A Scandal in Britain, Part 10/13

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9

December 17

I elbowed my way through the crowded French restaurant.

“Pardon me, monsieur, you must have a reservation - ” a host interrupted, but I ignored him. Instead I took a chair, lifted it over the heads of several confused patrons, and set it next to John and Sarah’s table for two.

“John,” I said, eschewing introductions. “I need your help. Desperately.”

“What the - ?” He stared. “How’d you find me?”

“Sarah likes French food and this is the closest French restaurant to Sarah’s place. Hello, Sarah.”

“Um. Hi, Sherlock.” Something suddenly struck her. “Wait - how do you know where I live?”

“I just got done talking to Addie. She had no objection to reopening the case. Something’s wrong, John. We missed something. What did we miss? What could we possibly have missed?” I threw my gloves on the table, irritated at my own stupidity.

John glanced apologetically at Sarah. “So that means - what? That she didn’t do it after all?”

I averted his gaze and squeezed my eyes shut. It was exceptionally difficult to admit, but… “I don’t know,” I finally said. “I don’t know. Everything points to her. Absolutely everything. And yet - ”

Sarah interrupted. “Wait. Addie? Addie the singer?”

I opened my eyes and stared at her, disgusted at her slowness.

“Er - it’s a long story,” John said. “I’ll tell you later.” He crumpled his cloth napkin and dropped it on his empty plate. “Maybe you should just give it up.”

“What?”

“Give it up. Let her release the tape. It’s probably in the nation’s best interest to know about William Ormstein’s true character, anyway.”

Sarah interrupted again. “William Ormstein? What - ?”

“It’s - ” John searched for the right words, then fell back on the old standby. “A long story. But think about it, Sherlock. Nobody needs to know but Molly and me. You never told Mycroft you were taking the case. To the best of his knowledge you’re still moping about the flat shooting smiley faces in the wall.”

“Shooting - ?” Sarah said.

“But she knows,” I said.

“She? What, you can’t even refer to her by her name? Have to use a pronoun instead?” He looked me up and down, incredulous. “You’ve never let what someone thought of you stop you before. Are you sure you don’t have a crush on her?”

“Oh, just stop it,” I snapped.

“No, let me try to figure this out. I might actually be getting somewhere with you for once. I’ll take as a working hypothesis that you are, in fact, interested in her. You want to demonstrate that interest by showing how clever you are - by solving the case. And that’s your dysfunctional way of showing affection for someone: by building yourself up and tearing the other person down. That’s clearly what’s happening here. Therefore, you must be interested in her.” He smiled triumphantly.

I felt like I was eight years old again and being taunted for saying I liked my teacher with the advanced degrees in chemistry. “I’m not interested in her!” I protested.

“Sherlock, you’ve got to stop feeling ashamed of attraction! She’s gorgeous, talented, rich, famous. Her bodyguard said she’s the cleverest woman he ever met. Who wouldn’t be attracted?” Sarah shot him a disapproving glance. “Er - sorry. If you really feel that way, why don’t you tell her? You’d be perfect for each other. She could go on tour and leave you to your investigations and experiments - you could have intellectually stimulating arguments - she’d remind you to buy the milk, or at the least, hire someone to remind you to -”

My face had gone blank. “Oh,” I whispered. “Of course.”

John stopped. “What?” He hesitated. “Did I just cause an epiphany?”

Once again I found myself asking the very same questions I had asked in Baker Street. “Who in her life would know the most about her interests? Who would see whatever she’s reading and studying? Who would overhear all of her conversations? Who would surround her at all times?”

He leaned back in his chair, looking as stunned as I felt. “Her bodyguard,” he said. “Her bodyguard did it.”

“Exactly.”

“But - ” He hesitated, trying to think of a delicate way to phrase his thoughts. “But didn’t he seem a little…um…dense to - ?”

I shook my head impatiently. “No, no, no, no, not the one we met. He said he was a replacement, remember? We’re looking for the old one. What was his name? Rabbit?”

“No…” His forehead wrinkled as he tried to remember. “Something like… Was it Bunny?”

“Yes! And Bunny was a nickname for - ”

“Dick Brunton,” we finished at the same time.

Sarah sighed. I ignored her and took out my phone. A quick query and voila.

“Richard Brunton,” I said, triumphantly brandishing the phone. They both peered at it. “Former bodyguard to Addie. Now a professor in New York. Author of several treatises on South American snakes. We have our man.”

“But that makes even less sense than Addie killing him,” John protested. “What possible motivation could her bodyguard have in killing her husband?”

