It was early in July of the year 1896 that I had the pleasure of assisting my dear friend Sherlock Holmes in yet another of his bizarre and perplexing cases – one that reminded me ever so slightly of the Adventure of the Speckled Band, for it proved to be just as peculiar. I woke up rather early that morning, no doubt due in part to the oppressive heat that was already beginning to rise. To my surprise, I entered the dining room to find Holmes not only wide awake, but pacing around in a rather excited, agitated manner.
"Good-morning, Watson!" he exclaimed upon noticing my rather reluctant presence. "A most interesting matter has been brought to my attention, and I was just preparing to step out and have a look at it. Care to join me?"
I considered asking if the matter could wait until we had eaten, but a look at my friend's face told me that he would continue harassing me all through the meal. If this case was enough to grab Holmes' attention in this way, it was certainly sure to be quite interesting. With a sigh and a smile, I donned my coat and hat, grabbing a rough meal of bread and cheese on my way.
"Well, where are we going today?" I asked, and Holmes just gave me a rather worrisome grin as we walked outside.
"We have quite the interesting case today, my dear Watson, and I do believe that your expert advice as a medical practitioner could prove useful." By now we had exited our apartments, and my companion rather eagerly hailed a nearby cabbie.
"You see," he continued as we settled ourselves for the journey, "A young lady of some reputation has been found dead in her garden, but nobody can even hazard a guess as to how this came to be."
Eventually, it came out that the woman in question – a Ms. Rachel Lavelle – was found at dawn this morning, lying among the roses. There were no obvious wounds on the girl's body, although her clothes seemed oddly ruffled and muddied. Her hair was somewhat disheveled, and she lay fully dressed on the ground… odd, considering the hour at which she must have left the house, and the fact that she seemed to have merely been enjoying her family's private gardens. She had a lily tucked behind one ear. Inspector Lestrade indicated that this might prove valuable, since the family's grounds contained no such plants.
Most mysterious of all, however, was the scrap of paper tucked into her bosom. The torn, damp parchment contained a few words printed neatly in Cyrillic, a smear of purple ink, and nothing more. No footprints littered the ground except for Ms. Rachel's own, and no sounds had awoken the household in the night. All physical signs pointed to a natural death, but the curious circumstances surrounding the case were enough to prompt the investigating police officers to request my friend's assistance.
Holmes had just enough time to relate this to me before our carriage pulled up at a large, respectable looking residence near the outskirts of the city. The street seemed quiet and deserted, making the sound of our footsteps seem unnaturally loud. Inspector Lestrade rushed out to meet us, leading us towards the house. Holmes, as always, grumbled murderously about how badly Scotland Yard had already disturbed the crime scene when he noticed all of the wheel marks and footprints on the muddy path.
Lestrade took us around the back, to the lush and verdant scene of the crime. They had not yet removed the poor girl's corpse, and so she lay sprawled beneath a broad tree in a light cotton dress, with the slightly wilted lily tucked carefully behind her ear. My friend immediately began inspecting the scene, looking over the ground, the bushes, and finally the victim herself.
"This is where the note was discovered?" he asked, tapping a finger lightly against her chest. When the inspector replied in the affirmative, Holmes turned to me.
"What do you think of the matter so far, Watson?" I, of course, had already been mulling the clues over in my mind, and did not hesitate to share my theory.
"Well, it is hard to be certain of much, but the lily certainly seems to indicate that Ms. Rachel left the garden early this morning, just before her death." I offered. Holmes smiled at me delightedly.
"You are quite right about the time the girl acquired the flower, Watson, but I do believe that you have failed to notice an important detail. The earth is quite soft here, is it not?"
"Yes, of course it is."
"And yet, the police found no foot prints leaving the yard… making it highly doubtful that the Ms. Rachel left, unless she somehow managed to master the art of levitation." I had to concede the point to that, but it obviously raised the question of how she had acquired the ornament. My companion continued inspecting the area, occasionally pausing to ask Inspector Lestrade some inane sounding question – though knowing Holmes, they were likely not inane at all.
"Have you laid any cloth down around the body?"
"No. Why would we have done that?" Lestrade seemed amused by the strange question. Holmes ignored him entirely.
