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Place and Time: London. Friday. 5:00. Interview with Emily Herrington's physician.
Emily: Forty-five, unhappily married, barrister. Strawberry blond. Missing for seven days. Likely dead.
Him: Grey coat, glasses, slight Irish accent, different mannerisms and persona. Dye in his hair and three day's stubble on his cheeks. Two years on from his infamously fatal fall and he barely needs a disguise when he ventures back to his old hunting ground. Change his voice, the color of his coat—it’s more than enough for him to pass unnoticed. People see what they expect to see. And everyone knows that Sherlock Holmes is dead.
Emily’s doctor: Trousers, last washed Wednesday and worn twice since then. No wife or girlfriend, then, confirmed by the absence of the requisite family photos on his desk. Not a new office (too much rubbish scattered around for that, pens, papers, instruments everywhere). Trousers one size too big. Weight loss—but not recent; the leather is worn around the extra holes he’s added to his belt. Circles under the eyes, sallow complexion. A sleepless night, the most recent of many. Limp, partially psychosomatic by the way he forgets it when he stands up to shake hands. Military bearing.
“Dr Watson, I presume?”
“Yes, and you’re—”
Sherlock gives his alias, rattles off his pretense for the visit--yes, he’s Emily Herrington’s brother, she hasn’t been seen in a week and the whole family is so worried but of course the police won’t do anything because she’s supposed to be on holiday but she hasn’t texted or rung up or anything and that’s so not like her and the last event on her calendar was this appointment with a “Dr W” about the pain in her left hand when she types, blah blah blah---mouth on autopilot as he runs his gaze over the man seated in front of him.
So: Army doctor, wounded in action and home for several years. Originally recovered from PTSD—trousers in a larger size says he used to be healthier, upturn of his polite, social smile when they shake hands shows Sherlock a ghost of the man he used to be. Some subsequent trauma then. Judging from the state of his wardrobe and figure, needs to be something bad enough to cause depression, reduced appetite, sleepless nights. He looks sick, but of the mind not the body. Not cancer then. But what? Break-up’s too minor, wouldn’t rattle someone who's survived the battlefield like this.
The doctor’s halfway given up—a notch on the belt says he doesn’t think he’ll gain the weight back soon. But the refusal to buy new clothes—says he’s still holding out for something to change. Interesting.
His shirt’s black, newer than the rest of his clothing, and fits him better, so might have been bought more recently. Mourning, maybe? That’s it—death. Someone has died (Parent child sibling significant other), someone close to him and the doctor can’t quite stop hoping that it isn’t real, that this lost person is somehow going to come back to him. His inability to fully accept the reality of that person’s death means he can’t get over the mourning process and move on with his life, while at the same time paradoxically giving him enough hope to function on a daily basis.
Got it. Question asked and answered.
Sherlock allows himself an inward smile, but the usual rush of satisfaction he gets from solving these every day puzzles is oddly missing. Instead, something else is welling up inside him, an emotion which, had he seen it in anyone else, he would have called empathy.
Irrational. Wrong. Misguided. This stranger’s pain means nothing to him.
Sherlock pushes the feeling away.
The doctor’s prattling on about Emily’s consultation and his diagnosis of the early stages of arthritis.
Sherlock suppresses a sigh. It’s so frustrating to get these second-hand recollections of people; like hearing a blind man describe his trip to the cinema. Useless.
Clearly the doctor knows nothing about Emily’s disappearance. It’s time to cut the interview short.
Sherlock gets up, thanks him for his time, letting his voice waiver a bit as he remembers his role as the missing woman’s brother.
He’s already halfway out the door when he asks, “Did you remember anything else Emily did when you met her? Even the smallest detail might be helpful.”
It’s a shot in the dark, but the doctor pauses, clearly struck by something.
Sherlock waits, hand on the door.
The doctor says, hesitantly, “She might have told you about this, but, well, maybe Emily and her husband aren’t getting on?” The upswing at the end of the sentence turns what should be a statement into a question.
Of course Emily was having trouble with her marriage. Two minutes in Emily’s flat had been enough to tell Sherlock everything: married too young, husband a drinker, wife a philanderer. When he gets drunk he hits her. Not uncommon, not relevant to the case. The husband was in the pub with his mates when Emily went missing; he’s not the serial killer.
The question is: how did the doctor know about Emily’s husband?
“She talked to you about her marriage?” he asks.
“No.”
“Then why did you think Emily and Bill were having trouble?”
Oddly, the doctor’s face colors and he looks away, like he’s been caught doing something shameful. “She didn’t tell me, it’s just, well, when I examined her hands, I asked her to take off her wedding ring. The band was several years old, and dirty, but the inside was clean. Like she removed it frequently.”
Silence. For a moment Sherlock forgets his disguise and turns the full force of his piercing gaze onto the doctor. It never fails to surprise him when someone shows a flash of insight—like seeing a goldfish jump out of its tank and play the piano.
Just a moment though, and then he’s slipping on his assumed identity—brother defending his wayward sister—like a pair of slippers to ask, “How do you know she didn’t just take it off to do housework?”
“Because of her nails,” the doctor says.
“What do her nails have to do with anything?” Sherlock doesn’t have to feign surprise; of course he knows the relevance of the nails. His shock is that the unassuming doctor before him does as well.
