The Case of Archie Stamford, the Forger

Chapter 9: Unmasked Falsehoods

8*8

December 2023

Sherlock stood beside their assigned table in the prison's visitor hall. Pleased he had been granted visitor privileges with Fiona Crofton for expediting her case with the authorities, he tucked his folded hands under his chin to contain his excitement. Beside him, John was surreptitiously glancing around. The dreary color palette of the large room, drab brown cement walls and mustard-yellow trim mouldings, was a punishment to the eye and a reminder to its occupants it was a prison interior. Soft conversations susurrated among the cluster of visitors, presumably family, waiting to meet other female inmates.

The heavy clank of the lock-bolt sounded. Voices hushed; eyes turned to the holding-cell door. Women in casual clothes filed through, accompanied by uniformed female guards. Each inmate, though, wore an orange sash to identify her as a prisoner.

Despite her grey, short-cropped hair, Fiona was easily recognizable by her arrogant smirk and aristocratic stride. Her prison guard escort in tow, she approached the table where Sherlock and John waited with the same hauteur she doubtlessly wore when attending high-power meetings with the wealthy and well-connected. Unlike the other inmates, her attire was more brand-name classic and less street casual. No doubt her choice of outfit—a striped crew-neck jumper by Barbour over navy pin-striped slacks—had been deliberately ironic, her way of mocking prison dress code, which no longer required inmates wear identical prison garb.

"Well, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson," the imposing woman exclaimed in a polished accent, "a pleasure to meet you at last. Please, gentlemen," she said and gestured politely, "sit with me." Her guard stood a discrete distance nearby.

John concealed his immediate dislike for the woman's queenly airs. He glanced to his friend for guidance. Sherlock showed no offense at her manner; he sat.

"I expect you're here about my latest masterpiece," she began with a proud chuckle. "Child's play. AI is lending itself to so many wonderful uses. The most advanced form of fraud at one's fingertips! Creating that deepfake was a lark! You must have appreciated my finesse in synchronizing the lips with your voice, Dr. Watson. And the things I made you say!" she nearly cackled with delight.

Piece'o shiiite! Bitch! John recalled Stamford's words and found himself agreeing.

"The dialogue required a bit of editing, but it was worth it." Fiona checked her unpolished nails and buffed them against her jumper sleeve as if that would improve their appearance. "I do hope you enjoyed the finish product as much as I!" She flashed a snobbish smile, revealing a row of even, unnaturally white teeth at the two men across the table from her.

Irritated by her pathological vanity, John smiled inwardly at the unlikelihood of her maintaining any meticulous-grooming regimen in prison and only partially heard Sherlock's explain that "motivation" was the purpose for their visit.

"I'm disappointed, Mr. Holmes." Her voice had soured, her blue eyes brooded. "This visit has nothing to do with my legal needs, then? Here I presumed you were so impressed by my talent that you planned to offer me your assistance."

"You, madame, don't require my assistance. The evidence you have so masterfully provided will ensure you will remain His Majesty's guest for quite a while. I've no need to trouble myself to find more."

Fiona registered the detective's rebuttal with a fierce glare.

If looks could kill, John thought. He kept a wary eye on the woman, ready to block her if she decided to lunge at Sherlock.

"Then why are you here?" she scoffed, the first tinge of rising anger now audible.

Sherlock leant back in his chair and folded his arms. "Motivation. Why target Archie Stamford?"

"He was the perfect patsy…" she feinted,

"Not so perfect, it would seem," Sherlock disagreed, "as your patsy is the reason you are here today. Selecting him was a grave mistake."

John watched in fascination as the two combatants—the genius detective and the devious narcissist— parried like fencers.

"Win some, lose some," she deflected. "I'm certain you're familiar with—"

"Actually," Sherlock drawled, "I am not. And your defense is…rather pedestrian. I expected more, to be honest. With your hacking abilities, you could have spread your data files across various other devices. That would have been clever and harder to trace. It seems to me that saving these files in one place and on Stamford's computer was foolhardy—amateurish, really—especially for someone of your self-described intelligence and skill."

