Chapter 3
I fallowed him into the room, curious to know just how he had stumped me again (and, I must confess, that I was in the mood to introduce my fist to his face). "How did you know that he was a sergeant?"
"How did I know who was a sergeant?" Holmes asked, not looking at me but trying to look through the envelope by holding it up to the light.
"That guy that was just here, how did you know he was a sergeant?"
"Would you please not bother me right now with your annoying questions?!" Holmes answered finally looking to me, with eyes cold in annoyance, "Your breaking my concentration! You wouldn't understand it anyway..." To enforce my point, to let him know that he was getting on my nerves, I snatched the envelope from his hand, which he snatched for but I held it captive, out of his reach.
"Try me," I challenged him and he sighed, once again vainly trying to snatch the envelope back. I danced backwards and he chased, but I am much more athletic then he is and I was able to keep out of his grasp. He chased me into the sitting room where I stood on the edge of the couch high above him, holding the letter above my head. He again sighed in annoyance as I smirked.
"If I tell you will you give me back my letter?" he asked annoyed. I nodded and he sighed yet again. "I could see the great blue tattoo of an anchor on his hand, even from the far away window. He carried himself like a military man and his whiskers were shaved in regulation style. From this information I could tell he was a Marine. Yet he had some amount of self-importance in his stride, with his head held high and his strides steady and in a respectable manner. He was a middle-aged man and with all this information I deduced that he was a sergeant." I had to admit that it took a moment for everything to sink in, leaving me a bit confused. But as he tried to snatch the letter again I leapt from the couch as he fell on it. Once again he sighed as he leaned his head on his hand, watching me open it. "You know your tampering with the mail," he told me in drone like voice, "It's against the law."
"You know that you are a jerk and sigh a lot," I answered looking over the letter in my hands. Holmes growled getting to his feet and starting to chase me around the room again. "Dear Holmes," I began to read out loud, dodging Holmes while reading, "There has been a murder at 3 Lauriston Gardens, off of Brixton Road. One of the officers saw a light one in one of the empty flats and when he went to investigate, he discovered a the body of a well dressed man with playing cards in his pocket. The cards were signed with 'Enoch J. Drebber, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A'. There has been no evidence of robbery and there are no signs of how the man died. There is blood in the room but there is no wound on the victim. We are at a loss for how this man got in or why this man was in the empty apartment and if you could come around any time before 12, it would be greatly appreciated. I will give you fuller details when you arrive. Lestrade and I would greatly grateful if you were to shed some light on this case. Yours faithfully Tobias Gregson." By the time I was finished, Holmes finally just resorted to tackle my knees. I fell on my back and he grabbed the letter, looking it over.
"I'm surprised Gregson would ask for my help," Holmes commented after a minuet, throwing the letter over his shoulder and on to the floor, "Him and Lestrade are no more then jealous professionals, trying to one up each other at each turn. Both of them have the energy but not the real talent for the job." He took a seat in a nearby arm chair and I stood taking the letter with me.
"So when are you leaving?"
"Why should I? It's not like I'm going to get any credit for anything I do there and any credit I could get there, Gregson and Lestrade will just suck it up like vacuum cleaners."
"But they are asking for your help and this could be your big break. You could be bigger then you are now." Holmes looked at me as if I had no idea what I was talking about and now it was my turn to sigh. "Fine, you may not want to help but I will!" He laughed as I grabbed my coat and scarf from the near by coat wrack.
"And what do you think you are going to do? You have no talent for this kind of thing; you have got any talent in anything..."
"I'll say something," I said smiling, "I mean I could just say I learned it all from you. Just think what the paper will say about you then when I tell them that the famous, young consulting detective Sherlock Holmes trained an idiot in the field of detective work." I could see his face pale just as I closed the door behind me. I could count the seconds on one hand before he opened the door, pulling on his coat quickly and passing by me in the hallway.
"Your exasperating you know that?" he told me as we hurried out onto the street and haled a cab. I smiled again. Holmes may have been the master of deduction but he could never push his buttons like I could. Soon we stopped on Brixton road as the letter instructed. As we stepped out onto the street, I expected Holmes to go charging in, being his own conceited self and rattling off his deductions. But he stopped and searched the grounds around the building, letting out noises of excitement at points along the path. The building itself and all the houses around it were not all that great to look at themselves. They all were the same size, shape, and color, with abnormally shaped bushes as dividers between them. People peaked out of their buildings, dressed in their pajamas, just to catch a glimpse of what was going on. I never could figure out what people found so interesting in murder scenes. I had seen dead bodies before and there was nothing interesting about them at all. I looked up as Holmes finally stopped looking at the ground and sky, and started towards the building. I fallowed, keeping close to Holmes as the police bustled about. Instantly we were met at the door way but a small mouse of a young man. His hair was a silver color; something that I figured was a dye or bleached in the sun. Either way, he was meek looking, with a pencil and pad in his hand. He shook Holmes's hand in excitement, although Holmes didn't seem to return the feeling.
