SUMMER OF SHERLOCK: Entry no. 30
Username: disassembly_rsn
Type of work: fic
Category: gen
Title: Of Reading and Rubbers
Prompt(s) used: ANY; reading aloud to someone sick/injured/hospitalized
Rating: PG
Word count: 1614
Warnings: none
Notes/Acknowledgments: I plan to re-post this to AO3, DW, and LJ. The BBC's Sherlock is, sadly, not mine, nor is Agatha Christie's Cards on the Table.
"You've never heard of Agatha Christie? Come on, Sherlock, this time you're winding me up."
Sherlock shot John a look. He had brought along a pile of books - terrible waste of time, all fiction, and trashy-looking to boot - as requested by John. To be fair, Sherlock understood all about being bored, and even the specialized version of being-bored-in-hospital, but really, this stuff might cause brain damage. And John wanted him to help pass the time when he couldn't sleep by having Sherlock read some of it aloud.
"I can't believe this. She's one of the most famous writers in the English language Sherlock - very popular - and she's famous for writing murder mysteries, for Christ's sake."
Sherlock perked up a little at this.
"I'd've thought you'd've read some of her work in case some copycat decided to re-create one of her plots, if nothing else..."
"Fine, fine. What's her most famous story? Is it in here?"
John thoughtfully eyed Sherlock. "Well, now. I'd rather not pick that one -"
"Why not?"
"Because Murder on the Orient Express was made into a very good film back in the seventies, and we can watch that at home some evening. It's got Sean Connery in, you remember him. Hmm...same thing goes for And Then There Were None, except that's older and no Sean Connery. Let me think."
"Try not to strain yourself, John."
John glared half-heartedly at Sherlock, peered at the stack of somewhat ratty paperbacks supplied by Mrs Hudson, then said, "Fine. Grab that skinny blue one."
Sherlock complied. The cover was graced with a house of cards, behind which a face peered out, a handgun pointed at one cheekbone. "I thought you were keen on firearm safety, John?"
"The cover artist was an idiot, like someone else who shall remain nameless -"
Sherlock rolled his eyes. Really, scratch one's head once with a handgun and one never heard the end of it, apparently.
"- but the author isn't. You might like this one. It's the fantasy case of the detective in the story. He wanted a case just like this; he even described it in an earlier book..."
"Fine, he did it."
"No, Sherlock, he didn't do it." John paused, narrowing his eyes, then grinned a little. "Let's see if you can work out who did do it. He liked this case specifically because there's very little physical evidence -"
"There's always physical evidence."
"Not this time."
Sherlock sighed, stretched, and assumed an upright variation of his praying-to-the-ceiling pose. "Nonsense."
"You'll see, if you ever start reading the story."
Immediately they began running into difficulties.
"Wait, these drawings here are actually labelled as being a clue?"
"You can skip those."
"Not if they're evidence." Sherlock read the caption, flipped ahead to the next page, and read the matching caption. "Bridge score sheets, John?"
"They're from a game of bridge, played by the suspects later on in the book."
"Why are they at the beginning of the book, then?"
"I don't know, Sherlock. I suppose the publisher wanted to put all the illustrations at the beginning for some reason. Look, you don't actually need to read them -"
"Then why does it say they're evidence that helps to solve the mystery? Honestly, why does it say that anyway? Does this - Agatha Christie - think that evidence is wrapped up that way in real life?"
"They are evidence, but -"
"Make up your mind, John."
"Let me finish. They are evidence, in that they show you what was going on during the game -"
"Are they all from the same rubber? Ah, no, I see they're not."
John blinked. "You know how to play bridge?"
Sherlock huffed. "Mycroft plays. So does our mother, of course. One can't avoid a certain amount of exposure to the game."
John wisely let this pass. No good could come of bringing Mummy into this conversation at this time.
"Each score sheet is from a different hand -"
"Rubber."
"Each score sheet is from a different rubber of bridge and was kept by a different player, so that taken together you have some idea of what was going on throughout the evening -"
"Boring."
