Sherlock Holmes--The Legacy of Deeds

by Nick Kyme

  “This girl, Holmes. Do you think she had something to do with what happened to Mrs Sidley?” I asked. “For one so young to be involved in something so heinous… surely not.”

  “I make no assumptions at this stage, Watson. None. Certainly, we must discover her identity. Even with that information, several pieces yet remain.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ONE FOR THE NOOSE

  The next morning we rose early. I found I could barely sleep during the night, my dreams fraught with the false memories of sharks and their cold, dead eyes staring at me from their deep and silent places.

  As wretched as I felt, Holmes’s mood bordered on ebullient.

  “Do you know, Watson,” he said, as we left the cottage and headed towards the school, “I believe your theory about the beneficial effects of the country on the humours could have some basis in fact after all!” He took a deep breath of the clear morning air. The mist was still rising off the fields and shrouded the school in fog, though one utterly unlike what we were both used to seeing in London.

  I grumbled, my own humours decidedly out of balance, and trudged after Holmes to the school.

  Miss Blanchard was waiting for us at the main entrance, clearly as much a chaperone as a guide, and bid us a good morning before ushering us inside. Holmes said nothing of the conversation with Mr Derrick the previous evening, seemingly content to exchange mild, if slightly awkward, pleasantries with Miss Blanchard on matters ranging from the clement weather to the history of the school.

  Much like the road leading up to it, there were signs of disrepair within the school too. As we passed through the various corridors, I saw little of the pupils who, Miss Blanchard informed us, were having their morning lessons. I formed the distinct impression she wished the matter of our visit resolved quickly and quietly, and with every step we took that brought us closer to the place where Mrs Sidley had taken her own life, she grew more agitated.

  “I do not know what you hope to find,” she said as we reached the door to what I assumed had been Mrs Sidley’s office. “Everything has been left as it was, though.” She unlocked the door and pushed it open. “Please be respectful of her things, and don’t wander the halls.”

  “I must ask you, Miss Blanchard,” said Holmes, as she was about to be on her way, “who found her and in what manner?”

  She paled a little in that moment, and before she gave her answer I felt I knew what she would say. “I did, Mr Holmes. Mrs Sidley would sometimes work late into the night. Despite her faults, there was no one who toiled like she did. I think it helped her to forget.”

  “Her husband?” I asked.

  Mrs Blanchard nodded. “I believe so, yes.”

  “It was evening when you found her then?” asked Holmes.

  “No. I went to my bed, with Mrs Sidley still at her desk. She was drinking a strong, bitter tea that kept her alert well into the evening hours. I bid her goodnight and she gave a brusque reply, barely looking up from her cup. I had learned not to take offence at her ways. I found her the next morning.” Miss Blanchard was wringing her hands now and I had to fight the urge to go and comfort her, but her gaze held a warning that she would brook no such display of weakness, not here, in her school.

  “Tell me, Miss Blanchard,” Holmes pressed, and I wanted to reproach him for his apparent callousness in the pursuit of truth, “did she seem to you an unhappy woman?”

  Her composure slowly returning, Miss Blanchard paused to consider the question. “I believe she did, yes, Mr Holmes. But I must reaffirm she was a dedicated teacher, whatever might be said of her methods.”

  “And did she strike you as someone who might take their own life?”

  Again, she considered the question, the sheer resolve it took to answer it written plainly on her face. “She wallowed in her misery, Mr Holmes, and that’s the honest truth of it. But Mrs Sidley was many things, and a coward was not amongst them.”

  “I see.”

  “I do not believe she would do such a thing, certainly not here at the school. No, Mr Holmes, Dr Watson, I do not. Yet, I am confronted with the proof of my own eyes, and it is a sight I shall never forget, though I wish it were otherwise.” Miss Blanchard raised her chin a little, perhaps out of pride, perhaps in defiance of her own grief. “If that is all?”

  Holmes said it was, and I was relieved at the end of the interrogation, however mild it had been.

  “I shall return within the hour,” Miss Blanchard informed us. “I trust that will be ample time to conduct your work?”

