by DAN MONTY
“Yes! I mean, it’s a ghastly horrible thing, blah, blah, blah but I finally have something useful to do. Oh Watson, how it bores me to sit in my chair drinking absinthe until I can see tiny people running around my feet! Not today sir!” He exclaimed and I looked into his eyes.
“You’ve been drinking absinthe?” I asked aloud and Holmes shook his head.
“What? No. Not today... listen, I could use an assistant, and no offense but clearly you have nothing better to do,” Holmes started but I quickly cut in.
“I’ll do it!” I said and Holmes smiled. I hadn’t meant to speak so quickly, but what can I say? The man fascinated me and I was eager to do anything but stare at the walls of my chamber all day.
“Splendid! I’ll buy you a coffee on the way!” Holmes said, dancing around excitedly. Honestly, at times I wonder if Holmes could get this excited over anything else. He apparently did not frequent with any female companions, though he certainly wasn’t gay either. Frankly there was little else in his life other than his curious obsessions and his sudden comings and goings after meeting with people in the sitting room from time to time. He acted like a sort of private detective, solving problems that others could not... but a murder drove him up the wall with excitement. Honestly, I had to see him work with my own eyes.
*****
At number three, Lauriston Gardens our flying cab lowered to the street and Lestrade approached us as our driver took off with haste. Above us, towering buildings reached for the heavens as traffic flew over our heads in all directions, like a glittering sky full of racing ants.
Lestrade talked to Holmes as I listened on with interest.
“A neighbour saw the light on but the place was empty. One of our boys on his beat went in, found the body on the floor. No furniture in the room, no sign of forced entry. The door was open and the body was just lying there stiff. Name in his wallet is Edward Drebber, he’s a yank, too. ID says he’s from Columbus, Ohio. Probably a tourist, well dressed too. He had a lovely hat beside him from a place on Camperbell Road. There’s a few bloody stains in the room, yet no wounds we can see on the victim. The expression on his face is... well you’ll see” Lestrade said and Holmes nodded, taking note of the soggy wet ground from the rain last night and making note of various footprints, one set grabbing his interest.
Holmes moved through the crowd of waiting police and robot forensics, their metal arms folded as Holmes and I stepped into the house with Lestrade.
“I can’t hold them off for long, Holmes. You’ll need to move quick" Lestrade said and Holmes raised a finger over his lips, telling the inspector to be quiet. I accompanied Holmes into the large room, where indeed the only thing in the room was the body of a large man, a grimace of shock on his lifeless face. There were drops and spatters of blood on the floor around, but no wounds to be seen. Lestrade reappeared in the room, watching Holmes carefully.
“Not a single clue. Blood around the place, bloke hasn’t got a wound on him and there’s no other bodies.” Lestrade said as Holmes nodded.
“You’re quite certain there’s no wounds?” Holmes asked and Lestrade nodded his head.
“Positive" Lestrade said and Holmes nodded again.
“Then clearly, the blood is from another person,” Holmes said with a wink.
I watched as Holmes walked around the room, his eyes darting left and right before finally returning his attention to the body. He knelt beside it.
“Thoughts?” Holmes asked and I knelt beside him.
“At first glance, without preliminary examination I’d have to say... strangulation? Auto asphyxiation?” I said and Holmes shook his head, snapping on some latex gloves and placing a hand on the victim’s neck, rolling the head from side to side.
“No, there’s no sign of pressure marks on the throat. No rope burns, no finger marks of any kind,” Holmes said, looking into the victim’s eyes and inside his mouth. He seemed to make a mental note or two, opening the man’s jacket and going through the pockets.
“The police would have searched him already,” I said quietly as Lestrade walked out again, but Holmes shook it off.
“If the police found everything all the time, I wouldn’t be here” he muttered, extracting a gold ring from the pocket.
“A woman’s wedding ring?” I asked and Holmes nodded in agreement. Holmes studied the fingers of the man’s hands, the nails neatly trimmed. He glanced at the man’s boots and sniffed the lips of the man, feeling his clothes and rising back to his feet.
