Fic: Life in a Glasshouse [2/?]
Title: Life in a Glasshouse
Category: Doctor Who/Sherlock (2010)
Genre: Mystery-based gen
Primary Characters: Sally Sparrow, Sherlock Holmes
Rating: PG
Setting: four years post-"Blink", a year or so post-"The Great Game"
Summary: When an acquaintance of Sally's is murdered she calls in the help of Sherlock Holmes.
Previous Parts: Prologue & Chapter I
II.
It rained the second time I met Sherlock Holmes. It rains on average 150 days of the year in London, and somehow it still feels significant; rain punctuates the openings and closings of my life.
This time, I sought him out - because I had heard a little about Sherlock Holmes (in fact, I had looked into him), and I needed his help. I knocked at the door to 221B Baker Street three times before someone answered it, and it wasn't the pallid man I had met in the book shop; in fact, it was a woman - an older woman, with an eager-to-please smile. "Yes, dear?" she said.
"Does a Sherlock Holmes live here?" I asked, glancing down at the address I had written on now-sodden notepaper.
"Oh, yes," she said, and then called "Sherlock! There's someone here for you." She turned to me and said, "I'm Mrs Hudson, the landlady. I live in 221A."
"You answer the door for him?" I asked.
"Well," she said, after a pause, "I happened to be passing through." Then, "Just go on through."
I peered around the door into the flat. The curtains were drawn and no lamps were lit, and the whole overcast room was littered with - books, papers, glass jars, test tubes, a bunsen burner; a stack of papers was fixed to the mantelpiece with a knife. It was a strange, shifting, quasi-scientific, quasi-piratical seascape; I felt like a skull would have seemed quite at home, perched upon this pile of books here, or on that one arm of the sofa there not yet covered with papers. I stepped in and ran my fingers over the glistening sea-surface of papers, mostly scribbled over with complicated diagrams illustrating some - experiment, I supposed.
"Ms Sparrow," said a voice just over my shoulder, and I started. I turned to see my host. He looked at me in that way which was somehow both detached and penetrating, as if he were hardly looking at me at all and yet saw everything about me that there was to see.
"Sally," I said.
"Sherlock," he said. He made no move to clear the papers off the sofa so I pushed a stack of them to one side and sat in the space I'd created.
"Is it always like this here?" I asked, amused by the contrast between the state of his flat and the state of his mind.
"No," he said. "My flatmate usually takes care of all the -" he made a throwaway gesture "- tidying." His expression darkened for a moment - as if a cloud had passed over him - and then cleared just as suddenly. "He's away," he said. Then, abruptly, "I assume you have come to ask for my help."
I had almost forgotten, in the peculiarity of the moment, that anything had happened to me at all. "Yes," I said.
He sank into the armchair and, half-closing his eyes, steepled his fingertips. "Tell me about the case," he said. "Just the facts."
"Well," I said, slowly, "two nights ago I went around to the house of one of my customers - Arthur Rutherford - at his request; I was there from about 9.45pm for about half an hour, maybe an hour." Then, because I couldn't think of any other factual way to say this, "After I left, he was murdered in one of the upstairs rooms-"
"Presumably," he interrupted, "a room you hadn't been in."
"Yes," I said. "His death was reported the following morning when he failed to show up for work."
"Why were you at his house?" His voice remained flat; there was no pre-supposition in it.
I drummed my fingers on my lap. "He'd had a fright," I said, after a moment. "His daughter died three years ago and he lived alone; he thought he'd seen her face at the window - so he asked me to come and put his mind at rest."
"Why you specifically?"
"I suppose," I said, drily, "because I have something of a 'reputation' for - for dealing with the supernatural."
"Then," he said, opening his eyes and staring straight ahead, "you think that the police are overlooking the significance of this incident."
In technical terms he was correct, and though I had had my sanity called into question when I pressed this idea to the police his tone was neutral and - as far as he is capable (as Sherlock Holmes gives the air of a man who is always concluding that the people around him are sadly lacking in critical faculties) - non-judgemental.
"There were no prints on the pane," I said, "and although the ground looked as if it had been disturbed I found no definite footprints around the house. But several branches had been broken on one of the trees at the end of the garden and there was soil on the pavement which I think was left there by someone who had been in the garden and climbed over the wall to escape."
Sherlock opened his eyes and looked directly at me for a moment. Then, "I see," he said. "Then you think that Mr Rutherford did see someone in his garden that night."
"I certainly think it's a possibility," I said. "But the police think I'm spinning them ghost stories."
"No doubt thanks to your 'reputation'," he said, "- and aided by the fact that you haven't been ruled out yet as a possible suspect."
"There's no evidence that I was in the room where Mr Rutherford was killed," I said, "or even that I went anywhere but the ground floor."
"Yes," he said, "and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
"No," I said, "I suppose not."
After a moment's pause he stood up and walked over to the window; the rain was still beating against it. "Unfortunately for you," he said, "almost all the evidence that anybody else was in that garden will have been washed away by now."
"But that's not quite what I want to prove," I said, "is it? I want to know out who was in the room."
There was a long pause, and then he turned around. There was a strange smile on his face. "Then shall we?" he said.
