Sherlock, John and Doctor Paten had landed safely and met with agent Bonlieu, a short, dark man in his late forties, at the airport. The agent had then made a couple of quick phone calls before turning back to the three men.
"Doctor Paten, the body is being kept at the Hôtel-Dieu. Would you like to go there immediately, or come with us?"
"I'd rather make myself useful right away." Doctor Paten smiled. "I'm far too clumsy and cumbersome to be anything more than a burden at a crime scene..Get me to that corpse, I can't do damage there." He winked good-naturedly. The three men were separated as John and Sherlock went with Banlieu to the crime scene, which happened to be the Ambassador's bedroom in a luscious builing near the champs E'lysées.
Agent Banlieu spoke a moment to the Géndarmes, who didn't seem at all pleased with the intrusion. After a few loud words, they were allowed inside.
"You can come in. They saw no sings of a struggle. The ambassador was found dead, behind his desk, by his secretary. When he didn't show up for an event, she came looking for him."
The consulting detective looked around the study.
Sherlock moved to the bedroom, inspected it, opened a few shelves and eyed the bathroom before presenting his first impressions.
"The Ambassador had a fight with his wife that was bad enough for her to go away for a while, but negligible enough for it to merely be a temporary separation..."
"The wife is indeed away." Agent Banlieu nodded "But she left to take care of her mother who..."
"Nope, it was a quarrel with him."
"How do you know?"
With an exasperated sigh, the consulting detective pointed out the obvious.
"The wardrobe is divided in half, his and hers. The wife's clothes, however, are quite few: a pair of tailleurs, one coat... Also a couple of drawers have been completely emptied while others are still full. The wife left the shoes and creams here, too." Sherlock glanced expectantly at John, who frowned slightly.
"She left the shoes behind?"
"Good to know you've learnt something from all those women, John."
"Would you kindly explain what you're talking about?" Banlieu interrupted. Sherlock rolled his eyes.
" If a woman is serious about leaving and is not in immediate danger, she will pack carefully. If she only has a limited amount of things she can take with her, she will choose clothes and shoes for the current season. A woman over thirty would also get her face cream... the fact that there is no logic or order in what has been taken means that it was more of a display. The wife gave a show of grabbing armfuls from the wardrobe and emptying entire drawers into the suitcase, to make a point. She will return once he has apologised enough...But this has nothing to do with the case beyind the fact that it gave the ambassador a chance to cheat on her."
Sherlock pointed at the victim's part of the wardrobe.
"The Ambassador's wardrobe is a mess. His clothes are all jumbled and his underwear is old and worn. He would keep clothes in piles..."
"Sounds familiar." John muttered under his breath.
"But his bedside table is unusually tidy." Sherlock opened the little drawer by the bed. "He literally pushed everything from the top into here, to make the room look in order. A maid would never do something like that...He didn't want any servants to see his guest, so he excused them and tried to tidy up at the last minute." Sherlock eyed the bed and reached under the pillow on the left side. Sure enough, some condoms had been kept there for quick and easy retrieval.
"He was planning to meet a prospective mistress, taking advantage of his wife's absence. The ambassador opened the door for his killer; together they went to the study where he was subsequently killed."
"So the killer is a woman?" Banlieu asked.
"Only one way to find out." Sherlock replied. "I need to see the body."
.
.
Doctor Paten welcomed them at the hospital.
"It's a good thing I came." He whispered softly. "They were none too happy of having an English doctor inspecting the body, it seemed to imply they were not worthy of the job." Bonlieu nodded. Apparently, he also felt slightly insulted. Doctor Paten smiled respectfully and continued. "Thankfully they know me as I have worked here before, so that helped."
The four men walked into the morgue, where Paten pointed at the body's throat.
"The Ambassador was strangled. The marks on his neck look like the ones in the pictures of the other victim..."
John nodded "A string of pearls...But they go up higher at the back than the others did, so the killer was taller this time. Could this be a band of assassins using pearls as a trademark weapon?" He mused.
