Disclaimer: The characters of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John H. Watson, Mycroft Holmes, Inspector Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson are the intellectual copyright of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and I hold no claim upon them.

A/N: This story, although set in the modern 21st Century, is highly influenced by the structure of the original stories about Sherlock Holmes.
I'm highly enjoying writing this- and I hope anyone who reads it will highly enjoy it too!
Rated T, but this may move up to M as events unfold later on. Enjoy! :)

The colleagues of Mr. Terrence Milner had all been herded into one of the conference rooms situated at the end of the corridor, before a set of double doors which led to a stairwell. In the conference room there were three men and four women in variable states of agitation, distress, and – in one of the young woman's cases – hysteria; a young policeman sat in the corner. Several people's heads turned in John's direction as he entered the room.

"Uh, I need to speak to you all – individually. " John announced finally, once their ogling stares of the men and women had been drawn away by the appearance of Lestrade in the doorway behind John.

"Mr. Ewans, is there somewhere that Dr. Watson can talk to you all individually?" Lestrade asked in the general direction of two of the men. "Mr. Ewans is the head of this department." Lestrade added under his breath so only John could hear him; John assumed he was addressing the middle sized man who was meticulously neatly dressed with every single hair in its immaculate place upon his head, but a tall skinny man with an untidy mop of blonde hair replied in a husky voice;

"There's another empty conference room across the corridor, it's a bit smaller than this one. You can use that if you want."

"Right…" John nodded.

"One at a time Dr. Watson just has a few questions to ask you." Lestrade commanded, using his full authority as the police officer in charge. The young man, Mr. Ewans, who had spoken to inform John and Lestrade about the opposite conference room stood up.

"I'm the head of department, you need to speak to me first." He stated quite bluntly. Mr. Ewans led the way across the corridor and opened the door to a slightly smaller conference room, with a small table and four chairs; to John's slight annoyance Detective Inspector Lestrade had accompanied them into the conference room and closed the door behind him. John took a seat on one side of the table and Mr. Ewans took the other on the opposite side of the table, while Lestrade took place in the seat slightly to the left behind John. For a brief moment John felt that he was an interviewer for some bizarre interview.

"I've got a few questions to ask about Mr. Milner. How long had he been working in the department?"

"He had been here for just over two years." There was something curt and impatient in the young man's voice and manner which evidently he was trying, and failing, to conceal.

"Did you know Mr. Milner well?" John asked; he had taken a small notebook out of the left inner pocket of his jacket, and felt increasingly like a young police sergeant taking notes for a superior officer- but of course that's what he was in regards to Sherlock.

"I didn't, no. I've only been here for two months – I was moved here at the beginning on the investigation." There was still something about the shortness in Mr. Ewans voice which put John's nerves on edge.

"Do you think that this could have anything to do with the investigation?" John asked and instantly observed Mr. Ewans bristle with uncomfort.

"I highly doubt it…" He replied agitatedly. "That's currently a completely different investigation which has gone beyond the reach of the police."

"So you don't think this could be done by someone within the department?"

"Oh God no!" He ejaculated his face in a mask of some disgust. "I've not been here long, but I've always deemed myself as having a fairly good judge of character, I'm not working with a murderer." Mr. Ewans was looking directly into John's eyes and there was something like fire within them – like he was so completely and utterly convinced of this fact.

"Okay." John nodded. "Do you know anything about Mr. Milner's personal life? Or do you know if anyone else in the department was particularly close to him?"

"Well, the rest have been here much longer than I, so undoubtedly they'll know him much better than I ever did." He answered, losing the air of annoyance as he replied that question. "I think out of everyone Corrina is the one he was closest to."

"Corrina? Which one is Corrina?" John inquired, jotting the name down quickly onto his notebook.

"Oh, she's not in today… She's got this week off on annual leave." Mr. Ewans said.

"Right, thanks." Mr. Ewans pushed his chair back and stood up to leave. "Just before you leave, is it possible that I could have a list of everyone who works in the department and their home addresses?" John interrupted him just as he reached the door of the conference room.

"I guess that wouldn't be too much of a problem." He agreed. "I'll do that for you now." He turned back to leave, but John stopped him once more.

"Do you have a swipe-card log in system, or a signing in and out document?" John asked quickly.

"Yes, down at the main reception, we all have to sign in and out." He answered.

"And visitors have to sign in too?"

"Yes."

"And I'd be able to get a copy of that too?"

"You'd have to ask at reception, but I'm sure that they'd five you it… seeing the circumstances."

"Right, thank you. Could you ask one of your colleagues to come through?"

