Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes, Doctor John Watson and all associated characters belong to the late, great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his estate, various studios and other companies. This pastiche is completely non-profit, and only for enjoyment and entertainment.

Warnings: Dark & Adult Themes, light bad language

Authors Note: The boys are back in town! And while this chapter ties up the majority of the plot and is mostly exposition, I still hope you enjoy it. The next chapter will be a complete Holmes & Watson opus, and unfortunately, the final one.

Please, read & review.

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Chapter Thirteen: The Avenging Angel

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The trip to the interrogation rooms of the police station were conducted in silence, although the deep note of satisfaction boomed out from Holmes' position, Watson noted amusedly. The man had enjoyed both the stringing along of his allies with that little sealed-lips confidential act as much as he had enjoyed catching his prey.

Once there, while the prisoner was processed, Lestrade turned to Holmes and Watson. "I suppose you both have earned the right to be there at the interrogation, but please let us do the questioning," he looked pointedly at Holmes. "This is still a police investigation and Mister Holmes was acting as our consulting agent, which makes this nice and legal if everyone plays by the rule book."

"Whatever you say, Lestrade," Holmes agreed amicably, while Watson rolled his eyes. It was going to take quite a lot to remove the smug self-satisfaction from hiscountenance if Watson was any judge.

Once everyone was lined up in the small interrogation room, the prisoner was brought in and chained to the table in silence. He looked tired and old under the harsh lighting glinting off the two-way mirror, his face tranquil and undisturbed.

Lestrade turned on a recorder and stated the date and time before beginning. "Inspector Lestrade and Inspector Gregson, along with police consultant Sherlock Holmes and medical examiner Dr John Watson, interviewing Mr Jefferson Hope of Salt Lake City, Utah, US, regarding the deaths of Enoch Drebber and Joseph Strangerson. Now sir," Lestrade turned to Hope professionally. "I am obliged to warn you that anything you say will be recorded and may be used against you. You are also allowed to contact your Consulate for legal aid, or have another lawyer present."

Hope sat calmly. "I have much to say, and I don't need legal advice. I want to make a statement to you," he gave a deprecating half grin as he looked at Holmes, clearly admiring. "You sir, should be at the head of the British Police."

"You insult me," Holmes returned easily.

"Ha! The way you tracked me was a caution," Hope seemed uncaring about the turn of events. "I want to make a full confession."

Gregson raised an eyebrow. "You don't want to save it for your trial?"

Hope's snort of dismissal was genuine as he looked at Watson. "You're a doctor, yes?"

Watson nodded silently.

Hope, one handed, undid his shirt partway. "Feel here," he pointed to his chest.

Watson placed his palm there, and felt it. His eyes darted left and right, taking in the other symptoms. "You have dilated cardiomyopathy," Watson diagnosed. He turned to the others in the room who were watching him in surprise. "A degenerative heart disease caused by ventricle pump failure," he explained. "Judging by the poor circulation blue and clubbing on his fingers, the bloody face and the palpitations I just felt, his case is extremely severe. You're on medication?" He asked the man.

"Yes," Hopes confirmed. "But the doctor I spoke to last week told me not to make any long term plans. I won't live to see trial, Inspectors."

Lestrade's eyes slid to Watson. "Doctor?"

"Without immediate treatment – a heart transplant – I wouldn't lay odds on him lasting a month," Watson confirmed, not taking his eyes off Hope. "In fact, I'm surprised he's still moving now, after all the exertions he's been through in the last few days. You should be in a hospital, sir." He stated, his healer's instincts bypassing everything else. Whatever horror he had once felt crumbled in the fire of compassion, stoked by years in a dark and dirty war. At times his conviction to see no harm done to those under his care was the only thing he had back then.

Hope just shrugged. "A transplant won't go to an orphaned, childless convicted felon, doc. And even if it did, why would I want to prolong my stay in this agonising place? My work is done. I reckon I'm alive because the record needs to be set straight, and I'm the only one left who can do that."

Holmes steepled his fingers. "I'm aware that the two men you killed conspired to have you wrongly convicted of murder," he stated while the two Inspectors started in surprise. "But I don't know why you would have crossed paths with them in the first place, as you were not listed in the church records as a member."

Watson glanced back and forth between Holmes and Hope, astonished and impressed.

"You are a very clever man, Mr Holmes," Hope laughed heartily. "It started...roughly forty years ago with a man named John Ferrier wandering the desert..." The whole story fell out of the man – brief and factual, but the passion underlying it was hammered into every word. When the man had finished, he asked for a drink of water before continuing.

"When I got out of prison, my..." Hope's lips twisted. "Rage at the men who had stolen everything from me, who had killed my loved ones, was fresh and sharp as it was when I stood over Lucy's body. Fifteen years inside hadn't removed one iota of my need to see justice done."

Holmes broke in. "But the Church had been disbanded," Holmes added for the others enquiring looks. "Soon after Mr Hope's conviction, allegations of child abuse, sexual assault, kidnapping and tax evasion were levelled against the church. Several stolen brides followed Miss Ferrier's example and committed suicide; to the point where even the corrupt police force couldn't bury it. State and Federal authorities investigated, and uncovered the nest of serpents under this Garden of Eden. The Elders and their henchmen were turned into other people's brides in various penitentiaries, though it was no position of honour," Holmes grinned sardonically.

"And they say there's no such thing as karma," Watson commented, giving a dark smile.

"Yes indeed," Hope chuckled. "Drebber and Strangerson escaped the culling, though, mostly by turning evidence in on the church, even their own fathers. When the ship sinks, the rats appear; though their nature was clear enough from the start. They escaped – Drebber was still quite wealthy from taking John's land and possessions, but Strangerson lost his fortune. They had started another church by the time I was free to pursue them.

