It was with a mixture of trepidation and eager anticipation that, on a cold and dank November evening, having just arrived back at our rooms in Baker Street from a day-long symposium on glandular deterioration, I greeted Sherlock Holmes’s announcement that we were to journey to Harrogate.
Despite being some 200 or more miles from the capital’s bustling familiarity and drudgery (two indistinguishable sides of the same tarnished coin), the trip clearly promised a return to matters of detection. For though Holmes complemented news of our impending departure with the promise of bracing Yorkshire air to clean clogged and jaded tubes – of both a bronchial and a cerebral nature – I suspected an ulterior motive.
That is not to say that my good friend was not given to displays of impetuosity. Indeed, he had proven to me on many occasions that he was the very soul of immediacy. It was as though he were cognizant of his own mortality. Sometimes, I even thought that he was frightened of idleness, though he was not a man prone to fear or cowardice. Rather it was, or so it seemed, the prospect of inaction that presented the most serious affront to his sense of being. Action, or “the game” as he liked to regard the often heinous crimes whose unravelling he was frequently called upon to master, was what he was here to do. It was for this singular reason that I so welcomed the prospect.
For myself, however, the approach was entirely different. Somewhat in contradiction to the cautious and even begrudging excitement I have already mentioned, it was my custom to regard the prospect of further nefarious activities with some apprehension. On the occasion in question, this feeling was particularly pronounced.
“Might I at least remove my topcoat?” I enquired.
“No time for that, old fellow,” Holmes blustered. “We are to leave within the hour. Here.” He held out to me a single sheet of paper and the envelope in which it had arrived.
Affixing my reading spectacles, I glanced at the letter and its careful and practised copperplate hand. “Read it aloud, old fellow,” Holmes proclaimed with a pride that suggested he himself as the missive’s author.
“ ‘My Dear Mr Sherlock Holmes,’ it begins,” I said. “ ‘Please forgive the brevity of this note and its undoubted intrusion on your privacy but I am in dire need of advice and assistance on a matter of grave importance.’ ”
“ ‘Grave importance’,” Holmes said, turning his back to the fire crackling in the grate. “Capital!” He glanced across at me and waved a dismissive hand. “Do continue, Watson.”
I returned my attention to the letter.
“ ‘A situation has arisen,’ ” I resumed, “ ‘here in Harrogate which, I feel, requires a level of experience and a depth of knowledge that I am in all honesty quite unqualified to provide, despite some thirty years with the Force.’ ”
“Force?” I enquired of Holmes. “The sender is a policeman?”
“Read on, read on,” Holmes instructed, and he walked to the window and stared into the street.
I returned to the letter. “ ‘We are plagued with a villain the likes of what I have never encountered,’ ” I read, “ ‘a madman in whose wake we now have three deaths and little or no explanation as to the reason behind them. It would be not proper for me to outline the manner of these inhuman atrocities in this letter but I feel sure that they will be of sufficient interest to warrant your visiting us at your earliest availability.’ ”
The letter closed with the writer’s assurance that, in the event of our accepting his invitation, rooms would be arranged for us on our behalf at a nearby hostelry, and at no cost to ourselves. It was signed Gerald John Makinson, Inspector of the North Yorkshire Police.
“What do you say to that, Watson?” Holmes said, warming himself against the fire, his back arched like that of a cat.
I did not know quite what to make of it, save that the Inspector’s grasp of the King’s English was somewhat lacking and I told my friend as much. “For that matter,” I added, “who is this Makinson fellow?”
“I was introduced to him by our very own Lestrade, last June as I recall. The fellow was down in London to attend a series of presentations on the increasing use of behavioural science in law enforcement. His address was most enlightening.”
“Apparently the meeting made something of an impression,” I observed.
“And one beside that of simple grammatical impropriety,” said Holmes. He stepped away from the fire and rubbed his hands gleefully before removing his watch from a pocket in his waistcoat. He glanced at the timepiece. “Almost five and twenty past seven, Watson.” He returned the watch and smiled, his eyes narrowing. “There is a milk train which leaves King’s Cross station at four minutes past ten o’clock. It is my intention that we be on it.”
I was about to protest, fully realizing that it would be to no avail, when Holmes turned around and strode purposefully from the room. “Might I rely on you to pack some suitable clothes, old fellow?” he requested over his shoulder. “And please do bear in mind that Yorkshire is not a county renowned for the clemency of its weather, particularly at this time of the year.” With that, he slammed his bedroom door.
I glanced down at the single sheet of paper in my hand. It never ceased to amaze me at how little it took to propel my friend to levels of great excitement, and at how quickly those levels could be so attained. It was a trait that was at once both enviable and despairing to behold, for these high moods when he was absorbed in a case were countered by depths of depression when he was not. It was at times such as this that Sherlock Holmes reminded me not so much of a sleuth as of a young schoolboy, so pure were his beliefs and motivations.
I set to preparing overnight bags for the two of us, including sufficient clothes for a few days’ stay, and, when Holmes reappeared, we left our rooms and, without further conversation, ventured out into the cold evening.
We boarded the train at five minutes to ten o’clock and made our way immediately to our sleeping compartments. At the prescribed time, the train departed King’s Cross and headed for Yorkshire. As the gently rocking motion of the carriage lulled me towards sleep, I watched the dark countryside pass by the window, noting somewhat ominously that the fog was growing seemingly thicker with each yard we travelled northwards.
