Fic: A Study in B Flat (4/5)
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Just a bit of swearing
Word Count: ~1,800 of 8,500 words
Notes: Beta-read and cheer-led by the inimitable dulcemia. Thank you also to swissmarg for a second read through. Any remaining awkwardness is all my own.
Summary: Sherlock is a violinist and consulting composer who writes the pieces his clients are too dim to ask for, and John is an ex-army doctor and handy amateur clarinettist. Together they make music.
A story containing deductive inferences, music for adrenaline junkies, and the development of an unforeseen relationship.
[Part Four: Not a Very Nice Piano]
Part Four: Not a Very Nice Piano
John ventures back into his bedroom after completing his morning ablutions, and he's not altogether surprised when Sherlock materialises so close behind him that John can feel his breath tickling the back of his ear.
"Morning, John."
His voice is immoderately loud, John thinks irritably, and far too keyed up for the early hour. Probably his brain's not stopped rattling over the details of his new obsession since he latched onto it last night. That's fine, and he's bound to reveal something remarkable and exciting in due course, but John’s still in his dressing gown, and he'd rather not be when Sherlock goes racing out the door after the next irresistible lead. He starts pulling clothes out of his drawers and wardrobe while Sherlock, predictably, makes his way over to the piano.
"Listen to this."
John relaxes muscles he hadn't even realised he'd tensed when Sherlock presses a single chipped white key in the middle of the keyboard. He's about to tell him that he's quite welcome to explain the point of the exercise, only please after he's left John alone for a moment to change into some proper clothes, when an almighty crash startles him out of his complacency.
Not only is the sound of the impact genuinely startling, but his musician's empathy is outraged by the deep and splintered dent that Sherlock's inflicted on the piano frame.
"Christ, Sherlock! What the hell was that?"
"Concert A. Obviously. My tuning fork. Now listen to this."
He presses the A key again, and John is less than unsurprised that it doesn't match the sustained ringing of the fork.
"Yes, all right. The piano's wildly out of tune. I think I got that last night when you kept trying to play the damn thing." He pulls the cord on his dressing gown tight, and then takes hold of Sherlock's forearm to push him towards the door and out of his room.
Sherlock allows himself to be propelled as far as the door frame, but lodges himself against it. "And what else?" he prompts. "Sharp or flat, John?"
Still grasping Sherlock’s arm, John is distracted by how pleasantly warm and vital he feels. It occurs to him that he could so very easily insert himself right into Sherlock’s personal space and lean himself against his very attractive friend, but even though Sherlock’s disdain for social cues and conventions would probably preclude his protesting, John’s had no indication that he would actually welcome such an advance. In any case, he’s still waiting for John to catch up with his fevered chain of deduction, so it’s hardly the best moment for that kind of thinking.
"Sharp. Obviously." John delivers Sherlock's favourite word with as much irony as he can muster, while barely managing not to lean his head against Sherlock’s shoulder. "Look, just... Sherlock, I need you to get out for a moment. I'll be dressed soon enough, and then-fine-we can talk about destroying pianos."
"It wasn't a very nice piano, anyway," says Sherlock dismissively. John wonders whether he should feel more ashamed than he does on account of completely agreeing.
Sherlock continues: "But that's irrelevant in any case. How can you be so slow, John? You listen, but you don't hear."
"That may be so," allows John. "But you don't even listen. Go on; get out! I’ll only need five minutes."
He gives an illustrative shove, and finally Sherlock condescends to exit the room.
*
It’s not long before Sherlock returns with a marker pen and perches himself back on the piano stool. John comes over to hover behind him.
“A sharp. Piano,” says Sherlock, punctuating his observation by depressing the A4 key again, and then the A5. The second A is even sharper than the first.
Next, Sherlock plays A5 and D6: a perfect perfect fourth. He unapologetically marks both of them with a number ‘1’, using his pen. John cringes.
