2: The Impossible Murder

It was a spacious room. High ceilings for a flat, permitted by the fact that it was on the top floor. A hallway off to the side leading to a bedroom and bathroom, one window in the bedroom. Two windows visible in the living room. None in the kitchen. Only one door, the front one, with no visible signs of forced entry on the locks, of which there were two: a chain and a deadbolt. No signs of a struggle anywhere around the apartment at all, in fact.

And yet, a man was lying dead on the ground.

"What did I tell you? This one's a head-scratcher," remarked a silver-haired man as he leaned in the doorway, his eyes on the other two men that had just entered and were standing above the body, pulling on rubber gloves.

"What do you reckon, Sherlock?" the shorter of the two asked, looking up at the other. But Sherlock was silent, his calculating eyes scanning the scene: taking it in.

"And you say the door was locked, Lestrade?"

"Yes."

"And yet the locks are still perfectly intact. And the windows?"

"All locked as well. No signs of force there either."

"Did the security cameras around the building catch anything?"

"No, nothing out of the ordinary.

"And the one just out in the hallway?"

"Tampered with. One of the guys in the tech department found a loop in the footage."

"So that was obviously intentional. And that is the reason you're inclined to think this was more than just a man dropping dead of his own accord."

"Exactly."

Sherlock knelt to the ground next to the body to get a better look. The man lay flat on his back. He was dressed smartly: a costly jacket, shirt, and trousers, but not well kempt. There were faint marks of stains that hadn't fully come out in previous visits to the dry cleaners. There was mud around the ends of his trousers and on his shoes, but that made sense; it had been raining the night before his body was found. The decay rate of the corpse matched up to that night. However, the streets all around his building and down the street were paved. For him to have that much mud, he must have gone off the paved roads of London at some point that night. That was certainly interesting. A park perhaps? Or had he been even further out of town?

"Was anything found with the body?" Sherlock asked, not taking his eyes from it. "A suitcase or bag of some kind?"

"Only his wallet."

So it was highly unlikely that he had been out far that night. He would have had provisions. There was also no build up of morning papers or mail outside the flat to suggest to anything regarding an out-of town trip. Sherlock held out his gloved hand. Lestrade gazed at it, momentarily puzzled, until he realized what the detective wanted. He turned and grabbed a plastic bag with the brown leather wallet inside and gave it to Sherlock, who promptly removed and opened it. The ID read Oliver James. Sherlock quickly scanned the contents: no pictures of family, friends, or anyone who might be considered a significant other. No paper money or change, but an unusual amount of credit cards and scratched lottery tickets. Money problems, surely. Money problems that had prevented him from forming or maintaining concrete relationships with anyone else in his life.

"John, medical analysis."

The shorter man, John, took this as his cue to step forward and take a closer look at the body as well.

"Signs of internal bleeding, from what I can tell. But that's it. And it's difficult to tell where the bleeding came from without a full examination. But surely you could tell that, Sherlock?"

Sherlock continued to study the body in silence for a few more minutes. His eyes fluttered across it, then up to the flat around them, then back down to it again. Finally, he spoke.

"He was murdered. Someone was after him the night he was killed. The splash mark patterns up his trousers indicate he was running. Seems like a strange outfit to go out for a nighttime jog in, doesn't it? He was a nervous personality, brought on by his numerous addictions. He would have been easy to scare, and could have quickly run back home due to paranoia. But in this case, he wasn't being paranoid. Someone was really after him."

"What do you mean numerous addictions?" Lestrade asked, watching him closely.

"Look at his button holes. They've been stretched and widened, though the state of the stitching on the rest of the garment indicates that the clothing can't be much more than a month old. Whenever he did his buttons, his hand must have shook, characteristic of someone with an addiction."

"Or just a nervous personality," John pointed out.

"No, there's more. There are numerous stains on his clothes as well, as though he was not careful when he was out gambling, drinking, or a combination of the two, and spilled on himself often. Not to mention the used lottery cards in his wallet. And most likely…"

Sherlock strode over to the kitchen and began swiftly rooting through the cabinets, pulling out bottles of wine, beer, and spirits everywhere. When he took the lid off the trashcan, they were all greeted with the sight of empty bottles of alcohol almost filling it to the top.

"Yeah, I'd say that indicates an alcohol problem," John mused grimly, thinking of his sister.

