The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories

by Otto Penzler

  “How long has he been dead?”

  “The police surgeon says about ten hours before the grappling-irons brought him in. He was found by the river police at about nine yesterday morning, near the new Chelsea Bridge.”

  “Hum, that would place the time of death between eleven o’clock and midnight on Monday,” mused Holmes. Then in a louder voice he asked, “Did the surgeon explain these discolourations?”

  “Said they were simply scrapes most likely, caused perhaps by the fall into the river.”

  “Any indication as to the actual cause of death?”

  “Well,” said Patterson guardedly, with a slight shrug of his shoulders, “he didn’t want to commit himself until after the inquest and autopsy. No water was found in the lungs; but neither have we uncovered any evidence of foul play. So far, the verdict seems to be ‘Death by misadventure.’ ”

  Holmes glanced towards me. “This is your territory, Doctor. What do you make of it?”

  A gleam in his eye, a tensing of his attitude as he had spoken, served to put me on my guard. After another careful examination, I spoke cautiously.

  “A sudden fall into cold water from a height,” I said, “with the resultant shock and fear, might bring on a heart attack. Especially in in a person suffering from a cardiac condition.” I pointed to the twisted features. “Such convulsions are sometimes indicative of painful, violent death, which might easily have been caused by heart failure.”

  “In other words, Watson, the man might have died in sheer panic before having even struck the water?”

  “That’s it exactly,” I replied, pleased that he had accepted my theory without question. “It also explains,” I concluded somewhat rashly, “the total absence of water in the lungs.”

  “But not the purple blemishes,” observed Sherlock Holmes very quietly.

  “The police surgeon,” broke in the Inspector irrascibly at this moment, “didn’t consider them to be serious at all, or in any way connected with the man’s death. It’s a clear case of accidental death caused by a fall into the river. The autopsy may clear up that aspect of it. What we would like to find out, before proceeding any further, is the man’s identity. There’s not a paper or personal identification of any description amongst his things. No one has yet come forward to claim the body. The lists of missing persons have been consulted, but no one answering his description has been reported.”

  Patterson snorted with exasperation, then turned to look at my friend who had listened with rapt attention to his words.

  “Perhaps that’s where you can help us, Mr. Holmes,” he added. “Your scientific methods might give us a clue to his trade or profession, or some indication as to where he hails from. Any sort of lead which might put us on the track of his relations or his friends.”

  Holmes’s eyes gleamed. A slight colour now tinged his cheek. The problem was a challenge: his analytical methods against the regular police investigation procedure. His present demeanor was that of a master-craftsman who sees his work ready at hand, called in after others less gifted had failed.

  He was now standing over the lifeless form, examining it with swift appraising glances. After closely surveying the twisted, mottled features, he turned to the tightly clenched hands, then to the rest of the body. In silence, broken only by his rapid, nervous pacings, we watched his every move so intently that the sound of his voice, high-pitched and querulous, made us all start up in surprise when he asked:

  “Where are his clothes, boots?”

  Patterson was prepared for this, and a pile of garments was quickly brought forward and spread out on a convenient work-bench. Again we relapsed into silence as my friend, completely oblivious of of our presence, quickly yet expertly examined the personal effects of the dead man. He turned out the pockets and scanned the water-matted dross and wool fragments which usually accumulate in the lining. Nothing escaped those keen bright eyes as he concentrated his attention on coat and shirt, then trousers and boots. This completed, he turned again to the Scotland Yard Inspector.

  “Was a hat found?”

  “No.”

  “Waterproof or outer coat?”

  Patterson shook his head once more. “None.”

  Holmes pursed his lips, nodded thoughtfully. “I see,” he murmured, before directing his attention to the articles found in the pockets.

  These were more or less the customary things the average man carries about with him in his everyday life: a bunch of keys, some coins, a pencil and nail file, a comb, a water-soaked billfold which still retained some sodden paper currency, and a large, old-fashioned silver watch.

