with a machine at Tesco's."
"What?" I laughed unbeliavably.
"Yeah, thanks for bringing it up, Sherlock..." John eyed the detective. "Why did you bring it up anyway?"
"Because that's all computer generated. Electronic codes, electronic ciphering methods. This is different. It's an ancient device. Modern code-breaking methods won't unravel it."
"Okay, so where are we headed, then?" I asked Sherlock, setting my eyes on the gallery, but we didn't seem to head into the building. Instead we turned left a little.
"I need some advice."
"What? Sorry?" John asked as if he didn't hear him with a small grin. I tried to cover up my laugh. I guess Sherlock didn't say those words a lot.
"You heard me perfectly. I'm not saying it again."
"You need advice?" John asked, still not believing his own ears.
"On painting, yes. I need to talk to an expert." He continued to lead us into an isle next to the gallery. I noticed a young man spraying a graffiti of a policeman with a pig's snout instead of a nose on the gallery's metal door. Under the graffiti was his signature - Raz. We approached him and he noticed us.
"Part of a new exhibition," he announced, clearly proud of his work.
"Interesting," Sherlock stated, clearly not interested.
"I call it Urban Bloodlust Frenzy." Fancy name. I made a grimace.
John probably shared my thoughts. "Catchy," he said sarcastically.
Raz continued to spray. "I've got two minutes before a Community Support Officer comes 'round that corner. Can we do this while I'm workin'?"
Sherlock pulled his phone out of his coat's pocket and he handed it to Raz, who took it, tossing the spray can to John.
"Know the author?" Sherlock inquired.
"Recognize the paint. It's like Michigan, hardcore propellant. I'd say zinc."
"What about the symbols? Do you recognize them?"
"Not even sure it's a proper language."
"Two men have been murdered, Raz," Sherlock told him with a hint of urgence.
"And deciphering this is the key to find out who killed them," I explained to Raz.
"What and this is all you've got to go on? It's hardly much now, is it?"
"Hey!" I felt like I was scolding a child, but in my defence he was being rude.
"Are you gonna help us or not?" Shelock asked him, annoyed.
Raz nodded. "I'll ask around."
"Somebody must know something about it." Sherlock murmured quietly. Suddenly, we heard a loud oi! and I assumed that was our cue to dash. I felt Sherlock grab my coat's sleeve and he dragged me with him, Raz running with us, away from the Community Support Officer running towards us. I had a bad feeling we forgot something along our escape. More like someone. Oh no.
"We forgot John!" I shouted, trying to catch my breath as we started to slow down, assuming the officer wasn't after us anymore. Sherlock stopped completely and he looked over at me. I sat down on the nearby pavement's curb and Sherlock sat down next to me. We both stared at each other for a while and then, we burst out laughing. "No, no, we can't laugh, it's not funny!" I exclaimed, trying my hardest to stop.
"Well, you're the one who's still laughing," he grinned.
"I'm not..." I said knowing that was absolutely not true.
"I'm sure John'll be fine. Come on," he stood up from the curb and he held out his hand to help me stand. We took a cab back to Baker Street and after some time, John finally made his way up the stairs to the living room.

"You've been a while," Sherlock stated with a light tone, but I had a strong sense that John wouldn't be exactly in the right mood for joking, judging from his expression. Nope, he seemed furious.
"Yeah, well you know how it is. Custody sergeants don't really like to be hurried, do they?" John started angrily pacing around the living room an I stared at him with a worried look from the sofa.
"John, we are so sorry we left you there!" I told him sincerely, trying to give him my best sorry look.
"Well I believe that you are," he said to me and then he glared at Sherlock. "But you know, just formalities, fingerprints, charge sheet and I've gotta be in Magistrates Court on Tuesday," he said furiously.

