PRACTICE TO DECEIVE (Parts 3&4 of 6)

PART THREE: Windows into Men's Souls.

The trap pulled up outside a desultory cottage. Watson turned to the driver and received a silent confirmation; this was indeed the place. Having been offered no help; he took his own bags in hand. The driver waited as instructed, fixing Watson with an incurious gaze as he approached the small building slowly. It improved little on closer inspection. The low roof had been recently re-thatched but the rest of the building was in desperate need of paint. Bush and scrub pushed in towards it on all sides, yielding little and tenuously to a pallid lawn and small garden around the front stoop. A few unidentifiable flowers grew there, and they alone displayed a real health and vigor, supporting a profusion of exotic blooms.

The door was unlocked and swung, protesting, to reveal the single room within. The cottage's meager contents were distributed in three rough domains. Against the opposite wall stood a bed and small cabinet, to the left a low bench bore fruit, bread and common utensils, and in the middle a large mahogany table supporting a few books and a watering can acting the part of a vase, crammed with daffodils. Their cheerful hues of gold and parchment-white stood in stark counter-point to the rest of the dark and dejected room. The room was simple, bare and profoundly disturbing. The Holmes he knew occupied a room as complex and chaotic as his own mind. What consideration he might give to other matters, did not extend to decorative flowers.

The books on the table were few and bemusing, a catalogue from a girl's school, a seed manual and a local broadsheet ripe with news of lambs and pumpkins - no crime, no personal column. Nothing in the room spoke of the Holmes that was, and only the even rows of beehives visible through the single window spoke of his stated intents in retiring here. To Watson's untrained eyes they seemed neglected structures, surrounded by tall stalks of grass.

"You shouldn't be in here mister," piped a hesitant voice from the still-open doorway. "This here is Mr. Sherlock's place."

A girl stood against the light, fourteen at most and dressed in the general style of a maid of all work. Her dress hard worn but clean beneath an embroidered apron. She curtseyed ineptly under his gaze.

"I am Doctor Watson, a friend of his."

She considered this solemnly a moment, then nodded. "He talks about you sometimes, said you were all right. You going to stay here?"

Watson beckoned her closer. "You know what happened with Mr. Holmes?"

She nodded again, avoiding his gaze. "He killed the Duke and the coppers came and took him away."

Watson struggled to maintain the almost unreal calm he had felt since first hearing of the accusation. "Do you think he really did it?" he asked.

This girl was his first chance to learn something of what had really occurred.

The girl backed up again, words tumbling from her mouth. "He said he did, so he must of. He said the Duke was a bad man and I must stay away from him but it was hard as I have to walk passed his place to get here from home," she looked on the verge of tears but also increasingly defiant. "If letting the Duke do his will would have done it so Mr. Sherlock didn't have to go away. I would have done it and never told."

She ran from the room and into the lane as fleet as a hare. Watson sighed and sat at the single wooden chair beside the table and rested his bag upon the floor. A cold certainty settled in his stomach. This was a sordid tale indeed. Was it possible that Holmes was responsible for this abominable crime? If he were not, what could possibly explain his actions?

Silently Watson blessed Lestrade for coming to him immediately with the news. He had not hesitated in his leap to action. The practice locked up and deserted with only a note of apology to his secretary to make the best she could of the situation. She might find a locum or not, Watson could not bring himself to care. When Holmes needed him all other considerations were swept aside, whether it was Holmes that summoned him or not. He could only hope that Holmes was playing some deep game, and was not in any real peril. For the penalty for murdering a Lord of the manor would not be 'going away', it would surely be the noose.

Watson steeled himself to discover what he could from his estranged friend, found for once on the wrong side of a prison door.

PART FOUR: The Horse's Mouth

Watson left with the clear intent of going straight to the county jail. However when his otherwise uncommunicative driver pointed out the front gate of the late Duke's manor, Watson decided he might as well call there first.

He felt somewhat uneasy, as a stranger, calling upon the recently bereaved Duchess, but he took a leaf from Holmes' book. Courtesy and detection were rarely in complete accord. The magnificent grounds distracted his mind somewhat on the approach. The naturally planted and genuinely natural sections of woodland, the grounds proper, meticulous gardens and house itself. A marvelous monument to both taste and excess entirely clad in grey-veined marble. At the door he passed an elderly gentleman who was leaving, and gave his card to the discreetly disapproving butler who showed him through to a small parlor.

The far wall was dominated by a large oil of a chestnut mare, held by a jockey in racing colors. Watson had hardly begun to inspect the piece when the lady of the house appeared. She was a striking woman though on closer inspection it was hard to explain why. She had direct rather than graceful movement, a large frame, slightly irregular features and was into her middle years. However she held herself with the forthright dignity of a person who knows her own worth, not a penny more or less. Watson felt himself liking her almost immediately and only hoped that fortune would not make adversaries of them.

"Doctor Watson," she declared. "I am so pleased to meet you at last though the circumstances could not be worse, please sit. You will want a full accounting of the matter though I fear I have but an imperfect understanding of how this terrible situation has come to pass."

"I am sorry for you loss."

