Lestrade peered over the edge of the roof at St. James's Square below, swallowing hard. It was one thing to practice floating around with something to hold onto, or a few inches off a solid surface, but quite another to launch oneself over a potential drop of several dozen feet! He felt Holmes come up beside him and give him a friendly nudge.
"Don't worry, just keep hold of your happy thought and you'll be fine!" The detective held out his hand. "We'll go together, all right?"
Lestrade grasped the offered hand tightly, devoutly thankful that none of his professional colleagues could see him just now.
"On three, then. One..."
Something whizzed past Lestrade's face and hit a chimney stack, gouging a large hole in the brickwork.
"Christ!" Lestrade yelped.
"Pirates! Let's go!" Holmes leapt forward, dragging the Inspector with him.
"Aargh!" Lestrade automatically flailed and clutched at Holmes's arm, then realised he wasn't actually weighing his companion down. Holmes was mercifully heading straight across the square without any fancy acrobatics, though at a speed that made Lestrade's eyes water in the wind. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts! Picture that lovely village in the distance... With every moment of steady gliding, his pounding heart gradually slowed and settled back into his chest. Hell, if birds could do this without magic... He still wasn't planning on letting go, though! "Do you have any idea where you're going?" he called over the rush of the air.
"Not really!" Holmes called back, sounding far too cheerful about the whole situation. "Any suggestions?"
"Yes! Baker Street!" He didn't actually want to go there, Moriarty would almost certainly be expecting it, but... "Wiggins was supposed to deliver a message to Mrs... a lady friend of mine, but I don't know if she got it!" Certainly the news that her lodger was unwell would bring the concerned woman straight round to Mycroft's rooms, but Lestrade had no way of knowing if Wiggins had even left before the attack.
"All right, then. Which way's Baker Street? I don't know London very well!"
"Oh Lord, you really don't, do you? Look, stop for a second and go a bit higher, slowly? I need to see the Thames." The river came into view on Lestrade's left, the setting sun turning the water golden. "Perfect, stop here! All right, we need to head... northwest." Lestrade pointed. "Keep a lookout for a large park with a lake, that's Regent's Park. Baker Street is at the southwest corner."
"Right!" Holmes took off again without warning, at about twice his earlier speed.
Lestrade only just kept his hold on the detective's arm, heart leaping into his mouth yet again. He wasn't going to transfer after this case, he was going to retire! "By the way," he shouted, "it is still Sherlock Holmes of Devonshire, right?"
Holmes gave him an odd look. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, you did say pirates were after us just now."
The detective shrugged. "Slip of the tongue, I suppose. I don't normally get any other types of grown-ups shooting at me!"
"You'd be amazed."
"How can you tell which house 221B is, if you can't see the number?" Holmes half-whispered, gliding along the Baker Street rooftops behind Lestrade.
"Mrs. Hudson keeps a herb garden at the back – ah, there it is! Then we just drop down to Wats... the second floor window."
"Is the catch broken?"
"No, unfortunately. We'll have to break the glass." Lestrade spotted a loose half brick in the gutter that had fallen from a neighbouring chimney, and scooped it up. "Mrs. Hudson won't mind, trust me." The landlady would have slightly more pressing matters to deal with!
"Can I do it?" Holmes said hopefully.
"No. Just stay where you... Wait, we should...!"
But Holmes had already slipped over the edge to hover in front of the bedroom window, looking puzzled. "I thought you said it would be closed!" he called up softly.
"It's open?" Lestrade floated down beside Holmes, frowning at the offending aperture. "That's odd..."
"She could have been airing the room, and forgot? Our maids do that sometimes."
"I'm sure," Lestrade said dryly. If only he could be certain it was that simple... Well, they wouldn't get any answers out here, and it was high time to get under cover. He was suddenly very glad for the weight of the half brick in his hand, as his revolver had long since vanished, probably somewhere over Pall Mall. "All right, we're going in, but... be very careful, all right? We keep off the floor until we know there's no one here who shouldn't be, and stay away from the windows. You don't so much as twitch the curtains, got that? Let's go."
Lestrade had never actually visited the second floor before, so he had no idea what kind of an impression Watson might have left up here after moving out. But the room looked as clean and neat as it must have been before the doctor had taken up residence, thanks to Mrs. Hudson. The only thing that looked at all out of place was a book on the bedside table, a leather bookmark sticking out of the pages.
Holmes flew over and squinted at the faded title. "The... Death Ship, Part One. Ugh, why's this up here?"
"You've read it?" Lestrade whispered back, intrigued. He'd known Watson was a William Russell fan...
"Myke gave me a copy for my birthday, he knew I liked pirate stories. I hated that one, though, the ending was awful."
Lestrade glided to the door and opened it with care, listening hard. No sound came from below, and he dared to put his head out; no one on the landing or stairs. He flew down and found the sitting room equally deserted. Turning to beckon Holmes down, he saw that the detective had hopped up on the bannister and was sliding down, cross-legged, with a grin of pure mischief. Lestrade rolled his eyes, but said nothing. He'd probably wanted to do that for years.
"Stay up here, I'll check the ground floor," the Inspector murmured. "If Mrs. Hudson is home, you'll frighten the life out of her, looking like that! There's clean clothes in that bedroom there, see if you can find something that fits." Don't start, he grumpily told his pricking conscience as he headed downstairs again. Night was falling, and Holmes needed a change of clothes, whatever else happened! He just prayed that whatever did happen next would not be a complete disaster...