“No jealous paramours?” I inquired.
“Gordon was my first beau,” Miss Morris stated, cheeks still damp from her tears. I glanced at Holmes, and he nodded in agreement.
“I wish I could be of more help,” I said. “The trouble is that I know nothing.” I couldn’t let the opportunity to bait Holmes a morsel pass. “And, as you well know, Holmes, I’m not the kind of journalist who would just make something up. All my stories are based on verifiable facts.”
He raised an eyebrow, but made no response. Instead he stood up. “Watson has kindly offered to travel up to London and consult on Mr Drake’s –” he paused, “– physical state in the pathology lab at Scotland Yard. I have to meet him shortly.” He turned to Miss Drake. “I shall call a cab for you, and I shall report if I make any progress.” Glancing at me he added, “As for you, Pike, shall I slip you a shilling now or merely settle your bar bill on the way out?”
“Neither,” I said, surprising myself as much as him. “Take me with you to see Dr Watson, if you wish to recompense me.”
He fixed me with a gimlet eye. “Why would you want me to do that?”
I shrugged. “Boredom. That, and a feeling that there might be something in this case of interest to me.”
“Very well,” he said, “but do not get in the way.”
Holmes escorted Miss Morris to the door of the club while I collected my various notebooks and pens together and put them carefully in the shoulder bag I habitually carried with me. Men, I have noticed, have much less latitude than women when it comes to personal items. They have both clutches and handbags to choose from when carrying their personal items, whereas we have to make do with briefcases and, in extremis, carpet bags. It seems unfair on the male sex, so I instructed a man who works in leather in the back streets around Charing Cross to construct a square bag for me into which I can fit everything than I need and that I can then sling over my shoulder with a strap. It attracts a certain amount of attention when I am out. Jealousy, I expect. Some men are undoubtedly ahead of their time. Still, Oscar Wilde has complimented me on it, so I know I am on safe ground.
I met Holmes outside the club and we walked the fifteen minutes or so along the Embankment until we reached Scotland Yard. He was recognised by the constable on the door and waved through. My experiences of police stations have not been comfortable, and so I was nervous as he led the way towards the stairs and then down into the basement. For an uncomfortable moment I thought we were heading for the cells, but in fact he took me to a large room with several long, rectangular windows along the top of one wall through which, if I strained, I could see the feet of people walking past. The walls were lined with shelves containing all manner of unpleasant surgical instruments and anatomical specimens in glass jars. Three metal tables had been placed side by side in the centre of the room, with gaps between them large enough for two people to pass, side by side. The floor was tiled in white, and several drains had been sunk into it. The purpose of the drains became unpleasantly clear when I realised that the body of a naked man was lying face-up on one of the tables. No cloth or towel covered his modesty. He was, I should make clear, completely dead. It was not that kind of establishment.
The room was filled with a strong smell of carbolic acid and formaldehyde. I took my lavender-scented handkerchief from my pocket and bundled it up beneath my nose. It did not help much.
Dr Watson was standing over the body, examining it intently and professionally. I do not believe I have described him before, and he has never described himself, so let me make the first attempt – he is a man of slightly less than average height, with a rugby player’s physique and a well-kept and luxuriant moustache. His hair is generally brushed back from his forehead, but often flops forwards. It is clear why he is so fortunate with the fair sex. Looking at him now I noticed that his sleeves were rolled up and secured with flexible metal bands and he was wearing a waxed green apron to protect his shirt and trousers from what I shall delicately refer to as the “bodily fluids” of the man on the table.
“Ah, Holmes!” he exclaimed, looking up. His attention moved to me. “And – yes, it’s Mr Pike, is not it? Langdale Pike. What are you doing here?” He moved his gaze back to Holmes. “What is he doing here?”
“Mr Pike is joining me on this case,” Holmes said, his gaze fixed upon the body. “Given that you can only spare a few hours of your precious time, and given also that Mr Pike knows more about the hidden secrets of the average Londoner than most people, it seemed logical so to do. Now, what can you tell me about this gentleman?”
As Watson pointed at an obvious chest wound, which he appeared to have methodically enlarged with a scalpel, I found myself feeling a strange mixture of interest and revulsion. The body – which I presumed to be the unfortunate fiancé, Mr Drake – was of a young man, in his early twenties I would estimate. His hair was blond and rather long, and his body shape – wide shoulders and narrow hips – suggested to me a swimmer, rather than the rugby player that Watson resembled. His eyes were mercifully closed. His skin was white on top, but this faded into a maroon colour for a distance of about two inches from the surface of the table. It was the kind of effect one would obtain if he had been lying in a pool of purple ink for a while, although I could not imagine why anyone would have done that.
Dr Watson noticed my queasy interest. “You’ve noticed how the blood settles in the body under the influence of gravity in the absence of pressure from a heartbeat,” he said, straightening up.
“In that case,” I observed, “I shall endeavour to keep my heart beating for as long as possible. It is a faintly ridiculous look, and I have no intention of indulging in it myself.”
Holmes was still looking at the chest wound, which resembled a flower constructed from dark red meat. Watson turned to join him. “A bullet has obviously entered the body here, and travelled onwards through the heart,” he said.
“The death of this man was almost certainly intentional, then,” Holmes mused. “If the shooter had been aiming at someone else in the crowd then it is extremely unlikely that he would have so accurately hit this man’s heart.”
“I have found a corresponding entrance wound in his back, just to the right of his left scapula.” Watson slid his hands beneath the body and turned it half-over. “Here, take a look.”
Holmes bent over eagerly. I stepped back. This was not the kind of thing I had anticipated to be doing that day. Or, indeed, any day.
“The exit wound is lower than the entrance wound,” Holmes observed. “The shot must have come from above.”
“Indeed,” Watson said. “That was my assumption also.”
“Assume nothing,” Holmes snapped. “It is a valid deduction based on evidence to hand.” He straightened up. “Did you recover the bullet?”
Watson nodded. Letting the body fall back to the table with a flabby thump reminiscent of a large fish hitting a fishmonger’s slab, he crossed to a table at the side of the room and picked up a glass vial. Inside was a twisted piece of metaclass="underline" brass or copper, I estimated, based upon the colour.
“Quite a soft one,” he observed. “Designed to deform as it travelled through the body. Its velocity had slowed so much that it was caught by the man’s cigarette case. Its diameter is slightly less than half an inch, which suggests that the weapon that shot it was a Martini–Henry rifle or something similar. It’s certainly bigger than the .303 rounds fired by the Martini–Enfield or Lee–Enfield rifles.”