Chapter Two
Yellow Tape and the Classifieds
If Lestrade looked unhappy, it was nothing compared to Holmes' reaction. He was pissed off. It was no good telling him that it wasn't his fault. Holmes was just that kind of person who felt that the world rested upon his shoulders. Any failure, no matter whose fault, he took it personally.
After much silent objection from Lestrade, all three of us took a carriage down to the scene of the murder. The weather was, what else, rainy, but it had cleared by the time we arrived at the crime scene. There was no yellow plastic police tape, but aside from that, it looked like a scene out of gangster movie, complete with about a dozen grim faced detectives.
The uniformed men parted to let us through, with several questioning glances at me. The alley was dark and filthy. Vermin squeaked and skittered unseen all around. Several large puddles of sewage and filth had formed during the rain. One side was an office building, the other a low-rent apartment building. The apartment's windows shone dimly through the cracks in the shutters, put up to keep out the rain and stench. Helena Beckham's body lay against an alley wall.
I had never seen an actually dead body before. Except for her ghostly pallor, she might have been sleeping. Then Holmes turned her on her side. The back of her skull had been crushed with a sledgehammer. I forced myself to look away, shivering. Thankfully, no one noticed and put it down to feminine weakness.
"She hasn't been here long, maybe an hour." Holmes said in a detached voice. "The ground under her body is damp."
"The neighbors didn't hear anything until a passerby found her and started yelling for help." Lestrade put in.
"They SAY they didn't hear anything. They could be covering for someone." I corrected.
Holmes broke in before we could make an argument of it. "Rigor mortis has yet to set in. If this is Helena Beckham, she's been alive for the past month." The lantern light was focused on her body, but I saw something flicker out of the corner of my eye.
"Hey!" I grabbed the lantern from Lestrade and focused it further down the alley. A light blue object was revealed in the pool of light. I hesitated before picking it up. I felt as if I should be wearing latex gloves or something. It was a purse, light blue to match Helena's dress. The initials, "H.B." were embroidered on it in silver thread. Inside, there were all the purse essentials, makeup, a brush, some money and a set of keys.
Holmes and I searched the whole alley, but found no more hidden clues. A cold wind whistled through the alley. A stench rose from the ground, different than before. It was familiar from high school biology class and dissection labs, but I couldn't remember the name until Holmes spoke.
"Formaldehyde." And there could only be one source. We looked at Helena's body. "Rigor mortis can fade as the body cools. She might have preserved for a month in formaldehyde."
The sun didn't so much rise as fade in. The thick cloud cover prevented both light and warmth from reaching the ground. To my surprise, the cab passed Baker Street. I glanced at Holmes.
"Ms. Helena was most likely killed the same day Jane Goldmeyer was kidnapped. Both went missing in the middle of the day with no witnesses. They simply went out for the day and never came back. " He explained as the carriage pulled up at an unfamiliar address. "The next logical course of action is to speak with the Goldmeyer family."
I couldn't gather much information about the owners from the house. Firmly entrenched in the middle class, the father probably did something at an office for a living and the mother puttered around the house. Holmes went up and rang the bell, and asked for Mrs. Goldmeyer.
We were immediately shown into the sitting room, where Mrs. Goldmeyer sat, hands full of embroidery. Her eyes lit up when we came in, but when she saw that I wasn't her daughter she sank back down into her chair, defeated and sorrowful.
"Do you have any news?" She asked, obviously not expecting any. Holmes shook his head.
"Mrs. Goldmeyer, I am sorry to bother you, but I've been unable to see your husband. My name is Sherlock Holmes. I wanted to ask if you ever heard from your daughter that she had found a new job."
"No," she shook her head slowly, looking at her stitching rather than us. "She promised she would get a job though. Promised she would send her brother's tuition in a month. She's helping him through law school you see. She was always a good, kind girl."
