Sherlock Holmes arrived in New York on a Tuesday.
I watched his brownstone from a rooftop three buildings down, binoculars trained on the front door, while Vex handled ground-level surveillance. The building looked exactly as I remembered from the show — worn brick, too many stairs, the kind of neglected grandeur that came with inherited wealth and deliberate eccentricity.
At 2:17 PM, a taxi pulled up. A woman emerged first — Asian, professional, the deliberate posture of someone entering an unfamiliar situation with determination. Joan Watson. Former surgeon, current sober companion, future detective.
Behind her, Sherlock Holmes unfolded from the back seat.
He looked... smaller than I expected. The screen had given him presence, gravitas, the kind of commanding energy that filled every scene he occupied. In person, he was a thin man in clothes that didn't quite fit, with the nervous energy of someone who'd spent too long in confined spaces.
But his eyes were exactly as I remembered them. Sharp, observant, cataloging everything around him with the automatic precision of a machine built for deduction.
"He's examining the street," Vex reported from somewhere below. "Scanning windows, noting vehicles, measuring sight lines. Paranoid or thorough."
"Both," I murmured. "His baseline behavior. He'll do this everywhere he goes."
I watched Sherlock gesture Joan toward the brownstone door, then pause at the threshold. His head tilted slightly — the particular angle that meant he was noticing something, filing it away for later analysis. What had caught his attention? A crack in the sidewalk? A pattern in the window placement? Something I couldn't see from this distance?
They went inside. The door closed. And somewhere across the city, Captain Gregson was probably reading my evidence package, realizing that the Dampier case had just become significantly simpler.
"He'll receive the call within the hour," I predicted. "Gregson will want his input, even on a case that's essentially solved."
"Why?" Vex appeared on the rooftop beside me, having scaled three stories with the casual ease of a creature unbothered by physics. "If the evidence points clearly at Richard Dampier, why consult a detective?"
"Because Sherlock's father arranged this position. Because Gregson owes favors to people who matter. Because the NYPD can't admit they were handed a solution by an anonymous source without looking incompetent." I lowered the binoculars. "And because Gregson genuinely respects ability, even if he doesn't understand where it comes from."
We waited. I'd brought coffee in a thermos — the kind of preparation that felt absurd for rooftop surveillance but had become second nature. The liquid was still warm, barely. I drank it anyway, tasting nothing.
At 3:41 PM, the brownstone door opened again.
Sherlock emerged first, moving with purpose now, energy focused in a way it hadn't been during his arrival. Joan followed, her expression suggesting she wasn't sure what she'd gotten herself into.
"He's going to the precinct," I said. "Gregson called."
I couldn't follow them — not directly, not without risking exposure. But Vex could. She dropped from the rooftop and vanished into the afternoon crowds, a gray-and-white shadow nobody would think to question.
I waited.
The precinct building had windows that faced the street. Vex found a position on a fire escape with a clear sightline to Gregson's office. Her reports came through our developing bond as impressions rather than words — fragments of observation that assembled themselves into meaning.
Sherlock examining the evidence. My evidence. The photographs and financial records and insurance documentation I'd compiled over four days of preparation. His expression shifting from boredom to interest to something that looked almost like respect.
He was asking questions. Gregson was answering. The questions were about the source — who had sent this package, how had they known, what were they trying to accomplish.
Gregson didn't have answers. Nobody did.
He's intrigued, Vex's impression conveyed. Not irritated. He expected the case to be his challenge, and instead he's been handed a puzzle wrapped around a puzzle.
That was better than I'd hoped. Sherlock could have dismissed the anonymous tip as interference, an insult to his methods. Instead, he was treating it as data — another variable to analyze, another mystery to solve.
The Dampier case was closed by evening. Richard Dampier confessed within hours of his arrest, faced with evidence too comprehensive to deny. The staging, the insurance fraud, the mistress — all exposed before Sherlock had a chance to uncover them himself.
But Sherlock didn't leave the precinct immediately. Even after the confession, he stayed in Gregson's office, studying the anonymous package, running the documents through whatever analytical process lived inside that remarkable mind.
He was looking for fingerprints — metaphorical ones. The signature of whoever had assembled this evidence, the patterns that would reveal their identity.
I'd been careful. The documents were clean, copied at public facilities, handled with gloves. The courier service was cash-paid and untraceable. The envelope was generic, the postage standard.
But careful wasn't the same as invisible. And Sherlock Holmes didn't need obvious evidence to form theories.
By the time he left the precinct, the sun had set over New York. I watched him walk toward the brownstone with Joan at his side, his stride longer than it had been that morning, his energy focused in ways that made me nervous.
"He's already building a profile," I told Vex when she rejoined me on the rooftop. "Of me. Of whoever sent that evidence."
"What will he conclude?"
"Someone with financial expertise, or access to someone with financial expertise. Someone who knew about the affair before the police did, which means surveillance capabilities. Someone who chose to help anonymously rather than take credit publicly, which suggests either humility or agenda." I packed up the binoculars. "He won't know who I am. But he'll know I exist, and he'll know I'm watching."
"Is that what you wanted?"
I considered the question as we descended from the rooftop. Below, New York hummed its eternal song — sirens and traffic and the collective murmur of eight million lives intersecting.
"It's step one," I said. "He needs to know someone else is playing before I can introduce myself. Otherwise, I'm just another face in the crowd."
"And now?"
"Now I wait. I watch. I send more tips, establish a pattern he can't ignore." I stepped into the alley that connected to the street. "Eventually, he'll get frustrated enough to look for answers. When he does, I'll be ready."
Vex padded beside me, silent for a long moment.
"You're enjoying this," she observed finally. "The chess match. The positioning. Having someone worthy to play against."
I didn't deny it. For the first time since transmigration, I felt like I was doing something more than surviving. I was building toward something. Moving pieces toward a goal that mattered.
"Sherlock Holmes is the most interesting person in this city," I said. "Present company excluded. I'm looking forward to meeting him."
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