wall space. The constable led him upwards, stepping carefully over the scattered papers.
“Was it like this when you got here?” the detective asked.
“Yes, sir,” replied the constable. “I touched as little as possible and didn’t move anything. I know that’s important in this sort of thing. When there’s been a … when someone’s died.” He stopped at the top of the stairs. “It’s in the study,” he said, gesturing to the farthest door. “I can’t go back in, don’t make me, please sir.”
“The man doesn’t have a live-in,” said the constable, swallowing audibly as the detective pushed open the door. “He has a woman, Mrs. Roundhay, who comes daily. She came this morning, but he wasn’t up like he normally is.”
“When had she last seen him?”
“Yesterday, when she left. About four, she reckons. She came back this morning at about nine and couldn’t find him. The back door was open so she came in and looked around but he didn’t answer when she called. She checked all the downstairs rooms before she went upstairs and into the study and found him. Found his body.” There was another swallow, this one liquid and loose, and the detective called, “That’s fine, Constable. Go downstairs and get yourself some water, I’ll join you there soon. Many thanks.”
The study was, if possible, more cluttered than the hallway or stairs, with all the available space seemingly taken up with books, papers, journals and ornaments. The body was on the floor in front of the desk, twisted in a heap of loose sheets and spilled tobacco, and something that had been spilled from an overturned tin and which looked like old, dried grass. A chair had been knocked back and lay against the nearest bookcase. The room smelled of vomit, although the detective could see none, and something else, something sweet, sickly and sharp. The remains hardly looked human.
Whoever the man was, he had clearly died in agony. His flesh, what the detective could see of it, was distended and yellowing; pockmarked with tiny dots of blood. The face was bloated to the point where the skin looked as though it might split. It looked somehow poisonous, the wattle of the neck ballooning over the collar in angry ridges. His hands were also swollen, the knuckles lost in the tide of grotesque, puffy flesh. His mouth was open and his tongue protruded, and even that was swollen, covered in the tiny dots, black pores against the rich and fetid purple. One eye had swelled entirely shut; the other had managed to retain an opening on the world, and in the tiny arc the detective saw, against a reddened sclera, the blackened pitch of a pupil grown vast in terror and pain and death. It was like nothing he had seen before.
After noting his initial impressions, the detective went downstairs and spoke with the constable again. “It’s a strange one, to be sure,” he said. The constable nodded; a look of gratitude on his face.
“I’m sure that there’s a rational explanation though,” the detective continued. “We simply need to apply ourselves and find it. Logic will prevail.” He paused, thinking, and then said, “It may take some time, though. Can you make arrangements for the coroner to collect the body, and tell him I’ll talk to him when he has completed his investigations?”
“Yes, sir. I called him, he’s on his way.”
“Excellent. In the meantime, we have work to do here. We shall have to inspect the premises fully, and talk in more detail with the housekeeper. We shall need to build a picture of the victim, of his last days, of his life. Oh, incidentally, what do we know about him?”
“He came from London originally, sir, and retired here about ten years ago. He kept himself to himself mostly, didn’t have many visitors but received lots of post. He almost never left this place.”
“And the day of his death, the days earlier? How was he? As normal?”
“No, sir. Well, not on the day of his death, anyway. He was, well, distracted. Worried.”
“Sterling work, constable, sterling work! I see you are going to be an asset to this investigation. I presume you got this from the housekeeper?”
“Yes, sir, I’ve been chatting with her over tea while you’ve been upstairs with the … with him.”
“Good, good. So, to work! Perhaps we should start at the beginning, yes? Tell me, what was the victim’s name?”
“Holmes, sir. Sherlock Holmes.”
As Brabbins further questioned Swann, two morgue attendants arrived and took Holmes’ body away in a silent ambulance, the red cross on its gleaming white side a vivid scar against the verdant fields.
“He was either outside and came in, or the attack started in the kitchen. From there, he went along the hallway,” Brabbins said to Swann. “I’d imagine he was staggering by that point. Look, there are streaks of boot polish along the skirting where he’s kicked it, and on at least one of the shelves, the books are in disarray. More disarray,” he amended, looking at the masses of books that sat on each shelf. “See, these books here are damaged, knocked over, probably as he grasped at the shelf to keep himself upright. There are smears from his fingers here, and here, yes?”
“Yes,” said Swann, doubtfully. “How do you know that those marks weren’t there beforehand, sir?”
“Well, firstly the books themselves. There are many of them, to be sure, but they’re stacked neatly and well kept except for these few. And consider, are there other marks, Constable Swann? The shelves, the surfaces not covered in books are clean, dust-free. I’d say our Mrs. Roundhay—” gesturing towards the kitchen where the housekeeper was still crying and drinking tea, “—keeps this place gleaming, wouldn’t you? No other marks, and certainly not one so large. And look—” Brabbins put his hand onto the mark, letting Swann see how it matched the pattern of fingers slipping across the wood and into the damaged books.
“No, whatever happened to him, it happened quickly. There are no signs of disorder in the kitchen, no signs of a struggle of any kind. He fled his death along this hallway, but couldn’t move fast enough.” Brabbins went slowly down the hallway and onto the stairs.
“He went up the stairs, and he was careless, knocking over the piles of books and paper, but why? What was up here that he thought might help? Where was he going?”
“The study?”
“Yes, but
Although the body had been removed the man, Holmes, was still a presence in the room. These were his papers and books, his curios on the shelves in front of the books, his tobacco and his pipe on the desk. This was his space, and Brabbins knew that he and Swann were intruders here.
“It’s a study,” said Swann.
“Good,” said Brabbins. “Tell me more. Tell me what you
“It’s messy, like the hall. Lots of things. How a person could work here, I don’t know. How could you tell where things were? There’s piles of newspapers, the desk is covered in manuscript sheets with writing on, there are books open on the desk and magazines all over.”
“Very good. Go on.”
“There’s a picture on the desk, the only one I’ve seen in the house, of a man with a moustache. He’s got a doctor’s bag at his feet and a revolver in his hand. There’s a pipe on the desk and more papers on the floor. They’re crumpled, as though he pulled them to the floor when he fell. Some of them are bound together. There are matches loose on the desk and tobacco on the floor.”
“Did he decide to light a pipe for himself, one last smoke in his death throes, do you think?”
“No,” said Swann, his voice defensive, and for a moment Brabbins wondered if he had gone too far. No matter. “The tobacco’s fallen out of his pouch, or spilled when he went for the matches. There’s none in the pipe or near it.”
“Well done, Constable. Please, continue.”
“I don’t know what else to say,” said Swann. “I can’t see anything else, I don’t know what you’re looking for. There’s pine needles on the floor with the papers and tobacco, and some old wood and burlap. It looks like he tried to fill his smoker but dropped it before he could.”
“Smoker?” asked Brabbins, startled. “What’s that?”
“The tin,” said Swann in a tone that was somewhere between wary and disbelieving; it was either so obvious to him that he was worried he was wrong, or it was genuinely obvious and he couldn’t understand why Brabbins couldn’t see it. “It’s smoker fuel. Look, the smoker’s under the desk.”
