CHAPTER 29: GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER?
Sherlock takes Anderson aside and murmurs, "You mean she is the wife of the jewel thief?"
Anderson simply nods, and John chimes in quietly, "I bet she is quite the talked-about woman down here."
"She was talked-about even before the heist. Her husband is an ex-soldier who fought in Iraq. When he came back home, it is thought he smuggled some firearms into the country, even though no one has ever investigated the matter. Anyhow, I suppose it wasn't profitable enough for him if he turned into a jewel thief." A note of malice envelops Anderson's voice.
"Is there a rumour you don't know about?" John glares at him. That man looks like a walking encyclopaedia of scandals.
"Don't look at me like that. It's not my fault if that man has always been in a shady business."
"This gossip is trivial. We are missing the point: Why is she in those conditions?" Sherlock cuts them short, keeping out of the woman's hearing range.
"She told you: she is in shock. She has just lost a close friend. I can see now why you are a sociopath," Philip spits out, earning a death stare from Sherlock.
"Anderson, if I hear one more idiotic syllable coming out of your mouth, my synapses will commit suicide."
John pulls him by his arm, dragging him a few feet away from both the forensic officer and the woman.
"Sherlock, what's going on?"
The detective turns to face him and is about to snap back a comment on how rude and insufferable Anderson can be, but he stops dead. No words leave his mouth as he meets John's eyes. There is something in his friend's gaze that he wasn't expecting: concern. He thought John would reprimand him for being disrespectful, but that is not the reason behind his question. John knows him: he can see that something's wrong with him, that his scathing insult was a facade, a mask to hide his insecurities. Now that he is staring into the doctor's eyes, he feels naked under his inquisitive look: John is waiting for an honest answer, so Sherlock himself is faced with the question: What's going on, for real?
He averts his gaze. "I'm vexed, that's all. I have the impression that I'm missing something." His voice is barely more than a whisper.
John frowns at his words. Is this creepy little town getting under his skin? But Sherlock is not like that. He always declares himself as a stone-cold sociopath detached from the rest of the world.
"What's there to miss? You must admit that every piece of evidence seems to point against Isaac," he tries to reason with him. Even the Great Detective needs a reality check from time to time.
"Alright, but what is his motive? He had no reason to kill his mother," Sherlock objects.
"Neither did anyone else. Our victim had no known enemies: no one had a motive for this murder."
"Exactly. This murder. We are only focusing on it, but what if we are looking at it the wrong way? What if it was connected to the other mysteries, somehow?" Holmes conjectures, and a glimmer of excitement sparkles in his eyes.
Watson raises a brow incredulously.
"You think the victim had something to do with the robbery?"
"I was more inclined to believe that Elisa Therton's killer might be the same as her husband, but on second thought, yours is a rather interesting theory." Sherlock folds his hands under his chin, contemplating that idea.
"Not a theory, no, that's usually called a conspiracy." John rolls up his eyes. "You of all people should know better than to speculate arbitrarily. Why are you acting like this? Did this case seriously hit too close to home?" He tilts his head, scrutinising his friend.
Sherlock is taken off guard and hastens to rebut, "Oh, I see. Just like Anderson, you think I might get carried away because Isaac is a sociopath like me. Come on, you know me. I'm Sherlock Holmes: I never care about anything," he stresses the last word.
John keeps his eyes fixed on him, trying to spot the crack in his armour. He does know him and thinks that sometimes Sherlock is more human than he'd like to admit.
"The only thing I know is that you are the most observant man here, and yet you are overlooking the obvious evidence."
The detective shoots him a defeated look.
"I'm glad that everything is so obvious to you. I, on my part, am experiencing some sort of..." he hesitates before forcing the word out of his teeth, "uncertainty. I loathe this sensation. I don't have enough answers."
John gapes at him: Not only this is the first time he hears anything like that coming from him, but it is also false.
"You have all the answers you need: you have questioned the main suspect, been on the crime scene, deduced the corpse, the house and even the garden. There is truly nothing else to see at present." He widens his arms in surrender. They have been doing everything by the book.
Sherlock freezes as John's words inspire a sudden realisation in him.
"At present. You're right. What if the key is not in the present but the past? What if nobody seems to have a current motive for this murder because the real reason dates way back?"
Watson shoots him a puzzled look, believing that his friend might get as delirious as Martha Admiral.
"What are you talking about?"
"John, you are the brightest source of inspiration that a great mind could ever ask for. I think you've just pointed me in the right direction. You are a genius," he compliments him, in ecstasy. "The things are exactly like you hypothesised a minute ago: this murder must be linked to the robbery. The jewels were the real motive all along."
