Murder with Lens: A Sherlock Holmes Case (221B Baker Street Series) (2 page)

“How?” John was still reeling from hearing that Sarah had napped on his bed, in fact.

“Sarah’s information. She’s given enough that I can isolate two of the listening devices already.” Sherlock said. “Finding anything else simply requires the correct hardware aimed at-”

“Hello.”

Sherlock glanced to his right and gave a brief nod, before he went on. “Sarah your observational skills are a bit infrequent in the population. You don’t do a good job, but you don’t embarrass yourself either. It’s curious.”

“Oh, thank you,” Sarah grinned, seemingly immune to Sherlock’s bluntness. She motioned out from the booth with a hand, “Hold on a moment, Sherlock.”

“Sorry, pardon me,” the woman said again. This time, Sherlock was forced to pay attention to her arrival. He turned his head and took the newcomer in silently.

“Are you lost?” His green eyes narrowed. “Oh, no. You haven’t misplaced yourself, look at you. You’re a friend. A friend of Sarah’s. And how you’re dressed indicates-” His head whipped about to take Sarah in with such a heated gaze that John reached for her hand in an instant. Then Sherlock returned a long-suffering stare in the woman’s direction. “Well, sit down. You’ll get in the way of foot traffic.”

“Oh,” she flushed a little. She was actually quite slim and pretty in her lovely lavender dress. “Yes, of course. How sensible of you. You must be Sherlock, then. Sherlock Holmes.”

“So I must,” he said as she eased in beside him.

“John, this is Sofia.” Sarah motioned toward her friend. “We’ve been mates for about five months now. Very clever girl – I mean in the creative way. Not something that would show up on an IQ test so easily, I’d venture, but….”

“Nice to meet you,” Sofia reached across the table. “I hear such good things about you, John.”

Her hands were so beautifully neat.

Sherlock took another sip of his wine, set his elbow on the table, and played with a curl just above his ear. John began to feel a bit remorseful. Gone was the easy, smiling Sherlock of their arrival: the Sherlock that John found endlessly stimulating. It was a shame, considering that, lately, Holmes felt somewhat easier with Sarah’s presence. For instance, he spoke to her, directly, more often than he ever had before The Ninth Muse murders, and some of what he had to say wasn’t even case-related.

Holmes turned his head just enough to take in Sofia’s hand as she released John’s. He didn’t make any motion to touch her.

Short nails.

Shiny fingertips, low ridges.

His brows drew down a little. “So how does an artist meet a doctor? Were you also a patient?”

“What did you tell him, Sarah? Oh my,” she spread her fingers over her cleavage. When Sarah only smiled and shook her head, Sofia glanced between John and Sarah curiously. She wasn’t sure what to believe, but then brightened. “Or is this the detective work you warned me about – the science of deduction? How did you know that, Mr. Holmes?”

He played with his wineglass. “Noticeable pattern of wear on your fingertips,” he reached out and snatched her hand with captivating speed, then turned it over to study it for a moment. She might have been on a slab. “Pronounced deterioration of ridges on first two fingers of each hand and particularly on the right hand; faint smell like gypsum; relatively short nails, but painted; slight discolouration on the hypothenar eminence.” He released her hand again. “Right-handed; works with her hands, but not at traditional types of manual labour. No sign of that. Wear patterns on ridges show repeated friction with a rough surface; smell of chalk; not a teacher – sanded pastel paper. Fingernails are short but painted due to the difficulty cleaning the remnants of pastel from the beds.” He pivoted her hand over and held it up to the light of the candles. A soft shine of blue lit her skin. “Pure pigment tends to leave an impression. Origins of this particular brand of pastel, I think, Northumberland.”

“Astonishing,” John gawped at Holmes.

“Straightforward,” he released Sofia’s hand again and said. “Look at her nails, John! Use your head. She’s painted them with a purely decorative white pattern at the tips. An average person would not be so exact with a brush. So artist.”

Sarah laughed, “She might have had her nails done.”

Holmes gathered his patience and said. “But she didn’t, because she’s an artist.”

