A Study in Amber

by Phyllis Humphrey

  “You live here?” He spoke in a strong, authoritative voice.

  “Yes.” I pointed to Tessa, who had remained on the sidewalk staring at the black and white police car double-parked in the street. “My grandmother, Mrs. Reynolds, owns the building and lives on the ground floor.”

  The cop came down off the steps at the same time I did. “Anyone else?”

  “I live on the second floor and a single gentleman on the third.” When he didn’t comment, I repeated my question. “Is there a problem?”

  “We responded to a call about excessive noise coming from the building.”

  “Noise?” Whatever had caused the police to be called had stopped, because I heard nothing unusual. “What kind of noise?”

  “Loud music.”

  I paused and looked around and so did he.

  “Well, it seems to have stopped now.” I no sooner said the words when the sound of a violin playing some loud, staccato music interrupted me. A rendering of what I recognized—although I couldn’t name—as a classical piece.

  “There,” the cop said. He turned as if ready to climb the stairs again.

  I waved my arm. “That must be my house guest. He probably got bored. I shouldn’t have left him alone, but I’m back now and he’ll stop playing.” In fact the music stopped again that very minute.

  Once more the cop turned toward the street. “Well, see that he does. And if he must play loud music, be sure it’s not after nine o’clock. If it happens again, I’ll have to issue a citation.”

  “Thank you, officer. It won’t happen again.”

  When the officer slid into the police car next to his partner and they drove off, Tessa joined me and we climbed the steps together. I said goodnight at her door, but she insisted on coming up to my apartment.

  “I want to see Sherlock Holmes playing the violin.”

  “But you can’t see him, remember?”

  “I could hear the violin. Why can’t I hear him?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know, but the violin didn’t show up the same time Holmes did. I bought it at a second-hand music store.” We’d reached my door by then and entered.

  Holmes greeted us with a scowl and an accusation. “If you had to add a violin to all the other items you said you copied from my digs, you might at least have procured a better one. This sounds like a hyena’s mating call.” He replaced the violin where I’d originally put it, on a small table in the corner.

  “I’m sorry it doesn’t meet with your approval, but I can’t afford a Stradivarius.”

  “I’d have been happy with a Maggini, Guarneri or Amati. However,” he went on quickly, “I doubt I shall have much time for playing any violins when you tell me I must watch dozens of films on that machine in my room.”

  “I’m not forcing you. I should think you’d want to. If I had returned to earth a hundred years later, I’d certainly want to know what people had been up to while I was gone.”

  “In this interim, I suspect the answer will be, ‘no good,’ but I’ll reserve judgement until I know more. So far, however, I must admit I’m impressed by your modern conveniences.”

  Tessa apparently noticed that the violin, after magically appearing in midair, put itself on a table, and clutched my arm. “What is he saying?”

  Holmes, as if responding to her question, immediately changed the subject again. “Unless of course, the adventure you set off upon an hour ago has provided something of interest.” He strode to the sofa and sat, arms resting along the back and a smile on his lips.

  I hung up my poncho, pointed Tessa to a chair, and sat next to the round center table, on which I placed my detective kit.

  Tessa didn’t sit, however. She smoothed her skirt and then strode over to the floor lamp and examined it under the light. She waved me to come closer. “Look, Sherry. There’s a stain on my skirt. I must have got it when I sat on that fireplace fender.”

  I peered at the place she indicated and rubbed my finger over it. “Not soot. I wonder if it might be blood.”

  Tessa agreed. “I’m sure it is. The dead man might have struck his head on that sharp marble edge before falling on the rug. You said you found bloodstains on the carpet.”

  Holmes frowned again. “I see your grandmother is playing detective as well.”

  “I think she’s right. It’s quite possible the man did fall against the fender and gash his head.” I opened my detecting kit and pulled out the envelope with rug fibers. “I took some samples of the bloodstains on that carpet, and we can compare them to the stains on Tessa’s skirt. If they’re the same...”

  Holmes laughed. “Bravo. You two have done very well.” He rose and paced the room. “I believe it was in 1878, the year I met Watson, that I discovered an infallible test for bloodstains. At the time, dried blood could not be distinguished from rust stains or fruit stains. However, I had found a reagent that was precipitated by hemoglobin and nothing else.”

  He smiled broadly and then resumed his seat.

  I watched Tessa return to her chair. “I’m sure you made a great discovery, but in the more than a hundred years since then, scientists have certainly improved their own methods for detecting blood.”

  “One would hope so.” Holmes waved a hand. “However, let us not get too far ahead. The newspaper account said a neighbor called the police due to hearing a gunshot. If the dead man had been shot, surely there would have been a great deal of blood on the carpet, not the small amount you noticed.” He rubbed a hand over his chin. “Tell me from the beginning what you learned tonight.”

  “Very well.” I took a deep breath and reported all that had happened at the house where the dead body was found. Tessa interrupted me from time to time and said things like, “Don’t forget to tell him about...”

  When I reached the point where I talked to the neighbor and acquired the backpack, Holmes leaned forward and rubbed his hands together. “Ah, the plot thickens.”

