The Holmes-Dracula File Page 6

  “I shouldn’t be surprised, Mr. Holmes. She’s a German subject, and her name’s Wilhelmina Grafenstein—or that was the name and identity she used lodging at the Great Eastern Hotel. Some stationery in her purse—I’ll show you in a minute—put us onto that, and we’ve already had one of the room clerks over to identify her. No word of any next of kin as yet. I’ve been holding back on having the body removed, hoping you might be available for consultation.”

  Holmes hardly appeared to be listening. “I take it this is the exact spot where she was first laid down, directly on being brought out of the water? To be sure. And where, precisely, was the body floating when the two workmen first saw it?”

  Leaning out a little over the water, Lestrade pointed straight down past our feet, indicating the pier’s support of close-set wooden pilings.

  Holmes glanced upstream and back again. “Exactly where one might expect a body to lodge, if it had been thrown in carelessly from the next pier.”

  The inspector drew himself up a little. “That was my own thought, Mr. Holmes. I’ve been over there and looked about, of course, and found an interesting clue or two.”

  Beyond some twenty or thirty yards of dirty water, another uniformed man was partially visible as he stood on the next pier beside a shabby boatshed. This policeman greeted us with a small salute, when we had reached him by a roundabout walk along the cluttered dockside. Besides the small boathouse on this pier, there stood some cargo-handling machinery in dilapidated condition, and again some weathered crates and bales.

  Where Lestrade had placed his sentry, about halfway out along the pier, three things having no connection with the business of shipping and storage lay on the worn boards. These objects were two or three yards apart from each other, and around each a circle had been drawn in yellow chalk, no doubt by Lestrade’s own hand.

  The supposed clue nearest the water’s edge was a crumpled piece of wet, gray cloth. One extended sleeve showed that this was a garment of some kind, but I could tell nothing more from looking at its shapeless heap. The second object was a woman’s handbag, open, looking new and undoubtedly expensive. And the third, a trifle farther than the others from the pier’s edge, was a small pistol.

  “These things are all exactly as I found them, Mr. Holmes. Except for looking into the handbag, as I’ve explained, I haven’t touched a thing. I don’t know as this shirt or whatever it is has any connection with the crime at all, but still...”

  Holmes’ only answer was a distracted grunt. He was already in action. At first ignoring the items in the chalked circles, he devoted himself to a methodical inspection of the whole area. At times he bent until his eye was almost in contact with the planks; again, he stood at his full height to examine carefully the rusted metal of the fixed machinery, and the peeling sides of the boathouse.

  Here he suddenly gave a small, sharp cry of triumph, pulled out a pocketknife, and with controlled energy dug into the faded wood at a point a little above eye level. In a minute or two he had extracted a small object, which he held out on his palm for our inspection. It was a bullet, much flattened by the resistance of the stout wooden beam by which its flight had been arrested.

  Before Lestrade or I could offer much in the way of comment upon this discovery, Holmes was off again. For several minutes he squatted beside the boathouse, frowning at some peculiar scratches that I now perceived upon the deck planks there. These suggested to me that the wood had been raked with sharp metal tines, like those of a pitchfork, or perhaps by the claws of some large, strong animal. Holmes measured them carefully with his pocket tape, but said nothing about them at the time.

  Only when he had completed this general survey did Holmes turn to what Lestrade had termed the clues. Of these, the weapon was the first my friend picked up.

  Lestrade said quickly: “Of the Derringer type, as you’ll note, Mr. Holmes. A two-shot model, and it smells as if at least one’s been fired.”

  “That is so.” Holmes had opened the breech, closed it again, and was now scrutinizing the pistol keenly through a small lens he had whipped out of his pocket. “And I observe on it many small scratches, almost randomly distributed; this gun has been carried loose in a handbag or purse, rather than a holster or a man’s pocket, for some considerable period of time.” Handing the gun over to Lestrade, Holmes moved to pick up the purse.

  “I did look into that pretty thoroughly, Mr. Holmes,” said the official detective in a somewhat defensive tone. “There’s precious little in it that’s going to be of any help to us, beyond what I’ve already found. You’ll note that there’s no money left to speak of.”

