Chapter 14: For Now the Bones Speak~
They were lead through an impossible maze of trees, made sick from heat, and mosquito bites, and lack of water, and the drugs they were coming off of.
John was miserable, physically and mentally, anticipating reunion with his abusive parents.
Sherlock's face was expressionless. He was quite accustomed to physical discomfort, as well as torment of the body and the mind, since he set out on the business of disbanding Moriarty. John swallowed his tongue just about, and tried not to look at him, the reality of this hitting home now, more than ever. The old Sherlock would have been making an incessant snarky commentary on their treatment, and quite a mouthful of threats. But the Sherlock that survived the Network walked behind the crew of rum-runners, as placidly as a dog for a walk. No fear of torment, no anticipation of the meeting with John's father, who hated Sherlock as much, if not more than, he hated his only son.
When Sherlock laid eyes on the Colonel, he smiled, an almost delighted, but at the same time utterly false, sick, hatred-laced smile.
And then he laughed, a blood-curdling laugh, that made John's hair stand on end.
John's father stood there, on the bend of a beach of Baskerville island, in his old military dress uniform, John's mother on his right hand, and an ancient mulatto woman at his left,wearing old and worn jeans, and a red top that tied in the front, over the top of a sun-bleached tie dye t-shirt. Not the look that John had expected from the most powerful practitioner of voodoo to date.
The Colonel raised a brow at Sherlock.
"What...pray tell...are you laughing at?"he asked...with a sidelong, witheringly hateful glance at John, that made John want to withdraw into Darkness, and never crawl back into the Sun again. His mother smiled at him, and he couldn't tell if it was sympathetically, or if it was a forced smile, to hide her disdain of him. Oh..how he wished to be somewhere else!
Sherlock shook off the hands of the men that had constrained him, having strong-armed him most of the way through the woods.
"You know, exactly WHAT,...Solomon."
There was a gut-wrenching silence.
Lydia Watson turned to look at her husband ,mouth gaping, shaking her head, about to protest such an absurd statement.
John coughed.
"Wh-what did you...just?" he asked Sherlock, this not making any sense at all.
Solomon Watson was the name of his only uncle, Donald's identical twin brother, who supposedly had been killed in a car accident when John was 7. He didn't remember that very well, and his mother never talked about it. The only thing John did remember was that after Uncle "Sal"'s death, his dad started to act really awfully towards him, and stayed drunk...always.
The Colonel's face turned a dark purplish color, and he swallowed...enraged into silence. Sherlock nodded.
"Now everything is perfectly clear...The reason you took John's friendship with the World's Only Consulting Detective so adversely. The reason you threatened to kill him, if he ever came home..."
Lydia chirped a soft sob, and then shrieked: "What the HELL are you trying to say?"
"I'm saying that you-YOU are to blame for this!" Sherlock hissed, pointing a finger at the woman. "And you know it too, don't you?...Had you been faithful to Donald...or maybe to at least ONE of your myriad lovers...you whore...then you would have been able to distinguish between the man you married ,and his twin brother...a long time ago..."
John felt like he swallowed his heart, which had just jumped into his throat...
"Sherlock, SPEAK ENGLISH!" he cried.
Sherlock laughed again, coming and leaning dangerously close to the Colonel.
"I would be a poor detective, if I didn't research the lives of everyone that is close to me...For their own protection...as well as mine...
Of course, I knew all about John's family. I "researched" you all,... that part of the last conversation we had before my Death, John,was not a lie. Save that my manner of research is not the same as that you lot employ. I did so..before...long before, in the beginning of our friendship, when we were just boys in school. Asked you the right questions...made deductions in the appropriate fields to create a "data base",about you, about your contacts, to judge the status of my new friend, whether the friendship was one that I could trust my Work to, and whether that companion was secure in his own right. At the time, the data was sufficient,but not so now...I merely passed off your actions, Solomon, for the ravings of a mad-man. My mistake...I do make them, on rare occasion...
