Enola Holmes- The Fox In The Henhouse

Chapter 4

The three of them stood silently, horrifying thoughts running through their heads. Watson was the first to break the silence. 'I'll get Mycroft.' he dashed towards the streets, about to hail a cab.

'No...' Sherlock said sternly, 'You need to stay here in case she's injured.' If Watson didn't know sherlock he would have thought the man was almost... calm. But he knew that he was anything but.

'Lord Tewksbury will go.' Watson then continued to hail down a cab.

'I'm not leaving until I know Enola's safe.' he begins to protest.

'If Enola has been hurt, we need Mycroft here. He may have seen her, and if not he can help by putting her name in the newspaper.' He replies, but when he still doesn't move he snaps 'So I need you to go and get him!'

Tewksbury stutters in shock, and then quickly heads to the cab where Watson gives the driver the address and then tells him where to find the secretary.

Enola was certainly in a fight, and if she dropped the dragger and didn't return for it; did she lose?

He pushes these thoughts out of his head and he and Watson continue to search the area. Finding nothing they finally go into her apartment, letting himself in with a key, as both he and Mycroft (unbeknownst to Enola) had had hers copied. He begins to search her room, and finds the clothes Watson said she had been wearing when she left his estate, were missing. None of her disguises like fake hair or marks were missing. And her nun outfit remained intact. If Enola had been out helping the poor on the streets of London as she told Watson, she would've worn her nun disguise. Initially it was a quite ingenious way to help people without alerting Sherlock or Mycroft. The nun wore a veil to cover her face and was completely mute, and when people realised she was only there to help she quickly gained a reputation and was rejoiced by those she met. The disguised had in fact worked on Sherlock where while searching for her, he was in disguise as an old man on the streets. Enola had provided him with food and warmth without him detecting her. Once the other beggars explained she was a known mute he too had simply accepted her as they had.

If she had been in a fight on the streets it would've been in this outfit... But there was no cut on the arm.

She had a newspaper open on her desk, but scanning through the pages Sherlock found nothing that would've interested Enola; just politics, no mysteries.

After 20 minutes of searching her rooms he hears the familiar sound of his brother's footsteps, marching up the stairs. Mycroft storms into the room. 'Have you found anything, Sherlock?' Sherlock looks him in the eyes and hands him the dagger, resting on his handkerchief. Mycroft takes it and stares, surely coming to the same conclusion Sherlock did. 'Did she mention anything at the appointment yesterday?' he turns towards Watson, who then hands him the journal where he records all the results from the sessions. Watson then begins to tell Mycroft of the cut on her arm and her deception. He closes the journal in one hand and begins to gesticulate with it wildly whilst shouting at Watson. 'YOU SHOULD HAVE CONTACTED US IMMEDIATELY.'

'MYCROFT.' Sherlock snaps, 'If John called us everytime Enola had an injury, the telephone would never stop ringing.'

'But she doesn't lie in appointments, she swore not to. That deserves a call.' Watson tried to calm him, explaining that the truth while alarming wasn't too bad,

'That wasn't the truth.'

The two men turn to him in confusion. Sherlock goes into the closet and hands Mycroft Enola's nun outfit. He carefully studies the fabric, eventually letting out an exasperated sigh. 'What is it?' Watson chimes in, irritated, despite how used he was to the feeling of being a step behind the two.

'There's no cut.' Mycroft explained. 'You described the injury as large and bloody. If she had sustained it in the nun outfit, then we would see the fabric cut.'

'She could have had it fixed. Or she could have two!'

'There's no evidence of it being fixed, and considering how little she goes out disguised as a nun nowadays, i doubt she'd have two.' Sherlock said. The three men stood feeling rather deflated. They all knew from experience how elusive and cunning Enola could be, so it wasn't a surprise that she had been deceiving them. The question now was to what degree. And did it have anything to do with her disappearance?

Mycroft heads towards Enola's desk and begins to riffle through her documents and notes. 'Have you found anything?'

'Nothing' Sherlock replies, rubbing his temples desperately trying to sooth the sharp pain shooting across his skull. 'But if Enola has been hiding something, she wouldn't leave evidence lying around.'

'Sherlock.' Mycroft says, crouching down next to the desk. When Sherlock joins him he sees that just below the lip of the desk, there are two 4-number combination locks with one button in the middle. 'Did you know she had this?'

'No...'

They start trying a sequence of numbers. Her birthday on the left, mother's birthday on the right. Mother's birthday on the left and her's on the right. Various years of battles, coronations and deaths.

After some 10 minutes of hopeless desperation, Watson begins to search behind her wardrobe and in her bedside table. Sherlock was about to tell him that Enola would never leave anything of importance in such simple hiding places, when Watson pulls out a wooden box jammed underneath her bed. Sherlock gets up and strides towards him in one swift movement, taking the box and placing it on the desk.

He opens the latch and finds a suffragist sash and a pile of detailed diagrams of various bombs and explosives. Sherlock's mouth opened, as if to say something, but this was one of the few occasions where no words came to him.

Sherlock takes out a cigar and walks over to the window, letting Mycroft's outraged and frightened ranting fade into white noise. His eyes scan the horizon of smog and brick, when he spots something. Something carved in the ground below.

920 IN 220.

'Enola...'