Molly rubbed her arms nervously. She was beginning to feel a bit of a chill. After their improper introduction, she didn't know what else to say to Mr. Sherlock Holmes. He regarded her with a faint scowl but otherwise his expression was unreadable. Another moment of tense silence ensued. She found herself unable to keep eye contact with him and cast her eyes downwards in search of her hat. Just as she spotted it, a large hand with perfectly groomed fingernails snatched it from the stone floor. She looked up to see Mr. Holmes slap the dust from it before he thrust it in her direction.
"Here you are, though, you do not need to wear it on my account," he murmured.
Molly took the hat from his hand with a nod. "Thank-you, Mr. H-Holmes."
He bowed his head. Then an idea seemed to grip him. He lifted his chin, poked his lips out and moved them as if his words had not yet caught up to his thoughts. She held her breath in anticipation. The minor changes in his expression were fascinating to watch.
"Miss Hooper," he spoke at last, "might I ask something?"
Her brows shot up. "Erm, yes, I-I suppose."
He gestured towards the table with the half-uncovered corpse. "What has you so fascinated about that particular body?"
"O-Oh," Molly stuttered, heat infused her face. "Um, you mean besides the fact that he is m-missing some . . . ahem, k-key pieces of his anatomy?"
Mr. Holmes' lips curved up at one corner. "Yes."
She twisted her hat in her hands. This man was known to be extraordinarily intelligent. Her uncle was forever extolling his brilliance at deducing a person's cause of death with barely a glance and sometimes without even having seen the body. She ground her teeth in apprehension. She felt she was about to make a fool of herself, especially since he seemed to aggravate her tendency to stutter.
"Well, I was curious about his mechanism of death as it is not obvious, i-is it?"
He arched a brow. "No?"
Molly's face flushed. "I w-would like to get a b-better look at him with a lamp to be certain, of course."
Mr. Holmes nodded, strode to the far end of the morgue, plucked an oil lantern from the wall and lit it in a flourish with one of the matches from a nearby box. The match's flare briefly enhanced his handsome face and her belly quivered strangely. She took a deep breath and hurried to meet him at the table with their corpse. With fumbling fingers, she coiled her long hair and stuffed it up under her cap lest it get in the way of her examination. Then, she climbed up on the bucket next to Mr. Holmes. When their shoulders brushed, she made the mistake of glancing at him and almost fell off the bucket. She was so close she could see the fine lines around his pale eyes which were the colour of a milky sea on a cloudy day. As she stared, transfixed by their luminosity, a crease appeared between his brows.
"Miss Hooper?" His deep voice prodded.
Her eyes flicked down to his full bottom lip.
"Miss Hooper? The body?"
Molly blinked a few times then tore her eyes away. Fire licked up her neck and into her face. If he didn't already think she was mentally unbalanced, he might start.
"Yes," she refocussed on the right arm of the corpse, "yes, I was interested in these cuts . . ."
She shook her head and picked up the arm of the dead man. Given the liver spots and rotund gut on an otherwise lean frame, she surmised he was somewhere between the age of fifty and sixty and had been dead more than three days. He was no longer in rigor mortis, rather, his limbs had slackened again. He was not a working man, he lacked the musculature of a life of labor as well as any discolouration on his neck or forearms from toil outside. She didn't realize she was saying any of this aloud until she heard a murmur of agreement from Mr. Holmes.
"Do go on, Miss Hooper," he insisted, "this is less tedious than I expected."
Just as Molly was trying to decide if he had insulted her or not, a voice sounded at their backs.
"That is high praise indeed coming from Sherlock Holmes," a male said in a jocular tone.
Molly whirled to see a man of modest stature standing alongside her uncle and in doing so, lost her footing. With a squeak, she flailed as the bucket squirted out from underneath her feet. However, she didn't fall far. She was caught around the waist and secured against the hard torso of Mr. Holmes for the second time in a matter of minutes. She looked up into his hooded eyes. The corner of his nose and lip twitched.
"Perhaps a bucket is not the best step stool, Miss Hooper," he murmured.
He set her down but took his time in releasing her completely. Her skin burned beneath her clothing where his hand had clamped on her waist. She looked up at the other two men anxiously. Her uncle had a scowl of disproval whilst the second man- a shorter, slim fellow in a brown tweed suit with a large mustache - had an incredulous grin. His eyes darted back and forth between her and Mr. Holmes.
"Who is this, then?" He asked cheerfully.
Her Uncle Mike removed his hat and rubbed a hand over his scalp before replacing it atop his head.
He sighed. "Dr. Watson, allow me to introduce you to a person who is both the bane of my existence and my reason for getting up in the morning, my niece and ward, Miss Molly Hooper. My apologies if her presence causes offense but I have not been able to dissuade her from haunting my every footstep . . ."
The small doctor shook his head and continued to smile as if he were a cat who had caught himself a plump rat. He stepped forward, removed his hat and offered a hand.
