Oh dear, has it really been close to a month already? I cannot believe it!

I am still extremely busy and have also just started on another variation of Pride and Prejudice, which I am currently also posting on . But even if it might take me some time between posting, I cannot leave you hanging in there any longer and so here is at last the first part of the new case for Harriet and Sherlock. I wish I had more time for writing at present, but as it is, for a mother the weeks before Christmas are always extremely busy, as you can imagine. Every time I turn my head, there seems to be a little imp messing up my household again when all I do these days is try and tidy everything up for the season. Ah well, I guess if it were any different it would be quite boring. - At least I am telling myself that in order to stay motivated... ;P

So, grab yourself a cup of tea, curl up on your sofa and enjoy. ;)

Oh, and please leave me a review, they are always greatly appreciated.

The Saunderson-Mystery – Part 1

Harriet:

January had passed astonishingly quickly and I had settled into a comfortable routine again, joining Dr Bell three times a week, while the rest of the days I stayed at home reading through files and reports, books and essays. I was still not too well, and happy for the peace and quiet that had lately set in and which had replaced my busy schedule at the hospital. A reliable supply of dry oatmeal biscuits on my bedside table had at last quenched my morning sickness sufficiently to have a fairly good start into the day and though I was still more tired than I used to be, it was either that it slowly returned or that I got used to not being quite so energetic as before. Sherlock at least did not seem to mind that I often lounged on our sofa, a cup of tea by my side, either reading and sometimes knitting. After all, there were quite a few things I needed to prepare and nine months when it came to that, were not quite so long as they initially might seem.

From Dr Bell I knew that the Saunderson-Case, after my discovery, had been re-opened, but it took Inspector Jones three weeks to at last admit that he had no idea where to start, meaning he finally applied to my husband, and so, only in the last week of January did Sherlock Holmes, at last, begin to work on the case. Not that it was very spectacular at any rate – or so I thought at first.

What had been initially overlooked was, that the body must have been moved ever so slightly, as the postmortem lividity did not fit the description nor the photographs of how he was found. - But perhaps I should start right at the beginning, instead of in the middle of it:

Gerald Saunderson had been a well-known philanthropist who had made his money out west during the gold rush of '69. He had neither kith nor kin as he was unlucky enough to have outlived two wives, though there had been rumours that neither marriage had been particularly happy in the first place. A little more than a year ago, his housekeeper, after a week of absence where she had visited her daughter up north, had found him dead in the middle of his study, with no apparent sign of a violent death upon him. He had suffered a weak heart for years, and so, though the police had been called in and quickly rumours had started that he had been killed, he eventually had been buried with the doctor's testimony of it being nothing more than a natural death due to heart failure.

What exactly had caused Superintendent Brown to re-open the case I never found out, but as said, as I glanced through the file I found not only a drawing but also several pictures of the deceased on site and at the mortuary and matching up both I was certain that sometime after his demise he must have been shifted around. There is this thing with postmortem lividity, that in the first couple of hours, they can be relocated when the body is moved and nobody would be any the wiser. After that, this is only possible partially and eventually they cannot be moved anymore at all as the blood inside the blood vessels has begun to congeal and ultimately blocks them, meaning that in this instance, the man must have been moved several days after his demise, and it was an easy conclusion to draw, that the postmortal rigidity had set in already, which had made it impossible to sprawl him out as he had been found any earlier. It consequently was fairly easy to recreate, that immediately after his death he must have been laying partially on his side, his knees pulled slightly upwards in a close resemblance to a foetal position.

Considering the way he had lain there, sprawled out on his Axminster in front of his fireplace I wondered how no-one had picked up on it straight away. What had struck me as odd and very significant was, that he had literally lain in the middle of said carpet, feet towards the fire, while both arms were stretched out in a cross-like manner. I was by no means superstitious, but the sight made me shiver, as clearly someone had wanted to make a statement. But then, as Sherlock often said, the police in some respect, lacked a healthy dose of imagination. Could really someone think that he had dropped like that naturally? Obviously yes.