Fiona leant back and crossed her arms in an annoying imitation of Sherlock's pose. Her tightened lower jaw betrayed her distaste at being thought amateurish and foolhardy.

"Unless… it was deliberate, on your part," Sherlock taunted.

The irritated woman's brows furrowed as she decided how to respond to Sherlock's insults. "There's no harm in admitting this now. Of course I did that deliberately," Fiona huffed. "It got him a longer sentence than the rest of us, exactly what I had wanted. And until a week ago, I expected that his upcoming appeal would fail; it would have, too, had you not interfered. Shame on you, Mr. Holmes." She wagged her finger. "It was my private concern—not even Victor knew about it—and therefore, nobody's business."

Sherlock ignored her jab. "You made it my business when you created the deepfake involving my friend—your first mistake. It drew attention to your 'private concern' with the Farnham printer—your second mistake—and led us to the real source of Stamford's alleged crimes—your biggest mistake."

Her pout—a displeasing display of wrinkles surrounding her lips—was followed by a deep, self-pitying sigh. "Nobody's perfect. Even me. Making an error of this magnitude is actually quite rare for me but knowing that he suffered in my stead for so many years, well…." She shrugged. "I'll take that as a victory and forgive myself for how it went wrong."

"But not Stamford…you can't forgive him. What was wrong about him?"

"Being born!" she retorted savagely, then immediately covered her raw reaction with a mirthless laugh as if it were a joke. "Why should I tell you?"

Sherlock narrowed his eyes as if he were closing in on the truth. "Because you expressly targeted him. No one, not even your ex-husband, Victor, had noticed up to this point—except me—and you want someone to appreciate the genius of your plan."

A sudden shift in Fiona's eyes, an arch of her manicured brows was telltale.

Touché Sherlock! John looked down at his hand to hide his half smile.

"Why target him, you ask? Because I had the power to mistreat him," Fiona boasted, "It gave me pleasure to watch him suffer."

"The behavior of a sadist—or a savage. Is that how you would describe yourself?"

Oi, John thought and slid another glance to his friend. So often—and when it suited his purpose—Sherlock used restraint in his interviews. With Fiona, he was exploiting every opening she unwittingly provided for increasingly offensive thrusts.

Fiona again deflected, this time with a snicker. "One doesn't have to be a sadist to find fault with the most irritating of people—idiots, nearly every one of them—and yes, I like to tease, pick fights to gain the upper hand, all in the spirit of enterprise. Toppling worthy adversaries when it suited me was sport. I always win, Mr. Holmes. See it as competition, not a sadism, hmm?"

"Until now." Sherlock reminded pointedly. "However, with those others, it was business, not personal, yet you chose Stamford to frame. What made him worthy of your personal attack?"

"Nothing," she protested. "He was insignificant."

"You would waste your prodigious talents on a 'worthless nobody,' madame? It does rather beg the question what was the point?" Sherlock countered coolly. "He wasn't a nobody, was he?"

Sherlock's inquiry was a direct hit. Fiona winced. She squirmed in her metal straight-back chair and looked away. "He's a bastard," she croaked in a choked whisper.

Sherlock leant forward fractionally in anticipation of the answer he had been seeking. "Interesting choice of word…"

"Literally," she moaned, "My father's … bastard son….with…with some low life. That witch!" she hissed viciously and loudly, attracting the attention of others in the hall and alerting the guards.

In the subsequent silence, many eyes looked askance toward the commotion at their table. Fleeting, knowing glances were exchanged to assure each other the disruption was not threatening. Seconds later, the guests and prisoners resumed their private conversations and the guards relaxed.

Fiona huddled closer to the table as if to make herself less conspicuous and lowered her voice, now venom filled. "That conniving…exploitive …adulteress—oh, yes, she was married—was nearly the undoing of my family's prestige and reputation. I was a small girl at the time, but I remember the arguments, even now. My mother was, unforgiving…and forever after bitter. The whole affair was buried, quite literally, after his slut-of-a-mother did us the favour of dying. Drug overdose." Fiona Croften's grin was victorious and vicious. "The orphan was raised by a cousin, an uncle …or some such, from her side."

