Chapter Seven: Ciphers Everywhere
The trio headed over to New Scotland Yard quickly. Sherlock lead them to Dimmock's office. He now stood on the other side of the office, typing onto a laptop.
"Brian Lukis, freelance journalist. Murdered in his flat…" Sherlock explained as he turned the laptop around to show Dimmock the web page which John was looking at earlier. "...doors locked from the inside."
"You've gotta admit, it's similar," added John as Dimmock scowled at the computer. "Both men killed by someone who can... walk through solid walls."
"Do you really believe Van Coon was just another suicide?" asked Alice. "Or do you believe Sherlock now?" Dimmock squirmed, not meeting any of their eyes. "I'm guessing you've seen the ballistics report?" Dimmock nodded. "Now, was the shot that killed him… did it really come from his own gun?"
"No," Dimmock replied reluctantly.
"No," Sherlock repeated. "So this investigation might move a bit quicker if you were to take my word as gospel." Dimmock looked at him silently. Sherlock leaned forward over the desk. "I've just handed you a murder enquiry. Five minutes in his flat."
True to his word, Alice, John and Sherlock's next stop was Lukis' flat. Also true to his word, it was in five minutes.
Ducking under the police tape, Alice followed her guardians (and Dimmock) up the stairs to the flat's living room. There was an open empty suitcase on the floor. Nearby on the carpet was a black origami flower, similar to the one that Sherlock pulled from Van Coon's mouth. There were also books everywhere on the desk, on bookshelves and scattered about on the floor. Basically, they were everywhere you could step. There were several open newspapers are also lying on the floor. Sherlock walked over to the kitchen area and looked through the window at the nearby rooftops of lower buildings. Pushing back the net curtain for a better look, he smirked.
"Four floors up. That's why they think they're safe," he said. "Put a chain across the door and bolt it shut; think they're impregnable." The detective walked back into the living room. "They don't reckon for one second that there's another way in." He turned back towards the stairs.
"I don't understand," said Dimmock as Sherlock headed out on the landing.
"I'm giving you thirty-five seconds seconds to figure it out." No one understood to whom Sherlock was talking to, well… except Alice.
Her eyes danced across the room, until she stopped at the landing. The girl rushed to join her detective, to find him staring at the skylight on the landing. It only took her the remaining ten seconds to figure out what Sherlock was trying to say.
"Time's u-"
"The killer's a climber!" Alice exclaimed quickly. Sherlock nodded. He hopped up on a nearby box, allowing him to get closer to the skylight.
"He clings to the wall like an insect," Sherlock explained. He unhooked the latch and pushed the window upwards. "That's how he got in. Climbed up the side of the walls, ran along the roof, dropped in through this skylight."
"You're not serious! Like Spider-Man?!" shouted Dimmock, slightly teed off.
"He scaled six floors of a Docklands apartment building, jumped the balcony to kill Van Coon." Dimmock started laughing. Alice rolled her eyes before shooting him a look.
"Oh, ho-hold on!"
"And of course that's how he got into the bank. He ran along the window ledge and onto the terrace." Sherlock stepped down and looked around again. "We have to find out what connects these two men." Alice, distracted by the talk, walked over to the books scattered up the side of the staircase. She headed down a few stairs and picked up one of them. It had fallen open, and the front page showed that it has been borrowed from West Kensington Library.
"Sherlock," she said as she climbed back up the stairs, "Will this do? It does count as a link... right?" Alice handed the detective what she had. Sherlock read it over before slamming the book shut.
"Good girl," said the man. He took the book with him as he headed down the stairs. John and Alice quickly followed behind.
After a short taxi journey during, the trio were once again on an escalator, this time inside West Kensington Library. Sherlock navigated his way to the aisle where the book he had with him came from.
"Date stamped on the book is the same day that he died," Sherlock explained. Checking the reference number stuck to the bottom of the book's spine, he went to the correct place along the shelves and started pulling out books and examining them. Alice pulled one off the shelf from the other side, discovering something curious.
"Dr. Watson?" She asked. "Can you come help me?" John walked over and pulled out some books out along where Alice indicated. The more of the discovery was now visible.
"Sherlock," called out John. Sherlock turned and saw Alice and John staring into the gap left by the books they removed. Stepping over to them, he reached to the shelf and pulls out so many books with one hand. Pulling out another huge handful of books with his other hand, he revealed that spray painted on the back of the shelf were the same two symbols that were sprayed across the office at the bank. Alice took a few quick photos before the trio left.
