Another minute passed. “Holmes,” I called again and, receiving no answer, stepped into the room.
As though my crossing the threshold had released him from an enchantment, his head snapped in my direction.
“Watson,” he said quietly. “What do you see?”
I looked around the room, trying to think as Holmes would, to convert the crumpled copies of old newspapers, the bottles of wine, the cigar butts and cigarette ends into a series of connected lines which, in a certain light, might be read like the description in a police report.
“These are bachelor’s rooms,” I smiled. “I can say with some authority that a wife would not allow such a mess.” It was, I felt, a solid start. Unfortunately, however, and try as I might, I could create no useful theories from the items to hand. Much deflated, I admitted as much to Holmes.
“Do not look so despondent, Watson,” he chided me. “You are undoubtedly correct that these are bachelor apartments, though I think we might go a little further than that. Not merely an unmarried man but one with recent financial difficulties caused by miscalculations in certain sporting wagers, which have necessitated a degree of cutting back on domestic expenses. A necessity of which he is embarrassed, and which he would rather not advertise.” He reached across and pulled several newspapers towards himself.
Horton, who had followed me inside, had listened to this short speech with a look of profound annoyance.
“How can you possibly know that?” he now asked.
“Someone in rooms as well appointed as these would generally employ at least a daily maid, I would say—” In the corner of my eye I could see Horton shrugging unenthusiastically, but before he could say anything more, Holmes went on, “—but Mr. Bruce has been forced to make do with a once-weekly cleaner for the past several weeks at least. One who works on a Wednesday morning, I imagine.”
He nodded across the room at some neatly piled newspapers. “All of those newspapers are dated last Wednesday. Every copy as yet uncollected was printed later. A man willing to allow his living space to become so untidy would not be inclined to create such neat assemblages, so we must assume a maid, once a week.”
“Why, that is quite right!” Horton exclaimed in surprise. “He did used to have a woman who came in every day, but I’ve not seen her so often recently. Weekly sounds about right!”
Holmes ignored the interruption. He handed me the newspapers he held, which I now saw were well-thumbed copies of Sporting Life and The Chronicle and a pristine copy of The Times. “The plethora of newspapers related to the sporting world – as well as the images arranged on the wall – indicate a likely cause for his sudden lack of solvency.”
“But what of the sense of embarrassment, Mr. Holmes?” Horton asked enthusiastically.
This time Holmes answered the red-faced little man directly. “The Times, Mr. Horton. Bruce had no funds to employ a daily cleaner, yet he continued to have delivered a newspaper which he never read. Presenting the appearance that all was well was obviously important to him. Which, I would suggest—”
I will say this for Lestrade, and contrary to every claim Holmes made of the man: he was no fool. No sooner had my friend spoken than he gave a small cough. “Was, Mr. Holmes?” he said without inflection, and it took me a second to realise that his interruption had taken the form of a question. “Don’t you mean is?”
Holmes’s mouth twitched in sympathy with his right eyebrow, glancing upwards for so brief a time as almost to be no time at all, then subsided again as though it had never moved.
“Of course not, Inspector,” he said irritably, unwilling to admit that Lestrade was not quite so slow as he liked to claim, and evidently irked that the inspector had interrupted him. “I am not in the habit of mis-applying tenses.”
“No, Mr. Holmes, I don’t suppose you are.” The inspector’s tone was impatient. He made no attempt to conceal his own irritation. “You believe that Mr. Bruce is dead then?”
“Yes, Alexander Bruce is dead. He has been murdered, as should be obvious.”
Lestrade had seen Holmes in action too often to doubt him openly. But he had been pushed to his limits by Holmes over the past few days and at these words his small eyes narrowed to thin slits. Horton appeared to recognise the tension which had suddenly flooded the room. He coughed, then smiled and frowned in turn, as though unsure of how to react, before croaking “Murdered?” in a voice cracking with a mixture of excitement and displeasure.
“Precisely,” Holmes replied. “Else he would not be where he is now.”
“And where is that, Mr. Holmes?”
