AN: Sorry for the delay everyone; real life took me on a ride for a while. And err I meant that literally... I was actually travelling on all modes of land transport for the majority of the last few weeks. So hopefully that excuses my tardiness.

Well anyway, this is a small part -3 of Chapter-10 and it will be later followed by one concluding part for this chapter. It is looking like this is going to be the longest chapter in the history of Chapters ever! Hehe

This chapter mostly contains the description of the crime scene. And I'm admittedly horrible in writing mystery; so please pardon me if you find any glaring logical loop holes in the case described below.

Non beta'ed and Non Brit-picked.

WARNING: Mentions of suicide.

CHAPTER-10

PART-3

When Sherly entered the house again, she noticed the looks on the people she did not notice earlier- part pity, part bewildered and part scared. And she would gladly accept that it was the last look she kind of enjoyed on their faces. Then in her peripheral vision she saw Anderson who was giving her a compassionate and commiserative look. And truth be told, that was one of the most horrible look she had ever received… Commiserative look from Anderson? God! She needed to delete that immediately!

Then well there was Lestrade standing near the doorway with an expectant look on his face. So she as usual ignored everybody's existence and went back to her element to explain the case to the ignorant masses. She started by asking in the general direction of the rest of the less intelligent population, "So why did you call me here? Is it to waste my time Lestrade? As you can see this case is certainly not worth my time."

In the background Lestrade may or may not have said, "I did not call you here! And certainly not for this case!" Which ofcourse Sherly ignored it as a part of the background noise just like the whirring of the fan and traffic outside and continued, "Well anyway you all are wasting your time, this certainly was not a murder as you idiots believe." She waited to the dramatic effect of her revelation to sink in. It always boosted her confidence...not that she needed it , but well a little bit of ego boost did not do anyone any harm, now did it?

Following that she continued with her routine which she really had missed for the past 3 and odd years... She said, "You people don't see do you? Hah! It proves my theory that you people lack brains because it has atrophied to that extent of non existence due to the lack of use!" Again in the background someone, most probably Lestrade was muttering some abusive word or the other in response to her taunts. Sherline therefore proceeded to move the show to climax without wasting further time. She regally walked towards the place where she had found the key evidence with the flourish of her coat. But when she bent to pick up the said evidence, which was the shirt of the dead person, it was missing! Sherline was furious; because it seemed these people were more idiotic than she thought and had actually destroyed the evidence!

When Sherline turned towards Lestrade so that she could give him a piece of her mind, he spoke hastily: "Before you insult the whole Met, just listen to me... If you were going to say something about the shirt, let me tell you that Anderson has already bagged it as evidence." After a small pause where everyone was granted their wish of a lifetime of seeing Sherline Holmes speechless, he continued, "Err he just said that you were staring at it for quite some time and hence he thought that it must be something important." And for a whole 3 seconds, Sherline thought that the world had actually tilted off its axis. Not that she actually remembered that it was on an axis or anything… But it's just sometimes some things are just so momentous that it couldn't be compared to anything sensible; like for example: Anderson actually using his brain! Well, if not for anybody, Sherline surely felt that way…

And then Anderson opened his mouth and everything came crashing back to normal for Sherline. Seriously she missed normal; well atleast what she considered normal that is. Because he said: "Yes ofcourse, I'm sure it will be a vital clue to solve this murder. I believe it will have the DNA of the murderer on them." He said it with a flourish, expecting praise from Sherline.

But since the world was back to normal and in normal world of Sherline such miracles rarely happened… She said: "How exceptionally wrong of you Anderson. Really, because if you are planning to follow my footsteps, then atleast follow it properly! Don't insult both of us by thinking you know what goes in my mind!" There was an unimportant, "What do you mean?" from the background, which she ignored completely and proceeded to unravel the mystery finally.

"That shirt indeed is the key evidence to this case. But the case in question is not a homicide but a case of well planned suicide gone wrong. He had planned to drug himself to death in a way it would mimic a heart attack. But he was not well versed neither into the pharmacology of the drug nor of the signs and symptoms of a cardiac arrest as he had failed to consider other side effects of the drug; especially excessive perspiration before the heart attack finally sets in and ofcourse the frothing of saliva. Because halfway through it he had realised that his clothing was soaking wet with sweat and removed it and threw it in general direction of the sofa, instead of calling for emergency services in those precious few minutes. And that is exactly why the shirt is vital clue as to why it is not a homicide."

Sherline took a moment to enjoy the stunned silence of the room. It was exhilarating to feel it after 3 and half years. It felt like she was alive again for real.

