A Wife for Sherlock Holmes

Chapter 31 – The Truth Will Out

Moon was half full in the night sky.

Mary was walking along a road toward Leinster Gardens. It was an expensive-looking area, with a long terrace of four-storey white-plastered Edwardian buildings lining the road. A homeless person was squatting with his back to the wall at the corner of the road. He had the hood of his jacket pulled over his head, a blanket wrapped around him, and a white plastic tub was on the ground in front of him.

"Spare any change, love?" The man asked.

"No." Mary said not stopping.

"Oh, come on, love. Don't be like all the rest."

She stopped, turning back to him, then took a handful of loose change from her coat pocket, bent down and dropped the coins into the tub. Before she could fully straighten up or withdraw her hand, he took hold of her wrist and looked up at her.

It was Bill Wiggins.

"Rule One of looking for Sherlock 'olmes ..." He put a phone and a headset into her hand. "'e finds you." He stood, picking up his tub.

"You're working for Sherlock now." She asked.

"Keeps me off the streets, dunnit?"

"Well ... no." She said shaking her head. She shrugged at him. The phone in her hand started to ring. As she put the headset into her ear, Bill turned and walked away.

She answered the phone. "Where are you?"

"Can't you see me?" Sherlock asked on the phone.

"Well, what am I looking for?"

"The lie… "the lie of Leinster Gardens" hidden in plain sight." He continued.

Stepping a few feet into the road so that she could get a better view of the tall houses, she continued along the road while looking at the house fronts. There was nobody else in the street and no cars were driving along it.

"Hardly anyone notices. People live here for years and never see it, but if you are what I think you are, it'll take you less than a minute." He continued on the phone. She continued to walk slowly along the road. "The houses, Mary. Look at the houses."

"How did you know I'd come here?"

"I knew you'd talk to the people no one else would bother with." He paused. "Like my own wife, you will talk to those who actually matter."

Mary laughed a little. "I thought I was being clever."

Sherlock coughed a little and then continued. "You're always clever, Mary. I was relying on that. I planted the information for you to find."

She slowed down, looking at a couple of adjoining houses in the middle of the terrace. "Ohh." She said her voice impressed. She stopped and turned to face the two houses which have caught her attention. Although there was no light shining from any of the windows, unlike the others on either side, the houses otherwise looked similar to the rest of the terrace.

"Thirty seconds." Sherlock said. "Took Marion the same amount of time."

"What am I looking at?"

"No door knobs, no letter box ..." He said. She looked toward the two front doors to confirm this, then raised her eyes to the windows in which the glass was opaque. "... painted windows. Twenty-three and twenty-four Leinster Gardens ..." He paused and sighs gently. "... the empty houses." He took a breath. "They were demolished years ago to make way for the London Underground, a vent for the old steam trains." There was a pause before he continued. "Only the very front section of the house remains. It's just a facade." He drew in a breath. "Remind you of anyone, Mary? A facade."

At that moment a picture was projected onto the front of the two houses. Three stories high, stretching from the first floor to the third, it was a photograph of Mary. The picture, obviously taken on her wedding day, was a head shot only and showed her wearing her headdress with the white veil surrounding her head as she smiled happily at the camera. A candid shot that Marion had captured in the bridal room.

Mary turned and looked behind her, trying to see where the picture was being projected from.

"Sorry. I never could resist a touch of drama." He said softly. She turned back and looked at her image on the houses. "Do come in. It's a little cramped.

Mary walked toward the door. "Do you own this place?"

"Mmm. I won it in a card game with the Clarence House Cannibal." One of the two adjacent front doors was slightly ajar and there was light behind it. She walked towards that door. "Nearly cost me my kidneys, but fortunately I had a ..." He drew in a breath. "... straight flush."

Mary pushed the door open and looked inside. On the wall inside the door was an empty socket for a large electric plug and beside it was a fuse box.

"Quite a gambler, that woman." Sherlock continued.