“It could have got sharp as a result of autumn humidity if it was last tuned in summer or late spring, but then the central notes would be sharper than the peripheral ones. Also, it’s actually mostly flat.”
He thwacks the piano again with his tuning fork, and plays the A3. John can’t help himself from flinching at the impact. Nonetheless he concedes that the note is, indeed, pretty flat.
“Of the order of two whole tones,” supplies Sherlock. “As are most of the other keys. So we can infer that the instrument probably hasn’t been tuned for a long time, and was possibly transported quite roughly. It certainly doesn’t look like it’s been well-looked after. But if that were true, we’d expect all of the notes to be flat...
“Consider. Piano. Above-it has to be a message.”
Next, Sherlock plays three keys together that span quite a large range. “These notes are all tuned to the same standard as each other, but not with respect to any other keys. And, again, they’re sharp.” He marks each of them with a number ‘2’.
“As are these.” He plays and then marks another trio of keys with number ‘3’s.
“One more set-five of them, this time-and then the rest are flat.”
“AD, BGE, DFG and EFEFA. F sharps, of course. What does it mean?”
“Some kind of cipher?” suggests John. “Something to do with the telegram? K9... How about the order they occur in that Mozart score you wanted? Or Old MacDonald had a farm; the letters on that last one look a lot like ei-ei-o.” The thought involuntarily provokes him into making an odd noise something like a cross between a snort and a giggle.
“Yes, yes, yes, no and God, no.” Sherlock gestures to the Mozart score that he’s dug out from wherever he’s hidden it-in John’s room-and explains:
“Mozart’s Sonata in G for Keyboard and Violin; Köchel number 9. It’s a simple substitution cipher. This is the lower end of the piece’s range-he draws a long vertical line down the length of a low B-and this is the upper-he draws another line down the D6 that he marked earlier. Then he scrawls out a letter of the alphabet on each note in the key of G major starting from the bottom line, and continues with the numerals ‘1’ to ‘5’ up to the second line.
Finally he pulls out a sheet of paper from his shirt pocket on which he’s already solved the message. Melodramatic bastard. “In order of increasing sharpness: ‘DEKSU, AMR, 25, COT’.” Still doesn’t make much sense, but our encryptor’s been clever so far, so we can assume a unique correct solution.”
John can already see what Sherlock’s come up with, which is:
DUKES - RAM - 25 - OCT
so he’s not really guessing when he picks up the thread of the deduction. “Right. So if there’s only one right way to read the number, it’s probably a date: you can have the 25th of the month but not the 52nd. And if that’s true, ‘C-O-T’ has got to be October.”
He stops to consider the first two groups of letters again before going on.
“I can’t think of any way to make number 4 spell a word that isn’t ‘Dukes’, which sounds kind of pub-like. The ‘Duke’s Arms’ would be plausible, but one ‘Duke’s Arm’’s unlikely. It looks like the best bet is Duke’s Hall at the Academy.
“I’m guessing you found a piano recital on the 25th?”
“Quite. You’re not playing that night, so I’ve reserved seats for both of us: K9 and K10. Figured it couldn’t hurt.” John seeks to clarify: "You don't think it's a bomb threat, then?"
"Who can say? It's a mistake to theorise in advance of data."
"Right. Well. At least we can probably rule out someone trying to smite me from above with a piano?"
"I suppose that was meant to be a joke," Sherlock muses thoughtfully. "But best to be on the alert, regardless."
Not an encouraging assessment. But when John looks up the programme for the upcoming concert, he concedes that the threat of danger might well be the necessary incentive to keep him awake throughout the deadly dull line-up of early nineteenth century composers.
*
The soporific strains of classical piano music that have been washing over them for the past hour finally come to a close, and Sherlock immediately brightens, having fidgeted restlessly all the way through Haydn and most of Mozart. John was similarly unenthralled, but has had concert etiquette drilled into his person far too thoroughly to have been comfortable with expressing his boredom as openly.
