CHAPTER 39: AT THE CENTRE OF THE WORLD
As Sherlock, John, and Giulia enter the building of the real estate development firm, John looks around the place with confusion in his eyes.
"Sherlock, what are we doing here?"
"That sentence from the Gospel of Matthew that Moriarty wrote in the convent's ledger was a clue. As Giulia helpfully suggested, it belonged to the Sermon of the Mount. As you can see, the logo of the real estate firm that has its headquarters in this very building represents a mountain. It is all connected. Jim basically told us to come here," the detective explains.
Watson stops abruptly, and his hand grasps Sherlock's arm, forcing him to turn around and meet his stern gaze.
"No, he didn't. He simply wrote two letters and three numbers on the page of an old journal. This is a bit far-fetched. I want a better explanation," he protests, putting his foot down.
Sherlock frees himself from his grip and places his hands on his shoulders.
"Fine, then try to reason with me. What do we know about Moriarty's involvement with the nun?"
Watson squirms uncomfortably under his friend's hold.
"He probably played the part of a journalist to meet her at the convent for an article on monastic life."
Sherlock nods. "Exactly. Here's the first element: Jim went there personally. Why? If he wanted to abduct her, he could have lured her out and asked to meet anywhere in this city. Those nuns aren't cloistered ones; nothing prevents them from going around. Possible conclusion: he didn't need to take her far."
"That's just one of the possible explanations, but you can't be certain. Maybe he forced her to get into a car and drove away."
Sherlock ponders that idea for a second.
"That's a possibility, but it wouldn't be consistent with his modus operandi. Sister Laura described a man who almost certainly was him; not many murderers would show up at a convent in a suit and tie to meet their victim. It means that Jim Moriarty himself was there. However, he doesn't get his hands dirty, remember? He never sticks his neck out. If he simply wanted to kidnap her, why didn't he send one of his henchmen and a car? It's not like he runs low on resources," he presents his argument.
John rolls up his eyes, losing his temper. "Fine. Why did he bother to come then?"
"My working theory is: to seal the deal with the killer. We know he walked with the Mother Superior down the corridors of the convent up to the garden since Sister Laura told us that she bumped into them heading in that direction. We can easily retrace their steps and imagine he led the nun out of the gate. He must have convinced her to go on a quick walk out, crossing the road and coming here. Maybe he used his charming manners, maybe he threatened her. In any case, they came to this building," Sherlock affirms.
"Why here?" Giulia intervenes before John fails to control his anger and punches him in his smug, arrogant face.
"Because this is where the killer was waiting for the victim. The clue of the mountain, again, must point to the killer's hideout. The murderer has to be here." Sherlock doesn't doubt his reconstruction of the events.
Giulia spins around, shifting her eyes to the many faces in the crowded building.
"How do we find him? It could be anyone."
"No, not anyone. We already know that the killer is a man; I deduced it at the crime scene, given his considerable strength used to drag the body. That rules out all the female employees, which is pretty much half of the people in this building—thank goodness for gender equality. Besides, Moriarty gave us a specific sentence about the choice between two masters: God and money. We should look for a man that made that choice, and by the looks of this fancy firm, it wouldn't be too difficult to infer which one he picked."
"So, we're looking for a very wealthy man working here, got it. Should we ask all these gentlemen for their financial records?" Giulia asks sarcastically.
Sherlock casts his gaze around the wide hall and studies briefly a plaque with the floor list and building plan. His eyes linger over the name written next to the top floor: Robert Perth, Manager.
"It won't be necessary. We'll start from the top of the food chain."
He steals a look at the busy secretary at the main desk, walks to the counter, and smiles falsely at the young woman struggling with a phone that never stops ringing.
"Hello, I'm here to meet Mr Perth. We spoke on the phone," he lies, counting on the fact that over the morning she has probably received at least one call asking for an appointment with the head manager, and she is too wrapped up in her work at the moment to pay any real attention to him.
She raises her annoyed gaze at the tall man towering over her desk.
"As I have broadly specified countless times over the phone, Mr Perth was very sorry that he had to cancel all his appointments this morning, but he couldn't come to the office. Unfortunately, he is very busy now and can't receive you. I'm afraid he doesn't want to be disturbed when he is working. We will reschedule your meeting for the first available slot of time. We will be in touch," she says dismissively, typing furiously on her computer.
