CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

EXAMINATION BY THE RIVER

“Like father, like son,” Tovey commented, as Sutcliffe’s body was loaded into the back of a police cart.

“I beg your pardon?” Holmes asked, a cold wind whipping the length of the gorge to cut through our coats.

Tovey took another pull on the cigarette he had lit while the constable and the cart driver dragged Sutcliffe’s body onto a stretcher.

“Sutcliffe’s father, Ernest, threw himself from that bridge not four years ago. Fell to his death at low tide. A horrible business.”

“Do we know why he did it?” I asked.

“The Sutcliffes were in the tanning business, had a place down by the docks. There was a fire, a bad one. The roof came down, trapping the workforce inside.”

“Was there much loss of life?” Holmes asked.

Tovey finished his cigarette and ground it into the road with his heel. “Only a few men got out. It was terrible. Sutcliffe was ruined. Two weeks later, he walked onto the bridge and threw himself over the side.”

“And Victor?”

“Disappeared. We discovered later that he’d gone travelling, taking what little money the family had left. There was just Ernest and Victor, see. Ernest was a widower, his wife having died when Victor was a boy.”

“Tovey, will you let Watson examine Sutcliffe before he is taken away?”

The inspector was taken aback by the request. “Here?”

Holmes took a step closer. “We cannot trust that evidence would not be tampered with back at the station.”

Tovey frowned. “What are you suggesting, Mr Holmes? Mr Woodbead—”

“Your uncle is an honourable man, Inspector, of that I am sure, but the same cannot be said of others at Lower Redland Road. We have reason to believe that Inspector Hawthorne is at the heart of a conspiracy.”

The words piqued Tovey’s interest and he moved closer to Holmes. “It would never surprise me. I’ve caught Gregory taking bribes on more than one occasion. He has a flexible interpretation of justice, that one.”

“Then why have you done nothing about it?” I asked.

“Because Inspector Tovey’s superiors share Hawthorne’s view of the natural order of things, I suspect,” Holmes suggested, to which Tovey nodded.

“I only wish it wasn’t so. This conspiracy, then?”

Holmes told Tovey what we had found at the Regent, how Mrs Mercer had admitted being coerced into incriminating Holmes and how Sutcliffe had paid Powell to kill Lord Redshaw.

“Good Lord,” Tovey said as he listened to Holmes’s litany of indictment. “I had my suspicions, of course, but to hear it from your lips… You think Sutcliffe was driven to the bridge by remorse, then?”

“That is why we must inspect the body.”

Behind our huddle, the driver had taken up the reins and the constable was already on the back of the cart, sitting beside the corpse. “Ready to go, Inspector?”

“Hold on a minute, Hegarty,” Tovey said. “Dr Watson is going to take a look at the body.”

Hegarty’s eyebrows shot up beneath his helmet. “Here, sir?”

“Before rigor mortis sets in. It’s what they’re doing up in London; examinations at the point of discovery, less chance of contamination of evidence,” Tovey said, clutching at several straws at once. “Shift yourself out of that wagon.”

“But what evidence, Inspector?” Hegarty argued, jumping from the back of the cart. “The fellow jumped—”

“Enough of that,” Tovey berated Hegarty, even though the constable must have been ten years his senior in age if not rank. “Dr Watson, if you will?”

“I shall need an assistant,” I blustered, thinking on my feet. “Mr Holmes, I realise this is a dreadful imposition—”

“Nonsense,” said Holmes. “It will be a pleasure to watch a master at work.”

I hauled myself up onto the cart and, shuffling along beside Sutcliffe’s body, sat on one of the two benches.

“Give the doctor room,” I heard Tovey say as he led the constable a short distance away, before calling over to the driver. “You too, Bert.”

Grumbling, the driver dismounted. I leaned forward and made a show of examining Sutcliffe’s body.

“First thoughts, Watson.”

“What is there to tell? The man drowned.”

“Is that so?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“What’s obvious is that you cannot see what is in front of your eyes. Look to his face. Pale skin, with no sign of bruising.”

