Chapter 3:
Like a Rat in a Trap
Sherlock was walking quickly, hands thrust deeply into the pockets of his British Gas anorak, a seraphic expression on his face. John, similarly attired, had to trot slightly to keep up with the taller man's stride.
"It was murder, John. Not misadventure."
"The police don't think so."
"Police! Hah!" The smile morphed into a disdainful scowl, and John had to master his urge to snigger at Sherlock's indignation.
"Why did you even get involved? Bit mundane for you, isn't it? Bloke falls off his ladder doing the guttering?"
"The widow. I've had an eye on her for some time. I was involved in investigating the death of her last husband. Ironically enough, that was almost certainly death by natural causes. Unlike, in all probability, the previous four."
"Phew. You'd think they'd get a bit wary, wouldn't you?"
"I've said before that love saps away any of the meagre supply of rationality the average person may be said to possess."
"Yes. Yes, you have".
"Although, to be fair, I think lust was probably more of motivator. All her husbands have been considerably older than her, and not sufficiently wealthy to routinely command the attention of such silicon-supplemented artistry as Mrs Bowers-nee-Grant-nee-Doherty-nee-Jones-nee-Rogers-nee-Mellor-nee-Mills."
"Did you practice that?"
Sherlock threw a sidelong, shifty look at John, then giggled. "Yes. Trips off the Tongue, doesn't it?"
"So why did she marry them if they weren't wealthy? Insurance?"
"Precisely - and a certain stubborn yet gullible quality, plus a predilection towards hobbies that were outwardly ordinary yet had the potential for disaster. I spoke to the late Mr Bowers before he took the plunge - the first plunge, not the final - tried to warn him what he was getting himself into, and he wasn't particular receptive. Amazing how effective a weapon a simple garden rake can be. Gardening and DIY were his favourite pastimes. She's a wealthy woman by now, Mrs Bowers. Could have easily afforded to pay someone to do the guttering, but he loved the chance to be handy."
"But how could she guarantee he would have an accident? Seems a bit of a long shot, and she was having a cup of tea with the old lady who lives next door at the time."
"The ladder was too short. He'd have to balance precariously on the top rung. Wouldn't be too difficult to make him lose his footing. Perhaps a little bit of oil rubbed into the wood to just to make it that bit more slippery."
"It 's not exactly foolproof, though, is it? What if he'd secured himself or something?"
"John. He was willing to walk straight into a marriage with a woman who'd had four previous husbands die a sudden and unexpected death, plus he was a pigheaded vain middle aged Tory voter. Do you really think he was the type to adhere to a sensible health and safety policy?"
"Still. And what about her alibi? She certainly wasn't out shoving him off his ladder when she was gossiping with Mrs Jam and Jerusalem next door."
"She phoned Mrs... Jam and Jerusalem?"
"Never mind. I suppose the Women's Institute is a bit like the solar system. Or not - I realised months afterwards that you must have been winding me up about that - anyone with your knowledge of ballistics couldn't really have lost out on Newton's Law and centripetal forces. Shot yourself in the foot there, didn't you?"
Sherlock grinned. "Actually, I do know about the W.I. You'd be amazed at the depths petty rivalries will drive women to. Sometime, I must tell you about Mrs Fortmason and the Lemon Curd of Doom, as I expect you'd call it... but we digress, John! As I was saying, Mrs Bowers phoned Mrs Jam and Jerusalem on a rather thin pretext, and invited her over for tea out of the blue, never really having spoken to her before. Rather convenient, wouldn't you say?"
"OK, yes. What else?"
"Mrs J and J is the epitome of middle class respectability, and has the added advantage of severe osteoarthritis. When Bowers fell, Mrs Bowers was able to be at his side whilst her guest was still struggling to get out of her chair."
"What, so you think maybe she bashed his head in after he fell?"
"Oh no, he broke his neck in the fall. However, had he failed to do so, I'm sure that ugly stone copy of Venus de Milo - which, incidentally, had been moved from the bottom of the garden to closer to hand - would have done the trick."
"God, it's enough to make you want to stay single, isn't it?"
