The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Veiled Detective

where he felt sure Holmes would be working. It was familiar ground to Watson, and he really needed no guiding, but nevertheless he dutifully walked several paces behind his companion.

At last they came upon a long corridor with a vista of whitewashed walls and dun-coloured doors. Near the far end, a low-arched passageway branched away from it and led to the chemical laboratory. This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless bottles, each containing a rainbow hue of coloured liquids. Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled with retorts, test tubes and little Bunsen lamps with their blue flickering flames.

There was only one occupant of the room, a tall young man who was bending over a bench, absorbed in his work. At the sound of their steps, he glanced round, and recognising Stamford he sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure.

“I’ve found it!” he cried, his high-pitched reedy voice filling the chamber. He ran towards us with a test tube in his hand. “I’ve found, it, Stamford. I have discovered a reagent that is precipitated by haemoglobin and nothing else.”

Undeterred by this news, Stamford set about the business of his visit. He took a step back and held his arms out to each of us.

“Gentlemen,” he said, with comic formality, “Doctor Watson, Mr Sherlock Holmes.”

Somewhere across the city, Professor James Moriarty was sitting, staring at a large chessboard. With a smile, he reached forward and made his move, lifting one of the pieces in the process.

“Rook takes knight,” he said. “My game.”

Nine

“Doctor Watson, Mr Sherlock Holmes.”

And so, at last, I came face to face with Sherlock Holmes, the man with whom my own destiny was now entwined. He was very tall, a little over six feet, and excessively lean. His black hair was swept back from his face, which was pale and gaunt, with high cheekbones and the most startling grey eyes, which shone out either side of a thin hooked nose.

He gave me a quick glance, almost distractedly, I thought, as though I was of little consequence and he was impatient to explain about his chemical discovery. But then he took my hand and gave it a firm shake with a strength that belied his slender physique.

“How are you?” he said cordially. “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”

My blood ran cold. Was the game up before it had even started?

“You know me?” I gasped.

Holmes chuckled. “Of course not. I deduced it from your appearance. But that is of no consequence. The question now is about haemoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of my discovery?”

My mind did not register fully his question. I was too concerned as to how this man knew I had been in Afghanistan. Someone must have told him, but who? I glanced at Stamford, but his pasty face gave no clues.

“Come now,” Holmes was saying. “As medical men you should be able to see the potential of this reagent.”

“Well,” I said awkwardly, “it is interesting, chemically, no doubt, but as to its practical uses...”

The grin on Sherlock Holmes’ face informed me that I had responded to his query in exactly the manner he had wished. It gave him the opportunity to explain the potential of his discovery in detail.

“Why, man,” he cried enthusiastically, “it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years! It gives an absolutely infallible test for bloodstains. Come over here now!’ Seizing my coat-sleeve in his eagerness, he drew me over to the table at which he had been working. ‘Let us have some fresh blood,” he said, and without flinching he dug a long bodkin into his finger and drew off the resulting drop of blood into a chemical pipette. “Now, take note, I add this small quantity of blood to a litre of water. The proportion of blood cannot be more than one in a million. I have no doubt, however, that we shall be able to obtain the characteristic reaction.”

As he spoke, he threw a few white crystals into the vessel and then added some drops of a transparent fluid. The effect was instantaneous. Immediately the contents assumed a dull mahogany colour and a brownish dust precipitated at the bottom of the glass jar.

Holmes’ face flushed with pleasure. “There! What do you think of that, gentlemen?” he cried in triumph.

“It seems to be a very delicate test,” I remarked, “but effective.”

“Effective? It is beautiful! Beautiful! The old guaiacum resin test is so clumsy and unreliable. So is the microscopic examination for blood corpuscles. The latter is valueless if the stains are a few hours old. Now, this test appears to work whether the blood is old or new. Had my discovery been available earlier, there are hundreds of men now walking the earth who would long ago have paid the penalty for their crimes.”

“Yes, I see,” I murmured, somewhat overwhelmed by his enthusiasm.

“Do you, Watson? I tell you, criminal cases are continually hinging on that one point. A man is suspected of a crime perhaps months after it has been committed. His linen or his clothes are examined, and brownish stains are discovered upon them. Are they bloodstains, or mud stains, or rust stains, or fruit stains, or what are they? That is a question which has puzzled many a criminal expert, and why? Because there was no reliable test to determine the presence of blood. Now we have the Sherlock Holmes test, and there will no longer be any difficulty.”

His eyes glittered as he spoke, and he placed his hand over his heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured by his imagination.

I could not help but be moved by the verve and enthusiasm of the man, and I felt myself sharing in his delight at his discovery. “You are to be congratulated,” I remarked.

“When I think of the cases where this test would have been invaluable. There was Von Bischoff in Frankfurt last year. Then there was Mason of Bradford, and the notorious Muller, and Lefevre of Montpellier, and Samson of New Orleans. Oh, I could name a number of cases in which it would have been decisive.”

“You seem to be a walking calendar of crime,” said Stamford glibly, with a laugh. “You ought to start up a paper on those lines. Call it Police News of the Past.”

“Very interesting reading it would make, too,” replied Sherlock Holmes, sticking a small plaster over the wound on his finger. “I have to be careful,” he explained, turning to me with a smile, “for I dabble with poisons a good deal.” He held out his hand as he spoke, and I observed that it was mottled over with similar pieces of plaster, and discoloured with strong acids. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, and I also noticed the evidence of pinpricks and small scars on the insides of his white arms. These were the tell-tale marks of a hypodermic needle. I glanced again at those animated features and vibrant eyes, and realised that at least part of his exuberance came from artificial stimulants.

“We came here on business,” said Stamford, perching on a high three-legged stool and pushing another one in my direction with his foot. “As I intimated this morning, I said I would keep my eye out for you in the matter of living-quarters.”

Sherlock Holmes raised a quizzical brow.

“My friend Watson here is in need of digs, and is very amenable to the notion of sharing, so I thought that I had better bring you two together.”

Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the thought of my sharing rooms with him, which surprised me. Perhaps his all-seeing eye, which had told him that I had recently come from Afghanistan, had gleaned sufficient information about me to allow him to be at ease with such a situation.

“I have my eye on a suite of rooms in Baker Street,” he said, washing his hands, “which would suit us down to the ground. You don’t mind the smell of strong tobacco, I hope?”

“I always smoke ship’s myself,” I answered.

He nodded approvingly. “That’s good. I usually have chemicals about, and occasionally do experiments. Would that annoy you?”

“By no means.”

“Let me see — what are my other shortcomings...?”

As Holmes confessed his bouts of moodiness and his sulks, I hardly heard him for I was tingling with the realisation that it really was going to happen. It had come to pass as Moriarty had planned and promised. I would