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Kefir turned out to be a fermented milk drink (“It’s good for you,” explained Mrs. Turner, “it’s got probiotics.”). After some initial trepidation, John found that he liked it. Or at least he liked it better than the kombucha. Being a loyalist to his own landlady, he would have much preferred a cup of Mrs. Hudson’s tea, but he wasn’t about to say that out loud. Especially not when Mrs. Turner looked so pleased as she set out another plate of the purple biscuits. She seemed inclined to talk.
And John was inclined to listen. He didn’t exactly relish the idea of small talk, but he knew he didn’t have Sherlock’s knack of knowing to ask what color tie the bank teller was wearing last Tuesday, or whether the ladies at Mrs. Turner’s knitting circle had white meat or dark at their weekly luncheon. The best thing he could do, then, was let her talk and treat it a bit like he was trying to take a patient’s medical history from a poor historian.
So he listened carefully and patiently as Mrs. Turner went on about her banking habits (John learned she preferred to do most of her banking in person); the various challenges and pitfalls of making one’s own yoghurt at home (John had never considered this – he got his in a tub, if at all); and the latest squabble in her knitting circle (John was surprised by the vehemence - it rather put him in mind of Smeagol claiming the One Ring as his birthday present).
“Of course Mrs. Maney would have it that I had undue influence over the raffle because I’d given the committee cake the week before, and I told her that she didn’t believe in the healing power of crystals anyway, so what was the malachite to her?” Mrs. Turner shook her head. “She’s been displeased with me ever since. But forgive me for going on so. That doesn’t have anything to do with my money being stolen.”
“It…doesn’t seem likely,” said John carefully. He didn’t want to discount anything out of hand, but he also seriously doubted that this Mrs. Maney employed a Welsh goon with a deep voice who she sent to empty the bank accounts of all who displeased her.
Mrs. Turner nodded. “And I’m sure it’ll all be water under the bridge by the time our next meeting rolls around.” Her phone chimed with a decidedly mystical tune. She looked at it. “That’s Reggie. He’s coming back for his inhaler tomorrow. He was so helpful today, you know. They told me I should change my passwords after the scam, and I didn’t know where to start.”
“That was nice of him. And I hope it all works out for your knitting circle.” John opened his notebook to make a note of Reggie - helped with passwords , found that he had already written that down yesterday, then closed his notebook again. “Thanks again, Mrs. Turner. I hope I’ll have something for you soon.”
He realized that was a lot of hoping to go around. If he was to be completely honest, he was also hoping that Sherlock might be free for a few minutes so that he could, haha, consult him but the whole point of this exercise was to not bother Sherlock. Anyway, he felt he almost had it, that he had all the pieces of the puzzle and he just had to put them together…which was just as well because when he got back to 221B, Sherlock was throwing things in an overnight bag.
“The affair of the missing tie pin has grown so dire that Mycroft has consented to do legwork ,” he said by way of greeting as he zipped the bag shut. “Since misery loves company, I’m to go with him.”
“Do you need me?” asked John, ready to go for a bag himself.
“Always.” The corner of Sherlock’s mouth quirked upwards in a fond smile that tugged at John’s heartstrings. “But among your many virtues is an inability to dissemble, and I’m afraid there is much lying to be done. Besides, you have Mrs. Turner’s problem to look into.”
“Well…yes.” Sherlock was, as usual, right on both counts, though John would have dropped everything and lied himself blue in the face for him if he’d needed to. And he knew that Sherlock knew that, but he still needed to ask, “Are you sure? I can be ready in ten minutes. Less.”
“I am.” Sherlock picked up the bag and reached out a hand to John, who took it and squeezed it. “We will be safe enough. And I need you here in case words comes back about Joanna Yaldo—no, I didn’t find her.” Still holding John’s hand, he began to make his way downstairs. John, being attached to his hand, followed him. “Mycroft called before I could finish fully pursuing that line of inquiry but, fortunately, after I realized it was a dud.”
“I’m sorry,” said John as he opened the front door for Sherlock. Sherlock tightened his grip on his hand in acknowledgement. “Is there anything else you need me to do?”
“Text me if anything comes up about Joanna—I have the Homeless Network on high alert. And be here when I get back.” Sherlock let go of John’s hand to hail a cab, and, being Sherlock, one immediately pulled up to the kerb. “Incidentally, if you’re thinking about the Derby, I’d put my money on Shoscombe Prince.”
