Crime Scene at Baker Street (Part Three)

Recap: After returning home early, John discovers 221 B covered in blood and Sherlock and Sheridan no where to be found. The authorities are called in, Clarky and Hopkins prove that licking wallpaper is the new pastime, and Lestrade is close to having a heart attack.

And then Sherlock and Sheridan walk in, which prompts Lestrade to take a brief leave of his senses.

And a special thank-you to chaoticmom for her review and for following my story!

Also a special thank-you to Scottish Bluebell, who has reviewed all the chapters so far!

Enjoy!

The first thing Lestrade recognized when he returned to consciousness was the ceiling, which he recognized as being from 221 B Baker Street. He should know, as he had spent so much time there over the years. His head pounded, and the brightness of the room caused his eyelids to close involuntarily.

"Greg? Greg! Come on! Talk to us!" Someone yelled out, intruding on his misery.

Lestrade didn't answer right away. At the moment, he couldn't remember exactly how he came to be lying on the floor, or what was going on. It made him uneasy. However, except for a general soreness all over, he couldn't feel any significant injuries.

But why was the room spinning?

As John would say, a bit not good, that!

So, what was going on, exactly? Did he get sick? Did someone hit him over the side of the head?

"I can't believe you, Freak!" Somewhere, Donovan was yelling. "What the hell were you thinking!? We thought you and Sheri were killed!"

"It is hardly my fault that you jumped to an erroneous conclusion, Sergeant. Anyone with the slightest amount of intelligence could see that the blood is fake…"

"Thanks, Lucky!" Somewhere in the background, Clarky crowed in triumphant. "Ya see, everyone? I'm intelligent!"

Blood?

Suddenly, the image of Sherlock's sitting room, splattered with crimson pools, the furniture stained in burgundy, came rushing back to him, and Lestrade abruptly sat up, only to fall back as a wave of dizziness hit him, and he immediately laid back down, moaning.

"Oh, bloody hell…"

"You ok, Greg?" Above him, Hopkins leaned over, worried.

"He'll be fine if everyone stops hovering around him!" John suddenly came into Lestrade's line of vision.

"I fear the Detective Inspector has suffered a bit of a shock, brought about by my brother and my niece's juvenile antics." Somewhere, Mycroft's cultured voice floated by.

"Oh, shut it, Mycroft!" Sherlock's familiar voice rang out, sounding petulant. "It's not as though we knew that the Met was planning on doing a fake drug bust! Besides, I haven't taken evidence in months…"

"I am going to kill Sherlock when the room stops spinning." Lestrade grumbled unhappily as he closed his eyes to fight back another wave of nausea.

"You better hurry, Lestrade, because you may have to get in line!" John muttered under his breath.

"Please refrain from saying that in front of my daughter, if you would be so kind!" Sherlock growled in John's direction. "She doesn't need to hear this!"

"How convenient for you, Sherly, to hide behind your daughter." Mycroft mentioned in a condescending voice.

"Stop it, Uncle Mycroft!" A high-pitched, lyrical voice called out. "Dad and I didn't know Uncle John was coming home early! And we were going to clean this up!"

"I don't suppose anyone could explain how this happened?" Hopkins asked quizzically.

"It's quite simple, really." Sherlock muttered from somewhere. "It all started…"

"Stop!" Lestrade ordered. "No explanations until I'm sitting up! John, Stanley! Help me off the floor, please!"

"We were just playing!" Sheridan explained sheepishly. "Uncle John, Aunt Mary, and Mrs. Hudson were out of town, and none of them were supposed to come back for a few more days! And Dad had no cases! Our minds were decomposing from boredom! We were in danger of dying from lack of mental stimuli!"

John smirked at the woe-is-me pout on Sheridan's face, once again marveling at the resemblance between Sherlock and his young daughter.

Like Sherlock, Sheridan (or "Sheri," as she was often called) had the same chocolate curls, pale skin, and quick-silver eyes. And like her father, Sheridan had the same deductive abilities and intelligence.

