Crowe looked around. ‘Cosy,’ he said. ‘Ah had worse when ah first sailed from America to England.’
‘Yes,’ Mycroft pointed out, ‘but you had the chance to leave when the ship docked.’
‘A good point,’ Crowe conceded, ‘but at least you get this accommodation for free. Ah had to pay for mine.’
‘Will you two stop!’ Sherlock snapped. ‘This is serious.’
Mycroft nodded. ‘I understand. I was merely trying to find some levity in the situation.’
‘How are you feeling?’ Sherlock asked.
‘My head is pounding, and I feel woozy. That may just be the stress of being hurried through the streets by a group of burly policemen.’ He shuddered. ‘I rarely travel more than a hundred yards away from the Diogenes Club. My office and my lodgings are both within that ambit.’ He glanced at Crowe. ‘Have you made any progress in establishing how the murder was committed? I have come up with seven separate theories, but I lack the evidence to distinguish between them.’
Sherlock frowned. Seven possible theories? He couldn’t even think of one.
‘The man who visited you had a case,’ Crowe pointed out.
‘I remember it.’
‘The inside was padded. Two objects had been stored inside. At least one of them was damp – or at least it left traces of a liquid behind.’
Mycroft frowned. ‘Did this liquid smell of anything in particular? Was it sticky to the touch?’
Crowe shook his head. ‘Felt an’ smelt just like water.’
‘And was there a pool of liquid anywhere in the room?’
‘There was. Sherlock found it.’
‘Instructive.’ Mycroft nodded. ‘That narrows the solution to one possibility.’
‘Indeed,’ Crowe said, nodding, ‘but the evidence has vanished.’
Sherlock felt his fists clench. ‘What on earth are you both talking about? What solution?’
The two men looked at each other. Mycroft gestured to Crowe to explain.
‘Let’s agree that there was no way for another man to be in the room,’ Crowe started. ‘There were no windows, no places to hide, and we would have seen anyone when your brother opened the door.’
‘Agreed,’ Sherlock said.
‘And your brother didn’t kill the dead man.’
‘Of course not.’
‘Therefore he killed himself.’
Sherlock felt as if the ground had suddenly dropped out from underneath him. ‘He what?’
‘He killed himself. Two men in a room, one is murdered, and we know that the other one didn’t kill him. Ergo, he killed himself
‘But…’ Sherlock’s voice failed him for a moment. ‘But Mycroft was holding the knife.’
‘He was holding a knife,’ Crowe corrected. ‘The victim entered the room with a case containing two objects. One of them was the knife that we found your brother holding. There was no blood on the knife because it was not the knife that killed the dead man.’
‘But there was no other knife!’ Sherlock protested.
‘But,’ Mycroft interrupted, ‘there was a damp patch in the case and a damp patch on the carpet.’
Crowe glanced at Mycroft, who shrugged.
‘I apologize,’ Mycroft added. ‘I couldn’t resist joining in.’ He glanced back at Sherlock. ‘Tell me, did the damp patch on the carpet feel cold at all?’
‘It did,’ Sherlock recalled, and then he realized. ‘Ice? he exclaimed. ‘The knife was made of ice?’
‘Indubitably,’ Crowe said. ‘The second object in the case was a knife made of ice. The padding prevented it from melting, although some water did soak into the satin. The case had probably been kept cold before being used, to ensure that the knife did not melt.’
‘The visitor incapacitated me,’ Mycroft said grimly. ‘How, we will leave for a moment. After rendering me insensible, he placed the real knife in my hand. He then sat down and stabbed himself with the ice knife. With his last ounce of strength he pulled the ice knife from his chest and threw it to the floor, where it melted in the warmth of the room.’
‘There was a risk that he would have died too quickly to pull the knife out,’ Crowe pointed out, ‘but in that case the residual warmth of his cooling corpse would have melted it anyway.’
‘But why use two knives?’ Sherlock protested. ‘Why not just stab himself with the real knife and leave it in the wound?’
Crowe glanced sympathetically at Mycroft. ‘Whoever arranged this little charade wanted to leave your brother with no room for manoeuvre. If he had been found in a room with a dead body which had a knife in its chest, he might have been able to claim that he’d found it there and was about to call for help. But if he was found with a knife in his hand, and no knife in the wound, he would not have been able to think of a convincing explanation.’
‘A neat touch,’ Mycroft admitted. ‘I am quite in awe of whoever created this scenario.’
‘Then why did the man kill himself?’ Sherlock asked, exasperated. ‘What were his reasons?’
‘There,’ Crowe said, ‘we can only speculate, but remember that I thought the man looked ill. He was thin and pale, an’ he’d been seeing a doctor. Let us suppose that he was poor an’ he was dyin’ of something like consumption, or a cancer. Let us suppose that someone currently unknown to us approached him an’ offered him a deal. This unknown person would pay his family a large sum of money if the man would anticipate his own death by a few weeks, kill himself in service of this unknown man. This dyin’ fellow agrees, an’ is kitted out with a decent suit, a case containin’ a real knife an’ an ice knife, an’ instructions as to what to do.’
‘Which does raise the question,’ Mycroft interrupted, ‘as to how he rendered me temporarily insensible so that he could place the knife into my hand.’
‘What do you remember?’ Crowe asked.
Mycroft closed his eyes to recall. ‘The man came in, and put his case on the table. He was coughing. I asked whether there was anything I could do to help. He said no, and added that he had some medicine that would help him breathe more easily. He reached into his jacket and took out a small bottle. The top was oddly shaped, more like a button than a cap. He asked me to give him a hand. I walked over to him, and… nothing. The next thing I remember is hearing you knocking on the door.’ He paused, then went on, ‘And a smell. I remember a smell. Heavy, and very bitter.’
‘Ah venture,’ Crowe said, ‘that the medicine bottle was actually a pump spray of an alcoholic tincture of opium. He sprayed it in your face, rendering you insensible for a few moments. Your loss of memory would be consistent with being drugged in this way. This gave him enough time to set the scene.’
An alcoholic tincture of opium, otherwise known as laudanum – the same thing that Baron Maupertuis had drugged Sherlock with in order to take him from England to France. Sherlock still remembered the deep unconsciousness, the dreams and the loss of memory that accompanied his drugging. And the strange, almost pleasant, feeling of lassitude. He shook the memories away. This was no time to reminisce.
Crowe continued: ‘If found, by the police or the pathologist, it would be assumed that he carried it around for his own purposes. Perhaps even to dull the pain of the disease that was killing him.’
‘What happened to it?’ Mycroft asked.
‘Sherlock took it.’ Crowe shrugged. ‘Better that than the police losing it.’
Mycroft nodded. He thought for a moment. A spray that can render people momentarily insensible. How very interesting. I can think of several official and semi-official uses for that.’
‘All right.’ Sherlock paused, trying to arrange his thoughts. ‘We know how it might have been done. We have a theory that fits all the facts. The question is: why? Why was it done?’
Mycroft shrugged. As to that, I am engaged with several difficult negotiations with foreign governments. Perhaps one of them wishes to get me out of the way for a while so that they can gain some advantage. Alternatively, work I have been engaged in previously has several times led to treaties being signed with one country rather than another. Perhaps those other countries have taken exception to my actions, and have decided to extract some form of revenge.’ A thought occurred to him. A serious thought, judging by the expression on his face. ‘Except