Mary walked inside. All that remains of the house was a long narrow corridor running along the front of the house. She looked back behind her for a moment and then focused on the corridor. It was lit at her end, and at the other end a bright light shone towards her, obscuring her view of the far end, but she could just about see a shape sitting on a chair in the shadows under the light. She stared at the shape and drew in a breath. "What do you want, Sherlock?"

"Mary Morstan was stillborn in October 1972. Her gravestone is in Chiswick Cemetery where five years ago you acquired her name and date of birth and thereafter her identity." Sherlock said. She started walking slowly along the corridor. "That's why you don't have "friends" from before that date." He paused. Mary continued to walk slowly along the corridor. "It's an old enough technique, known to the kinds of people who can recognize a skip-code on sight ..." He paused again.

She reflected on that. She was still walking towards the seated figure she can now see a little better as it sat on the chair at the end of the corridor, although the face was still obscured in shadow. The medical drip was on a stand behind the chair and the recognizable shape of the morphine dispenser could be seen attached to the stand. Water dripped beside the form.

"... have extraordinarily retentive memories ..." He continued.

Mary had stopped about halfway along the corridor.

"You were very slow." She said.

"How good a shot are you?" He asked.

She reached inside her coat, pulled out her pistol and cocked it, holding it down by her side. "How badly do you want to find out?"

"If I die here, my body will be found in a building with your face projected on the front of it. Even Scotland Yard could get somewhere with that."

She nodded her agreement, still looking towards the shadowed figure at the end of the corridor. She could see one side of the popped coat collar protruding out of the shadows.

"I want to know how good you are." He paused then said softly, but with an encouraging note."Go on. Show me. The doctor's wife must be a little bit bored by now."

Shifting her pistol in her grip, Mary looked down and reached into her shoulder bag and took out a fifty pence coin. Balancing it on her thumb and forefinger, she looked up to gauge the height of the ceiling, then flicked the coin high into the air, raised the gun and fired at it. The ejected shell pinged off the wall in front of her and she turned and lowered her head to avoid the coin as it fell down to the floor. She turned to look at the shadowed figure.

Behind her a shadow appeared on the wall as someone walked through the open front door. The shadow was instantly recognizable as Sherlock's with its curly hair and popped collar, and now he lowered his phone from his ear and switched it off as he walks toward her. "May I see?"

Mary peered toward the shadowy figure sitting at the end of the corridor, then lowered her head and turned to Sherlock, laughing quietly. "It's a dummy." She took the headset from her ear. "I suppose it was a fairly obvious trick." She walked a few paces forward, put her foot against the coin and sent it sliding across the floor toward him.

Sherlock put his foot onto it to stop it. He looked at her as she continued her slow walk toward him, then bent down and picked up the coin. When he straightened up and spoke, his voice was tight with pain. "And yet, over a distance of six feet, you failed to make a kill shot." He looked like hell as he held the coin up to show the hole shot in it. He was shaky on his feet and he was sweating. He breathed heavily as he continued talking. "Enough to hospitalize me; not enough to kill me. That wasn't a miss." He smiled slightly. "That was surgery."

Mary met his gaze for a moment and then lowered her eyes.

"I'll take the case." He said.

"What case?"

"Yours." He looked at her and then in a slightly angry tone he spoke again. "Why didn't you come to me in the first place?"

"Because John can't ever know that I lied to him. It would break him and I would lose him forever...and, Sherlock, I will never let that happen."

He turned as if to walk away.

She took a step toward him. "Please ..." He turned back to her. "... understand. There is nothing in this world that I would not do to stop that happening."

"Sorry." He said turning away. He walked to the fuse box and put his hand onto one of the switches before looking back toward her. "Not that obvious a trick."

He flicked the switch and all the lights come on along the corridor. Mary's face filled with dread as if she has realized the truth. Lowering her eyes and letting out a breath, she turned to look along the corridor to where the figure at the end can now be seen clearly. She gasped. Her husband was sitting on the chair, looking back at her with no expression in his eyes. His hair was ruffled to make it look bigger and he was wearing a black jacket with the collar popped.

