Sunday, October 23, 2016

story - Let's help Sherlock, shall we?


As usual, Sherlock Holmes was getting bored by the easy cases coming to him. He decided to learn some new languages to kill some time. Being the genius he is, he learnt five languages on that mundane Sunday. And as he was practising his newly acquired linguistic skills, he heard a knock on the door. 221B came alive...


It was a woman, in her mid-fifties, dressed well enough to be in the upper middle class; hair was tied -- had taken her time to decide to come to meet him -- but looked in distress as if she had seen a murder. Deductions aside, Sherlock asked her to sit and tell what had happened. She started telling her story, controlling her tears.



"My husband was in military."


"Sorry to interrupt you, but 'was'?" said Holmes.



"Yes, he died last night," she replied, barely controlling her tears.


"Oh, I am sorry. Please continue..." Holmes said whilst sitting on a chair next to her.


"He was a very good man, a great husband. We had a happy marriage, been married for almost thirty years. He had come home after retiring about a week ago. He was happy to have served the nation with all his intelligence and strength. After taking a rest the whole day, we had a good dinner last night at the best restaurant in the city. He started watching a movie, I can't remember the name, but it was about Indo-Pak war. He was all nostalgic about his glorious epoch in army, also boasted about the good direction and appreciated the dialogues. I can't understand Hindi, but I agreed with whatever he said. After the movie ended, we went to sleep. He was having a dream about his life in Africa. After that, I too dozed off. The first thing I did after waking up in the morning was kiss him on his forehead. To my surprise, his skin was cold. I tried to wake him up, but he didn't respond. I tried to feel his heartbeat, he had none. He probably had a heart attack. I immediately called a doctor, who came after an hour. After the checkup, the feel of his face told a horror story. My husband was dead. The doctor said it was indeed a cardiac arrest. I am not able to digest that the person who was so happy in the day, who had no medical history of any disease whatsoever, died of a heart attack. I have no hope left. I think someone murdered him. He had enemies who have access to military level tech. They must have killed him for something. Please help me."



After hearing all this, Holmes, who was already suffering from linguistic information overflow couldn't speak. All his mastery over language came to a standstill. Coming back to his senses, he asked whether they had any other family members. She replied that all they had was a cook, who was like their son. He was with them for the last twenty years, helped in household work and cooked great food. It was not possible that someone had bribed him to murder her husband.


All this was too much information, even for someone like Sherlock Holmes to process.


He knows that there is an awesome puzzle solving community on StackExchange that can help him to solve this case which is a bit awkward for his tired brain to handle.


So, can you help him solve the case?



Answer





She poisoned him at the restaurant.



Reasons:



1. They didn't eat at home that night.
2. She couldn't have known what he was dreaming.
3. She assumed a heart attack before calling the doctor.
4. Dissonant mention of assuming a heart attack, then wondering why.
5. Utilizing the cook and stating "I could not digest". A slip leading to the idea that there was something she should not ingest to begin with.




EDIT: Glossed over a detail that would have been #6


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