Sherlock and the Little People
By Doctor Napalm
Chapter 2
Molly returned to her office and looked through the rest of the morning mail while Billy and another intern removed Mister Kavanagh's clothing and x-rayed the body. There were several invitations to various seminars on forensic pathology over the next few months. Some looked quite interesting, she could count on those being considered either not important enough or too expensive to attend by her supervisor. On the other hand, she could count on being required to attend at least one of the boring ones. There was also plenty of the usual paperwork to be completed and filed in triplicate as well as two other routine autopsies to be performed. However, there was nothing nearly as interesting as the autopsy of a leprechaun. It was very strange indeed, she thought. Strange enough that it might prove quite interesting to her friend and love interest, Sherlock Holmes. She picked up the phone on her desk and hit the speed dial key.
A few moments later he answered, "Good morning, Molly, do you have something unusual for me to look at?"
Molly smiled. Sherlock almost always knew why she was calling. His deductive powers were absolutely amazing sometimes. "Why would you say that, Sherlock?" she teased.
"It's barely past eight o'clock and you're ringing me up," he said. "You just arrived at work and almost immediately called me, so it is most likely there was something strange waiting for you when you arrived. Something out of the ordinary that you thought needed my special expertise."
"Well, yes," Molly replied. "There's a littlesomething here in the morgue this morning that I think you might be very interested in." She smiled at being able to squeeze the word "little" into their conversation.
"And what might this interesting thing be?"
"I don't want to spoil the surprise, but I will say it involves an autopsy I'm going to perform later today. I thought you might want to come over and give me a littlehelp, I'm a bit short-handed today. Why don't we meet in a little while for lunch and you can help me afterwards?"
Sherlock agreed to book a lunch table at the Drunken Monkey, a Dim Sum restaurant and bar near Barts, and they said goodbye. Molly smiled again and turned back to her paperwork.
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Molly idly stirred what was left of her spicy soup and tried to remember everything she knew about leprechauns. She knew that they were short little Irish gremlin-like characters that, up until now, she had considered to be completely imaginary. They were magical in some way and had a pot of gold stashed somewhere at the end of a rainbow. If you captured them it was lucky somehow. She still considered them imaginary; Mister Kavanagh surely was just dressed up like that for the Saint Patrick's Day holiday.
Sherlock reached across the table and snitched the last spring roll from her plate. "How's your soup?" he commented.
"Oh!" Molly lightly exclaimed. "Sorry. I was…I was thinking about a little something," she stammered. "The soup, it's…um…it's…magically delicious!"
Sherlock cocked one eyebrow and nibbled a bit on his pilfered spring roll. "I noticed your preoccupation; is it about this mysterious autopsy you told me about on the telephone?"
Molly hesitated and then gave Sherlock a coy smile. "Yes, sort of," she said in a teasing tone of voice.
"So how about a little hint?"
She tittered and repeated, "A little hint?"
"Yes," Sherlock said in a slightly annoyed tone of voice, "a little hint."
Molly thought for a moment. "I guess you could say today might just be our lucky day, it's got me green with anticipation!"
"The color green is usually associated more with envy than anticipation," Sherlock noted, "a rather interesting choice of words."
Molly studiously ignored his comment. She thought using the word "green" was very appropriate given the circumstances. She picked up one of the two fortune cookies that the waitress had left on the corner of the table with their bill. Cracking it open, she pulled out the small slip of paper and read what was printed on it:
TODAY COULD BE YOUR LUCKY DAY
"That's amazing! I said today might be our lucky day and the cookie says the same thing!" she exclaimed. "What's your fortune, Sherlock?"
"Pure coincidence and poppycock; I do not believe that a piece of paper baked inside a hard little nasty-tasting cookie can predict my future," he said gruffly.
"Just read your cookie, Sherlock! Please?"
Sherlock let out a little sigh and the corner of his mouth curled down a bit showing some exasperation at the silly idea. He broke the cookie open at Molly's insistence and read the printed fortune inside:
BIG THINGS SOMETIMES COME IN SMALL PACKAGES
"Just a worn out aphorism," he said, rolling the slip of paper between his fingers and dropping on the table.
Molly laughed and took her coat off the back of the empty chair beside her as she stood up. "I wouldn't be quite so sure of that," she said. "Shall we leave?"
"Most definitely," said Sherlock as he stood up and helped her with her coat. "All of this word play is making me very curious about your surprise, Miss Hooper."