“It would have been an opportunity that comes along once in a lifetime, madam,” Delvecchio said quietly, then added an optimistic note. “But, with the gallery’s connection to the Royal Art Collection, from which the Titian came, one never knows what the future may hold.”
“Indeed, the Royal Collection,” Joanna repeated to herself, as her mind seemed to shift into another gear. She glanced at the restoration folder a final time before saying, “I think we are done here. Now, if it is convenient, I would like to see the partially restored paintings you mentioned earlier.”
“Of course, madam, but first I should ask for Mr. Hawke’s permission.”
“Please do so.”
Joanna waited for Delvecchio to leave the office, then quickly turned to me. “Be so good as to stay behind once the restorer and I depart. While Simon Hawke is otherwise occupied, I would like you to write down the name, date, and restorer of every item in the folder. Make no exceptions.”
“What if Hawke attempts to interrupt?”
“Tell him we have Lestrade’s permission.”
“But we don’t.”
“We will shortly.”
I busied myself with the task, all the while keeping my back to the outer gallery so as to hide my activity. Writing down the requested pieces of information, I could not help but wonder if Joanna had detected a clue to the possible whereabouts of the masterpiece. But why copy down a list we had just studied in detail? Title. Date. Restorer. Where could the hidden clue lie in those bare facts?
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Joanna and Delvecchio in conversation with Simon Hawke. I could not hear their voices, but the stern expression on Hawke’s face, together with his other body language, indicated he was displeased with Joanna’s further requests. With some urgency, I hurried with the compilation, always double-checking the data from each restoration before I went to the next.
Now Simon Hawke was raising his voice and I could feel his eyes on my back. I straightened up briefly and appeared to be stretching my spine, all the while glancing out at the gallery in my peripheral vision. Joanna had positioned herself in front of Hawke, and was partially blocking his view of the office as she spoke to him in a commanding tone. “I need fifteen more minutes of Delvecchio’s time. You can allow it now or later when the police arrive. Either way, I can assure you I will have those fifteen minutes.”
I returned to the restoration list and scribbled down the information as rapidly as possible, suddenly wondering if Delvecchio’s time was the excuse rather than the reason for Hawke’s obstinacy.
A loud voice abruptly came from behind me, but it did not belong to Hawke or Joanna. It carried the distinct bark of a no-nonsense Inspector Lestrade.
“This is an official search warrant for the premises and all structures within,” Lestrade announced. “You will be reimbursed for all damages should no criminal activity be discovered.”
I turned to see Lestrade at the front of the gallery, with two constables at his side, each armed with a pickax. The few customers in the art gallery hurried out past a third constable who stood guard at the entrance.
“What kind of nonsense is this?” Hawke demanded.
“It would be in your best interest to cooperate,” Lestrade said and, without waiting for a response, added, “Be good enough, Mr. Hawke, to lead the way down to your restoration area.”
“You shall hear from my solicitor!” Hawke threatened.
Lestrade was unmoved. “You may wish to protect those works of art that are in the process of being restored,” he cautioned.
With that warning, Hawke hurried to the staircase, with Lestrade, two constables, Joanna, and Delvecchio only steps behind. Not wishing to miss even a minute of the action, I rapidly copied down the data on the final documents describing the works of Caravaggio, Canaletto, and Titian. After a quick double-check, I found I had written down an erroneous date on the Titian and corrected it. Then, gathering up all the information, I dashed for the stairs.
In the restoration area, the two constables had removed their coats and were carefully rolling up their shirtsleeves. I could not help but notice their pickaxes which were leaning upright against the brick wall that enclosed the central heating furnace. All was eerily silent as Hawke and Delvecchio busily placed shrouds over paintings that had been or were in the process of being restored. My father stood off to the side of the brick enclosure where he had been stationed earlier to make certain it remained secure.
“I trust you are not planning to destroy the protective brick enclosure,” Hawke called to Lestrade.
