BBC Sherlock: Wit's End

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15 April 2018

Paganini's Caprice No. 24 for solo violin was interrupted by the text-message ping on Sherlock's phone. It caught Sherlock's ear during a musical rest and as much as Sherlock wanted to continue his Sunday-afternoon violin exercise, reveling in the technical wizardry for which this piece was famous, he could not tune out the teeth-gnashing dissonance. The piece's A-minor clashed with his mobile's A-flat tone. Standing at the south window overlooking Baker Street, he stubbornly fingered several more measures of vigorous phrasing, appreciating the vibration of the strings tuned in perfect fifths and governed by the laws of physics. The instrument with its twenty-five diminishing semitones per string was a scientific wonder and Sherlock had been in the process of systemizing his playing technique when the phone disturbed him. After those few measures, curiosity eroded concentration; Sherlock laid down his violin and checked his phone.

The text was from John, but the message itself was unintelligible, "Chat guide rubbish or my way", but before Sherlock could puzzle out its meaning a second text arrived, "Great but one is just", and then a third, a string of numbers, symbols, and brackets.

What was John on about?

Frowning at what might have possessed John to choose these key phrases, Sherlock scanned the messages. Immediately he ruled out their anagram or skip-code possibilities, puzzling less over what scheme of encryption John had used and more why he was sending coded messages at all. Earlier that day, John had sent a reminder text—which Sherlock had ignored—about a social engagement of sorts, an invitation…which was the reason Sherlock had ignored it. But these texts were incomprehensible.

Concern gathered like storm clouds over London. Just when had they spoken last?

In between cases, neither Sherlock nor John needed the kind of frequent socialization associated with fast friends. Sherlock considered banal chats utter nonsense and John seemed fine with breaks in the work, especially with three-year-old Rosie needing ever more attention. Often apart for extended periods—until a case worthy of their time came along—they had arrived at this mutual, unspoken understanding: that their unique friendship did not depend upon constant interaction. It had been forged through shared adversity and would survive both the time and distance that living their separate lives imposed.

So, Sherlock had to think back to when they had last talked… not quite three weeks ago?

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A.N. At the end of my last multi-chaptered fiction, Death Wish, I announced that I was retiring from writing such long laborious casefics. This is still true. However, ignoring the characters' voices that continue to hold dialogue in my head has made going "cold turkey" and not writing anything at all more of a struggle than I had imagined. It seems that as long as I can still hear them talking—and time allows—there may be an occasional one-shot. So, thanks to sweltering temperatures that thwarted outdoor activities during my last week of summer vacation, this one-shot Wits End resulted. I hope you feel I made good use of my time. ;-)