"So we have someone living an addictive lifestyle with alcohol and gambling, most likely unable to keep a steady job, yet still in need of money to keep up with his cravings. Obviously he turned to the last available option."

Lestrade gazed at him, wonderingly. "Which is…?"

"Crime. This man was involved in a crime ring. How else would he have been able to buy an expensive suit within the past year, while simultaneously keeping up his lifestyle?"

"Couldn't he have gotten help from someone? Family or friends? The government?"

"No, government checks wouldn't be able to buy that suit. And he's not close enough with any family or friends to ask them for that kind of money: no photos around the house, no photos in his wallet. Not to mention why would someone he was friendly with chase him down and kill him? Obviously the same person who gave him money must have been the one he would have problems with as well. Those agreements never end with positive results. Someone helped him. Gave him money in exchange for his assistance. But he must have gotten cold feet," Sherlock paused here and swooped quickly back across the room again to point at the dead man's trousers. "That is why this splash pattern on his trousers indicates he was being chased. This was a hit."

"Well that's all fine and well, but we still don't have any signs of external injury on the body, and no signs of forced entry on the building either. How did they do it, then?"

This answer took much longer to form. Sherlock paced back and forth across the flat with a catlike grace, alternately taking in the corpse and the bottles in the kitchen, and then coming back again. He went back to the door, poking at the locks. He disappeared into the other rooms, and when John leaned over to see what he was doing, he saw him poking at the locks on the windows as well. He returned with a look of greatest puzzlement that was an extremely rare sight indeed on the face of Sherlock Holmes.

There was a little more pacing before he finally conceded, "I need more to go on. Please take the body in for a full post-mortem examination, and let me know what they discover about the exact cause of death."

Lestrade sputtered and rubbed the back of his neck, confoundedly. "I mean… yes… Of course it's standard procedure, so you would have—"

"Thank you, Lestrade."

And with a swish of his long black coat, Sherlock was sweeping back out of the flat and down the hallway. John and Lestrade stood back, staring after him, in a puzzled silence. Finally, John shook himself out of it.

"Right, well… We'll be in touch, I'm sure."

As he took off to follow his friend down the hall, he heard Lestrade call after him, "I'm counting on it!"

Sherlock had grabbed a taxi and taken it back to 221B Baker Street before John could catch up to him. When John walked in, he was standing at the sitting room window, staring at the street below. John tried to speak to him, but he barely even seemed to realize he was being spoken to.

"We'll probably hear back from the morgue sometime tomorrow. Molly will call."

"Mm."

"Have you… got any ideas yet?"

"A few."

Silence. John waited, but Sherlock wasn't elaborating. Finally, John gave up.

"Right, well I'm going to the store. Need anything?"

"Mm."

"Alright. I'll just… I'll be back later then."

When John returned from the store, Sherlock was still standing in the same spot. He appeared not to have moved an inch. He was like a statue, stoic and engrossed in his thoughts. So it was going to be one of those kinds of phases. John was used to it by now. Sherlock would get so excited at the prospect of a brand new case, but sometimes while he was in the midst of one, he required a great deal of quiet time to mull over the facts, and he wouldn't talk for days on end. Although this time… John thought he must have been imagining it, but this time something seemed a bit off. It was so minute that anyone but a very close friend or family member wouldn't have noticed it, but, as it happened, John was the only friend Sherlock had ever had, and he could see: it wasn't just deep thought on Sherlock's face as he brooded this time. If John wasn't much mistaken, it seemed this time as though Sherlock was questioning. As though for the first time in his life, as far as John knew, the great Sherlock Holmes might be drawing a blank.

But John could have been wrong about that of course. And most likely, all would become much clearer to everyone once the report came in from the lab. John thought that call couldn't come soon enough.

Sherlock's silence lasted all the way until it did. But finally the next day, as John was sitting reading the paper while Sherlock maintained his vigil at the window, his phone rang.

"Sherlock Holmes."

John watched attentively, but Sherlock wasn't giving anything away, staring determinedly at the wall and swaying slightly from side to side as he listened to whatever the voice on the other line was saying.