Holmes studied the ring, looking at the plain gold ring carefully. He seemed to nod and mutter to himself as he often did since I had come to know him, his only explanation for it had been “professional hazard". Lestrade returned again holding coffee as another detective named Gregson stepped in behind him, Holmes nodding to Lestrade as if to say he had seen all he needed to.
“What’s that then?” Lestrade asked, pointing to the ring and Holmes handed it to the Inspector.
“A woman’s been here too? Bloody hell! Things just got weirder!” Lestrade remarked.
“You think he was murdered by a woman?” I asked Holmes who shook his head.
“No" Holmes replied and Lestrade raised an eyebrow.
“What makes you so sure? Whoever owns this ring could be our killer!” Lestrade said and Holmes paced back and forth in deep thought as the other detective, Gregson, looked around the room, pausing when he noticed something on the wall.
“Look! There’s a message scrawled in blood!” The detective said and Holmes, myself and Lestrade rushed over to see the word that had been seemingly scratched into the wall in blood, six feet from the ground. It read;
RACHE
The detective smiled triumphantly.
“Rachel! I bet the name of the killer is Rachel! Poor bugger must have inscribed it on the wall before he died! I think we’ve got something!” Gregson said as Holmes let out a loud, irritated sigh.
“WHICH is why I am glad you called me instead of relying on your own unit. Trust Scotland yard to miss the details! And your best answer? Bring in robots!” Holmes replied and I folded my arms. Holmes sighed.
“The footprints outside were made by men’s sized shoes. It rained last night, therefore any trace of a woman’s footprint would have clearly been noticeable in the mud outside, instead there are just two large sets of sneaker prints barely visible beneath a ridiculous amount of loafer prints. Your men, Lestrade wear loafers, while there are in fact two distinct sneaker prints, both far too large for the feet of a woman. One set belongs to our victim, the other is clearly our killer, though had you not nearly buried the evidence with your heavy feet, you might have noticed. The woman’s ring is curious, but then not really, as most likely our victim is in fact either divorced or grieving. The ring in his pocket had not been worn recently, the outside of the ring is in poor condition meaning it had neither been worn nor cleaned in some time. The victim has no wounds, therefore the blood on the floor and wall is not from him, but the killer.” Holmes said, the detective chiming in.
“But...the blood! The message on the wall! He probably scratched it...” The detective began as Holmes raised the victim’s hands.
“No! The victim has short, well trimmed finger nails yet the message has been scratched, clearly with long nails. They are also bloody letters and as you can see, our victim’s hands are clean. Even the word “RACHE" is a German word meaning “REVENGE". I sincerely doubt our killer is a woman named Rachel, though it would be most convenient. The message was a stab at us, an elaborate ruse to throw us off the killer’s scent. This man was poisoned. Did the neighbour report any yelling?.” Holmes asked and Lestrade shook his head. Holmes only smiled and the room fell silent.
“Good Lord!” I said. I was simply astounded, though clearly Lestrade had seen a similar show of brilliant detection before. Gregson stormed out of the room in a huff. Can’t say I blamed him. Holmes was good.
“HOW do you know it was poison?” Lestrade asked and Holmes smiled.
“There’s a foul odour upon his lips. At first I thought it was alcohol, but then I recalled one of my experiments. The scent is a chemical I can not recall at this time, but when I do, Inspector, you will be the first to know,” Holmes added, turning to leave the room, no doubt to ponder more on the case. He turned to Lestrade one final time.
“The body is useless to me now. My work here is done" Holmes said quietly before leaving the house.
Outside, Holmes looked around at the surrounding buildings, pausing as if suddenly deep in thought before walking over to a cab hailing post and pressing the button.
“So, this Drebber was given poison? And the ring belonged to his wife?” I asked and Holmes shrugged as though he wasn’t giving everything away just yet.
“Perhaps" Holmes said before turning and looking at me.
