Chapter Thirty.
"What the devil is going on, Sherlock?" Watson hissed at his friend as they heard the street door downstairs close behind Cassia Ingram.
"Did you two have some sort of fight while I was out?" He quizzed, watching in surprise as Sherlock suddenly uncoiled himself from his seat and practically vaulted across the room to the couch, where he bent down and scooped up Cassia Ingram's handbag and promptly began rifling through the contents.
"Flippin' heck, Sherlock!" Watson exclaimed. "What the hell are you doing?" He demanded as he watched Holmes turn the handbag upside down and tip the entire contents onto the sofa cushions, most of them bouncing off and landing on the floor.
"Sherlock, what's wrong with you!"
He was definitely not amused by his friend's behaviour.
Sherlock could be erratic and impulsive, but this was weird even for him.
Suddenly Watson recalled the conversation that he had had with Sir Frederick Penrose Gill a few hours before, and the other symptoms that he should be on the look out for.
Strange, odd or unusual behaviour, personality changes, and sudden, irrational mood changes.
Oh God, Sherlock...
Was this it?
Was he watching the wheels come off at last?
Watson had wondered how he might tell the difference, as Holmes had demonstrated all of those traits in the time that he had known him, as well as flashes of utter brilliance, and borderline mania.
Hang on a minute...
Was this just Holmes being Holmes, or was this something that he, Watson should be really, really worried about?
"No. No... Sherlock, put that back..."
Holmes had Cassia Ingram's purse in his hand and was flicking through the contents, a disappointed look on his face quickly telling Watson that he had not found what he was looking for.
"Damn!"
Holmes launched the offending purse across the room, sending coins scattering around the room in all directions, then he fell to his knees and began rifling through the contents of Cassia Ingram's overnight bag, tossing items of clothing over his shoulder like a dog throwing up dirt, digging a hole to bury a bone.
"Sherlock, will you stop it, please, just calm down and tell me what is going on!"
"Miss Ingram, if indeed, that is her name, has not been entirely honest with us, John," Holmes intoned in a low, angry voice, his long fingers opening up every zip and delving inside each pocket and then when he had emptied the overnight bag, he turned that upside down and shook it, no doubt hoping to work loose some piece of incriminating evidence, but once again coming up empty.
He's barmy!
He's off his ruddy trolley!
"For God's sake, Sherlock!"
Watson was truly concerned now, torn between being anxious that this abhorrent behaviour was a serious development in his friend's mental health and his outrage at what Sherlock was doing to Cassia Ingram's things.
Invading her privacy like this was simply beyond the pale.
Even for Holmes.
"Will you stop it! You can't go through her things like that! What exactly are you looking for anyway?"
"Her true identity."
"Sherlock, are you feeling ok?"
There was genuine concern in Watson's voice now.
"I'm fine," Holmes snarled as he ran his fingers inside the last pocket that he could find inside the overnight bag, then tore out the loose fitting bottom and again tipped the bag upside down and shook it vigorously.
Nothing fell out.
"And I am telling you, John, that woman, whoever she is, is not Cassia Ingram. Damnation!"
Holmes flung the overnight bag across the other side of the room in rage, almost knocking the shade off one of the lamps.
"Sherlock..."
Watson lowered his voice now, hoping that if he stayed calm and rational, he could somehow create the same reaction in his friend.
"You need to calm down, sit down and tell me what is going on with you..."
"There is nothing going on with me, John!" Holmes roared, looking around for something else to search, but fortunately, there was nothing.
"Explain it to me then, Sherlock," Watson invited hoping that he could get an insight into what Holmes was thinking.
"No passport, no driving licence, no bank cards, or credit cards, no mail in her name or anything with an address on it and no house keys or car keys. What woman doesn't carry her entire life in her handbag, John, and yet, Miss Ingram has no personal information with her at all."
"It could be in her coat pocket, Sherlock," Watson sighed softly, his anxiety about his friend's mental health growing by the second.
"No, there is only one pocket in her coat, John, and the stitching along the bottom has come undone." Holmes observed, his wild blue/grey eyes scanning the room for something else to search. "She wouldn't carry anything in there because she would be sure to lose it."
Oh well, at least his powers of observation were still functioning normally, even if the rest of his mind had gone off planet for a moment.
Watson thought sourly.
And, he had to admit, Holmes did have a point about what women carried around in the handbags, the things they considered essential that they could not leave the house without.