Before John can ask for clarification, a police car pulls over next to the four people assembled by the roadside, and a silver-haired man gets out.
"Detective Inspector Lestrade, thank you for blessing us with your presence. Have you locked up Isaac for life yet, or are you here to gather some more incriminating evidence against him?" Sherlock sarcastically greets him.
The D.I. ignores his comment and nods at the woman propped against the wall, still shaken up.
"What's going on?"
She realises she has become the centre of attention and blurts, "I should probably go home now."
She stands up and takes a few steps forward, stumbles and loses her grip on her handbag, spilling its contents to the ground. John promptly leaps at her, but she has already bent down and stretched her arms out to put everything back in. She gathers her possessions in one swift move, so he can only help her lift the bag off the ground.
"Thank you. I'm so clumsy," she mutters, offering him a crooked smile.
Sherlock walks closer to his friend, and his voice drops to a whisper.
"I wasn't able to get a good look at the inside of her handbag. Anything amiss about it? She was suspiciously fast at picking everything up, but when she stretched her arms out, her left sleeve hitched up a little, and I could see she had a bandage on her forearms. It might be to cover up some syringe bites. Did you notice any vials, syringes, or maybe some pills, anything related to drug abuse that could explain her woozy state?"
John shakes his head. "It looked like any woman's bag. I only caught a glimpse of her wallet, the London Gazette, a lipstick. It only confirmed my theory that women's bags are always unnecessarily heavy," he grumbles.
Lestrade steals a preoccupied glance at the woman and suggests, "Maybe we could drive you home."
"I could drive you," Sherlock volunteers. Everyone goggles at him.
John whispers, "Sherlock, what are you doing? I'd never object to a considerate act of chivalry, but coming from you? What's your angle?"
"I want to dig deeper into this, and I need more information. I'm not the police; I don't have the luxury to leave any stone unturned," he murmurs back in his conceited tone. "And right now, Mrs Admiral might be the perfect source for a good story. I just need some alone time with her, away from prying ears."
"I thought you despised trash rumours," John remarks.
"Fiercely. But I have the feeling that some of those rumours might be true." He throws a suggestive look at him.
"And what am I supposed to do?"
"Follow us in a police car, perhaps?" Sherlock simpers at him and notices that the woman has been staring confusedly at him for some minutes. He walks to her and politely offers his arm, escorting her to Mrs Hudson's red sports car that he and Watson used to get to the crime scene.
During the ride, Sherlock steals some glances at the woman.
"So, Mrs Admiral," he attempts to break the ice.
"You can call me Martha. We are pretty informal around here," she proposes in a relaxed tone. She still swings between moments of apparent delirium and perfect normality.
"I'm not from around here, so tell me: why would a woman whose husband went to prison for robbery, consequently throwing her spouse into a negative light for the rest of her days, befriend another outcast—a widow burdened with a mystery regarding her husband's murder and a son disliked by the whole community?" He inquires without taking his eyes off the windshield.
She sighs with all the exhaustion of her life.
"Because I know what it feels like to have everyone's looks on the back of your head, to hear your name whispered in every corner. I befriended her out of human compassion. Ever heard of it?" She lampoons him.
A corner of his lips twitches in a hinted smirk.
"You'd be surprised by how ignorant I can be on the matter. Anyway, was your husband close with Adam Therton, Elisa's deceased husband?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Getting defensive: Did I hit a nerve?" He turns to look at her for a second before shifting his eyes back to the road. "Just answer, please. Your friend got shot this morning, and I am the person who has the biggest chance of finding out who did it. So, if you want to render her justice, you'd better start talking. I need to get all the pieces of this story," he says. Humility is not one of his finest virtues.
"Our husbands were somehow close when they came back home, at first."
"Back from where?"
"Iraq. My husband fought there, and that's where he met Adam Therton. They found out they came from the same area and bonded while in the army," she tells him.
Anderson never mentioned that Mr Therton was a soldier, too; let alone that he had come home together with Mr Admiral. He can't even provide useful gossip, Sherlock complains in his head, then objects out loud, "I thought everyone knew everybody in this small town."
"Everybody, except the Thertons. They have always been quite... peculiar," she struggles to find the right, non-insulting word. "You have been to their house: they isolated themselves. They never had great people skills."
And that's the most unforgivable sin against society, isn't it? Sherlock mentally loathes her way of thinking, then comments, "But you became friends with them after both men came back home, didn't you?"
"Not exactly. My husband, Fred, introduced me to them, but that's all it was at first: normal acquaintance. His friendship with Adam soon faded away, and they drifted apart." Her tone is flat; it's an old story.
