Molly sits in the lab as I push the glass door open to enter, tripping over the doorframe.
"John?" Molly exclaims as she jumps up in surprise.
"I need to speak with you about this" I say as I shove the letter into her hand.
"What..." she begins, but as she quickly reads the letter her eyes widen and she puts a hand over her mouth.
"I don't... he said he wasn't going to tell you until he returned" she says, placing the letter back in my outstretched hand.
"You knew all this time?" I say in disbelief.
"You watched me suffer for months when in reality he has been alive this whole time?"
"John... I'm so sorry" she stutters as tears begin to roll down her face.
"Why did he do it? And where is he now?" I demand as I walk closer to her, placing the letter down on the table.
Molly looks at the note and buries her face in her hands for a moment. She looks up eventually but the look of shock and guilt on her face is gone and replaced with some sort of empathy for me. She stands quiet for a moment longer, staring at the ground.
"Spit it out Molly". I am losing my patience with her.
"John, Sherlock..." she trails off as she looks up at me.
"Sherlock was alive. He came to me with this elaborate plan he had made up the day he knew he would have to fake his suicide. He knew Moriarty's plans... Moriarty was real by the way, and he came to me because he knew I would be able to help him"
Past tense. Why did she say "was alive"?
"I agreed because he had that look in his eyes, you probably know the one I am talking about, where he looks distant but you can tell he's trying to cover up the fact that he's actually feeling-"
"Yes Molly, just continue please" I say, irritated and anxious.
She swallows audibly and continues, "Well I told him that whatever he needs, I could do it for him. He said he needed me to place a body, one that fairly resembled him, from the morgue, onto the pavement in front of St. Bartholomew's at the time he designated. He said he would have to fake his own suicide because Moriarty had told Sherlock of "the final problem", which he accurately guessed correctly. Moriarty's "final problem" was staying alive and for Sherlock, not."
Ironic isn't it. With the cellphone ringtone and all.
"He would jump off the top of St. Bartholomew's and below, there was a laundry truck parked almost on the sidewalk, so that he would fall into that. The truck was full of laundry, obviously, so his fall was less painful. You were unable to see him hit the ground because there was a building in between you and where he supposedly landed."
"It's just a magic trick."
"No don't move. Stay exactly where you are. Keep your eyes fixed on me."
"The truck pulled away and I had placed the body on the ground already. The people who were around the site at the time were part of the homeless network, I suppose Sherlock had asked them to pretend to be bystanders. One woman had a bag that contained blood I had given her. She placed it on the ground and on the corpse. You, meanwhile were on the ground after a man on a bike that Sherlock had hired hit you. You were concussed, and as you ran to Sherlock, the homeless people had surrounded him and made it difficult for you to see him that well. You took his pulse and were immediately held back. You saw what you thought you would see, which was Sherlock dead on the ground in front of you, as a result of your disorientation. We had arranged for paramedics to quickly pull him away on a gurney, Sherlock paid them off in advance but they knew nothing; only that they were to pull away a corpse from the street and immediately bring it to me in post-mortem. I filled out the paperwork and took care of all the legal matters and pronounced Sherlock Holmes dead."
Outstanding. That man was a genius.
"He was driven away to the docks, where he had arranged for a boat to take him to France, then he traveled to Spain. He had provisions in place, enough to last him for years."
"Why Spain?"
"Do you remember Irene Adler?"
He had been with the woman all this time? Wasn't she dead?
"I had heard she was killed by a terrorist cell over a year ago." I said.
"Yes, well apparently not. Sherlock went through a great deal of trouble to pretend that is what happened but she had asked him for help faking her death once again."
I was thorough this time.
The only man who could ever outsmart me is Sherlock.
Mycroft had said that he had made absolute sure that Irene Adler was dead, however he had then said the only person who would be able to fool him was Sherlock. I guess he had been right.
"Well where is he now?" I demanded.
Molly turned her head away, tears beginning to stream down her face once again.
"Molly-" I began, agitated, but she cut me off.
"Sherlock Holmes died in Spain with Irene Adler."