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Chapter Text

PART 1

JOHN: Welcome, guys and gals, strangers from distant lands, friends of old, to a new episode of Sherlock and Co. As you can probably tell, I've been spending too much time watching classic fantasy movies lately, instead of investigating spectacular crimes with Sherlock. I blame VeilCon, but only a bit. The main reason is, Sherlock has not investigated many spectacular crimes lately, either. He's still, you know. [clears throat] This case is a three parter, so if you liked Part 1, watch out for Part 2 next week, and Part 3 the week after that! If you didn't like Part 1, well, there's nothing to be done, is there. I did my best. This case also takes place in real time, which I think is a first on this show. I mean, all our cases take place in real time, there isn't some weird kind of time warp going on in Baker Street… But you'll be listening to this for about an hour and a half, or reading for an hour and a half if you're using our transcripts, which are available for free on our website, by the way… And that's pretty much exactly how long it took us to solve the case, from the time it fell into our laps to the time we gave our statements to the police.

SHERLOCK: I'd solved it within forty-five minutes, Watson. The rest of the time was you catching up.

JOHN: There's a warning for a few f-bombs and for, well, morbid… not exactly humour, but a kinda morbid situation. I can promise that there's no actual desecration of a corpse, but yeah. There's a corpse. You've been warned. We weren't. So consider yourselves lucky. But before I get into that – oh God, John, now you're sounding like a necrophiliac! Before I tell you guys the story of the corpse at 221B Baker Street, I need to… make a confession. I told you at the start of the Reigate Squire case that Sherlock was a bit overworked and burned out and had to take things easy for a while. That wasn't completely true. I mean, Mariana and I did want him to take things easy, not that he was ever going to listen, but it… wasn't a burn-out. I mean… er… I'm walking a fine line with this, folks, always have, since the first couple of episodes, actually. But I guess I have a public duty, too, especially to the younger people in the audience, you know, as a doctor, but also as a podcaster with a quite impressive number of followers and listeners by this point… A duty to call a spade a spade, as the saying goes, and not to beat about the bush… and now you're probably picturing me as some kind of demented gardener on a rampage with sharp metal tools. Which is still better than a necrophiliac, I guess, but ugh! Who makes up all these weird metaphors?

SHERLOCK: They're not metaphors, Watson. They're idioms. And you are beating about the bush.

JOHN: Just so you know, Professor, I didn't invite you to edit this case with me so you can -

SHERLOCK: I know.

JOHN: Well, out with it, if you must. What's the difference again?

SHERLOCK: Between us editing a case together, and you doing it alone? I'm surprised you're even asking.

JOHN: I meant between an idiom and a metaphor.

SHERLOCK: An idiom is a group of words whose meaning, when considered as a unit, is different from the meanings of each word considered separately. As in, "You've shot yourself in the foot", when in reality nobody's actually shooting anyone and especially not in the foot. Whereas a metaphor is an expression that describes a person or object by referring to something that is considered to possess similar characteristics. As in, "The city is a jungle", meaning it is wild and dangerous, and easy to lose oneself in it.

JOHN: That can't be right.

SHERLOCK [with a laugh]: You ever been to London?

JOHN: I meant the definitions. Isn't there a big overlap? I mean -

SHERLOCK: Trust me, I've studied them long and hard to be able to recognise and decipher them in the wild. Beating about the bush isn't literally doing violence to a piece of shrubbery. Hence, idiom. It's not applying the abstract characteristics of the act of doing violence to a piece of shrubbery to your style of reporting on my recent drug overdose. A drug overdose has no similarity to cruelty to plants. Hence, not a metaphor. The theory is really quite straightforward. And you're lying, by the way.

JOHN: About what?

SHERLOCK: You are prevaricating, because you're experiencing intense second-hand embarrassment on my behalf, and because you started recording this before you figured out how much you were actually going to say about the matter, and how exactly to say it.

JOHN: Well, thank you for helping me out there.

SHERLOCK: Did I just spoil a punchline?

JOHN: No, no. I wasn't being sarcastic, actually, I… I'm kinda glad you said it and I didn't have to, to be honest.

SHERLOCK: You're welcome. [grabs the microphone and speaks directly into it] Public service announcement: Don't overdose on drugs, kids. It leads to endless complications. And endless lectures.

JOHN: I think we were entitled to give you a couple of those, mate. You gave us the fright of our lives there.

SHERLOCK: And that's called hyperbole.

JOHN: No, that's called friendship.

[Silence]

JOHN: So, anyway. [clears throat] Sherlock went deep into the jungle that is London, found a fruit that he thought he could eat and enjoy without trouble, and happened to pick a very bad one. And I've been putting off telling you guys the truth about this because one, there could still be repercussions, and I didn't want any bullets in my best mate's lower extremities, literal or figurative. And because two, it's… difficult to talk about. Speaking as the person who wasn't around when it happened, I mean, and who has been feeling rather guilty about that, if you must know.

SHERLOCK: I sneaked out of the house very late at night, you know, and took great care not to give you any prior indication where I might be heading and why.

JOHN: I know you did. That's not the point.

SHERLOCK: I purposely made it impossible for you to stop me.

JOHN: Not the point.

[Silence]

SHERLOCK: I stand corrected.

JOHN: On what, on the metaphor thing? You did shoot yourself in the foot there big time, mate. Remember, the doc at the A&E said it was literally touch and go.

SHERLOCK: No, on the hyperbole.

[Silence]

JOHN: Thank you.

[Silence]

JOHN: That is a metaphor, though, isn't it? 'Touch and go'? From when a pilot aborts a landing at the last moment and -

SHERLOCK [extraordinarily pleased]: Well done, Watson. Yes.

[Theme music starts]

JOHN: My name is Doctor John Watson, once of the British Army Northumberland Fusilier Regiment, now a true crime podcaster based in Central London. I don't have much experience in criminology, so this is mostly a record of how I met possibly the most brilliant and bizarre person I have ever and will ever know. Join me as I document the adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

[Theme music continues]

SHERLOCK: You know, your grammar in that line in the intro still causes me physical discomfort every time I hear it.

JOHN: Shut up.

[Theme music ends]

JOHN: So, here we were. The case of the Abergavenny Murder. It was a week or so after the Reigate Squire case. Sherlock still wasn't exactly in peak form, physically speaking, and he was also still in the dog house as far as our friends at the Metropolitan Police were concerned. Inspector Forrester couldn't ignore what we'd found out about the robberies at the art galleries, of course. But as you'll remember, that case came to us by accident, not because we were formally consulted. Lestrade hadn't been in touch at all for a good while. Of course they knew at the Met what happened, with the…

SHERLOCK: Overdose.

JOHN: Yeah. And I mean, they should know what happened, because if there are bad batches making the rounds and someone's putting a little too much elephant tranquilliser into the mix, there are bound to be more cases washing up at the A&Es, and not all of them will be touch and go, some will just be go.

SHERLOCK: Touch, actually.

JOHN: You're a bloody pedant.

SHERLOCK: Yes, I'm aware.

JOHN: Anyway. So, the police knew what happened to Sherlock, and they clearly didn't approve. We suspected Lestrade was ghosting him on purpose. You know, carrot and stick. You get cases if you behave, and severed ears for your birthday, but if you misbehave, you don't get cases.

SHERLOCK: So you get even more bored with the tedium of the human existence and take more drugs. Bit flawed, that logic.

JOHN: Mariana was getting really worried, actually, because the figures for the month weren't looking good at all. But then, one night –

[Mouse clicks, then the actual footage starts. The sound of rain coming down in buckets. The muffled ring of the doorbell.]

JOHN [voice-over]: I'd been asleep at the time, and so was Mariana downstairs in 221A, and God knows about Sherlock, but when the bell rang again – [doorbell rings again] - I realised that Mariana probably wouldn't want to open the door to a stranger in the middle of the night in her Little Mermaid nightshirt –

SHERLOCK [voice-over]: Is there a more appropriate nightshirt for a lady to open the door to a stranger in in the middle of the night?

JOHN: - so I thought I'd better buzz our late guest in myself. Argh, sorry -

SHERLOCK: That was a terribly pun, Watson. Besides, he wasn't late, he was early. 4:28 a. m..

[The sound of the buzzer, then the front door of the house opens and closes again.]

SHERLOCK [in the actual footage, wide awake]: You expecting anyone, Watson?