"Why?"
She shrugs. "I suppose it was more a comradeship in times of war than a real bond. After all, Adam was a bit of a weirdo himself. My husband told me about his quirks. He didn't trust banks or government institutions, and he used to roam into the woods alone at night, just for fun." She shakes her head, then adds in a lower tone, "Bad habit: the woods are dangerous."
"That's why earlier you said that you and Elisa Therton had become close only recently," he infers, earning a rapid nod from her.
"We became actual friends when Elisa lost her husband. I know what it means to be the talk of the town, and I wanted to help."
"What did you have to gain?" Sherlock takes his gaze off the road for one second to focus on her.
"Do you really think greed is what makes the world go round?"
He looks away, unfazed. "I do until proven otherwise. But I'd like to know what moved you. When you were rambling, you said that you wanted her house," he prompts her to speak.
"I will not deny that I'd like to live in that quaint cottage, and I've just got a baby. We need more space. However, I was willing to buy it for a much higher price than its actual worth. I wanted to lend a helping hand to a poor widow," she explains, signalling him to pull over next to her house.
Sherlock pulls up to the gate and fixes his gaze into her eyes, smirking.
"I believe you forgot to specify: a widow who was sitting on half a million worth of jewels."
"You mean the heist? Elisa had nothing to do with it," Martha quickly understands his reference.
Sherlock's mind reluctantly concludes: Anderson was surprisingly right about one thing: ten years later, people still remember the crimes that made the headlines in that little town.
"Maybe not, but her husband certainly did. I'm fairly sure that Adam Therton was your husband's accomplice during the robbery—the thief who left him behind and got away. This brings me to two logical conclusions: first, your husband murdered his old, traitorous partner six years ago; second, he killed Elisa Therton, too, just this morning. But let me paint the whole picture for you and the police," he says, getting out of the car.
At almost the same time, a police car stops in front of the house, and Lestrade, Anderson, and John get out, throwing questioning looks at the detective.
"Now that we are all here, let me tell you a story. Spoiler alert: it doesn't end well," Sherlock theatrically begins and gestures towards a flustered Martha. "As all of you should know by now, this woman's husband, Mr Admiral, went to jail for a jewel heist ten years ago."
"Sherlock, what are you doing? I don't need an open-and-shut case from the last decade. We are here to solve a murder," Lestrade cuts him short.
"Absolutely, Detective Inspector. I could cut to the chase and bring the culprit to justice straight away, but if you want to understand the motive behind this homicide, you'd better pay attention. Now, just a quick summary: Adam Therton (our victim's deceased husband) and Fred Admiral were army comrades. They met in Iraq and came home together only to find our country sunk in a nasty financial crisis. Soon enough, the two brothers-in-arms were both broke. They weren't that close anymore, but desperate times call for old bedfellows, so we can assume that they planned and executed the robbery together. You know the story."
He steals a derisory glance at Anderson, before continuing, "Mr Admiral was caught and his accomplice was never found, neither were the jewels. Just because the police never retrieved the loot, though, it doesn't mean that Fred wasn't still determined to put his hands on it. After waiting for years in prison, when he finally got out, he went straight to Adam. Here, the story gets juicy." He rubs his hands and licks his lips in anticipation.
"Anderson told us that Fred got out of jail early for good behaviour, so we can assume that his old partner was taken off guard by his unexpected reappearance in his life. Fred knew him well and knew that he used to go into the woods at night, so we can easily imagine that one night, he must have followed and confronted him, asking for his part of the loot. I don't know what happened exactly, but I can presume that Adam didn't want to give up the jewels. Fred must have threatened him, and in the end, he killed him. His rage and thirst for vengeance had built up over four years, after all. I'm not judging, I'm just analysing facts." He tries to suppress a smug smile.
"These are not facts, these are mad speculations," Martha Admiral fiercely protests, horrified.
"Be patient, Mrs Admiral, I'm getting to the interesting part," he dismisses her, continuing his recount. "Eventually, Fred disposed of the body so that it was never found. It was late at night, nobody was around, so he thought he could easily get away with murder and let people think a wild beast had killed Adam, perhaps. There's just one thing he never knew: he had a witness," he reveals theatrically.
"There was never a witness, Holmes," Anderson corrects him.
"And yet you listened to Isaac's interrogation," he fulminates against him. "That boy has had trouble sleeping since he was a child, and I'm willing to bet that he was awake that night, too. To be precise, we know he was up, for he saw a man coming out of the woods—you all heard his words. He simply absorbed that memory into his dreams and always thought he had only dreamed of it."
