CHAPTER 40: RAISE YOUR GLASSES
"... a murder weapon."
All the people in the room stare shocked at Sherlock holding the wine bottle in his hands and gazing at it with an enraptured look in his eyes.
"Are you accusing me of murder based on my tastes in liquors? This is unbelievable," Robert Perth protests, getting increasingly annoyed by that paradoxical situation.
"The only unbelievable fact here is the mere presence of this bottle in your drink cupboard," Sherlock replies.
"Murder weapon? Do you mean it is the wine with which the Mother Superior was killed? You can't be sure, though. How many other bottles are there in the world of that same wine?" John asks puzzled, distrusting Sherlock's overconfidence.
"None. One of the most distinguished wine experts of this continent has just given me confirmation that the wine used in the nun's murder was the Chateau Margaux 1787*." Sherlock shows the sommelier's text on his phone screen. "An ancient bottle of wine, priceless… Close anyway, considering it was valued at $225,000," he says, delicately turning the bottle in his hands. He still can't believe he is holding an original Chateau Margaux 1787.
John and Giulia can't repress the look of astonishment and incredulity on their faces, while Robert Perth remains unperturbed and slowly recoils, stepping backwards.
Sherlock holds the smoky-green bottle against the light filtering through the window and frowns at the little liquid remaining on the bottom.
"That is an exorbitant sum for just one bottle of wine, balanced out only by its fascinating backstory. This is the most expensive wine never sold and tragically lost forever—or so it was believed until today. Once owned by Thomas Jefferson, a wine merchant brought this very bottle of Chateau Margaux to a wine tasting at the Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan in 1989. He wanted to show it off to the oenophiles at the soirée to inflate the price since he was trying to sell it for more than $500,000. Unfortunately, he bumped into a tray table, hitting the bottle and poking two holes in the glass: the precious liquid poured down on the carpet, lost for good. However, the bottle was reportedly insured for $200,000. That's how the story ended in the spring of 1989: that 200-year-old wine was nothing more than a crimson puddle on the floor, and the insurers paid the money. Yet here we are now, with a murder committed with a wine that simply shouldn't exist anymore. Oh, this is clever," he exclaims gleefully.
He knew Moriarty was superb—more cunning than any other criminal, more resourceful than any Secret Service in the world. Nowadays, he would have both the cleverness and the means to pull off such a swindle. However, not even Jim could have planned the whole thing back in 1989. Sherlock estimates Moriarty couldn't have been more than thirteen years old back then. So, what had truly happened that night many years before? Who had started the fraud?
Sherlock has always suspected that his nemesis was brought up in wickedness and crime. One time, he even went as far as asking Mycroft to dig up Jim's family tree, but to his surprise (coupled with a hint of delight stemming from their sibling rivalry), not even the MI6 had managed to track down the family of the criminal mastermind. No known relatives, no birth certificate anywhere at any time. His origin was the real mystery.
It is reasonable to assume that a young Jim Moriarty must have had some lawless tutor (maybe an older member of his family), who switched the bottle of Chateau Margaux that night at the Four Seasons in Manhattan. After that, a simple insurance scam probably allowed the bottle to survive to the present day. Either Moriarty had had it all along or he had inherited it from a crony. Whatever the explanation was, Sherlock couldn't take his eyes off of that ghost wine.
He wakes up from a trance crowded with thoughts of deceit and goes back to his accusation.
"I'm not a drinker myself; I have other vices, but I know some people who would kill to have this bottle, Mr Perth. Ironically enough, though, you used it to commit a homicide. I'd call it a terrible waste if I weren't sure you have been much overpaid for your service by the consulting criminal Jim Moriarty. You are greedy and resentful, and Jim knew you just needed a spark that would ignite the hell of rage you still harboured. All it took was a tempting devil whispering in your ear and offering you money—your only deity—to commit something nefarious. Just a little push. Correct me if I'm wrong…" He doesn't finish the sentence because he catches a glimpse of a movement out of the corner of his eye.
Before anyone can react, Robert Perth swings a golf club in Sherlock's direction with full force. Sherlock lifts his arms to protect his head just in time: the iron stick clashes with the bottle in his hands, shattering it into a million emerald splinters that fly across the room. The remaining wine splatters over Sherlock's face, beading across his cheekbones like blood drops.
"Don't even think about taking another blow," John barks at Robert, drawing his gun from the pocket of his jacket and pointing it at his chest.
"That won't be necessary, John," a familiar husky voice echoes from the threshold of the office. In the commotion, nobody heard the door open.
Lestrade and his team of police officers are aiming their guns at the businessman. Sherlock shoots a glance at them and immediately understands. The police officers were the source of the footsteps that he previously heard. Not the security team of the firm ready to kick him out, but a Scotland Yard's division that was on its way to back him up.