And like her father, Sheridan sometimes complained about the dullness of everyday life, and often came up with crazy schemes to combat it.

Although this was by far the looniest thing that she and Sherlock had ever done!

"And the only thing you two psychopaths could think of was to stage a bloody crime scene!?" Anderson said peevishly.

"I will freely admit that I am a high-functioning sociopath, Anderson, but you will take care not to call my daughter a psychopath again!" Sherlock muttered darkly, glaring at Anderson. "Just because she was smarter than you at age one than you could ever hope to be…"

"Alright, alright! Enough!" John interrupted. "So what happened!?"

"Well…" Sheridan blushed, then adverted her eyes. "I thought we could play Cluedo, but I know Dad thinks it is boring game, because the rules are wrong. I agree with him, actually. It is far too easy. So I made some improvements, to make it more interesting!"

"Improvements?" Hopkins asked incredulously.

"I tried to make it more challenging!" Sheridan explained. "With more weapons and stuff! And better characters!"

"Better characters?" Clarky asked.

Sheridan tugged at her purple scarf self-consciously. "I never liked the original characters! Who goes around with the name of Colonel Mustard, anyway? I like Captain Watson better!"

"Flattery won't get you out of trouble yet, Sheri." John grumbled, but the relaxed look on his face showed that he was secretly amused.

"And you just had to use me as 'Mr. Body.'" Mycroft noted dryly. He turned to glare at his younger brother. "Your idea, I suppose, brother dear?"

Sherlock smirked. Unlike Sheridan, he didn't seem embarrassed at all. "As I pointed out to Sheridan, you are the British Government. Your murder would be the most challenging, after all."

John sighed as he glanced at the board game that was situated innocently on the coffee table.

In the chaos that he observed when he first entered the sitting room, he completely missed the fact that the board game was, in fact, a Cluedo board game. However, the game itself had been altered, with two game boards attached to make one long game board. There were also more game pieces, and four decks of cards instead of three.

And in the middle of the makeshift "Cluedo" board was an improvised crime scene depicting a victim's outline lined out in yellow, similar to a crime scene. Definitely Sherlock's handiwork, because the dimensions of Mycroft's waistline was grossly disproportionate with the rest of the body.

Not to mention the little tagline that Sherlock put underneath the drawing, which read "Who killed the British Government?"

But seriously, how was I supposed to know that Sherlock and Sheridan were playing their own warped version of Cluedo? John asked himself for the hundredth time that night.

"But then we got a little carried away." Sheridan continue the story, looking sheepish. Her alabaster cheeks flushed crimson as she continued. "Every time we took a guess, we began to act out the scenarios, just to make sure that they would be plausible in real life."

"Act it out on whom?! Each other?!" Anderson interrupted.

"We borrowed that stupid dummy from the Yard several months back." Sherlock explained condescendingly. "The one you use for CPR training."

"So you did kidnap Rescue Ralph! Ha! I knew it!" Anderson exclaimed in triumph.

Clarky turned from his seat to glare up at Anderson. "That's a load of bull, Anderson! You blamed me, remember? Because you said, and I quote this, 'Holmes would have stolen a real body, not a dummy!'"

Anderson blushed and hurriedly sat down, properly chastened.

"Let me get this straight." Hopkins broke in. "Are you telling me that whenever either of you guessed who the murderer was, you made a bunch of fake blood to see if it would work!? And you used our training dummy as your test victim!?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Not ideal, of course. First of all, the dummy was not Mycroft's size. However, I sincerely doubt there is a cadaver out there that would match Mycroft's measurements…"

"Charming as ever, dearest brother." Mycroft broke in, smiling in such a way that a normal person would have shuddered upon seeing it.

Sherlock, however, didn't show any signs of discomfort or worry. "And we already learned that some of the scenarios were unrealistic. For example, anyone who had Mary, Mrs. Hudson, or Molly as their game pieces would already have to rule out the use of the harpoon, since almost none of the women characters had the necessary arm strength needed to use enough force to stab Mycroft hard enough to mortally wound him. Come to think of it, Donovan was the only female character physically capable of such a feat." Sherlock explained calmly.