"- but if you can't follow the game through the score sheets, one of the characters describes the progress of the card game throughout the evening later on in the story."
"Why not show the score sheets at that point instead of here?"
"I said I don't know, Sherlock. Can we get on with reading the story?"
"I see that only half of the guests are being treated as suspects. Really, that's ridiculous. I don't see why a career of spying or police work or writing murder mysteries should eliminate someone as a suspect. This Poirot can't ever have known anybody like Mycroft. And he calls himself a detective?"
Sherlock saw John open his mouth, then shut it, before clearing his throat and saying mildly, "All right, fair enough, keep an open mind."
Hmm. "John?"
"Oh, nothing. I wouldn't want to bore you by over-explaining anything."
"John."
John smiled. "All right. The other three detectives are other regular series characters that Ms. Christie uses in other books. If you'd read some of her other work you'd already know that. I can tell you that you're wasting your time suspecting them in this book. Didn't you notice that they were all three at the same bridge table as Poirot all evening, so they can alibi each other? Anyway, the whole point of this story is that only the four people playing bridge in the room where the victim was sitting are suspects. I told you."
After a great deal of reading interlaced with snark, Sherlock stopped completely after reading Superintendent Battle's interview with Dr Roberts.
"Do you want to take a break? You've been at this for a long time; I really appreciate it."
Sherlock shook his head as he flipped back to the table of contents. "How many times is this scenario repeated?"
"Which scenario would that be?"
"Each of the four detectives questioning one of the suspects. I see that Poirot is about to question Roberts."
John closed his eyes, considering. "It isn't exactly repeated in the same way for any of them. Poirot's interviews with them are shown in full - he's the main character, after all - but Colonel Race barely appears in the story at all, and Mrs Oliver concentrates on Anne Meredith, the younger woman. Anyway, Mrs Oliver is a very different character to Poirot. She's not really an investigator; she's a writer."
"Is she Poirot's blogger?"
John giggled. Sherlock was glad to hear it, after what John had been through. He would have done much more than read aloud for a few hours to hear it, although it wouldn't do to say so.
"No, Sherlock. Flip to the copyright page - the book is much older than that."
Sherlock did so. "1936?" He sniffed. "Before the Internet, then. But she might have written stories based on his cases, I suppose."
"You've already seen what she is - a professional writer who thinks that creating mysteries from scratch gives her some insight into solving the real thing. She's a bit silly sometimes, but she also has some common sense. She knows him because they've met before, that's all. You'll see - well, probably not today, because it'll take a while to get to that part of the book, but later on, if you don't mind doing this again."
"I don't mind trying it as an experiment."
Sherlock took a drink of water, then resumed reading "Doctor Roberts (Continued)".
"Ah, a memory test." He glanced up at John. "That's why he's asking for a description of the room and contents. Roberts should have figured that out for himself."
Partway through Roberts' commentary detailing the various kinds of furniture at the murder scene, Sherlock broke off. "Please. He knows the names of all the types of furniture in the room? He's a doctor, not a furniture salesman."
"I know, I know. I don't know what half of it means myself, apart from being various kinds of antiques."
"I didn't say that I didn't know what it meant. It doesn't seem plausible that Roberts would know that."
Upon reaching Poirot's next question - asking Roberts to describe the hands of bridge played on the night of the murder, Sherlock stopped again, raising his eyebrows as he looked over at John. "I thought you said they'd be described properly, but this witness can barely remember any of them. Realistic, of course, but -"
"Next witness." John smiled into his own glass of water. "Poirot asks each of them the same two questions; they all give very different answers. My great-aunt - Granddad's sister - was very fond of this book; she liked the way it showed how different people could tell very different stories about the same thing."
"Hmm." Sherlock was thoughtful. "Perhaps Ms Christie is a better writer than I thought."
Mrs. Hudson has lent John her copy of the 1964 U.S. Dell Edition of Agatha Christie's Cards on the Table, which does indeed put the bridge scores at the front rather than at the point in the text when they are mentioned. The cover art is even sillier than I have described it here.
