After following the strange assistant down several corridors, and finally behind a pair of locked double doors, the inspector, the consulting detective, and the doctor, found themselves in an area unlike the rest of the gallery. Here the walls were bare gray concrete and the winding ventilation system was visible overhead. Forklifts and dollies lined the left wall, while on the right wall short towers of carefully stacked wooden crates were erected in the darkness. A draft whispered through the vacant room, causing the hair on John's arms to prickle even underneath the protection of his warm jacket.
"A bit creepy," Lestrade commented. John nodded, a small shiver running through him which he blamed on the cold air, but in his subconscious, the image of the saponified corpses kept coming back. Sherlock took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the smell of sawdust and Cara's jasmine scented perfume.
Suddenly he stopped short. The sound of something wet in the far corner caught his attention. His back straightened and he looked off in the direction of the crates, his eyes darting in alert. His partner stopped as well.
"What?" John asked. Instinctively his muscles tightened and his heart rate sped up. He took a protective step closer to Sherlock, but the man was too preoccupied to notice as he sensed a shadow move. Everything was silent. John peered in the same direction but saw nothing.
Sherlock furrowed his brow, searching for the glimpse he'd seen of some undefined shape.
"I thought I saw someone," he answered. He waited a moment more but did not see it again. The room remained still and quiet. Lestrade let out an impatient sigh.
"C'mon Sherlock stop wasting our time with your delusions."
Feeling his pride take a hit, the tall man tore himself away from his suspicions and continued to follow the petite woman, but John still remained protectively close by his side. The odd assistant turned to a wall niche on the left, which framed a metal door. On its face, a black box with a green blinking light stood out where a handle typically would be. Cara slipped her lanyard over her head and pressed her keycard to the box. The box beeped, the lock mechanism shifted, and the door opened a crack, letting a stream of blue light seep into the shadowed space. She pushed open the door to reveal Sally Donovan and a balding security guard leaning over a computer screen, focusing intently on the illuminated display. Meredith stood behind them with crossed arms, the blue light reflecting off of her silver dress, transforming it to a watery shade. The room smelled musty, like dust and coffee, and old biscuit crumbs. Sherlock instantly began noticing things around him. There is an extra uniform hanging on a hanger against the back wall. It seems wet, clinging to itself in some areas. The floor is clean. The coffee has been reheated twice.
"I don't understand why it's not working," the security guard mumbled. He fiddled with the controls on the computer but still couldn't seem to figure out whatever was wrong. Six screens above him featured frozen frames of video.
"They still haven't fixed it," Cara said with a sigh. Sherlock furrowed his brow.
"What isn't working?" he questioned.
"The video footage," Donovan said turning to them, "It cuts out at...11:43 pm last night."
"Show me what you have then. The five minutes before it shorts out," Sherlock commanded. The man clicked a button and the videos from six different locations within the gallery appeared on the screens above. Four screens displayed locations inside the gallery, one of them from the main room above the stage with the bodies, and the other two above the entrances to the gallery. The indoor locations were pitch dark and only visible because of the green night vision filter on the camera. The main entrance and the loading zone were bathed in golden light, revealing insects which traveled through the air in haphazard paths. The two inspectors, and the flatmates, examined the video feed carefully but nothing was learned from it. Then the frames froze once again at 11:43.
"It's probably a glitch," the security man explained.
"If it was a glitch then why weren't the alarms triggered last night?" Meredith asked with a tinge of frustration in her tone. She was beginning to panic but kept it hidden under a cool disposition. She tried her best not to pace, swaying back and forth gently instead, like the lazy ebb and flow of the ocean.
"Maybe it's a hack," Lestrade offered. The security guard shook his head, finally turning to look at the newcomers.
"It can't be inspector. Our firewall doesn't show any signs of being attacked."
"Well wouldn't you say that glitch is all too convenient?" Sherlock snarked, "Exactly at the time of a theft and the placement of seven bodies?"
"Look he's not lying!" Sally yelled, "I've looked at it too. There's no sign of a hacker and I would know."
"Because of course you always know Donovan. Just like you knew the bodies were "dipped in wax"," Sherlock said sarcastically, even letting out an amused laugh at the thought.
"Look smartarse-"
"Srgt. Donovan" Lestrade warned. She bit her tongue and looked at Sherlock with rage.
"Fine. Then tell us what happened genius," she bitterly commanded. Sherlock looked at her with a straight face, his mind sifting through ideas.
How could a hack be untraceable? All viruses leave traces. Even the best can be detected, even if the detection is too late for prevention. Perhaps what happened wasn't a hack.
Maybe the security was manually turned off. There's only three people who could have that power. The security guard, Cara the assistant, and Meredith herself. Programmable key cards are impossible to duplicate without hacking the system which programmed them. However they could have been stolen from one of the three aforementioned people and returned to them before causing suspicion.