Sherlock realises they must have stayed quiet behind the door, waiting for a confession or for an emergency to arise to allow them to storm into the room without a warrant. Knowing Sherlock Holmes well, Greg presumed the latter was likely to happen.
Robert Perth lowers the golf club he is holding and puts his hands in the air.
"You took your time," Sherlock says, unimpressed.
"You mean you called the police?" Giulia asks, stunned.
He gives her a conceited look. "Of course, I did. I sent Lestrade a text when we were in the lift, coming up here. I estimated they wouldn't take too long, considering they were interrogating the nuns across the street. I told you: I was pretty certain we'd find the killer here."
He fishes an immaculate white handkerchief out of his coat pocket and dabs his face, wiping off the wine drops. He licks his lips, tastes some of the wine, and sneers in disgust.
"It tastes awful. That's what two centuries do to some grape juice," he comments, unappreciative of the oenological art.
As his men handcuff Mr Perth, Lestrade scoffs at the detective.
"Sherlock, have you found some hard evidence to let me charge this man with slightly more than the attempted murder of a talkative intruder?"
Holmes nods. "This morning Robert Perth strangled and choked the nun that we found on the banks of the Thames. Everything you need is in this room." He turns around, pointing at a bunch of objects that he lists progressively.
"Exhibit A: At the entrance of that en-suite bathroom, you will find his trainers covered in the same mud as the soil at the crime scene. Your forensics team will probably be able to establish that the size and model of these running shoes are the same as the prints we found around the body at the embankment.
Exhibit B: The nun was killed in that very armchair." He stops for a second to brush a finger against the armrest of the chair he was sitting in, just a few minutes before. "Just take some samples of the wood and velvet fabric and compare them with the wooden splinters that Dr Molly Hooper found under the victim's nails: it'll be a perfect match."
His eyes travel to the ground up to the golf club that Mr Perth dropped after taking a blow at him, and his face lights up with realisation. He bends down, retrieves the stick, and simulates a swing before the astonished gaze of his interlocutor.
"Speaking of autopsy and perfect matches, the body showed several post-mortem bruises. When I analysed the marks, I deduced they must have been caused by some sort of iron cane. Now, I can safely affirm that the attacking weapon was this fine 3-iron of Mr Perth's golf clubs. Take it into evidence." He tosses it at Greg, who catches it mid-air effortlessly.
"And finally, this," Sherlock hands Lestrade (much more delicately this time) his wine-stained handkerchief, "is your murder weapon. What is left of it, anyway."
"Is this what we are going to nail him with? A wine that's unique in the world?" Lestrade sceptically asks, recalling Sherlock's accusation that he eavesdropped on from behind the door.
"If you need some more proof, I'm pretty confident you'll find an untraceable wired transaction of £370,000 in his bank account. It is the then insurance prize of the wine converted in pounds and adjusted for the inflation rate of 1989." He calculates on the spot. "That's his reward for a murder-for-hire, courtesy of Jim Moriarty. Though you will never be able to trace it back to the criminal mastermind."
"What about the mysterious reappearance of the Chateau Margaux? You simply deduced it survived to the present day. Aren't you curious to find out how?" Lestrade teases him.
"Irrelevant," Sherlock says hastily, and his tone gives away his irritation at the absence of a proper explanation. "It was just a magic trick that ended in a red pool on the floor thirty years ago. But it was also a deception that finished with a dead body on the riverbank today. Though the result is definitive, this time: today the world has lost forever one of its finest wines. Again. No matter how the Chateau Margaux has winded up being a murder weapon, rest assured that it could not be used to kill again."
John walks up to them, frowning.
"Hold on a second. How did you know that Mr Perth had kept the bottle of wine in his secret cabinet after killing the nun with it? It wasn't a very smart move."
"No, it was a vain one, in fact—perfectly in line with his vainglorious and prideful character. Take a look at his glass showcase; this man would never pass on the opportunity to keep a trophy. I simply understood he must have kept it close, here in his office." Sherlock shrugs at the cold-heartedness of that murderer. If it were up to that businessman, he would have probably hung the nun's head on his wall.
"Do you seriously think that Jim Moriarty hired him to kill a nun?" Lestrade strives to keep up with the developments of the case.
"He did much more than that, Detective Inspector. He staged it all; he gave Mr Perth some random women's clothes to conceal the identity of the victim. He told him to plant on the body the fake ID of a non-existent Doctor Kim Cab to lure me in with a little puzzle—the mysterious call Jim made to Giulia's number was the kick-off. And he provided Robert Perth with a murder weapon like no other." He lowers his eyes to the shards of glass on the stained carpet, and a melancholic expression flickers on his face, slightly reddened by the faint traces of the wine he hasn't completely blotted from his cheeks. Moriarty got his hands on a wine that was believed gone for good and popped it open for that special occasion specifically.
He keeps staring down with a blank look. Why did Jim start that game? Would he try to kill him again just as he threatened to do at the swimming pool? What would be his next move? A new case for his superior intellect to unravel?