"I hunted those men down, gentlemen. It was no moment of terror or passion when I saw them by chance on the street. My whole being was bent on their deaths. When I dogged them through the States, I made sure they knew I was there. I sent bullets through their windows, cut brake lines – anything to make them understand even a fraction of the terror and pain we went through. Then I followed them through Europe on their hypocritical little religious tour," Hope stated firmly. "I killed them, but it was as much by Providence as by my own hands."

"Because you gave them a choice," Holmes said shrewdly. "One pill was poison, one was harmless. You chose one and Drebber chose another; the perfect act of revenge, because even a higher power would have judged him guilty. At least, that was your reasoning behind it."

Watson's mouth was open.

"It was in the psychology of the scene, Watson," Holmes turned to him. "You see, the killer lured Drebber into an empty room, but not to hide his crime because he left the light on. It was to give him opportunity to explain himself to his victim. The reason for the crime was literally written on the walls - revenge. He paced up and down the room, remember, in front of Drebber, working himself into a frenzy which caused the bloody nose; listing Drebber's crimes no doubt, and then giving Drebber the poison, which Drebber took voluntarily."

Holmes gave a faint smile of perfect intellectual satisfaction. "That's what was missing at the scene. Drebber wasn't forced. He wasn't restrained or tied. He wasn't injected or made to inhale. He wasn't overpowered to the ground and made to swallow the poison. He took the pill upright and on his feet and fell after he was poisoned, your own autopsy confirmed that. There is but one logical question which follows such a fact. What kind of man willing takes poison? Well, the obvious answer is a man who doesn't know it is a poison. But in that case there would have been no need to lure the victim anywhere. The assassin could have gotten close enough and slipped it into any meal or drink Drebber had. The next logical solution is a guilty conscience, something which made the heavy drinking an intriguing fact; but Drebber's own behaviour both in America and here was the actions of a man who felt no guilt and no shame, a man nothing more or less that a collection of gluttonous appetites.

"There is only one logical solution left after we have eliminated these possibilities; that Drebber believed that he had a reasonable expectation of survival. His killer gave him reason to believe that he could walk away. The only way he could do that was to demonstrate that his revenge was so justified that he would risk death himself, and Drebber's escape, to prove it so. Drebber took the pill voluntarily with no physical interference on his body whatsoever because there was a one in two chance he would come to no harm. Like I said before," Holmes preened under Watson's look of admiration. "This would have been much harder to solve had Drebber been killed on the street like any other sordid murder."

"You have it right," Hope nodded. "I took a job as a cab driver to earn some money while I tracked the bastards' movements. I saw Drebber chased out of the boarding house and picked him up, neat as you please. He never even realized where he was going until we were in that old house. He sobered up mighty quick, though," Hope sneered with grim humour. "I told him all the things he done, all the atrocities. He begged me. He begged me to spare him," Hope's huge hands tightened on the table to a stark whiteness. "All I could think was, had Lucy begged him? Had she pleaded with him to spare her father's life? She would have. Lucy loved John so much; she would have done that for him. Drebber is a lying bastard, and probably promised her that John would be safe and then had him killed anyway once she was in his grasp. He's the sort. Had Lucy begged him to spare me and he told her I was dead, because if she was broken then she would be docile? Had she begged when he..." Hope broke off, choking in anger, gasping for air.

Watson got around the desk and pressed one hand to the big man's shoulder, and another to his chest. "Jefferson, calm down. Take a deep breath with me," Watson instructed, keeping his voice level and calm. Holmes reached for the water again. "Gregson," Watson grabbed a sheet of notepaper and dug a pen out of his pocket. "Get someone to go to the veteran hospital pharmacy and get these, would you? I'm on their lists as a prescribing physician." He scribbled a list of drugs and handed it to the Inspector. He turned back to his patient. "That's it, deep breaths. You're doing just fine. Are you sure you can continue?" Watson asked as Gregson flagged a constable outside the door.

"Might as well," Hope gasped. "I may not be here tomorrow." He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. "There's not much else to tell. I offered Drebber the choice, and he was desperate enough to take it. And fate or God or whatever you want to call it struck him down. At best it was justice done; at worst, I put an animal down." He took a long drink of water.

"Then I tracked Strangerson down. It wasn't hard. I knew where they were going because Drebber asked for Euston. I was going to offer him the same thing, but Joseph Strangerson always was a violent man when backed into a corner. I'll wager anything you care to name that he pulled the trigger on John. We fought, and he got his hands around my neck. I thought he might actually strangle me, but the thought of him walking away scot free from what he'd done gave me enough power to lift a mountain. I grabbed my knife - I carry it for protection - and stabbed him under the arm. A little trick I learned in prison, thanks to old Joe." He chuckled at the irony. "Well, that's all she wrote, gentlemen. I'll go to my grave peacefully enough now. I've kept my promise to John and," his face suffused with an almost angelic wistfulness. "Maybe if there really is a God, I will get to see Lucy again."

The room was silent as the incredible story drew to a close. Holmes held up a finger. "There is but one more point I need clarified, Mr Hope. Who was your accomplice who answered the ad and collected the ring?"

"Hmm," Hope grinned, and gave a saucy wink. "I don't think I'll tell you. He didn't do anything illegal. But I will say that wretched, fanatical church that was a shiner in any God's eye destroyed a lot of lives, Mr Holmes. Families. You have no idea how far the rot spread. Let's just say there might be a queue at a cemetery to dance on two unloved and unmourned graves sometime soon."

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End Chapter Thirteen