Slowly he stood up and began to stroke his hair back down.

"Now talk, and sort it out. Do it quickly." Sherlock said.

John took hold of his coat and pulled it wide, shaking the collar down before settling it back onto his shoulders. Mary let out an anguished sigh as he slowly started to walk toward her and then stopped several feet away.

"Baker Street. Now." Sherlock said. He walked away but Mary continued to stare at her husband, her face anguished. After a moment John walked forward, his eyes fixed on her and his teeth slightly bared. He kept going and walked past her.

She drew in a sharp breath, apparently fighting off tears.

ZzZ

They all took a taxi, sitting in uncomfortable silence as they went to 221B Baker Street.

John opened the door of the living room at 221B and walked in, sighing quietly. Mary followed him more slowly up the stairs, with Sherlock behind her. John took off his jacket and dropped it onto the dining table.

Mrs. Hudson was in the kitchen, but now hurries toward him worriedly. "John."

Mary walked through the door, Sherlock following slowly with his head lowered and bracing himself on the banister. "Mary!"

Mary gave her a small smile and walked towards the fireplace while John stood by the dining table with his hands on his hips.

Sherlock hobbled to the doorway and stopped there, bracing himself with one hand on the edge of the open door. "Oh, Sherlock! Oh, good gracious, you look terrible." Mrs. Hudson said in shock at seeing him.

"Get me some morphine from your kitchen. I've run out." He demanded.

"I don't have any morphine!"

"Then what exactly is the point of you?" He asked angrily.

She pressed her lips together for a moment and then looked round at everyone. "What is going on?"

"Bloody good question." John said.

Sherlock looked at John. "The Watsons are about to have a domestic, and fairly quickly, I hope, because we've got work to do."

"Oh, I have a better question." He paced toward Mary, looking angrily into her face. "Is everyone I've ever met a psychopath?"

At the door, Sherlock's eyes lifted upwards as if he was thinking. "Yes." He said after a moment.

Mary gave a tiny nod of agreement, pursing her lips.

"Good that we've settled that. Anyway, we ..." Sherlock started, but John turned and cut him off.

"SHUT UP!"

Mrs. Hudson jumped at the loudness of his cry and put one hand to her mouth. "Oh!"

John's voice returned to normal. "And stay shut up, because this is not funny." He gave Sherlock an angry humorless smile. "Not this time."

"I didn't say it was funny." Sherlock protested.

John turned his head to look at Mary."You." He turned to face her. When he spoke, his voice and his face are full of barely-controlled anger and he frequently breathed heavily throughout his next words. "What have I ever done ... hmm? ... my whole life ... to deserve you?"

Sherlock leaned a little more on the post. "Everything."

John turned back to him. "Sherlock, I've told you ..." He walked toward him. "... shut up."

"Oh, I mean it, seriously. Everything…everything you've ever done is what you did." Sherlock said softly.

John's voice turned soft and dangerous. "Sherlock, one more word and you will not need morphine."

"You were a doctor who went to war." Sherlock continued in his soft tone. John's eyes were fixed on him and he was breathing rapidly and deeply. "You're a man who couldn't stay in the suburbs for more than a month without storming a crack den and beating up a junkie. Your best friend is a sociopath who solves crimes as an alternative to getting high." He paused for a moment. "That's me, by the way." He raised his left hand and waved at him. "Hello." He pointed toward Mrs. Hudson. "Even the landlady used to run a drug cartel."

"It was my husband's cartel. I was just typing." Mrs. Hudson protested.

Sherlock looked pointedly at her. "And exotic dancing."

"Sherlock Holmes, if you've been Youtube-ing ..."

Sherlock took a breath and spoke louder and over her. "John, you are addicted to a certain lifestyle. You're abnormally attracted to dangerous situations and people ..." His voice became quieter again. "... so is it truly such a surprise that the woman you've fallen in love with conforms to that pattern?"