Back at 221B, Alice was adding the new photos to the mirror. Sherlock and John were standing behind her, looking at the pictures.
"The killer went to the bank and left the first cipher for Van Coon. He panicked and returned to his apartment, locking himself inside in the process. A few hours later, he died," summed up Alice as she stepped back from her work. "The killer then found Lukis at the library. They wrote the cipher on the shelf where it will be seen. Lukis went home and later that night, he died as well." The girl sighed. "Why did they have to die, Sherlock?" Sherlock ran his fingers over the line painted across Sir William's face.
"Only the cipher can tell us," he answered. He thoughtfully tapped his finger against the photo as his expression sharpened. Alice knew what this meant. Sherlock had an idea. And it would probably lead to trouble.
The detective took his two companions to Trafalgar Square, from which they seemed to be heading towards the National Gallery.
"The world's run on codes and ciphers, you two," he explained to the confused pair behind him. "From the million-pound security system at the bank, to the PIN machine John took exception to, cryptography inhabits our every waking moment."
"I know that, but Sherlock-" Alice said before being cut off.
"... but it'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."
"Where are we headed?" John asked.
"I need to ask some advice..." Alice blinked. Did she hear him right?
"What?! Sorry?!" Sherlock threw John a dark look as the man smiled in disbelief.
"You heard me perfectly. I'm not saying it again."
"You need advice?"
"On painting, yes. I need to talk to an expert."
Sherlock lead John and Alice towards the entrance to the National Gallery... and straight around it to the rear of the building where a young man had spray-stencilled onto a solid grey metal door the image of a policeman holding a rifle in his hands. The image had a pig's snout in place of a human nose. A large canvas bag was at the man's feet and he was holding spray cans in both hands. he is now adding the finishing touches to his 'artwork.' He continued spraying, unperturbed, as Sherlock, John and Alice approached him.
"Part of a new exhibition," he said without even looking at them.
"Very… interesting…" Alice said sarcastically.
"I call it Urban Bloodlust Frenzy." He laughed a little.
"Very catchy." The man continued spraying. Alice caught sight of the name he had signed with. Raz.
"I've got two minutes before a Community Support Officer comes round that corner." Raz looked over at Sherlock. "Can we do this while I'm workin'?" Sherlock took out his phone from the confines of his coat, holding it out to Raz. The artist turned and tossed one of the cans in his hands to John, but it landed in Alice's hands instead. Raz took Sherlock's phone and scrolled through the photographs that were on it.
"Know the author?" Sherlock asked.
"Recognise the paint. It's like Michigan; hardcore propellant. I'd say zinc."
"What about the symbols: d'you recognise them?" Raz squinted at the pictures.
"Not even sure it's a proper language."
"Two men have been murdered," said Alice. "And deciphering those symbols is the key to finding out who killed them."
"What, and this is all you've got to go on? It's hardly much, now, is it?"
"Are you gonna help us or not?!" The child snapped.
"... I'll ask around."
"Somebody must know something about it," Sherlock added. Before conversation was continued, a yell caught the group off guard. Two Community Support Officers were hurrying towards them. Sherlock instantly grabbed his phone from Raz. All three, with a confused Alice being left behind, ran off in the opposite directions. Alice laughed as she was left alone with the officers.
"I can explain..." she said. The officers said nothing. Alice remembered the paint can in her hands. "This isn't mine..." She laughed nervously before the officers dragged her off.
It took Alice an hour to be released from police custody. She got off almost scott free... except for the ASBO she now had on her. Anger built up in her veins as she walked back to 221B.
The girl opened and slammed the door to the flat as she reentered. Sherlock was standing at the fireplace again. The mirror was now almost completely covered because he had added several sheets of paper with various ciphers and pictograms on them. He had his head lowered and was nose deep in a book. He didn't even seemed phased by the slamming door. John was in the kitchen, but could still be seen from the living room. Alice stood there, arms crossed across her chest,and her eyes narrowed
"You've been a while," said Sherlock without even looking up or turning. "I told you Alice could handle herself, John."
"I'm not speaking to you," Alice said.
"Where were you?" John asked, walking into the living room. Alice blinked before turning to the doctor.
