The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part XI Page 9

  “Curious indeed.”

  Hesitating only slightly, we entered the death room.

  The scene the greeted us was very different than the one before. The body of the victim lay sprawled across the hearth. It had been charred to a degree that was almost unbelievable. An arm was entirely missing, the right. Both legs were intact, and one appeared to have lost a shoe. I noticed it lying several feet away.

  The rocking chair in which the previous Miss Wick had perished was not in evidence. Instead there was a comfortable overstuffed chair, quite new. Its brocaded covering showed no signs of scorching.

  The body lay face down. Holmes stepped around it, studying the remains from every conceivable angle.

  “It appears that the poor woman was struck down as she was about to light a fire,” I ventured.

  Holmes snapped, “I see no evidence of that. The logs are fresh, and there was no sign of a lucifer, or any other igniter.”

  “It may well have gone up with her.”

  “Conceivably,” said Holmes. “But I would imagine that if a woman’s clothing caught fire whilst she was attempting to start a blaze, the beginnings of the blaze would be evident.”

  The body was a horrid sight. There was not a portion of her that was untouched. There was a smudging of ash approximately where the missing arm would have rested. The head have been cooked thoroughly, but the features still yet survived, although the hair has been entirely burnt away, as was her clothing.

  Kneeling, Holmes touched the body whilst I observed the surroundings. The walls were sooty. The window glass lacked the yellowish liqueur that Holmes had previously suggested was a precipitation created by the violent combustion of human flesh and fat. I did not doubt him - although such a thing had never seemed possible to me. I had attended to many burn victims, and Holmes had previously questioned me in depth on that subject. Fire tends to remove the outer layers of skin, but not penetrate very deeply into muscle or bone.

  I threw off the preposterous possibility of a human body being incinerated to such a degree and found a portrait on the mantel that was grey with soot. The face was dimly visible - it was that of a youngish woman of perhaps forty. She was rather striking.

  Pointing to the photograph in its frame, I asked the fire officer, “Is this the poor victim?”

  Holmes’s searching gaze snapped in my direction. He strolled over. Picking up the portrait, he announced, “Of course it is.”

  Using the fingers of a glove, Holmes lifted a line of soot off the glass covering the photograph and paid more attention to the residue than he did the image of the woman captured there.

  He gave the deposit a great deal of scrutiny, rubbing his gloved fingers together and sniffing the black stuff.

  “There was no question that this is a photograph of the victim. The shape of the head, the formation of the ears, and other particulars confirm it.”

  “Holmes,” I cried out. “This woman has been cooked to a crisp! How can you be so certain?”

  “The woman in the photograph lacks pendulous ear lobes, and although the configuration of the corpse’s ears has been greatly deformed by fire, the fact that she lacked ear lobes in life is beyond dispute.”

  The patient fire officer offered a comment of his own. “Mr. Holmes, I have been studying the literature on spontaneous human ignition. It is a fact that many of the victims were found exactly in this position, sprawled up on their own hearths. In most cases, the fireplace was cold.”

  “But not in all,” countered Holmes.

  “If the act of lighting a fire is not the cause of death, one wonders if something demonic had come down the chimney to consume the poor victim,” Claverling grunted.

  “As outlandish as your theory sounds,” Holmes admitted, “it is not to be dismissed out of hand.”

  “I admit gruesome spectacle rather makes one consider a supernatural agency at work. A woman burns in her own living room, and there are no scorch marks whatsoever.”

  “Perhaps not supernatural, but preternatural,” suggested Holmes.

  The fire officer looked strangely. “I fail to comprehend the difference.”

  “One is impossible, whilst the other is merely improbable.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Consider the common humbug of a thunderbolt striking a human being and incinerating him. It is considered impossible. Lighting kills by electrical disruption of the nervous system, suppressing heart action and respiration, not through heat. The resulting electrical burns are incidental to the mortal result. Yet lightning often ignites trees it blasts, creating fires.”