"He's your half-brother?" John gasped in shock and looked to Sherlock for confirmation.

When their eyes met, Sherlock's twinkled with immense satisfaction. He had expected this. Fiona's admission—in her own words—had been the evidence he sought. "Now we're getting somewhere." The detective grinned.

"His blood is diluted, tainted! Half-brother or not!" she spat her disdain.

"Sins of the father—" John quoted the proverb and fell silent.

"—provide powerful motivation for revenge." Sherlock acknowledged his friend's input before adding. "One can't deny the DNA evidence regardless of one's opinion. Although I'm sure you, Ms. Crofton, could tamper with any document to obfuscate the truth."

"Don't think I haven't been prepared. But the lout, Stamford, was too stupid; he never suspected. Still doesn't know!" She sniggered, paused, then inhaled. "Look, Mr. Holmes, I never ever went looking for him. Didn't know at first when I investigated the Farnham print shop business for our purposes, but once I realized who he was, it dredged up all that buried rancor. I hated him, everything about him, his face, his voice, his smell…ugh!" She made a face. "Since the moron never made the connection, I could exact my revenge with impunity. He deserved it—"

"Deserved it? No. Your father and his mother, perhaps, but the child was innocent. You, however, are not…innocent, that is."

Fiona's lower jaw gaped at his obtuse rudeness.

"Well." Sherlock stood abruptly, and John did the same. "I'm finished here. Nothing of interest remains to be revealed. Good day, madame. Or as much of in the way of good days as one can expect whilst serving a custodial sentence."

The scorned woman stood, palms planted flat, and leant forward on the table. Her guard moved closer. "You have made a mistake affronting me, Holmes." She addressed the backs of the departing men. "I can do much to smear you both and your already tarnished reputations…be forewarned."

Sherlock paused then slowly turned to address Fiona. "I do not fear your retribution. Fakery may masquerade as truth for a time, but I assure you that while I live, I will do my best to unmask falsehoods and reveal the truth. Pity, that for all your skill at verisimilitude, you never learnt the beauty of the truth far exceeds the beauty of fiction." Sherlock spun on his heel and with John by his side left the hall.

8**8

8**8

On the train back to London, they occupied facing seats in silence. A scattering of other passengers were seated in their carriage, but none close for eavesdropping should the friends resume casual conversation. The muffled clickety-clack of the rails was soothing, mesmerizing in its familiarity, as John stared out the window at the wintry landscape. His memories of the recent interview with Fiona Crofton flowed from one topic to another until they hit several sticking points. He looked at detective whose eyes were closed in contemplation.

"Sherlock," he said, leaning forward to tap his friend's upper arm. "Crofton's remark about AI has me wondering."

Sherlock's keen eyes flew open.

Encouraged by the interest in Sherlock's reaction, John continued, "In science and medicine, AI has proven beneficial. Pathologists use AI algorithms successfully to distinguish patterns and identify diseases in their earliest stages, aiding doctors in diagnosing patients. There're reports every day about AI robots being efficient in manufacture and many technologies. AI facilitates CGI in the film industry. In a museum you can stand for hours watching an AI-generated 'living' painting on a bloody screen. I know. I've done it. The swirling kaleidoscope of colors is relaxing, like watching a fishbowl. AI is driving our cars. There is not one day that my mobile doesn't send me notifications based upon AI algorithms that have identified my likes and dislikes. It's not just about using AI in the future; the future is now…AI is present and accounted for…but…but do you think Fiona Crofton's threat to use AI against… you, us,…people, in general, is credible?

"If you're referring to her parting statement," Sherlock replied with a nod, "and I quote: 'the most advanced form of fraud at one's fingertips!' then I understand your concern."