JOHN [in the actual footage, groggy with sleep]: At this time of night? Not a chance.

SHERLOCK: You've got your mic on.

JOHN: And you're holding a test tube. People do strange things sometimes at four-thirty in the morning. [Heavy steps ascend the stairs.] Could be a client, though. I'll ask him in.

[The door into the flat opens. Heavy breathing.]

JOHN: Good morning. What can we do for you at this early hour?

CLIENT [panting, with desperate urgency]: Doctor Watson! You've got to help me! Mr Holmes! They're going to kill me!

[A strangled groan, then the heavy thud of a body hitting the floor.]

JOHN: Holy Moly.

[A rush of activity, lots of static on the mic, hurried footsteps, rustling fabric, then a rhythmic thumping, John muttering and cursing.]

JOHN [voice-over]: I'll spare you the next twenty minutes, listeners, because that's basically just me uselessly performing CPR on a bloke who had probably been dead the moment he hit our carpet, and getting increasingly frustrated at my lack of success. Me, I mean. The getting frustrated. Our visitor was beyond frustration by this point. Which was a good thing in a way, because I don't think I would have responded well to any criticism from him at the time, however justified.

SHERLOCK [voice-over]: You were getting increasingly explicit, too, considering you keep calling this a family show.

JOHN: Yeah, 'family show' is the other reason why I'm not including live audio footage of some poor devil breathing his last right here in our sitting room.

SHERLOCK: Or of you shouting at me to "fucking call a fucking ambulance, fucking now, Sherlock!", as I believe the words went.

JOHN: I still can't believe that you had to be convinced to do it.

SHERLOCK: In a case of cardiac arrest, the brain stops receiving oxygen after about four minutes. After a few more minutes you start to get brain hypoxia, which – dear listeners - is brain damage due to not getting enough oxygen to your brain. Just a few minutes after that, your brain hypoxia turns into anoxia – which means not just not enough oxygen, but none at all, and you can all imagine what that means. Now, with the current catastrophic shortages in emergency care on the NHS and their abysmal response times to emergency calls, there was no way our client would have been taken to a hospital and received life-saving care before his brain would have quit service anyway, our resident doctor's noble efforts notwithstanding.

JOHN [peeved]: You're lucky the hospital confirmed that afterwards, you know.

SHERLOCK: It was straightforward scientific reasoning, Watson. Luck didn't come into it.

JOHN: You do know it's good practice to continue CPR for up to 30 minutes, or until the ambulance arrives, whichever is first.

SHERLOCK: I know it's standard practice. Not sure it's good. I thought I'd argued my case about the pointlessness of continuing life with permanent, irreversible brain damage rather eloquently that night.

JOHN [still peeved]: I wouldn't know, I was too busy trying to save that fellow's life.

SHERLOCK: You were too busy clinging to a forlorn hope. It was tiring you out and making you snappy.

JOHN: Yeah, well, it came a little too close to home. As you could have guessed. Anyway, I don't want to hear all that again. Let's skip to -

[Mouse clicks. In the audio footage, John can still be heard administering CPR while Sherlock and Mariana talk in the background, Mariana agitated, Sherlock perfectly calm.]

MARIANA [in the actual footage]: … must have been sopping wet, too! Are you OK? Is he a bad lot?

SHERLOCK [in the actual footage]: I assure you, Mrs Hudson, he poses absolutely no threat whatsoever, and he isn't in the least bothered by being wet. Now go back to bed. No, don't come in.

MARIANA: Oh my God! Did he collapse? Is he -

SHERLOCK: Watson's doing all he can, and the ambulance is on the way. Presumably. Go back to bed. I'll keep an eye out and let them in.

MARIANA: But what if he – what if –

SHERLOCK: No need to be unduly concerned, Mrs Hudson. He's an overweight American in his mid to late sixties, chances are he'd reached the limit of his statistical life expectancy anyway.

MARIANA [with something that sounds like half-laugh, half-sob]: Well, that's a comfort.

[The door closes, and Mariana's steps can be heard going back downstairs.]

JOHN [in the present]: I think I'll cut everything up to the point when I stopped the CPR.

SHERLOCK [in the present]: You mean the point when I drew your attention to the fact that pallor mortis was setting in, and told you to stop pummelling a dead man's chest?

JOHN: You know, sometimes you're clinical to the point of creepiness. [footsteps approach] Mariana? What's up?

MARIANA: Hi, guys. Are you watching a movie?

JOHN: What? No, we're editing the latest case.

MARIANA: Oh, sorry! But you just said Dead Man's Chest. Wasn't there a pirate movie with that title?

JOHN: Ah yes. Davy Jones's locker.

SHERLOCK: His name was James Davison.

JOHN: No, the dead evil squid spirit thingy. Not our client.

MARIANA: The three-way sword fight was cool though.

SHERLOCK: That was Watson administering first aid to a case of cardiac arrest, Mrs Hudson, not a three-way sword fight.

MARIANA [with a laugh]: I give up. Here's the latest paperwork from Scotland Yard about the art galleries case. Please make sure you both sign it, OK?

JOHN: Will do! Ta!

[More mouse clicks.]

JOHN: OK, so where were we?

[In the actual footage, the rain is still pouring down in the background.]

SHERLOCK [in the actual footage]: So what killed him, would you say?

JOHN [in the actual footage]: Heart failure, I suppose.

SHERLOCK: "They're going to kill me." Are you sure it's natural causes?

JOHN: Well, it'd take a post-mortem to be sure.

SHERLOCK: Shall we clear the kitchen table?

JOHN: You'd better be joking, mate. We're calling the police. Let's hope they'll be here quicker than the ambulance. Isn't it weird how they're usually quicker for dead people than for living people these days? Where's my phone?

SHERLOCK: Actually –

JOHN: Of course we're calling the police, Sherlock. A stranger bursts into our flat at four-thirty in the morning, babbles about people wanting to kill him, and drops down stone-cold dead. That's not the kind of thing civilians handle on their own.

SHERLOCK: Oh, you have a very low opinion of yourself, Doctor. How often do we get such a neat mystery delivered right onto our own hearthrug? Are you really expecting me to just sit back and watch while they make their one stunning deduction, 'blimey, guv, he snuffed it', and then cart him off and no one ever the wiser?

JOHN: Christ, Sherlock, this is a human being. A man with hopes and dreams and a personality, someone's son, someone's husband, probably, someone's father… He didn't come here to die for your entertainment.

SHERLOCK [deeply offended]: Professional education, Watson! Besides, you're very likely wrong about the husband and father. Look at the middle finger of his right hand.

JOHN: A black ring. Oh God, please not another swinger. But those are often husbands and dads, too, just so you know.

SHERLOCK: I'll take your word for it.

[Silence]

SHERLOCK: Give me an hour.

JOHN: Certainly not.

SHERLOCK: Fifty minutes.

[Silence]

JOHN: This is about Lestrade, isn't it? You're trying to impress her. You want to present her with the whole puzzle wrapped up neatly with a bow on top by the time they get here. You want to prove to her that you're indispensable, so she'll keep giving you cases.

SHERLOCK: Yeah, that, too. Possibly. A little.

JOHN: And what happened to not contaminating the evidence at a crime scene?

SHERLOCK: So you're conceding that this is very much a criminal case unfolding right inside our own home? 'Top notch content', as you like to put it?

[Silence]

JOHN [with a sigh]: You've got till the ambulance arrives.

SHERLOCK: Well, let's hope that happens before actual putrefaction sets in. [movement, as Sherlock settles down to take a closer look at the corpse.] So, my friend. Let's find out if you're a little more informative in death than you were alive. [more rustling of clothes as Sherlock goes through the man's pockets.] Mmh.

JOHN: Anything?

SHERLOCK: Nothing in his pockets at all.

JOHN: So all we know is he's Welsh.

SHERLOCK: American.

JOHN: Yeah, I know you said that, but I don't think so.

SHERLOCK: Why not?

JOHN: Not sure. Something in his… I don't know. No American vibes, mate.

SHERLOCK: 'Vibes'.

JOHN: Don't look at me like that. Look at his baseball cap. It says 'Abergavenny'.

SHERLOCK: Mmh. In college block.

JOHN: Whatever that means.

SHERLOCK: College block is the font that is customarily used to print the name of a university or college on a t-shirt or other garment, in the tradition of American sports gear.

JOHN: So?