John grimaced briefly and then, with his eyes still fixed on Sherlock, he pointed towards his wife at the other side of the room. "But she wasn't supposed to be like that." He said in a voice with barely containing tears.

Mrs. Hudson looked across to Mary in shock. Mary lowered her head.

"Why is she like that?" John asked pointing at her.

Sherlock looked away toward the sofa wall for several seconds and then turned to look directly into John's eyes. "Because you chose her."

John stared back at him, his face unreadable. Sherlock held his gaze.

Finally John turned away, speaking conversationally. "Why is everything ..." He walked toward the dining table, holding up a questioning hand and shrugging. "... always ..." His voice raised to a loud shout. "... MY FAULT?!" He furiously kicked one of the dining chairs across the floor.

Mrs. Hudson jumped and flailed. Even Sherlock jumped a little, but Mary remained still. "Oh, the neighbors!" She hurried away.

John turned to face Mary again, breathing heavily.

"John, listen. Be calm and answer me." Sherlock said softly. He then spoke slowly and precisely. "What is she?"

John looked at Mary, his eyes blinking rapidly. "My lying wife?"

"No. What is she?"

John was still looking at Mary. "And the woman who's carrying my child who has lied to me since the day I met her?"

She gazed back at him.

"No. Not in this flat; not in this room. Right here, right now, what is she?" Sherlock asked again.

John had a small fixed humorless smile on his face as his eyes remain locked on his wife. His head was low on his neck and he looked murderous. After a long moment he sniffed deeply and harshly. "Okay." He turned briefly toward Sherlock and then back to Mary. "Your way." He said over his shoulder to Sherlock. He looked at Mary for another second and then half-turned to Sherlock. "Always your way."

Sherlock lowered his head and looked away.

John turned, clearing his throat and then picked up one of the dining chairs and put it down facing the two armchairs and the fireplace. He looked at Mary. "Sit."

"Why?" She asked.

John spoke in a tight whisper. "Because that's where they sit." He straightened up, still speaking in the same tight voice, but a little louder. "... the people who come in here with their stories. Th-the clients…that's all you are now, Mary. You're a client. This is where you sit and talk ..." He gestured towards the armchairs. "... and this is where we sit and listen, then we decide if we want you or not." Sniffing, he walked over to his chair and sat down, clearing his throat and adjusting the cushion behind his back.

After a moment, Sherlock walked forward and crossing the room. Pausing briefly in front of Mary to meet her eyes and he gave her a tiny nod, he turned and sat down in his own chair. Mary watched him as he sat and then looked across to John, who had slumped back into his chair and was not meeting her eyes. She slowly walked in between them and turned round to sit down on the dining chair, putting her shoulder bag onto the floor beside her. She adjusted her coat around her, dusted off the tops of her legs, tugging the lower part of her trousers down a little on both legs and then turned her head to John as he looked back at her.

It was then that Marion arrived.

She was a little out of breath and she looked at the scene before her. The three were sitting uncomfortably and she blinked. She walked to Mary and then touched her shoulder. "They know?" She asked softly.

"Yes." Mary said.

Marion nodded slowly and sighed standing behind her friend.

Sherlock looked up at his wife startled. "How did you know?" He asked.

She gave a small smile. "You look like hell."

"I will be better when this is over." He said.

"I should hope so." Marion nodded.

Sherlock looked between the two women. "You two have known each other from before." He said.

Marion looked down at Mary and then nodded. "Yes."

Mary took a breath. "Marion has many skills. Far more than I have and that is saying something." She said looking up at her friend and taking her hand at her shoulder. "She saved my life once." She sighed looking back at the men. "She was the whole reason I was able to get to Magnussen."

"She was at dinner with Lord Alexander." Sherlock said.

"Yes." Marion agreed. "But I have many things up my sleeve Sherlock." She looked at him. "Magnussen is not a good man."

