'Well, this latest modification of the official theory has the attractive quality of some freshness, at any rate. Now let us inspect the evidence.'
A second electric torch was resting on a small, shaky table; Holmes picked it up and tried it. 'Switched on, you see, Watson, but the batteries are dead. Gregson, if I might borrow yours for a moment? Thank you. And so, here is the killer's latest victim.'
Against the far wall of the cellar lay the body of a man dressed in cheap clothing. Though he was young and powerfully built, in death his brutal features had acquired a curiously aged, exhausted look. In the middle of the forehead a great depressed fracture was plainly visible, beneath a discoloration of the skin.
Holmes ignored this for the moment and examined the throat particularly. 'No sign of a wound here. Do you think, Watson, this man has been exsanguinated?'
'I think not.'
'Gregson, what did the medical examiner say?'
'Sir?'
'The question is, has this body been drained of blood?'
Gregson blinked. 'No sir, nothing was said along that line.'
Beside the man's body lay an evil-looking clasp-knife, open. This Holmes now picked up, and on the tip of its blade he declared a tiny bloodstain to be visible.
Gregson commented: 'That'll support the girl's story, Mr. Holmes. I mean that this beauty here was threatening her.'
'I am very anxious to speak with her; but still I felt it necessary to look in here first. Right wrist broken, wouldn't you say, Watson?' Holmes was offering me the dead man's arm to feel, as impersonally as if it had been a chicken wing.
Taking the lifeless, heavily-muscled limb into my grasp, I found I could make the bone-ends grate against each other beneath the skin. 'Yes. Also, there seems to be no doubt about the cause of death.' I pointed to the ruined forehead.
'And very little doubt, that it was done with this.' Holmes picked up a fist-sized stone also lying nearby. 'A good match with those in the walls. And observe the bits of mortar still adhering to it.' He shone the torch about into the room's dim corners. 'The electric light may prove to be one of the most practical aids to the criminal investigator since the invention of the microscope… But where did this piece come from?'
Holmes had to go out into the stairwell with the light before his search was successful. 'Here, at about shoulder level. And the stone was dug out very roughly; with the fingers, it would appear.'
The face of Gregson, looking over Holmes' shoulder, took on an injured expression. 'No need to pull our legs, sir. Walls here may not be solid as a cathedral, but to remove that piece still took a bit o' work with steel tools, I fancy.'
Holmes fitted the stone into the hole, where it matched fairly neatly. Some mortar was missing, which could be seen in the form of dust and scattered small pieces at our feet. With a sigh my friend snapped off the torch and returned it to its owner. 'No doubt it is as you say, Gregson. Come along then, Watson; I look forward very eagerly to a talk with Miss Sally Craddock.'
In a few minutes we were at the Commercial Street police station, where Holmes was of course well known by the authorities. We were shown at once to the small room in which the girl was being temporarily held. As the door opened, I saw her seated, in conversation with a matron; and although her face was turned partially away, I recognized her at once as the young woman whose great strawberry birthmark I had remarked at Barley's.
Her appearance as we entered, and the vivacity with which she turned her head to see who we were, showed that she was much recovered from the dazed condition in which Lestrade had reported her to be. Holmes at once stepped forward, saying: 'I am delighted to see you looking so well, Miss—'
He was never to complete his sentence. As the gaze of the young woman rested on Holmes' face, her whole demeanor altered in an instant. Her face paled with a suddenness that made me think she was going to faint. Instead, a scream burst from her lips, a cry that rang with hopelessness as much as terror, and echoes in my memory to this day.
Sally Craddock burst away from us and out of the little room, so swiftly and unexpectedly that neither Holmes nor I could stop her. Through the main room of the police station and the outer foyer we raced after her, as startled faces turned our way, a hue and cry went up, and other men joined in the pursuit.
Holmes was not more than two strides behind the fleet girl as she darted into the busy street, and I was running right on his heels. We both cried out a warning at the sight of the heavy dray-wagon that came rumbling toward us at high speed, but our shouts were in vain. The slender figure sped right into the path of the four powerful horses, and was run down.
The wagon hurtled on, only to overturn with a great crash as its driver tried to round the next corner without slackening speed; but neither Holmes nor I as much as turned our heads in that direction at the moment.
Bending over the crumpled body of the girl, I saw in an instant that her injuries were likely to prove fatal, and turned to call for the police to bring a stretcher. When I turned back, Holmes had knelt beside me and was silently pointing to the girl's throat. Two tiny puncture-marks stood out there, stark against the white of the girl's skin.
After escorting Sally to within sight of the police station, I remained watchfully nearby until she had vanished within its protective doors. At that point I considered I had done all that honor could reasonably require of me for her present welfare, and considered myself free to turn all my thoughts and energies toward avenging us both and assuring as best I could her future safety.
According to Sally's information the building in which I had been held a prisoner was not far away, and I rose on batwings to seek it out before the dawn. I found the structure just as she had described it, an old, faceless, nameless edifice of brick a few yards from the river. I flew around it once, discovering a disappointing aura of desertion, All the doors were tight shut in those voiceless walls, the windows closely shuttered or boarded over.
Landing upon a windowsill, I melted into mist, in which form I could have passed through a crack much thinner than those offered by the warped boards before me. If the place had ever been a proper dwelling it was so no longer, and the lack of an invitation did not prevent my passage through one dark, empty room after another. I could hear the scurrying of a few ordinary rats; nothing else now breathed within those walls. The enemy, for whatever reason, had moved on. I had not the slightest doubt that I had come to the right place, for they had left behind them a considerable litter of scientific and medical equipment, including at least one of the strange carts unpleasantly familiar to me from my days of captivity.
Others in my place might have found among this debris a wealth of clues, but Matthews had been grossly wrong when he called me a detective. To me, as I stood amid that exotic litter, only one fact was plain: Dr. David Fitzroy was no longer here, and there was no reason to think he might return.
Where next to search for him and for his as yet unidentified co-conspirators? Leaning against the building's outer wall and pondering this question, I let myself be overtaken by the dawn. Unable to change shape during the hours of daylight, I thus gave up for a day the privilege of seeking out my snug earth in Mile End. But I considered that I had urgent work to do, and a tough old
Leaving the waterfront, I sought out a used-clothing stall in Whitechapel and bought a presentable hat to replace the cap that I had somewhere lost, thus acquiring both a sunshade and some little foothold on respectability. I then spent the remainder of the morning gradually upgrading my entire wardrobe, here purchasing untattered trousers, there a better second-hand coat, in a third place some shoes without holes. By noon I was still far from the epitome of fashion, but at least felt confident of being able to enter a newspaper office or a library without being summarily thrown out. The first library I tried offered a medical reference book, listing a Dr. David Fitzroy… indeed, listing more than one. But, even if I knew which one I wanted, what good would his address be to