We arrived in Leeds at a little after a quarter past six on the following morning.
I had had a reasonable enough night’s sleep, the rocking of the carriage keeping me quite comforted. Holmes, however, appeared not to have fared so well and, when I first saw him in the corridor, he looked pale and drawn, his eyes pouched and discoloured. He was fully dressed and clearly ready to disembark and begin the next stage of our journey.
“Sleep well, old fellow?” he enquired in a tone that suggested the answer was less important than the fact that, in his opinion, he had been waiting too long to pose it.
“I did indeed,” I replied. “And you?”
He gave a slight grimace and adjusted his gloves. “As you know, I dislike periods of enforced inaction. Periods during which there is little to demand my attention.” He clapped his hands together and his face beamed beneath his ear-flapped travelling-cap. “However, we are but some fifteen miles from our destination. There is a train leaving on the half-hour.” With that, he lifted his bag and walked along the corridor to the door.
Harrogate is a delightful town, a criss-cross of busy streets and thoroughfares surrounded by an interlocking grid of cultivated grassland called “The Two Hundred Acres” or, more commonly, “The Stray”, which we had seen in all of its early-morning, mist-enshrouded finery as we approached the station.
A brisk walk ensued and we arrived at the police station as a distant clock chimed ten, to be greeted by a tall, burly, uniformed sergeant whose face displayed a florid expression and the most singularly inquisitive eyes.
“Now then, gentlemen,” he boomed, “and what can we be doing for you this fine morning?”
It transpired that my friend had telegraphed Inspector Gerald John Makinson the previous afternoon, informing him of our intended arrival time. “So you’re Mr Sherlock Holmes, then?” the officer enquired.
Holmes set down his bag on the station steps, removed the glove from his right hand and held it out. “I am he,” he said.
The officer gave, I thought, a somewhat forced smile and shook the proffered hand once. “And you must be Mr Watson,” he said turning to me.
“I am, indeed, Doctor Watson,” I said, accepting the hand. The shake was as brusque as his manner.
“I’m Sergeant Hewitt. Come on inside,” he said, lifting both of our overnight bags. “There’s a fresh pot of tea made and it’ll take but a minute to do you some toast. Inspector Makinson will be along presently. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to wait in here, gentlemen,” he said, ushering us into a small, square room ringed by chairs around a circular table. He rested our bags on one of the chairs and proceeded to help us off with our coats and hats, which he then placed on a hatstand next to a blazing fire. “Tea’ll be along in a minute. Will you be having toast?”
“That would be most welcome,” Holmes said.
“Right then, toast it – ” The sound of a door banging outside interrupted him and he turned to see who had just entered. “Ah,” he said, turning back to us, “Inspector Makinson has arrived. I’ll be back presently.”
Hewitt stepped back to permit entrance to a short gentleman with quite the most bristling moustache I have ever seen. The man removed his bowler and nodded to the officer who backed out and closed the door gently behind him. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said offering his hand which, ungloved, was freezing cold to the touch. “Gerald Makinson.”
We made our introductions and took seats by the fire.
“Mr Holmes, it’s a great pleasure to meet you again, sir,” Makinson began as he rubbed his hands together vigorously in front of the flames, “though we might’ve hoped for more pleasant circumstances.”
“While Patience may well be a card game from which I have derived some considerable pleasure,” Holmes responded with a thin smile, “it is not, I fear, my strongest suit. I wonder if you might give us some indication of your situation. If I am not mistaken there had been further developments in the case even as we were travelling here from London.”
“Quite so, quite so. Well, it’s like this, gentlemen.
“Almost two weeks ago – the second of November, to be precise – the body of Terence Wetherall, one of the town’s most prominent landlords, was discovered by one of his tenants. Murdered.”
The Inspector imbued the last word with an almost absurd theatrical flourish and I had to stifle a smile, thankfully unobserved.
“What was the manner of his death?” Holmes enquired.
“He’d been strangled. No instrument was found but the nature of the marks around his neck suggests some kind of rope or string. We found traces of coarse hair in the wound. But the worst thing was the man’s heart had been removed.”
“Good Lord!” I ventured.
“Quite, Doctor Watson, his chest had been slit open and the unfortunate organ torn out. It was a messy affair, I can tell you,” he added. “There was no indication of careful surgical procedure – we’ve had a local surgeon examine the wound and it appears that the heart was just pulled out. His chest looked like a pack of wild dogs had been at it …”
“Suspects?”
The Inspector shook his head. “Mr Wetherall was extremely well-liked as far as we can make out. His wife – sorry: widow – knew of no reason why anyone would wish him harm. And certainly she knows of no one who would conceivably wish to defile his body in such a way.”
“I wonder if we might see the body,” I said.
“Of course, Doctor. You can see them all.”
I glanced across at Holmes who tented his fingers in front of his face and carefully studied the tips. “Do continue, Inspector.”
At that moment, Sergeant Hewitt reappeared with a tray containing a teapot, three cups and saucers, a small jug of milk, a large plate of buttered toast, a small phial of marmalade and one of honey, and three side plates. It was a meal which, despite its simplicity, was a sight for weary eyes. We set to pouring tea and helping ourselves to the toast, and Inspector Makinson resumed his story.
“A few days later, 7 November, a farmer was brutally slain in the nearby village of Hampsthwaite. Shotgun-blasted in the back of the head, point blank range. He’d gone outside to check his livestock – something he did every evening at the same time – and the killer must’ve been waiting.”
