As they walked inside Squish gasped. The room was actually a set of rooms rather than another one set up like their previous abode. What made her look around in amazement was that it looked exactly like Baker Street. The wallpaper was identical, as were the skulls that were of course dotted around Baker Street. There was even a violin lying on top of the bookcase with a bow. Sherlock saw Squish's gaze alight on it and nodded slightly.
It was a Stradivarius; she could remember the day that Sherlock had bought his own. It had been on a stall in Shoreditch, he had picked it up and played a few notes, an Islamic gentleman had asked if he was interested in buying the instrument and Sherlock had replied in the affirmative. They had actually been on a case at the time; some guy had sent ears to his girlfriend's sister, who Sherlock had quickly determined had done her best to split them up after being rejected by the boyfriend. Squish could remember the violin only being £55 and Sherlock had laughed at the price; he had told her that this type of violin was usually worth thousands of pounds. It had been a good day, Sherlock had given the offender, in a rare moment of empathy, the number of the best defence lawyer in town, and that had been enough of a reason for celebration.
Moriarty stood in the doorway observing amusedly at their bewilderment. He giggled amused at their expressions of disbelief.
"Not to put a damper on things darlings, but I've got a very bad captain to attend too, so I'll be seeing you all later. Ciao!" He left the room, closing the door gently behind him. The lock clicked with a noise that sounded like the crashing of thunder in the silence.
Squish continued to look around from where she stood in the flat. Of course this apartment wasn't an exact replica. They were still on the ground floor and that meant that there weren't any windows. The kitchen wasn't in the right place and it was much too tidy to be their home. There were none of Sherlock's files spilling their contents onto the floor and the lack of mess made her feel on edge.
John carefully helped her to the sofa where she sat down gingerly. It was unsettling to be in a parody of her home, weird and frightening. She looked over at the bullet holes in the wall. She of course had the exact positioning of the originals committed to memory, and she could tell that they were correct down to the last millimetre.
"This is really creepy" she said to no one in particular, "And I mean really creepy. Look the bison's the same shade of black and wearing the same brand of headphones. And he cushions are how left them"
"Jim's very thorough" Sherlock said distractedly as he peered through a microscope that was set up in the kitchen, "very thorough indeed. This is the exact experiment that I left at home; in fact it's the same experiment but three days ahead of where I left it."
"We've been gone three days." John sounded worried, "You don't think that this s actually are stuff do you?"
"Don't be stupid John" said Sherlock, "This microscope is brand new, but it's been chemically fabricated to look like its mine." Squish shook her head unsure f what he said.
"I don't know Sherlock. I think John may have a point. Some of our stuff is difficult to come by. I mean the Cluedo board has been nailed above the fireplace, and you can see the marks where you threw the pieces against the board. I mean look there's the puncture mark where you stuck the collectible Professor Plum's head through the board."
Sherlock strode up to the board and examined it. He looked at it closely and pulled out the knife so that he could take the board down. After about a minute of looking, he shook his head decidedly.
"No, this isn't our board"
"How can you possibly tell that?" asked John, "we played that game for ten minutes before you decided that the only possible solution was the victim committing his own murder. Then you threw the pieces across the room and stuck Professor Plum's head through the ballroom."
"Exactly. Professor Plum's head was stuck through our board. This hole was obviously made by Miss Scarlet not Professor Plum. And the victim did do it"
Squish sighed, "For the final time. The victim did not do it, that argument is flawed by the rules of the game and we shall not speak of it again. Also, I was Miss Scarlet so how do you know what sort of puncture hole she made?"
Sherlock spun around. "It's obvious. Miss Scarlet's piece is long and thin but with a flared base, this puncture mark has got a large hole where the piece entered, but by the amount of force that was used, the entry pint was relatively small. There are minuscule dots of red paint from the dress on the piece. Ergo cannot be Professor Plum because that piece is purple and yellow not red."
"Brilliant" said John, "amazing, fantastic…"
"And that takes us back to square one" Squish finished for him, "sorry to interrupt John and you can continue your run through of all of the adjectives in the English language in a minute, but what are we going to do exactly?"
Sherlock looked at her and then at John, the back to her and shrugged,
"What's your suggestion?" he asked, "the doors locked and as there are no windows I don't see what we can actually do that's in any way productive"
"And you aren't going anywhere for at least another day" John said, as he sat down heavily on the sofa, "You need to actually recover a little bit before we go gallivanting off again." Squish frowned.
"I don't really think you can call escaping a criminal mastermind, 'gallivanting'. Gallivanting means going in pursuit of something fun or pleasurable, I'm not sure that an escape entirely counts!"
John looked funnily at her then got to his feet sighing heavily.
"I'm going to see if there's any tea, and then I'm going to try and sleep. And Sherlock…" he turned to face him, "Put a shirt or something on please. Even if it's only a sheet, I'm getting sick of looking at your chest."
With that he disappeared into the kitchen. Squish counted two minutes and watched with satisfaction as John left the kitchen and walked to where his bedroom would be if this was their actual flat. She gave a snort of amusement and the mundaneness of a thoroughly abnormal situation. Sherlock sat down next to her and closed his eyes.
"I need five minutes" he said, "just five minutes to sleep."
"You voluntarily sleep? You'll be eating next"
But Sherlock didn't say anything because he was already asleep.