  Holmes pulled from the purse some sheets of the writing-paper that Lestrade had mentioned earlier. All were blank save for the Great Eastern letterhead. Crouching, Holmes set these down on the damp planking, then pulled out the rest of the purse’s contents. On the paper he placed a small bunch of keys, of which I could see that some were for common locks and some for Chubb’s. After the keys there came some stamps, a few pence and a shilling, and a small handkerchief. That was all.

  Tossing Lestrade the empty purse, Holmes muttered something impatiently, and moved on to pick up and smooth out the crumpled garment. It proved to be a peculiar-looking sort of shirt or gown, which was very damp, and left a wet mark where it had lain upon the lighter dampness of the wood. Holmes with his long fingers held it up by the shoulders, as if intending to measure it against his own spare frame. We all three of us gazed at the garment—my two companions looking rather blankly at it, if I may say so—for some time.

  “I have seen a similar shirt,” I ventured to remark, at length, “used in an institution for the criminally insane. Its design allows changing the dress of very violent patients, without undoing the strong restraints that have been placed upon their limbs. Observe how the sleeves are divided lengthwise, and their sections held together with small cloth ties. This allows the shirt to be put on and taken off while the patient’s wrists remain fettered.”

  “Precisely,” said Holmes in a dry voice. It was his customary way of acknowledging the receipt of some useful bit of information. He turned the shirt round in his hands and sniffed at it.

  “Well, gentlemen, we seem to have the identity of our killer all but settled now.” Lestrade took off his hat, ran a hand through his dark hair, and settled the hat on firmly once again. “It’s a real maniac we’re after—the nature of the wound alone shows that. This shirt shows that he’s just escaped from somewhere, and once we learn where, we’ll have a name and a description, and we’ll also be in a fair way to know where he’s likely to turn up next. Run to a pattern, these lunatics do, as you’re no doubt aware, Doctor.”

  Summoning the constable who had been standing guard, Lestrade issued urgent orders; the man turned and trotted off along the pier toward the shore. The inspector turned back to us. “They’ll have the message at the Yard in a few minutes, and inquiries will be going out by wire at once. Well, Mr. Holmes, it begins to look after all as if there was no need to trouble you with this case... hallo, what is it now?”

  Holmes was staring fixedly at the garment which he still held in his hands. I, at his side, saw with some uneasiness that a tinge of pallor had come into his face, and there raced through my mind an apprehension lest his nervous symptoms of the previous March be recurring. Following his gaze, I discovered its object at the same time as Lestrade, who had now moved closer.

  “Ah,” commented the inspector, in a voice devoid of understanding. “Holes. One in the front and one in back.”

  “Indubitably.” Holmes was nettled by this slow-wittedness, and the color returned fully to his cheeks. “They are holes. And what do you make of them?”

  “Well. I don’t know as I’m prepared to say.”

  “Oh, out with it, man. They’re bullet-holes, of course, or I’m prepared to change my career to basket-weaving. Watson, which side of this garment would ordinarily be worn in front? As I thought. It is the front-side bullet-hole, then, t
hat is so well marked with powder burns, showing that the shot was fired at extreme close range. While the hole in back is marked with—nothing. Nothing, mark you, neither burns nor blood.”

  Holmes’ voice had fallen off, as if he now spoke only to himself. Falling into a moment of reverie, he stared off across the river as if the hazed wharves there on the south bank might possess some secret information. Then with a shake of his head he roused himself. “Upon my word, Watson, business is looking up. A month of routine, and then two intriguing puzzles in as many days.”

  Turning back to Lestrade, Holmes asked: “There is, I suppose, no bullet wound upon the woman’s body?”

  “The medical examiner and I both looked, sir. There is none.” “Then let her poor clay be removed.” Holmes gestured toward the other pier. “Take her up tenderly, as I believe the poet has it.” But he was actually smiling as he spoke. At the moment the woman’s tragedy meant less to him than the intellectual challenge it represented.

  Once more he held the garment up. “I think you must agree, Watson, that if this was on the body of a man when these holes were made, the bullet must have passed through or very near his vital organs.”