"I'm so glad you came," the young man said quickly, "I really wasn't expecting you to come, I figured you would have better things to do with your time then come help me."
"Well I wasn't going to..." Holmes mumbled, sending me a cold look, at which I rolled my eyes. The young man blinked his eyes in a slight confusion.
"I know Holmes but I don't think I know you..." he said with a soft smile, "Tobias Gregson, and you must be a womanly friend of Holmes's, possibly his new girlfriend?" At this suggestion, Holmes burst out into laughter as if Gregson had made the funniest joke in history. I glared at Holmes as he leaned against the wall to catch his breath and stop laughing. I smiled at Gregson however shaking his hand.
"No, I'm Laura J. Galahad," I told him, "and I'm just his roommate."
"Just his roommate?"
"Yes, because I don't date spawns of the devil," I answered coolly, looking to Holmes who was finally able to calm himself.
"Spawns of the devil?" Gregson wondered out loud scratching his head.
"You haven't touched the body have you?" Holmes asked his voice calm now and ignoring Gregson's question. Gregson shook his head.
"No one has touched the body; we wanted to wait to see if you would come."
"And Lestrade is here?"
"Yes he is and he is looking after things as we speak. But I think I have taken care of everything that can be possibly done in this situation..."
"You didn't come by a car or cab did you?" Holmes asked.
"No but why is that..."
"And Lestrade didn't come in one either did he?"
"No..." Holmes smiled ignoring the confused looks on our faces and just passed by us without another word. We fallowed, not at all clear on what he was trying to get at.
"What does the fact that they didn't come in cars have to do with this?" I asked Holmes softly but he didn't answer. We walked down the hallway into a large square room, one as ugly as the outside of the building. Ugly and dull paper was all over the walls, with a bit of wear from the many year of abuse or not being taken care of properly. There was a fire place, surrounded by the fakest looking marble I have ever seen, with a large blotch of candle wax on the right edge of the mantle. The light was hazy in the room because there was only one window and it was covered with dust, just like the dust that covered the rest of the apartment.
I looked at all the little details afterwards, before that I was looking to the grim, motionless figure on the ground in the center of the room. His eyes seemed to stare straight at me yet were unseeing. An older man with black curly hair, and a similarly colored goatee. It wasn't the fact that there was a dead man in front of me that struck me in the heart but how his face was contorted into horrid and fearful like shapes, as if his death had been a terrible one. His ape like face was almost perfect for his irregular body that was now laying there in an unnatural pose. As I said before, as the daughter of a doctor, I have come face to face with death in many forms. But never so much as on that very day, something about it just didn't feel right. I back away slightly and I guess I paled a little because Gregson looked to me in concern. "Are you alright Miss Galahad?" he asked taking my arm, "Would you like some water or to go out for some air?"
"No I'm fine," I answered, smiling to stop his worrying.
"I'm surprised that you would bring a female to a murder scene, Holmes," the familiar voice of Lestrade said, his ferret like figure coming into view, "Although I'm surprised that you would even think of bringing a woman at all." Holmes shook his head kneeling down next to the body.
"It was not my idea, I assure you," he answered getting face to face with the body, "Are you sure that there is no wound, and all this blood around the room is not the victims?"
"Positive," Lestrade answered.
"Then of course the blood must belong to the murder or not considering this may not be a murder." Holmes then once again began to examine the body silently as he had done outside, taking one moment to sniff the man's lips. He also took a look at the man's leather boots, examining the souls carefully. "He hasn't been moved at all?" Holmes asked again.
"Not any more then needed," Gregson answered again.
"Then you can take him to the morgue now," Homes said standing, "There is nothing more that can be learned from him." Instantly the body was removed quickly with a gurney. As the body was lifted a ring tumbled out onto the floor, possibly from the dead man's pocket. Instantly Lestrade grabbed it in his greedy hands.
"A woman!" he cried, "There must have been a woman here, this a woman's wedding ring!"
"Well if things were complicated enough..." Gregson sighed.
"That's why we must simplify them," Holmes said quickly, "Is there anything else that you found in his pockets?"
