Chapter Two: The Return of Irene Adler
Disclaimer: You know the drill; I'm not making monetary profit off of this, so on and so forth.
Reviews and PMs are always welcomed and given a good home.
Acknowledgments: I have to thank all of the betas for helping me with grammar and punctuation, brit-picking, suggestions and reminders of what they liked. Sloggingthrough this on my own would have been impossible. Other Beta's have been very busy, so as they get back to me, I will add them into the acknowledgments also!
TheDubliner: For the encouragement and the conversation. I don't think this would have seen the 'publish' button if not for you.
MeiHitokiri: For the tireless work and quick turn-around
xXMildredXx: For the enthusiasm and wonderful stories to remind me why I wanted to do this in the first place.
thisisforyou:For being the first to look at this story, as raw as it was. And for pointing out the good bits.
SapphireElric:For fixing my American influenced spelling and chapter break suggestions.
Sianco: For the meticulous work and effort you put into helping me sharpen sentences, for making them flow better and for fixing my horrendous dialogue punctuation.Also for giving more " . " (periods) a home and " , " (commas) a better life.
Kanna-chan94: For the awesome rush job you pulled to get notes back to me!
LosGatos: For your hard work and conversation!
Lady K masked her reaction at his abrupt decision to go see the bodies, took a last sip of her own tea and got up.
Sherlock put on his jacket and wrapped his scarf neatly around his neck. No good being cold. He waited for her to slip on her jacket before sweeping out the front door and hailing a cab.
"We're going to the morgue," He told the cabbie who had answered his summons. As usual, when you tell taxi drivers you're going to the morgue, they give you a funny look as though you're going to become a dead body. "Oh for heaven's sake," he muttered. It was the hundred and seventieth time he'd gotten that look.
The cab ride there was silent. Lady K spent the time texting on her mobile and Sherlock spent the time watching her.
They got to the morgue with the usual ease, Sherlock taking the lead. Molly looked up from graphs and sheets of information; the smile she swiftly brought to her face when she saw Sherlock was quickly dropped when she saw Lady K.
"Oh, hullo." She said, looking quickly back to her work than once more at her visitors.
"We're here to see the three call girls." Sherlock informed her.
"Wha-Oh, of course." She went over to the crypt and pulled three of the drawers open. Three individual women, covered in individual sheets, in individual drawers. Molly pulled each sheet down to the top of their collar bones. Sherlock looked closely at their hair, faces, lips, arms, hands and feet. Bruising had formed on all three women's arms, two had injection sites on their right arms and one on her left.
"Molly, was there anything strange about their deaths?" Sherlock asked.
"No, nothing that was out of the ordinary for an overdose."
He frowned. It was too clean, too perfect. Not one of the victims had any alien substances on them, no tissue that didn't belong to them-nothing to say they had been in places where prostitutes would get the drug from. Even if they had gotten it from an upscale party or dealer there would be something. A trace of the drug on their clothes or skin, under their nails."I need to see their personal belongings."
He left the drawers and Lady K. behind, following Molly over to a storage locker. She brought out three resealable bins. She looked to Sherlock, "Take their effects out and lay them on one of the tables, please, Molly. You're wearing new shoes I see, have a date tonight?" He asked, peering briefly down at the blue patent leather pumps as she put the bins on the table.
Molly blushed and focused on the task. "No, no, just out with the girls," she told him.
He frowned and looked through their clothing. Corresponding to Lady K.'s clothes they had elegant, expensive attire that had been made more revealing. Speaking of Lady K... She was trying to ignore the bodies of the dead women, choosing to watch Sherlock.
"Have you found anything?" She asked.
"No." He said as he inspected one of the girls' purses. Nothing there either.
"I need their personal effects." The mortician put the belongings in three cardboard boxes, one for each victim and placed them, neatly stacked, into Sherlock's arms.
"Have a good date tonight." He commented as he and Lady K. departed.
He waved down a cab and juggled the boxes into one arm. He opened the door for Lady K.
"I will contact you as soon as the case is solved." He informed her.
She got in the car, exposing her upper thigh even more. Sherlock noticed she did nothing to fix that. As the door shut he heard her say, "Thank you, Mr Holmes."
He nodded to her and waved down his own cab.
He returned to his home with no incident. He had the driver help him take the boxes upstairs, which meant the poor man had to carry them all in.
He gave the man an extra £5 for the help. Once the cabbie had left, he spread the contents of Maria Fisher's (a.k.a. victim number one) box on the kitchen table and catalogued everything. Sherlock read over Maria Fisher's file real quick, made sure he knew the core details and stepped into his mind palace.
He was walking down a hallway, gold paper on the walls, thick carpeting underneath and golden letters on the door suggested it was a fancy hotel. The window outside was a bit too light to be 01:00, he adjusted so that it was darker. He placed himself into one of the rooms. Maria Fisher, her body in the bathroom, still dressed in her matching bra and knicker lingerie set, nylons laying forgotten in the corner, her grey office skirt (shortened) and violet silk blouse (tear in the left seam) floating in the air. (It was his mind palace, he could make clothing fly if he wanted). He swiped a pair violet heels away after turning them over in his hands. She had on a pair of new silver earrings that matched a silver bracelet in the bathroom. He filed them away and moved onto the purse. He arranged the contents on a grid in front of him, nude lipstick with a crack in the case, eye pencil, hairbrush, mobile, ten condoms, a brown, well used, leather wallet. He pushed everything but the wallet to the back, so that he could make a second grid with the what was in the wallet. The usual identification cards her arranged on the top row, three £20 notes, made up the second and the bottom was two business cards and one scrap of paper with a telephone number on it.