The Inspector took a sip of tea and returned the cup to his saucer.
“And, once again, the heart of the unfortunate victim had been removed, though this time the damage to the body was less.
“The third slaying was last week, the eleventh, and this was maybe the most heinous of them all. A young woman, Gertrude Ridge, a schoolteacher in the town, was reported missing on the morning of the tenth when she didn’t appear at school. She was discovered on the embankment by the side of the railway line … or, should I say, some of her was discovered.”
Holmes leaned forward. “Some, you say?”
The Inspector nodded gravely and reached for his cup of tea. “Only the torso was found – it was identified by her clothes. Both legs, both arms and the unfortunate girl’s head were missing.”
“But her heart?” I said.
“Her torso was intact, Doctor Watson. And we’ve since found both legs, the head and one of the arms.”
“Where were these limbs found, Inspector?” Holmes enquired.
“A little way along the embankment, in the bushes.”
“Were they close together?”
Inspector Makinson frowned. “Yes, yes I believe they were.”
“And the embankment has been thoroughly searched?”
“In both directions, and with a toothcomb, Mr Holmes. The other arm wasn’t there.”
Holmes lifted his coffee and stared into the swirling liquid. “And now you have another murder, I take it.”
Makinson nodded and twirled his moustache. “Yes, a fourth body was reported in the early hours of this morning to a Bobby on the beat. Down a small alleyway alongside the market buildings in the town square. Another shotgun blast, this time in the face at point blank range. Took most of his head with it, it did. We identified the corpse from what we found in his pockets. William Fitzhue Crosby, the manager of our local branch of Daleside Bank.”
“And the man’s heart?” I enquired.
“Ripped out like the first two.”
“Who reported the body?” asked Holmes.
“An old cleaner woman for the market buildings. She lives there all the time. She heard the shot, looked out of her windows and saw the body.”
I watched my friend drain his cup and return it to the tray before him. He settled back into his seat and glanced first at me and then at the Inspector.
“Tell me, Inspector,” he said at last. “How much disturbance had there been around the teacher’s body?”
Gerald Makinson frowned. “Disturbance?”
I recognized a touch of impatience in the way my friend waved his hand. “Blood, Inspector. How much blood was there on the ground?”
“Very little, Mr Holmes. But our doctor tells me that once the heart was removed there wouldn’t be much blood loss. The girl’s clothes were soaked, mind you.”
Holmes nodded. “Were there any traces of blood on the grass leading to and from the severed limbs?”
Makinson shook his head. “None as we could find,” he said dolefully.
Holmes considered this before asking, “And what signs were about the body of the banker?”
“Again, very little. We put it down again to – ”
“to the removal of the heart.”
“Yes,” Inspector Makinson agreed.
“Quite so.” Holmes nodded slowly and then closed his eyes. “And why would anyone want to steal a heart? Or, more significantly, three hearts plus an assortment of severed limbs and a head? For that matter, why would they leave the young woman’s heart in place?”
“It’s like I say,” said the Inspector, “it’s a puzzle and no denying … which is, I might add, why I called upon your services. And those of the good doctor,” he added with a peremptory nod in my direction.
“And we are both delighted that you did so, Inspector,” said Holmes. “But what if,” he continued, leaning forward suddenly in his chair, “the murderer simply forgot to take the girl’s heart.”
“Forgot it!” I was so astounded by the seeming preposterous nature of my friend’s suggestion that I almost choked on a mouthful of toast. “Why ever would he do that when that was his entire objective?”
“But was it his objective, old fellow?” said Holmes.
“What are you saying, Mr Holmes?”
“Just this: suppose the removal of the hearts was simply to cover up some other reason for the murders?”
“I cannot imagine any reason for murder which is so despicable that the murderer would want to cover it up with the removal of a heart,” I observed.
“No, perhaps not, Watson. Not a despicable reason, I agree. But perhaps a reason that might lead us to his identity.”
While Inspector Makinson and I considered this, my friend continued.
“Inspector, did your men find any traces of blood or tissue … perhaps even bone fragments … on the wall which took the shotgun blast?”
Inspector Makinson’s eyes widened. “Why, I don’t believe we did.”
“Quite, Inspector. That fact and the fact that was little or no evidence of blood around the body, despite the removal of the heart, means that the murder was committed somewhere else and the body carried to the alleyway.
“I sense a confusion of red herrings,” Holmes continued.
“Red herrings?”
“Quite so, Watson,” Holmes said as he got to his feet. “But before we go any further, I think we should see the bodies.”
Without further ado, Inspector Makinson led us out of the room, along a series of corridors and then down a long staircase.
Finally, we arrived at a large oaken door inlaid with sheets of metal and an iron bar manacled through two support frames. The door opened onto a narrow corridor through whose windows we got our first glimpse of the unfortunate victims.
The entrance to the “resting” room was at the far end of the corridor and, as we walked along, I could not help but stare at the series of cots covered over with bottle-green sheets, and at the unmistakable human shapes beneath.
The room itself smelled of death, the familiar aroma – to me, at least – of putrefying flesh, a mixed scent of ruined fruit and stale milk. There is something about dead bodies which causes the living to speak in hushed tones in their presence. Indeed, it was several months of concentrated autopsy work before even I myself could overcome the need to affect some kind of reverence. But a dead body is not a person. This knowledge, too, comes only with practice and repeated exposure.