“Because he loved her,” I said grimly, scanning the biography on his university’s website. “He loved her. Damn. How dense can I be?”

He was still confused. “So he wanted to kill her husband - why? So he could have a shot at her?”

“No. He killed him because…” I took a deep breath, unsure of how much I ought to reveal. “Because he deserved it,” I finally finished.

The two of them looked at me, confused. I didn’t want to elaborate. “What time is it?”

John glanced at his watch. “Eleven fourteen.”

“Good. We have time then.”

“We have time?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Oh.” I glanced back and forth between them uncertainly. “Look - John - I know you’re…um, busy…”

“Excellent deduction,” he muttered.

“But would you…consider coming with me?” I struggled for words, wondering how much I could, in good confidence, reveal. “When I talked to Addie, I…” I tried again. “There is obviously more to this case than meets the eye. A partner would be invaluable to me.”

He hesitated. He clearly had questions, but he didn’t want to ask them in front of Sarah - and worse, Sarah knew it. He looked at her uncomfortably, questioningly. She pursed her lips a little, but then finally, unbelievably, smiled a brief, irritated smile.

“Oh, go ahead. Call me when you get home,” she finally said. “I’ll be waiting.”

John stood up and kissed her passionately.

“You owe me one, John Watson!” she cried after us, but by that time we were nearly out the door.

***

It took a few minutes to find a cab, but eventually we found one and clambered together into the back. John gave directions to the driver; I tried finding a number for Dick Brunton. I tried five separate websites before finally finding a New York number for a man born in March 1972. I dialled the number, then flicked a switch to put the call on speaker.

The rings echoed in the back of the cab. John and I exchanged glances.

Finally, the seventh ring was cut off halfway through. A raspy breath came on the line.

“Hello?”

“Is this Richard Brunton?” I asked.

There was a long moment of silence. “Who is this?” he finally asked.

“I have news,” I said. “About Addie.”

The words had a galvanising effect. His voice rose in pitch. “Addie?”

“Have you heard who she’s dating now?”

“Um - some politician, I think.” He hesitated. I waited to see if he would reveal any more. “Someone in Britain. Who are you?”

A slow smile crept across my face. “So you keep tabs on her, then.”

“I said, who are you?”

“Someone who knows everything. No. Don’t hang up. Addie’s career is at stake. I have the power to completely and utterly destroy her. And I will, too, if you don’t listen.”

“What the - ”

“Listen. I know you killed Godfrey Norton. I know you used the snake. I know you got it in Venezuela when you were working for her. Did you use the tunnel, too? To keep them from suspecting you?”

There was a long, shocked silence.

“Who the hell are you?” he finally demanded.

“I know how Godfrey Norton beat her, day in and day out. I know that you were in love with her - that you are still in love with her, judging by your reaction now. You have the best motivation in the world to kill him. Are you listening?”

He hesitated. “I’m listening.”

“Addie has something that she needs to give me. If she gives it to me, I will drop the inquiry entirely and you will never hear from me again. If she doesn’t give it to me, I’ll go to the police and I’ll tell them that she paid you to kill Godfrey Norton.”

“But she didn’t! She didn’t pay me, I swear to God.”

“We’ll see what a jury says about that.”

“What do you want? Don’t you dare touch her. I’ll kill you if you touch her.” His voice disintegrated into a manic growl.

“If you stay on the line, I won’t lay a finger on her. In fact, I’ll let you talk to her in just a few minutes. Is it a deal?”

His breath was faster, raspier. “Yes. Yes, it’s a deal. But if you touch her…”

“You don’t have anything to worry about as far as that goes,” I interrupted. I shot a glance at John, then pocketed the phone and glanced out the window at the passing lights of London.

***

Traffic was bad, and it took us twenty minutes to get to Addie’s address. As soon as the cab came to a stop we clambered out and up to the gate blocking her driveway. I looked it up and down despairingly. I’m not a short man by any means, but it was so tall that I couldn’t imagine how -

“Here,” John said, interrupting my thoughts. “Stand on me.”

I blinked at him. “Stand on you?”

“Just do it. No questions.”

I hesitated - hadn’t the man been through enough these past couple of days? - but he knelt down a little, and so I took a deep breath and stood on the hump of his back. The boost gave me just enough height to launch myself safely over to the other side.

“Now what?” I panted.

“Go get her. I’ll wait here.”

“No,” I said automatically. “I need you.”

“Your devotion is touching, but I’m not about to break my back for you.”

“You don’t understand, I need you,” I insisted.

