Part 3 of the Some Things are Meant to Be Trilogy
The Mystery at Roselander Mansion
Chapter 1
Out on a Limb
"Think of deductive reasoning like this," Sherlock was irritated. He began a short monologue, striding over the coffee table from behind the couch to take the center of the room. "This is the most primitive example that I can possibly fathom. A bullet to the head always kills. A man has a bullet in his head. Therefore, that man is dead. That is sound reasoning and there is no way around it. Do you understand?"
Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers, exhausted. "Sherlock, if a depressed man is found dead hanging by the neck that is a strong indication of a suicide."
"A strong indication yes, one explanation of some of the facts, yes, however_"
John Watson sat by the fire, listening to them argue and staring at the photographs from the crime scene. The first one depicted a grey faced cadaver hanging from the end of a twenty foot tree limb over the middle of a shallow fish pond. The location was Diagon park, about two miles from their flat. Frost covered the grass surrounding the tree and shone with a thin patina of ice. Sherlock had nicked photographs from half a dozen recent suicides in London for a study he had been working on. There was something in that photograph which had thrown Sherlock into badgering the detective inspector into coming to their flat.
The second photograph had depicted the ladder that the man would have had to use in order to reach the branch. He had carried the ladder through the shallow water below the end of the branch, climbed it and tied the noose. Then he kicked it over, letting it fall into the shallow water below him and disappear from sight. When Sherlock had observed the first photograph he'd smiled and commented that the man had at least chosen a scenic location and that with the ladder hidden under the water it made Anderson's photograph of it bordered on the level of artistic.
Then he had frowned, squinting at the photograph. His eyes widened. "No, no this is wrong. All wrong." He'd muttered before pulling out his phone to text the detective inspector. John continued to gaze at the photograph, wondering what had tipped Sherlock off to the photograph being wrong.
John looked up to see Sherlock and Greg staring each other down. He'd lost track of their conversation.
"All water freezes below thirty two degrees." Sherlock drawled. "To get the rope around that branch the victim would have had to walk through the water. He didn't fly over it got godsake."
"Okay, what's your point Sherlock?" Greg said, crossing his arms.
John laughed, finally understanding. "So, there's frost on the ground and a thin layer of ice over the top of the pond, but none on the bloke's trousers. His clothes are dry when they ought to be frozen stiff up to the knee." He passed the photograph to Greg, who stared at it in disbelief.
"Mid thigh." Sherlock muttered.
"Shut up."
"It should, shouldn't it." The detective inspector said. He shook his head and ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair.
"We can rule out the possibility that the victim climbed the tree based on the condition of his hands." Sherlock said, searching through the autopsy photographs. His voice was excited. "His hands are smooth, if he'd climbed that there would be marks. Not to mention the position of the ladder. We can also rule out the possibility that he waded through the water. The only possibility remaining is that someone waded out, set the ladder, hung the noose, carried the man up the ladder and decorated the tree with his corpse like a Christmas ornament."
John grimaced at the comparison.
"The autopsy report showed no signs of a struggle. His neck was broken, no sedatives were found during the autopsy, and he left a note, Sherlock." Greg said, shaking his head. "That put aside, you're right."
Sherlock pondered this information. "Why would someone move him then? Why not just call the police when they found him?"
"Maybe he killed himself in a place that would draw attention to something that someone didn't want attention drawn to? They moved him to keep eyes off themselves?" John suggested, getting to his feet. He came to stand beside Sherlock, who glanced down at him.
Sherlock didn't look convinced. "Why a public park? Why all the way out on the end of a limb over a pond? Like some kind of display of morbid modern art? If someone moved him to draw attention away from themselves they could have chose any tree in the park to accomplish that. They chose the one over the water, the centerpiece of the park. Carrying a dead man that far up a ladder? Wading through freezing water? It was hard, it was uncomfortable, it took effort."
