Chapter 16
Now: Eight Years Later
Sherlock wasn’t there when Molly visited his flat that morning because he’d gotten up early to work. He had returned to the scene of the crime.
He told himself he was there to look for more clues, and perhaps something that could be gleaned from the paperwork in Thomas's study.
But underlying it all was a curiosity he couldn't shake - a drive to investigate the answer to a series of questions that had nothing to do with the case, questions that, had he heard them on anyone else's lips, he would have accused them of being tedious, boring, and full of sentiment.
Sherlock wanted to know all about how Molly and her son had been living. What was their life like? Were they happy? And a deeper, unbidden, secret question that if he truly examined it, is one he had considered every day for the last 8 years. It was the question which lay behind every single rejection Sherlock had made when faced with a woman's interest, every derision directed to the concepts of romance, emotion and feeling:
Were Molly and Thomas Jones married - in every sense of the word?
The cool morning air bit at his cheeks as he stepped from the hansom cab, collar turned up against the chill. The house loomed before him, its Georgian façade deceptively peaceful despite yesterday's violence.
He paused at the doorstep, fingers hovering over the ornate brass knocker. No need to announce himself—he had pickpocketed the spare key from Lestrade yesterday while the man was distracted.
The memory of Molly's face at the crime scene yesterday haunted him still: shock, then something else... Relief? Fear? He couldn't decipher it, and that troubled him more than he cared to admit.
He told himself that his memories of Molly had been locked behind an iron door in his Mind Palace in the intervening eight years, but actually, she had never left him. She had been present in every cadaver he examined, in every scientific breakthrough he'd achieved alone, in the empty space beside him in bed that no amount of cases or cocaine could fill. The shock of seeing her again—not as a memory or a ghost but as flesh and blood, with new lines around her eyes and that same steadiness in her gaze—had shattered his carefully maintained illusion that he had moved on. In truth, Molly Hooper had never been locked away; she had been the foundation upon which his entire Mind Palace stood, the presence he could neither banish nor fully acknowledge, haunting every room he constructed to escape her memory.
But she was no longer a memory, she was real, and living at Baker Street.
And standing in the way between them right now was a puzzle in need of solving: what happened to Molly’s husband?
Twenty-four hours ago, the cold, calculating machine (as John had called him) had ceased functioning. It was the emotional investment in this case that was motivating him now.
As he walked upstairs he noted that the house was large by London standards, something which perplexed Sherlock, knowing the financial state of the Jones family as it was eight years ago, whittled away by Thomas senior - some bad investments in the West Indies or so Sherlock's informants had told him.
With Thomas holding down a cabinet undersecretary position, and with such a small income from his inheritance, surely they couldn't afford to live in such luxury. So, where was his money coming from? Perhaps Thomas had followed in his father's footsteps after all—making questionable investments, but with better luck. Or perhaps something more nefarious was afoot.
His gloved fingers trailed along the banister as he ascended the stairs, each creak of the wooden steps echoing in the empty house.
He should have gone straight to the study, picking the safe to find the answers in Thomas' papers.
Instead, emotion led him to the first floor landing, he was there until he checked all available rooms for the answer to the questions that had overtaken all others.
As he peered in room after room he saw no signs, no evidence that Molly ever spent any time with her husband. They kept separate bedrooms. And Molly's unique smell, the one that he'd remembered all this time, was not in the man's room.
Sherlock felt a wave of possessive satisfaction as he confirmed what he had only ever hoped—that Thomas Jones had never truly claimed Molly’s heart or her body. The revelation brought a visceral sense of triumph that surprised him with its intensity; he had maintained for years that sentiment was a chemical defect, yet here he was, practically vibrating with primitive relief at the fact.
In Molly's bedroom, he found hints of the woman he once knew—medical journals hidden between fashion magazines, a microscope disguised among perfume bottles on her vanity table. She had continued her scientific pursuits in secret, it seemed. His chest tightened at the thought of her brilliant mind constrained by society's expectations, yet he found himself buoyed by her tenacity to continue using her unique gifts despite all the ways her life and her world and her circumstances forbid it.
He found the boy's room next, walls adorned with scientific diagrams and maps. A chemistry set was arranged on a small desk, alongside meticulously labelled specimens of leaves and insects. The dust on the floor revealed a place where a violin case once rested.
Had they in their haste packed a violin to take with them to Baker Street? The idea shot warmth through his heart. He made a note to ask Archie to play for him later.
Indeed, from all he could tell, it seemed that Molly and Archie did not share time, space or interests with Mr Jones.
But there was one thing Sherlock did notice. Even though the house maid's room had been emptied, her perfume was on Mr. Jones' bedsheets.
The scent was distinctive—cheap lavender water with undertones of rose oil. Sherlock recognized it immediately as the fragrance favoured by the young Irish maid he had glimpsed briefly yesterday, hurrying from the house with her belongings. Interesting that she would leave so hastily after her employer's death. More interesting still that Thomas Jones, who presented himself as the picture of Victorian propriety in public, would engage in such indiscretions in private.
Sherlock saw something in the Maid’s quarters that he had forgotten in her haste - a small notebook tucked beneath the mattress. Sherlock opened it, discovering that it contained what appeared to be payment records—sums far too generous for a housemaid's salary.
Blackmail, perhaps? Or something else entirely?
"Curiouser and curiouser," Holmes noted to himself.
He straightened his waistcoat and moved toward the washroom. The crime scene awaited his proper attention, and there was a killer to catch.
