by Cavan Scott
“A perfect ring of stitches,” Holmes said, gently attempting to prise the scar apart with his middle and index fingers.
“Stitches?” Tovey repeated. “You mean that Pike – or whoever this is – attempted to slash his wrist and was stitched back together?”
“Suicides tend to stop at the wrist,” I pointed out, “not slice all around the arm.”
“What would produce such an injury, then?” the inspector asked.
“Replantation,” Holmes replied without hesitation. Tovey was still none the wiser. “Which is?”
“Impossible,” I said. “Replantation is the theorised surgical reattachment of a body part.”
Holmes took up the explanation. “Say a farm worker loses an arm in a threshing accident. There are those who believe that one day it will be possible to reattach the limb.”
“What? To sew it back on?”
Holmes nodded. “Reconnecting the vascular system and reattaching both muscle and bone. After a period of recuperation, the patient would be able to use his arm as if it had never been severed from the body. A medical miracle.”
“If the process were ever perfected,” I countered. “Even if muscles and blood vessels could be successfully stitched back together, infection would be inevitable. I have no doubt that one day such an operation may be possible, but not for decades, maybe even centuries.”
“And yet we have Mr Pike’s wrist,” Holmes said, once again examining the scars. “One enigma after another, eh? Whatever your doubts, Watson, even you must recognise the skill demonstrated in such needlework?”
Holmes was right. Whoever had produced such regimented sutures was no mere skilled surgeon; he was an artist. I had never seen work so delicate and yet secure, each stitch perfectly placed along the long white scar that circumnavigated the wrist.
“So, you’re saying that our hand had been severed before and reattached, only to be severed again?”
“Of course not,” Holmes said, bluntly. “That would be, as Watson explained, impossible – although I would think that the good doctor is itching to open up the wrist and see if there are any other signs of replantation beneath the skin.”
Undeniably the thought had crossed my mind. “Perhaps that would be an examination best left to the police pathologist,” I said, however, with a certain regret in my voice.
“Luckily, there is much we can learn from Pike’s hand without resorting to the scalpel,” Holmes said. “You say that it was discovered near Tower Bridge?”
Tovey nodded. “St Katharine Docks, to be precise.”
“The western or eastern basin?” Holmes asked, running his glass over the palm of the hand.
The inspector reached for his notebook, flicking through pages of neat handwriting. “Western,” he eventually reported. “Near the dockmaster’s house. He noticed it while checking the lock, discarded in a clump of weeds according to the first officer on the scene.”
“So that’s where it happened?” I asked. “Whatever it was?”
“I don’t think so, Watson,” Holmes said, passing me the lens once again. “What do you make of these lacerations? Here, across the distal palmar, and also on the thenar eminence.”
I examined the areas Holmes had indicated, first the bridge of skin beneath the fingers and then the cluster of muscle beside the thumb.
“They’re punctures rather than cuts,” I exclaimed, looking back up at my friend. “Bite marks, maybe. Some kind of dog?”
“A Jack Russell, I would suggest,” came the reply, “according to the distance between the wounds. Possibly a Border Terrier at a push.”
I continued my examination. “There’s no sign of inflammation around the marks—”
“Meaning that they were incurred after the hand had been removed from Pike’s body.”
A gruesome thought occurred to me. “Good Lord. Could the hound have been attempting to eat it?”
Holmes dismissed the notion with a shake of his head. “There are no signs of gnawing, although if we turn the hand over we can see similar wounds on the reverse.”
The detective did so, revealing a series of punctures in corresponding areas on the back of the hand.
“Carried then?” I suggested, the image of a small dog, trotting along the Thames with a human hand in its mouth, no less disturbing than the thought of the appendage being chewed.
“That would be my hypothesis,” Holmes agreed.
“So the hand was found by a dog,” said Tovey, his police-trained mind filing the evidence into a plausible course of events, “and transported to the docks.”
