Chapter Text
September 5th
I must tell this story from the beginning. I must; it is bad form to start a tale in the middle. But I cannot get the image out of my mind; I am crying out loud in pain; I am pulling at my hair, ink splattering these pages as I break down again, tears burning down my already sore cheeks, puddling with the ink to make a mess of the fourth draft I have attempted to start the proper way.
So I shall cease trying to do so.
His body was twisted in a peculiar fashion that clearly indicated he'd been tossed from a moving cart. No foot prints were left because of this, and there were too many cab tracks for me to possibly decipher which had been the ones belonging to the demonic, hideous villains who had done this. Holmes would know. He would have deduced who, what, when where and why just by looking… looking at…. the body.
Which was broken, twisted, lying as if in the midst of a macabre dance. It would almost have been comical if not for the horror of it all. He was not yet into rigor mortis as the Yard gently picked him up. Broken. All in black.
I curse myself for lacking his insight, his brilliant mind. I haven't even the slightest clue as to where the Yard and I should start! Alas, I can see no more work will be done on this manuscript tonight. It is too raw; to soon. I will try again tomorrow.
September 7th
The autopsy was today. It told me only a few things I did not know last night when we found him beside the road.
I asked the usual coroner to leave, as well as Lestrade. I was then alone with him. They had laid him out kindly, arranging his limbs in a respectable facsimile of relaxed sleep, if one ignored the tell-tale rippling of the mid-torso, the artifact of the twisted…
I had to stop. I kept looking at his face. I was either going to break down completely, or rise above this. Holmes had always been there for me, he had always been strong even with his vices. I didn't want to do this cold and detached; I couldn't disrespect him so. And so it was that I gently pressed a gloved finger to his cold lips before at last picking up a scalpel.
I took samples of everything. I recorded everything with reverence, even the most minute details. Holmes always said that the smallest detail could indeed be the case breaker. I measured every bruise with a gentle hand. He had beneath his fingernails a peculiar substance. I cannot figure out what it is just yet. And there was an odd bruise on his back, the shape of which I cannot clearly identify. It reminds me of something, but like the substance on his hands, I cannot place my finger on it.