"That still doesn't prove anything, Sherlock. She's been staying with a friend, remember? Maybe her ID and stuff is still there, after all, the friend probably only threw what she thought Cass might need for the night into a bag and sent it around in a cab," Watson reminded, growing more and more concerned by his friend's increasingly odd and paranoid behaviour.
This was definitely not good.
"It proves that she has deliberately been concealing her true identity from us!" Holmes roared, a sneer on his face now, utter disbelief in his eyes that what was blatantly obvious to him was not clear to his friend.
A wild, ecstatic look suddenly danced across Holmes' face, making him look like a mad man momentarily, as he pounced on Cassia Ingram's mobile phone, which had slipped between two seat cushions on the couch.
"Sherlock..."
"Drat! It's a pretty decent smart phone, but its pay as you go, and so easily disposable."
Holmes used his thumbs to access various menus.
"Damnation! There are no contacts in the contact list. She's even deleted the call list, texts, sent and received!"
Holmes was about to fling the phone across the room when Watson decided that enough was definitely enough and launched himself at Holmes, grabbing his wrist and shaking his hand so he finally dropped the phone and it landed on top of a pile of Cassia Ingram's underwear which was scattered in a pool on the floor around the couch.
"Sherlock," Watson ground out between his teeth. "Dammit man, get a grip you big nellie!"
Watson then wrenched Holmes arm up behind his back, not too harshly because he didn't want to hurt him, only to snap him out of this manic behaviour, and carefully span him around, away from the couch, shoving him gently away from him and propelling him across the room, to where the younger man sank down in his chair wearily, all the energy seeming to drain out of him.
Suddenly deflated, too.
The fight gone out of him, Watson noted as Holmes buried his head in his hands for a moment.
At least he wouldn't be coming back at him to throw a punch of his own.
"Sherlock?"
"I'm alright, John." Holmes assured in a calmer voice now, although he was still rather wild eyed and breathless.
"No. No, you're not alright. You really think, this," Watson made a sweeping gesture around all points of the room to where Holmes had thrown various bits of Cassia Ingram's belongings in his rage and frustration. "Is alright?"
"Well..."
Holmes looked at his friend now, a contrite expression on his face as he gulped in air, and Watson was relieved to see that look, for it told him that Holmes was back in control of himself, and understood that he had crossed over a line that he should not have, even if he did not regret doing it.
"You seriously lost the plot there, my friend," Watson began to bend down, picking up articles of clothing and stuffing them back inside Cassia Ingram's overnight bag. "I was seriously considering ringing for the men in white coats and arranging a nice warm padded cell for you for the night."
"I'm not losing my mind, John," Holmes reassured, still drawing in long, deep breaths as his full stomach began to show signs of rebelling.
"Just my self control." He admitted ruefully now. "A little. But you know how I hate not knowing anything about my clients."
Oh, that old chestnut!
"That doesn't give you the right to cast Cassia's belongings to the four winds, Sherlock."
Watson crossed the room and retrieved Cassia Ingram's purse, scooped up a handful of loose change that was scattered across the carpet and under various bits of furniture, and deposited them inside the open pocket of the purse.
However, as he did so, he could not help noticing that Holmes was right.
There were no bank cards, credit cards, store cards, or driving licence. Indeed, the only money she seemed to have was in small denomination notes and loose change that amounted to less than £20.00.
She wouldn't get far on that in London.
Watson quickly realized that this woman, Cassia Ingram, or whoever she was, didn't want anyone to know who she was, not just himself and Sherlock.
However, John still did not see the relevance.
He had never really understood Holmes need to know everything that he could about his client.
What did it matter who they were or where they came from and what they did for a living, so long as they could meet the small fee Holmes was obliged to request in return for his services.
Was that what this was all about?
Was Sherlock worried that Cassia Ingram would not be able to cough up at the end of this?
No.
Holmes didn't care about money one way or the other and he had always left the dirty business of money changing hands to him in the past.
"What the hell does it matter, Sherlock, really? Who she is? That is not what this case is about, remember? You're not investigating Cassia Ingram, you're trying to catch a killer," Watson reminded him as he walked back to the couch and dropped the purse inside Cassia Ingram's handbag, then set about picking up the rest of her belongings, a powder compact, a comb, a lipstick, a packet of chewing gum, a few loose hair grips, several ball point pens, a packet of handbag size tissues, restoring them to their homes.
He knew that Cassia would realize that someone had been through her things, because everything would be out of place, but there was nothing that he could do about that.