  “I took the backpack into the kitchen...“

  Holmes interrupted me. “A backpack, you say. Could you describe it for me, please?”

  “It’s a soft-sided bag, made of some kind of sturdy material, but lightweight. It has straps on each side which one can slip over the arms and carry it on his back. Backpack,” I repeated.

  “From your description, I assume it’s what I would have called a knapsack.”

  I smiled. “Possibly.”

  “Do go on.”

  “I opened the backpack, er, knapsack, and looked inside. I had already searched the smaller zippered pocket when the landlord interrupted me. He insisted it belonged to the dead man and must be given to the police.”

  Holmes rose and paced the floor. “What a dolt. Of course it did not belong to the dead man.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “You said he owned a suitcase which they found in the room. Why would he not take the backpack in with him as well? Or leave both items in that hall? No, the backpack belongs to the murderer.”

  I had already considered that possibility because I knew what else it contained, whereas Holmes did not, but I didn’t tell him that.

  “What a pity you had to give it up.” He stopped pacing. “However, you said you looked inside. Tell me everything you remember about it.”

  “I can do better than that. I can show you.” I confess I felt a little smug. As I returned to the vestibule to get my purse, I continued my report. “First I found a photograph of a young woman.”

  Holmes snorted. “Aha. I suspected a woman lay behind this crime. They usually do. Love of a woman or love of money are the chief motives for most crimes.”

  “I had already thought of that,” I told him and returned to the sitting room. I repeated his words for Tessa’s sake, especially as she hadn’t been with me when I opened the backpack in the kitchen. “It was dark gray and had two zippered pockets, the smaller one on the outside. The larger part held a change of men’s clothes and a toiletries kit. You know, toothpaste, toothbrush, razor.�
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  I looked meaningfully at Holmes. “In the smaller pocket I found a newspaper clipping describing the finding of a woman’s body in an abandoned well.” Before Holmes could comment, I added, “It occurred to me that the body is that of the woman in the photograph.”

  He cocked his head and stroked his chin. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. It’s possible. However, it is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgement. Describe the items in more detail, if you please.”

  “Of course. I took pictures of everything with my cell phone.” I took the phone from my purse and held it out to Holmes.

  Back in the nineteenth century, I doubt anyone saw a puzzled look on Holmes’s face very often, but now his eyebrows shot up, his eyes widened and his mouth opened. He stared at the phone for several seconds before taking it.

  “You say this is a telephone? Surely it’s some sort of miniature photographic device.”

  “No, it’s a phone that can be used as a camera.”

  “We had telephones in my day, young lady. They had mouthpieces and ear pieces, and wires connecting them to a wall outlet where...”

  I interrupted him. “We still have something similar, called a ‘land line.’” I went to the desk and showed him a portable telephone in its holder. “It works on a battery which gets recharged in the holder it sits in. The holder, as you see, has a wire leading to an electrical outlet.”

  Holmes approached and stared at it. “And you can both listen and speak into this little thing?”

  “Yes. As for the wireless one you’re holding, frankly, I’m not a tech nerd...”

  “A what?”

  “...so I can’t explain how it works. I only know that it does. Something to do with...”

  “No, no.” He interrupted me again. “Don’t tell me. I will take your word this is a telephone which also takes pictures, and that is enough.”

  He stared at the cell phone and turned it around in his hands. “As I told Watson when we first shared rooms together, I cannot fill my head with useless information.”

  “What useless information? What did Watson tell you about?”

  “The solar system.”

  I’m sure my voice rose. “The solar system?” I took a breath and repeated it in a softer tone.

  “He thought I ought to know the earth goes around the sun.”

  “Surely you knew that.”

  “Probably. Nevertheless, I said to Watson, ‘Now that I know it, I shall do my best to forget it.’”

  “Really?”

  Holmes resumed his pacing while he spoke. “You see, I believe that at birth a person’s brain is like an empty attic, and you have to stock it with what furniture you need. If you put in too much, it will become jumbled up or something vital may be crowded out.”

  He stopped pacing and gave me a stern look. “Depend upon it, for every addition of knowledge you acquire, you will forget something that you knew before.”

  He paused and glanced at the phone in his hand again. “I am not interested at the moment in why this device works as you say it does. Simply show me the pictures you have taken.” He returned it to me.

  I led him back to the sofa and we sat next to each other. However, when I attempted to show him the pictures I had taken, I found I couldn’t access them. I stared at the phone until the realization dawned on me.

  “Omigod. It’s the same model, but this isn’t my phone.”

  Chapter 5

  “Not yours?” Holmes asked. “Do you mean other people own these devices as well?”

  “Almost everyone.”

  His gaze shot up to the ceiling momentarily and then he shrugged again. “If it is not yours, to whom does it belong?” He answered his own question. “The murderer?”

  My thoughts returned to that moment in the kitchen of the flat in Kostich’s building. I’d been returning things to the backpack when the landlord burst in and took it from me. Since I held the cell phone in my hand, I simply dropped it into my large purse. But which cell phone? Mine, with which I’d been taking pictures, or the one I’d found? In other words I took a picture of a cell phone with my cell phone.

