We ran basically the entire way back to 221B. Once inside, we both leaned up against the wall, gasping for breath. Just how far had we run? An outrageous amount. And with rooftop hopping included!
"That was ridiculous," I said through my pants, "That was the most ridiculous thing I've ever done."
"Really? Even topping your adventures in India?" Shirley asked.
I let out a laugh and Shirley joined in.
"Why didn't we go back to the restaurant?" I asked, composing myself once more.
"They can keep an eye out," Shirley replied, "It was a long shot anyway."
"So why did we go?" I wondered.
Shirley shrugged. "Oh, just passing the time," she replied, "And proving a point."
Point? She hadn't really proved much other than the fact that the murderer had not come to the cafe. "What point?"
"You," Shirley replied. She turned towards the interior of the flat. "Mr. Hudson," she called, "Dr. Watson will take the room upstairs!"
When did I ever confirm that? I never said that I would to her. "Says who?" I asked.
"Says the man at the door," Shirley replied.
Just then, right on cue, there was a knock. As I was closest, I answered. It was Angelo from the cafe. He was holding my walking stick in his hand. "Shirley texted me," he said, "She said that you forgot this."
I looked back at Shirley who gave me a wide smile. It was then that it dawned on me that I had just chased down a cab and run over rooftops at top speed without any pain in my leg whatsoever. It had been in my head all along! I was dumbfounded and relieved at the same time.
I took the cane from Angelo, thanking him profusely, then shut the door.
Just as I came back to Shirley's side, Mr. Hudson came around the corner, a worried expression on his kindly face. "Shirley, what have you done?" he asked, sounding distressed.
"What?" Shirley asked, confused.
"Upstairs," Mr. hudson said, pointing.
Shirley's forehead wrinkled in concern and confusion and she rushed upstairs, me following close behind. Shirley opened the door and we saw all around the flat were police officers rummaging through the cabinets and furniture. Right in the center of the room sat Lestrade in one of the armchairs, silver ponytail and all, with her arms and legs crossed, sitting as though she were expecting us anytime for tea.
"What are you doing?" Shirley demanded.
"Well I knew you were going to find the case," Lestrade said, "I'm not stupid."
"You can't just break into my flat!" Shirley said.
"Well you can't withhold evidence!" Lestrade retorted, "And I didn't break into your flat."
"Yeah? Well then what do you call this?" Shirley asked, gesturing to the hullaballoo around us.
Lestrade shrugged. "It's a drugs bust," she replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
I had to snort at that one. That was the most ridiculous excuse I ever heard. Shirley on drugs? Ha! "Seriously?" I asked, "This girl, a junkie? Have you met her?"
However, Shirley was looking slightly uncomfortable. "Umm, Jen..." she mumbled.
But I hardly noticed and pressed on with my protests to Lestrade. "I'm pretty sure that you could search this flat all night and you wouldn't find anything that you could call recreation."
"Jen, you might want to shut up now," Shirley said through clenched teeth.
"Yeah, but come on," I said, turning to her, still amused.
However, her stern expression threw me off. She wasn't really...? But, she looked so serious. "No," I said.
"What?" Shirley asked.
"You?"
"Shut up!" Shirley said with a frown. She turned back to Lestrade, "I'm not your sniffer dog."
"No. Anderson's my sniffer dog," Lestrade said.
"What?"
We turned and saw Anderson standing in the doorway to the kitchen. He gave Shirley a little wave and she scowled at him. "Anderson, what are you doing here on a drugs bust!" she cried.
"Oh, I volunteered," he replied, his eyes scanning over her as they did before at the crime scene.
"They all did," Lestrade said, "None of them are technically on the drugs-squad, but they were very keen."
Sally suddenly appeared next to Anderson, holding up a jar of... something. "Are these human eyes?" she asked uneasily.
"Put those back!" Shirley ordered.
"But they were in the microwave," Sally said.
"It's an experiment," Shirley grumbled.
"Keep looking, guys!" Lestrade called out. She stood up and turned to Shirley as the irritated detective started pacing the room in annoyance. "Or you can start helping us properly and I'll stand them down."
"This is childish," Shirley said.