"I've rarely needed much persuading. Did you notice there were several impressions in the ground from the feet of the ladder?"
"Yes. Presumably where Mr Bowers had moved the ladder along to do the guttering."
"So I'm sure you noticed the deeper impressions, obviously made the night before the others at around 2am when the ground was still damp after the rain, that had been partially scuffed over by a woman's size 5 trainer, the tread of which matched those we saw in the rack when we went to read Mrs Bowers' gas meter?"
"Er..."
"Good, I'm glad you're keeping up. Did you see the cat?"
"Cat. Oh, yes, it had it's leg in a cast."
"Oh, you did notice that." He looked marginally deflated.
"Yes, I tend to notice injuries, even on an animal. I take it it's relevant?"
"I strongly suspect so. In fact, I wondered if we might see something of the sort after we viewed the body."
John accepted this with a nod. "And why were we looking in the shed?"
"Just looking for the icing on the cake. Found it, by the way, but I'll need to give a little demonstration to Lestrade to convince him to get a warrant." Sherlock's eyes were glowing with the expression John recognised as anticipation of being able to give a dramatic performance. "Send him a text would you - meet me at Barts' morgue at 1400. Murder. Case solved. SH. That should bring him. We should have time for a spot of lunch, then we can take a cab."
Sherlock was at his most ebullient over lunch, even deigning to eat; a sure sign he considered the case complete. John veered between fond amusement and irritation. He was, of course, curious about the conclusion of the case, but there was never much chance of prizing the truth out of his flatmate before he was ready.
Sherlock directed the cab on a most peculiar route, calling for the cabbie to stop in a dingy side street whilst he darted into a very dubious looking hardware shop, and coming back out with a package in a brown paper bag.
They arrived at the morgue at quarter to two, and Sherlock darted into Molly's office, wheedling her to get Bowers out ready for him. While she scurried to obey, he snuck back into the office, and John heard him moving furniture about. He sidled out nonchalantly, waiting for Lestrade to arrive.
Lestrade was ten minutes late, to Sherlock's obvious irritation, and came with Sally Donovan.
"Alright, Freako, what have you got for us?" piped up Sally, cheerfully. She and Sherlock had reached an almost friendly impasse, but an acute sense of rivalry remained, and John knew his friend would relish the opportunity to point-score over her.
"Just a murder your colleagues in the Met missed", drawled Sherlock casually.
"Oh, yeah, I heard about this one. Bloke who fell off his own ladder, having announced in front of his very respectable neighbour that he was off to do the guttering. You must be desperate." However, her eyes glittered with interest, as did Lestrade's.
"Come and take a look at the body. Molly, can you tell us about the autopsy report please?" Sherlock was nicer to Molly in recent days, since she had become more assertive, and John had started to notice the slight attention seeking behaviour Sherlock employed when he wanted to impress someone, being directed in the bright young pathologist's direction.
"Well, he wasn't one of mine, but Dr Antill has written it up. Cause of death, dislocated fracture of the cervical vertebrae at the atlanto-axial junction, consistent with a fall from a height. Also fractured his right clavicle and sustained a large haematoma to the right hip, presumably in the same fall. Otherwise not much else to find. Numerous small abrasions to hands, in various stages of healing - DIY enthusiast - including horizontal bruising across right second to fourth fingers, along the distal interphalangeal joints... oh, that's a bit weird..." she broke off, holding up the corpse's right hand. "Look how the nail beds are dented, yet there's not much bruising. I'd have thought this happened at the time of death. Funny sort of injury to have sustained in a fall."
"Well done, Molly! You've hit on the crucial piece of evidence I tried to draw Inspector Manning's attention to, but he was rather disinterested." Molly looked pinkly pleased, and Lestrade sceptical.
"So he trapped his fingers in something? Hardly seems a case for murder, Sherlock.". This was all part of the game. Lestrade was nothing if not astute, and he usually humoured the consulting detective during his fits of showboating, speaking the lines of the irrevocably dense plod.
Sherlock's eyes were shining, and he rubbed his hands together gleefully. "Follow me."