SHERLOCK: Abergavenny in Monmouthshire has 12,000 inhabitants, a castle ruin, a handful of churches and three public parks, but no significant institutions of tertiary education who might sell vintage-style baseball caps with their name on.

JOHN: They've got football. Abergavenny Town F. C..

SHERLOCK: Oh. Any good?

JOHN: Ardal League, tier three.

SHERLOCK: Congratulations.

JOHN: Means they're rubbish.

SHERLOCK: Ah. Well, even less likely then that anyone would sport their name on a cap. This man clearly has a passion for whatever weird sports they're playing at the University of North Carolina at Abergavenny in the United States.

JOHN [voice-over]: Apologies to our American listeners. We know baseball and stuff is not weird to you.

SHERLOCK [voice-over]: All sports are weird.

SHERLOCK [in the actual footage]: To start with the obvious, he's a semi-retired physiotherapist or massage therapist.

JOHN: "The obvious".

SHERLOCK: Look at his arms and shoulders. Still quite strong and muscular.

JOHN: He could be an athlete? Like, a rower or something?

SHERLOCK: No, no rower would manage to keep his arms in shape like that but develop such a paunch at the same time. No wonder he had a weak heart, with that BMI. And look at his hands. The muscles are very well developed there, too, equally on both sides, clearly from physical exercise, but not with tools or instruments or tough materials that leave callouses or roughen up the skin, like you'd see on a craftsman or manual labourer. Fingernails kept extremely short, too, but clipped, not chewed. His hands are pretty dirty right now, but there was barely any room for dirt to get under the nails. Yep. Massage therapist.

JOHN: Where do you get the semi-retired?

SHERLOCK: From his age. Late sixties, I'd say, or possibly early seventies, but not entirely out of practice yet.

JOHN: Maybe he used to work for their uni sports teams, and still does sometimes?

SHERLOCK: Maybe. But now for the intriguing part.

JOHN: Which is?

SHERLOCK: The actual reason why he's dead as a doornail on our doorstep at four thirty in the morning, of course. That's a simile, by the way.

JOHN: Come again?

SHERLOCK: "Dead as a doornail." A simile. An expression comparing one thing directly with another, using the words "like" or "as".

JOHN: I'll take your word for that. So, why's he here?

SHERLOCK: I have no idea! It would hardly be intriguing if I could tell it at a glance, now, would it. Let's start from the beginning. A man we've never seen before comes to us in the dead of night, addresses us correctly by our respective names before we made any introductions, and asks for our help. He wears a baseball cap, or did before the fall knocked it off his head, and, as you can see, he's dressed casually otherwise, too – a polo shirt, khaki trousers, a light jacket, canvas shoes. He's wet through, of course. But even without the torrential rain, most people would have put on warmer clothes than this if they were out and about in London at night at this time of the year.

JOHN: He must have been in a terrible hurry to get here.

SHERLOCK: He's also unshaven, although he habitually does shave, as attested by the slight rash on the more sensitive skin of his throat. He's also in need of a shower, as attested by the body odour that is still discernible in spite of the rain.

JOHN: He's been sleeping rough! No shower, no shave, no weather-appropriate change of clothes…

SHERLOCK: If he has, it wasn't for more than a night. Although I'm inclined to assume… [another rustle of clothes] Ah, yes. Look at his shoes, Watson.

JOHN: Wow, they're really worn down.

SHERLOCK: Not in the sense of having been worn for a long time, though. The upper material shows no scratches or dirt or abrasions, the way the comparatively delicate material normally would after long wear and tear. But as you can see, the sole has half come off on the left shoe, and is beginning to part company from the rest of the right shoe as well. I doubt he's slept this night at all. I rather think he's subjected his shoes to a gruesome and prolonged ordeal that they weren't made for. And the same goes for the rest of his body, I'm afraid. It literally didn't survive the test.

JOHN: You mean he's been walking all night? Just to get to our house? And died in the attempt?

SHERLOCK: Everything points in that direction, yes.

JOHN: That's kinda sad, actually.

SHERLOCK: It is, rather.

JOHN: I wish we could have heard what his case was, and solved it for him.

SHERLOCK: You mean you wish he could have heard us solve his case for him.

JOHN [with a laugh]: You're gonna solve a dead man's case without even knowing what it is?

SHERLOCK: A client's a client, Watson, dead or otherwise! How many times have you heard me do it for a living person? You've recently been in Japan. You have a preference for strong coffee. You're about to cancel your gym membership. Your maiden aunt died suddenly last October. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to do it for a dead man, too.

JOHN: I don't think I recall the maiden aunt one.

SHERLOCK: It's the general principle that matters.

JOHN: All right, all right. Oh, and I know what you're going to say next. Please don't. It's way too early in the morning for that.

SHERLOCK [intolerably smug]: It's never too early for the game to be afoot, Watson!

[End of episode music]

Chapter Text

PART 2

[Opening music]

JOHN [voice-over]: Previously on Sherlock and Co...

CLIENT [panting, with desperate urgency]: Doctor Watson! You've got to help me! Mr Holmes! They're going to kill me!

[A strangled groan, then the heavy thud of a body hitting the floor.]

JOHN: Holy Moly.

SHERLOCK: He's an overweight American in his mid to late sixties, chances are he'd reached the limit of his statistical life expectancy anyway.

JOHN: You know, sometimes you're clinical to the point of creepiness.

SHERLOCK: So, my friend. Let's find out if you're a little more informative in death than you were alive. To start with the obvious, he's a semi-retired physiotherapist or massage therapist. This man clearly has a passion for whatever weird sports they're playing at the University of North Carolina at Abergavenny in the United States.

JOHN: So, why's he here? You're gonna solve a dead man's case without even knowing what it is?

SHERLOCK: A client's a client, Watson, dead or otherwise!

JOHN: It's way too early in the morning for that.

SHERLOCK: It's never too early for the game to be afoot, Watson!

[Opening music ends]

JOHN [in the present]: Welcome back, listeners, to Part 2 of the Abergavenny Murder case. Sherlock and I were still crouched at the side of an unknown elderly man with a baseball cap from a US university who had come to Baker Street very early that morning and dropped dead before he could explain why his shoes were falling apart, or why he was wearing very light summer clothes on a cold and rainy night, or why he was actually here in the first place.

[In the actual footage, the rain is still coming down heavily.]

JOHN [in the actual footage]: Why has he got nothing in his pockets? If he's been walking for hours to get to our place, ruining his shoes like that, he must have come halfway across London, or from even further away. What man sets out on a night-long hike without his phone and without his wallet? Was he mugged? That could explain his panic.

SHERLOCK: No, no keys, either, no identification, no personal items whatsoever. A mugger would only take the valuables and leave him the rest. This is fascinating.

JOHN: But that gives us nothing to go on.

SHERLOCK: I wouldn't say that. A lack of information can in itself be informative. And remember his words when he came in? They were highly suggestive, don't you think?

JOHN: He was in fear for his life. He said, "They're trying to kill me."

SHERLOCK: That's not what he said.

JOHN: Yes, it was. I'd be ready to swear to it.

SHERLOCK: You and almost every other eye witness. You're wrong. He said, "They're going to kill me."

JOHN: Same difference, isn't it?

SHERLOCK: Shame on you, Doctor.

JOHN: I mean - in the state he was in, completely exhausted, terrified, wet through and through, do you really think he'd have put any thought into his exact choice of words?

SHERLOCK: And what use are we if we can't even remember his exact choice of words, I wonder?

JOHN: I've never claimed to be any use at five in the morning, you know.

SHERLOCK: He said more than that, too.

JOHN: Yeah, he said something like, "Mr Holmes, I need your help, they're trying – "

SHERLOCK: "Going."

JOHN: " – they're going to kill me."

SHERLOCK: And you're prepared to swear to that, too?

JOHN: Since you're asking, of course I'm not. What did I miss?

SHERLOCK: A detail, but if I'm right, a highly significant detail. When you opened the door, he staggered in and said, [in a creditable imitation of the client's breathless voice] "Doctor Watson! You have to help me! Mr Holmes! They're going to kill me!" And then he –

JOHN: Yeah, don't re-enact the rest, please. We're gonna run out of room on the floor.

SHERLOCK: You see the significance?

JOHN: What, that he spoke to me first? That was probably just because he saw me first.

SHERLOCK: No, he met my eyes when he came through the door, and yet he addressed you first. That means he came to see you, rather than me, although he was polite enough to include me in the conversation as an afterthought.