“You look hungry. Shall we eat?” Holmes asked as the cab floated down from the busy traffic among the clouds.
“um ... sure" I replied. I had to admit the sight of the body had embarrassingly not affected my appetite and as of yet I had not had breakfast. Besides, I wanted to get to know this elusive man better.
“It rained last night. Poured, yet the victim’s clothes were only mildly damp. This suggests the victim was dropped off, his companion travelled with him, likely accompanying him inside. There are no signs of a fight or struggle, the neighbour did not report any loud noises. My assumption is, the victim knew his killer somehow. Perhaps they were friends... enemies? It’s curious,” Holmes said.
“Do you think the wife is dead?” I asked as Holmes and I climbed into the cab, the driver asking us where we were heading. The black flying London taxi hovering on the curb as the driver prepared to take off.
“Take us to Mendelssohn’s” Holmes said, turning to me with a wink.
“I need more data before I can determine that. First we eat.” Holmes said finally, and the London cab took off, flying over the street and into the city.
CHAPTER THREE: CLUES
Holmes ate quickly, not stuffing food into his mouth but enjoying his plate of ham and eggs at Mendelssohn’s, which turned out to be a rather simple basement eatery near Baker street station. After eating we talked over coffee, but despite my best efforts to change the subject from the topic of the case, Holmes seemed uninterested in discussing anything else.
“I believe the victim was given some kind of poison, that said, there was no evidence of vomit or deification from the victim, therefore the poison obviously affected the brain or heart.” Holmes said and I sipped on my coffee.
“Do you really want to talk about this now? I literally just ate breakfast. We can talk about other things, you know?” I offered. Holmes brushed me off without even considering my words. I had come to notice he was rather uninterested in the thoughts of others, perhaps feeling as though he already knew enough about a person after first laying eyes on them.
“I have no time for trifle talk and useless drivel. My mind must be lost in thought, Watson. We have a body, clues and a modus operandi. All we need to discover is the little details. We know there was a second man in the house, but we do not know how he came to know our victim. I need to speak to Lestrade. I must see the possessions he had on his person. I know we are missing something and it’s imperative we have all the clues at our disposal.” Holmes said. I finished my coffee, watching as a robot waitress poured coffee at another table. I found myself staring at the strange mechanical woman in a gothic leather outfit. The way her arms moved, the hinges bending, whirring as they did so. She poured two coffees in moments, her efficiency that of a common waitress with half the effort.
“Why don’t you like robots, Holmes?” I asked and Holmes sipped his coffee.
“A machine is fallible. They do precisely what they are programmed to do, yet the emotion? The care and delicate touch is absent from their bodies. They do as they are told, but a machine does not think for itself. It mindlessly carries out tasks without thought or feeling, thus neglecting to capture the emotion of a situation. A human can feel, can think for themselves. They are capable of free and independent thought, thus opening a door to greater theories and solutions. A machine can explore a crime scene, but can it capture its emotion? Can it smell? Can it taste the very air, Watson? No. A true detective needs to utilize all of his senses. A machine feels nothing.” Holmes said, tilting his head to glance out the window. I had to agree, the man had a point. I never understood how these robot creations infiltrated our workforce so quickly. Its almost like we are preparing for the departure of the human touch.
“Do you have family in England?” Holmes asked and I shook my head.
“No. Just me. What about yourself?” I asked, a robot lady filling our coffee cups before either of us could protest.
“Occasionally" said Holmes, quite mysterious and not wishing to add anything else to the conversation.
“Tell me, you stayed alone in a motel where, exactly?” Holmes asked and I sighed.
“The Strand. I was temporarily staying in a private hotel there, but I lost track of my expenses. You do ask a lot of questions, Mr Holmes. Such a pity you answer so few. It might make you a little more easy to befriend,” I said quietly but Holmes only smiled.
For some reason I recalled Holmes playing a piece on his violin earlier in the week and I smiled. Finally it hit me why we had gone to Mendelssohn’s. He had been playing Mendelssohn’s Lieder.
