Medium Dark

Sherlock groaned. “Not that again.”

“You said you’d do anything I asked,” John said reproachfully.

“Anything but that.”

“That’s not what you said an hour ago. You said, and I quote, ‘Anything.’”

“The exception was implied.”

John laughed. “No, it wasn’t. Don’t be stroppy.”

“It’s so…dull,” Sherlock said.

“Not if you do it right,” John said patiently. “If you’d stop messing about and do it like you mean it—put a little feeling into it—it’s quite moving.”

Sherlock heaved an aggrieved sigh. “Fine. How do you want it?”

“You know how.”

More resistance. “Ugh. It’s so boring like that. If I have to do this—”

“You do.”

“ —at least let me give it some animation.”

“It’s not supposed to be animated,” John said. “It’s supposed to be slow.”

“It’s not supposed to be a solo act, either. It takes at least three other people.” He ran a ball of rosin along the length of his bow. “You do know the meaning of ‘canon,’ don’t you?”

“I should. You’ve gone on about it often enough.”

“To no effect, obviously. Pachelbel’s canon is a rondo. It’s also a—well, it’s hardly a musical cliche, but it’s a cliche all the same.”

“How is it a cliche?”

“Two words: Ordinary. People.”

“What, that old movie?”

“Mm.”

“How do you even know that exists?”

“My first violin teacher thought it was some sort of modern classic,” Sherlock said with a sour expression and a dismissive wave of his hand. “‘The Gone With The Wind of the Eighties’.”

John laughed. “You can’t distract me with all the backstory, you know.”

“Philistine,” Sherlock muttered.

“Elitist.”

“Boor.”

“Tufthunter.”

Sherlock snorted a laugh. “‘Tufthunter’?”

“‘Dear Diary,’” John said, grinning, “‘Today I stumped Sherlock on vocabulary.’”

“John.”

“It means aspirant. Pretender.”

“I see. We’ve been helping Mrs. Hudson with the crossword again, have we?”

“Actually I came across it in the OED a while back. You know how things stick in your brain better when you have a real life example just at hand?”

“Considering the agonizingly dull chore you’re insisting upon, shouldn’t you be a little less insulting and a little more ingratiating?”

“‘Agonizingly dull.’ Spare me. I’m not asking you to play the cello part, am I?”

“I would have to stab you with the bow,” Sherlock replied haughtily.

“Largo,” John said imperturbably, with a dismissive wave. “Get busy.” He picked up a magazine at random and leafed through it.

Sherlock sniffed discontentedly, tossed the rosin aside, and picked up the violin. The truth was that he’d been a bit of a trial to John for the last few hours, and he knew it. Nothing interesting had crossed the 221B threshold since the Ricoletti case concluded more than a week ago, and considering the emotional upset to John that resulted from that investigation it hardly counted as ‘interesting’ in any event.

Besides being frustrating in the extreme for Sherlock, the lack of work had given John a nearly uninterrupted span of time in which to brood on thoughts of loss, life, death, and middle age. He was neither naive nor habitually morose, and Sherlock was fairly confident that he was happy with their life and work together, but the brutal reality of how people could treat each other, which John saw far too often in their line of work—and which he had seen far too often in his life—tended to disconcert him at the best of times. The Ricoletti murders had been especially senseless and graphic reminders of that human capacity for cruelty. Not to mention that one of John’s favorite patients had been among the victims. Conventional wisdom held that the Major’s memorial service should have served as a coda to the experience, but whatever funerals were supposed to provide in the way of ‘closure’ for people, this one had failed to provide for John. He worked his shift at the clinic the day before the service, took his daily walks as usual, and to his friends appeared to be back to his old self. Sherlock knew otherwise. By a dozen subtle signs he understood that John was not quite recovered from the blow. Was ‘recovered’ the right word? Sherlock didn’t know.

Now it was Tuesday. Two days since the service. Sherlock was bored stupid and he’d just spent the last two hours trying John’s patience by scraping intermittently and randomly at the violin. This was nothing new; Sherlock often played while he was thinking, or to distract himself, or for no identifiable reason at all. In general John took it all very much in stride, possibly because Sherlock usually finished these sessions of random noise production, which he knew wore somewhat on John’s nerves after the first hour, with a few of John’s favorite songs. Compensation for the trial on his patience. In fact today he’d been extra annoying in the faint hope of starting a row that would perk John up a bit, but John had declined the invitation. Another sign that life in Baker Street wasn’t quite back to normal.

