Chapter Text
"We need to leave. Now." John sounded urgent, and I couldn't blame him. Even though I kept my head low and my eyes on the dig site, I knew weather was coming. The wind had grown from a pleasant breeze to a gale and now tore angrily at the canvas of the little tent. A storm was coming. A storm in the mountains, at the top of a glacier, was nothing but bad news. I flashed my teeth and dug harder. "Anne. We need to leave."
"Almost got it."
"It's too late! Let's go!"
"Give us a minute", Sherlock wheezed, winded from the altitude and the digging. Glacier ice can be hard like stone, we wouldn't have had a chance there. But whoever had closed the hole had filled it with water and let if freeze. Still, we'd dug for over an hour to uncover what we thought we needed. I looked up briefly and found him doing the same, our eyes met, and I saw my own concern and fervour mirrored below sweat-soaked hair. Sweat soaked us both, cooling rapidly where it pooled, but we kept digging.
But let's start at the beginning, shall we?
The second time I met Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, it wasn't because I had sought them out (they had been instrumental in finding the source of a haunting at my house which turned out to be a love-sick colleague of mine). Instead, they'd come all the way from London to my little village in southern Germany to consult with me. I cannot describe the astonishment when I answered the door that gloomy December Sunday afternoon and found a familiar, lanky figure who immediately pushed past me and inside the house, followed by the friendlier and vastly more polite Dr. Watson, who beamed up at me and said: "I'm sorry, Anne. You know how he is. May we come in?" Mute in astonishment, I opened the door wider in response.
While Sherlock roamed the house like a friendly, but slightly autistic Border Collie, I prepared coffee and laid the coffee table for the three of us. I hadn't seen them in several months, and back then only briefly, but John was the kind of person you start off with just where you stopped. One eye on Sherlock, he poured us coffee and pretended not to eye the cookies I had found in the bottom drawer too suspiciously. "So, Anne, how have you been?"
"It's obvious, John", came the reply from the kitchen, as I knew it would. "She's been busy at work, and she bought better locks. I'd wager Dr. Mergenström's advances weren't exactly welcome. She still likes to play the piano and favours sad soundtracks, which is perfectly obvious from the sheets on her piano. Still grieving, I would assume, aggravated by the weather, most likely. You did not take that vacation you had almost booked, Anne... Why didn't you? Something wasn't quite right with it, what was it... Ah. Yes. Of course. Your cat had her teeth removed, and you didn't want to leave her alone because she needed an analgesic every morning. Turning into a crazy cat lady, are you? Nah. Far too busy at work..."
Sherlock's monologue faded away in the distance while he checked the upper floor, and John and I exchanged glances over a cup of coffee. "You heard him", I said lightly.
"That's Sherlock", he said, "Eliminating the need for small talk. So, Anne, how have you been?"
I had to laugh. "Good! I bought better locks to keep my suitor out. Have been busy at work, and my cat had her teeth removed. How about you? I suspect this isn't a courtesy visit."
"Don't tell her about the case yet", came Sherlock's voice from the upper floor, and Sherlock emerged from the staircase, my cat in his arms.
"You heard him", said John, smiling tiredly.
I'm no Sherlock Holmes, but even I noticed the small case John had brought with them. It looked like a cooler, and after Sherlock had finished the inspection of my home and settled down on the sofa, my toothless cat content on his lap, John opened the case to reveal a refrigeration pack holding a clump of snow or ice. Sherlock looked at me expectantly. I looked back at him suspiciously. Finally, I said: "So?"
"Well", Sherlock said, "Obviously, as we've come to the leading expert on ice age remnant flora with a clump of ice, we'd like your opinion on this clump of ice. Or rather, the plant matter inside."
"Why?"
"Excellent question, but I'd rather not answer it at this point. The answer might disturb you and cloud your judgement."
"And... you think that hinting at a disturbing answer isn't going to cloud my judgement?"
"Less so than the actual answer."
His gaze had been locked on mine ever since producing the little clump of ice, his eyes inscrutable, his long fingers trailing through my cat's fur. She purred loudly, probably thinking of similar hands petting her, back when my husband had still been alive. For a while, that was the only sound in the room.
"Let me get my microscope", I heard myself say.
"Fantastic", said Sherlock. "Scientist researches. John, call the tabloids."
"Behave", warned John.
"Don't bother to fetch your microscope", Sherlock said lightly, concentrating on my cat's left ear, "I set it up for you in your study. I'll be right here with your toothless friend."
My cat winked at me, stretched out langurously under Sherlock's clever fingers, and I winked back, and then nodded at John, who tried to vanish through the upholstery of my favourite chair.
The sample turned out to be only moderately interesting. I'm an expert on ice age flora and am often called to neolithic dig sites to determine the age of a certain ancient dwelling or burial site. This was similar, a bit of snow-turned-ice from a glacier with plant material embedded in it. The composition was like a finger print, and I quickly found where this was from: a glacier in Switzerland. With that, I returned to my living room and found the scene basically unchanged.
"Was that a test?" I asked.
"Would you have passed it if it was a test?"
"I'd rather if this was a favour."
"Then it's that. Yes. A favour."
