Despite the Odds

Chapter 18: Secrets

"Do you own this place?" Mary asked as she walked slowly towards the door, and Sherlock replied lightly: "Mmm. I won it in a card game with the Clarence House Cannibal. Nearly cost me my kidneys, but fortunately I had a straight flush."

Mary slowly made her way inside the empty house as Sherlock remarked: "Quite a gambler, that woman."

Inside, it was just a narrow passage for maintenance purposes, but Mary spotted a figure sitting at the far end of the hallway hidden mostly in the shadows but the upturned coat was very distinctive.

"What do you want, Sherlock?" Mary asked quietly, her voice shaking just a little as she reached a hand into her pocket.

Sherlock replied monotonously: "Mary Morstan was stillborn in October 1972. Her gravestone is in Chiswick Cemetery where, five years ago, you acquired her name and date of birth and thereafter her identity."

Mary slowly began to walk down towards the figure as Sherlock noted: "That's why you don't have 'friends' from before that date."

Her eyes narrowed as she remembered Sherlock commenting on her much smaller list of guests for the wedding. She should've known it would come back to bite her.

Sherlock continued: "It's an old enough technique, known to the kinds of people who can recognise a skip-code on sight."

She clenched her fist; she'd known she would rue that day when John had almost been burnt alive. She'd been so worried about John that she'd slipped up as she showed Sherlock the phone message, and she had caught Sherlock's inquiring glance at her when she had.

"Have extraordinarily retentive memories..." Sherlock added, and Mary pursed her lips. Why did she have to always let something slip when she was worried? She'd been in a hurry to save Major Sholto, and...

"You were very slow." Mary reminded him.

He acknowledged it, and he asked slowly: "How good a shot are you?"

Mary pulled her hand from her pocket, cocking the gun as she asked flatly: "How badly do you want to find out?"

"If I die here, my body will be found in a building with your face projected on the front of it." Sherlock pointed out. "Even Scotland Yard could get somewhere with that."

Mary nodded once, conceding the point.

"I want to know how good you are." Sherlock commented and Mary replied tightly: "I'm not as good as your girlfriend."

"Doesn't matter- you're still very good aren't you?" He countered and Mary's grip on her gun tightened.

"Go on." Sherlock almost purred. "Show me. The doctor's wife must be a little bit bored by now."

Mary finally reached into her pocket and pulled out a coin. Tossing it high into the air, she fired quickly, letting the coin fall just slightly behind her feet. She turned back to the figure expectantly, then tensed as Sherlock hung up and asked from behind her: "May I see?"

Mary examined the figure in the shadows briefly, and scoffed: "A dummy."

She turned to face the real detective, taking out the ear buds as she muttered: "I suppose it was a fairly obvious trick."

She faced Sherlock, who was leaning slightly against Marie. Mary's eyes narrowed- she hadn't heard either of them behind her, and hadn't even sensed the woman's presence. Only to be expected from the world's most dangerous couple, she supposed.

Sherlock was still extremely pale, though he seemed more or less in control of his body, but his face was emotionless as he watched her. Mary glanced at him briefly, but it was the woman Mary focused most of her attention on. There was no trace of the friendly woman Mary had come to know in the cold agent before her, and the hairs on the back of Mary's neck rose as she stared into Marie's flinty green eyes.