This story is based on the original ACD tale called "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box." All of the quotes from his story are in italics, with my apologies and grateful thanks to the great man who wrote them.
To read about the history of Mary and Molly's friendship, see "Making Friends and Forming Alliances", a group of related one-shots that intersperse my other Mary stories.
000
Ms Cushing recovered her composure, sitting in the chair in the entryway and breathing deeply as the young doctor instructed. "Don't let her touch anything," Mary reminded Molly and went to fetch the landlady a glass of water. The pathologist helped herself to her friend's medical bag, rummaging for a pair of surgical gloves and snapping them on smartly, well aware of her new landlady's eyes watching her every movement. She picked up one of the ears from the boxful of rough salt with practiced hands.
"What are you doing?" Ms Cushing asked sharply, her shock giving way to anger. "Just throw the filthy things away! I've apparently been made victim of a peculiarly revolting practical joke. I won't have those things in my house, Dr Hooper! Take them away at once!"
Molly was carefully and minutely examining the evidence in question, both the ears and the salt they had been packed in. By the time Mary returned with the water, she had drawn a number of conclusions, and Ms Cushing had worked herself up into a towering rage.
"It's those boys—those three boys!" Ms Cushing hissed furiously. "This is what I get for allowing MEN into my home! Filthy, disgusting, vengeful, outrageous. . . ."
"Ms Cushing, you must calm yourself," Mary soothed gently, holding the water glass to the woman's lips. "You've had a nasty shock and you're working yourself into a dreadful state. I put the kettle on the boil—I'll make you a nice cuppa in a moment and you'll feel better. Now take some deep breaths and try to relax."
Ms Cushing took a few nearly-deep breaths impatiently. "I'm quite calm, Dr Watson," she said tartly at last. "But I have every reason to be outraged. I let the flat upstairs to three medical students from your own division, Dr Hooper—pathology students—at the request of the college—quite against my better judgement. And as I feared I would, I was obliged to get rid of them on account of their noisy and irregular habits. The mess! The smell! And the loud carousing at all ungodly hours of the day and night! It was a nightmare! I threw them out three months ago."
"Dear, dear," Mary murmured comfortingly, giving Molly a wide-eyed, knowing look of amused frustration. "I'm sure they were all horribly, um, masculine." She helped the woman to her feet and led her into the office, hoping, Molly supposed, that shutting the odious package from view would help.
Lost in her indignation, Ms Cushing ranted on. "I suppose they felt they owed me a grudge, and hope to frighten me by sending these . . . relics of the dissecting-rooms You'll notice the package was sent from Belfast—I'm quite certain one of the nasty creatures came from the north of Ireland—to the best of my belief from Belfast. Well, it will take a good deal more than a pathetic pair of ears to scare me!"
"You must admit, it is a bit . . . eerie, though," Mary commented with a perfectly straight face. Molly bit her lip firmly. It was utterly inappropriate to laugh.
At just that moment, the kettle in the kitchen began to sing. Mary bustled from the room, terrifying Molly by leaving her alone with the furious landlady, and soon returned with a tray. Somehow, just watching the young woman pour out tea for them in her placid, tranquil way caused both Ms Cushing and Molly herself to quiet their minds and hearts. Molly considered, not for the first time, that her friend was a wizard of some sort, able to get people to do what she wanted without any visible effort.
"There now," Mary pronounced, after a few moments of silent sipping. "We all feel more like ourselves, don't we? So now we may decide what is the best course of action to take in this matter. Unfortunately, the first thing we must do is call the police."
Ms Cushing huffed irately. "As soon as we summon the police, the press will follow. I am a quiet woman and have lived an exemplary life. It is something new for me to see my name in the papers and to find the police in my house. Surely we can just get rid of the things quietly and tell no one about them."