Makinson walked across to the first cot and crouched down to read the label tied to the support. “This one, Mr Holmes, is – ”
“Could we have them in the order they were murdered, Inspector?” Holmes boomed. “And I don’t think there’s any need to whisper. Nothing we say in here will be any revelation to the victims.”
Makinson stood up, ran a finger across his moustache and coughed loudly. He walked across to the second cot, studied the label and then crossed to the third. “This,” he announced in grand tones, “is Mr Wetherall.”
I followed Holmes across to the cot and watched as Makinson pulled back the sheet.
Decomposition was well underway, despite the cool temperature of the room.
I could see that the man had been in his mid forties although the sunken eyes and hollowing cheeks were giving him a countenance of someone considerably older. A wide ligature around the neck had discoloured to a dull brown shade.
“What do you make of that, Watson?” Holmes said, pointing to the man’s chest.
The wound was extensive, apparently caused by a series of slashes into the flesh, some of which extended vertically from the collarbone almost to the waist while others crossed the sternum either horizontally or diagonally. “These wounds were presumably made to expose the heart,” I concluded, “but it looks like a frenzied attack. Considering that the man would have been dead when these were committed, I can only conclude that the murderer was in a terrible hurry. See here, several sections of flesh appear to have been hacked out.”
Holmes stepped in front of Makinson, who shuffled to one side, and bent over the body. “Did you find these pieces of flesh, Inspector?”
“No. But we had noticed they was missing. We presumed that the killer took them with the heart.”
“By mistake or in haste, you mean?” I shook my head. “That does not make sense. The flesh is entirely separate from the heart. Once exposed – as these wounds would surely have done easily – the heart would be encased within the sternum. You can see where he broke the lower ribs to get at it. Once he had the heart, it would be unlikely that he would take a large piece of flesh with it.”
“Then why would he take it?” said Holmes. He turned to the Inspector who started to shrug. “Let us look at the next one, Inspector, the farmer, I believe.”
We moved back to the second cot and Makinson pulled back the sheet.
This man had been much older, possibly sixty. The Inspector had been right. The damage to the chest was markedly less than that on the first victim, a simple cross-cut over the sternum and two vertical wounds, each less than a foot in length, which enabled the flesh to be pulled back to expose the heart. “It almost seems to be the work of a different person,” I observed. “It’s certainly not the work of a professional, however, despite its relative neatness. Perhaps he had more time. Or perhaps he was simply not so nervous.”
I pulled the head to one side and looked at the damage at the back. The neck appeared to be almost completely destroyed right up to the hairline. The base of the skull was exposed and fragmented. Bending over, I could see that the wound extended down onto the shoulders.
“I wonder if we might turn him over,” I said.
Both Makinson and Holmes stepped forward and, between the three of us, we managed to twist the body onto its side.
The shotgun blast had indeed been concentrated on his lower neck and upper back, right between the shoulder blades. The flesh there had been pulverized exposing portions of the spine and lower shoulder blades, themselves showing some fragmentation.
I bent closer. “That’s interesting …”
“What’s that, old fellow? Found something?”
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” I said. “But there does seem to be some indication of another wound.”
Holmes and Makinson moved alongside me and looked where I was pointing. Just to the left of the start of the ruination caused by the shotgun blast, a tiny piece of skin appeared to have been removed. That piece of skin could, of course, have been merely the tip of a much larger piece and I mentioned this fact. “One has to consider it as cart tracks disappearing momentarily into a puddle from which they re-emerge on the other side,” I said. “The puddle in this case is the shotgun wound.”
“Are you suggesting that something was done to him before the shot was administered?” asked Makinson.
I looked back at the top of the wound, where it met the hairline, and lifted the shreds of loose skin and matted hair. It was as I suspected. The base of the skull was badly depressed, suggesting a hard blow from a solid object.
“He appears to have been struck from behind,” I said. “And with a blunt instrument. See, the skin is not broken. The fracture of the skull suggests that such a blow would certainly have rendered the man immediately unconscious and, very probably, would have resulted in his death by haemorrhage. I would need to open up the brain pan to confirm that,” I added, “but I would expect to find evidence of subdural haematoma plus bruising on the frontal lobes due to contra-coup.”
Holmes was smiling. “Capital, Watson, capital.” He strode to the window overlooking the corridor and spread his hands on the shelf. “Before we go any further, let us make one or two assumptions.” He turned around and checked them off on the fingers of his left hand.
“The killer murders his first victim by strangulation,” Holmes announced. “Then he sets about removing the victim’s heart, a process during which a piece of flesh disappears. The means by which the chest is opened up suggests fear or haste … it also, at least initially, makes the disappearance of the piece of flesh seemingly unimportant. I suspect neither fear nor haste played any part in these killings. Rather, it is the work of a severely deranged mind and one that is exceedingly cunning.”
He held up a second finger. “The killer strikes again. This time the method of slaying is inconclusive. Initial investigations suggest the cause of death to be a shotgun blast to the back but we now have evidence of a blow to the base of the skull. Which, not unnaturally, prompts the question why should he kill his victim twice? We also have suggested evidence which points to some kind of incision or skin removal immediately below the wound. The wound also extends, almost, to the site of the blow to the skull … as though, perhaps, the murderer were wanting to conceal both of those events.
