Welcome to Baker Street

10. Mission impossible

Baker Street

"That's impossible," Sherlock grumbles, bursting into 221B Baker Street some minutes later.

John looks away from the telly and sarcastically says to Giulia, "Oh, look, he is in a good mood."

"How could she hide a sister and how could he hide that from me?" the detective cries out and drops his coat on the floor, ignoring that the coat rack is merely three feet away.

Giulia closes her book and glances at John. "Should we ask him who he's talking about?"

"No. Just act natural and let him blow off some steam," the doctor replies casually. He is rather accustomed to Sherlock's peculiar (and usually unjustified) fits of anger.

She stands up and grabs his coat to hang it on the rack, causing a piece of paper to fall out of a pocket and flit on the ground. She bends over to pick it up with a foxy smile.

"Sherlock, you've got a girlfriend and haven't breathed a single word about it?"

"A girlfriend?" John gapes, while Sherlock simply stares at her, clueless.

"Yes, a woman who leaves you messages and calls you dear or love," Giulia implies with a leer, waving in the air the note that fell off his pocket. "Only a woman could have such delicate handwriting."

He gazes at her with an indecipherable expression.

"Correct. What else can you infer from that piece of paper?"

She gives a second look at the few written lines.

"Overlooking the content—which looks like a love declaration—I'd say that she had troubles with the pen." She points at the smudges of ink.

"She used a fountain pen and was in a hurry," he clarifies.

She nods at that remark and immediately frowns while staring at the note.

"In that case, is she a teacher?"

"What?" Sherlock asks, blinking repeatedly.

"Well, maybe not a teacher, but surely a grammar Nazi. You said she was in a hurry, and yet she took care of the punctuation on an informal note. Who would be so meticulous to put a semicolon and mind about commas if they are out of time? She must have done it as a natural reflex. That's why I presumed it was connected to her job." She shrugs, afraid of sounding too blunt about a personal matter.

"It might be, actually. Let me examine it." Sherlock storms to her side and snatches the paper from her hands.

"Do you seriously not know what she does for a living?"

"Did. And she wasn't my girlfriend. She is just the victim of my new case," he replies absent-mindedly.

Giulia turns pale, lifting a hand over her mouth. "So, you mean..."

"Yes, this is her suicidal note. I read it on the crime scene but couldn't find anything relevant."

"Of course you couldn't. This looks extremely personal and heartfelt. It was probably meant for her boyfriend, or husband, or lover," she suggests.

"Nothing like that. In all probability, it was for her twin sister," Holmes corrects her without even looking in her direction.

"Oh, poor girl," she whines. "And why did she kill herself?"

"I wondered the same when I was there, and I finally came up with the solution: she had no choice, she was an undercover agent of the British Secret Service."