John's "date," it turned out, was with a Mrs. Jenny Dorset, the victim's grieving widow. When John had first heard Sherlock's plan, which essentially boiled down to "John flirts with the widow under the pretense of checking on her while Sherlock searches the rest of the house," he had been skeptical, and just a little queasy. Grieving widows were generally off-limits. But it turned out that Jenny Dorset didn't subscribe to the traditional method of grieving. Some people cried; some ate; others were stoic. Jenny Dorset looked for a replacement. It wasn't that she hadn't loved her husband; she had, dearly. It was more that she couldn't bear to be alone.
Under different circumstances, John might have been pleased by the coy looks Jenny Dorset was now shooting him from behind her tea cup. She was a beautiful woman, all charisma and wit. But John couldn't quite get past the special kind of awkwardness that comes from having dissected someone's dead husband. There was just no coming back from that. So John focused on talking with Jenny about what she planned to do now.
It seemed Sherlock approved at the rapport that John had built with the widow, because after a minute or two of watching the two flirt – one reluctantly, the other with gusto – the detective excused himself to take a non-existent phone call. Once out of the tastefully decorated sitting room, Sherlock quietly let himself into the locked study across the hall. He closed the door behind him and stood with his back to it for a moment, scanning the room, searching for useful data.
Large room, ending in french doors onto a veranda and floor-to-ceiling windows. Deep red carpet, mahogany bookshelves lining the walls, crammed with books lined up like soldiers at the edge of the shelves. Law books, history, memoirs, literature – English, Italian, French – emphasis on the romantics. A large, solid desk at the end of the room, facing the windows. Mahogany as well. Locked drawers – careful and private, even in his own home. Good quality locks, but certainly not unpickable. Nothing unusual inside. No hidden compartments in the desk. Chair – high-backed, leather, padded. Mahogany frame, solid, no hidden compartments either. Pills must be in the bookshelves then.
Books are lined up at edge of shelves rather than pushed back – creates pockets behind them. Not a brilliant hiding place, but just unexpected enough to be clever. Hiding place most likely to the right of the desk – Dorset was clearly right-handed. (It's clear by the set-up of the desk, but that data is superfluous – the coffee stains on the right leg of Dorset's trousers in Richardson's apartment had been clear enough. Dorset had been holding his coffee in his right hand when he spilled.)
Bookshelf to the immediate right of the desk: shelf at eye-level to Dorset? No, he was trying to be clever, so he would have chosen the shelf two below, at knee-level. British Romantic poetry. There, forth from the left. A collection of works by Lord Byron – quite fitting, given the purpose of the medication it's hiding. Behind it, a bottle of isocarboxazid – first generation MAOI. Prescription written by Dr. Anthony Richardson, made out to Jenny Dorset. Clever.
Sherlock re-entered the sitting room suddenly, closing the door with a noise somewhere between a crack and a thud. John and Mrs. Dorset turned to look at him, and the widow's face paled when she saw the bottle of medication the detective held aloft. "You didn't come here to check on me, did you?" It was clear she knew the answer.
Sherlock smiled indulgently. "No, Mrs Dorset, we did not." Jenny Dorset nodded slightly. "So I imagine you'll be wanting to know why there's a bottle of anti-depressants prescribed to me hidden in Tim's study," she said, slowly this time. "If it's not too much trouble," said Sherlock, more of his usual condescension creeping into his tone.
The widow nodded again, swallowed audibly, and paused, seemingly gathering her nerve. After a tense moment, she took a shaky breath and began.
"It started about 4 years ago, when Tim and I had been dating for about a year. Tim sank into this horrible depression. He could barely get out of bed, and more than once he talked about killing himself. When he started hallucinating, he took a leave of absence from work." John nodded in recognition. "Depression with psychotic features," he said. Jenny Dorset nodded. "The worst kind," she agreed.
"He was sure that if he went to the doctor, his firm would find out and he'd lose his job, or worse, be disbarred," she continued. "He knew he was sick, but he refused to see anyone. I was terrified for him, so I went to Anthony – Dr. Richardson. He and I had stayed friends after we broke up, and he was happy for Tim and I when we got together. The two of them were very close."
She paused, twisting her wedding ring on her finger for a moment before speaking again. "I told Anthony what was going on, how Tim refused to see anyone, and we came up with a plan. If Anthony treated Tim under my name, Tim's career would be safe, but he could still get treatment. So Tim and I would go in for 'couples therapy,' and Anthony would put everything in my chart, not Tim's."
Her tone began to hollow. Her clasped hands stilled in her lap, and she stared blankly at them. "We tried everything – SSRIs, tricyclic anti-depressants, SNRIs, atypical anti-psychotics as adjuncts. Nothing worked. Tim would get well enough that he wasn't psychotic or suicidal, but he was still horribly affected. So Anthony finally suggested we try MAOIs. We tried a newer one first, and it helped, but it still wasn't enough, so we tried that." The widow gestured to the bottle in Sherlock's hand.
"It worked. The dietary restrictions were annoying, but Tim was finally himself again. So ever since then, Anthony's been prescribing Tim's medication to me." Jenny Dorset finally looked up, meeting Sherlock's eyes.
"And because of the dietary restrictions imposed by the medication, and the fact that it was your husband who adhered to these restrictions, not yourself, your husband kept his medication hidden – an extra precaution that would allow him to write off his restricted diet as mere food preferences," concluded Sherlock.
Jenny Dorset nodded. "But why is this relevant?" she asked. "If Tim had a heart attack... oh." John and Sherlock watched as a dark shadow of realization crept over her face. "It wasn't just a heart attack, was it?" Her voice was barely above a whisper now. "Because a heart attack, that's what would happen if Tim broke the diet. He was fastidious about it, he'd never do that, and if he had, you wouldn't be here." She looked up from where she had been fidgeting with her wedding ring again. "So you think someone broke it for him."
A smile ghosted on Sherlock's lips. "Very good. Have you worked out who it is?" Sherlock watched Jenny Dorset's face as she processed the information, watched her reach her conclusion, watched her heart break just a little more.
"Anthony," she whispered, looking off into space, stunned. "He was the only other person who knew, and Tim was with him when he died." Her eyes were shiny with tears, but her upper-crust breeding would never allow them to fall. She turned her attention back to Sherlock. "The police told me the investigation was closed."
"The police, as is often the case, do not have all the information," Sherlock replied. "I am sure that, should what you've just told me be brought to their attention, they'd be more than happy to re-open it."
The widow nodded and swallowed hard. "I'll do it." Sherlock pulled out his mobile and pressed a button on the speed dial. "Hello, Lestrade? Yes, I've got someone here you're going to want to speak to."
oOo