“I don’t bet on horses,” said John, nonplussed. He’d have much rather heard Sherlock say I love you if he was going to disappear for a few days instead of a bookie’s tip. So he said it instead, “I love you, you know.”
Sherlock kissed him, quick and sweet. “I know.
And with that, he slipped into the cab and was gone. John missed him already.
He was composing a text to Mycroft about how Sherlock ought to come back in one piece and reasonably well-fed and watered when a crinkle of paper made him look up at No. 223.
The Married Ones were standing outside their front door, clearly just having done their shopping. It was easy enough to tell them apart. One of them was nearly as tall as Sherlock while the other was just around Mrs. Hudson’s height. The shorter one wore her dark, natural hair in a multitude of thin, delicately beaded braids, and the other had a neat, stylish bob. The one with the bob was currently holding a not inconsiderable number of grocery bags, while the other was searching for something—likely her keys from how they were hanging about on the stoop—in a handbag roughly the size of Australia. In short, they looked nothing at all alike. The only problem was that John could never remember which name belonged to which person, although he was at least positive they were called Vivian and Elise.
“Hello,” he said, since they’d seen him, playing it safe and not mentioning names at all.
“Hello, neighbor. Viv’s misplaced her keys,” said the taller one, who by default must have been Elise. “Mrs. Turner says that you’ve been helping her with that scammer?”
“I’m, um, trying to.”
“Well, that’s good.” Vivian looked up from her capacious handbag. “She’s a good person, in spite of that stuff she calls kombucha. I’m glad she’s getting actual help. That hotline we called for her didn’t inspire any confidence, did it, El?”
“Not at all,” agreed Elise. “At least that nephew of hers has stopped coming ‘round asking for money. Let’s just ring the doorbell, Viv, Mrs. Turner must be in.”
“I was just talking to her a few minutes ago,” said John, trying to be helpful. “Do you mean Reggie?”
“So you know about him, then?” Elise made a face that showed she liked Mrs. Turner’s nephew a sight less than she liked her kombucha.
“Mainly that he comes and helps her with her computer.”
“Sure he does. And while he’s at it, he pesters her for everything from a fiver to next month’s rent. It’s disgusting.”
“She’s wised up to it,” said Vivian. “They had an almighty row last week, when she found out about all of his gambling debts. Apparently he promised he’d stop, and she was bloody furious when it came out that he was still at it.”
John took out his notebook. This was new information. “You said this was last week?”
“Oh yeah,” said Elise, shifting her grip on the groceries. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear all that through the walls. I had no idea Mrs. Turner could be so angry. I’d never heard her like that before, not even with her knitting circle.”
“”She didn’t mention any of this,” said John, who had been under the impression that Mrs. Turner viewed her nephew as some sort of saintly intercessor between her and technology. “I mean, she did say he was having a bit of trouble…”
“That’s love for you, isn’t it?” said Vivian in the manner of one who was hopelessly in it. “She won’t hear a word against him—ha, got them!” She held up her keys triumphantly.
“Oh good, we need to get the ice cream in the freezer.” Elise nodded at John. “See you, neighbor.”
“Actually, would you mind if I came in with you?” John’s mind was buzzing again. He knew he’d been handed a missing puzzle piece, and damned if it wasn’t a big one—a largish, structurally significant corner piece that turned the picture from blue and orange blobs into Van Gogh’s sunflowers. “I need to speak to Mrs. Turner about an inhaler.”
John liked to think of himself as a fairly competent person who was more than capable of acting independently, but one of the things he didn’t have cause to do by himself was the revelation of the facts of the case. That was Sherlock’s area, with his deductions and his flair for the dramatic. John felt that his function at that point was mainly ornamental, with him emerging from the background only to exclaim over some particularly brilliant deduction, or to wrangle criminals before they got away, or, more significantly, before they did damage to Sherlock.
As it was, on his own, John had hoped to get through this stage of the investigation with the barest of explanations. But when he showed up asking for Reggie’s inhaler and his address, Mrs. Turner turned to him with an expression of such abject devastation on her face that he knew he couldn’t just swan away.
“Oh, not Reggie!” she exclaimed before he had a chance to open his mouth.
“Um.” John hesitated. Sherlock would have been certain but he, John Watson— not a consulting detective—hadn’t even met the man. “Look, I don’t know for sure but—” And he gave her a brief sketch of his line of thought. “I don’t know for sure,” he repeated when he was done, trying to make it better, “but—”
“But you suspect,” said Mrs. Turner sadly.
“But I mean to find out.” John gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Look at it this way,” he said, trying for levity, “if I’m right, we’ll have our man. If I’m wrong, Reggie will have his inhaler.”