Greg cleared his throat. "The, uh - note he left was a little funny, actually. In my defense, he had just come out of a mental hospital. His family had him admitted when they thought he was gonna do himself in."
Sherlock's head snapped around, his eyes were calculating and cold. "Funny? Funny how? Is it here? Did you bring it?"
Lestrade huffed, reaching into his coat pocket to draw out a plastic bag. Inside was a neatly folded letter.
John leaned around Sherlock's shoulder as he scanned the letter. "It's… It's a bunch of sloppy gibberish. Makes no sense."
The whole letter consisted of nonsense words that looked like they had been carefully and meticulously written. Sherlock could see from the thickness of the lines. At the bottom of the letter was a swift signature.
"Tommy John Roselander." Sherlock muttered, reading the name. He looked up, smiling coldly at Lestrade. "This is not gibberish and I am thoroughly convinced that every person on your investigation team is far more mentally disabled than this man appeared to be. How could none of them see this? How could you not? Stupid sods."
"Sherlock." John growled.
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "This is a classic and embarrassingly simple transposition cipher. Roselander is the keyword. However, the majority of ordinary people know nothing about ciphers of any kind. This particular style suggests a military history."
He pointed to the autopsy photographs. "The tattoo of initials over his breast is vivid and has been re-touched three times. Once every five years or so. His marriage was a happy one but ended tragically with his wife's death, thus prompting his own suicide. He showed signs of mental illness and suicidal tendencies that he developed from the loss and his family had him admitted to an institution. The Healing Hands Institute, from the wristband on his left arm."
"Fantastic." John said.
Sherlock smiled down at him before glancing up at Lestrade. His eyes were sharp and searching. "The letter was folded a total of six times. Where was it found?"
Greg whistled, impressed. "In his left sock. You got one bit wrong though, his wife didn't die. She disappeared, about two months ago. In South Brondette, on the hiking trails near the waterfall. She went out running and never came back. Detective Inspector Marvin Ezell was on the case."
Sherlock groaned. Ezell was a gruff old man who hated Sherlock. Their egos clashed like titans at war in the heavens and the result was thunderous. John had seen it once, where Sherlock had attempted to step in on one of Ezell's cases and was forcibly removed after making the detective inspector look like an ass in front of his entire staff. It had been quite a dramatic scene and was not a situation that John was keen to repeat.
"Get me a copy of the case file. I am going to find out where he actually died. He hid a coded suicide note in his sock before killing himself. He went out of his way to hide it so that it would be found only if he were undressed which was most likely to be during his autopsy. He wanted the police to find it and you almost missed it."
John ran a hand through his hair, watching Greg's face as he nodded, giving in.
"Gonna have to contact the family, let them know. I'll be at the Yard." He said as he walked out the door.
Sherlock turned to John. He was holding out the letter. "I need you to translate this for me." He said, dropping it in John's hand.
John huffed a laugh. "Why do you think I know how to translate it?"
Sherlock smiled at him as he threw his coat on and tied his scarf. "You can learn on Google. I've got to go out. I need to harass my pathologist."
John laughed. "By harass you mean -"
"By harass I mean shamelessly flirt my way into having unlimited access to every off limits piece of equipment in the building."
John shook his head. "You are terrible."
Sherlock smiled over his shoulder as he walked out the door. "Oh, Molly loves it."
Molly Hooper was a tall brunette with a petite nose, small mouth and bright eyes. She was a moderately attractive woman but didn't often take pains to embellish the beauty she had. In a white lab coat and blue sanitary gloves she stood, leaning over a table and analyzing the smoke saturated lungs of a fifty nine year old heart attack victim.
"You should phone Mika." A deep voice said from behind her.
Molly jumped violently, sucking in a gasping breath as her heart rate skyrocketed from the shock. "Sherlock!" She turned and gave him a swift smack across the arm. Sherlock grinned, hands in his pockets. His shoulders were shaking with silent laughter.
"It's not funny. Please don't do that again. You know I hate it." Despite her tone Sherlock could see the pleasure she took from his attention.