  “Do you mean,” Holmes asked, “you have lost all the photographs you say you took of the contents of the knapsack?”

  I rose from my seat and, having retraced my movements in my thoughts, hurried into the hall and pushed my hands into the pocket of my poncho. My fingers curled around my missing phone. When Kostich approached me, I had apparently simply dropped mine into my pocket and then, in the confusion, put the murderer’s into my purse.

  “Here it is,” I said. “I have the pictures.”

  “Let me see them.”

  I turned to him. “But what about this other phone?”

  “Let us not get ahead of ourselves. The murderer is gone and we have plenty of time to examine his device later.”

  I decided he was probably right, and, anyway, I wanted to do things his way in order to learn how his mind worked.

  Before I resumed my seat next to him, I took the magnifying glass out of my detective kit and brought it with me. Using my own phone, one by one I scrolled through the shots I’d taken and explained what they were.

  “This is the outside of the backpack. It’s dark gray and has one large interior space, and a small pocket on the side.”

  The next shot showed the small photograph I’d found inside, a photo of a pretty young woman. I handed the magnifying glass to Holmes and he used it to scrutinize the picture but made no comment.

  I scrolled to the next. “And here is a shot of the newspaper clipping. It’s beginning to fray along the folds, but I managed to read enough to recognize it as an article about a body found in an abandoned well.”

  Holmes focused the glass on that as well. “Man or woman?”

  “Woman. As I said earlier, I think it might have been the woman in the photograph.”

  “And the location of this well?”

  “It doesn’t say specifically. It names a small town which apparently the newspaper’s readers would recognize.”

  Tessa spoke up. “What a shame. That old well could be almost anywhere in the country.”

  Holmes frowned briefly. “Let us not give up so soon. What was the name of the newspaper? Was the clipping you saw large enough to include the upper edge of the page?”

  I saw where this led. “You mean most newspapers contain the name of the city in their title.”

  Holmes smiled. “Very good. I see you are at least somewhat observant.”

  I resented his inference, but read off the name from the top of the page. “The Chicago Tribune.”

  “Excellent, but do continue. What else?”

  “A flyer announcing ‘A Mystery and Magic Workshop’ to be held here in the city. The date and place were circled in red, as if Mr. Andrews or his murderer, or both, attended.”

  “That is significant, I believe.”

  “Why do you think so?”

  “Because our victim arrived with a suitcase and, according to the building landlord’s report, the man didn’t live in the city. Perhaps he came to town specifically to attend the workshop.”

  “Do you think he might have been a magician?”

  “Perhaps. However, let us carry on. What other objects did you find?”

  I scrolled quickly through several shots of scraps of paper. “I’m afraid these may not be useful. They’re only receipts from purchases the man made and places he’d been to.”

  Holmes wanted to see them anyway, and spent several minutes with the magnifying glass on one in particular. “I see a company name and some numbers. What does that mean?”

  I retrieved the phone and magnifying glass to scrutinize the shot more closely. “It appears to be a credit card receipt. That means...“

  ”A credit card?”

  “Oh, you don‘t know about credit cards, do you? They didn’t exist in your day.”

  Tessa obviously wanted to participate even though she coul
dn’t see what we looked at. “Credit cards let people buy things and pay for them later, usually at the end of the month. They’re mostly issued by banks.”

  “I have a banking account.” Holmes’s look turned into a frown. “That is, I had one, but it’s probably gone by now.”

  “As I started to say, this is more important than anything else. It’s from a hotel here in the city, one he might have stayed in overnight. It might give us the man’s name.”

  “Do you mean the murderer’s name is on this scrap of paper?”

  I stared at it again. “Whoops, I’m afraid not. The paper appears to have been torn and the portion that would have had his name and credit card number is missing.”

  “Look at the rest of those scraps you photographed. Perhaps the remainder is among them.”

  I scanned everything but didn’t find the piece I wanted. “I see receipts from restaurants and half a ticket from that Magician’s Conference, but that’s all.”

  Holmes leaned against the sofa back and closed his eyes. After a few seconds, he opened them again. “We must take this search in a different direction. We have the man’s telephone device. If these things are as clever as you seem to think, perhaps it will supply the name for us.”

  “That’s a good idea.” I picked up the other cell phone and turned it on. “It might not be too difficult, since he doesn’t seem to have installed a password.”

  “A password? How does one use a password on a telephone?”

  “Someone wanting to use the phone must type in a special series of letters and numbers beforehand.”

  “Like a secret code?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And you don’t know how to do that?”

  “I know how it works, but if he installed a password, I wouldn’t know the special letters and numbers he used.”

  Tessa chimed in again. “Watson would.” She beamed.

  “Doctor Watson knows the password in the telephone?” Holmes asked.

  I grinned. “As I said before, our Doc Watson maintains these old Victorians, and, although he can fix almost anything that goes wrong in them, I don’t think he can pull a computer password out of his tool belt. Luckily we don’t need one.”