First Construction, Introduction and Chapter 1
Wow, it has been an unconscionably long time since I posted any stories here. Of course, in my defense, I did finish and defend my dissertation in the meantime. There's a long story that's still moving at approximately the pace of refrigerated molasses, but in the meantime, this short one just demanded to be written.
Title: First Construction
Author: pargoletta
Fandoms: Sherlock
Main Characters: Sherlock, John, Lestrade
Summary: John’s plan had been simply to take Sherlock out for a pleasant birthday excursion, with no cases and no crime scenes. But, as it is said, man plans, and God laughs.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None that I can think of right now, other than that it is a crime story and there's a small amount of crime-scene-appropriate gore.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters of Arthur Conan Doyle, nor any of the various dramatic incarnations thereof. No profit is being made from this work.
Note: Welcome to this story! It’s just a short little thing that I thought of after going to a percussion concert with a friend. One of the works on the program was John Cage’s 1939 First Construction in Metal, which involves a pianist who has an assistant who leans into the open piano to tap the strings with metal rods. It’s a position that’s not without some risk, and I asked myself, “what if something went wrong?” And thus was a new story born.
The three works described in this part are David Lang’s 1991 The Anvil Chorus, James Tenney’s 1971 Koan: Having Never Written a Note for Percussion, and the aforementioned First Construction in Metal. There are good performances of all of these works available on YouTube, if you’d like to hear them for yourself. Enjoy this story, and I’ll see you at the end!
1. The Principle of Form
“A Jack the Ripper tour?” Sherlock mused. “No. Too obvious, even for you. It’s too late for Madame Tussaud’s, and we wouldn’t have taken a taxi, since it’s so close to home. The Anaesthesia Heritage Centre?”
John laughed. “Nope.”
“Am I close?”
“Not a bit. Enjoy the ride, and you’ll find out when we get there.”
Sherlock wrinkled his nose in frustration and lapsed into silence. John sank back against the seat of the taxi. He glanced out of the window and allowed himself a secret smile at having managed to outwit Sherlock. He had been carefully obvious about Sherlock’s Christmas presents, specially ordered from the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia several weeks in advance, and he had even allowed Sherlock to “discover” the crystal engraving of the skeleton of a pair of infant conjoined twins two nights before Christmas. Sherlock’s combined smugness over the discovery and his genuine pleasure in the present had completely blinded him to John’s plans for his birthday. John found himself enjoying Sherlock’s excitement, much more than he anticipated enjoying the gift itself.
The taxi turned onto Silk Street and drew to a stop. John paid the driver as Sherlock stepped onto the pavement, a look of intrigued wonder spreading across his face. “The Guildhall School,” he said. “We’re here to see -“
“A concert,” John said. He took a quick glance at the tickets in their plain envelope. “The school’s percussion ensemble. You’ve been talking so much about odd music lately, I thought you’d enjoy it.”
He handed the tickets to an usher and received two programmes in exchange. He gave one to Sherlock, who opened it right away and began to pore over it as John guided him to their seats.
“Lang, Tenney, Cage,” Sherlock said. “Fascinating. I’ve never had the opportunity to hear their music performed live before.”
John smiled, in satisfaction at a job well done. “Happy birthday, Sherlock.”
The curtain rose, revealing an assortment of drums, boxes, bells, and xylophones. John glanced at the programme and saw that the first piece listed was called The Anvil Chorus. That, he decided, was the one flaw in an otherwise excellent plan; it was entirely possible that an entire evening of listening to musicians bang on drums and boxes might drive him mad, or at least make him long for the more familiar squawks and wails of Sherlock’s violin. But Sherlock sat next to him, looking utterly entranced, and John decided that he could put up with an evening of noise in return for the expression that was playing across Sherlock’s features at that moment.
The house lights dimmed, and the audience applauded as a young woman dressed in black with her hair in a tight ponytail walked out onto the stage and bowed. Without a word, she took up her position amidst the instruments and picked up a set of mallets. John plastered a smile across his face and attempted to steel himself for what the programme assured him would be seven minutes of pounding, headache-inducing noise.
