The Architecture of Us

Rain followed me up Baker Street like a bad mood. By the time I pushed open the door to 221B, my collar was damp and my patience had drowned. The sitting room smelled faintly of acetone and burnt toast. Sherlock had appropriated the kitchen table for a glass forest of beakers and flasks in varying shades of alarming, a Bunsen flame doing a convincing impression of a small bonfire. He didn’t look up when I came in.

I dropped my keys into the bowl with more force than necessary and scrubbed a hand through my hair. “Well,” I said, “that was a masterclass in how not to conduct a date.”

Sherlock flicked his gaze to me for half a second, registered my expression, and returned to the delicate drip-drip of some clear liquid into a bowl of green. The smell turned earthy, then sharp. “You wore the navy jumper,” he said. “Good. The grey makes you look sallow under artificial lighting.”

“Brilliant. My wardrobe choices may have been the only thing I did right tonight.” I shrugged out of my jacket and hung it on the back of my chair, then considered, with bleak resignation, that it now smelled like a science experiment. I sat anyway. “She—Sophie—was fifteen minutes late. No apology. I told myself traffic, but when she ordered her third glass of wine before the starters, I revised that hypothesis.”

“Law firm,” Sherlock murmured, adjusting the flame. “Junior associate. Lives in Clapham. Dog hair on her cuff: curly, white. Bichon Frise. She does not walk it enough.”

I stared at him. “She said she works at a law firm,” I said slowly. “How—actually, no. Doesn’t matter. The point is, she spent ten minutes describing spin class. She made it sound like a personal philosophy. And when I tried to tell a story from Kandahar, she said war made her ‘feel icky’ and asked what kind of moisturiser I use.”

Sherlock’s mouth twitched. “Unscented. You don’t like interference with your aftershave.”

“I didn’t tell her that on a date.” I slouched into my chair and looked at the ceiling, willing it to crack open and drop a case on us. “I kept trying to steer it back to something real. Anything. Family. Books. She said she doesn’t have time to read and hasn’t spoken to her brother in three years because he didn’t invite her to his engagement party. She likes true crime podcasts, though. Said they help her sleep.”

Sherlock made a small noise that could have been a laugh in another man. He moved a beaker from flame to rack, long fingers precise, and picked up a pipette. “She Googled you before the date. That’s why she asked about moisturiser. She was looking for the bullet wound.”

I blinked. “She did ask about the blog,” I admitted. “Said she liked the ‘brand.’ I don’t have a brand.”

“You do,” he said, the pipette releasing a single drop into the green solution. It candied into a rich blue. He watched it with satisfaction. “People like your steady voice when they read about horror. It makes them feel safe. She wanted that and also to tell her friends she went out with a war hero. She planned to take a selfie with you. Didn’t get the chance; you grimaced when the phone came out.”

“I didn’t grimace.” I had grimaced. “She barely asked about me. Not really. If your idea of a question is ‘what’s your star sign,’ then fine, we were deeply connected.”

“Cancer,” Sherlock said, distracted. “Predictable.”

“I’m an Aquarius.”

He glanced over. “No, you aren’t.”

“I absolutely am.”

He considered me, then shrugged. “Fine. Sophie will text you tomorrow to say she had a lovely time and would like to see you again. She will not mean it. She will have already matched with someone named Tom who lives closer to the Northern Line.”

I closed my eyes and groaned. My phone buzzed once in my pocket. “I hate you,” I muttered, pulling it out. A message from Sophie: So great to meet you! Let’s do it again sometime! xx. I stared at it until the double x’s blurred, then put the phone face down on my knee. “I hate you,” I repeated, with less heat.

“You don’t,” Sherlock said. He turned off the flame and the room exhaled. He picked up the bowl and held it to the light, eyes bright. “This is interesting.”

“Is it going to explode?”

“Possibly,” he said cheerfully.

“Wonderful.” I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and looked at the mess of glass. “If you’re going to judge my personal life, you could at least pretend to listen instead of reciting your shopping list of deductions.”

He set the bowl down, finally focusing on me properly. The intensity of his gaze felt like standing under a lamp. “I am listening,” he said. “You are frustrated. You want something that feels like truth. You try to make space for it and people fill it with noise. You are lonely in crowds and unbearably content when you’re—” His mouth closed on the word, as if surprised it had wandered near the surface. He looked away. “At home.”