"Yes… Alright…"

But then there was an abrupt change. Sherlock's voice rose above its monotone from before, and suddenly he looked almost manic. John had only seen him get this way once before just a few months ago, when they had been working a case out in Dartmoor. That time, they had faced a mystery that had tested both of their willingness to believe in the impossible, but Sherlock never truly had believed, John knew. Even in his moments of doubt, all Sherlock had needed was more information to uncover the true goings-on of the situation, and Sherlock had known it. Even though his eyes had been telling him the impossible was real, Sherlock had always known that there was a logical explanation behind it all. Still, he had been shaken up, and it took a lot to do that to the consulting detective. But now it was happening again.

"Are you sure?" the detective half shouted into the phone.

"No, no, there must be something else…"

He was up and pacing. He looked slightly mad.

"No, that's it, I'm coming over there."

At this, John perked up.

"What? Sherlock…"

"I'll be there in twenty minutes. I'm bringing John," he snapped the phone shut.

"John we're going to the morgue."

"Sherlock, what is going on?"

But Sherlock already had his coat and scarf on and the front door was banging shut.

"I told you all I can on the phone. It's severed clean through! Just that one vein. Not another scratch on the body. Never seen anything like it, really… I don't know how it could be possible! But it's definitely the cause of death. The vein was severed and he died of internal bleeding. Nasty way to go."

Molly Hooper, dressed in her white lab coat for work, was saying all of it as she pulled one of the metal drawers in the wall open to reveal the covered body within.

"No, you must have missed something. There must be some kind of mark somewhere…"

"Sherlock… there's nothing."

Molly glanced sideways at John as she said this, her voice trailing away slightly. She looked as worried as John felt, but Sherlock wasn't paying attention to either of them. He had fallen upon the body, uncovering it and examining it as closely as he possibly could around the spot that matched where the severed vein was in the X-Rays. But there was nothing there.

"No, no, no. This can't be right. This isn't right. There must be something wrong with the X-Rays."

Sherlock swept back over to the board where Molly had the X-Rays pinned and plucked it off, staring it down with wild eyes.

"Couldn't the vein have just ruptured of its own accord? That can happen sometimes." John was addressing his question to Molly, but it was Sherlock who answered yet again.

"No, John, don't be stupid. You're a doctor; you know that these things don't happen, not like this. A ruptured vein would never look that clean. It's a surgical cut. So why is there no trace of it… on the skin…"

John and Molly exchanged glances.

"I don't know Sherlock. But surely there has to be some explanation…"

The detective looked up, his pale turquoise eyes manic now, wide and desperate. His voice remained at its usual deep octaves, but he spoke quickly, breathlessly, urgently.

"Oh surely there must be. But that's just it, John. There ISN'T."

Now Sherlock was yelling.

"THERE IS NO EXPLANATION JOHN. I have examined every single scenario, every possible option, and every single one leads to a dead end."

John stared at Sherlock on disbelief, hardly daring to believe it. He looked over at Molly again, as if for some kind of consolation: some answer. But she simply shook her head and raised her shoulders into a shrug, indicating that she was at just as much of a loss for an explanation as Sherlock was.

"Alright well… what does it matter if you can't explain how it happened though? You could try to focus on who did it instead. Don't worry about all of this…"

"Actually, figuring out how the murder was committed is a huge part of most murder investigations, as it can help reveal where and why it happened and therefore who might have committed it…" Molly interjected, but upon the withering look John gave her, changed course quickly. "But I'm sure you have enough to go on without that Sherlock. You always solve them, after all. In the end."

Sherlock regarded her for a moment stonily. Then turned on his heel and walked straight out of the room, his coat swishing behind him as the door banged shut. John and Molly were left standing alone, staring after him, dumbfounded.

"Right. Well, thanks, Molly. You've been a big help."

Molly continued to stare at the door where the detective had disappeared.

"No I haven't," she observed. "But then I'm used to that when it comes to him. Good luck with that one. You're going to need it."

"Thanks," John answered glumly. He walked across the room and had one foot out the door before turning around one more time.

"Molly… are you absolutely sure that the kind of injury is impossible? The one on the body?"

"I've never seen anything like it. I've never read anything like it. Part of me is expecting some government officials to come knocking down the door to confiscate the evidence of it any second."

Molly giggled nervously at her own joke, the sound echoing hollowly around the room. She cleared her throat, the smile slipping from her face again.

"Yes. I think it's impossible."

"Okay. Well, thanks Molly. Have a good day."

"You too, John."