The Woman with White Lipstick

I have wanted to record the details of this case for some time now, but the involvement of a somewhat famous personality has kept me from doing so. That person's wife has just released a "tell-all" memoir, however, so I feel that the time has come to tell the story. This all occurred fairly early in my association with Sherlock Holmes. His methods and eccentricities were still new to me and still seemed a little queer at times. It wasn't the most difficult case nor did it stretch his abilities too far, but it did give him the chance to catch an infamous assassin that had slipped through his fingers before, so I think it's worth telling. He has never included me on every case he works, and there are days on end when I will not see or hear from him. It was quite by accident that I happened to share this adventure with him.

I was spending the evening at Sarah's (my girlfriend at the time) flat watching some dreadful artsy film. We often went to her flat instead of mine due to the fact that there are often body parts lying around my flat and you never knew when Sherlock would barge in, bloody from head to toe, and give away the end of the movie after only seeing a few minutes of it. This evening, however, it was Sarah's sister, Elizabeth, who came barging in, not bloody at all but crying uncontrollably and in a sort of panic. I was happy at the interruption myself as I wasn't sure how I was going to manage to stay awake through the end of the film. I offered to excuse myself if they wanted to be alone, but Elizabeth insisted I stay, saying she was hoping that I would be at her sister's this evening, so I agreed to stay. She was trembling from head to toe and was very pale.

"Are you sure you're alright?" I asked. "You're as pale as can be; you're lips have absolutely no color to them. Let me get you something, some tea, at least, if nothing else."

"No, I'm fine," she replied. "Thank you, John. The lips, its white lipstick."

"White lipstick? You wear lipstick to bed?" She was obviously in her night clothes underneath her long coat (I had managed to pick up at least that much skill at observation from Sherlock).

"I see you haven't spent the night over yet. At least not enough times for Sarah to show you her real routine." She and Sarah exchanged some sort of sisterly glance that they both knew the meaning of. "'White Lipstick' is the brand name of a cosmetic cream. You put it on your lips at night to keep them moist."

"Oh."

"You didn't come here to talk to John about cosmetics, Liz," said Sarah. "What's going on?"

"It's Charles," she said. Charles is her husband, though only she calls him Charles; everyone else calls him Chuck. "He's been acting so strange lately. Always tired, always moping around. He goes out late at night and doesn't come home until early morning. He says his boss is making him work some secret project, but last night I woke up when he got into the bed. He had showered but his hair still smelled like smoke. He detests smoking. So tonight I followed him…"

"Where did he go?" Sarah asked.

"To a brothel!" she exclaimed and burst into tears. It was a while before we could calm her down again enough to talk. "It says it's a gambling house, but I don't think that's fooling anyone. I tried to go in after him, but they told me only men were allowed inside."

All eyes turned towards me. "I'll go. What's the address?" I had met Chuck a couple of times. He seemed like a good man and fully devoted, worshipful, you might say, to Elizabeth. I had a feeling it might all be a big misunderstanding. I soon found myself in one of London's seediest streets. It was just off a nice wide, well traveled boulevard, but it is amazing how quickly a street can turn to filth. I found the gambling house in question and was let right in by the brawny man at the front door, no questions asked. It was indeed a fowl smelling place. There was such a thick haze in the air that it was hard to see beyond the room you were standing in. The entryway was small and only contained a small desk with a man in a wheelchair sitting behind it. He did not look up or in any way acknowledge me but continued to count the money he had in his hands. I could see under the desk that both of his legs had been amputated.

I moved into the first room on the right. It was what appeared to have been a formal sitting room at one point with no other doors in it except the French doors (which had been removed) leading into the entry. There was a large round table in the middle of the room where several men were playing poker and several small tables around the sides where some pairs were playing cribbage or gin rummy. The game going on at the table seemed to be a high-stakes one, all played with cash, no chips. It was a strange mix of men; some seemed rather affluent while others were quite ragged. One who was sitting with his back to me seemed to be asleep. He was wearing a skull cap over what looked like a deformed head, so I assumed that a mental handicap might allow him to get away with sleeping at the table. The chap next to him was obviously very drunk and making the man on the other side of him uncomfortable with his talk.