The word hung between us. My chest tightened, not unpleasantly. I looked at him, at the stubborn set of his mouth and the fine bones of his face, pale in the lab light. He’d rolled his sleeves up, exposing wrists I had bandaged more times than I could count. His hair was a mess from where he’d shoved his fingers through it, a dozen times tonight. Even when he was still, he looked like movement waiting to happen.

“Right,” I said, softer. “Well. Yes. It would be nice to have someone who doesn’t treat a conversation like a performance.”

“Mm,” he said, thoughtful. He reached for a notebook and jotted something down in a quick, angular hand. “Sophie did perform. Those white trainers—box-fresh. She wanted you to notice her efforts without appearing to want it. Contradictory signalling. Exhausting.”

I snorted, unwillingly amused. “You noticed her shoes? From the description?”

“You mentioned the wine. The restaurant you chose—bright lighting, tile floors. Reflections. More effort in her appearance than in her punctuality. You forgive tardiness when someone’s nervous, not when they’re indifferent.” He tilted his head. “You were hopeful. That was the problem.”

I pressed my thumb into my palm, grounding. “You know, you could try saying I’m not terrible company instead of deducing my fatal flaws.”

“You’re not terrible company,” he said, immediately, as if it cost him nothing.

The warmth that sparked in me was ridiculous. I reached for my mug, remembered it was empty, and stood. “Do you want tea?” I asked, because it meant I could put my back to him for a second.

He opened his mouth to say no—he always did—then paused. “Yes,” he said. “Thank you.”

I took cups down, rinsed them to avoid the residue of whatever he’d been doing, and let the kettle fill the silence. It wasn’t uncomfortable, exactly. More alive than that. I could feel him behind me, could feel the way he shifted, the way his attention moved around the room and occasionally, inexplicably, back to me. The kettle clicked off. I poured. I brought the mug to him and our fingers brushed—an accident. Heat shot up my arm. I pulled back too quickly and sloshed a bit over the rim.

“Careful,” he said, and the word came out rougher than usual.

I nodded, cleared my throat, and sank back into my chair. “For the record,” I said, “I did not grimace at the selfie. I just don’t think it’s necessary to document every second we’re not saying anything to each other.”

“Agreed,” he said. He blew on his tea and then didn’t drink it. “You could stop looking for someone who wants the story and find someone who wants the silence.”

I stared at him. “That’s very poetic, for you.”

“It’s obvious,” he said. His eyes flicked to me, then away. “And logical.”

I let out a breath that felt like surrender and laughed, the sound shaking something loose in my chest. “Logical. Right.” I sipped my tea. It scalded my tongue and tasted perfect. “Well. Another one bites the dust.”

He made a dismissive noise. “She was an error in data collection. You’ll try again.”

“Will I?”

“Yes.” He lifted his notebook again, pen hovering. “Next time, choose somewhere quieter. And wear the navy jumper. It’s honest.”

I smiled into my mug. The rain at the window softened, a steady hiss against glass. Sherlock turned another page, the scratch of his pen settling into the room’s heartbeat. I let myself sink back, watching him over the rim of my cup, and felt the disappointment of the evening recede, replaced by something simpler. It wasn’t the romance app promised, but it was real, and it was mine.

The door downstairs banged and a familiar, determined shuffle ascended. I barely had time to set my empty mug aside before Mrs. Hudson swept in, elbow first, balancing a lacquered tray heavy with a teapot, cups, and a plate piled high with scones. The smell of butter and sugar followed her like a ribbon.

“Oh, boys,” she sighed, taking one look at the counters. “It’s like the Blitz in here, only with more glassware.” She nudged aside a rack with the corner of the tray, tutting at a smear of something green on the hob. “Sherlock, you promised me you’d keep the corrosives off the cooker.”

“I did,” Sherlock said. He didn’t move. “Those are reactive agents. Entirely different.”

“Mm,” she said, unconvinced. She set the tray down with a decisive clink and swatted at his elbow with a tea towel. “Off. Both of you. You,” she pointed at him, “put the lids back on before we all end up breathing fumes, and you—” her gaze fell on me, and softened—“sit. You look like you’ve had a night.”

“You have no idea,” I muttered, but I pushed up to help her anyway.

She shooed me back with a practiced flick. “Don’t fuss, love. My hands work. I told you two the last time I came up here that I’m not a maid, and what did you do? Left a Bunsen burner in the sink.” She looked pointedly at Sherlock, who managed to look both innocent and offended. “Honestly, if your head wasn’t such a showpiece, I’d suspect it was full of air.”