JOHN: That makes no sense.

SHERLOCK: He wanted you to do something for him, something specific, something that I couldn't do.

JOHN: Something medical? If he'd realised how critical his condition was, he'd have gone to his own doctor, or to a hospital, or got someone to call 999.

SHERLOCK: The fact remains, he came here to talk to you, to Doctor John H. Watson, MD, as you insist on styling yourself. What is it about your good self that recommended you to him above anyone else in London?

JOHN: My medical qualifications are honestly nothing special. I've been in the Army… and I know a bit about crime and criminals, but that's only because of you, really…

SHERLOCK: My good Doctor, you are altogether too modest. You've omitted your most significant characteristic!

JOHN: What do you mean?

SHERLOCK: Watson, you're famous!

JOHN: I'm really not. The other day, you know, there was someone on the tube with me who was wearing one of our merch t-shirts, but she didn't look at me twice. We got out at the same stop, I said, "Hey, nice t-shirt!", and she gave me the coldest cold shoulder you've ever seen.

SHERLOCK: Well, that –

JOHN: Served me right, you mean? Yeah, as a pick-up line, I guess that's a rather lame one.

SHERLOCK: There's fame and there's fame, Watson. Why do you think our client addressed us correctly by name, too, when he was a complete stranger to both of us?

JOHN: Coincidence? He did have a fifty percent chance to get it right.

SHERLOCK: It's as capital a mistake to undervalue oneself as it is to do the opposite. You are John H. Watson, podcaster, John H. Watson, upon whose word thousands upon thousands of loyal and devoted listeners hang every week, enthralled and entranced, even if they don't recognise your face on the tube. You greeted him, and he instantly knew you by your voice! And what you've got, and what our unfortunate friend here needed, is an audience.

JOHN: You're saying that he wanted me to tell his story?

SHERLOCK: To publicise his case, exactly! What you see here on the rug, my friend, is a man who believed that he had been done some grievous wrong. And what was more, he hoped that the weight of public opinion would put things to rights, if only the facts could be shouted abroad for all to hear.

JOHN: That's an awful lot to hang on a few words from a man in a panic.

SHERLOCK: It makes sense, admit it. See? [rubs his hands] We progress.

JOHN: But what the hell was his story going to be? He said someone was going to kill him.

SHERLOCK: More than one person. "They". That's assuming that he wasn't chased by a single killer who happened to be using gender-neutral pronouns.

JOHN: No, those folks tend to be a gentle lot. Criminal gang? Secret society, out for revenge on a traitor? But then why didn't he turn to the police for help?

SHERLOCK: That would be the first instinct of a law-abiding citizen faced with a threat of death, wouldn't it?

JOHN: So he's a criminal himself? He falls foul of his cronies, double-crosses them or something, they swear to get back at him… But no, that doesn't work, either.

SHERLOCK: Why not?

JOHN: Appealing to the public is something only an innocent man would do, isn't it?

SHERLOCK: Or a particularly cold manipulator who's trying to get people on his side before he's made to account for his misdeeds.

JOHN: So he is a criminal.

SHERLOCK: I think the answer's been staring us in the face all this time.

JOHN: Don't be cryptic before I've had my first coffee, please.

SHERLOCK: The empty pockets. The lack of identification. The absence of his phone. Didn't I say a lack of information was in itself informative. 

JOHN: He's been in custody! Where else would he have to give up everything that was in his pockets? And then he escaped, and came here to get us on his side.

SHERLOCK: Not quite. But we're certainly dealing with a man who's been very careful to cover his tracks. No phone, so he can't be traced and located. No ID, so he can deny his true identity as long as possible.

JOHN: He's a wanted man! Christ, Sherlock, are you saying we're harbouring a fugitive? Isn't that a crime, too?

SHERLOCK: Not sure those laws apply to the corpses of dead fugitives.

JOHN: Oh. Right.

SHERLOCK: But a fugitive he certainly was. And I think we can go further. Think, Watson: A man who's desperate to evade contact with the authorities claims that he's going to be killed if he's discovered. What does that tell you?

JOHN [after a moment]: God.

SHERLOCK: You get it.

JOHN: American. The death penalty. Does North Carolina have -

SHERLOCK: Oh yes. Nobody's been executed there since 2009 or so, but the death penalty is definitely still on the books, and there's no formal moratorium, either. All they'd have to do is find a pharmaceutical company willing to put profit above morals, which big pharma tends to be very good at -

JOHN: But you only get death for really drastic stuff. Murder and the like.

SHERLOCK: Exactly right.

JOHN: Would we extradite someone back to his country where he'd be facing the death penalty, even if he is a murderer?

SHERLOCK: Not sure. But neither was he, apparently. The possibility alone caused him enough terror to stop his heart.

JOHN: Then the evidence against him must be overwhelming. Standing-over-a-body-with-a-smoking-gun-in-his-hands type overwhelming.

SHERLOCK [with sudden great excitement]: Watson!

JOHN: What?

SHERLOCK: You're fantastic! As always, you've put your finger right on the crux of the matter without even realising it, and now -

[More rustling of clothes]

JOHN: Ah, no. No no no. Now you're putting your fingers on a dead man's body again, and that really makes me feel queasy.

SHERLOCK: Then go and have some toast, Watson, and let me enjoy my epiphany in peace. If you ask me nicely, I might even share what I've fund when you're back.

JOHN [with a groan]: OK, you win. Go on.

SHERLOCK: Look at his hands. Let me turn them palms up. [more rustling] See?

JOHN: Ow.

SHERLOCK: Abrasions, damaged skin, angry red open sores, ingrained with black particles. When I glanced at them earlier, I thought he must simply have stumbled on his long walk here, and broken his fall with his hands, to get them so bloody and dirty. But that's not at all what this is.

JOHN: Those look like… burns.

SHERLOCK: And more specifically…?

JOHN: Powder burns. The black stuff could well be gunshot residue.

SHERLOCK: So…?

JOHN: He's fired a gun. Recently, too. The rain wouldn't have helped, of course, but there's barely been time for the wounds to start scabbing over. Could have happened as recently as within the past 24 hours. I'd guess 48 at most. But then…

SHERLOCK: Then he was still in North Carolina 24 hours ago. If he'd committed his murder here in Britain, he'd hardly be worried about the death penalty.

JOHN: Is that technically possible?

SHERLOCK: Oh, certainly. There are direct flights from Charlotte Douglas International Airport to London Heathrow. [taps on his phone] Yeah, look. American Airways flight AA 221, landed at Heathrow at -

JOHN: That's funny.

SHERLOCK: What is?

JOHN: The flight number. 221. Like our house.

SHERLOCK: Oh. Well, yes. Landed at Heathrow at 21:35 yesterday evening. Allowing for the time to pass through customs and immigration, he'll have been out on the roads and heading for this place by 10 p.m.

JOHN: On foot? Christ, that must be 15 miles or more.

SHERLOCK: More, since he'd have to keep to side streets. No pedestrians on the M4, right? And there must have been wrong turns and detours, too, since he couldn't use his phone for navigation without giving away his own coordinates. He kept up a good pace, though, to be at our door by 4:28.

JOHN: Yeah, too good a pace. Why didn't he jump on a train, or in a cab?

SHERLOCK: No pound sterling on him, if he came over unplanned and in a hurry. And he couldn't use his credit card for fear of it being traced.

JOHN: So he walked. In the dark, and in the pouring rain. All night. In nothing but those summer clothes. Poor sod.

SHERLOCK: He's a murderer, remember?

JOHN: Hang on - if he had a credit card and a phone and all that and just didn't dare use them, where are they now?

SHERLOCK: In a rubbish bin, I assume, anywhere between Abergavenny, North Carolina, and Baker Street. If he's cleverer than he looks, he'll have left them at home to start with. His local police force might not even be aware yet that he's left the country. That's certainly how I'd do it.

JOHN: Well, thank you for putting that on record. So just in case I'm ever found dead and Sherlock is gone, guys… OK, wait. He'd have needed a passport and a plane ticket to leave the States and come here. There's no way he could have stowed away on an intercontinental flight without going through all those checks at both ends. And boom, there goes his cover.

SHERLOCK: Yes, that's the truly puzzling part of the story. I'll think about it while I set up the Griess test.

JOHN: You set up the what?

