Chapter 2

I glanced at my watch, slipped my boots back on, and rose. I needed to get to my office.

“So I have no theory as yet,” he said. “No working theory as to why someone would wish to harm Her Majesty’s swans.”

Still staring at the slide, he said, “I have no facts from which to draw any conclusions except that which is before me... a sample of blood and the mutilated creature itself.”

“And why did you decide to examine a blood sample?”

He sighed. “Mycroft insisted this time. Her Majesty wants to know if there is any possibility at all that whoever slaughtered the swan, while exhibiting disdain, even hatred for the Queen or the British government, may have had some degree of empathy for the creature.”

“Empathy? But it’s mutilated.”

“Quite. But perhaps that was done after the fact - after the swan was killed, and the mutilation is only to send a message.”

“Sherlock, I don’t understand.”

“There was a note, just as before.”

He had mentioned the notes but had not shared their contents. His interest now had piqued and he was clearly ready to draw me into his investigation.

“Each time a swan is killed, a note is left which says, ‘I showed it more mercy than was shown to me.’ So,” Sherlock continued, “it is Her Majesty’s fervent hope that the killer did not want the swans to suffer unduly before the savagery. She is apparently quite fond of them.”

“This is dreadful. Are you testing it for some poisonous concoction that would bring death on rapidly then? Like the poison used in the mercy killings last year?”

“Something similar to hydrocyanic acid, yes. I made a list of potential agents. Strychnine, for example, would...”

“...Not be commensurate with any sympathy for the creature,” I interjected. “It has been tested on frogs because of their extreme sensibility to the effects, and when immersed in the poison, frogs are seized with violent tetanic convulsions, in which...”

“...In which,” he interrupted, “the extremities become extended and the entire body becomes rigid. Yes, I know. I’ve experimented on frogs fresh from the pond. I observed that agitation hastens the action of even small quantities of the poison and a violent paroxysm can be induced by a sudden noise, like clapping.”

“They would succumb quickly to the poison,” I told him. “Swans, serene though they may look, can be quite violent, especially when someone intrudes upon their territory. They can be very aggressive in defence of their nests. I’ve heard them. They hiss, they whistle and snort, even the cygnets chirp and squawk harshly if they are disturbed. Mute swans often attack people who invade their territory, so the poison would act quickly, yes, but the death would hardly be merciful. And only someone familiar to the swans could get close enough at any rate.”

Again, he lifted an eyebrow. “You know something of swans then, Poppy?”

“Of course. It is not just Her Majesty, the Dyers and the Vintners who lay claim to them.”

“The who?”

“The city companies, the greatest subject swan owners on the river. They go annually to the Thames to mark the swans. But there are other owners throughout England. Did you never notice the swans in the river near Victor’s house when we spent so much time there that summer?”

“I wasn’t paying particular attention to the swans.”

I pondered this statement momentarily. I wondered if he were trying to tell me that his focus had been on me that summer in the Broads when he’d visited Victor Trevor, Sherlock’s one friend at Oxford and the man who had intended to marry me... the man who had left for his family’s tea plantation in India when he discovered that Sherlock and I had feelings for each other. Or had Sherlock been focused on the little sailing vessel we designed when we spent many lazy days on the river bank during his visit?

“In fact, until Mycroft enlisted me in this enterprise,” he said, “I thought of them as nothing more than something upon which to feast. We often had roast swan at Christmas. Our cook prepared it with several pounds of beef that were beaten into a fine mortar and stuffed inside the swan with some gourmand’s onion, a stiff meal-paste laid upon the breast and served with strong beef gravy.”

He smiled as if he’d just had a pleasant childhood memory. I’d come to know that there were few of those in that intrepid brain attic of his.

“In fact, despite the Queen’s affection for the creatures,” he went on, “she allowed her youngest son, Prince Leopold, to send a swan to Dr. Ackland, his tutor at Oxford for Christmas dinner. Do you remember Dr. Ackland?”

“Of course.”

