Disclaimer: The characters of Sherlock are not mine, nor is the story, nor are the characters from the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I make no monetary profit from this.

The Seduction of John S. Willoughby

Part Twenty-Four

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about. At all. " John Willoughby ran an anxious hand through his hair. It was already a mess. And he'd already undone his bowtie, taken off his jacket, and undone the two top buttons of his dress shirt. He'd also already thrown up twice since he'd gotten to Mr. Milverton's house and seen the body; once in the office behind the sofa, which earned him a dirty look from the sour-faced bloke in the blue crime scene coveralls who came in after him, and again in the bathroom when he was trying to clean the sick off the front of his shirt.

It had already occurred to him, as his dinner was forcing its way back up his throat, that maybe jumping in a taxi in a mad rush to Mr. Milverton's house hadn't been one of his more brilliant ideas. He wasn't sure what he'd meant to do, really. But he was so used to jumping up and running when Mr. Milverton needed anything that he jumped up and ran now. And there was nothing he could do for Mr. Milverton this time. Anymore. Ever again. Except perhaps arrange the funeral. Oh God.

The thought left him giddy and light-headed, and the only thing that was perfectly clear right now was that he didn't want to be sick again because he didn't think he had anything left to throw up. And he really couldn't understand what the silver-haired detective inspector was saying to him, so he'd fallen back on the most basic instinct of a man being questioned by the law: deny everything.

"I'm only asking if Mister Milverton was going to meet anyone here tonight." The D.I. had been nice and remarkably patient for a man who'd had someone burst onto his crime scene shouting for Mr. Milverton and then been sick all over the place when Mr. Milverton had, in fact, been found. He'd gotten John off his knees and steered him to the bathroom and then out of the house to sit in the ambulance for a bit.

"I don't know. No. I'm sorry. It was just the party tonight. He even had a speech. Wrote it down and everything. Said he'd be back to say it." John gulped as he felt his stomach heave again. "He just said he needed something from the house, and that he'd – that he'd come back in time." He shuddered under the orange blanket the paramedics had draped around his shoulders. They said he was in shock, and he was inclined to agree with them.

"Just a couple more questions, Mister Willoughby, and then we'll let you go." The man waited for John to nod before going on. "Has Mister Milverton received any threats recently?"

"What? What? No!" John fidgeted uncomfortably. "Nothing serious, nothing out of the ordinary."

"Nothing out of the ordinary?"

"You know, unhappy fans, unhappy personalities, unhappy editors – people unhappy with his blog or his column. Mister Milverton, he doesn't – didn't – mince words. Um. There's an actress suing for libel" –he gave Lestrade her name– "but that's the usual stuff. You know how it is."

"I don't, actually," said Lestrade, taking this down in his notebook. "Were you aware that Charles Milverton was suspected of blackmail?"

"No." It came out as a squeak. John cleared his throat.

"You don't know about anything about that?" The question was more pointed now, with a definite talk-now-or-you'll-be-in-trouble-when-I-find-out edge.

"No!" And it was true, too. He didn't, strictly speaking, know anything. There were things Mr. Milverton didn't let him in on. Oh, he wasn't stupid, he'd seen papers for a bank account in the Cayman Islands for an Arthur Claudius Miller, he'd heard Mr. Milverton on the phone a couple of times about that, and he had a pretty shrewd suspicion about what he kept in that safe of his, but he didn't know anything, not for real. If he'd poked around, maybe he'd have found something, but he hadn't wanted to. "I don't. Please, I just want to go home, I'll answer questions tomorrow if you like, there're security cameras, we record the videos, they're there, take them. Please. I. Want. To go. Home." A thought occurred to him. "You're not arresting me, are you?"

"No, I'm not. There's nothing to arrest you for, Mister Willoughby, unless you count contaminating a crime a scene. Which I don't," he said pointedly, as John started to go pale. "Just one more thing. How many people have access to the house?"

"Mister Milverton. Me. Chris – that's the driver – doesn't have his own set of keys. The housekeeper doesn't either, I'm usually here when she comes to do for us, and if I'm not, I leave the key for her under a flower pot."

"And there's been nobody else?"

"Um. No?"

"Anybody who's done a bit of recent work on the house, maybe?"

"We had a plumber come to fix the kitchen sink…" John trailed off at the thought of Stephen Escott. Had he really been that worried that he couldn't contact the man? It still bothered him, of course it did, but it seemed so far away now.

"Yes?" prompted Lestrade.

"Nothing," said John. He laughed weakly. "I thought he was fit, that's all."

That was all the D.I. wanted, aside from where they could find the footage from the security cameras. John was told that he was probably going to be asked more questions later on, and he agreed, anything to make them to let him go already. He watched Lestrade go back inside the house. He'd heard them say that they'd found Chris in the back garden with a badly twisted ankle, and he wondered if they were going to talk to him next.

One of the medics asked him if he could manage getting home on his own. John started to say that he could, decided that no, he couldn't, and instead asked if he could sit there while he waited for someone to pick him up, he just had to give them a call, thank you so much.

He turned his phone over in his hands. The first person who came to mind was actually his brother, but he was vacationing in the south of France. What the hell. He figured he might as well give Stephen another try. He called from the mobile's contact list this time, because he might have been dialing from a wrong memory the entire night (though he was rather certain that he wasn't, but it would explain why his calls weren't being answered). No dice.

He counted to ten then tried again. This time someone picked up.

"Hello, St—Stan, yeah, hi." Stan Wilson. He was the entry in the phone book just before Stephen Escott. Oops. "It's me, John. Of course. Um. No, actually, I'm not doing okay. Mister Milverton – no, Stan, no, don't be like that – he's…he's been killed. Murdered. I'm not hurt, no, but – God, it's terrible. The police are here and everything. Yes, I'm at Mister Milverton's place. Haha, very funny. Um. I hate to ask you, I'm sorry, but could you…could you pick me up? Please? Oh God, thank you, you have no idea – yes, it's still the same place. I'll wait. See you. Thanks."