SHERLOCK: The Griess test. It's a presumptive forensic test for traces of lead and nitrate, to make sure the soot on his hands is from a gun. It will have to be gas chromatography mass spectrometry for the evidence to stand up in a court of law, but we can get a decent working hypothesis with Griess from here. Now go and have some breakfast.

JOHN: All right…

SHERLOCK: Oh, and pop down to Mrs Hudson's and borrow that godawful sandalwood-scented candle she keeps on her desk.

JOHN [voice-over]: Mariana, as no one will be surprised to hear, was of course wide awake when I tried to sneak into the downstairs office, and insisted on coming up.

[Footsteps of two people - one pair lighter, one pair heavier - ascend the stairs to the 221B flat together.]

MARIANA: I'm so sorry this happened.

JOHN: I'm sorry to have kept you awake. But yeah, there's no quiet way to do CPR, I'm afraid.

MARIANA: What does Sherlock want the candle for? Is he planning to set up some sort of make-shift shrine?

JOHN: Not sure. Sudden bout of piety? Respect for a soul departed? I did tell him he was being creepily clinical. Maybe I hit a sore spot there. You sure you don't want to try and catch up on some sleep now that all's quiet?

MARIANA: Oh, no, I couldn't. I'm just a bit worried what happened to that ambulance. It's a quarter past five now. God help us all if this is the new normal.

JOHN: I've been wondering, too. [footsteps come to a halt] OK, here we are. Are you ready? He really doesn't look very terrible. He's just, well, dead.

MARIANA: Yeah, I think I can handle it. I don't have to look closely, right.

JOHN: No, of course not.

[Door opens. A short silence.]

JOHN: Oh. Er - just for you listeners: So Sherlock is not doing any chemistry at all. He's just sitting cross-legged on the floor, holding a dead stranger's hand.

MARIANA: You'd be more surprised if he was holding a living stranger's hand.

JOHN: Would I?

MARIANA [very gently]: Anything we can do, Sherlock?

SHERLOCK: What? Oh. Yeah, what you always do. Play close attention, be ready to question anything I say, and feel free to comment at any time.

[Silence]

JOHN: You actually planning to say anything that we could question or comment on, mate?

SHERLOCK [very absently]: Hmm? What?

MARIANA: I'll make some tea.

JOHN: I'll come with you.

[The sound of a boiling kettle indicates that John and Mariana have relocated to the kitchen.]

MARIANA: I know how to make tea, you know.

JOHN: Yeah, sorry, of course you do. I'm… I just needed a break. Nothing like a corpse in your sitting room to kill your appetite for breakfast.

MARIANA: So no toast?

JOHN: Not as long as he's here, thanks. [a plastic bag rustles as Mariana puts the bread away again] It's just… having to sit with the body of a person I couldn't save, waiting for the people in charge of taking them away to turn up… I've done that once too often, I think.

MARIANA: Afghanistan?

JOHN: Ukraine, mostly.

MARIANA: I'm sorry, John. [Silence.] I think that's a kind thing to do, though. Not to leave them alone, I mean. It is a service. Have you ever thought of it that way?

JOHN: To be honest, I'd rather not think about it too much at all. Especially not right now. Yeah, maybe I'll… maybe I'll just fill the time till our Great Detective's finished his meditation with some shoutouts. Just in case this turns into an actual episode. See, those wouldn't be right to do in a Room of Death, either.

MARIANA: Not necessarily. Some of your listeners might even get excited.

JOHN: I'm not sure those are the sort of listeners we want.  

MARIANA: Oh, I agree. [kettle clicks off] But I mean, it will have to become a Room of Life again after this. It's still your home. You'll want to watch telly in that room again, you'll want to shout at each other in that room again… You can't stop doing everything you enjoy because a man died in there. It's not your fault.

JOHN: The show must go on?

MARIANA: Life must go on, John.

JOHN: As always, Mari, you're wise beyond your years.

MARIANA: Hey! Don't you know it's rude to comment on a lady's age? [water is poured] Here's your tea. Now go do your shoutouts.

JOHN: Er, OK… Where's the list? [taps on his phone] All right. Sooo… This week, we got a lovely message from Wasabigremlin in - [deciphers the name with difficulty] - Auchterarder? I hope that came out right. Scotland, at any rate. Thank you, Wasabigremlin. [gathers speed as he gets into the mood] Next, a shoutout to Biina from Nanortalik in Greenland. Wow! We have a fan in Greenland! Say hello to the polar bears for us! Jenny and Iqbal messaged to say they listen to our show at work. Not sure how appropriate that is, because they didn't say what their work is. But hey! We're totally here to inject some fun into your daily grind, guys! I just hope you're not… nursery teachers, or something… Cheers also to Roy and Jim from the Tarheel State, wherever that is. They wrote in to say that they love the show, and they've just tied the knot, so congratulations, newly-weds! May you live together long and happily. Then we've got Ioan from Llansantffraid, ha! I definitely know how to pronounce that one. There's a Welsh town with a very decent football team, for a change! The New Saints, 16 times winner of the Welsh championship! Well done, Ioan! He writes that he loves true crime, Coldplay, and…rugby. Oh well.

MARIANA: John.

JOHN: Sorry, what?

MARIANA: I – hang on. Oh. Oh no. [taps on her phone] This is not good. This is not good at all.

JOHN: What have you found?

MARIANA: I've just Googled "Tarheel State", and then "Roy and Jim wedding", in case they've made an account or a website, like the people did in the case with the girl who disappeared.

JOHN: The Noble Bachelor.

MARIANA: Yeah.

JOHN: And?

MARIANA: Tarheel State is the nickname for North Carolina. And the first result that pops up on Google for Roy and Jim in North Carolina is not a wedding page. It's this article from a local news site.

JOHN: Let me see.

MARIANA: Dated yesterday.

JOHN: "Abergavenny murder – hunt for the suspect continues." Crikey. "The town and university of Abergavenny have been left reeling by the heinous murder of a highly respected former university lecturer, presumably by his own husband. Roy Bourke Keating, 72, emeritus professor of UNCA's School of Business and Finance, was found unresponsive in his home in the upscale neighbourhood of Pinewood Heights at around 9 a. m. this morning. According to Abergavenny Police Department spokeswoman Sergeant Lakisha Moreno, he had suffered a gunshot wound to his heart, which is deemed to have been instantly fatal. The weapon, a Smith & Wesson Model 57 revolver recovered from the scene of the crime, is registered to Keating's husband, British-born James "Jim" Davison, 68." See? I knew he wasn't a yank!

MARIANA: What?

JOHN: Never mind. "The couple had been cohabiting for several years before getting married at Pinewood County Hall only last week. Davison, a former staff member of the university's sports department, had originally been hired by the family as Keating's full time carer after the Professor's retirement and beginning decline of his health due to multiple sclerosis. Davison was absent from the house when his husband was found dead, and is yet to be located."

MARIANA: Damn. That's our man, then?

JOHN: Sounds like it. [door opens] Sherlock? We've got him.

SHERLOCK [from a little further away]: No, you don't.

JOHN: It's on the news. The man whose hand you're still holding for some reason is James Davison. He shot and killed his husband, a Professor Roy Keating, in Abergavenny, North Carolina, less than 48 hours ago.

SHERLOCK: I assure you he didn't, Watson. But I know who did.

[End of episode music]

Chapter Text

PART 3

[Opening music]

JOHN [voice-over]: Previously on Sherlock and Co...

CLIENT [panting, with desperate urgency]: Doctor Watson! You've got to help me! Mr Holmes! They're going to kill me!

[A strangled groan, then the heavy thud of a body hitting the floor.]

JOHN: Holy Moly.

SHERLOCK: He's an overweight American in his mid to late sixties … the University of North Carolina at Abergavenny in the United States … nothing in his pockets at all. He wanted you to do something for him, something specific, something that I couldn't do. What you've got, Watson, and what our unfortunate friend here needed, was an audience.

JOHN: He said someone was going to kill him.

SHERLOCK: More than one person. "They".

JOHN: He's a wanted man! American. The death penalty. The evidence against him must be overwhelming.

SHERLOCK: Look at his hands.

JOHN: He's fired a gun.

JOHN [in the present]: Welcome back to Part 3 of the Abergavenny Murder. Mariana had joined us by then, and through a bit of accidental synchronised Googling, we found out that we were in the presence of the mortal remains of British expat James Davison, a retired massage therapist who had worked as carer to a wealthy university professor in the States, married his patient and then not a week later shot him dead and took to his heels. Except Sherlock disagreed. Not with all of that, but with the shooting his husband thing. I mean, don't get me wrong, we all think shooting one's husband isn't a great thing to do. What Sherlock specifically disagreed with was - well, listen for yourselves.