Rather than respond directly, Holmes pulled out his pipe and took a minute filling and lighting the bowl. Lestrade’s face was in danger of becoming as red as Horton’s but Holmes gave no sign he had noticed. Only once he had inhaled deeply several times and filled the room with a cloud of foul-smelling smoke, did he speak again, and then only at a tangent to Horton’s query.
“I have remarked to Watson before now that once one has eliminated the impossible, whatever remains must contain the truth, no matter how implausible that truth may appear. In similar fashion, it is vital in any investigation to be sure not to eliminate the incongruous. Recognising that which is where it ought not to be is an under-valued but important talent, I have found. For instance, in this room there are not one but two incongruous elements.”
He drew heavily on his pipe and blew a smoke ring towards the ceiling.
“You do not care to suggest what they might be, Mr. Horton?”
Horton shook his head at once, as did I when he posed the same question to me. Lestrade contented himself with grumbling ill-temperedly about detectives wasting police time, but beyond that offered no response.
“Very well,” Holmes continued. “In point of fact, the two incongruities are linked, and neither is particularly challenging. Indeed, the first requires no deduction whatsoever, merely eyesight.”
Using the stem of his pipe as a pointer, he indicated the room before him. “I did mention earlier that the room was particularly well appointed. The sideboards are of genuine Asian manufacture, the sofa and chairs are by Dresser or one of his followers, the carpet is chenille. Everything is tasteful and – for all the disarray of the apartment today – ideally placed in order to add to the general lustre of the room. Mr. Bruce was a man of refined tastes. This monstrosity, however…” he banged softly on the ugly wooden cabinet against which he stood.
I had not given the furniture much consideration after my initial reconnaissance but now that I looked at it afresh I recognised that Holmes was quite right. The wooden cupboard was plain and functional where everything else was delicate and decorative. It was, to use Holmes’s word, incongruous. But I still did not see to what use that insight might be put. Fortunately, Holmes was on hand to explain.
“This is a refrigerating unit, gentlemen. It is by the very nature of its functionality not designed to slip graciously into an apartment such as this, but it is, in its way, every bit as worthy of admiration as the Chinese cabinets or the luxurious carpeting.”
I had seen such items advertised; large, free-standing ice boxes, capable of keeping meat and dairy products at a low temperature, and thus prevent them from spoiling. As a physician I had my doubts as to their efficacy, and preferred a cold pantry in my own home, but they were, I believed, proving quite popular. I could not, however, imagine any way in which this particular example could help us.
Lestrade obviously felt the same. “That’s all very well, Mr. Holmes, but what of it?” he asked. “And what is the other incongruous element? I would remind you that I do have a murdered Ambassador still lying in the mortuary, while we chase across the city after your dead sewer rat.”
Lestrade’s declining patience had no impact on Holmes. He blew a cloud of smoke across the room, then tipped the ashes into a nearby ashtray. “You are quite right, Inspector,” he murmured eventually. He slipped the pipe into his jacket pocket and then, as though motivated by a galvanic force, b
urst into a paroxysm of rapid explanation. “You shall have all the clarification you require. But first, a question. Ask yourself this, Lestrade – would a connoisseur of fine wine leave several bottles of exceptional 1850s white Burgundy on his sitting room floor, when he has a refrigerating unit to hand, presumably purchased to cool those very bottles?” He held up a hand to forestall a complaint that did not come. “We may be assured that Mr. Bruce was just such a connoisseur. After all, there is not a bottle there worth less than 20 guineas, but he has not sold any of them, in spite of his financial difficulties. Yet, he is content to store them on the floor? I think not.”
He shifted to one side, and invited Lestrade with a gesture to take his place. “Secondly, a demonstration. You will note, Inspector, that the carpet now beneath your feet, directly in front of the refrigerator, is sodden wet.”
Lestrade nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but Holmes was in the full spate of translation now, turning the disparate parts of this room into a coherent and understandable whole.
“Good, you feel it – indeed, we can all hear the material squelching as you tread on it. Now, recall that the refrigerator works on the principle that the ice blocks within it are replaced on a daily basis, otherwise they will begin to melt and no further cooling will occur. Left for more than a day or so, this meltwater will spill out of the tray in the machine’s base which is designed to catch this overflow and, as here, soak the carpet.”