“Certainly if, as we believe, the strike to the head rendered the victim unconscious at best, then it would have been a relatively simple matter to go about the removal of the heart without the need of further violence. This therefore suggests a further motive for the use of the shotgun, the second red herring.”
“Second?” said Makinson.
“Indeed, Inspector. The first one is the removal of the hearts, though quite what such an intrusion could possibly disguise I have, as yet, no opinion. Equally, the reason for the missing flesh or the partial incision is still unclear.”
We moved across to the third cot, pulling back the sheet to expose a grisly collection. The young woman’s head was propped between the legs while the arm lay before it like some kind of gift and all were set out on the torso as if to resemble a construction puzzle. I lifted first the arm, turning it over in my hands, and then the legs, performing a similar study. There seemed nothing to give any clue for such a crime. I laid the limbs at the foot of the cot and turned my attention to the head.
The woman appeared to have been in her middle twenties. I lifted the head carefully, some hidden and forgotten part of me half expecting the eyes to open and regard me with a cruel disdain, and turned it around. There was a similar depressed fracture to that suffered by the farmer and I was sure, simply by the pulpy feel of the bone around the occipital region, that death would have been instantaneous. I set the head down with the limbs and moved to the torso.
The limbs had clearly been removed by chopping as opposed to sawing and one of the shoulders showed signs of mis-hits, with some cosmetic damage to the edge of the right clavicle. One could only give thanks that the poor girl had been dead when the madman went about his business.
I turned to face Holmes and shook my head. “Nothing here,” I said.
“Nothing save for the fact that the arm is missing,” Holmes pointed out. “There is clearly some significance in that fact and the fact that the heart has not been removed.”
“Why’s that, then?” said the Inspector.
“Elementary, my dear Makinson,” said Holmes, clearly pleased to be asked to explain his deduction. “I suspect that the killer simply forgot about the heart, being so concerned with his plan to remove all the limbs and then discard those he did not need. If your men have been as thorough in their investigations around the scene of the slaying as you say – and I have no reason to doubt that such is the case – then the killer must surely have taken the arm with him.”
“You mean that he was prepared to chop off everything just to get one of her arms?”
Holmes nodded. “Otherwise, why did he not leave all of the limbs together? For that matter, why remove them and then leave them?”
“Why indeed?” I agreed.
“Let us consider the final body,” said Holmes.
The face of William Fitzhue Crosby no longer existed. Where once had been skin and, undoubtedly, normal characteristics such as a nose, two eyes and two lips, now lay only devastation, a brown mass resembling a flattened mud pie into which a playful child had inserted a series of holes.
The sheer ruination of that face spoke of a hell on Earth, a creature conceived in the mind of Bosch – though whether such a description might not be more aptly levelled at the perpetrator of such carnage is debatable.
“Look at the rear of the head, Watson,” said Holmes.
I turned the head to one side and felt the skull: the same fracture was there and I said as much.
“Inspector,” said Holmes, “did you know Mr Crosby personally? By that I mean, were he still alive, would you recognize him on the street?”
“I’m not sure as I would, Mr Holmes,” said Makinson, frowning. “I don’t as doubt that him and me has passed each other by on occasion but –”
Holmes strode purposefully from the cot to the door. “We’ve finished here, I believe. Come Watson, we have enquiries to make.”
“Enquiries?” I pulled the sheet up over Crosby’s face.
“We must speak with the relatives of the victims.” He walked from the room, pulling his Meerschaum from his pocket. “The game is most definitely afoot. Though, if I am correct, then that in itself poses a further puzzle.”
I had grown used to if not tolerant of such enigmatic statements, though I had long since recognized the futility of pressing for more information. All would become clear in good time.
In the early evening we gathered once more at the police station, a full and somewhat depressing day behind us.
The November air in Harrogate was cold but “bracing”, to use the Inspector’s vernacular. For Sherlock Holmes and myself, however, grown used to the relative mildness of southern climes, the coldness permeated our very bones. To such a degree was this invasion that, even standing before a roaring fire in the Inspector’s office, it was all I could do to keep from shivering.
Holmes himself, however, seemed now impervious to the chill as he sat contemplating, staring into the dancing flames.
It had been a productive day.
Due to the fact that William Crosby had no relatives in the town, having moved to Yorkshire from Bristol some eight years earlier, we were forced to call in at the branch of Daleside Bank, on the Parliament Street hill leading to Ripon, there to interview staff as to the possibility of someone having some reason to murder their manager. A tight-faced man named Mr Cardew, enduring rather than enjoying his early middle age, maintained the stoic calm and almost clinical immobility that I have discovered to be the province of bankers and their ilk over the years. They seem a singularly cheerless breed.
When pressed, first by Holmes and subsequently by Inspector Makinson, Mr Cardew visited the large safe at the rear of the premises to see if the money deposited the previous evening was still in place and accounted for. Throughout the exercise, I watched Holmes who viewed the procedure with a thinly disguised disinterest. Rather he seemed to be anxious, as if needing to ask something of Cardew.
Whether my friend would have got around to phrasing his question to such a degree of correctness in his own mind that he would have committed it to speech I will never know for we chanced upon a portrait photograph of William Fitzhue Crosby hanging from the wall outside his office.
The photographer had gone to some considerable trouble to make the finished photograph as acceptable as possible – presumably to Mr Crosby – using shadows and turning his subject into profile in order, clearly, to minimize the effect of the banker’s disfigurement. But, alas, it had been to little avail.