  “Perfectly ample, Miss Blanchard,” I said, and we entered the office of the not so dearly departed Mrs Sidley. It was a sparsely appointed office, well ordered but utterly bereft of warmth or comfort. I had seen more inviting cells in Pentonville, such was its bare austerity.

  A little paperwork—marking and the like—sat upon the desk where Mrs Sidley had left it. A chair sat behind it and appeared functional and stout. It looked particularly hard and unyielding and I could imagine Mrs Sidley enduring it, rather than sitting in it, straight-backed, glowering at her pupils, their schoolwork like offerings to appease a cruel deity.

  A cabinet stood in one corner of the room, though a cursory examination revealed nothing of interest to my companion. The only meagre light came from a small window behind the desk, shuttered at present, though the catches for the shutters looked seldom used and I assumed the room was usually swathed in shadows.

  I noticed a lamp, doused of course, its glass housing cold to the touch. A bookcase flanked the desk, opposite the cabinet, a thin veneer of dust like a funerary veil upon the spines of all the books.

  In addition to the papers on Mrs Sidley’s desk, there was a cup and saucer. Both were small and without decoration. I stooped over it to peer inside the cup, then sniffed the tea dregs within, which had dried to a dark stain.

  “Smells like kippers,” I said, screwing up my face.

  Holmes licked his finger, then used it to wet the stain and dabbed it experimentally against his tongue.

  “A black-leafed variety,” he said. “Quite bitter. Lapsang, from the Wuyi region of Fujian.”

  I glanced at my companion, amazed at the breadth of his knowledge. “I’ve never heard of it, Holmes.”

  “It’s not difficult to procure, but quite unusual,” he explained. “This variety has an incongruous aftertaste. A tincture of passiflora, I believe. Passion flower.”

  “A herbal sedative,” I said, familiar with its usage.

  “Indeed, Watson.”

  “An aid to sleep, perhaps?” I suggested.

  “Or something less innocent…” countered Holmes. He began to examine the other objects on Mrs Sidley’s desk. The only personal items were a picture frame and a small cloth-bound journal. The frame was made from simple brass. Modestly decorative, it held a photograph of a woman I assumed to be Mrs Sidley. She was not exactly how I had pictured her. I expected a towering woman, a gorgon of sorts, but what I saw in the photograph was someone small, young and slight. She could not have been much taller than most of her pupils. Her eyes, though, even in the faded photograph, were piercing and bright. She possessed a fierceness that I think must have made up for her diminutive stature and enhanced her presence far beyond her mere size. She stood ramrod straight—I had known decorated sergeant majors with less regimented posture—her chin raised proudly and her hands clasped in front of her.

  Alongside her was a man I took to be her late husband. Much like his wife, he looked austere and serious. He wore a light suit, his hands behind his back. Staring at the faded image, I could not picture either of them smiling, for it would be such an incongruous expression on faces almost chiselled from stone.

  As I examined the photograph, Holmes had been leafing through the journal. “What do you make of this, Watson?” he said, handing me the book at an open page.

  It was plainly a diary of sorts, comprising notes about the various pupils, the lessons Mrs Sidley intended to impart, attendance and the
like. One note in particular caught my eye, and I assumed it was this to which Holmes intended to direct my attention.

  The girl continues to be obstinate. Today her insolence grew such that she thought to challenge me in front of the other pupils. I have no doubt she was mouthing obscenities under her breath as I applied the cane.

  I shall have order in my own classroom, irrespective of her benefactor’s influence. She is a child, admittedly a gifted one, but I will not suffer her blatant disregard for my authority and general disrespect. I am determined to beat this wanton defiance out of her.

  This evening I have arranged a special punishment, the scrubbing of the refectory floor, and the washing and cleaning of every dish, cup, knife and fork therein. I estimate it will take her all night, and I intend to supervise every moment of it.

  The girl shall come to understand who is in charge. She will learn respect and defer to her betters. To that end, I have asked Mr Derrick to procure several more suitable canes, for I have a strong belief I shall be in need of them before the year is out.

