Praise Me

"Amazing."

Sherlock's cheeks heated and he ducked his head to hide the red flare across his pale cheekbones. John hadn't noticed, bent over the corpse on the floor in front of them. It used to be easier to hide, but over time, his reaction to praise – to John's praise – had gotten worse. Not that anyone else ever had anything good to say about him.

"Obvious," he said, somewhat belatedly, and John raised his head and quirked a smile at him.

"Maybe to you," he replied, but didn't seem at all put out that he couldn't keep up with Sherlock's brilliance, not like everyone else.

"It's the gardener," Sherlock remarked to the room at large.

"But the footprint–" Anderson started to say.

"Look, here. The angle of the stab wound and depth of penetration tells us the assailant was less than 5 feet six inches tall and had weak wrists. The gardener is 5'5" and has carpal tunnel in her right wrist. She also has an anger management problem, a gambling debt and access to the only Juliet rose in London."

"She was after a flower," Sally Donovan stepped in, tilting her head skeptically.

"It's a very rare flower," Sherlock confirmed. "I think you'll find that if you search Miss Trent's computer, you'll find that she already had a buyer lined up and that last night no one was supposed to be home. They had plans for the evening – I believe Tosca is playing at the Royal Opera, and only Mrs. Collingwood discovering her husband's affair lead to him being here – stumbling straight into her plan to take the rose. She stabbed him with a pair of gardening shears – not out of panic or fear, but I suspect out of rage that he interrupted the smooth flow of her plan."

"Brilliant!" John inserted.

The previous blush crept out of hiding from beneath the collar of his coat, but thankfully John had already turned back around to shoot a pointed look at Lestrade and Sally. Lestrade, in this instance, was unfortunately more observant than Sherlock would have liked, and his brows were nearly touching his hairline in surprise.

Sherlock cursed internally at his naturally pale features, white as a canvass for emotions to paint their story across. Nothing he felt would get past a scrutinizing eye, and Sherlock strived to be as blank as possible.

John was making that endeavour increasingly difficult.

"So how come there are all these footprints everywhere in a size 12 men's?" Anderson asked sulkily, staring down at the greenhouse floor.

"Notice how light they are?" Sherlock asked, looking down at them, thankful for the distraction. "A man who wears a size 12 shoe usually has feet proportional to his height. But these footprints are light enough to belong to Miss Trent, who I think you'll find is only eight and a half stone."

"So how did she make her feet that big?" Anderson asked with a sigh.

"I can think of at least eight ways to accomplish this," Sherlock said, turning on his heel. "Come, John. Our work here is done!"

"That didn't take very long," John commented, matching his stride to Sherlock's.

"It was barely a three," Sherlock griped. "I only went because I thought I might get a glimpse of the rose."

"The rose?" John asked, waiting as Sherlock hailed a taxi. Sherlock scooted across the backseat so that John could get in after him. "How could you possibly know about the rose before we got there?"

"Recognized the name," Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Mummy's a gardener. Hobbyist, mind you, enters the local county fair, that sort of thing. She keeps track of gardening, though, and insists on keeping me updated. I knew right away that the Collingwoods had a Juliet rose and suspected that the murder was connected. Lestrade could have easily solved this one without me, and after all that, I didn't even get to see the rose at all!"