Sherlock - The Game Is On!

The Six Thatchers- Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Third POV

With another dice roll, Mary proceeds to venture on foot. Wearing a white head scarf and with a bag over her shoulder, walking across the sand towards a nearby building. The map is now panning across Algeria.

Later, the map shows Morocco, as Michelle predicted. Mary walks into a covered marketplace wearing dark slacks, a striped shirt and a long white scarf over her dark hair. She has a bag over one shoulder. She moves briskly through the stalls, checking behind herself for any sign of being followed. Making her way into a narrow alleyway she reaches a doorway above which is a sign saying in Arabic and English, 'Hotel CECIL.' She goes inside.

She reaches a latticed door and puts her head close to it as if listening for sounds inside. Drawing and cocking a large pistol, she pushes the door open and moves toward the sound of an accented male voice. The room ahead of her is in an Oriental style with orange terracotta walls, stained glass windows covered in latticework, and pointed archways. There is a bed in front of her to her right, and the voice is coming from deeper in the room to the left. "Not like this, my friend. You haven't got a chance, not a chance."

Holding the gun pointed upwards beside her head with both hands, Mary moves silently forward. "I've got you where I want you. Give in! Give in! I will destroy you. You're completely at my mercy." Mary grimaces. "Mr Baker. Well, that completes the set." Her grimace fades and she begins to look startled. "No it does not." Lowering her gun, Mary steps into the room. "Well, who else am I missing?"

A young man, in his early teens, is sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a low table. There are game cards on the table. "Master Bun. It's not a set without him. How many more times, Mr Sherlock?" Mary moves further into the room. Now noticing Sherlock, wearing a dark blue shirt, sitting cross-legged on the floor on the other side of the table, holding some cards in his hands. The two of them are clearly playing the 'Happy Families' card game.

Sherlock hums out an exasperated breath. "Maybe it's because I'm not familiar with the concept. Oh, hi, Mary."

"What concept?" Karim replies sharing a glance towards her. "Happy families." Sherlock dismissed. "Nice trip?"

"How the f..."

"Please, Mary. There is a child present." Sherlock politely interrupts. "How did you get in here?!"

"Karim let me in." Smiling, Karim waves to her. "Hello." She nods to him and pulls her headscarf down onto her shoulders to reveal her long dark bob. "Karim, would you be so kind as to fetch us some tea?"

"Sure."

"Thank you." Karim stands up and looks at Mary. "Nice to meet you, missus."

He leaves the room while Mary stares blankly into the distance for a moment before turning her head and directing an insincere smile down to Sherlock. "No, I-I-I mean how did you find me?"

"I'm Sherlock Holmes." He deadpanned. "No, really, though, how? Every movement I made was entirely random; Every new personality just on the roll of a dice!"

"Mary, no human action is ever truly random... Well apart from my darling." He mutters thoughtfully. Mary smiles, charmed before he goes into speed mode: "An advanced grasp of the mathematics of probability mapped onto a thorough apprehension of human psychology and the known dispositions of any given individual can reduce the number of variables considerably." Mary stares at him, bamboozled by his technobabble. "I myself know of at least fifty-eight techniques to refine this seemingly infinite array of randomly generated possibilities down to the smallest number of feasible variables. But they're really difficult, so instead I just... Stuck a tracer on the inside of the memory stick."