"So you made me a character in your twisted game, Freak?" Donovan asked, her voice going up several octaves in direct correlation with her surprise and outrage.

"We made all of you part of the game!" Sheridan replied, picking up a few of the game pieces. "Molly is the pink one. Sally, you are the blue one, because you like blue! Uncle John is the yellow one…"

"So you made me Colonel Mustard? Real subtle, Sherlock." John replied warily.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I didn't pick out the characters, John. That was Sheri's job."

"Which one am I?" Clarky asked eagerly, leaning over the improvised Cluedo board.

"The orange one, of course." Sheridan looked up, as if surprised that Clarky would ever choose a different color than orange.

Hopkins grinned as he picked up the orange game piece. "Typical! The Body Farm person gets the orange from his alma mater!"

"Go Tennessee Volunteers!" Clarky grinned.

"As if we actually care about American football, Clarky!" Hopkins snickered. "So, am I in this game?"

"You are the purple game piece." Sheridan pointed it out. "And Greg is the gray one. Anderson got the green piece. Mrs. Hudson got the white one, Aunt Mary has the red one, and Dad got the navy one!"

"Don't you have one, Sheri?" Anderson asked, looking confused as he tried to keep up with the colored game pieces and which "character" they were supposed to represent.

"Oh, I would never kill Uncle Mycroft!" Sheridan shook her head, sending her dark curls flying. "All I would really need to do would be to make the CCTV system crash if I was really mad at him!"

"And yet dear Sherly is a character set out to kill me. How wonderful!" Mycroft noted dryly, glancing over at his younger brother with a look of poorly disguised contempt. "No doubt Mummy will be amused."

Sherlock smirked unashamedly at his brother's irritation. "Well, you are my archenemy, after all. Who knows? Perhaps Mummy would like to play the next time she comes to visit."

"And what are these cards here?" Clarky asked.

"The 'Location' cards and the 'Weapons' cards. We left those unchanged, of course. We just made a few additions." Sheridan said cheerfully as she handed Clarky and Hopkins the two stacks.

"I'd say!" Clarky exclaimed as he began shuffling through them. "Hmmm. 'Surveillance Room.' Of course, every family just has to have that one! Oh, and the 'Lab Room.' Hmmm. That's actually a good one! Remind me to ask Molly if we can make one of the spare bedrooms into a lab room! And then you got the 'Library' and 'Dining Room.'"

"And check out the weapons!" Hopkins said as he went through the other stack. "You got the candlestick, the revolver…a chainsaw?"

"Dad was the one who got to pick out the weapons we used." Sheridan explained, pointed to her father quickly.

Sherlock pouted as he gave Sheridan a sideways glance. "Traitor!"

"Sometimes I wonder about you, Lucky." Clarky said, shaking his head. "You are even more messed up than I am, and that is saying a lot!"

"Not me!" Anderson piped up. "Any time the Freak and his little Freak Spawn gets bored, we get called in to clean up the mess!"

"THIS ISN'T A MESS! THIS IS A BLOODY NATURAL DISASTER!" Lestrade finally exploded. He glared at the consulting detective. "I THOUGHT SOMEONE KILLED YOU! I THOUGHT WE WERE GOING TO HAVE TO BURY YOU ALL OVER AGAIN! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW I FELT AFTER YOU DIED, YOU BLOODY FOOL?! AND THEN YOU LEFT THE FLAT LIKE THIS!? IT WAS LIKE YOU DIED AGAIN, YOU GIT!"

Sherlock managed to keep his expression completely neutral, as though he didn't particularly care what Lestrade was saying. However, his eyes held the barest hint of (Guilt? Remorse? Discomfort?) and he slouched even lower into his seat on the sofa.

"Greg, sit down before I make you!" John ordered, using his I-am-Captain-John-Watson-and-you-better-do-as-I-sa y voice. "Sherlock and Sheridan just got carried away! I'm sure they didn't mean for all of this to happen!"

