Dear Sherlock,
I've bought everyone's Christmas presents now, and I'm trying to get them all wrapped before anyone finds them. They're hidden in my wardrobe because some of them are extremely awkwardly shaped and quite large. It probably isn't the best place to try to hide them, but I can't find anywhere else. Don't chastise me for my unimaginative secrecy; we can't all be the Sherlock Holmes of hiding things. Wrapping them is proving to be rather difficult. I've wasted so much paper trying and failing.
I've had to spend a large amount of time over presents this year. Not because I have any more people to buy them for, but because I'm now rich and if I don't buy them enough then I'll seem stingy. They probably wouldn't look at it like that, but I'd feel a bit guilty. I don't resent it or anything, I have enough money not to be bothered by things like that, and I'm glad that I can treat them now. It's just a pressure that I could do without.
Greg and I have been running around on another case for the past four days. You'd have thought he'd learnt his lesson about consulting amateurs, what with how much trouble he got into over you. But I think he needs an outside eye, still reliant upon someone not legally able to intervene. It must be a comfort thing for him, but I'm happy enough to fill the space. We've been chasing down a thief, you'd have read about it in the papers. Broke into a jewellers and took everything he could carry, meaning a small rucksack full. We've been chasing leads all over the place, and we're getting close now, or so we think. We've found some of the jewellery on an online auction, and we can trace that back through the information that the thief failed to make invisible. He doesn't know how to submit items anonymously, apparently. Either that or he was in a rush and made a mistake. We're getting there, though, so that's an achievement.
Love,
Your John.