Chapter 5
Then: Eight Years Earlier: February 1878
In the five days since he first laid eyes on Miss Hooper, Sherlock had been yelled at, knocked out, and nearly arrested.
He'd never felt so alive!
So distracting was the puzzle with which the young lady presented him that Sherlock hadn't touched neither his stash of opium nor his seven percent solution of cocaine since whole thing began.
She was an exercise in opposites. An interest in the gruesome, yet still holding cultured and cultivated manners; of working middle class origins, yet at ease (at home, even) within the Symphony's upper-class crowd; her young man's disguise fooling everyone she'd ever met (except him, of course), yet in that yellow gown, she looked-
He caught his thoughts just in time. The length of her neck and the colour of her porcelain skin as accentuated by the sweep of the (borrowed, but well-altered) gown were details entirely irrelevant for his purposes.
But for some reason, he couldn't stop himself thinking about them. He couldn't remember the last time a woman's appearance had struck him so. Perhaps, he reminded himself, it was the sharp contrast between her two costumes (neither of which, of course, represented the real Miss Hooper) which caused her dress and her hair and her intoxicating perfume to strike him so.
Of course, her appearance wasn't the only thing that struck him that evening, he remembered, rubbing the large bump which had formed on his head.
Perhaps trapping her in the ladies' powder room wasn't the most ideal way to make her talk to him. But nevertheless, there was no way even he could predict her reaction (overreaction?) to his mere request.
Anyone else might take Miss Hooper's actions as a sign to give up. But Sherlock was never one to be told what to do. She was his only link to ML Hooper. The man had had such an impact on him in the space of only a few (so far as Sherlock saw them) ground-breaking articles. Sherlock wondered just how much more he would learn under the great man's direct tutelage.
That was it, as much as Miss Hooper wasn't a fan of his, Sherlock had no other choice but to peruse her. He just didn't know how to go about it.
He leaned back on his armchair, hands steepled below his chin. How did one go about gaining the attention of a young woman?
"Oh, Idiot!" he chastised himself once the solution presented itself to him. "It's so obvious!" He jumped up in elation. Crossing the room in two steps, he retrieved his coat before sweeping downstairs.
There was only one more thing he needed.
"Mrs Turner," he bellowed, banging on her door.
Slightly perturbed, his housekeeper ducked her head out to see what the fuss was about. "What is it, Mr Holmes?"
"Have you seen my calling cards?"
Her eyes widened in shock. "Why ever would you need them, sir?"
Sherlock grinned wider than he had for as long as he could remember. "Because I'm going calling!"
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Now: Eight Years Later: December 1886
John Watson could barely keep up with his friend as he swept up the stairs to the first-floor landing. It was there a few officers with highly put-out looks on their faces stood alongside the small, pale figure of the woman John guessed was the reason for their attendance that morning. The poor man's widow. The one who had demanded Lestrade to call on Sherlock.
John expected Holmes to continue his brisk pace all the way to the crime scene, which as far as John could see was the family's master bathroom. John couldn't believe his eyes when his friend did something he'd never seen him do in the almost seven years of their acquaintance.
Holmes stopped in the doorway, took one quick glance at the corpse, but didn't head inside. Instead, he turned and headed over to where the poor woman was sitting.
John fought the temptation to stop him. There was a reason Sherlock never interacted with people if such interactions could be avoided. John wondered, if his friend was bereft of tact at the best of times, what on earth would happen in a situation with such frayed and fractured nerves as this one?
But of course, Sherlock Holmes was nothing if not a man of surprises. John watched the detective gingerly approach the woman. Instead of the focus and concentration Holmes usually wore at a crime scene, his face was presented in the proper mode for comforting the grieving. Soft, caring, a Holmes unlike one Watson had ever seen.
The woman looked at Holmes, but not with the surprise and shock most people wore when in the presence of the consulting detective for the first time, John noted.
Sherlock crouched down so as to meet her face to face. He gently took her hand before saying, with all conviction, "I am so sorry for your loss, Mrs Jones." He paused for a beat before adding, "Truly, I am."
She nodded, closing her eyes in an attempt to stop tears falling.
John wondered if Sherlock had taken classes in social interaction, because from where he stood, the man who had never shown genuine empathy (well, certainly not while there was a crime scene to investigate and a murder to solve) just comforted a grieving widow without any glaring failures in etiquette.
John was certain Mary wouldn't believe him if he told her.
It was only later, when reflecting back on Holmes' odd display, that Watson realised something: Lestrade had never told them the widow's name.
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Then - Eight Years Earlier: February 1878
Sherlock paused before knocking on the front door of the Hooper residence. Perhaps he was going about this the wrong way. If this were indeed the home of ML Hooper, what was to stop him calling on the man directly? Was there any reason to bring the young Miss Hooper into it at all – especially considering she was not entirely enamoured with Sherlock – if their last few interactions were anything to go by.
But, he remembered, Dr Hooper was a recluse. From all the records Sherlock could find, sometime in the last three years, Hooper quit his medical practice, shifting his focus to research and publication. It was also around that time that friends of the doctor noted that he stopped receiving guests. Sherlock, of course, knew all this, having interviewed several former friends of the Hooper family under the guise of Harold Wentworth – Medical historian. So far as Sherlock could tell, no one had seen Hooper for at least two years.
When faced with these facts, Sherlock had to accept that the odds of Dr Hooper receiving a call from an upstart Cambridge doctoral-dropout were slim to none.
No, Miss Hooper was the key, Sherlock thought as he rapped on the door.
The housemaid, a short squat woman whose apron cut in so tightly in the middle her torso formed almost a perfect figure-eight, squinted at his face as she opened the door.
Sherlock wore his most practiced lady-killing smile, the kind that used to get him all the attention he wanted back at uni, back when female attention was his drug of choice – before he realised that opiates came with less nasty side-effects.
"And who are you then?" barked the unimpressed Scottish voice.
"I'm here to call on Miss Hooper," he said, handing her his card.
She eyed the card for a long moment before taking it. "She's not here." Nothing more. No apology. No promise to convey a message, or even to pass on the card.
"Can you please tell her I called?" he gestured to the card. Taking the hint, the maid turned down the upper right corner.
"Done."
Sherlock should have left, but something in the woman's countenance struck him, and he needed to know what it was.
"Have I done something to offend, madam?" Sherlock asked.
"Och no sir," she said, using her thick Scots accent to sound more sincere than she actually was. "It's just the Miss is spoken for. She's soon to be engaged to Mr Jones, so I donna think a wee bohemian like you has got a chance in hell, if you'll forgive me saying so frankly."
Sherlock smiled warmly, hiding shock at the woman's language as well as her pronouncement about Miss Hooper and her intended affianced.
"Please, just let her know I stopped by." He said, walking off.
As he headed back to Montague street, Sherlock brought back all the details he could about the man he had seen accompanying Miss Hooper at the concert the other evening. Tall, thin, slightly too pale. Where Miss Hooper fit in in the crowd despite her upbringing, this man did not seem like someone who had come from money. But to acquire tickets to such an exclusive event, he must have some connections – even Sherlock had to beg his ticket from Mycroft who scoffed at his younger brother's newfound love of high art.
One more detail struck him. Just before she left her seat, Miss Hooper whispered something to the young man, probably begging her leave. Concerned, he touched her arm. For a brief moment, there was a look of revulsion in her eyes. Only brief. Even Sherlock hadn't noticed it at the time.
As he remembered that, walking the streets of London on the way back from the Hoopers' house, Sherlock was certain of one thing: Miss Hooper would never be Mrs Jones. Not if she had anything to do with it.