Eye Contact *ON HOLD*

Sebastian From Uni

The cab stopped outside Tower 42, Broad Street, and Sherlock paid the cabbie before exiting after Maggie and John, who looked around. The building before them seemed to be made of windows, and reached many, many floors up. Sherlock walked toward it purposefully, and they followed quickly after him. As they entered the place through revolving glass doors, Maggie looked at the writing on the pane nearby.

“Shad Sanderson Bank,” she said to herself.

“What was that?” John asked.

“Nothing,” she answered as they exited the revolving door. Maggie smiled to herself as she remembered the first time she met a revolving door. She was nine. It had been on a bank much like this one, where her dad had worked. The building was grand, and some beggars were outside, shaking their cups and asking for any change a passerby might have. Her father had to force her to leave the door, as she had been walking in never-ending circles. He’d thought she’d been lost, unable to understand how the entryway worked, when in reality she had been studying the people on the outside, and how the people on the inside acted differently. She watched on man enter, and didn’t miss the way his shoulders set themselves and he stood up a little straighter. Another left and seemed to deflate a bit, relaxing, although he was still too proud to give even a bit of change to the man next to him.

Her father lost her job that day. He had taken her with him to the bank to help him pack his things from his office. As they left, her father standing proudly even as he carried his box, she was struck by something her dad did. After they had everything packed into their car, he dug into his suit pocket and took out his wallet. He walked over to the beggar by the door, opened the leather object, and handed the man 100 quid, all of the cash he had with him. The man stared at her father for a long moment, gently taking the money as if unsure if the man before him was fooling him. Her father smiled at him, and the man stood and hugged him. Her father hugged the man back, not caring about his suit, or what others around him would think.

She asked her father later, as he began to get sick, why he did it.

“Were I in his situation,” he answered, “I would be extremely grateful for someone who showed that kindness. Were I never shown that generosity, I would begin to hate the world. You can’t hate the world, Margaret,” he said, looking at her. She looked back. He was one of the only people she could look in the eyes, and the only person who could call her by her full name. “It leads to a worse situation than you had when you began hating it.”

He’d died not long after, and she’d been left alone. She tried to follow his advice about not hating the world, but she shut out everyone anyway. She stopped going to work, and lost her job. After the fire, she had nothing left, and saw the truth in his words. When she came to London, she had her mind set on starting over.

I did, in a way, she thought, looking at Sherlock, who was now leading them up an escalator.

“So, when you said we were going to the bank...” John said, trailing off as he noticed Sherlock wasn’t paying attention. Instead, he was looking all around himself, examining the surrounding area. Maggie followed his gaze to see a man opening a glass door by swiping a key card over a magnetic reader. Maggie’s eyebrows furrowed together. Why was Sherlock concerned with the security systems?

They reached the top of the escalator, and Sherlock continued on toward the receptionist desk without missing a beat, approaching the woman sitting there with his two companions following right behind. When the woman looked up he leaned down, murmuring “Sherlock Holmes.”

She nodded at him, picking up the phone and dialing someone to notify them of the new arrival. Maggie and John looked at each other shortly, but didn’t say anything, or ask Sherlock what they were doing there. They learned after the last time that he wouldn’t really answer. They sat in a few chairs off to the side and waited as Sherlock had a short conversation with the receptionist, who smiled and blushed at him. Maggie looked away from them with a frown, picking up a magazine from the nearby table.