John swings open the door to the Baker Street flat. Mrs. Hudson is sitting in the front entrance.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Hudson," says John. She is startled by his sudden appearance and whirls around to face him. Realizing who is there, she sighs and greets him.
"Good afternoon, Dr. Watson. How has the investigation been going?" John studies Mrs. Hudson's face. It looks like she has been crying. Mrs. Hudson notices his keen stare and smiles.
"I'm fine, John. Now, come on, how is the investigation?" She's changing the subject. John takes this hint and stops staring at her.
He answers, "Honestly, I don't know what to tell you." Mrs. Hudson looks confused.
"What do you mean, you don't know what to tell me? Aren't you making progress in the case?"
"Well, I suppose we are. But this… this case is not exactly any normal case, and, by the nature of it… it's quite… daunting."
Mrs. Hudson rolls her eyes. She seems impatient and annoyed. "Dr. Watson, you can stop talking in riddles." John shakes his head.
"I'm afraid that for now the police don't have enough answers. It's… I'm sorry." With that, he quickly turns away and starts up the stairs to Sherlock's room. He's supposed to look through Sherlock's papers to see if he can find any answers, but right now that's the furthest thing from his mind.
He can't believe how he's just treated Mrs. Hudson. She's always been there, but now he feels like he's almost… betraying her. He tries to justify it.
Anyways, he doesn't have enough answers to take care of all of her questions anyways.
But, still, she is obviously upset about Sherlock.
But, then again, who wouldn't be?
John suddenly remembers that he is supposed to be helping examine the body. Well, bodies. He grabs his coat once again. He darts back down the stairs and rushes back past Mrs. Hudson, trying to avoid conversation. She takes the hint and keeps working.
As John walks toward the front door, Mary walks up to him. She gently puts her hand on his shoulder.
"John. I know you're busy, but… I… I thought of something." John is confused.
"What do you mean, Mary? You… thought of something about the case?" Mary nods slowly. She looks nervous but somewhat excited.
"Actually, yes. I did. You know, I was at the first scene. I found the body last week when we went to say goodbye to Sherlock."
"Yes," acknowledges John, curious.
"Well, today I went back up to his room to clean up and pack his things away. But then I remembered something from the room. When I first walked up there. When you ran into the room, I didn't follow you. I just stood at the door looking into the room."
"Yes?" John is now interested. "What did you see?"
Mary continues. "I didn't realize it was important then, but today when I came up here I realized that there was something the police missed."
"What do you mean, Mary? I don't think that the police missed anything. They searched the whole place for anything that might be evidence and didn't find anything."
Mary shakes her head. "John, the window was unlocked. It didn't seem very strange to me at the time, but it was definitely unlocked, and the curtains were open too. He always kept the curtains closed, you know. He hardly ever opened the windows. Why would he open the windows? It just doesn't make sense, and it's totally opposite to his normal behavior. I was thinking that maybe…" She is unsure, and doesn't finish her sentence. "I'm sorry. I'm wasting your time, John. I'm just being paranoid."
John quickly shakes his head. He takes her hand and stares at her with wide eyes.
"No! No, you aren't being paranoid. You're brilliant! You are brilliant! Of course the police did not notice it! They didn't know that Sherlock kept his windows closed, so this wouldn't have looked strange to them." He pauses for a moment. "But why wouldn't they have noticed the open window? That should have seemed strange to the police, surely."
Mary's eyes widen. "John, I think I know why the police didn't find the open window strange."
John is eager to know her theory. "Why? Why didn't they notice it?"
Mary almost laughs at John's childlike enthusiasm. "That day, the weather was quite nice. It was sunny outside, so I opened the windows downstairs. The police wouldn't have found it very strange for his windows in his room to be open because the rest of the windows were open too!"
John smiles at her. He embraces Mary tenderly.
"Mary, you are a genius! An absolute genius!" He's ecstatic.
Suddenly, John remembers that he is expected at the morgue.
"I'm sorry, Mary. I have to go. I'm supposed to be at his autopsy."
Mary nods. John once again hugs Mary.
"You are much smarter than you give yourself credit for, you know, Mary. Maybe you should come with me on a case sometime. You would be a serious help," he whispers to her tenderly. Mary smiles at him timidly.
John once again swings open the creaky front door and emerges into the golden sunlight outside. John's excitement quickly fades. He's excited that Mary has provided him with an important clue, but the complex nature of the situation quickly drains all of John's energy. Ordinarily, he would have appreciated a beautiful sunny day like this. It's not that common to have a cloudless afternoon like this in London.
But he doesn't notice this. In fact, the weather is probably the furthest thing from John's mind right now.
All he wants are answers. But, as walks, John realizes that answers are probably the least likely thing that he's going to find. After this examination, he'll probably have more questions.
And he's certainly not ready for them.
John absentmindedly pulls open the heavy door at the morgue. He walks in, still absorbed in his thoughts. He doesn't always come do the autopsies, but right now, he feels obligated.
What else can he do? Right now he wants answers, and he feels like this is the only way to get them. That is, if answers are really to be found.
His thoughts are interrupted.
"Dr. Watson," He quickly looks upward. Lestrade is standing in the morgue, tapping his foot impatiently.