“Where it was dropped, ready to be discovered the following morning,” Holmes concluded.
“Then we’re no nearer to understanding where the dratted thing originated,” I sighed, instantly castigating myself. It was all too easy in cases such as this to reduce body parts to objects; mere evidence to be studied and then discarded when their usefulness had passed, a habit I always fought hard to resist. Whether I was in a pathology lab, or examining the mummies of the British Museum, I tried to remember that these things had once been parts of living, breathing people. They were neither artefacts nor evidence; they were human remains, and it was necessary to treat them with respect.
Of course, Holmes would have scoffed at such sentimentality. My friend had elevated professional detachment to an art form. Leaning closer, he held out his palm to me as if I were a nurse assisting at an operation. “Tweezers, Watson.”
Used to his brusqueness, I did as I was asked and watched as Holmes, keeping the tweezers closed, scraped beneath the fingernails.
“A dish if you please, Doctor,” he instructed, and I started to rummage through the pathology cupboards for a petri dish, Holmes hurrying me along.
“Give a man a chance,” I scolded him as I found a stock of glass containers and passed one over. Carefully, he tipped a scrap of dark sludge into the dish.
“Mud?” I enquired.
“Clay. In particular, London Clay of the stratigraphic range associated with the Ypresian age. Naturally it possesses a bluish-grey appearance, which turns brown when weathered.”
“Yes, yes. If you could spare us the geological seminar…”
Holmes sighed. “It’s found throughout the London Basin, from Wiltshire to Essex, but in the capital itself is most likely to be found near the Thames.”
“So our man was working on the river,” Tovey said, “before the hand was removed.”
“A logical conclusion, Inspector.”
“But if the hand was found by a dog…” I pointed out.
“We still have no idea where,” Tovey concluded.
I nodded. “The Thames covers a lot of ground.”
“Which is why I require hydrofluoric and perchloric acids, plus a hearty breakfast,” Holmes announced. “I assume that the pathology department has stores of the former, if not the latter?”
Soon, Holmes, Tovey and I had repaired to a local café for sustenance, while the clay sample settled in a solution mixed by my friend from the two acids. It may appear remarkable that we could even think of food after such a grisly examination, but the exertions of the previous evening and the strange thrill of being back on a case had left me ravenous. As Napoleon himself said, an army marches on its stomach, as do detectives of the law, especially in the case of Inspector Tovey. The amount of food the man could put away was almost as astonishing as the crimes he investigated, although the conversation was light and the friendship we had kindled all those years ago burned as brightly as ever.
Our appetites sated, we returned to the laboratory where Holmes boiled away the liquid, ready for the soil to be dried and filtered.
Then the waiting began anew, as Holmes tested and analysed the sample, while I whiled away the rest of the morning with The Times in Tovey’s office, which I was pleased to report was as neat and tidy as his vast beard was wild and unruly.
It was mid-afternoon before Holmes burst into the office, a large book in one hand and his
results in the other.
“I thought as much,” he enthused. “If I am correct, and I know I am, I can pinpoint the last known location of our mystery hand before it was liberated from its arm.”
“We stand ready to be amazed,” Tovey said, flipping open his notebook in readiness.
Holmes deposited his papers on the desk. “It’s all there for you, Inspector. As I hypothesised, the sample was riverbank clay, and I have found significant traces of both copper and arsenic.”
“Arsenic?” I repeated, concerned by the mention of the deadly poison.
“Do not worry yourself, Doctor,” Holmes said, raising a calming hand. “In this case the chemical comes from an innocent source, if not an eminently wise one. Both copper and arsenic are used in the manufacture of the emerald green dye so beloved of wallpaper manufacturers and even confectioners these days.”
“Arsenic in confectionery?” Tovey exclaimed. “Next you’ll be telling us it’s used in toys.”
“Indeed it is,” Holmes confirmed, “which is why the practice has largely been discontinued. In fact, according to the gazetteer in New Scotland Yard’s surprisingly comprehensive library, only a handful of factories still practise the method.”