"They do whatever you tell them too," he was saying. "Expensive, but worth it. The one I like will even put one make-up so as she looks dead and all. Then she just lays there and it's like making love to a fresh corpse, one that's still warm!"

Obviously Elizabeth was quite right in assuming this was also a brothel. Chuck wasn't in this room, and I did not care to hear any more of the man's gruesome fantasies so I walked back into the foyer. At that moment I received a text:

"What are you doing? SH"

"I'm in a brothel/casino" I replied.

"Things not working out with Sarah?"

"Looking for her brother-in-law"

"Try the roulette table."

I didn't remember ever having spoken to Sherlock about Chuck, but I had known him long enough to trust his instincts. I asked the man at the little desk if there was a roulette table. "Down the stairs" was all he said. I found the stairs at the back of the house, one set going down and one with a rope across it going up, and went down into a dank little basement, and sure enough, there was Chuck.

"John!" he said as I approached. "What are you doing here? Liz followed me, didn't she?"

"Yes," I said, "and I'm quite relieved to find you down here and not upstairs."

"Oh, dear. Is that what she thinks? It's all so stupid, nothing like that."

"Explain it to her, not to me. Let's go."

We left the house and as we walked to the main street he explained that his boss had been playing the roulette table, and losing a lot, so he thought it was rigged. Chuck is a statistician, so his boss sent him down to check it out.

"He knew I didn't need to write it down," he explained. "I can keep all the numbers in my head. He threatened to fire me. I didn't know what to do. I can't lose my job now, not with the ba…" He stopped suddenly.

"Elizabeth's pregnant?"

"Yes, but no one knows yet. She lost the last one, so we were waiting until it was farther along to tell people. I didn't want her to be worried so I didn't tell her where I was going, just said I was going to work. Looks like that plan backfired."

I lowered my voice. "Listen. Don't look back and just keep walking. There's someone following us. He was in the house." It was the man sleeping at the poker table with the skull cap. He was keeping to the shadows but I could see his figure in the reflection of the windows across the street. "We're almost to the street. It's busier and we'll be safe, but if we don't get a cab right away just keep walking."

We made it to the street and had to walk a ways before spotting a cab. The man had quickened his step behind us and was about to catch up. The cab pulled up and I could see the man coming up behind me in the door; he had a dirty face and his upper lip was twisted into a permanent snarl. I pushed Chuck into the cab. The man started to say something, but I turned and punched him in the stomach as hard as I could. He doubled over grasping for breath.

"What do you want?" I yelled. "Why are you following us?"

He couldn't talk so I turned to get in the cab. As I was about to shut the door the man yelled: "John!" The voice was unmistakable. I turned and saw that it was Sherlock. He had removed whatever it was that was holding his lip up and was standing erect. I told Chuck to go on without me and to tell Sarah I would leave it to the family to discuss; I had already texted her that we were on our way, and I wasn't worried about Chuck not going back. If Sherlock had taken the time to create such a disguise something was indeed afoot.

"Whatever happened to 'hiding in plain sight'?" I asked.

"The owner of that place knows me a little too well," he replied.

"Why were you there?"

"There's a pub just down the road here, since you're here you might as well join me. I'll explain there."

Sherlock had evidently helped out the owner of the pub because a nice private table towards the back was arranged for us. It was around midnight on a Friday so the place was very busy. Not so loud that you had to shout to be heard, but loud enough that you could talk without the fear of being overheard. I ordered a beer and Sherlock sat in silence for some time. I waited for him to finish thinking and ordered a second beer.

"The owner of that house," he finally started as I was finishing my second, "used to be an assassin, went by the name of Jack-of-Spades. I had him within my grasp at one point, but I had only helped Lestrade with a few minor cases at the time and he did not trust me enough yet to let me in on something as big as that. Three days ago there was a break-in. This was left at the scene." He showed me a picture on his phone. It was a playing card, the jack-of-spades.

"Was that his trademark? His calling card?"

"No, he never left anything behind on his murder victims, but his fingerprints were on that card."

"The man is wheelchair bound. How could he do a burglary? Accomplices?"

"No burglary, just a break-in and vandalism. There were no signs of multiple people. The only other thing found was a bootprint. A man's boot, but it was too faint to tell much off of except the size, which happens to be the same size Jack used to wear. He also happens to still own a pair, but it's a common brand of boot. They searched his rooms and brought him in for questioning. He was the cause of the car accident which took his legs, so his prints are on file, even though he has never been linked to the assassinations. I considered the idea of him using prosthetic legs, but it doesn't make sense and none were found in his rooms."