Over an hour and a half later John had finished his questioning of all the colleagues and he was in possession of a list with all of those who worked within the department along with their home addresses, and a copy of the signing in and out list. His notebook was tucked safely into his left breast pocket, which now had several pages of notes about the department and Mr. Milner; John was glad that those interviews were finished – the last one had been almost unbearable. It had been the youngest woman in the office, a relatively new associate within the department; she had made the tea for all of the other workers within the department, she had also been the one who found Mr. Milner within the office – and therefore was extremely hysterical both at the moment she found him and the point where John had attempted to ask her questions. In the end John had terminated the interview, thinking it may be better to pick it up again at a later time and date. He would be certain to visit the woman Corrina Drylie, who by all accounts was closest to the dead man.

The rain was still pouring down, but the wind had picked up and the appearance of all those who had ventured out into the street was that of drowned rats; John did not expressly desire to walk home in such weather – not with his notebook and new documents which would possibly be considered important by Sherlock, they would be of little use if they were sodden through. He hailed a cab and climbed in, wondering whether Sherlock would be back at the falt when he arrived himself, or if he would be off somewhere unknown researching some strange occurrence which had presented itself to him as they had inspected the office, and of which he wanted to confirm before he made any further deductions.

Sherlock was sitting in his usual armchair, his head sunk upon his chest – evidently in deep thought. John didn't bother to interrupt him, as doing so would not result in anything, least of all finding out what he was thinking. John placed his newly collected documents on the coffee table which had piles of books, papers and several dirty plates, but there was a new addition of paper in the only clear bit of the desktop which had three lines of chemical formula in Sherlock's scrawled writing:

' 2 CH4 + 2 NH3 + 3 O2 2 HCN + 6 H20.'

'C21 H16 FN3 OS.'

'C17 H19 NO3.'

Each line was separated with a single dash – clearly defining them as separate chemical compounds; John stared at it for a couple of moments – trying to recall the chemistry training of his medical degree and associate the chemical formulas with their physical compound. Only the last line stood out to him, and that was because it had a great use within medicine;

"But that's morphine…" John spoke aloud to himself, without realising that he had made a sound.

"Yes John, I knew you would recognise that." Sherlock drawled slowly, "I am convinced that is the opiate that was injected, it seems cleaner than heroin and easier to obtain than diazepam or something else of the sort." John settled himself into the armchair sitting across from Sherlock – whose eyes retained the distant, meditative look as he pondered. The silence rose and settled within the room, John was fairly pleased that Sherlock was not in such a mood that his proclamation of knowledge had been disdained as though it had been stupidity.

"So your research was finding out what chemicals had been used?" John questioned, attempting to keep any resignation out of his voice. In past cases Sherlock had liked to hear the accounts of those involved first hand, he rarely gave that job to any other.

"That and some other." Sherlock muttered quietly; he then seemed to re-animate, pulling his mind out from the depths of where he had been recessing and to the present situation. "What did you find out from the colleagues?"

"Not very much of great importance I think." John started.

"You always seem to think the least importance of some of the finest detail." Sherlock commented abruptly, John let this slight upon his collection of facts go.

"There are nine people who work in the department in total. Mr. Ewans the head of department has only been there for a couple of months; he'd been placed there while the investigation about the disappearing children is on-going." John recounted, "All the other members of the department have been there between seven months and thirteen years. Mr. Milner had been there for just over two years; he seems to have been well liked by his colleagues – but he was also rather introverted, he kept himself to himself. Although they all said that Miss. Corrina Drylie was the only person in the department that knew him outside of work… but she has been on annual leave all this week, so I didn't get the chance to speak to her."

"Hmm… we will endeavour to visit her as soon as we can before Lestrade gets there and tramples his exceedingly large feet over the situation and scares her out of telling us anything." Sherlock cut in over John, he hadn't necessarily appeared to be listening to John as he spoke – but had indeed been drinking in every fact that John had spoken. There was another silence between them as Sherlock appeared to relapse into a thoughtful phase.

"You said three attempts…" John ended the silence abruptly, Sherlock nodded with an expression of resignation to having to explain his deductions over again in greater detail to his companion. "You alluded to cyanide in his tea, and an injection of morphine or some opiate, but the gas canister? I saw no evidence of that."

"That's because you were too busy looking at the corpse to look around the room, and I don't think you noticed the strange odour that first struck me when we entered the room." Sherlock began to speak, leaving no time for John to agree or otherwise. "It was like castor oil, or something along that kind – that is why I knew some kind of gas had been released within the room; the early discovery of the body had led to the door being opened – so the gas had not been given the chance to dissipate completely, but it became diluted with the air from the corridor… but it didn't quite loose it all of it's distinctive smell."

"And what gas was it?"

