Though I'm pretty sure Mycroft doesn't want him to, Lestrade follows us.

I believe my brother intended to have a witness-less "family-talk", but of course he's too polite to send Lestrade away. As soon as he's closed the door he turns to me:"And you're sure, you didn't just imagine that?"

"Of course, I am", I snap back.

Why can't he see the game Moriarty is playing? And why does Lestrade hesitate to arrest him? Damn, he really could be more grateful for having the criminal on a silver plate. "Sherlock, look, it's not that I don't believe you... I think you really do believe you've talked to John, but he's dead, you know? He won't come back."

I can see that it hurts Mycroft to talk to me like this, to see me losing any bit of reasoning.

"I can prove it!" I exclaim sounding more desperate than I intended to. "Just look in the coffin. It's empty, or probably filled with another corpse, I don't know. But I DO know that it is not John in there!"

"Sherlock that's ridiculous!" Mycroft, this time starting to sound angry. "Why didn't you come up with that before the coffin was buried? We could've taken a look then."

I shift uncomfortably, he's partly right. I should've told them that John's still alive before, but somehow the thought didn't even cross my mind.

"I don't know", I say lamely and then turn to Lestrade looking straight into his eyes. "All I ask of you is to arrest this man for a few hours. John promised to call me back and I'm pretty sure he will this evening. Just give me this one chance. If he hasn't called until six o'clock, you can set Moriarty free and apologize if you want. Tell him I picked the wrong one or something."

Lestrade shifts uncomfortably. I can see he doesn't believe me, but secretly wants to. He's just opened the mouth to speak (from his body languages I'd say he wants to give in to me), but Mycroft anticipates him.

"I've got a better suggestion: We let him walk away telling him that you've been mistaken and apologize. But we keep track of him. You know I've got ways to follow him."

I open my mouth to protest, to tell that he might be able to keep track of any normal person, but not this criminal mastermind. But I decide against it. I know I wouldn't change his mind anyway, that's probably the best I can get, especially since it doesn't contain visiting a psychiatrist.

Besides, Moriarty probably has ways to escape being arrested. If I really want to catch him, it has to be me who set up the situation, or at least I must know his whole plan.

"But I won't apologize" I add and walk out of the room, straight to the exit. No one holds me back, and I'm grateful.

While waiting for a cab to show up I silently curse myself. Moriarty has won again. He went straight into the lion's den, and got out without a single scratch.