John entered the living room to find out that Sherlock had created an obstacle course out of the furniture.
'Excellent John, you're here. You can see that I have made a replica of the path between Martin's desk and the janitor's closet. You would be about the same weight as Martin, don't you think? He's taller, but you have more muscle.' John nodded in agreement, but reminded Sherlock that dead bodies are harder to drag and seem heavier than living bodies.
'That's true John, but it doesn't matter too much for this. If you just lie down at the start, by the door, I will attempt to drag you to the end. Just to see how difficult it is.' John obediently lay down, but Sherlock had only dragged him past the second corner when he stopped. He was already breathing heavily from the exertion.
'That's enough of that' he said, 'John, you're a doctor. In you professional opinion, how difficult do you think it would it be to drag Rob Martin's body 45 odd meters?' John always felt honoured that Sherlock trusted his opinion enough to ask his advice, and he was pleased that his own dragging had stopped, so thought hard about his answer.
'Well, it was all on the flat, but there were sharp corners. It would certainly be difficult for any weight, and Martin was no pixie. You found dragging me difficult enough, so I'd say the murderer would have to be very strong, and would try to drag it as little as possible.'
'Exactly what I thought' replied Sherlock. 'So now can you explain why the murderer would drag the body 45m to the janitor's closet to hide it, when they could have dragged it 40m, using the lift, to a waiting car downstairs. This means, the body would never have been discovered and the murderer would have gotten away scot-free. Added to this, we can tell by the bruises on Martin that the murderer wasn't the strongest or the largest man.' Sherlock started pacing. 'It just doesn't make sense!'
John looked worriedly at Sherlock. He didn't normally pace during a case, sitting was more his style, so he must be completely stumped.
'Sherlock are you okay?' he asked tentatively? Sherlock didn't stop pacing, or even look at John. He just kept muttering to himself.
'40 meters, 45 meters… Why would he do it? Not to hide the body… So we would find it? That makes no sense… John, what do you think?' John started. This was also new. Sherlock always tested his own theories on John, but he rarely asked John for his own.
'Well Sherlock, I think Anderson is the guilty party. He knew that Martin was going to become a better forensic scientist than him and would probably replace him, so he killed Martin to avoid that. You say Anderson didn't kill Martin? Well I suppose Anderson didn't want to be caught, so he hired someone else to kill Martin for him, when he knew that Martin would be at the station. Anderson isn't the smartest person ever, so he decides to make the murderer hide the body in the janitor's closet. It didn't occur to him that there would be an easier and better way to hide the body. Anderson thought that to avoid suspicion, he should be the one to find the body, which he did. It might have worked, but he lied and said he found it by smelling it. He got caught and now he's going to jail. Case solved, I should think.'
Sherlock continued to frown and pace. He clearly didn't agree with John with many of the points. John knew that there were gaps in his theory, but that was what Sherlock was for: to fill the gaps.
'Doesn't that seem just too simple and convenient?' Sherlock asked.
'Sometimes it is simple' John replied, 'sometimes everything is exactly as it appears. Just because you always go for the difficult cases, it doesn't mean they all are.' Sherlock shrugged. He seemed to be considering John's point, but not really agreeing with it.
'We will see' he said, 'but can you fetch my violin? I need to think.'