"Wait, Sherlock, I perfectly remember that Isaac claimed he never saw the phantom's face. Even assuming that he wasn't dreaming and imagining it all, how can you say with certainty that it was Fred Admiral?" Lestrade asks him doubtfully. He has the impression that Sherlock is building castles in the air.
"Because the boy affirmed that the man he saw was wearing a grey coverall. It's pretty obvious now, isn't it?"
Everybody looks at him with wide eyes and confused expressions on their faces. The detective stares into their vacant looks and sighs heavily.
"Do you ever hear an echo in the deserted void that is your mind?"
He fishes his phone out of his pocket and makes a call. When someone picks up, he quickly states, "Hello, Sergeant Donovan. I need to speak to Isaac. Put him through, please."
He turns on the speakerphone, and everyone can hear Donovan hissing, "I'm not your assistant," before a male voice replaces hers.
"Hello?"
"Hi Isaac, this is Sherlock Holmes. I just need to ask you a few things. I noticed that you're quite an observant person: Do you remember what I was wearing when I interrogated you this morning?" He inquires, earning disconcerted looks by all present. Where is he getting at?
"Yes," is the laconic answer coming from the other end of the line.
"Do you recall my shirt?" Holms tries to get something more out of him.
"I do." Another curt reply. Isaac isn't exactly a chatterbox.
Five pairs of ears are listening to the conversation, but only one person knows where this is going.
"What colour was it?" Sherlock encourages him.
"Lilac. It was a lilac shirt," Isaac affirms confidently.
Everyone frowns at that statement as they are all staring at the light blue shirt that Sherlock is wearing: it's the same one he had on at New Scotland Yard a few hours before.
"Are you sure, Isaac?" He questions, faking a distrustful tone for the benefit of his sceptical audience.
"Yes, I am. But please don't ask me if it goes well with the trousers or coat, because I have no taste in fashion at all," the boy replies tersely. At least no one can doubt his bluntness.
"Thank you. That'd be all," and with that, Sherlock ends the call.
"What does it mean?" Anderson asks, puzzled.
Sherlock patronises him. "It means that you don't pay attention to details. When we went to Isaac's room, you questioned his football faith while looking at the Arsenal crest coloured in green and lilac. What you didn't realise, though, is that Isaac isn't an inattentive fan; he is colourblind. Deuteranope, to be exact. People with deuteranopia are likely to confuse mid-reds with mid-greens, or light blues with lilac (as was the case both for the Arsenal drawing and my shirt). But they can also confuse blue with grey, so the man with a grey coverall that he saw coming out of the woods was actually wearing blue clothes. And I think we all know what a plumber's uniform looks like," he concludes, gesturing towards the entrance of the house, where Fred Admiral has just appeared on the threshold, wearing a plumber blue coverall.
"Honey, what is going on? Why are the cops here?" Fred asks his wife.
"This deranged man is trying to blame you for murder," she whines alarmed, pointing an accusatory finger at Sherlock.
"What? I got nothing to do with what happened to Elisa," he protests.
"I hadn't gone that far yet, but I was getting there," Holmes conceitedly replies before going back to his story.
"Before I had to explain to your basic minds how colourblindness works, I was saying that Mr Admiral was after the jewels, knowing that his old accomplice hadn't sold and spent the whole plunder; it's not like Adam Therton bought a big mansion or a Ferrari. He wasn't living a lavish life: he was flying under the radar to ensure that the jewels (that were slowly sold separately on the black market) would yield him a lifetime revenue. We have one more confirming detail: thanks to all the gossip and chitchat and Mrs Admiral's own words, we know Adam Therton didn't trust banks and never confided money to those institutions. Logical conclusion: he must have kept the loot close, hidden in his own house."
Sherlock looks around to make sure that everyone is following him or at least attempting at it.
"Next step was easy: after killing Adam, Fred had to search the Thertons' cottage. That's where you, Mrs Admiral, came in." He turns sharply towards her, who is frozen in shock and points at her with the attitude of a TV presenter.
"Your husband used you as a pawn and encouraged you to become close friends with Elisa to worm the secret stash out of her. Unfortunately for you, Adam had kept his own wife completely in the dark. The more you spoke with her and spent time at her place, the more you realised she didn't have a clue about the robbery. Not only that, but the jewels weren't even in the house: her husband must have buried them in the garden. Whereas a little breaking and entering would have been easy to perform (especially for a former thief), Fred certainly couldn't hope to dig out an entire garden while going unnoticed. I'm sure that once again, he resorted to his wife, who exploited the Thertons' economic problems to lure Elisa into selling the house, but to no avail. The widow wouldn't have left for all the gold in the world—pun intended. That was her home, the last remaining memories of her husband."