Sherlock made a show of capping bottles and sliding racks into safer arrangements. The gleam of interest in his eyes dimmed a little, replaced by a long-suffering dignity that fooled no one. Mrs. Hudson poured with the authority of a monarch, settling cups in saucers and doctoring mine with sugar the way she knew I preferred when I’d had a bad day.

“There,” she said, pressing warm porcelain into my hands. “I heard you come in and thought to myself, that’s not the sound of a successful evening.” She lifted her brow in a question.

I groaned. “Disastrous,” I admitted. “I’m thinking of taking a vow of silence and joining a monastery. At least the conversation would be predictable.”

“Nonsense,” she said, already cutting a scone. “You just need a nice girl who doesn’t think life is an audition. Or a nice boy,” she added without missing a beat, handing me a scone split and kissed with jam and cream. “Preferably someone who knows how to make a decent cup of tea and won’t take pictures of everything you eat.” Her eyes twinkled over the rim of the teapot. “You’ve been out with worse than this one, I’ll wager.”

“I plead the fifth,” I said, because listing would require energy I did not possess. The first bite was still warm, tender in the center. Comfort slid down my throat and loosened the knot in my shoulders.

Mrs. Hudson turned her attention to Sherlock, who was now investigating the scones as if they had secrets. “And you,” she said, “should be ashamed of yourself. Sniping at him about his jumper—honestly. He looks very nice in navy.”

“I said he looked better in navy,” Sherlock corrected, which was somehow worse. He accepted his cup as if it were evidence. “He insists on dressing to please people who don’t deserve it.”

Mrs. Hudson’s mouth curved. “Says the man who once wore a bedsheet as a lab coat because the normal one was in the wash.” She smoothed my hair with a hand that still smelled faintly of lemon washing-up liquid. The gesture was so familiar my throat tightened. “John, love, you’re not a museum exhibit. Don’t let anyone make you feel as if you’ve got a plaque next to you with all your dates and times.”

“I’ll just have a small sign that says Please Do Not Touch,” I muttered, earning myself a laugh.

Sherlock’s gaze flicked to me at that—swift, unreadable—and away again. He took a scone and dismantled it methodically, as though mapping it. “Touching is overrated,” he said, which made Mrs. Hudson snort.

“Only people who don’t get enough of it say that.” She leaned her hip against the table, surveying us with frank affection. “What you need is someone who can sit with you in quiet and not itch to fill it. Someone who doesn’t mind you going off to chase monsters with this one.” She tipped her head at Sherlock. “And who can put up with his moods.”

“I don’t have moods,” Sherlock said.

She and I said, “You do,” in weary chorus.

Mrs. Hudson patted my knee, her rings cool against my trousers. “You look after each other,” she said. “That’s what counts. The rest will sort itself out. And if it doesn’t, well…” She shrugged, practical as ever. “You’ve always got me. I’ll make you a profile if I have to.”

The horror of Mrs. Hudson on the apps replaced any lingering melancholy. “Please don’t,” I said. “I can’t compete with your standards.”

“My standards are high because you’re worth it,” she said simply. Then, lowering her voice in a conspiratorial aside, “Also because if I have to have one more girl in here who thinks vinegar is the same as bleach, I’ll scream.”

Sherlock’s mouth quirked. “Technically—”

“No, dear,” she said, not looking at him. “Not technically. Absolutely not.”

He subsided. I hid a smile behind my cup. It was easy, this—her bustling in, setting the world to rights in small ways, Sherlock reduced from storm to sulk with a word. The room felt fuller, softer at the edges. For a few minutes, the discontent of my evening was something we could hold together and turn into laughter.

Mrs. Hudson brushed crumbs into her palm and checked the clock. “I’ve got a friend coming round in the morning, so if you’re going to shoot at the wall, please do it before ten. And no experiments with amphibians in the fridge. I found a frog last week on the butter.”

Sherlock blinked. “Tree frog,” he said, faintly surprised. “It liked the cold.”

“It gave me a fright,” she said. “I’m not running a petting zoo.”

“I’ll remove it,” Sherlock said, straight-faced. “The frog, not the butter.”