“Including one on the Thames?” I suggested.
“Not half a mile from St Katharine Docks,” Holmes revealed triumphantly.
“Then that is where we shall go,” I said, folding my newspaper and slipping it under my arm.
Holmes regarded me with amusement. “Watson, surely you are not telling me you are ready to charge around London on another crusade with me?”
“Someone has to look after you,” I replied. “Especially if you don’t have an umbrella to hand.”
Tovey looked between us in bewilderment. “I’m not going to pretend I know what you’re talking about,” said he, “but I can get a car outside for us in five minutes flat, if you don’t mind an old bloodhound of the law tagging along.”
“Of course not,” Holmes replied. “It is your case after all – and besides, I can hardly see you staying behind when you hear what else I discovered.”
“And that is?” I prompted.
Holmes’s eyes sparkled. “There was something else beneath Pike’s fingernails. A minute trace of a mud from a foreign shore.”
I could guess what was coming as Holmes slammed the book he had been carrying down on the desk, revealing it to be an atlas, full of colourful maps.
He found the page he was looking for and jabbed a finger at the map in question.
“Northern France,” I said, peering over.
“The Douai Plains,” Holmes confirmed. “Now, as we know from personal experience, Watson, the trenches were muddy places indeed.”
“More like hell on earth,” I murmured, trying not to dredge up memories that I had hoped to bury for ever.
“So, it is Pike’s hand?” Tovey asked, dragging me back to the here and now.
“The fingerprints alone tell us that, Inspector,” Holmes replied. “Of the fact that the hand belongs to Samuel Pike there is no doubt. What I want to know is where he has been for the last two years, and how he survived a German bullet to the brain.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
OF MUD AND MURK
Thankfully the rain of the previous day had yet to reappear as Inspector Tovey drove us towards Wapping, although ominous storm clouds were already brewing on the horizon.
I sat up front in the passenger seat, while Holmes watched the streets of the capital speed by from the back. We drove in silence, until Tovey picked up on one of Holmes’s earlier comments.
“So, what did you mean about personal experience of the trenches, Mr Holmes?”
My friend ignored the question.
“I mean,” Tovey continued, pressing the point, “forgive me for saying, but neither of you are of the age to serve on the front line. Unless, Doctor, you were there in your medical capacity?”
Before I could respond, Holmes’s sharp voice rang out from the back seat. “As I am sure you are aware, Inspector, much of what happened during the war remains shrouded in secrecy, for the sake of national security. I would ask you to put my momentary lapse of discretion down to the excitement of the case and never mention it again.”
Tovey mumbled an apology and the car fell into an awkward silence, as far removed from our jovial breakfast earlier that day as London is from the fields of northern France.
Of course, Holmes was correct. Both he and I had been employed by the state on numerous occasions during the war years, serving our country here and abroad. While I was obviously glad to do it, the distressing events I witnessed will haunt me for the rest of my days, far worse even than my experiences in Afghanistan. Fortunately, my involvement was limited to half a dozen cases or so. As for Holmes, even I had no idea of the extent of his wartime service.
The subject had arisen not a few days earlier, when I suggested that Holmes had played a significant role in the defence of our realm.
“I merely played my part, Watson,” he said, “as any Englishman would. The true glory, if one can use such a word, belongs to those brave men who sacrificed their future for ours.”
I had let the subject drop then, as Tovey did now. Thankfully, when we pulled up on Wapping High Street, the atmosphere between the two men lifted as we lost ourselves in the mystery once again.
“This way,” said Holmes, leading us down a narrow alleyway between the Hoop and Grapes public house and the walls of a rag and bone yard. We emerged on the banks of the Thames to find that the tide was thankfully out, silt sloping down to the water’s edge.
“Here we are,” said Tovey, making his way along an uneven pathway to our right. He pointed to a faded sign that hung from a redbrick building on the river’s edge.