I had attended a rowing race with Victor at Oxford during Eights Week; my bull terrier bit Sherlock and he fell and sprained his ankle. That was how we met. Ackland was the physician who had treated Sherlock that day.

“There’s a lovely old fable that a swan’s life fades away in music,” I said.

“Oh, Poppy. Like the legend of Apollo’s bird singing his own requiem, I suppose. Such legends are as old as Homer’s epics.”

“And alluded to by Aristophanes and other ancient poets.”

“You know that I have no use for poetry. Or poets,” he added, and I knew instantly he was referring to my friend Oscar Wilde.

“In Shakespeare,” I pressed on, “when King Henry is told that his father sang in the frenzy of death, he says, ‘I am the cygnet to this pale, faint swan who chants a doleful hymn to his own death. And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings his soul and body to a lasting rest.’ So Shakespeare may have believed-”

“Shakespeare! Cease!” he cried, laughing. “Perhaps poets and playwrights are unwilling to surrender to the fallacy of this belief, but nature, truth and science must prevail.”

Realizing that poetry and legends meant nothing to Sherlock, I asked, “Where is the swan?”

“Over there on the table beneath the sheet.”

With a sigh, I went over to examine the swan’s mandible. Lifting the sheet, I saw the royal marks. “There are marks. Were there marks on all of the swans’ mandibles?”

He nodded. “I did notice marks, yes,” he said.

“The marks are important, Sherlock. They display ownership.”

“It hadn’t occurred to me that this was how Mycroft knew it was a royal swan. They are all the same to me. Although now that I come to think of it, Mycroft did point out the marks. He mentioned the swan-mark of Eton. He said that it has an armed point and the feathered end of an arrow. He said this is represented by the nail-heads on the door of one of the inner rooms of the college.”

“And you did not make note of that?”

“You know that I attended Harrow - rather because my father insisted on Eton and my brothers went there. So at the mention of Eton, my mind retreats. So then,” he continued, “the royal swans are marked as well?”

“That’s the purpose of the swan-upping. Swan-upping is an old, old tradition, Sherlock. It dates back to the twelfth century, I think. And the mute swan was given royal status centuries ago. I think the royal office of Keeper of the Swans dates back to the fourteenth century. Owning swans has long been a status symbol, Sherlock. Anyone stealing eggs or driving swans away at breeding time or slaughtering them is subject to a severe fine. And anyone who is not a swanherd who carries a swan hook by which swans could be taken from the river is liable to a fine... something like thirteen shillings and sixty-some pence.”

“You do know something about these creatures then.”

“Certainly I do.”

“How do you know all of this?” he asked.

“Because I am brilliant,” I quipped. “Sherlock, seriously, we have a whole game of swans bearing our manorial mark at Burleigh Manor, and there are still many owners of swans in Norfolk and Suffolk. These marks - annulets, chevrons, crosses and crescents and such-like - are cut upon the bill with a knife. During the swan-upping, the cygnets, the babies, are given the same marks as their parents. The swans are driven into the bank where a cob and pen have their beaks examined for ownership and the babies are marked with the nicks. It’s a very big festival.”

“Wait, a cob and pen?”

“Cobs are the male swans. Pens are the females. The royal swan-mark remained unchanged from the commencement of the reign of King George III... three horizontal marks and two vertical on either side.” I took up a pen and the notebook next to his microscope and drew the mark. “But the royal swan mark of Queen Victoria consists of five open pointed ovals, two cut lengthways and three cut transversely. Like this,” I said, sketching out her mark. “Two nicks is the mark of the Vintners Company.”

“Well, whatever is damaged on the creatures,” he said, “the mandible remains intact. Even this recent one, which was horribly marred and disfigured... its mandible was not defaced.”

“I believe this is significant, Sherlock. The act of mutilation is not intended as an act of rage against the swans. By choosing specifically royal swans, it is a message of what the killer would like to do to Her Majesty. Just like the last murder case we solved, the killer is sending a message.”