The Baker street regulars

Where's my eyeball?

Sherlock and I were in a bit of a lull. The practice was dull and we were awaiting the judgements on a few important cases. So Sherlock had decided not to fill his hands with new ones before the old ones were completely done and out of the way. Human nature is always restless and seeks occupation. On that fine morning, I was occupying myself with the day's paper. Sherlock on the other hand was working on one of his experiments. I could hear various glass apparatus gently knocking against one another even though the paper shielded him from my view.

The small kitchen was a chaos now; what with the odd smells and all. Usually when Sherlock began 'experimenting', within less than twenty four hours I found myself sampling more types of pungent odours than I cared to. Sometimes I found myself questioning my mind about the remote possibility of some of those variety of gases being poisonous or even, God forbid, carcinogenic.

The sitting room had become a bit of a mess now. Mrs. Hudson usually helped us to clean it out. Meaning, she usually did the work while Sherlock and I encouraged her. Currently she was on strike after discovering a rather large human liver in the freezer. Apparently Sherlock had been studying the effects of cooling on a deceased person's liver thereby determining the effect it had on accurately fixing the time of death. But all it had done was to scare Mrs.Hudson off the cleaning, but I had no doubts that she would be back in full-form, being the brave lady that she was. The last is not an undue compliment as few landlords (or landladies) could be counted upon to abide tenants like us as Mrs.Hudson did.

"John?"

I lowered my paper. "Yes, Sherlock?" Sherlock was frantically rifling the shelves, looking for something. He could get a bit too restless when he couldn't find something precisely at the time he wanted it.

"Have you seen the cookie jar?"

"What?"

"The cookie jar, John. The big brown one."

"Oh," I said. "The one with the chocolate chip cookies?"

"That was the one."

"I gave it to Mrs. Hudson."

He stared at me as if I had suddenly gone barking mad. "And why would you do such a thing?"

"Mrs. Hudson has a few of her friends coming over. She didn't have time to shop for snacks, so I loaned her the cookies. Last I saw, there was quite a lot and it should probably suffice for their visit," I explained briefly. Sherlock stared at me in silence. The bell rang downstairs and he gave an irritated sound. I had rarely seen him so tetchy when he was doing an experiment. They somehow had a soothing effect on him but apparently there was more to the story.

"Sherlock? Is there something I should know?"

Sherlock ran his hands over his already messy hair. "I need it. Now."

"Ah, no," I said, shuffling my paper, "I'm not charging downstairs just because you've developed a cookie fetish."

"There weren't cookies inside John," he said in an irritated tone. I lowered my paper slowly, the truth beginning to dawn on me. "Sherlock, what was in that jar?"

"An eye?"

"A what?" I said stupefied.

"An eye, John. A human eye."

The gravity of the situation hit me. "Sherlock, are you saying that I just gave an eye... a human eye to Mrs. Hudson and that she thinks there are cookies inside and she's going to open that jar in front of the guests.... What have I done?"

Sherlock beckons me over. "I'm not sure. I might have placed it somewhere else. Come help me look."

I join the search for the lost eye and, along with Sherlock, open almost every jar spread out on the table. Sherlock was ransacking the shelves. I flinched slightly as my hand hit a flask of acid. Thank goodness that didn't spill. After five minutes of frantic searching, both of us reluctantly admitted that the eye must be in the cookie jar.

"There goes my specimen B. Mrs. Hudson threw out my liver last time..." said Sherlock mournfully.

I choke. "Specimen B? So you're saying that there's a specimen A as well?"

"Yes," he said lazily. "And possibly a specimen E."

"Sherlock? Do you have five... organs in the house?"

"Not all of them are organs, John. Specimen D is just a bunch of toenails."

I lapsed into silence, not wanting to pursue the topic further. Both of us heard a high pitched laugh from downstairs. "Looks like the party has started," I comment dully. Sherlock became pale. "John, there are guests downstairs."

"You just realized that just now?" I question.

"We have to get my jar back," he said and all but dragged me out of the room. "The game is on!"

Downstairs, there were four other ladies with Mrs. Hudson and they seemed to be having quite a lot of fun gossiping. Luckily for us, they were too engrossed in their stories to actually consider eating. The elusive cookie jar stood on the table. Sherlock cleared his throat loudly and everyone ceased talking.

"Yes, dear? Is there something you want?" said Mrs. Hudson.

"John and I were just talking about... how wonderful cookies are," said Sherlock gesturing at me.

"What... Yes." I said, not knowing how else to respond.

"We had a couple of cookies last week. From the boy scouts or something--"

"Sherlock, you're overdoing it," I hissed quietly.

"--They were really good," he said, ignoring me.

"Fine. Crispy," I said, putting in random adjectives.

"Hazelnut," said Sherlock.

"Chocolate chip," I said and we both glared at each other.

"Well, he had chocolate chip and I had hazelnut," said Sherlock. "Well, the point is, we would appreciate it if you could try them out for us. Therefore--" Sherlock strode forward and hastily scooped up the cookie jar. "--We will fill this jar to the brim and bring it back... Cheerio." He said and dragged me out of the room. Sherlock and I practically raced back upstairs. Sherlock produced a pair of forceps and gently transferred the eye to a transparent jar. I poured the formaldehyde in the cookie jar into our kitchen sink and gave it a good rinse. The smell of formaldehyde somehow refused to leave my nose.

"John?" said Sherlock.

"What?" I said exasperated.

"We told them we would be back with cookies, right?"

I groan. "Let's just fill up the jar with stuff from Speedy's."

"I don't believe they sell hazelnut."

"What now?" I said, glaring at him.

"There is a somewhat acceptable outlet nearby. It's just ten minutes if we take the bus. Five, if you're willing to jump off the said bus. What say you?"

"I don't know, Sherlock. Let's just return as soon as possible."

"Five it is then."