It became clear that Mrs. Goldmeyer wasn't really speaking to us. As she rambled on about how good Jane Goldmeyer was, I looked around. The only thing of interest in the room was a family portrait. Mrs. Goldmeyer was still talking to her stitching so I got up to take a closer look. You can tell a lot about a family from their pictures, even the posed ones.
Mr. Goldmeyer didn't look like a nice guy. He was standing stiffly behind his seated wife, gripping her shoulder possessively. A boy who looked about fourteen stood in the opposite corner of the frame from his father. He stood close to his mother, with her arm draped lovingly across his shoulders. Jane was seated close to her mother, leaning towards her and away from her father. But that wasn't what caught my attention. Jane could have been Helena's twin. Same blond hair done in the same style, same dark eyes, same features. I looked at Holmes. He saw it too.
Mrs. Goldmeyer finally noticed what we were looking at. "Oh yes, that's my Jane right there. We took that picture right before she left for her first job out in Devonshire." She gave a little sob before continuing. "She came over for dinner the night she disappeared. Her brother wasn't here that night so she said she'd be right back in the morning to meet him."
"What do you think happened to her Mrs. Goldmeyer?" Holmes asked.
"Oh, I don't know." She answered, although her expression told a different story. "My husband thinks that she got a new job and moved away. But she would have told us. She would have told us. I fear something terrible, terrible."
"Who wrote the letter then?" I asked, the letter asking for our help was definitely signed by Mr. Goldmeyer.
"Oh, I did." She said cheerily. "You know he doesn't really think she's gone."
It was with relief that we got back outside. The loss of her daughter had clearly unhinged Mrs. Goldmeyer a bit. Thankfully, Holmes didn't seem interested in visiting any more families. I had just about all the depressing I could take for one day.
I nearly jumped out of the carriage at Baker Street, eager to be back on familiar ground. Holmes didn't follow. "I'm headed down to Scotland Yard. I want to check a few of their files."
I walked up stairs, a bit peeved at being left behind. I hadn't seen Watson in a while; he was busy with his real job, so the apartment was empty when I arrived. 221B Baker Street rarely changed, except to go from messy to messier. Papers, files, knickknacks, and other such things tended to accumulate on every flat surface.
I lay down on the couch. "If I were an out of work governess, what would I do?" I asked the ceiling. The answer was fairly obvious. Look for a job. A sudden idea struck me. Among the other crap, were piles of newspapers dating back several months.
I dug out all the newspapers for the week that Jane, had disappeared. There was a rather haphazard filing system, though it was just that the older papers were on the bottom of the pile. I eliminated every ad that was posted after the attacks. There were only a few ads in each paper, so I was left with about six possibles.
Then I found all the ads for Helena's disappearance. To my disappointment, no ad appeared on both occasions, I had been hoping that a single person was luring them in. I looked again, but none of the names changed. Then I noticed the addresses. The same address, 720 Vauxhall Road.
I set aside the classified ads for a moment, and scanned the news stories. There was an article about Helena Beckham two days after she disappeared. Apparently, her father had some obscure government connection and was able to talk someone into writing a story. Jane Goldmeyer had a single paragraph in the crime section.
The front door didn't quite slam as Holmes returned. "There have been no other kidnappings of young women in the past six months. Scotland Yard sees no connection between these cases." Once again he snorted his contempt for the men in uniform. "The autopsy of Ms. Beckham showed that she died of blunt force trauma, obviously. The formaldehyde hadn't penetrated the third layer of skin, placing time of death about three days ago." I shuddered at thought of a body soaking in formaldehyde.
"That would be the same day this ad was posted." I handed him the newspaper clippings. Holmes saw what I meant immediately.
"Same address, different names."
"It's highly unlikely that two different families lived there in two months." I added.
"Which implies a fake name, which implies something worth investigating." Holmes finished. Great minds think alike.
********************************************************************
Definitely too much CSI. Questions, comments, critisicms, complaints? Review!
.·´¨`·»¦«·Kerowyn·»¦«·´¨`·.
