When John stepped into the room, he noticed immediately that his friend did not slept during the night at all. Basically he wasn't a fast observer, but beside a man like Sherlock Holmes he unwillingly saw this and that.
'Good morning. How's the night spent?' he asked while pacing into the kitchen for his morning coffee.
'Boringly. Sleeping is a waste of time, however I couldn't work on any case.'
John got out a mug of the cupboard.
'Why, you solved all of them?' he asked unconcernedly.
'No. All's boring. The woman's dog is two gardens afar, the secretary's earring was stolen by the maid, the banker cheats his wife with the locksmith. No, the locksmith isn't a woman.' answered Sherlock the unsaid question. John put milk in his coffee.
'So you solved them, however.'
'No, John, it isn't solving!' Sherlock jumped up from the sofa. 'It's elementary! Look at the footprints in the flower bed, the ring of the maid, the ever-crappy lock! It's evident! I need something complex, something what's worth of solving, something interesting!'
John sipped his coffee when his friend stopped shaking his shoulders.
'Why aren't you looking for one?'
'That's boring.' Sherlock fell back on the sofa. John sat down opposite of him.
'What if I say I know one?'
Sherlock jumped on him and started to shake his shoulder again – and this time John wasn't fast enough; the coffee spilled on his rest-gown.
'Tell me!' the detective shouted. John looked at the splash disappointed.
'My rest-gown got filthy.'
'I don't care. Tell about the case.'
John sighed and put down the mug.
'You'll like it.'
'Excellent.'
'I don't.'
'Right so.'
'It's about a woman.'
'What woman?'
'The woman.'
Sherlock let John's shoulder go and leaned back slowly.
'Irene Adler. So she's back.' he whispered.
'Yes, it seems she's alive still.' John got up and paced to the desk to his laptop.
'Alive.' Sherlock whispered.
'You are not surprised.'
'You neither that I'm not.' he threw at him.
John sighed.
'You know, Mycroft dropped a word in my ear when he told me the Woman died. He said he's sure about Adler's death 'cause there's no one who could have him over but you.'
Sherlock grinned.
'Of course he said also that you weren't there. Indeed, Sherlock, when did you travel to Middle-East? I thought you were here along those days.'
'It wasn't a long fling, in the evening I went and in the morning I came.'
'With her?'
'Oh, don't be ridiculous! The Woman did not came with me.'
'Then how did she get home? Everyone believed in her death, she could not just jump on a plane!'
'No, airports' security system are complex. A woman like Adler cannot defy them. But ships... That's something other.'
'Ship?! She sailed back to London?'
'To London?! John, please! She went to Paris where somebody was await for her.'
'Moriarty?'
'John, don't be stupid!' Sherlock leaned forward in his armchair and aced.
'Well, then?' asked John when he realized his friend wouldn't tell by himself.
'Someone who she trusted. Above everyone.'
'You?!'
Sherlock made a painful face.
'John, please! Kate. The only one she trusts.'
'I thought she was in love with you.'
'Yes but she doesn't trust me.'
'But she left her phone by you.'
'Yes. For keep.'
'This isn't trust?'
'No. She only counts well.'
'Counts?! Sherlock, I don't...'
'I was the only one who could break the phone but I don't stand on anybody's side, I wouldn't pass the information over.'
'But you did in the end.'
'For Mycroft. There wasn't any other way. I had to recompense...'
'Adler?'
'Mycroft! John, are you listening at all?!' Sherlock stood up. John shook his head and turned back to the laptop.
'If you are interested in the case...'
'But why? Why did she come back?' the detective paced back and for.
'Not for Moriarty, not for the phone, no. She's smarter than that. Maybe for blackmail...'
'Sherlock.'
'However, it's possible she left something here...'
'Sherlock.'
'...or someone.
'Yes! You!' John cried out.
'Sorry? What?' Sherlock got confused.
'You. She came back for you.'
Sherlock made a bewildered face.
'For me? It doesn't make sense.'
John smiled at him.
'She's in love with you.'
'No.' the other one continued pacing.
'Yes.' John insisted.
'No, of course she's in love with me, but she's not back for that.'