“Why would there be?”

Holmes ignored my question and turned to shout across to Tovey. “Inspector, Dr Watson would like permission to remove the victim’s shirt.”

“Remove his shirt?” Hegarty complained. “Why in God’s name—”

Tovey placed a hand on Hegarty’s arm, silencing him.

“Whatever the doctor thinks best, Mr Holmes.”

Holmes waved in acknowledgement and returned his attention to me.

“What are you waiting for, Watson? You heard the inspector. Undo the man’s shirt.”

“This is hardly respectful, Holmes.”

“Death seldom is,” he replied, as my fingers fumbled with the wet buttons to reveal a thin, pale chest. “Well?”

“It would help if I knew what I was looking for.”

“Bruising.”

“There is none.”

“Exactly. Now, let’s turn him over.”

Acutely aware that Hegarty was glaring at us, I helped Holmes manhandle the body onto its front. The detective quickly removed Sutcliffe’s cufflinks and peeled the wet shirt away.

“As I thought,” Holmes said, pressing his fingers against Sutcliffe’s mottled purple shoulders.

“That’s not bruising,” I pointed out.

“Of course it isn’t,” retorted Holmes. “Livor mortis. Blood has settled at the lowest part of the body, but what does that tell you?”

“That death occurred at least two hours ago.”

“Yes. And?”

“And…” I repeated, not knowing what else to say.

Holmes sighed in frustration. “It tells you that Sutcliffe died on dry land. In cases of drowning, signs of livor mortis are found on the face, chest, lower arms and calves, sometimes even on the hands and feet due to constant movement in the water.

“Also, the lack of bruising is most peculiar.” Holmes glanced up at Clifton Suspension Bridge. “Sutcliffe fell at least two hundred and forty-five feet. Putting his weight at around ten stone, he must have hit the water within four seconds, travelling at a speed of thirty-eight to forty miles per hour. Bruising would have been inevitable.”

“Do you think he jumped at all? If you are right and he was killed…”

“Maybe the perpetrator simply dumped the body in the river?”

“Exactly.”

“Check his spine.”

“What?”

“Do it, Watson!”

I ran a hand up Sutcliffe’s back, checking each vertebra, until I came to a fracture obvious even through the clammy skin.

“Well?”

“He broke his back.”

“So, yes, Sutcliffe fell from the bridge, or rather his body was thrown over the side to make it look like a suicide.”

“Like father, like son,” I said, remembering Tovey’s earlier words.

“Precisely.”

“So how did he die?”

Holmes had me help him return Sutcliffe onto his back.

“There are no visible signs of violence, neither stab wounds nor blows to the head, but if you would be so kind as to open his eyes?”

Carefully, I pulled back Sutcliffe’s right lid to reveal a milky, sightless eye.

“Excellent. And now the other one?”

I obliged, and Holmes peered closer still.

“As I thought. Do you see the marks on the conjunctiva, Watson? Like tiny pinpricks.”

I leant in and said that I did. It was as if a crimson rash had spread across the white of Sutcliffe’s eyes.

“Tardieu ecchymoses, first identified by the eminent French doctor Auguste Ambroise Tardieu. A clutch of burst capillaries…”

“Like Kelleher,” I realised.

Holmes nodded. “Often found in victims of violent asphyxia, but rarely seen in drowning.”

“So he was strangled then?” I glanced at Sutcliffe’s throat. “But there’s no bruising around his neck.”

Holmes leant forward and pressed both sides of the body’s neck, abandoning all pretence of being an observer alone. “Both fingertips and ligatures would leave marks,” said he, “but the crook of an elbow is a different matter.”

“A chokehold? He was attacked from behind then?”

“If one compresses the carotid arteries, one’s victim will fall unconscious within fifteen to twenty seconds.”

“And death follows within a couple of minutes.”

“If the killer is strong enough, yes,” Holmes confirmed, moving to slip a hand into Sutcliffe’s trouser pocket.