"I was with custody sergeants. Fingerprints and charge sheets..." Before John could even ask what had happened Alice continued. "Speaking of which, I need one of you to take me to court on Tuesday."
"What?" Sherlock asked absently. Alice snapped.
"Me, in court, on Tuesday!" Her voice was raised. "They're giving me an ASBO!"
"Good. Fine." Alice felt her hands ball up.
"Are you even listening to me?!" Sherlock slammed his book shut.
"This symbol: I still can't place it." Alice's eyes flashed with anger. Sherlock turned and put his book down. He walked over to the duo. "John. I need you to go to the police station. Take Alice with you. She needs to let go of her anger without me in the room."
"Sherlock, did you hear what she-" John went to ask before being interrupted.
"Ask about the journalist." He grabbed his coat from the back of the door. "His personal effects will have been impounded. Get hold of his diary, or something that will tell us his movements." Alice groaned and followed John and Sherlock downstairs and on the street."Gonna go and see Van Coon's P.A. If we retrace their steps, somewhere they'll coincide." He walked off down the street. Alice sighed, pushing the loose strands of her hair back into place. John hailed to pair a taxi. Alice looked across the street as it pulled An Oriental-looking woman with dark hair and wearing dark sunglasses was standing on the other side of the road and taking a photograph. Her camera was aimed in their direction.
"Scotland Yard," said John, giving directions to the driver. Alice turned.
"John..."
"What?" Alice looked back across the street. There was no one there. She sighed.
"Nevermind. Let's just go..." The two got into the taxi and drove off.
They arrived at Scotland Yard a short while later. Alice was ultimately displeased further when she saw it was Dimmock who was giving them the diary.
As of current, Dimmock was standing at a desk and rummaging through a box of Brian Lukis' possessions. John and Alice stood at the other side.
"Your friend..." Dimmock began, striking up a conversation.
"Listen: whatever you say, I'm behind you one hundred percent," John told him.
"...he's an arrogant sod."
"That's just mild..." Alice muttered aloud. "People- including myself at the moment- say far worse than that on a regular basis. Things not meant for a person of my age." Dimmock pulled a small book from the box, handing it off to John.
"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" he asked. "The journalist's diary?" John took the diary and flicked through it, opening it at a page. A boarding pass to Dalian Zhoushuizi International Airport to London Heathrow Airport nestled snugly inside. The two left rather quickly, following the one lead John had found while searching through the diary.
It took them to a shop down a little way. John scanned through the diary as they walked along. Alice spotted someone familiar ahead. Her dark eyes narrowed with a spark. She reached out to grab John by the coat to stop him, but it was too late. John- who had not been paying attention- collided with the man now before them. Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock took an instant to see the people in front of him. He didn't even give John time to recover as he began to spit out in a rapid fire speech pattern.
"Eddie Van Coon brought a package here the day he died – whatever was hidden inside that case," he said in a fast, steady pace. "I've managed to piece together a picture using scraps of information-"
"Sherlock…" John said, trying to get a word in.
"-credit card bills, receipts. He flew back from China, then he came here."
"Sherlock…"
"Somewhere in this street; somewhere near. I don't know where, but-"
"The shop across the street," Alice cut in, pointing to where she had mentioned. Sherlock looked at the shop, then at the pair with a frown.
"How can you tell?" he asked.
"Lukis' diary," John explained, showing Sherlock the entry in the book. "He was here, too. He wrote down the address." Alice turned and headed across the street, silent as a mouse. Sherlock and John followed after her.
The three walked into the shop. In Alice's opinion, it seemed mainly for tourists. The place consisted largely of decorative cats sitting up on their hind legs with one front paw raised. The paws on a few cats were waving back and forth. John greeted the shopkeeper politely before they had a look around. After a while, the shopkeeper lifted one of the cats from the desk.
"You want lucky cat?" asked the shopkeeper.
"No, thanks. No," said John.
"Ten pound. Ten pound!"
"No."
"I think your wife, she will like!"
"No, thank you." Alice laughed a little under her breath at John's misfortune as she walked over to one of the tables. On it was small, ceramic painted, handle-less cups. She looked over at Sherlock, who was examining a rack of clay statutes. With a roll of her eyes, Alice picked up one of the cups. She turned it over to look at the price tag. That's when she almost dropped it. Underneath the cup was a Chinese symbol stuck to it. It was the same symbols that was painted on the portrait at the bank and the shelf at the library.