Category: Doctor Who/Sherlock (2010)
Genre: Mystery-based gen
Primary Characters: Sally Sparrow, Sherlock Holmes
Rating: PG
Setting: four years post-"Blink", a year or so post-"The Great Game"
Summary: When an acquaintance of Sally's is murdered she calls in the help of Sherlock Holmes.
Previous Parts: Prologue & Chapter I
II.
It rained the second time I met Sherlock Holmes. It rains on average 150 days of the year in London, and somehow it still feels significant; rain punctuates the openings and closings of my life.
This time, I sought him out - because I had heard a little about Sherlock Holmes (in fact, I had looked into him), and I needed his help. I knocked at the door to 221B Baker Street three times before someone answered it, and it wasn't the pallid man I had met in the book shop; in fact, it was a woman - an older woman, with an eager-to-please smile. "Yes, dear?" she said.
"Does a Sherlock Holmes live here?" I asked, glancing down at the address I had written on now-sodden notepaper.
"Oh, yes," she said, and then called "Sherlock! There's someone here for you." She turned to me and said, "I'm Mrs Hudson, the landlady. I live in 221A."
"You answer the door for him?" I asked.
"Well," she said, after a pause, "I happened to be passing through." Then, "Just go on through."
I peered around the door into the flat. The curtains were drawn and no lamps were lit, and the whole overcast room was littered with - books, papers, glass jars, test tubes, a bunsen burner; a stack of papers was fixed to the mantelpiece with a knife. It was a strange, shifting, quasi-scientific, quasi-piratical seascape; I felt like a skull would have seemed quite at home, perched upon this pile of books here, or on that one arm of the sofa there not yet covered with papers. I stepped in and ran my fingers over the glistening sea-surface of papers, mostly scribbled over with complicated diagrams illustrating some - experiment, I supposed.
"Ms Sparrow," said a voice just over my shoulder, and I started. I turned to see my host. He looked at me in that way which was somehow both detached and penetrating, as if he were hardly looking at me at all and yet saw everything about me that there was to see.
"Sally," I said.
"Sherlock," he said. He made no move to clear the papers off the sofa so I pushed a stack of them to one side and sat in the space I'd created.
"Is it always like this here?" I asked, amused by the contrast between the state of his flat and the state of his mind.
"No," he said. "My flatmate usually takes care of all the -" he made a throwaway gesture "- tidying." His expression darkened for a moment - as if a cloud had passed over him - and then cleared just as suddenly. "He's away," he said. Then, abruptly, "I assume you have come to ask for my help."
I had almost forgotten, in the peculiarity of the moment, that anything had happened to me at all. "Yes," I said.
He sank into the armchair and, half-closing his eyes, steepled his fingertips. "Tell me about the case," he said. "Just the facts."
"Well," I said, slowly, "two nights ago I went around to the house of one of my customers - Arthur Rutherford - at his request; I was there from about 9.45pm for about half an hour, maybe an hour." Then, because I couldn't think of any other factual way to say this, "After I left, he was murdered in one of the upstairs rooms-"
"Presumably," he interrupted, "a room you hadn't been in."
"Yes," I said. "His death was reported the following morning when he failed to show up for work."
"Why were you at his house?" His voice remained flat; there was no pre-supposition in it.
I drummed my fingers on my lap. "He'd had a fright," I said, after a moment. "His daughter died three years ago and he lived alone; he thought he'd seen her face at the window - so he asked me to come and put his mind at rest."
"Why you specifically?"
"I suppose," I said, drily, "because I have something of a 'reputation' for - for dealing with the supernatural."
"Then," he said, opening his eyes and staring straight ahead, "you think that the police are overlooking the significance of this incident."
In technical terms he was correct, and though I had had my sanity called into question when I pressed this idea to the police his tone was neutral and - as far as he is capable (as Sherlock Holmes gives the air of a man who is always concluding that the people around him are sadly lacking in critical faculties) - non-judgemental.
"There were no prints on the pane," I said, "and although the ground looked as if it had been disturbed I found no definite footprints around the house. But several branches had been broken on one of the trees at the end of the garden and there was soil on the pavement which I think was left there by someone who had been in the garden and climbed over the wall to escape."
Sherlock opened his eyes and looked directly at me for a moment. Then, "I see," he said. "Then you think that Mr Rutherford did see someone in his garden that night."
"I certainly think it's a possibility," I said. "But the police think I'm spinning them ghost stories."
"No doubt thanks to your 'reputation'," he said, "- and aided by the fact that you haven't been ruled out yet as a possible suspect."
"There's no evidence that I was in the room where Mr Rutherford was killed," I said, "or even that I went anywhere but the ground floor."
"Yes," he said, "and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
"No," I said, "I suppose not."
After a moment's pause he stood up and walked over to the window; the rain was still beating against it. "Unfortunately for you," he said, "almost all the evidence that anybody else was in that garden will have been washed away by now."
"But that's not quite what I want to prove," I said, "is it? I want to know out who was in the room."
There was a long pause, and then he turned around. There was a strange smile on his face. "Then shall we?" he said.