“I guess this explains how you knew RACHE was a German word. You were playing the violin the other day. I recognized it. Lieder by German composer Felix Mendelssohn. Now we are at Mendelssohn’s eatery. I don’t suppose it’s a coincidence?” I asked and Holmes smiled.
“Just testing your powers of observation, Watson. It really was only a little prick to see if you were paying attention. So you listen to me play? It pleased you?” Holmes asked and I sipped my coffee.
“Oh yes, you truly are quite a wonderful violinist. You are always playing the game though, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Even when I’m not.” Holmes replied and I smiled. Holmes truly was a remarkable musician. I heard him playing in his sitting room often, seated alone with the curtains drawn closed. Of course he had known he’d had an audience. Had he not, he would not have been encouraged to play so well at all. I often came into the sitting room from the street to see Holmes miserable sitting there in his leather chair, strumming away at the fiddle aimlessly as if bored half to death. Holmes worked best when he had an audience, when he was left to himself he became bored and at times even rather odd. He was clearly a friendless man, except for maybe the odd acquaintances like Lestrade or the people that came and went. I didn’t mind though. In fact, it was something we had in common. He would often see to these house guests often pleading with me for the use of the sitting room and I would respectfully retire to my bed chambers to read or watch television. As far as I could tell though, there were defiantly no women stopping by to cater to his manly needs. How he managed that I would rather not begin to presume.
“These... visitors we get, what goes on there?” I asked as he calmly sipped from his coffee mug.
“They are typically passed on from various investigation agencies. People with problems as I’m sure I have explained already. They tell me their problems, I give them advice and I pocket my fee.” Holmes replied.
“So, you talk to them, give them your answers... not leave the house and they pay you for that?” I asked and Holmes nodded.
“Yes Watson. Call it a kind of intuition. I mean every now and again a case will arise like Lestrade’s which is a little more complex, but often I can settle it rather quickly.” Holmes responded with a grin.
“Alright, so you can tell me everything about a person just by looking at them, yes? What about her?” I asked, pointing at a sad, quiet woman with bags under her eyes and leather clothing sitting in a booth. She looked maybe thirty, smoked like a chimney and seemed lost in thought. Her pant legs had holes, her makeup was a mess and she was sh
owing a great deal of cleavage. She also seemed nervous as a security guard stepped into the estate and sat down.
“Please, she’s clearly a prostitute, though not by choice. She has likely had a slew of jobs before, neither of them covered her drug addiction and debt. She is lost, tired and her leathers are well worn, especially in the knees" Holmes said and I grinned.
“I see, and what on earth leads you to suspect she’s a prostitute? Maybe she’s just homeless? You think of that?” I asked. Holmes leaned forward, speaking quietly.
“Yet she is in a popular eatery, not on the corner begging for change. She has money, Watson, just not gainful employment. The rug burn on her knees suggests she spends a great deal of time on them, my guess is she doesn’t get those by scrubbing floors. Her mascara is smeared, her eyes are sad and she is not wearing a bra,” Holmes went on and I laughed.
“Alright, how do you know she’s a drug addict?” I asked and Holmes scoffed.
“Her pupils are dilated, meaning she’s probably on cocaine.” Holmes stated.
“... or anti depressants, Holmes. She might just have depression" I replied quietly and Holmes laughed.
“More like anxiety! She hasn’t stopped eyeballing that security guard since he came in. Go ahead Watson! Ask her what she does!” Holmes insisted and I folded my arms.
“That’s ridiculous! I can’t ask Her!” I insisted and Holmes casually shrugged and sipped his coffee. Finally I gave in, not because he coaxed me but because I was curious. I stood up from the table and walked over to the woman, Holmes no doubt enjoying the show.
I approached her table, clearing my throat nervously already mentally preparing for the return to Holmes to sing about how wrong he was.
“Excuse me, madam? I was just wondering what line of work you are currently in? Asking for a friend" I stammered and the woman looked up at me.
“Why, are you looking for a good time?” she asked and I sighed. Damn him.