"Well I'm dealing with a child," Lestrade replied, "Shirley, this is our case. I'm letting you in, but you do not go off on your own. Alright?"
"Oh! OK! So you set up a pretend drugs bust to bully me?" Shirley demanded.
"It stops being pretend if they find anything," Lestrade said.
"I am clean!" Shirley insisted.
"Is your flat? All of it?" Lestrade asked.
Shirley frowned and rolled up her sleeve. "I don't even smoke," she said, showing Lestrade one of the nicotine patches on her arm.
"Neither do I," Lestrade said, rolling up her own sleeve and showing a nicotine patch on her arm as well, "So let's work together. We found Rachel."
"Who is she?" Shirley asked, suddenly forgetting her annoyance.
"Jenny Wilson's only daughter."
"Her daughter?" Shirley repeated, "Why would she write her daughter's name? Why?"
"Nevermind that!' Anderson piped up from behind, "We found the case, "According to someone, the murderer has the case and we found it in the hands of our favorite psychopath."
Shirley whipped around to face him, glowering. "I'm not a psychopath, Anderson, I'm a high functioning sociopath. Do your research," she said firmly. She turned back to Lestrade, "You need to bring Rachel in and question her. I need to question her."
"She's dead," Lestrade said.
"Excellent. How long, when, why?" Shirley asked quickly, "Is there a connection? There has to be."
"Well I doubt it since she's been dead for fourteen years," Lestrade said, making Shirley frown in frustration, "Technically, she was never alive. Rachel was Jenny Wilson's stillborn daughter."
Shirley paused, looking completely puzzled. "That... that's not right. Why would she do that? Why?"
"Why would she think of her daughter in her last moments?" Anderson asked, "Yeah, sociopath, I'm seeing it now."
Shirley turned to him again, glowering once more. "She didn't think about her daughter. She scratched her name in the floor with her fingernails. She was dying. It took effort, it would have hurt."
I was pondering the whole situation on my own, trying to come up with a plausible solution. I remembered something that Shirley had said earlier. "You said that the victims all took the poison themselves, that he makes them take it," I remarked, "Well maybe he, I don't know, talks to them? Like, maybe he used the death of her daughter somehow."
"But that was ages ago! Why would she still be upset?" Shirley asked.
Everyone froze, staring at Shirley. I could hardly believe that she had just said that. I could feel my mouth hanging open slightly. Shirley seemed to realize that she had said something wrong because she immediately curled her lips together and looked at me with a slightly uncomfortable look. "Not good?" she asked quietly.
I was starting to understand her a bit more. She just did not get human emotion very well. She needed help. Why not give it to her? "A bit not good, yeah," I replied.
Shirley sighed. "But if you were dying, in your very last few seconds, what would you say?" she asked.
""Please, God, let me live"," I replied easily.
"Oh, use your imagination," Shirley said.
My mouth tightened. "I don't have to."
Shirley blinked. In that one blink, I saw real regret for what she had just said. It was probably the first true emotion I had ever seen expressed by her besides annoyance or amusement. However, she quickly brushed it off and continued on. "But if you were clever, really clever. Jenny Wilson, running all those lovers, she was clever. She is trying to tell us something."
She began pacing again. Mr. Hudson suddenly appeared in the doorway. "Isn't the doorbell working?" he asked, "Your taxi's here, Shirley."
"I didn't order a taxi. Go away!" Shirley snapped, still pacing.
Mr. Hudson looked around the flat and shook his head. "Oh dear, they're making such a mess. What are they looking for?"
"It's a drugs bust," I explained.
Mr. Hudson gasped. "But they're just for my back," he said, "They're herbal soothers."
"SHUT UP! Everybody shut up!" Shirley yelled suddenly, "Don't move, don't speak, don't breathe. I'm trying to think. Anderson, face the other way, you're putting me off."
"What? My face is?" Anderson asked, frowning.
Lestrade was watching Shirley closely, almost expectantly. "Everybody quiet and still," she ordered, "Anderson, turn your back."
"Oh for goodness sake!" Anderson groaned.
"Your back! Now!" Lestrade ordered sternly.
Anderson rolled his eyes and slowly turned around. Shirley still paced with her hands against her temples, urging herself to think.