He was pleasantly surprised to find that the piece began relatively calmly, with metallic notes that were far more rounded and resonant than he had expected, and that the jarring thumps of the bass drum were farther apart than he had feared. There was even a melody of sorts. After a minute or so, John was able to relax and even enjoy the ever-changing texture of chimes, thumps, pops, and clangs, and he found himself positively enjoying a softly tinkling section towards the end. When the musician finished with a final thump of the bass drum and came out from behind the instruments to take her bow, John found himself applauding enthusiastically along with the rest of the audience.
“That,” Sherlock murmured as the curtain fell, “was an excellent performance. It gains so much when you see it live. Being able to trace the textures and rhythmic lines.”
“Yup. Absolutely.” John smiled and nodded.
Sherlock narrowed his eyes at him. “You have no idea what I’m talking about.”
“Not a clue. I’m just glad you’re enjoying it.”
That wrung a smile out of Sherlock. “A fine birthday present, John. Not quite as exciting as a good murder, of course, but most satisfactory.”
John gave a laugh that came out as half a snort. “Well, you know, I can’t just order a murder for you as a present, of course.” Then a thought struck him, and he glanced at Sherlock. “Er . . . you do know that, right? This isn’t another one of those little talks we need to have?”
“Certainly not now. They’re about to play Koan.”
Sherlock directed John’s attention to the stage, where a large metal gong now hung from a frame in front of the curtain. Two large felt mallets lay on a pillow in front of the gong. John glanced quickly at his programme, but was only able to determine that the full name of the piece was Koan: Having Never Written A Note For Percussion before a young man, also dressed in black, walked out onto the stage, bowed, took up the mallets and seated himself cross-legged on the pillow facing the gong, his back to the audience.
For the longest time, it seemed to John that nothing was happening. Then he became aware of a subtle rumbling, almost too quiet to hear. A few minutes after that, he realized that the young man had in fact been working at the gong for the entire time, slowly drawing an increasing volume of low, shimmering sound out of the thing. John began to feel uneasy, and stole a glance at Sherlock. Sherlock was sitting in his seat, his eyes closed, his hands pressed together below his chin, his whole body quivering in rapt attention, almost as if he were vibrating in sympathy with the gong. The gong grew louder, and the sound seemed to expand to fill the entire concert hall, and John decided that the better part of valour was simply to surrender to the experience.
He wasn’t sure what happened for some time afterwards. Powerful waves of sound surged through him, and sometimes he thought that he heard strange, unearthly melodies humming along just below his consciousness. When he tried closing his eyes like Sherlock, he saw strange colours flowing and shifting along the insides of his eyelids. For an instant, he thought he was almost able to taste the sound, but afterwards, he never could find the words to describe the flavour.
After what seemed like an eternity, the wall of sound thinned, and began to reduce itself. The strange melodies and flavours receded, and John was able to think again. The shimmer of the gong tapered off as slowly as it had risen, and it took John a moment to realise that the work was over. The gong player rose smoothly to his feet to take his bow, and John applauded politely along with the rest of the audience. A surreptitious check of his watch revealed that the whole experience had lasted only twenty minutes.
“That was incredible,” John said.
Sherlock simply nodded, and took a few deep breaths, as if he had just woken from a refreshing sleep.
A thought struck John. “Is this what it’s like when you’re high?” he asked. “Because I can definitely see the appeal.”
Sherlock glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “Possibly. Perhaps I should get you high so that you have some basis for comparison.”
John sighed. “Just warn me first. If I’m going to have an experience, I’d at least like to know that I am having that experience.”
“Boring.”
The curtain rose before Sherlock had a chance to say anything else, revealing another large array of xylophones, blocks, drums, what appeared to be hanging sheets of metal, and a piano. The programme announced that the piece performed on these instruments would be John Cage’s First Construction in Metal. Having enjoyed the previous two pieces much more than he had expected to do, John found himself much better prepared to appreciate the opening crash of the metal sheets and the clanking, rhythmic melody that made him think of documentary films about heavy industry.