"And how do you know that?!" Lestrade challenged, turning to glare at the shorter man.

"Because they went and bought cleaning supplies!" John pointed out, holding up one of the bags that Sherlock and Sheridan had brought in with them earlier. "They didn't know I was coming home early! And after they saw the mess they made, they left the flat to get some cleaning supplies in order to clean this up! Actually, I'm surprised they didn't leave it for me!"

"Well, if you are planning to volunteer, John…" Sherlock began. Then he caught the cold glare John was gracing him with and promptly fell silent.

"We did get carried away. But it wasn't supposed to upset you, Greg." Sheridan replied. She seemed rather chagrined by Lestrade's outburst. "Still, I'm glad we decided to make fake blood, instead of going to Bart's and getting real blood. It would have been harder to clean up."

"And your phone?" Donovan asked, pointing to the mangled remnants of Sherlock's pink mobile.

Sheridan raised her hand with a guilty look on her face. "During one of the scenarios, I stepped on it."

"Unintentionally, of course." Sherlock explained calmly. "I was planning to send an email to Mycroft to order a replacement, but I preferred to make the flat more presentable."

"In other words, you didn't want to get caught playing a game where your brother was the murder victim." John guessed, snickering.

Sherlock shrugged, a self-satisfied smile gracing his porcelain features. "Perhaps next time you would like to join us? I assure you, the game is rather easy, but still an improvement over the original. And you did say that playing board games was a suitable way for me to spend quality time with Sheridan."

John scowled, ignoring the accusatory looks he was getting from the Yarders. "Next time, I plan on making sure you and Sheridan are not unsupervised! Only the two of you could turn a harmless board game into a crime scene!"

"What are these cards?" Hopkins asked, picking up another stack, as though desperate for anything that would lighten the mood. "They have words on them. 'World domination?' 'Low I.Q.?' 'Bored?'"

"Those are 'Motive' cards." Sherlock answered.

"Motive cards? So, location, suspect, and murder weapon isn't enough? You need to guess motive too, Freak?" Donovan inquired, looking somewhat bemused by the situation, now that everyone was starting to calm down.

Sherlock smirked slightly and glanced over at Mycroft. "I highly doubt that anyone would truly need a motive to kill my brother. However, a fourth dimension added to the game's difficulty. Some of the combinations we got were…mildly amusing."

"Really?" Clarky smirked. "Well, let's see who the last killer was!"

"Forgive me if I find it rather disturbing that you are all enthralled with an altered board game in which the characters' main objective is to determine various scenarios on how I meet my demise." Mycroft noted mildly. "If some of you should disappear within the next few days, I will be able to plead self-defense. Not that it would ever be traced back to me, of course."

"It's just a game, Mycroft!" John broke in. Now that his shock and anger over the situation has dissipated, he found the entire event to be funny as well.

"Yeah! Who wouldn't have a motive to kill the British Government?" Clarky joked as he pulled out the cards in the little manila envelope on top of the Cluedo board.

"Being the rebellious Yank that you are, Clarky, that shouldn't be too surprising." Donovan joked.

"Those are fighting words Sally….Oh!" Clarky gasped as he read the cards in front of him.

"What? Who did it? Who was the killer?" Anderson asked, interested despite himself.

"Okay?" Clarky mumbled as he read the cards. His face turned the same shade of crimson as the stains currently covering the room. "Well! This is…awkward?"

Hopkins fidgeted impatiently. "What!? Clarky, you are killing us here! Well, not literally, but you know what I mean! So, who is the killer? Was it me, with the lead pipe in the Dining Room because Mycroft here kidnapped me again? Or Donovan, with the rope…"

"We never did get to that part." Sheridan broke in, looking pensive. "Dad and I got distracted when I guessed that Mrs. Hudson killed Uncle Mycroft with the harpoon, and Dad pointed out that Mrs. Hudson didn't have the necessary arm strength for that, so we took the harpoon over to the butcher's, and he allowed us to do some experimenting by seeing how much force was needed to cause a mortal injury by using a large rake of ribs…"

"But why didn't you use the dummy?" Lestrade asked. "The one you 'borrowed' from the Met?"