"I see," he murmured, getting up. "Now I believe it is time we spoke to the lady's family."
The lady's family – an elder brother and her parents – had little useful information to offer. Mrs. Lavelle, an old matron dressed in black, seemed the calmest, and managed to offer us some help.
"I suppose Rachel did act rather oddly this season," offered Mrs. Lavelle. "As though she was constantly distracted by some thought. Honestly, I'd have thought she was in love, had she had any suitors."
"Would you consider allowing us to view her rooms, so as to speed our investigation?"
Mrs. Lavelle nodded, despite mild protests from her son.
"Of course, sir. Anything to help you find out what has happened to Rachel." She led us through the elegant rooms, and up a broad, polished stairway.
"Here we are," she said, gesturing to a closed door in the back corner of the second floor, near the stairwell. She opened the door for us reluctantly – understandable, considering that her daughter was dead less than a day – and waited by the doorway while we entered the room.
It was a modest chamber, as could be expected from a young lady such as the one in question. The furnishings were simple: a comfortable four poster bed, a wardrobe, a set of drawers, a desk, and a velvet settee in front of the fireplace. Other than that, there were a few ornaments on the dresser top. Dried flowers and dolls, for the most part. The room had one large window, overlooking the very area of the gardens in which Rachel Lavelle had met her untimely end. Holmes glanced out the window for a moment, and then began inspecting furniture, and rifling through drawers. He appeared almost dissatisfied when he was finished, and moved over to the desk, glancing at the parchment and the inkpot curiously.
Watching my friend, I began to move around the room myself, assuming that I should at least take note of all the obvious information. I was walking near the window when Holmes began to speak.
"Hmm, very interesting," he started. "Neither the ink nor the paper matches that of the note found on the woman's person, corroborating my suspicion that she did not in fact write the note, rather – " He was cut off by my exclamation, as the solid looking floor abruptly gave way beneath my foot. Disgruntled, I gave a yelp, and quickly removed the limb in question. Holmes walked briskly over to my side.
"Excellent, Watson!" he cried. "I see you've found a loose floorboard!" Leaning over, I pulled out the plank, revealing a small area between the joists, obviously intended as a hiding place. A bundle of letters lay inside, tied carefully with a pale blue ribbon. Judging from the size of the package, it likely contained the discourse of several months, at least.
"Love letters?" I guessed. Holmes nodded.
"Most likely."
The letters proved to be, as I had assumed, love letters, from a man named Ivan Kozlov, whom the letters seemed to indicate was a young Russian sailor. Empowered by this, we set out to see if Mister Kozlov was currently in London. Luck must have been with us, because after inquiring at only a few stops, we were able to discover the man's whereabouts. Apparently, the sailor was in town – residing in an inexpensive, if somewhat seedy, area near the docks.
We were forced to knock multiple times on the hotel room door before achieving a response, and when we did, it was far from welcoming.
"Go away, you dirty dog. I will not discuss the matter any further!" shouted a lightly accented voice from inside the chamber. Holmes cleared his throat.
"Mr. Kozlov?" he asked calmly. There was a resounding silence from inside the entry, and then:
"Excuse me. I mistook you for another." The door creaked open, and framed in the aperture was a tall young man; most likely not yet twenty-five. His hair was neatly combed, and his muscular body was covered in a slightly worn shirt, trousers, and a pair of braces. His face bore a mild scowl, which did not appear to be directed at us.
"What is it you want, then?" he asked. Holmes nodded politely to him, removing his hat.
"My name is Sherlock Holmes, and this is my associate, Doctor John Watson. We've come to ask you some questions regarding Ms. Rachel Lavelle."
A look of shock immediately surpassed the scowl on the man's face, and he stared at us slack-jawed for a moment.
"What do you know about her?" he demanded.
"Only that the two of you enjoyed a rather intimate, if illicit relationship, and that therefore you may prove valuable in the investigation of her murder."
Mr. Kozlov appeared surprised and grief-stricken, but he allowed us inside the meager room. The furnishings were well used, and the carpet ratty, as could be expected in this area, and the sailor's bag in one corner said that he had not been here long.
"R-rachel – she is dead?" Horror was clear in his voice, and I felt quite certain that this man had nothing to do with the crime. After some prompting, the Russian managed to give us the basics of his story.