"Miss Hooper . . . oh, um, should I?" He retracted his hand if unsure before extending it again.
Molly reached forward. Dr. Watson hesitated once more.
Mr. Holmes sputtered a sigh. "Oh, for God's sake, Watson, shake her hand! She is wearing pants, after all."
Dr. Watson shot a frown at his cohort before shaking her hand vigorously. "I am, erm, delighted to meet you."
"Likewise," she dipped her head.
"Mr. Holmes," Uncle Mike prompted tentatively, "has my niece been making herself a nuisance?"
Molly crossed her arms as she stuck out a petulant lip at her uncle. He gave her a hard stare in return and shook his head. She clenched her teeth. She knew she was going to get an earful later for getting caught in his morgue.
Mr. Holmes eyes narrowed as he glanced between them. "On the contrary, it is I who have proved an encumbrance to Miss Hooper's examination. I mistook her for a burglar before I realized what she was doing."
Uncle Mike tapped his hand to his forehead. "Ack, I do not blame you, Mr. Holmes. That is partially my fault as I required her to be discreet about her activities. She took that to mean dressing like, ahem, . . . a man. Dear God, that sounds terrible. You two must think I am a dreadfully indulgent to let her do this but she is attending a women's medical college. So, her activities are at least somewhat legitimate-"
"Miss Hooper, you were examining the body?" Dr. Watson interjected.
Molly nodded.
"You like that sort of thing?" Dr. Watson asked, his smile broadening (if that were possible at this point).
She nodded again.
"Brilliant! What have you found?"
She suppressed a smile as Mr. Holmes pursed his lips and his forehead furrow deepened. She wondered if she observed his reaction correctly. Was the renowned detective a wee bit resentful of the attention she garnered? Her eyes slid away from him towards the corpse again. She thoroughly inspected the wounds and surrounding tissues by the light of the oil lantern before making her pronouncement.
"This man was quite dead before his limbs were removed. I would say he was deceased at least twelve hours because the blood did not flow from these openings, it had already congealed. These cuts are not what killed him."
"Tell us something we do not already know," Mr. Holmes muttered as he fiddled with the gold chain on his pocket watch, then extracted it to ascertain the time. "I am sorry, Miss Hooper. While Watson might find this spectacle entertaining, I grow weary of it. I made these observations an hour ago. I thought you might postulate a cause of death but it seems you have little talent beyond stating the blatantly obvious."
Molly's eyes rounded and her breathing faltered. She felt struck and was forced to bite her lip as it trembled. What a ninny she had been in thinking he admired her skills when in fact, he must have been humoring her. How duplicitous he was! He had drawn her in like exotic flora only to blister her with his toxic exterior. She gawped at him a few seconds longer. His expression was one of boredom until their eyes met. For a moment, she thought he appeared regretful until his face hardened. Then, he set the oil lamp down next to the corpse's legs and turned on his heel.
"Come, Watson, we have lingered here long enough."
John grimaced, mouthed an apology and bowed his head. He hurried after his companion.
"B-But you don't even know the cause of death yet, Holmes."
His head inclined towards the shorter man's. "It was a head injury of some sort. Possibly a blow which cracked the skull or a gunshot. Never fear, we will sort out how he was murdered. We just need to find his head."
Molly sniffed as she looked back at the body. Her throat constricted as her uncle began to scold her under his breath.
"It was foolish of me to allow you down here, Molly."
Tears stung her eyes. What had she missed? There was something, there had to be. Then, an idea nearly knocked her over. She scrambled around the table, sprinted to the middle of the morgue and called after the pair of investigators just as they stepped onto the stairs leading from the room.
"He hanged himself!"
That stopped Sherlock Holmes dead in his tracks. His head swivelled in her direction with a confused frown on his face. He blinked a few times before slowly descending the steps and coming towards her.
"A man is missing his most valued appendage and you have the gall to claim it was self-inflicted?" His deep timber reverberated throughout the room and crashed around her like a sloshing tide.
Molly raised her chin. "He. Hanged. Himself."
Mr. Holmes' head tilted sideways. His eyes seemed to bore right through her.
"Your evidence?" He brushed by her on his way back to the examining table with Dr. Watson close behind.
She felt her nostrils flare as she talked to his broad back. "In fact, little. I deduce by difference. If your theory was correct and he had suffered a head injury, there would be noticeable livor mortis or pooling of the blood on whichever side the murderer let him lie until he or she decided to cut off his limbs. However, blood did not collect on one side of the body or the other, rather, it looks as if it was allowed to accumulate in his limbs. There is some evidence of blood settling just above the missing appendages. Furthermore, while the head is missing, some of the neck remains and the skin and tissue beneath shows evidence of bruising, consistent with someone who has been hanged."
The detective hovered over the corpse, his shoulders hunched as he closely inspected the areas she had mentioned. Then he straightened to his full height. Light glinted from the waves of his slicked back hair.
