"John!" Sherlock called, sitting up. Several hours had passed, the doctor still wasn't back yet, and the detective needed his phone. "John! Where the hell is he?" Sherlock kicked a stack of papers.
"Are you alright, dear?" asked Mrs. Hudson, peeking around the door. "I heard a racket, and-"
"My phone, Mrs. Hudson. I need my phone," Sherlock said, turning to her and shaking his hands to enunciate. "Be a dear and get it for me."
"Of course," Mrs. Hudson replied. "Where is it?"
"In my coat pocket," the consulting detective replied.
Mrs. Hudson sighed. "But you've paced past your coat twice, dear."
"Just get it!" Sherlock exclaimed, flopping back into his chair. "I need to contact John."
"Oh, where is he, by the way?" asked the landlady, fishing around in the coat pocket and producing the phone, which she handed to her tenant. "It's nearly midnight."
"At the store," answered Sherlock. "And he's been gone for three hours and twenty-seven minutes."
"Oh, that's quite a while," Mrs. Hudson commented placidly.
"Yes, so he must not still be there," Sherlock said, as if he'd already said it countless times. "Did he decide to talk a longer walk? Possibly; he likes walks. But not three hour ones. Maybe he was injured somehow and is now in the hospital. No. 'No?' Of course not, because you would have gotten a call by now. Did he get lost? Perhaps. But he's very rational and has a long history of war in warm places and of feasibly getting lost many times in the desert and it would be second nature for him to call."
"Why don't you call him, dear?" asked Mrs. Hudson, gesturing to the phone in Sherlock's pale hand.
"Call him? Oh, no, Mrs. Hudson. Calling would be futile," Sherlock said with a sigh.
"But I got your phone so you could reach him," protested the landlady.
"No use now," said Sherlock, nearly smiling. "His phone's in this building. 'It is?' Yes, naturally, he's left it in the pocket of his jacket. The black felt-and-leather. And he didn't take the jacket with him because it's a warm night and despite his always-be-prepared manner, the store's only several blocks away."
"Should I call just in case?" asked Mrs. Hudson, not doubting Sherlock's deductions but not wanting to believe what was coming next.
"If it makes you feel better," Sherlock said, and he dropped the phone into the landlady's hands.
"So, what do you figure happened to him?" asked Mrs. Hudson.
"He's not at the store." Sherlock pushed his hands together. "He's not at the hospital; he's not on the streets. Did he visit a friend? No, he would have texted me through their…" Sherlock stopped, his hands dropping from his lips. He stood up. "Through their phone! That's it!"
"It's what, dear?" Mrs. Hudson sighed, used to Sherlock's unexplained exclamations.
"Phone." Sherlock held out a hand, closing his eyes until he felt the cold metallic device hit his palm. "I've got to get in touch with an old friend. You can leave now."
"Alright, dear." Mrs. Hudson creaked down the stairs.
"Where. Is. He." Sherlock's voice shook with rage as he spoke the words he typed. How dare he? This was always between just you and me. You have no right to bring him into this! The thoughts raced through his head as he sat back once more and ran, his steps echoing in the empty halls of his mind palace. Ripping through the virtual pieces of information and cluttering his always-pristine piles of documents.
Sherlock didn't know what came over him. He was ruining his mind palace, unpacking all the carefully sorted facts; but he didn't care. He had to find everything, anything that would help him get to John.