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: We are still dealing with events from the original ACD story here. And yes, there are still considerable changes.

Part 20 – The Mysterious Mr. Kuryakin

"Some weeks ago Mr. Blessington came down to me, highly agitated, telling about a series of break-ins in the West End," he began. "He was almost hysterical about that for some reason and demanded that we should put additional security locks on the doors and windows. He even considered having an alarm system installed."

"And?" Lestrade asked. "Did you?"

"Well, I found the idea ridiculous and the whole thing unnecessary – after all, here isn't much to take, and he had a safe in his bedroom already – but since he was paying the bills, I thought I'd accommodate him," Stamford replied. "There's no use to argue with paranoid people, and a bit more safety is never wrong."

"You didn't mention him being paranoid before," Lestrade said.

"Yeah, well, he wasn't paranoid before," Stamford returned.

"He was, though, from this day on?" the Detective Inspector asked.

The doctor nodded. "Oh yeah, very much so. He was peering out of the windows all the time; even stopped taking short walks before dinner, although he'd done so regularly earlier. In fact, he didn't even leave the house for almost a fortnight. You'd have thought his life was in mortal danger or whatnot."

"Apparently, it was," Anderson pointed out smugly. "Perhaps you should have listened to him."

Stamford scowled at him in annoyance. "I'd like you to make a difference between well-founded fear for one's safety and full-blown paranoia. I'm not a shrink, dammit!"

Lestrade intervened with practiced ease before the two could get into a verbal fight. Between Sherlock and Anderson he sometimes felt like a frustrated pre-school teacher, and this wasn't any better.

"Did Blessington gradually calm down after those two weeks?" he asked, and Stamford nodded. "Did he also return to his normal habits? Like taking short walks?"

"For a while, yes," Stamford replied. "Until that odd patient anyway. After that, everything got worse. Much worse."

"What odd patient?" Lestrade had a hard time to conceal his impatience. Getting details out of the doctor was like pulling teeth.

"The Russian one who left in the middle of a consultation right after having a cataleptic attack, less than a week ago," Stamford explained readily enough. "Mr. Blessington was adamant that the son of the patient had searched his room while he was taking his daily walk. He worked himself up to such a state that I was worried about his heart and asked for Sherlock's help to calm him down. I thought Sherlock would be able to tell whether there was an intrusion in the first place."

"And?" Lestrade withstood the urge to kick the doctor in the shin in order to speed him up a bit. Barely. "Was there?"

"Apparently yes," Stamford replied. "Sherlock found footprints on the stair carpet that, in his opinion, couldn't be mine or Mr. Blessington's. He also said that Blessington was lying to him and that both the Russian patient and his son were fakes, and that he old man only imitated the attack to keep me occupied while his son searched the rest of the house."

"Are you sure they were Russians at all?" Lestrade asked.

"No," Stamford admitted. "But I didn't really care. I'm a doctor; I focus on my patients' diseases, not on their accent, false or otherwise. Yes, they did have some sort of accent, but I haven't got the faintest what sort it was. And they younger one, though he lisped a bit, spoke English very well. Satisfied?"

The detectives and Anderson exchanged meaningful looks.

"Sounds familiar, doesn't it?" Donovan commented. "Tell me, Dr. Stamford, did this supposedly Russian patient give you any name? I assume you've started a medical file on him."

"Why, of course!" Stamford replied, a little insulted that they'd take him for such a negligent person. "Only hand-written notes, though. I only set up files when the patient has agreed to further consultations or a certain treatment."

He rummaged among the papers covering his desk until he found the right one.

"Here you are," he said, handing it to Lestrade. "The name of the old man was Kuryakin. Pyotr Kuryakin. What?" he asked in bewilderment when both cops and Anderson suddenly started howling with laughter.

"Why?" Lestrade asked rhetorically, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes, not caring that the laughter had worsened his headache considerably. "Why does nobody know the classics in these days?"

It took him and Donovan several minutes to explain the good doctor the significance of the name Kuryakin and why it couldn't have been a genuine name. By then they had all calmed down, so that the investigation could be continued.

"We can be sure then that these two so-called Russians were as fake as probably the old man's illness was," Lestrade summarised. "I can also tell you, Dr. Stamford, that the young man – who most likely wasn't the older one's son – has died shortly after their visit here."

"Died?" Stamford exclaimed. "But he seemed so strong and healthy, a true Hercules, even if a little pale in face! What was the cause of his death?"

"He apparently hanged himself in his own flat," Lestrade replied grimly. "Just like your resident patient; who, by the way, is the fourth such a case within the last month."

"You suspect foul play," Stamford said slowly, "and a connection."

Lestrade nodded. "It would be a little too much of a coincidence otherwise, don't you think?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Stamford agreed. "But how are you going to find that connection?"

"Well, we've sent the fingerprints of the previous victims to the central database," Lestrade shrugged. "Miss Hooper is working on the autopsies, looking for similarities, and the DNA-analysis is running, too. It may take some time, but the results will come in eventually… and I hope Sherlock's found something useful at the crime scene."

"Speaking of which," Anderson rose from his seat, "it's my crime scene now. The five minutes of the Freak are ten times over by now."

"He's already left," Donovan told him; at his surprised look she merely shrugged. "Isn't that what he always does?"

"But how can you know that for sure?" Lestrade asked.

"Inspector, on the day I don't know what he's doing at a crime scene in every moment is the day you should fire me," Donovan tapped on her phone with a finger. "The colleagues watching the scene kept tab on him for me and texted me the moment he left."

Lestrade gave her a look that held a certain amount of admiration.

"Remind me never to get on your bad side, Sally," he said, and she grinned at him in satisfaction.

~TBC~