Sherlock settled back in his seat and stared out the window. "It's a tool. Like most tools that humankind has created, it's neither bad nor good. It's how it is used and the intentions of the individual using it that make it potentially a threat. A sharpened pencil held in close contact to the face can become a weapon, yet educators and parents let school children carry them without concern. The threat is always possible, but I've yet to hear of a case where a pencil was used to rob a bank. When it comes to AI we should be cautious and require transparency. If the proper safeguards are in place—and this IF is what authorities haven't yet managed to resolve—I see the responsible and ethical use of AI as a most advanced improvement, one I would heartily support."

"So, you're not afraid how it will change us?"

Sherlock looked directly at his friend as he considered the question. "Not afraid, more hopeful." John's eyebrows arched in surprise, prompting Sherlock to clarify. "My optimism may seem misguided to you, but it's considering the long-term benefits within an historical perspective. Socrates's criticism of writing—"

"—Hang on," John interrupted with a raised palm, "Socrates? Since when has your 'vast store of knowledge' included Greek philosophers?"

Sherlock frowned at the interruption. "You should not be surprised, John, that I continue to expand my knowledge base as it pertains to deciphering human motivation." He ignored John's skeptical grin and went on, "As I was saying… at a time when oral tradition was at its height, Socrates was opposed to the written medium—a new technology in a society that depended largely on the spoken word. Writing, he felt, was devoid of the human voice that conveys expression and empathy; he was against it for another important reason: unlike the oral tradition that taught generations memorization and mnemonic tricks to preserve a story, lesson or public address, writing made memorization unnecessary and thereby weakened the mind."

"And the only reason we know all this," John sassed, "is because his disciple. Plato, wrote it all down."

"Quite. I agree with Socrates about memory, John. The human brain is meant to be challenged and most people are lazy… Yes, it's also true, modern man does not need to remember things. But we still need to KNOW things. Writing may have been the start of the downfall of memorization, but literacy spread knowledge to so many more people, not just the elite, that it more than proved its value to civilization. Today, our mobiles and search engines inundate us with news—knowledge as handy as a pocket device—and human beings are becoming dependent on this technology for their information."

"But to bring this back to AI," John countered, "won't we become lazier if everything—especially our thinking—is done for us?"

"AI processing is extraordinarily faster than the human mind," Sherlock answered, exhilarated by a topic that has long interested him and pleased by this exchange with John. "You've already listed its advantages, John, so you know— yet labelling its processes as 'thinking' as humans are capable of—no. AI is not infallible. Data and machine-learning algorithms make blunders. AI does not have commons sense—a very human trait."

"Hmmm. Interesting, how so?" John leant forward with clasped hands on his knees.

Sherlock also leant forward to reply, "For example, it cannot adequately answer common sensible questions correctly. Question: If it takes one hour for one item on a clothesline to dry on a sunny day, how long will it take three items of clothes to dry? AI added up the three items and calculated three hours. It was wrong because all three items would dry in one hour simultaneously on a sunny day."

John snorted a laugh at the AI mistake—all the encouragement Sherlock Holmes needed to elaborate. "Consider, John, AI is rubbish at recreating human hands and fingers. These digits are too sophisticated for it to fathom; it cannot give legal advice, its insufficient databases have made it culpable of racial profiling, and, of course, we know it doesn't comprehend ethics because AI cannot prevent itself from being weaponized, resulting in deepfakes and scams of all sorts, misrepresenting the truth, and circulating persuasive disinformation. AI is capable of all the errors and misconstructions that have plagued its human creators for millennia. For that reason alone, it requires human oversight and intervention because it often draws the wrong conclusions."

"Those are serious concerns. How can human beings detect truth from lies when it is so masterfully camouflaged?"

"Everyone must be a detective. Everyone must question the information and research the sources or employ fact-checking methods for authenticity. More than that…one must be vigilant not to accept any piece of information—so-called—simply because it agrees with one's existing beliefs and prejudices.""

