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, that 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
