Dr. Watson had listened only a short time to an interior decorator's deprecating opinion of the former occupant of the room, namely Sherlock, when he cursed and headed to the exit door. He opened the door and stood, hand on the doorknob, and only a short time ago he had told Mrs. Hudson (she was in an interior room) that enough was enough and that he would be back tomorrow to begin moving out.
There was a thunderous "Mrs. Hudson!" from Sherlock's former room. Mrs. H. came rushing out of an adjacent room, and in going around a corner, she glanced at Dr. W and asked "Sherlock?"
After entering S's former room, she shouted. All was then quiet. No sounds of any kind. John slowly shut the door. It closed with a loud report. Slowly, very slowly, he walked to the open entrance to S's room. The cameras shoot him from many angles during his long walk.
At the entrance, looking in, he sees Mrs. H. mostly on the floor with her head in Sherlock's lap .S is half out and half in disguise.
Sherlock - John, I had to die. Sorry. If I had not done so, then you, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade would have. Help me to get her to the bed.
Once that is done, J rushes S to hug him furiously. S pats J tentatively on the back.
S - Molly helped with a cadaver. And here I am.
Mrs. H. begins to come to. She sits up, declares she is hallucinating again, sees S and faints again.
S- This will never do. Mrs. Hudson! Mrs. Hudson!
John moves to assist but she comes to again. She rushes to hug S.
S - Thank you. Thank you. Could I have a bite?
Mrs. H. - Of course, Sherlock, of course you must be hungry after coming back from the dead.
Off she goes.
Sherlock has decided to take John's suggestion that he take on "small" cases for the time being.
J - And what of Moriarty?
S - He tried and he failed. It was elaborate but it failed. What if he should fail a second time?
J relates that he hasn't been at Baker Street much of late. He would hallucinate as did Mrs. H. Other than that, he thought he saw S here and there in the streets or in shops - from the back or side a remarkable number of people looked like S if you are disposed to find him there. J's therapist was urging him to leave Baker Street for good.
S - I hope you will remain.
S has his next case in the works. He has been walking along Baker Street from time to time and noticed a large part of the bottom row of windows opposite his address always lit late into the night. They had not been so before. One window is the flat for Mrs. Smith and it was not lit.
She had been complaining to the management about milk bottles disappearing. She orders a specially prepared milk from a distant restaurant. They deliver and in exchange she writes favorable reviews on her blog that is devoted to accounts of London eateries.
Sherlock had enquired about renting lodging in the building, and then thought better of it. He was in the building's management office when Mrs. Smith presented the complaint.
John is pleased that S is taking a small-is-better approach to casework but finds S to be not his old self if S is serious about "The Case of the Missing Milk Bottles".
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Adjacent to Mrs. Smith's flat is a short hallway that terminates at double doors. Behind those doors have been various commercial establishments over the years. Currently behind those doors are many windows that remain lit far into the night.
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Sherlock sits on a bench in the hall opposite Mrs. Smith's door. The milk bottles are placed at her door. He has cut holes through the newspaper. He is peering through the holes. The milk has been delivered. A man in a white lab coat enters the hallway from one of the end-of-the corridor doors. He has fiery red painted-on eyebrows, red fake ill-fitting mustache, and a flimsy excuse for a red wig. In his breast pocket are pens, paper, and a short slide rule stood on end. He nonchalantly walks up to the milk bottles and takes two of the four.
S - (from behind the newspaper) asks, "Why do you always take two?"
He - So that Mrs. Smith not be totally without, but enough to attract attention.
S - My attention?
He - I had hoped so. Knowing you did reside at 221 B in this street and presumably you are doing so again.
S - Perhaps. And the milk is for....?
He - I pour it down the sink. I am in need of your help. I didn't think you to be dead. At least I hoped you weren't or I would be in horrible fix. Then I saw you in the manager's office. In disguise were you but you did that "thing" you do and you gave that "look" - both in quick succession and quickly suppressed, but I noticed nonetheless.
S - Your name?
He - Reginald
S - Reggie?
R - No, Reginald.
S - Your occupation?
R - Chemist. In there. (He pointed at the double doors.)
S - Shall we?
R - Certainly.
The interior was like a large hall filled with benches and on the benches was a large amount of lab equipment.
S - Research?
R - Certainly.
S - Please, most of the equipment here is useless for chemical analysis. Most of it is quite new and not plugged in. Those lab attendants in the white coats in the far distance, and they are always far away, are rented, I presume, since they are tenants of this building. But then there are two bench top apparatus that have been in recent operation. Your procedures for these two are at an impasse.
R - So you have been here already.
S - On two occasions.
R - Yes, the two experiments could not be completed.
S - Why not pull the plug on them?
R - They represent the problem. No crimes have yet been committed but may be. A crime against humanity. Something I find myself powerless to stop.
S - Indeed.
R - I can't continue here at the moment. A delivery is imminent. Please excuse me.
In a short time, John joins S.
J - I saw the scene of the crime in the hallway. Dreadful sight, what will they not stoop to?
S - Actually there is a much bigger crime in the offing. Reginald....
J - Reggie?
S - No, Reginald, the owner of this lab has set up this staged chemistry effort to attract my attention.
