"Sheldon! Parcel for you!"

Penny signed the delivery man's pad and took the box from him

"you expecting anything?"

She looked the package over. A small rectangle, larger than a brick, smaller than a shoe box. Wrapped in brown paper and tied up with hairy brown string. It's heavier than she expects so She turns it in her hands to inspect it further. LA Courier stickers and address label. Posted in town today.

"wow. Old school wrapping. Who do you know who'd use a parcel bend and a packers knot?"

Sheldon looks over from his computer "I'm not expecting anything from either a butcher or a boy scout"

Penny notices the package is not only heavy, it feels noticeably cold. Sensing something is not right she carefully puts it down and steps back

"Something is not right with that parcel. It feels as cold as ice."

Sheldon gets up and walks over to the package, examining it intently but careful not to touch it. "Curious. Very curious."

Keeping his eyes on the parcel he holds out his hand to Penny

"Knife"

She tugs her Spyderco folding knife from her back pocket, thumbs it open one handed and reverses it, putting the hilt in his hand.

Like a surgeon Sheldon carefully slices away part of the paper with the razor sharp tip. Inside the plain white of a polystyrene box can be seen. He carefully slices away more, sliding the string free without cutting or untying it.

"Insulated packing box. From the weight I'd say full of ice."

"it's too small for Gwyneth Paltrow's head but I've a bad feeling about this"

Sheldon flips it open with the knife point.

Inside is full of ice with a gruesome chunk of something red in the middle

Penny swallows nervously "is that a… nose? A severed nose?!"

Sheldon raises an eyebrow then uses a pencil in one nostril to lift the severed proboscis

"It does indeed appear to be a human nose. Adult male. Fairly fresh too."

"great, a fresh nose. What the HELL Sheldon?"

He flips the box closed

"It seems we've annoyed someone very powerful"

As they wait for the police to arrive, Sheldon settles into his spot and says

"Let me tell you the story of Lucky George. He was born George Kyriacos. Parents were Greek nationals, he was born and raised in New York. He was academically average but wealthy.

Now Lucky George was a stock market trader on the New York exchange.

Five years ago there was a financial scandal involving investments in Northern Macedonia, a crime that would have netted them a billion Euros, but Kyriacos made a mistake with a drunken boast and got caught. He turned on his compatriots in return for immunity and protection, offered to give up the whole organisation - he made a lot of wild claims about globe spanning criminal acts of amazing complexity worth millions of dollars. He even promised to give up the mastermind behind it all."

"I don't recall hearing about that, but I was probably on active duty"

"Oh, it wasn't in the news. Kyriacos disappeared on his way to give evidence - he vanished from a locked van while it was moving."

"surely that's impossible? It must have stopped somewhere if he got out"

"That is the mystery. He and two police officers got into the van, it was locked up and then set off with a Swat van and two other Police cars. It didn't stop, neither the driver or chase car saw anything out of the ordinary but when they arrived he was gone. Both guards that had been with him were dead in the van, each had been shot once in the back of the head."

"A classic locked room mystery"

"One I wish I had been called in on, but like you I was otherwise occupied"

"Then almost a year after he disappeared he started turning up, in pieces. First a hand, sent to a Triad gang in Amsterdam as a final warning in a vendetta. A foot was found floating in the Thames in London, pale and bloated. A testicle pickled in a jar was sent to an Italian Cardinal. His tongue was found nail-gunned into the mouth of a Columbian informer."

He shrugs "There may be more that the Police are unaware of. But getting a body part of his in the mail is a serious warning"

"But this is fresh – you're saying he's still alive somehow?"

"It would appear so"

"What sort of monster could do that?!"

"All we have is the name of the Mastermind he promised to reveal" Sheldon pauses

"Moriarty"