"A gold watch; a gold pin with the head of a bulldog with ruby eyes; a leather card case (possibly Russian) with the name Enoch J. Drebber on the front and his initials on the side; No wallet but a bunch of loose change in his pockets; and two letters addressed to E. J. Drebber and one to Joseph Stangerson," Gregson rattled off, "It's all here if you want to look at it."
"What were the addresses?" Holmes asked.
"Both were from the George and Gene Shipping Company, referring to their boats from Liverpool. They were both going to head back to New York..."
"Have you found out who Stangerson is?"
"I sent out an all points bulletin this morning," Gregson answered, "But I haven't got anything back yet, we also sent a telegram to Cleveland as well detailing the situation and if they could send us any help to send it quick."
"Did you ask any particulars?"
"I asked about Stangerson but nothing much else."
"Well I guess you have said all that you are going to say then hmmm?" Gregson nodded his head and Holmes chuckled. "Then I guess I'll have to do all the questioning won't I?" Holmes continued his examination, looking around the room. He stopped at a particular section of the wall and stood there for a moment studying it. "Miss Laura!" he called to me, "Come and stand here!" He pointed to a spot and with a sigh, I walked to that spot.
"I'm only doing this because I believe I'm going to catch a murderer and help somebody," I told him, "Normally I wouldn't let you order me to do anything if it weren't for that-"
"Would you be quiet and just look forward?" Holmes interrupted quickly with his annoyed voice. I sighed again but reluctantly looked forward. As I said before, the wallpaper was falling away in some places and in this one corner, a large piece had fallen away to revel something that looked like letters written in blood. I had a blink a few times to realize that there was a word written on the wall. It spelled out one word:
RACHE
"Now what do you say to that?" my roommate asked as Gregson and Lestrade came over to join us, "It was over looked as it was in the darker corner of the room and was written with the writers blood. You can tell that by the trickle here, right where it has been smeared. We now know it was suicide. And why do you think he chose to write in this corner? Because at the time he had the candle on the corner of the mantle and it lit up this corner, making it the brightest and not the darkest part of the room." I couldn't help but roll my eyes at the fact that Holmes sounded so much like he was standing in front of a classroom full of his DUMB students. My feelings of disgust were only built on as I saw his smug look. He could have been a little nicer about it, I remember thinking as I went back to looking at the wall as to not let him get a boost from seeing me annoyed (as I knew he would).
"So what do we do with now that WE'VE found it?" Gregson asked.
"WE'VE?" I asked. But my question went without answer as Lestrade stepped forward to look at the wall closer.
"Well it has to be Rachel," Lestrade finally said after a few moments, "The writer began to write the female name Rachel when he was interrupted and couldn't finish it. It would explain the wedding ring. I bet you that this Rachel has some thing to do with- Laughing doesn't help any thing Holmes!" Holmes had burst out into laughter listening to the law student bather on. I must admit, I had to giggle as Lestrade's face grew redder and redder in anger with each passing minuet.
"Sorry Lestrade," Holmes said after a moment to calm himself, "You have all the credit for figuring out the information that it must have been written by the other participant in last night's deed. But if I could examine a little more, I might be able to shed a little more light on what really happened here..." Holmes had his investigation even before Lestrade had told him he could go a head, moving about the room, kneeling once in a while, and one time laying flat on his face on the floor. He forgot we were there as he muttered to himself things no one else could hear, not that they would have likely made sense to anyone else but him anyway. He reminded me of some kind of bloodhound, tracing back and forth looking for a sent. He somehow was able to determine measurements between invisible marks on the ground and he once in a while tapped on the walls, making his investigation even more confusing. He took a sample of dust from the mantle and put in a police baggy. His final observation was taking a magnifying glass to the wall going over every letter of the word with the most exactness I had ever seen a human give to a subject. After that he let out a satisfied sigh and once again joined reality but flashing his devilish smile to me. I frowned, but didn't look away. Gregson and Lestrade stood on their toes waiting for Holmes to 'give' them the answer.
"Well?" Lestrade said anxiously.
"I wouldn't want to rob you of any credit you may get boys," Holmes answered, "Your doing so well so far, but you know I will be happy to give you any help I can. Of course I would like to talk to the officer who found him. Do you know where I might find him?"
"46, Audley Court, Kennington Park Gate," Gregson answered, "We sent him home soon after we questioned him." Holmes nodded, with a smirk turning towards the door.
"I suppose you'll be joining me Laura," Holmes said coolly looking back over his shoulder at me, "Being a busy body seems to be what you do best isn't it?" I frowned deeper, bringing my shoulders up as I often did when I get mad.