  Holmes picked it up and eyed it intently. Glancing over his shoulder, I could see that it was one of those heavily engraved time-pieces of foreign manufacture, bearing the name of its maker on the enamelled dial. The ornate hands had stopped at exactly three minutes past 2:30. It carried no marks of blows or dents, and had evidently suffered no ill effects other than from immersion.

  “This might be suggestive, Watson,” he muttered, “most suggestive. Notice that it is quite undamaged. The crystal is still intact.” He raised his head. There were traces of repressed excitement in his voice when he asked, “Has this watch been opened, Inspector? Or the hands moved or tampered with?”

  “No, sir. That’s exactly the way it was when we removed it from the man’s waistcoat pocket. We don’t consider it of any importance. It may have stopped days before, or the fellow just forgot to wind it.”

  “You may be right,” said Holmes with a slight shrug. “Let us see what else there is….Ah! What have we here?”

  He was holding up a circular piece of glasslike substance, light brown in colour, of about an inch in thickness. After eyeing it speculatively for some seconds, he snapped off a small fragment and ground it to powder between his strong, lean fingers. These he carried first to his nose, then to his lips. The experiment appeared to satisfy him for I saw him nod to himself, a quick light coming to his eyes. Swiftly he walked back to the body, re-examined the dead man’s hands, even to the extent of forcing open the rigid fingers of the left hand. Again he nodded as he gave vent to a grunt of satisfaction. Once more he returned to the work-bench, selected the trousers and submitted them to another rigorous inspection. When he had finished I could see that the light of triumph shone in his eyes as he said, “That is all. There is nothing else to be learned here.”

  To Patterson he asked, “Have you got a room where we can talk and smoke?”

  The Inspector nodded. “This way, gentlemen.”

  Without another word we filed out of that sombre chamber and followed him up a flight of steps to a small room which, though bare of ornaments and sparsely furnished, nevertheless looked cozy and cheerful by comparison.

  It was Inspector Patterson himself who first spoke after we had found chairs and charged our pipes.

  “Well, Mr. Holmes,” he remarked, “I don’t suppose you learned very much from your probings?”

  “The body’s immersion has naturally robbed me of several suggestive facts, I concede,” replied my friend quietly. “However, I can say with assurance that my researches have not been entirely barren.”

  “Then you did find out something about the man?” cried Patterson, making an effort to conceal his surprise.

  “Only that he was a bachelor, inclined to be vain of his personal appearance, did not smoke, and earned a precarious livelihood by playing the ’cello in some fashionable restaurant.” Holmes paused, then added slowly, “And was without any doubt the victim of foul play.”

  Patterson started up, visibly shaken by this unexpected statement. “You mean the man was murdered?”

  “I do.”

  The Scotland Yarder struggled to regain his composure. Naturally stolid and not easily moved, he resented any unexpected revelation which forced him to depart from his usual reserve. A note of irritation was quite noticeable in his voice when he added, “What makes you so certain of this, Mr. Holmes?”

  “Th
ose peculiar stains, to begin with,” said my friend, “and the odd behavior of the watch, my dear Patterson.”

  “I don’t attach much significance to those stains,” said Patterson stubbornly. “If they are important, the medicos will tell us. But what has the watch to do with it?”

  “According to the available data,” replied Holmes, “the man died around midnight, presumably from a fall into the Thames. Is it likely that the watch should have continued to run, for two and a half hours, after its immersion?”

  The Inspector removed the cigar from his lips, surveyed it thoughtfully for a moment, then slowly nodded his large gray head. “I’m beginning to see what you mean, Mr. Holmes. The man could have been dead at least two hours before his watch stopped running.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Does it not also give us the exact moment when the body fell into the water?” I put in.

  “I should be more inclined to believe that it was hurled into the river!” observed Holmes ominously.

  “And we blindly assumed that the difference between the time of death and the time registered by that watch was of no importance!” groaned Patterson, He faced my friend. “Mr. Holmes,” he said, “if our investigations later confirm these deductions I shall swear you are a wizard!”

