Hi! :D
Here's one more chapter, very near the end.
Thank you to all of you take a little of your precious time to read / follow / review.

I hope you enjoy this one! ***

/

/Deducing

"I shouldn't be surprised, but you were right. They frequented the same gym and they met, once. The contact was initiated by the victim."

John overheard Lestrade's fatigued voice over the phone Sherlock was holding, followed by his flatmate's baritone remark.

"Clearly." The doctor took this opportunity to study his friend. His face was looking much healthier than it had been in that morning, but he couldn't disregard the unsteadiness of his usually firm voice, as much as Sherlock tried to hide it. The ex-army doctor sighed, checking his stats again – how many times had he done it today? When was it that he had seen that horrid flat line? Don't think about it, he thought, he's actually almost his usual self. Sherlock ended the call, the discourteous way that he usually did and John deviated his gaze to his own shoes. He had been looking at them for a long time now, possibly for the last hour, but he surely wasn't trying to deduce anything from the dirt or the usage marks on them – he was merely avoiding to look at Sherlock Holmes.

Mycroft's entrance a few hours earlier, had been, for once, beneficial. The doctor was thankful for the fact that Sherlock had decided to tell them his ideas instead of running after the culprit, for a change.

/

"Trevor?" Greg's voice broke the silence "You mean Brackenbury, the husband?"

"Obviously. When I mentioned the trousers to John I wasn't delirious. I did see the evidence before my eyes but my judgement was clouded and the information was stored without any logical context, remaining in my subconscious until I made a connection. Mr Brackenbury had just arrived from Berlin, where he had been on business. As the Scotland Yard has confirmed, yes, there was a ticket among Mr Brackenbury's possessions and a simple call to the airline attests his presence in the plane. But there was something wrong in the interrogation, something that I couldn't see but that didn't make sense. Then, when I woke up, I remembered what it was: his trousers. How could a man that had been on an almost two-hour flight plus on a cab to his wife's house have such nicely ironed trousers? Surely there would have been some creases just where they were folded all that time? But there were none, which means that he had just recently changed his trousers to newly ironed ones. But if he is a suspect, how come the airline confirmed his presence on the plane? That is simple, someone was paid to lie. Why? Because if Mr Brackenbury wasn't on the plane it's because he was murdering his wife and his trousers had to be changed because they were sprayed with her blood."

Sherlock had been slightly breathless at the end of his speech, a fact that was noticed by the blonde doctor, who had chosen to remain silent. He also hadn't been oblivious to the consulting detective's surprise when the good doctor had shown no amazement in the face of such a demonstration of his deduction skills.

Lestrade, on the other hand, had been flabbergasted.

"Oh… I assume that he could have murdered his wife, but what was his motive? And, in all conscience, why would he try to kill you?"

"Oh, for the love of…" Sherlock was obliged to take a deep breath, his eyes shut. The elder Holmes approached the bed and looked at his brother, a serious expression on his face. He then had turned to Lestrade, finishing his brother's line of thought.

"That, detective inspector, is, I believe, much deeper. There is the fact that the man had multiple cases of infidelity. There is evidence that proves that he didn't live with his wife anymore. There is the scratch that Sherlock saw on the door and we must not oversee the fact that it was his wife that descended from a wealthy family. Perhaps she did find out about his infidelity? Maybe he tried to… mitigate the situation, so to say: the expensive gifts... It might have worked, for a while, but perchance she did find out there were still more women or that he simply would not change his behaviour. We should also bear in mind that he isa psychiatrist. Access to certain doses of alprazolam would be no challenge."

Sherlock, having recovered his breath, picked up where his brother had left off.

"I do believe she was heading towards a lawyer's office, having decided to divorce him. His last resort to avoid losing her money was to kill her. When he understood what he had done, he realised what the consequences would be and, knowing that we would be investigating the case, tried to put the people that could be a threat out of the picture, namely Lestrade and myself. But I ended up wrecking his plans, by drinking what was meant for Lestrade." Sherlock fixate his steel gaze on Greg, who was still slightly confused.

"But… how could he expect to kill us both and escape and, honestly, how could he know that we would be working on the case? He would have no warning…"

"Ah, but you seem to have forgotten an important link in the chain… Alison Clarke. Joining, rather unsuspected, your forensics team, she provided you the water bottle, which you eventually didn't use but nobody would expect you to give it to me. She caused the lifts to be unavailable. She injected me with the substance but she didn't, in any of these situations, use enough to kill one person, because she wasn't a killer. Ironically, only the mix of the two doses could be enough to cause the damage that Mr Brackenbury wanted. She was being mentally impelled to take this actions by a man who, as soon as she became a liability, disposed of her. And the pen, Lestrade, is the key to this puzzle." The consulting detective said, his eyes fixated on something that only he was able to see. "In the woman's flat there were multiple gifts, an ordinary behaviour in these kind of relationships, which is also recurrent. And his wife dyed her hair… Alison had blonde hair…"

"But the pen was found at one of his previous lovers' house, as you said yourself. The woman, Ellen, says that it is not her pen and that she doesn't know how it got there in the first pla…"

"That's exactly what it is!" Sherlock's eyes shone, his face lightly flushed. "Not her pen… and she's blonde as well… don't you see?"

John, that had been quiet until then, couldn't help but to intervene.

"We don't. What does that mean?" But the consulting detective was looking intently at Greg, his eyes focused. The doctor could still see his strength wasn't what it was supposed to be but that he was trying his utmost to hide it.

"How fit is this woman?"

Greg sighed, knowing what was coming.

/

"It was you that set me on the right track, you know."

Sherlock's voice made him snap out of his thoughts and he momentarily forgot to pretend that he was cross.

"What?" John looked at his friend, for he was his friend, even if the tall man would never acknowledge that fact. Even if said man didn't feel the same way. And what he found there wasn't his customary smug attitude, it was something resembling regret.

"I remembered the trousers because, when I came to my senses, I saw yours. I couldn't deduce much, then, but I could comprehend that they were all wrinkled because you had been sitting many ours on that chair." He then deviated his gaze, unsure of what to do next.

John, on his behalf, didn't expect this. The ex-army doctor stared at his friend's face and remembered how he had clung to him when he was delirious. John admonished himself for forgetting how much Sherlock's social behaviour had improved on the last months, against all expectations. His next words weren't carefully chosen – they just naturally left his lips.

"I would have sat there for as much as you needed me to. But I would rather not." He then stood up and prepared to leave the room.

"Yes, I can see that you have been… uncomfortable." A small cough disguised his uneasiness. "Lestrade is coming over from the lover's house, apparently she and the victim met, for they frequented the same gym, so I believe that she discovered her husband's affair. Oh, and Brackenbury is, supposedly, on the run… not at home. We must…" He stopped, suddenly, his expression perplexed.

"What?" the good doctor approached, afraid that his medical condition might have worsened somehow. But the consulting detective merely grabbed his phone, dialling Lestrade as fast as he possibly could with his still numb fingers.

"I'm coming over, what's wrong?"

"Go back to the lover's house, now! He's not on the run, he's on the hunt. The woman said it was not her pen… not her pen, Lestrade, because she has another. He's coming for her."

/

Hope you enjoyed it.Lot's of love to all of you!***