"And I'm afraid he will have to make an exception," Sherlock replies, marching toward the lifts. He got what he wanted: the confirmation that his target is in the office.
The secretary blinks away from the screen, and her mind registers the meaning of his words with a couple of seconds of delay. Suddenly, she springs up from her chair, shouting at the three of them stepping in a lift, "No, wait."
Sherlock shows her his teeth in a sly grin as the lift doors close before she can stop them.
Giulia shoots him an amused look. "Are we seriously breaking into an office?"
He shrugs while typing a text. "I don't usually consider it breaking in unless I have to pick a lock."
"Who is Mr Perth, by the way? And why is it so important that we meet him?" John groans, helplessly at the mercy of his mad friend.
Sherlock puts his phone away and replies in an ecstatic tone, "He is the manager of this firm and chances are he is also the murderer."
"And why would you think that having a chat with an alleged killer is a good idea?" John objects while a ding announces they have just reached the top floor.
"Because all I have is speculations. I need to find some evidence to confirm my hypothesis," Holmes snaps back, marching briskly past a desk where a personal assistant is on the phone, most likely with her downstairs colleague trying to warn her about their arrival. He spots a door with a shiny nameplate on it and struts there, ignoring any attempts of the PA to stop them. He knocks twice and opens the door without waiting for an answer from the inside.
"What did I say about being disturbed—" a tall, muscled man elegantly dressed complains, but trails off at the sight of the three intruders bursting into his office.
"Who the hell are you?" He yells, standing up from his leather chair and craning his neck to get a sight of his PA hurrying behind them. Sherlock shoots a meaningful glance at John, who nods and shuts the door closed.
"My name's Sherlock Holmes. We'll disregard the identities of my associates for now." He gestures vaguely at his flatmates while roaming around the sumptuous office and absorbing as much information as possible. "I have a few questions for you."
"And I'll have the pleasure of replying to all my clients during a properly scheduled appointment, sir. I am afraid I have pressing business to attend to at the moment. My assistant will show you the way," he says, nodding at the door, but the trio doesn't budge.
Sherlock perches gracefully on what looks like a rather expensive sofa and taps the bright leather.
"It must feel good to finally be extremely rich, isn't it? I'd say you've come a long way from your miserable childhood, Mr Perth," he drops the hint and smirks when he notices him shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
Perth places both his hands on the desk menacingly and clears his throat as his voice resounds deeper.
"I misjudged you; you don't look like a client. What brought you here, then?"
Sherlock throws him a cunning smile. "Faith, more or less."
Robert Perth lets out a deep, guttural laugh.
"Then you came to the wrong man, Mr Holmes, for the only God I worship is money."
Sherlock grins. He was right about the clue in the Gospel. This man did choose the master he was going to serve.
"I wonder why, though. You had such a strong Christian upbringing that it's difficult to imagine how you could turn your back on all those teachings."
"I beg your pardon?" Robert looks daggers at him, but his eyes betray a glint of disbelief. How can a stranger know all those things about his past? Is he a stalker? A private detective? A corporate spy?
Sherlock points at a glass showcase packed with prizes and pictures of him.
"You have narcissistic tendencies—blatantly obvious, given the outrageous number of photos and trophies here. You proudly exhibit all these proofs of success, all those images of yourself, and yet, there's only one photo of you as a sad kid. Only one blurry photo," he spells out, lingering on every word. "That's an interesting detail. Parents are usually quite obsessed with pictures of their offspring; they want to make memories as their children grow up. You would put better pics on display unless that truly was the only one you got. Still, what parent would be so absent? Let's take a closer look at it, shall we?" He stands up and takes a few steps toward the glass case for the sake of his little show. He doesn't need a closer look; he has already memorised every detail about it.
"You cropped someone out, but couldn't erase one of their hands on your shoulder. Judging by the wide black sleeve of the tunic, I'd say it was a nun. Not really a wild guess, given that the younger you in the picture is wearing a jacket with a dove and cross symbol on it. I recognise the emblem: it's the crest of the convent across the street."
Robert Perth squints his eyes at him but doesn't utter a word.