While Sherlock is taking advantage of the interval to investigate further afield, John gingerly reaches under his seat (K10; Sherlock had been bemused by his stubborn refusal to take K9, but he’d been insistent). Given the nature of the puzzle that’s led them to be there, and the fact that he’s recognised the pianist, he isn’t all that surprised to find a short note:
Clever enough to reconsider?
Hopefully,
J
A lot politer than he might have expected, and though it’s a bit anticlimactic as an outcome, it’s doubtless better than a death threat or a bomb. He sidles past other concert-goers who’ve opted to remain seated, and hands the note to Sherlock when he finds him, pleased that they now have an excuse to leave before the second half of the concert.
“That’s not your writing,” says Sherlock.
John raises his eyebrows. Sherlock never states the obvious.
“Must be that Jeffries woman who’s playing tonight. Classicist; boring. Obvious play on words with her name. Why do you have a note from her? Did she ask you on a date? You could do better than that.”
“Sherlock, it was hidden under my seat. Does that not mean anything to you? K10? Presumably the seat you were going to insist on if you figured out the piano clue?”
“How extraordinarily odd. Why on earth would Jeffries send such a convoluted and inconvenient message?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you categorically insulted her taste and then impugned her intelligence as a poorly-mannered excuse to refuse her commission?”
“If we’ve seen her before, then of course I insulted her taste. It’s saccharine and trite. I must have deleted her. Did she really request a commission? Your new piano suggests her brain’s wasted on Mozart, but she wouldn’t have liked anything I’d have written anyway.”
“Unbelievable. I can’t believe you just deleted a whole person like that. You’d better let her know you’re not interested right away if you’re planning to do it again. Good Christ...
“Actually, you’d better tell Greg that you know who broke into the flat and stole my bed as well. I’m really quite keen to have it back, you know.”
“I can’t see why,” Sherlock grumbles sulkily. He always does want to have the last word.
Part One: Violin or Viola?
Part Two: I Don't Eat When I'm Playing
Part Three: The Most Ridiculous Thing
Part Four: Not a Very Nice Piano
Part Five: I Don't Have Friends
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Just a bit of swearing
Word Count: ~1,800 of 8,500 words
Notes: Beta-read and cheer-led by the inimitable dulcemia. Thank you also to swissmarg for a second read through. Any remaining awkwardness is all my own.
Summary: Sherlock is a violinist and consulting composer who writes the pieces his clients are too dim to ask for, and John is an ex-army doctor and handy amateur clarinettist. Together they make music.
A story containing deductive inferences, music for adrenaline junkies, and the development of an unforeseen relationship.
[Part Four: Not a Very Nice Piano]
Part Four: Not a Very Nice Piano
John ventures back into his bedroom after completing his morning ablutions, and he's not altogether surprised when Sherlock materialises so close behind him that John can feel his breath tickling the back of his ear.
"Morning, John."
His voice is immoderately loud, John thinks irritably, and far too keyed up for the early hour. Probably his brain's not stopped rattling over the details of his new obsession since he latched onto it last night. That's fine, and he's bound to reveal something remarkable and exciting in due course, but John’s still in his dressing gown, and he'd rather not be when Sherlock goes racing out the door after the next irresistible lead. He starts pulling clothes out of his drawers and wardrobe while Sherlock, predictably, makes his way over to the piano.
"Listen to this."
John relaxes muscles he hadn't even realised he'd tensed when Sherlock presses a single chipped white key in the middle of the keyboard. He's about to tell him that he's quite welcome to explain the point of the exercise, only please after he's left John alone for a moment to change into some proper clothes, when an almighty crash startles him out of his complacency.
Not only is the sound of the impact genuinely startling, but his musician's empathy is outraged by the deep and splintered dent that Sherlock's inflicted on the piano frame.
"Christ, Sherlock! What the hell was that?"
"Concert A. Obviously. My tuning fork. Now listen to this."
He presses the A key again, and John is less than unsurprised that it doesn't match the sustained ringing of the fork.