  “Yes, certainly.” Holmes was now examining the small holes closely with his lens. “The condition of these edges indicates that the bullet passed through the garment after it was wetted. It is still far from dry; let us say that it was wetted no more than about twelve hours ago—probably by immersion, for last night there was no heavy rain. All these facts are consistent with the hypothesis that the holes were made about the same time that the woman was killed, and the one shot fired from her pistol, the bullet lodging in the shed wall.”

  “Well, it may be. But I don’t see, Mr. Holmes, how all this theorizing now is likely to help us catch a maniac.”

  Holmes let his hand holding the garment fall to his side. His voice was distant. “Lestrade, let me call your attention also to the singular matter of the blood.”

  Lestrade and I both gazed around. “I see no blood,” the Scotland Yard man complained.

  “That, of course, is the singular matter. There is not much left of the German lady’s throat except one gaping wound, which must have bled her life away in moments. But on the boards of this pier there are visible only four small drops of blood-”

  “I saw none at all,” Lestrade protested.

  “—four small drops. And none at all upon her clothing, where some stain would seem inevitable, even after immersion in the river.”

  I ventured: “Is it possible that that terrible wound might have been inflicted while the woman was in the water?”

  “Bravo, Watson! But then, why four drops, instead of none at all? And the absence of the woman’s blood is not the only puzzle. One would think that the man who wore this shirt must have bled copiously himself if he were alive when shot. Even if he were already dead, the bullet’s passage should have left some traces, at least, of flesh and blood upon the fabric. Nor do I see here threads from an undergarment, that might have completely absorbed a small amount of such debris.”

  “Well, I cannot fathom it,” Lestrade admitted. “But the woman is certainly dead, and I do not believe that these details are likely to prove of much importance.”

  “Holmes,” I suggested, “is it possible that this odd garment was draped on some clothier’s dummy or manikin when it was fired at? Or simply held up empty, and the bullet-hole made, with the intention of leaving a totally false clue for the police?”

  My friend shook his head. “It will not do. Would the killer, having put himself to such trouble, then throw into the river the main evidence of his crime, a corpse that might easily have drifted out to sea without ever being discovered? And for whose benefit was the false clue made? For the police? It is only chance that they noticed the rag at all. Was it done to lead me astray? But it is only by chance, again, that I was called in on the investigation. No, Watson. Besides, the indications are that a real man has recently worn this shirt.”

  “Indications?” I asked. “Well, the bloodstains, for example.”

  “Here, now!” Lestrade was beginning to bristle. “You’ve just now told us that the bullet drew no blood.”

  My friend spread out the shirt again in his long fingers—which, I saw unhappily, had just acquired a slight tremor. “That is so. But I shall be very much surprised if these traces here upon the right sleeve, just at the elbow, do not prove to be dried blood. The spots are quite small but they are several in number, as if more than one sample of blood had been drawn from the wearer. Yes, Lestrade, a man has worn this garment recently. But apart from the obvious facts that he is tall, lean, robust though no longer young, and is or was an unwilling patient, there is as yet little that I can say about him.” He crumpled the shirt together in his hands, but continued to stare at it.

  Lestrade opened his mouth, closed it again, then spoke at last. “I won’t argue any of those points with you, Mr. Holmes.” Still, he appeared to be not at all convinced.

  Holmes raised his head and smiled, like one recalled from an unpleasant train of thought. “Surely ‘obvious’ is not too strong a word. Assuming this garment to have fit its wearer at all, its length indicates that his height must be at least roughly equal to my own. This is borne out by the length of the sleeves, which were worn fully extended, not rolled or turned back; although the cloth ties at the back of the shirt have been ripped loose, those upon the sleeves are still fastened, down to the last strings at the wrists.” He paused. “Also, the bullet’s passage was a rising one from front to back, which of course suggests a gun in the hand of a short person firing at a tall one. That would be perfectly consistent with the high lodging-place of the bullet in the shed wall.”

  I was mystified. “Holmes, I thought you had just proven that this garment could not have been on a man when the bullet passed through it.”

