Death Becomes Them

Chapter 4: The Science of Deduction

During the train ride, the dark threat of boredom had finally loomed over Sherlock, and he had resorted to his phone. Another message had come in from Lestrade, this time asking if he wanted in on a recent murder case which, judging by the details, was insultingly juvenile in its simplicity. He flicked the notification off the screen in favor of refreshing his inbox, glancing through the slew of new emails for anything remotely interesting. One caught his eye – a curious locked-room mystery – and he occupied himself with it for the remainder of the journey, feeling well-satisfied with his reached solution by the time the train pulled into the station.

Molly's phone rang just as they were disembarking. "Oh, hi! Yes, it was lovely, a really interesting case." She glanced self-consciously at Sherlock as she said it, as if expecting him to offer some sort of contradiction. "How was your day? Not too much work?" A short pause, and then she smiled. "Yes, dinner would be wonderful, actually, I'm starved." She pulled her phone away from her ear suddenly, covering it with her hand, and whispered to Sherlock, "Could he come meet me at Baker Street? We wanted to try a new Thai place, it's just a block over."

Sherlock gestured his acquiescence indifferently. John had mentioned something about coming over that night with Rosie, he was now remembering; something about Mary wanting their flat for an evening with her friends.

Molly relayed the confirmation over the phone. "Yes, we're just getting a cab there now. Okay. Then, see you soon. Bye."

As the cab made its fitful way through London's traffic, Sherlock's mind wandered to whether it had been Molly's or her boyfriend's idea to meet at Baker Street. He leaned towards the latter, seeing as it had cropped up so unexpectedly on her side of the conversation. So... her new boyfriend was someone who seemed interested in today's case, maybe in detective cases in general; someone who didn't seem to mind her spending a weekend on a day trip with another man – someone who wore relatively cheap aftershave, who bought one-type-fits-all jewelry as presents for his girlfriend, someone who worked on the weekends, and someone who knew enough about him to know the address for Baker Street. So, someone unimaginative, humble income, low self-esteem, job with unpredictable hours – and with a possible interest in Sherlock Holmes. But then, he supposed, with the amount of press swarming around him these days, that last one could really be any number of people – the masses were so easily engrossed by the idea of 'celebrity.'

He glanced at Molly, who was looking contentedly out of the window of the cab, clearly lost in her own thoughts. She had seemed happy today, he reflected. He, whoever he was, with his rather innocuous and unflattering jumble of attributes, made her happy. Making an uncharacteristic, split-second decision, Sherlock promptly and deliberately dropped the thread of his thinking; he could save his deductions for afterwards. At the moment, when the cab pulled up, he really only needed to nod and smile politely, shake his hand and let them get on with their evening.

With this decision, Sherlock relaxed slightly into the back of his seat.

As the cab finally pulled up beside Baker Street, Sherlock was irritated to see Lestrade waiting there for him. The Inspector should know by now that if he didn't receive a reply to one of his texts, it meant that Sherlock wasn't interested in the case. Sherlock unceremoniously thrust some notes to the cabbie and ducked out onto the sidewalk.

"Really, Lestrade, the case could be solved by a sixth-former," Sherlock said scornfully. "I should hope that even the Yard could aspire towards reaching that level of competence."

Rather than Lestrade's usual coaxing expression, however, this time Sherlock was only greeted with a confused frown. "Sorry, what?" It took a moment before a look of realization finally dawned on Lestrade's face, though his tone was still somewhat puzzled. "Oh, right. That. No, didn't really think you'd be interested in that one. Just thought I'd send it your way – you know, in case you had a spare few minutes on the train."