  “A battle of wills, it would seem,” I said, setting the journal down again. “This benefactor, it can only be Graves surely? His influence, the money he was giving to the school?”

  “Quite the contrary, Watson. It could be one of any number of benefactors. There is no outward evidence that this is Graves.” Holmes paused, deep in thought. His gaze was on the shuttered window and the weak beams of light it admitted. “What do you see, Watson? Cast your eye upwards.”

  Following the direction of my companion’s gaze, my eyes alighted upon a low beam, one of the several that supported the ceiling.

  “Do you notice anything unusual?” Holmes asked.

  I squinted. “There is a mark on this one,” I replied, indicating the beam directly above the desk where we were standing.

  “Indeed. A lightening of the wood, as if from wear and tear, though I think something else made this mark.”

  “A rope,” I said, catching on.

  “Friction to be precise. If you would, Watson…” Holmes set himself at one end of the desk and took a firm hold. Understanding my companion’s plan, I grabbed the other end, Holmes pulling and I pushing, and between us we managed to move the heavy desk aside.

  “Good lord, Holmes,” I said, my face hot with effort. “A tad robust.”

  “Not unlike Mrs Sidley, from every account.” Holmes returned to stand beneath the beam and carefully scrutinised it.

  After a few additional moments of introspection, he began to cast his gaze about the floor, where, for the first time, I noticed a great many scuffmarks. I remembered what Mr Derrick had said about Mrs Sidley’s shoes; the loud clacking heels that presaged her approach and sent her pupils scattering.

  Holmes moved in a widening gyre, beginning at a fixed point and spiralling outwards. His attention moved to the desk, then to the chair, then back to the floor. He sank to his knees, producing a small magnifying glass from his jacket pocket at the same time, looking hither and thither with his instrument.

  “What is it, Holmes? What have you seen?”

  “It is entirely what I haven’t seen, Watson, that I find most interesting.” He sprang back to his feet. “Here,” he said, jabbing his finger at the desk, “and here,” at the chair.

  “I don’t follow, Holmes. What am I missing?”

  “It is what Mrs Sidley’s furniture is missing, Watson. Observe. The floor of this room is marred by umpteen heel marks, a fact that leads me to believe that the deceased was prone to pacing. Not only that, but it was her habit to wear a pair of rather unique shoes, as we already know. Now, consider the beam.” He gestured to it. “How high would you say that is, Watson?”

  “No less than nine feet,” I said, having to gauge by eye.

  “Eight feet and nine inches,” said Holmes.

  “Not an insignificant height,” I remarked.

  “Indeed not, Watson. Neither desk nor chair has any mark upon it, which strongly suggests that either Mrs Sidley removed her shoes to stand upon one or the other to reach the beam, or that she did not stand upon them at all. I find the former explanation unlikely. For if she were contemplating suicide, I cannot imagine she would have had the presence of mind to remove her shoes, though I am sure Miss Blanchard can corroborate whether she was shod when her body was found. The latter then seems more probable, but insists the question, how did Mrs Sidley hang herself without the elevation of either her desk or her chair?”

  I scratched my head. “I cannot say, Holmes.”

  “The markings on the wooden beam are more prominent here,” he said, indicating the left side. “And here, scratched into the floor a little farther to the left of the beam is another mark, this one longer and inconsistent with those left by Mrs Sidley’s shoes.” I duly inspected both markings and did, indeed, find them to be distinctive just as Holmes had described, though I sincerely doubt I would have noticed them had Holmes not pointed them out.

  “What does it all mean?” I asked.

  Holmes smiled grimly. “Much like Miss Blanchard, I do not believe Mrs Sidley took her own life. I believe she was murdered, but was first administered a soporific without her knowledge to make her pliant.”

  “The passiflora,” I said.

  Holmes nodded. “The strong and fragrant lapsang tea would have masked any unfamiliar scent or flavour. Thus sedated, a noose was then tied about her neck before she was hoisted up over the beam.”