“Only its door, if you refuse to open it,” Lestrade said.
“It is tightly bolted and closed off, so no soiled air can seep through,” Hawke informed. “But it can be unlocked.”
“Then please do so.”
Using two keys, Hawke opened the steel door and stepped back as clear but fuel-laden air escaped into the restoration area. Once the odor had dissipated, Lestrade led the way into a spacious room that was enclosed by brick walls on all sides. In its center was a large furnace with an ample, open area around it, which would allow workmen to perform maintenance and needed repairs. The bare floor of the space was made of solid cement, and its walls were uninterrupted except for a wide, bricked-in fireplace.
“Surely you do not plan to break through the sturdy floor and walls, which would wreak havoc on our climate control,” Hawke said in a pleading voice.
“The walls and floor do not interest us, but your bricked-in fireplace does,” Lestrade informed and signaled to the constables to begin their work.
“If you turn up nothing, your expense will be considerable,” Hawke warned.
“I suspect your expense will be far greater,” said Lestrade.
The constables drove their pickaxes over and over through the thick, red bricks that covered the fireplace. In the process, they displaced large pieces of the stonework and pushed them aside until they reached the darkened space that lay behind. Lestrade stepped in and illuminated the fireplace with a bright torch. Everyone leaned down to peek in and all saw the same horrific sight. A mummified human figure was curled up within, with its knees flexed and tightly pressed against its chest. The body was completely covered in brown, leatherlike skin, but its skeletal head had no recognizable features.
“Oh, my god!” Hawke gasped, his face losing color.
Delvecchio quickly brought a hand up to his lips to suppress a wave of nausea.
The rest of us had seen our fair share of dead bodies in various conditions and stages of decomposition, and were more interested than moved by the gruesome sight. In particular, the mummified remains were still wearing his clothes and shoes which might allow us to positively identify the corpse. Such items as a wallet would be of great importance. Of additional significance was the absence of a foul odor which indicated the body had passed through the final stages of the putrefaction process and was now skeletonized. From a forensic standpoint, this meant the corpse had to be at least two months old. But a proper, thorough examination required that the corpse be removed from its cramped hiding place.
“The body has to be taken out with great care,” I instructed Lestrade and the constables. “We are in fact dealing with little more than skin and bones.”
“How should we then proceed?” asked Lestrade.
“The corpse must be handled with kid gloves, otherwise all could fall apart,” I cautioned. “Please have the constables place their hands under the head and neck at one end and under the pelvis and knees at the other, then gently lift and place the remains on a shroud that Mr. Delvecchio will provide.”
Delvecchio rushed out and came back with a thick shroud which he spread out on the cement floor. Then he stepped back as did the rest of us, except the two constables who reached into the fireplace, but quickly withdrew their hands.
“Sir,” the taller of the two constables addressed Lestrade. “What should we do with the bricks atop the corpse’s lap?”
Lestrade turned to me. “What say you, Dr. Watson?”
I gazed into the fireplace and saw a short stack of dust-covered bricks that rested upon the corpse’s lap and pressed its arms against its torso. It required a moment for me to realize the purpose of the bricks. “I believe the bricks were so placed to prevent the dead man’s arms from dangling out of the fireplace. He was literally stuffed in.”
“How should the bricks be removed?” Lestrade asked.
Joanna quickly interjected, “With care, for they no doubt were handled by the killer who may have left his fingerprints on them.”
The constables covered the dusty bricks with their handkerchiefs and carefully removed them from the corpse’s lap and placed them on the cement floor.
Joanna moved in and examined the tops of the extracted bricks with her magnifying glass. “There are fingerprints on several of the bricks,” she announced.
“I’ll wager those prints belong to Harry Edmunds,” said Lestrade.
“Which is a wager you would no doubt win,” Joanna agreed, and looked to me with a request. “John, please measure the body’s exact height at autopsy.”
“Of course,” I said, but had no idea why such a measurement would be important.