  My friend did not answer. Still gazing at the offending shirt, he shook it as if a drop of truth might be squeezed out of it like water.

  Since Holmes’ slighting remarks about the discovery of clues being a matter of chance with the police, Lestrade had been scowling. Now he shook his head. “It seems to me that the evidence here—the hard, solid evidence, that is—is pretty plain and straightforward. As to the height of the man who wore this shirt, I fancy we’ll know that soon enough when we find out where he’s escaped from. Oh, I’ll grant you he’s likely tall, but as to the rest of your guesses, sir, I have my doubts.”

  “Guesses?” Holmes’ temper flared for a moment, so sharply that both Lestrade and I were taken somewhat by surprise. But only a moment, and then my friend was calm again. I could see it was not really Lestrade’s attitude which had upset him; that was only an additional irritation coming on top of something that had struck him far more deeply.

  Holmes went on: “That the wearer is, or was, lean is perhaps a riskier deduction than his height. But the close tying of the sleeves assures us that at least his arms are far from being grossly fat. And something of his age can be deduced from this short gray hair, evidently from a hirsute arm, caught in one of the small knots.

  “He is, or was, a patient of some kind, as evidenced by the fact that his blood was sampled. As for his being robust and unwilling, surely the usual elderly inmate of an asylum or hospital would be clothed in something more ordinary. Anyone wearing this special garment may be presumed to be under strong restraint. Nor, perhaps, is the common variety of ill old man likely to be drenched in carbolic acid, and then to have a bullet fired through his nightshirt as he enjoys his customary midnight stroll along the docks.”

  “Well, of course—all that is rather plain and straightforward, as I say.”

  “Quite so.” Holmes smiled, and for the moment seemed completely himself. “Nevertheless, I believe I shall just keep this garment—that is, if the official police have no objection?”

  “Keep it, and welcome.” The Scotland Yard man, too, had regained his good humor. “When we’ve heard just which ma
dman has jumped a fence, and have got our hands on him, maybe there’ll be a good explanation for that strange bullet hole—if anyone’s still interested.”

  “Perhaps.” Holmes rolled up the shirt and stuffed it into his coat pocket. “Come along then, Watson—I feel the need to give my violin a bit of exercise. Meanwhile, Lestrade, if you were to ask my advice as to your own best course of action, beyond inquiring for escaped madmen—”

  “I do indeed, Mr. Holmes. You’ve steered me right before this.”

  “—it is to have the bottom of the river dragged, in the area near these two piers.”

  The other seemed a trifle disappointed. “And just what, Mr. Holmes, are we to go a-looking in the river for?”

  Holmes spoke thoughtfully. “I should look, Lestrade, if I were you, for any—grotesque—oddity.”

  “Oddity?” Lestrade plainly did not understand; no more did I, I must confess.

  “You may find none. But when there are several, as I find here, experience suggests that one more is not unlikely.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Well fed there in the dead of night, the old man—no, let me be done with this transparent literary coyness, this pretense that that old man was someone else. Well fed, I say, I found myself greatly restored in strength, although each atom of my being still cried out for the repose that my days of prisoned immobility had not afforded me.

  Rummaging in the woman’s purse, I took what money came to hand, considering it my due as the spoils of a just war. As I recall, there were some eight or nine pounds in gold sovereigns, silver crowns, and shillings, as well as a five pound Bank of England note. This last served me to wrap the coins for carrying, I being at the moment pocketless. Then, so overwhelming was my need for rest, that naked as I was I lay down like a wounded animal, seeking the darkest shadows close beside the abandoned boathouse.

  The plain wood should not have been too hard for an old soldier, but it might as well have been bare thorns and jagged glass for all the rest it could provide me. Even exerting all my powers of will, which are not inconsiderable, I could not force my muscles to relax. When I tried, my body tossed this way and that, a puppet on a madman’s strings. First one set of muscles and then another tensed. My left hand held my money in a spasmodic clutch, whilst my right clawed uncontrollably at the rough planks. In a few minutes I gave up and got to my feet again, though my knees quivered with my weariness, thinking that if my energy must be spent it had better be to some good purpose.