by william Todd
“You would be correct,” Holmes went on, “and this de minimis may have escaped my eye if it weren’t for the fact that the professor died with a pencil still in his hand.”
I asked, “How could he have known his murderer? His back was turned away from the door. The wound plays that out.”
Holmes casually walked over to the desk. It was then that I understood. I could see distinctly his reflection in the window beyond the desk smiling at me. “You see, Watson, the window and the light from the room make for a wonderful mirror. Professor Austin could see fairly clearly who it was that fired the fatal shot.”
“So, let’s cut to the chase,” Lestrade said. “Who killed the professor?”
Holmes turned from the window. “I need to put things right in my own mind before I reveal the blackguard. Patience, Lestrade. You will have your murderer soon enough. I think it now time to go down and have a chat with the widow to see what light she can shine on the events of this dreadful night. If the conversation goes as I think it shall, Mrs. Austin will give us our murderer shortly.”
He then called over Jefferies and said something to him in hushed tones that, at the time, I could not discern.
Then, we all proceeded down the stairs of the loft. Jefferies continued down the entrance stairs while we went to the sitting room. When he saw us, Constable Parker, who had been leaning against the wall, scratching at his jaw, resumed his dutiful, at-attention stance. He had the guilty look as one who was caught slacking in his duties, although I doubt anyone would have remonstrated him since he had been at the scene since the beginning. Lestrade attempted dismissing him, but Holmes spoke up, “No, please do us the favor, constable, of staying nearby. You have been here from the first, and the widow might feel more at ease knowing you were close at hand. We may also have some questions of you before this matter can be cleared up entirely and we make an arrest.”
His chiseled face wrinkled, and he bore what appeared to be an uncomfortable look. “An arrest? You found the murderer, then?”
“We have,” replied Holmes casually.
The young constable was taken aback. Masculine pride is a fickle thing, especially for someone with virility in abundance. His immediate chase of the man yielded no results, and we had been there for only a short time and already had our man, if only in theory and not yet in actuality. His demeanor articulated an obvious aversion to being shown up.
With that, Holmes, Lestrade, and I went into the sitting room.
The widow, swathed in a plush dressing gown, made more for warmth than appeal, dabbed at her swollen eyes. She was a beautiful young woman, even in this state. Her flaxen locks curled in long waves around a porcelain face. Her blue eyes, glassy with tears, looked bluer in that mournful state, and her dainty freckles could just be discerned due to the flush of her wet cheeks. In her delicate fingers, she held a well-used handkerchief.
“Mrs. Austin, this is Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. I often call them in on unusual cases. They have been a huge help to Scotland Yard over the years. I hope you don’t mind.”
She shook her head, no, and said in a soft Irish accent, “Your reputation precedes you, Mr. Holmes. I am very thankful for any assistance you might offer.” To Lestrade, she then asked, “Did I hear correctly that you have found the murderer of my husband?”
Lestrade spoke up, “Yes, Mrs. Austin. Yes, we did.” He then cleared his throat and shot Holmes that uncomfortable look he always wore when he wasn’t privy to all Holmes’s facts.
My friend then took the lead. “It seemed from the very beginning we were missing some of the facts of this most unusual case. I am hoping you might be able to clear up some of that fog, Mrs. Austin. That would go a long way in proving our suspect. Please tell me everything as you remember it. I apologize for taxing you unduly like this, but it is very important.”
She looked each of us over with sullen eyes then nodded her agreement. “I went to bed a bit early. The weather of late has made for melancholy and I knit to pass the time while my husband works in his laboratory up in the loft.”
“Does he spend much time up there?”
“It is his life, Mr. Holmes. He is married to chemistry, and I am but his mistress. I once shared that same singular obsession for it but gave it up to be a wife and someday a mother.”
“So, you are familiar with the workings of chemistry?”
“Yes, of course. That is how we met. I was once his student.”
“Yes, well, please, continue with this evening.”
“It was a little past nine when I heard what I thought an explosion. I know the time because the clock had just chimed no more than a minute or two before then. I turned the corner to run up the stairs to make sure Harry was alright when someone in a dark mackintosh came running down the stairs with a paper in one hand and a pistol in the other. He knocked me over and ran down the stairs out into the night. After I regained myself, I went up to check on my husband, and he was dead. I screamed, and a moment or two later the constable arrived. He calmed me down, led me to the sitting room, and here I’ve been ever since.”
“Was it raining at the time of the incident?”
“Yes, it had been raining nonstop since midday.”
“Do you know where he keeps his papers?”
She shrugged. “On his desk, I should think.”
“He would not have left any out on a counter somewhere, say within reach of the door to the loft?”
She looked perplexed. “I don’t quite understand.”
“Well, the floor going up the entrance stairs and even to the doorway of the loft was wet, yet the floor in the laboratory itself was dry.”
At this revelation, I thought back. It had never entered my mind the state of the floor in the loft while marveling at the surroundings and the dead man.
“It is entirely possible he would leave a paper lying about absentmindedly. He had been running himself rather thin of late. Late nights in the laboratory, classes the next day and all that.”