He was especially intrigued by the piano, which was occupied by two people. One young man was sitting at the keyboard, but the second was stationed at the side of the piano. The instrument’s lid was fully propped open, and the assistant leaned into the instrument, doing things inside that John could not see, but which looked vaguely like a mechanic rooting around in the bonnet of a car. Occasionally, the pianist would stand up and reach into the piano as well.
John suspected that Sherlock knew not only what the musicians were doing, but why they were doing it and what effect they were having on the sound of the instrument, and would be more than happy to explain it in great detail during the interval. So he sat back and did not worry about anything other than watching the spectacle of this group of clearly talented performers producing distinctly odd music. He was especially impressed with the rumbling of the metal sheets, recalling a long-ago grammar school performance of The Tempest, in which he had been assigned to rattle similar sheets offstage to make the sound of thunder. For a moment, he lost himself in fond memories of the play and his desperate crush on the sixth-form girl who had played Miranda. Jill Bellwood, that had been her name.
The pianist’s assistant reached out to adjust something inside the piano, and brushed the piano lid support lightly with his shoulder. In an instant, the support buckled, and the lid crashed down on the assistant’s spine, pinning him half inside the instrument, and startling the rest of the musicians into silence.
John was on his feet before he realised it, climbing over Sherlock’s knees and making his way towards the stage. The audience sat frozen, not yet certain if this event was part of the show or not. This moment of shock would be the first, best time to control a situation in which at least one man was clearly gravely injured. As John reached the stage, he saw blood pooling on the piano keyboard, and he realised that the pianist’s left arm was also crushed and trapped beneath the lid. Sherlock caught up to John just as the pianist began to cry out, and boosted him onto the stage.
“I’m a doctor,” John said. He turned and spotted a stagehand cowering off to the side. “Lower the curtain, now!” The stagehand turned and grabbed for a rope, and the curtain came down, separating the audience from the blood and chaos on the stage.
One of the metal-sheet players turned and reached out to the assistant. John seized her arm. “Don’t touch him!” he barked. “Call 999 now, tell them we have two casualties, and we need an ambulance.”
The metal-sheet player scurried off the stage. John turned his attention to the piano. The assistant hung unmoving, half in and half out of the instrument. John reached in and located the assistant’s carotid pulse by feel. It was weak, but present. “He’s alive,” he reported. “What’s his name?”
“Nicholas Barker,” the conductor said. “Goes by Nick.”
“Nick?” John called. “Nick, can you hear me?”
The assistant moaned.
“Nick, my name is John Watson, and I’m a doctor. We’ll get you out of there as soon as possible. Don’t move. The piano lid is on your back, and we don’t want you hurt any more than you already are.” John waved to a girl who had played one of the xylophones. “Come over here and stay with him. Don’t let him move too much, and don’t lift that lid until the ambulance arrives.”
The pianist had begun to scream in earnest, and was now trying to pull his arm out from under the piano lid. John flicked a glance at Sherlock, who hurried to stand behind the pianist and put his hand on his shoulders.
“Stop shouting,” Sherlock told him. “Let him work. This is the best doctor I know.”
“Hurts!” the pianist gasped.
“I know,” John said. “What’s your name?”
“Charles Milton.”
“All right, Charles. Stay calm. Sherlock, take his hand.” John looked Charles in the eye. “Don’t move. Squeeze Sherlock’s hand if you need to. I’m just going to look at your arm here.”
He tried to angle his head so that he could see the extent of the injury, but Charles writhed on the piano bench. John sighed. “Sherlock, help out.”
Sherlock thought for an instant. “The piano,” he began, “was invented in Italy at the turn of the eighteenth century by Bartolomeo Cristofori, as an attempt to combine the virtues of the harpsichord and the clavichord.”
Sherlock continued reciting the history of the piano in a slow monotone, and Charles began to relax just enough that John could look at his arm. The lid had impacted a few inches above the wrist, crushing and mangling flesh and bone, but it did not seem to have severed the arm. There was not as much bleeding as John had feared, as the weight of the lid had sealed most of the affected blood vessels. He turned his most reassuring smile on Charles.
“All right,” he said. “You’ve got a good bash on your arm, but everything’s still attached.”