Type of work: fic
Category: gen
Title: Of Reading and Rubbers
Prompt(s) used: ANY; reading aloud to someone sick/injured/hospitalized
Rating: PG
Word count: 1614
Warnings: none
Notes/Acknowledgments: I plan to re-post this to AO3, DW, and LJ. The BBC's Sherlock is, sadly, not mine, nor is Agatha Christie's Cards on the Table.
"You've never heard of Agatha Christie? Come on, Sherlock, this time you're winding me up."
Sherlock shot John a look. He had brought along a pile of books - terrible waste of time, all fiction, and trashy-looking to boot - as requested by John. To be fair, Sherlock understood all about being bored, and even the specialized version of being-bored-in-hospital, but really, this stuff might cause brain damage. And John wanted him to help pass the time when he couldn't sleep by having Sherlock read some of it aloud.
"I can't believe this. She's one of the most famous writers in the English language Sherlock - very popular - and she's famous for writing murder mysteries, for Christ's sake."
Sherlock perked up a little at this.
"I'd've thought you'd've read some of her work in case some copycat decided to re-create one of her plots, if nothing else..."
"Fine, fine. What's her most famous story? Is it in here?"
John thoughtfully eyed Sherlock. "Well, now. I'd rather not pick that one -"
"Why not?"
"Because Murder on the Orient Express was made into a very good film back in the seventies, and we can watch that at home some evening. It's got Sean Connery in, you remember him. Hmm...same thing goes for And Then There Were None, except that's older and no Sean Connery. Let me think."
"Try not to strain yourself, John."
John glared half-heartedly at Sherlock, peered at the stack of somewhat ratty paperbacks supplied by Mrs Hudson, then said, "Fine. Grab that skinny blue one."
Sherlock complied. The cover was graced with a house of cards, behind which a face peered out, a handgun pointed at one cheekbone. "I thought you were keen on firearm safety, John?"
"The cover artist was an idiot, like someone else who shall remain nameless -"
Sherlock rolled his eyes. Really, scratch one's head once with a handgun and one never heard the end of it, apparently.
"- but the author isn't. You might like this one. It's the fantasy case of the detective in the story. He wanted a case just like this; he even described it in an earlier book..."
"Fine, he did it."
"No, Sherlock, he didn't do it." John paused, narrowing his eyes, then grinned a little. "Let's see if you can work out who did do it. He liked this case specifically because there's very little physical evidence -"
"There's always physical evidence."
"Not this time."
Sherlock sighed, stretched, and assumed an upright variation of his praying-to-the-ceiling pose. "Nonsense."
"You'll see, if you ever start reading the story."
Immediately they began running into difficulties.
"Wait, these drawings here are actually labelled as being a clue?"
"You can skip those."
"Not if they're evidence." Sherlock read the caption, flipped ahead to the next page, and read the matching caption. "Bridge score sheets, John?"
"They're from a game of bridge, played by the suspects later on in the book."
"Why are they at the beginning of the book, then?"
"I don't know, Sherlock. I suppose the publisher wanted to put all the illustrations at the beginning for some reason. Look, you don't actually need to read them -"
"Then why does it say they're evidence that helps to solve the mystery? Honestly, why does it say that anyway? Does this - Agatha Christie - think that evidence is wrapped up that way in real life?"
"They are evidence, but -"
"Make up your mind, John."
"Let me finish. They are evidence, in that they show you what was going on during the game -"
"Are they all from the same rubber? Ah, no, I see they're not."
John blinked. "You know how to play bridge?"
Sherlock huffed. "Mycroft plays. So does our mother, of course. One can't avoid a certain amount of exposure to the game."
John wisely let this pass. No good could come of bringing Mummy into this conversation at this time.
"Each score sheet is from a different hand -"
"Rubber."
"Each score sheet is from a different rubber of bridge and was kept by a different player, so that taken together you have some idea of what was going on throughout the evening -"
"Boring."
