The next day was business as usual, which meant that there was no business, like usual. I spent the day making perfumes, colognes, and notes. The perfumes and colognes were for customers, and the notes were for our case. Around noon, Mrs. Hudson walked in. Surprised, I walked around the counter.

“Hi, Mrs. Hudson, is there anything I can help you with?” I asked politely.

“Yes, dear. You see, after our talk the other day, I telegraphed Mr. Holmes and Doctor Watson.” Mrs. Hudson said, fidgeting a little. “I just wanted him to know what was going on in his absence. The problem is, I got another telegram back today that doesn’t sound like him at all.” Mrs. Hudson handed me a telegram. “It’s addressed to you.” I opened it up and read it.

Dear Miss McGrew,

I regret to inform you that there is nothing that I can do to help you on this little ‘case’ of yours. This matter should be brought before the police right now, if you haven’t told them already. Don’t be worried if you haven’t, though. A high profile  criminal like the one you saw surely would have been spotted by other London citizens, and taken care of already. Even if this is not the case, I urge you to NOT go investigating on your own, or with any of the other Irregulars. I don’t want you or anyone else getting hurt. Stay out of this, and pretend you never saw the man. If you go asking questions, he will know you saw him, and if he knows you saw him, he will come after you. So heed my words, Miss Darcy McGrew, and stay out of trouble.

Sincerely,

Mr. Sherlock Holmes

I stared at the letter in shock, reading and rereading it. I shook my head, my brown braids moving only slightly. “That doesn’t sound like Mr. Holmes at all!”

 “I know,” Mrs. Hudson’s voice was soft and scared. “That’s what worries me.” Studying the note closer, I remember the signal the Irregulars in I used to put in our notes to each other when we were helping Mr. Holmes with a case.

 “Look!” I gasped. “The other Irregulars and I made up a code for our notes to each other,  Mr. Holmes obviously knew about. The code was quite simple actually, and anyone taking the time to study our notes to each other could figure it out. All you do is write one sentence, and then capitalize the one word that you don’t mean. So, ‘I urge you to NOT go investigating on your own, or with any of the other Irregulars’ is that sentence. Take out the NOT and it tells us to go investigating. Sounds stupid, I know, but that was his one way to hint that this isn’t right!”

 “Do you think?” Mrs. Hudson exclaimed.

 “Yes, I do, and if you don’t mind Mrs. Hudson, I would like to go show this to the other Irregulars.” I nodded to Mrs. Hudson and followed her out the store, locking up behind me. I ran down the street and got Joey, then told him to go get Roy. After Joey collected Roy they made their way over to my shop. Just as before, I was sitting on the counter, but this time with Joey and Roy sitting on either side of me. Jumping down from the counter, I handed Roy the telegram.

The red hair boy looked at it then stared at me, his brownish red hair falling in front of his eyes. “This isn’t good. This is not good.”

“Can I see?” Joey tried to peer over Roy’s shoulder, his black hair bouncing up and down with his movements. Roy handed the telegram to the shorter boy, who read it, then looked at us, confusion clouding his already stormy grey eyes. “What are you two going on about? What’s bad about this?”

Sighing, Roy reached over and pointed out the incriminating sentence. “Remember our ‘code’?” Joey nodded and Roy continued, “this is part is that code. Mr. Holmes obviously knew about it and this is obviously his attempt to alert us that something was wrong.” Joey’s eyes widened in terror.

“So, what are we going to do?” Joey voiced what we were all thinking.

“The only thing we can do, tell the police.” I stated.

“Tell the police what?” Roy said, irritated. “That Mr. Holmes is away? That the only ‘proof’ we have of his disappearance is a silly code made up by a couple of street kids? We have nothing! They wouldn’t believe us, much less listen to us.”

“Roy’s right,” Joey admitted. “The only thing we can do is to help him ourselves.” Sighing, I agreed. Together, we made plans to start our investigation the following morning. My job was to go to the police station to find out who the man I saw was. After that, I would pass my information onto Joey and Roy who would then ask around to see if they could find out anything about said man. That night, as I lay on my bedroll under the counter, I could only dream of what would happen when this was all over. Would I be paid? Would we be heroes? Or would we be arrested or something similar. When I woke up, I got changed into a plain blue cotton dress and walked to the police station.