She clucked and kissed the top of his head without asking. He bore it like an affixed crown, the faintest pink cresting his cheekbones. Then she leaned down and pressed a kiss to my temple, the same way she had the first night I dragged my luggage up these stairs and pretended London wasn’t swallowing me whole.

“Early night,” she instructed, gathering the empty plates. “Both of you. And John—delete the dating app for a bit. Go for a walk. Buy a book. Let yourself want what you want, and don’t apologise for it.”

I met her eyes, something steady moving through me at the gentle command. “Yes, Mrs. Hudson.”

She smiled, satisfied, and swept out as imperiously as she’d arrived, calling back down the stairs about bins and recycling as if the battle for order could be won with a timetable.

The door clicked shut behind her. Silence returned, but it wasn’t the same as before. It was warmer, humming where her presence had been. Sherlock balanced his saucer on his knee and looked into the middle distance, as if measuring a hypothesis against the steam rising from his tea.

“She is wrong about vinegar,” he said, eventually.

I laughed, and the last of the evening’s weight lifted. “She’s right about everything else.”

He lasted twelve minutes.

The quiet stretched, punctured only by the soft tick of the mantel clock and the rain’s steady whisper against the window. Sherlock’s knee began its restless jitter, the tempo climbing as if some internal metronome was winding too tight. I could see it happen—the drop from tolerable to unbearable. He put his cup down like it had offended him and stood, energy flickering off him in sharp, impatient waves.

“Nothing,” he said to no one and everyone. “Not even an arsonist with a moral philosophy. London is anaesthetised.”

“You solved a neighbor’s missing cat two days ago,” I said mildly, stretching my legs out and crossing them at the ankle. “You got a scratch and a thank-you trifle out of it.”

“I least like trifles,” he announced, prowling to the window. He looked down on Baker Street as if searching for a crime to pluck from the pavement like a weed. “I told you—the cat wasn’t missing. She was engaged in a strategic retreat. Any creature with a shred of sense would do the same.”

“From what?”

“From banality.” He pressed his forehead briefly against the cold glass, huffed, then whirled back toward the table as if a thought had pulled him by the spine. “There is a quantifiable loss of cerebral stimulation in this city. It’s measurable. It’s—”

“Boring,” I supplied. He hated that word. He also leaned into it like a man leaning into wind.

“Unendurable,” he corrected, with feeling. His eyes tracked the wall, the skull, the bullet holes already pocking the plaster like a rash. I opened my mouth.

“Don’t.”

“It’s an experiment,” he said, almost soothingly. He was already at the dresser, sliding the drawer open with a practised hand. Metal clinked, familiar and unwelcome.

“Saying it’s an experiment doesn’t make it less ridiculous,” I said, rising. “Sherlock.”

He ignored me with the serene calm of someone who has decided on a course and refuses to see the cliffs ahead. The pistol settled into his long fingers like a remembered habit. He checked the chamber with a smart, efficient movement that made a strand of heat curl in my stomach even as my irritation spiked. He was beautiful when he was competent. He was intolerable when he was reckless.

“Absolutely not,” I said, crossing the room. “It’s half nine at night.”

“Time is a construct,” he said, eyes on the wall, body angled, mouth flat with concentration.

“So is good sense, apparently.” I stepped into his line, because I knew how this game was played. He shifted, not looking at me, trying to sight around my shoulder like I was a coat rack. I flattened my palm on his forearm. It tensed under my hand, hard sinew and warm skin beneath the rolled cuff. The contact quieted something in me I hadn’t expected, even while I tried to pry the gun free. “Give it here.”

“John.” It was a warning and a request. The angle of his body toward mine was defensive and intimate at once. We had done this dance before. It always felt like brushing past a live wire.

“No.” My voice softened without my permission. “Not tonight.”

He breathed out through his nose, impatient and fond. “I am statistically less likely to shoot Mrs. Hudson than she is to burst in at this moment and scold me.”

“Not the point.” I squeezed his wrist, steady pressure, and felt him yield by degrees. He fought because it was reflex, not because he wanted to hurt. He never wanted to hurt. He wanted to be saved from the flatness, and he wanted me to be the one to do it.

He twisted the pistol, and for a heartbeat our hands were a knot, our fingers overlapping on worn metal. He looked at me. Close enough to count the tiny flecks in his irises, pale and dark like winter glass. The sharpness in him faltered. His gaze slid, not to the wall but to my mouth, then snapped back up with a small, guilty flinch.