MARIANA [in the actual footage]: So, is that gunpowder on his hands, Sherlock?

SHERLOCK: I don't know.

MARIANA: I thought you were going to do a test, for the chemicals?

SHERLOCK: I was, but then I got distracted by the pattern of the burns, and when I came to the inevitable conclusion, confirming the exact composition of the soot on his hands had become momentarily irrelevant.

MARIANA: Care to share your inevitable conclusion with us, then?

SHERLOCK: He's innocent. He didn't do it.

JOHN: So you keep saying, but why?

SHERLOCK: Finish the article and try and figure it out yourself. And light and hand me the candle now, please.

JOHN [flicking a lighter several times] : Come on… Here you go.

SHERLOCK: Can you hold his hand palm-up while I drip the wax on it?

JOHN [aghast]: While you do what?

SHERLOCK: How else am I supposed to lift the powder traces from his hands? A thin film of paraffin has all the qualities you'd look for when you're trying to retrieve microscopic material from the human dermis.

JOHN: You're not dripping wax all over a dead man's body, Sherlock! How the fuck are you going to explain that to the police?

SHERLOCK: Only on his right hand, Watson, not all over his body. And I doubt they'll be as pig-headed about it as you're being right now. I assume they'll want to keep the candle for the lab, though, to make sure there's no confusion at the post-mortem. Feel free to reimburse yourself from the company accounts, Mrs Hudson, but if you get a replacement, kindly try a different brand or at least a different scent. This one gives me a headache.  

JOHN: You're the one giving people needless headaches right now!

MARIANA: Calm down, John. You're tired and exhausted.

SHERLOCK [peeved]: He's being  irrational.

MARIANA: Sh, sh, sh. Please. Sherlock - tell me if this is absolutely necessary. And if it isn't, then let's just assume it is gunpowder and see where we can get from there, all right?

[Silence]

SHERLOCK: Fine. If I must.

[Someone blows out the candle.]

JOHN [voice-over]: Wow. I really shouted at you there.

SHERLOCK [voice-over]: Well, you were sleep-deprived, your blood sugar levels had just hit rock bottom, and your PTSD was having a field day.

JOHN [voice-over]: That's a really bad pun, too, you know. Was that the point when Mariana just started reading the rest of the news article out loud? [mouse clicks] Oh yeah, here we go.

MARIANA [in the actual footage]: "Davison was absent from the house when his husband was found dead, and is yet to be located. There was no evidence of a break-in or of the presence of any other unauthorised third party at the residence at the time of the fatal shooting. A preliminary examination by the Pinewood County Medical Examiner has also ruled out a self-inflicted injury. It is understood that the forensic evidence suggests a distance of several feet between the firearm and Keating's body at the time of the discharge. The revolver had also been discharged a second time. The second bullet was found lodged in a piece of furniture nearby."

SHERLOCK: See, Watson?

JOHN: No.

[Sherlock huffs impatiently.]

MARIANA: Have some pity on the ordinary mortals, please. [continues with the article] "The sum of the currently available evidence therefore clearly points to the victim's fugitive husband as the most likely perpetrator of this senseless act of violence. Abergavenny PD have stated that they're currently not looking for anyone else in connection with the crime. The public are warned not to approach the suspect, as he may be armed and dangerous. Abergavenny PD have requested assistance from the North Carolina Bureau of Investigation and from the US Marshalls Service to help with Davison's speedy apprehension." Well, I'd say Sherlock Holmes has done their job for them.

SHERLOCK: Kind of.

MARIANA: "Abergavenny PD have also set up a hotline for members of the public to report sightings of the suspect. The number is – "

JOHN: They don't mention that he's fled to England?

SHERLOCK: Well spotted, Watson.

MARIANA: Maybe they hadn't got the information from the airport yet. The article is from yesterday.

SHERLOCK: Read on.

MARIANA: Okay… "Speaking on behalf of Professor Keating's remaining family, Luke Mireaux Keating, the victim's oldest son from his first marriage to the Wilmington shipping heiress Patricia Madeline Mireaux, has issued a statement expressing his and his four siblings' grief and pain at the sudden passing of their beloved father. 'It is no secret,' writes the CEO of the North Carolina Capital and Counties Bank and Secretary-General of the North Carolina Evangelical Covenant, 'that as a family, we were not happy with our father's close association with Mr Davison. We've always felt strongly that it went against the memory of our dear late mother and the values she has taught us, and we had repeatedly warned our father that Mr Davison's interest in maintaining a close bond with him might well be driven by monetary considerations, rather than by selfless personal affection. It infinitely pains us to have now become witnesses to just how little Mr Davison deserved our father's trust, and how terribly he has abused it. I myself looked in on my father several times over the past days, and he was always in good spirits, not suspecting a thing. It is distressing for us, as his children, to speak about such matters publicly, but there may unfortunately have been an aspect of mental decline, to the point of possibly rendering the marriage null and void, as well as any recent dispositions by will that our father may have made without our knowledge. At the moment, however, we are primarily relying on the forces of the law to establish who is responsible for our father's death. We're fully cooperating with Abergavenny PD, and we're confident that the perpetrator will be brought to justice as it is served in our great state of North Carolina to those who commit the ultimate betrayal.' According to an anonymous source close to the family, the net worth of Professor Keating's estate is in the double figure millions." Oh, nice. Do they even care about the old man, or do they just care about his money?

JOHN: If Davison's the killer, he couldn't inherit anyway, even if the marriage or a will was valid, could he?

SHERLOCK: No, he couldn't. In most Common Law jurisdictions, culpable homicide of the decedent by the heir results in automatic forfeiture of the inheritance. A provision colloquially known as the Slayer's Rule. North Carolina is no exception.

MARIANA: We don't even know if Keating made a will, and who benefits.

SHERLOCK: And it doesn't matter.

MARIANA: No? I'd say it was a great motive for the murder.

JOHN: But how stupid can this man have been, to kill his rich husband and hope to get away with his money just like that? At the very least, he should have staged the murder to look like someone else did it. Like a burglary that went wrong, or something. But they say there was no sign of that.

SHERLOCK: Davison didn't stage a burglary because he didn't kill his husband! Honestly, Watson, how can you be so concerned about the man's post-mortal dignity and yet insist that he must have been a brutal killer of limited intelligence in life? He'd be better served if you'd let me secure the evidence that will establish his innocence beyond a reasonable doubt. Even if the technique makes you feel uncomfortable.

MARIANA: No, no. We've been there, Sherlock. Just take us through the theory, please, and leave the rest to the lab.

SHERLOCK: Look at his hands.

MARIANA: I'd really rather not.

JOHN: Show me.

SHERLOCK: Those powder burns are extensive. That doesn't usually happen when you fire a revolver like a Smith & Wesson 57 once or even twice, or people would do it a lot less, and what a peaceful world that would be. This is what happens only when you hold a revolver in a way you're not supposed to. Revolvers, as opposed to semiautomatic handguns, have a gap in front of the cylinder that will emit gasses when the gun is fired. Those gasses can do some pretty bad burn damage to your hands if you put them too close to that gap. So revolver shooters will usually cup the off hand under the firing hand to steady the gun, keeping clear of the gap. They wouldn't put it above the firing hand or even in front of it.

JOHN: But Davison did, to get burned like that.

SHERLOCK: Yep.

JOHN: Why? Because he didn't know what he was doing? Because he'd never shot a revolver before?

MARIANA: The gun was registered to him.

SHERLOCK: Unfortunately gun expertise isn't a condition for gun ownership in most US states, and North Carolina's gun laws are among the most permissive. But -

JOHN: Why are we not surprised there's a 'but'?

SHERLOCK: Inexpertly firing a revolver like that would have given Mr Davison powder burns on the off hand only. But he has them on both hands. And look how the damage is positioned, here on the heel of the hand, but also on the insides of his middle phalanges.

JOHN: That's the middle parts of your fingers, folks. You know how fingers come in three parts, top, middle and bottom, with the joints in between? Those parts are called phalanges. Well, the bones inside them are, but by extension -

MARIANA: Oh my God.

SHERLOCK: You see it, don't you?