He makes a dramatic pause to catch his breath.
"Eventually, Fred couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't wait any longer; four years in prison, six more spent sneaking his way into that house had already been enough. Fast forward to this morning, when he snapped and killed Elisa. I wouldn't call it a premeditated murder, though. I think he only went to her house to threaten her at gunpoint to convince her to sell the house. But things went down a bit differently. Judging by the signs at the crime scene, I can affirm that the victim and her killer struggled a bit before he finally pulled the trigger. Anyway, now that the stubborn woman is dead, the house will most definitely be put up for auction, and I am ready to bet that Mr and Mrs Admiral will be the highest bidders."
"You are out of your mind," Fred protests, marching menacingly toward that insolent know-it-all, but Lestrade lifts his police badge to stop him and intervenes, "Sherlock, your story is engaging, I'll give you that, but you haven't proved anything. If Adam Therton was the second thief, where are the jewels, then? We have searched both the house and the garden. You can't seriously suggest we should dig up the whole property."
Before the detective can reply, Anderson interjects scornfully, "Had he tried to sell those precious gems around here, don't you think that local police would have got wind of it? And even if he kept the jewels, we would've found those at the crime scene by now, wouldn't we?"
Sherlock grimaces at him. "Are those rhetorical questions?"
Lestrade interrupts their banter.
"You are basing an accusation for a murder that took place over six years ago on Isaac's memory (who was nine, back then). Just a few hours ago you defined that very recollection of his as a figment of his imagination," the D.I. quotes the same words that Sherlock had used inside the interrogation room.
"We can't exactly put an expiration date on murders, can we?" Sherlock jeers at him.
"But we must stick to the limits of jurisdiction, and that cold case is definitely out of my hands. As for the case at issue—which, for the record, is the sole reason you are here and the only homicide that we should investigate, I'll play along. Mr Admiral, can you provide us with your whereabouts between 9 and 10 this morning?" Lestrade asks him with weariness in his voice.
"I was working," he replies curtly.
"Is there anyone that could vouch for you?"
"All my coworkers. But if it's necessary, I'll give you the surveillance tapes from security cameras at the main entrance of our Plumbers' Company. There's just one way to get in and out of the building. The tapes will show the time I went to work early this morning until I finally came back home half an hour ago," he answers in a fatigued tone.
Lestrade nods at him. "That would be helpful, thank you."
"That's it? You won't test his clothes and skin for gunshot residue?" Sherlock complains. "The first thing you did with Isaac was to swap his hands and clothes to take him down for murder. A few hours have already passed since the shooting: This is your last time window to check him, too." He is losing his temper: why doesn't Lestrade arrest him, already? He has just assessed all the facts. Did he go too fast for his comprehension skills?
Greg sighs and addresses Anderson, "Would you mind?"
The forensic officer grimaces but doesn't protest; he quickly opens the police car's boot and takes a briefcase. He wears gloves and pulls out some dabs and swaps.
"Mr Admiral, I have no intention to force you to undergo a gunshot residue test, so if you don't wa—" Lestrade gets interrupted mid-sentence by the deep voice of the plumber.
"I'll do it. I got nothing to hide," and he outstretches his hands towards the forensic scientist.
Anderson wipes down his hands and clothes, then goes back to the briefcase and adds some chemical reagents. While waiting for the colour change to verify the presence of heavy metals and components associated with gunpowder residue (GSR), he clarifies professionally, "I'm simply running a quick preliminary colourimetric test. When I'm back at the labs in Scotland Yard, I will perform the complete procedure using a Scanning Electron Microscope, but this will give us a head start."
They all intently observe as the samples slowly change colours. Anderson describes out loud the colour change, interpreting it for everyone present.
"Negative results to gunshot residue: he's clean."
A frown sets on Sherlock's face. How is it possible? This can't be. Every piece of the puzzle seemed to fall into place. He was so sure...
"We're done here. Mr and Mrs Admiral, thank you for your time and apologies for the inconvenience," Greg states flatly as the woman runs into her house and slams the front door, outraged.
"Lestrade, what are you doing? You're letting him get away with murder," Sherlock protests.
Greg turns towards him with a stony face.
"I'm being sensible, Sherlock. Someone here has to be. That man has an ironclad alibi, and the gunpowder test results came out negative: you don't have a shred of evidence against him. I regret to say that apparently this time you got it all wrong."
Author's note: Dear readers, what do you think of Sherlock's mistake? Can the Great Detective fail? Do you have a theory? Who killed Elisa? And is her homicide truly connected to the other mysteries of the small town?
Don't forget to share your thoughts about this book. I love hearing from you.