To be perfectly honest, I did not know what to think of Shirley Holmes at all. I mean, she had left me completely dumbfounded and not many people are capable of doing that.

As I sat on my bed that night, I thought about our encounter. How did she know so much about me? I was so baffled that at the moment, vampire did not seem too far off in my book. Obviously this Shirley Holmes brought up a question that I did not know the answer to. And what do people do when they don't know the answer nowadays? They look it up on the internet.

And that's just what I did.

I pulled out my computer and typed "Shirley Holmes" into the search engine. There weren't many decent results, but one caught my eye and I clicked on it.

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The next night, I managed to find the address that Shirley Holmes had given me, on Baker Street. 221B was printed in gold across the top of the door. It was a nice spot. A really nice spot, and I wondered for a moment why she would have picked such a spot when there were others that were clearly cheaper.

My potential flatmate was nowhere to be seen when I arrived, so I hit the golden knocker against the door a few times.

"Hello," came a voice from behind me.

I turned and saw Shirley Holmes getting out of a cab. She paid the driver and walked with her swagger up beside me. I held my hand out to her. "Ms. Holmes," I addressed her in a neighborly fashion.

"Call me Shirley, please," she said, shaking my hand.

She wore a different outfit than yesterday, though it was still predominately black and even though it was overcast, she still wore her large sunglasses.

"Well, this is a prime spot," I remarked, "It must be expensive."

"Ah, Mr. Hudson, the landlord, has given me a special deal. He owes me a favor," Shirley told me, "A few years ago, his wife got herself sentenced to death in Florida. I was able to help him out."

"So, you stopped his wife from being executed?" I asked.

"Oh no. I ensured it." Shirley smiled smugly.

Before I could respond, the door suddenly opened. A short elderly man stood in the doorway. My first impression of his appearance was, fatherly. Or rather, grandfatherly since he was probably old enough to be my grandfather. He wore a purple plaid shirt with dark green corduroy slacks and brown loafers. Despite his aged appearance, wrinkled face, and balding head, his remaining hair still retained its natural dark blonde color.

He grinned pleasantly at us and stretched his frail arms out to Shirley. "Shirley!" he greeted her warmly, wrapping her up in a hug.

When she pulled away, Shirley gestured to me at her side. "Mr. Hudson, this is Dr. Jennifer Watson."

Mr. Hudson smiled at me and beckoned us to come inside. I followed Shirley inside and Mr. Hudson closed the door behind us. Once inside, Shirley practically ran up the stairs that greeted us right at the front. I wished to follow suite, but my leg and limp prevented me from doing so and was left to hobble up behind her.

She waited patiently for me at the top, her hand resting on the doorknob that led into the flat. Once I finally reached the top, she opened the door. That's when I saw, for the first time, the interior of 221B Baker Street.

The first room was a sitting room. Two chairs were already present, along with several lamps, and a table. I noticed immediately that the room was cluttered with boxes filled with all kinds of rubbish. All sorts of random objects sat around on the mantle, on the bookshelf, on the table and chairs, cluttering up the room. I decided that it must have belonged to the previous owner who was in the process of moving out.

The second room was the kitchen. It seemed to have been converted into some kind of laboratory. A microscope, test tubes of all sizes, petri dishes, and jars filled with who knows what sat on the table. I decided that the laboratory also belonged to the previous owner. What on earth did this person do?

However, I could see that beneath all the rubbish, it seemed a very comfortable flat. It had a rather homely feel to it. I nodded in approval. "Well... I think this could be very nice," I told Shirley.

"Yes," Shirley agreed, removing her sunglasses and scarf, looking around the flat, "I think so too."

"As soon as all this rubbish is cleared out..." I started to say.

"So I went ahead and moved in..." Shirley said simultaneously.

We both trailed off awkwardly and stared at each other for a moment. She owned everything sitting on the furniture and in the boxes. Whoops. I wasn't sure how she was going to take my comment about her things being "rubbish". If she took it badly, it was not a sure fire way to start off if we were going to be flatmates.

