Chapter 7
Now - Eight Years Later: December 1886
John coughed to alert Sherlock and Mrs Jones to his presence.
Sherlock stepped back from the widow, and an odd expression crossed the detective’s face, almost like guilt – but John had never seen his friend express such a sentiment before.
“Forgive me,” Sherlock deferred to Mrs Jones, “This is my friend, Dr John Watson.”
Watson reached for the widow’s hand, clasping it between both of his in a sign of condolence.
“I am so sorry for your loss, Mrs Jones.”
The young woman nodded. “Please, call me Molly. My married name doesn’t feel right to me today.” Watson caught Sherlock trying not to look shocked at the informality. Since when would such a thing shock Sherlock, he wondered.
“Molly,” Watson began, feeling odd to be addressing a stranger with such familiarity, “do you have any next of kin – anyone who can help you with the arrangements?”
“No. My brother is in Australia and my father has,” she paused, swallowing a grief that seemed almost more raw than the loss of her husband just hours earlier, “passed away.”
Both Sherlock and John nodded in acknowledgment of the loss.
“So, you’re on your own then?” John asked.
“Well, of course there’s-”
Molly began, but a commotion from the bottom of the stairs interrupted her. After a moment, Lestrade bound up, taking three steps at a time. He gave a quick nod to Sherlock and John before turning his attention to Molly.
“Please forgive me, Mrs Jones, but there are some men downstairs and they won’t be put off.”
“What sort of men?” Sherlock asked, with more urgency and concern than Watson thought possible for his friend.
Lestrade’s face was grave. “Debt collectors. They say Mr Jones owed them more than he had. They’ve come to claim what’s left.”
Molly’s face went pale.
“Haven’t they any decency?” John decried.
“They’re debt collectors, Watson, of course they don’t.”
Then - Eight Years Earlier, February 1878
“What kind of indecency are you here to seek forgiveness for, brother, or is it permission you’re after?”
“Neither,” the younger Holmes said, flopping himself down on a chaise lounge that, judging from the fading in the leather, was as old as the hallowed walls of the Diogenes club itself.
Mycroft winced noticeably at his brother’s impropriety.
“Then why am I honoured with your presence?” Mycroft’s oily smile showed the lie hidden in words of truth.
“I’ve got a case.” It was a half-truth, certainly Sherlock had a puzzle he needed solving.
“And?”
“And I need access to a morgue.”
It didn’t take much convincing. Sherlock knew that Mycroft would be easily swayed by the promise of anything that would distract him from the lure of the East End's opium dens.
And so it was that the next evening saw Sherlock Holmes began his association with the Saint Batholemew’s mortuary and chemical laboratories.
He had hoped his mysterious Miss Hooper would be there already. He had timed his arrival for precisely one hour after he had lost her trail the other night, certainly enough time for her alter-ego to make it to the hospital.
As he rounded the corridor and down the stairs, he could hear signs of life in the darkened chambers reserved for the recently deceased – the clanking of metal on glass, the sound of a burner being lit, and the splash of liquid as it was poured from container to container.
He watched her work, grabbing a beaker of acid – he guessed it was sulfuric – and combining it with zinc. Into the solution she poured red liquid. Thick and congealed, there was no doubt it was blood she was testing. She hummed quietly as she worked; Sherlock ignored the ache in his chest or the way watching her made his heart beat faster than any case he’d ever solved.
She tapped her toe to the tune that Sherlock could barely make out, but then she began to sing softly in a voice that was unmistakably feminine despite any masculine appearance her current disguise was attempting to achieve.
“It speeds her dart to the red deer's heart
As he bounds from his secret lair
And whether o'er sea or land it go, or land it go.
She loves to hear the wild wind blow,
To hear the wild wind bl-“
She was cut off by the result she was waiting for, a small triumphant sound of joy escaped her lips before she said with confidence, “I knew it.”
Any triumph or joy was stripped from her face when she turned to see Sherlock.
“Marsh’s test,” Sherlock said, ignoring the anger in her eyes. He'd read about a test for arsenic so sensitive that even the most minute amounts would be revealed. He'd never seen it performed - until now.
“Yes."
“And it’s positive?” He asked, bending over the beaker that sat warming above the gas flame.
“It seems so.” She kept her answers brief, her eyes searching the room for any possibility of escape. Sherlock had deliberately blocked her only exit. He wanted to ask her the question that had been bugging him for weeks – ever since he first spotted the unusual woman in her masculine attire.
“Would you-“ She stopped, steeling herself, “Would you like to see the man’s file?”
She bent over to pick up the paperwork, taking advantage of the large differential in their height, she brushed past Sherlock and toward the door, only to be stopped by a grasp of his hand on hers.
“I mean you no harm, Miss Hooper,” his eyes met hers with an intensity that he hoped would cement the truth of the statement.
“No harm? You call on my house? You follow me? You even show up here?” Molly tried to retrieve her hand from his hold.
“I have just one question, and then you can go. Can you let me meet him?”
Molly sighed, “Why? He’s a sick man – it’s consumption. He can’t work anymore. He’s only writing up the investigations I perform for him.”
“I just want to see him, just once. I want to tell ML Hooper what his work has meant to me.”
Molly paused for a moment, and for just a second Sherlock thought she would agree.
“ML Hooper doesn’t want to see you.”
And with that, Molly pushed past him and out the door.
Little did Sherlock know that he was closer to solving the puzzle than he realised. He had seen, he just didn’t perceive.
Now - 8 Years Later : December 1886
Holmes and Watson followed the sounds of commotion to the bottom of the stairs. Watson saw Mrs Jones – Molly – arguing with men who didn’t seem like they visited this end of town very often.
“I’m sorry Mrs,” one said in thick East End cockney, “The boss wants what ‘e’s ‘owed, and what ‘e’s ‘owed is this place.”
Molly took the deed of sale from the man’s roughened hands, read it and passed it quickly onto Lestrade, whose face fell in an instant.
For the first time that morning, Watson saw the mysterious Mrs Jones on the verge of tears.
“Then where are we to go?” she asked to no one in particular.
“You can come and live with me.”
From behind Watson, he heard the words before he realised what they were – and who it was who was saying them. When he realised that it was his friend, a man who adored privacy and hated people who had just invited a woman to live with him, John had almost fainted.
If he was on the verge of swooning, what happen next almost knocked him out cold.
“You can come to my lodgings in Baker street,” Holmes said again, “You – and your son.”
Watson turned to see Holmes nodding towards a small curly-haired boy with Molly’s eyes who was watching the commotion from the corner of the room.
Not for the first time that morning, Watson wondered if there was something wrong with his friend – or worse – something he was missing – a piece of the puzzle that was right underneath his nose.