"John. Found something," she said, gaining her detective's attention by accident. Sherlock walked over to his shadow and leaned over her shoulder. John walked over to them.
"The label there," said John.
"Yes, I see it," Sherlock responded.
"It's exactly the same as the other ciphers," finished Alice.
They made no time in leaving the shop. The three walked down the street as Sherlock began to explain rapid fire.
"It's an ancient number system! Hangzhou," he said. "These days, only street traders use it. Those were numbers written on the wall at the bank and at the library." Sherlock walked over to a nearby grocer's stand. Various boxes had handwritten signs on them, both in Chinese and English. Underneath were the costs, in both Hangzhou and English. Sherlock began to check the signs, looking at the symbols.
"Numbers written in an ancient Chinese dialect."
"It's a fifteen!" said John as he picked up on of the signs. It showed the upside-down eight. "What we thought was the artist's tag – it's a number fifteen."
"And the blindfold – the horizontal line? That was a number as well." Alice picked up one of the price tags depicting the next number.
"Found it!" she said, showing her find to the two men. "It's the Chinese number one. Yī."
"We've found it!" exclaimed John. Sherlock turned and walked away, prompting John to follow. Alice put the sign down and turned to follow. She froze when she saw someone. It was the woman from before, the same one outside of 221b. She still wore her dark sunglasses, and had her camera raised and focused on her. Someone walked between their line of view. When the person passed complete, the woman vanished. Alice shook her head to clear it before dashing after Holmes and Watson.
While Alice was still feeling uncomfortable about the woman,, the three were sitting in a restaurant across from the tourist shop, staking it out and waiting. Alice watched as Sherlock' hands wrote down two of the Hangzhou numbers along with their English translations on a paper napkin. John was writing notes across from him. For once, Alice wasn't writing anything down like she normally would be doing.
"Two men travel back from China. Both head straight for the Lucky Cat emporium," John clarified. "What did they see?"
"It's not what they saw; it's what they both brought back in those suitcases," Sherlock corrected.
"And you don't mean duty free." A waitress brought over a plate of food and put it down in front of John. "Thank you."
"Think about what Sebastian told us; about Van Coon – about how he stayed afloat in the market."
"He lost five million. And then he made back all of it in a week," Alice muttered loud enough for the two to hear. John hummed a bit.
"That's how he made such easy money."
"He was a smuggler," John said as he took in a mouthful of the food.
"A guy like him – it would have been perfect."
"Van Coon was a businessman making frequent trips to Asia," Alice muttered once again. "Lukis was the same. He was a journalist writing about China. "
"Both of them smuggled stuff out, and the Lucky Cat was their drop-off," finished Sherlock.
"But why did they die?" John asked. "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?" Sherlock sat back as he was looped into a thought for a few seconds, then smiled as he realised the answer.
"What if one of them was light-fingered?"
"How d'you mean?"
"Stole something; something from the hoard."
"And the killer doesn't know which of them took it, so he threatens them both. Right." Sherlock looked out of the window towards the shop, then raised his eyes to the windows above it. Looking down to the ground floor level again, his gaze sharpened.
"Remind me… when was the last time that it rained?" Alice opened her mouth to speak, but Sherlock had already stood up and left. Alice gathered their things and followed, with a exasperated John behind them.
Over the road, Sherlock bent down to the Yellow Pages in front of a door near the shop as John and Alice caught up to him.. The plastic wrapper still had drops of water on it, and the top of it was broken open a little. Sherlock ran his fingers over the top of the wet exposed pages of the directory.
"It's been here since Monday," he clarified. He straightened up and pressed the doorbell. He only waited a couple of seconds, then looks to his right and headed off in that direction. There was an alleyway beside the flat. The three walked down the alley. "No-one's been in that flat for at least three days."
"They could have gone on a holiday," Alice suggested. "That's what people do isn't it?"
"Do I leave the windows open when we go on holiday?" Sherlock looked up to see a cantilevered metal fire escape above his head.
"We never go on holiday." Sherlock took a few steps back. Taking a short run at it, he jumped up and grabbed the end of the ladder. The fire escape was pulled down by the force of Sherlock's weight until the man touched the ground. Sherlock ran up the steps toward the open window. At the exact moment he reached the top, the ladder swung back into place.
"Sherlock!" John called out. Sherlock did nothing as he climbed in through the window. John and Alice looked at each other before running around to the front.