"What?" Sherlock asked, not paying much attention to him, rather than the book he was holding.
"Me, Sherlock! In court on Tuesday! They're giving me an ASBO!" He shouted angrily at Sherlock, who didn't seem to understand just how mad John was.
"Hm, good, fine," Sherlock said absently and I turned my head to him with raised eyebrows.
"Seriously?" I breathed out, shaking my head at him and he frowned.
"You wanna tell your little pal he's welcome to go and own up any time," John said roughly. Sherlock slammed his book shut.
"This symbol. I still can't place it." Sherlock turned to John, as if the conversation we had never even happened. I pressed the palm of my hand on my forehead in disbelief. John just sighed angrily and he started to take off his jacket, but Sherlock walked over to him and pulled it back on him as he shoved him to the door.
"No, I need you to go to the police station to ask about the journalist," he commanded and John gave him a nasty look.
"Oh, Jesus!"
"His persona effects will have been impounded. Get hold of his diary, or something that will tell us his movements," Sherlock said as he grabbed his own coat and he threw me my grey one. "Sarah and I are gonna go and see Van Coon's P.A. If we retrace their steps, somewhere they'll collide." He stated and he turned to wait for me to lazily get up from the sofa. We've been going back and forth all day and I honestly couldn't wait to slip into my cozy bed at my hotel. That of course, if we were ever going to stop, which Sherlock didn't seem likely to do in the near future.

John went to the Yard and Sherlock and I went to the Shad Sanderson Bank, where Van Coon worked before he died. We made our way to his P.A. Amanda, who was showing us his online calendar on her computer, with Sherlock and I leaning over her shoulders to see.
"Flew back from Dalian Friday. Looks like he had back-to-back meetings with the sales team," Amanda read Van Coon's schedule out loud.
"Can you print me a copy?" Sherlock asked.
"Please," I added, nudging the man gently with my elbow and he gave me a short glare. Honestly, the manners of this man.
"Sure."
"What about the day he died? Can you tell us where he was?"
Amanda looked at the screen. "Sorry, a bit of a gap." Sherlock huffed and I eyed him. "But I have all his receipts," Amanda tried to help us. She spread Van Coon's receipts on her desk and Sherlock and I started to look through them.
"What kind of a boss was he, Amanda? Appreciative?" Sherlock inquired.
"Um, no. That's not a word I'd use. The only things Eddie appreciated had a big price tag," Amanda chuckled slightly.
"Like that hand cream. He bought that for you didn't he?" Sherlock pointed at the hand cream on her desk.
"Oh, I use the same brand! It's really good." I smiled at Amanda and Sherlock cleared his throat. "Sorry," I apologized quickly and we continued to look trough the receipts and I noticed one with the date of his death. I showed it to Sherlock who took it from me.
"Look at this one," he said to Amanda. "Got a taxi from home on the day he died. Eighteen pounds fifty."
"That would get him to the office."
"Not rush hour, check the time. Mid-morning. Eighteen would get him as far as-"
"The West End. I remember him saying."
Sherlock then found a London Underground ticket with the same date and he showed it to me, then he handed it to Amanda. "Undergound. Printed at one in Piccadilly."
"So he got a tube back to the office."
"But why would he get a taxi into town and the the Tube back? It's weird," I frowned and I started to look for receipts with the same date as the previous two.
"Why? Because he was delivering something heavy. Didn't want to lug a package up the escalator," Sherlock said thoughtfully.
"Delivering?" Amanda asked.
"To somewhere near Piccadilly Station. Dropped the package, delivered it and then-"
"Then he stopped on his way." I interrupted Sherlock and I handed him a recepit from a place called Piazza Espresso Bar Italiano, very proud of myself for finding it.
"He got peckish," Sherlock smirked.

We moved to find the espresso bar where Van Coon stopped by for some food, we spoke about the case and Van Coon's possible next stops.
"So, he bought his lunch from here en route to the station, but where was he headed from? Where did the taxi drop him?" Sherlock asked, probably himself because I saw that he was getting into his zone. He started spinning around, trying to figure everything out and I had to stop and observe him. I could feel myself smile with amusement. I didn't even have the time to alert him that he was about to bump into someone, who seemed to be approaching us. Sherlock grunted and he looked over at the person he bumped into - John. John's eyes widened at the sight of us.
"Oh hi John!" I waved to him, still smiling.
"Right."
"Eddie Van Coon brought a package here the day he died - whatever was hidden inside hat case. We've managed to piece together a picture using scraps of information-"
"Sherlock-" John tried to interrupt him.
"Credit card bills, receipts. He flew back from China, then he came here."
"Sherlock."
"Sherlock, I think John has something-"
"Somewhere in this street, somewhere near. I don't know where, but-"
"That shop over there." John said loudly, pointing in the direction of a Chinese shop - The Lucky Cat. Sherlock's eyes widened in surprise.
"How can you tell?" He asked, still quite shocked.
"Lukis' diary. He was there too. He wrote down the address," John showed us Lukis' diary and we headed to the shop after him.
"Oh." Sherlock didn't seem to know what to say. It was quite amusing.