"Well…" Sheridan whispered, looking uncomfortable again. "By that time, there wasn't much of Rescue Ralph left to work with, so we needed something else. But don't worry! Dad will replace him for you!"

"You have got to be kidding me!" Anderson choked out. He glared at Sherlock. "You are corrupting your daughter, Holmes! Normal fathers do not teach their daughters how much force ratio is needed to stab someone with a harpoon!"

"But I have never been normal, Anderson, as you have repeatedly pointed out over the years. Nevertheless, the experiments we performed show that all the female characters, with the exception of Donovan, lack the necessary strength to actually kill Mycroft with a harpoon. Sheri and I may need to substitute another weapon next time, to make the game more realistic."

Everyone stared at Sherlock with uneasy glances, but he ignored them all as he put his two fingers together in his "thinking pose."

"Hey! Wait a minute! If you went to test your little 'harpoon' theory, then why didn't you bring it back with you?" Donovan asked, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.

"Mr. Harrison, the nice man who owns the butchery, owes Dad a favor, and he offered to watch it for us." Sheridan replied. "After all, the Tesco wouldn't let us in to buy cleaning supplies if we were carrying a harpoon around with us."

"Oh!" Donovan said, surprised. "Well, ok then."

"Well, I have a question." Lestrade spoke up, looking pointedly at Sherlock. "Where did you get alcohol!? Because Clarky said that your fake blood has alcohol in it! And seeing as how I will have to take his word on that..."

"Two words, Lestrade. Harriet Watson." Sherlock said calmly.

"What!?" John squeaked out.

"Oh, don't jump to conclusions, John." Sherlock replied. "Your sister received a bottle of whiskey from one of her old friends. She is still dedicated to her promise to stay sober, so she came by to give you the bottle, but you were at that dull medical conference, so I offered to take it off her hands. However, I soon had need of it..."

"I think we will all need it after tonight!" Lestrade interrupted Sherlock peevishly.

Sherlock shrugged and sunk back on the couch. "Now, how do we solve the problem of killing my archnemisis?" Sherlock asked himself meditatively, his eyes half closed.

"How about poison?" Sheridan piped up. "It doesn't take much force to poison someone!"

"True. We just need to consider the type of poison. Arsenic and cyanide are too obvious…"

"I can't believe you two are sitting there coming up with ways to kill Mycroft, even if it is for a fictional game!" John exclaimed. "A bit not good, that!"

"Your concern for my emotional well-being is appreciated, Doctor." Mycroft replied calmly. "However, the idea that anyone could kill me is…amusing, to say the least. Fantasies usually are."

"If anyone could come up with a way to kill you, Mycroft, it will be me!" Sherlock looked at his elder sibling with a sly grin.

"And we will be sure to remember that at your trial, Sherlock!" Lestrade broke in. He turned back to Clarky, who had remained silent during this entire exchange. "Well, what about it, Clarky? Who did it? Who is the killer?"

"Uh…do I have to answer that?" Clarky flushed an even darker shade of red as he hid the cards in his hands. "I mean, I read them and already I feel emotionally scarred for life…"

"And how do you think I felt when I came in to see you and Stan here licking blood off the wallpaper!?" Lestrade insisted. "Now man up, Clarky, and read the cards!"

"Don't say I didn't warn you!" Clarky muttered under his breath. "Well, the murder took place in the Conservatory…"

"Dull!" Sherlock huffed impatiently.

"The weapon was a dagger. And Old Silver is the killer!" Clarky finished, giving Lestrade a pointed glance.

Donovan and Anderson laughed, and Hopkins barely suppressed a grin as Lestrade glared at his subordinates.

Ever since Clarky joined the Yard, he had been coming up with nicknames for people. As he explained it, "when people in Tennessee get to accepting you, they come up with nicknames for you." Thus, over time, Sherlock became known as "Lucky," while Mycroft was rechristened "Lucky's Creepy Government Brother."

