His Favorite Melody

Patience Well Rewarded

The trio sat in a cab as Sherlock typed furiously on his phone. He turned it to show Melody a page from an old newspaper that read ‘Tragic Carl died “doing what he loved”’. Under it was a photo of a cheerful-looking twelve year old boy.

"1989. Young kid, champion swimmer, came up from Brighton for a school sports tournament, drowned in the pool. Tragic accident. You won’t remember it. Why should you?" Sherlock shrugged.

"But you remember?" John asked, looking at the picture, then at the shoes which sat in a bag on his lap.

"Yes."

"There was something fishy about it?"

"Nobody thought so. Nobody except me. I was only a child myself. I read about it in the paper."

"Started young, didn’t you?"

"Sherlock's always been a genius. It just took a while for others to finally realize it, too." Melody said, matter-of-factly.

Sherlock looked at her with a warm smile before continuing. "The boy Carl Powers had some sort of fit in the water. By the time they got him out, it was too late.But there was something wrong. Something I couldn’t get out of my head."

"What?" John asked.

"His shoes.They weren’t there. I made a bit of a fuss. Tried to get the police interested. But no-one thought it was important. He’d left all the rest of his clothes in his locker, you see. But there was no sign of his shoes."

"Until now." Melody realized.

The cab pulled up to the flat and they shuffled out quickly, Melody handing the cabbie some cash.

They all traipsed up the stairs and John handed Sherlock the bag before going to the kitchen. He opened the fridge to find the head once again, but there was also enough food for a few days. It seemed to be mostly things that Melody was fond of, but there were a few generic items as well.

"Melody, did your mum go to the shops?" John asked.

Melody picked a note off of the cabinet and smirked. "No. Croft had some shopping delivered here. It's most likely things I like, so you'll have to make do until we get a chance to go back out."

"There should be no problem with that. Can I interest you in some food?"

"Maybe just some crisps and some tea, if you don't mind."

"Coming right up."

He made a pot of tea and placed a bowl of crisps in front of Mel as she helped Sherlock set up his microscope and a few surgical implements. As Melody worked on researching the Carl Powers case, Sherlock closed the partition to give them a cocoon of privacy.

She held out crisps for him, which he ate without thinking while cutting up the trainers with a scalpel.

An hour later, Melody was pouring over police documents. While Sherlock looked carefully through his microscope.

John opened the sliding doors and popped his head through the opening. "Can I help?I want to help. There’s only five hours left."

His mobile pinged, and he curiously glanced at it.  "Mycroft. He’s texting me now. How does he know my - ?"

"Must be a root canal." Sherlock mused.

"He did say “national importance”."

"How quaint."

"What is?"

"You are. “Queen and Country”."

"You can’t just ignore it!"