“Understood. Entirely possible,” my friend replied with an incredulous conviction in his tone. “Yet, if that missing paper had on it some grand, world-changing experiment the results of which can be readily seen in your husband’s laboratory—the changing of lead into gold, which seems to be the consensus of my colleagues—I doubt very much that he would have just let it sit about the countertops ripe for ruination from a spilled concoction or Bunsen burner flame. I deduce that he would have taken great pains to keep it secret and out of harm’s way.”
She nodded ascent. “As I stated, any important papers he usually has on his desk or in one of its drawers. But I cannot divulge what was on the paper taken for I was not privy to the practicalities of his experiments. Possibly, that paper is not important at all.”
“And you may be onto something, Mrs. Austin,” said Holmes as he shot Lestrade and myself a smug glance. “
“Then there is the time it took for the intruder to leave,” he went on.”
She gave Holmes another doe-eyed stare. “I am still in the dark as to what you are getting at, Mr. Holmes.”
“I surmise a time of approximately thirty seconds to more likely a minute for the murderer to shoot your husband, find that paper—without somehow soiling the floor—and bound down two flights of stairs out into the night.”
“Yes, that sounds about right. I am sure it was less than a minute.”
“Yet, Mr. Montrose across the street was lying in bed reading when he heard the shot. His bed is but ten feet from his window. When he heard the shot, he—as he said himself attests— immediately got up from his bed and went to his window. Allowing a second or two to register the sound then getting up from his bed I propose ten, fifteen seconds at most. At best, that would be about the time the intruder was running down the loft stairs where you encountered him. Yet, when he looked out into the night, he was sure your door was already open, and Constable Parker was giving chase. You see, Mrs. Austin, the time frame doesn’t add up. However,
I will allow that the mind is not trained to remember things precisely in adverse conditions. It is entirely possibly, even probable, that Mr. Montrose took longer to get to the window than he remembered. I also believe the culprit was known by the professor. What brigand would be out on a night like this and just happen upon an unlocked door? Possibly, the two exchanged words in the doorway, and he forcibly took the paper from your husband. Knowing he was outmatched physically; your husband went back to retrieve the pistol he keeps in his desk drawer. There was a struggle, and that is when he was shot, and thus began this whole affair.”
“Yes, that must be it,” Mrs. Austin replied exasperated. “Like I said, I pay no mind to the comings and goings. It happened so frequently of late.”
Lestrade spoke up, brow knitted in confusion, “I saw no pistol in his desk drawer.”
“That is because it was not there,” replied Holmes. “However, there was a faint outline in the dust of the drawer where a pistol had been. Lofts can be notoriously dusty spaces. And with the light at my back, I could see a faint outline of a pistol—a Webley, if I know my firearms.”
I then retorted, “That could not be how the events unfolded. He was sitting at his desk with his back turned when he was shot.”
“Ah, Watson, that brings us finally to the who that I began to explain in the loft. Mrs. Austin, please tell me what sparked your murderous plan? Was it the affair you are having with Constable Parker?”
Her countenance washed in successive waves of fear, panic, and anger. “What on earth would make you think it was I who killed my husband?”
“Precisely, Fiona—may I call you by your given name?—because your husband told me?”
The woman was flabbergasted, and I must say, both Lestrade and myself held similar countenances at the remark.”
“That is outrageous! How could he tell you anything? He is dead.”
“Quite right, but your shot was not an instant kill. He lingered just enough to write your name on this.” He showed her the paper.
“Why it is nothing but a list of elements—fluorine, iodine, oxygen, sodium, gold, sulfur, titanium, nitrogen. I am still in the dark.”
“Tsk, tsk, Mrs. Austin. I should have thought it immediately clear to you how your husband penned his killer. That list is the name of his murderer. As you well know, the Periodic Table of Elements lists all known elements and among other things, abbreviates them into one or two letters. This list of elements can be rewritten using their abbreviations. F for fluorine, I for iodine, O for oxygen, and NA for sodium. Put them together and you have Fiona. Gold is Au, Sulfur is S Titanium is Ti, and Nitrogen is N. Austin. Fiona Austin. There you have it. Your husband hid your name in the table of elements so you could not see later that he had fingered you and dispose of the evidence of your culpability before authorities arrived. But you could not pull this off yourself. You needed help and found it in your lover, Parker.”
Lestrade went to the archway where Parker had been on guard, but he was no longer there. “Bloody hell! Parker has got away. He must have overheard us.” He ran to the top of the stairs and yelled down to the constable at the entrance, “Find Constable Parker! He has been implicated in the murder of Professor Austin.”
It was then that he heard a scuffle in the back of the flat. He and I ran to the kitchen while Holmes stayed with Mrs. Austin. It was here that we found Constable Parker on the floor with Jefferies’ mammoth bulk on top of him. Yet even with his considerable size, he needed the help of another constable to subdue the man.
“Mr. Holmes was right,” Jefferies said to me. “When the game was up, he tried to make his way out the back door, and we were there waiting for him.”
It was here that Holmes with Mrs. Austin in tow came into the room. Her eyes filled with tears once more when she saw her man helpless on the floor. “Please let him go. It was I who killed my husband. It was all of my doing.”