“She was wearing polish. Perfect manicure. She wasn’t taking that ring off to do dishes. Obviously”—the doctor pauses, and there it is again, that a quick, sad smile that in a flash transforms the doctor’s features into something entirely different and is gone again just as quickly—“And besides, even without the polish, there was her clothing, hair, makeup. She just didn’t look like the type of woman who did her own chores. She seemed, well….” The doctor stopped, peers speculatively at Sherlock. “You should know this, shouldn’t you? Whether your own sister usually does her own cleaning?”
Oh. Not good. The last thing he needs is trouble with his disguise. Time to defuse the situation.
Sherlock lets his eyes water and his voice tremble, turns his gaze away from the doctor as though he can’t bear to look into his eyes. “Emily’s missing. My only sister! I know she and Bill were having trouble, but now you’re suggesting—I don’t even know what, that she was having an affair or something and then accusing me of not knowing her. My own sister!”
The doctor folds at that; all of his suspicion deflating in an instant. He gets out of his chair and walks toward Sherlock—maybe to offer Sherlock a comforting pat on the back—mumbling apologies all the while.
Sherlock accepts the apology, takes a step so as not to be touched and lets the excuses pour out of the doctor—of course he didn’t mean to upset him, he’s had a long day, not much sleep the night before, knows what it’s like to lose someone, sorry, worry about someone he means, of course Emily’s coming back, not lost, so on, so on—as Sherlock waits patiently at the door for the man to run out of steam.
When it seems that the torrent of platitudes is at last coming to an end, Sherlock says he must be on his way, thanks the doctor again for his help.
He’s a few steps down the hallway when he finds himself turning, poking his head back into the little office. “Dr Watson?”
The doctor’s back at his desk, head already buried in his papers. “Yes?”
“Why did you look at Emily’s ring?”
It’s an innocuous question, but the frown lines around the doctor’s mouth deepen, and he gazes at Sherlock, wordless.
The florescent light in the hallway flickers, stark and white, through the heavy silence.
“It’s an odd thing to notice,” Sherlock says. “I was just curious.”
“I had a friend,” the doctor says. “He used to-” The doctor stops, looks down at his papers and blinks a couple of times, slowly, and raises a tired hand to rub at his eyes. “I just noticed it, that’s all.”
Silence again.
It’s not much of an answer, but it’s clearly all the man is going to give him.
There’s more to this “friend” of the doctor’s, that’s certain. Another mundane, every day puzzle Sherlock could solve in just a few minutes if he tried.
Boring.
Not worth his time. He’s got Emily Herrington—third strawberry blond to go missing this month—and a possible serial killer on the loose.
Sherlock nods his thanks again, turns, the doctor and his little mystery vanished from his sight.
“I hope you find her,” the doctor says to Sherlock’s back, voice barely audible from his office against the steady background noise of the hospital.
And then Sherlock’s walking, overlying his stride onto the mixture of hospital sounds, and soon the voice is gone too.
***
Sherlock’s not an architect, but his mind palace, like all endeavors of his intellect, is flawless. Spiraling staircases built with geometric precision, floor plan a study in perfection, every brick of his thoughts laid out with care.
There are no staircases to nowhere in his house, no unfinished corners, no subconscious horrors lurking in the basement.
Except.
Beyond the downstairs dining room, the ballroom, the indoor fountain, there’s a door. It’s small, wooden, ordinary. That’s an old-fashioned brass plate above the handle, like the sort you might see inscribed with flat numbers for a building or the names for a doctor’s office, except that it’s blank. There’s no reason for the door to be there, and no reason for Sherlock to open it, so he doesn’t.
The night after he meets the doctor, Sherlock opens the door.
There’s nothing there.
Oh, all right: that’s not accurate. There’s something: just not a room. The door opens out onto the back of the palace, and there’s grass and flowers and nothing else.
Sherlock steps out on the grass, looks around. It’s a normal lawn, maybe a bit untidy, with flowers here and here and the grass uneven, not mowed. It shouldn’t disturb him. There’s nothing here to be disturbed about. But—
Something’s not right.
He walks out further, feels the wind rise up and unfurl his coat like a flag behind him.
The first clue is a stone ground under his feet. Sherlock picks it up, examines it.
It’s not a stone—it’s a brick, a piece of one at any rate.
And then he sees it. He’s not in a yard. He’s in a ruin. It’s not recent, with the grass all grown up about like this, but Sherlock can still read the old floor plan in the lines of weathered stones piled up around him. His palace used to be bigger, twice as big maybe, dozens more rooms, a whole other wing, laid out here and there, and all around him in what is now only grass.
Sherlock walks back to the door, quickly. He’s not running, but it’s close.
He wraps his fingers around the handle, and goes back inside, leans against the wall, panting.
An unwanted afterimage of the doctor’s smile—brief, empty, painfully hopeful—floats up in front of him. It means something, but he can’t quite grasp what.
He waits, takes in deep breathes, lets his heart beat slow. Stands.
Sherlock turns away from the door, draws his coat around him, walks away. His eyes are stinging, but that’s because he’s allergic to pollen. Clearly. What else could it be?
The doctor's smile doesn't matter. If it were important, here of all places is where he’d be certain to remember.
He's fine.