We walked into the Lucky Cat shop, which was filled with, unsuprisingly, decorative cats waving their little paws.
"Hello," John greeted an old lady behind the counter. I started to search for anything useful with Sherlock. The shopkeeper tried her best to sell something.
"You want lucky cat?" She pointed at one of the cute little cats.
"No, thanks, no." John gave her a small, polite smile and he joined us in looking.
"And you?" She didn't give up and she turned to Sherlock, who tried his best to "politely" ignore her. "Ten pound. Ten pound! I think your wife, she will like!" Sherlock gave her a confused frown, probably asking himself what wife, when his eyes landed on me, standing near him. I chuckled.
"No, thanks." I said to the lady who was seemingly very dissapointed that we didn't buy anything, trying to ignore the fact that the woman just implied that the two of us are a couple. Ha. I just hoped John didn't hear her. But he seemed to be busy with looking for clues. Suddenly he called for us.
"Sherlock, Sarah. The label here." He showed us a small ceramic cup with a price tag o the underside of it. There was a Chinese symbol, exactly like the graffiti.
"Yes, I see it." Sherlock stared at the symbol thoughtfully. I could swear I saw a little lightbulb light up upon his head as he seemed to figure something out. We walked out of the shop and on the street and Sherlock started to explain his thoughts.
"It's an ancient number system! Hangzhou. These days, only street traders use it. Those were numbers written on the wall at the bank and at the library," he explained and he walked over to a greengrocer's which had a few boxes with vegetables on display. The boxes had handwritten signs on them with the names of the vegetables both in Chinese and English and under the signs were the costs in both Hangzhou and English. Sherlock picked up various signs and he checked the numbers on them. "Numbers written in an ancient Chinese dialect!" He showed us and I nodded in understanding.
"It's a fifteen! What we thought was the artist's tag - it's a number fifteen!" John exclaimed.
"And the blindfold on Sir William's painting - the horizontal line? That was a number as well," Sherlock showed us a price tag with an almost horizontal line at the top with 1£ written underneath.
"Number one." I said, happy that we finally moved ahead in the case. We figured out what the graffiti meant. Now we only needed to find out what the numbers meant...
"We've found it!" John smiled.
We decided to stop by at the espresso bar that Van Coon went to, as both John and I felt a bit hungry. I saw John frown next to me as we walked across the street to the espresso bar, he looked as if he saw something, but then he shrugged and he continued on with us.

We were sitting at a table near a window, Sherlock grabbed a paper napkin and he started to write the Hangzhou numbers and their English equivalents on it. I sat down on a chair next to him, peaking over his shoulder to see what he was writing down. John was sitting opposite us, scribbling some notes as well.
"Two men travel back from China. Both head straight for the Lucky Cat emporium. What did they see?" John asked us both.
"It's not what they saw, it's what they both brought back in those suitcases," Sherlock replied.
"And he doesn't mean duty free," I smirked at John. A waitress brought food for John and I. Sherlock apparently didn't eat on cases, something about how digestion slows him down. Well I don't know about him, but if I didn't have food anytime I was hungry, case or no case, I wouldn't be able to function properly.
Sherlock adjusted himfelf on the chair and he put his hands on the table. "Think about what Sebastian told us, about Van Coon, about how he stayed afloat in the market."
"Lost five million..." John furrowed his eyebrows in thought.
"... Made it back in a week. That's how he made such easy money."
"He was a smuggler," I smiled at John who took a mouthful of his food and Sherlock next to me nodded.
"A guy like him, it would have been perfect. Business man, making frequent trips to Asia. And Lukis was the same. A journalist writing about China. Both of them smuggled stuff out, and the Lucky Cat was their drop-off."
"But why did they die? I mean, it doesn't make sense. If they both turn up at the shop and deliver the goods, why would someone threaten them and kill them after the event, after they'd finished the job?" John asked.
Sherlock sat back, thinking. I frowned in thought as well and then an idea hit me. I flashed a look at Sherlock with wide eyes and he seemed to be following my train of thought.
"What if one of them was light-fingered?" He smirked.
"How'd you mean?" John gave us a puzzled look.
"Stole something," I explained. "Something from the hoard."
John's eyes lit up. "And the killer doesn't know which one of them took it, so he threatens them both. Right."
Sherlock was looking out the window for a while, it seemed he noticed something. He looked up to the windows above the Lucky Cat shop opposite the place we were sitting at. He looked to the ground again and his gaze sharpened. "Remind me, when was the last time that it rained?" He asked us, but without waiting for an actual answer, he walked out of the restaurant. I looked down sadly at my unfinished food.
"Does he ever, like, take a break?" I asked John with a sigh.
"Nope, not when he's on a case." He chuckled.
"Yeah, I thought so," I said, getting up from my chair, putting money for the both of us on the table for our meals. We hurriedly followed after Sherlock, who was now standing in front of the Lucky Cat. He bent down to pick up a newspaper in front of the door to the flat above the shop. There were still droplets of rain on the cover, which meant that the owner of the flat didn't check their mail.
Sherlock turned to us. "It's been here since Monday," he told us and he pressed the doorbell. No answer. I read the nametag next to it, apparently the flat belonged to Soo Lin Yao. After getting no response, Sherlock glanced over to a little alleyway beside the building and he walked over there with us close behind.
"Er, Sherlock? What are we trying to do?" I asked him.
"No one's been in that flat for at least three days."
"Could've gone on holiday," John suggested.
"Do you leave your windows open when you go on holiday?" Sherlock raised his eyebrows at him and he looked up to a metal fire escape above our heads. He jumped up and grabbed the bottom of the steps. The metal steps screeched and when they reached down, he climbed them up and without another thought, I quickly followed after him before the steps moved back up. I had a bad feeling we left John down there again. I was right.