ROUD AND COMPANY,
DYE AND PIGMENT MANUFACTURERS
Marching up to the large green doors, the inspector tried a handle only to find the place locked. Cupping one of his hands, he tried to peer through the grimy windows, but it was obvious the factory was empty.
He stepped back onto the walkway of uneven planks and looked up at the dilapidated sign. “You would think they might at least give it a new coat of paint. Not the finest advertisement for their wares, is it?”
Holmes, meanwhile, was examining the clay beneath his feet. It was undoubtedly the same shade as the muck he had found beneath the fingernail of the hand.
“The pigment industry in this country has floundered of late,” Holmes said, wiping his hand on a handkerchief. “Meanwhile, it has positively flourished on the continent, specifically in Germany.” He returned the now mud-smeared cloth to his pocket. “Where do you think the military had to go to buy the khaki pigment needed for British Army uniforms at the beginning of hostilities?”
“Nothing surprises me any more,” Tovey commented. “Where now? The place is shut up.”
I surveyed the stretch of riverbank before us. Most of the buildings were in the same sorry state, many seemingly abandoned if the broken windows and boarded-up doorways were anything to go by. Peace might have been restored, but the country was still suffering, many industries unable to man their workshops and factories, while injured and disenfranchised servicemen huddled unemployed beneath railway bridges. My mind wandered back to those young people dancing with such abandon back at the Mallard Club. Maybe Holmes was right. Maybe you couldn’t blame them for seeking escapism when the real world was so resolutely bleak.
Holmes was also looking up and down the river. I followed his gaze, my eyes resting on another crumbling pile along the bank, its windows without glass and signage long gone. All except for one architectural feature that caught my attention.
“Holmes,” said I. “That building there…” I was already marching down the pathway, the boards shifting beneath my weight.
“What of it?” Tovey asked, following me along the bank. Holmes was matching me step for step and had clearly noticed the same thing.
Above the doorway, chise
lled into a large stone, was a long serpent wound around a staff.
“The Rod of Asclepius,” I said, stopping in front of the building.
“A place of medicine,” agreed Holmes, stooping down to retrieve what at first looked like a length of driftwood, but on closer examination was revealed to be part of an old noticeboard. Holmes’s handkerchief was out again in a flash, this time rubbing a thin layer of grime from the wood to reveal long-obscured words.
“Abberton Hospital,” I read over his shoulder. “Have you ever heard of it?”
“Not before now,” Holmes admitted, “although by its current state, that is hardly surprising. It looks as if it has lain derelict for decades, although bearing in mind the marks on Pike’s wrist bones…”
“A surgical saw,” Tovey chimed in. “But surely no one would be operating in a place like this?”
Holmes regarded the squat building, which in days gone by would have tended those who worked in the surrounding factories. “You would think not. However…”
He thrust the filthy piece of wood into my hands and bent to examine what little could be seen of the step beneath the hospital’s heavy double doors.
“There’s a footprint,” he declared, “or at least half of one, poking out from beneath the doors. Do you see, Watson?”
I replied in the positive, and marvelled that it had not been washed away by yesterday’s rain. Holmes pointed at the stone ledge that extended above our heads.
“The porch would have offered at least some shelter. But details, Watson. Details.”
At first I was puzzled by his remarks, wondering what else I was expected to notice, when my eyes widened. “It’s covered by the door!”
“Meaning that the door must have been opened recently to allow whoever passed this way to leave a mark,” confirmed Holmes. He stood, trying the doors themselves. Like those of the factory, they were locked shut.
“Do you still carry a set of skeleton keys to go with your magnifying glass?” I asked, not relishing the idea of scrambling through any of the windows.
With a snort of frustration, Holmes slapped his palm against the all-too-sturdy wood of the door. “Watson, you appal me. I am an apiarist, not a housebreaker. Besides, I foolishly left them in my suitcase.”
