Sherlock didn't leave the room as John dressed, so he dragged his lap robe with him before flicking it onto the bed. His dressing gown was long enough to nearly touch the floor, and as long as he wasn't walking towards Sherlock, it hid the scarring on his leg well enough. John rang the bell for Matthews, who might have been waiting on the other side of the door with the basin of warm water for as quickly as he appeared.
John stepped behind the screen in the corner, washed, and only reappeared when he had the majority of his clothing about his person. John's new clothing had been installed in his new home, but he looked at the knit sweaters from Mrs. Phillips sitting in a drawer next to his worn buckskins with longing. He felt a bit like he was wearing a stranger's clothes. Matthews helped with the buttons and ties and coat, straightening him up quite tidily. In no time at all, he was ready to hobble along the market street after his husband. He had to admit that, with walking sticks being in fashion, he looked quite dapper. If he leaned a little more heavily on it than other gentlemen, well, no one would say anything.
The bookshop was within walking distance, and John felt healthier with the morning sun on his face and the warmth of a good walk in his legs. In the places where the cobbles were rougher, Sherlock took John's hand and wrapped it around his elbow for balance.
"Pick out anything you like, John," Sherlock directed as they stepped into a warm bookshop that smelled of leather and paper and the tangy scent of ink.
"Oh, I'm sure I can make do with the books in your library, Sherlock. There are bound to be dozens I've never read."
Sherlock sighed.
"I will inform you if the books you pick out are already in my library. We've no need for frugality on Mycroft's tab. Go. Buy something."
Sherlock fell into conversation with the shop owner, someone apparently well-acquainted with Sherlock's preferences. John looked about himself in a bit of awe. There were quite a few books around when he was growing up, but they weren't really intended for reading. They arrived by the crate and recently disappeared the same way. He had his medical texts, certainly, but much of what he had learned was by apprenticeship and practice.
Now, faced with such choice, he grappled with indecision. What did he want? He moved to the nearest shelf, eyes flicking over the gilding on the spines. He could have anything. John walked from section to section, reading labels and pulling random books off the shelves. He felt like the whole world was crammed into this tiny shop in London and he was welcome to venture anywhere.
In the end, he selected two travelogues, one about Egypt and one about the West Indies. He might be able to ask Petrina Holmes how accurate it was to her experiences if she visited. When he carried them up to the counter, Sherlock merely glanced at him and said, "Only two?" and added them to his growing pile.
Sherlock signed his name to the bill and gave the direction of Lord Sherrinford while smirking. The shop owner didn't seem surprised in the least; of course, Sherlock had been charging to his brother's accounts all his life. Sherlock made further instruction for delivery of the books to Baker Street before taking John's arm and strolling back into the street.
"Is there anything else you have need of while we're out, John?"
"I can't think of anything I need. Everything seems to have been taken care of for me."
"Yes, well, that's Mycroft at his most overbearing. He'll make all the arrangements for every breath you take, if you let him."
They stopped at Edgers and Sons, which turned out to be a small forge. The air inside smelled hot and smoky. Workers spun long tubes with glowing bubbles of molten glass on the ends, handling them as easily as if they were children's toys. To the side of the glassworks was a glittering shop full of their wares. The front room held all the decorative items, pleasing to the eye and glinting at the passersby. Sherlock walked through this without looking and entered a back room more practically stocked with flasks and bottles and jars.
"Mr. Holmes, good day!" greeted one of the young men bustling about this second room. "Father just finished your project yesterday. It's quite a beauty."
"Excellent. Let's have a look, shall we?"
John followed with curiosity as the young shopkeeper led them down a hallway and into the forge proper. At the end was a table with a sizable glass tank perched on top. Five large panes of glass were edged with metal framing. A lid of sorts fastened on with hinges and a locking mechanism. The lid was partially solid, partially fine mesh webbing.
"It's completely secure?" Sherlock continued to examine the finished product minutely.
"Utterly."
"What's it for? A pet?"
"Of a sort. We're picking that up later."
"And you're not going to tell me?"
A smile played on Sherlock's lips as he straightened up. "No, it's a surprise. Pack it up and send it to 221 Baker Street, Edgers."
"Of course Mr. Holmes. This very afternoon."
John kept his curiosity to himself as much as he was able.
"Where to next, Sherlock?"
"Lestrade has promised we could speak to some of the families of his missing persons."
"He isn't going to have them try to identify the body parts, is he?" John followed Sherlock out onto the street where he hailed a hack in record time.
"To Bow Street," he directed, climbing inside. "No, John. It is unlikely that the families would be able to recognize a foot or hand separate from the rest of the body, especially after preservation methods. Most people aren't terribly observant anyway, and there were no particularly distinguishing marks on any of them. Even if we do discover the rest of the body, it may be so decomposed that the face will be unrecognizable."