  “And you would be wrong, Patterson. My inferences are based upon a series of facts, each one confirming the next. You are astonished by my conclusions because you are unfamiliar with the line of reasoning which I followed to reach them.”

  “I’ll grant you that,” said the Inspector. “Tell me. How did you conclude that he was a ’cellist? By his long hair? By the length of his fingers?”

  “By no means,” replied Holmes, a frosty smile appearing on his lips for a fleeting moment. “I deduced it from the calluses on the fingers of the left hand—the nails of which, by the way, were cut much shorter than those on the right. I also noticed the frayed shirt-cuff which brushes against the body of the instrument when the player is reaching for the higher positions. I was at first inclined towards a violinist, but subsequent examination of the trouser-legs gave me my most corroborative facts.”

  “In what way?” Patterson’s steely gray eyes never left the detective’s grave features as he put his question.

  “The ’cellist,” replied my friend, demonstrating with quick gestures of hands and knees, “holds his instrument between his knees, in this way. Now, at a point just below the knee of the trousers, on the inside of the leg, I noticed a distinct curve worn into the nap of the fabric. Only a violoncello, gentlemen, could make such a mark!”

  “Wonderful!” exclaimed the usually imperturbable Patterson. “Incredible!”

  “I assure you, Inspector,” said Holmes deprecatingly, “that it is quite superficial.” Yet I could see that Patterson’s sincere praise had pleased him. “Furthermore,” he resumed, “upon finding the rosin…”

  “So that’s what it was!” barked the Inspector, slapping his thigh indignantly. “And I thought it was glue!”

  “You saw how easily it crumbled between my fingers. Glue—granting the possibility of its having resisted the action of water and retained its hardness—glue would never have done that. The rosin only confirmed my earlier suppositions. It gave me conclusive proof that the man was a string instrumentalist.”

  “Who was employed in a restaurant, you said,” interposed the Inspector. “Why a restaurant? Why couldn’t it have been a concert hall? Or a theatre?”

  “Because of the floor-wax on the soles of the dead man’s boots,” replied the detective after a moment’s reflection. “There are no waxed floors in music-halls or theatres.”

  “A dance-hall, then?”

  “Have you ever seen a ’cellist playing in a dance-hall, Inspector? Reed and percussion instruments, yes; possibly violins, but violoncellos seldom if ever.”

  “I don’t go to those places, so I wouldn’t know,” rumbled Patterson, “but I’ll take your word for it, Mr. Holmes.”

  “Then start your enquiries for a missing musician among the better class cafes, where dancing is not only permitted but encouraged. These are not so numerous as you may think.”

  Patterson finished jotting down in his large notebook before asking my friend how he had deduced that the man was a bachelor.

  Sherlock Holmes tapped his pipe against a convenient ash tray. “Did you take note of his stocking?” he asked. “A bachelor is prone to neglect them. But no self-respecting wife would ever permit her musician-husband to appear in public with holes in his footwear, or with buttons missing from shirt and coat. I counted no less than three lacking in both garments.”

  “Bachelor he was!” agreed the Inspector, duly noting the fact in his notebook. “And vain, too,” he added, “if that comb, and the hair oil he used are any indication. No need to tell us how you found out he was not a smoking man, Mr. Holmes. There wasn’t a trace of tobacco anywhere on him. No pipe, no loose shreds to indicate he was an habitual user of the weed.” He closed his notebook before proceeding. “Now, as I see it—and this is only a tentative theory, mind you—the poor devil was waylaid in some dark street or alley, killed and then thrown into the river after the murderer had removed all identification from his pockets. In the darkness, he overlooked the watch….”

  “The victim, meanwhile,” broke in Sherlock Holmes drily, “obligingly taking off his hat and coat to facilitate the murderer’s work?”

  “Well, I do admit there are some objections…”

  “Several, in fact,” interrupted the other, with a shake of the head. “It is far more likely that the man was indoors when he met his end. This would account for the missing outer garments as well as the missing personal papers. As for the watch, I do not think it was overlooked.”