“Th-that’s good, right?” Charles gasped.
“Huge. Much easier for the doctors to deal with, having it all still together.”
“Am I going to be all right?”
John smiled. “We’ll know more when we can get you to hospital.”
Just out of Charles’s sight, Sherlock frowned at John and then glanced at the shattered piano lid support. Before he could say anything, sirens wailed and drew to a stop outside. Four paramedics hurried onto the stage, carrying a backboard and large medical kits.
“Two casualties,” John told them. “Nick Barker over there, crush injury to the spine. Breathing, weak pulse, he’s altered, needs the backboard. Charles Milton here, crush injury to the left arm, breathing, strong pulse, fully conscious. I’m Dr. John Watson, examined them on the scene.”
“Thanks, love,” the lead paramedic said.
She and John organised Sherlock and the members of the percussion ensemble so that two people could hold Nick and Charles steady as two others lifted the piano lid. Sherlock assigned himself to the team lifting the lid, and peered intently at the broken support as he did so. The paramedics eased Nick out of the piano and strapped him to the backboard. They attached Charles to an oxygen mask, put an IV in his whole arm, and splinted his injured arm before loading him onto a stretcher trolley.
“I’ll ride with them to hospital,” the conductor said. “Get in touch with their families from there. Donna, you’re in charge until I get back. Take everyone to the green room. I’ll ring you as soon as I know anything.”
John and the others stood back to let the ambulance party depart. Sherlock glanced around the scene, and his eyebrow twitched in a way that John knew all too well.
“Don’t let them leave, John,” Sherlock murmured. “And don’t let them touch anything. I’ve texted Lestrade, and he’ll be here shortly. This wasn’t an accident.”
John nodded. “Right.” He glanced around. “Donna? Which one are you?”
A tall blonde girl who had been playing a gong raised her hand.
“Good. All of you, follow Donna into the green room. Donna, you’d best get the kettle on. Hot sweet tea for everyone. Don’t worry about the mess. We’ll call your teachers, get it all sorted.”
With a few nudges, the musicians started moving. They stumbled off the stage in a line, leaving Sherlock and John alone in the ruins of the concert.
“All right, Sherlock,” John said. “What do you mean, this wasn’t an accident?”
Title: First Construction
Author: pargoletta
Fandoms: Sherlock
Main Characters: Sherlock, John, Lestrade
Summary: John’s plan had been simply to take Sherlock out for a pleasant birthday excursion, with no cases and no crime scenes. But, as it is said, man plans, and God laughs.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None that I can think of right now, other than that it is a crime story and there's a small amount of crime-scene-appropriate gore.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters of Arthur Conan Doyle, nor any of the various dramatic incarnations thereof. No profit is being made from this work.
Note: Welcome to this story! It’s just a short little thing that I thought of after going to a percussion concert with a friend. One of the works on the program was John Cage’s 1939 First Construction in Metal, which involves a pianist who has an assistant who leans into the open piano to tap the strings with metal rods. It’s a position that’s not without some risk, and I asked myself, “what if something went wrong?” And thus was a new story born.
The three works described in this part are David Lang’s 1991 The Anvil Chorus, James Tenney’s 1971 Koan: Having Never Written a Note for Percussion, and the aforementioned First Construction in Metal. There are good performances of all of these works available on YouTube, if you’d like to hear them for yourself. Enjoy this story, and I’ll see you at the end!
1. The Principle of Form
“A Jack the Ripper tour?” Sherlock mused. “No. Too obvious, even for you. It’s too late for Madame Tussaud’s, and we wouldn’t have taken a taxi, since it’s so close to home. The Anaesthesia Heritage Centre?”
John laughed. “Nope.”
“Am I close?”
“Not a bit. Enjoy the ride, and you’ll find out when we get there.”
Sherlock wrinkled his nose in frustration and lapsed into silence. John sank back against the seat of the taxi. He glanced out of the window and allowed himself a secret smile at having managed to outwit Sherlock. He had been carefully obvious about Sherlock’s Christmas presents, specially ordered from the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia several weeks in advance, and he had even allowed Sherlock to “discover” the crystal engraving of the skeleton of a pair of infant conjoined twins two nights before Christmas. Sherlock’s combined smugness over the discovery and his genuine pleasure in the present had completely blinded him to John’s plans for his birthday. John found himself enjoying Sherlock’s excitement, much more than he anticipated enjoying the gift itself.