"So what can they tell us that isn't in the files?"
"People tell you so much if you only know how to observe, John. One can spot lies, guilt, and deception so easily. Eyes might flicker to a spot where something is hidden. Incongruous hairs on a shoulder may signal an affair; ones on an ankle may indicate a pet."
"And what, pray tell, will signal that these people know anything about the deaths of their loved ones?"
"I have no wish to speculate. That is invariably harmful to the process. We shall have to wait and see."
At Bow Street, Lestrade climbed into the hack and directed the driver to the first address on his list. John greeted a haggard-looking Lestrade with a genial, "Good morning," but Sherlock looked at his person and greeted him with something much more blunt.
"I don't know why you tolerate her indiscretions, Lestrade. She can't possibly believe you won't find out; in fact, I suspect she does this deliberately to hurt you."
"Do me a favor, Holmes, and stay out of my relationship with my wife."
"You should make her leave…"
"Sherlock, hush." Sherlock, surprised at John's tone, did just that. Lestrade looked at the quiet man sitting across from himself with a curious appreciation. Then, as quickly as he was able, he began to lay out the facts surrounding their first missing person.
"Dorothy Mae Hopkins, dressmaker. Didn't show up for work Monday morning four weeks ago. Her sister is the family member who came to Bow Street; she's married to a solicitor for Bleeker and Avery. Miss Hopkins had spent Sunday with her sister, going to church, staying for tea before being taken home by her sister's carriage in the evening. Sometime between eight that evening and nine the next morning, she disappeared."
"Can we see her rooms?"
"Doubtful. They've already been let. But we can speak to her landlady, if you wish."
"That will have to do, but it's detrimental to the case, Lestrade," Sherlock pouted. "We'll have to rely on the family and landlady to remember pertinent details as they cleared the room. It'll be nearly useless." Sherlock sank into his own head and was silent for the rest of the journey.
The hack pulled up to a modest house, the sister's, and they disembarked.
Lestrade introduced Sherlock and John to Mrs. Evans, a subdued young woman in a gray dress and only slightly darker shawl.
"Have you come to tell me my sister is dead, then, Mr. Lestrade?" she asked once she'd shut the door behind the three gentlemen.
"I'm afraid we have no concrete proof of that at this time, Mrs. Evans. I'm sorry," Lestrade said.
"It is likely, though, after four weeks with no indication of her having gone somewhere deliberately and no word. But I can see you realize that; you've donned half-mourning already, as if in preparation for bad news."
"Holmes!" Lestrade was glaring at Sherlock again as if that was all he was going to do today.
"I haven't said anything untoward, have I, John?" Sherlock looked to his husband. John's face wasn't nearly as grim as Lestrade's.
"A bit more gentleness and tact would be appropriate, Sherlock," John replied, patting his husband's arm, "but I don't believe Mrs. Evans is offended."
"Please, come in and sit, sirs. I'll fetch a pot of tea."
They made themselves comfortable as Mrs. Evans left the room, John and Sherlock perching on a small sofa and Lestrade on a rather too-soft chair.
"John, I might take a moment to tell you that I do feel that tact is pointless. Would it not be more of a relief for Mrs. Evans to have concrete evidence that her sister is dead than to live with false hope?"
"As we do not have a body for Mrs. Evans to bury, that argument is premature, Sherlock. There is no reason to press her to feel more sadness than she already does."
Sherlock seemed to take this under advisement.
"Very well, John, though you may have to remind me, as I will likely misstep again."
John flashed a smile at Sherlock and it wasn't the same sympathetic smile he gave Mrs. Evans when she handed him a cup of tea. When they were all politely served, Mrs. Evans sat and patiently awaited the purpose of their visit.
"Mr. Holmes would like to ask you some questions about the movements of your sister prior to her disappearance and also about the state of her rooms on Grace Street when you removed her things."
"Yes, of course."
Lestrade and the Watson-Holmes found Mrs. Evans more than gracious. Sherlock was thrilled that she wasn't overwrought with emotion, unlike most women, but her manner also didn't indicate a complicit sort of guilt, either. She was sensible, almost intelligent, something Sherlock thought was a rare find.
However, her information was limited. She had not seen her sister for long after supper and only realized she was missing the very next day because she had stopped by the shop where her sister worked to look at a bolt of fabric she'd mentioned. When she was not there, she quickly proceeded to Grace Street in case her sister was ill. She wasn't there and hadn't been seen since coming in the night before.
"Did the landlady let you into your sister's room that day?"
"Yes. There was no response to my knocking and I was worried she might be very ill and unable to answer. The key was not in the lock or on the table near the door where she kept it and her gloves and reticule."
