Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty

Holmes immediately began his examination by scrutinising the man’s head and neck. He was a short, stocky man of about five and a half feet in height, with a spade beard and a bald head. His eyes had been closed, but his mouth was slightly open, the jaw muscles fixed in rigor mortis. About the eyes were telltale petechial haemorrhages, so often found in cases of strangulation and asphyxiation.

‘As you say, the bruising is consistent with strangulation with a single hand. The left hand, in fact.’

He whipped out a magnifying glass from a pocket of his coat and inspected the bruising, before turning his attention firstly to the torso, then to the hands.

‘The hands are soft, but they have seen physical work in the past. They are now kept clean and the nails are well groomed. Note also the curious signet ring with the symbol of what seems to be a pentagram.’

‘I had noticed that, Mr Holmes. Do you think it is significant?’

‘Possibly,’ the detective replied, non-committally. He bent over the open mouth and sniffed. ‘Curious and curiouser.’

From another pocket, he drew out a pair of fine forceps. Then over his shoulder: ‘Bring the lamp closer, please, Constable Grimes.’

Inspector Munro and PC Grimes looked over his shoulder as, by the lamplight, Holmes prised open the lower jaw and inserted the forceps into the mouth and deep into the throat. Then slowly he started tugging something.

Gradually, he pulled out a bundle of jute.

‘Good grief!’ exclaimed Munro. ‘The swine killed him with that. I can see it now. He had him by the throat and shoved that piece of sacking to block his windpipe.’

‘What sort of devil would do that?’ asked the constable in disgust.

‘It is not just sacking, Munro,’ Holmes said, laying the jute bundle on the slab. ‘There is something inside.’

He unwound it to reveal three pairs of wooden dice.

‘The plot thickens, Munro,’ he said, as he swept up the dice and the jute bundle. ‘I think we have seen enough for now. With your permission we shall take this to Baker Street for further examination and some experimentation.’

Upon arriving back at his Baker Street rooms, Sherlock Holmes had Mrs Hudson rouse Billy the pageboy and sent him off on an errand.

Then, with his cherry-wood pipe lit to his satisfaction, he lay the jute bundle on the table between himself and Munro. ‘Now, for a bit of experimentation. What do you make of these, Munro?’

Munro prodded them. ‘Well, I never!’ he exclaimed. ‘Just looking at them they seem perfectly normal, but this pair have four, five and six on three faces, and the same repeated on the other sides. And this pair have only the numbers one, two and three.’

‘Quite correct,’ said Holmes, with a wry smile. ‘The higher ones are called “high despatchers” and the lower ones are “low despatchers”.’

He picked up the remaining pair and tossed them. They came up one and six. Instantly, he scooped them up and tossed them again with the same result.

‘And these are Fulhams, meaning they are loaded. They will always come up as a total of seven. Fulham was renowned as the part of London where dice-sharpers lived and plied their trade in Elizabethan times. But it seems that the trade has now moved south of the river to Putney.’

‘So it begins to look as though whoever killed him was making a point. He had been caught cheating at dice,’ Munro conjectured.

‘Now for some chemistry,’ Holmes said, rising with the piece of jute and crossing to the table in the corner of the room, which was littered with retorts, test tubes and assorted chemistry paraphernalia. He lay his pipe down in an ashtray and pointed at the window. ‘Chemical analysis is incompatible with smoking,’ he said, with a humourless laugh. ‘It would be as well to have fresh air, if you wouldn’t mind opening the window, Munro.’

He sat at his chemical table and arranged several bottles of solutions and reagents in readiness.

‘First, we need to snip a piece of the jute off and soak it in a test tube with ether for a short while. Then we shall apply the Greiss test.’

Munro watched with interest as he shook the test tube for several minutes.

‘Observe as I then decant this liquid into these two conical flasks. Into the first I am going to pour a test tube of sodium hydroxide. You see that it remains clear. Now, as I add this Greiss reagent, if the liquid turns pink it will tell us that there are nitrites present in the liquid.’

He poured several drops into the flask and grunted in satisfaction as the liquid immediately turned pink.

‘And now, if I simply pour the reagent into the second flask without the alkali – nothing happens. That makes it absolutely clear, don’t you agree, Munro?’

The inspector shook his head. ‘I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, Mr Holmes.’

‘No? Then I would recommend that you devote some time to the study of chemistry, you will find it invaluable in the pursuit of criminals. I have just shown that the jute cloth was used recently as a wrapping for nitroglycerine. In other words it had at some stage a stick of dynamite in it.’

Inspector Munro’s mouth opened and closed as he struggled to find words for the thoughts that tumbled through his mind. Just as he was about to speak the bell rang downstairs and moments later they heard a rush of many feet upon the stairs.

‘Ah, Billy has returned with the help we need.’

‘What help, Mr Holmes?’ Munro asked in some confusion.

‘Enter!’ Holmes boomed out as the footsteps reached the landing atop the stairs.

The door opened and a group of a dozen dirty and ragged urchins were led in by Billy the page. With a wink to the urchins and a bow to Holmes he left.

To Munro’s surprise some of the street urchins were barefooted and all of them looked in need of a square meal.

‘Inspector Munro, you see before you the unofficial force – my Baker Street irregulars.’

One of the boys was taller and older than the rest and was clearly the leader.

‘Wiggins, have no fear of the Inspector here. He is one of Scotland Yard’s best. I have an errand for you all. I need you to find me a man. You are to locate him only, not attempt any communication, for he is dangerous. As soon as you find him, and I have no doubt that you will find him somewhere in the gaming houses of Fulham, although I doubt if that is where he lives, you are to report to me. There is the usual scale of pay and a guinea to the one who finds him.’

‘But Mr Holmes, we have no idea what he looks like,’ Munro protested.

‘Oh we know something that distinguishes him, Munro,’ Holmes returned.

Then to the urchins:

‘You are looking for a tall, powerful man, of six foot two in height. He is American and a fervent gambler with a quick temper, ready to use his fists. He wears a signet ring on the fifth finger of his left hand and he smokes large Cuban cigars, which he habitually holds between the fourth and fifth fingers of that hand. Now off you go. Report to me any time of the day or night.’

Once they had gone Munro was quick to ask for an explanation.

‘It is simple, Munro. He is a tall man who could easily hold O’Donohue down with one hand, keeping out of reach of the Irishman’s flailing hands. That and the size of the hand give us his height. He stuffed the bundle with the crooked dice and the sacking into his throat. I trust that you noticed the bruises on the throat of the dead man?’

‘Of course, it was a left hand.’

‘But did you miss the imprint of a ring on the bruise made by the fifth finger? Not only that, but smelling the throat the overpowering smell of Cuban cigars was evident between those fingers. This man is a continuous cigar smoker.’