Yellow Tape and the Classifieds
If Lestrade looked unhappy, it was nothing compared to Holmes' reaction. He was pissed off. It was no good telling him that it wasn't his fault. Holmes was just that kind of person who felt that the world rested upon his shoulders. Any failure, no matter whose fault, he took it personally.
After much silent objection from Lestrade, all three of us took a carriage down to the scene of the murder. The weather was, what else, rainy, but it had cleared by the time we arrived at the crime scene. There was no yellow plastic police tape, but aside from that, it looked like a scene out of gangster movie, complete with about a dozen grim faced detectives.
The uniformed men parted to let us through, with several questioning glances at me. The alley was dark and filthy. Vermin squeaked and skittered unseen all around. Several large puddles of sewage and filth had formed during the rain. One side was an office building, the other a low-rent apartment building. The apartment's windows shone dimly through the cracks in the shutters, put up to keep out the rain and stench. Helena Beckham's body lay against an alley wall.
I had never seen an actually dead body before. Except for her ghostly pallor, she might have been sleeping. Then Holmes turned her on her side. The back of her skull had been crushed with a sledgehammer. I forced myself to look away, shivering. Thankfully, no one noticed and put it down to feminine weakness.
"She hasn't been here long, maybe an hour." Holmes said in a detached voice. "The ground under her body is damp."
"The neighbors didn't hear anything until a passerby found her and started yelling for help." Lestrade put in.
"They SAY they didn't hear anything. They could be covering for someone." I corrected.
Holmes broke in before we could make an argument of it. "Rigor mortis has yet to set in. If this is Helena Beckham, she's been alive for the past month." The lantern light was focused on her body, but I saw something flicker out of the corner of my eye.
"Hey!" I grabbed the lantern from Lestrade and focused it further down the alley. A light blue object was revealed in the pool of light. I hesitated before picking it up. I felt as if I should be wearing latex gloves or something. It was a purse, light blue to match Helena's dress. The initials, "H.B." were embroidered on it in silver thread. Inside, there were all the purse essentials, makeup, a brush, some money and a set of keys.
Holmes and I searched the whole alley, but found no more hidden clues. A cold wind whistled through the alley. A stench rose from the ground, different than before. It was familiar from high school biology class and dissection labs, but I couldn't remember the name until Holmes spoke.
"Formaldehyde." And there could only be one source. We looked at Helena's body. "Rigor mortis can fade as the body cools. She might have preserved for a month in formaldehyde."
The sun didn't so much rise as fade in. The thick cloud cover prevented both light and warmth from reaching the ground. To my surprise, the cab passed Baker Street. I glanced at Holmes.
"Ms. Helena was most likely killed the same day Jane Goldmeyer was kidnapped. Both went missing in the middle of the day with no witnesses. They simply went out for the day and never came back. " He explained as the carriage pulled up at an unfamiliar address. "The next logical course of action is to speak with the Goldmeyer family."
I couldn't gather much information about the owners from the house. Firmly entrenched in the middle class, the father probably did something at an office for a living and the mother puttered around the house. Holmes went up and rang the bell, and asked for Mrs. Goldmeyer.
We were immediately shown into the sitting room, where Mrs. Goldmeyer sat, hands full of embroidery. Her eyes lit up when we came in, but when she saw that I wasn't her daughter she sank back down into her chair, defeated and sorrowful.
"Do you have any news?" She asked, obviously not expecting any. Holmes shook his head.
"Mrs. Goldmeyer, I am sorry to bother you, but I've been unable to see your husband. My name is Sherlock Holmes. I wanted to ask if you ever heard from your daughter that she had found a new job."
"No," she shook her head slowly, looking at her stitching rather than us. "She promised she would get a job though. Promised she would send her brother's tuition in a month. She's helping him through law school you see. She was always a good, kind girl."