"Yet, one must still concede foul play was involved, Miss Hooper. The major flaw in your logic is that you do not ascribe enough significance to the missing appendages."
She sniffed. "I believe you ascribe far too much. Can you not consider that rather than the dismemberment predicating the crime, the crime predicated the dismemberment?"
Dr. Watson sputtered a breath from his lips. "Good Lord, Holmes, I believe you have met your match when it comes to speaking in riddles."
Mr. Holmes turned slowly then. He folded his fingers together under his nose. Molly took a breath and continued.
"I postulate that this man was a person of some note but not so well known anyone might notice he was missing straight away. For whatever reason, he hanged himself. A loved one discovered him hours and hours later, long after his blood began to set. His face would have been grotesque, his hands and feet and, erm, anything else that dangled would have been dark and discolored. Suicide is a sin, Mr. Holmes. The shame of it is not limited to the person who has committed the act in our society, it extends to that person's family, sometimes for decades. What better way to obscure his identity and the taking of his own life than remove the evidence of both?"
Molly was breathless by the end of her sermon. Her chest rose and fell with each heaving inhalation. She did not know where all that had come from but she had experienced such a moment of clarity it was as if a clairvoyant had been whispering in her ear. Dr. Watson and her uncle stared unblinkingly at her. Mr. Holmes' eyes went wide. His head drifted back and his lips slackened as if he had been drawn into her vision. Then he looked at her and gave his head a shake. His eyes scanned right and left over her face several times.
"Your reasoning is sound," he hissed through his teeth. "No, strike that, you are absolutely correct. Damn! I have been blind."
Dr. Watson cleared his throat. "Might I venture that you could see, but you did not observe?"
Mr. Holmes wrinkled his nose and sneered his friend. "Your attempts at humor are unnecessary, Watson. Your so-called contributions to this case have been parody enough."
John scoffed and waved his hand. The great detective finally looked at Molly again and then bent forward at the waist with a bow.
"Miss Hooper, despite your ridiculous attempts at concealing your sex and stammer, youhave proven yourself skilful. Do you have designs on making a career out of this?"
Her Uncle Mike started coughing. "Good heavens, the very idea!"
She shrugged, half-giddy and half-irritated by his backhanded compliment. "I cannot say, Mr. Holmes. I do not lack in will, to be sure. It is just . . . I believe there would be many obstacles to my becoming an examiner, not the least of which is gaining the confidence of those who would be disinclined to accept a woman's opinion on these matters."
Mr. Holmes lifted his chin.
"If you allow your ambitions to be dictated by mediocracy, Miss Hooper, you will never rise above it. However, I do appreciate how difficult this path might be for you. Even I sometimes feel as if I am suffocated by the middling, they certainly do outnumber us enormously," he took turns cracking his knuckles into his palms. "So perhaps I can offer you a solution for the time being. I am in need of someone available on short notice and at all hours of the day so that they may perform post mortems to my stringent requirements. I would enlist your uncle but he is often too busy to assist me. You know my reputation, if you become my examiner your acceptance into this line of work will be all but assured."
Molly glanced quickly to her uncle. His lips were stretched together in a thin line.
"Would that be alright, Uncle?" She asked tentatively.
Her Uncle Mike sighed. "Molly, my dear girl, I worry about what people will say about you if I allow this. It would be improper for you, an unmarried woman, to work alongside Mr. Holmes."
Mr. Holmes grinned from ear to ear. "Do not concern yourself about your pretty niece, Dr. Stamford. I promise, I have no interest in her beyond what assistance she might provide in my investigations."
Both Dr. Watson and Dr. Stamford raised a brow.
"I am not worried about that, Mr. Holmes," Dr. Stamford muttered. "Molly, you must understand the repercussions. You are already well past your prime in terms of marriageable age. If you pursue this, you will most likely be shunned from all good society and never marry."
Molly's hands trembled. She looked from her uncle, to Dr. Watson, and finally to Mr. Holmes who seemed to be lost in thought all of a sudden. What a terrible choice to have to make! As she gazed upon the stoic profile of Mr. Holmes, a bittersweet vision of boisterous, bright-eyed and dark haired children bounded through her imagination. She choked back overwhelming sadness as the image faded. As heartbreaking as it was to imagine a live devoid of companionship and family, she could not fathom sacrificing her dreams on the off chance she might find a man willing to overlook her peculiar tendencies. If she could not be herself, if she could not find fulfillment, she was convinced she could never be a good wife and mother. She clasped her hands together to stop their shaking and smiled in resignation.
"Ah, well, Uncle," she said with a heavy heart, "as you said, I am well past my prime. At least now my reluctant suitors will have a proper excuse to turn their noses up at me."
Molly looked at Mr. Holmes. He had an odd frown on his face as he gazed back in return.
"What is your answer then, Miss Hooper? Will you be mine . . . mm, ahem, I mean, my examiner?" He asked.
Molly's heart inexplicably fluttered. "Yes, I will."