"- but if you can't follow the game through the score sheets, one of the characters describes the progress of the card game throughout the evening later on in the story."
"Why not show the score sheets at that point instead of here?"
"I said I don't know, Sherlock. Can we get on with reading the story?"
"I see that only half of the guests are being treated as suspects. Really, that's ridiculous. I don't see why a career of spying or police work or writing murder mysteries should eliminate someone as a suspect. This Poirot can't ever have known anybody like Mycroft. And he calls himself a detective?"
Sherlock saw John open his mouth, then shut it, before clearing his throat and saying mildly, "All right, fair enough, keep an open mind."
Hmm. "John?"
"Oh, nothing. I wouldn't want to bore you by over-explaining anything."
"John."
John smiled. "All right. The other three detectives are other regular series characters that Ms. Christie uses in other books. If you'd read some of her other work you'd already know that. I can tell you that you're wasting your time suspecting them in this book. Didn't you notice that they were all three at the same bridge table as Poirot all evening, so they can alibi each other? Anyway, the whole point of this story is that only the four people playing bridge in the room where the victim was sitting are suspects. I told you."
After a great deal of reading interlaced with snark, Sherlock stopped completely after reading Superintendent Battle's interview with Dr Roberts.
"Do you want to take a break? You've been at this for a long time; I really appreciate it."
Sherlock shook his head as he flipped back to the table of contents. "How many times is this scenario repeated?"
"Which scenario would that be?"
"Each of the four detectives questioning one of the suspects. I see that Poirot is about to question Roberts."
John closed his eyes, considering. "It isn't exactly repeated in the same way for any of them. Poirot's interviews with them are shown in full - he's the main character, after all - but Colonel Race barely appears in the story at all, and Mrs Oliver concentrates on Anne Meredith, the younger woman. Anyway, Mrs Oliver is a very different character to Poirot. She's not really an investigator; she's a writer."
"Is she Poirot's blogger?"
John giggled. Sherlock was glad to hear it, after what John had been through. He would have done much more than read aloud for a few hours to hear it, although it wouldn't do to say so.
"No, Sherlock. Flip to the copyright page - the book is much older than that."
Sherlock did so. "1936?" He sniffed. "Before the Internet, then. But she might have written stories based on his cases, I suppose."
"You've already seen what she is - a professional writer who thinks that creating mysteries from scratch gives her some insight into solving the real thing. She's a bit silly sometimes, but she also has some common sense. She knows him because they've met before, that's all. You'll see - well, probably not today, because it'll take a while to get to that part of the book, but later on, if you don't mind doing this again."
"I don't mind trying it as an experiment."
Sherlock took a drink of water, then resumed reading "Doctor Roberts (Continued)".
"Ah, a memory test." He glanced up at John. "That's why he's asking for a description of the room and contents. Roberts should have figured that out for himself."
Partway through Roberts' commentary detailing the various kinds of furniture at the murder scene, Sherlock broke off. "Please. He knows the names of all the types of furniture in the room? He's a doctor, not a furniture salesman."
"I know, I know. I don't know what half of it means myself, apart from being various kinds of antiques."
"I didn't say that I didn't know what it meant. It doesn't seem plausible that Roberts would know that."
Upon reaching Poirot's next question - asking Roberts to describe the hands of bridge played on the night of the murder, Sherlock stopped again, raising his eyebrows as he looked over at John. "I thought you said they'd be described properly, but this witness can barely remember any of them. Realistic, of course, but -"
"Next witness." John smiled into his own glass of water. "Poirot asks each of them the same two questions; they all give very different answers. My great-aunt - Granddad's sister - was very fond of this book; she liked the way it showed how different people could tell very different stories about the same thing."
"Hmm." Sherlock was thoughtful. "Perhaps Ms Christie is a better writer than I thought."
Mrs. Hudson has lent John her copy of the 1964 U.S. Dell Edition of Agatha Christie's Cards on the Table, which does indeed put the bridge scores at the front rather than at the point in the text when they are mentioned. The cover art is even sillier than I have described it here.