~Saturday Night, 21:55~

Sherlock stood above the corpse of the cook, scrutinising the bullet wound.

Close range, straight shot... war veteran? No. Monsieur Vert was present the whole time. The maid? Perhaps. Don't rule her out...

What the hell was happening here? The door had been locked from the inside, the floor was free of all footprints, the window was shut...

But not locked.

The window.

Sherlock strode over to the window, sliding it open with ease. He peered over the edge, catching sight of a lattice wrapped with green vines. So perhaps someone had climbed up to the window. It couldn't have been Monsieur Vert; he was far too old and therefore lacked the agility. The maid had been wearing heels, so she couldn't have climbed all that way. Monsieur Orange? What motive would he have, though? Rose? No. She was too fat. Rouge? No; she wore heels. Obviously not Mrs. Hudson.

But then again, heels could be removed…

"SHERLOCK!"

He whipped his head around.

"Cora?!"

"Sherlock, come quickly! It's Doctor Watson!"

Sherlock immediately raced out of the room, running down the hall into Mrs. Williams's room.

There on the bed was John, shivering as if it were below zero, his forehead shining with sweat and his fists clenching and unclenching. Cora had her hand on his forehead.

"Sherlock, he's on fire," she said.

Sherlock rushed to the other side of the bed and cupped John's cheek in his hand, feeling the heat coming off his friend's skin like a radiator.

He frantically looked up at Cora.

"Call Mrs. Hudson," he said.

~Saturday Night, 22:05~

"Hand me another cold compress, dear," Mrs. Hudson said to Cora.

John moaned as he swallowed.

"Shh..." Mrs. Hudson soothed.

She looked up at Sherlock.

"What on Earth happened?"

Sherlock was pacing back and forth across the room.

"I don't know. One minute he was fine, and the next-"

He paused.

"Unless..."

"What?" Mrs. Hudson asked.

"Poison."

"Excuse me?" Cora said as she stepped into the room.

"His drink. It could have easily been poisoned."

He knelt beside the bed and took John's pulse.

Rapid.

"Could he have been drugged?" Cora speculated as she placed another cold compress on John's head.

"No," Sherlock answered, far too quickly for his liking. "No."

"Who could have poisoned him?" Mrs. Hudson asked. "Such a good man."

Sherlock rested his fingers on John's carotid artery.

"Orange is a doctor, is he not?"

He looked over at Cora.

"Uh... yes. He is."

Sherlock tightened his lips impatiently.

"Right," Cora nodded. "I'll be right back."

She ran out of the room.

"Mrs. Hudson, what do you make of all of this?"

The landlady dabbed John's brow with the compress.

"Sherlock, I don't know. So much has gone so wrong tonight," she sighed. "I can't even begin to comprehend this situation."

"Has Cora seemed... ever-present?"

Mrs. Hudson stared at him.

"Sherlock Holmes, if you are suggesting that that sweet girl is a murderer..."

"Once you rule out the impossible-"

"Whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth," John whispered hoarsely.

Sherlock grabbed John's hand.

"John, how are you feeling?"

"Like death," John said. "More to the point: I agree with you."

Sherlock stared at him intently.

"Really?"

"Sherlock, I don't trust her."

He groaned.

"Just... you're going to have to solve this one on your own."

Sherlock nodded.

"I'm here," Monsieur Orange said as he stepped into the room. "How is he?"

"Awake and barely lucid," John muttered. "And I have a feeling I might either be losing consciousness or dying."

"Don't say that," Sherlock hissed.

"My name is Lawrence. Oliver Lawrence," the other doctor said. "By the way."

He pulled a chair up next to the bed and opened his briefcase.

"I'll need someone to stay here to help me."

"I will," Mrs. Hudson said as she gripped John's hand. "He's practically my son."

John laughed weakly.

"Thanks, Mrs. H. You're... fantastic..."

And he closed his eyes.

"He's unconscious right now," Lawrence said as he noted Sherlock's concerned expression. "Perhaps that will give me time to find the source of the poison. I've got some ideas in mind right now as to what it might be."

Cora nodded.

"Thank you, Oliver."

He smiled at her.

"No trouble at all."

Cora's lip trembled a bit and she quickly stepped out of the room.

"If anything happens," Sherlock said to Lawrence. "Anything; tell me."

"Of course."

Sherlock gave his flatmate one last concerned glance and stepped into the hallway, shutting the door behind him.

Cora was nowhere to be seen.

~Saturday Night, 22:18~

"Cora?" Sherlock called.

He listened carefully. Coming from the bathroom down another hall was the sound of crying.

Sherlock carefully approached the door and knocked.

"Get out of there," he called.

The crying stopped, and the door opened. Cora stood there, wiping here eyes with her hands.

"What?"

"Why are you crying?" Sherlock asked, not soothingly, but rather accusatorially.

"I just... I never meant for any of this to happen," she said. "I never wanted this."

"What? To kill your brother?"

She looked at the detective with a hurt expression.

"Me? How could you accuse me of doing something so dreadful?"

"Because of what you did to your mother."

Cora sniffed.

"You know?"

"I'm the world's greatest detective," Sherlock said. "Of course I know."

"But how?"

"The powder beneath your nails, the blender in your kitchen, and the sugar stuck to the counters. You've been slowly poisoning your mother. And the cook was in on it, too."

"Wow," Cora said, wiping again at her eyes. "You weren't kidding."

"My only question is why?"

Cora sunk down to the floor, burying her head in her hands.

"She... she was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer last month. She, of course, didn't want to admit to her inevitable death and has been refusing chemotherapy and hospital stays. But she just keeps getting worse and worse."

Sherlock furrowed his brow.

"Cancer?"

"She doesn't look it, does she?" Cora said with a slight laugh. "Hours spent in front of the mirror making herself look decent masks what's really happening."

Sherlock bit his cheek and sat down next to her.

"She seemed rather healthy to me."

"The blender that you mentioned? She drinks nothing but puréed fruits and vegetables. Insists that they are making her "better and better". But I hear her crying at night. She just sobs and sobs into her pillow until she falls asleep. And I can't watch her go through that much longer."

Sherlock sighed.

"When did you start poisoning her drinks?"

"Three weeks ago," Cora said. "It's been slowing her down considerably. The way I've been measuring the doses hopefully means that she'll die in her sleep two Fridays from now."

"A mercy killing?"

Cora nodded.

"But Arthur, my brother, found out. And he didn't tell me. Until I caught him in bed with Elizabeth... our cousin who you just met."

"Oh," Sherlock said. "Oh."

"I was mortified. I wasn't sure if I should say anything or not, but Arthur made the decision for me. He told me he knew what I was doing to Mum. That he would tell her and have me arrested if I said anything to anyone. He was already in hot water over his affair with our former maid, Mathilde."

"Internal affairs," Sherlock mumbled. "Interesting."

"Of course, I couldn't not say anything. I had to tell someone. It was this burden eating away at me. So I told our current maid, my best friend, Fiona."

It was starting to make sense.

"Does Fiona speak English?" Sherlock asked.

"Yes. Quite well. But she prefers her first language."

Sherlock nodded.

"I think I know who our killer is."

Suddenly from down the hall came frantic noises. The only intelligible sentence that registered in Sherlock's head was:

"You do compressions!"

And time stopped.