MARIANA: He had both his hands on the front part of the gun when it was fired. On the – barrel, is that the word?

SHERLOCK: Right above or right in front of the cylinder gap.

MARIANA: So somebody else was holding and pointing the gun. And somebody else pulled the trigger.

SHERLOCK: Exactly. While Mr Davison here was desperately trying to tear the gun out of the killer's hands, or at least to push it away from its intended target.

JOHN: The second bullet. The one that hit the furniture. That was when Davison pulled or pushed the gun aside.

SHERLOCK: Unlikely that anyone was trying to shoot the victim's furniture on purpose, isn't it.

JOHN: So he didn't kill his husband. He tried to save him.

MARIANA: Poor soul. Poor souls.

[Ad break music.]

JOHN: What I don't get – I mean, someone enters that house, gets his hands on a gun that belongs to one of the residents –

MARIANA: Or her hands.

SHERLOCK: His.

JOHN: - and then he, the big unknown, Mr X, shoots the Professor in the chest.

SHERLOCK: Mmh.

JOHN: Davison intervenes, too late, unfortunately, a second shot goes off but doesn't hit anyone, but the first shot is fatal anyway, the Professor is down – Why doesn't the intruder then turn the gun on Davison and kills him, too? And even if he tries and fails, if Davison manages to get away, or if the attacker gets cold feet and flees – why doesn't Davison alert the police right away? Why does he travel all the way to London without telling a living soul what happened?

SHERLOCK: It's all in the article, Watson.

JOHN: What, in invisible ink?

MARIANA: I think he means it's between the lines.

JOHN: Oh God, more idioms! Can you stop throwing idioms at me before sunrise!

SHERLOCK: The sun actually rose a while ago.

JOHN: And I can't believe you were right about the bloody ambulance. It's still not here.

SHERLOCK: No, that's because Lestrade will have cancelled it.

JOHN: Oh, how did she know to do that, telepathy?

SHERLOCK: It's called a text message, Watson. I texted her a quarter of an hour ago. Right after I got off the phone with Abergavenny PD. When you were downstairs. I thought they should lose no time getting an arrest warrant.

JOHN: For the real killer.

SHERLOCK: No, for the kids who pissed against the flagpole in the schoolyard of Abergavenny High when they came back from a party drunk, three months ago. Of course for the real killer.

JOHN: Who is mentioned in the news article, except he isn't.

SHERLOCK: Spoiler alert, it's not the police spokeswoman.

MARIANA: It's the Professor's son? The evangelical banker?

SHERLOCK: Highly suggestive, those two little facts, aren't they? Look at it from Keating Junior's point of view. His father is, as the Americans like to put it, stinkin' rich. He's outlived his wife, who was an heiress in her own right. We're looking at an impressive accumulation of generational wealth. The father grows old, falls ill, but he's going to be quite comfortable in his final years, isn't he, because he's hired this nice elderly chap to look after him in his grand home, someone your father might even have known and been friendly with back at the university, and someone who knows how to ease the pains of an aching body, too. But then everything goes wrong. Just when your inheritance seems within your grasp, your father marries his carer, putting all your expectations and maybe even all the dispositions you've already made into question. And what's more, he marries a  man, which is legal even in North Carolina, but which would be a horrible affront to any staunch Christian fundamentalist. A man of much lower social standing, too, surely of much more limited means, a dependent, a mere retainer, a gold-digger, or so it must look to you. Your share of your parents' wealth, which you always expected to come your way in the not-so-distant future, is slipping through your fingers. Time to take action.

MARIANA: I really don't want to believe that.

SHERLOCK: It's the one explanation that covers all the facts.

JOHN: This poor devil here probably didn't want to believe it either. I'm not surprised he only started fighting the killer for the gun when the first shot was already fired and the damage was done. He must've been in complete shock.

SHERLOCK: Well, luckily he was not too shocked to grab their passports and the plane tickets to the UK that they had booked for their honeymoon, and to head straight to the airport.

JOHN: Wait, wait. What honeymoon?

SHERLOCK: They were newlyweds, Watson. Newlyweds go on honeymoon.

JOHN: But how do you know they were planning to come to England together?

SHERLOCK: Most couples where one partner is a foreigner go to the foreign partner's home country for their honeymoon, even when there isn't a severe illness involved that may not leave them much time to ever travel abroad again at all. Meet your partner's family, see the place they were born and grew up in… I dare you to marry Mrs Hudson and not end up going to Spain for the honeymoon.

MARIANA: And I dare either of you to try and marry me, full stop.

JOHN [hastily]: I'm sure that was just a figure of speech, too.

MARIANA: It better was.

SHERLOCK: Davison is caught in a position so compromising that all he can do is run. He doesn't even pause to put on clothes appropriate for his destination. Probably doesn't check the weather forecast for London out of fear of giving his destination away. Very possibly doesn't change out of the clothes he happens to be wearing at all, just grabs a jacket.

JOHN: And forgets that his baseball cap is a dead giveaway.

SHERLOCK: That thing probably lived on his head so permanently that he was no longer even noticing it. American men tend to have toxic, clingy relationships with their caps that way.

JOHN: British. He was British, Sherlock.

SHERLOCK: I know. You subconsciously clocked the remaining traces of his British accent, and called that 'vibes'. But you've got to admit he was pretty corrupted after spending too much time over there. He owned a gun, too. How British is that.

JOHN [voice-over]: Sorry, American listeners. We know you're not all gun-wielding idiots who wear their hats the wrong way round.

SHERLOCK [voice-over]: Do we?

MARIANA [in the actual footage]: And then after he landed, he came running here. Why here?

JOHN: Because he was a fan of the show. They both were. He thought we'd believe his story and help him clear his name.

SHERLOCK [proudly]: And we just did.

JOHN: Wait, Sherlock. That still doesn't solve the mystery of how he got through customs and immigration, with the manhunt already on.

SHERLOCK: That's the simplest question of them all. There's a picture at the end of that article.

JOHN: Of what, Mr Davison dodging immigration control at Heathrow?

MARIANA: Hang on… [scrolls on her phone] No, it's just a portrait shot of the Professor. Or is that our man? No, caption says it's Keating.

SHERLOCK: Thank you for proving my point, Mrs Hudson.

JOHN: Let me see… Oh, right. They do look alike.

SHERLOCK: Old married couples tend to, don't they. It's more noticeable in same-sex marriages, but it's definitely a wide-spread phenomenon.

JOHN: Davison travelled on Keating's passport and ticket. Even if Immigration had been warned not to let Davison escape, the system wouldn't have blocked Keating. It had no reason to.

SHERLOCK: That's how I read it, too.

JOHN: Then our man was damn lucky he even got as far as London. I mean, it's not like the Professor and his kids were completely estranged or anything, if they looked in on him regularly. Wouldn't they have known that there was a trip to the UK planned for the very next day? They must've told the police, and even if Davison had got on the plane somehow, all it would have taken was a single phone call to Heathrow to have Davison arrested over here as soon as his plane touched down. I mean, it must have been an eight or nine hour flight. Why the delay?

SHERLOCK: Because Young Keating isn't the type who leaves anything to chance, and his younger siblings are probably all in on it anyway.

JOHN: Are you saying they did know about the honeymoon and the ticket to London, but they didn't tell the cops?

MARIANA: Please don't tell us Davison was in on it, too? Agreed to split the spoils, or something?

SHERLOCK: No. Mr Davison would hardly have literally given his life so we could find out the truth if he was a co-conspirator.

JOHN: He was set up. Keating Junior set him up.

SHERLOCK: Yes! You're scintillating this morning, Watson. Finally, I might add.

JOHN: Yep. The power of tea.

SHERLOCK: Look how carefully Junior prepared his trap. If there is a cold manipulator in this who knows exactly how to play the media and the public, it's him. He starts days before, probably right after the wedding that offended them all so much. He pays his father not just one visit, but several. Maybe because it took several attempts to get his hands on Davison's gun. Maybe to muddy the waters for any potential witnesses, like the neighbours. You've demonstrated earlier this morning just how unreliable eyewitness testimony tends to be, Watson. 'Was Luke Keating at his father's house the night before he was found dead?' - 'Not sure, officer. I think so, but it could also have been the day before that. Or was it both? I definitely saw his car parked outside last Friday, though, if that helps.' Hopeless confusion. Then he goes and shoots his father - no signs of a break-in, of course, he's the son, he'll have a key, or at least he'll be let in without question. This suits him, though, because he wants Davison to look as guilty as sin, so he can't have the cops get sidetracked chasing an imaginary burglar.