The taxi turned onto Silk Street and drew to a stop. John paid the driver as Sherlock stepped onto the pavement, a look of intrigued wonder spreading across his face. “The Guildhall School,” he said. “We’re here to see -“
“A concert,” John said. He took a quick glance at the tickets in their plain envelope. “The school’s percussion ensemble. You’ve been talking so much about odd music lately, I thought you’d enjoy it.”
He handed the tickets to an usher and received two programmes in exchange. He gave one to Sherlock, who opened it right away and began to pore over it as John guided him to their seats.
“Lang, Tenney, Cage,” Sherlock said. “Fascinating. I’ve never had the opportunity to hear their music performed live before.”
John smiled, in satisfaction at a job well done. “Happy birthday, Sherlock.”
The curtain rose, revealing an assortment of drums, boxes, bells, and xylophones. John glanced at the programme and saw that the first piece listed was called The Anvil Chorus. That, he decided, was the one flaw in an otherwise excellent plan; it was entirely possible that an entire evening of listening to musicians bang on drums and boxes might drive him mad, or at least make him long for the more familiar squawks and wails of Sherlock’s violin. But Sherlock sat next to him, looking utterly entranced, and John decided that he could put up with an evening of noise in return for the expression that was playing across Sherlock’s features at that moment.
The house lights dimmed, and the audience applauded as a young woman dressed in black with her hair in a tight ponytail walked out onto the stage and bowed. Without a word, she took up her position amidst the instruments and picked up a set of mallets. John plastered a smile across his face and attempted to steel himself for what the programme assured him would be seven minutes of pounding, headache-inducing noise.
He was pleasantly surprised to find that the piece began relatively calmly, with metallic notes that were far more rounded and resonant than he had expected, and that the jarring thumps of the bass drum were farther apart than he had feared. There was even a melody of sorts. After a minute or so, John was able to relax and even enjoy the ever-changing texture of chimes, thumps, pops, and clangs, and he found himself positively enjoying a softly tinkling section towards the end. When the musician finished with a final thump of the bass drum and came out from behind the instruments to take her bow, John found himself applauding enthusiastically along with the rest of the audience.
“That,” Sherlock murmured as the curtain fell, “was an excellent performance. It gains so much when you see it live. Being able to trace the textures and rhythmic lines.”
“Yup. Absolutely.” John smiled and nodded.
Sherlock narrowed his eyes at him. “You have no idea what I’m talking about.”
“Not a clue. I’m just glad you’re enjoying it.”
That wrung a smile out of Sherlock. “A fine birthday present, John. Not quite as exciting as a good murder, of course, but most satisfactory.”
John gave a laugh that came out as half a snort. “Well, you know, I can’t just order a murder for you as a present, of course.” Then a thought struck him, and he glanced at Sherlock. “Er . . . you do know that, right? This isn’t another one of those little talks we need to have?”
“Certainly not now. They’re about to play Koan.”
Sherlock directed John’s attention to the stage, where a large metal gong now hung from a frame in front of the curtain. Two large felt mallets lay on a pillow in front of the gong. John glanced quickly at his programme, but was only able to determine that the full name of the piece was Koan: Having Never Written A Note For Percussion before a young man, also dressed in black, walked out onto the stage, bowed, took up the mallets and seated himself cross-legged on the pillow facing the gong, his back to the audience.
For the longest time, it seemed to John that nothing was happening. Then he became aware of a subtle rumbling, almost too quiet to hear. A few minutes after that, he realized that the young man had in fact been working at the gong for the entire time, slowly drawing an increasing volume of low, shimmering sound out of the thing. John began to feel uneasy, and stole a glance at Sherlock. Sherlock was sitting in his seat, his eyes closed, his hands pressed together below his chin, his whole body quivering in rapt attention, almost as if he were vibrating in sympathy with the gong. The gong grew louder, and the sound seemed to expand to fill the entire concert hall, and John decided that the better part of valour was simply to surrender to the experience.