“Sherlock,” I said again, lower. The name felt like a tether.

“Fine,” he said, all brittle capitulation. He released. I didn’t take it fast enough, startled by victory. He used the sliver of hesitation, ducked, and fired.

The crack ricocheted off the books and the ceiling, reached down into my bones and rattled everything. Plaster dust bloomed out of the new hole. My ears rang. I swore, loud and heartfelt, as footsteps sounded from below and Mrs. Hudson shouted something that sounded like a threat involving a ladle.

“You absolute—give it to me,” I snapped, grabbing the gun and wrenching it from his slackening hand while he wore the pleased, dazed look of a child who has finally shaken a snow globe into storm. He let go without protest this time, his smile small and pleased.

“Note the grouping,” he said, airy. “Consistent.”

“I’m noting the draft you’ve introduced.” I engaged the safety, muscle memory quick, and kept my hold around the grip longer than necessary, as if I could warm it into harmlessness. “You can’t keep doing this. It isn’t healthy.”

“It kept me from dismantling the kettle,” he said, which was probably true. He raked a hand through his hair and made it worse, the curls standing in disarray. “Besides, you like it.”

My mouth opened. Closed. He looked right at me, daring me to lie. There was a flush high on his cheeks, not only from the recoil. My chest felt too tight for argument.

“I like you not shooting the wall,” I said finally, dry. I set the pistol on the mantel, just out of his reach but not far from mine, and planted myself in front of it like a guard. “Try the violin next time.”

He made a face. “Self-medication.”

“Much better than the alternative,” I said. I dusted plaster from his shoulder, my fingers skimming over his collarbone where his shirt had slid askew, ridiculous instinct tugging at propriety. He went very still under my hand. The air between us shifted, charged again. I withdrew, clearing my throat. “And less likely to get us evicted.”

Mrs. Hudson yelled something about the war and her sister’s nerves. I called back, “Sorry!” and meant it. Sherlock drifted toward the chair, then pivoted back toward me, restless.

“You can’t expect me to wait indefinitely,” he said, softer now. The sharpness had bled out of the edges, leaving something rawer. “It’s like asking a racing engine to idle. It overheats.”

“I know.” I did. I knew his edges and his limits the way I knew the creak of the third stair and the exact bolt of cold when the window didn’t close right. I hooked my hip on the arm of my chair and looked up at him through the suspended dust. “But you could tell me before you decide to perforate the skull.”

“You’d stop me,” he said simply.

“Yes.”

He took that in like it was a comfort. His mouth softened. “Fair.”

“Good.” I nudged his knee with mine, a small, quiet touch meant to ground him, and he looked down, surprised, then eased into the space by my chair instead of pacing. The shift had the same effect on me as the first swallow of tea. So much of us was rhythm. So much of us was habit turned into care.

“Boredom will pass,” I said. “It always does.”

“Or it will knock on the door,” he said, glancing at it as if he could charm fate into speed. His voice had taken on that lighter tone he saved for me. “And we’ll be off.”

“Until then,” I said, “no gun.”

He leaned an elbow on the back of my chair and tilted his head, considering me like a puzzle he enjoyed. “Confiscated.”

“Confiscated,” I confirmed. I reached up, and before I could think better of it, let my fingers brush the cuff of his sleeve where it met his wrist. A line of heat ran up my arm. He didn’t pull away. He never did. He looked like he wanted to say something. He didn’t.

The clock ticked on. The rain deepened. He sighed and, for once, accepted the quiet as something we could share, not an enemy to shoot at. He stayed close enough that the warmth from his body reached me, an inch beyond touch, the familiar fight defused and reshaped into something gentler.

We let the silence settle around us again, less empty now. We waited.

The knock came as if conjured by our waiting, three tentative taps that sounded apologetic even through wood. Sherlock’s head lifted, eyes sharpening. He didn’t say anything so much as move, and I was on my feet already, the habit of opening our door older than either of us would admit.

The man on the threshold looked as though he’d got lost on his way to somewhere nicer. Early forties, maybe, but worry had aged him into something thinner. Dark hair going grey at the temples, suit that had been good last season but hadn’t enjoyed the train. His tie was crooked, his hands white-knuckled around a cap he twisted like it owed him money.

“Mr. Holmes?” he asked, though it was obvious. He glanced past me into the sitting room, taking in the skull, the bullet holes, the scattered papers. His shoulders lifted like he was bracing for impact. “I—I’m so sorry to come unannounced. I wrote, but—well, I couldn’t wait.”