"What about your taxi?" Mr. Hudson asked.
"Mr. Hudson!" Shirley roared at the little old man.
Mr. Hudson retreated out of the room and down the stairs.
Shirley suddenly perked up, wearing a smile. "Oh!" she said, "Oh, she was clever, clever. Yes! She's cleverer than you lot and she's dead! Do you see? Do you get it? She didn't lose her phone, she never lost it. She planted it on him. When she got out of the car, she knew that she was going to her death so she left the phone in order to lead us to her killer."
"But how?" Lestrade asked.
Shirley stopped. "What do you mean "how?"?"
Lestrade shrugged.
"Rachel!" Shirley declared happily.
What? No one responded.
"Don't you see? Rachel!" Shirley repeated.
Umm... We've had that name from the beginning, how did it make anything different now? How did it lead us to the killer? I looked around and saw that everyone else looked just as confused as I was.
Shirley saw too, and her smile faltered slightly. "Ohh, look at you lot. You're all so vacant," she said with a half exasperated chuckle, "Is it nice not being me? It must be so relaxing. Rachel is not a name."
I had just about had enough of her sarcasm. "Then what is it?" I asked impatiently.
"Jen, on the luggage, there's a label with an email address," Shirley said pointing to the pink suitcase.
I got up and went over to the case while Shirley pulled out her laptop. I found the label and read the email address. ".," I read out to Shirley.
"I've been too slow," Shirley said, opening a website on her computer, "She didn't have a laptop which means she did her business on her phone, so it's a smartphone that's email enabled. So there was a website for her account. So her username is her email address and altogether now is..."
I suddenly made the connection as she typed in the six letter password. "Rachel."
"So we can read her emails. So what?" Anderson asked.
"Anderson, don't talk out loud. You lower the IQ of the whole street," Shirley said, "We can do much more than just read her emails. It's a smartphone, it's got GPS, which means if you lose it, you can locate it online. She's leading us directly to the man who killed her."
She started the GPS on the website and it began to beep, locating the phone.
"Unless he got rid of it," Lestrade said.
"We know he didn't," I said.
"Come on, quickly!" Shirley growled at the screen.
Mr. Hudson suddenly entered the room again. "Shirley, this taxi driver..."
Shirley got out of the chair and turned to Mr. Hudson impatiently. "Mr. Hudson, isn't it about time you had your evening soother?"
Shirley turned back to Lestrade while I took over watching the GPS load. "Get vehicles, get a helicopter," Shirley said, "We're going to have to move fast. This phone battery won't last forever."
"We'll only have a map reference, not a name," Lestrade pointed out.
"Well it's a start," Shirley said.
The GPS finally stopped loading and I looked at the results. But... it couldn't be. "Shirley?"
Shirley didn't hear me, still in deep planning with Lestrade. "Narrows it down from just anyone in London. It's the first proper lead we've had."
"Shirley?" I said again.
Shirley rushed to my side. "Where is it? Where?"
"It's here. In 221B Baker Street," I said slowly.
Shirley frowned, completely confused. "How could it be here? How?"
"Well maybe it was in the case when you brought it back and it, I don't know, fell out somewhere," Lestrade suggested.
"And I didn't notice it? Me?" Shirley asked.
"Anyway, we texted him and he called back," I said.
"Guys, we're also looking for a mobile," Lestrade called to her men, "Belonged to the victim!"
Shirley suddenly seemed to space out for a long moment, a look of deep concentration on her face. After a while, her face began to relax and she looked almost as if she had realized something. She suddenly checked her phone and then looked up, her mouth open slightly.
"Shirley, are you OK?" I asked.
"What?" Shirley asked, still sounding slightly spaced out, staring at the door, "Yeah... yeah, I'm fine."
"So, how can the phone be here?" I asked.
"Dunno," Shirley replied in the same airy tone, still watching the door.
"I'll try it again," I said, turning to the GPS.
"Good idea."
I looked back at her and saw that she was slowly walking out the door. "Where are you going?"
"Fresh air. Just popping out for a moment. Won't be long," she replied.
I frowned, feeling uneasy about her behavior. "Are you sure you're alright?"
"I'm fine!" she said, and then disappeared down the stairs.