Vitale was lodged in the second court at St Cedd’s not far from the Cavendish Laboratory. At the entrance to this large court, in which several buildings faced a plain green, we were confronted by a porter. A small, grizzled man, his upturned nose and large teeth putting me in mind of a hungry squirrel, he sat in a cubbyhole off the arched stone entrance. The porter set down the Illustrated Police News to demand our business. Intuiting instantly that the Wyndham name would not impress this man, Holmes mentioned that he was investigating an exciting murder, and time was of the essence! He explained that a young woman had been killed, implying that he was an official on the case, and that he needed to speak to Leo Vitale urgently.
‘Murder, you say! Well, that is fascinating. Leo Vitale! Now there’s a strange fellow. Well, these scientists are a queer lot. They are all clustered in staircase K and L, across the green there. Do you suspect him?’
‘No, but he may be a witness. Our business is urgent, sir! His room, please?’ said Holmes.
‘Odd, folks, these science fellows, I tell you. Strange smells. They set their rooms afire – exploding things. And always wanting coffee, coffee, coffee.’
‘His room, please?’ I said, before Holmes lost his temper.
‘Room Five. Top of staircase K. You’ll tell me what you find, then? So’s I can be prepared?’
‘Certainly,’ lied Holmes.
We found K and were up the stairs in a trice. By contrast to those of Eden-Summers’ lodgings, this staircase was dark and shabby, the wooden treads deeply scuffed, and the outer doors to all the rooms were all pockmarked and firmly closed. As we ascended, the heat grew oppressive.
The outer door to Room Five was ajar. We were in luck – Vitale, too, was in. Holmes knocked and opened the inner door to discover a single room, low ceilinged and dark.
Leo Vitale was seated at a desk, sweltering under the eaves, once again poring over a single sheet of paper, his head in his hands. He did not look up. Stacks of books, papers, and the odd bit of laboratory paraphernalia were piled high on every available surface. Two valises with a jumble of clothing and linens poked out from under the narrow bed, and the young man’s student gown, jacket and hat were hung from pegs all over the room. Even within the hallowed halls of Cambridge, our British class system made itself precisely known. Vitale looked up at us, his face devoid of expression. I noted dark circles under his eyes and a kind of sadness reflected there.
‘Mr Vitale,’ said Holmes. ‘Forgive the interruption. We are here on a matter of utmost urgency.’
The young scientist inhaled and sat up straight. ‘You again. What is this about now?’
‘A crime has been committed against a certain young lady. The police will be arriving shortly to question you,’ said Holmes.
‘What young lady? What crime?’
‘You are a suspect, Mr Vitale,’ said Holmes. ‘Now listen carefully. I am a scientist like yourself, and inclined to trust what you say. The police will look at you as an exotic bird, believe me, I know about this. There is evidence against you, and they will arrest you without hesitation.’
‘Be clear, sir! Arrest me for what?’
‘You were seen and heard outside the Cross and Anchor, having a shouting argument with Miss Dillie Wyndham at about two o’clock this morning.’
Two spots of colour appeared on the young man’s white cheeks.
‘How is that anyone’s business? What crime? Is Dillie all right?’
‘I need to know the subject of that argument.’
Vitale stared at Holmes. ‘Miss Wyndham has taken flight again? Is that it?’
‘Mr Vitale, tell me now, and I may be able to help you. What was the subject of your argument?’
I volunteered, ‘Mr Holmes is trying to help you, young man.’
Vitale blinked, thinking quickly. ‘I asked Dillie for my ring back. She refused.’
‘A ring you gave to her? What kind of ring?’
‘My mother’s ring: a small sapphire with two diamonds. A family heirloom. Please tell me what has happened.’
‘I see. You proposed marriage, then? She accepted you?’
The young man nodded.
‘But then you saw that Miss Wyndham’s engagement to Freddie Eden-Summers was announced in the papers,’ said Holmes.
Vitale stiffened. ‘Eden-Summers is a damned fool. That foppish idiot could never make her happy! And she had already …’ His eyes glazed over, and he blinked rapidly.
‘She had accepted you?’ Holmes murmured.
Leo Vitale nodded, back in control.
‘But last night, when Miss Wyndham refused to give you back the ring, you lost your temper. Shouts were heard. What happened after your argument?’