---
Then - Montague Street, London - 1872
Molly Hooper awoke to the low murmur of distant hoofbeats on the cobblestones, the rhythm of the waking city filtering through the windows. The air in Sherlock Holmes's bedchamber was chilled, despite the small fire that smouldered in the grate. Still half-dreaming, she curled deeper into the warmth of the woollen blankets, only to realise with a jolt that she was alone in the bed. The space beside her was cool, and the faint aroma of pipe smoke lingered in the air—he had already risen.
She sat up cautiously, pushing a wayward strand of hair from her face, and glanced toward the threadbare chair where her folded garments—Victor’s garments—were draped. She dressed swiftly in the half-light, donning the cravat and waistcoat of Victor Trevor with practiced ease. A mirror, cracked at the edge, reflected a slim figure with a clever mouth and tired eyes—just androgynous enough to pass. But the collar of her borrowed shirt gaped slightly, revealing the pale column of her throat.
Molly stepped into the sitting room at the same time as Mrs. Turner arrived upstairs with the breakfast tray.
Molly froze.
The landlady cast her a sharp but not unkind look, her eyes flicking from Molly’s ill-fitted waistcoat to the neatly pressed gentleman's handkerchief folded into the breast pocket of Molly's jacket hanging by the door—a small square of white linen embroidered with the initials "V.T." that had certainly not been there the night before. Had Sherlock put it there?
"Well, it's not laudanum or morphine," Mrs. Turner said towards Sherlock while she placed the tray down with a thump. "That’s an improvement."
Molly flushed. She mumbled a thank you and took the tray, grateful for Mrs. Turner’s discretion.
Sherlock for his part didn’t react.
Once the door clicked shut behind her, Molly allowed herself a long breath. Her fingers trembled slightly as she poured tea into two chipped china cups.
Sherlock was pacing before a wall cluttered with maps, photographs, and string—his so-called mind palace writ large upon the plaster.
She knew him well enough not to require morning greetings.
"Look here," he said instead, gesturing to a photograph in the corner of the display. "There is something I’m missing. The bruising pattern—see the neck here, and here?” he pointed. “It’s inconsistent with a front-on assault."
Molly crossed the room, tea forgotten. She bent over the photograph, peering closely. Her voice was quiet, thoughtful.
"It’s defensive... the bruising on the clavicle suggests the victim tried to pull the wire away. And here—see this small puncture on the jawline? That’s not from the garrotte."
Sherlock blinked, then straightened with sudden clarity. The entire pattern of deductions realigned in his mind, a new pathway opening.
He turned to her, took her face in both hands, and kissed her.
It was not the restrained kiss of a man ruled by logic. It was desperate and grateful and full of wonder. She let herself fall into it for a heartbeat, then pulled back, breathless.
"You’ll solve it now," she said.
"We’ll solve it," he corrected.
They moved quickly to re-examine all the case files. Molly, seated at the table, rifled through the coroner's sketches while Sherlock paced, reciting details from memory. She paused, tracing her finger along a margin note.
"Here—the puncture wound. Each victim had one, almost always near the jawline or neck. Not deep enough to cause death, but all in the same location."
Sherlock frowned. "Administered before death, certainly. But what could it be?"
Molly narrowed her eyes. "It’s the mark of an injection. The puncture is consistent with a narrow-gauge syringe. But what would be injected?"
Sherlock turned to his chemicals shelf. "Something to paralyse them, perhaps. A muscle relaxant—enough to keep them from fighting back effectively. Hence the lack of struggle in the lower limbs and torso. The garrotte only finished the job."
Molly’s eyes widened. She remembered a chemical compound they had read about together. "Curare."
"Precisely," Sherlock breathed. "But it’s rare—South American in origin. And hard to acquire. We need to find someone with access to imported compounds—someone with a knowledge of poisons and a reason to silence unrelated victims."
They mapped the crime scenes again, marking not only the deaths but local apothecaries, exotic animal dealers, and fringe medical practitioners.
One name surfaced repeatedly—Dr. Alaric Benton, a dismissed surgeon who had set up an unlicensed treatment house in Camden. Patients described strange injections, miraculous cures, and sudden disappearances.
Sherlock and Molly paid him a visit, Molly disguised again as Victor. While Sherlock distracted the man with questions about a fictitious ailment, Molly searched the consultation room. Beneath a false bottom in the medicine cabinet, she found a vial marked "C. tomentosa"—curare.
That night, Scotland Yard raided the premises. Benton was arrested, and in his files were meticulous notes detailing his experiments on the paralytic effects of poisons. The Camden Garrotter, it turned out, had been testing combinations of paralysis and trauma responses on unsuspecting victims under the guise of healing.
Sherlock filed the case under 'B' for 'Benton.' Molly slipped the puncture diagram into her manuscript.
The rush of resolution always stirred something primal in Sherlock. Success sharpened every edge of his being—heightened his senses, quickened his thoughts, set his body humming with restless energy. And tonight, with the weight of the Camden Garrotter case finally lifted, that energy turned singularly toward Molly.
She barely had time to set down her pen before he was upon her, eyes burning with the same fire he wielded at crime scenes, but redirected now with fierce intimacy. He kissed her like a man starved, as though solving the puzzle had cleared space in his mind only for her. Clothes were shed with uncharacteristic carelessness—Sherlock, usually precise to the point of neurosis, left his waistcoat and cravat in a heap by the hearth.
He whispered theories and endearments alike against her skin, his deductions replaced by devotions. For every puzzle solved, he seemed determined to unmake her with equal complexity. Molly had long suspected that brilliance and desire shared a corridor in Sherlock’s mind—and now, that door had flung open.
When finally they collapsed into the tangle of quilts, breathless and entwined, she murmured, amused, "Another case solved, I take it?"
His voice was low against her throat. "I find victory... exhilarating."
She chuckled, threading her fingers through his curls. "Remind me never to let you get bored again."