A Consulting Detective, Ex Army Doctor, and Child Mercenary Walk Into A Room

Chapter 4: The Great Game

We entered Lestrade's bleak modern office with its strip lights and wilting pot plants. He was just at the file cabinet. Lestrade looked up and saw us walking in. "You only like funny cases, don't you? The surprising ones?" "Obviously," said Sherlock. "You're going to love this." Lestrade looked at John and me. "Hello, you two." We both shook his hand. "Inspector." "Greg." Lestrade then turned his attention towards Sherlock. "The explosion." "A gas leak, yes?" Lestrade shook his head. I was sort of confused, "No?" "Made to look like one. Explosives." "What?" John and I said at the same moment. Me more in an excited manner while John looked slightly frightened. "Hardly anything left of the place. Except for a strong box. A very strong box. And inside it was this."

Lestrade hands an envelope across to Sherlock. It is good quality. Cream-colored. On it, in spidery writing: Sherlock Holmes. It was written by hand. Sherlock seems surprised. "You haven't opened it?" "Addressed to you, isn't it? We've x-rayed it. Not booby-trapped. "How reassuring," Sherlock says with a shit ton of sarcasm. He takes a close look at the envelope. "Nice stationery. Bohemian." "What?" "From the Czech Republic," answers Sherlock. "No fingerprints?" "No." I decided to take a look at it myself. "She used a fountain pen. Parker Duofold. Iridium nib." "She?" asked John. I had to roll my eyes at that one. "Obviously, John. I have hardly seen many men write like that. Most are just chicken scratch." "Obviously," he repeats. Lestrade raises an eyebrow at me. "Sherlock, you raising a girl to be like you?" Sherlock stopped and turned to face Lestrade. "No one can ever be like me. But, she will make an excellent protegee, to say the least." Carefully, Sherlock opens the envelope. From inside tumbles an iPhone from the pink lady case.

"But that's - that's the phone, the pink phone ..." John trails off. "What, from 'A Study In Pink'?" asks Lestrade. "Well it isn't, of course, but it's supposed to look like it - 'A Study In Pink' - you read his blog?" "Course I read his blog, we all do. Do you really not know that the earth goes around the sun?" My hand quickly shot up to cover my mouth to try to ease up the laughter. A snort of laughter comes from a few desks away. Sherlock glances around eyeing Sally Donovan, one of Lestrade's partners, pretending she wasn't listening. "It's not the same phone, this one's brand new. But someone's gone through a lot of trouble to make it look like the same phone, which suggests your blog," Sherlock fires such a look at John, "has a wider readership."

He turns on the phone and, super quick, keys in a retrieval code. We listen, rapt.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

"That's it?" says John. Sherlock and I see that a photo is downloading. I look at John. "No, that's not it." The photo is of the inside of a bare, empty flat. Lestrade was truly confused. "What the hell are we supposed to make of that? An estate agent's photo and the bloody Greenwich pips." Greenwich pips! I was suddenly chilled. "It's a warning." "A warning, Lune?" I nodded gravely. "Some secret societies used to send dried melon seeds. Orange pips. Things like that." Sherlock cries out in surprise. "Five pips! They're warning us that it's going to happen again. I've seen this place before!" John puts a hand up. "Hang on. What's going to happen again?" Sherlock makes a motion with his hands as he walks out of the police station. "Boom!"

...

A cab screeches to a halt outside our flat. Sherlock almost flings himself out of it. Behind him, John, Lestrade, and I quickly follow behind. John throws the cab some money and off it went. But Sherlock doesn't head for the first level but down the steps to the basement level. I see the address almost hidden by the grime above the intercom system. 221c. "Triumph!" Sherlock shouts.

Mrs. Hudson was now with us outside the interior door of the basement flat, sorting through a bunch of keys. "He had a look, didn't you, Sherlock, when you first came to see about a flat? I can't get anyone interested in it. The damp I expect. It's the curse of basements." Now Sherlock has his face pressed against the door. "I had a place once when I was first married, black mold all up the walls, it was like a weight on your chest -" "Door's been opened. Recently," concluded Sherlock. "No. Can't have been. This is the only key."