At a pub one night, after one of our earlier cases for practice, I made an attempt at conversation with John, and it is unlikely that he remembers now that I got the whole story of "Solomon's" death from him. Supposedly, he had bought an American sport's car, custom made for the steering wheel to be on the UK appropriate side. And one night it malfunctioned when he was driving back from Manchester, Donald's current residence. But there were always holes in the story...First off, they never knew what exactly went wrong with the car. There wasn't a body; he was supposedly consumed in the flames of the aftermath...
After 27 years, I finally know the answer. And it's absurdly obvious, written all over you, even now.
First off, you are wearing a uniform that is military issue; if it was truly meant to be yours, it would fit. Yours doesn't, and washing machines, to my knowledge don't GROW clothes, they usually SHRINK them.
Unless your clothes have grown 1.5 centimeters, then no, the uniform is not yours. It has never been let out,because it is obvious you have never been over weight, neither have you been underweight, your obsession with military fitness is what keeps you a standard size from year to year. So then, the uniform is not yours, but I can assume, that because you have been trying to pass yourself off as your twin for the last 27 years, that it did belong to him, and that he had a 1.5 centimeters greater muscle mass than yours, and was roughly 0.5 centimeters taller than you are.
Then there's your key ring, with the suspicious key to a Ford Mustang , fitting the ignition switch of a model from circa 30 years ago. Now...why would you have a key to your brother's car that supposedly exploded 27 years ago? Sentiment?...Mmm...people don't normally keep such a sentimental ornament in the mix with their other grease-smeared ,use worn old keys, eh? The key hasn't been polished, or cleaned in any form, for at least as long as it has been on your key ring, and I should think something with sentimental value...a relic of your deceased brother...would have some special attention shown to it? A very gently used key though, you don't have a similar model of your own, the key has none of the markings that would suggest it has been used , even only sparingly, for the last roughly 30 years...
So I conclude then that the car was yours.That it went the other way around, you had been staying with Donald and Lydia recovering from your growing problem with alcoholism. That you had lended your own car that night, to your brother, so that he could leave the house to go and fetch something for John, who was very sick with the stomach flu at the time, if I recall his story correctly, and the illness coupled with the fact that he was only a 7 year old at the time, is fitting explanation for why he wouldn't remember the night his uncle died. Or correction, his father. Who,by the way, from data I pieced together from things John told me about his early childhood, absolutely adored his only son. Had a passion for life, and was clean of any form of substance abuse. Was able to excel in his military career,whilst you were dishonorably discharged because of your alcoholism. As a teenager, I remember, John had blamed your violent change of character and sudden abuse of alcohol on the death of his uncle...But that wasn't the reason, no, the whole thing..."
Suddenly, Sherlock was laughing darkly, almost unable to breathe. John's head was spiraling...happy and horrified all at once.
Because this meant that he hadn't been disowned ,after all.
Because this meant that his Dad,was really the man that he remembered from his early childhood. That man that had the kindest smile that every touched a man's face, a lot like his own if he realized that about himself, and laughed giddily and often, and had a bushy golden mustache when he was on leave, and allowed to grow one, and was gentle ,and stern, and had a terrible temper he never showed his beloved little boy ,that had grown into a man he would be very proud of, and was very much like himself.
Horrified, sick with a new sorrow too,to learn that that man, his father, his REAL father...was dead. Had been murdered.