“He’s right. I did them myself,” Sofia smiled curiously at the man beside her. Holmes, however, sipped his wine as if she’d somehow faded into the ether in response to his erudition. John had never seen that look before. It wasn’t quite dismissive, just rejecting. Why?

“That’s so clever,” Sofia grinned at Sarah. “You didn’t say he was so charming.”

“She didn’t say it because I’m not.” Sherlock told Sofia flatly.

“Oh, I think I might have to argue that point.” Sofia’s head tilted right. Large, honey-coloured curls bumbled down across her white throat. Honestly, she was so pretty John found it disarming. Sherlock glanced at her behaviour as well, but his expression was closed – something that often happened when he was pulling information out of a living person and into his head. “I really might.”

Head tilt angle. Likes what she’s seeing.

“Then you would be wasting your time.” Sherlock told her shortly.

John sat back. When his head tipped, the angle was much more pronounced. It was confusion. Sherlock could be quite smooth in his dodges. He often was, with Molly Hooper, whose lab he crashed on a semi-regular basis. What was happening here was… odd.

Sofia said, “I hope you don’t mean that.”

“Do you often interact with people who are deceptive, or don’t mean what they say?” Sherlock picked up a hunk of bread from the plate before him, daubed it in spiced olive oil, and jerked his head at Watson. “Talk to her John.” He bit into the bread and gave a hearty chew.

Oh hell. “Sherlock, I don’t follow,” he said guardedly.

“Unsurprising.” He turned a little toward Sofia. “How about the rest of it, then?”

She looked mystified, “I’m sorry, I don’t… understand?”

He made a small harrumph of amusement. “I can only tell that you’re an artist, I suppose.”

“Oh, I don’t rightly know what you can-”

“Let’s try this as a primer,” Sherlock rounded on her, and drew a little closer to her face. “Why were you crying?”

At first, Sofia’s face drained of colour. Then, within seconds, it went scorching red. In fact, her eyes glittered with emotion. She looked aghast.

“Very nice choice made in the waterproofed mascara, but there are still faint tracks in your finishing powder,” Sherlock told her as he double-dipped the bread. His tone was devoid of emotion. “Did someone kick your puppy? What happened?”

Sofia got up and hurried from the restaurant. John was scandalized by this, and began to go after her, apart from Sherlock’s sudden snap of. “Sit down.”

“No, Sherlock! We can’t have her running around the streets in a state of distress like that. What the hell was that about?” John broke from the table and hurried outside. However, he was already too late to see where Sofia had vanished to. He peered into the damp night air, threw his hands up, and swore on Sherlock’s bad behaviour. “Dammit.”

The door behind him opened and closed. Sherlock swept past. John only just reached out amongst the foot traffic and snatched him by the elbow. This brought him around. It was his left arm, and still tender, so he didn’t resist. His green feline eyes were bright with anger, not a look one saw him wear often. John knew his irritation, frustration, annoyance, but this was different. Of course, John was feeling pretty upset right then too.

“All right, let’s have it out then.” He snapped at Holmes.

“Let me go.”

“That’s it? That’s all you have?” John gave Sherlock’s arm a yank. “You treated that poor girl with less consideration than I’ve seen you give to corpses.”

“Is there some problem?”

“Oh, I see, so they’re only worth your attention when they’re dead.” John snapped. “You play into the hands of people like Donovan and Anderson. You’re supposed to be smarter than that! You’re supposed to be better-”

“We talked about this. I told you. I warned you.”

“That was unforgivable behaviour, Sherlock.”

Sherlock turned his face away somewhat, though when he tried a step back, John held him fast. “I’m sure you’d like to run off, I’m sure you would, but I’m afraid you still have Sarah to apologize to over this. That poor girl, Sherlock; that was disgraceful.”

Sherlock’s body was stiff. He looked at John coldly and snapped, “Just let me go.”

“John!” Sarah called from the doorway. Her gaze was on his fingers, biting into the elbow of Sherlock’s coat, and she sounded flummoxed by the sight of it. As if a bubble had burst, John caught what he was doing and released his friend’s captive arm.