He led the way into Molly's office. A lab stool stood next to the wall. He drew a pair of suede gardening gloves out of the paper bag from the hardware shop with a flourish, like a magician producing a rabbit from the hat. He then toed his shoes off and climbed up onto the lab stool.
"So Bowers is balanced precariously on top of his too-short ladder, like so. He wanted to get to the down-pipe, but he can't get the ladder directly underneath it, as the base has a concrete box around it, and there's a flower bed, planted by his wife, I would imagine, around that.
"He's therefore leaning off balance, groping above his head at full stretch into the guttering..." he demonstrated this, reaching towards the water pipes that ran along the ceiling...
There was a sharp snap! and Sherlock fell off the stool with a distinctly unmanly shriek, which Molly promptly echoed in startlement.
He continued squawking after he hit the ground, then attempted to leap to his feet wailing "Agh! AAAGH! GET IT OFF! JOHN, GET IT OFF ME!".
He was flailing his arm around, and John noticed what appeared to be a giant mouse-trap clamped onto his fingers. Lestrade and John both leapt forward, and Lestrade held the arm still while John inserted his closed penknife flat side down into the gap between bar and fingers, and rotated it so the bar lifted - it took a lot of force - and Sherlock was able to pull his fingers free. He collapsed against the wall, whimpering, clutching his hand protectively to his chest, moaning, sweating and swearing.
"It hurts! JOHN! IT HURTS!"
"Of course it bloody hurts, you great idiot! It's designed to break rats' spines. What did you expect?"
"For it to hurt a bit! Not this much! Owwwww!"
John went to coax the glove off Sherlock's hand. There was a deep depression in the fabric, and blood had already stained through it. He keened as the doctor drew it off, revealing badly crushed fingers, the nails lifting off two of them, and one clearly broken. They were already purple and swollen to twice their normal size.
Molly and Sally had been making accompanying noises of sympathetic shock throughout, Sally's admirably contrived, and now Molly swung into action.
"Here, Sherlock, run your fingers under the cold tap." He was standing right by the sink, and before John had time to protest, she had dragged his hand underneath, and turned the tap on full. The water gushed out under typical NHS excessive pressure, causing Sherlock's squawks to redouble at the further assault to the tender flesh.
"IDIOT!" he roared at her, causing her to retort:
"I'm an idiot? I'm not the one who deliberately shoved his fingers into a rat trap to prove a point!"
"I didn't expect it to cause so much damage - Bowers isn't badly bruised!"
"Well, he died before he had much time to, didn't he? Come on, Sherlock, you're the one who's supposed to know about post mortem bruising! Plus look at his fat, callused, DIY fingers, not like your spindly spidery ones."
Sherlock stared fixedly ahead for a moment. He then announced:
"Bowers' gloves showed similar marks to mine. Although with much less blood."
He then abruptly turned and was violently sick in the sink. John buried his exasperation, and went to put an arm around his friend's heaving shoulders.
"Molly, could you fetch some ice, please, and a clean towel, and a glass of water?" Molly bustled off, while Sherlock spat miserably into the sink.
"I'll get the water", volunteered Sally hastily, taking the opportunity to leave the room. She probably thought she was being discreet, but her peals of laughter were just audible as her footsteps receded down the corridor. John felt the stiffening of the shoulders under his hold, and saw the wobbling lip rapidly stilled. He was torn between his own urge to laugh, and being sorry for the massive dent his friend's ego and fingers had been dealt.
When Molly returned with the towel and ice, John wrapped the ice in the towel and gently bound it round the damaged fingers as Sherlock drew in his breath through his teeth and tried not to hyperventilate.
"I think I've broken my big toe, too, falling off the stool. It caught under me." He glared at Molly. "I can't believe I took my shoes off just to protect your bloody furniture - my toe would've been fine if I'd kept them on.". Molly clearly wasn't sure how to respond to this, and was fighting back her own attack of the giggles. John politely yet firmly asked for another towel and more ice. Lestrade, behaving rather more more helpfully, brought two chairs through, ushering Sherlock into the first, and putting the other in place for him to rest his foot on.
John cut off his sock with the scissors from his penknife, and confirmed that the big toe was indeed broken and purple.
