“He could have died of a disease. We should-”
“No, Poppy. As I told you, he is the fifth victim in a series of murders and the killer has left his calling card. The bird and the statue itself. He is sending us a message. This man, and the other four men, did not die of natural causes.”
I leaned over the man’s face - he had a very pleasing countenance - and found no discolouration. I knew that if a man were strangled with a cord or silk or anything at all, it would affect his colouring, but this man’s skin was not black as it would have been instantaneously after death in such a manner.
I palpated his neck. The tissue was soft. I examined round his chest and sides. There were no marks at all. “The face is pale, the eyes staring, the jaw firmly closed.”
“Open his mouth, Poppy.”
I pressed between the man’s lips with my fingers to pry open his mouth. I leaned down. “There is a very distinct odor.”
Sherlock jumped from his chair and threw his hands into the air. “Yes! Precisely. Poppy, when hydrocyanic acid is present, there is a peculiar odor. But it is very volatile and readily decomposes. In very little time, the odor that would be present when you open the stomach and the thoracic cavity will dissipate.”
I whirled around. “You are not suggesting that I perform a full autopsy on this man, are you? Without a jury? Without... without any experience in the field?”
“That is precisely what I am proposing. I am certain you will find the vessels of the brain, the liver, the lungs and other organs engorged with blood, and the mucous membrane of the stomach reddened. Oh, and the blood will be a bluish or violet colour. As one would expect in one who ingests hydrocyanic acid.”
“Sherlock, truly, your faith in me is most gracious, but I am simply not qualified to undertake an autopsy without supervision.”
Sherlock and I both turned as we heard the door swing open.
“No, Dr. Stamford, indeed you are not,” a man bellowed.
It was Detective Inspector Lestrade, and he did not look pleased at all.
11
I gave my head a sharp turn and stared at Sherlock. “You didn’t tell him I was coming here, did you? You lied to me? You got me here with a ruse? Again?”
Indeed, he had done it before, summoning me to the Diogenes Club under the pretence of a request for my presence by his brother Mycroft. I was assisting Mycroft Holmes with the dreadful baby farming investigation. My involvement with that case commenced when I overheard suspicious rumblings about a possible perpetrator at St. Thomas Hospital where I was a nursing student, prior to attending medical school and prior to meeting Sherlock.
“Sherlock, really, how could you?”
“He might have disapproved,” he replied, nodding toward Lestrade.
“I would have!” Lestrade yelled.
“Time is of the essence!” Sherlock exclaimed. “Listen, both of you, it’s important that we gather as much information as quickly as possible. If I am right, if it is the poison I think it is, much of the evidence could quickly disappear.”
“The coroner is on his way, Sherlock,” Lestrade said.
Again, Sherlock threw up his hands. Lestrade crossed his arms over his chest. For the next few moments, it was a bit like watching a long volley during a tennis match.
“Oh, brilliant, just brilliant,” Sherlock whined. “Now we’ll have a parade outside and a hundred minions voicing their opinions and-”
“No, Holmes,” Lestrade interrupted. “No jury. I have spoken at length with the coroner, and he has agreed to do this quietly so that we can confer about it before there is any inquest. But we are all on a very tight rope now, you know, with Director Vincent breathing down all our necks. There can be no more scandals, and the idea that some lunatic is on a murderous rampage and getting away with it... we could all be tossed out on the street at a moment’s notice.”
Sherlock and I exchanged a look. We both knew what concerned Lestrade. The previous year, the Metropolitan Police Detective Branch had been hit by a terrible corruption scandal that ended in a protracted trial and dismissal of several senior offices. It was in all the newspapers from London to Brighton. Richard Assheton Cross, the Home Secretary, a very conservative politician, appointed Sir Charles Edward Howard Vincent as the Director of the new Criminal Investigation Department.
Vincent had an impressive biography. He’d served with the Royal Berkshire Militia and the Central London Rangers. He had travelled extensively and spoke several languages. He’d also studied the French system of a centralized detective force while he was a student at the University of Paris. So now, instead of reporting to the police commissioner, Lestrade, Hopkins, Gregson and other detectives with whom Sherlock worked, all reported to Vincent, who reported directly to the Home Secretary instead of the police commissioner.
I could see the wheels turning in Sherlock’s mind.
“So you’re doing what you’re told. Afraid of your own shadow,” Sherlock said. “Just because the Home Secretary is monitoring Vincent, and Vincent is monitoring you. Oh, the spider webs of bureaucracy.”
“Well, yes, there’s that,” Lestrade said. “And now there’s this article in the Times.”
“Lestrade, all the more reason to get on with it. And for God’s sake, the coroner ruled the other deaths by natural causes. You are the one who consulted with me because you thought otherwise. And don’t forget that business in Kent-”
“Mr. Holmes, that was seventeen years ago. He is going to do the autopsy. That is