‘I left. I walked the streets for a while,’ said Vitale.
‘You did not go up to her room?’
‘No.’
‘Not to retrieve your mother’s ring?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I was more upset about the … about her … not the ring.’
‘Even so, why did you not go up and see her?’ persisted Holmes.
‘Have you met Dillie?’
‘Yes, I see. Did you encounter anyone while walking in the streets? Anyone who might remember you?’
The young man leaped to his feet. ‘Tell me what has happened. Why are the police involved? Is Dillie all right?’
Holmes was silent. Vitale looked from one of us to the other.
‘She is dead, isn’t she? Dillie Wyndham. Is she dead?’
Holmes nodded.
Vitale inhaled sharply as though someone had punched him in the stomach, but only a flicker of emotion reached his face. There was much of Sherlock Holmes in this boy.
Just then I heard a noise in the hallway. ‘Police!’ we heard a gruff voice bellow nearby. This was followed by a furious knocking on a nearby door.
Holmes glanced at the window. ‘The fire escape. Now!’ he barked.
The young man hesitated.
‘We are trying to help you,’ said Holmes. ‘Act quickly!’
‘I’ll go first,’ said Leo Vitale, opening the window and stepping through it onto something. ‘There is a trick to it. You must be careful.’
We followed the young man and clambered out of the window and onto a rickety iron construction. I wondered what had occasioned Vitale to exit this way before.
The spidery, long-limbed student and the always spry Holmes had no trouble navigating the rickety ladders heading to the ground, despite a railing that had come loose and two missing steps. I struggled but managed to follow.
We found ourselves in an alley behind St Cedd’s court, safe but only for the moment. The oppressive heat seemed to settle into the grime and rubbish around us and be reflected back from it.
‘I am going to the laboratory,’ said Vitale.
‘They will soon look for you there,’ said Holmes. ‘Is there no other place we can take refuge?’
Vitale shook his head. ‘If I am to be arrested, I must secure my papers, first. Do what you like, but that is where I am going.’
After a quick and frantic run through Cambridge’s back alleys, we arrived, drenched in perspiration, at a back door of the Cavendish Laboratory. Once inside, we raced down a cool hallway and into the large room where we had first encountered Vitale. The windows of this laboratory were now strangely blacked out with thick fabric. Vitale threw a switch and electric light flooded the room.
Holmes looked around. ‘No way out. I don’t like it. Is there another egress, Vitale?’
The boy did not answer but focused on his business. He opened a desk drawer, reached deeply in it to the back and removed a stack of papers. He hesitated, looking around the room, evidently for a place to hide them.
‘There.’ Holmes pointed to a ventilator grate high on a wall near the sink.
Vitale nodded, clambered onto the stone counter nearby and stuffed them inside the vent, where they could not be seen.
As he did so, I noticed that in addition to the covered windows, something else had changed in the laboratory since our last visit. Rows of glass tubes shaped like long, thin sausages now crisscrossed along the walls, all dangling by wires and making long patterns of what looked like random, gigantic ant trails.
‘Aha’ said Holmes regarding this same display. ‘This is interesting.’
‘Pah!’ said Vitale. ‘This is Cosimo’s work. My senior lab partner has lost the story!’
What, I wondered, did that mean?
Satisfied that he had secured his research notes, Vitale leaped nimbly down from the counter and approached us.
‘And now, Mr Holmes,’ he said. ‘I … I will wait no longer. Tell me all, sir. What happened to Dillie? Please. How did she die?’ He swallowed, his face hardened, and he placed a hand on the stone counter, bracing himself for the news.
‘Watson attended the post-mortem. Explain, Doctor.’
I could only presume that he wanted to observe the boy’s reactions. ‘Her body was found trapped underwater in the Jesus Lock,’ I said. ‘Her hair was entangled in the mechanism.’
‘Dillie drowned?’
‘Officially, yes. But there was a concussion and it is likely that she was unconscious when she entered the water. Then she was sucked under.’
Vitale’s eyes glistened though he remained stiff. I could see he was holding back. Was it possible that this young man had more feeling for the dead girl than her wealthy fiancé did?
‘Other signs revealed that Miss Wyndham fought someone before entering the water,’ I said.
