Repens

It was thrilling, following Holmes and Watson. Stephanie couldn’t imagine feeling more adrenaline atop the Empire State Building in New York or the St. Louis arch. Hollywood’s glittering streets of gold weren’t half as interesting as this chance to watch the famous detective at work. No specialty or tourist attraction in America would satisfy this itch she had been dying to scratch since given the excuse to visit her aunt. She lied to Sherlock when she told him he had nothing to do with her being there; she was partly there to visit with her beloved aunt but his flat being a staircase away was simply perfect. In fact, if he had lived anywhere else, even a block away, she would not have bothered at all. But she was the one young woman with a legitimate excuse.
She stayed inside as they grabbed a Taxi and caught the next one that came by only seconds later. As casually as possible, she told the driver to follow the cab in front of them but not too closely. Watching the back of Sherlock’s head of countless curls, she anticipated his backwards glance. It was assumed that he either hadn’t noticed her grabbing the next cab, being so dedicated to the case, or he knew but didn’t mind. Either way, Stephanie was beginning to like this game quite a bit. The two men began to shuffle around their cab so she told her cabby to let her off at the next corner; she could stay hidden and follow them from there. Pulling her hat large sun glasses from her coat pocket, she prepared herself for the most difficult part of her scheme.
The general idea was to follow without being caught, a game she played as a child with her father in the grocery store. If the observant Sherlock spotted her the moment their cab pulled away, that was the end of her fun. She quickly placed all of her hair atop her head before putting the hat on and hid a large portion of her face behind the glasses. A nervous sigh escaped her before paying the tired cabby- from the looks of him he was unhappily married with more than two children and a nasty drinking habit that kept him out late last night. The moment she was out of the car, she spotted a bench and ran towards it, taking extra care to walk in a slower pace in a different manner than usual- a trick she learned to help blend in.
After a quick glance around, yesterday’s newspaper was laying on the bench just screaming to be used. Stephanie took her time in opening the folded pages and scammed through a dull article on some new community activity that was to start next month. Continuing to face forward, she turned her eyes over to Sherlock and John as their cab took off. John would give more readable body language clues as to which direction they were going in. Knowing that Sherlock was sure to be watching for her, she pulled the paper closer to her face. Imagining his gray eyes searching for her slightly raised her pulse and filled her cheeks with a pleasant heat. Giving them plenty of time to be on their way, she glanced up to see the direction they were going.
The paper was thrown down and she was finally in hidden pursuit of them. From the block that separated them, she saw John turn to Sherlock with a troubled expression. It was almost as if the two were fighting. For a second, she could help entertaining the thought of them fighting like an old married couple- it was an event that was sure to happen quite frequently at 221B Baker Street. They were probably mistaken for a couple more times than not. “Flat mates” was a common alibi for secret lovers these days.
The two comically argued all the way to a quaint art supply store. The store was far too small for her to get into without being noticed so she crossed the street and stepped into a busy bookstore. Staring out the window, she waited for them to come out. A sweet elderly employee asked if she needed assistance and she declined in a friendly tone, wanting to remain invisible. When she looked up, Sherlock and John were outside waiting for another cab.
“Goodness, you boys don’t waste time do you?”
As on Baker Street, she ran outside to grab the next cab and kept her eye on Sherlock. If he was remotely as amazing as her aunt claimed, it was impossible for her to have gone unnoticed for this long. Outsmarting the clever gifted Sherlock Holmes wasn’t on her to-do list today but she would gladly accept the satisfaction. Using the same tactic as before, she told her cab to pull over about a block before Holmes’. This was getting more fun than she had anticipated. There was a feeling in her gut that said her luck was going to run out soon, and she was very surprised it hadn’t done so already.
Patiently waiting for them to start walking, Stephanie found an information sign to pretend to read. It was the perfect distraction and quickly served its purpose. John was first to start walking, still clearly cross with Sherlock about something. She suddenly had a feeling that Sherlock was about to glance in her direction very soon; just in case her instincts were correct, she stood as tall as possible and began walking in the opposite direction using the unnatural walk.
When she felt it was safe, she continued following them and they wound up in an art gallery. Staying invisible would be easier here but there were still plenty of precautions to take into consideration. Waiting about a minute after they walked in, she found a bus group of tourists to hide in. Some were from America, others France, and the toddler of a Spanish family looked up at her and gave her a smile that revealed a missing tooth. It wasn’t long before the group entered the hallway Sherlock and John were still quarrelling in with hushed voices. She stood in front of a painting but watched the two in her peripheral vision and tried to make out their conversation. Apparently, she was only a few seconds too late to catch any of the drama.