Sherlock thoughtfully dragged the bow over each string in turn. He increased the tension on the A string’s peg slightly, tried it again, frowned, and gave it another minute adjustment. Better. He glanced at John, still leafing through the magazine with an air of patent unconcern but obviously determined to wait him out, and after heaving another theatrical sigh he began.

John laid the magazine aside when Sherlock started playing. Now that he’d satisfied his need to whinge, Sherlock addressed the music with a sincerity, sensitivity, and artistry that left John in awe. Although John had requested a meditative largo rendition of his favorite classical tune, Sherlock rebelled to the extent of adding the gigue and soon had John tapping his foot and smiling.

John prized these occasions above his own salvation. He didn’t think of them as revealing the “real” Sherlock, because the great mind—the reason and logic and objectivity—that was the real Sherlock; but he did think of them as a window into the rest of Sherlock, the side of his aloof, self-contained friend that Sherlock shared with no one else. His soul, if John were to stoop to what Sherlock himself would scorn as contemptible sentiment. After all, Sherlock always insisted, music was simply mathematics. Mathematics was reason. Therefore music, too, was reason—and he would go on to speak breezily of successive twelfth roots of two, equal temperament tuning, and sinusoidal waves until John told him to stop his gob and just play something.

Now he stood by the window, his eyes closed, wholly intent on his improvised variations and embellishments, and despite his earlier protestations about John’s selection very evidently feeling the music. In spite of his insistence that a canon required more than one player he produced a creditable imitation of an ensemble, segueing seamlessly from melody to harmony and back, switching deftly from one voice to another, blending elements of each part into a unique yet familiar whole, and clearly entertaining himself as well as John.

John wished at these times that more people appreciated his friend as something other than the famously cold, dispassionate thinker. He did what he could by blogging about their cases, but there were some things, Sherlock had once told him, which should be kept safe from public pawing. John knew that his friend’s capacity for depth of feeling was one of these. So instead he watched and listened, and if the outside world dropped away for Sherlock as he played, so it dropped away for John as he took vicarious delight in his friend’s virtuosity.

After nearly seven minutes Sherlock brought the song to a close with a singularly pure and clear final note.

“That,” John said with utter sincerity. “Was. Amazing.” Sherlock glanced at him, checking for candor, but John had rarely heard him play so well.

“Philistine,” Sherlock replied, but a pleased smile pulled at the corner of his mouth—and then his expression shifted abruptly to annoyance. John instantly inferred a visitor. He turned in his chair to see a woman standing silently in the living room doorway: They had a client.

John’s first impression was that she was either very tired or very ill or both. She appeared to be in her early sixties but might have been up to ten years younger than that. Her dyed blonde hair was cut in a bob that fell just at her jawline, giving some much-needed fullness to her gaunt face. The application of makeup had successfully minimized neither her pallor nor the dark circles below her large brown eyes. She was not above John’s height, although her abnormal thinness made her appear taller.

She fared no better under Sherlock’s scrutiny. He still stood behind his chair with the violin and bow in his left hand, but now his head was up and turned slightly to the side as he eyed her with the trenchant edginess he reserved for strangers, and with a little resentment: The contrast between the ease he’d felt while playing and the sudden return of tension annoyed him, and while he wanted a case she didn’t look very interesting.

She smiled a little hesitantly and obviously had the sense that she was intruding; in fact she’d hung about on the first landing for three minutes while Sherlock finished playing. “I hope I’m not interrupting,” she began.

John was on his feet, having remembered his manners. “No, not at all,” he said, and Sherlock shot him a wry look. “Can we help you?”

“Yes, sorry,” she said, but had to pause then to cough. “I’m here to see Mr. Holmes,” she said when she’d recovered.

Sherlock pointed to John. “He’s the one you want.”

John glanced at him. “What?”

“You’re Mr. Holmes?” she said to John.

“No,” John said. “He’s Mr. Holmes. I’m John Watson. Hello.” He approached and offered his hand.

“Doctor John Watson,” Sherlock said pointedly, setting the violin and bow aside and obviously intending to leave the room.

“Why would she be here to see me?”

Sherlock shrugged: Could it be any more obvious? “You’re a doctor. She’s terminal. You see how that fits?”

“Jesus, Sherlock.” That was rude even for him. John turned to the woman. “I’m so sorry—”

“He’s right,” she said simply, and she seemed strangely unfazed by the fact. She looked thoughtfully at Sherlock. “How did you know?”