Sherlock croched to see the bruises better, and shook his head.
"The Ambassador was sitting down when he got strangled. The pearls would be held differently, with the arms lowered. Keeping that in mind, our killer is the same height as in the other muder. It's also the very same weapon: real, wild pearls are unique, and the bruises here have the exact pattern as on the other ambassador. It's the same killer using the same bracelet."
Sherlock stood up. "Where are the ambassador's personal items?"
.
.
What am I doing?
The Hôtel-Dieu is the oldest hosptial in Paris. On the Île de la Cité, one of the small natural islands on the Seine, it's strong, majestic architecture stands proudly in Notre Dame square, next to the famous cathedral.
Even after midnight, people are found strolling along, chatting or sharing a quiet moment. Some tourists, enjoying Paris by night, can be seen admiring the Cathedral under the glow of night lights and the warm haze of good champagne. It had just begun to drizzle, so many started heading home.
As the people passed, they might have noticed a single, solitary figure, apparently unaware of the change in the weather.
Staring at the Hôtel-Dieu, the woman stood alone, with no umbrella, under the rain.
What am I doing?
Molly had booked the ticket, gone to work to find someone to cover her, begged a friend to take care of Toby, taken money out, retrieved her passport and gone back to the airport to catch the flight. Without thinking, she took a taxi to the Hôtel-Dieu, and now couldn't bring herself to walk through the door.
What would he say if he saw her?
Did she really think he would welcome her with open arms? Kiss her passionately? Did she honestly believe there was going to be music and fireworks, that they would live happily ever after, solving crimes together and filling the house with the pitter patter of little pathologo-detectives' feet? Had she actually expected a fairy-tale ending like that, from Sherlock?
Molly suddenly felt very ashamed of herself.
She was behaving like a stalker! What kind of deranged woman follows a man -who has repeatedly rejected her, by the way- to another country whislt being perfectly aware that her presence wasn't wanted or required? If he had any respect for her, she would lose it right there and then! Just how far had she humiliated herself?
Molly shook her head, she had spared herself this last humiliation, at least. The doctor would not go through those doors to make a complete fool of herself yet again. She had reached her limit...There is only so much an individual can do, and she had done enough.
You can't force anyone to love you, anymore than you can force your own heart...
A strange kind of peace engulfed and overcame her. It was time to let go.
With a deep breath, Molly turned around and walked away.
.
.
"The ambassador thought he was going to have sex with his guest, but they had never done it before." Sherlock nodded confidently.
"As the Ambassador isn't gay, we can confirm we're looking for a woman."
Paten gazed, bemused, at the Ambassador's personal items: Clothes, underwear, his agenda and a wallet containing a picture of his wife, credit cards and some money.
"How did you discover that from these?" He wondered aloud.
"By his pants."
Banlieu, having worked in America for a few years, automatically picked up the trousers to look at them. John nudged him and pointed at the underwear.
Shelock continued. "In the Ambassador's bedroom I noticed that all his pants and socks are old and ruined, but these are brand new and have been worn for the first time today. He bought them especially, something he wouldn't bother to do with an established mistress."
The consulting detective glanced out of the window. It was raining. "Where is the secretary? I want to ask..." Suddenly he froze, then bolted.
"Sherlock!" John cried out in surprise, instinctively running after his friend as he tore across the hospital.
John couldn't keep up as Sherlock flew down the stairs, narrowly avoiding collision with a couple of innocent patients.
The consulting detective ran out of the doors and into the open air, his eyes searching the square frantically.
Just moments later, John caught up with him.
"What happened, Sherlock? What did you see?"
Sherlock was standing completely still in Notre Dame square, slowly getting drenched under the now heavy rain, his eyes blindly fixed ahead.
"Sherlock?" John placed his hand on his friend's shoulder.
His flatmate blinked as raindrops trickled down his face.
"I thought I saw..."
Sherlock suddenly shook his head, breaking out of his reverie, and turned away.
"Nothing. There's nothing there."