Lyndsay Faye - Dust and Shadow

The following Monday, I returned from a game of billiards at my club to a curious spectacle in our sitting room: Holmes was stretched out upon the settee, feet propped on its arm and head supported by pillows, with the neck of his violin wedged into the cloth of his sling and his left hand scraping the eerie, vagrant chords which I associated with his most melancholic levels of meditation. I made for my bedroom, for his more abstract musical efforts were keenly disquieting to my nerves and I did not relish hearing them played left-handed, but he stopped me with a question.

“And how is your friend Thurston?”

I turned to regard Holmes with an expression of utter bewilderment. “How did you know I was with Thurston?”

He set his violin on the side table and sat up. “You are returning from your club. You declared in some distress eight months ago that you did not intend to play billiards at your club anymore because your opponents were no match for your prowess. You and I have only played once, but I found you to be a daunting challenger indeed. A month later, you returned from your club only to confess that you had been bested at billiards by a new member named Thurston. Since that happy occurrence, you have neither given up billiards nor bemoaned your proficiency.”

“But how did you know I was playing billiards?”

“You lunched at home, and there was no rugby match yesterday to discuss with your fellow sportsmen.”

“Am I so transparent?”

“Only to the trained observer.”

“You have been devoting the afternoon to music, I see.”

“So it may appear, but in fact I attended Catherine Eddowes’s funeral. It was a study in opposites, my dear fellow; there were close to five hundred people in attendance if my calculations were correct. Polished elm coffin, open glass conveyance, mourners lining the streets—immigrant, native, rich, poor, East-enders, West-enders, both the City and the Metropolitan police forces, and one independent consulting detective. You see what a little money can get you.”

I had hardly begun to reply when a brusque knock at the door interrupted me and Mrs. Hudson entered with a small package.

“This was left for you downstairs by the last post, Mr. Holmes. I thought to bring it up with your tea, but the cat won’t leave off the thing, as it’s been smeared with Lord only knows what.”

Holmes, with all the galvanized energy of a hound on the scent, leapt to his feet and hurried to his chemical table, where a powerful lamp provided better light for study. He had regained most of the strength in his right appendage and could make use of the hand while keeping the arm motionless. Slitting the paper with a jackknife, he commenced to peruse the wooden box itself with his lens. Uttering a few murmured exclamations of satisfaction, and twice removing with tweezers small indications and placing them carefully on a piece of blotting paper, he worked until I was beside myself with curiosity over what the box actually contained.

At long last, he cautiously lifted the lid. Revealing only straw, he grasped a slender letter opener and with it disturbed the hay until he finally revealed a glint of silver.

Holmes frowned, covered his hand with a cloth, and reaching in, pulled out a small cigarette case. Turning it over under the light, he looked for traces on the surface of the metal, but the case appeared to be brand new. He tossed it on the table and drew out a short note, which read:

Mr. Holmes,

Sorry you’ve lost your case I didn’t have time to monnogram this one but you could always have it done of corse if you wish it. I have a deal of work to do sharpening knifes (they have been so much used of late) but never to busy to wish you and your frend the Doctor my compliments. Back to it then, I hope you don’t think I’ve finished, for there’s much work still to be done.

Yours,

Jack

PS—Had no time to clean my knife between you and the last girl what a jolly red mix that was.

I stared in disbelief. “You lost your cigarette case when you encountered the killer! I distinctly remember your asking for mine.”

He did not answer.

“My dear Holmes, this is nonsensical. Why should he return you a cigarette case which is not your own?”

“Page torn from a notebook, standard pocket size, black ink, and with any luck…” He fetched a piece of graphite and ran it lightly over the surface of the note. He gave a cry of delight when a pattern revealed itself.

“What have you found?”

He passed me the scrap of notepaper with evident satisfaction and I squinted at the writing he had revealed:

245

—11:30

1054

—14

765

—12:15

“Holmes, what could this possibly mean?”

“It is an impression from the previous page. I confess I make nothing of it at the moment, but that surely does not mean it is beyond human imagining. No finger marks on either the paper or the case, which is very odd indeed and means he either wore gloves from its moment of purchase or else wiped it carefully. He is a collector of trophies, fair-haired, meticulous, and I doubt not that there is a stable very close to where he lives, for this hay has recently been in the immediate vicinity of a horse. He was in attendance at Catherine Eddowes’s interment today. And when he packed this box,” Holmes concluded triumphantly, “he was smoking a cigarette. The ash has fallen in the hay.” Scraping a flake of fluffy white ash onto another piece of blotting paper with the jackknife, the detective held up his lens.

“I can see the hair follicle you discovered between the paper and the box, and the postmark no doubt revealed he was in the vicinity of the funeral. What of the ash? Will it help us to trace him?”

My friend dropped his lens in deepest disdain, crushed the paper in his fist, and drew a very deep, very slow breath before replying, “Afraid not, my boy.”

“But why not?” I inquired hesitantly.

“Because he was smoking my cigarettes.”

I could think of no reply to this repulsive piece of information and thus attempted none.

“As for the trophies,” Holmes continued more evenly, lifting a glass test tube from its holder and switching on his blue-flamed burner, “he has amassed, so far as we know, a womb and a kidney. And now my cigarette case is certainly in his possession, for how else would he know it was monogrammed?”

“Holmes, what are you doing?”

My friend fixed me with a sly glance as he set a container of water on the burner and drew a vial of snow white crystals out of a small leather case. Reaching for the soiled paper and cutting the dark stain free of the rest, he tossed it into the steaming water. “What do you imagine this stain to be, Watson? Ink? Mud? Dye?”

“I hardly like to think of what it—oh, but Holmes—of course!” I cried, as he drew drops of various liquids from their jars and carefully combined them in a test tube. “How could I forget? At the very moment I met you, you were quite incoherent over your discovery.”

“That is because the Sherlock Holmes test for hemoglobin represented an incalculable breakthrough in criminal science, and may I add it took me nearly four months to perfect,” he returned airily.* He unstopped the vial and shook a few pale crystals into the water in which the dark paper was beginning to break down, switching off the burner as he did so. “It was an historic day, friend Watson, in more ways than one, in celebration of which I invite you to do the honours.”

I took the clear liquid he had prepared and hesitantly tipped a few drops into the water. Before our very eyes, it turned from transparent to a menacing maroon.