Trust never dies | Sherlock Holmes

Chapter VII ~ Trust will never die

   Sherlock arranges for a carriage to take us to Baker Street because, he says, it's closer, and he doesn't like the idea of ​​leaving me so soon.

   To be honest, I wouldn't have liked to be alone with my thoughts between the walls of the house either, because I'm afraid of what I might come up with because of the fear I've started living with in the last few days. 

   The darkness of the night falls over Sherlock's apartment, and he rushes to light a few candles as I make my way to his desk and remove the gloves from my hands. 

   -So what did you discover tonight? I ask as I lean against the wood of the desk. 

   He sighs, and I feel my whole being take in the stress and confusion that grinds him. 

   -The Lyon Match Factory is in the middle of it all, he answers looking at the twisted map. 

   -How did you deduce that?

   -When I visited the poppy's apartment, I found the taper crown hat I was looking for. Enola's case is connected with mine. Whoever this Sarah Chapman girl's lover is, that's the perpetrator I'm looking for. 

   -William Lyon? I burst out, sitting up better. 

   -What?

   -That flower was not a poppy, it was Sweet William. Enola went to the ball to question the Match  Factory owner's son. 

   Sherlock looks at me for a long time, analyzing my last words. He turns around the room a few times, then stares down at the map. 

   -Why... 

   I catch him thinking and try to figure out what discord is now going on in his mind, what plan is hatching and what intrigues are unfolding.

   -It's a cipher, he concludes, and I approach the map full of colored threads. The polka, he says as he points to the square of green yarn, where I recognize the order of the dance steps. The promenade, he points again.

   I channel my energy onto the map, onto the green thread, and notice the flowing line of the dance I first learned as a child. 

   -The two-step, I say while showing him the outline.

   -They're all dances! Sherlock exclaimed, both surprised and indignant. Twenty-seven in totall... That's it!

   -What? I ask as he rushes to the library. 

   -The Language of Dance, Liz, twenty-seven dances, he speaks picking up a book with a dark green cover and sitting down at his desk.

   I watch him study the pages of the book and transcribe a series of letters on the notes, and I dare not interrupt him, but continue to admire his imposing posture.

   His skin glows in the warm candlelight, his sharp jawline and the almost imperceptibly visible beginnings of his beard, his brows furrow whenever he encounters a puzzlement, and his full lips quiver in concentration. 

   He was particularly handsome, and despite the twisted case he was solving right now, need suddenly welled up in my gut, making me think only of his lips over mine. 

   -I've got you! he exclaims, and I shake off any confusion.

   I help him stick the letters in place and listen to his directions carefully. When we finish, I see no formed words, no hidden meaning, no matter how I look at the map. 

   -Is it some kind of anagram? I ask more for myself. 

   -It really is. We have to rearrange them.