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“It makes perfect sense! If you pulled your head ou’ yer arse, you’d see ‘ere that this blade tucked in th’ pocket could’nae been grabbed even if he wanted to --”
“Are you blind? Inspector Lestrade, there is blood all over it!”
“That’s because --” bonk! “-- the bloody knife --” bonk! “-- was in his pocket --” bonk! “-- next to th’ WOUND --” bonk! “-- ya TWIT!”
Kazuma reached for his weapon as soon as Gina started hitting him over the head with the side of her fist, and by the time she finally stopped, it seems he had given in to the urges and just tackled the girl instead. Barok cringed when bloody water splashed up at his face from the impact. All he could do was watch, his thrumming headache only getting worse while Kazuma had his hands at Gina’s throat and Gina was beating his head with clenched fists to try and get him to let go. Their curses were unintelligible, idiotic, and embarrassing.
Though the chains around London’s heart had unraveled, the scars left hiding places for the wretches of society. Security increasing and the court system being reevaluated would never have stopped something as gruesome as this massacre. Even Barok felt sick when he arrived at the scene accompanied by his apprentice, Kazuma Asougi.
It was a cobble side street, bordering a walled river on one side and a row of old buildings on the other. Across the street and trailed into an alleyway were the remains of a triple-homicide. The threat of rain had turned to a drizzle, which made the busy searches of the police force even more frantic as they struggled to stomach their nausea while collecting as many pieces of evidence they could find.
It wasn’t just the police. Alongside them, Herlock Sholmes was busying himself with the smallest of details, admiring one of the corpses as if it were a normal Wednesday. Kazuma had hurried off to go check on another one of the corpses down the alleyway, but when Barok followed, he was met with a near-instant argument between the firecracker Inspector Gina Lestrade and his own lit fuse of an apprentice.
Now, he wished so dearly that he had filled his hollow chalice before coming here. It would make it much easier to bear the pounding in his head as the younger duo got themselves muddied and hissed insults that would’ve made Gregson slack-mouthed.
Barok reached down with both hands, grasping Kazuma’s collar to lift him off like a cat by the scruff and using his other hand to grasp the front of Gina’s jacket and hoist her up. Both of their faces contorted in shock as their feet left the ground.
Barok looked at Kazuma first, whose expression quickly retreated to his stoic resting face. The embarrassed, enraged blush on his cheeks was unmistakable, though. Barok wrinkled up his nose. “You just washed that suit.”
“Put me down.”
Obliging, he set Kazuma on his feet, giving a glance to Gina next. She seemed much less restrained, Barok catching the tail end of her flipping off Kazuma with both hands and biting her lip so hard it almost bled. When she glared at Barok, he knew it would’ve scared anybody else.
“Whot? You jus’ gonna look at me? Let me go, ya crone.”
Barok dropped her. She barely caught herself, stumbling backwards and already beginning another slew of insults while rolling up her muddied sleeves before Kazuma had crossed the gap and gave a firm shove to her shoulder. When he saw another scuffle begin (with Gina slinging her purse at Kazuma full-force), he decided it’d be best to turn around and leave that conflict to the alleyway. That could be resolved later.
For now, Barok stepped out into the open road, casting his gaze from left to right. They entered on the left; Barok saw one of the bodies there, with three policemen setting up tents (that they realized with dismay were becoming soggy from the rain) and carefully collecting evidence. To his right was Sholmes, rubbing his chin thoughtfully over the face-down body he’d picked.
The detective seemed to catch Barok in his peripheral vision. As he lifted to his feet, the smile on his face made Barok forget for a moment that this was a crime scene -- the glee in Sholmes’s face was uncharacteristic of a detective.
“Barok! You’re not just leaving them to go at it, are you?”
“What, pray tell, do you want me to do?”
“Hm. Fair point. Well --” He interrupted his train of thought to gesture to the corpse with his pipe. “-- I’ve confirmed he’s as dead as a doornail.”
“...I can see that.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“No.”
Sholmes’s face lit up again with giddiness. Oh, no. “Great! I get to tell you. Come, my dear Barok. Take a seat.” Again, he gestured with his pipe to a bench aptly located against the building in front of the corpse. Barok stepped towards it, making sure to avoid any trail of blood that’d begun to streak towards the river from the rain, and fluttered his cloak to take a seat.