Mrs. Turner tried to smile back at him but her lip trembled, and John found himself hoping that it wasn’t Reggie after all, because he was going to have to deck him for nearly making her cry. “I drew the Nine of Swords last night, as well as the Ten of Pentacles,” she said, dabbing at the corner of her eye with the corner of her scarf. “I thought it meant my anxiety over this whole scam situation but it can also signify betrayal.”
“Ah.” John didn’t know how to handle occult signs and portents, and took some comfort in the knowledge that Sherlock would have been similarly stumped. He tried changing the subject, “Listen, where can I get some of that kefir? I think Sherlock might like it.”
Reggie lived in Kilburn, about half an hour away from Baker Street if you didn’t spring for a taxi, which John wasn’t about to do by himself. It felt strangely un-case-like to not be rushing about in a cab, but he told himself he was in no real hurry. Mrs. Turner had told him that her nephew worked from home most days, so he was likely to be in.
And he was. He let John in after some initial hesitation, and led him up to the top floor flat when he asked for a glass of water. It was a neat little studio, most of which was taken up by what looked to John like audio equipment. He was reasonably sure that was a microphone at any rate, and the low, sloping ceiling was covered with the sort of lumpy foam that put John in mind of egg cartons.
“Interesting setup you have here,” he said, accepting a mug of water with what he thought might be a Pokemon on it. He cast around for a profession that might need all that. “Do you do a podcast?”
Reggie laughed and ran a nervous hand through his longish hair. He was a young man who seemed nice enough, though John had, at this point, met enough criminals to know that this was not a reliable indicator of innocence. “Nah, mate, I’m not clever enough,” he said. His voice, while not necessarily high, was certainly not deep, and his accent was decidedly BBC English. “No, I’m a voice actor. Freelance right now, but I like it that way.”
“Oh.” John’s mind buzzed again so that his nerves were fair thrumming. “Been in anything I know?”
Reggie shrugged. “Have you played The Wheel Spins? It’s this fairy tale game, I did the main character—no? Yeah, I didn’t think so. It’s an indie game. The graphics aren’t the best but the gameplay’s great if you can pick it up.”
“I imagine you do all sorts of accents then?” asked John, carefully watching him over the rim of the mug.
“Oh sure! Australian, Swedish, you name it. DId you know America has a boatload of accents—?”
“What about Welsh?”
“That’s an easy one.” Reggie grinned. “I did a whole game with a Welsh accent. I even learned a fair bit of actual Welsh for that too. Dw i draig …” He trailed off suddenly, the smile slipping from his lips and the color draining from his face as he took in John’s stony expression. “Shit. You’re not the police, are you?”
“No, I’m worse,” said John, who, under a significant amount of righteous anger, was also amazed that it had been this easy to get what amounted to a confession. Some people just weren’t cut out for a life of crime. Not a long one, anyway. “I’m a doctor.”
“Oh, Jesus, I know who you are. You’re that army doctor with the blog Aunt Maud likes so much—”
“Exactly. Now.” John put a hand on Reggie’s arm, more because he looked like he was about to pass out than he was about to bolt. “What have you done with the money?”
“I meant to give it back, honest!” Reggie’s voice rose to a panicked whine. “I thought she wouldn’t even notice, but of course this is the one time she pays attention to her bank notifications. Then those lodgers of hers went and reported it—”
“Why did you take it in the first place?” John thundered. Reggie flinched.
“I owed money, didn’t I? And the people I owed it to…well, you don’t want to owe those people money.” John felt Reggie shudder. “I paid up, that was the first thing I did.”
“How much did you owe?” John knew better than to ask if some sort of payment plan might have been an option instead, but damned if he could see why he’d chosen to scam his aunt.
Reggie named a sum. In spite of himself, John let out a low whistle.
“See? My neck was on the line. I knew she was good for the money, and I tried to borrow it from her but she wouldn't hear of it, and it was my neck —I’ve seen what they do when you don’t pay up—so I used one of those apps that change your voice—”
“How exactly did you mean to give it back?” asked John, guiding Reggie to sit at the end of the bed in the corner. The man was clearly working himself up into a panic attack.
“I took—more than I needed.” Reggie’s shoulders heaved as he began to wheeze. “I—figured if I placed my—bets right I could win—back—what—I—took.”
“And you haven’t done this yet because?”