He reached over and placed a hand on the handle of the refrigerator. “Finally, a deduction. If the refrigerator has been emptied of its contents then the space once occupied by wine has been taken up by something else. Or someone else…”
With a flourish he pulled open the door, exposing the body of a man crushed into the space within. So far as could be ascertained at such an obvious disadvantage, he was a short, rotund man, aged around fifty, with a thin moustache and full, flabby lips. He was wearing what appeared to be a burgundy smoking jacket and matching pyjamas, all soaked through. As the door swung back to its full extent, the body slumped forward, and a wig slipped down over the dead man’s face, exposing a completely bald skull beneath.
The ice had had some effect on the decomposition process, but even so the odour was extremely unpleasant and we each stepped backwards involuntarily. Holmes for his part crossed to the window and threw it open, allowing the foggy air outside to make its way within. Behind me, I heard Horton retch and flee from the room.
“I had hoped that my pipe smoke would mask most of the stench,” Holmes apologised mildly. “It appears that I erred in that assumption.”
The smell notwithstanding, Holmes crouched down and leaned inwards to examine each of the dead man’s small, thick hands.
“I believe we have the source of the gold ring found on the river shore, Watson,” he said, pointing to a heavy indentation in the puffy flesh of one finger. “And the treasure tied to that shoelace,” he continued, bringing a lantern lower to illuminate several similar marks on the other hand. “Whoever killed this man also robbed him of his jewellery, but could not pass such large rings off as his own.”
He sighed and shuffled forward to loosen the top buttons of the dead man’s pyjamas, exposing a neck encased in a thick roll of fat. He pulled his magnifying glass from his pocket and bent over, talking to himself in an undertone as he did so.
I could not make out exactly what he observed, but whatever it was, it caused him to utter a soft exclamation of surprise. “I wonder…” I heard him murmur as he twitched the pyjama collar back into place and rose to his feet.
“You may move him now, Lestrade,” he said. “It would be useful to continue my examination in better lighting, however.”
Lestrade muttered something under his breath and covered his nose with a handkerchief, then bent forward to examine the corpse wedged in the refrigeration unit. “Constable Lawrence,” he called over his shoulder, “get onto the Yard and have this body moved to Millbank Street – and be quick about it.” He glared across at Holmes, who returned the look with studied indifference. “Now that Mr. Holmes has discovered a new murder, rather than solving an existing one, we have no time to waste.”
Holmes seemed not to have heard him. He was busy examining the photographs that lined the walls. With nothing further to keep me in the room, I made my way outside, grateful for the fresh air.
* * *
Lestrade, Holmes and myself, by unspoken accord, remained outside the Millbank Street Mortuary while two constables manhandled the bulky corpse inside. I took the opportunity to bring Lestrade up to date on those details of our investigation to which he had not yet been privy. He listened with interest, then remarked that the shoremen were a group worth keeping an eye on. “Anyone called Crooked John is all but advertising his own dishonesty!” he exclaimed once I had concluded. “Mark my words, Mr. Holmes,” he called across, “one of these ‘toshers’ will be at the back of all this!”
Just then his attention was taken by Constable Lawrence concerning a different case, and I lit a cigarette and joined Holmes in smoking silently until another police officer appeared, to say that the corpse was ready to be examined.
Laid out on the table, it was clear that the man was even more overweight than I had estimated. His eyes were closed, of course, but even had they been open it would have been difficult to make out their colour, so deep-set were they beneath folds of flesh. As before, Holmes bent over the corpse, then nodded and straightened up with that keen look in his eyes which I recognised from previous investigations.
“You will be pleased to know, Lestrade, that I am now in a position to explain events leading to the deaths of both Alexander Bruce and Robert Rae,” he declared, confirming my suspicion.
“I’m delighted to hear it, Mr. Holmes,” the inspector replied. I saw him glance across to a shrouded shape in the far corner and wondered how much pressure he was under to find the Ambassador’s killer. A look of something like contrition passed across Holmes’s face.
“In retrospect, it may be that I took on this particular case for reasons which do not reflect well upon me. I… I was not entirely myself when you initially requested my presence in this building, and I may have seized upon Rob Rae as a means by which to avoid doing your bidding. Not,” he continued, with something more like his usual manner, “that I appreciate being summoned like a common tradesman whenever you find yourself at a loss, Lestrade! But even so, I apologise if my stubbornness has caused you any professional embarrassment.”