Then she continued her explanation because well John was not there to exclaim about her brilliance and the silence of the room was now grating on her nerves.

"Now if you idiots have gathered your wits, you may remember that the next question should be 'why?'. And if I am correct, which ofcourse I always am… I think it is done for scamming the insurance company."

And Lestrade when asked the predictable, "But why?"

Sherly replied in her usual sarcastic tone, "Seriously Lestrade why does anyone do the insurance scam ever?"

"So that a loved one can get the money immediately."

That was Anderson again. And this time Sherly admirably recovered from her shock earlier than expected. And again she reminded her brain to put a post-it note on her mind palace to delete the horror of this day as soon she got the time to sort it.

So Sherly in the meanwhile cleared her throat and said, "Ah yes that's right. So now the question is for whom and for what?" She then moved around to a table and pointed to the floor beneath it. When no one was giving any sign of recognition, she just huffed at their ignorance and proceeded to explain everything herself.

"What can you see here? No wait don't answer that. I have had enough of foolishness and horror for one day." She pointed to the floor and said, "If you see carefully, you can see multiple strands of long blond hair. Now considering the minimum amount of dust in the rest of the house, one could say that it is fairly cleaned almost every two days or so. But despite that there is abnormal amount of hair under the table, indicating that someone living here has a serious hair loss problem. Now alopecia* could be because of many reasons, but considering the pain killer bottles scattered poorly near all accessible surfaces combining with the red circles on the calendar at regular intervals, it could only mean that it is due to Chemotherapy. And considering the only photo that can be seen in this room corresponding to the said description, the said person is most probably is his wife."

Just when she was about to tell the rest of her conclusions regarding the case, a thirty something, blond haired female came barging into the house. Two officers who came running after her prevented her from touching the body, to prevent her from contaminating the evidence. She then collapsed nearby on the floor sobbing. Lestrade who was stunned by the whole scene, got his wits back and calmly asked her, "Ma'm can you please tell us who you are and what is your relation to the victim?" She replied that she was indeed the dead man's wife. And on further questioning she also confirmed Sherly's deduction that she was suffering from pancreatic cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy for it and that it was a costly affair.

Lestrade then explained to her what her husband had done for her and how horribly wrong it had gone. He actually didn't know whether to feel happy that his scam had failed or sad considering why he did that in the first place and that now he had lost his life for nothing.

The wife, Kathy, sobbed to the dead husband saying, "God! Why Ron? Why did you do something like this? You know I'm in an advanced stage and even if I do all the scheduled Chemo sessions, it is not going to cure me. Then why? God Why?"

The heart wrenching scene had made almost everyone who was present there's eyes moist and some even commenting that this showed that true love still existed in this world... But Sherly did not actually understand how the man's stupidity in thinking that he could fool the insurance company and give his dying wife money for now albeit useless therapy sessions, was a testament of true love and not a testament of utter stupidity.

But Sherly also did not know that all through time she heard the wailing of the woman, she had unknowingly been pressing a hand delicately on her stomach as if to shield the baby from the sadness of the world outside…

Alopecia*- Medical term for hair loss

AN: I just want to share a small random incident that happened last week, which seeing that this is almost a kid-fic, may be relevant in some vague way to this story.

So okay, while I was travelling on train sometime last week, there was one tiny little boy of around 2 and half years old sitting next to me. And after some time another kiddo of approximately same age, who was loitering around freely after having escaped the clutches of his parents came running next to the kiddo sitting next to me and started communicating in the most weirdest language I and everyone else sitting next to me including the first one's parents have ever heard- It was a new Laughter language! Yep! They both were communicating in various degrees of loud boisterous laughter interspersed with few words in different languages! It was so amusing to see that these two little sweet hearts even though did not understand each other's language still communicated in some way and became thick as thieves playing around the compartment by the time it was to get down. It was needless to say a truly adorable sight.

Okay that's it. Like I said random but well it inspired me to write the last line in this part. :)

Well your thoughts? And yeah language surely is not a problem! :) Feel free to comment in any language you like because hey why else did they create all those Translation apps for? :D

And yeah, I'm sorry to say that from now on updates will be a little irregular owing to the sad demise of my fun filled holidays. :( :P

PS: For the past few weeks I have seen that there is lots more traffic to this story for some unknown reason which I can't seem to put a finger upon. So well whatever the reason may be, I just wanted to say that I'm extremely happy to see that more and more people are reading this fic. So thank you to all you dearies out there! *hugs* :)