"Watson, they say it's safe to go in now."
John looks over to see Lestrade standing a short distance away from him.
"They say the structure's safe, and all of the fire has been put out. We can go in and look if you'd like."
John nods. He is already extremely exhausted. The hours waiting at the burning warehouse had brought back the pain of both his wounds and of the increasing hopelessness that torments him. He breathes in deeply, feigning strength but really aching both inside and out. "Let's go."
He walks over to Lestrade and the two of them slowly approach the building.
As they near the warehouse, John can't help but think that this might be a dead end too. Sherlock's captors burnt the building for a reason. They wanted to get rid of any evidence. So why would there be any left? The people who took Sherlock have already proved themselves to be thorough and clever. Why would this time be any different?
Regardless of these thoughts, a small part of John still retains a little bit of hope. There is probably a slightly better chance of evidence being left at this scene. It seems like Sherlock's captors were slightly caught off guard by the news that their location had been found out so quickly. Maybe, just maybe, there was a chance that they had forgotten something, some small clue. Something that might lead them to Sherlock.
Lestrade pauses as he approaches the doorway of the building. "Are you sure you're okay, Watson? These last few days have been terrible for you. Would you rather just have my team go in? We'll tell you about anything we see…" Lestrade suspects that this attempt to try to convince John to rest is going to be useless.
He's right.
"Lestrade, I need to look. I need to help. He's been gone for a long time, and every second counts."
Lestrade sighs, nodding. "I thought you'd say that." He pauses. "Are you ready, then?"
John shrugs slightly. "Yes, I'm ready."
It's a lie.
He's not ready. He's not ready for any of this. But he tries to fight through the uncertainty and pain.
Lestrade nods, silently admiring John's bravery and perseverance, and slowly opens the door.
As the two of them walk in, they are both surprised. The building is much less burnt than they had originally thought. A small spark of hope reenters John's mind. Maybe there's still some evidence that survived the flames. John walks slowly around the room, but it looks fairly empty. Lestrade is obviously thinking the same thing.
"There's still a lot more warehouse. I doubt they were using much of it. We just need to figure which rooms they were using." John nods.
After thoroughly searching the room and finding nothing, John and Lestrade move into the next room. They repeat the process, looking for absolutely anything out of the ordinary. Nothing.
They keep moving, checking another seven rooms. At this point, John is totally exhausted, both mentally and physically. He's extremely weak because of the stress he's been through today.
He doesn't tell any of this to Lestrade, though. Lestrade might make him rest. And resting is something that John won't do. Resting won't help find Sherlock. It would just give him time to think about the situation, which would probably be much more harmful than helpful. He tries not to think about his pain, but it's incredibly hard.
Lestrade notices that he has slowed down. "Watson. You need to take a break."
John doesn't even respond, simply shaking his head and moving into the next room.
Sighing, Lestrade walks into the room with him. "No, Watson, you're not just going to ignore me. I may not be a doctor, but I know that you shouldn't be doing this. You're a doctor! You know how bad this is! You have to stop this. I'm going to take you outside. You need rest."
John suddenly freezes in place, staring intently at the corner of the room.
"Lestrade."
"No, you can't argue. You're going…"
"No, Lestrade. Right here. I found something."
Lestrade's eyes widen and he quickly kneels down next to John. "What is it? What are you looking at?"
John raises a visibly shaking finger towards the bottom of the wall. "Right there. I think… There are marks down there. They don't look random."
Lestrade bends down closer, looking intently at the area of the wall where John is pointing. Sure enough, he sees a long line of rough scratches on the wall.
"What are they?"
John suddenly gasps. "That's… that looks like Morse code… Do you think that was him? Did he leave us a message?"
Lestrade shakes his head. "I don't know. Let's find out." He pulls out a small notebook.
He begins to write down the marks on the wall. "Okay, let's see… dash dot dash. That's definitely Morse code! And it's a letter 'C.' Dash dash dash. Letter 'O.' Dot dash dot. That's letter 'R.' Then… an 'N.' Then… 'E', then 'R.' That spells 'corner'. What on earth does he mean by corner?"
John stays kneeling down there for a moment, wondering. Suddenly, as his gaze drifts to another corner of the room, John sees something.
"Lestrade, there's something over there. On that wall, near the corner," he says, pointing to the opposite wall. The two men hurry over to the other wall, staring intently at the marks.
"Morse code again!" exclaims John.
Lestrade opens his notebook again. "Okay, let's see, what does that say… a…b…b…e…y. That's abbey. What's that supposed to mean? What does the next part say?"
John stares at the markings. "M…a…r…t…i…n. Martin. So we have corner, abbey, martin."
John looks around the room, trying to find any more code. He sees a small patch of markings on another wall and walks over to it. Kneeling down, he looks at Lestrade. "I think I found some more over here. It says c…a…b. Cab! Is there any more?"
The two men walk around the small room, examining the walls, but find no more markings.
Lestrade shrugs. "So then we have no more words. Just those. But what does he mean by 'corner abbey martin cab'?"
John suddenly gasps. "Lestrade, I think he's given us an address! The corner of Abbey Lane and Martin Street! And I suppose the cab part means that we should be looking for a cab there. But how would he know that they would be taking him there? Do you think this could be a trap?"
Lestrade shakes his head. "I don't know. We can't be sure that it was him that left that message for us. But Holmes is certainly brilliant. I don't doubt that he'd be able to figure out something like this, especially if there were men that came to this warehouse that had already been to the next hideout location. He can deduce an unbelievable amount by just looking at someone. Anyways, we don't have time to doubt this. We need to get going. It's been a while since they left the building, and even if Holmes was right, we still don't know when they'll be passing Abbey and Martin, if they haven't already. I'm guessing they'd stay away for a little while because that part of town is usually busy. But time is certainly of the essence."
John nods in agreement. "Let's get going, then."
They hurry out of the warehouse, instructing a few of Lestrade's men to keep searching the warehouse for any other clues that might have been left behind.
With this new lead, John's hopes have once again been revived.
Because regardless of the ingenuity of Sherlock's captors, John knows that he's got one thing that they don't.
Sherlock Holmes is on his side.
Hello :) Thanks for reading Encore! I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
I would really appreciate any reviews or suggestions!
Thanks so much to Nimara Portmac and Esbee for your reviews of the last chapter!