"Absentee parents, a childhood spent in that convent..." he lists. "You're an orphan raised by nuns in modest conditions, aren't you? This is why you keep that photo among all the happy ones: a tangible testimony of where you came from, highlighting what you have achieved so far. Congratulations, you turned the tables on your childhood. But maybe that wasn't enough. Maybe your hate against the life you had to live ran deeper." Sherlock stares at him, trying to read a criminal impulse in his eyes.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Perth bursts out, clenching his fists.
The air in the room turns still and icy as the two men scrutinise each other.
"Do you practice any outdoor sports, Mr Perth?" Giulia chimes in, seemingly off-topic, walking around the office.
He takes a few seconds to focus on her figure and question, then his head nods at a bag of golf clubs leaning against the wall behind his back as he laconically replies, "I play golf."
"Oh, but you don't simply play golf. You are an honorary member of one of the most exclusive golf clubs in London," Sherlock chips in, knocking a knuckle on a shiny plaque on the wall bearing the engraving of two crossed golf clubs. He still doesn't understand Giulia's line of questioning, but couldn't resist playing along.
Perth seems unaffected by that remark and shrugs. "Your point?"
"These aren't golf shoes, are they?" Giulia paces the room and hints at a pair of mud-spattered trainers placed at the entrance of an en-suite bathroom.
Both Sherlock and the businessman follow the direction of her pointed finger. Holmes raises his eyebrows at her while an impressed expression flashes on his face. How did she notice them and how could he miss them?
Robert Perth hastens to reply, "I jog outdoors every once and again to stay in shape. And I'd appreciate it if you all stopped prying into my possessions. This little chat is ridiculous. I'm calling the security." He presses a button on the phone on his desk.
Sherlock doesn't look intimidated in the slightest and eyes the man's body up and down.
"You must be really fond of cross-country, for your shoes are covered with mud even though it hasn't rained in London in four days. The only muddy zones in this city would be the riverbanks," he says suggestively.
"I don't know what you are getting at, sir." Robert grinds his teeth.
"Simply that you must be very into jogging. I bet that your left knee hurts like hell when running," Sherlock jeers at him, fixing his gaze on his legs.
Giulia gapes at him, baffled. "His knee?"
"This man was a rugby champion—you can admire his trophies; they're all there on display. But I suspect his beloved sport cost him a rather nasty injury in the past." Sherlock nods at the man's left leg and clinically examines the way he shifts his weight off it while standing. "He tore his anterior cruciate ligament, which I can only assume marked the end of his career with the oval ball."
"Posterior cruciate," John corrects him, scrutinising the trauma through his medical gaze, and Sherlock glances at his friend in admiration.
"By the way, he could still jog with that knee, actually." Watson gives his professional opinion, regardless of the circumstantial evidence that would link Robert Perth to the homicide of the nun. John knows better than to be passively bedazzled by his friend's deductions when hard evidence is absolutely necessary to catch a killer. He knows all the proper procedures that Sherlock invariably elects to disregard. This is why he is playing the devil's advocate. He will tear apart Sherlock's argument until his friend can provide definitive proof that this businessman is, in fact, the nun's killer.
"Fair enough. And I suppose this is exactly what he did this morning. You heard the secretary downstairs: this busy manager cancelled all his appointments and didn't show up at the office. Is it really a stretch to say he went jogging in the mud down the river, which is right where, by sheer chance, the corpse of a nun was discovered a little while ago?" Sherlock rhetorically asks.
Robert Perth glares at him. "I hope you are done, Mr Holmes, because security will be here in a matter of seconds to drag you and your friends out of my sight."
At that moment, Sherlock pricks up his ears at the noise of several sets of footsteps coming up the stairs. He is running out of time but has no intention of cutting short his performance.
He peacefully flops down on an armchair in front of the desk and brushes his fingers against some scratches on the armrests as his brain draws a quick conclusion. Those dents are recent; it is still possible to see the living wood underneath.
"Oh, I've barely scratched the surface," he emphasises the verb and caresses the velvet-covered armrest. "I must admit that this chair is extremely comfortable. It's a shame that someone scraped it. The wood is of the highest quality: red oak, isn't it?" He tilts his head toward Mr Perth.