‘That does not surprise me. Dillie was … quick to anger,’ said he, sadly. ‘I worried about her. It took little to provoke her.’
‘Indeed,’ said Holmes. He prowled the laboratory, glancing up at the glass tubing. ‘Interesting. These will light up, in sequence.’ He pulled at the blackout curtains but they had been nailed in place. He looked about for an exit. ‘Ah, a cupboard. Mr Vitale, if the police come I suggest you – we all – hide for the moment. He returned to face Vitale.
‘I will not hide. I am innocent.’
‘It looks bad for you, Mr Vitale. You would be wise to buy yourself some time.’
The young man looked stricken. ‘I would never harm a hair … She … I wonder about the ring.’
Yet another young man worried more about his token?
‘What about the ring?’ asked Holmes, gently. He was, I thought, providing the boy rope with which to hang himself. Both of Miss Wyndham’s betrothed were suspects, I decided. I was now beginning to sense something odd, held back, about Leo Vitale’s manner.
‘Why would she accept me, take my ring, and then accept another the next day? None of this makes sense. Oh, Dillie, I …’ The boy’s eyes moistened.
‘I need two things from you, Mr Vitale,’ said Holmes. ‘First, your exact whereabouts, hour by hour, between your argument outside the Cross and Anchor and this morning at six a.m. And I need you to allow Dr Watson to examine you.’
‘Examine me?’
‘Whoever did this received a beating. She fought back.’
A wave of grief contorted his features and then in an instant was gone. ‘Yes. She would, of course. But I … oh, no, this will only make it worse. I … well, you see …’ He unbuttoned his shirt. Several bright bruises and abrasions were visible. Vitale brushed a long lock of dark hair that hung down over his forehead and onto his cheek. There, next to the left eye, was another recent bruise and a small cut. I felt Holmes stiffen beside me. Neither of us had expected this.
‘It is not what you think,’ said Vitale. ‘I got into a fight last night.’
‘With whom?’
He did not want to say.
‘With whom, Mr Vitale?’ insisted Holmes.
‘Freddie Eden-Summers.’
Holmes and I exchanged a look.
‘Where did this take place?’
The boy looked embarrassed. ‘In the stairway outside his room. Not very wise of me, in retrospect.’
‘Which college was that?’ asked Holmes casually, as if he could not remember.
‘Trinity.’
‘Had you been there before?’ asked Holmes.
Vitale shook his head.
‘How did you find his room, then?’ I asked.
‘I knew it was Trinity, Great Court. I arrived with a large box of cakes and biscuits. The porter was happy to direct me.’
‘In the middle of the night?’ asked Holmes. ‘Where did you find those?’
‘I stole them. A student on my floor is always well provisioned by his parents.’
‘Then that student, at least, saw you?’
‘No, he was asleep when I took them. He heard nothing.’
Holmes stared at Vitale for a long moment. ‘You are holding something back, Mr Vitale. I might even say lying. May I suggest you be forthcoming?’
A noise behind us made all three of us turn to the door. Silhouetted in the doorway, the light behind him, was Cosimo Fortuny.
‘Leo!’ cried Fortuny. ‘What are you doing here? I gave you calculations to run and a report to write up.’ He glanced at Holmes and me. ‘Not these two again! I told you – no visitors!’
I could see the form of a woman hidden behind Fortuny. It appeared that the handsome young scientist had other plans in the laboratory that night.
‘Then who is with you, Cosimo?’ said Leo Vitale angrily. ‘There cannot be one rule for you and another for me!’ He waved towards the dangling tubes. ‘And what is all this nonsense?’
‘This is not a visitor, this is a donor to our research,’ said Fortuny irritably.
I grasped Holmes’s arm. ‘Holmes, shouldn’t we be leaving?’ I whispered.
But my friend’s face was frozen in surprise. I followed his gaze to the door. Cosimo Fortuny had entered, leaving us a clear view of his guest. It was none other than the flamboyant Madame Ilaria Borelli.
‘Madame!’ I exclaimed, gaping in astonishment at what I perceived to be an incomprehensible coincidence.
I turned to Holmes.
He stared at her, fascinated. A slow smile of understanding crossed his face. He nodded. ‘Madame Borelli, the research. Brava!’