Meredith is precautionary. That is apparent because of the frequent lock changes on her file cabinets. I noticed this when she removed the file to find the guest list. She disposed of the old keys in the waste bin by the table where I grabbed the apple. She removed the lock core because there was no sign of drilling into the cabinet to remove the lock. She had to have the keys still in order to remove them. This indicates she changed the locks by choice not necessity. She is the type that would keep her key card locked up even when she's in her flat, which would clearly be located in a safe neighborhood considering her wealth. If a thief was to steal one of the key cards it wouldn't be hers.
Cara is thoughtless. Her mind drifts which is apparent by her uneven eye makeup. She takes great care in her appearance, spending over 600£ on a designer dress for this event, purchasing a special shade of lipstick called écarlate, identifiable by its scent of acai berry. Yet she put on her eye makeup unevenly this morning. Perhaps it was because she was tired last night after her long day of preparing the gallery for its opening. Although an attempt at concealment was made, the dark circles under her eyes were still visible in the bright light of the gallery's main room. She in fact, fell asleep in her clothes. There's a red mark on her neck where the rough strap of her lanyard pressed into her skin as she slept, making it too risky a target for the thief.
The security guard is busy. The extra uniform hanging on the back wall was recently worn. There's a blueberry muffin stain on the cuff and crumbs from the same muffin on the computer keyboard. However the same uniform has a security badge with a London bank logo. It appears slightly damp. About midnight last night there was a downpour. I remember John and I couldn't sleep so I played my violin for an hour. He worked a night shift at the bank and day shift at the art gallery yesterday, leaving the security system to protect the gallery. He hadn't changed between jobs because he was in a hurry so he would have had both badges and his key card with him all night.
The key cards were never taken. Either one of those three people used their key card themselves to shut off security or it was something else…
What else other than a hack or manual controls could turn off a security system?
"A power outage. Everything would have been down. Not just the cameras but the alarms, the lighting, even the automatic security locks. Making it ever too convenient for the thief and the murderer," Sherlock stated. Everyone in the room turned to him, speechless at swiftness of his response.
"How could you possibly guess that?" Lestrade asked, dumbstruck with how quickly the consulting detective came to that conclusion.
"It was simple really," Sherlock responded with his typical arrogance. The security guard immediately began typing into the master computer to check the accuracy of his assumption.
"Hold on a bloody moment. If the power went out there would be a generator that turns on," Donovan protested.
The security guard finished typing.
"It was…" he said, staring at his screen, "It takes ten minutes for the backup to turn on. The rest of the video feed was sent to the backup computer drive while the master drive rebooted"
He played the video again and this time the frozen screens came back to life. They watched in silence for several minutes but still nothing crossed the cameras except for a rather large moth by the loading area. Donovan groaned in frustration, her head hanging in defeat.
"Well that was a dead end" she sighed.
"Are you telling me you think they could do this is in only ten minutes? Is that even possible?" John inquired, trying his best to believe it.
"It is possible for the right people," Sherlock told him.
"Can we get the footage from yesterday on a flash drive?" Lestrade asked the security guard. He nodded fervently, happy to finally be of some help.
"Of course. Of course inspector. It'll take just a few minutes to upload"
Flustered, he began fumbling for a flash drive in the drawer of the desk, mumbling to himself as he did so. He continued to fiddle with the computer and mumble, while the investigators spoke.
"You better call the London power company tomorrow Lestrade." Sherlock told him.
"Right. I'll go with them when they do their inspection. Is there anything else you'd like to inspect tonight, Sherlock?"
"Yes. That loading zone," he said, pointing to the screen on the top left.
"Alright," John agreed. The mumbling coming from the security guard became louder. John and Sherlock gave each other a look with quirked eyebrows.
"He's just tired," Meredith explained with embarrassment.
"That's alright," John told him but he couldn't help but think it was strange.
"Thank you for your help. Well we better be going Sherlock," he said eagerly, nodding to the door so he'd understand his meaning. Sherlock nodded once in agreement.
"I need to see the loading zone," Sherlock stated bluntly.
"Oh I'll show you where it is, Mr. Holmes," Cara offered. The occupants of the room began shuffling toward the door.
Sherlock pushed it open and nearly jumped as he met an unexpected grim figure, partially in the shadows. The old man'sface was hidden behind a mound of white scruff, making only his wrinkled parchment skin around his coal black eyes visible.
"Dirty polizisten," the man spat at Sherlock's face vehemently. Sherlock looked at him with utter shock, yanking back his head as the man spattered saliva on his face with the insult.