J - And here you are. From milk bottles to what?
S - Crimes against humanity.
J - Here? New equipment. What's this? Not being used.
S - Obviously.
J - Except for close to us. How convenient. Rats in a maze. Worms in a tank.
S - Planarians. Wormrunners of history, old history. The Digest. Grind them up, feed the grounds to other worms and they could learn faster - memory transfer. So it was maintained.
J - The rats seem confused. Dazed perhaps?
Reginald approaches. R - Ah, Dr. Watson, I am Reginald Susset of the Pacific. Lately in your metropolis to attempt replication of....
S - More history than chemistry.
J - Reggie?
R - No, Reginald.
J - So what brings us here?
R - Before you are the two experiments of interest.
J - Rats and worms. Forgetful rats, so they appear to be.
S - Precisely.
R - Quite so, Dr. Watson. The rats are forgetful. So too are, so to speak, the worms.
J - The rats can't do the maze.
S - And more than that.
R - True enough. Their forgetfulness has been accelerating. So elementary a state that they are forgetting to eat. Then, I suppose, to move.
J - The worms are in a like state?
S - Yes. So, Reginald, how did they get to be this way? Don't tell me. The two experiments have only their water supply in common. What's in the water?
R - Good question. I can't find out.
J - Eh?
R - If I try to analysis, I begin to have more of whatever it is.
S - Self-assembly of the molecules. Hierarchal and helical with unusual environmental conditions promoting a riotous outcome.
R - I can't explain it any other way. Just as you said.
J - You mean something in the water makes them, rats and worms, forget? We could forget? A great many of us could forget and go on forgetting until we forget to carry on?
S - Correct. Rats are evolutionarily speaking much closer to us than the worms so chances are....
R - Right.
J - If in the wrong hands, it is a crime against humanity? Milk bottles and now this. You haven't done well, Sherlock, in getting on to a small case.
S - In such an elementary state, they could be reversible.
R - These are neither the first rats nor worms so affected. It is irreversible.
S - Then disassociate the molecule, the contaminant in the water. Obviously you didn't invent it, how was it discovered?
R - A water bottle from a supplier had it in it, apparently. No other cases of memory loss have been reported.
S - A chance thing, that it was in the water at all.
R - Yes, it would appear so.
S - And now you want the contaminant neutralized?
J - By us?
R - Well, where else could I go? After all, you are across the street.
S - After you purposely located here. Actually this has gotten boring. So go about your business of disposing of the molecule. Use your ubiquitous slide rule, if it is more than an artifact of history, to calculate how it must be done.
R - It is reproducing itself in the container. It will burst the container. It will be set loose upon the world.
J - Now from what film was that?
S - Hold on, John, this is not as elementary as it might appear. Reginald has a point. If no action on our part is forthcoming, we are accessories to an unsavory future. For how long could we live on milk or some such?
R - Yes, there you have it.
S - So irradiate the water.
J - Cc by cc? Wouldn't we need a few centuries?
S - Well, actually molecule by molecule and it would be much faster if massive amounts of protons were available and pulse discharge of electricity were collaborative with the addition of coenzymes.
R - Have you an invention in mind?
S - It is with us now if the Sun cooperates. It has been active of late. Even so, the display is not often seen in Great Britain.
J - How's that?
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Neither J nor S trusts R to carry out the task of transporting the water to the far North of Great Britain during a particularly fearsome outbreak of the aurora borealis, the Northern Lights.
R had to be coerced into going. He has a phobia about polar bears. It is one reason he lives in the Pacific. It took a long time to quiet him and assure him forcibly that no polar bears are in the North.
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Mission accomplished. J and S are at their ease at 221B.
Mrs. Hudson - Boys, here's a parcel for you.
She gives it to Sherlock.
S - From somewhere in the Pacific. Will you do the honors? (Hands it to John)
J - What have we here? Two slide rules. Gorgeous cases. Velvet slip covers. They are trimmed in gold, no doubt. A check for a substantial amount. A note. And a packet of seeds. The note says - I have now returned to my island. I did encounter a bear, a polar bear, after you left the North. He had escaped from an illegal zoo and was stalking a child when I intervened. I used my slide rule. I threw it at the bear. Got its attention. They can run quite fast. He was netted and darted and how resides where a bear, a polar bear, should be, after an excursion by plane. The enclosed slide rules were the most advanced available. The seeds represent what we all should undertake to do from time to time and vice versa and etc.
S - They are?
J - Forget me nots.
S - Good old Reggie, well, we will see what can be done with them by Mrs. Hudson.
J - By the way, what container hereabouts should not be used to water the plants?
S - Whatever do you mean?
J - Of course you retained a sample of the Reggie’s water for later analysis. Somewhere before it was neutralized, it wasn't all neutralized, was it?
S - Herein, (holding up a lipstick case-sized gleaming metal tube) is what can be a project to carry me through a dreary afternoon. Soon it will be done. Can I count on your assistance?
J - Certainly not.
S - The best of a possible regress is a solitary one?
J - Let's just say I have some treasured memories that I wish to retain.
S - What you can't remember would not be a danger to you.
J - You have yours, I have mine. Your remembered danger need not be mine, and vice versa and etc.
The doorbell rings.
END
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