"Good afternoon, Lestrade," he responds.
Really, it's anything but a good afternoon, but there's no reason to let his day get anyone else's down. Suddenly, it occurs to John that Lestrade has likely had as puzzling and difficult a day as he has. It is his investigation that led to the discovery.
John shrugs, and then he shakes the thought off.
"Have you begun the examination yet?" he asks.
Lestrade shakes his head. "We knew that you would want to be here, being a doctor, and…" he stops, not knowing exactly what to say. Lestrade feels like he's walking on thin ice. The subject is particularly… delicate. John sighs.
"You don't have to worry. I'm fine. I went to war, you know. I can handle this."
Lestrade nods and continues his sentence. "Well, to be completely honest, you knew Holmes the best and we thought that you might like to see anything we find out firsthand."
John nods. "Thank you."
Lestrade smiles slightly. "All that, and also that we had hoped you may be able to clarify a few things. Thank you for coming," Lestrade gestures silently towards a door at the back that is slightly ajar.
John walks through quietly, and Lestrade follows. They walk into a small room with two tables. Each one has on it the shape of a body covered with a white sheet.
"Have you even been at an autopsy before, John?" asks Lestrade, anxious.
"No, but I'll be fine. This isn't the first time I've seen a corpse. I was an army doctor." Lestrade nods, but his mind is still not at ease.
"Are you ready to begin, Dr. Watson?" questions a man standing over the body who appears to be the coroner.
"Yes, I'm ready," replies John. But, honestly, he doesn't know if he is ready for this. The autopsy begins.
As the sheet is pulled back off the bodies, John's mind is in total turmoil. This all just feels wrong. Sherlock's body shouldn't be here. Sherlock should be the one helping with autopsies, not the one being autopsied.
He shouldn't be dead.
Both bodies are uncovered. As John finally sees the two corpses side by side, he is overwhelmed. They look almost exactly alike. When they were found, however, they were wearing different clothes.
One of the corpses was wearing a tattered white shirt with muddied gray trousers. The other was dressed similarly; however, their shirt was brown and they were wearing a jacket.
This strikes John as strange; Sherlock never dressed this way unless he was wearing a disguise. Sherlock's clothes were much more sophisticated than the attire found on both corpses.
John stares at the bodies. He is totally dumbfounded by the fact that he is looking at two corpses that are virtually identical. He walks closer to one of the corpses, the one that had been found in the alley.
He inspects the face; it's identical to Sherlock's. Suddenly, John notices something on the side of the face. He kneels down to take a closer look at the body. The more he looks at the body, the more it is evident; there are scars on the side of the face that look like they were made by stitches.
"Lestrade, look at this," he mumbles. The inspector leans down to look at the body.
"What am I supposed to be looking at?" Lestrade questions.
"These," says John, gesturing to the raised scars on the edge of Sherlock's face. Lestrade sees them. He frowns. "Wait, what are those?"
John quickly responds. "I have no idea. I've never noticed them before. I don't think those were there when I last saw him. But maybe… I could have overlooked them, I guess."
The medical examiner walks over beside the two. "What are you two looking at? Can I take a look please?" John and Lestrade quickly move out of his way. The medical examiner carefully inspects the scars.
"These marks definitely look like they were made by stitches. But these definitely aren't any normal stitches. These are kind of rough, like maybe they were done by someone who's not a doctor. And they might not have been done with the proper equipment either. It looks like they would have been pretty painful."
John stares at the jagged scars for a moment. He's completely confused. Why would Sherlock have had any sort of surgery or stitches? John didn't think he had seen any cuts on Sherlock's face; he had definitely not noticed any that would have needed stitches.
John wonders if the other corpse has them too; this could be a crucial clue! He quickly moves over to the second body. Kneeling down quickly, John carefully examines the head.
The uneven scars are clearly present on this corpse too.
Lestrade shakes his head. "Wait, so they're on both bodies? I wonder what they're from. Do you think Sherlock tried to do his own stitches? That could possibly be why they are so rough and uneven. But that still doesn't explain why he would have needed stitches in the first place," he says.
John contemplates this possibility. It does seem like something Sherlock might do. He was always doing experiments on himself, so the stitches may make sense if they were part of an experiment.
Maybe… John suddenly stands up.
"Inspector, I think I may have a good guess about what these scars may be from."
Lestrade is surprised. He stares at John curiously. "What do you mean? You've seen this type of scar before?"
John nods. "Actually, yes. I think I have. One of my patients had this sort of scar. It was when I was working as an army doctor."
"Well, what was it from?" Lestrade is hopeful that this might be a clue. "The man, my patient, had been burned badly in a fire. His scars were from some experimental technique for facial reconstruction, but they were a little bit cleaner than these. More professional looking."
Lestrade stares at John in disbelief. "So you think that…" he can't finish his sentence. John nods slowly.
"I don't think either of these bodies are actually Sherlock Holmes."
Hello again! I hope you've enjoyed the story so far! I'd really appreciate any suggestions, comments, or reviews.
Nimara- Thanks for your suggestion! Mary's definitely going to be in the story a lot more later ;-)