A hand placed softly on his forearm wakes him from his stream of thoughts. He turns his head to meet Giulia's smiling eyes, and that vision inexplicably ties a knot in his stomach.
"Are you alright?" She murmurs kindly, probing the inaccessible depths of his aquamarine eyes.
He fixes his eyes on hers for half a second, then averts his gaze.
"Yes, of course. Another case solved, as always."
"Except that this wasn't just another case, was it? What about your game?" She insists, but he keeps his eyes far from her magnetic stare.
He fears she could read right through him and unearth his hidden sense of insecurity and restlessness. He is eager to find out what Moriarty has in store for him, but the last thing he wants is to put Giulia's life on the line. This is the first time he isn't utterly selfish, but also the first time he can't think in a purely logical way.
He bites down his lower lip and mutters under his breath, "I believe this was only the beginning."
She glances at his face but can't spot either fear or concern on his features: his spirit is just boiling with boundless curiosity.
"So, where do we go from here?" She asks.
"We wait for his next move, which, I don't doubt, will be exquisite," he says in an eerie voice.
"Are you applauding a killer?"
"No, I'm praising his work, his art."
"Killing is not art," she retorts, blushing with something close enough to anger and outrage, but not quite the same: revulsion.
Sherlock turns to look straight into her eyes. It isn't easy for her to accept his macabre world of murder and death. A pure soul such as Giulia doesn't realise that when fighting monsters, one risks becoming a little monstrous himself.
"Are you sure? I think anything in this world, if done with passion and dedication, could be art. Murderers are artists in their twisted version of reality, which, eventually, makes me the finest art critic there is. I am the one who can truly appreciate Moriarty's masterwork. That's why he does all that for me, and me only."
He wishes he could believe his words with every inch of himself. Yet, a grim foreboding tells him that in this case there is more than meets his ever-observant eye.
Giulia shakes her head in defeat, then wrinkles her nose.
"It's difficult to take you seriously when you smell so much of alcohol."
She grimaces at his snide look and takes a tissue out of a box on Mr Perth's desk, then steps closer and gently wipes off the remaining traces of wine from his cheeks. He lets her, without moving a muscle, his face motionless as if carved in marble. But his eyes are glued to her. She doesn't meet his gaze but keeps methodically cleaning him off and tries to justify it.
"I wouldn't let you walk into the convent again drenched in wine. It'd be inappropriate."
One of his brows lifts almost imperceptibly, and he speaks like a ventriloquist, careful to keep his mouth as still as possible as she dabs his chiselled chin.
"Why should I go back?"
Giulia raises her eyes to his, a look of compassion on her face.
"I thought we could be the ones to inform Sister Laura that we got the killer. It's a meagre consolation, but it might help her find some peace. I know you never do it. You don't care." She pauses, uncertain how to continue.
"But you do," he says. It's a simple statement and a declaration of surrender. That's what makes them different and what changes everything. Because he never does, no, but he would, for her.
She nods, their gazes still locked. He closes his eyes and sighs.
"Well then. I guess we have some time to kill before my nemesis presents me with his latest masterpiece," he jokes, earning an eye-roll from her.
He keeps the door open for Giulia, then nods his head to John.
"What do you say we get out of the way, doctor?"
John follows Sherlock and Giulia back to the convent, where they find Sister Laura praying in the chapel. They patiently wait for her on the threshold. John is telling the nun about the arrest when a caretaker approaches Sister Laura, looking nervous.
"Sorry to disturb you when you are with guests, Sister, but there's a very stubborn postman at the gate who claims he has to make a delivery here. He affirms there's no mistake on the address on the box, and I don't know how to convince him there is no Mr Sherlock Holmes here."
The three of them are petrified. Their eyes dart from one to the other as the blood turns cold in their veins.
Sister Laura frowns, then smiles, surprised.
"Oh, in fact, there is. This man right here is Sherlock Holmes. Isn't it an incredible coincidence?"
"Truly unbelievable," the detective mutters under his breath. God might have his unintelligible plans, but even if he played dice with the universe (and Einstein said he does not), such a grim occurrence could never be coincidental.
The caretaker goes to retrieve the delivery for him and comes back with a box identical to the one that was shipped to Baker Street earlier that day; same size, same white wrapping paper. The only difference is that right below the elegant spelling of the name Sherlock Holmes and the address of the convent, there is one more written line: Round two.
(*) Author's note: The story about the incident of the Chateau Margaux 1787 is mostly true. It was indeed an incredibly expensive wine, and it was believed to be part of Thomas Jefferson's collection. Nevertheless, it did get lost in 1989 at the Four Seasons in Manhattan. You can find newspaper articles of the time reporting the incident.
I took the creative liberty of changing the facts and inventing the insurance scam to let the bottle survive and become the murder weapon. Just to clarify: it was the result of my imagination. I hope you liked the trick.