While her presence displeased him, the opportunity to show off did not. “You’re a widow with three—no, two—adult children,” he said, ignoring John’s glare. “You’ve just taken the Tube from Charing Cross station to Baker Street: eight minutes and £4.80. That’s on top of the train fare from Dover, where you began this morning, having taken the 9:43 train. It’s a short walk from the Baker Street station but with your illness you’d have been justified in taking a cab: So no money, then, although your inexpensive costume jewellery and clothing alone make that obvious. You’re modestly dressed but made a real effort to tidy yourself and put on makeup to come into the city. Out of breath from the stairs but pale rather than flushed and you’re thin, but that’s apparently due to your illness, because previously you would have been fairly well fed, judging from the way your clothes hang loosely now. From their wear and the style verging on outdated you’ve owned that outfit for at least five years, and yet you haven’t replaced it even after your weight loss. Very little point, if you’re terminal. You had extensive orthodontia removed…about five weeks ago.”

While John was appalled by Sherlock’s unsparing evaluation, the woman was obviously at the point psychologically where she accepted her situation, and in fact she seemed more impressed by the accuracy of his inferences than bothered by his manner. “That’s quite impressive,” she admitted, before pausing again to cough. “Excuse me. I beg your pardon. You’re right about all of it,” she continued. “Except that I really am here to see you, Mr. Holmes. I need a detective. Not a doctor.”

“Sit down, please,” John said, placing the client chair for her. He shot a passing glare at Sherlock and sat down at the living room table. “Why do you need a detective? Mrs….?”

“Soranzo,” she said, sitting down and putting her handbag on her lap. “Abigail Soranzo.”

Sherlock reminded himself that he’d just been hoping for something to distract John and dropped resignedly into the Le Corbusier.

Now that she had their full attention Abigail was a bit shy about getting straight to the point, so she said diffidently to Sherlock, with a nod toward the violin, “You play beautifully. I’m not just saying that,” she added hastily, because he scowled as though her noticing was an impertinence rather than a compliment. “My husband was a violinist.”

“Yes, very interesting,” Sherlock said impatiently. “Please get to your point, Mrs. Soranzo. Why are you here?”

“It’s because of the lights.”

“The lights.”

“The lights in the grove. You see, I’m a resident client at Wellspring, and–”

“Wellspring?” John said.

“The Wellspring Institute. In Dover. About a month ago I went to my doctor because I’d started getting night sweats again. I was tired all the time, short of breath…and it hurt just here.” She pointed to a spot on her left side, just under her ribs. “He started talking about lung cancer—I used to smoke years ago—and radiation and massive doses of all sorts of drugs, so I went straight to Wellspring and they’ve worked miracles. I’ve been on their program for a month and I feel so much better now that I’m not overloading my system with artificial chemicals.”

“Yes,” Sherlock said sarcastically, “‘natural’ is the Good per se, isn’t it? But then, disease is natural, too, so it’s strange that people don’t enjoy cancer more.”

“Sherlock!”

Sherlock didn’t see why John was so exercised. “Just pointing out the fallacy of intrinsicism,” he said.

“Well, save it,” John cried. “I’m so sorry,” he added to Abigail, but she remained remarkably unfazed.

“It’s okay, Dr. Watson,” she said with a smile. “Believe me, my family has tried to change my mind, as well, but they can’t argue with success.”

John tried to get Sherlock back on track. “Have you heard of this Wellspring Institute?”

“No,” Sherlock said, “but from the cloying name and Mrs. Soranzo’s aversion to reality I’d say the doctors are certified by the University of Quackistan. Am I right?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “But I can see why you think that.” She gestured toward John. “I mean, your friend is a doctor, so of course—”

“Irrelevant,” Sherlock snapped. “My conclusions rely on reality, not relationships.”

“I’ve made peace with my illness” she said, “but that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t like to live as long as possible. Dr. Kickham is a medical doctor, but he’s not limited by the usual binary treatment models. You’re about the same age, I think,” she added, looking at John. “Do you know him? Dr. Brian Kickham?”

John shook his head. “I’m surprised,” Abigail said. “He’s very prominent in his profession.”

“So was Coco the Clown,” said Sherlock.

“Dammit—” John began.

“Mrs. Soranzo,” Sherlock interrupted, “do you know what they call the person who finishes last in his medical school class?”

“No.”

“‘Doctor.’”

She looked faintly puzzled. “Well, I don’t know about that, but I do know how much better I feel, and it’s all because of Wellspring.” Then, in the tone of one reciting propaganda she said, “They take a holistic, individualized approach that treats the entire patient, not just the symptoms. Dr. Kickham’s methods use natural remedies that are non-invasive, non-toxic, non-addictive—”

“Non-functional,” Sherlock said.

