The Science of Sherlock Holmes: From Baskerville Hall to the Valley of Fear, the Real Forensics Behind the Great Detective's Greatest Cases

by E. J. Wagner

  • George McWatters, originally from the British Isles, was a member of the New York Metropolitan Police. In his memoirs of 1871, he described searching for a swindler who was believed to be missing a finger joint. He located the suspect, who had hidden his deformity for years by use of a cleverly made wax finger joined to his hand by a large and valuable ring. McWatters kept the wax finger as a souvenir. The ring, alas, disappeared.

  • In the Sherlock Holmes story “Silver Blaze,” a racehorse is disguised to hide its identity. In 2003, a Chicago-area veterinarian tried to hide the appearance of a stolen dark gray gelding named San Diego by spraying the animal’s white legs and facial blaze with caustic black paint. The horse’s face was blistered as a result. The vet was charged with grand theft and burglary. The unfortunate horse was left with scars.

  • During World War II, a secret apartment in London was maintained by the office of the Special Operations Executive. Within it, operatives created false documents and designed elaborate disguises for use by British undercover agents. The apartment was located at number 64 Baker Street.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Crime Scene by Gaslight

  “Nothing has been touched up to now… . I’ll answer for that. You see it all exactly as I found it.”

  —Cecil Baker in The Valley of Fear

  When examining the scene of a crime, Sherlock Holmes exhibits an amazing intensity of concentration and passion for detail. In the first Holmes story published, A Study in Scarlet, Watson describes Holmes’s approach:

  [H]e whipped a tape measure and a large round magnifying glass from his pocket. With these two implements he trotted noiselessly about the room, sometimes stopping, occasionally kneeling, and once lying flat upon his face. So engrossed was he with his occupation that he appeared to have forgotten our presence, for he chattered away to himself under his breath the whole time, keeping up a running fire of exclamations, groans, whistles, and little cries suggestive of encouragement and of hope. As I watched him I was irresistibly reminded of a pureblooded, well

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  trained foxhound, as it dashes backward and forward through the covert, whining in its eagerness, until it comes across the lost scent. For twenty minutes or more he continued his researches, measuring with the most exact care the distance between marks.

  At just about the same time Conan Doyle was writing those words in England, across the sea in Vienna, Hans Gross, the brilliant professor of criminology, was composing the standards for investigating what he called “the Scene of the Offence.”

  “The first duty of the investigator,” he wrote in his Handbuch für Untersuchungsrichter (Manual for Examining Magistrates), published in English as Criminal Investigation, is to “observe absolute calm.” Further, it is vital to remember one inviolable rule: “Never alter the position of, lift, or touch any object before it has been described in a detailed written record.”

  Like Holmes, Gross believed you must have strictly accurate and complete data before reaching a conclusion. To this end, he required that at a crime scene, the investigator keep in mind that anything and everything may be of importance. He stressed that absolutely nothing is too small to have a bearing on the case.

  Gross insisted that the position of objects at the scene be preserved until sketched or, if possible, photographed. Footprints should be covered with boxes to preserve them. The exact distance between objects at the scene, the furniture, doors, windows, and so forth, must be noted in writing and by diagrams. Dr. Gross devoted pages to describing the care needed to transport evidence from the crime scene to the laboratory. Anything that needed to be changed in any way, such as floorboards that needed to be cut for removal, had to be drawn or photographed before they were altered. Body parts or fluids were to be placed in separate containers free of preservatives and clearly labeled.

  There were strict rules as well for the handling of evidence once it arrived at the laboratory or mortuary. If essential parts of the crime scene had been moved to a scientific setting, great care was to be exercised to keep them from contamination.

  Even negative facts were important, Gross wrote. If, for instance, blood was present at a murder scene, but a washbasin at the location was free of bloody water, that fact must be included in the detective’s notes, as it indicates that the assailant may have left the scene with blood still marking his hands. What did not happen is every bit as important as what did.

