Chapter 38

Members of the audience, including some of the bridal party, began to tear up at Sherlock's heart-warming speech. Amy positioned herself to look at John's reaction, and she could tell how moved he was by his words. It was a rare thing to hear Sherlock speak like this, and she knew that John and Mary would never forget it.

Sherlock, even the genius that he is, couldn't comprehend why everyone else was crying, "Ah, yes, now onto some funny stories about John."

Sherlock looked up and with a confused expression, looked at Amy, then Mary, then John, "What's wrong? What happened? Why are you all doing that? John? Did I do it wrong?"

John stood up and gave Sherlock a tight hug. Amy whooped, and the rest of the guests broke into applause.

"So, onto some funny stories about John," Sherlock repeated after everyone settled. "For funny stories, one has to look no further than John's blog. The record of our time together. Of course, he does tend to romanticize things a bit, but then, you know, he's a romantic. As a trio, Amy, John, and I have tackled some strange cases, some frustrating cases, some touching ones."

Sherlock began listing off cases that they worked on either together, or sometimes separately. Amy remembered each one with a smile.

"But we want something … very particular for this special day, don't we?" Sherlock looked down at this phone and then back up at the guests. "The Bloody Guardsman. Private Bainbridge had just come off guard duty. He'd stood there for hours, plenty of people watching, nothing apparently wrong. He came off duty and within minutes in the shower was nearly dead from a wound in his stomach, but there was no weapon. Where did it go? Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you to consider this: a murderer who can walk through walls, a weapon that can vanish – but in all of this there is only one element which can be said to be truly remarkable. Would anyone like to make a guess?"

Amy remembered that she was helping out Mary back at the flat when Sherlock and John left for this case under the pretence of getting socks. They told her as much as they could of what happened when they came back, so she didn't have much to go on or even time to think about the case – until now.

"Come on, there is actually an element of Q and A to all of this," Sherlock looked at Lestrade. "Scotland Yard. Got a theory?"

"Erm, um, if the, uh, if the, if the blade was, erm, propelled through the grating in the air vent," Lestrae started shakily. "Maybe a ballista or a, a, a catapult, erm, someone tiny could crawl in there. So yeah. We're looking for a, erm, dwarf?"

"No," Sherlock shook his head, "next!"

Tom's whispering got Sherlock's attention. "Tom. Got a theory?"

Tom stood up slowly, "Um, attempted suicide, with a blade made of compacted blood and bone. Broke after piercing his abdomen … like a meat dagger."

"A meat dagger. No," Sherlock scanned the room and his eyes locked onto the other genius in the room. "Bow ties. Got a theory?"

Amy immediately whipped her head to the where Sherlock was looking and she scanned the room quickly to see that only the Doctor was actually wearing a bow tie, but of course he was. The Doctor stood up, but seeing as he looked relatively normal, only Amy's breath really hitched, and she was begging that he wouldn't say anything involving aliens and monsters. That would be difficult to explain. She looked at Mary and John, and it was clear from their faces that they weren't exactly sure who he was.

"Time is an interesting, thing, Sherlock. You, and most people in this room would probably consider what had happened at that particular moment in the shower. But should we consider what happened just minutes, hours, before?"

The Doctor sat down and Amy let out a sigh of relief that the Doctor didn't say anything too outrageous. What he said was pretty vague and out there, but at least he didn't say that someone employed a time machine to stab the Private, or that an alien being decided to stab Bainbridge. What the Doctor brought up, though, was an interesting thought, and although Sherlock couldn't dwell on it for long, Amy could. So Sherlock kept on speaking while Amy sat and contemplated.

She looked down at her plate. If Bainbridge hadn't been stabbed in the shower, especially since no trace of a weapon or the attacker was found, then she had to take that out of the equation. Amy took the Doctor's thought of the moments before the attack. Could the Private have been stabbed beforehand? If so, how did he not feel it? And how did he not bleed out before he entered the shower?

Amy needed to narrow it down, but what she really needed was to sort her thoughts and for some quiet, but Sherlock managed to talk over her thoughts about the bachelor party.

"I first enlisted the help of Molly Hooper, who is a guest tonight, to plan out John and my intake of alcohol throughout the night, making sure that we wouldn't be too intoxicated, however, still within a nice threshold. The plan was to go to visit each street where a case was worked and find a pub near there. John and I left early in the hopes of at least making it to 90% of the pubs before midnight."