"Yes, all right. The piano's wildly out of tune. I think I got that last night when you kept trying to play the damn thing." He pulls the cord on his dressing gown tight, and then takes hold of Sherlock's forearm to push him towards the door and out of his room.
Sherlock allows himself to be propelled as far as the door frame, but lodges himself against it. "And what else?" he prompts. "Sharp or flat, John?"
Still grasping Sherlock’s arm, John is distracted by how pleasantly warm and vital he feels. It occurs to him that he could so very easily insert himself right into Sherlock’s personal space and lean himself against his very attractive friend, but even though Sherlock’s disdain for social cues and conventions would probably preclude his protesting, John’s had no indication that he would actually welcome such an advance. In any case, he’s still waiting for John to catch up with his fevered chain of deduction, so it’s hardly the best moment for that kind of thinking.
"Sharp. Obviously." John delivers Sherlock's favourite word with as much irony as he can muster, while barely managing not to lean his head against Sherlock’s shoulder. "Look, just... Sherlock, I need you to get out for a moment. I'll be dressed soon enough, and then-fine-we can talk about destroying pianos."
"It wasn't a very nice piano, anyway," says Sherlock dismissively. John wonders whether he should feel more ashamed than he does on account of completely agreeing.
Sherlock continues: "But that's irrelevant in any case. How can you be so slow, John? You listen, but you don't hear."
"That may be so," allows John. "But you don't even listen. Go on; get out! I’ll only need five minutes."
He gives an illustrative shove, and finally Sherlock condescends to exit the room.
*
It’s not long before Sherlock returns with a marker pen and perches himself back on the piano stool. John comes over to hover behind him.
“A sharp. Piano,” says Sherlock, punctuating his observation by depressing the A4 key again, and then the A5. The second A is even sharper than the first.
Next, Sherlock plays A5 and D6: a perfect perfect fourth. He unapologetically marks both of them with a number ‘1’, using his pen. John cringes.
“It could have got sharp as a result of autumn humidity if it was last tuned in summer or late spring, but then the central notes would be sharper than the peripheral ones. Also, it’s actually mostly flat.”
He thwacks the piano again with his tuning fork, and plays the A3. John can’t help himself from flinching at the impact. Nonetheless he concedes that the note is, indeed, pretty flat.
“Of the order of two whole tones,” supplies Sherlock. “As are most of the other keys. So we can infer that the instrument probably hasn’t been tuned for a long time, and was possibly transported quite roughly. It certainly doesn’t look like it’s been well-looked after. But if that were true, we’d expect all of the notes to be flat...
“Consider. Piano. Above-it has to be a message.”
Next, Sherlock plays three keys together that span quite a large range. “These notes are all tuned to the same standard as each other, but not with respect to any other keys. And, again, they’re sharp.” He marks each of them with a number ‘2’.
“As are these.” He plays and then marks another trio of keys with number ‘3’s.
“One more set-five of them, this time-and then the rest are flat.”
“AD, BGE, DFG and EFEFA. F sharps, of course. What does it mean?”
“Some kind of cipher?” suggests John. “Something to do with the telegram? K9... How about the order they occur in that Mozart score you wanted? Or Old MacDonald had a farm; the letters on that last one look a lot like ei-ei-o.” The thought involuntarily provokes him into making an odd noise something like a cross between a snort and a giggle.
“Yes, yes, yes, no and God, no.” Sherlock gestures to the Mozart score that he’s dug out from wherever he’s hidden it-in John’s room-and explains:
“Mozart’s Sonata in G for Keyboard and Violin; Köchel number 9. It’s a simple substitution cipher. This is the lower end of the piece’s range-he draws a long vertical line down the length of a low B-and this is the upper-he draws another line down the D6 that he marked earlier. Then he scrawls out a letter of the alphabet on each note in the key of G major starting from the bottom line, and continues with the numerals ‘1’ to ‘5’ up to the second line.