  This stress on the value of negative facts quickly calls to mind the famous moment in “Silver Blaze” when the Great Detective is asked:

  “Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

  “To the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime.”

  “The dog did nothing in the nighttime.”

  “That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.

  But the concern for careful analysis at a crime scene did not originate with either the factual Gross or the fictional Sherlock. Fifty years before, Eugène François Vidocq, writing about the early days of the Sûreté in his Memoirs, described his investigation of a crime scene:

  The most minute exactitude had been observed in removing the body. Nothing had been neglected which might lead to the discovery of the assassins. Accurate impressions were taken of the footmarks; buttons, fragments of paper dyed in blood were carefully collected: on one of these pieces which appeared to have been hastily torn off to wipe the blade of a knife found at no great distance from it, were observed some written characters… . [A] second morsel was picked up which presented every appearance of being part of an address… . The following words were deciphered;—A Monsieur Rao— Marchand de vins bar,— Roche—.

  The body of the victim, whose name was Fontaine, was removed for examination to the hospital. The physicians and Vidocq were amazed to discover that although the victim bore twenty-eight stab wounds, he was still alive. Exhausted from loss of blood, he was nevertheless able to haltingly report that there had been two attackers with whom he had struggled, and that he was certain he had wounded one of them in the leg. They had made off with his moneybag.

  Vidocq noted that he carefully studied the torn bits of paper found at the scene and concluded that the writing on them was a name and an address. “Rao” he thought might be the beginning of “Raoul.” “Marchand de vins” indicated a wine merchant, and the rest of the words fit the address of such an establishment not too far away. Vidocq postulated that the full phrase had been “Marchand de vins, Barrière Rochechouart.” He sent undercover operatives to study the place.

  They reported that two men, one with a limp from what seemed to be a recent injury, were seen several times at the wine merchant’s shop. They had been spending freely. One of the men was known as Raoul.

  A search of the premises disclosed recently washed clothes with traces of what appeared to be blood. The lame man’s wound corresponded to the description of the injury the victim said he inflicted on the assailant. Vigorously questioned by Vidocq, the suspects confessed.

  This story has appeared in a number of versions of Vidocq’s Memoirs. The details vary and are very likely embroidered. But it is certain that the details of the crime scene, the description of the paper fragment, and the deciphering of the words upon it were available in the English translation of the Memoirs sold in London by 1859. We cannot be certain that Conan Doyle was familiar with Vidocq’s story, but it is intriguingly reminiscent of the written clue that appears at the crime scene described by Watson in A Study in Scarlet:

  [T]he paper had fallen away in parts. In this particular corner of the room a large piece had peeled off, leaving a yellow square of coarse plastering. Across this bare space there was scrawled in blood-red letters a single word—

  RACHE

  Sherlock Holmes examines this clue carefully with his magnifying glass, “going over every letter of it with the most minute exactness.” In Conan Doyle’s tale as well as in Vidocq’s, painstaking consideration of a mysterious word is a vital st
ep to the solution.

  Clearly, by the late nineteenth century, the need for a systematic approach to a crime scene had been expressed in academic papers and in literature. But that was theory. In practice, a less rigorous approach often prevailed.

  In the late summer and early fall of 1888 (just a year after the first publication of A Study in Scarlet), a series of hideous mutilation-murders of prostitutes gripped Londoners in a state of titillated horror. Prostitutes had been found murdered in London before, of course, but not in so bloody a fashion. In addition, literacy was increasingly common, creating a wide readership for the penny dreadfuls that happily published and embellished the gory and terrifying details that riveted public attention.

  A number of probably fraudulent letters were sent to the police boasting of the crimes and flaunting the signature “Jack the Ripper.” News of these added to the panic.

  Among historians there is disagreement as to exactly how many women were victims of the Ripper, but most concur that the five who were killed between August 31 and November 8 of 1888 within the same half-mile in the slum of Whitechapel were the prey of that killer.