"You should phone Mika." He repeated slowly as he leaned over her cadaver, looking inside.
"Sorry? Why?" Molly asked, confused.
"You forgot to let in your cat this morning when you left for work. Surely he's hungry."
Molly's mouth dropped open from shock. "Oh!" She pulled out her phone and sent a quick text request for her next door to put out a bowl of food for Benjamin, her slim grey tabby.
"How did you know I forgot to feed him?" She muttered as her slender fingers struck the keypad. Sherlock circled the room slowly, looking at the work that was strewn across the table tops.
"Because you slept in late this morning. I can see from the oils in your hair and on your skin that you haven't showered yet today. Your braid was done in a hurry, you've worn the same accessories you wore yesterday. Also, you brought your bigger lunch bag so you packed both breakfast and lunch when routinely you take breakfast at home. You were in quite a hurry. People often forget little things when they're pressed for time."
Molly grimaced, blushing lightly. His deductions had been embarrassingly accurate.
"Why do you have to know all of that?" She said, shaking her head.
Sherlock frowned in confusion. "Not good? I thought it would be good to remind you_"
Molly shook her head, smiling. "No, no it's fine. It is good you reminded me. Thank you. Erm, what have you got there?" She asked meekly, noticing that Sherlock was carrying a cardboard box.
He glanced down at the box. "Ah, yes. The clothing of an apparent suicide victim. I need to run some tests. I've got exactly two hours and fifteen minutes until John's finished with the task I've set for him." His voice was brisk.
Molly looked up at him sternly. Sherlock smiled into her eyes.
"Don't touch anything on those three counters." She said, pointing them out. She smiled as she turned her back on him.
Back at 221B Baker Street John Watson sat, pen in hand and attempted to decode the message before him. The first step was figuring out what kind of cipher it was, then taking the steps to solve it. He stared at the meaningless words on the paper before him and felt a headache start to brew…
A while later, Sherlock swept through the door overflowing with energy. He threw off his scarf and jacket. "He wasn't even in London when he died!"
John looked surprised and Sherlock continued. "The mental hospital happens to be located a few miles from where his body was found. Whoever planted him at the park wanted it to look like the suicide was the first thing he did when he was released from the hospital. However, the timeline doesn't match up. He slipped out of the hospital in the afternoon last week, around five o'clock. He was found fifteen hours later. In that time, he traveled to his home in Brondette. I know because he changed from the clothes he'd worn at the hospital into fresh ones from his home. He wouldn't go home and change just to come back to London. He killed himself somewhere in Brondette. His body was no more than six hours dead when we discovered him so obviously he was found and moved rather quickly."
"Jesus, you're sure he was moved? What if he was drugged, taken up the ladder and hung?"
"There would have been sedatives in his system. There were none."
"Anything else?"
"One thing that I can't figure out. I found traces of Teraflourethylene on his clothes." Sherlock tossed a notepad down on the table. John stared down at the net equation and back up at Sherlock. His expression was blank.
n F2C=CF2 → 1/n —{ F2C—CF2}n—
[O3SO-OSO3]2−⇌ 2 SO4•−
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "It's an organic polymer. PTFE, otherwise known as Teflon, is best known for its use in coating non-stick frying pans."
John's eyebrows kitted together. "Okay. I don't understand."
"Neither do I. In industrial applications, owing to its low friction, PTFE is used for applications where sliding action of parts is needed. Plain bearings, gears, slide plates, etcetera. Mr. Roselander had nothing to do with industrial operations of any kind. Perhaps we're looking for some kind of engineer. Just a thought."
John looked up at him from the table, his expression was weary. "I've figured out what this says about a half an hour ago but I don't understand it." He lifted the translated cipher.
Sherlock raised an eyebrow and checked his watch. "You were early." He muttered.
"Hmm?" John asked, his eyebrows pulling together.