In the photograph, Crosby’s eyes spoke volumes about his attitude to the dark stain which, we subsequently discovered from Mr Cardew, ran from his left temple and down across his cheek to his chin. Those were eyes that barely hid a gross discomfort, hardened around the corners with something akin to outright hatred.
Cardew explained that, in the flesh, as it were, Crosby’s stain was a deep magenta. The banker had grown his sideburns in an attempt to hide at least some of it but the effect had been that the sideburn on the left side had been wiry and white.
Believing that the answer to the puzzle involved a killer so mortally offended by such a mark that he would go to great lengths to remove it, we proceeded from the Daleside Bank to the school at which Gertrude Ridge had been, until recently, a teacher, having decided that it might not be necessary to trouble the young woman’s grieving parents. On the way, Holmes seemed particularly thoughtful.
The story at the school was similar. Miss Ridge had had a large birthmark on the back of her right hand, stretching up over her wrist to an undetermined point above. Her colleagues at the school had been unable to comment as to how far that might be, Miss Ridge never deeming to appear at school in anything less than a long-sleeved blouse or dress, and even then one with the most ornate ruffled cuffs.
Diana Wetherall and Jean Woodward, widows of, respectively, the deceased landlord and the Hampsthwaite farmer, said that their husbands had suffered similar markings, Terence Wetherall’s being a small circular stain about the size of a saucer, situated just to the left of centre of his chest, while Raymond Woodward’s disfigurement had stretched across the back of his neck and down between his shoulder blades.
It was I who, eventually, back at the police station, voiced what had been Holmes’s concern all along. “We now most probably know the reason for the killings,” I said, “but how on earth did the killer know of Wetherall’s and Woodward’s marks? They were covered at all times when they were not at home.”
Makinson frowned and considered this.
Holmes, meanwhile, said, “You say we know why the killer committed the acts, Watson. But do we really know?”
“Why, of course we do,” I ventured. “The chap is mortally offended by what are, in his eyes, such abominations and he feels it his rigorous duty to remove them from sight. He came up with the idea of removing hearts simply to mislead us hence, on one occasion, even forgetting to remove the young woman’s.”
Holmes nodded. “I think you are almost correct, old fellow,” he said, in a gentle tone that was anything but patronizing. “However, you have neglected to take into account the fact that the killer first stuns his victims and only then obliterates nature’s handiwork. My point is,” he continued, “the killer needs to stun his victim without interference with the mark.”
“Whatever for, Mr Holmes?” enquired Makinson.
Holmes looked across at the Inspector and gave a thin smile that was devoid of any sense of pleasure. “In order to remove them, Inspector.”
“Remove them?” I said. The suggestion seemed preposterous.
“Indeed, Watson. Let us adapt the facts as we know them to my proposition.
“Wetherall, the landlord, was stunned or killed by a blow to the head. The killer then stripped his victim to the waist and skilfully removed the birthmark from his chest. Then, in order to conceal his action, he proceeded to open up the chest in such a heavy-handed manner that the disappearance of the piece of skin which once bore the mark would not be so noticeable. He concealed the opening of the chest with the removal of the heart.
“The farmer was next. Again, the blow to the head was the all-important immobilizing factor. Once that had been effected, the killer could concentrate on removing the mark from the victim’s neck and back before training a shotgun on the exposed area and destroying all signs. However, the blast failed to cover up all signs of his work, as you noticed, Watson. The removal of Woodward’s heart tied his murder into the first death quite neatly.”
Holmes cleared his throat.
“Then came the teacher. With her it was more complicated. The position of Miss Ridge’s mark – on her arm – was such that a blast to the affected area, once he had removed the skin bearing the mark, could not be the killing factor. Similarly, the removal of the heart would not conceal the removal of the mark. Thus he decided upon the method of removing her limbs, still tying the murder into the first two deaths by peripheral association, only later to discard the three limbs for which he had no use. The final limb, the young woman’s right arm, he discarded far from the scene of the crime and only then when he had removed the affected area. You mentioned earlier that he had forgotten to remove the heart: the fact was that he did not consider it necessary.
“With the banker he returns to the earlier method. A blow to the head, a common element throughout, then the careful removal of the facial skin bearing the mark, and then the shotgun blast to the face, destroying once again the evidence of his real reason for the murder. The removal of the heart ties the crime to the first two and, arguably, to the case of Miss Ridge.”
Holmes stretched towards the fire and warmed his hands. “I read the reports from your forensics people, Inspector,” Holmes continued. “I was interested to discover that, while there were traces of linen and wool fibre in the farmer’s wound, there were no traces of skin except at the very extremities of the blasted area, confirming that, perhaps, a portion had been removed prior to the blast. And as for the banker, Mr Crosby, the gun shot damage to the wall bore no traces of skin or tissue. This indicates that the killing shot and the invasion which preceded it were done at some other location, with a second shot being fired directly at the wall.”
“But what other place might that be, Mr Holmes?” Makinson enquired.
“Wherever Mr Crosby went after leaving the bank might give us a clue,” Holmes retorted. “I saw from your report, Inspector, that Crosby’s apartment showed no signs of anyone being there since the morning: the fire was burnt down and breakfast things were in the sink. It is my opinion that wherever Mr Crosby went early that evening is where he encountered his killer.”