Sherlock blinked. "And so you decided to remove him."

Both women nodded.

Sitting on the dining chair in front of Sherlock and John, Mary put what looks like a pen drive onto the table at the side of John's chair and then withdrew her hand. Sherlock, his face in a grimace as if he was in pain, zoomed in on the drive and the letters written on the side of it.

"'A.G.R.A.' What's that?" Sherlock asked.

Mary looked from him to John and cleared her throat. "Er ... my initials."

John grimaced and looked away.

Sherlock looked down and then glanced towards him.

"Everything about who I was is on there." She then spoke directly to John. "If you love me, don't read it in front of me."

"Why?" John asked.

Mary was trying to hold back tears. "Because you won't love me when you've finished ..." John held her gaze. "... and I don't want to see that happen." She looked down. Marion patted her shoulder to comfort her.

With a loud sigh John snatched the drive from the table, looked briefly across to Sherlock and then shoved the drive into his left trouser pocket. Sniffing, he pulled himself into a higher sitting position on his chair.

Mary looked across to Sherlock. "How much d'you know already?"

Sherlock spoke quietly. "By your skill set, you are...or were…an intelligence agent. Your accent is currently English but I suspect you are not. You're on the run from something; you've used your skills to disappear; ..." He looked up at his wife then. "You also have a similar skill set. You live in a world of half truths." He paused. "It is why you both are so adaptable isn't it."

"My love for my family and friends is not a half truth." Marion said. "But yes. As Miriam, I was also not a good person." She sighed. "Much of that I have buried, but then Mary came back into my life…" She sighed. "And we had a similar problem."

John shook his head as if he could not believe what he was hearing from either woman.

"... Magnussen knows your secrets, which is why you were going to kill him; and I assume you befriended Janine ..." He grimaced, shifting uncomfortably on his chair. "... in order to get close to him."

"Oh…you can talk!" Mary said.

He smiled at her.

"Ohhh. Look at you two." Not raising his hands from the arms of his chair, he pointed his index fingers at each of them. "You should have got married."

Marion looked at him. "You aren't being fair." She took a breath. "I know you are angry and hurt, but John please…listen. We did not want to hurt you, either of you."

Mary turned to look at him, and Sherlock blinked a couple of times.

"The stuff Magnussen has on me, I would go to prison for the rest of my life."

"So you were just gonna kill him." John asked.

"People like Magnussen should be killed. That's why there are people like me." She looked back at Marion. "Like us." She looked back at John. "He has things on Marion that if released would serve her on a silver platter to people who would see her dead in days."

John lifted his left hand and gently punching the arm of the chair. "Perfect! So that's what you were? An assassin?" He looked toward Sherlock. "How could I not see that?" He turned back toward Mary.

"You did see that." She said.

John's humorless and slightly murderous smile was back on his face.

Mary paused. "... and you married me." She paused again and then tilted her head towards Sherlock. "Because he's right."

Sherlock looked down a little, unusually not looking pleased about being correct.

"It's what you like." She said softly to John.

John looked back at her stony-faced. She held his gaze for a moment and then lowered her eyes.

"So ... Mary ..." He grimaced again. "... any documents that Magnussen has concerning yourself, you want ..." He grimaced yet again, his voice tight as if with physical pain. "... extracted and returned." He looked to his own wife. "And those you…"

"Why would you help me?" She looked at him. "I mean I understand helping your wife and mother of your children…but why me?" She paused. "Although you were getting a divorce…"

Marion took a breath. "Because you are my best friend and his best friend's wife."

"Because ... you saved my life." Sherlock corrected.

"Sor-sorry, what?" John asked.

