Sherlock: His Enigma Called A

The Gala

Sherlock scanned through the crowd again and tsked, "Well this is tedious."

"You're telling me..." John murmured to himself. They were two hours into the Gala- halfway through the night- and Sherlock was tied up trying to identify everyone whom had been labelled as suspects.

Adelaide and Jacob came and went, checking in regularly. Sherlock had more than once expressed his disapproval over the plain dancing displayed by Jacob, but John couldn't get the stubborn detective to do anything about it. Like go and bloody ask her for a dance himself.

They entered the Creepy Crawlies zone and Sherlock spotted one of the suspects, "There, John. Doctor Marilyn Bingham."

"And what makes her a suspect?"

"She recently came under fire for subjecting rodents to lethal doses of toxic compounds synthesized from amphibians and insects. Including batrachotoxin."

"Mmm." John didn't know how they would narrow it down to one suspect if every one of them seemed equally possible. But after a few minutes of observing her Sherlock shook his head.

"No, not her. Alibi checks out."

John let out a small groan, "Alright, then. Who's next?"

Sherlock only hummed in response. As they moved through the rest of the gallery, Sherlock pointed out a couple of other suspects but they didn't turn up anything either, "Alright, then. On to the birds then."

"Even though we've been in there three times already." John murmured.

"The poacher has an eye for avian life forms, John, I'd hardly be surprised if we actually caught them in that particular gallery." Sherlock replied.

On their way to the Hall of Birds Sherlock looked down from the banister and checked on Adelaide and Jacob. John joined him, "They still down there?"

"Yes. It appears that the Head of Security is calling Mister Powell in for work after all," Sherlock smirked, "Convenient."

"How is that convenient exactly?" John asked. Sherlock pulled out his mobile and texted Adelaide.

"Come, John. She'll meet us at our destination." Sherlock placed his phone back in his pocket and continued walking. John chuckled to himself. Convenient indeed.

Adelaide met them just outside the main gallery entrance, "Have you found anyone who could actually be the poacher yet?"

"We have identified most of the suspects but so far we have only been able to eliminate a few people from the list." Sherlock explained as they entered the hall. The blogging doctor hid a cheeky smile and for the heck of it decided to ask.

"So, er, how was your date with Jacob?"

Adelaide smiled gently, "It was great! Jacob's fun to be around and it was nice to see him outside of work for once. While it lasted, anyways."

John grinned despite himself when he saw Sherlock's shoulders go rigid and his hands temporarily clench into fists at the mention of Jacob's name, "Will he still be around the museum, then?"

"Yeah. We'll probably run into him at some point," Adelaide sighed, "Oh, I forgot to give him his torch back!"

"His torch?"

"Yes, he gave it to me to hold. We took a shortcut earlier and it was dark so we needed it. I need to give it back to him." She extracted a small LED torch from her clutch purse.

Sherlock halted and pivoted around, "I'm sure Mister Powell will be fine without his torch until we inevitably cross paths again. Now please try to focus, we've got a toxic poacher to apprehend."

"Sorry." Adelaide quickly hushed and stowed the torch in her purse. Sherlock pursed his lips and continued walking, followed closely by the Zoologist. John shook his head and smiled to himself. Worth it.

Eventually they returned to Hintze Hall empty handed. Adelaide seemed ready to collapse onto the floor from climbing so many stairs in pumps and keeping up with Sherlock at the same time. John was still reveling in that his best friend could very well be crushing on Adelaide. So he gestured for her to have a seat and turned to Sherlock, "Isn't the next big event taking place soon?"

"It is-"

"Then let's go ahead and stay here. People are going to start gathering back here anyway and Adelaide needs a bit of a rest. I'm going to get a drink."

"John-"

"Stay here and keep looking." John directed, quite pleased with himself as he walked off to fetch a drink. Sherlock huffed but relented nonetheless, unceremoniously plopping down in the chair beside Adelaide. He cast his eyes over the large chamber again.

"Sherlock?"

He glanced over at Adelaide, "Hmm?"

"I hope my date didn't interfere with the case. You didn't look very happy when I was with Jacob."

"He was distracting and to be quite frank you shouldn't be giving him so much attention anyways. Mister Powell is not a potentially compatible partner for you."

"Wh-?" Her mobile started buzzing and she cut herself off to answer the message. Her face contorted, "Not good."

Thank you for reading! I'm working on the first bonus oneshot for my Sherlanna series so keep an eye open for it. I will be publishing the oneshots in their own book and I'll let you all know here or on my message board when it's up. Love you guys!!

And thank you for almost 1000 views! 😘