‘For many years that was the practice of my profession,’ I acknowledged, ‘but after many close and careful calculations during several engagements in the Khyber Pass I realised development of rigor mortis in the larger muscles can be dangerously unreliable.’
‘Compared to toes?’
‘Compared to toes.’
Holmes clapped his hands in admiration. ‘Watson, Watson!’ he exclaimed, ‘instruct me further. What were your results? I might tell you, my dear, dear friend, I do not recall another instance where so much depends on your medical knowledge,’ adding, ‘Would your measurements remain the same in England’s clime as those taken from corpses in tongas in the far-off reaches of South Asia?’
‘They would,’ I acknowledged. ‘Temperature is temperature.’
‘And the human body is the human body, well said! Come, Watson, I rely completely on your expertise. In your hands alone lies our entire case.’
Despite the deepest worry over Holmes’ accusations against the Kipling League, a surge of pleasure rose within me. It is a rare occasion when he expresses such a need of me.
‘In cooler temperatures, onset of rigor mortis can be more than two hours longer whereas...’
‘More than two hours longer?’ Holmes broke in. ‘As you say, how that flies in the face of intuition!’
He fell silent as though engaged in some calculation and then resumed, ‘Two hours longer in the cold...my heavens, and you sat all the while with dead Timurid warriors, tweaking their toes? Presumably the toes were still attached to their former owners? Bravo, Watson!’
After a pause he added, ‘Think of all those flies!’ Then, mysteriously, ‘Had we caught the three-ten train they would have left him in the moat.’
Clearly restored in spirit (the complete reversal of mine), my companion sat grinning at me. Fields of dark Sussex Reds passed us by.
Holmes leaned over to pinch my arm with affection. ‘Watson, do you by chance have your Codex with you in your medical collection? So precise is the timing of these events...’
‘It has become a talisman, I go nowhere without it,’ I replied.
Holmes seized the leather-bound tome almost before it cleared the Gladstone bag. After a brief scrutiny he looked up, remarking with some admiration, ‘These are pages of the most complex and impressive calculations!’ A further period of examination ensued. He looked up. ‘Watson, I failed in my duty as a Consulting Detective - I should have read this magnum opus most thoroughly when you offered it to me more than twenty years ago.’
A moment later a frown flickered across his face. ‘These summer temperatures, they seem remarkably low. How can that be?’
‘Holmes, you must surely recall from your Great Hiatus in the East,’ I replied, smiling at his bewilderment. ‘This Codex was commissioned by the Russians. Muscovites calculate temperature in Centigrade. ’
Holmes looked back at a table. ‘So if I want to turn 50 degrees in our language into Russian, what then?’
‘You must subtract 32 and multiply the result by 5 and divide by 9.’
‘So I must... which would be?’
’In Centigrade, 10 degrees.’
His forefinger slid down the page and came again to a stop.
‘10 Centigrade,’ he murmured. ‘Onset 10 hours 23 minutes.’
He stared at me across the jolting cab in great surprise. ‘Ten hours 23 minutes, Watson,’ he repeated. ‘You surprise me.’
At this, he returned to the Codex tables. ‘And for a warmer temperature, shall we say at 70 degrees in English? Come, Watson, I rely on your addition and subtraction. What is 70 in this foreign tongue?’
‘Around 21,’ I responded.
Again his finger travelled down the columns.
‘Eight hours 32 minutes.’ He looked up. ‘Almost two hours shorter. There is clearly much chemistry in rigor mortis. One day we must pursue it together.’ He paused, looking hard at me. ‘Watson, I admit I am amazed. I shared the constable’s perception that stiffening takes place far faster.’
‘There is the common view that if you come across a body where the arms still flop, its heart must have stopped beating within the hour - even doctors cling to that assumption.’
‘But the reality...?’
‘I can assure you, Holmes, the truth is very different - as you see from my experiments.’
‘Then I must rely entirely on this rarest of expertise. If we had caught the three-ten as they expected, our talk would have taken place at six this evening...and the corpse discovered by seven. Take away ten hours twenty-three minutes...’ His fingers fell one by one on his knees as he subtracted. ‘According to your tables they must have killed the Boer shortly after breakfast and dropped him in the moat soon after.’
‘Holmes,’ I began, ‘I watch you engage in such calculations with a mixture of concern and mirth. Perhaps before we arrive at their door and end our careers in detection...’
‘... why yes, you should be enlightened - but first let me ask you, in the mill-attic...the canvas on the easel, the copy of the Constable. Did nothing about it disturb you?’
‘Nothing, Holmes,’ I responded, puzzled at this switch. ‘What was there to disturb me? It portrayed a rustic scene, no more.’
‘A very rustic scene, and cleverly done. A set-piece for Lady Fusey, a reminder of her early years on the Stour. Of the pair, would you say it was the principal commission?’
‘Certainly it is the larger and more impressive.’
‘Then we agree. Tell me, why did Pevensey rush to complete it? Why the sudden acceleration this afternoon? What was it that made him put on such a burst of speed?’
‘I was not aware that he had.’
‘Well, I can answer for it, Watson, that it was so.’
‘Then perhaps you will tell me how you make that judgment?’ I requested with a distinct edge of panic.
‘Think back to our encounter with Pevensey in the mill-attic. At my questioning, did he not agree most artists in oil first sketch the outlines on a grid?
I nodded, unsure to which far and dangerous territory the pied piper in the carriage was leading me, while certain it was in a direction I had no wish to go.
‘... and after completing the background items - hills and distant farmsteads, shall we say - he would return to the central elements and with the finest brush, in the most careful detail, paint the very essence of the commission?’
‘He did, yes.’
‘In Constable’s Flatford Mill those elements were...?’ Holmes pursued.
‘The wagoner and cart - and the dog, though as Siviter explained, where Constable painted a dog, he asked Pevensey to staff the painting with a figure....’
‘A figure in a flamboyant hat. So he did, my friend. And added very late in the painting’s construction. It was that figure he painted in last of all.’
‘What makes you so certain, Holmes?’ I demanded.
‘Because the sheen was on that figure and on that figure alone. Do you not consider that quite peculiar?’
‘I might, Holmes, if I had any idea what you are talking about,’ I replied. ‘What of the sheen?’
Holmes pointed at the valise clutched by my side.
‘Retrieve the Gazetteer and turn to the page on Pevensey. Read it to me.’
I seized the Gazetteer and flicked speedily through the pages.
‘Is this what you mean, Holmes?’ I demanded. ‘‘Pevensey prides himself on his acquaintance with the qualities and hues of different pigments in their dry state, to judge the ‘goodness or deficiency’ of them when ground in oil’?’