"That is what the most peculiar part is… we will have to wait for absolute confirmation from the morgue – but I'm convinced it must be ricin gas. Nothing else would leave that kind of smell – but it seems like an odd choice to use as a poison, in small amounts it wouldn't be potent enough to kill someone; there have been any experiments on its uses in toxilogical warfare – but to all knowledge I can find, no real progress have been made in these experiments."

"So they've used a gas that possibly might not have killed him?" John propositioned, "Could that maybe not be an attempt on his life, but just something to scare him?"

"It's an odd choice for either purpose; if you just wanted to scare someone you'd go for some kind of hallucinogenic drug that would result in scaring him… and if you wanted to effectively kill someone using gas there are many other options that would be more clinical, cleaner – the only problem with any of those gases is they would be harder to contain. The Nazi's used hydraulically locked chambers for a reason – the gas was so deadly poisonous that anyone in the immediate vicinity could be in danger from it. Once diluted in an open space, ricin loses most of its potency, but other gases like sarin that was used in Nazi's regime stays just as toxic until the whole area has been given a whole day for the gas to clear from the chamber. Any one of those more toxic gases like sarin would have been quicker and cleaner in reaching the end goal – but there would also be the possibility that someone innocent could get caught in the crossfire. This wasn't a random, senseless act of crime; this was a clear concise calculated action against Mr. Milner – with the desired result of him being dead being achieved. I personally think that the gas had no effect upon his death at all – I believe that one of the people involved was in charge of the gas, and the other administered the opiate and put the cyanide in his drink. I think Mr. Milner had been injected with the morphine/opiate first, before either the gas or the cyanide was anywhere near him – it would take a couple of minutes, maybe ten at the very most before the drug began to have a profound effect on him, then I would hazard a guess that when his throat and chest began to tighten that he would take a drink to try and ease his breathing – hence finishing him off within seconds, I doubt he would even make it to a minute with the other drugs in his system, we will have to wait for the morgue to confirm that however. I also think that the second person involved was more serious and convicted about Mr. Milner being silenced." Sherlock was silent after his long, and somewhat singular talk, which John was sure was more for Sherlock's own necessity rather than his. The silence that followed was very long, but not uncomfortable – Sherlock and John were buried in their own thoughts. After ten minutes John rose from his armchair and proceeded into the kitchen and began to make tea for himself. He paused; usually it was at this point when Sherlock announced that he would like tea or coffee also - but no call came; Sherlock was too deep in his own thoughts to pay any attention to anything that was going on around him. Despite the lack of request John made coffee for Sherlock and placed it on the table next to Sherlock's armchair; Sherlock had drawn his long legs in towards him – he looked rather feline, curled up like a cat with his bright deep-socketed eyes shining out from the dark shadows that were casting onto his face. He made no movement of thanks, or even recognition, as John placed the mug on the table. John resumed his place in his armchair with his mug of tea in one hand, and with his notebook and the sign in sheet in the other; slowly he began to examine it – clocking all of the relevant names of those who he had spoken to, and when they had signed in, and if they had signed out. It wasn't much use at that moment – but perhaps when the time of death had been approximated by Molly in the morgue then knowing whether all of Mr. Milner's colleagues had been within the department at that time would help.

It was quite an extended period of silence that followed, where John rifled through the content that he had written in his notebook while speaking to all the colleagues within the department. Then very suddenly and spontaneously Sherlock sprang to his feet, full of an abundance of a nervous, twitchy energy:

"Names?" Sherlock demanded curtly, he had sifted through the papers that John had left on the coffee table, John blinked up at Sherlock. "Come on John!" Sherlock snapped his hands together, so clearly he was formulating some kind of theory or idea in his head which he needed the names of the colleagues to fit into his planning.

"Findlay Ewans- " John started, Sherlock cut in over him once more.

"Head of department?" He inquired.

"Yes…" John continued in some confusion and resignation, Sherlock waved his hand lazily meaning for him to carry on speaking. "Peter Read, Abigail Riggans, Aeron Chung, Sophia Wood, Dawn McGilivray, Dr. Elaine Norther and Corrina Drylie."

"The last being the absent one today?" Sherlock paused where he was standing. "So you haven't spoken to her yet?"

"And Miss. Wood – I couldn't get a coherent sentence out of her, so I didn't really get to ask her any questions." John informed him; Sherlock had placed the tips of his long thin fingers together in front of his face and his forehead was creased with intense thought. John was convinced that he could almost hear the cogs within Sherlock's brain turning so hard and so fast that they were making a physical noise.

"Let's go, come on – I need to talk to these people. I'll be able to get more details from them than I got from you." Sherlock was moving again; John looked at his mug of tea which he had not finished, sighed and followed Sherlock out for a cross city journey.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed that- I certainly loved writing it! I'd be grateful at receiving any advice or constructive criticism for how I can make it better- so if you have any, drop me a message or a review! Thanks :)