The Personal Blog of John H Watson

The Great Game

Sorry for the delay in posting. I needed a few days to get my head around what just happened.

It began, as everything did, with a big bang. There was apparently a gas leak in the house across the street. Of course, my time living with Sherlock means I know how meaningless the word 'apparently' can be. The police investigated and discovered that the house had been wired with explosives. The only other thing they found inside the house was a box. And inside the box was an envelope. And inside the envelope was, of all things, a bright pink phone. Regular readers of my blog might remember the case I called . Needless to say, it was a bit of a surprise.

As is my sudden use of phrases like "regular readers of my blog". It seems I'm starting to enjoy writing up my life. It helps, though, when I discover that half of Scotland Yard are reading it. More on that later!

So, we switched on the phone and there was a message.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Five beeps or pips. Sherlock knew immediately that it was a warning. There were these secret societies who used to send five orange pips to people as a threat. There was also a picture of an empty flat which Sherlock recognised. It was downstairs. 221C Baker Street! We rushed over there and discovered a pair of trainers.

And then the pink phone rang. It was a woman. She was crying. It turns out that whoever was organising all this had arranged for this woman to be kidnapped and wrapped in explosives. If she didn't say exactly what she was told to say... Sherlock, naturally, was immediately caught up in the adventure. Didn't even register that some innocent person somewhere was going through Hell. The crying woman told us we had twelve hours to solve the first problem.

We went to Barts so that Sherlock could examine the trainers. I, as usual, didn't have a clue what the question was never mind the answer. We met up with Molly Hooper who introduced us to her boyfriend, Jim. Apparently, he worked in IT. There's that word 'apparently' again. Oh, and I've just seen .

Anyway, Jim left and Sherlock revealed to Molly that the bloke was clearly gay. As usual, he didn't care that this might, you know, not exactly be what she wanted to hear!

So, back to the trainers. Sherlock naturally got me to humiliate myself by examining them myself and getting everything wrong. He told me that they were twenty years old and that the pollen on them revealed they were from Sussex. Then he remembered a name - Carl Powers, a boy who had died when Sherlock was a kid. Everyone had assumed it was a tragic swimming accident but Sherlock was always confused by the boy's missing trainers. Now they'd turned up twenty years later and addressed to him. Sherlock discovered traces of Clostridium botulinim on Carl's trainers and concluded that he'd been murdered - the poison having been introduced to Carl's eczema medicine. Sherlock needed to let the killer know he'd worked it out so he typed a message on his website. I know some of you were confused by his .

The crying woman then phoned again and was allowed to tell us where she was. The police found her and she was ok. Sherlock pissed me off though. He described the whole set-up as elegant. I asked him what he meant and he said that "I can't be the only person to get bored". Clearly, the killer was targeting him directly and he loved it.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Another message. Another photo. This time it was of an abandoned sports car. The phone rang. It was a man, as terrified as the woman had been earlier. He told us we had eight hours. â–"â–"â–"â–"â–"â–"â–"â–" from Scotland Yard located the car and Sherlock examined it. It had been hired from a company called Janus Cars by a man called â–"â–"â–" â–"â–"â–"â–"â–"â–"â–"â–" - a man who had disappeared. This one was pretty straightforward for Sherlock. Just one chat with the missing man's wife and a visit to Janus Cars and he had it all wrapped up. It was a simple insurance scam. Again, he posted the answer on his blog. The man wrapped in explosives was found and released. Turns out he'd been in central London. God, if Sherlock had got it wrong... The other thing is, like I say, he was enjoying it. Him and this mysterious killer were playing a game. Me, Mrs H, the people with the bombs, everyone else, we were just pawns. I thought back to a name we'd heard a couple of times - Moriarty. Could this be him? When I mentioned this, Sherlock's eyes lit up.