Ivan Kozlov and Rachel Lavelle had met in the winter, when he'd delivered something to her from the trading ship he worked on. She'd invited him to tea, saying the weather was far too foul for him to leave in. Just like that, their love began to bud. The two exchanged letters often after that, hiding the affair from the watchful eyes of the elder Lavelles, since they knew well that her parents would not approve of the match. Just last night, he had crept over her garden wall through the large oak by the wall – the very tree, in fact, that her body had been discovered near. He had come to tell her that he had been promoted to a full partner of the ship's owner, and that since he could now provide for her, the two of them could elope in a few weeks' time. Thus, the news of her death was a horrible surprise for the poor man.
"Tell me more about when you met with her last night," Holmes said. "Did you, perchance, bring the lady any flowers?" The man nodded.
"I brought her a lily – Rachel's favorite blossom." He seemed distraught. "She was so – so happy!" Holmes nodded to the man.
"You did not by any chance leave her a note in your mother tongue, did you?" As it turned out, Ivan had not left the note that Ms. Lavelle had been found with. He was quite mystified by the suggestion, and explained that it would be ridiculous to do so, as Rachel possessed no special understanding of the Cyrillic alphabet. As we turned to leave, my friend asked him one last question.
"When we arrived, Mr. Kozlov, you appeared to mistake me for some other, unwelcome personage. Might I ask who that would be?" The other man mulled the question over a bit before replying.
"I thought you must be Peter Hastings," he replied carefully. "The man sometimes delivers notes to Rachel for me, but of late he has been most un-courteous, trying to pry the two of us apart. I do not know why." After that, we left.
On our way back to Baker Street, Holmes inquired as to the Ms. Lavelle's cause of death. I had, of course, taken note, and I had no trouble replying.
"I do not have a clue how it happened while leaving no marks, but all the symptoms indicate that she perished from asphyxiation," I said. Holmes nodded, as though that confirmed his suspicions.
"In that case," he said, "We ought to contact Lestrade, and tell him that we have his murderer."
When Inspector Lestrade arrived at our apartment, Holmes wasted no time in explaining his findings.
"You will need a courier by the name of Peter Hastings," he said, and then explained what had gone on. Mr. Hastings, Holmes explained, was most likely infatuated with Ms. Lavelle, and had become frustrated that she cared only for the poor foreign sailor who's missives he delivered, and not one whit for him. Holmes had, in fact, heard of Hastings before today; he had been arrested several times on counts of property damage or violent behavior. This erratic behavior indicated some sort of mental instability, and when he found out that the object of his affections was soon to marry another man, something changed in him.
My friend, looking at the ground, had discerned scuff marks of cloth around the body, but no footprints. Hastings, having delivered the note informing Rachel of her lover's arrival, knew when and where they were to meet, and so was able to lie in wait, and was able to cross the wall in the same manner as Mr. Kozlov as soon as the aforementioned man had left. Enraged, he had killed the girl, who was still daydreaming beneath the tree.
"You remember, dear Watson, the cause of death you informed me of?" I told him that I did, of course.
"I already had my suspicions as to how she died, but that confirmed them. Hastings brought with him a roll of heavy sailor's canvas, which he dropped on the poor girl, smothering her. As I'm sure you noticed, the lowest branch of the tree was peculiarly low; within easy reach of the ground for a man with long arms. After his crime, our murderer pulled the canvas up, and left the note, in hopes that it might lead investigators toward his rival and employer, Mr. Kozlov.
You may inquire when you arrest him as to his motives for such an odd method of murder, but I am quite sure of the facts."
Holmes, as always, proved to be correct. Mr. Hastings confessed in police custody, saying that he'd rather have her dead than with another man. He seemed to bear many illusions about her supposed love for him, and he said that he smothered her because he could not bear the thought of leaving a mark upon her lovely body. It was not until some weeks later that I thought to ask my friend what the note had said.
"Holmes," I asked, "Did you ever discover just what Hastings wrote on that paper?" He hardly looked up from his reading as he told me.
"Oh, I translated it quite a while ago. The note merely read: 'My love will last for eternity'. That is all."
Chills down my spine, I leaned back in my seat, glad to see the end of the strange, chilling case.