"Someone else has been here," Alice could faintly hear from the flat above as she and John made it to the front door. "Somebody else broke into the flat and knocked over the vase just like I did." John rang the doorbell to said flat.
"D'you think maybe you could let us in this time?" He said loudly.
"He's most likely lost in thought," Alice told him. John bent down and pushed open the letterbox, ignoring her.
"Can you not keep doing this, please?" Alice sighed. She could barely hear Sherlock's next response over the distance between them and the noise of the city. She knelt down beside John.
"Repeat that?" She shouted.
"Somebody's been in here before me!" Sherlock's voice came, only louder. John released the letterbox and stood up. He sighed in pure irritation.
"We're wasting our breath," he muttered as Alice leaned up against the doorframe. She watched as John walked out a few paces before turning back and ringing the doorbell again.
"Any time you want to include us." There was no answer.
"Is this how it was for you and Sherlock when I wouldn't let you into Van Coon's flat?" Alice asked out of curiosity. John nodded.
"Yeah, and it annoys me half the time." Alice felt herself go red as John shook his head in frustration. There was a pause of silence. John tried again to get Sherlock's attention again, and was getting rather frustrated from Alice's perspective.
"'No, I'm Sherlock Holmes and I always work alone because no-one else can compete with…'" John mocked before walking back over to the door and flipping the letterbox open. "'... my MASSIVE INTELLECT!'" He dropped the letterbox again. Alice raised her hand and rang the doorbell. Still no answer. Alice perked up when she saw John getting ready to just leave. It was at that moment that the door opened. Alice stood up as Sherlock came out of the building and John sighed.
"The, uh, milk's gone off and the washing's starting to smell," Sherlock told the two. Alice raised an eyebrow at Sherlock's hoarse voice. "Somebody left here in a hurry three days ago."
"Somebody?" Sherlock nodded.
"Soo Lin Yao. We have to find her." He looked down and bent to pick something off the floor.
"But how, exactly?" Sherlock picked up a folded envelope that was on the ground. He unfolded the envelope and looked at the front of it.
"Maybe we could start with this." He walked out of the doorway, closing the door behind him, and headed off down the road. Alice looked up at Sherlock, her eyes resting on the small glimpses of his neck that she could see. There were faint bruises forming.
"Are you alright?" she asked. Sherlock looked down at her.
"I'm fine." Sherlock coughed as soon as he finished his sentence. Alice sighed.
"Liar."
Sherlock dragged John and Alice to the National Antiquities Museum, which Alice had figured out which the envelope was from by now. She watched as Sherlock was pacing around a display area while he interviewed one of the employees about the owner of the flat they had been to, whom most likely worked here as well.
"When was the last time that you saw her?" Sherlock asked.
"Three days ago, um, here at the museum," the employee answered. Alice began to look around the museum, growing bored of the question-and-answer session. Her eyes fell on a glass case displaying some clay teapots. While most of them served to be dull, one of the pots shown off a shine.
"This morning they told me she'd resigned just like that." Alice looked over at another display that contained jade figurines. She looked over at a piece of artwork nearby.
"Just left her work unfinished."
"What was the last thing that she did on her final afternoon?" Alice looked over as John, Sherlock and the employee began to leave the room. She darted after them.
The employee brought the three to the basement of the museum. The lights flickered to life as he lead them deeper in.
"She does this demonstration for the tourists – a-a tea ceremony," he explained, answering Sherlock's question from earlier. "So she would have packed up her things and just put them in here."
He lead the them to the open stack and started turning a handle at the end to widen the gap. While John and Alice stood behind the employee to look into the stack, Alice could see Sherlock wandering off into the shadows further down the room. Giving a quick look at John, Alice followed Sherlock. Her pace slowed when her dark eyes landed on what he had spotted.
On a stand was a life-sized sculpture of a woman. Yellow paint had been spray painted across the front of it. An almost horizontal straight line went across the eyes, and over the body has been sprayed the open upside down eight with the almost horizontal line above it. John and the employee soon joined them, staring at the statue.
Alice snapped a few pictures of the statue before the three residents of Baker Street left the museum. They had been in the there for quite some time, because when the left, night had fallen upon London. Alice wrung her hands together in an effort to stimulate the blood flow throughout her body.
"We have to get to Soo Lin Yao," stated Sherlock as they headed down the steps that lead up to the museum.