"This Saunderson-Case is really a mystery, Mr Holmes," Jones said, as he finally stepped into our sitting room one evening in the last week of January 1895.

"So I have heard," Sherlock replied rather lazily, looking up from his book. "I presume you would like a little guidance?"

It obviously went against the man's grain to have to ask my husband for help, but with a theatrical sigh, he answered that a little help would not go amiss.

"Well then, what do you have?"

"Nothing more than what is in the file. I was not the one working on the case first time around, you must know, and Inspector Llewellyn has died since, so I cannot ask him." Jones answered, looking contrite.

Sherlock, on the other hand, did not appear very surprised, and I had the sneaking suspicion that he had already looked into the matter behind the official's back. Something which proved to partially true, as he had spent the last couple of weeks catching up on events he had missed while he had been travelling, the case in question among them.

"Have you a copy at hand then?" my husband asked, offering a chair to the portly inspector.

"I have," he pulled out a bundle of papers from a canvas bag he had been carrying. "The police report, the coroner's report, though only an external examination had been performed, some photographs, which I have asked permission to leave here with you, and my own personal notes as to what I, as yet, have been able to find out. Not that it is much."

"Thank you, Inspector Jones, that will do for the moment," Sherlock said dismissively, picking up the papers to go through them and paying no further heed to the man who had brought them.

Ruefully I escorted our visitor out, though by the fact that he was not offended in the least it was pretty clear that he was used to my spouse's antics.

"Good night then, Mrs Holmes," he said as he turned to leave.

"Good night, Inspector."

xxx

"Oh, don't scold me for being rude, my dear," Sherlock chuckled when I re-entered the living room.

"You, rude? Never!" I laughed, picking up the file, while he was busy glancing at the pictures.

"I have to say, you do have an eye for detail, my dear," he said after a while, pointing at the dark stains on the body's underside, where the blood had accumulated after its circulation had ceased.

I felt quite flattered to be praised thus.

"You know, it was fairly obvious, was it not?"

"Yes, but only if you directly compare the photographs with the body on site and the ones from the examination. Which they obviously have not done. Is there anything else which strikes you as odd?"

"The way he is sprawled out."

"Nothing else?"

"Not at first glance. What do you see?"

"The furniture has been moved. Look."

He pointed at a slight indentation on the carpet.

"There is only one chair that would fit it, and that is this armchair over there." Sherlock carried on.

"But how do you know it has not been moved there sometime before Saunderson's death?"

He reached for his magnifying glass and handed both picture and lens to me. I gasped as I saw it, too. The dead man's frock coat was fanned out underneath him and one tiny corner of it was wedged underneath the chair in question.

"So, Hattie, that then would be our second clue to this not being a natural death, don't you agree?"

"Certainly. But what has he died off? There is hardly any way to determine that now and there had only been an external examination, as the coroner thought it unnecessary to cut into such a respectable member of society without due cause."

"Very nicely put, my love," Sherlock replied. "Respectable member of society indeed."

"Do I detect a hint of irony there?"

"Only a slight one," he smiled. "But as to your other question, it could be a number of things. Poison for one seems the most obvious, but he might also have been suffocated."

"Then there should be tell-tale signs."

"Are you sure, my love?"

I thought over this question for a while till I recalled the man's weak heart. He had suffered from hypertension, and as such, it was not unusual that the capillaries in his eyes would burst once in a while as the pressure got too high, and many people who suffered from this condition consequently had blood-shot eyes anyway, which made it difficult to see any petechial bleeding that would hint at suffocation.

"See, it is not even in the coroner's report, as he knew about the man's illness and did not think any of it. And indeed, it could be natural. Still, if you look closely, there they are, the petechial bleeding is definitely there. Though admittedly, it is hard to see in these photographs, and especially with this lighting. And still, I might just as well be wrong there, it is hard to tell. It really is a shame that he was such a respectable member of society..."

