Chapter Text
“John, clear your schedule for tonight” Sherlock stated as he walked through the front door, straight through to the kitchen towards his open laptop on the counter.
“Good afternoon to you too” John replied dully, not looking up from the paper he had been reading. In all honesty though, the moment Sherlock had come in, he couldn’t find himself interested in whatever news The Independent decided was important today. The only thing on his mind now was what exciting (and likely very dangerous) thing Sherlock needed his help with this time.
“Yes, yes, good morning, good afternoon, it's all pointless formalities that waste time I don’t have” Sherlock bitterly replied from the kitchen, already vigorously typing away.
John had learned quickly enough that whenever Sherlock became somewhat abrasive it was because something was frustrating him in either his personal life (in that case it was almost always Mycroft) or with a case. Well, that or he had forgotten to eat again, which tended to happen more often than you'd think.
“Sherlock, where have you been all morning, it's 3:30 and you’ve been out since 7” John asked, deciding to figure out which kind of frustrated he was today.
“You know I was out working a case, John”
“And while you were out working, did you happen to pick up any breakfast? Hmm? Maybe something for lunch?”
The silence from the kitchen spoke volumes. It was the second thing then. Sherlock was in a bad mood because he had forgotten to eat. Good. If it had been the former, then he likely would have been like this all night, and that would have hindered whatever case they were going to be working.
“There's leftover pizza in the fridge.”
Sherlock shuffled toward the refrigerator like a toddler who’d lost an argument and pulled out the pizza box with 3 slices of pepperoni left inside. After a long silence filled with the sounds of pizza being reheated in a microwave, Sherlock walked into the kitchen with the 3 slices on a plate, one already half eaten.
John looked up from his paper with a smug look, “feeling better now?”
Sherlock replied with a sour “thank you” before finishing the rest of his late lunch.
“So, what did you need my help with tonight?” John asked, curiosity finally getting the better of him.
“What?”
“When you walked in, you asked me to clear my schedule, what for?”
“Oh right, yes.” Sherlock wiped his mouth, setting aside the empty plate. “You and I will be attending a masquerade ball tonight.”
John did his best to hide the slight blush that appeared. “Is this you asking me out on a date?” he said in a slightly mocking tone. Of course it was obvious this had to do with a case, and of course the idea of Sherlock asking him out on any sort of date was ridiculous. John did his absolute best to ignore the pang of disappointment he felt at that thought.
“You know better than anyone I don’t do that sort of thing, John. No, this is for a case.”
Yes, John knew that. Of course he did. There certainly wasn’t the slightest hope deep within him that he had been wrong, that would have been stupid.
“You know the case I’ve been working on for about a week now involving the break in at the museum?”
“Right, that's the one where there’s no evidence of a break in but the Oxus treasure turned up missing.”
“Correct. It was evident from the start that the thief who did this was not a beginner seeing as the British Museum has quite heavy security. So the first logical step was to check with the police about recent robberies in the area. It was likely they had already done this, but you and I both know they're work is far from flawless.”
“So you found a match? Is that why we’re going to this ball tonight, because whoever did it is going to be there?”
“Not exactly, John. As it turns out the police hadn’t made a mistake, this time. The DNA found at the museum didn’t match with anything in the system. However I did notice something odd while I was comparing the evidence. None of the DNA from any of the reported robberies in the London area matched with each other at all. Every single crime scene involving the theft of a priceless item where DNA was found, crimes that one would think should have some connection, seemed to have no connection at all.”
“Well, so what? I mean, isn't it fairly common for people to steal expensive things?”
“Yes, but all of the cases I compared happened within a month of each other. 24 different cases John. That’s 24 different robberies, 24 different priceless items stolen in London, all committed by 24 different people, and all in the span of one month. That couldn’t have been merely a coincidence, and so I looked into it.”
“And how exactly did you go about doing that?”
“By questioning one Thomas Mulligan. Of the 24 cases I looked at, only one of the thieves had actually been caught.”
“Thomas”
“Thomas. Unfortunately, my questioning of him led to nothing. He seemed like any ordinary thief that had been clumsy and gotten caught. Luckily I had planned for that outcome and had already sent my network into action.”
“What do you mean your network?”
“The homeless. They see everything John and the information they can provide has proved invaluable to me on many cases.”
“Alright, fine, understood. So how exactly were they able to help?”
“Well, I gave a friend of mine a photo of Thomas and had her ask around. When I met with her this morning she told me that he had been spotted at a few underground auctions and that’s when I was able to connect the dots.” Sherlock sat back in his chair content with himself, as if he had completed the story and perfectly explained everything.
John sat in the silence for a moment before prompting Sherlock to continue. “Well?”
“Don’t you understand? The auction!”
God, he could be such an ass sometimes.
“Nope, still not getting it. If you don’t mind, could you please tell me how exactly you’ve made the jump from auction to ball.”
With a sigh, as if this was the most frustrating thing in the world to him, Sherlock explained further. “All of the robberies are connected, John. I was right. Thieves like Thomas steal the items and then take them to the underground auctions. This gives them a fairly secure way to sell what they’ve stolen, allows them to sell it for more than it may be worth, and the person running the auction gets to make a percentage of the profits. Everyone wins.”
“So we’re not going to a masquerade ball tonight, we’re going to an auction.”
“Technically we’ll be going to both. The auction will be taking place after the ball around 1 in the morning, but we have to attend the ball in order to get access to the auction.”
“Right” was all John could say, still attempting to process exactly what would be taking place later tonight. “So what exactly does one wear to a ball slash illegal auction?”