Drowning him out, Amy started with why Bainbridge was a case in the first place. Private Bainbridge thought he had a stalker. Someone took pictures of him constantly. But why scope out Bainbridge? In terms of his role, he mainly stood outside as a guard. He had no access to sensitive information, nor did he seem to have any enemies of any sort. Why target a random guard?

"We hit each pub with success. The calculations were working perfectly …"

Amy remembered a photo shoot earlier in her career working with a British guard. They let her position herself however she wanted. She nearly convinced the man to give her a piggyback ride for one shot. To be able to get that close and personal is what Bainbridge might have accidentally given his stalker access.

"At some point in the night, the calculations went wrong, and we were apparently overly drunk…"

Assuming that it was the stalker who stabbed him, the following questions remained: how did he do it? How did the Private not feel it? How did he not bleed out? What was the weapon?

"I remember nearly getting into a fist fight about ash…"

The weapon had to be extremely thin – enough to puncture skin, something that might not be easily felt, but leave a wound that it could not close up, It had to be made of metal, long, and sharp. Perhaps something like a prong – no, it was too thick. Something thinner. Needles? No, too small. Knitting needles? That was a possibility as they did have some in very thin sizes, so Amy shelved that as a possible weapon.

"I believe John had drunk dialled Amy, but neither of us have any recollection of that whatsoever…"

Amy looked up and smiled, but returned to her thoughts. Private Bainbridge was stabbed at about waist level. What was at waist level at the time before he got into the shower? Remembering the photo shoot once again, she remembered the belt that the guard wore. It looked tight – almost too tight, but something that could hold the wound together. Amy's eyes went wide as realization set it.

"We ended up back at the flat playing a ridiculous guessing game two hours after we originally left when a client popped in. We were still heavily intoxicated, and a lot of the details had blurred to the point where I do not remember going with the client to the scene of the crime, so to speak…"

Amy, figuring out that she had figured out about half the case, had to force herself not to tell either John, Mary, or Sherlock. She deduced the how, but not the why. The attempted murder of Private Bainbridge was not successful, in that the Private didn't die, but he almost did – if Sherlock and John weren't there, he surely would have died. All that planning, but why on a guard with no criminal connections, no enemies, no knowledge of any sensitive information, and no particular assets worth as much as the next person?

Amy looked up with her brows furrowed. Luckily for her, everyone's attention was still stuck on Sherlock. He was now talking about the case of the Mayfly Man. She was still with the Doctor when Sherlock and John were investigating, but they still gave her the summarized version.

Amy kept her eyes on the back of the room so that no one thought she wasn't listening. So why him? What was so special about Private Bainbridge? A thought came to her: maybe that was it – he wasn't anyone special. He was just chosen as a victim because he was there. Because he was accessible. Because he was practice. She gasped out loud, and immediately covered her mouth. It was going to happen again. Someone is going to get killed, but who?

"Is everything alright?" Mary turned to her and whispered.

Amy tried to placate her expression, and whispered back, "yeah, I'm fine. Just, uh, thought of something. It's nothing."

Sherlock kept speaking, "This blog is the story of two men and one woman and their frankly ridiculous adventures of murder, mystery, and mayhem. But from now on, there's a new story – a bigger adventure. Ladies and gentlemen, pray charge your glasses and be upstanding. Today begins the adventures of Mary Elizabeth Watson and John Hamish Watson. The two reasons why every single one of us is …"

Sherlock stopped and froze in place with the glass of champagne in the air.

"Here today," Sherlock spoke just as his glass fell to the floor and shattered in front of him, and another glass was given. "Oh, sorry, I … now where were we? Ah, yes. Raising glasses and standing up. Very good. Thank you. And down again."

Amy could immediately tell that something was wrong, but she didn't know what. She needed some information from Sherlock – she wanted to know what he had just connected in his brain to lead him this askew in his speech.

"Ladies and gentlemen, people tell you not to milk a good speech – get off early, leave 'em laughing. But for now part two!" Sherlock jumped over the table, definitely a sign that something was wrong. "Part two is more action based. I'm gonna walk around, shake things up a bit. Who'd go to a wedding? Who would bother to go to any lengths to get themselves to a wedding? Well, everyone!"