"Were her other belongings on that table?"
"No, just three of her handkerchiefs, neatly folded, a small dish where she kept a couple of mint drops, and a hatpin."
"Did she normally keep her hatpin there? Did she only have one?"
"She had several; I gave her a few as gifts. She usually kept them in a hat pin cushion on her bureau."
"Did you notice any belongings missing? Were all the hat pins found, was she wearing a bonnet when she disappeared? Was she wearing her work dress, or was her Sunday dress missing from her belongings?"
"The dress she wore Sunday was hanging up. All her other things were there. Just her work dress was missing and the few things she would take with her every day."
Sherlock continued to ask questions about every detail Mrs. Evans could remember. When he'd finished, he told Lestrade that they could reasonably presume that she had made it home the night before, slept, and likely left for work in the morning. That would narrow down the time for her disappearance to a couple hours of the morning, sometime between when she would normally leave the house and when she was to arrive at work.
Sherlock's questions delved into Miss Hopkins' personal life, which Mrs. Evans answered guilelessly. She'd never mentioned a suitor or particularly problematic customer. There were no gifts of unknown origin – Sherlock even asked Mrs. Evans to produce the woman's jewelry box and she named the provenance of the few pieces easily.
Their reception at Miss Hopkins' last place of residence was significantly less helpful.
"I don't know what you think, asking me all these questions. I stay out of the lives of my tenants!"
"It would be significantly more profitable if you admitted to being the nosy, intrusive landlady you so obviously are," Sherlock had finally replied quite scornfully. "It would have also been more conducive to the investigation if you had waited to clean out the room until the end of the month, instead of telling her sister Miss Hopkins had only paid through the end of the week."
The woman's face burned, clearly caught out.
"I have a living to make. I can't leave rooms empty when the tenant is clearly dead and gone."
"And how can you be so sure?" Sherlock stood, his tall form quite imposing when leaned over the indignant woman. "Did you observe a threat to her person, perhaps her abductor, and refuse to say anything all this time?"
"No, of course not." But she seemed much more intimidated now than she had.
"Then what are you hiding?"
"Nothing."
If a Sherlock-level glare wasn't going to make the woman spill, nothing would. John and Mr. Lestrade collected Sherlock and ushered him out the door. He was scowling, but strode off in the direction of the shop where Miss Hopkins worked, taking the most likely route and throwing his eagle eye in every direction as he went.
John and Mr. Lestrade followed, their pace leisurely because Sherlock stopped often to examine this or that, or speak to someone on his way.
"Would that we could have him on every case in London," Lestrade mused. "The city would be a much safer place if every potential criminal knew he'd be caught out within hours of his crime by the likes of Sherlock Holmes."
"Is that why you work with him? To ensure justice?"
"That is a perk, yes, but I do get paid by how many criminals I bring in, how many crimes I solve. Mr. Holmes will make me a rich man by the time I retire. No one else at Bow Street is smart enough to realize that."
"Quite shrewd, Lestrade, I must admit."
The walk from the boarding house to the shop took nearly an hour at their snail's pace. It might take Miss Hopkins a quarter hour at most if motivated. Once at the shop, Sherlock asked a few questions of the proprietor about the daily habits of Miss Hopkins and left looking thoughtful.
"Lestrade, if you don't mind, I have an appointment to keep. We'll work on the next victim on your list tomorrow."
"Really?" Lestrade gaped, unable to believe that Sherlock was going to abandon an investigation mid-afternoon. John was somewhat astonished, too. Of course, they had been shopping in the morning with little mention of the case.
"A bite to eat, John?"
John agreed because they had not paused in their day and he'd been ignoring his stomach for an hour. A cup of tea and a couple small biscuits at Mrs. Evans' home earlier did little to satisfy.
Sherlock found them a cozy little dining room with a spot near the window facing the street. He declined to order any food, but when John's meal came, he did steal a slice of bread and butter from his plate.
"So what do you think about Miss Hopkins?"
"I think the abductor would have had to be very clever to carry someone off without alerting anyone, especially on a busy street in the morning. She would have had to appear to go willingly."
"Perhaps a friend, or someone she thought of as a friend."
"Perhaps." Sherlock peered out the window, thinking, always thinking. "I wish we could have seen her rooms intact. I might have been able to see the quality of her mail and whether she burned papers in her fireplace."
"A secret affair?"
Sherlock sighed. "Useless speculation. Are you quite finished? I have someone I wish for you to meet."
John might have wished for a few more minutes to let his meal settle, and to rest from their day-long excursion, but he was plenty used to eating in a rush from the army so he rose without complaint. Sherlock left a generous coin on the table for the meal and tucked John inside another hack. The address he gave the driver was across the Thames in Lambeth.