It became clear that Mrs. Goldmeyer wasn't really speaking to us. As she rambled on about how good Jane Goldmeyer was, I looked around. The only thing of interest in the room was a family portrait. Mrs. Goldmeyer was still talking to her stitching so I got up to take a closer look. You can tell a lot about a family from their pictures, even the posed ones.
Mr. Goldmeyer didn't look like a nice guy. He was standing stiffly behind his seated wife, gripping her shoulder possessively. A boy who looked about fourteen stood in the opposite corner of the frame from his father. He stood close to his mother, with her arm draped lovingly across his shoulders. Jane was seated close to her mother, leaning towards her and away from her father. But that wasn't what caught my attention. Jane could have been Helena's twin. Same blond hair done in the same style, same dark eyes, same features. I looked at Holmes. He saw it too.
Mrs. Goldmeyer finally noticed what we were looking at. "Oh yes, that's my Jane right there. We took that picture right before she left for her first job out in Devonshire." She gave a little sob before continuing. "She came over for dinner the night she disappeared. Her brother wasn't here that night so she said she'd be right back in the morning to meet him."
"What do you think happened to her Mrs. Goldmeyer?" Holmes asked.
"Oh, I don't know." She answered, although her expression told a different story. "My husband thinks that she got a new job and moved away. But she would have told us. She would have told us. I fear something terrible, terrible."
"Who wrote the letter then?" I asked, the letter asking for our help was definitely signed by Mr. Goldmeyer.
"Oh, I did." She said cheerily. "You know he doesn't really think she's gone."
It was with relief that we got back outside. The loss of her daughter had clearly unhinged Mrs. Goldmeyer a bit. Thankfully, Holmes didn't seem interested in visiting any more families. I had just about all the depressing I could take for one day.
I nearly jumped out of the carriage at Baker Street, eager to be back on familiar ground. Holmes didn't follow. "I'm headed down to Scotland Yard. I want to check a few of their files."
I walked up stairs, a bit peeved at being left behind. I hadn't seen Watson in a while; he was busy with his real job, so the apartment was empty when I arrived. 221B Baker Street rarely changed, except to go from messy to messier. Papers, files, knickknacks, and other such things tended to accumulate on every flat surface.
I lay down on the couch. "If I were an out of work governess, what would I do?" I asked the ceiling. The answer was fairly obvious. Look for a job. A sudden idea struck me. Among the other crap, were piles of newspapers dating back several months.
I dug out all the newspapers for the week that Jane, had disappeared. There was a rather haphazard filing system, though it was just that the older papers were on the bottom of the pile. I eliminated every ad that was posted after the attacks. There were only a few ads in each paper, so I was left with about six possibles.
Then I found all the ads for Helena's disappearance. To my disappointment, no ad appeared on both occasions, I had been hoping that a single person was luring them in. I looked again, but none of the names changed. Then I noticed the addresses. The same address, 720 Vauxhall Road.
I set aside the classified ads for a moment, and scanned the news stories. There was an article about Helena Beckham two days after she disappeared. Apparently, her father had some obscure government connection and was able to talk someone into writing a story. Jane Goldmeyer had a single paragraph in the crime section.
The front door didn't quite slam as Holmes returned. "There have been no other kidnappings of young women in the past six months. Scotland Yard sees no connection between these cases." Once again he snorted his contempt for the men in uniform. "The autopsy of Ms. Beckham showed that she died of blunt force trauma, obviously. The formaldehyde hadn't penetrated the third layer of skin, placing time of death about three days ago." I shuddered at thought of a body soaking in formaldehyde.
"That would be the same day this ad was posted." I handed him the newspaper clippings. Holmes saw what I meant immediately.
"Same address, different names."
"It's highly unlikely that two different families lived there in two months." I added.
"Which implies a fake name, which implies something worth investigating." Holmes finished. Great minds think alike.
********************************************************************
Definitely too much CSI. Questions, comments, critisicms, complaints? Review!
.·´¨`·»¦«·Kerowyn·»¦«·´¨`·.
