So, last post for this year. Hope you had a nice Christmas and that you'll have a good start into 2018.

Thank you for all the support you have shown me, I really appreciate it. Please read and review, as always.

Love

Nic

The Saunderson-Mystery – Part 4

Sherlock:

True to his word, my father returned the next morning with his rather meagre belongings.

"Is that all you have with you?" I inquired, staring at the small suitcase, "What happened to all your books?"

Laughing her replied: "Oh, don't worry, they will arrive here soon enough, Sherlock, as will my furniture and the rest of my household. You remember Harris? Now that I am back for good, he'll send them over."

"Of course. I have just been wondering."

"And you have every right to, as it seems I am just as unpredictable as you are," Aldwin smiled. "So, are you working on a case then?"

"I am, but truth be told, I am just as puzzled as the police are."

Showing him the evidence and telling him what I had found till now he leaned back in the armchair opposite of the one I had taken a seat in and kept on staring at the picture with the dead body, frowning.

"What is it?" I at last asked.

"Mind, I am not a detective, but this looks almost ritualistic, does it not?"

"Yes, it does, Harriet and I have established as much. Someone wanted to make a statement, it seems."

"Are you sure, my boy?"

Puzzled I looked at him, at first wondering what he meant before it dawned on me that perhaps the position of the body was important for an altogether other reason.

"You mean he was not laid out like this for the body to be found like this, but because of..." Well, because of what, actually? What reason could one have to lay out a body in the shape of a cross without its major purpose for it being found like this?

"Well, people have developed various kinds of rituals to honour their dead, Sherlock. This could be nothing more than paying respect to an honoured man."

The frankincense, of course!

At that point Harriet, who had been running a couple of errands, returned home laden with parcels, entering the living room with a smile on her face and her hair all dishevelled from the wind outside, her cheeks red and her eyes sparkling, looking even more lovely than she had when she had left.

"Ah, there you are," she said. "I had almost expected you to have gone out trying to figure out what happened to Mr Saunderson."

"Actually we are trying to do so right now, care to join us? Dear me, what have you bought?"

"Nothing that cannot wait till later, but for now, how far have you got?"

We repeated our train of thought and with it, what my father had suggested made ever so much more sense. After all, if everything else was ruled out, what was left, must ultimately be the truth. Consequently, if one assumed the doctor's statement had been correct, and Saunderson had died of natural causes, and after all, my wife and I had established that it might just as well be accurate than not, then someone might have found him even before the housekeeper had done so, who had been away for a week. Who had cared for the elderly and sickly man in the meantime? I had assumed, due to him having lived the life of a tramp at one point of his life, that he knew how to take care of himself, but what if there had been another person? Someone who would check on him? The most obvious person who came to mind, was, of course, his doctor. A man, with whom the deceased had also formed a kind of friendship. How could I have overlooked all this?

The answer to that was an easy one, I had not yet had the time to think it over properly. My family had gotten in the way. But did I regret it? Not one bit! Moreover, it seemed as if with stepping back and spending a pleasurable evening with my wife and father, I was now ever so much more focused on the mystery and better able to approach it from another angle. My father's suggestion had been most valuable, much like Watson's remarks had been - Oh, I needed to remind Harriet that we should invite the Watson's for dinner, soon – and with that, I thought I, at last, made some progress with the case. A case that, in all honesty, had me quite confused in its uniqueness.

Eventually, all three of us made our way over to Saunderson's cottage, not to search it once again, but to try and figure out how he had died. The photos we had taken with us and laying down on the Axminster myself, Harriet placed me in the way the man must have first been in.

"So, I presume it is safe to assume that no-one was in the room when he died?" my father stated, or else this person would have placed him in the position he has been found in straight away."

"Unless there was a reason to not do so immediately," Harriet replied, staring down at me, her brows knitted.

"Sherlock, could you flex your muscles, please, without shifting position too much?"

I did as she asked, which was quite a feat to achieve as I literally had to tense every one of my muscles in order to not roll over like a giant rubber ball. After two minutes I gave up and back in my initial position.

"It is as I have thought," Harriet mumbled and I suddenly realised what she was on about. The man did not have any bruises, so he must have been lying on the floor all along. The position he had been found in, though preferable to the other one, had not been comfortable by any means, so it was not likely also, that he had in a fit of weakness lain down for a short moment – not to mention, that with the comfortable furniture around, it would have been more likely he would have sought rest there. No, he must have been in a kind of agony, cramping and almost rolling on the floor when he had passed. Poison once again sounded a likely option.

