The Autobiography of Mycroft Holmes

Chapter 20: Paradise Lost

Sherlock ran into the hall, presumably to pull Lestrade away from her own wedding reception.

Cedars' body looked thinner than I had remembered it when it was still animated. He had been held captive before being killed, obviously with the other Seniors' murderer.

Lestrade, still in her wedding dress, promptly ran out of the hall in less than five minutes after Sherlock found the body. She met me at the bottom of the stairs, and knelt down next to the body.

"You can tell me how long this has been here, correct? Or is that just something Sherlock can do? Sherlock's still inside checking for the murderer there."

"Yes, I can say that some wounds had been made less than an hour ago. There is chafing on the body by the underarms and the head. It was dragged here. The angle it is turned away from the steps can signify that the body was dropped here in haste. They knew they'd get caught; and I know it's more than one person by the nature of the way it was dragged with the man's untucked shirt and all. The murderer was never in the hall; go tell my sister she's wasting time and that she needs to get back out here."

Lestrade left and returned with Sherlock. Just then, ten police cars pulled up, letting investigators spill out the sides of the cars when they stopped. They swarmed the body, proceeding then to block off the crime scene and admit only me and Gina to examine the body with them, since by now, others from the party had begun to walk out to see what happened.

The body, I saw, was marked with fingerprints all over. He had been bleeding before he was dropped off in front of the reception hall, and faint traces of blood dotted the collar and belt area. I also pointed out to Lestrade the presence of mud on his back and shoes; he had been in the same place standing on his own will and lying on his back, presumably passed out by the condition of the back of his head.

"We were too late, Lestrade. He was at the house."

"The soil matches?"

"Exactly. It's a soil that is largely mixed with sand; very distinct especially for its region since it is located near the water in a town set apart from others on the shore. He's covered in that exact dirt around his feet and even his back; he was hit in the back of the head and he fell to the ground outside."

"But how is it that the back of his head was hit, but his front is not covered in dirt. His back is."

"And that is so intriguing, is it not?"

"He's trying to mess with us."

"Got a sense of humor, don't you think? He knows I'm on the case, and he knows I've solved much more difficult things than this."

"Hey, Mycroft, he's got something in his hand," Lestrade said, referring to a piece of bloodstained paper sticking out of his equally bloody clamped fist.

"Well, take it out of his hand," I told Lestrade. She sent over another member of her team who was wearing gloves to unroll the fist and extract the paper.

He unfolded the paper, which was folded once so that it was just as long as it was wide. Realizing it was upside down, he flipped it over and cleared his throat to read it.

He proceeded to read the statement out loud. "All are equal. None are excluded. In an unfair world, this is not the world. I wish to be a guard at the gate. But will they accept me? I'm not even sure I'd care."

"Heaven," I said. It just had to be. I took the paper out of the person's hand as he began to argue, and I studied it closely. The blood on the paper was partly dry, and partly still wet. But all of the blood on Cedars' body was dry. Why was there wet blood on the paper if it did not belong to the murderer himself?