He searched my face and raised an eyebrow. He was beginning to realise that I had some kind of ulterior motive for his presence. I don’t have much of a moral core, but even I knew I should tell him - about how Addie had some kind of link to a group larger than herself - possibly - but if I did - would he ever agree to come? I had to be honest with myself: I didn’t know. And, as selfish as it sounds in retrospect, I knew it wasn’t wise to be alone.

“Look,” I said, increasingly desperate. “It’s ten minutes to.” I kneeled a bit and inserted my arms through the rod iron bars, grabbing my elbows so that my forearms made a little step about halfway up the height of the gate. “Get a running start,” I said, speaking so quickly that the words blurred together. “Jump when you’re two or three feet from me. Try to get your hands on top of the gate. When you come down, brace your fall by landing bent-kneed. Understand?”

“Sherlock, that’s ridiculous. I might break your - ”

“Just do it,” I said between gritted teeth.

And so he did. The pain of his weight seared through my arms, and the pain of his landing no doubt seared through his calves, but it didn’t matter; we were both on the other side of the fence, together and safe.

“Now,” I said. “Run.”

The driveway was longer than I expected, and horridly uneven, thanks to the hand-cut cobblestones lining it. Both John and I stumbled a few times as we sprinted toward the house, but thankfully neither of us fell. The moon came out from behind the clouds, illuminating the shadows of multiple wings of the house. Countless windows were stacked one atop the other. Ominously, all were dark.

I ran beneath the porte-cochère, hopped up the stairs leading to the front entrance, rang the bell, and pounded on the door.

“It’s Sherlock Holmes,” I cried. “Let me in!”

“She’s not going to answer that,” John panted, coming up behind me. “You’d be better off breaking a window.”

I considered. “But the security system.”

“It might not be on yet if she’s still awake.”

I hesitated, then realised that he was right. I trampled some shrubbery, took out the hammer from the burgling kit, and took a good hard whack at a window. I tensed, waiting for the shriek of the alarm that I was positive would echo throughout the entire city - but there was nothing. With a breath of relief, I tucked the hammer back into a pocket and ducked through the broken window, John following close behind.

The house was both grand and dark, but luckily the moonlight provided enough illumination to keep us from tripping over pieces of Georgian furniture or antique vases.

“Addie!” I shouted.

“There’s only a couple of minutes till midnight,” John hissed.

I ignored him. “Addie!”

Suddenly John grabbed my elbow and pointed to our left. Far in the distance, beyond three extravagant rooms, was a strip of golden light beneath two double doors. We ran through them all - a library, some type of lounge, and a gallery - before getting to the entrance. I took a knob in each hand and pushed open the doors.

We were in Addie’s palatial bedroom. She was sitting behind a desk, a laptop in front of her. She looked up in astonishment at our sudden dramatic entrance.

“Stop!” I cried. “We know everything. It was Richard Brunton. He’s on the phone now. He’ll tell you.”

***

Nice cliff-hanger. Especially since we all know what happens next.

John, have you ever noticed that every date we have with Sherlock ends up going bad?

The Chinese circus: bad.

The date when Moriarty kidnapped you and strapped you to a bomb: bad.

The date when Sherlock encouraged us to go walking by the water filtration centre by moonlight: bad.

This one: bad.

- Comment posted by Sarah Sawyer


Brilliant observation and analysis, Sarah!

Seriously, though, I can’t help that mystery and intrigue follow me wherever I go. It’s sort of how you can’t help that monotony and tedium follow you wherever you go!

- Comment posted by Sherlock Holmes


Oh, yes. I mourn the lack of violence in my life every single day…

- Comment posted by Sarah Sawyer


That needlessly sarcastic comment is exactly why it won’t last between you two. You misunderstand a vital part of John’s psychology. He needs someone exciting. Someone like (and I’m just throwing this out there) me.

- Comment posted by Sherlock Holmes


You misunderstand a vital part of John’s psychology, as well; namely, that he needs a woman. Someone like (and I’m just throwing this out there) me.

- Comment posted by Sarah Sawyer


Please don’t argue. Can’t you just share me?

- Comment posted by John Watson


No.

- Comment posted by Sarah Sawyer


NO.

- Comment posted by Sherlock Holmes


Ha, look. We cross-posted. And look, I value you more. I used capital letters.

- Comment posted by Sherlock Holmes


For Pete’s sake. What are you? Seven?

- Comment posted by John Watson


More like five.

I’m finding it rather hard to believe that it took you this long to unravel the crime. Your affection for Addie - or John - or both - is clearly dulling your edge. If you would have kept in touch with your brother, the case would have been solved a long time ago, and it might not have ended as badly as it did.

- Comment posted by Anthea