The Blue Box (A very short Wholock tale)

"The Blue Box case" - Dr. John H. Watson's weekly blog. 

I sit here, once again, with a laptop resting on my lap, on my small desk chair, questioning once again, the limits of our comprehension, or the limits of our knowledge at least. Because there is a case that we solved but a week ago, and you know it must've been an odd one, for he is still banging his head against the wall, trying to reason what he saw into some recognizable law of physics. He's not making much progress with that.

I however, have given up with trying to understand what we saw that day, that many days, instead, I have decided to document this case, like I have a few times in the past. But first I must make some things clear, I am not a physicist by all means. But I think I understand enough of how the world works, to know that an object should not be smaller on the outside, then it is bigger on the inside. And yet here we are, still thinking about the case, the curious case of the blue box. The case that all started, when Sherlock yelled the words he is known so well for. The case that started, when Sherlock yelled the words......

"The game is afoot!"

Must everything be a game for him?

"And what game would that be Sherlock?"

I asked in riposte, sipping my tea.

I had just woken up, barely dressed, I had entered the room to see Sherlock jumping down from the table. He quickly ran into the kitchen and came back out with a cup himself. I couldn't see steam, I assumed it had gotten cold without him realising. I remarked upon this, only to be thwarted by a remark about my deduction. Receiving no response to my query, I went about starting my laptop, sitting in my chair, and checking the news.

And that is when I saw it. What I could only assume Sherlock was talking about. At some point yesterday, a painting had been stolen from the British museum. The name of the picture was not mentioned in the report, the same seemed to go for the time it was taken. I could hear Sherlock muttering theories about how it was taken, about the security of the museum and how the cameras could have been fooled. I thought he was acting too quickly, I always think we should at least get the report straight from the police, and preferably see the crime scene, before we start making assumptions.

But then I'm reminded who I'm talking about, when he proceeds to throw my coat at me, and insist we go. I was in no position to argue, and I hadn't been awake longer than an hour. I rapidly put on my coat, and followed him out the door. It took us just under an hour to arrive at the large white building, it was locked down. I could see about three, four, police cars around the perimeter of the entrance, with more going around behind the building. The day itself, and I only noticed this as we walked up to the front doors, was fairly warm, the sun free from the clouds that had been upon us the day before.

We met with the officer in charge of the investigation, he knew who we were, of course he did. But he was reluctant to let us pass, however, Sherlock demonstrated his usual habits of working out someone's life story with naught but a glance, and the man was convinced to let us in. He took us to the security room first, for lack of a better name, and showed us the camera recordings for when this painting was stolen. The footage was odd, yes, but we had seen this sort of thing before, one second it's there, the next, gone to the eastwind. No, what was more curious, was the note left where the painting had been hung against the wall, but we couldn't see it from the recordings alone. We asked, and we were led to the wall where the painting had been.

It was large, clean and white, like an architect's canvas. The immediate area of the crime had been blocked off entirely, even to some of the police working this case. We approached, Sherlock trying to avoid drawing dots towards, well, you know who, because of the last time he saw this little camera trick. Nonetheless, we took a look at the little note on the wall. It was written on a dark blue small page, it looked like it was taken out of a notebook of some kind, and the note itself?

"Feeling homesick Doctor? - R"

Upon first sight, the note felt directed at me, like someone knew they could get Sherlock to take a case, and they knew they could get a message to me. I spent the following moments wondering what the message could mean. Homesick? 221B perhaps? No, it matters not, I know now what it meant, and I know now that the note had little to do with me, or Sherlock for that matter. While Sherlock lost himself in his own mind, as he often does, I was left quiet, looking at this note, so I decided to ask what the painting had been.

"The painting? I believe it was a planet." I inquired further. "No, sorry, I don't think it was one that actually exists." My last question. "Who was it by? I believe it was actually a Van Gogh work. Not sure when it dates though."

I stopped my questions there. Though I did find it curious at the time, the note would've been behind the painting, was the message there before it was taken, or after? I asked Sherlock, he said he could tell from the dust around and on the note, that it would've been there before the painting was taken.I should've asked more questions come to think of it, but I still hadn't fully woken up. The questions I would've asked don't matter now of course, because of the things that happened next.

I must add, while we did, personally, solve the case, we never got the painting back, and the person who took it was not caught. The painting, after I did a bit more research, was called "Time of war." And more accurately, it depicted a planet in flames, in turmoil even, but I could not find any information as to when he made it.

It was at this point Sherlock started to get hectic, for he logically couldn't see a way for this to be stolen without any trace. For him, we had already lost the game, it was stolen, and we had no possible clue leading us to the thief, nonetheless, maybe it was from lack of sleep, but it didn't bother me. Not this time, I look back at it now, knowing that I don't mind the painting being stolen, but at the time, I really didn't care.

It was a few days later however, when the case solved itself.

We had taken a back alley through London, we'd used it before, it was a quick way back to 221B, this time however, was odd to say the least. We turned the corner and what do we see? Naught but a blue police box, it had never been there before, we had taken this alley the previous night too, this had appeared overnight. And then we heard a shouting from inside, an odd man burst through the blue doors excitedly. He ran up to me and Sherlock, shook our hands and loudly announced

"Hello! You must be Sherlock and Watson! I must say, I am a HUGE fan, oh right! You can call me, The Doctor! Now, do either of you care for some tea...?"

That is what I can remember him saying the most, first impressions and all, of course, I was taken more aback when he showed us the inside of his little blue police box and... I'm sorry, I have to cut short this story, because from the street below, I can hear a somewhat familiar pulsing sound, and I think I'll soon have a much better story to tell, about this "Doctor." and his curious little blue box.