“Well then, let us proceed,” Lestrade ordered somewhat impatiently, and gestured to the constables.
Once the corpse was extracted, I performed a more detailed examination, but could not discover any feature that might lead to its identification, other than it was a male as established by its clothing. The mummified skin showed no large scars or tattoos, nor were there any fractures of large bones. The pockets in his well-worn clothes were empty.
“It is most likely James Blackstone, but the proof is lacking,” I opined.
“What causes the peculiar condition of the skin?” Lestrade inquired.
“He became mummified because he was exposed to a constant dry heat that desiccated the body’s tissues and turned his skin into a dark brown leather,” I explained. “In some ways it resembles the process used in Egyptian mummies, except our corpse’s internal organs were not initially removed.”
“Can you give us the length of time the body was in the fireplace?”
“Not with any degree of accuracy, for the dry heat inhibits the putrefaction process to a large extent which accounts for the body’s appearance and lack of odor. But for certain he has been dead for some months.” I carefully removed the corpse’s shoes to further my inspection for identifying features, such as old fractures, deformities, and missing toes, but none were seen. I glanced over to Simon Hawke and asked, “Did James Blackstone have any physical ailments?”
Hawke pondered the question briefly. “None that I was aware of.”
“Any tattoos?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Any deformities?”
“None, although he did have a noticeable limp, particularly when standing on his feet all day.”
“Describe the limp,” my father requested at once.
“He simply favored one leg a bit,” Hawke said and, after a moment’s thought, added, “I believe it was the left one, for that was the one he tended to rub.”
“Did he say he had arthritis?” my father probed.
“That was not the case,” Hawke responded. “He once stated that he had been wounded in the Second Boer War which left him with a permanent weakness.”
My father and I exchanged knowing glances, for that war wound could play an important role in identifying James Blackstone.
Hawke stared down at the corpse and shuddered, then peered into the depth of the fireplace before turning to Lestrade. “How could you possibly know the body was hidden in there?”
“I did not, but the daughter of Sherlock Holmes did,” the inspector replied. “I believe Edgar Allan Poe would have been delighted with her conclusion which was based on a flock of ravens.”
“Ravens, you say?” Hawke asked quizzically.
“It was the manner in which they behaved at a recently exhumed grave site,” Joanna elucidated. “The birds were greatly attracted by the stench of the rotting flesh that arose from the casket. To them, it represented a kill and an easy meal. Their attraction was so great it required several shots from Lestrade’s revolver to frighten them away. This type of behavior is commonplace, even among dogs that have been domesticated.”
“My Mimi!” Delvecchio cried out.
“Indeed, it was your dog that detected the scent of dead tissue behind the brick wall and desperately tried to reach it. That was the reason she barked at the wall and attempted to paw her way through. It all became clear when I saw the ravens at the grave site, screeching with their raucous caws.”
“It was like Mimi’s bark,” Delvecchio recalled.
“She was trying to tell us something, as were the ravens at the exhumation,” Joanna said. “And so were the ravens in Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, The Raven. They kept saying, ‘Nevermore,’ to a distraught lover on the loss of his love. The ravens at the grave site, on the other hand, were screaming, ‘The dog! The dog!’ Which brings me to the next important question—namely, who bricked in the fireplace?”
“It was Harry Edmunds,” Hawke replied, without hesitation. “The company that placed the central heating furnace strongly advised we brick off the fireplace to stop the loss of heat which was considerable. I was not prepared to spend yet more money on the masonry, and put it off for a future date. That is when Edmunds, who had worked as a bricklayer in his younger days, offered to perform the task at a minimum labor cost.”
“Again, planning ahead,” Joanna muttered under her breath.
“What was that?” Hawke asked, not hearing the utterance.
“It was of no matter.” Joanna waved away the comment and gazed down at the leathered corpse. “Now, how did James Blackstone’s life come to an end?”
“A postmortem examination will hopefully reveal the cause,” my father said. “There are only a limited number of ways to kill in any art gallery without others being aware.”