"What's he doing?" Mary asked John quietly.

"Something's wrong," John watched with concern on his face.

"Do you know what?" Mary leaned over to Amy as Sherlock kept talking.

"I'm trying to figure it out. He's not giving us any information. Nothing to connect," Amy responded quietly. "He talked about the Mayfly Man, and then something just … connected in his mind. This is why we're getting this."

"Sorry, too many jokes about John! Now, er … where was I? Ah, yes speech," Amy was trying to keep up to Sherlock speaking a mile a minute. "Speech. Let's talk about … murder."

Amy's eyebrows shot up. That was all she needed as a clue to what Sherlock was thinking.

"Sorry, did I say murder? I meant to say marriage …"

So Sherlock was thinking of murder and the Mayfly Man? Amy wondered: was the Mayfly Man here? Is he going to be killed? Or is he a killer? It made more sense that he was to be the killer, especially since he went through so many women to get to the point where he was, but he didn't kill any of the women, or so Sherlock said. So what was the point of the Mayfly Man? Why was he here now and who was he going to kill?

"Geoff, the gents," Sherlock spoke to Greg. "The loos, now, please."

"It's Greg. But why?"

"Maybe it's your turn," Sherlock motioned for Lestrade to check his phone.

Once Lestrade did, he made his way out. Rory mouthed to Amy what was going on, but she was so deep in thought that she didn't even register that her husband was trying to get her attention. At this point she was trying to figure out who the Mayfly Man was, but she realized it was impossible. Instead, she focused on who the Mayfly Man would want to kill.

"Oh! Ladies and gentlemen, can't stand it when I finally get the chance to speak for once, Vatican Cameos," Sherlock directed that to John.

"What did he say? What's that mean?" Mary asked.

"Battle stations," John held her hand. "Someone's going to die."

With the confirmation that someone was going to die today, Amy pondered why the Mayfly Man would use a wedding to kill someone. They were way too public for any attempt on someone's life. However, it did bring people that usually wouldn't be seen in public. Like Sherlock said, who would come to a wedding? But any attack would have to be discreet … so discreet that …

Amy grabbed Mary's hand. Oh no.

"What is it?" Mary leaned over and whispered.

"I … uh," Amy let go and tried to get Sherlock's attention, though he was clearly in his mind palace as he talked.

She didn't realize that two of Sherlock's cases – the Bloody Guardsman and the Mayfly Man – could have any connection, but it was plausible, and it was going to happen now. Her head shot up and she went through each table, going through each person until she found the man she was looking for: the man in the uniform. Sitting up just ever so slightly, she could make out a peek of the belt that he was wearing. She didn't know who he was, exactly, but he fit her criteria.

"No!" Sherlock slapped his cheeks. "Not you! Not you!"

"You!" Sherlock pointed at John and walked towards him. "It's always you. John Watson, you keep me right."

"What do I do?" John stood up, and Amy followed his lead, instead walking around the table and to Sherlock's side.

"Well, you've already done it. Don't solve the murder. Save the life," Sherlock stared at him intensely and then took two steps away from the head table – enough so John and Mary couldn't hear Amy and Sherlock.

"Sherlock," Amy grabbed his arm and spoke so quietly that only Sherlock could hear. "The Mayfly Man. He's here, isn't he?"

"Yes," Sherlock growled. "We need to find him, or his potential victim."

Amy tightened her grip, "he's going to kill the man in the uniform. Look and consider. "

Sherlock turned around and deduced Major Sholto. He turned back to Amy still with her grip on his arm, "It's been planned. The Bloody Guardsman? That was just practice. That's how the Mayfly Man is going to kill him."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes, "impressive."

"You have to warn him," Amy said before returning to her seat.

"So sorry, back now. Let's play a game. Let's play murder," Sherlock returned his attention to the guests. "Imagine someone's going to get murdered at a wedding. Who would you choose?"

Sherlock began to speak to the guests while trying to inform Sholto of what was happening.

"John," Amy leaned over. "Who's the man in the uniform?"

"Major James Sholto," John answered with a confused expression on his face. "Why?"

Amy looked to see Sherlock slip a note to Major Sholto, "Major Sholto is going to be murdered and it's going to happen now."