  “I quite fail to follow your train of thought.”

  “That is because I am not finished. My thoughts hurl backward in time to reports of The Great Thunderstorm of October 21st, 1638. A sizable ball of fire intruded into St. Pancras Church in Widecombe-in-the-Moor, Dartmoor, smashing it to flinders before exiting in two discrete parts. Many were killed, and several badly burned, although not to the ultimate degree. Very mysterious. Reports of so-called ball lightning have persisted through the centuries, despite the skepticism of learned men.”

  “Do you imagine a freak of nature to be behind this phenomenon?” I demanded.

  “I consider that theory to be improbable, but not demonstrably impossible,” snapped Holmes. “Ball lightning has been rejected by science, yet sane persons continue to report encounters with luminous balls of light during thunderstorms. Hence, I cannot dismiss it.”

  He was back at the roasted corpse. This time he placed his unobstructed nostrils quite close to it. They quivered as he took in a terrible odor. He seemed to stand it well enough, but once he stood up, he resorted to his handkerchief.

  Sherlock Holmes addressed the fire officer.

  “If you will be good enough to summon Inspector Lestrade, I believe he will find this interesting.”

  “Do you suspect foul play?”

  “No, I am certain of it.”

  I confess that I did not expect this turn of events.

  After Claverling had left, I followed Holmes out onto the street.

  “I beg you, Watson, to be silent as I make conversation with Mr. Merridew. I do not wish to alarm him in any way whilst we await Lestrade.”

  “The poor fellow,” I remarked sympathetically.

  “I imagine he is fated to become even poorer after the events of today,” drawled Holmes.

  “No doubt,” said I, thinking of the reputation his little boarding house was destined to achieve. Soon the newspapers would christen it a “House of Horrors”.

  The landlord was beside himself, pacing madly. He did not describe circles, but rather eccentric parabolas in the trampled grass.

  Holmes accosted him in his forthright manner.

  “A word with you, Merridrew, if I could.”

  The landlord started violently, then turned. Before Holmes could pose a question, he began unburdening himself rapidly.

  “It was an abominable sight, Mr. Holmes. Worse than the previous one. It happened just as before. The smell, that horrid, wretched stink alerted me. Knowing what it portended, I ran straight away to Miss Wick’s room.”

  “I see,” said Holmes. “What made you jump to such a conclusion?”

  “The smell. I know it well. As for why I assumed it was emanating from Miss Wick’s rooms - well you can imagine that as well as I. Where else would I first turn?”

  “Your logic is impeccable,” allowed Holmes. “Pray continue.”

  “Naturally, I used my key. When I went in, I received the full blast of smoke and I spied the remains. Although I only gave it a cursory glance, I deduced much.”

  “Ah! And what did you deduce in those few seconds, Mr. Merridew?”

  “That Miss Wick had been in the act of lighting her fire when she was consumed.
I noticed that she had thrown off a shoe, over behind the chair, as if she had attempted to flee before falling. It was uncanny. The hearth was stone cold, yet the floor beneath the body unscorched. What could produce such a baffling effect? Are there demons abroad in Southwark? Is Old Scratch himself claiming souls in his illimitable way?”

  “I daresay no one could contradict your theory, inasmuch as all other theories are equally preposterous. Now tell me, by your own words you seemed more than commonly familiar with the uncanny phenomenon of inexplicable human combustion.”

  “Well, it was you who put me onto it in the first place, Mr. Holmes. Do you not remember? You declared that what happened to Miss Kathleen Wick was not so rare as one might suppose. Naturally, being the proprietor of a rooming house in the same parish as the Tooley Street fire, I would not want a repetition of such a tragedy. I sought out all accounts of the phenomenon I could lay hands on. They made distressing reading. Particularly, I was concerned that so many victims had fallen at their own hearths.”

  “Undeniably,” said Holmes, “it is part of a pattern with no clear explanation. But this case differs from many.”