"If she's still alive," added John.
"Sherlock!" The trio turned as someone approached them. Alice's dark eyes narrowed into daggers. It was Raz, the young spray painter from earlier that day.
"What do you want?" Alice said in a rather sharp tone that borderlined harsh. Raz ignored her and turned to Sherlock.
"Found something you'll like," he said. He jogged off. Sherlock followed after him. And then so did John. Alice rolled her eyes before running to catch up with them.
Shortly afterwards the three of them were running across Hungerford Bridge, heading towards the south side of the river. Alice could have sworn she felt like someone was watching them, but she brushed the feeling away as they continued onwards.
Raz led the three across the under-croft. There were a few people around here, but they were easily ignored. They manner of which they spoke reminded Alice of... not-so-pleasant memories due to their vocabularies.
"If you want to hide a tree, then a forest is the best place to do it, wouldn't you say?" Sherlock said, "People would just walk straight past, not knowing, unable to decipher the message." As they approached a wall, Raz pointed to a particular area that was heavily-graffitied
"There," he said. "I spotted it earlier." Amongst all the other paint, there were slashes of the yellow paint forming Chinese symbols. Some of them were already partially painted over by other artists' tags and pictures. Alice took a quick photo of it.
"They have been in here." Sherlock turned to Raz. "And that's the exact same paint?"
"Yeah."
"John, Alice, if we're going to decipher this code, we're gonna need to look for more evidence." Alice sighed. This was going to be a very long night.
Sherlock split away from both John and Alice, leaving his assistant and his blogger to search alone.
The pair walked along a nearby underpass. Alice looked around, shining her torch along the walls. Her eyes danced across the graffiti that was scribbled on it.
Alice and John soon left the underpass and came to a railway. The torches they carried lot up the drops of yellow paints on the rails. Alice raised an eyebrow as they followed the trail. John raised his light to shine on a brick wall. He took a step back, leaving both him and the girl he had with him in a state of surprise. The entire wall was decorated with large, yellow Chinese numbers. John tried to call Sherlock, but he wouldn't answer. In the end, Watson dashed away to find Sherlock. Alice took a quick photo of the wall before following.
It took them about five minutes to find the detective. He was looking at a freight car.
"Answer your phone!" John called out. Sherlock turned towards them. "I've been calling you! We've found it." In a silent agreement, all three turned and ran off back to the wall.
John led Sherlock to the wall, with Alice following a few paces behind. When they arrived, Alice's eyes widened. The symbols that were once on the walls were gone. As if they were never there in the first place.
"They painted it over..." Alice muttered, running her fingers through her hair. "You have to be joking me..." Sherlock shined his torch around the area as Alice and John continued to stare at the wall in disbelief.
"I don't understand," said Dr. Watson. "It-it was here..." The man stumbled backwards. "... ten minutes ago. I saw it. A whole load of graffiti! I'm not imagining things. Alice, you saw it." Alice nodded.
"Yes " answered the girl. "It was there. Clear as crystal."
"Somebody doesn't want me to see it," concluded Sherlock. Suddenly, he turned and grabbed the sides of John's head in both hands.
"Hey, Sherlock, what are you doing...?" John asked, slightly unnerved.
"Shh, John, concentrate. I need you to concentrate. Close your eyes."
"No, what? Why? Why?" Alice covered her mouth in an attempt to keep her composure. She reached into her coat pocket. Sherlock lowered his hands to hold John by the upper arms. "What are you doing?!" Sherlock began to slowly spin them around on the spot, staring intensely into John's eyes."
"I need you to maximise your visual memory. Try to picture what you saw. Can you picture it?"
"Yeah."
"Can you remember it?"
"Yes, definitely."
"Can you remember the pattern?"
"Yes!"
"How much can you remember it?"
"Well, don't worry-"
"Because the average human memory on visual matters is only sixty-two percent accurate."
"Yeah, well, don't worry – I remember all of it." Sherlock didn't seem to believe him.
"Really?"
"Yeah, well at least I would-" John finally managed to pull himself free at this point. "If you would listen!" Alice pulled out her mobile from her coat. "Alice took a photograph before we went to find you." Alice stood between the two as she pulled up the photo she had taken. Despite the rush she had been in, the picture had come out clearly. She gave it to Sherlock with some hesitance. Alice saw a look of embarrassment on Sherlock's face.