Sherlock climbed trough the window into a small kitchen and he yelped as he knocked over a vase, but he managed to catch it just in time before it broke.
"Good reflexes!" I complimented him with a smile and he offered me his hand to help me climb trough the window. We both noticed a stain on the carpet below our feet. It could only mean one thing.
"Somone else has been here!" Sherlock called out the window for John. "Somebody else broke into the flat and knocked over the vase just like I did," he gave me a meaningful look and he put the vase back on a small table. We continued to scan the flat for any signs that could lead us to some kind of conclusion. Sherlock looked into the fridge, urging me to look into a washing machine. I wasn't exactly thrilled to do so, but alas. I decided to stay in close proximity of Sherlock, a small worry wandering in the back of my mind, that the someone might still be here. I heard John ring the doorbell which meant he relocated back to the front door of Soo Lin Yao's flat.
"D'you think you could let me in this time?" He shouted with a hint of frustration, but Sherlock ignored him. Instead, he took the lid off the milk in the fridge and I watched him grimace after sniffing it.
"Can you not keep doing this please?"
"We're not the first!" Sherlock shouted back to him.
"What?" Johned shouted again.
"Somebody's been here before us!" I called out even louder than Sherlock who walked closer to me and we stood back-to-back, eyeing the flat.
"What are you saying?" John tried again.

SHERLOCK HOLMES:

I pulled a magnifier glass out of my coat pocket and squatted down to examine an impression of a shoe that was on a rug. "Size eight. Small feet. Small, but athletic," I murmured over to Sarah, who seemed to notice a photograph standing on a small commode. She handed it over to me carefully, trying not to disrupt the fresh handprint on the glass and I scanned the handprint with my magnifier. "Small, strong hands."
"Oh, do you think it's the-?"
"Our acrobat," I finished for her with a small smirk. Then a thought occured to me and I frowned. "But why didn't he close the window when he left?" I asked myself out loud and then it hit me. How could I be so pathethically dumb? How have I not seen this? "Oh stupid. Stupid! Obvious, he's still here." I said quietly and Sarah's eyes widened. I put the magnifier glass back into my pocket and I slowly approached Soo Lin Yao's bedroom with Sarah closely behind me. We both eyed the folding screen that was shielding the bed from our sight and I felt Sarah shift even closer to me. It was obvious she was nervous at the thought of the man who killed two people already being in the same space as the two of us. We both swiftly looked behind the folding screen, prepared for anything lauching at us, but there was nothing, just two stuffed animals staring back at us. Sarah smiled and took one in her hands with a small aww and I rolled my eyes at her, trying to hide my amusement. I turned towards the other side of the room in order to examine the rest of the flat, but before I could do anything, I felt something wrap around my neck tightly from behind. Our spider-man finally decided to let his presence known. Lovely. And now I couldn't breathe.