"In the grand scheme of things, Sherlock, what does it matter who she really is?"
"It matters to me. What else is she hiding?"
"Sherlock, from my experience, she's been pretty damned open and honest with you," Watson reasoned now, closing a zipper on the overnight bag. "I think you know all that you need to know about her. She's already proved to you that she is a genuine psychic, what more does she need to do?"
Suddenly the penny dropped.
The real reason for the elephant in the room all evening.
Holmes' witch hunt.
"Christ, Sherlock, is that what this is about? Is that why you've been treating her like a leper all evening? No wonder she wanted to get away for a while. You made her feel about as welcome as Typhoid Mary!"
"Who is she!" Holmes hissed through his teeth.
"Who cares!"
"I do!"
"Listen, Sherlock, all this will be over soon," Watson reasoned calmly. "Let's just clear up this business and then concentrate on getting you well again, and then you can spend the rest of your pathetic life trying to work out who the real Cassia Ingram is. Now, will you behave!"
Holmes glared at Watson, but he no longer had the will, or the energy to argue.
"You know what's going to happen tonight, Sherlock. You know how hard that is going to be on her. Give the poor woman a break, or you might just drive her away before we get anything useful out of her."
Cassia Ingram had pretty much told him the same thing, Holmes realized, but that had been when she had been laying out her concerns for his own health earlier in the day.
Still, he could see that Watson had a point.
However, he was far too preoccupied with keeping his dinner down to comment further, as his stomach roiled and somersaulted and he felt his throat begin to close.
"Child."
Watson sighed deeply as he finished restoring the room to order, putting all Cassia Ingram's things back into her bags and picked up the sketch pad that Holmes had knocked over while he had been rummaging, propping it up against the side of the couch where Cassia had left it earlier.
He could not help noticing that Sherlock suddenly looked rather green around the gills, and that he seemed to be breathing hard and swallowing over and over.
Uh oh...
Wait for it.
Move over Usain Bolt!
"Anyway, how do you know that she isn't who she says she is?" Watson finally decided to ask now that Holmes was calmer, moving slightly to his right to allow his friend room, when he suddenly decided to make the inevitable dash for the bathroom.
"I asked her about Sir Walter Bootle," Watson watched as Holmes raised a balled fist to his mouth to smother a belch, or worse, Watson really didn't want to know. "Her god father."
"And?"
"Apparently, he wasn't her god father at all. She told me I had the wrong Cassia Ingram."
"Sherlock, you nit, there must be hundreds of Cassia Ingrams..."
"No, just one. I found only one, in all my internet searches, John, and it's not her."
Sherlock wished he hadn't gotten quite so excited as stomach acid suddenly burned in the back of his throat.
"Well, alright, I grant you that is a bit odd, but, again, I ask, does it really matter? Did it ever occur to you that perhaps she's not trying to deceive us, not trying to hide something from us, but, instead, that she is trying to protect herself, or the people that she loves? Maybe her family don't approve of her gift, and she doesn't want to rub their noses in it by telling the world what she does, so she gave us a false name?"
Watson could see from the look of acute embarrassment on Holmes face that he had not considered the possibility that she was not deceiving them, but that her decision to conceal her true identity from even them was an act of self preservation.
Watson trudged back to his chair, having restored as much order as he could to Cassia Ingram's belongings, and flopped down wearily.
"You know, Sherlock, not everything is a conspiracy or even a mystery, and not everyone craves fame or publicity. Why don't we just try to respect her right to privacy, and see this thing out without any more unpleasantness? It's going to be tough enough on all of us as it is. If you continue to generate this oppressive, tense atmosphere, none of us are going to sleep tonight, and that sort of defeats the point, don't you think?"
"Very well," Holmes emitted a deep sigh of resignation. "After all, I wouldn't want to do anything to stop the spirits from coming out to play," he sneered, then suddenly made a grab at his middle as his stomach once again recoiled.
With more speed than Watson would have thought him possible of at that moment, Sherlock Holmes shot out of his chair and sprinted out of the living room on wobbly legs, his face a very fetching shade of green as he made for the bathroom down the landing.
"You'd better pull your head in my friend," Watson yelled after him as Holmes disappeared inside the bathroom and banged the door behind him. "Or it won't be me taking it off your shoulders. And frankly, I'll happily stand by and hold her coat while she does it!" He concluded to the accompaniment of Holmes being violently sick.
Oh happy day...
It's gonna be a hard day's night...