“A gunshot would be far too noisy,” Lestrade stated the obvious.
“Poison too unpredictable,” said I.
“A knife wound too uncertain unless wielded by an expert,” my father surmised.
“Blunt force to the head would be a more likely possibility,” Joanna asserted. “But what was the weapon and where would he hide it?”
She peered into the restoration area and searched for the instrument or tool that could be used as a lethal weapon, but found none. Next, her gaze went to the fireplace. Something caught her attention and she moved in closer to it. “A brick,” Joanna noted, pointing at the masonry. “He could have done the deed with a solid brick.”
“And used it in blocking off the fireplace,” Lestrade added.
Joanna shook her head immediately. “That would be too risky, for the brick might have the victim’s blood spattered upon it. Moreover, the smart move would be to bury the weapon along with the corpse.” She reached for a pickax and said, “Let us see if Harry Edmunds is as clever as we believe him to be.”
“You seem to be convinced that Harry Edmunds is the killer,” Lestrade stated.
“That is because he had the most to gain,” Joanna responded and used the pickax to stir the ashes heaped up in the fireplace. Upon hearing the sound of metal scraping against metal, she dug deeper and exposed a sturdy, dust-covered knife. “Hello there!”
Lestrade shined his torch in for added illumination which allowed Joanna to extract the blade using the end of the pickax. With care she blew away the thick, covering ash, and this revealed a handle which had a dark brown stain that was most likely old blood.
“It looks as if Edmunds left behind a little memento for us,” Lestrade noted.
“He left behind more than that,” Joanna said and pointed to a fingerprint embedded in the dust on the knife’s handle. “Chances are it will match the prints on the brick.”
“Are you not surprised Edmunds used a knife to k
ill?” my father asked. “After all, a misplaced stab and all would be lost.”
“He would not misplace,” Delvecchio interjected. “For like many restorers of Italian Renaissance art, Mr. Edmunds no doubt studied anatomy so he could work with confidence on the human figures that were painted by the magnificent artists of that period.”
“Did you yourself study anatomy?” Joanna inquired.
“I took classes at the University of Bologna for that very purpose,” Delvecchio answered. “I would have no problem finding a vital spot.”
“This Edmunds fellow is more than clever,” Lestrade pronounced.
“And more than dangerous,” my father cautioned. “For now he has committed a hanging offense and will stop at nothing to escape the gallows.”
“All well and good,” said Joanna as she stared down at the mummified corpse of James Blackstone. “But there is one most important question that remains unanswered.”
“Which is?”
“Why kill the only person who knows the precise location of the masterpiece?”
19
Dubious Identification
The autopsy at St. Bartholomew’s was quiet and still until Professor Peter Willoughby, the director of pathology, barged in and glared at us with a look that told of his displeasure.
“Really, Watson,” he said to me, “you are taking up entirely too much time with these nonacademic matters.”
“But this case is a special request from Scotland Yard,” I informed.
Willoughby came over to study the body, but not before giving Joanna and my father an unwelcome stare. As was his custom, he chose not to touch the corpse, but rather to view it at a distance. “Been in the ground for quite a while, I see.”
“Actually it was discovered tucked away in a fireplace,” said I.
“Hmph,” Willoughby grumbled under his breath as he circled the corpse, stopping only briefly to study its skeletal face. He made a few guttural sounds while performing a superficial examination, but made no mention of any findings.
For some reason Joanna found Willoughby’s presence of interest, for she seemed to be watching every step he took. I saw nothing unusual about the man who treated his subordinates so harshly and went out of his way to harp incessantly on the smallest of their mistakes. It was said by all that his physical appearance matched his temperament. He was of short, wiry stature, with piercing dark eyes and unsmiling thin lips that seemed pasted together. The suit he wore fit poorly, and had sleeves so short they allowed most of his shirt cuffs to show. I had to admire his new shoes, but not the stained, red tie he favored so often.
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