It Started With Stealing | Sherlock Holmes

75 - If Thy Right Hand Offend Thee...

A/N - Judge Judy fans where you at because there is a reference in here that you are bound to get 😂

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The couple were searching the flat thoroughly, under every table and chair, behind every piece of furniture, upstairs and downstairs, searching for the other eye in any and every nook and cranny they could find.

With Sherlock scanning every centimeter downstairs, Elizabeth checked upstairs, finding what appeared to be a shared office room. On one side was a bookshelf full to the brim with books on copywriting and similarly on the other side of the room was a bookcase except with books on law and courts. More evidence that led the thief to making a deduction of her own was the fact that there were case files in a filing cabinet on the side of the room with the law bookcase.

"Sherlock! I think his wife is a lawyer!" She called to him, then made a comment to herself, "Though, I don't know if that helps."

"Keep looking for the eye!" The detective had called back to her.

With a resolute nod, she approached the desk at the back of the room, pushed up against the wall. On the desk lay a book of London A-Z, a smudge of blood staining the width of the thick city atlas. She opened it, promptly coming across a square hole in the book where half the eye (the back part of the eye) lay. She grimaced.

'Eye think you're getting warmer,' was the note written in blood on the page.

"Sherlock! I found part of the eye!"

Elizabeth noticed that the square that had been cut out for the eye to be placed omitted three locations.

"And I found the other." He announced, walking into the office with a small transparent plastic box, "Business cards. Best way to find people. People in law firms have business cards too. Ruth King is a commercial barrister who met her husband when she defending his case in court. He was going to be sued for plagiarism - happens a lot in a copywriting career because people aren't always aware when they've plagiarised another's work."

"How did you get all that from a business card?"

"Most common reason copywriters are sued, the rest is informed guesswork."

Sherlock set the small plastic box down, removing the cover to reveal the other half of the eye, it's beady little pupil staring at them both. Carefully, he slipped out a business card to see the address.

Again, he frowned, "No. This is wrong. Ruth works under a law firm - specifically Perkins & Collins. As a barrister, she wouldn't have met Henry until the trial. We're looking for the court."

"There's only one court like that, isn't there?"

"Which simplifies things. Where?"

She pulled out her phone, rapidly Googling it, "Commercial & Admiralty Court, Rolls House, Holborn. Fits in alphabetically with with the three missing places in the A-Z book and is twenty minutes away from here, walking and on tube."

"Then let's run." A thrilled look crossed his expression as he took her hand and pulled her with him.

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The two arrived at the courts less than twenty minutes later having sprinted to and from the tube station. Barely anyone was out in the streets by the court at around half eleven at night. Finding the glass doors open, the couple strolled in, aware that there might be a trap. Makeshift signs pointed down the hall and led them into one specific courtroom.