“You couldn’t,” Sherlock agreed, already in front of him, already smelling the damp wool and travel and sea salt clinging to the man’s coat. “You caught the six o’clock from Paddington. Delayed twelve minutes near Taunton. You misplaced your keys yesterday. You think your cleaner moved them. She didn’t. You did, under a menu.”

The man blinked, a small sound escaping him, a little like a laugh and a gasp in one. “Yes,” he said, weak with relief. “Yes, that’s—God. Sorry. I’m Alistair Finch.”

“Come in,” I said, steady, stepping back. “Hang your coat there. Mind the—”

“—violin,” Alistair finished faintly, managing a crooked smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I read about you. You—both of you.” His gaze slid to the fresh bullet hole, then to me, then away in polite terror.

I shut the door and took his coat when his hands fumbled, hanging it up. It was heavier than I expected, the lining damp. His sleeves smelled faintly of lemon cleaner, the borrowed kind you find under a guesthouse sink. He hovered by the edge of the rug like a man afraid to sit on the wrong pew.

“Tea?” I offered.

“Yes. Please.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry. I know you must get people like me all the time. Desperate. Ridiculous.”

Sherlock cut a swift look at me. “You don’t look ridiculous,” I said. “You look tired.”

He sat as if he’d been given permission to. His hands worried the flattened cap. When he looked up again, he aimed his words at Sherlock, but his eyes kept snagging on me, as if I were a safer harbour when it got too bright.

“My hotel,” he said. “In Port Isaac. The Smuggler’s Rest. My grandfather bought it for a song in the seventies and turned it into something—lovely. We’ve done well. Better than we should, probably. But for the last two months someone has been—” He faltered, shame prickling up his neck. “Playing tricks. Not little things. Elaborate. Cruel. Guests are leaving. Staff are threatening to quit. I can’t sleep. I can’t think.”

Sherlock perched on the arm of his chair like a restless bird, the better to look down and look through. “List them,” he said, already impatient for detail but oddly gentle with his tone. “Start with the worst.”

Alistair’s breath stuttered. “Last week, Mrs. Cartwright—sweet woman, older—found a—something—on her pillow. Bright blue. I thought it was a toy. It wasn’t. The vet in the village recognized it. A frog. Poisonous.”

I straightened, the tea things forgotten for a moment. “Poison frog? Here?”

“Amazonian, the vet said. How does that even—” He flapped his hands, useless with disbelief. “She didn’t touch it, thank God. The smell made her ill. We had to… dispose of it. We shut the room for cleaning and salt. I’m not superstitious. I’m not.” He sounded like a man trying to convince himself. “But then there was the sugar. Replaced by salt in the breakfast room. Entire dining room ruined. A couple’s anniversary—horrible scene. Two nights ago, every alarm clock in the hotel went off at 3:17. All at once. I didn’t even know we had that many clocks.”

“The time is a message,” Sherlock said, almost to himself. His eyes did that thing where they go narrow and bright at once. “Continue.”

“Someone rearranged the portraits in the hall so they were all crooked, but not by the same degree. The maid said it felt like being watched. I told her I’d fix it, but my hands were shaking. There’s been dye in the laundry; a bride’s dress came out faintly green and she cried and cried. The taps ran brown one morning. And silly, small things—seaweed stuffed in the keyholes, fishing hooks hidden in the flower arrangements.” He forced a laugh that hurt to hear. “Tourist humor, right? Except this doesn’t feel like someone having a laugh. It feels—” He looked at Sherlock’s hands, then at mine. His voice dropped. “It feels like hatred.”

I set a cup of tea in front of him. His fingers were cold when they brushed mine. He wrapped both hands around the porcelain like it could steady him. “We’ve had a wedding party booked for months. They arrive tomorrow. If this keeps up, they’ll leave, and that sort of review ruins us. The village lives off the summer.”

Sherlock tilted forward. “Why you? Who benefits?”

“I don’t know.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. The skin around his eyes was raw, as if he hadn’t let himself cry properly and the ache had settled there. “There are always… people who don’t like outsiders doing well. We’re not all locals on my staff. But I’ve kept on everyone from before. We pay fairly. I think we do. Maybe someone I let go? We had a groundskeeper—Mark Trevithick—he drank. We had to—” He cut himself off. “He could be angry. But he wasn’t clever. This is—” He shook his head. “This is clever.”

