“Please inquire if the stamp and number will allow us to track down the patient in whom it was inserted.”
“I shall.”
“But meanwhile we are faced with the very real possibility that the corpse in the fireplace is not James Blackstone,” said Joanna. “And that, my dear Watsons, presents a most difficult conundrum.”
“But who else could it be?” I asked.
“It has to be someone who was involved in the quest for the hidden masterpiece,” Joanna replied. “There is no other explanation.”
“Could it be the mysterious David Hughes who supposedly gained possession of Blackstone’s ticket on the Queen Victoria and then disappeared into the wilds of Australia?” I queried. “After all, someone did occupy that cabin on the ocean liner, and it had to be either Blackstone or David Hughes. Perhaps it truly was James Blackstone who fled to Australia and we are at this moment staring down at David Hughes.”
“But that does not fit,” Joanna argued at once. “You are assuming that David Hughes knew of the hidden masterpiece, for there would be no other reason to torture him. Why would the two restorers bring in yet another to share in their fortune?”
“They would not, for there was no need to.” My father spoke the obvious answer, then sighed deeply at our dilemma. “It appears we are facing a set of contradictory happenings. There is a corpse who should be James Blackstone and is not, and a mythical person named David Hughes who is believed to be hiding out in Australia, but may not even exist. It is a mystery upon a mystery.”
“Which seems impossible to sort out,” I thought aloud. “We have a corpse we cannot identify and a faceless man who may or may not be real.”
“What do you make of it, Joanna?” my father asked.
“I do not propose to understand it yet,” she said carefully. “But we have several different threads in our hands, and the odds are that one or the other will guide us to the truth.”
“Which thread do you choose?”
“The corpse, for one way or another it holds the key to our mystery.”
It was well past twilight when we departed from St. Bartholomew’s and stepped out into a steady downpour which was beginning to flood the streets. Carriages were much in demand and we were fortunate to hail a taxi that was leaving a passenger off at the front entrance to the hospital. As we rode down Newgate Street, the rainfall intensified, forcing traffic to slow to a crawl. We remained silent, each of us grappling to answer the crucial question—who was the shriveled body in the chimney? All evidence pointed to James Blackstone, but the age of the metal plate inserted into the hip of the corpse said otherwise. And if it wasn’t Blackstone, who could it possibly be and how did it relate to this most baffling case?
“Watson, are you quite certain about the age of the various metal plates used to reunite hip fractures?” Joanna broke the silence.
“I am afraid so,” my father replied. “The Carnegie plate was invented in 1912, long after Blackstone was wounded in the Second Boer War.”
“It is a most important point,” Joanna said, “Please consult with an orthopedic specialist and confirm the dates.”
“I know several who could—”
My father’s voice was drowned out by a large lorry that roared by us and abruptly swerved in front of our taxi. A moment later we heard an explosive noise that resembled an engine backfiring. Suddenly, the windshield of our taxi shattered, sending slivers of glass flying into the driver’s face and causing him to shriek in agony. He tried desperately to control the vehicle, but it veered from side to side on the wet pavement despite the brakes being applied. We scraped against a parked motorcar, then another, before finally coming to a stop beneath a lighted lamppost. Ahead of us, the lorry sped down Newgate and disappeared into the heavy rain.
“I can’t see!” the driver cried out.
My father quickly vacated the taxi, with Joanna and me a step behind, and all hurried over to attend the blinded driver. Using his hands to cup the falling rainwater, my father repeatedly washed the driver’s eyes free of glass, and we all breathed a sigh of relief as his vision returned. Only then did the three of us begin to collect ourselves, now acutely aware of how close to death we had come.
“Someone obviously wanted us dead,” Joanna said, with a quiver in her voice. “And he came frighteningly close to accomplishing his mission.”
“Check yourselves for wounds,” my father directed. “Sometimes in the heat of battle we do not sense pain until the aftermath.”
I could not help but be impressed with my father’s calm demeanor, but then I recalled his soldiering days in Afghanistan where he learned to control his nerves under the most trying of conditions.
“Are we all well?” my father inquired.
“I am fine except for a few cuts on my forehead from flying glass,” I replied.
Joanna swiftly positioned me beneath the lighted lamppost for a more thorough examination. She ran a soothing finger over the area of the cuts, searching for glass slivers and finding a few. “Are you wounded elsewhere?”
“I am fine,” I repeated.
“Do not minimize your injuries, John,” Joanna said in a stern tone, but then her face softened and she embraced me tightly for a moment. “I have already lost one husband I loved dearly, and could not bear to lose yet another.”
“I plan to be here for a while,” I assured my wife and kissed her gentle hand.
“For a very long while,” she insisted, with a sweet smile.
“What of you, Joanna?” my father asked. “Have you suffered any cuts or injuries?”
“None, and let us all thank the powers that be that the bullet did not find its intended mark.”
“We were fortunate indeed, for the shooter was quite skilled,” my father noted.
“Based on what evidence?” I