JOHN: He couldn't predict that Davison would try and grab the gun, though.

SHERLOCK: Couldn't he? He knew the man's personality better than we ever will. But even if that part was unplanned, it played right into his hands. It placed powder burns and gun residue on Davison's palms and fingers, damning evidence if ever there was. We don't know what else went on once the old man was down, whether they spoke to each other at all, the killer and the supposed killer. But whether it was spelled out or not, Junior gave our man a choice: Stay and face the consequences, risk a murder conviction, risk the death penalty - or drop any claims on the millions, run for the airport, leave the country and never be heard from again. It didn't even matter whether Keating Senior had already made a will in favour of his new husband or not. If he hadn't, Keating's kids would have inherited by default. If he had, but Davison had been convicted of murder, in person or in absentia, he'd be excluded from inheriting by the Slayer's Rule, so the money would have reverted to the children all the same. Junior had every eventuality covered. Davison was going to lose no matter what.

MARIANA: That is so nasty.

SHERLOCK: It is rather, yes. Clever, though.

JOHN: What if Davison had stayed and told the cops the truth?

SHERLOCK: Unlikely. It would have been his word against the son's. He wouldn't have stood a chance. Think: a foreigner, a nobody, alone and with very little money for a good defence lawyer, up against one of the richest and most influential families of the area, in a state that still hasn't formally repealed its sodomy laws, and where a jury would not look favourably on any type of relationship that went against majority religious sentiment and systemic heteronormativity.

JOHN: But the burn patterns… the son's strong motive…

SHERLOCK: Irrelevant. You know how it goes. Present the police with the first likely candidate to fill their vacancy, and they tend to stop looking. That's a gamble very few people would be willing to take, especially if one of the two possible outcomes was a lethal injection. Besides, this man ran so hard and fast from the danger of arrest and disgrace and punishment that he died of fright and exertion. That's not the stuff heroes are made of.

MARIANA: If he grabbed the gun, he was a hero when it really mattered.

JOHN: But I'm not surprised he'd exhausted his store of heroism with that. Most of us would have, I think.

SHERLOCK: A full criminal trial, with cross-examinations not only of the suspect, but also of the last family member to see the victim alive, was not a risk Junior would have been happy to take, either. It suited him much better if Davison buggered off to England. With Davison gone, any accusations against Junior himself would be effectively buried, too. A US citizen might still be extradited back to the States even when faced with a capital charge, but a British citizen certainly wouldn't be. That's the reason why there's no mention of the honeymoon in the family's official statement, and why it didn't occur to the police to alert the airport right away. As I said, an absence of information can in itself be highly informative at times. Junior let our man get away on purpose.

JOHN: But then Davison turned the tables on him.

SHERLOCK: Precisely. Mr Davison here wasn't going to go to ground and waste away in silent grief and shame forever. Once the adrenaline wore off and rational thinking started to reassert itself, he conceived a brilliant plan: Not just to get away to safety, but to come and see us, so the truth would be known.

JOHN: The flight number.

SHERLOCK: I think that's what gave him the idea, yeah.

MARIANA: Oh, well done, Jim. [sniffs] Well done.

JOHN: And well done, Sherlock.

SHERLOCK [quietly]: Thank you.

[The doorbell rings.]

SHERLOCK: That'll be Lestrade.

JOHN: What, she's coming in person? [A curtain is drawn aside.] Oh boy, that's not just Lestrade, that's a battalion. Forensics van, squad car, hearse …

MARIANA: Are we just going to let them take him away now?

SHERLOCK: It's about time Watson got his breakfast, wouldn't you say?

JOHN: No, no, Mariana has a point. It doesn't feel right, does it, to just –

MARIANA: Come here, John. Sherlock, you, too. We'll do it together.

SHERLOCK: Do what?

JOHN: Just come.

[Movement.]

MARIANA: Ready?

JOHN: OK…

MARIANA: I'm sorry, Jim, that you died like this, and that you died not knowing if the truth would ever come out. I'm sorry that Roy died the way he did, too, and that you couldn't save him. We know that you did your best, and we promise you that we'll make sure the world knows, too.

JOHN: Yeah, and I'm sorry you didn't have more time together, guys. Didn't get to enjoy your wedded bliss properly. Just because some awful greedy bigots decided you didn't deserve it. You did, you know? Both of you.

SHERLOCK: And I'm sorry they hated you for something you didn't even do.

JOHN: What's that supposed to mean?

SHERLOCK: The ring on his right hand, Watson.

JOHN: Black ring on the right hand, yeah. Swingers. Not that it matters, if it's all safe, sane and -

SHERLOCK: Black ring on the middle finger of his right hand. Used widely, and even respected by the less dumb members of the swinger community, to indicate -

MARIANA: - asexuality. Christ. They weren't even married in that way. They just wanted each other's company and affection and friendship, and -

SHERLOCK: - someone who understood.

[Doorbell rings again, more insistently this time.]

JOHN: Crikey, I'd better buzz them in before they batter the door down.

MARIANA: Goodbye then, Jim. And goodbye, Roy. God bless.

JOHN [suddenly rather alarmed]: Sherlock? You OK?

[Ad break music]

JOHN [in the present]: Well, I admit we've ended episodes on snappier punchlines. I guess I'm just not used to actual tears. From you, I mean. And neither are our listeners.

SHERLOCK [in the present]: Well, neither am I, so we're all in the same boat.

JOHN: Yay! Another idiom!

SHERLOCK: You sure that's not a metaphor? [A muffled thump, like a pillow being thrown at someone's head.] Hey!

JOHN: So, dear listeners, here ends the case of the dead client, or of the Abergavenny Murder. The case that proves that Sherlock and Co. will solve your mystery even posthumously, if need be.

SHERLOCK: Shall we put that on our website? Posthumous crime solving services?

JOHN: No, that sounds like we're the ones who are no longer around. Too much like a Zombie AU, if you ask me.

SHERLOCK: What's an AU?

JOHN: Oh, it's a fandom thing. Stands for 'Alternate Universe'. Like, if you take a show, or a book or a movie, whatever it is you're a fan of, and kinda transfer the whole thing to a completely different environment, but the characters and their relationships and everything else that defines the story basically stays the same.

SHERLOCK: Like us going to solve crimes in Dartmoor?

JOHN: Yeah, but more extreme. Think a different era, a different country or culture, a different planet, even. Knights of the Round Table on a spaceship, that sort of thing.

SHERLOCK: I might enjoy that idea.

JOHN: Knights of the Round Table on a spaceship? I'm sure it's been done.

SHERLOCK: No, existing in different universes. To imagine myself as a man of a different age, maybe, of a different background, different life experiences… or not as a man at all, for that matter.

JOHN: What else, a mouse?

SHERLOCK: Why a mouse?

JOHN [chuckles]: No idea.

[Door bursts open.]

MARIANA [breathlessly]: Guys, guys, sorry, I know you're recording, but you have to look at this.

JOHN: What's up?

MARIANA: Read it.

JOHN: Isn't this the same news site that first reported on the -

MARIANA: Read it.

JOHN [rattling off the words]: "Abergavenny Murder Solved. According to a press statement issued this morning by Abergavenny PD, Luke M. Keating, oldest son of the late UNCA Professor Roy Bourke Keating, who was found shot dead in his residence in Pinewood Heights, Abergavenny, last week, has pleaded guilty to the charge of voluntary manslaughter of his father, pre-empting the graver charge of murder, and avoiding a possible death penalty. In a shocking twist that nobody concerned with the case can have expected, an extensive police investigation conducted in record time by Abergavenny PD and the North Carolina Bureau of Investigation in conjunction with the Metropolitan Police of London, UK, has uncovered fresh evidence which unequivocally proves that -" and so on and so forth. Wa-hey! He caved in quickly, the bastard!

SHERLOCK: As you said yourself, Watson. Bigotry and greed. The proud foundations modern America is built on.

JOHN: Ha, yes! Watch them crumble into dust in the face of truth and justice and a little wax from a sandalwood-scented candle, folks! What a win! What a triumph! What a - Sherlock, did you just insult our American listeners again?

SHERLOCK [deadpan]: Wouldn't dream of it.

JOHN: God, you -

[Another pillow is thrown at someone's head with a muffled thump.]

[End of episode music]