All these details I noted down afterwards. On entering the room, my immediate attention was captured by the motionless figure that lay stretched out upon the floorboards, with vacant sightless eyes staring at the discoloured ceiling. The figure was that of a man in his early forties, middle-sized, with dark shiny hair which was swept back from his face, and a neatly clipped moustache. He was dressed in a heavy broadcloth frock-coat and waistcoat, with light-coloured trousers, and immaculate collar and cuffs. A top hat was placed on the floor beside him. His hands were clenched, but his arms were spread wide as though the death struggle had been a fierce one. His rigid face bore an expression of horror.
On seeing the man, I felt faint. A sudden searing light flashed before my eyes, blinding me, and for a brief moment I was back in Afghanistan in the heat of the infirmary tent, looking down at a dead colleague. His eyes held the same terror and disbelief, and the body was contorted with agony in a similar fashion.
I stumbled and reached for the wall to steady myself. I shook my head and took a deep intake of breath in an effort to banish this vision from my mind. Thankfully, the others in the room were too absorbed in their preoccupations to notice me.
The man I recognised as Lestrade was standing by the corpse, jotting things down in a notebook. He was lean and ferret-like, with bright beady restless eyes.
“This case will cause us problems, I am sure,” he remarked, addressing Holmes. “It beats anything I have seen.”
“There are no clues,” said Gregson.
“None at all,” agreed Lestrade.
“We shall see, we shall see,” said Holmes, with no attempt to disguise the arrogance of the remark. He approached the body and, kneeling down, examined it intently. “You are sure there is no wound?” he asked, pointing to the numerous splashes of blood on the floor around the corpse.
“Positive!” cried the two detectives in unison, as though they were part of a music hall sketch.
“Then this blood belongs to a second individual — presumably the murderer, if indeed murder has been committed. It reminds me of the circumstances attendant on the death of Van Jansen, in Utrecht, in the year ’34. Do you remember the case, Gregson?”
“No, Mr Holmes.”
“Read it up — you really should. There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.”
As he spoke, his nimble fingers were flying here, there and everywhere, feeling, pressing, unbuttoning, examining. Despite the swiftness of the examination, it was clear to me that it was carried out with an enviable thoroughness. Finally Holmes leaned over the dead man and sniffed his lips, and then glanced at the soles of his patent leather boots.
As he rose to face us, his expression gave away nothing of his thoughts or conclusions.
“You can take him to the mortuary now. There is nothing more to be learned.”
Gregson had a stretcher and four men at hand. At his call they entered the room, scooped up the body, covered it with a dark blanket and carried it away. As they did so, a ring tinkled down and rolled across the floor.
Lestrade grabbed it and held it up to the light.
“There has been a woman here!” he cried. “It’s a woman’s wedding ring.”
He held it out as he spoke, and we all gathered round and gazed at it. There could be no doubt that this plain gold band had once adorned the finger of a bride.
Gregson frowned and scratched his head. “This complicates matters,” he said. “Heaven knows they were complicated enough before.”
“My dear Gregson, there is nothing very complicated about this affair. Come, come, you will not find the key to the mystery by staring at the damned ring,” snapped Holmes, with a swagger, which I felt was manufactured deliberately to impress me as to the way he dealt with the Scotland Yard dunderheads. “What did you find in his pockets?”
“We have it all here,” said Gregson, leading us into the hallway and pointing to a litter of objects upon one of the bottom steps of the stairway. ‘A gold watch, No. 97163 by Barraud of London. Gold Albert chain, very heavy and solid. Gold ring with masonic device. Gold pin — bulldog’s head, with rubies as eyes. Russian leather-clad case with cards of Enoch Drebber of Cleveland corresponding with the E.J.D. upon the linen. No purse, but loose money to the extent of seven pounds and thirteen shillings. Pocket edition of Boccaccio’s
“At what address?” asked Holmes, giving the objects a cursory glance.
“American Exchange, Strand — to be left until called for. The letters are from the Guion Steamship Company and refer to the sailing of their boats from Liverpool. It is clear that the poor blighter was about to return to New York.”
“Have you made enquiries about this other man — Stangerson?”
“I did it at once,” said Gregson, beaming. “I have had advertisements sent to all newspapers, and one of my men has gone to the American Exchange, but he has not returned yet.”
“Have you sent to Cleveland?”
“We telegraphed this morning.”
“How did you word your enquiries?”
“We simply detailed the circumstances and said that we should be glad of any information which could help us.”
“You did not ask for particulars on any point you considered crucial?”
Gregson seemed somewhat abashed by this query. “Well, I asked about Stangerson,” he said.
Sherlock Holmes rolled his eyes in despair. “I have not yet had time to examine the room, but if you will allow me, I shall do so now.”
He strode back into the room, the atmosphere of which felt clearer since the removal of its ghastly inmate. Whipping out a tape-measure and a large magnifying-glass from his pocket, he proceeded to trot around the room, sometimes stopping and sometimes kneeling, and once lying flat upon his face. So engrossed was he with his occupation, he appeared to have forgotten our presence, for he chattered away to himself in a nervous undertone the whole time, sometimes presenting himself with a question and then answering it. As I watched him I was irresistibly reminded of a pure-blooded, well-trained fox-hound as it dashes backwards and forwards through the covert, whining in its eagerness, until it comes across the lost scent. Sherlock Holmes was now truly in his element. No drug or stimulant could have so energised and enthused the man as this frantic search for clues. So, for what seemed like fifteen minutes, we stood and watched this remarkable performance as he measured the distance between marks which were entirely invisible to me, and occasionally applied his tape to the walls in an equally incomprehensible manner. In one place he gathered up very carefully a little pile of grey dust from the floor, and dropped it into an envelope. Finally, he examined the fireplace and then gave a cry of delight. Snatching the candlestick which had been placed on the end, he lit it and held it up into the nearby corner.
“What do you think of this, gentlemen?” he cried, with the flourish of a showman introducing his latest exhibit. The flickering light illuminated a portion of the wall where a large piece of the wallpaper had peeled away, leaving a large discoloured oblong of coarse plastering. Across this bare space there was scrawled in blood-red letters a single word:
RACHE
We rushed forward to examine the writing.
“The other visitor to this room — and it is clear that there were two men here last night — has written it with his own blood. See the smear where it has trickled down the wall?”
“Why was it written there?” I asked.
“The candle on the mantelpiece was lit at the time, and this would have been the brightest corner of the room,” explained Holmes.
“And what does it mean, now that you have found it?” asked Gregson, in a deprecating manner.
“Oh, I can answer that,” crowed Lestrade. “It means that the writer was going to put the female name Rachel, but something prevented him from finishing it. You mark my words, when the case comes to be cleared you will find that a woman by the name of Rachel will feature in the business. It’s all very well for you to laugh, Mr Sherlock Holmes; you may think you are very smart and clever, but I think you will discover that in the end the old
