John H Watson (johns_blog) wrote in onewaytickets, @ 2017-07-18 16:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | irene adler, john watson, molly hooper, sherlock holmes, susan pevensie |
I haven't updated my blog in a while, it's been pretty busy. Sherlock and I have moved in together and it's amazing like old times. We've been solving a number of interesting cases, but I thought I'd share the most recent one. I call it
The Case of the Dirty Diamonds
A small group of young adults, in their early 20's, were going dumpster diving behind a mall in Summerbridge, when the police came. Most of them escaped, but one was caught. The police were going to arrest the woman on charges of trespassing, but upon searching her, they found a very expensive diamond and ruby necklace. The woman claimed she'd pulled it from the dumpster, but this was defiantly not the type of thing that you just chuck out. The woman's friends were the ones who came to Sherlock, asking for help.
The police had already taken the obvious step of investigating if any of the shops at the mall or the surrounding area which sold jewelry had reported anything stolen - no reports had been made. But Sherlock was not satisfied, and we did our own investigating. After going into several shops and more diamonds than I'd care to look at, Sherlock located a necklace on display that was identical to the one that had been found in the dumpster. He could immediately something was off, but he asked the sales clerk if he could see the piece, anyway. Sherlock then pointed out how the diamonds and rubies were artificial, and showed me what to look out for, and that there were three other pieces in the shop that were also fake. His suspicion was that the burglary was an inside job - somebody who worked there was having fake jewelry made to match pieces on display, and was switching them out. He didn't suspect the sales clerk, because she showed no sign of nervousness when he asked to see the piece. However, when Sherlock asked to speak to the manager, the woman had guilt written all over her. Sherlock also noted her shoes, which showed signs of scuff and wear, which to him indicated the physical exertion of climbing into a dumpster.
Sherlock wanted more evidence, so we dug around to locate the place where the fake jewelry was made, which took a while, but we found a trade's shop in Everdale. It turns out that the old man who was doing it didn't have a clue that his jewelry was being used in a scheme, but was able to identify the manager of the shop as the woman who'd commissioned the pieces.
This was enough to have the manager arrested. It turned out the shop was failing, not making any money, and the manager was switching the jewelry out for fake ones so she could turn around and sell the individual stones on the black market, making a profit for herself. She had taken that specific necklace and hid it in her office, in a place where she thought nobody would find, so later she could walk out with it. What she didn't expect was for the custodial team to come through and tidy her office, accidentally throwing away the necklace. The manager had tried to find it by going through the dumpsters herself, but only went to the ones around the area of the shop; she hadn't anticipated that the custodian had consolidated the trash and had taken it to one of the dumpsters that was further away and less empty than the others. She'd assumed it was lost, but she couldn't report it as stolen, because the fake one was still there. The manager was arrested and the woman who had been charged with the crime was released.
[Private to Sherlock Holmes]Two questions. One, are we going to that Council party thing tonight? Mycroft sent us tickets in the post. Two, have you seen our bank account, recently?
[Private to Irene Adler]Mission accomplished.