"Sherlock", John warned. "She's a friend, not a client."
"Nah, let him", I told John.
"Actually, right now, we are the clients", John said.
"Anne here is bored half to death", Sherlock said. "She enjoys a challenge."
"Sherlock Holmes, expert on female behaviour. That I'd see the day."
"John. Please. An inquisitive mind isn't gender specific, neither is boredom. You don't have to have an international reputation to know that."
My cat chose that moment to slink off his lap and vacate the premises. Sherlock looked faintly heartbroken, and I considered getting more coffee. Tea. Water. Anything, really.
"Did you find anything?" John asked, voice strained from the effort of keeping his friend (and himself) in check.
"Yes, indeed I did", I said. "But if you want to know what I found, I need to know why you're here."
"What can you deduce about this?" said Sherlock, playful challenge in his voice.
I thought for a moment, then grinned. "Well. I'm not the only expert on ice age flora. Indeed, one of my professors still teaches at Oxford. If you only needed an opinion, you could have gone to him. In fact, a lab tech could have made that analysis for you or sent it to a lab that's better equipped and would give you something that holds up in court. But you came here. Either you don't want to go through the official channels, or this has something to do with me. Or you knew the sample is from Switzerland and you wanted to get closer to the source on the way."
"Switzerland", Sherlock said. "I didn't think it was Switzerland. Why Switzerland? Are you sure?"
"That rules out option three", I said lightly.
"It does, doesn't it. Come on, John, off to Switzerland!"
Sherlock jumped off the sofa and darted down the hall. When the door slammed, I looked at John. He shook his head and poured himself another cup of coffee. "So, John, tell me, how's work?" I asked, and when the doorbell rang, neither of us was in a hurry to let Sherlock back in.
"I'm sorry to inconvenience you like this", John said, stepping from foot to foot behind me while I prepared the guest room.
"It's no inconvenience, John. You're friends. I like to have friends over."
"Having friends over who insult you, rummage around in your house, turn your life upside down and ask you to come with them to Switzerland right now?"
"Well, when you put it that way, it doesn't sound too attractive. I wonder why I put up with the two of you."
"Anne, I..."
"Just messing with you." I pressed a pillow on him to give him something to do. "I never asked. I probably shouldn't. But - do you need two rooms?"
John's face was carefully neutral, bespeaking of long practise. "If it's not too much trouble, I'd greatly prefer my own room."
"Don't worry", I nodded. "If there's one thing I have ample of, it's floor space."
One thing I like about having friends over is that it gives me an excuse to cook. I rarely ever cook on my own, but I enjoy cooking greatly. And so we sat at the dinner table, enjoying roast chicken with potatoes and salad and a glass of wine. That is, Sherlock ate very little - he mainly shared his chicken with my cat, who had decided he was her best friend after all.
"Who's going to take care of her?" Sherlock asked. "While you're helping us."
"My neighbour. She's nice. Oh, have we already decided I'm helping you?"
"Aren't you?" Sherlock sounded genuinely puzzled.
"Yeah, well, I guess I will", I admitted. "I'll have to call in tomorrow morning to take off from work."
"No need", Sherlock said. "I've already taken care of that for you."
I nodded. "Figures. Do I even want to know...?"
He smiled at me like he thought he was the cleverest human in the world. I smiled back.
"No", he said. "You don't. You're helping the Scotland Yard with a top secret investigation."
"Right."
"You do."
"What is this about, exactly? The clump of glacier ice. Where did you get that from? No, don't tell me. Let me play the game."
I sat back, looking at John, who studied a piece of wine stone in his glass, and Sherlock, who studied me. Then at the cooler that still sat on my kitchen table. Its precious cargo we had transferred into the freezer.
"Ice. From Switzerland. In London. You brought it with you on the plane, the cabin luggage sticker is still on it. Where was it before it was on the plane? The surface was glassy, it had started to melt and had then be refrozen. Sat on your doorstep, right? John, you probably found it and put it into the freezer. And then, after you decided what to do with it, you put it into that cooler and came here. That's not a professional cooler, we'd definitely use a proper Dewar. That's from your very own kitchen. You packaged it yourself. Someone sent it to your house? But why? To send a message. To warn you. Or to play a game with you."
Sherlock's reaction was immediate - he up, dropping the napkin, grabbed my shoulders and spun me around and off the chair. "Excellent! Brilliant! I knew she'd save us so much time! John! I told you!"
"Yes, you did. Now sit down and behave."
"I can never tell if you're genuinely happy or mocking me", I said.
"Does it make a difference?"
"Yes, it does!"
"Oh."
"Sherlock", John warned.
"Guys", I decided to change the topic, "I hate to burst your bubble, but it is winter, and it is cold outside, and the place the chunk of ice is from is pretty far up. We'll have to hike. Possibly stay a night or two. Are you equipped for that?"
"Of course we are", Sherlock said with an absent-mindedness that didn't exactly put my mind at ease. I looked at John.
"Tent, mats, bags, cooker, food, warm clothing, snow shoes, ice axes, ropes, and spikes. And yes. I know how to use all that", John said. Of course. You do forget he used to be a soldier.