"Um, well uh, obviously I can, um..." Shirley began grabbing random objects off the furniture and tried her best to to make them look tidy, "...straighten things up a bit."

She picked up several pieces of paper that had fallen off a chair and organized them into a stack then set them on the mantle and jabbed a letter opener into them as well as the mantle to keep them in place. I hoped that the landlord wouldn't mind the hole in the mantle.

I then noticed something else sitting on the mantle. I pushed my long, sandy hair out of my face to get a better look. Nope, my eyes weren't deceiving me. "That's a skull," I remarked, pointing.

It was. A real, human skull, just sitting on the mantle as if it were some sort of typical decoration like a clock or picture frame.

"An old friend of mine," Shirley said casually, throwing it a glance, still tidying up the room, "Well... I say friend."

I was going to say something else, like why on earth would she have a skull sitting on the mantle, or who this friend was, or something along those lines, but just then, Mr. Hudson entered and addressed me.

"So what do you think, Dr. Watson?" he asked, "There's another bedroom upstairs. That is, if you'll be needing two bedrooms."

What? "Umm... yes? We will be needing two," I said, confused.

"Oh, don't you worry, my dear," Mr. Hudson said, raising both his hands almost defensively, "There's all sorts around here. Mrs. Turner next door has a married pair."

It was then that the penny dropped and I realized what he meant. Two young women living together in a flat, surely that would raise questions about our relationship. Oh dear...

"Oh, Shirley! You've already made such a mess!" Mr. Hudson scolded Shirley as he walked into the kitchen and saw the clutter on the table.

Shirley ignored the remark and proceeded to remove her overcoat and then pull her laptop out of one of the boxes and set it on the table. I moved some of her things off one of the chairs and lowered myself onto the cushion, watching her. Somehow, I had to make conversation with her.

"I looked you up on the internet last night," I told her.

This caught her attention enough for her to face me. "Did you find anything interesting?"

Interesting is a very versatile word. I remembered the one thing I found during my search the previous evening. "Well, I found your website," I said, ""The Science of Deduction", I believe?"

This sparked a small smile on her lips, heavily applied with crimson lipstick. "And..?" she asked, hopefully.

I gave her a skeptical look. I had read some very outrageous things on that site. She had almost sounded like some sort of pathological liar or something. Her smile faltered some and she looked at me questioningly.

"Let's see, you said that you could identify a software designer by his tie and an airline pilot by... what was it, his left thumb?"

"Yes," Shirley stated simply, sticking her hands into her pockets, "And I could tell that you had been to India because of your face and wrist. And I could read your brother's drinking habits in your mobile phone."

I raised my eyebrows. I still wanted an explanation for that little display. "How?" I wondered.

Shirley did not answer and simply turned back to her computer. Mr. Hudson walked back into the room, looking at a newspaper. "So, what about all these suicides, Shirley?" he asked, pointing to an article, "I thought for sure you'd be hopping right on that. It seems right up your street. Three exactly the same."

Shirley was suddenly looking out the window at something. "Four," she said, "There's just been a fourth. But there's something different this time."

Just then, I heard some quick footsteps coming up the stairs. Everyone turned to see a professionally dressed middle-aged woman with graying hair pulled back in a ponytail, standing in the doorway, hand on her hip, looking directly at Shirley.

"Where?" Shirley asked her.

"Brixton, Lauriston Gardens," the older woman responded.

"What's new about this one?" Shirley asked, "You wouldn't have come to get me if there wasn't something different."

"Well, none of the other ones have left notes before, and this one did," the woman said, "Will you come?"

Shirley puckered her lips, thinking. "Who's on forensics?"

The woman sighed. "Anderson."

Shirley frowned and shook her her head. "Anderson won't work with me," she grumbled.

"You don't need to work with any of them. Not even Anderson," the woman told her.

"But I need an assistant!" Shirley protested.

The woman sighed again. "Will you come?"

