Lestrade had (despite, as Sherlock was not the least bit hesitant in informing him, alarming incompetence) tracked down the newspaper employee who took the information for the ad, and she had vaguely described the man who came in to place it. Came in. Not phoned in. Sweatshirt, blue eyes and close-cut, dark hair. Seemed polite. Called her Miss even though she was certainly a Ma'am. She thought he was kind of cute. They even had a name and signature on a form, for Christ's sake. Vincent Spaulding. Here they were, concentrating on phone records and internet submissions, never expecting that someone would have went down to the office in person. He was inclined to agree with Sherlock's assessment of his department's skill, but, honestly, in person? They made a rough timeline, and Mycroft simply checked the CCTV and found him. Easy to identify, too. 'Vincent Spaulding' was John Clay, forger... apparently one of Jim Moriarty's newer friends, with an extensive criminal record in his own right. Mycroft followed his path from the newspaper back to an office building... easy peasy.

Lestrade wanted to know. Why was it so easy? Sherlock was hesitant to explain, muttered something about how it wasn't about making it difficult to stage a retrieval, that the master plan involved his relying on others to accomplish it. Lestrade didn't care if he had taken only a biro; he was going to do his best to make sure that biro got recovered. But he wasn't about to put anyone in harm's way over it. Least of all, Sherlock. It seemed like an obvious trap to him, though Sherlock insisted that it was not. It didn't make sense, but Lestrade was accustomed to things which involved Sherlock Holmes not making sense.

They had found the IT guy responsible for the earlier murder, and he still couldn't figure out how he had managed to profile him so accurately.