"He could keep them somewhere else. Why doesn't it make sense?"

"Every window and every door in the house had been busted open or smashed, probably in an attempt to conceal the point of entry, maybe just out of spite as there was profanity spray-painted on just about everything. Plus he has an alibi which security cameras have proven."

"Must have made a lot of noise. Nobody saw or heard anything?"

"No, the house is secluded in a large park. The closest house is the mansion, but it is not used anymore. The family uses the servants' house now as their own while plans get under way to restore the mansion. They were all out at the time."

"So what now?"

"I've gone to Jack's gambling house every night since trying to find who would want to frame him. Why the sudden link to him? Why just the one crime? Why just a vandalism instead of a burglary or murder?" He relapsed into silence and I ordered another beer and some onion rings, which I knew I was going to pay for later. Luckily there were televisions around the place so I wasn't completely bored. Then Sherlock got a text. His phone was still sitting on the table so I could see it was from D.I. Lestrade and it started "Please come if you can." Sherlock looked at the message and got up without saying a word. I put some money down for my tab and followed. In the cab he told me there had been another card found, at a murder scene this time.

The crime scene was a very nice refurbished Victorian townhouse. The victim was a wealthy man, well known in certain circles but not necessarily famous. The house had been thoroughly modernized inside and had a security system, but the victim had evidently turned it off since he was at home and awake. I recognized him at once as one of the men that was around the roulette table. Sgt. Sally Donovan met us just inside the door.

"Freak," she said (she always calls Sherlock 'Freak'), "hear this was an old friend yours that did this."

"Is that the story you'll be telling the press, Sally?" replied Sherlock. "Man with no legs breaks and enters, then trashes the place and murders the young, athletic owner? I would love to hear your theory on how he accomplished that."

Sally stared at me, but I just shrugged my shoulders and followed Sherlock down the hall and into a large living room. D.I. Lestrade was waiting for us there. The room was trashed and again there was profanity painted all over the walls and every window broken. The dead man was in the center of the room. He had been killed by repeated violent blows to his head. There were also scratch marks on his neck and wrists and a faint circular mark around his mouth.

"This one's different," said Sherlock.

"You mean besides the fact that there is a murder this time," said D.I. Lestrade. I noticed he said this as a statement, not a question. He had noticed the differences too, but I doubt Sherlock caught his inflection.

"Yes. Multiple people this time. The graffiti is not all by the same person; it's at different heights and different writing. It's more reluctant though, less specific. Who called it in?"

"An old lady across the street. Most of the people on the block are older and were in bed, but she said she had some heartburn and couldn't sleep. I actually convinced her to let the paramedics take a look at her before coming over here as it sounded like she might be having a slight heart attack, and this man wasn't going anywhere. She heard the victim come home around midnight; his car has a 'very distinctive growl,' she says. About a half hour later she saw a man come around the back of the house and in through the front door. Not more then ten minutes after that she heard windows breaking and called the police. There was a patrol car just around the corner, took them less than five minutes to get here, but the place was empty. Nothing seems to be stolen as far as we can tell."

"She's sure it was a man?"

"She says he was wearing an oversized hoodie with the hood up so she couldn't see the face. She thought it was a smaller person but the feet were large and definitely a men's style boot. She keeps a pair of binoculars by her window." I believe he said this in response to the look of disbelief on my face. "But she thought he was maybe drunk as he didn't seem to walk well."

"Ah, I love old ladies. I wish every block was full of them, much better than security cameras. He wasn't drunk. Look at the boot prints. The shoes didn't fit that well, they were hard to walk in; the prints are darker in the center and fade out towards the edges. A small foot in a large boot. A small woman's foot in a large boot."

"It was a woman?" I asked.

"Women, yes. I thought it might be based on the graffiti at the first crime, but it's harder to tell with spray-paint. The language of the graffiti is more feminine than masculine. The boot prints are clearer here. The scratches on the man; there are traces of fingernail paint around them, and the mark around the mouth…"

"They had to drug him to overcome him?" said Lestrade. "Hold chloroform over his mouth."

"No, it's lipstick."