He wasn’t sure what happened for some time afterwards. Powerful waves of sound surged through him, and sometimes he thought that he heard strange, unearthly melodies humming along just below his consciousness. When he tried closing his eyes like Sherlock, he saw strange colours flowing and shifting along the insides of his eyelids. For an instant, he thought he was almost able to taste the sound, but afterwards, he never could find the words to describe the flavour.
After what seemed like an eternity, the wall of sound thinned, and began to reduce itself. The strange melodies and flavours receded, and John was able to think again. The shimmer of the gong tapered off as slowly as it had risen, and it took John a moment to realise that the work was over. The gong player rose smoothly to his feet to take his bow, and John applauded politely along with the rest of the audience. A surreptitious check of his watch revealed that the whole experience had lasted only twenty minutes.
“That was incredible,” John said.
Sherlock simply nodded, and took a few deep breaths, as if he had just woken from a refreshing sleep.
A thought struck John. “Is this what it’s like when you’re high?” he asked. “Because I can definitely see the appeal.”
Sherlock glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “Possibly. Perhaps I should get you high so that you have some basis for comparison.”
John sighed. “Just warn me first. If I’m going to have an experience, I’d at least like to know that I am having that experience.”
“Boring.”
The curtain rose before Sherlock had a chance to say anything else, revealing another large array of xylophones, blocks, drums, what appeared to be hanging sheets of metal, and a piano. The programme announced that the piece performed on these instruments would be John Cage’s First Construction in Metal. Having enjoyed the previous two pieces much more than he had expected to do, John found himself much better prepared to appreciate the opening crash of the metal sheets and the clanking, rhythmic melody that made him think of documentary films about heavy industry.
He was especially intrigued by the piano, which was occupied by two people. One young man was sitting at the keyboard, but the second was stationed at the side of the piano. The instrument’s lid was fully propped open, and the assistant leaned into the instrument, doing things inside that John could not see, but which looked vaguely like a mechanic rooting around in the bonnet of a car. Occasionally, the pianist would stand up and reach into the piano as well.
John suspected that Sherlock knew not only what the musicians were doing, but why they were doing it and what effect they were having on the sound of the instrument, and would be more than happy to explain it in great detail during the interval. So he sat back and did not worry about anything other than watching the spectacle of this group of clearly talented performers producing distinctly odd music. He was especially impressed with the rumbling of the metal sheets, recalling a long-ago grammar school performance of The Tempest, in which he had been assigned to rattle similar sheets offstage to make the sound of thunder. For a moment, he lost himself in fond memories of the play and his desperate crush on the sixth-form girl who had played Miranda. Jill Bellwood, that had been her name.
The pianist’s assistant reached out to adjust something inside the piano, and brushed the piano lid support lightly with his shoulder. In an instant, the support buckled, and the lid crashed down on the assistant’s spine, pinning him half inside the instrument, and startling the rest of the musicians into silence.
John was on his feet before he realised it, climbing over Sherlock’s knees and making his way towards the stage. The audience sat frozen, not yet certain if this event was part of the show or not. This moment of shock would be the first, best time to control a situation in which at least one man was clearly gravely injured. As John reached the stage, he saw blood pooling on the piano keyboard, and he realised that the pianist’s left arm was also crushed and trapped beneath the lid. Sherlock caught up to John just as the pianist began to cry out, and boosted him onto the stage.
“I’m a doctor,” John said. He turned and spotted a stagehand cowering off to the side. “Lower the curtain, now!” The stagehand turned and grabbed for a rope, and the curtain came down, separating the audience from the blood and chaos on the stage.
One of the metal-sheet players turned and reached out to the assistant. John seized her arm. “Don’t touch him!” he barked. “Call 999 now, tell them we have two casualties, and we need an ambulance.”
The metal-sheet player scurried off the stage. John turned his attention to the piano. The assistant hung unmoving, half in and half out of the instrument. John reached in and located the assistant’s carotid pulse by feel. It was weak, but present. “He’s alive,” he reported. “What’s his name?”