"When I happened on you and Magnussen ..." Sherlock looked at Mary. He took a couple of noisy, strained breaths, bracing his hands on the arms of his chair. "... you had a problem." He paused. "More specifically, you had a witness." Sherlock looked at her. "The solution, of course, was simple. Kill us both and leave." He narrowed his eyes. "However, sentiment got the better of you. You could not kill your husband's best friend and you could not kill someone you owed your life to's husband…" He cocked his head. "One precisely-calculated shot to incapacitate me ..." He swallowed rapidly. "... in the hope that it would bide you more time to negotiate my silence." He looked up at Marion who was standing backwards a little. "Of course, you couldn't shoot Magnussen." He looked towards John. "On the night that both of us broke into the building, your own husband would become a suspect, so ..." He looked down and then back up again. "... you calculated ... that Magnussen ... would use the fact of your involvement rather than sharing the information with the police ... as is his M.O." He coughed and gasped a little in pain. "... and then you left the way you came." He looked to Marion. "Which I now assume had something to do with my wife's help." He looked from Mary and back to Marion who stood with her arms folded on her chest now.

Mary's gaze was lowered, but now she raised it to him.

John was looking towards him with a grim expression on his face and then turned his eyes toward his wife.

Sherlock looked at Mary again. "Have I missed anything?"

"How did she save your life?" John asked.

"She phoned the ambulance."

"I phoned the ambulance."

"She phoned first."

Approaching sirens could be heard.

"You didn't find me for another five minutes. Left to you, I would have died. The average arrival time for a London ambulance is ..." Sherlock said. He lifted his left hand and looked at his watch as the clatter of feet could be heard on the stairs.

Two paramedics ran into the room. "Did somebody call an ambulance?"

John stood up, looking at them in confusion.

"... eight minutes." Sherlock said. Breathing heavily and with his left hand still raised, he looked toward the paramedics. "Did you bring any morphine? I asked on the phone."

"We were told there was a shooting." The paramedic said confused.

"There was, last week ..." Sherlock said. He was holding his left wrist with his right hand, his fingers on his pulse point. He took a sharp breath. "... but I believe I'm bleeding internally and my pulse is very erratic." He put his hands on the arms of the chair and started to push himself upwards. "You may need to re-start my heart on the way." His voice jolted on the word 'heart' and his knees buckled.

John and Mary hurried forward and each of them took hold of an upper arm to support him. The paramedics ran toward them.

"Come on, Sherlock. Come on, Sherlock." John said forgetting what was happening a moment for the sake of his friend.

Sherlock groaned and grabbed at him, clinging to his shoulder.

Mary stepped back out of the way of the paramedics. Marion gasped wanting to help, but not wanting to be in the way either.

"John?" The paramedics put their bags down on the floor near him and took hold of him, supporting his weight, but he ignored them and stares intensely at his friend. "John...Magnussen is all that matters now. You can trust Mary. She saved my life."

"She shot you." He looked up and saw Marion moving from where she had been standing with Mary.

Sherlock pulled a face, half-nodding his agreement. "Er, mixed messages, I grant you." He looked at Marion who had moved closer to him. "I love you." He murmured. He grimaced, crying out in pain, and started to fall. John and the paramedics started to lower him to the floor.

"Sherlock? Sherlock." John said trying to calm his friend. He looked to the paramedics. "All right, take him."

Sherlock cried out again.

John released him, watching the paramedics. "Got him?"

They laid Sherlock down as he groaned and whimpered.

John straightened and looked down in concern as one of the paramedics got out an oxygen mask. As they continue working, John looked across to Mary, breathing heavily and with his teeth slightly bared.

Marion looked at John. "John…trust us. Please." She said.

"Go with him…" John said. He looked at her suddenly and took her arm. "Why the sudden concern?"

"Because I care John…I care. I am not a heartless bitch and neither is Mary." She looked at her friend.

He sighed and nodded. "I will see you at the hospital later."

Marion nodded and took Sherlock's hand. "Sherlock…you listen to me." She said as they moved toward the stairway. "You aren't going to die on me and the children…"

He grimaced and nodded. "I love you." He whispered as he closed his eyes.

She looked at him and then back at the other two. "I know." She said. "I know."