The Case of the Invisible Man, Chapter Four: The Evidence Starts to Speak
We both stood in the hallway of Mrs Addison's house-turned-apartments, looking to the staircase upon which she was insistent that she saw our client, Declan Braxton, arguing with the victim, Caleb Flynn.
"Why do we have two completely different stories?" I asked Sherlock quietly.
"Because Mrs Addison is protecting someone," Sherlock answered, equally as quiet.
"So you would believe Braxton over Mrs Addison?"
"Don't you?" he said with a slight glare.
"I don't know," I admitted, not overly sure on where everything was going and what was truth and what was lies.
"Neither do I," Sherlock said very quietly, clearly not liking what he had just admitted. "Until this very moment there has been a convenient lack of evidence. John, it is very important that we both forget everything that we have been told so far – including what Miss Flynn has told us – in order to let the evidence speak for itself. That is except for one fact."
"What one?"
"Mrs Addison said that she saw Braxton and Flynn arguing on the stairs," he said, moving to the foot of the stairs and kneeling down.
"But Braxton said that they hadn't been together on the stairs." I said with a frown.
"Exactly, so who did Mrs Addison see on the stairs?" Sherlock asked looking up to me with his eyebrows raised. "Because she definitely did see someone, John, and it was more than just an argument."
"How can you tell something like that?" I asked as I moved closer to him.
"What can you see?" he asked as he stood back up to his full height again, looking up the stairs.
I looked to the stairs more carefully now, knowing that he wouldn't have appreciated me stating the obvious. I quickly took in each step and the wall, which was where I noticed some odd scuff marks.
"Was someone dragged up the stairs?" I asked him quietly, feeling taken aback.
He gave me a small smile and nodded. "It would seem so, which of course implies that Caleb had come downstairs at some point."
I watched him as he fell into silence and, armed with his small magnifying glass, he basically crawled up the stairs until he reached the landing. He looked around for a few moments before crawling back down the stairs backwards and once he reached the bottom. He stayed down on all fours and examined the carpet at the base of the stairs, lowering his face so that he could sniff the spot at which he was.
"Mild form of bleach," he said quietly as he sat back up and leant on his legs. "The carpet is slightly discoloured; Hopkins needs to get forensics back here with their Polilight to confirm the presence of blood."
"Blood," I repeated.
Sherlock gave a small nod. "There are tiny traces of blood on every few steps which seems consistent with the working theory that someone has fallen down the stairs."
"Did he fall though?" I asked in a very low whisper. "I mean, look what happened to the poor bloke."
"I am confident that he was pushed, and I am confident that there was no argument." Sherlock stated. "After he fell down, Caleb laid here for a few minutes before he was picked up and dragged back up the stairs and into his apartment."
"Well, Braxton couldn't have done that by himself," I said remembering how little muscle the man had on him. "Even I would have struggled."
Sherlock seemed to consider this before heading upstairs and I followed him. On the landing there were two doors on opposite sides, plus the staircase led up to another level. We stopped at the door on our right.
"No signs of forced entry," Sherlock murmured before he turned the key that Hopkins had given him and opened the door.
"Maybe when Flynn was attacked the attacker took his house key out of his pocket," I suggested. "Or maybe the door was unlocked?"
"We are thinking along the same lines, John," he told me honestly as we both walked into the small flat.
It consisted of only three rooms; the bedroom, the bathroom and an open-planned kitchen/sitting room. The latter was the one that we were now standing in, looking down to a large, dried pool of blood before a black leather sofa, a small black mobile phone laying unnoticed under it. I felt that there were obvious signs of a struggle, with a few table lamps having been knocked over and one of the stools at the kitchen bench had been over-turned.
Again, I watched Sherlock in silence as he made his way around the room examining anything that he could get his hands on and I waited patiently out of the way for him to reveal what he had discovered. I did find it odd that there looked like there had been some kind of a fight in here, considering that it looked like Caleb Flynn had been pushed down the stairs. If that had of happened, he would have been in no state to put up any kind of fight once he'd been dragged back in here.
"It looks like a robbery," Sherlock voiced eventually.
"Nothing was found on Braxton when they arrested him," I said, thinking aloud. "Of course, he could have dumped it on his journey to the hospital, but then what was the point of it all?" I finished, trying to be objective.
