A wholock story

Chapter 3

Soon enough, John and Sherlock had arrived at Scotland Yard and the sleuth was strolling into Greg's office.

"Ah Sherlock, just the man I was after. I've got a case for you." Lestrade greeted.

"Yes I know Gavin, you just phoned me or has your tiny mind not quite computed that yet?" Sherlock bit back.

John raised his eyebrows at the detective but he took no notice and continued staring at lestrade.

"Right. Anyway, there's been reports of disappearances all over London. We've got about 6 at the moment." The detective inspector explained.

"Yes, and you said they have just gone without a trace?" Sherlock pressed.
Lestrade nodded and so the detective continued, "And you're sure you've checked everything?" He continued.

"Yes! I put my best men on it." Lestrade replied.

"Well, that's why you haven't found anything yet then." Sherlock scoffed.

********

A couple of minuets later, Sherlock was walking back out of the police station with  John not too far behind.
"What makes this one so interesting then? You never just go for a regular disappearance." John asked, catching up to his friend and lengthening his strides to stay next to him.

"Yes but 6 kidnappings all in London, within the space of a week and all gone without a trace? Well, should keep me busy till tomorrow I suppose." The detective replied.

"So you think you'll find them then?"

"John, I found those kids that Moriarty put in the warehouse in under an hour, I think I can deal with this."

Hailing a cab, the two men drove from the police station to the place where the last person to be kidnapped was seen. To John's surprise, it wasn't a back alley or a corner shop, it wasn't an abandoned house or a drug den, it was in the middle of a pedestrian square. It was already nearing the end of May but the weather still felt like the middle of winter. It wasn't raining, but there was a freezing cold wind that nipped at the ends of your fingers and nose. Subsequently, the square was almost completely deserted from shoppers meaning that Sherlock and John were among the very few to brave the freezing conditions and stand outside.

All of a sudden, Sherlock took off from their stationary position at the corner of the square and marched over to a bench located roughly in the middle and sat down.

"The last place Mr Stevenson was seen." He stated, sensing Johns presence behind him, "what did he see?"
Sherlock began turning his head, looking in a methodical pattern, scanning and storing every detail of every object he saw.
After a while John joined him on the bench and started looking around, trying to be useful but really not knowing at all what he was looking for.

Sherlock became restless after a few minuets so John tried to break the tension, "That's a cool statue over there." He stated, grabbing at loose ends to try and start up a conversation.

"Yes well done John, you found the Eros statue. Now, if you would be so kind as to keep your petty comments to a minimum, I'm trying to work." Sherlock replied.

********

An hour and a half later, the two boys were back at Baker Street. John was sat comfortably in his red chair, re-reading the mornings newspaper while sipping a much needed cuppa and warming his toes by the fire.
Sherlock on the other hand, was frantically pacing up and down their living room, his hands under his chin in his 'thinking position'. He had maps and pictures, cut outs of newspaper articles and sections from secret government information (which his brother didn't know he had) stuck and pinned to the wall. There were pieces of red string connecting a few, but the pages mainly seemed individual.
All of a sudden the detective flopped down into the sofa and looked over at John who turned with the commotion.

"Solved it yet?" He asked over the top of the paper.

Sherlock simply grunted in reply. "You know what's wrong with this case John? There's nothing. Absolutely nothing wrong."

John lowered the paper slowly and fixed his friend with a puzzled look.
"Not one single thing is out of place." Sherlock continued, standing up and beckoning for John to come and join him over by the wall, "see here, this image was taken by a security camera at 2 minuets past 11 on the morning of last Friday."

"Okaaaay." John said, indicating that he was following the detectives explanation so far.

"This image," he said, lowering his finger to one just slightly below and to the right, "was taken 30 seconds later. This camera takes an image every 30 seconds and relays it back to a guy on a computer somewhere in London."

John studied the two images hard. Both images were exactly the same with the only difference being that Mr Stevenson was sat on the bench in one, and not in the other. The said bench was positioned in the bottom left hand corner of the picture and was facing the top right.

"And..." John prompted, not sure exactly what his friend was expecting him to see.

Sherlock exhaled, visibly distressed that his friend wasn't keeping up. "When we were there this afternoon we sat in this bench." He said, pointing to the bench that Mr Stevenson was in, "I timed it, and it takes at least 45 seconds to walk from the bench to the other side of this image and out of shot. If Mr Stevenson had just gotten up and walked away, the second shot 30 seconds later would show him on the edge of the photo."

"But it doesn't." John finished, "The photo's empty. So where did he go?"

"Exactly"

"Hold on, couldn't he have just walked off to the side? That would have taken barely 10 seconds to get out of shot."

"John this was that last place he was ever seen. According to eye witnesses, one second he was there and when they turned back he was gone. He must have been kidnapped from this bench, but the question still remains. There would have been a struggle, longer than 30 seconds so we would have seen it. Similarly, he would have also made a commotion which would have alerted passers by. How did he disappear from this bench in under 30 seconds, with no commotion and without being noticed?"