A/N: I apologize for letting this lapse for four months. Real life has been sucking me down into a dark abyss this year and the depression made it difficult to do anything but get through each day. Things are not necessarily better yet, but I'm feeling somewhat better at the moment. A week's vacation from work helped, as well, and I've finished this chapter and a good chunk of the next one.
I cannot promise I won't lapse again, but I think I've got it into my head that finishing this beast will improve my mood, so here's hoping! Thanks for everyone, new readers and old, for being supportive :) Thank you, thank you, thank you. :)
Sherlock didn't speak as they wound their way through hallways and staircases to Lestrade's office, his brain utterly congested with a flurry of details and deductions. They seemed to fill up the small, cluttered room. Sherlock paced within it, trying to move his thoughts into a semblance of order with vigorous gesticulation. Lestrade took his seat, gesturing for John to do the same. John perched in the corner and watched his husband with a little frown wrinkling the skin between his eyes.
"Given how anxious you were to question the man, I'm surprised you gave up so easily," Lestrade said. "I was expecting an hours-long showdown of wits."
Sherlock hissed. Lestrade raised his hands in apology, though Sherlock wasn't looking at him. The runner started going through the files on his desk; soon he might have enough to make a desk out of the sheer number of files. It was a number of minutes before Sherlock began talking rapidly, as if the faster he said things, the more quickly his head would clear.
"Judging by the style of knotting of his laces and the number of holes in his buttons, he hails from the continent, not England. However, as much as he refused to respond, he readily comprehends the King's English. Thus he is a moderately educated man, showing he came from some sort of monied background. At the very least, he is the son of a successful merchant. The muscle tone of his chest and thighs indicates he has often ridden a horse, and not in a lazy Sunday manner, either. It is possible he is simply an athletic sort of man, with access to grounds for regular hunting, but I think not."
"A soldier, perhaps cavalry training?" John suggested. Sherlock rounded on him with unhinged excitement.
"Yes, John, exactly! Though with as many men who have been at war these last years, it is a rather simplistic deduction to make that a well-formed, healthy man of his years might certainly have been to war. His bearing and stride speak to that probability, as well. I'd say German, Austrian, or Prussian from the facial features, but without hearing an accent, and given the constant border disagreements, I cannot narrow it down more than that."
Lestrade set aside the files he'd been looking through with a sigh. If what Sherlock deduced was in the least true, they wouldn't find the man's name within them.
"One would expect a military man to have a darker complexion on his face and hands, as you do, John. The paleness of our prisoner initially deceived me. However, if a pale fluid like that seeping from our prisoner had thoroughly replaced his much darker blood then the translucence of the skin would reflect that. The waxiness of his skin and the gauntness of his cheek would normally signify that his death was due to some wasting disease like consumption, or a long poisoning of some sort; however that may also be a side effect of the regeneration process. He may not have had enough of his vital fluids replaced; also, he seems to be leaking them. If he is not properly tended to by his creator, if he is, in fact, actively working against the man at the moment, then that might explain his appearance as well."
"Perhaps such a transformation requires constant maintenance," John agreed. "That might explain two of the cuts on his neck. Large needles or cannulas could be inserted into an artery or vein and the fluid pumped through the majority of the body."
"Excellent, John. I do believe that to be the case. As for manner of death, all we can be certain of is that he was not ripped apart by bullets or shells and given his posture, did not have his neck broken by hanging."
Lestrade was tight-lipped as he interrupted. "You still have not convinced me that the man we are dealing with is, in fact, a walking dead man."
"Lestrade, your mind, for some reason, blinds you to what you see," Sherlock scolded. "Anyway, what you believe about him is entirely irrelevant."
John, however, possibly through a greater contact with the resurrected corpse, showed no lingering signs of doubt.
"Do you think that he could have carved raphe into his own chest during the night or were those marks on him all of yesterday?" John asked, rubbing his own chest as if the thought of it made him ache.
"Obviously, it was present at the time of his arrest. The slant and formation of the letters indicate that the right-handed carver was standing above a reclining recipient. Had he done it himself, the letters would have been much stiffer, less smooth around the curves, and mis-proportioned due to the upside-down point of view of the creature."
"Do you suppose he could have been a willing disciple of the madman in life? We witnessed him disposing of the bag of heads, so he was a trusted henchman. He is quite different from the rest, is he not? Not English, so maybe not snapped off the streets."
"Why would someone, even a lunatic, perform such an experiment on someone loyal to him when he clearly had a profusion of unwilling bodies at his disposal?" But it became clear that Sherlock was asking neither John nor Lestrade. "To see if the loyalty would exist beyond the veil of death. Because he wanted to keep the man as his companion or servant. Or perhaps their relationship became discordant and it was a sort of punishment."
Sherlock continued to pace. The sudden silence made his boot heels echo loudly on the flooring. The sound made him think of the London streets, the clop of horses, the monster-man Lazarus driving them to the grisly warehouse. "That last would explain the recent conflicting actions. Lazarus was clearly expected to turn himself over to us else we would not have seen the message. However, I do not think we were supposed to appear at the warehouse.
"If we let him go, he may try to take us to his master again. If his taking us to the warehouse was deliberate, do you think he'd help us stop this?"
"I'm certain I can speak for the magistrate in this, Holmes. We will not be freeing the suspect until a proper trial can be arranged and the rest of this mess is sorted."
"I figured as much." Sherlock waved his hand as if wiping clean a slate. "This is all an academic waste of time! the autopsies! the notes! the warehouse! It's all an elaborate game, a show, rather than a true madman trying to recreate a resurrection experiment. Oh!"
Sherlock's mouth clamped shut. His mind worked feverishly. He must have another look at the bodies. John had said something looked odd about the sutures, that they'd been neatly done, individually, but the spacing was haphazard. Perhaps they were not haphazard after all. He needed to have another look.
Sherlock was not so lost in his thoughts that he didn't hear John opining that even as a game, they were still clearly dealing with a madman. Sherlock did not want to listen to it. John's eyes were upon him and that made it hard to think. Think. Think! But Sherlock didn't like where his deductions were leading him. Raphe. It could mean there was a clue in the bodies that he'd missed, an angle he had not considered. And if that clue was what he suspected, then there was a certainty whom the culprit was. The mystery would be solved, but the case – to stop the madman – would only just be beginning. How to stop it? How to bring this neatly to a close? That was the difficult question.
He shut his ears; John may have been talking to Lestrade or the window or the cane in his hand. Still the horror rang in his head, more loudly than John could shout, more deafening than pulling the ropes in a church tower. More than a score dead, mutilated. For this game. For Sherlock. A creeping of sick dread overwhelmed him. He knew where to look and what to look for now.
He was terrified he'd find it.
How could he have been so slow and stupid? He should have known from the notes if nothing else, their stupid sing-song. He could see how this was all designed for him, how it kept escalating, making it more curious by the day. The final realization should have been exceptionally thrilling and satisfying, but it wasn't. It might have been if it were anyone but him. It only tightened his belly into a rock, making him wish he'd not let John talk him into breakfast.
Putting the cart before the horse, Holmes, he admonished himself. Verify.
"I must see the bodies in the morgue again."
"What for?"
"Raphe," Sherlock replied darkly, refusing to elaborate more.