Finally he pulls out a sheet of paper from his shirt pocket on which he’s already solved the message. Melodramatic bastard. “In order of increasing sharpness: ‘DEKSU, AMR, 25, COT’.” Still doesn’t make much sense, but our encryptor’s been clever so far, so we can assume a unique correct solution.”
John can already see what Sherlock’s come up with, which is:
DUKES - RAM - 25 - OCT
so he’s not really guessing when he picks up the thread of the deduction. “Right. So if there’s only one right way to read the number, it’s probably a date: you can have the 25th of the month but not the 52nd. And if that’s true, ‘C-O-T’ has got to be October.”
He stops to consider the first two groups of letters again before going on.
“I can’t think of any way to make number 4 spell a word that isn’t ‘Dukes’, which sounds kind of pub-like. The ‘Duke’s Arms’ would be plausible, but one ‘Duke’s Arm’’s unlikely. It looks like the best bet is Duke’s Hall at the Academy.
“I’m guessing you found a piano recital on the 25th?”
“Quite. You’re not playing that night, so I’ve reserved seats for both of us: K9 and K10. Figured it couldn’t hurt.” John seeks to clarify: "You don't think it's a bomb threat, then?"
"Who can say? It's a mistake to theorise in advance of data."
"Right. Well. At least we can probably rule out someone trying to smite me from above with a piano?"
"I suppose that was meant to be a joke," Sherlock muses thoughtfully. "But best to be on the alert, regardless."
Not an encouraging assessment. But when John looks up the programme for the upcoming concert, he concedes that the threat of danger might well be the necessary incentive to keep him awake throughout the deadly dull line-up of early nineteenth century composers.
*
The soporific strains of classical piano music that have been washing over them for the past hour finally come to a close, and Sherlock immediately brightens, having fidgeted restlessly all the way through Haydn and most of Mozart. John was similarly unenthralled, but has had concert etiquette drilled into his person far too thoroughly to have been comfortable with expressing his boredom as openly.
While Sherlock is taking advantage of the interval to investigate further afield, John gingerly reaches under his seat (K10; Sherlock had been bemused by his stubborn refusal to take K9, but he’d been insistent). Given the nature of the puzzle that’s led them to be there, and the fact that he’s recognised the pianist, he isn’t all that surprised to find a short note:
Clever enough to reconsider?
Hopefully,
J
A lot politer than he might have expected, and though it’s a bit anticlimactic as an outcome, it’s doubtless better than a death threat or a bomb. He sidles past other concert-goers who’ve opted to remain seated, and hands the note to Sherlock when he finds him, pleased that they now have an excuse to leave before the second half of the concert.
“That’s not your writing,” says Sherlock.
John raises his eyebrows. Sherlock never states the obvious.
“Must be that Jeffries woman who’s playing tonight. Classicist; boring. Obvious play on words with her name. Why do you have a note from her? Did she ask you on a date? You could do better than that.”
“Sherlock, it was hidden under my seat. Does that not mean anything to you? K10? Presumably the seat you were going to insist on if you figured out the piano clue?”
“How extraordinarily odd. Why on earth would Jeffries send such a convoluted and inconvenient message?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you categorically insulted her taste and then impugned her intelligence as a poorly-mannered excuse to refuse her commission?”
“If we’ve seen her before, then of course I insulted her taste. It’s saccharine and trite. I must have deleted her. Did she really request a commission? Your new piano suggests her brain’s wasted on Mozart, but she wouldn’t have liked anything I’d have written anyway.”
“Unbelievable. I can’t believe you just deleted a whole person like that. You’d better let her know you’re not interested right away if you’re planning to do it again. Good Christ...
“Actually, you’d better tell Greg that you know who broke into the flat and stole my bed as well. I’m really quite keen to have it back, you know.”
“I can’t see why,” Sherlock grumbles sulkily. He always does want to have the last word.
Part One: Violin or Viola?
Part Two: I Don't Eat When I'm Playing
Part Three: The Most Ridiculous Thing
Part Four: Not a Very Nice Piano
Part Five: I Don't Have Friends