Free Murder with Lens: A Sherlock Holmes Case (221B Baker Street Series) by S.K. Lloyds Page A

see?”
    One of the housemates, the one John inwardly called Dribbles-Cereal, muttered a reverent. “And who the hell is this guy?”
    Sherlock paced with a spiral bound scribbler he flipped through. “No, he doesn’t think like everyone else. In his room, there are pins on the cork board with elastic bands in complex patterns. And look at this. Everything in this book, he’s turned into a drawing, chart, or a graphic of some kind. Oh see? Here we go. He’s using these patterns as a memory trick for the flavours of quarks. It’s how he remembers. It’s how he sees the world.” Sherlock studied the notebooks on the table, and the colour of the flag for the one in his hand. “Red. Three pen dots.”
    “Lawrence is good at that,” Charlie followed John to the now open area of the room. Holmes picked up the notebooks and started flipping pages. Then he started laying them out of on the floor. He stared, took off his coat and scarf, and then set into it in earnest. He turned pages, readjusted, learned something new, reoriented. Within ten minutes he had uncovered, across 40 notebooks, a map of London – some parts were abbreviated; each page, on its own, had the appearance of a hand-drawn maze. But the way Sherlock had set it out, it was a map. Seemingly random marks on pages became landmarks. And there were other marks as well, though, to John, they looked like small stick figure animals. Like maybe a cat, and… something else.
    “Oh brilliant. Brilliant.” Sherlock whipped out his phone and started taking photos at frenetic speed. “Not stupid this one. He’s a loss.”
    John turned to Charlie, “And when did he leave here?”
    “Uh? Friday morning? He cut classes, but he’s way ahead, so…” Charlie returned to gaping at the floor. “What is this? This is London, yes? Why has he drawn London? I thought… he liked drawing mazes, like it helped him think. And you… how on earth did you just walk in and see all this?”
    “He’s a specialist,” John explained.
    “Stop him,” Sherlock waved the comment away as if it were tangible in air. His head bowed over the map, one hand to his temple. “Stop wondering. Too loud.”
    “My wondering is too loud?” Charlie’s brow scrunched in perplexity.
    John lowered his voice and drew the young man back to the knot staring from the kitchen. “Can you draw up a list of Lawrence’s friends and enemies for us?”
    “Enemies?” Charlie recoiled. “Who has enemies like that?”
    “Not uncommon,” Sherlock stopped cogitating over the map to answer his buzzing cell. “I do.”
    “Well, normal people don’t. Lawrence didn’t have enemies. People adored him. He was so helpful and funny – such a weird accent and all. He’d been all over the United States.”
    “No enemies, and yet he’s dead.” Sherlock finished consulting his phone. “John. It’s him. A tooth dislodged during the fall was found lodged in the throat, and it is consistent with a crown he got three months ago. DNA is turning up a match.”
    Charlie looked at the ground, unable to comprehend the news. “Oh my God…” His eyes beaded with tears. “Lawrence.”
    Sherlock prowled over to the boy. “Have you ever seen him with someone you didn’t recognise? Someone he was trying to keep secret or hide from you?”
    “Just this boyfriend who came by now and then – this brunette with pale eyes, a bit like you. I didn’t see him very closely. They’d go in his room and stay there, and you know, you don’t disturb a guy,” Charlie punctuated this with a nod, and wiped his damp eyes. “Lawrence, he’s a bit uptight, but he’s so great. I didn’t want anyone to mess things up for him. But this guy, he seemed a bit-” the young man stopped and looked up at Holmes, wide-eyed.
    “Still listening,” Sherlock stood attentive, with his hands parked on his narrow hips. It was about as undivided as attention got. When nothing else was forthcoming, he frowned.
    Tears streaked down