"Yes. But not in a police car, I'll follow."

The woman nodded graciously. "Thank you." She turned and left the room.

As soon as the door slammed downstairs, Shirley grinned and clapped her hands together. "Brilliant! Ah, yes!" she cried, jumping up and down in place still clapping her hands together like an excited little school girl, "Four serial suicides and now a note! Oh, I couldn't be happier if it were Christmas!"

She stopped jumping and began to pull on her coat and scarf. "Mr. Hudson, I'll probably be back late. So I might need some food."

"I'm your landlord, Shirley. I don't do your cooking," Mr. Hudson said.

"Something cold will be fine," Shirley said, wrapping her scarf around her neck, "Jen, you just make yourself at home. Have a cup of tea or something. Don't wait up!"

With that she headed out the door. Mr. Hudson smiled and shook his head. "Just look at her dashing about," he said to me, "My wife was just like that. But, you're the sitting down kind of girl, I can tell."

I looked like the sitting down type of a girl? I absolutely hated sitting down. I wanted to be up and about like Shirley, like I once was. And if I was starting to look like I enjoyed sitting down just because I did it so much... well, that was just too much for me to handle.

"I'll make you that cuppa. You just rest your leg," Mr. Hudson said.

His last comment was just the straw that broke the camel's back. I snapped. "Blast my leg!" I hollered. Mr. Hudson jumped at my outburst and I immediately tried to compose myself. "Sorry," I apologized, anger still bubbling inside me, "I am so, so sorry. It's just that, sometimes..."

Mr. Hudson nodded, understanding. "It's alright. I understand, my dear. I've got a bad back, myself."

"A cup of tea would be nice, thanks," I said, calming myself completely.

"Just this once. Like I said, don't do your cooking," Mr. Hudson said.

"A couple of biscuits too, if you have some," I said, disregarding his protests almost as easily as Shirley had.

"I don't do your cooking," Mr. Hudson repeated.

He left the room, presumably to go make me a cup of tea. I picked up the newspaper he had brought in earlier and began to read the article he had referenced.

It talked about how three people had all committed suicide within a four month span, each killing themselves with the same poison, and found in unusual places where they had absolutely no reason to be. Because of these similarities, the suicides were declared linked by the police. The police said that they were clearly suicides and not murders because the poison was obviously self-administered. I looked at the picture of the head detective on the case and saw that it was the woman who was just in our flat who came to retrieve Shirley. "Detective Inspector Lestrade" the inscription said.

"You're a doctor?" a voice came from the doorway, "You worked in the ER, yes?" I looked up from the paper. Shirley had returned and was now standing in the doorway, pulling on her black, leather gloves.

I put the paper down, grabbed my cane and stood up. "Yes," I said.

"Any good?" Shirley wondered.

I nodded. "Very good."

"I suppose you've seen a lot of injuries then?" Shirley inquired, moving a bit closer, "Violent deaths, maybe?"

"Yes."

"A bit of trouble too, right?"

"Yes. Enough for a lifetime," I replied, "Way too much."

Shirley stared at me for a moment. "Do you want to see some more?"

"Do I ever!"

Shirley smiled and I followed her out the door and down the stairs. I called to Mr. Hudson. "Sorry, Mr. Hudson, I'll skip the tea. I'm going out."

"You both are?" Mr. Hudson asked, coming around the stairs.

Shirley turned around to face the little old man. "Impossible suicides? Four of them?" she asked, "Why sit at home when there's something so fun going on?"

She happily squeezed Mr. Hudson in a hug. Mr. Hudson chuckled. "Look at you all happy," he said, "It's not decent."

"Who cares about decent?" Shirley cried, grinning, "The game is on!"

She put on her sunglasses and marched out the door with me following close behind.

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I'm so sorry about changing some iconic lines, but I don't swear. Neither in speaking nor in writing, so I apologize.

But anyway, I'll be beyond happy if you review! It just makes my day. More is on the way! :D