Lestrade had been recently added to Clarky's nickname list as "Old Silver," after an incident in which Lestrade had come into work one day and was complaining bitterly about the abundance of grey hairs he was getting and Clarky, in his typical fashion, decided to lighten the mood by referring to Lestrade as "Old Silver."

Needless to say, Lestrade hadn't been too fond of his nickname choice, as was evident by the way Lestrade glared at Clarky long after the others had stopped laughing.

"Sherlock, maybe you should make Clarky the victim next time!" Lestrade finally grumbled.

"I considered it. But as I have said before, Mycroft was chosen because of the challenge he represented to a potential assassin. With his training and the security that normally follows him around, his murder would be considered an improbable yet unmistakable accomplishment." Sherlock explained matter-of-factly.

"Clarky, you forgot one!" Hopkins pointed out. "The motive card! Why did Greg kill Mycroft?"

Clarky sighed. "I was afraid someone was going to ask that! Can't I just plead the fifth and remain silent?"

"You are not in America anymore, Clarky! Now tell us what it says!" Hopkins demanded.

Clarky gave Sheridan and Sherlock a sympathetic look before he read what the last card said. "Well…the card says 'Unrequited Love!'"

Author's Note: Ha, ha! Oh, you have got to love Sherlock and Sheridan! Leave them alone for a few days, and they end up warping a harmless Cluedo game into a crime scene! And all in an attempt to escape boredom!

Did anyone see that coming?

Come on, be honest!

Ok, so Scottish Bluebell got it right! I tried to leave a few clues, and Scottish Bluebell picked up on them, so great job! Sherlock would have been proud! :D

And did anyone like the introduction of the "Motive" cards, and how Lestrade allegedly stabbed Mycroft in the Conservatory all for "unrequited love?"

All I can say is that someone may end up paying for this later!

This is in homage to the "Mystrade" stories out there. Now, in this universe, Lestrade and Mycroft are not shipped together. Sorry, guys.

So you can imagine how these two gentlemen feel about the fact that one of them supposedly killed the other due to "unrequited love."

Not that I have anything against the Mystrade stories. I actually enjoy reading them. But my characters do what they want to do, and right now there is no Mystrade.

OC Chase Douglas-Yes! What did I tell you!? That is why the members of FanFiction should be in charge of "Sherlock." We get things right! I mean, we were right about Reichenbach, we were right about Moriarty, and now we were right on this event! Sweet!

Peaceful Defender-Yes, Chase. We know! The members of FanFiction are smarter than the British Government! And the Yard, for that matter! At least we don't go around licking ominous stains off wallpapers! But I feel sorry for Lestrade. How is he going to be able to go to live this one down?

OC Chase Douglas-"It would be cool, though. Who wouldn't want the DMP?"

Peaceful Defender (eyes OC Chase Douglas warily)-"You do realize that Mycroft is old enough to be your father, right?"

OC Chase Douglas (laughing)-"I don't like him that way! I just meant that the DMP could have his pick of anyone, men or women! Or even his umbrella. Hey! Didn't you say something about the DMP being my father!?"

Peaceful Defender-"No! I said he was old enough to be your father!"

OC Chase Douglas (not listening, as always)-"Because that would be so cool! Just like 'Star Wars!' I can see it now! 'Chase, I am your father!' But instead of screaming, I just go hug him!"

Peaceful Defender-"Somehow, I sincerely doubt that Mycroft is the hugging type!"

OC Chase Douglas-"I am sooooo going to write that down! And instead of light sabers, it will be umbrellas!"

Peaceful Defender-"Oh dear. Have you been drinking too much coffee again?"

OC Chase Douglas (ignoring Peaceful Defender's question, although his left eye is twitching suspiciously)-"Thank you so much, Peaceful Defender! You are curing my writers' block!"

Peaceful Defender (sarcastically)-"I'm so glad I could help." (Turning attention back to the readers) "Ok, everyone, the final part of this dabble will be up next. It involves some revenge, so stay tuned! And if you found anything even remotely interesting about this chapter, a review or two would be great!"