Sherlock Holmes - A Study in Crimson

Chapter 2: The Science of Deduction

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. When I got back to the group home, which was where I was staying until adoption, I sat on my bed and thought.

Who was that girl?

Yes, I know her name now, but really, who was she? What kind of 17 year old kid just knows things like that? All that about me being a war brat in Afghanistan and my leg being psychosomatic, she probably knows more about me than I know about me. And yet she claimed no one told her anything about me before I met her. How on earth did she figure it all out? In my frustration, I dig my hand in my pockets, quite forgetting I had a phone in there.

Of course! She used my phone, and unless she deleted the texts she sent, I'll be able to see them. I go into the messages app, and under an unknown number, the only message sent says "IF SISTER HAS GREEN LADDER ARREST SISTER. SH."

What? What's that supposed to mean? This isn't working, so I formulate another plan of attack. To the Google!

The first result for a search of "Sherlock Holmes" brings me to a blog page - The Science Of Deduction. Funny. I have a blog page, which is hardly ever updated, despite the many constant urgings from my therapist to use it. I look around the blog, which is titled "The Science of Deduction". I spend the next twenty minutes trying to understand the vast differences of tobacco ash. She also claims to be able to identify a software engineer by his tie, or a pilot by his left thumb. This girl is definitely educated, just in a way I'd never imagine. There seems to be no other information about Sherlock Holmes, so I give up the search and go to bed.

* * *

Mrs. Hudson comes to pick me up in the morning. She's a middle aged lady, and very happy to see me. She talks and tries to make me feel comfortable while we ride in the cab that's taking us home. "Sherlock told me she met you yesterday," she says, "I didn't think Mike would have you meet her, or I would have come along, too!"

"About Sherlock," I say, "who exactly is she?"

"She's an extremely helpful little girl," Mrs. Hudson says.

"Little!" I respond, "She's at least a foot taller than me!"

"That's because you're short, dear."
I sit back in my seat. I guess I am short.
Soon enough, we reach home. We're on Baker Street, and I can see a "221B" plated on the door of the apartment. This is exactly where Sherlock said to meet. Now, where is she?

"She's probably not at home yet." Mrs. Hudson says when I ask her, "She's been at the mortuary a lot this past week. I suspect she'll be back before dinner."

For the time being, I look around the house. "Oh, Sherlock," Mrs. Hudson says, the tone of disappointment wavering in her voice. And she has a right to feel disappointed, as the room is a cluttered mess. The room is fairly large and pleasant, aside from the stacks of newspapers, several computers, file cabinets, boxes, books and a terrifying collection of what looks like weapons, scattered about here and there. The kitchen table is cluttered with test tubes and jars and Bunsen burners.

"Your room is upstairs, dear. It's across from Sherlock's." Mrs. Hudson tells me as she does her best to tidy things up. I hear the door open and see Sherlock Holmes step inside. "Oh, you've come!" She says.

"Sherlock, why is the apartment such a mess?" Mrs. Hudson asks.

"It's for my work." Sherlock replies. Mrs. Husdon shakes her head, as if this kind of thing has happened before.
There are two rooms upstairs, one for Sherlock and one for me. Downstairs is a small sitting-room, furnished with chairs and a desk and some shelves, all cluttered with stuff. I look to the closest shelf.

"That's a skull." I comment. It's sitting right next to a pile of papers, which has a knife embedded in it.

"Friend of mine," Sherlock says, "Well, I say friend..."

And so, my unlikely friendship with Sherlock Holmes began.

It was particularly easy to live with Sherlock Holmes, at least, that's what I thought for the first few weeks. She was quiet in her own ways. She never slept past ten, and was always awake before I was. She played the violin, quite well in fact, if I asked her to, but when left to her own devices, she would more often than not just scrape her bow across the strings. Her favourite thing to do was be in the kitchen - or the living room, or her room - doing experiments. Sometimes she'd go out, and take a walk, traversing all over the city. And yet other times, whenever a particular experiment was being rather difficult, she'd get into a fit, and either jump around the room, having no respect for the furniture, or sit crumpled up, somehow squeezing her tall figure into a blob on a chair. She'd be mute for days, and then suddenly figure out the solution to her problem. But when these fits were over, I noticed a kind of lost look in her eyes. She didn't like being lost.

My curiosity about her grew every day, and though I figured some things out, there was always more to be unraveled. She was brilliant, an absolute genius. She'd know everything about a subject which interested her, she could notice the tiniest things in her observations, but her ignorance was almost as great as her brilliance. Her knowledge of the extraordinary was exquisite but some of her common knowledge was nonexistent. I had to teach her about the existence of outer space.

"You seem surprised," she said after I confronted her about it, "But now that I know, I will do my best to forget it."

"Forget! Why would you do that?"

"A fool will think the key to being smart is to shove as much information as he can into his brain. But in reality, the brain is like a hard drive. There is only so much storage in this hard drive, so it is ridiculous to try to learn everything. I only keep the things that matter to me."

"But, the Solar System!"

"What use is it to me? It doesn't matter to me if we go round the sun or the moon, or like teddy bears around the garden, it doesn't affect me or my work."

I could see there was no use in arguing with her. Sherlock was a girl of her own methods, and there was no sense in trying to force your own methods upon her.