  “Good lord, Holmes. That’s appalling.”

  “Murder always is, Watson. Here, these scuff marks are from a second individual, almost certainly the murderer, bracing themselves to hoist Mrs Sidley off the ground.”

  “Not an insignificant feat, even given her small stature,” I said.

  Holmes nodded. “A strong man could have accomplished such a task easily enough or a small woman, given the use of the beam as a hoist. After ensnaring the unfortunate Mrs Sidley, the herbal tincture robbing her of any resistance, it would have been relatively straightforward for our murderer to have tied off the rope to the leg of the desk.”

  Holmes crouched down to inspect it.

  “Here,” he said, allowing me enough room to lean in and see what he had found, “a faint mark in the wood. Evidence of friction, not unlike that which we saw on the beam.”

  “Well,” I said, straightening again, “that desk certainly feels heavy enough to bear the weight of a woman of Mrs Sidley’s size.”

  “I concur, Watson. I imagine she would have awoken before the end, but by then it would have been too late, her struggles in vain. She was, to all intents and purposes, hanged by the neck until dead.”

  “Ghastly, Holmes. But surely the manner in which Mrs Sidley was discovered would have aroused suspicion of foul play?”

  “I can think of but one possible explanation to obscure the fact that the murderer used such a method of lethal elevation, an explanation that a simple visit to the morgue will almost certainly confirm.”

  “What explanation is that, Holmes?”

  “Once certain all life had left Mrs Sidley, I believe the murderer tied a second noose to the beam and slipped it around the victim’s neck. Easy enough for even a competent coroner to miss, but I am certain that Mrs Sidley’s neck will bear not one, but two marks of ligature, overlapping but not entirely contiguous with one another. Once the second rope was secured, thus taking the weight of the body, the first, the hoist, could be cut and removed, thus obscuring any obvious suspicion of foul play.”

  I rubbed my forehead at the sheer fiendishness of it all. “Utterly devilish, Holmes. But how would the murderer be able to reach such a height in order to tie and hang the second rope?”

  “First we must rule out the desk as a potential means of elevation. It is approximately two foot six inches in height. Given the height of the beam, in order to reach up high enough to tie a second rope, our murderer would have had to be at least six foot three inches tall. However, by fully extending the arms, one might gain a
n additional ten inches or so, which leaves our murderer at a minimum height of five foot five inches tall.”

  “The approximate height of our figure in black,” I said.

  “Indeed, an individual approximately five foot five inches tall and standing upon the desk, arms fully extended, could reasonably reach a height of around eight foot nine inches.”

  “High enough to reach the beam,” I said.

  “Or a little higher if our murderer were, say, five foot seven inches, rather than five foot five. Not impossible, but difficult. Fully extended, standing atop the desk, without shoes to provide additional height as there is no mark to suggest it, it would have been far from easy to tie off a knot.”

  “Granted, but then what are you suggesting, Holmes?”

  “Allow me to explain. Do you remember the figure in black?”

  “Vividly, Holmes.”

  “And do you also recall the manner in which she evaded us on Tavistock Street?”

  “Like a spider, the way she scaled that wall.”

  “A feat far more impressive than climbing up a simple wooden beam,” he said, and tapped his foot against a beam that fed up the wall to those bracing the ceiling above. “Indeed, I dare venture even you or I could at least climb part of the way without any training or acrobatic skill whatsoever.”

  “I do hope you’re not expecting a demonstration, Holmes.”

  “Rest assured I am not, Watson. What would seem inconceivable to any ordinary person would be natural to someone in possession of the acrobatic abilities we witnessed. Furthermore, look here,” said Holmes, and gestured to a specific part of the beam with his stick. “A handprint, small and barely visible, the size consistent with that of a female.”

  And now Holmes had pointed it out, I did see it.

  “Good heavens! Is it the same killer, or at least one who possesses the same uncanny ability? But what of the second rope?”

  Holmes arched an eyebrow. “How do you remove the murder weapon from the scene of the crime without anyone seeing you do it?”