  Merridew eyes blinked rapidly. “In what way, sir?”

  “It is common for the victim’s trunk to be incinerated yet the extremities survive, at least in part. In this case, one arm alone seems to have been rendered into ash. I do not recall ever encountering that particular variation of the phenomenon in the literature.”

  “Well, my reading indicates that the state of the victims do vary considerably.”

  “Considerably, yes. But not with such a unique feature.”

  Merridew frowned. “Until such a time as the cause of these outrages can be determined scientifically, I do not see how any element can be dubbed unique. It sounds rather premature to me. But I am only a common man, with a common brain. I do not have the wits of a detective.”

  “How well did you know Miss Elizabeth Wick?” Holmes asked suddenly.

  “She was a rare woman, a fine beauty. Such a tragedy that such a well-formed and handsome woman should be reduced to such a state. No doubt she had many years of healthy life ahead of her until this dark day.”

  “That is a fine compliment you have paid her, but that was not my question,” returned Holmes flatly.

  “Well, I did not know her intimately, if that is what you mean. She was a boarder. She had her own ways. Oh, she was friendly enough. But not excessively so. I could not tell you whether or not she was a widow. Only that she was not presently married.”

  Holmes pressed on. “Had she many visitors? Suitors? Relatives?

  “I would say that she had many admirers. She was popular in the neighborhood. I would not say that she had suitors so much as she had aroused the interest of the neighborhood men, regardless of their marital state, if you know what I mean.”

  “I take your meaning quite plainly,” said Holmes. Without turning his head at the sound of familiar footfalls, he said, “Ah, I believe that Inspector Lestrade has gotten around to joining us.”

  Mr. Merridew turned about, spied Lestrade coming up the way, and said rather dismissively, “I cannot imagine what Scotland Yard will make of this awful tragedy.”

  “If you’ll pardon me once more,” said Holmes, stepping away and rushing to greet Lestrade.

  The two men engaged in a rather animated exchange out of earshot. I made pleasantries with poor Merridew, hoping to keep his mind off his mounting troubles.

  At length, Holmes returned with the inspector, and to my stark astonishment, he pointed at Mr. Merridew. “Inspector, let me suggest that you place Mr. Merridew in handcuffs whilst I explain the nature of his abominable crime.”

  Merridew started, and seemed at a loss for words. His natural pallor deepened astonishingly.

  Inspector Lestrade produced handcuffs, but made no move to arrest the man, evidently lacking sound reason to do so.

  “I should like to hear Mr. Holmes’s accusations in full before I do anything official,” said Lestrade.

  “As I just explained to the inspector, there a certain irregularities in Mr. Merridew’s account,” stated Holmes.

  Merridew stared wordlessly, eyes turning glassy. His forearms seemed to tremble.

  “First, Merridew claimed to have been alerted to the tragedy as a result of a familiar odor. But as Dr. Watson will attest, we both noted that the smell surrounding the death of the second Miss Wick was not the odor of cooked fat, but rather roasted flesh. They are distinctly different. Smelling one might suggest the other, but only insofar the repulsiveness of the odors involved.”

  Merridew said suddenly, “When I smell a fire in my building, I do not question its origins. I leap into action.”

  “And happily land on the correct spot with the agility of a cat,” said Holmes firmly. “The two odors were not identical. Yet you went to Miss Wick’s room directly.”

  “Directly, and correctly as it turned out,” snapped Merridew.

  “Did you touch the body when you discovered it?”

  “Absolutely not!” Merridew insisted. “I know better than to disturb a dead body before the authorities arrive. I touched nothing!”

  “You touched nothing. You are certain?”

  “I slammed the door and called the fire brigade. They were not long in arriving.”

  “If you did not touch anything, and how is it you are so confident in asserting as fact that there were no scorch marks on the floor beneath the body of the late Elizabeth Wick?”

  “Why, it was plain to see that only the body was consumed. Your question, sir, seems beside the point.”