The lady looked into her eyes, and apparently satisfied by what she saw there, she continued. "I hope you will not be shocked by what I say, but in this extremity and dissembly could be dangerous. I care very little that Gerard is dead, it would be at most and inconvenience to me. Mr. Holmes' confession, however, confound me greatly. He is a good man and has been a good friend to me."

"Perhaps you could tell me how the events surrounding the Duke's death unfolded?" Watson could not help wondering if he had crossed the path of the world oldest motive. Holmes had never been one to pursue a friendship on any casual basis.

"Well," she paused collecting her thoughts. "Mr. Holmes called around half-past-five to speak with Gerard about his conduct on some matter that he would not disclose to me. No doubt Gerard had behaved atrociously in one way or another, as he was wont to do. I stayed in my study though the footman did mention his arrival to me. Gerard being inclined to jealousy, my involvement would hardly be of assistance. After a few minutes I heard raised voices from my husband's study, Gerard's mainly. The Holmes said something quite sharply, then a shot. I rang for the footman and we both went to the study. Gerard was dead on the floor, with a bullet wound on his chest. Holmes instructed me to call for the police, which I had the footman do. Holmes was silent; he refused to answer any inquiry from me. When the police arrived he told hem he had shot my husband, though to this day he will not explain exactly why."

The duchess twisted a plain white handkerchief between her hands as she spoke. "I am at a loss to explain it," she concluded. "Certainly he never planned to do it; the gun was my husband's, but he seemed quite calm and sure in his confession. Tell me, do you think he could possibly, if he were greatly provoked?"

Watson shook his head. "I don't know, I know he could lie with complete fidelity so you would never know it, but never without a good reason. If he claims to have done the deed, no interrogation will change his stance. But if he did. It seems melodramatic to say, especially coming from a man of my years, but it would break my heart to discover that he did."

Watson considered the occasions when Holmes' had abetted murder, before or after the fact. His moral boundaries were broader than Watson's own, but they would be strange boundaries indeed which encompassed performing a murder but also required its admission.

"I think he did not," Watson concluded. "If only because if Holmes were to commit a crime he would never be detected in it. Or if detected than never apprehended. He is a very capable man and supremely qualified for the task. No--if Holmes' is caught red-handed it is only because this serves his purpose, so I must determine what this purpose is. Have the police spoken to you about any evidence other than Holmes' confession?"

The Duchess seemed eager to be of assistance. "The say that the shot came from close at hand, not from through the window or another distant source. There were marks of powder on Gerard's clothing and on Holmes' gloves. Gerard was indeed very recently dead and the marks of his blood suggested he was killed where he stood, near the middle of the room. None of the servants were near that part of the house, they were all in the kitchen eating their dinner and can vouch for each other's presence. For myself I can only say I was here, in this parlor and hope you believe me."

"Of course I do, my Lady," Watson assured her, and as unscientific as it might be, he did. "I must speak to Holmes' and the constabulary, and I can only hope."

"Of course," she replied, standing. "If there is anything further I can do, and even if not, I hope you will call again soon." Before he left she said quite quietly, "Holmes had, has, a good friend in you. I know from the way he spoke, that he values you greatly though he might not have said as much."

Watson could only nod in reply. Holmes, of late, had said nothing to him at all, and the he could hardly anticipate a warm reunion under the circumstances. The butler showed him to the door. Once outside, he found the elderly gentlemen he had seen at the door, waiting for him by the side of his hired cart.

"I do apologize for introducing myself this way," he said. "But you, I perceive, are the eminent Doctor Watson, and I have some information that might, somehow, be of use to you."

Watson shook his hand reluctantly.

"I am Doctor Weatherall," he continued. "Doctor to Gerard and his family. I don't know if it is relevant, but you as a fellow doctor and an associate Mr. Holmes' can best judge for yourself."

"What is it you wish to say," Watson interjected.

"Yes, of course, well two things really. Firstly, the Duke's drinking had progressed to the point where rational thought was impaired even when he was sober," Doctor Weatherall lowered his voice confidentially. "And when he was intoxicated he was sometimes subject to violent hallucinations and delusions, frankly he was capable of behaving ion erratic and aggressive manner to the least provocation, especially when accused, and his memory was impaired so that he might deny something he did only minutes before. He was my patient, but death dispensed with that duty. I can frankly say that he was a terrible man, and if Holmes did away with him it was probably in self defense, something I would gladly testify to."

Watson grimaced, he had a close enough association with the law to know that such hearsay was completely inadmissible, and did not really explain Holmes behavior. "You said two things?"

"The other is that Gerard had a rapidly progressing disease of the liver. He and I both knew that he had a few months, a year at best, to live, most of them in intense pain. If Holmes' killed him he probably did all of us a favor, not least Gerard himself."

Dr. Weatherall leaned back again. "I can only hope it is of help to you to know this. Holmes' was something of a recluse but I hear he is a good man. Guilty or innocent is of little matter to me, but I would not like to think my silence made things worse for him."

Watson thanked him thoughtfully. The puzzle pieces were beginning to gather, yet no pattern emerged. No doubt Holmes' himself would have found the solution by now, that that recourse was most certainly closed to him. Watson could only hope that he had the ability to discover the answer at all.