Later, John is sitting on the edge of the coffee table while Sherlock – wearing black trousers and a white shirt and putting on his jacket – walks across the living room.
"We should have you and Mary over for dinner soon, John. Now that you two are... y'know." Says Elisabeth.
"Great, yeah! Dinner! Yeah!" Says John.
"Right, Sherlock?" Asks Elisabeth.
"Hmm? Yeah sure. Anyways, back to business." Says Sherlock.
He pauses for a second.
"You know Magnussen as a newspaper owner, but he's so much more than that." He says.
John frowns at him.
"He uses his power and wealth to gain information. The more he acquires, the greater his wealth and power."
Sherlock sits down at the dining table and opens his laptop.
"I'm not exaggerating when I say that he knows the critical pressure point on every person of note or influence in the whole of the Western world and probably beyond. He is the Napoleon of blackmail ..."
He pulls up a photograph of Magnussen's home, together with a blueprint of the building.
"... and he has created an unassailable architecture of forbidden knowledge. Its name ..."
He turns the laptop to show the screen to John.
"... is Appledore."
"Dinner." Says John.
"Sorry, what, dinner?"
"Me and Mary, coming for dinner ... with ... wine and ... sitting."
Sherlock turns and stares at him for a moment.
"Seriously? I've just told you that the Western world is run from this house ... and you want to talk about dinner?" Says Sherlock, pointing at the screen.
"Fine, talk about the house."
Sherlock throws him a look, then turns back to his laptop while John looks towards the door as if he still can't believe what he just heard, but eventually he turns back.
"It is the greatest repository of sensitive and dangerous information anywhere in the world. the Alexandrian Library of secrets and scandals – and none of it is on a computer. He's smart – computers can be hacked. It's all on hard copy in vaults ...underneath that house; and as long as it is, the personal freedom of anyone you've ever met is a fantasy." Says Sherlock, pointing at the screen.
There's a knock on the living room door, followed by Mrs Hudson's familiar, 'Ooh-ooh!' The door opens and she comes in.
"Oh, that was the doorbell. Couldn't you hear it?" She says.
"It's in the fridge. It kept ringing." Says Sherlock.
"Oh, that's not a fault, Sherlock!"
"Who is it?"
Mrs Hudson draws in an anxious breath.
Shortly afterwards she goes down the stairs to the bottom.
"Mr Holmes said you can go right up." She says.
She looks nervously at whoever is waiting in the hall. We don't see who they are but she's clearly frightened by them because she flattens herself against the wall and almost cringes as three men in dark suits walk up the stairs. As a fourth person walks towards the stairs, we are looking through his eyes. He can see not only Mrs H but information about her, which reads:
MARTHA LOUISE HUDSON
LANDLADY
WIDOW (SEE FILE)
SEMI-REFORMED ALCOHOLIC
FORMER "EXOTIC DANCER"
(SEE FILE)
FINANCES: 21% DEBT
(SEE FILE)
STATUS: UNIMPORTANT
YOU ARE READING
Vatican Cameos (A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction)
FanfictionVatican Cameos, A code word reactivated as Sherlock Holmes returns to London. Jim Moriarty is dead, but evil still lies deep within the streets of London. And The Baker Street Trio are needed more than ever.