"So, what are you making of it?"

"Nothing as yet, aside from that we have now safely established, that Gerald Saunderson seems to have been murdered."

"I thought we already knew as much," I sighed impatiently.

"Yes, we had, though we have also found more evidence to support such a statement. And we have found a potential cause of death, which is also something. Now that we have established this, we can carry on and try and find who has committed this crime and why."

"And how will you do that after more than a year?"

"I will go to Saunderson's house tomorrow morning and have a look around."

"His house?"

He held up a slip of paper which belonged to the many he had cut out over the last week in an attempt to update his own files and casebooks.

"You are impossible, Sherlock!"

"So my wife tells me frequently," he grinned back at me. "But alas, his house has been locked up since his death, as there are several people claiming their share of the deceased man's money. Various charities as well as private people."

"Did he not leave a will?"

"Apparently he did, but it is a complete riddle and no-one as yet has been able to figure it out."

"Well, that really makes perfect sense," I replied dryly. "Why would one want to make it obvious what they want to bequeath to whom?"

A will that was vague, in my opinion, kind of defied its purpose. After all, there was no-one one could ask in case it caused considerable confusion, as seemed to be the issue here.

"So, what are you going to do now?" I asked after a few minutes of silence where my husband had thoughtfully stuffed his pipe, but not yet lit it.

"I will smoke my pipe and then turn in."

xxx

Sherlock:

The Saunderson-Case had already begun to intrigue me, as it bore all the signs of a most interesting one. That the coroner had made a massive mistake was clear, but how could he overlook so obvious a clue as the petechial bleeding? Harriet had given an explanation, and as, against what I had told my wife, who was already preparing for bed while I still sat there smoking, I flipped through the file again and found yet another simple answer: The coroner had been the man's physician and as such knew Saunderson well. Presumably so much so, that he never thought of digging deeper where it would have been required, and where another medic would have begun to ask questions, after all, the man had been severely ill for a long time before his death.

Again this was an important piece of information, as it was likely that the murderer knew about this and had counted on it being ignored. Or was it? Suddenly I startled as I recalled the way the man had been arranged and which clearly contradicted my conclusions. Had they wanted to keep his murder a secret, they surely would not have posed him like this, would they? It was just unfortunate, that the police had been so incredibly blind in this instant, that the obvious had been completely overlooked.

Again I turned the data available to me around and around in my head, but not as yet to search for answers but to search for the right questions to ask. Many detectives rush for answers, and often they are answers to the completely wrong question, usually leading to the wrong man, or woman, to end up in the docks. No, to a detective finding the right questions was just as important as finding the right answers.

And in this instance, these answers were, quite obviously: who had killed him and why? But to get there, a couple of other questions needed to be asked and these were: why did no-one pick up on the obvious?; why was he posed like that?; and who benefited from his death?; did he have enemies? - All of them would eventually lead me back to the main questions, but as yet, I was beginning to get tired and with the information I had at hand, I could not determine much more than I already had.

Almost two hours after Harriet had gone to bed, I sneaked into our bedchamber on tiptoe, so I would not disturb her and crawled into bed next to my wife. My beautiful, lovely wife and soon the mother of my child. At seeing her hugging my pillow I had to smile and carefully tried to pry it loose from her grasp. She looked so very young when sleeping, her hair braided in two pigtails lest it would become entangled, her lips slightly parted and her long lashes casting a faint shadow on her cheeks. I really was a lucky man, there was no denying it. My father had been right, I had never been meant to be a bachelor forever, but had I not waited, I would never have had the chance of meeting with Harriet and marrying her, and thus I could hardly regret all those years I had refrained from doing so.

Oh dear! My father was yet another issue I had to think over. He was due to arrive in England in a few months, and while I would have liked to surprise him with being married, with Harriet now expecting, I felt it wrong to keep it from him any longer. No, I would have to write to him and tell him, would have to put down in writing what was already complicated enough to explain verbally.