Sherlock’s mouth twitched, almost approving despite himself. I sighed into my cup.

“And you went to the police?” I asked.

“They told me to install cameras. We did. Someone moved them. They said pranksters get bored if you ignore them. We tried. Then the frog happened.” He shuddered visibly. “I know it sounds silly compared to murders and—well.” He gestured weakly at the bullet hole. “But I’m at the end of it, Mr. Holmes. If you don’t help, we’ll have to close. It’s my family’s whole life.”

Sherlock’s gaze slid to me, quick, bright, asking and already certain. I already knew by the set of his shoulders where he was going, but that was not now. Alistair’s eyes landed on our hands braced on our mugs, on the easy line of my knee pressed against the chair Sherlock leaned on. Something in his face eased, as if some private equation had balanced.

“I can pay,” he said, desperate dignity wrapped around the words. “Not your usual, I expect, but—”

Sherlock dismissed it with a flick of his fingers. “Not relevant.”

“Not relevant,” I echoed, and Alistair’s breath came out shaky with relief he hadn’t expected.

He looked between us. “You’ll at least consider it?”

Sherlock’s eyes were far away and very present all at once. His voice, when it came, was soft. “Tell me more about the frog.”

Sherlock’s attention tilted like a compass needle. For a heartbeat, he looked bored, almost theatrically so, his fingers tapping out an impatient rhythm against his knee. Then he blinked, and the edge came back into his gaze.

“A list of vulgar inconveniences,” he said, in that airy tone that always made clients brace. “Salt for sugar. Crooked frames. Dye. Juvenile.”

Alistair went very still. I shot Sherlock a look. He ignored it.

“But the frog,” he went on, voice sharpening. “That is not juvenile. That is a hand reaching into a closed system and pulling out a very particular thread. Describe it. Size. Hue. Skin texture. Where was it sourced?”

Alistair swallowed. “I—I don’t know. It was small. Blue. Bright. With—spots, I think.”

Sherlock’s hand cut the air. “Not a dart frog. The vet said Amazonian, yes? Did he say genus?”

“No. He looked terrified and put on gloves and said we had to bag it immediately and not let anyone touch it. We called the local wildlife rescue. A man came with a container and took it away. He said it wasn’t from any breeder he knew.”

Sherlock’s mouth curved, a flash of teeth that wasn’t a smile. “Of course he did.” He stood, restless energy pouring through him, that first bored dismissal burning off like fog. “How many people handled it? Who found it?”

“Mrs. Cartwright found it,” Alistair said, moving forward in his chair, clinging to the attention like a rope. “She called for help. Hazel—our receptionist—went up, saw it, and told no one to touch anything. We cleared the corridor.”

“Good,” Sherlock murmured, already walking toward the mantle and back, a caged pacing starting up. “Minimal contamination. You have the room number?”

“Three-oh-four.”

“And no one else has encountered similar flora or fauna since?”

“No.” His hands tightened around his cup. “Thank God.”

Sherlock made a small, pleased noise, the sort he made when an equation stopped being tedious. He looked at the ceiling, calculating. “A poison frog is not a prank. It’s intent disguised as whimsy. Imported illegally. Smuggled or diverted from a lab. There are three possible supply lines within a day’s transit. Any idiot could tip dye into your laundry. The frog—” He cut himself off and glanced at me, the shared thrill of a real puzzle flickering across his face. “We’re going.”

I set my cup down carefully. “Sherlock—”

“Pack,” he said to me, irritable only because his mind was already racing ahead. “Overnight for now. Two changes. Sturdy shoes. We’ll need the field kit and your medical bag. Don’t argue.”

“I’m not arguing.” I wasn’t. Not really. The warmth that threaded through me was familiar and a little ridiculous.

Alistair blinked at both of us, trying to catch up. “You—you’ll take the case?”

Sherlock turned to him as if suddenly remembering he was there. “Obviously.”

“I thought you said—” Alistair faltered. “You said it was juvenile.”

“It is,” Sherlock said, almost cheerfully, “until it isn’t.” He held out a hand. “Your keys.”

“My—oh.” Alistair fumbled in his pocket and produced a battered keyring. Sherlock took it and inspected the edges, the faint green smear on the fob, the nick where metal had met stone. He handed them back without comment.