  “Perhaps. But the body has yet to be moved. Perhaps the time has come.”

  During this cold exchange, Lestrade said, “Let us look into this question.”

  We ascended to the second-floor flat, handkerchiefs protecting our noses once more. Lestrade went first, and so did not notice this precaution.

  The inspector was taken aback by the stench once he entered the room, and he was obliged to pinch his nostrils shut and breathe through his mouth, which he guarded with the trailing portion of the linen.

  His eyes were a little queer as he walked around the body. Taking a poker from the fireplace, he carefully nudged the black corpse at the shoulder. It appeared to be largely intact, for when he gave it a poke, it moved without crumbling.

  The bare heath flags under the body bore no scorch marks.

  Lestrade turned on Mr. Merridew and said, “It appears that you are correct, sir.” He stood up and asked, “How is it you possess the knowledge, Mr. Merridew, when by your own admission you did not touch the body in any way?”

  “Why - why,” Merridew stammered. “I discerned no surrounding scorch marks and I suppose I drew a correct conclusion from what I witnessed.” Glancing in Sherlock Holmes’s direction, he added, “My understanding is that certain clever persons do the very same all the livelong day.”

  Ignoring the snide tone of the man’s aside, Holmes asked, “How far did you advance into the room?”

  “I stood upon the threshold and immediately closed the door.”

  “I see,” said Holmes. “Let us recreate your actions by proxy. Lestrade, will you take a position on the threshold.”

  The man from Scotland Yard did so. Stopping at the far wall, he turned about and stood facing the interior of the room. “Please describe what you observe,” requested Holmes. “Consider this a crime scene and take inventory of all that you notice.”

  Without hesitation. Inspector Lestrade commenced a crisp and clinical description of the body, the unpleasant soot on the walls and furniture, adding other details, leaving out nothing.

  His final observation was, “The woman is wearing only one shoe. I do not see the other.”

  Holmes nodded with satisfaction. “You do not see the
other. Because it is behind this rather substantial chair. Yet Mr. Merridew described the position of the shoe without hesitation. How is it that you were able to do perform such a feat, Mr. Merridew? Do you possess preternatural vision?”

  “I did not say that I saw the shoe - only that it appeared to have been left behind with the woman attempted to flee her own combustion.”

  Holmes turned to me. “Dr. Watson, do you recall his exact words?”

  “I do. He gave the distinct impression of having seen the shoe, for he described its position.”

  “From where you stand, Lestrade, do you see the location of the shod foot?”

  “No, I do not.”

  “Come, come,” said Holmes. “Put some effort into it. Strain your neck, twist your body. Surely you can perceive it if you put an effort into it. Mr. Merridew did so in with but a quick glance.”

  Inspector Lestrade did his best. In the end, he admitted, “I completely fail to discern the location of the shoe from this vantage point.”

  “Your story, Mr. Merridew,” said Holmes stiffly, “appears not to be holding together very well. Let me add to the anomalies I have observed.”

  Holmes began pacing around the room. “First, the soot on the walls is different than the residue present on the previous tragic occasion. This soot appears to have been applied with a coal-oil lamp. It is not greasy at all. Nor is it the same color. It is also rather indifferently applied, whereas the other residue was uniform.

  “I will also call your attention to the window sash. It appears to have been forced open, perhaps to let out smoke. There are fingermarks on the windowsill. I wonder whose they are?” His keen grey eyes went to the landlord’s fidgety fingers.

  At that, Mr. Merridew attempted to flee the room. The open door was of course blocked by Inspector Lestrade, so the frantic man turned towards the window and attempted to force it upwards.

  “You’ll not get me now!” he cried.

  Holmes stepped in, and delivered a fist flow to the back of the man’s head. It struck at the point at which the upper spine meets the lower skull. The blow rendered the fellow senseless. I had never seen such as expert work with the fist, although in the years that followed, Holmes performed similar feats.