"Seriously! Everyone must be you." John chuckled then grew earnest. "We can't all be a brilliant detective, like you."

"Not brilliant," Sherlock protested despite enjoying John's flattery. "Just be sensible."

"Ha! Do you think AI can replace you?" John jested.

"It's not smart enough, ... yet," Sherlock replied with a hint of a smile.

"Definitely can replace the likes of Anderson, then?" John grinned wickedly, referring to Phillip Anderson, the former Met forensic specialist who left the Department after Sherlock's "death."

They locked eyes before Sherlock burst into laughter. Their mutual merriment drew the attention of the other passengers who looked up from their mobiles, tablets, or knitting in puzzlement. Some smiled at the contagious sound, others dismissed it quickly and returned to their own concerns.

"Yes, A-I: Anderson-Idiot… a repository of wrong conclusions!" Sherlock agreed, holding his side as their cathartic chuckles subsided, "AI at its worst!"

As their laughter diminished, John's broad smile faded. "Not to bring down the mood," he began, introducing a second concern that bothered him, "you accused Fiona of being a sadist. Why?"

Sherlock nodded at the question. "Yes. It was a strategy, a maneuver to get her to talk…People are most eager to correct you when you are wrong. They can't help it. As they defend themselves, they unwittingly reveal the truth you are seeking. Her behavior and more importantly—her attitude—toward Stamford were peculiar. Either she was a sadist for which her cruelty would be more arbitrary due to 'empathy erosion' or she was vengeful. Pure sadists are rare. I calculated this in my decision to provoke her. Stamford's familial connection was hardly surprising as it was a more common motive for vengeance."

"Fiona and Archie…. Half siblings… so that's how you knew!"

"Suspected… barring DNA testing which were not available nor warranted to satisfy my curiosity..I needed her confession for confirmation."

"Well, mate. Maybe you're slipping. It should have been obvious without her confirmation!" John smirked.

"Oh?" Sherlock quizzed, puzzled by John's mischievous expression.

"They do share an extremely disagreeable personality," John giggled behind a raised fist. He looked around to ensure they were not disturbing the other passengers again. "Presumably a family trait?"

Sherlock cracked a smile. "Having disagreeable personality traits does not prove blood ties. Or that would imply," he quipped playfully. "I am another yet undiscovered sibling. And if you include Mycroft…"

After another round of ridiculous chuckling between them that again garnered them curious stares, John sighed. "Well, your deduction was both amazing and logical, as usual. But you know: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." He thumbed behind him in a gesture that suggested the prison and their visit with Fiona, as he mentioned his third concern. "You put a target on your back."

"Have I?" Sherlock feigned awareness of what they both knew was true. "I believe targets are already on my back. This is just another one. There will be more. Nor does it matter what gender has been scorned."

"Worries you, does it?"

Sherlock grunted and shook his head. He looked out the window, spotting landmarks that indicated they were close to London. When he answered, his voice was warm, his expression softened by a half smile. "Not when John Watson has my back."

John frowned. As true as that had been in the past, it was no longer a guarantee. Their lives and sleuthing partnership had diverged once fatherhood, and its accompanying responsibilities, had become John's priority. "That's a lot to ask of one man…," he observed.

"That's why I've put my best man on it," was Sherlock's calculatedly cavalier reply.

"Sorry! No. Don't give me that!" There was heat and frustration in John's candid outburst. "Not true anymore, as much as I might have wanted it to be. You know I haven't been able to provide the backup you require, at least for the last nine years—and bloody hell, you've needed an army! Thanks to Mycroft, you've got an army as backup with some of the risks you have taken since."

"Then you should know I will not fault you, but me, for failing to heed my best friend's advice."

"Seriously? Heed…me?"

"To always seek assistance in my endeavors on a case…" Sherlock returned. "Be assured, it's counsel I take quite seriously."

Once more both men exchanged looks, each seeing in the other the unspoken truth of their mutual commitment, before they retreated into silence for the remainder of the trip.

88**88

88**88

Epilogue to follow