"Coincidentally, I've just been to the morgue and analysed the corpse I was telling you about, the one found by the river. There were traces of this very material under her nails. I'm quite sure that if we confronted the wood of this chair with the residues on the body, we would get a perfect match. There's an awful lot of coincidences in this story, don't you think?"
John and Giulia exchange anxious looks: Sherlock is cornering the murderer—there is little doubt about it by now, but this is a dangerous move.
Robert straightens up at his full remarkable height.
"Are you accusing me of something, Mr Holmes?"
Sherlock stretches his back in the chair and intertwines his fingers behind his nape in a relaxed position.
"Of the murder of the Mother Superior of the convent next door, of course. I'd be willing to bet she was your former teacher and guardian."
At that moment, Sherlock receives a text from the wine expert to whom, in the meantime, Molly has brought a sample of the wine used to choke the nun.
Dear me, Mr Holmes!
It was the Chateau Margaux 1787.
If I weren't absolutely certain of your good faith,
I'd say you pulled the greatest disappearing trick an illusionist has ever done.
Save me a glass, please.
He cocks a brow imperceptibly. The sommelier is right; that is indeed one of the most impressive vanishing acts ever pulled. He knows very well the magician who hides underneath the top hat: Moriarty is the great illusionist, while the pathetic gold digger standing in front of him is nothing more than his 'lovely assistant'—his accomplice in that crime.
He smiles internally and compliments his adversary. When Jim kept Carl Powers's trainers for twenty years, it became clear that time was relative to him. But using the 'ghost wine' Chateau Margaux 1787 as a murder weapon thirty years after its supposed disappearance was a masterstroke.
He picks up the thread of his accusation.
"The Mother Superior of the convent made a vow of poverty, but that was never your choice. So you made it your personal crusade to become as rich as possible, to build your empire of money and opulence right in front of her face, across the street from the convent you grew up in. You were advertising for your sin, for your transgression of all the values that had been taught to you at a young age. But that was never enough: you were craving more permanent revenge, and someone very dangerous understood it. You had an accomplice: the smartest criminal mastermind I've ever met. He posed as a journalist, getting an interview with the nun and brought her here to you. He incited you to exact your vengeance in exchange for a little favour; you had to follow his precise instructions on how to kill the Mother Superior by forcing some very specific wine down her throat while she was tied to this chair." He drums his fingers on the armrest and turns his eyes around the room, looking for something.
He scans all the pieces of furniture in the office until he is staring at a big old-fashioned globe on a coffee table. A classy way to remind himself that he feels like the king of the world, he mentally comments, referring to Mr Perth's delusions of grandeur.
Appreciating the fine workmanship of the globe, Sherlock notices that the two hemispheres appear slightly out of joint as if the line of the equator sliced the world in two halves that don't line up perfectly. What would be the point of such a high-quality item if it was faulty? He rhetorically asks himself, then focuses again on the furious and speechless figure of Robert Perth standing in front of him behind the desk.
"Judging by your muscular physique, I'd say you'd be strong enough to carry her lifeless body to the riverside, leaving only one set of footprints in the same mud that is now under your trainers. You planted the fake ID and the burner phone on the corpse exactly as Jim Moriarty told you to, before trying to wipe off your traces in that mire, didn't you?"
"You're making a big mistake," Robert hisses, flaring his nostrils.
Sherlock stands up and strolls closer to the globe. He studies the national borders painted on the spherical surface and slides his right index along the equator line, noticing how the residues of a red substance smudge his fingertip. He lifts it to his nose and sniffs as his lips bend in a satisfied smirk. The smell of alcohol is unmistakable.
"No, Mr Perth. I made a mistake back in school. I never paid much attention to geography; I didn't think it was important. But it turns out it can be quite useful to locate things, such as countries and cities on a map, and even..." he trails off, placing his hand on the northern hemisphere and applying some pressure. The globe opens in half, revealing the concave inside that serves as a bottle rack. He attentively examines the content and delicately grabs one bottle that is different from all the others: the label reads Chateau Margaux 1787.
"... a murder weapon."
Author's note: a huge thanks to my beta reader—you are amazing, girl!
Thanks to whoever is reviewing this story! It means the world to me.