The Doctor's Daughter | Wholock {1}

Chapter 18: The Second Clue

It didn't take Sherlock long to arrive. "In here," Kimmy said, nodding at the yard she was standing beside. "Over there," she said, pointing through the chain-link fence. One the opposite side of the yard was a bush of white roses; even from where Kimmy was standing it was clear that several were missing. "And there," she added, pointing at the side of the house where ivy was clinging.

"Good work," Sherlock said. "Can you climb over?"

Kimmy nodded. "If you give me a boost."

"Okay," he said, lacing his fingers together. Kimmy put one foot on his hands and, carefully balancing, used the extra height to swing her leg over the fence. Holding onto the top, she swung her other leg over and dropped to the ground. Sherlock followed her, making the task look effortless.

Show-off, she thought as they walked across the yard to the rosebush. She saw the second envelope lying under it and nodded at it. "Another note."

"Yes," Sherlock agreed, looking at the ground around the bush. "One set of footprints. Moriarty came alone." He picked up the envelope—again, Kimmy saw it was addressed to the Consulting Detective and the Doctor's Daughter—and slid a note card out of it. "Well done, Sherlock and Kimberly," he read out loud. "For Mary's and the Doctor's sakes, I hope it didn't take too long."

"Is that all it says?" Kimmy asked when he didn't say anything else, feeling panic creep up on her.

"There's a cipher," Sherlock said, handing her the note. Pairs of numbers covered most of it.

"You mean a book cipher?" she guessed. "Like in the Blind Banker case?"

"Exactly," he confirmed. "We just need to find which book it goes with."

"That's hundreds of thousands of possibilities, Sherlock," Kimmy pointed out as they walked back to the fence.

"He made it personal, remember?" he argued, lacing his fingers together to give her another boost. "Moriarty's been in my flat, he knows what books I have."

"So the cipher will go with one of them," Kimmy finished as she dropped to the ground on the other side of the fence.

"Exactly," he said as he easily climbed the fence. "This shouldn't take too long."