'Then why?' John said uncomprehendingly.
'Because she needs me...'
'I'm telling...'
'My brain, John!' Sherlock stopped pacing.
'Your brain. Understood.' John closed the laptop. 'If you know the case already, I'm leaving now.'
'What case?' Sherlock frowned.
'The case of Irene Adler.'
'John, that she's back is no case.'
'No, but that she sold something to a Russian criminal who was found dead in the Thames three hours later, that's a case.'
Sherlock's eyes glimmed on.
'Circumstances!' he lumped down on the ground his hands put together.
'I read it in the morning paper.'
'You did not read the morning paper, it's still outside the front door.'
'Electric paper.' John sighed. 'Seriously, Sherlock, do you know at all, where technology stands these days?'
'Most of it is unconcerning, the rest I know. Go on.'
'So. I read in the paper that at dawn a body was found in the river. Body of Alexandr Andrejev, Russian citizen dwelling legally in Britain, thirty-nine years old, with an assumed connection to the Black Viola criminal society in Moscow. He stood under nonstop stakeout. Yesterday night he was seen with a woman in a bar on the riverside, bargaining for a data medium. The description fitted Adler. The woman left the place about half past midnight, but she wasn't followed with attention – not like Andrejev. He went in a abandoned building near the bar, but he never came back again from it. The body was found after four a.m. by the East India.'
Sherlock rised on his heels, his hands putting under his chin.
'A pendrive, a Russian maffia-member, and the Woman. She would've not risk of recognition. What did the description say?'
John reopened the laptop and tiped in the website. He began to read aloud.
'”The victim was last seen with a by the accent British, dark-haired woman in her late twenties, early thirties, who weared provoking make-up and dress.”'
'A whore.'
'Nope.'
'How do you know? This description fits two percents of the British inhabitants.'
'Only two?' John amuzed.
'It's more than twelve-thousand women, John.' the detective stood up and lumped in his armchair bored. 'It doesn't proves that woman was the Woman.'
'No, but her phone does.' John agreed.
'Her phone?' Sherlock frowned.
'Yes, her phone. It's unique, with one copy, which is by you.'
'Both are by me.'
'Both were by you, till you gave the original back to her.'
Sherlock frowned harder.
'How do you know?'
John smiled.
'Sherlock, it's near two years I'm working with you; my skills in deduction are increasing.'
Sherlock made a suspicious face.
'Not that much.'
The doctor pulled up his eyebrows, then sighed and yielded.
'Right, you won, I had a little help.'
'Who?' Sherlock narrowed his eyes.
'You cannot know everything.' John wagged his head. Sherlock entered his mind palace and opened the door labelled 'John Watson, Md.' rapidly.
'You are connected with three people who could possibly follow me with attention: Mycroft, Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson. This last would never let me out for you, so remains my brother and Lestrade. Lestrade hasn't got enough people to follow me, in addition without permission he can't access to the records of the CCTVs, which the superintendent doesn't let out just in valid case which doesn't cover my personal activity. Remains Mycroft, who has the power and the people, but he cannot follow me (I learned how to pass his watching eyes. I could never stand if the big brother was watching). In this case remains Mrs. Hudson because how implausible it is she sold me, you could convince her that it was for me.'
'Molly Hooper.' John cut him off.
'What?' Sherlock caught up his head.
'It was Molly. I asked her to watch you around the Bart's. She told me she saw you dropping a little box in the refuse which was taken by a blond woman who arrived just minuits later in a black car. I wouldn't find out it was Kate if I wouldn't check what changed in your room. The phone was in the case of your desk, I saw you putting it there. Not so elegant deduction as yours are, but it makes, doesn't it?'
'John...' Sherlock whispered thunderstrickened.
'I'm sorry.' John shrugged.
'No, John' Sherlock's face lightened up 'it's brilliant! At least, considering that you are average. You do develop. And, now we know who the woman was with Andrejev.'
The detective caught for his coat.
'John, to the Scotland Yard! Call Lestrade!' And with that he stormed down the stairs. John sighed laughing, and then getting his coat he followed Sherlock. Another case. With Adler. Sleeping cancelled for a week.