If Mrs Hudson had walked into the room, she would have seen Sherlock touching, sniffing, feeling and tasting all the items. His mind palace was a tool, by going into it to catalogue, he would have that information stored in there until he saw fit to delete it.
He replaced those things back in the box they had been taken from before pulling out the box marked with Arden Wolff's (a.k.a. victim number two) name. He read through Arden Wolff's file and entered his mind palace once more.
This time he was in an apartment, mid-afternoon daylight peeking in through slits in the curtains. There was no body though, none of the evidence had been on her when she had been killed. The notes from the file painted enough of a picture that Sherlock could work. She had lots of black attire, undergarments, skirts of all kinds, tops, hosiery, shoes. Most of the shoes were more worn than the clothing. He felt himself feeling the plastic bags that had the contents of Arden Wolff's handbag in them in the waking world, and brought up another grid. One mobile, top left corner, two cartons of cigarettes, each getting a separate spot on the grid, one hair tie, a tube of nearly empty sheer lip gloss, one keyring with ten keys on it, and her well cared for black wallet. He pulled another grid up beside the purse. He used three rows of three once more.
Drivers license beside four £50 notes beside ten business cards. He examined each business card individually before mentally stacking them into one slot. Each one had either a note, a date, or a number on the back of it. He stepped out of the mind palace.
So, Arden Wolff was much more methodical and organized than Maria Fisher had been. Two very different people under the employ of Lady K. What would Zoe Malone (a.k.a. victim number three) be like? He returned Ms Wolff's things to their box and took out Zoe's, read over the file and returned to his work.
He walked down a gravel road to get to the lake. He was out in the middle of the country, mid morning time. He walked around the lake until he came across her body. She was still fully dressed, her body decomposing already. She was wearing a Yale blue, jersey evening dress. The dress was riding up her one leg enough for it to be evident that she wore no knickers, and a hole in the dress showed her teal bra. One of her shoes (Prussian blue) lay a few paces away. Her handbag had been recovered from the lack. The killer had apparently tried to get rid of it. He watched as it bubbled up from the bottom of the lake and floated over to him. He flicked the ivory handbag above his head and let it sit there. He snapped his fingers and the items inside were tipped out, a jumble in the air and soggy. He pinched his fingers together and dragged each item into it's one spot on the grid. One cosmetic mirror, three different tubes of rouge, one lip gloss, two eye pencils, one makeup with a the remnants of blush on it. She didn't have a wallet but there was a napkin with a number jotted down on it, four £10 notes and a £20 note. He frowned and turned around. He went into the mind palace's hallway, all dark wood and dark blue, he put a chair in and sat down, and traced his index finger down the rows of case files until he found the current ones. He brought out the grids that had the wallet contents for Maria Fisher, Zoe Malone and Arden Wolff. There. The same phone number appeared on Zoe Malone's Napkin, Arden Wolff's business card and Maria Fisher's scrape of paper. He returned to Baker street and...
Put Ms Malone's things back into the original box they had been hours had elapsed and he was in want of a cigarette but instead threw on a nicotine patch. The women shared two things in common.
-All work for Lady K.
-All have the same phone number, which is written in the same hand with the same pen.
It wasn't a lot to go on, but for Sherlock it was plenty.
He dialed the number but it went to an automatic voice-mail system, with no name attached to it. He frowned and looked at the napkin, then the scrap of paper, and finally the business card. There was a date on it. January 22nd. He phoned Lady K.
"Can you tell me where Arden Wolff went on the 22nd of January?"
"Of course, let me look it up in the planner. Here it is. She went to the Bankside Gallery."
"Excellent, can you tell me who she was meeting with?"
"Unfortunately I can't. The client asked to remain anonymous."
"As I suspected." He hung up. A quick search online for the Bankside Gallery revealed that it
was located in South London, on Hopton street. He hollered down to Mrs. Hudson.
"Call me a taxi, would you, Mrs. Hudson?"
"Sherlock! There's no need to shout! I'm right here!" She said, coming into the living room from the hallway.
"All the same Mrs. Hudson?" He asked, lowering his voice.
She shook her head but called him one nonetheless.
The cab took him to the Bankside Gallery, where they had the 74th Annual Wood Engravers Exhibit. He went through the exhibit, and stopped at a rather elaborate piece. It was meant to be stopped at -three benches with plush seating had been set up side by side. He sat on each bench in turn, looked at the walls, under the benches, and finally he looked at the floor space between where the benches had been placed, and where the sculpture called home. Before he could find anything however, a pair of silver shoes came into his view. He looked up the legs, took in the well fitted pale blue dress, lambswool jacket, black muff and suitcase at her side.
"I thought you were supposed to be dead."
"Apparently someone else had a better idea in mind."
"This seems like a rather public place to be meeting."
"That's why you're going to get a cab and take us back to Baker Street."
"Oh, I am?" He asked, in truth, he was pleased to see her. Though he couldn't say why.
He heard the smile in the voice. "Oh yes Mr Holmes, Oh yes."
He got up off the floor before offering his arm to Irene Adler. It was just like her to show up as though out of nowhere.
She's back! I know it isn't Tuesday yet (at least not in my time zone) but I start my new job very early tomorrow morning, and wanted to get this up tonight since I am not sure I will have time to do so tomorrow! Enjoy my lovies, look for my an "All My Dreams & All the Lights" update this week, as well as a Johnlock one shot, Smoke and Sheets will return next Tuesday, see the sneak peak below:
She buttoned her coat up as she pushed past him, "I'm coming with you. I won't get in the way. She retorted, leaving no room for argument. She has something to do with this case;I just can't put my finger on what. He sighed to himself. Maybe having her along will make her give away the answer.