Posted by Bowen Cates on 3/9/2008, 4:26 pm, in reply to "Chapter fourteen part one"
24.207.121.197
“What?” turning around he found himself face to face with none other then Greg Bamfield. The young assistant was looking at Theodore with eyes full of apprehension, he was wearing a dark brown suit with a white shirt and checkered tie, in fact, Theodore recognized it as the very one that he had been wearing under his lab coat when they had first met a few hours before.
“Come round here” he insisted, and grabbing Theodore’s arm, pulled him around the corner away from the bank offices and through a door marked with the traditional ‘Men’s Room’ sign.
A barrage of shining linoleum and gleaming porcelain greeted Theodore’s vision but was suddenly cut off as Greg, glancing nervously around, shoved him into a stall and shut the door on him.
Theodore was conscious for a moment of a great deal of noise as Greg opened the door to another stall, whipped inside and bolted it behind him.
“Sit down and bolt the door” Greg ordered him.
Theodore did so, perching himself on the lid of the toilet and locking the stall door in front of him, all the while wondering if his companion was entirely sane or not, he was sure Lestrade must have persuaded the two Holmes’s to leave without him by now, and was feeling particularly resentful toward the young scientist at this moment.
“Okay, sorry about all this, but I have something I gotta tell you” he whispered nervously.
It now occurred to Theodore what Greg was trying to do, from the view of the casual onlooker who stepped into the washroom to use it for its designated purpose; they must just look like two guys on the toilet.
“Okay…what is it?” he asked just as quietly
“Right after you left I heard two Yard techies talking about Powell, about what was in the plans those guys stole…” Greg began shakily.
Theodore could feel his stomach muscles clench in expectation “ya?”
“Well, they said it was a…a…”
“I know, a time machine” Theodore finished for him in an attempt to try and spare him the trouble that talking was obviously creating for him in his agitation.
“Ya…wait how did you?- never mind, never mind” he seemed distracted, Theodore, in his mind’s eye, could almost see him looking through the slit between the hinges in his door as he spoke, watching for some unknown assailant “it made me get to thinking…I dunno if this is any help…but…”
“Ya?” Theodore could hardly breathe.
“Well, I just thought of a reason why Powell might wanna make a time machine”
“Well?”
“Well…” there was a long nervous pause “remember I told you back at the lab about how Powell was always trying to get the better of Hargreaves? And how he was always competing with him?”
“Ya…”
“Well…I just remembered…the day Mr. Holmes was brought back to life…the day we saw it on the news, Powell and me, he was like the devil himself, he was so angry, he kept muttering to himself…kept saying it should have been his discovery.
“That he should have been the one to do it… it took ages for him to calm down…and then sometimes he would be working on something on the computer and I would walk past and he would shut the screen off so I couldn’t see…
“And then, and then, well…and every time we saw him on the news or something - Mr. Holmes I mean - Powell would get really mad, like he had a personal grudge against him…and then this…you gotta understand, it’s been months he’s been like this…like…almost crazy.”
Theodore didn’t know how to respond, he wanted to run and find 1800 and 2103 Holmes and tell them what Greg had said, but he knew he had to be calm; he didn’t want anyone who might be watching to know what he now knew. Something immediately occurred to him, something he should have asked at the beginning:
“Why didn-”
Suddenly the door to the bathroom opened, Theodore heard Greg take a deep breath, the poor guy seemed to consist entirely of nerves alone, it took Theodore a few minutes to realize that he too was holding his breath.
A pair of highly polished black shoes crossed the floor and situated themselves a few stalls away from Theodore, after about three more minutes those same shoes crossed the floor one again, stopped for a short moment at the sink - at which point the sound of running water was painfully noticeable - and continued on their way towards the door.
Both Theodore and Greg breathed a sigh of relief as they heard the familiar creek of the entrance to the bathroom and the sharp click as it shut it’s self.
“feeeeeewww” Theodore breathed once again.
“Ya” Greg sighed.
“So why didn’t you tell Lestrade or Holmes?” Theodore asked, very conscious of his companion’s impending answer.
“I dunno, I kinda just felt better telling someone from home, and besides, I knew you would tell them anything I told you” Theodore felt his cheeks growing red “Also, I didn’t want to be seen talking to them in my boss’s bank, might look bad.”
“Oh, good point.” it was, Theodore was relived, really he kind of liked Greg and he didn’t want to go about finding fault with him on purpose.
“You had better get back to Mr. Holmes now, and I gotta get back to the lab before Powell misses me.”
Theodore stood up, and unbolted the door to his stall, hearing the telltale creak as the young intern did the same.
“You go out first” He cautioned “I’ll follow in a few minutes, remember: you didn’t see me here…”
“Uh…okay…”
Swinging open the door Theodore walked forward and stopped at the tap, turning on the water he began to lather up his hands, after all, if Greg thought it necessary to be so careful, maybe Theodore should too.
Moriarty might be watching them at this very moment…sort of a weird thought to have in the men’s bathroom though…
After drying his hands, he threw away the thickly fibred towel and swung open the door to the outside hall.
“Just wait till Lestrade hears this!”
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