The Midwinter Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes: Three Adventures & The Grand Gift of Sherlock (19 page)

“Say, Mr. Holmes, but how do you know where we are going?” asked Gregson.

“I am certain, Inspector, that you would never leave the body lying in the Underground station, upon which every holiday passerby may gawk,” Holmes scoffed. “And the Paddington Hospital is closest.”
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A short ride deposited us at said hospital. After disembarking, Gregson led us down a narrow lane that ran along the side of the building. We travelled about thirty paces before he paused to open a small side-door through which the three of us passed. This led to a bleak wrought-iron staircase that led down into the bowels of the structure. At the bottom, we travelled along a long whitewashed corridor, until we came to a slate-colored door. What lay behind it was plainly labeled, which in consideration was a place I little desired to visit if I hoped to preserve my holiday mood. However, my duty as Holmes’ unofficial biographer called for me to set such yearnings aside and carry on. Although the door was locked, Gregson proved to be in possession of a copy of the key and he promptly let us in.

The first thing I noticed about the low-ceilinged room was the familiar, but almost-overwhelming odor of formaldehyde, which at least served its purpose of masking any even more unpleasant scents. Several broad metal tables were positioned at regular intervals in the middle of the room, happily, only one of which was occupied at the moment. A white sheet covered the grim figure from any unauthorized eyes.

Holmes wasted little time in throwing back the sheet in order to inspect the nameless corpse. This proved to belong to a man of about five and forty years of age, tall in stature, broad-shouldered, and heavily muscled. He had a tousle of thick orange-red hair which matched his full beard. His clothes had been removed, and this action exposed numerous crush wounds and lacerations, any of which on its own was sufficient to prove fatal. Holmes whipped a magnifying glass from his coat pocket and proceeded to examine the body intently. I watched closely as he swiftly moved about the man’s anatomy. He opened the eyelids and exposed two green sightless eyes, felt along the man’s ears, and lifted each of the man’s hands for closer inspection. He even sniffed the man’s mouth, though I highly doubted that he could distinguish anything over the smell of the antiseptic in the room. He stepped back and took in the whole body at once.

“Hmmm, rather tall,” he muttered to himself, before looking up. “Six foot, three inches, I would estimate. Do you concur, Watson?”

“Perhaps a bit less,” I submitted, hesitantly.

Holmes shook his head. “I think not. Here, let us settle it.” He reached into his pocket again, this time extracting a tape measure, one end of which he tossed to me. Stretching the tape to the top of the man’s head, he exclaimed. “Ah, six foot, two and a half. Spot on, Watson. Though with boots, of course, he would seem even taller. Speaking of which, where are the man’s clothes?”

“Over here, Mr. Holmes,” replied Gregson, indicating a drawer in one of the metal cabinets that lined the room. Holmes leaned over and poked through the blood-soaked clothes diffidently, and I could tell from the expression upon his face that he found no clues therein.

He finally straightened. “The case has not been without interest. You perceived, of course, Gregson, that the man was a former convict?”

“What?” exclaimed the inspector.

“Indeed. There are few things that make the life of a detective easier than the presence of a tattoo or other marking of the skin. The practice is still rather uncommon, excepting only those sailors who frequent the lower reaches of Limehouse. However, another group of individuals who is known to do so, especially utilizing the webbing of the fingers, are those chaps who have been involuntarily boarded at the expense of the Crown. In a system that I find quite fascinating, every prison’s internal community has its own unique marking. The three blue circles that I see between the first and second finger of this man’s left hand is specific for those inmates of the great convict prison of Princetown in the Dartmoor forest.
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I plan to write a monograph upon the subject someday.”

“I hadn’t noticed that,” Gregson admitted.

“Yes, well, I would estimate that he was released from prison less than two weeks ago.”

I frowned. “How can you tell?”

“The callous patterns on his hands, Watson,” he said, holding one up for my inspection. “The Crown does not believe that the state of idleness is conducive to the mood of its prisoners, so hard labor is the rule. Such work tends to leave a row of callouses that is difficult to match with any other profession, save a few not known for their propensity towards tattoos. However, the callous will fade quickly when not being continuously formed, and this man’s is still quite thick.”

“So who is he?” I asked.

Holmes waved his hand. “The deduction is too facile to be worth the effort. A simple perusal of the list of those who have been released from said prison within the last months, cross-referenced against the man’s general description, should narrow the list of candidates considerably.”

“And was he pushed?” asked Gregson.

Holmes shrugged, pulling out his pipe. “It is impossible to say for certain from the wounds upon the body, which would be present regardless of how exactly he found himself on the tracks. And his clothing is far too shredded to be of any use.”

Gregson sighed heavily. “So we are to have a panic on our hands.”

Holmes shook his head and puffed on the pipe to get it going. “Not at all. Even if this man was pushed, the odds would suggest that any such attack was likely motivated by his past history, and not the work of a predatory madman.”

“That sort of supposition won’t stop the papers from printing whatever tale sells the most copies.”

“You overestimate the incisiveness of the press, Gregson. You must construct the narrative that you wish relayed to the public.
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Tell them that you have determined the identity of the man and are already searching for the man suspected to be responsible for an act of private revenge.”

“But that would be a lie, Mr. Holmes!” said Gregson in a slightly scandalized tone.

“Not at all, Inspector. It is simply a theory presented with a tone of excessive vigor which may ultimately prove to be regrettable. You will be certain to retroactively correct any excusable mistakes made once the mystery is finally elucidated.” With that conclusion, Holmes began to move towards the door.

“Wait, where are you going, Mr. Holmes?” Gregson cried.

