Lois Bujold - The Adventure of the Lady on the Embankment

It was late in an unseasonably cool morning of June, 1903, when I dropped in upon my friend Sherlock Holmes, in our old rooms in Baker Street. I had spent the night in a weary deathwatch at the bedside of a patient who was also an old friend of mine and my wife's. He had been riddled through with cancer. But even the knowledge that he had welcomed death as a release from the lingering agony that even the strongest doses of morphia I dared give him no longer had the power to mitigate, did nothing to decrease the intense depression I felt about his passing. It had been a helpless, hopeless case throughout, and the grey and miserable drizzle that fell that morning seemed to echo and amplify my mood. My meditations upon mortality had reached a particularly grotesque stage when my cab turned down Baker Street from Marylebone Road on its way to my own lodgings in Queen Anne Street, and it was partly to shake them off, and partly to put off a little longer the moment when I must pain Alicia with my unpleasant news, that I yielded to impulse as I passed the old familiar facade to stop up and see my friend.

Billy the page passed me through to find Holmes seated at the remains of a sparse breakfast, smoking his first pipe of the day (composed of the dottles of yesterday's) and studying one of several newspapers scattered about in the usual untidiness. He glanced up at me keenly.

"Fetch some fresh coffee, Billy," were the first words out of his mouth. "Sit down, old man. You look exhausted."

I nodded and sank gratefully into the comfort of the old chair. Holmes maintained an undemanding silence until I had finished my first cup of coffee. We spoke then for a while of old Hastings, whom Holmes had known slightly.

"Have you anything on hand?" I inquired at length, to turn the conversation to some more cheerful topic. I nodded at the paper folded open beside his plate.

"Possibly. Although at first glance it looks like it might be more in your line than mine." He tapped the paper with one long, nervous finger. "The state of your chin tells me you have not seen this morning's paper; have you seen yesterday's? No? You are just in time, if you would be interested; Lestrade rang up a short while ago-the man himself should be by soon. Center column," he handed the paper across. "They're all running much the same version; this one is typical."

The headline read, "Woman Found on Embankment. Possible Suicide Attempt? Police Seek Clues to Identity." The paper bore yesterday's date.

"About two AM this morning an unidentified woman was found by Constable John Harmon as he made his rounds by the Embankment not far from Northumberland Avenue. She was sitting upon the steps by the river, soaking wet, and wrapped in a bedsheet. She appeared to be in an unnatural state of mind, approximating deep shock, and would neither speak nor respond to questions. The constable took her to New Scotland Yard, from which she was later transferred to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. She is described by the police as being 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighing about 9 stone, with long dark blonde hair and grey eyes. She appears to be between 30 and 35 years old. She has an old burn scar upon her left calf, another scar upon her left upper arm, and a fresh cut upon her right wrist. Anyone with a clue to the identity of the woman is asked to contact the police. The conduct of the investigation has been left in the experienced hands of Inspector Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, who is following up the case with his accustomed energy and sagacity."

"Most peculiar," I responded, handing back the paper. "But not very detailed."

"It was a late inclusion, I imagine," said Holmes. "But the paper of today has little more, although they have not quite come round to making remarks about the bafflement of the police yet. There is not quite enough here to tell if the case falls into the category of the exotic or the merely sordid. But if I do not mistake that regulation tread, here is the man himself to tell us all about it."

Inspector Lestrade was ushered in by the boy in buttons. He had a dirty white bundle under his arm and a slightly frustrated look upon his ferret-like features. He greeted us both with that subdued and polite manner he acquired when his cases were not going well.

"Well, Mr. Holmes, I can scarcely recall any case I've ever had that presented less to go on," he remarked in aggrieved tones as he opened his bundle for Holmes's inspection. "Clothing can tell you something about a person; sometimes it can even be traced. I've seen you do some remarkable things with pocket-linings, I know; but this poor lady has neither pocket-linings nor pockets to line."

"This sheet, I take it, was the garment referred to in the papers," said Holmes, taking it up and beginning to examine it closely. "Well, negative evidence can sometimes be suggestive all the same." He carried it over to the window. "It is a rather common article, is it not? Of a size and grade suitable to a hospital cot. You have, I take it, checked out the most obvious possibility, that this unfortunate woman has escaped from some institution?"

"I've had men out since yesterday morning. I believe we've covered every public and private hospital and asylum in town-my Lord, and there are a number of 'em-but none of them seem to be missing a lady of this description."

"These bloodstains-what were the woman's injuries?"

"Not too much-a cut and a scrape or two. She hasn't been beaten, she hasn't been tied up, and the doctor at Bart's tells me she hasn't been assaulted, either."

"What a lot of negatives. What about drugs?"

"That was what sent me off to the hospitals. She has a number of needle marks; she's clearly been a patient somewhere, unless she's been feeding a private addiction, a theory I've been coming around to."

"On one arm or both?"

"Oh, both."

"Then she has been administered her shots by a second party, and your second theory loses some of its attractiveness. You've examined the woman yourself?"

"I've seen her. An uncommon-looking sort, if I do say so. But you may as well try talking with a statue, for all the conversation she's got. So we are left with the evidence; and there isn't any. So we must sit on our hands and wait until someone comes forward to identify her, if anyone does."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Holmes. "Perhaps the woman herself has more evidence to offer than you think. Although for once I'm forced to agree that your garment here offers very little scope for deduction."

Lestrade looked grimly pleased at this apparent admission of defeat.

"If we could find what she'd cut herself with, I'd be happier," said he. "For example, to use your sort of reasoning, if it were a kitchen knife, we might be able to say she was some poor housewife driven by her poverty to do the desperate thing; or some poor wench abandoned by her lover if it were, say, a cheap penknife."

Holmes held the sheet up to the light thoughtfully. "To use your sort of reasoning: She has a cut on her wrist and has been in the water; therefore she has tried to slash her wrists and drown herself, eh? It seems redundant somehow." Holmes smiled a bit sourly. "Well, I'll give you an alternative. You will find no knife because there is none, and she has not tried to commit suicide by drowning; in fact, she has not tried to commit suicide at all."

"How do you deduce that from a bedsheet?" asked Lestrade, a little startled, but too cautious to take up his usual stand against my friend's theorizing.

"The woman has been through or came from Camberwell on the night she was found. These clay stains are distinctive, although much diluted by their immersion in the river. I think she swam across the river; and a woman who can swim the Thames is unlikely to regard water as deadly enough to invite a suicide attempt. However, beyond the fact that she has escaped from wherever she came by wrapping this sheet around her right arm and breaking a window, and that she has eaten porridge, any further information we can glean from physical clues must come from Bart's. I would be pleased if you could join us, Watson; I have a suspicion that your medical background may be of some use in this. Just ring for Billy, will you, and we'll get a cab."