“Good lord,” I said. I glanced across at Makinson and saw that he looked as queasy as I felt.
“But why would he want these … these marks in the first place? What does he do with them?”
Holmes turned to me. “Watson, perhaps you would be kind enough to explain the causation of a so-called birthmark?”
“Well,” I said, “nobody actually knows why they are caused.
“They are most common in newborn babies, often called the ‘stork’s beak’ mark because they occur on the forehead between the eyebrows and on the nape of the neck … as though a stork had had the child’s head in its beak. These are transient phenomena that disappear as the baby grows. A popular but incorrect theory is that they are caused by the caul, the inner membrane enclosing the foetus, adhering itself to the child and becoming enmeshed into the child’s own skin as it develops in the womb. Such marks are also sometimes referred to as ‘God’s fingerprints’, and to many they signify good fortune.”
Makinson snorted loudly. “Doesn’t seem much like good fortune to me,” he said, “carrying a big red mark on your face all your life.”
“As I said, Inspector, these marks usually disappear as the child grows older. The ones that stay are called port wine stains or strawberry naevi, due to their colouring. The technical name is cutaneous haemangiomata, which refers to an abnormally large collection of blood vessels in the skin … an over production, if you will. These are most commonly on the face – the case of Crosby the banker is typical – although they can occur anywhere on the body.
“The port wine stains stay throughout life, although they do lose some of the intense colouring in later years; the strawberry naevi do not usually persist.”
Holmes nodded. “Let us imagine that our killer believes the old tale that such signs are the harbingers of good fortune,” he said. “It might follow that such a fellow could conceivably feel that to own more of these would be to improve the quality of his life. Someone, perhaps, whose life has not been particularly fortunate.”
“You said ‘more’ of these,” I said.
“Yes, I did. I would expect the killer to be equally marked and to have been told, perhaps by his mother, that such a marking meant that he had been touched by God. The fact that his life did not reflect such fortune caused him to think that further marks were needed to change his luck.”
I looked across at Makinson. The Inspector seemed unconvinced. “That’s as well as maybe, Mr Holmes,” he said, “but how does the killer identify his victims? Apart from the teacher and the banker, these marks was covered over all the time they was on public show.”
“Perhaps not all the time, Inspector,” said Holmes, his eyes flashing wide. “Tell me, do you have a municipal swimming bath in the town?”
Makinson shook his head. “No, nearest swimming bath is in Leeds.
Holmes smiled, and this time the smile did have traces of pleasure. “Watson,” he said, unable to keep the excitement from his voice. “For what is Harrogate renowned?”
“Renowned? Harrogate?” I searched my brain for some clue as to what my friend had in mind. “Other than a cold wind that would not be out of place at the North Pole, I cannot imagine,” I said at last.
“The water, Watson!”
“Water?” I still failed to grasp the significance.
“Harrogate is a spa town, famed for the so-called medicinal and curative properties of its water, taken from natural springs. Is that right, Inspector?”
“Why, yes it is, Mr Holmes,” said the Inspector.
“And you have in the town a bath which enables people to bathe their bodies in these waters?”
“A Turkish bath and such, yes,” said Makinson. “I’ve never been, myself, of course, but I believe as how they’re popular with some people.” He paused. “Run by a queer sort of fellow, they are,” he added.
Holmes leapt to his feet. “Queer, you say? With a birth-mark?”
Makinson shook his head. “No, no birthmark – at least none as is visible.”
Holmes visibly shrank in size, the excitement evaporating almost as quickly as it had appeared. “Then why queer?”
“Well, he’s …” Makinson seemed to be having trouble describing the fellow and I was about to prompt him when he added, “he’s sort of big on one side and smaller on the other.”
“That’s it, Holmes!” I shouted. “Is one half of his body visibly larger than the other, Inspector? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes, his head is mis-shaped and one arm is longer than the other. His leg is longer on that side, too, and he walks with a limp because of it.” The Inspector shook his head at the thought. “Strange fellow and no denying.”
I turned to Holmes. “Hemi hypertrophy,” I said. “Caused by an underlying brain haemangioma, beneath a port wine stain; it means an increased blood flow through the mark results in a disproportionate growth on one side of the body. He’s our man,” I said, “I’d bet my pension on it!”
“What is the name of this fellow?” Holmes enquired of the Inspector.
“His name is Garnett, as I recall, Frank Garnett. The spa baths stay open until ten o’clock in the evening,” the Inspector said. He removed his watch from his waistcoat pocket and flipped open the casing. “Five and twenty to nine,” he said.
Holmes sprang for the door, grabbing his hat, scarf and coat on the way. “Come, Watson, Inspector … there’s no time to lose.”
Minutes later we were on our way by carriage, driven by a hard-faced Sergeant Hewitt through a blustery, moonless night.
The Pump Rooms in Harrogate are situated down Parliament Street and on the left towards the Valley Gardens, a scenic spot favoured in the daylight and early summer evenings by young couples and nannies walking their charges. When we arrived, Holmes leapt from the carriage and burst through the doors.
A matronly woman wearing a pince-nez and seated behind a desk in the foyer got to her feet, her hand to her throat.
“My apologies for our entrance, madam,” Holmes began, “but I am with Inspector Makinson, here, and Sergeant Hewitt of the Harrogate police, and my colleague Doctor Watson, and we are on a matter of grave importance. Tell me, if you can,” he said, “the whereabouts of your colleague, Mr Frank Garnett.”
