The Baker's Detective

| The Solution and the Flower Fairy |

Sherlock was right, of course, about the murder weapon. Figuring that out eventually led them to finding the man responsible, who told the whole story when he realized how much they knew and how it could help him. He'd been hired to go in and steal something else — the very expensive chess piece — but wasn't sure exactly what he was looking for. As he searched, he'd found the statues, thought one of them might be it, and the woman had come down the stairs and confronted him. He panicked and, well...

The man who'd hired him wanted to put it with the rest of the chess set, but, in life, the woman had refused. So, he paid somebody else to take it back — and it did not work in his favor.

This process took about a week, in which Sherlock heard more noises from downstairs, though none as bad as he'd previously heard. In the following week, he had no new cases, and so stayed in the flat most of the time. He only heard noises once more, and then they stopped.

He hasn't heard any since, though his irritation is being kept alive by the frequently straightened knocker. One day, it will be Mycroft who's done it — or he'll show up and it'll already be straightened — and Sherlock won't be prepared. He's resolved to speak to this Lily about it when he finally meets her, if he ever does. Now that she's moved in, as Mrs. Hudson told them she was, he expects to every day, when he happens to think about it, but he doesn't that first day, though he hears her and someone else going through the hall.

The second day, he hasn't thought about it at all. Rosie's been having him play with her all day, and his mind has been off even his growing boredom. After John gets home from getting the shopping, though, he escapes and makes his way into the kitchen, looking for something small to eat. His meals are rather irregular, despite John and Mrs. Hudson's efforts.

While he's hunting in the cabinet, there's a timid knock on the door. It's only then that Lily enters his mind, and he stops, listening as John answers.

"Hello," he says in a friendly manner.

"Hello," she replies, her voice a bit shaky, though it starts smoothing out as she talks. "I'm Lily Marlow — I just moved in downstairs, and I hope I'm not intruding or anything, but I brought you some cookies to introduce myself and, well, apologize for all the noise. I promise it's all done now, so I won't be bothering you anymore."

"I'm John Watson, and, really, you don't need to worry over any noise," John replies. "I was not bothered." He looks at Sherlock, who's just exited the kitchen, as he says this. Sherlock rolls his eyes before turning his head and taking in this loud and elusive woman.

She's shorter than even John — by a good four inches or so, putting her near Molly's height — so Sherlock has to look down slightly, from this distance, to see her face.

Her dark brown eyes hold the nervousness her lilting voice lost, yet also a good deal of friendliness. Her lips are curved into a soft, likewise friendly smile, and her tight-curled dark hair — it matches her eyes — is pushed back with a cloth headband, which is likely not meant to be there for this meeting. It makes her hair look a bit messy, though that also may be because she likely didn't do anything to it. She was in a hurry then, or at least she's just absent-minded. Maybe both.

Her face, a shade lighter than her hair and eyes, is free of makeup, as far as he can tell, and her body language portrays the last of her nerves in such a small way that John probably doesn't notice it at all; she's more turned in on herself, trying to make herself smaller, though just barely. There's a large dish in her hands, containing a dozen light brown cookies, sparkling with sugar. She makes eye contact with him, and those hardly perceptible nerves seem to increase.

Sherlock offers her a closed-lipped smile to remedy this, his previous grievances with her now seemingly just memory, somehow pushed away by her apologetic expression and literally sweet gesture. "Sherlock Holmes."