  “You think it was left deliberately?”

  “I do. The murderer might have thought to establish some sort of alibi in case the crime was laid at his door. However, it is still too early in the case to start theorizing.”

  “One more question, Mr. Holmes. What do you think he died of?”

  Holmes stopped in the process of refilling his pipe. His shaggy brows corrugated deeply, his thin lips pressed together for a second before replying. “The man died from the effects of an alkaloid, as yet unknown, which was injected into the blood stream. I should like to draw your attention again to those purple blotches, Inspector. They are of the utmost significance.” He rose to his feet as he finished his statement.

  “Come, Watson,” he added. “Back to Baker Street for a pipe or two over this matter. There are several fields of conjecture and speculation opened to us, worth at least half an ounce of shag.”

  Then turning to the Scotland Yarder he said, “Please keep me informed of further developments, will you, Inspector?”

  As we jostled along in a cab through the rain-drenched streets, I refrained from asking my companion the many questions which lay on my tongue. As was his custom, he seldom discussed his cases until he held all his facts well in hand. Musing over the grim scene we had witnessed, I found myself formulating reasons and motives for such a crime. The untouched billfold, the silver watch, clearly indicated that it could not be robbery. Revenge was far more likely, but why so peculiar a means of causing death? Did not the murderer realize that its very strangeness might hold a clue to its solution? Did he actually think that he could cover up his tracks simply by using a strange and unknown poison? A glance around at my friend changed the trend of my thoughts.

  Holmes, plunged deep in his waterproof, pipe clenched between his teeth, his long legs stretched out before him, seemed to be dozing all the way to 221B. But I, who knew him better than any other man, knew that he was at work on the problem. Knew that his keen, incisive mind was already balancing alternate theories, fitting the known facts into a clear, concise pattern. We pulled up at last before the door.

  “There’s a gentleman by the name of Mr. Edward Morrison waiting to see you, Mr. Holmes,” cried the page as he admitted us. “Been waiti
ng an ’alf hour, sir.”

  Holmes gave me a swift meaning look. He disliked overlapping cases, and the thought of another at this time nettled him, I could see. We ascended rapidly.

  Our visitor rose as we entered. Holmes immediately apologized for having been delayed, and vanished into his room. I removed my waterproof, trying to appraise the thin young man as I attempted to put him at his ease with a polite phrase or two. Light-haired, he appeared to be in his late twenties. The dark suit he wore seemed to accentuate the paleness of his skin. It was not the pallor of ill health, however, but of those who spend a great deal of their time indoors. He had a pleasant smile, yet the creases of worry were apparent around his light blue eyes. I was about to make some trite reference to the weather when Holmes returned, whipping his old robe about his lank and spare frame, his keen eyes studying him as he introduced himself.

  “Tell me, Mr. Morrison,” he inquired, after we had taken our seats, “do you not find a wind instrument somewhat wearying to one who is evidently none too robust?”

  Holmes seldom overlooked an opportunity to impress his clients with his powers of observation and deduction. He loved to astonish them by a display of his remarkable talents in making swift, analytical studies of their habits, traits or profession. In the present instance, though accustomed to my friend’s extraordinary gifts, I confess to sharing Mr. Morrison’s astonishment. Our new client could only stare in surprise before asking:

  “How on earth did you guess that, Mr. Holmes? No one could have…”

  Sherlock Holmes stopped him with a gesture. The quick smile of pleasure which had come to his lips vanished, and a frown creased his high forehead.

  “Young man,” he said sternly, “I never guess! It is destructive to the inferential faculties, and abhorrent to the trained analytical reasoner. I base my inferences upon a chain of reasoning drawn from the appearance of things.” He stopped to apply a glowing coal to his pipe before resuming. “The links in my chain were forged, Mr. Morrison, by noticing your underlip and your right thumb. On your lip I observed the layer of protective skin left there by the reed; and when we shook hands I distinctly felt the horny ridge on the top knuckle of your thumb.”