In a wink Sherlock had turned and all but vanished in the passersby.

John straightened slowly. “God dammit!” but this time he cursed himself. Since when did he manhandle people? Even if they’d been complete idiots? And his vehemence upset him suddenly, because Sherlock, for all his brilliance, honestly didn’t know better.

***

Lestrade phoned John not 20 minutes later.

“And you’ve not seen him?” the Detective Inspector asked.

“No,” John shut his eyes and cursed himself inwardly. He was already back in the Baker Street flat with Sarah, both of them feeling utterly defeated. “But I’ll give him a text and see if that raises him.”

“He’s not at the flat.”

“Is that a question?” John looked around him.

“No. I was by.” Lestrade said. “Listen. Get him over here. It’s of the highest importance.”

“I understand,” John pushed the curtains and eyed the street below. Cars passed. Cabs passed. But none of them stopped and disgorged Sherlock Holmes. The line in John’s ear went dead, so he hung up and let his arm sag to his side.

“I expected it might be rocky,” Sarah said softly. “I didn’t think it would be volatile. He practically attacked Sofia, and I’ve never seen you two go at it like that…. I’m so sorry, John.”

“For what?” John asked as he turned her way. He struggled for words, “I wish it had worked. I wish he could… give someone a chance.” John rubbed his face and looked at the floor. “We can’t do that to him again. I don’t know what that was, if he had a meltdown, and I don’t know where he is right now, how he’s feeling-”

“John, he’s a grown man,” Sarah noted soothingly. She crossed the room and reached for him.

“Who’s a former drug addict, and it’s not good not to know where he is. He hasn’t answered texts – this is Sherlock and texts we’re talking about. He’s off the radar, and-” he looked up and realized what he’d just said. Damn. He fixed his gaze on Sarah.

Her eyes were wide. She spoke slowly. “A former drug addict? Him?”

“Yes,” John’s head drooped, “but please don’t mention it again. I shouldn’t have told you.”

“Well, yes, he’s very private.” She seemed to be moving blocks around inside of her head, rebuilding the image she had, which represented Sherlock. “Drugs…. I just don’t understand. He’s so intelligent. I mean, they’d mess with his mind. It’s what drugs do.”

Sarah sighed, stepped up, and slipped into his arms. It just defied John why Sherlock couldn’t see the value of having someone like this. He just couldn’t wrap his head around it. There was simply no comfort as comforting.

The door downstairs quickly opened and closed. John and Sarah jerked apart. Only one person they knew moved at that speed. Sarah wisely plucked her throw off the couch and Sherlock pushed the door to the sitting room. He looked between them and took off his scarf.

The hand John clapped over his mouth was purely reflexive. It was relief. His friend could be pointlessly erratic, but was all right.

***

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Sarah pecked John on the cheek and went directly to Sherlock where she paused only briefly to say, “I’m so sorry.” before leaving.

Sherlock watched after her as he unbuttoned his jacket. He shut the door to their apartment when she’d gone out the front. Then he turned to John. “The Detective Inspector left a message with you as well, I trust.”

“Sherlock,” John said lowly.

“Now Sarah’s gone, I don’t suppose you’d like a trip to the Yard. Promises to be unusual, whatever it is.” He strode deeper into the room. “And I haven’t been since Met police shot me, could make for some interesting observations. Good fodder for your blog.”

“Sherlock,” John glanced up.

There was a protracted moment of traffic noise outside, and nothing more.

Holmes went around him and sat on the arm of the couch, his shoes on the seat. His eyes ran, almost automatically, over the collection of magazine titles he had on the coffee table, many on science, forensics, guns, and criminology. He sat with his eyes downcast in the most graceful aspect of trepidation John had seen. He was waiting.

John sat on the opposite end of the couch. “Listen, that was mad. I shouldn’t have done that-”

“Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know, precisely. Not everyone knows what they’re doing all the time.” John told him a bit impatiently, “Not everyone is like you. I suppose… I’ve been so happy with Sarah, when I look at you, I can’t fathom why you…. It’s like you’re not trying.”