“I’m sorry, but enough is enough!” We looked up at the shout.

It was Hegarty, stepping towards us angrily. “Having the doctor make an examination is one thing, but rifling through a fellow’s pockets is another. That’s tampering with evidence, that is!”

“Hegarty, I told you—” Tovey began, but Holmes leapt from the back of the wagon, talking over them both.

“No, Constable Hegarty is correct, Inspector. I was merely seeing if the deceased had left a note in his pocket, to explain his actions. As Dr Watson has confirmed, this is undoubtedly a case of suicide.”

“Didn’t need a doctor for that,” Hegarty grumbled as I climbed down from the cart. “Even old Bert could have told you what did him in.”

Holmes pulled Tovey aside as Hegarty clambered back up beside the corpse, shaking his head.

“Well?” Tovey asked, expectantly.

“There is foul play afoot, that is for sure. Tell me, do we know where the not-so-dear departed lived?”

“Sutcliffe? I’m afraid I don’t.”

“I do,” I realised. “Clifford mentioned it. Oh, what was it? Port something. Portman Square?”

“Portland,” Tovey corrected me. “Portland Square, near St Paul’s Church.”

“That’s it. A less than desirable address from what Clifford suggested.”

Tovey stroked his beard. “That’s a little uncharitable, but the place has seen better days, that’s for sure.”

“Then that is where we must go, Watson, without delay.”

“Why, Mr Holmes?” Tovey asked.

“Holmes believes Sutcliffe was murdered,” I told the inspector.

“Then I must come with you.”

“No, Inspector,” Holmes said. “You must follow protocol to the letter. Go back to the station, make whatever report you will, but mention none of my suspicions. I would know more of Sutcliffe before his death becomes public knowledge.”

“If you say so, Mr Holmes, but report back as soon as you find something. If what you said about Hawthorne is right, he’ll be keen to cover this up.”

We bade the inspector farewell, and waited for him to clamber onto the back of the cart and trundle away, Bert at the reins.

As soon as he was out of sight, Holmes and I returned to our own carriage and instructed the driver to take us straight to Portland Square.

* * *

Our destination turned out to be exactly as Tovey had described. The once grand Georgian buildings surrounded a muddy patch of parkland, many of the houses converted from homes to business premises, largely manufacturers of boxes or bottlers of ink. Indeed, the malodorous reek of heated solvents permeated the air from the ink works. I found it hard to imagine anyone willing to wake each morning to such a mephitic atmosphere, let alone a man with such pretensions as Sutcliffe.

Holmes crossed the road, pausing only to let a rag and bone cart rattle by, before addressing a number of ragged boys on the street. As I watched, coins exchanged hands and the lads scampered off.

He returned to me a satisfied man. “Sutcliffe lives at number two,” he said, showing me a row of houses, the once light stone blackened and stained.

“Are you sure? The place looks like a factory.”

“A shoe factory,” Holmes told me, obviously amused. “Perhaps Powell should have sought employment there, instead of at the Regent. Sutcliffe rents rooms at the top of the building, in the attic no less.”

“He is obviously not the man of means we believed. Does he have servants?”

“So one would assume. Shall we find out?”

We made our way to the factory and, on making enquiries, were pointed in the direction of a stairwell that led up the side of the building. The stairs were filthy, and creaked ominously beneath our tread as we climbed to the top floor and found a modest doorway in a cobweb-infested hall. There was no number, nameplate or knocker, and so Holmes rapped on the wood, waiting patiently.

No one came as we stood listening to the cacophonous sounds of industry below. Holmes tried again, with the same result.

“If the man does have servants they are either absent or deaf,” he suggested.

“I’m surprised they can hear anything over that racket.”

“Well, I’m sure Sutcliffe won’t complain if we let ourselves in.”

“Your lock picks?” I asked.

Holmes fished something from his pocket and held it up for me to see. “No need for that, Watson; not after Sutcliffe so kindly furnished me with this.”

In his hand, Sherlock Holmes held a long metal key.