The Autobiography of Mycroft Holmes

Chapter 13: Irregular Occurrences on Baker Street

I got a cab and went home to see Sherlock. Almost immediately after walking in, Sherlock ran down the stairs in what looked like a loose old t-shirt and flannel pajama pants. We made an interesting pair standing next to each other, me in my three-piece suit and her in what were basically rags.

"Hello," Sherlock said to me, grabbing an old backpack from the closet next to the door where we kept our winter items and other useless things.

"Where do you think you're going, Sherlock?"

"You're taking me out to lunch."

"I am?"

"Yep. I've been sitting upstairs, bored as all hell, ALL DAY. You've been sitting in the nice, entertaining Diogenes Club all day. You're taking me out to lunch," Sherlock repeated.

"Alright, if you insist..." I said, shutting the door behind me.

"So, where are we going?" Sherlock asked me.

"Starbucks. We're on a low budget," I said, letting her cross the street before me. "Remember, I just balanced our books. You have been spending way too much money lately, and we need to spend less. We may have to go on a diet of mostly Starbucks for the next week or month or so."

"Really? I just had three cups of coffee and I don't want another."

"Have another," said I, relatively annoyed. "And get used to drinking more coffee than usual. It may be all we can afford."

"Well, you don't have to wear suits all the time..."

"I haven't bought new ones since college, and never had these tailored since. My suits cannot be the problem."

We did not talk anymore as we made our way up Baker Street until we were directly in front of the Starbucks that we were going to eat in.

"Lestrade did call me today, but it was not about my cases. She wants us to have a dinner with her tomorrow night so we can meet the other members of her wedding party before the actual day comes around. I am a bridesmaid, but apparently you are her Maid of Honor," Sherlock told me as we got on line.

"This meeting, you say, is tomorrow? Where?"

"Tomorrow night at eight-thirty, at the Al Duca in Piccadilly Circus."

We left the Starbucks after talking for over an hour. But we had not actually arrived at our home before I got the odd feeling that we were being followed. I took out a pair of sunglasses from my bag and looked through the reflection in them to see a man in rags walking almost directly behind us, not carrying anything but an old piece of loose-leaf, folded thrice.

I took Sherlock's arm and began to drag her over to the sidewalk closest to the buildings to our right. I pretended to check my phone, and Sherlock began to look around.

"What's wrong?" she whispered to me, pretending to look at the phone. I whispered back to her that we were being followed. Sherlock looked around once more.

"Who's following us?" she asked, looking toward a street sign, where she saw the man. "Oh!" she said, clearly recognizing the man. "Don't worry, I charged him to do this for me."

When the sidewalk basically cleared off, Sherlock walked up next to the man. He saw her there, and he pretended to hold her hand. Sherlock took the paper and walked back to me. "It's just as I thought!" she nearly shouted for all of Baker Street to hear.

"What is? What's going on?" asked I, surprised she knew him.

"He's working for me. He was sent by me to get this information by spying on someone. He's confirming a theory I've had for a few days, but that I needed to test out."

"But who is he?"

"The man is my closest-located Baker Street Irregular in my Homeless Network."

I stopped on the pavement. Sherlock looked at me with aggravation; she had been moving rather fast in her hurry to get back to 221B, and I was seriously slowing her down. "Your what?"

"I'll explain in a minute, come with me."

I could not wait to hear an explanation for this one.

Sherlock ran into our building, closing the door behind me as soon as I walked in and looking out the peephole. "Did anyone see this?"

"There was a questionable looking man in a gray suit who saw the handoff, and there was a woman with red hair and blue highlights standing next to him. They were married. I do not think you'll have to worry about them, though, because they were going someplace in a hurry and the man's eyes did not linger. But there was a woman in large shawls next to me at the time that saw you run over, and all of Baker Street heard when you began to yell at me."

"Better stats than I thought they'd be. Come with me, and I'll explain about the Homeless Network to you once we are upstairs. But we have to be upstairs; we can be heard on the street if our voices become one or two octaves louder."

"Fine," I said, and Sherlock nearly pulled me upstairs.

Sherlock let me in first again, careful to lock the door when we were both in.

"It's an odd situation, the one I'm working on now," she told me when we walked in. "It involves a lot of things I can't tell you about, for obvious reasons like client confidentiality and all that, but when I am faced with tough problems like this, I involve my Homeless Network."

"A network of... homeless people? Presumably located in all parts of London?"

"I call whoever's closest to the problem at hand to help me. They're in all the places in London with the most crime and/or where most of my clients are. The person you saw is my best confidante; my best Baker Street Irregular," said Sherlock, walking around the room trying to find her case files.

"You have a name for them? The Baker Street Irregulars? Sounds like a better name for a band than a system of homeless people..." I joked.

"Yes, I suppose so," Sherlock said, clearly not taking it lightly. This was a cleverly-planned maneuver for her; a very serious one that was meant to ensure the secrecy that was a large part of her career.

"Are these people actually... reliable?"

"They have yet to fail me in any way possible," Sherlock said, taking out the folder and setting it on the kitchen table. She proceeded to stand over it and run her hands quickly through it in her effort to find something. "They are better than the police sometimes."

"Right. Well, I commend you for thinking up something like this. It's much better, I say, than I could have done in your place."

"Because you're not a detective. If you were, you'd have thought of it long before I did," Sherlock stated, finding the thing she was looking for and leaving the scattered remains of the file on the table while loading her laptop and searching the internet for surveillance footage of a certain area at a time a few nights ago.

"Right again," I commented, only then realizing I had probably offended my sister. But she did not appear offended, and actually continued on with her work as if forgetting I was even there.

"Okay, I think I'm going to go bookkeep for a little while; I'll call you when it's time for the party tomorrow if you're still in your own little world," I told Sherlock. She did not respond, and I left her to her own devices for a bit of time.