Hello Detective

The Empty Hearse Part 3

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"This one's got us all baffled." Lestrade said, causing Sherlock to smirk remembering my words from shortly before. He ripped the police tape off the door.

"Hmm, I don't doubt it." Sherlock replied.

Molly followed Sherlock, who followed Lestrade down the narrow stairs to the basement crime scene where a skeleton sat behind a table, dressed in Victorian garb and covered in dust.

Sherlock began examining the corpse. Deductions popping into his head. Pine? Spruce? Cedar. New mothballs. Carbon particulate. Fire Damage.

"What is it?" Molly asked, attempting to take notes, as John did once. "You're onto something, aren't you?"

"Maybe." Sherlock answered, continuing to look around.

"Show off." Sherlock could hear John's voice in his head.

"Shut up, John." He whispered back, pushing the thought to the side.

"What?" Molly asked quiety, confused.

"Hmm?" Sherlock asked, not realizing he had spoken out loud. "Nothing."

Sherlock bent down to examine the clothing on the skeleton, as Lestrade approached him from the side.

"This going to be your new arrangement, is it?" Lestrade whispered.

"Just giving it a go." Sherlock replied.

"Right. So, John?" Lestrade asked.

"Not really in the picture anymore." He answered.

"And Adelaide?" Lestrade asked.

"Quite busy now, as I'm sure you've heard." Sherlock said rudely.

"Right, well of course. I mean it came as a bit of a shock. Just a few months before I'd ran into her and she said she was working at the Natural History Museum or something." Lestrade told him.

"Where was that?" Sherlock asked curiously.

"At a pub, she was with a friend. Bass. Something Bass, Charles maybe." Lestrade said, trying to remember. Sherlock furrowed his eyebrows and made a mental note to ask me about him later.

In the meantime, he returned to Molly's side as the walls started to shake lightly.

"Trains?" Molly asked.

"Trains." Sherlock nodded in confirmation. Molly moved to examine the corpse as well.

"Male, 40 to 50... It doesn't make sense." She muttered.

"What doesn't?" Lestrade asked.

"This skeleton, it can't be any more than–" She began before Sherlock cut her off.

"Six months old." They spoke in unison.

Sherlock popped open a secret door on the side of the desk, revealing a dust covered book. He plopped it onto the table, spreading dust into the air.

"How I Did It by Jack the Ripper." Lestrade read the cover, dumbfounded.

"I won't insult your intelligence by explaining it to you." Sherlock said as he began to put away his tools.

"No, please, insult away." Lestrade answered, and Sherlock thought that maybe I could have been right. Maybe Lestrade did miss him bossing him around a crime scene.

"The corpse is six months old, it's dressed in a shoddy Victorian outfit from a museum. It's been displayed on a dummy for many years, in a case facing southeast, judging from the fading of the fabric. Sold off in a fire damage sale a week ago." He raised his phone with proof.