"What? Lipstick? Who wears white lipstick?"

"Sarah does," I said, "and her sister. It's some sort of beauty product, evidently. Those don't look like lip marks, though."

"Well," said Sherlock, "they're barely lips anymore. She's had enough plastic surgery and bad lip implants to make them not appear as real lips. It wasn't a beauty product she was wearing, though. You heard the man at the poker table, John. I could see your reaction as I watched you in the reflection on my phone."

"The prostitute making herself up to look like she's dead."

"What on earth are you talking about?" asked Lestrade.

"The prostitutes at the brothel that Jack owns. They'll do almost anything for their clients, even wear white lipstick and pretend to be dead. The question is: why was the first crime done by just one of them and this one done by several of them? Oh!"

"What? What is it?"

"There's going to be another one. He's gotten too anxious, been away from it all a little too long!"

"He? I thought it was 'she'."

Sherlock didn't answer as he was already out the door. When we were on our way he explained: "Jack is using his women to take care of his business. The idea must have occurred to him recently. Turn left here. The first man must have just needed some kind of warning. This second one had gotten a little to close to one of the prostitutes, hence the kiss. Maybe she told him something he wasn't supposed to know. Maybe something about that roulette table your friend was interested in, John. Right here. Then there's the man that was sitting next to me at the poker table. I could also see Jack in the reflection on my phone, just as I could see you. He was staring at the man with anger on his face. As I left Jack said 'Sorry if that man's talk didn't sit right with you. Tonight's the last night he'll be coming around here, that's for sure.' He's a shrewd businessman and didn't want to lose a customer, especially one losing as much money as I was. I saw the man's license when he opened his wallet. He lives right up here, on the left. Stop here."

"Windows are still all in," I said. "We're either on time or their not coming tonight."

"He's not home yet."

We didn't have to wait long before a taxi dropped the man off. He was extremely drunk. The cab driver had to get out and help him to the door. Lestrade had sent a car to watch the back of the building as well, and it was only a minute or two after the man was in the house that we saw two figures approach the building from down the street a ways and the other officers radioed that two were approaching the back. The women broke in and the officers moved in and easily took them into custody. The drunken man was passed out on the sofa and didn't even stir. One of the prostitutes kept yelling that they wouldn't tell us anything, but back at the station the one named Leena said she would talk despite the fear of Jack.

"I did the first break-in," she started, "on my own. That man deserves much worse than what I did. He deserves to die, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. He's always going on about the horrible things he has done to other women as if he's proud of himself. His poor wife. I mentioned my desire to do something to him and my plan to follow him to a friend of mine. We don't know their names or anything, only Jack does. My friend told me not to do it myself; he said he knew someone who could find things out for me." That caught Sherlock's attention. "Two days later I got a text…"

"Do you still have it?" Sherlock asked.

"Yeah, its still on my phone." They fetched her phone and she showed us the text:

'(Name)

(address)

Security password 49266

M'

"The number is no longer in service; I tried calling it. I took Jack's boots and coat to disguise myself and went to the address. It was so far away from everything I got the idea to smash all the windows. The card must have been in one of the coat pockets and dropped out at some point. I didn't mean to leave it. Jack was taken in for questioning and I told the other girls what I had done. I shouldn't have. When he came back he wanted to talk to me alone but the others wouldn't leave, so he said we would all have to do as he said or he would kill us."

Jayce, the one with the bad lip implants, added a few more details; the two other's refused to talk.

"I stood guard while they killed the man. Then I saw him. He was one of my clients. I have fallen for him a little I guess. He would always leave me extra money or gifts, even though Jack forbade that. I had also told him how the roulette wheel was rigged, so I don't know which Jack wanted him dead for. When I saw him lying there dead I lost it. The other girls had to pull me off of him and calm me down before we could come do this other job."

The police went and arrested Jack. He had kept a good record of his assassinations in a safe that Leena knew the location of, so in the end they were able to charge him in those cases and close them as well. When I told Sarah's brother-in-law what his boss had him dealing with he nearly fainted. Elizabeth told him to quit his job and he found another without a problem, and I hear the baby is doing quite well. Jack has sworn his people will find Leena and Jayce when their sentences are over, but they will be in witness protection and he'll have to outsmart Sherlock Holmes to do it.