Sherlock disappeared into the bedroom for a while, obviously trying to discover anything that might help give an explanation, but when he came back out into the sitting room I could tell that he had been unsuccessful.
"This all feels like a crime of convenience, that the assailant robbed the place because he could." He said quietly and I could hear uncharacteristic doubt in his voice.
"What do you mean?"
Sherlock opened his mouth to answer but the door opened and Hopkins walked in, looking at Sherlock expectantly.
"Well," he said.
"Well, I don't know how you ever became detective inspector with all the things you've missed!"
"Sherlock," I groaned in a lame protest as Hopkins glared at him.
"Oh really?" asked Hopkins hotly. "Well, if it matters to you at all Mr Holmes, when I first arrived here it seemed like an iron-glad case against Braxton considering we had an eye-witness."
"Oh, I am sorry, I didn't realise that Police took everything at face value! Why not be a little different from the rest of those mindless apes and show some intuitive. People always lie, I thought you would have realised that by now."
I looked awkwardly from Sherlock to Hopkins, who was staring at Sherlock with a slight twitch in his eye.
"Go on then, tell me what I have missed, and don't spare my feelings!" Hopkins said sourly, probably wondering why he had asked Sherlock into the case at this point.
"Blood on the staircase," Sherlock told him quickly obviously taking the detective's comment to heart. "Caleb Flynn was pushed down the stairs; you'll need to get forensics back here with the Polilight to confirm all of this of course. There is also strong evidence to suggest that the man has been burgled –"
"I have it on good authority that nothing has been stolen." Hopkins interrupted hotly.
"Imogen Flynn saying on the day that her father had been brutally attacked that nothing had been stolen?" Sherlock assumed with a slight laugh. "You call that good authority? All you had to do was to open one of the drawers, all the evidence was there waiting."
Hopkins reluctantly opened the drawer of the tall hallway table beside him.
"It's a mess," he said, looking back over to Sherlock.
"Exactly, look at the rest of the place; it's clean, organised and everything has its place. Now why would the victim have untidy drawers and wardrobes if the rest of the house was spotless?"
"Because someone has rummaged through them," I said with a nod.
"You'll have to get Imogen Flynn back here, Detective Inspector, and make her go through everything in this apartment. When we find out what is missing we may be able to tell what might have provoked the attack."
"Where are you going?" Hopkins asked as Sherlock made for the door.
"Back to Baker Street," he answered simply. "Oh, and one more thing, what do you know about the other people living here?
"There is one bloke living on the top floor – mid-twenties – then there is a husband and wife who live together across the hall." Hopkins said from memory.
"Alibies?" asked Sherlock.
"The bloke upstairs is currently holidaying in Australia according to Mrs Addison," Hopkins said, reading from his small notebook. "A Benjamin Hardgraves, works somewhere on the Thames when he is in the country though, she could remember where though."
"Travels a lot then?" I asked with a crooked smile.
"Apparently," Hopkins said. "It would be nice to have so much free time,"
"And the husband and wife?" pressed Sherlock, getting us back on topic.
"The wife, Lucy works down Canary Wharf all day Monday-to-Friday and the husband, Damon Hughes, is up in Scotland on a business trip and gets back on Thursday and he will have been gone for a full week. He also works in the City for a law firm. I'm not sure on the particulars of their jobs, either."
Sherlock frowned for a few moments, talking in the information that had just been given to him.
"Interesting," he said eventually. "Will you send around the CCTV footage?"
"I will have that done right away," Hopkins nodded before Sherlock left the room.
"You'll come back to Baker Street?" I asked Hopkins, you again nodded.
"Sure, after I have caught up on everything that I have apparently missed." He said, giving a short, tired laugh which didn't quite meet his eyes.
"Try not to be too offended," I said in an attempt to put the detective at ease. "You know what he is like,"
I received a true smile from him this time. "Yeah, and make sure he keeps me up to date."
I gave him a lazy salute and left the apartment, re-joining Sherlock outside beside the unmarked police car.
"You know," I started once we made off towards the main street together. "One day people are going to stop asking for your help."
No they won't." Sherlock said confidently, making me smile despite my efforts not to.
4