"The whole thing..was a vendetta of sorts..."Sherlock went on. "You wanted to prove that you had what it takes to be every bit the soldier that your brother was. And so, you came up with an excuse to get him out of the house. You gave his little son a high dose of ipecac and passed his constant vomiting off as the stomach flu, that inspired the compassionate father to drive to the nearest pharmacy late at night, to get his little child something that would ease his mortal discomfort. He left the little boy with you, and his older half-sister (that is actually your daughter with Lydia, having been conceived when you tricked her into thinking she was with her husband,because she was always too drunk and too unfaithful to him to realize when he was actually on leave, or when it was actually you getting back at your brother behind his back in any way that could satisfy you, having his wife for your self being one of those ways, (I deduced this from Harriet's slightly more greenish eyes, the exact hue of yours). And also supposedly with his wife, who was supposedly asleep upstairs, feeling poorly but there to be called upon if you couldn't handle the boy's pressing need,seeing as his father didn't trust you,and would never have left his beloved and very sick child with you,if it wasn't absolutely imperative, being that you were always too wasted to drive anywhere, anyway. But the wife had climbed down the lattice of her window, sneaking off to the bed of one of her most recent to that date lovers, and so she also had no reason to be suspcious of the night her husband died..."
Lydia blanched. John couldn't look at her. Couldn't believe what Sherlock was saying...
"Before you had poisoned the boy, you had gone into the garage, and tampered with the breaks of your prized sports car...anything to rid the world of your brother, and perform the ultimate deception.
He got half-way to the pharmacy,before the accident occurred. You pretended to be going out to the porch to have another swig of the rum you always kept in the pocket of your coat, and left John's sister to attend to him. But you followed him on his motorcycle, (having fixed the supposedly broken head-light on it), instead...and watched as he crashed into a huge oak that you knew would be on the way to the pharmacy, that would be positioned near a sharp detour for road work curve, that if one didn't break at, they would indeed careen off the road and straight into said tree. Your brother was killed instantly. The car was merely smashed...but you had to guarantee there would be no evidence left to disclose your deception.
So you switched clothes with the bloodied corpse. It would look ,then, like you had harmed yourself trying to rescue your brother from a damaged vehicle-that would convince people you were Donald, that being exactly like something he would have done. You would deny medical attention, so none of the paramedics could see that the blood wasn't actually yours. And then...you..."
Sherlock turned and looked sympathetically at John, who was crying now.
"You took that bottle of rum you were always caring with you...and you poured it..."
"NO!" Lydia hissed, covering her mouth...
"All over the body..."
The Colonel smiled ,sickly.
"You lit up a cigarette, and stuck it in your brother's cold dead lips..."
John's jaw dropped...
"And then...you tampered just a tiny bit with the gas tank, making sure that the whole thing would burst into flames...There wasn't a body; there wasn't even a bloody car! There was no evidence for any of the detective inspectors of New Scotland Yard to come up with even the faintest inkling that foul play was involved. Just a freak accident, and a grieving brother going off the deep for sadness at the passing of his twin. There was a funeral. The name "Solomon Watson" was carved on the stone. You had the career of the Colonel, the beautiful ,sometimes available wife, the white-picket fence home in Manchester, for a while, your own daughter, and the son of the man that you murdered. A son that looked and acted just like a boy version of that man...You could sense the spark of his father's spirit alive in him still, still crying out for justice from the ground...waiting . And some 12 years later...justice found him...You might have been able to hide from New Scotland Yard...but you knew...all along, you would never be able to hide from me..."
There was silence. John was clutching his stomach, to keep from being sick.
"Baby...I'm so so so very sorry..." his mother whimpered...
" A little too late for that now, Mum..."John gasped...closing his eyes.
Solomon began to applaud.
"Bravo,Sherlock Holmes! Yes, I knew I couldn't run from you forever...England's dear little bloodhound was already infamous in certain circles even when John was a little boy, about 12; I'm thinking that would have made you about 8 or 9, started young didn't you? I knew I wouldn't be able to run from you forever, and so that's why I'm going to have to kill you. Both of you. See, it's like this. It is ritual,the Lady here has determined that to appease my brother's blood, I must sacrifice his son, send him to the Underworld, to ease his sorrow. Disposing of you ,guarantees a clean slate for me, my brother's murder, my current rum-running enterprise...Utterly secure...
The way I'm going to do this ,is going to be fun, and beneficial to the government as well...You'll see."
And with that,two members of the crew came and hauled Sherlock and John away.