“How soon can you get back to Port Isaac?” I asked, standing. My knee brushed Sherlock’s thigh as I rose. His gaze flicked down to the contact, quick, and away again, focused already elsewhere.

“I drove into London,” Alistair said. “I left the car at the station. I—I can drive you back, if you don’t mind my ancient Volvo.”

“We’re taking the train,” Sherlock said. “You will go ahead now. Do not inform your staff that we are coming. Do not tell anyone we are involved. Your prankster thrives on audience. Deny him that.”

Alistair stared. “But I—surely, if they know—”

“No,” Sherlock snapped, soft but decisive. “You told them to ignore it and he escalated. He wants to be seen. We will see him without showing ourselves.” He glanced at the clock. “Paddington. We’ll make the next train if you leave now. You will meet us at the hotel entrance at half past seven. Do not be late. Send me the contact information for the rescue that retrieved the frog.”

Alistair stood as if pushed. Relief rushed through his features so quickly it left him dazed. “Yes. Yes, of course. Thank you. I don’t— I can’t tell you—”

“Don’t,” Sherlock said, already moving toward the bedroom, the decision made, the engines engaged. “Save it for after.”

Alistair looked at me then, like he needed a human translation. I nodded, softer than Sherlock could be. “We’ll be there. Go on. Drive safe.”

His mouth trembled into a grateful, helpless smile. “Thank you, Dr. Watson.” He hesitated on a breath, eyes catching on Sherlock’s figure disappearing down the hall, then back to me. “You—he listens to you.”

“Sometimes,” I said, and watched him collect his coat with hands that no longer shook.

The door closed behind him. The flat fell quieter, but the quiet was different. Charged.

“John!” Sherlock’s voice carried down the hall. “Do you know where my passport is?”

“You don’t need your passport for Cornwall,” I called back, amused in spite of myself.

“It’s relevant,” he insisted, emerging with a jumble of items already. “I’ll require identification for access to certain databases. Pass me the small microscope. No—the other one. The travel size.”

“You have a travel microscope?” I asked, crossing to the desk, already opening the drawer where he kept the field kit he pretended to disdain and would never go without.

“Of course I do. No, not the forceps, the fine-tipped tweezers. And the luminol.”

“In a hotel?” I raised a brow. “Subtle.”

“It’s a guesthouse, John. And subtlety is in the application, not the tool.”

I packed with the practiced economy of someone who had thrown things into bags for him too many times to count. My fingers brushed the back of his hand as we reached for the same bottle of sterile saline, and both of us paused for a fraction of a second. His gaze flicked up, skimming mine, searching. He didn’t move. Neither did I. Then he softened, barely, and took the bottle with a nod, as if that touch had answered a question he hadn’t known he’d asked.

He turned away briskly. “We will need to make inquiries with wildlife authorities,” he said to the room, to me. “There are only so many import permits issued for dendrobatids in the last quarter. Someone diverted stock or smuggled eggs. The vendor will have a footprint. Delivery logs. A courier. A cool box. He kept it alive long enough to place it. He wanted fear, not death.”

“Not murder,” I agreed, zipping my bag. “Not yet.”

He looked at me, suddenly and directly. “No. Not yet.” A beat. “But intent escalates. I don’t like escalations undertaken by men who enjoy choreography.” His mouth flattened around the words. “We go now.”

He snapped his case shut and moved toward the door, then stopped as if something had tugged him back. He turned, came close enough to adjust the collar of my jumper, his fingers quick and impersonal, not impersonal at all. “You’ll need your coat,” he said, softer, as if that mattered in a way the rest did not. “It’s raining in Cornwall.”

“It’s always raining in Cornwall,” I said, and the corner of his mouth tipped minutely in acknowledgment.

He was already shrugging into his own coat, scarf knotted like a uniform. He glanced at the violin on the chair as if considering something else to bring, then dismissed it. He stepped aside for me to go first, a small courtesy I pretended not to notice.

As I reached for the door, he spoke again, almost an afterthought, eyes lit with the spark that meant the world was a map he finally wanted to read. “A blue frog on a pillow,” he said, half to himself. “It’s a signature. He thinks himself clever.”

“And he’s about to learn what clever really looks like,” I said, because he liked it when I said that, even if he pretended otherwise.

He didn’t look at me as we stepped into the hall, but his hand brushed the small of my back as we went, guiding, warm. “Quite,” he said. “Come along.”