It was probably not the right reaction, the sort of thing that John chided him for sometimes when he went on about 'normal people', but Sherlock's face immediately split into a grin of triumph. He knew there had been ricin in that tea, he just knew it. Good, he hated being wrong, and that squeeze of lemon had bothered him.

He was far too happy about being right to care about the implications of his own possible demise. A small amount of medicine wouldn't save his life, more prolong the agony, but that was probably part of the game. He slipped over to collect the bottle, but he only tasted a drop on his tongue to analyse if it was, indeed, medicine or something else entirely.

Finally his brain caught up to him and he registered that John had been taken. Possibly hurt, unlikely to be dead. Damn. He didn't bother asking something mundane and pointless such as where is he. "Then let's play, tell me the first game, Jim."