My thoughts, however, were interrupted by a commotion at the front door and sitting up straight I turned around to see a man enter his face stern and incredulous.

"You could not have just let him rest in peace, could you?" he inquired even before introducing himself, not that he needed to do so, as it was obvious enough, as he stood there with his Gladstone bag and the stain of iodine on his right shirt cuff, which was just visible from beneath his coat-sleeve.

"Doctor Colebrooke, I presume?" I asked, getting up.

"Yes, that I am, Mr Sherlock Holmes, and not only do you have to snoop around here, but you also seemed compelled to bring spectators."

"Sir, this lady is working for Dr Bell, who has been charged to look into the case by Superintendent Brown, and she also happens to be my wife and often works with me, and this, Doctor, is my father, who happened to join us unexpectedly, but in whose discretion you can equally trust. AS a matter of fact, we would have come by later on, but having you here, is just as well."

The medic only huffed, staring at us defiantly before with a sigh sitting down on the sofa underneath the window, seemingly pondering on something. At last, he got up again, paced the room a couple of times before he had come to a conclusion.

"Ah well, I presume the police will not rest till they know the truth, will they?"

"I am not the police, Sir," I answered.

He dismissed my reply with a simple wave of his hand: "But the Superintendent is and knowing him as well as I do, and that you have been involved in the case as well – even though there is no case at all, I think it might be best to just say what I know and be done with it."

"It usually is," I replied warily.

xxx

Harriet:

The story we got to hear was a curious one, but in all its oddness, there was little doubt that it was the exact truth. From the corner of my eyes, I could see that Sherlock was slightly disappointed for such an easy solution, but as it was, he would have used all his energy on a case that, as Dr Colebrooke had said, was none at all.

There are always many sides to a story, depending on who tells it and to whom. In this instance, Mr Saunderson, being a very ill man, had done nothing more than to turn to religion when all medicine could not help him anymore, and eventually he had ended up with a young and ambitious preacher from across the Atlantic, a zealot, so much was certain, but not a bigot.

"Mr Saunderson was adamant that after I have failed to cure him, that he would get rid of what he called his possession."

"He saw his illness as possession?" I cried out, incredulously.

"Yes, a punishment for all the evil he had done in his life. Whatever he meant with that, I don't know, but he seemed to be haunted by his past, somehow."

For a moment we all sat in silence, drinking the tea the housekeeper had provided for us.

"And what was this young priest supposed to do?" Sherlock asked at last.

"Perform an exorcism," was the doctor's dry reply, showing clearly what he thought of such a measure. "The strain of such an action was too much for his weak heart, and he died in the process, choking on his own tongue. The young man came to me straight away and I followed, I wanted to move him, but he requested to leave him as he was for three days, so that we could be sure that all evil had left the body. While I thought it to be complete bogus myself, I always try to respect my patient's beliefs and in this instance I knew that Mr Saunderson would have liked to bring the ritual to an end, so I left him there."

"But you, of course, have not turned him on his back and placed him on the ground like this?" I continued showing him the picture.

"No, I did not, but I suppose that is what the priest spoke off when he meant that he had to make sure the body would not rise again to avenge itself." There he rolled his eyes and shook his head slightly.

"And what is the man's name?" Sherlock inquired curiously.

"His name is Pater Sebastian, his surname I don't know. He is a very compassionate man, no matter what one might think about his practices. As far as I know, he has gone on to work as a missionary."

xxx

When later we arrived home, I was surprised to see that my husband was once again deep in thought.

"What is it, dear?" I asked.

"I wonder, what he could have done that was so bad, that he thought a rather common disease to be a punishment for past sins."

I had wondered about that myself, but as people have different perceptions about what was an evil deed and what a good one, I had not thought it of much importance. Instead, something else struck me and I brought up the topic of the dead man's will.

"I will go and have a look at the original tomorrow and see what that is all about. Then I can also tell Jones, that the mystery of Saunderson's death has been solved."

"You don't seem to find it quite a satisfactory solution," my father in law stated.

"Oh, I find it plausible enough and have little doubt that it happened this way, but alas, knowing how he died in this instance, does not mean that the actual mystery is solved, does it? As Hattie said, there is still the will to be considered and then there is the man's obscure past."

"Obscure?" I asked as I had found it pretty straightforward from what I had heard.

"Yes, very obscure, in fact. You see, there are no written documents, no letters, no diaries, nothing. All we know is that he said he made his money out west in the gold mines of California, that he had a claim there and has been lucky. But one thing is certain, where there is gold, there is greed and where there is greed, there is..."

"Crime," Aldwin Holmes and I finished the sentence in unison.

"Exactly!"