"It was supposed to take you until about five minutes ago to get the whole thing."
"You were timing me… never mind. I finished when I did because I recognized what it said. Doesn't mean I understand it. It's a quote, actually. From a Shakespeare play. Much Ado About Nothing, specifically. I only know because I watched it with Heather half a dozen times."
"That was the redheaded one who broke in and attacked me in the shower with a tennis racket?" Sherlock asked, lifting an eyebrow.
John chuckled, remembering. "Ah, yeah."
Sherlock stared down at the translation before him.
Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves."
"I don't understand." Sherlock muttered.
"Maybe he was crazy after all." John suggested.
Sherlock didn't look satisfied. "I've obtained his medical records. He was not crazy. Review this by tomorrow."
He tossed a thick packet down on the table.
"Right, okay." John said, picking it up.
"There were also police reports. Before his wife's death she filed two incident reports with the police. She believed she was being stalked."
"Do you have the case report on her disappearance?"
"Ezell won't let me near it. I have to go off the little that Lestrade was able to get..."
"That frustrates you."
"Obviously." Sherlock snapped. "It was very clear that Mr. Roselander believed that his entire family is being targeted. He told his nurse at the institution that
this was just the beginning. He was worried about his sister being next."
"Has anyone talked to them?"
"Yes. They are skeptical that they are personally in any kind of danger but are also not opposed to us investigating."
"They want us involved?"
"The sister does. Lestrade spoke to her over the phone. Apparently the rest of the family is against enlisting the help of a private detective. They had previously discouraged her from pursuing further investigation."
"Happy to have a decent case?"
"It's been a terribly slow month." Sherlock drawled.
John smiled, shaking his head.
"They'll be reading Thomas Johnathan's will day after tomorrow, in the evening at Roselander Mansion in South Brondette. I've got the address and the gate entrance code." Sherlock muttered. "He's made some recent changes to his last Will and Testament. Very recent."
"Sorry, could you possibly find that out?" John asked, frowning.
"I called in a favor. Actually, there's something I've been meaning to tell you for a while now. I apologize for not doing it sooner, but total secrecy was critical. Still is, but not life threateningly now."
Sherlock paused, considering his words carefully. "The attorney who wrote his will is married to a national celebrity. I've got a friend who knows this celebrity."
John stared at him, confused.
"Well, she knows what he likes." Sherlock finished, his eyes twinkling.
John's eyes narrowed. His head tilted to the right. He stared at Sherlock for a long moment. "No. No, you can not possibly mean_Irene Adler?"
Sherlock gave the slightest nod. "I do."
John looked horrified. "How, Sherlock?"
"The details are irrelevant."
John sighed. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You know you cannot trust her."
"The Woman taught me herself. You don't have to trust who you can blackmail."
"Not a good habit to be in."
"Not one I use on a frequent and continuing basis. As it is, she's the only one who I could extract that kind of information from and she owes me quite a few favors. I've got a level of surveillance on her that Mycroft would be jealous of." Sherlock assured. He could see the discomfort on John's face from the thought.
"So, what, we're just going to barge right in there and listen to them read the will?" John asked, confused.
"Lestrade has given me permission to investigate and the sister told Lestrade to send me over next Tuesday. However, with the information I've gathered on the family and the whole situation it would be stupid not to expect something to happen at the reading, John."
"I don't think they'll find us popping in very funny Sherlock."
Sherlock ignored him. "A woman disappeared, her husband was killed or killed himself, the body was moved post-mortem, a note hidden in his shoe. He modified his will right before his death. It isn't even my birthday." Sherlock grinned, sweeping across the room with a stack of paperwork.
John huffed a laugh.
"What?" Sherlock asked, halting as he set the paperwork down.
"Mycroft."
Sherlock made a disgusted face. "What about him?"
"He said at the time he was completely sure the Woman was dead and it would take Sherlock Holmes to fool him."
Now Sherlock laughed deeply, turning to pour himself a cup of tea.