"Mr. Eisenheim!" Cara peeped. The caretaker grumbled something gruffly in German and then glared at the woman.
"They make filth," he growled with a hoarse voice. He thrust a mop along the floor in front of him to establish his point. Meredith shook her head, her eyes burning.
"You can't be cleaning right now, there's an investigation going on," she ordered, "You're excused from your duties until the investigation is over. We won't need cleaning. It interferes."
He looked from her to Sherlock, and then John who was right behind them. He huffed, dropping his mop into the bucket of dirty water with a resentful splash and carting it noisily away to the dark doorway of a cleaning cupboard.
As soon as he was out of sight they continued on their way and Sherlock used a handkerchief to wipe his face.
"Are you alright?" John asked, automatically worried.
"Yes, of course," he told him nonchalantly as if nothing had happened.
"I'm very sorry for his rudeness. He doesn't like policemen," she told them.
The people who work here are all very strange, John thought to himself, growing ever more curious and confused.
Cara led the company to a garage door on the back wall of the room. She typed into a keypad on the wall and the door slowly ascended until it was open. The ground of the outside loading zone was cracked tarmac, which eventually led into the cobblestone street of the broad alleyway beyond. There was a green skip on the side, and a tall brick building of flats across the way. White trim rimmed their rectangular windows which were mostly dark due to the time of night. The faint sound of the sirens in the front of the gallery were still perceived here in the back. Sherlock stepped out of the door first, and walked over to a dark spot in the middle of the parking area.
"Motor oil" he muttered. "Probably from the lorry. It's fresh but it has been watered down by the rain. The hydrocarbons should still be visible under a UV light. Lestrade?"
"On it" Lestrade told him, searching his pockets for a handheld blacklight. Finding that he actually did not have one, he sheepishly looked to Sally. She sighed at his absentmindedness and produced the torch from her bag, handing it to the consulting detective.
"We need to turn off these outdoor lights," he told Cara. She nodded and quickly went inside to use the controls on the wall she previously used to lift the door. A minute later they were left in mostly darkness. Sherlock flipped on the UV light and instantly the faded impressions of footprints lit up in a fluorescent blue shade all over the dark surface. Carefully he stepped his way around them, making sure to avoid the spot of oil himself. John followed his lead, hopping in between the latent footprints until he reached a place where there were none, the same place where the vehicle itself was parked. He crouched down beside Sherlock to get a better look. Sgt. Donovan and Lestrade also worked their way to some of the more faded footprints. Donovan began measuring them with a measuring tape she had with her.
"26.7 centimeters," she read as Lestrade recorded the number. They continued measuring the footprints around them as Sherlock and John examined their other features.
"What do you notice John?" Sherlock questioned him. John sighed, hoping this wouldn't turn into one of those moments when Sherlock cuts down all of his observations, and replaces them with his own much more developed ones.
"Um...the soles have lost a lot of their tread?" he suggested. Sherlock nodded.
"Good, continue," he encouraged.
"They've probably been worn frequently."
"Yes," Sherlock agreed, "look closer."
John leaned closer to the surface and noticed a strangely uniform pattern of wide horizontal chips missing from the sole.
"Something's been cut off…"
"Yes. The logo has been cut off, roughly, with a pocket knife. Also notice how it's darker in the front than in the back?"
"Yeah I see that. What does it mean?"
"The shoes were over sized, making the man wearing them put his weight into the front of the shoe to keep them from slipping. This was intentional. They didn't want their shoes to be identifiable clues. They probably got these shoes from a second hand store. They are quite clever," Sherlock laughed. John agreed, finding this investigation to be increasingly harder by the minute. At least it keeps Sherlock entertained, he thought. Maybe now he'll be too busy to litter our flat with smelly science experiments.
Sherlock stood up, satisfied with his discoveries for the night.
"You better have your men document these Lestrade," he told the inspector, handing him the UV light again, "Although I'm positive they'll lead us nowhere. At least it will give them something to do instead of standing around drinking coffee. I think we are done for tonight John. Send us the autopsies as soon as you get them and any identification reports you receive on the victims or the electrician."
"Alright Sherlock, thanks for your help," Lestrade praised, although it was against his better judgment to thank Sherlock. It would only go to his ego. Sherlock smirked at Donovan on his way out and she returned him a look of utter resentment.
The two flatmates left the gallery at a much slower pace than they entered it, allowing their minds to relax after the long night of complex information. John always found it easier to think about a case once he'd had a good night's sleep. Bodies turned into soap, footprints, and missing videos were all too much to think about in his exhausted state. Sherlock on the other hand was silent not from exhaustion, but from his elaborate formation of theories. For him tonight would be a sleepless night at 221B. A night for playing the violin till 3 am, despite John's protests, a night for nicotine patches and cold tea.