When they returned to the flat, Alice had printed out her photo. It had been blown up and cut into smaller sections. Sherlock had taken the liberty to write the numbers' values underneath the corresponding symbol after Alice had fallen asleep.
The next day, Alice had woken up a few minutes after Sherlock. She watched Sherlock stare at the photographs. They had been stuck onto the mirror with the others.
Alice stood up off of the sofa, walking over to where Sherlock had only run a hand through her hair when Sherlock began speaking.
"Always in pairs," he stated. John- who Alice had noticed was asleep at the dining room table, sat up. He turned his head, still dazed and confused from his sleep. He hummed a bit out of confusion. "Numbers come with partners." John looked around the flat with a blank look.
"God, I need to sleep..." he muttered. Alice rolled her eyes.
"And you're the one who sent me to bed last night," she said. "If I remember correctly, you said I needed it." John looked over at the girl.
"You're ten years old. You do need it."
"Why did he paint it so near the tracks?" Sherlock asked, ignoring the other two.
"No idea."
"Well," Alice said as she woke up a little more, "More than a thousand people pass by there every day. If it were me, I was have chosen a less public place. Maybe he's a train obsessed man living a flat above the station?" Sherlock ignored her notion.
"Just twenty minutes..." muttered John.
"Of course," said Sherlock suddenly. Alice raised an eyebrow out of confusion. He was smiling. He found something. "Of course! He wants information. He's trying to communicate with his people in the underworld. Whatever was stolen, he wants it back." He ran a finger over the symbols. "Somewhere here in the code."
"How are we going to solve it?" asked Alice. Sherlock pulled off three of the photographs. He turned towards the door.
"Alice, hurry up," he instructed. "We can't crack this without Soo Lin Yao." Alice nodded and rushed off to get dressed. Just before she entered the bathroom, she heard John.
"Oh, good..." said the doctor. And he didn't sound too pleased.
About thirty minutes later, Sherlock had pulled John and Alice back to the National Antiquities Museum. They had pulled the same employee they had spoken to the day before. Ironically, they were also in the same display room as before.
"Two men who travelled back from China were murdered," stated Sherlock to the employee. "And their killer left them messages in the Hangzhou numerals."
"Soo Lin Yao's in danger," John added. "Now, that cipher – it was just the same pattern as the others. He means to kill her as well."
"Look, I've tried everywhere," said the employee. "Um, friends, colleagues. I-I don't know where she's gone. I mean, she could be a thousand miles away." Alice sighed at the loss of information. Sherlock looked on the brink of frustration at this point. Trying to distract herself from the detective's current status, Alice's eyes wandered over to the glass case that displayed the clay teapots. She raised an eyebrow before walking over to the case.
"I'm wondering if you could tell me a little bit about these teapots?" Alice asked without looking back. She could feel the stares on her. "Just out of curiosity."
"Th-the pots were her obsession," the employee explained. "Um, they need urgent work. If-if they dry out, then the clay can start to crumble. Apparently you have to just keep making tea in them." Alice hummed softly to herself.
"Alice, now isn't the time to be curious," said Sherlock.
"I know," said the girl, turning to face the three men. "But yesterday, I took notice of the teapots. Yesterday only one was shining. Now there're two."
The Baker Street residents- mostly Sherlock- had made the decision to visit the museum later on that day. John left to his work, leaving only Sherlock and Alice. According to the detective, he had to figure out what had happened to the pots during the night.
Alice stood in waiting behind Sherlock as they snuck into the museum. They stood in waiting, allowing night to fall. Out of the corner of her eye, Alice caught a figure in the dark.
The figure reached into the display case that held the teapots, taking one of them. She began to work on it. That's when Sherlock moved out of the shadows and towards her, silent as a mouse. Alice followed after as quietly as she could. Eventually, the two were standing behind her.
"Fancy a biscuit with that?" Sherlock asked to get her attention. The figure- to whom Alice could see was female by now- turned towards the pair, dropping the teapot in the process. Sherlock caught the item before it could crash on the floor.
"Centuries old. Don't wanna break that." He slowly straightened up and handed the teapot back to her. As the woman took it, Sherlock reached out and flicked a switch on the desk, turning on the lights underneath the surface. Alice could clearly see the face of a young Asian woman. Soo Lin Yao. The child gave a soft smile to her.
"Hello," she said.