“Yes,” Conan Doyle agreed. “Detective Blenkinsop, please help Mister Wilde.”
The young detective took Wilde firmly by the arm and walked him out of the room.
As they left, two new constables crowded in through the parlor door, gawking at the corpse.
“Lumme! What’d I tell ya, Alfie?” the first said, elbowing his companion.
“Yer right, Stan. Won’t nobody be sneakin’ up on him from behind now!”
The prospect of the horrifying tableau becoming a macabre attraction struck a nerve with Conan Doyle. He rose to his feet and bellowed at the young constables: “Show some respect, damn you! This man was a hero of the British Empire. He was at the Charge of the Light Brigade and earned the Victoria Cross for valor!”
Detective Blenkinsop stepped back into the room just in time to hear. He threw a scowl at the two constables and jerked a thumb at the door, saying, “Right, you two, hop it!”
The young constables skulked out, heads lowered in shame. Conan Doyle took in a deep breath, bracing himself, and then dropped to his knees and rolled the body over. Once turned upon on its back, he took the noble head in both hands and turned it the right way around. The corpse wore evening dress, the once-elegant tuxedo jacket glutinous with congealing blood.
“Dressed for dinner,” he noted. “Lord Howell was evidently about to go out.”
He paused and sniffed in deeply. A bitter tang of cordite spooled in the air. He looked down to see the fingers of Lord Howell’s right hand still curled about the trigger of a revolver — a Webley Mark IV. Conan Doyle eased it from fingers stiffening with rigor and snapped open the barrel with a practiced flick of the wrist and dumped out a handful of spent shell casings into his palm.
“All six rounds have been fired.”
Conan Doyle gripped the corpse’s wrist. The body was cold and when he lifted the arm, it bent like a strip of India rubber — the bones had been smashed to fragments. He unbuttoned the tuxedo jacket and peeled open the blood-soaked fabric. A moment’s palpation revealed that the sternum and every rib were broken. He concluded his examination by patting down the stomach and legs, searching for bullet wounds. To his astonishment, he found not a one.
And then he looked up and his mouth dropped open in astonishment. One wall bore the bloody imprint of a body. He rose and stumbled closer. Something had hurled Lord Howell’s body at the wall with tremendous force, leaving a man-sized dent in the plaster and a ballistic spray of blood.
“What on earth could have done this?” Conan Doyle breathed.
Blenkinsop shook his head, baffled. “Now you know why I fetched you, sir. I can’t fathom none of it.”
The Scottish doctor finally turned away from his ghoulish task, wiping sticky blood from his hands on a handkerchief. He flashed a grim look at Detective Blenkinsop. “I can find no bullet wounds. Not a single one. That can only mean—”
“All this blood?” Blenkinsop interjected. “It’s not his?”
“Unbelievable, but yes.”
“There must have been multiple assailants,” Conan Doyle speculated. “Lord Howell fired six shots, many of which clearly found their target. If a single man lost that much blood he would have died on the spot.”
“If it was something human what killed him.” Detective Blenkinsop spoke aloud what Conan Doyle had secretly conjectured. The smashed front door, the demolished parlor, the body hurled against the wall and then beaten to a bag of broken bones — all after six shots spilled pints of blood everywhere — defied rational explanation. It seemed more like the attack of a raging monster than a man… or men.
“Pardon, Detective, but I must step outside to clear my head.”
When Conan Doyle emerged through the ruined doorway, Wilde was lurking by the front gate, smoking a cigarette. The Irishman saw Conan Doyle approach and drew him farther away with a nod.
“What is it, Oscar?”
“I believe I have spotted what your fellow Sherlock Holmes would have referred to as ‘a clue.’”
Conan Doyle’s eyebrows rose. He leaned close and whispered, “What?”
“Look at the gatepost on the right.” Wilde drew out his silver cigarette case, opened it with a practiced flick, and held it out to the two constables standing guard. “Care for a cigarette?”
The nearest constable turned his head, sneaking a subtle look-around. “Very decent of you, sir. Don’t mind if I do.” As he stepped forward, the gatepost he had been shielding came into view, giving Conan Doyle clear sight of a figure scrawled in chalk:
“Much obliged, sir. I’ll smoke it later.” The constable grinned as he tucked the cigarette in a pocket and stepped back to his post, hiding the chalk scrawl once again.
Conan Doyle and Wilde casually stepped away, leaning their heads together to confer.
“Just random graffiti?” Conan Doyle pondered.
“We are in Belgravia. A place where the idle scribbler and his ball of chalk seldom make an appearance.”
“Quite right.”
Something caught Conan Doyle’s eye, and he tugged at his friend’s sleeve, nodding at the road. “If you look at just the right angle, you can see a trail of bloody footprints leading off into the fog.”
The Irish wit peered down, eyes asquint. “Ah yes, I see them now. Should we inform your detective friend?”
Conan Doyle shook his head. “Not just yet. Perhaps you and I should investigate before the London constabulary has a chance to tramp all over them with their regulation size nines.” He stepped onto the road and nodded for his friend to follow. “Come, Oscar. Let’s see where they lead.”
Wilde’s face plummeted. “Ah, you expect me to accompany you? I had rather planned on standing sentinel at the front gate.”
“I need you to watch my back.”
Wilde’s expression betrayed a decided lack of enthusiasm. “Which begs the question, who shall watch mine?”
Conan Doyle stepped from the curb into the street and Wilde reluctantly traipsed after. In less than ten strides, the house, the Mariah, and the police officers vanished from sight.
“I do not think we should stray too far,” Wilde worried aloud, “lest we become lost in the fog.”
Conan Doyle did not reply. He had his head down, eyes scouring the pavement for footprints. They reached a low garden wall daubed with a bloody handprint.
“Look! He put out a hand here to steady himself.” Conan Doyle looked at Wilde and spoke in a voice coiled tight with urgency. “Come, the assailant cannot be far ahead.”
“That is precisely what I am afraid of.”
“Judging by the staggering gait, if the murderer is still alive, he’s badly wounded and unlikely to be a danger to us.”
They followed the trail of fading footprints as they reeled around a corner into a side street. But instead of petering out, the footsteps carried on. And on. And on. Until finally, in a circle of light beneath a streetlamp, they found the bloody corpse of a large man slumped facedown on the pavement, the staring eyes opaque with death.
“Riddled from front to back with bullet wounds,” Conan Doyle said. “I count at least five.” He fixed Wilde with an urgent look. “Guard the body, Oscar, I must fetch Detective Blenkinsop at once.”
Distress flashed across Wilde’s long face. “Come now, Arthur,” he laughed shakily. “Dead bodies require little guarding. Who would wish to steal one? I have seen my share of wakes and lyings-in growing up in Ireland and I have found that the dead seldom make for good company. They are poor conversationalists, and should one actually speak, I am sure it should have nothing I would like to hear.”
“Very well. You fetch Detective Blenkinsop and I shall remain behind.”