  The first four corpses, all with throats cut, were found outdoors in public areas. The flayed cadaver of the last victim, Mary Jane Kelly, was found on the bed of her small room. An assortment of her body parts were scattered about the chamber. All of the victims were killed in the dark hours of early morning.

  The exterior settings, and the dim light by which the bodies were first discovered, would have made containment and examination of the scenes difficult even if all the police involved had been highly trained. It is clear that although there were a number of dedicated investigators attached to the Ripper cases, lack of funding and training for support staff meant that the evidence was often treated with an impressive lack of scientific organization.

  Many of the original documents of the Ripper inquest have been lost, but a number of newspapers, including the Times of London and the Daily Telegraph, printed detailed accounts of the testimony. Since the stories agree in all but an occasional choice of words, we are safe in accepting the accuracy of their reports. These bear witness to an often chaotic investigation.

  In the case of Mary Ann (Polly) Nichols, usually counted as the Ripper’s first victim, the corpse, having been superficially examined at the scene by a physician, was moved to the mortuary. One investigator, Detective-Sergeant Enright, being deposed, stated that the mortuary workers had stripped the body:

  The Coroner [the government official whose job it was to lead the inquest] asked, “Had they any authority to strip the body?”

  Enright: “No, sir; I gave them no instructions to strip it. In fact, I told them to leave it as it was.”

  The Coroner: “I don’t object to their stripping the body, but we ought to have evidence about the clothes.”

  As the inquest continued, it became apparent that no logical method had been applied in moving the corpse or in collecting the clothes and other physical evidence. The “mortuary attendants” were totally untrained inmates of the workhouse, that Victorian repository for indigent souls who were forced into all manner of repellent work in exchange for bare sustenance. With no idea of proper procedure, they had made no notes, labeled no evidence, and had only vague recollections of what they had done, as we see from the following exchange between the coroner and the “keeper” of the mortuary:

  Question: “Had you been told not to touch it? [the body]”

  Answer: “No.”

  Question: “Did you see the Inspector?”

  Answer: “I can’t say.”

  Question: “Was he present?”

  Answer: “I can’t say.” …

  Question: “You cannot describe where the blood was?”

  Answer: “No, sir; I cannot.”

  The coroner evaluated the testimony for the jury: “It appears the mortuary-keeper is subject to fits, and neither his memory nor statements are reliable.”

  The coroner was at pains to state publicly that the mortuary and its keeper were inadequate. “The mortuary is not fitted for post mortem examination. It is only a shed. There is no adequate convenience [washing facilities] … as a matter of fact there is no public mortuary from the City of London up to Bow.”

  The coroner, still trying for a coherent approach, said to one of the investigating officers, an Inspector Helson, “I hope the police will supply me with a plan [a crime scene drawing]. In the country, in cases of importance, I always have one.”

  Helson informed him, “We shall have one at the adjourned hearing.”

  The coroner gloomily replied, “By that time we should hardly need one.”

  In the case of Elizabeth Stride, one of two women murdered on September 30, 1888, the coroner, questioning the constable who responded to the scene, received less than precise results:

  Question: “Was there anything to prevent a man escaping while you were examining the body?”

  Answer: “Several people were inside and outside the gates, and I think that they would be sure to observe a man who had marks of blood… .”

  Question: “But supposing he had no marks of blood?” Answer: “It was quite possible, of course for a person to escape while I was examining the corpse.”

  Catherine Eddoes, the second victim on September 30, was found dead at Mitre Square, but a piece of her bloodstained apron was discovered not far away on Goulston Street. Above the apron was a wall that bore a graffito in chalk. It read, “The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing.”

  Sir Charles Warren, in charge of the Metropolitan Police, insisted that the slogan be removed immediately for fear it would foment anti-Jewish riots. Evidently, the thought of covering the word “Juwes” until a photograph could be taken did not strike him as helpful, and another piece of evidence was lost.