“I have complete faith that you can conclude this case without any further assistance from Watson and I. Seeing how we missed our own luncheon, I think an early supper at Simpson’s
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is called for. Good day, Gregson,” he managed, before turning and striding out.

§

When I awoke early the following morn, I was surprised to find that Holmes had already risen. He was clad in his red dressing gown, which I noted he typically wore during no other time of the year excepting the weeks leading up to Christmas. A still-steaming tray of Mrs. Hudson’s finest breakfast fare lay untouched on the sideboard, while Holmes was already engaged in a series of chemical experiments at his acid-scarred bench.
[249]
Off to one side, a Bunsen burner was burning a low blue flame under a small retort containing some obscure fluid, and he was stooping over a series of test-tubes and small bottles of various solutions. As was his wont when engrossed in a particularly sensitive investigation, Holmes expressed absolutely no notice of my entrance.

Typically, I would leave him to his researches and avail myself of some coffee and the morning edition of the
Times
, but something unusual caught my eye upon his bench, which I stood before. “I say, Holmes, is that a Christmas cracker?”
[250]

For a moment, he made no answer, as he completed some delicate transfer with a pipette. When the clear solution suddenly turned an opaque silvery color, he looked up with a smile. “Ah, yes, Watson, it is. I have been studying the chemicals used to impregnate the strip. It is most ingenious. It uses silver fulminate, which is highly unstable.”

I frowned in confusion. “But whatever for?”

As he answered, he reached out and dabbed some plaster on a puncture on his right thumb. “Misdirection, Watson. Misdirection. If I could package this into something that can be thrown, it could prove to be of great utility.
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It could be used to distract a man’s attention, thereby giving me a crucial few seconds in which to act.”

“I have another suggestion, Holmes, which you may use for misdirection.”

“Oh?” said he, with apparent interest.

“You should don this unique disguise.” I reached out and plucked something from his bench. Opening it up, I placed the paper crown from the Christmas cracker upon his head.
[252]
I then held up one of his shiny metal beakers, in which he could fully appreciate his reflection. “I assure you that absolutely no one of your acquaintance would possibly recognize you.”

I had the satisfaction of seeing a look of complete astonishment upon Holmes’ face, which lasted for too short a moment before he broke into one of his rare laughs.

“A touch! A distinct touch!” cried Holmes. “Another example of your hidden vein of pawky humor, Watson, against which I am still not adequately prepared.”
[253]

“You should relax, Holmes!” I pointed out, settling back into my armchair. “It is almost Christmas. It is a time for celebration.”

He shook his head. “You are aware, Watson, that inaction is a state for which my brain is not well suited.” He waved to the frost-streaked windows overlooking the street. “You look out over London and see only a happy throng of merry-makers all caught up in the excitement of the season. But when I turn my gaze upon those snow-covered streets, I see a multitude of nefarious deeds being done under the cover of the long winter nights and the deadened fall of a criminal’s footsteps.”

I shook my head in vexation. Knowing the only solution to such a brown study as my friend found himself in that morning, I turned to the
Times
in hopes of identifying something of interest. Not without surprise, I discovered that the sad end of the man in the Underground occupied one of the leads. Scanning through the article, I noted with some satisfaction that Gregson had taken Holmes’ advice, and the tenor of the article was not inflammatory in the least, despite containing much greater detail than had been present in yesterday’s evening edition.

“I say, Holmes, what do you think he meant?” I looked up at him.

Holmes was putting away his chemical equipment, and I was sorry to see that the paper crown had been reduced to a pile of ashes near the burner. “Although I have on occasion demonstrated a small ability to track the train of your thoughts, Watson, by following the expressions upon your face and the motions of your eyes, I am by no means a bona fide reader of minds. You will have to be plainer.”

“The Dartmoor convict. What did he mean by ‘First Star’?”

“As I have said many times before, Watson, it is a capital mistake to theorize in the absence of data.”

“Well, I can certainly think of no reasonable explanation.”

Holmes shook his head, disappointedly. “Come now, Watson. Surely you are not guilty of the same deplorable lack of imagination as our colleagues on the official force? It is simplicity itself to come up with possible motives for the man’s strange utterance. In fact, I could give you seven.”
[254]

“You have used said number before,
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Holmes, but rarely back it up with an actual list containing that amount,” said I, with some asperity.

Holmes eyebrow arched up. “Are you accusing me of grandstanding, Watson?”

I shrugged. “The possibility had suggested itself,” I replied, blithely.

Holmes smiled broadly. “Then permit me to expound. We will take as our starting point the hypothesis that the man was a habitual criminal, and that he was attempting to pass on a message to his accomplices. Do you agree, Watson?”

“It seems a safe assumption,” I said, nodding.

Holmes pressed his fingertips together like the roof of a steeple. “One, the man may have been referencing the lines of King Harry, “Small time, but in that small most greatly lived / This star of England. Fortune made his sword…”
[256]
In this scenario, the man served his small time in prison, and was prepared to make his fortune through some scheme involving swords, the exact nature of which there is insufficient data to fully determine.”

“That seems a bit obscure,” I protested.

“Two, in a similar vein, it could be a reference to Hesperus, the Evening Star, which is the first star to appear at night.
[257]
As such, it may be a code about a lost ship which contains some illicit gains, as a subtle allusion to the Longfellow poem, ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus.’”
[258]

“You may be endowing this criminal gang with more literary knowledge than is perhaps typical for their sort,” I pointed out.

“Three, it could be a reference to a locale at address ‘one’ in a town named ‘Star.’ If you consult the Baedeker’s upon your bookshelf, you will find that there are in fact four such hamlets scattered about, one in Somerset, one in Scotland, and two in Wales.”
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