“Enough about that! Look closely and what do you see?” Sherlock’s ability to shout in a whisper was amusing and brought a small uncontrollable smile to Stephanie’s lips.
“I see a beautiful young woman,” John replied after giving the painting a momentary glance.
“Dull. Look closer,” Holmes ordered with squinted eyes.
“Fine, a beautiful young woman who has the potential to be…”
“This is exactly what I was talking about earlier. Now, if you will kindly look at the painting closer and do try your best to keep the case in mind,” Holmes interrupted.
She suddenly knew what she wanted them to be fighting about but didn’t want to get her hopes up. It was bold of her to even entertain the thought.
“The paint looks more recent than the others?” the doctor answered after a long pause.
“Wonderful, John. Yes, it is quite a bit more recent. If this is one of the copies we are looking for, and I think it very well may be, it is only five years old and five hundred years newer than the originals. The frame has clearly been tampered with to look aged and match the others. A modern canvas was used, a more expensive type of material than the ones we saw at the art supply store used specifically for making replicas of original pieces. This is also a different sort of paint than what was available- no difference in the color but a slight change in the texture due to the increased oil level, hardly noticeable. There is one more place we need to look.”
Stephanie moved to another room and figured out where the other two would be going next. After sorting through the small amount of information given, it became difficult to narrow her search to only a few places. What was similar between the painting they had been studying and the mysterious “others”- clearly other paintings but were they categorizing them by artist, title, era, or something else? She figured it would be best to follow them and eaves drop on at least one more conversation before attempting to work one step ahead of them. Before it was too late, she pulled out her camera phone and zoomed as far as she could to read the title and artist of the picture they had been discussing- it was blurry but readable and that was all that mattered. The tourist group was leaving so she managed to put herself in the very center of the moving crowd.
She found a small hiding place across the lobby from the exit doors and waited for them. Once they were out, she gave them another minute to walk ahead of her. There were almost two blocks between them this time. Sherlock and John were walking at a much faster pace now. When they crossed the street and started walking towards a park, she realized where they were going. She knew this park very well from all the times her family picnicked here while visiting her aunt.
In the center of the park was another small art gallery. If she ran and took the shortcuts she could get there before Sherlock and John. There were many different gatherings in the large park today and that would increase her chances of going unnoticed. The two men couldn’t be seen and were probably taking the paved trails and using signs to get there, this gave her a few more seconds to stay ahead. When she got to the help desk, she quietly asked if they had any pieces with the same title or artist as the piece from the previous gallery.
“There’s one from that artist two halls to the right,” the woman said with confidence.
“Wonderful, thank you,” Stephanie whispered.
By the time she found the piece, she was nearly out of breath. Now, she simply had to wait. Fixing her bangs and smoothing the wrinkles from her coat, her heart pounded for reasons that didn’t have to do with her little jog. She couldn’t wait to see the look on Sherlock’s face when he turned the corner to find her standing in front of the picture they were looking for. It was only a matter of a minute or two. Time seemed to crawl by and when she looked down at her watch two minutes had already passed.
“Where are you,” she whispered, starting to get worried. Though she took the shortcut, there was no way they could be this far behind.
A few seconds later, the woman from the desk rounded the corner and startled the anxious Stephanie.
“Ma’am, there is a gentleman asking for you at the desk.”
“Of course there is,” she groaned under her breath.
“Excuse me, miss?” the lady asked, not catching her last statement.
“I said thank you.”
The woman nodded with a confused smile and walked away.
Enough time was given for the woman to return back to her desk before Stephanie began her walk of defeat. She replayed her entire adventure and wondered exactly where she had miscalculated and was first discovered. To her knowledge, she hadn’t been noticed. When she returned to the lobby, no one was there. Perhaps she had not been caught at all; she thought perhaps maybe an officer had spotted her running through the park and simply wanted to make sure that everything was alright. Yes, that seemed logical.
This was her only chance to get out of the small building unseen so she found the back exit and walked out with a satisfied smile. It had been a close call but she was still safe. As she quickly walked out of the building she thought of different places she could hide to watch for the nice doctor and the snobbish…
Someone grabbed her by the arm, pulled her to the side, and then she was shoved against the building. When her eyes met his, she grew livid.