  If the investigation of the Ripper murders had been carried out with the rigorous methods advocated by Vidocq, Gross, and their fictional descendant, Sherlock Holmes, the killer might have been identified. But witnesses wandered through the crime scene, evidence was mishandled, and facilities for postmortem examination were primitive. As Sherlock Holmes remarked in A Study in Scarlet, “If a herd of buffaloes had passed along, there could not be a greater mess.”

  The series of murders ended with the killing of Mary Jane Kelly on November 8, 1888. There had been a great deal of investigation and vigorous, ghoulish speculation, but no solution to the crimes. Jack the Ripper has provided fodder for many literary efforts—some factual, some fictional, and some fraudulent. In spite of imaginative claims to the contrary, the case remains unsolved.

  The debacle of the Ripper investigation demonstrated that the procedure at the crime scene and the proper securing of physical evidence were of enormous importance. No matter how adept a pathologist, how clever a detective, their usefulness would always be determined by the skill and integrity of the professionals at the scene.

  In spite of this famous example, crime scenes continued to be casually mishandled. In 1903, a series of animal mutilations in the English rural district of Great Wyrley appalled the public. Over the course of half a year, horses and cattle were found dead with long, shallow wounds in their abdomens. The cuts were not deep enough to penetrate major organs, so the animals slowly exsanguinated. The mutilations all occurred in the darkness of night.

  Suspicion fell on a young solicitor named George Edalji, largely because he was a dark-skinned man of Asian descent and therefore was resented by the highly insular community. In spite of the fact that Edalji was a member of the Anglican Church (indeed, his father was the local vicar), many of the townspeople believed the crimes were part of a bizarre, primitive religious ritual. After roughly fifteen animals were found dead, the police were pressured to act, and the house in which Edalji lived with his parents was searched. Anything that might be suspected of being evidence—razors with brown stains, a shirt belonging to the suspect, his mud-stained boots—was seized. The items were not carefull
y sealed or labeled.

  In short order, the police announced that the shirt was found to be covered with horsehairs that matched those of a recently deceased pony and that blood was found on a shirt. The mud on Edalji’s boots was still wet. Several threatening letters had been sent to the Edalji family. The police insisted they had been written by the suspect himself. A handwriting “expert” concurred, in spite of the fact that witnesses swore Edalji was sitting in their view when the letters were pushed under the door. Edalji was tried and sentenced to seven years of prison at hard labor.

  Many journalists were uneasy about the accuracy of the investigation and kept the case alive on the editorial pages. In 1906, without explanation by the court and after the slightly built prisoner had spent three grim years hacking at rocks, Edalji was released. As his conviction was allowed to stand, he could not practice his profession. He filled time by working as a clerk and writing an article about his experience.

  Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous Sherlock Holmes tale “Silver Blaze,” which was published in 1892, had hinged on the attempted nighttime mutilation of a racehorse on an open moor. Perhaps that is one reason that a story about the Edalji case originally caught Conan Doyle’s eye. But his attention was held by the ethical issues involved.

  Appalled by what he considered an obvious case of injustice and racial prejudice, Conan Doyle carefully went over the evidence. He visited the crime scene. Even after three years, the truth was obvious. The horsehair had been transferred to the shirt because the police had wrapped the shirt in a piece of horsehide from the dead animal. The razor stains were rust. The blood on the shirt consisted of three tiny drops—clearly an animal severely cut would have bled a great deal more. The mud on Edalji’s boots did not match the mud in the field where the pony died. The handwriting “expert” had given grossly inaccurate testimony in a previous case that had led to the incarceration of a completely innocent man.

  Finally, Conan Doyle, who had been trained as an ophthalmologist, examined Edalji. He found him to be severely myopic, so much so that it would have been impossible for him to have located a pony in the dark, let alone to have sliced the animal’s abdomen.