“Because the—wrong—horse came in!” Reggie wailed, or near enough. “I still—have—some of it—left but—but—but—”
“Steady, steady.” John looked down at the inhaler he’d returned, still clutched tightly in Reggie’s left hand, though he already knew what it was: Seretide, a scheduled medication, not an as needed one. “Do you have another inhaler?”
Reggie, still incredibly short of breath, nodded. “Alb-—Albu—”
“Albuterol. Right. Where?”
He pointed to the nightstand. John found it and put it between Reggie’s lips.
“Two puffs now, okay? There you go.”
It took a while for the wheezing to subside. When he could talk again, Reggie stuttered out a shaky, “Th—thank you.”
“Don’t thank me just yet.” John pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’m still going to call the police.”
“So he might not go to prison?” asked Mrs. Turner. They were in Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen for a change. The telly was on, and they had a supply of comfortingly normal tea and biscuits.
“That’s what Greg said.” Lestrade had also said, I don’t know why you called me , I mean, I understand when Sherlock does it, but not you too but John didn’t think the ladies needed to know that, especially since the arrest had turned out to be something of a coup for him. “If he testifies against the people he owes money to. Apparently they’re a nasty gambling ring that the Met has been trying to nab.”
“It sounds awfully dangerous.” Mrs. Turner pulled her scarf tighter about herself and Mrs. Hudson patted her gently on the shoulder. “But if some good can come of this…the third card I drew last night was Judgement. It can mean redemption.”
“I’m sure it does,” said Mrs. Hudson drily, clearly humoring her friend. Mrs. Turner didn’t seem to notice. “But will you get your money back?”
“The Ten of Pentacles would say so,” said Mrs. Tuner with a confidence that John found distressing. He had made Reggie return the paltry amount he still had in his bank account while they had waited for the police, but that was a far cry from making things completely right.
“I’m sure it does,” said Mrs. Hudson again, this time looking at John as if for answers.
To avoid having to provide said answers, John looked up at the television. Sherlock undoubtedly would have come up with something implausibly clever but Sherlock was god knew where doing god knew what, and though it had only been a few hours so far, John missed him. He remembered the cryptic bookie’s tip he’d been left with and…and there was a reason he’d remembered it aside from pining for the love of his life.
“Would you mind if we turned the telly up?” he asked.
Mrs. Hudson pressed the buttons on her remote, and the three of them listened to a list of the horses running in the Derby from the favorite, Silver Blaze, to…
“...newcomer Shoscombe Prince,” read the reporter, “ridden by veteran jockey John Mason…”
There was more about statistics and odds but John didn’t hear it. He caught Mrs. Turner’s eye. “What do you think about a flutter on the horses?”
“How on earth did you know about Shoscombe Prince?” Asking this wasn’t the first thing John did when Sherlock swanned triumphantly back into 221B the next afternoon, but it was close. The first thing he’d done was kiss the man because he hadn’t done that in what felt like far too long.
“They were taking a different horse out for spins,” said Sherlock, shrugging off his coat. “Likely the Prince’s half-brother—devilishly hard to tell the difference between them. The owners would only have been doing that if they were confident in the horse’s abilities and if they wanted to get excellent odds in the race. And I happen to know that Robert Norberton—he owns the stables—is hurting for money.”
“Amazing.”
“No doubt Mrs. Turner thinks so too.” Sherlock sounded obviously pleased with himself.
“I’ll say so. She was looking at me like I was a bloody wizard.” Mrs. Turner had actually taken some convincing. In the end, it was Mrs. Hudson asking, But what about the Ten of Pentacles? that had gotten her to bet on anything at all, and she’d won a considerable sum, if not everything that she’d lost. “And she keeps going on about the Ten of Pentacles.”
“Prosperity, refinancing, and good investments,” said Sherlock, with surprising speed. “Yes, I can see why. It was for a case,” he added in answer to the question that John hadn’t yet had time to ask.
“Right.” John hadn’t yet heard of the case that had required Sherlock to learn the Minor Arcana but that was a story for another time. “How did Mycroft do?”
“Admirably if unhappily. The tie pin has been returned to its owner in time to prevent international incident and,” he said with particular relish, “Joanna Yaldo surfaced at the last minute with incontrovertible evidence against Peter Witte. She’s safe.” Sherlock threw himself into his chair with a contended sigh. “And I’m home.”
“‘God’s in his Heaven—all’s right with the world’, eh?” said John, taking a seat in his own chair.
“What was that?”
“I was just quoting—never mind.” John smiled at Sherlock, feeling as content as Sherlock looked.”I’m glad everything worked out. Would you like some kefir?”