Elementary...Sweetie

Elementary... Sweetie

It's a busy day, Sherlock finally has an interesting case, and John is wasting time by needing to eat. It had been six in the morning when Sherlock had gotten the call. Lestrade had given the usual spiel, "This case is impossible. I have no idea what to make of it. Care to give it a look?" And as soon as Sherlock had seen the case, he was immediately interested. At first glance, it seemed to be an open and shut case; wealthy family, gambling son, stolen heirloom coronet. The son stole the coronet to pay off his debt, case closed. The son had even been found holding half of the coronet, the other half broken off and missing. But he had sworn up and down that he hadn't stolen the coronet, he had been protecting it from a burglar. However there had been no sign of a break-in, and after scouring the entire house, the other half of the coronet was nowhere to be found. And that's where Sherlock came in. The police wanted him to find the missing half. Usually Sherlock would scoff at such a menial case, but he had been bored. The newspapers had said the half-coronet would stay missing forever, and the wealthy heir would most assuredly be sent to prison. So naturally, Sherlock had to prove them all wrong.

Sherlock had wanted to go straight to the scene of the crime, but John had insisted on getting breakfast first. Sherlock had scoffed at John's need for sustenance, but had finally agreed. So here he is, in a sleepy diner, John in the bathroom, and poring over the facts and pictures Lestrade gave him. "The maid's boyfriend stole it." Says a woman's voice. Sherlock's head whips around. The woman is blonde, with extremely curly hair that went just everywhere. Sherlock suddenly has an intense desire to pull a curl to test its springiness. He immediately dismisses the thought as utterly ridiculous, and tries to figure out this curvy enigma of a woman. She is a little on the short side, muscular, and over all completely mysterious. Her clothes are ambiguous, she could have gotten them anywhere; her face is timeless, her eyes were young, but so very old; her fingernails are painted red, well-trimmed, and ultimately give nothing away. Her gaze is light and her posture immaculate. Sherlock can barely decipher anything about her. She has to be older than thirty, but he can't pinpoint a specific age. She is aesthetically pleasing, but more than that, she is interesting to look at. Sherlock has almost perfect memory, but he feels as though he could stare at this mysterious woman's face for a very long time and still discover something new. His observations only lasted a moment, but when he finally finds a clever reply, she is already leaving. John comes back from the loo and sits across from him. "Who was that woman?" He asks. "No idea." Sherlock replies, puzzled. He looks over the details again, and falls back into his chair, awestruck. "She was right. The bloody woman was absolutely right!" "Right about what?" Asks John as he sticks a forkful of eggs in his mouth. Sherlock throws money on the table and walks out the door. John takes another hurried bite of his half-eaten breakfast and rushes to catch up. "Sherlock, right about what?" He asks again when he finds his friend. Sherlock hails a cab. "No time. I'll explain it when we get there."

The woman was right, it was the maid's boyfriend. After looking for that solution, (if only to prove the woman wrong) Sherlock discovered it was correct. The maid had said her key to the family's house had been missing from her person the night of the theft, and the only person she had been in contact that day had been her boyfriend, and though her boyfriend had a fairly believable alibi, (drinking at a bar with several witnesses) it wasn't water tight. Sherlock had also noticed a bit of blood on the broken coronet, and sure enough, the boyfriend had recently gotten cut. The forensics report came back positive, and the boyfriend was arrested. The police searched his apartment, and the other half of the coronet was found. Another case solved. But Sherlock wasn't satisfied. That woman had barely looked at the files (over his shoulder, he might add) and she had immediately figured out the whole thing. She had a mind as quick as, well, his. This has almost never happened before, and Sherlock is intrigued, annoyed, and slightly flummoxed. He was so perplexed about this mystery woman that he had retreated into his mind palace to study his memories of her more closely. He realized he had never seen her in the diner before. She hadn't been sitting at any of the tables or booths when he and John had come in, he had been facing the bathroom and she had come up behind him, and he hadn't ever heard the door behind him open. It had been like she had appeared out of thin air.