Welcome to 221B Baker St.

The Ripped Tomato, Part II

Chef Pierre was lying on the floor of his personal kitchen with the back of his head bashed in. Louise watched as John and Sherlock put on gloves and examined the body while Lestrade called for backup, and Donnovan started interviewing the witnesses. Which were pretty much all the chefs in the kitchen at the time. The witnesses all said the same thing. Nothing was out of the ordinary. Chef Pierre had arrived early before everyone else so he could get a head start at cooking the soup of the day, like always. They didn't hear or see anything. There was a door that lead to the outside of the restaurant in the private kitchen, but Chef Pierre always kept it locked. Louise decided to turn her attention back to Sherlock and John.

"This head wound was inflicted by a blunt object, probably cylindrical in shape. It's odd, but if I didn't know any better, judging by the body's progression in to the state of rigor mortis, I'd say this man had to have died at least an hour ago," John told Sherlock.

"Yes, it would appear so," Sherlock replied as he looked around the kitchen. The pots of tomato soup the chef was working on had been knocked over when he fell into them on his way down. The fans that should have been venting the steam away from the kitchen appeared to be off. Shouldn't they be on to keep the steam from building up too much in the kitchen? They were on before, and the door was closed. Unlocked, but closed. Louise followed his gaze and noticed something strange. What was a raw tomato doing on the floor? It had an unnatural cut in it that made it look as though it had been ripped.

"Why is there a raw tomato, and why does it look like that? Did you know the chef usually locks that door?" she asked. Sherlock's lips twitched upwards a bit, and he was about to answer her, when he was so rudely interrupted.

"Of course there's a tomato on the floor. He was cooking tomatoes," someone sneered. Oh goody, Anderson was here. "Get out of here, you're contaminating the crime scene," he ordered them. Well, he tried to. Louise thought it sounded like more of a whine than an order.

"That's fine, I have what I need," Sherlock replied as he stepped out of the kitchen, followed by John and Louise. Louise was starting to feel like a baby duck tailing along behind momma.

"Really, you figured it out already?" John asked. Sherlock didn't answer as he approached Lestrade.

"You might want to run tests on that," Sherlock said while pointing to a dish that had been sitting out on the counter, forgotten in all the commotion. Lestrade looked at him funny.

"Why, it's just a plate of food?" Lestrade asked him.

"Is it?" Sherlock asked. Mr. Blight over heard them, and rounded on Sherlock.

"Why are you harassing me? My partner and friend, Pierre, was just murdered, and you want to question our cuisine?" Blight shouted at Sherlock. Sherlock was unfazed.

"Yes, actually, I do," he said, "You called us because your restaurant was threatened, but of the three letters, only one of them had different handwriting. This one also had a slightly different message, rather than threatening to actually inflict harm on the restaurant, it was more of a warning, 'this restaurant shouldn't exist' and 'stop what you're doing now'. Why is that? What were you doing that warranted threats like that? I looked up this restaurant on the way here. I looked up your history as well." Mr. Blight's eye twitched when he heard that. "This is not your first restaurant. In fact, two of your other restaurants have been accused of drugging the foods they served. You slipped steroids into the meals of several athletes."

"That was never proven!" Mr. Blight interrupted Sherlock. That was an odd choice of words Louise and John thought. Shouldn't he have said it wasn't true?

"Yes, but while it was never proven, the stigma was still there," Sherlock continued, "Chef Pierre was with you at those other restaurants as well. He was also the one who prepared the meals in question."