Eye of the Crow

through the winding streets, run over Waterloo Bridge, and move up through the city to Montague Street, back to his dog kennel.

The only thing that makes him pause on the way is a copy of the Daily News, which he retrieves from a dustbin. But the crime appears to have left the London papers. They have their victim, their murderer, and prosecution is certain. They are saving their ink for the hanging. And it will come soon.

There’s an unwelcome greeting at Montague Street, in the form of John Stuart Mill. He’s lying on his back in his little house with his legs in the air, snoring, smelling worse than the Thames. The Corgi has decided to sleep out tonight and Irene obviously hasn’t been able to convince him to do otherwise. Sherlock sighs and then snuggles in beside the fat little beast, finding that the only way to sleep is to take this foul canine into his arms. They barely fit inside their cramped quarters and Sherlock’s long legs are twisted like the seaweed he’s seen wrapped around Ratfinch’s eels. One of his legs actually sticks out the door. J.S. Mill isn’t a polite bedfellow either. Rude noises come from him in the night. Sherlock is appalled. Isn’t it enough that he has to wear such filthy, inelegant garments? Now he has to sleep with this gas bag.

When Irene wakes him in the morning, he is still snuggling the dog, the eyeball in one pocket, his hand clamped firmly over it from the outside. J.S. Mill is fast asleep.

She takes Sherlock indoors. He desperately wants to wash, but knows he shouldn’t. He has to stay in disguise.

It is a lesson day for her, but still early. She has time to talk before her governess arrives. Her father has been gone for more than an hour.

Irene feels a thrill growing inside her. Sherlock actually has the glass eye. She can see it bulging in his pocket. And she can tell that a plan is growing in his mind: the look in his eyes is calculating.

They sit at the dining room table again, the chandelier above, the silver candelabra on the laced cloth atop the varnished table’s surface, little Blondin in his cage nearby. They must make some progress, and keep their eyes on the front door.

“My father says that you need to have logic as your first principle in everything you do,” begins the boy, sitting gingerly, aware that his clothes might soil the beautiful French chair. “My weapon against my apparent fate, and Mohammad’s, is my brain.”

Irene almost giggles, aware of his discomfort at being unclean and amused by his very grown-up way of speaking.

His observational skills don’t include noticing subtle reactions in the opposite sex, so he continues without pausing.

“First things first,” he intones. “We simply need more evidence. And we must find it by thinking before acting. Searching for it is one thing, but we have to search intelligently. Then, if we can gain more clues or know more about the clues we already have, we can begin to put together a theory. In the end, we have to prove that theory beyond any doubt.”

Irene leans forward, “We need to eliminate the things that couldn’t possibly have happened and work on the things that are most likely.”

Sherlock smiles. He has never met a girl quite like this. The ones he knows are much rougher, much more apt to laugh at him. Irene has gone to the heart of the problem instantly. Her appetite for the sort of thing that interests him is obvious. He arrests his smile before it grows too evident. She lowers her eyes and adjusts the ribbon at the back of her head.

He thinks he’ll startle her with something … impress her. “So,” he proclaims airily, “Mohammad can’t possibly have done it. That’s our starting point.”

His statement has the desired effect.

“But, why couldn’t he have done it?”

“Because I’m guilty if he did … and because of the crows.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He has to be innocent in order for me to be innocent. If he killed that woman and the purse isn’t recovered, then the police are going to include me in the crime. That’s how they are looking at things, with blinkers on: it was a street crime committed for money. I fit a whole profile, but more importantly, they saw him talking to me at the Old Bailey – only me, in a crowd of hundreds. In their minds, we are connected. Street people …” his voice grows angry, “low-lifes like Mohammad Adalji and Sherlock Holmes, killed her.”

She starts to reach her hand across the table to him, but stops herself and adjusts the candelabra.

“But if Mohammad didn’t do it,” he continues, “I am very unlikely to be included. We have to prove that someone other than the Arab did this. Then we have to find that person.”

“And the crows? What do they have to do with Mohammad’s innocence?”

“You will have to be patient with me about that, Irene. I’ll explain when I have more evidence.”

She knows not to press him and goes on.

“Isn’t the coin purse really the key anyway? Don’t we need to find it, above everything else?”

“Correct.” Sherlock smiles again. “But I have a feeling we won’t find it, at least not until the solution is at hand.”

“So, what is our plan?” asks Irene.

“Three things to begin: first, we have to go back to the murder scene and examine the area thoroughly.”

Irene raises her eyebrows.

“Secondly, we have to make enquiries in that neighborhood. I doubt the police have done any questioning of consequence. They think they have their man. And thirdly …” He pauses. “Do you have a magnifying glass?”

It is a favorite tool of his. His father has one and taught him the subtleties of its use. In fact, his neighborhood fame as a sort of young Bow Street Runner investigator was sealed the day he found the butcher’s mute bull terrier by using such a glass. The canine had somehow locked itself inside a seldom-used back room in the old hatter’s shop, the size of a penny-post stamp. The next day Sherlock noticed a strange white hair on a hat, ran upstairs for the magnifying glass, and followed a trail of nearly invisible dog hairs to the room. The Holmes family had an incomparable Sunday dinner that week: meat on their table.

Andrew Doyle’s study is above them on the first floor off the drawing room. Irene is back with the lens in a minute. While she is gone, Sherlock pulls the eyeball from his pocket and sets it on the table. Irene gasps as she sits down. There in front of her is the clue she has heard so much about. It makes her shudder. She can see the specks of blood on the glittering white surface. She hands the magnifying glass to Sherlock.

“Thirdly, we have to examine this.” He begins turning the eyeball around, looking at every blood splat – his first chance to observe it closely. “If this eye could see … it would save my life.”

“It’s a strange color,” says Irene.

“It is?” he responds and sets it down on the table. In his haste to look for details, he hasn’t noticed the most obvious thing about it. The iris is brown, but a large fleck of startling violet knifes into it at the top, about a fifth of the entire ring.

“You’re right.” He scrutinizes it.

“The owner’s other eye is like that,” says Irene softly.

“Three key facts about our clue then,” states Sherlock. “It was found near the crime, blood splattered, and has a brown iris with a violet fleck.”

He trains the lens on the eyeball again, turning it, looking for anything out of the ordinary. He sees something.

At the back, opposite from the iris, he notices a little scratch. At least he thinks it’s a scratch. He goes on examining the rest of the surface, but then comes back to it…. It’s two scratches.

“Letters,” he says out loud.

“What?” She can’t see what he is looking at and moves closer to him.

He brings the eye up to the magnifying glass and moves it back and forth, trying to focus the scratches.

“There are two letters on the back of the eyeball.”

Irene waits.

“L … E.”

He sets the lens down. “What do you make of it?”