THE ADVENTURES OF A CONSULTING TIME LORD
by Soledad
Disclaimer: Both Dr. Who and Sherlock belong to the BBC. I'm just borrowing them to have some fun.
Author's note: As the chapter title reveals, we are dealing with events from the original ACD story here. However, there are considerable changes.
Part 15 – The Resident Patient
Sherlock was still working in the forensic labs of Bart's late in the evening when Mike Stamford burst in, clearly agitated.
"I need your help," he declared without preamble. "Somebody might have broken into my house."
"Call the police," Sherlock replied without looking up from his microscope. "I don't waste my time on dull cases."
"No, no, you don't understand!" Mike protested. "It's not my rooms that have been… well, probably have been… erm… visited without invitation, but those of my resident patient."
"What, did they steal his bedpan or his crutches?" Sherlock asked in a bored tone, eyes still glued to his microscope.
God, why did people insist to bother him with their mundane little problems? Didn't they realise that he had much more important things to do?
"No," Mike said grimly. "Nothing has been touched or taken. But there are footprints that might – or might not – prove the intrusion."
At that Sherlock finally looked up from his microscope, turning halfway towards Mike, showing at least a modicum of interest.
"Your… what did you call him? Resident patient?" Mike nodded.
"He insists that somebody has been in his room?" Mike nodded again,
"And yet he wouldn't call the police?" Mike nodded a third time.
"Now, that," Sherlock said languidly, "is interesting."
"You think so?" Mike clearly wasn't so sure about that. "Lots of people hesitate to call the police, especially if they can't prove that something has actually happened."
"But the possibility scared him, didn't it?" Sherlock pointed out. "Scared him enough to agree to you getting help outside the police."
Mike nodded. "I never saw a grown man work himself up so much over such a small thing. Something that might only exist in his imagination anyway. Why, he was all but crying, and I could barely get him to speak coherently. This has gone on for days by now, showing no sign to sort itself. I've come to the end of my patience with him."
"And so, since the police wouldn't take him seriously, even if he were willing to call them, you thought that I might be interested," Sherlock said, his face impassive.
"Well… yeah," Mike admitted uncomfortably.
"And you were right," Sherlock rose. "This might be a small puzzle, but one of potential interest, once I've got all the details. Let's go."
"But what about your experiment?" Mike made a vague gesture towards the lab table. Sherlock shrugged.
"I'm researching he growth rate of mould on various substances. It will make its own progress in my absence. Come, let's get a cab."
As usual, Sherlock managed to get a cab at once, and within twenty minutes they were dropped off in front of Mike's residence in Brook Street. It was one of those sombre, flat-faced Victorian houses that had once been so characteristic for a West End practice. Sherlock briefly wondered how Mike could afford it, but soon discharged the thought as irrelevant – for the moment anyway.
Mike opened the front door with his own key – no personnel within the house, Sherlock noted absent-mindedly – mentioning that his receptionist only came on consultation days, and they began to climb the broad, well-carpeted stairs when the lights suddenly went off upstairs.
"Stay where you are!" a high, almost hysterical voice ordered from the darkness. "I've got a gun and I'm gonna use it if you come any closer!"
Mike rolled his eyes. "Oh, for God's sake, Mr. Blessington," he said in exasperation, "this is really getting old. Calm down, would you? I've brought someone who might help figuring out if there truly was an intruder in your room."
For some time, the unseen man didn't answer; then there was a resigned sigh in the darkness.
"All right," the voice from before said wearily. "I'm sorry I overreacted. Please come up."
The lights switched on again, and now Sherlock could see the man standing at the top; a man who was clearly a nervous wreck. A man of considerable girth, who, apparently, had at some time been much fatter, if the folds of skin hanging about his face in loose pouches were any indication. He was pale, almost pastry in colour and had thin, sandy hair that seemed to bristle up with the intensity of his agitation that was slowly ebbing as he watched them.
Finally deciding that he would trust the doctor and his unknown companion, he put the gun – an alarmingly large one – in his waistband and stepped aside, so that Sherlock and Mike could climb the stairs.
"You do realise, of course, that keeping a gun on you is illegal, unless you have permission from the police to do so," Sherlock commented.
The man nodded. "Sure; but I need to make precautions. You're the private detective Dr. Stamford mentioned?"
"Consulting detective," Sherlock corrected coldly. Why couldn't people get their facts straight? Was it really so hard? "The only one there is. The name is Sherlock Holmes; I suppose you've heard about me."
The man seemed to shrink at his tone and apologised profusely. "Yes, yes, of course, I'm sorry. I suppose Dr. Stamford has also told you about the intrusion into my room?"
"Quite so," Sherlock said. "So, who were the people who, in your opinion, came into your room and what could they possibly want from you?"
"Well, well," Blessington hesitated, looking everywhere save directly in his eyes. "Of course, it's hard to tell. You can hardly expect me to answer that, Mr. Holmes, now can you?"
Sherlock raised a sceptical eyebrow. "You mean you don't know?" he asked doubtfully, noticing how much the man was sweating – always a sign of someone lying.
"Come... come in here and I'll show you," Blessington herded them into his large and comfortably furnished bedroom. There he took a painting off the wall and pointed at the small safe behind it. "You see, sir, I've never been a wealthy man. Never made but one investment in my life, as Dr. Stamford can tell you. But I don't believe in bankers. I'd never trust a banker."
"Knowing a few of them, I can't really blame you," Sherlock said dryly, thinking of his old university mate, Sebastian Wilkes, now director of the Trading Floor at Shad Sanderson Bank. "But what has that to do with your case?"
"Well, sir," Mike's patient explained, shifty-eyed, "what little I own is in that safe, so you can understand that I'm not exactly happy about unknown people searching my room."
"Probably searching," Mike corrected sotto voce, still not buying the whole story.
Sherlock, however, simply glared at the man with the frightening intensity of sun-bathing reptiles fixing their next prey.
"I can't help you if you keep lying to me," he said. Blessington gave him a look of wounded innocence that didn't even fool Mike, who was generally a gullible man.
"But I've told you everything!" Blessington exclaimed.
"No, you haven't," Sherlock replied with absolute certainty; then he whirled around to glare at Mike for a change. "I'd thank you if you didn't bring me out on such a fool's errand, doctor," he said in a scathing tome. "My time is valuable, as you know, and I don't like wasting it on people who try to deceive me. It's an interesting case, at the bottom of it, but until your patient starts cooperating, I'm out."
With that, he ran down the stairs with the elegance of a festival dancer, Mike trudging after him, trying desperately to catch up.
"Wait!" Blessington cried after them in anguish. "Don't you have at least some advice for me?"
"Try the truth!" Sherlock called, without as much as a glance back.
~TBC~