"I'm afraid we can't do that, Ms Cushing," Mary replied soothingly. "There are laws about sending body parts in the post, whether it was meant as a joke, or revenge, or something more sinister. And there are laws concerning the disposal of body parts. It would be unconscionable of us, as law-abiding citizens, not to report this and allow the authorities to take charge of the . . . evidence."
Ms Cushing shuddered in horror. "The idea of . . . of a lot of great, galumphing policemen tramping through my home. I can't bear it," she sighed. "I know you are right, Dr Watson, but I wish there could be another way. Can't you just take the horrid things to work with you, Dr Hooper, and dispose of them as you do with other things you dissect in your labs?"
Molly drew a deep breath. "I'm so sorry, Ms Cushing, but Mary is right. We must obey the law, even if this were just a joke by some nasty boys. But this is not a practical joke, I'm afraid. That much is quite clear."
Mary's eyes took on a gleam—an expression that always alarmed Molly more than just about anything else in the world. "Are you certain?" she asked, looking more thrilled than anyone ever should about severed ears and what they might portend.
The young pathologist took a deep breath and began to speak. "I've examined them closely, and the evidence is strongly against it. Bodies in dissecting-rooms are injected with preservative fluid. These ears bear no signs of this. They are fresh, too. They have been cut off with a blunt instrument, which would hardly happen if a medical student had done it. Again, Formalin, or even saline, would be the preservatives which would suggest themselves to the medical mind, certainly not rough salt. And the fact that they were packed in a cigar box rather than a sealed container. . . . There is every indication that a serious crime has been committed."
Ms Cushing gave a cry of indignation. "I don't believe it! I've led a most quiet and respectable life here for the last twenty years. Why on earth should any criminal send me the proofs of his guilt?"
"That is the problem which we have to solve," Mary declared. Molly couldn't help the little desperate, choking sound she made at that declaration, and Mary's eyes twinkled at her. "I meant, that is the problem the police must solve," the young doctor amended, a bit too cheerfully.
This statement caused another rush of indignant protests from Ms Cushing, who simply refused to consider speaking to the police—even if, as Mary suggested, they could ask to have only female police officers on the premises. Apparently, Ms Cushing's sensibilities were not only offended by all men in general, but also by women who accepted what she considered to be menial and demeaning jobs.
As Mary tried to encourage Ms Cushing into compliance with the law, Molly, sitting beside the distressed landlady with a close view of her profile, became transfixed by the sight of the woman's left ear. As she studied it, her breathing tightened with horror—she was beginning to feel she knew something of what was going on, and it was certainly not a joke.
"Put yourself into our hands, Ms Cushing," Mary was saying in her most soothing tone. "The friend who dropped us off here is a detective inspector from Scotland Yard, and he is at this very moment in a meeting with his friend, the Chief Superintendent of St. Leonard's Police Office. Let us call them—I know Molly and I can convince them to take care of this matter with a minimum of inconvenience to you."
Ms Cushing, with great distaste, reluctantly agreed to this plan, and Mary and Molly stepped out of the office into the entryway, closing the door behind them.
"Mary, have you looked at these ears?" Molly demanded quietly as soon as they were alone.
"I haven't had a chance," Mary admitted and knelt by the box which was still lying on the floor exactly as Ms Cushing had dropped it. "Hmm. Not a pair. Two left ears. One is a woman's, small, finely formed, and pierced for an earring. The other is a man's, sun-burned, discoloured, and also pierced for an earring. I presume a double murder has been committed, for these two people are certainly dead or we should have heard their story before now—a madman couldn't slice off the ears of two living people unnoticed. Can't you just imagine the press release?"
"Yes, yes, but Mary. . . . the woman's ear. . . ." Molly stumbled over her words in her agitation. "The woman's ear . . . it looks just like Ms Cushing's!"
Mary stared into the box intensely, her expression sobering. "Oh my lord, you're right!" she gasped, horrified. "Oh, Molly! You realize what this means?"
Molly nodded. "Call Greg, Mary. Call him now!"
