The Doctor had just come home from a weary night at the
hospital. He went to his bed and examined a small bottle with something
invisible to anyone else's eyes and smiled happily, even though it was a tired
smile. He stripped is clothing off to prepare for bed and in the process
accidently knocked the bottle to the floor beside his bed. It rolled a tad and
stopped against a foot warmer. The cap on the bottle came loose and rolled away.
Twas the night before Christmas, not even a mouse stirred,
but something moved in the shadows beneath Doctor Wayne Spickermore's bed.
Something dark and dreary. With an agenda that was not its own.
The good Doctor had been at work all day examining the
mouths of numerous patients who complained of the local cough that had been
going around London for the last several weeks. It was believed to have been
imported from the India Isles, as it had all the markings of the Kali Flu that
had struck the Britains this time a year ago.
He was bushed. He and Nurse Pennymucker had been working
since the early hours of the morning and both hadn't slept much the night
before, nor did they intend to this night either, for both their spouses were
gone for the holidays, visiting relatives. She was expected to arrive any
minute and he had been hoping for a relaxing bit of play before rest.
The good Doctor was an honest man in all ways, but that of
matrimony, as was Nurse Pennymucker, but they had underestimated the alertness
of their mates. They had been seen sneaking into the Late Night Waldorf for a
snack and a snack. Their way of saying fooling around with a good stout in one
hand and something a bit more lewd in the other.
Neither the husband, or the wife had said a thing, but
rather it had solidified their own plans, which all along was to end their
relationships. But how could anyone have dared to assume or cognize that these
two upper-middle class citizens would ever resort to violence?
"I say Holmes, this is really quite awful to look
at." Watson said to Sherlock as they puzzled about the way that the good
Doctor had died in his sleep.
"Most puzzling as well, Watson, I fear." Sherlock
mentioned.
Inspector Bloodstone entered abruptly, disturbing their
melancholy.
"We've just finished the interviews with the husband
and wife, and both have legitimate alibis."
Sherlock and Watson exchanged knowing glances. They'd seen
this kind of thing before. There was always an alibi. Always!
"I'd like a go at them." Sherlock suggested.
"Would you be so kind as to escort them here."
"It's rather late, don't you think?" The Inspector
asked.
"Not at all. It's still Christmas and since none of us
have anywhere else to go at this time, I can't think of anything better to
do." Watson ventured.
Sherlock looked at Watson. He knew that Mrs. Hudson would
frown at such words, but he also knew his companion was a sounding board that
was a requisite in their partnership.
"I agree." Sherlock said finally.
The Inspector left and the two men searched the room,
ignoring the bloated body of the good Doctor, and his eyeballs which had fallen
out of their sockets and exploded.
Sherlock pulled a bible down. A Saint James version and
rifled its contents, finding old portraits of the good Doctor's wife when they
had first married and a picture of a tombstone with a baby's name upon it. His
eyebrow rose at that, but he said nothing and put the picture back into the
Bible and on the shelf he had found it.
Watson, meanwhile expanded his search into the living room
area, and came across a locked desk with a secret compartment beneath it. He
had found it by running his hands all over the wood. Another ploy of criminals
was to hide their secrets in such ways.
"Ah-ha!" He announced to no on e in particular,
and then opened the secret compartment with a surgical tool he retrieved from
his black bag, where he always kept his medical supplies, and forensics tools.
"Something?" Sherlock inquired, leaning over.
"Likely." Watson replied, sliding open the secret
compartment to reveal a stack of letters. The reek of sweet perfume caused him
to be repelled for a moment, then he retrieved them and sat down on a two seat
Edwardian Saddle Sofa. where one person faces front and one back. He began
going through the letters.
"Holmes, look at this." He lifted a letter for his
friend.
Sherlock took it and examined it closely a moment, then
nodded.
"As I thought. The plot runs deeper than we
surmised."
They continued their search.
The Inspector, meanwhile, abruptly showed up with the two
suspects, who were watched over by Constable Evans, who kept a sharp eye on the
nervous duo.
"Well now." The Inspector announced as he entered
the living room.
Sherlock and Watson looked up from their work and nodded.
"Just a moment more, Inspector, then we will attend to
your friends."
The husband and wife glanced nervously around as if
expecting some kind of monster to hurtle from the walls and snatch them into oblivion.
Through, Sherlock nodded to Watson, who went back into the
bedroom, while Sherlock began pacing the living room with his hands behind his
back. His cape flowed from the movement, giving him a kind of mysterious look
in the semi-lit room.
"Inspector, I see no reason to keep either of these
people here a moment longer."
The Inspector gave him a shocked look.
Sherlock turned around to face the couple.
"Undoubtedly you both had evil expectations of the good
Doctor, and possibly for good reason, but I'm sure that your heart of darkness
had nothing to do with his untimely death."
"How so, Sherlock?" The Inspector asked as the
relieved couple were allowed to sit down at the French table in the center of
the room where a beautiful set of Prussian Candlestick holders sat in a buffet
of glass roses.
"Watson!"
Watson came back into the room and held a set of tweezers
up. A roach struggled to get free from its grip.
The couple gasped.
Sherlock smiled.
"What makes this all so ironic is that the good Doctor
had planned all along to dump Mrs. Pennymucker once he had secured your
divorce, good lady."
The wife shriveled at that accusation. "He would never
have left me."
"I agree." Sherlock said, inclining his head.
He held up a stack of letters. "But these proclaim
otherwise."
He held up a pink letter. "Addressed to a Shaman in the
India Isles. A very well known follower of Kali and a practitioner of the black
arts, which I'm sure you'll agree Inspector are nothing to make light of."
The Inspector inclined his head.
"But how could his magic have possibly struck us from
there?" The husband inquired, genuinely puzzled.
"By special delivery. Watson!"
Watson held up the roach again.
"His intention." Sherlock laid down all the
letters on the table in front of the couple. "His intention all along was
to have our tiny guest deliver a good-bye message to you, in hopes of not
having to face the stigma of a public divorce, and a sanctioning by the
Church."
The wife pale.
"Are you saying that foul insect killed my
husband?"
"No. I'm saying that it was the device of his
surmise." Sherlock responded pleasantly. "Watson?"
"You see, this little fellow is capable of carrying an
inordinate amount of deadly poison in its front legs. It has tiny pouches on
both legs, which when warmed to a certain temperature, open up and deliver
their contents."
"Then it wasn't the dark arts that killed him?"
The husband spoke up.
"Actually. It was. You see this tiny fellow will only
wake up when it is shaken from its rest and then warmed to a certain
temperature. The good Doctor knocked off the bottle that held next to a foot
warmer he kept at the side of his bed."
"Yes." Sherlock said, pausing to light his famous
pipe, take a few puffs, then smile at the surprised couple. "So you see
the message he had intended for you dear madam, he instead inadvertently
delivered to himself."
Later on Sherlock and Watson sat before their fireplace at
221B Baker Street and reminisced about the episode of the murder.
"It's funny, Holmes."
"How so?" Sherlock inquired, his long thin fingers
dancing on the tip of his knees as he played them to a tune only his great mind
could hear.
"In the India Isles they believe in karma. That what
you put out comes back to you."
"Indeed. And it looks like this time it came back
instantly, didn't it?" Sherlock replied with a wry smile. "The good
Doctor's karma quite literally bit him in the..." Sherlock smiled again
more broadly. "...the you know."
Both men laughed.
Outside a few late night Christmas Carolers stopped, seeing
the lights on upstairs in 221B and began to sing "Silent Night."
But no one heard them above, for Sherlock and Watson had
both earned a good night's rest, and were both fast asleep on their chairs.