Sholmes placed his pipe between his lips, took a drag, returned it to its hook on his belt, breathed out smoke, then snapped his finger. “Now, let me start from the beginning. December 10th, approximately 5:30 PM -- that’s two and a half hours ago, if you can’t do the math -- the cobbler Miss Lacey Leathersole heard a bit of a scuffle outside. Unfortunately, she was paralyzed in fear and could only hear shouts, three shots of a gun, the breaking of a bottle, then the beat of horseshoes on the cobble.” He pointed down to the corpse. “One of the victims hollered ‘It can’t be you!’ right beneath her window. This poor victim, shot in the back, was likely the one to shout. This means he knew the assailant.”
Sholmes flicked the brim of his hat with his finger -- something he did while he was explaining his ‘deductions’ -- and continued, “However, we do not know how he knew the assailant. This is Justin Thyme, a baker who worked at his bakery just a block that way.” He pointed in the opposite direction of where Barok came from. “Justin Thyme was a kind man and had no known enemies, so it must’ve been someone he never expected.”
“That’s obvious.”
“Do not interrupt me. Anyways, when we investigated the bakery, we found something peculiar -- the shelf was missing a bottle of olive oil and there was a severe lack of bread in this bakery. When we interviewed Lacey, she explained that Justin always had at least 10 fresh loaves stocked in the morning. There were only three.”
“Then people bought them. It was the afternoon when he died.”
“Do not interrupt me, Barok! I’m getting there!” He wagged his finger at Barok, who already felt himself falling asleep. “That’s the problem. He sold one loaf of bread for a shilling. The revenue of that day was…” Sholmes paused for dramatic effect. Barok rolled his eyes. “Four shillings! That means at least three were either stolen or the money was lost along the way.
“Now, in regards to the olive oil…” He pushed at the corpse with his shoe, lifting it to reveal glass shards. “Justin, here, was taking it somewhere. When we asked around, we discovered where.” Sholmes pointed to the corpse down the street. “He was delivering it to Miss Callie Culation, a teacher with a fondness for cooking. She got caught in the scuffle between Thyme and the assailant and ended up shot and killed, gripping at her chest in surprise in her final moments. There is one more corpse to consider, though.”
Sholmes gestured towards the alleyway. Barok decided to ignore the expletives coming from it. “Don Keigh, a rancher who gave horseback riding lessons. Turns out that Mr. Keigh gave horseback riding lessons to none other than… Thyme’s daughter.” The way Sholmes smirked at Barok caught his attention. This man knew something. “Are you starting to see the correlation?”
“...They all knew each other?”
“Not just that, my dear Barok.” He pointed to the window above Barok’s head, but Barok didn’t bother to look, seeing that Sholmes was forcing him to maintain eye contact. “When we interviewed Leathersole, she said she heard horseshoes on the cobble. You must be wondering, ’How come the assailant had horseshoes on?’” He wasn’t. “Not to worry. I will explain exactly what happened.” Sholmes placed the pipe in his mouth and closed his eyes as though he were about to say the smartest thing a man could hear. Barok prepared to restrain himself from smacking him.
“Earlier in the day, Miss Culation was planning on cooking something for her students but discovered she ran out of olive oil. This wouldn’t do. She decided to ask Mr. Thyme if she could borrow some of his supply, seeing he was a baker and would certainly have extra to spare. They met half-way there, at this very corner --” he pointed at the corner where Miss Culation’s body was located “-- and when she explained the situation, he hurried back to fetch the olive oil. In the meantime, she looked over the river at the beautiful sunset and did not notice her surroundings in the slightest before -- aaahhh!”
Sholmes held up his hands and squealed like a startled woman, clutching at his chest afterwards. “There was a shocking sight! When Mr. Thyme returned, the assailant had rounded the corner and startled her so much that she froze in fear!”
Sholmes broke the act to wag a finger again. “I’d like to take a step back and explore another element of this case: Mr. Keigh.” He gestured his pipe towards the alleyway. Barok still heard arguing. He continued to ignore it. “It was revealed that Mr. Keigh was missing a mare. The mare was a bit of a wanderer, and traveled a total of three kilometers all the way from his ranch to this road. Mr. Keigh was taking back roads to try and catch up with his beloved mare, including this alleyway. Unfortunately, he didn’t get here in time to stop the massacre and was discovered by the assailant, shot square in the chest as the result --”
“-- One second. Herlock, why wasn’t the mare stopped?”
Creeping across Sholmes’s face was a cocky grin. It was the same one he gave when he finally put together the pieces of a case just with the crime scene alone. It was also the same one he gave when Barok knew he was about to say the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. “Why, Barok, isn’t it obvious? No one could stop her because the horse was armed!”
“..With?”
“Mr. Keigh’s missing gun!”
Barok put his head in his hands.
