The Doctor's Daughter | Wholock {1}

Chapter 19: Cipher

This is taking forever, Sherlock thought as he tossed yet another book onto the pile. He and Kimmy had gone through half of the books in 221B and hadn't found one that went with the cipher. Mrs. Hudson had brought up dinner for Kimmy (though the landlady thought the meal was for Sherlock) a few hours earlier, which Kimmy had half-heartedly eaten. Sherlock could see her growing steadily more frustrated as she flipped through a dictionary, which she threw across the room a few seconds after stopping on one page.

"This is getting us nowhere," Sherlock announced, running a hand through his hair. "Time?"

Kimmy looked at her phone, then sighed and said, "We've got a little under thirty-five hours left." She sounded exhausted, though she hadn't complained about being tired. "For all we know we could have just as many puzzles left to solve. We need to somehow narrow our search. Did Moriarty ever mention a specific book to you?"

Sherlock looked up, suddenly remembering. "Grimm fairytales."

"What?"

"When Moriarty kidnapped two children and framed me, he left a book of Grimm fairytales in the children's room," Sherlock explained. "Didn't John put that in his books?"

Kimmy shrugged in reply as she walked over to his desk where his laptop was. "Maybe."

She gets moody when she's tired, Sherlock observed. He almost said something about it, but decided against it. "What are you doing?" he asked instead.

"I'm going to see if any libraries in the area have any collections of fairytales," she answered. "Unless you happen to have one here?"

"No, keep looking," he said, turning back to the bookshelf. Might as well keep looking here while she—

"It's not a book," Kimmy said suddenly.

"What do you mean?" Sherlock asked, turning back to her.

"It's not a book cipher," she repeated, sounding and looking more awake than she had a moment earlier. "It's a blog cipher. And what's the only blog Moriarty would want to use?"

"John's," he answered, walking across the room and looking over Kimmy's shoulder.

"Exactly," Kimmy said, nodding. She pointed at the note card, which was sitting beside the laptop, and tapped the first pair of numbers with her finger. "Third case, ninth word."

"I must say, Kimmy, I'm mildly impressed," Sherlock said. Why did I just say that? he wondered immediately after. Normal people never impress me. How is Kimberly Watson able to impress me?