Chapter 5: In Which Sherlock is Pleased With his own Cleverness
Another long car ride led to an imposing manor. Sholto swept out of the car, with Sherlock, John, and Mary behind him. The old house, all grey granite, loomed up large in front of them, lights blazing from all the windows. The once lovely lawn was full of holes, which were visible in the light spilling out on all sides. John glanced at the holes and whispered to Mary: "Treasure-hunters." She nodded, and grasped his hand, saying, "This place would actually be less creepy all in flames, with an insane Mrs. Rochester dancing on the roof." John smiled at her comment, and at her hand in his.
A woman ran out the front door, followed by two men who were clearly the bodyguards Bartholomew Sholto had kept on after his father's death. The housekeeper was upset: "Mr. Thaddeus, we're so glad you're here. It's your brother, hurry!"
Thaddeus Sholto didn't hurry well, but Sherlock was off, bounding up the stairs. John squeezed Mary's hand, then followed. The housekeeper pointed the way, and the two men stopped in front of a closed door at the top of the house.
"Here?" John asked.
Sherlock nodded. "It's the only locked door in the house."
They put their shoulders to it and stove in the door, revealing a gruesome scene. A man lay contorted on the floor, his body twisted half out of his chair. The ceiling had been broken through, and the plaster covered the floor and the room's smashed and broken furnishings in a fine white powder. Mary stopped at the head of the stairs, her face all surprise; the housekeeper behind her gasped, "Mr. Bartholomew!" Thaddeus Sholto was still toiling up the stairs. Sherlock grinned at John, who glanced behind him.
"Mary, you should stay out there," John said. She nodded silently, never taking her eyes off the body.
The housekeeper began to cry, and Mary turned to her. "Let's take you downstairs. You can make me some tea and we can talk. Then," - she raised her voice and half-turned back to John and Sherlock - "after twenty minutes or so, we can call the police."
Sherlock lifted his eyebrows appreciatively at that, and glanced across the body at John. John glanced at Sherlock, then back to the body. "Twenty minutes then."
Left alone, Sherlock and John focused on the crime scene.
"Well, John, what do you see?"
"Clearly there was a struggle, but it looks like he's been poisoned."
Sherlock was walking around the room quickly, his face to the ground. "Small footprints here." He moved in to the body, examining it closely, sniffing the mouth, the fingers. He rocked back on his heels and looked up at John. "Well, how did he get the poison?" John gently examined the man's fingers, then leaned in to the face as Sherlock had. He looked up and shook his head. Sherlock grinned, pushed aside the man's hair, and pointed to the tiny puncture in the back of the man's neck.
"That's not an injection," John observed.
"It's not an injection," Sherlock confirmed. "It's a poisoned blow dart."
"A poisoned dart? You're serious. A poisoned blow dart? They fought, and he was shot with a poisoned dart. You're serious?"
"Eliminate the impossible, and what remains…" Sherlock moved around the room, tracing the struggle he saw. "Brother Bartholomew here didn't struggle at all. The … small-footed man, here" — and he paused at the long end of the room – "killed him. He dropped his kit!" Sherlock bent down and grabbed a small packet from under the broken side table. "No, the struggle was between the small-footed man and the One-Legged Man." Sherlock's eyes glittered at John.
"The One-Legged Man? The same one who killed Mary's father?"
Sherlock continued to move around the room: "Well, presumably. They were working together, but I think Brother Bartholomew was not supposed to die. Of course, we're still missing the treasure chest. It must have been up here ..."
Sherlock was already heaving himself through the hole in the ceiling. He turned around and reached down for John's hand. Once in the attic, John pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket, and ran it along the floor to show the beams. Sherlock hopped along the beams toward the furthest wall, where light glimmered: "Trapdoor!" he sang out, and leaned out over the roof.
John caught up with Sherlock and looked down: "Trapdoor to what? How does this help?"
Sherlock was on the roof in a moment, John scrambling after. The old slate roof was slippery, and the men hurried to keep from falling off. At the end of the flat section of the roof that covered the conservatory, Sherlock stood up, and turned around to John with a triumphant gesture, his hand sticky. "Roof-tar!"
Lestrade arrived at that moment, only to see Sherlock looming at the edge of the roof like a gargoyle. John made a small gesture of greeting; Lestrade sighed, and looked behind him at his team, whose voices drifted upward.
"How'd the Freak get here so fast?" asked Donovan.
"Why don't you jump?" yelled Anderson.
Lestrade shrugged, resigned, and stepped aside to usher his people into the house. Sherlock and John were dropping down through the ceiling into Bartholomew's room just as Lestrade made his way to the top of the stairs.
"Well?" asked Lestrade.
"No time to wait about here," said Sherlock. "He's taken off over country."
"Who?"
"The One-Legged Man. We must go."
Lestrade was firm. "No, you are going to explain to me what has happened, and how it is that you got here before I got a call, and why some American woman is stalling for you."
"Mary?" asked John.
"She's downstairs, interfering with my team. Where'd you find her, Sherlock?"
"She's not mine. Ask John." Sherlock flicked his hand in his friend's direction. "Do you want to know what happened, or not?"