“It all comes together! Mr. Thyme knew the mare because it was the same mare his daughter rode during horseback lessons; the mare wanted revenge for the torment she put her through. Miss Culation was so flabbergasted because it was not a man, but a horse that dealt the killing blows -- the mare shot her so no witnesses remained. And, finally, Mr. Keigh was in the alleyway because he was desperate to catch up with this mare, who was so startled she shot her own owner by mistake before racing off loud enough that Miss Leathersole heard her gallop. The mare eventually got to the bakery. She was so stressed and hungry that she ate three whole loaves of bread before fleeing, still hidden from the police force at this very moment.” Sholmes snapped just as a rip of lightning flashed behind him. “And that, my dear, is exactly what happened.”
There were no words to describe how badly Barok wanted to shoot Sholmes in the knee.
“Barok?”
“Detective Herlock Sholmes, I truly can not name one difference between you and the chicken I ate for lunch.”
“I’d like to think I’m much tastier.”
Barok lifted his head from his hands to see Sholmes standing just a foot in front of him, hands on his hips and a smile etched in his face. His hat didn’t catch all the rain that pelted into his face, but it didn’t break that gleefully full-of-shit expression. Barok stood up, Sholmes’s head following him the whole way until it was tilted up to maintain eye contact with the man.
“You seem shocked.”
“I am.”
“Not in a good way?”
“No.”
Sholmes threw up his hands in exasperation, his expression twisting. “Barok, I just solved the case! How ungrateful of you!”
“May I ask you something, Herlock?”
“What?”
“How did the horse hold the gun?”
Sholmes opened his mouth. He closed it. He opened it, his hands coming up. He closed it and dropped his hands. He pretended to hold something to his mouth, paused, opened his mouth experimentally, closed it, then dropped his hands again.
With that, the detective’s mournful expression was hidden under the brim of his hat and his entire body sagged.
Sighing, Barok reached forward and bumped his hand underneath Sholmes’s chin -- something Sholmes would do to Barok to keep his attention -- and looked over his pitiful expression. His eyes were heavy-lidded and his lips were pulled downwards as if by gravity. Some rainfall was dribbling down the soft curve of his nose and the tense clench of his jaw. Barok noted that the tears clinging to his eyelashes were not tears at all, but raindrops hanging like dew and reflecting his teal eyes.
“You never trust me, Barok.”
Barok glanced to the side. The police were still occupied and his apprentice was still tussling by the sounds of it. He casually stepped so his back was to the police with Sholmes following his lead. The two met eyes again. Soon, the detective seemed to catch on, his eyebrows pinching and whispering, “Don’t you dare!”
Barok ignored it. When he leaned in, his nose pushed into the softness of Sholmes’s puffed cheek and their lips met. Sholmes made a frustrated noise against his mouth when Barok softly opened his own to catch a taste of tobacco. For a moment, Sholmes retracted to grumble, “You’re insufferable,” but was interrupted when their lips met again.
When he finally broke away seconds later, the wetness of rain making a soft pop between their mouths, Sholmes was glaring at him with a much more fiery expression than the one he had moments ago.
“You can’t keep doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Kissing me when I’m upset with you! It’s quite rude and very unfair!” When Barok let go of his chin, Sholmes’s supple cheeks still looked squished.
“You do it to me.”
Sholmes groaned and pushed at Barok’s shoulders, which sent the man back a step. He wasn’t mad; he smiled to himself, taking pride in the way he could make Sholmes’s character melt away. That was a feat in itself. He could see that Sholmes couldn’t keep up the act, either. Under the lowered brim of his hat, Barok caught a glimpse of a giddy, toothy grin. The detective gripped at the collar of his coat and flipped it up to hide his expression even more.
Barok turned in alarm when he heard the clank of something metal. The knife Gina and Kazuma were arguing over had bounced out from the alleyway, soon followed by Kazuma bolting towards it, faceplanting when his ankle was grabbed by Gina -- why was she on the ground? -- and Gina crawling over him to grab it. She could only hold it for a moment before Kazuma was trying to wrestle it from her grip, both of them curling their knees up to try and kick each other away.
He looked at Sholmes. The detective placed his pipe in his mouth and opened one eye to look at Barok, his forced pout returning. However, it looked as though Sholmes couldn’t hold back the little smirk that flashed across his lips when he said, “Looks like you’re needed elsewhere, my dear.”
Barok sighed. Sholmes reached to press one more wet kiss against his cheek before patting his back, signaling Barok to hand Sholmes his soaked cloak, roll up his sleeves, and approach the commotion.