Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures

The entrance to the "resting" room was at the far end of the corridor and, as we walked along, I could not help but stare at the series of cots covered over with bottle-green sheets, and at the unmistakable human shapes beneath.

The room itself smelled of death, the familiar aroma – to me, at least – of putrefying flesh, a mixed scent of ruined fruit and

stale milk. There is something about dead bodies which causes the living to speak in hushed tones in their presence. Indeed, it was several months of concentrated autopsy work before even I myself could overcome the need to affect some kind of

reverence. But a dead body is not a person.This knowledge, too, comes only with practice and repeated exposure.

Makinson walked across to the first cot and crouched down to read the label tied to the support. "This one, Mr Holmes,

is,,

"Could we have them in the order they were murdered, Inspector?" Holmes boomed. "And I don't think there's any need to whisper. Nothing we say in here will be any revelation to the victims."

Makinson stood up, ran a finger across his moustache and coughed loudly. He walked across to the second cot, studied the label and then crossed to the third. "This," he announced in grand tones, "is Mr Wetherall."

I followed Holmes across to the cot and watched as Makinson pulled back the sheet.

Decomposition was well underway, despite the cool temperature of the room.

I could see that the man had been in his mid forties although the sunken eyes and hollowing cheeks were giving him a countenance of someone considerably older. A wide ligature around the neck had discoloured to a dull brown shade.

"What do you make of that, Watson?" Holmes said, pointing to the man's chest.

The wound was extensive, apparently caused by a series of slashes into the flesh, some of which extended vertically from the collarbone almost to the waist while others crossed the sternum either horizontally or diagonally. "These wounds were presumably made to expose the heart," I concluded, "but it looks like a frenzied attack. Considering that the man would have been dead when these were committed, I can only conclude that the murderer was in a terrible hurry. See here, several sections of flesh appear to have been hacked out."

Holmes stepped in front of Makinson, who shuffled to one side, and bent over the body. "Did you find these pieces of flesh, Inspector?"

"No. But we had noticed they was missing. We presumed that the killer took them with the heart."

"By mistake or in haste, you mean?" I shook my head. "That does not make sense. The flesh is entirely separate to the heart. Once exposed – as these wounds would surely have done easily – the heart would be encased within the sternum. You can see where he broke the lower ribs to get at it. Once he had the heart, it would be unlikely that he would take a large piece of flesh with it."

"Then why would he take it?" said Holmes. He turned to the Inspector who started to shrug. "Let us look at the next one, Inspector, the farmer, I believe."

We moved back to the second cot and Makinson pulled back the sheet.

This man had been much older, possibly sixty. The Inspector had been right. The damage to the chest was markedly less than that on the first victim, a simple cross-cut over the sternum and two vertical wounds, each less than a foot in length, which enabled the flesh to be pulled back to expose the heart. "It almost seems to be the work of a different person," I observed. "It's certainly not the work of a professional, however, despite its relative neatness. Perhaps he had more time. Or perhaps he was simply not so nervous."

I pulled the head to one side and looked at the damage at the back. The neck appeared to be almost completely destroyed right up to the hairline. The base of the skull was exposed and fragmented. Bending over, I could see that the wound extended down onto the shoulders.

"I wonder if we might turn him over," I said.

Both Makinson and Holmes stepped forward and, between the three of us, we managed to twist the body onto its side.

The shotgun blast had indeed been concentrated on his lower neck and upper back, right between the shoulder blades. The flesh there had been pulverized exposing portions of the spine and lower shoulder blades, themselves showing some fragmentation.

I bent closer. "That's interesting…"

"What's that, old fellow? Found something?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not," I said. "But there does seem to be some indication of another wound."

Holmes and Makinson moved alongside me and looked where I was pointing. Just to the left of the start of the ruination caused by the shotgun blast, a tiny piece of skin appeared to have been removed. That piece of skin could, of course, have been merely the tip of a much larger piece and I mentioned this fact. "One has to consider it as cart tracks disappearing momentarily into

a puddle from which they re-emerge on the other side," I said. "The puddle in this case is the shotgun wound."

"Are you suggesting that something was done to him before the shot was administered?" asked Makinson.

I looked back at the top of the wound, where it met the hairline, and lifted the shreds of loose skin and matted hair. It was as I suspected. The base of the skull was badly depressed, suggesting a hard blow from a solid object.

"He appears to have been struck from behind," I said. "And with a blunt instrument. See, the skin is not broken.The fracture of the skull suggests that such a blow would certainly have rendered the man immediately unconscious and, very probably, would have resulted in his death by haemorrhage. I would need to open up the brain pan to confirm that," I added, "but I would expect to find evidence of subdural haematoma plus bruising on the frontal lobes due to contra-coup."

Holmes was smiling. "Capital, Watson, capital." He strode to the window overlooking the corridor and spread his hands on the shelf. "Before we go any further, let us make one or two assumptions." He turned around and checked them off on the fingers of his left hand.

"The killer murders his first victim by strangulation," Holmes announced. "Then he sets about removing the victim's heart, a process during which a piece of flesh disappears. The means by which the chest is opened up suggests fear or haste… it also, at least initially, makes the disappearance of the piece of flesh seemingly unimportant. I suspect neither fear nor haste played any part in these killings. Rather, it is the work of a severely deranged mind and one that is exceedingly cunning."

He held up a second finger. "The killer strikes again. This time the method of slaying is inconclusive. Initial investigations suggest the cause of death to be a shotgun blast to the back but we now have evidence of a blow to the base of the skull. Which, not unnaturally, prompts the question why should he kill his victim twice? We also have suggested evidence which points to some kind of incision or skin removal immediately below the wound. The wound also extends, almost, to the site of the blow to the skull… as though, perhaps, the murderer were wanting to conceal both of those events.

"Certainly if, as we believe, the strike to the head rendered the victim unconscious at best, then it would have been a relatively simple matter to go about the removal of the heart without the need of further violence. This therefore suggests a further motive for the use of the shotgun, the second red herring."

"Second?" said Makinson.

"Indeed, Inspector. The first one is the removal of the hearts, though quite what such an intrusion could possibly disguise I have, as yet, no opinion. Equally, the reason for the missing flesh or the partial incision is still unclear."

We moved across to the third cot, pulling back the sheet to expose a grisly collection. The young woman's head was propped between the legs while the arm lay before it like some kind of gift and all were set out on the torso as if to resemble a construction puzzle. I lifted first the arm, turning it over in my hands, and then the legs, performing a similar study. There seemed nothing to give any clue for such a crime. I laid the limbs at the foot of the cot and turned my attention to the head.