“Nicholas Barker,” the conductor said. “Goes by Nick.”
“Nick?” John called. “Nick, can you hear me?”
The assistant moaned.
“Nick, my name is John Watson, and I’m a doctor. We’ll get you out of there as soon as possible. Don’t move. The piano lid is on your back, and we don’t want you hurt any more than you already are.” John waved to a girl who had played one of the xylophones. “Come over here and stay with him. Don’t let him move too much, and don’t lift that lid until the ambulance arrives.”
The pianist had begun to scream in earnest, and was now trying to pull his arm out from under the piano lid. John flicked a glance at Sherlock, who hurried to stand behind the pianist and put his hand on his shoulders.
“Stop shouting,” Sherlock told him. “Let him work. This is the best doctor I know.”
“Hurts!” the pianist gasped.
“I know,” John said. “What’s your name?”
“Charles Milton.”
“All right, Charles. Stay calm. Sherlock, take his hand.” John looked Charles in the eye. “Don’t move. Squeeze Sherlock’s hand if you need to. I’m just going to look at your arm here.”
He tried to angle his head so that he could see the extent of the injury, but Charles writhed on the piano bench. John sighed. “Sherlock, help out.”
Sherlock thought for an instant. “The piano,” he began, “was invented in Italy at the turn of the eighteenth century by Bartolomeo Cristofori, as an attempt to combine the virtues of the harpsichord and the clavichord.”
Sherlock continued reciting the history of the piano in a slow monotone, and Charles began to relax just enough that John could look at his arm. The lid had impacted a few inches above the wrist, crushing and mangling flesh and bone, but it did not seem to have severed the arm. There was not as much bleeding as John had feared, as the weight of the lid had sealed most of the affected blood vessels. He turned his most reassuring smile on Charles.
“All right,” he said. “You’ve got a good bash on your arm, but everything’s still attached.”
“Th-that’s good, right?” Charles gasped.
“Huge. Much easier for the doctors to deal with, having it all still together.”
“Am I going to be all right?”
John smiled. “We’ll know more when we can get you to hospital.”
Just out of Charles’s sight, Sherlock frowned at John and then glanced at the shattered piano lid support. Before he could say anything, sirens wailed and drew to a stop outside. Four paramedics hurried onto the stage, carrying a backboard and large medical kits.
“Two casualties,” John told them. “Nick Barker over there, crush injury to the spine. Breathing, weak pulse, he’s altered, needs the backboard. Charles Milton here, crush injury to the left arm, breathing, strong pulse, fully conscious. I’m Dr. John Watson, examined them on the scene.”
“Thanks, love,” the lead paramedic said.
She and John organised Sherlock and the members of the percussion ensemble so that two people could hold Nick and Charles steady as two others lifted the piano lid. Sherlock assigned himself to the team lifting the lid, and peered intently at the broken support as he did so. The paramedics eased Nick out of the piano and strapped him to the backboard. They attached Charles to an oxygen mask, put an IV in his whole arm, and splinted his injured arm before loading him onto a stretcher trolley.
“I’ll ride with them to hospital,” the conductor said. “Get in touch with their families from there. Donna, you’re in charge until I get back. Take everyone to the green room. I’ll ring you as soon as I know anything.”
John and the others stood back to let the ambulance party depart. Sherlock glanced around the scene, and his eyebrow twitched in a way that John knew all too well.
“Don’t let them leave, John,” Sherlock murmured. “And don’t let them touch anything. I’ve texted Lestrade, and he’ll be here shortly. This wasn’t an accident.”
John nodded. “Right.” He glanced around. “Donna? Which one are you?”
A tall blonde girl who had been playing a gong raised her hand.
“Good. All of you, follow Donna into the green room. Donna, you’d best get the kettle on. Hot sweet tea for everyone. Don’t worry about the mess. We’ll call your teachers, get it all sorted.”
With a few nudges, the musicians started moving. They stumbled off the stage in a line, leaving Sherlock and John alone in the ruins of the concert.
“All right, Sherlock,” John said. “What do you mean, this wasn’t an accident?”