Holmes sat still and studied Mrs. Heaster’s face, looking — as indeed I looked — for the spark of madness, or the dodgy eye-shift of guile — and he, like I, saw none. She was composed, clear and compelling, which neither of us had expected considering the wild nature of her telegram. Holmes sat back and steepled his fingers. The long seconds of his silent deliberation were counted out by an ornately carved grandfather clock and it was not until an entire legion of seconds lay spent upon the floor that he spoke.
“I will help you,” he said.
Mrs. Heaster closed her eyes and bowed her head. After a moment her shoulders began to tremble with silent tears.
Chapter 4
“Surely you don’t believe her, Holmes,” I said as we cantered along a byroad on a pair of horses the good lady had lent us. Holmes, astride a chestnut gelding, did not answer me as we made our way through sun-dappled lanes.
It was only after we had reached our Lewisburg inn and handed the horses off to a stable lad that Holmes stopped and looked first up at the darkening late afternoon blue of the American sky and then at me.
“Do you not?” he replied as if I had just asked my question this minute instead of an hour past.
I opened my mouth to reply, but Holmes would say no more.
Chapter 5
The very next morning found us in the telegraph office where Holmes dictated a dozen telegrams and left me to pay the operator. We then went to municipal offices where Holmes demanded to speak to the county prosecutor, one Mr. John A. Preston. Upon presenting his credentials Mr. Preston first raised bushy eyebrows in surprise and then shot to his feet.
“Dear me!” he said.
Holmes gave him a rueful smile. “I perceive that I am not entirely unknown even this far from London.”
“Unknown! Good heavens, Mr. Holmes, but there is not a lawman in these United States who has not heard of the great Consulting Detective. Why, not eight months ago I attended a lecture in Norfolk on modern police procedure in which the lecturer thrice quoted from your monographs. I believe it’s fair to say that the future of police and legal investigation will owe you a debt, sir.”
Preston’s words penetrated even Holmes’ unusually unflappable cool and for a moment he was at a loss for words. “Why thank you, sir. If only Scotland Yard were as progressive in their thinking.”
“Give them time, Mr. Holmes, give them time. A prophet is never accepted in his own country.” Preston laughed at his own witticism and waved us to chairs. “What can I do for the great Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”
“I will get right to it, then,” said Holmes, and he told Preston everything Mrs. Heaster had told us, even to the point of handing him her letter for examination. Preston chewed the fringe of his walrus mustache as he handed the letter back.
“Mrs. Heaster has already been to see me,” he admitted.
“And have you done nothing?”
Preston cleared his throat. “To be honest, Mr. Holmes, superstition abounds in these parts. Though we are fairly modern here in Lewisburg, much of West Virginia is still wild and a good many of my fellow citizens are deeply superstitious. Everyone has a tale of a ghost or goblin, and this would not be the first time I’d had someone sitting in that very chair there telling me of knowledge shared with them from a friend or relative months or years in the grave. Wild-eyed kooks, Mr. Holmes; superstitious country bumpkins.”
“And is it your opinion, Mr. Preston, that Mrs. Heaster is another wild-eyed kook?” Holmes tone was icy, for indeed the woman had impressed my friend with her calm clarity.
“Well,” Preston said cautiously, “after all, her daughter’s ghost…?”
“You are not a believer?”
“I go to church,” Preston said but would venture no further.
“You have, I hope, had at least the courtesy to read the transcript of the case, including the remarks of the county coroner?”
“No sir…I confess that I did not take the case seriously enough to care to investigate further.”
“I
They sat there on opposite sides of Preston’s broad oak desk, and as I watched the prosecutor I realized that it was possible for a seated man to give the impression of coming to full attention and even saluting without so much as moving his hands.
“If you will do me the courtesy of coming back tomorrow at ten o’clock,” he said, “I will by then be fully familiar with this case.”
Holmes stood. “Then we have no more to talk about until then, Mr. Preston. Good day.” We left and outside Holmes gave me a wink. “I believe we have lit a fire there, Watson.”
Chapter 6
Preston was better than his word and not only read the case but officially re-opened it. At Holmes’ urging he sought approval from the judge to exhume the body of Zona Heaster-Shue. Holmes and I attended the autopsy, which was held in an empty schoolhouse, the children having been sent home for the day. It was the custom of West Virginia, perhaps of this part of America, for family members, witnesses and the accused to all be present during the post mortem. I found this deeply unsettling, but Holmes was delighted by the opportunity to study Trout Shue in person for we had not yet met the gentleman in question.
He entered with a pair of burly constables behind him but Shue was so massive a man that he dwarfed the policemen. He had the huge shoulders and knotted muscles of a blacksmith. His hair and eyes were dark, and there was a cruel sensuality to his mouth. His jaw was thrust forward in resentment and he made many a protestation of his innocence and expressed deep outrage at this unnecessary violation of his wife.
“I’ll see you all in court for this!” he bellowed as we gathered around the body that lay exposed and defenseless on the makeshift table.
“I hope you shall,” replied Holmes and the two men stared at each other for a long moment. I could feel electricity wash back and forth between them as if their spirits dueled with lightning bolts, parrying and thrusting on a metaphysical level while we watchers waited in the physical world.
Finally Shue curled his lip and turned away, the first to break eye-contact. He flapped an arm in apparent disgust. “Do what you must and be damned to you. You will never prove anything.”
I broke the ensuing silence by stepping to the coroner’s side. “I am entirely at your disposal,” I said. He nodded in evident relief, throwing worried looks at Shue.
We set about the dissection. Zona Heaster-Shue had been in the ground for weeks now but her body was not nearly as decomposed as I had expected in this temperate climate. The flesh yielded to our blades if the skin were yet infused with moisture. It was unnerving, and dare I say it — unnatural; but we plowed ahead.
We examined her all over but as we proceeded Holmes quietly said, “The throat, doctors. The throat.”
We cut through the tissue to examine the tendons, cartilage and bone. The coroner gasped, but when he dictated his findings to the clerk his voice was steady.
Chapter 7