He coughed and, without waiting for a response from the inspector, turned back to the body of Alexander Bruce.
“That said, however ill-conceived my motivations, it turns out that this case has not been without interest. You are both aware of that old saw, ‘violence begets violence’?” he asked, his voice brisk and businesslike once more. “In your line of work, Lestrade, how could you not be? And Watson, during your time in the Army, you must have realised that one of the planks upon which the Empire is built is the aggressive nature of our soldiery, raised as they are in the rough environments of our large towns and cities? So it proved here. The murderer of Rob Rae did not come fresh to his grisly trade, but had already taken a first fatal step to the gallows when he killed Alexander Bruce.”
“One of those toshers, I’ll bet,” the inspector declared firmly. “Didn’t I just say so outside?”
“You did,” Holmes replied impatiently, “but in that you are mistaken. I admit that I did wonder at first if Rob Rae had fallen victim to some vendetta within the shore community. Watson and I both saw the heavy wooden hoes which the shoremen use, and it seemed plausible that Rae had been struck in the spine with the butt of one of those and then, whether deliberately or not, had suffocated in the river mud. Other than the hoes, however, there was little else to support that theory. Both Rae’s uncle, Long Bill, and our guide, James Mackay, implied that the other might be the killer, but I did not give either claim much credence. Long Bill feared the Rae dynasty collapsing, and kil
ling his only male relative would put an end to that dream, while Mackay was a close friend to the dead man, and was in the midst of putting together a scheme to make them both comparatively wealthy. No, I did not look for long at the shoremen.
“Something had been niggling at me like an itch on my brain, however. Those few faint bruises on Rob Rae’s shoulders – you remember them from Dr. Booth’s report, Watson? I thought from the first that they might be finger marks, but could not conceive of a way in which the dead man might have been held which would lead to bruises arranged so. Until this evening, that is.”
Lestrade had listened patiently until this point, but seeing a point at which he might interject, he stepped forward eagerly. “So you do know who committed these murders?” he asked.
“I do.” Holmes’s tone was certain. “But if you will allow me to present the solution in my own way, Inspector, I would be obliged. It is only in the last few minutes that I have satisfied myself that I have the truth of the matter, and relating the steps which led me to that point serves as a check of my own reasoning.”
Lestrade acquiesced grudgingly. “As you wish, Mr. Holmes.”
I doubt that Holmes even heard him. “As I said, the man who killed Rob Rae first killed Alexander Bruce. As to why, I cannot say with certainty, but I strongly suspect it to have been a crime of sudden emotion, what the French would call a crime passionnel, rather than one premeditated. The theft of the rings but not the money in the bedroom, the improvised hiding of the body; these speak of a man who has acted in deadly haste, then been left with no option other than to make the best of a bad job.
“Thus, having killed and robbed Bruce and constructed a place in which to secrete the body, the killer made good his escape from the building while any witness would be otherwise engaged observing the furore at the end of the street. But having done so, he found that same furore had trapped him – one end of the street impassable due to building work, and the other blocked by policemen flocking to the nearby attack on the Ambassador. He could not be found with a handful of ill-fitting gold rings in his pocket, but neither could he go back inside. Where could he hide his ill-gotten gains in safety until he could return later to retrieve them? The drain cover! I imagine he had a small bag in his pocket and, depositing the rings inside it, he used a shoelace to tie it beneath the heavy iron cover.” He pulled his magnifying glass from his pocket and bent over the corpse once more, talking all the while. “In passing, Lestrade, the constable who spoke to Gough might have considered the fact that even part of a snapped shoelace can almost universally be utilised in an emergency. A well-dressed man with no shoelace at all has discarded it for reasons of his own.” He shook his head at the obvious failings of the Metropolitan Police and continued with a faint smile. “In any case, it was at this point that Thomas Gough’s luck ran out. There was a great storm that night and the force of water entering the drain caused the bag of jewellery to be washed away. Perhaps he could even see the gold glittering in the sewer below. No matter – it might as well be in France, for it was as much out of reach. Aha!”
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