“Don’t do this, Fiona,” Parker grunted. “There is no need for you to face the hangman. I killed him. He was a worthless, hopeless eccentric who spent all his time chasing fairy tales. I did it. I did it for her. How could anyone ignore a jewel such as Fiona? She wanted a family, and he wanted fool’s gold. If he wanted to waste his own life, then I say let him have at it, but he was wasting hers as well. I could not stand it any longer.”
“Only one pulled the trigger,” said I. “Who should be believed?”
Holmes replied waving the paper, “I believe the dead husband.”
“Both can share a rope at the gallows, for all I care,” said Lestrade.
As Lestrade grabbed the woman by the arm, she cried out, “Damn you, Harry! Damn you for my ruination!”
Parker, after having been wrestled back to his feet and handcuffed, spat, “He didn’t deserve to live. That monster even refused divorce. We had no other option but murder.”
“There are always other options, sir,” said my friend. “Murder just happens to be the easiest means to the end you desired.”
Once the pair was removed, Lestrade said, “All we have to do is find the murder weapon, and this case will be wrapped up in a nice, neat bow.”
“I am sure you will find it hidden somewhere within the house but not hidden very well,” said Holmes. “There would have been no need since there was almost no evidence that pointed to her, and they had too small of a window in which to work. My guess would be under a loose floorboard or some such. It should not take much convincing now that they confessed for them to relay its whereabouts.”
“So, what do you make of that setup in the loft?” I asked. “Did he really succeed in turning lead into gold?”
Holmes gave a quick chuckle, “Evidence is not always what it appears, Watson. Given enough clues, one can deduce much. For example, you were correct in your assessment of the lead bar. A weak acid was poured over it giving the appearance of dissolving the bar. The yellow solution dripping over the gold was picric acid, which I noticed among the chemicals in the professor’s cabinet. She had to rearrange things quickly to get it set up just so to look like it was following some systematic flow from the lead to the gold, and she did it marvelously. She had obviously been planning this for some time, probably experimenting with different arrangements and chemicals while her husband was at university, and her knowledge in chemistry helped her to that end.”
“And the gold in the flask?” I asked.
“Ah, yes, the piece de resistance: the gold in the flask was a gold filling from a tooth Constable Parker had removed. That was cunning, I must say. The swelling, though diminishing was still noticeable, and at least once I noticed the constable playing at his jaw tentatively. No doubt the extraction site is still sore. A quick look inside his mouth will bear this out.”
As we all walked out of the kitchen together, Holmes added, “The plan was almost flawless. Had Mrs. Austin not been so hesitant in her aim and hit the heart she was no-doubt targeting, this might have had a better ending for them.”
“How did you know they were having an affair?” I asked.
“Love always seems to have in its grasp those who perpetrate this kind of crime, Watson. That is why I stay clear of the sentiment. It has its uses but can very easily stray into darker realms.”
“I’ve gotten used to your ways, Holmes,” Lestrade said in a satisfied tone. “There was once a time where I would be fuming for missing what is so obvious to you. But I am interminably grateful that we are on the same side, and I count myself lucky to have the relationship we have where I can call upon you at all hours of the night for your help. In the end, catching the guilty is all that matters.”
“Amen to that,” said I. It was then that I felt a tickling at my nose then let loose with a resounding sneeze. In that immediate aftermath, I noticed for the first time that I felt a bit drained.
“Watson, you do not look well. We shall leave you to finish up here, Lestrade. Watson needs the comforts of Baker Street and a hot cup of honey tea. I think he has got your cold.”
“Whatever you do,” remarked the inspector, “steer clear of the porous plaster.”
The End
The Problem at Witney
The summer morning was a warm and bright one. I had made up my mind, as I roused myself from my bed, to spend the day roaming Portman Square Garden, taking in the rare, beautiful London day. That is until I left my bedroom and saw Sherlock Holmes sitting at his desk with the window open, sipping tea and reading a telegram. When he looked upon me, a glint in his eager eyes, I knew straight away that he had other plans.
“Beautiful day, is it not, Watson?” he seemed to say with an air more of propriety than actuality.
I eyed my friend with some open suspicion as I went to the tray Mrs. Hudson had brought up and poured myself a cup of tea. “It is,” I replied.
“Did you have any plans for the day?” he asked.
“None that cannot be broken,” I replied, sipping my tea. Nodding to the telegram I asked, “Lestrade find something to pique your interest?”
“No, no,” Holmes replied as he rose from the seat and handed me the telegram. “It seems the agreeable weather of late has tamed even the wild animals of London. This is from one Milton Hughes. He is the owner of a hotel in Witney, just west of Oxford.”
He handed me the telegram and began relaying its contents as I tried to read along. I eventually put the telegram down and let him explain it to me, which seemed his real intention from the first. “It seems one of Mr. Hughes’ lodgers, a Francis Erdley, has been found murdered in his room, and a necklace of quite some value, a gift for his sister whom he was on his way to see, has been stolen. The distraught hotel owner has asked for my help in the matter, as it would be a black mark on his business should this not come to a fruitful conclusion.”