She smiled serenely: Unflappable. “And yet I feel so much better.” She proved this by breaking off to cough again. “I’m sorry,” she said. “There are so many toxins in the city air…I know what you’re thinking, Dr. Watson: It sounds incredible, and frankly I was skeptical too, at first, but if the Wellspring Protocol doesn’t work, why have I felt so much better since I started it? There are some things that science just can’t explain. If it wasn’t for Wellspring’s program of natural remedies and their tumour-shrinking nutrition plan I might be dead by now.”

Sherlock reached into his breast pocket for his phone and clapped it to his ear. “Hello, NHS?” he said, and John groaned. “You know all those painstakingly controlled clinical trials you’ve been conducting for the last eighty years? You can stop now. Yes, I have a client here who can determine treatment efficacy via anecdote. You’re welcome.” He put the phone away. “Skip the infomercial, Mrs. Soranzo, and tell us why you’re here. What about the lights?”

“Well,” she said, “your website says that you take only strange and interesting cases, and something very strange happened Friday and Saturday night. The Institute is located right on the cliffs, and they just installed a new meditation grove almost at the very edge; they just finished it on Friday, but it was supposed to be done a week earlier; they had a terrible time with the soil there, they said. It’s beautiful, and of course the setting is exquisite, with the view and the sea so near. Very tranquil and calming.”

“Ugh,” Sherlock groaned.

“Friday night I didn’t sleep well and woke up around one in the morning. Sometimes even with the calcarea carbonica the night sweats wake me up. Well, when I couldn’t go back to sleep I got up and sat at the window to read. There’s a big bay window with a window seat, and I just love to spend time there. It’s so peaceful. Well, it’s been warm, you know, with this lovely Indian summer weather, so I had the windows open as I read. Eventually I started to get sleepy and then I must have dozed off, because when I woke up I was chilled, so I closed the window before I went back to bed.”

“What sort of window?” Sherlock asked.

“Sorry?”

“Sash? Casement?”

“I’m not sure. The kind that opens with a handle at the bottom and swings out. On a hinge at the side?”

“Casement,” Sherlock said.

“Well, as I pulled the window closed I noticed two red lights reflected in the glass, so I stopped. I adjusted the window so I could see them better, and I realized that they were coming from out by the new grove. Normally you can’t see it from that side of the manor house, but with the window open it was reflected in the glass. It took me a bit to figure out that the lights were coming from there, but that’s definitely where they were.”

Sherlock just stared at her. This was neither strange nor interesting. “And?”

“And…well, they kept bobbing around out there. Like they were floating. They’d blink on and off, sometimes. Sometimes they’d be up high above the cliff edge and sometimes low. Sometimes they wouldn’t move at all. There was no real pattern to it, and one time more than five minutes went by and I didn’t see anything. I thought they’d gone, but suddenly there they were again. It went on like that for almost two hours, and then again the next night, too.” She stopped as though she’d reached the end of her account.

Sherlock was still staring. “That’s it?”

“Well…It’s strange, don’t you think? And kind of interesting? What do you think it was?”

Sherlock turned to John. “John, call MI6 and tell them Mrs. Soranzo has discovered that the English Channel contains boats.” John looked away. Sherlock put his pale, cold eyes back on Abigail. “The house overlooks the Dover Strait, the busiest shipping channel in the world. You saw the navigation lights of ships and boats moving up-Channel. Red lights on the port side; green to starboard.”

“Why did they blink on and off, then?” John asked, trying to come to her defense. “And she said they seemed to be floating.”

“Yes, well. Ships. Floating. It’s a whole thing they do. Wave action and fog explain the movement and intermittency, waves being common to the sea and fog to the coast. Have a nice day, Mrs. Soranzo.” And when she showed no sign of knowing she’d been dismissed he added, “Somewhere else.”

“That might be true about the lights,” she said firmly, “but what about the ghost?”

“The ghost?” John asked, as Sherlock looked away with an exasperated sigh.

“The ghost in the grove,” she said. “The ghost that appeared in the exact spot where I saw the red lights. The very next night, too. I was right there in the grove, twenty feet away from it, and it was no ship, Mr. Holmes.”

John glanced nervously at Sherlock: He already had the douchebaggery level at eight, and mention of the supernatural was just the sort of thing to make him dial it all the way to eleven.

But Sherlock surprised him by suddenly focusing on Abigail quite intently and saying, “Tell me what happened and leave nothing out. Except for the boring extraneous irrelevant bits.”

* * * * *

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