"We'll need to get you to A&E - you could do with a regional anaesthetic block and some stitches. It'll just be strapping and analgesia for the rest, and probably some antibiotics, as God knows where that barbaric thing's been - and it's almost cut through to the bone. I'm sure they'll let me sneak in and do it all - I've done them enough favours with locum work. I suppose you'll want to amaze us all with the murder details first?"
It was a rather subdued, anticlimactic denouement in the end. Sherlock explained about the ladder, the indentations, the trainers, the alibi, the Venus de Milo back-up club. How he had "seen" Mrs Bowers' email account, and noted that she had brought the same model of rat trap he had purchased from the dodgy hardware shop, and must have placed it in the guttering the night before. How she must have snatched the trap up and concealed it as Mrs Jam and Jerusalem made her slow way outside. How he found the trap sitting on the shelf in the shed.
"Shouldn't stand up to a proper police investigation, but she'd have been fine if nobody had looked too closely. There's bound to be traces on the trap, and hopefully prints. Check for cat blood too, and the vet records - she tried it out on her poor cat first.
"Awwww!" cried Molly, appalled, clearly much more upset by the cat's injuries than Sherlock's.
By now, the detective was looking particularly pathetic, clutching his wrist to his chest, and Molly's attitude seemed to complete the process of crushing him. Lestrade and Donovan left to see to Mrs Bowers. John helped Sherlock hobble to A&E, where he patched up the injuries, then bundled the woebegone figure into a taxi and home.
The detective grumbled and moaned as he limped up the stairs, then gingerly lowered himself on to the sofa. John went to make tea. When he carried two steaming mugs back through, Sherlock was making some strange, sniffing sounds. Glancing down, John saw he had turned his face to the sofa, and was surreptitiously swatting at his eyes with his cuff. Plainly, the embarrassment had hurt, as, of course, had the pain. Despite his pronounced disdain for other people in general, John knew Sherlock burned for approval, and in front of four of the people in the world he most liked to impress, he had nosedived in spectacular style, literally and figuratively.
"You know", said John, kindly, "they may have thought it was funny - and that's only because you weren't too badly hurt, mind - but they'll all still think it was brilliant."
Sherlock sniffed a little more, and, when John draped an arm around his shoulders again, buried his face into the doctor's shoulder. John soothingly stroked his hair, and they stayed like that for a while.
"Thanks, John".
"You're welcome".
A pause.
"I was a bit of an idiot, wasn't I?"
"Absolutely."
"Got a bit carried away. Should have thought things through."
"I think that's fair."
"I suppose there was a funny side to it."
"Yes, yes, I can see why some people might think so."
"Thanks for not laughing at the time. I think I had a bit of a sense of humour failure."
"That would be the crushed fingers and broken toe - tends to have that effect." Not to mention having the haughty disposition of a wronged Siamese cat, he thought privately, rather pleased with his almost poetic metaphor. Then he wondered if Sherlock had read his (too readable) face and deduced his internal monologue. He regarded his friend slightly warily.
"Mm." was the only response.
Another long pause, then Sherlock gave a snort.
Then started to giggle.
Tentatively, John joined in, which made his flatmate laugh harder, which set John off further. Before too long, they were clinging to each other, completely hysterical.
"None of you lot are ever going to let me live this down, are you?" wheezed Sherlock, eventually.
"Nope. But on the plus side, you have plenty of time to compose the appropriate biting retorts."
Suddenly happy, Sherlock leaned back in his chair, grinning. Before John, he'd never have coped with this sort of humiliation; now, he had just proven he could laugh it off. A whole new talent; remarkable. One that might considerably improve his life. Not to mention John would probably pamper him, what with his poor broken toe and fingers and all.
Perhaps he should be an idiot more often.
-oOo-
I do love being mean to Sherlock – if only to make it all better again! Bit of light relief for me from The Hay Wain, but I'm cracking on with that nicely too, if anyone was wondering… that should have a new chapter up soon.
A little review please?
Also, if any of you have any ludicrous-injury scenarios you'd like writing, let me know! I have one or two up my sleeve already, but would love to do requests….