“Why, Frank’s in the shower room,” she said. “Whatever do you need him for?”
“No time to explain,” said the Inspector. “Which way’s the shower room?”
The woman pointed towards a double door to the right of the foyer. “Is it about his accident?”
“Accident?” I said.
“He’s hurt himself. Bandages all over the place.”
Makinson frowned and led the way.
Through the doors we were on a long corridor from the end of which we could hear the unmistakable sound of water running.
“You and Mr Watson stay back, Mr Holmes,” Makinson barked. “Jim, you stick with me. But go gently now,” he added, “we don’t want this fellow to get away.”
Holmes reluctantly stepped back to allow Sergeant Hewitt to take the lead with the Inspector. We reached the end of the corridor and stood before a door bearing the sign Showers. Makinson leaned his head against the door and listened. A faint whistling could be heard with the running water.
Makinson took hold of the handle. “Right, Jim?”
Sergeant Hewitt nodded.
“Right, gentlemen?”
Holmes nodded.
The Inspector turned the handle and rushed into the room.
Some fifty yards away from us was what seemed to be a tall man, standing in profile, brandishing a broom which he was using to sweep water across the floor and into an empty communal bath beside him. At the sound of our entrance, he turned to face us and I saw immediately that the other side of his body was noticeably smaller. His right wrist was tightly bandaged and one side of his face was covered in gauze, held in place by sticky tape. A further bandage was wrapped about his neck like a scarf.
“We need to talk to you, Mr Garnett,” Inspector Makinson said.
Garnett hefted the broom and threw it in our direction. Then he glanced across to the wall for an instant, as though considering something, before turning quickly and heading towards a door at the rear of the room. He moved awkwardly and within but two or three steps he listed to one side, like a ship encountering stormy seas, and plunged head first into the empty bath. There was a single strangulated cry followed by a crash.
We ran across to the bath-side and looked over.
Garnett lay some seven or eight feet directly beneath us, on his back, one leg doubled up beneath him and his arms spread-eagled as though he were relaxing on his bed. A pool of blood was spreading beneath his head.
Without a second thought, I sat on the edge of the bath and lowered myself down until I was standing alongside Garnett. He had lifted one hand and was pulling back the bandage on his wrist. With a gasp of horror, I watched a piece of shrivelled flesh fall from beneath the bandage onto the bath floor. His eyelids flickering, Garnett then proceeded to undo the buttons of his shirt, beneath which I could see a further bandage.
I knelt down and took hold of the hand, feeling for a pulse. It was there but only weak and fluttery. Garnett’s lips were already turning blue.
He pulled the hand free and, in one movement, tore the bandage from his face. Crosby’s stained cheek flesh lifted with it for a second and then slid down to cover Garnett’s mouth.
“How is he, Doctor Watson?” Makinson asked softly.
I shook my head and watched as Garnett took the grisly trophy from his mouth and clasped it tightly. He began rubbing it feverishly between thumb and forefinger.
“Make me well again,” he muttered hoarsely. “Make me well again …”
“Shall I get an ambulance, sir?” Sergeant Hewitt asked.
I looked up at him and shook my head.
Makinson had clambered down to join us, watching as I undid the tape affixing the bandage to Garnett’s chest. I had no doubt what we would find beneath that bandage and no doubt what lay beneath the one about his neck.
“Why did you do it, Frank?” Makinson said softly, kneeling by the man’s head.
Garnett muttered something seemingly in response.
I had now exposed Garnett’s chest and, as I expected, the skin which he had removed from Terence Wetherall. But beneath even that was a further mark, a port wine stain of such volume and intensity that, despite what the man had done, my heart went out to him. Garnett’s own birthmark was clearly malignant, its surface covered by clusters of small pustules many of which had burst open and were weeping a pungent gelatinous liquid.
Makinson leaned closer to Garnett’s face, his ear against the man’s mouth. “I can’t hear you, Frank.”
Garnett whispered again and then settled back against the floor, still.
The Inspector knelt up and whispered, “Who?” but there was no response. He got to his feet. “He’s gone, poor devil.”
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He said she told him as how it’d get better … that he’d been touched by the Almighty and how he mustn’t complain.” Makinson shook his head. “But he said it hadn’t got better, it had got worse. He asked me to forgive him. That was the last thing he said.”
“Who’s ‘she’?” asked Sergeant Hewitt.
Makinson shrugged. “He didn’t say. Someone who cared for him, I expect.”
As I clambered out of the bath, Holmes was standing by the wall holding in his hands a walking stick bearing an elaborately carved head for its handle.
“That must’ve been what he was thinking about,” said Sergeant Hewitt. “When he seemed to hesitate.”
“He needed it to walk,” Holmes said. He handed the stick to the policeman, running his slender fingers across the handsome features of the heavy ivory handle. “But I think he used it for other things, too, Sergeant,” he said. Then he turned around and walked back towards the foyer.
When I got outside, Sherlock Holmes was standing on the steps staring into the wind.
“He thought he had been touched by God, Watson,” he said as I walked up beside him. “But the truth was God had turned his back on him. In fact, God had turned his back on them all.”
I did not know what to say.
Then Holmes turned to me and smiled, though it was without any trace of humour. “I find God does that far too often these days,” he said. Then he thrust his hands into his coat pockets and walked alone towards the waiting carriage.