"Spawn of Satan..." I growled. I did fallow him but he and I paused next to him. I saw a sparkle in his eyes as he turned to Lestrade and Gregson, who still stood waiting intently.
"There has been a murder here gentlemen," Holmes said, his voice confident, "I believe the murder was more then six feet high, a younger man. He had small feet, on which were worn down square-toed boots. He also smoked a cigar, the old Trichinopoly brand. He came here with his victim in a cab which had one new tire and three older ones. His nails on his right hand were remarkably long as well. I'm sure these clues will help you get a better idea of what your dealing with."
"Wait a minuet!" Gregson said quickly and loudly, "If it was a murder, how was it done?" Holmes's smile grew wider.
"Poison," he said quickly as he turned to leave again. But he again turned back as if he had nearly forgotten something but at the same time hadn't. "By the way Lestrade," he said looking straight at the man in question, "'Rache' is the German word for 'revenge', so don't go and get lost looking for Miss Rachel. Don't want to waist any of the government's money now do we?" With that final parting shot, Holmes strutted out of the building. And I fallowed him, although I wished I had stayed sometimes, I would have loved to see the open mouthed expressions of the two rivals now left in the dust.
I fallowed him into the room, curious to know just how he had stumped me again (and, I must confess, that I was in the mood to introduce my fist to his face). "How did you know that he was a sergeant?"
"How did I know who was a sergeant?" Holmes asked, not looking at me but trying to look through the envelope by holding it up to the light.
"That guy that was just here, how did you know he was a sergeant?"
"Would you please not bother me right now with your annoying questions?!" Holmes answered finally looking to me, with eyes cold in annoyance, "Your breaking my concentration! You wouldn't understand it anyway..." To enforce my point, to let him know that he was getting on my nerves, I snatched the envelope from his hand, which he snatched for but I held it captive, out of his reach.
"Try me," I challenged him and he sighed, once again vainly trying to snatch the envelope back. I danced backwards and he chased, but I am much more athletic then he is and I was able to keep out of his grasp. He chased me into the sitting room where I stood on the edge of the couch high above him, holding the letter above my head. He again sighed in annoyance as I smirked.
"If I tell you will you give me back my letter?" he asked annoyed. I nodded and he sighed yet again. "I could see the great blue tattoo of an anchor on his hand, even from the far away window. He carried himself like a military man and his whiskers were shaved in regulation style. From this information I could tell he was a Marine. Yet he had some amount of self-importance in his stride, with his head held high and his strides steady and in a respectable manner. He was a middle-aged man and with all this information I deduced that he was a sergeant." I had to admit that it took a moment for everything to sink in, leaving me a bit confused. But as he tried to snatch the letter again I leapt from the couch as he fell on it. Once again he sighed as he leaned his head on his hand, watching me open it. "You know your tampering with the mail," he told me in drone like voice, "It's against the law."
"You know that you are a jerk and sigh a lot," I answered looking over the letter in my hands. Holmes growled getting to his feet and starting to chase me around the room again. "Dear Holmes," I began to read out loud, dodging Holmes while reading, "There has been a murder at 3 Lauriston Gardens, off of Brixton Road. One of the officers saw a light one in one of the empty flats and when he went to investigate, he discovered a the body of a well dressed man with playing cards in his pocket. The cards were signed with 'Enoch J. Drebber, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A'. There has been no evidence of robbery and there are no signs of how the man died. There is blood in the room but there is no wound on the victim. We are at a loss for how this man got in or why this man was in the empty apartment and if you could come around any time before 12, it would be greatly appreciated. I will give you fuller details when you arrive. Lestrade and I would greatly grateful if you were to shed some light on this case. Yours faithfully Tobias Gregson." By the time I was finished, Holmes finally just resorted to tackle my knees. I fell on my back and he grabbed the letter, looking it over.
"I'm surprised Gregson would ask for my help," Holmes commented after a minuet, throwing the letter over his shoulder and on to the floor, "Him and Lestrade are no more then jealous professionals, trying to one up each other at each turn. Both of them have the energy but not the real talent for the job." He took a seat in a nearby arm chair and I stood taking the letter with me.
"So when are you leaving?"
"Why should I? It's not like I'm going to get any credit for anything I do there and any credit I could get there, Gregson and Lestrade will just suck it up like vacuum cleaners."
"But they are asking for your help and this could be your big break. You could be bigger then you are now." Holmes looked at me as if I had no idea what I was talking about and now it was my turn to sigh. "Fine, you may not want to help but I will!" He laughed as I grabbed my coat and scarf from the near by coat wrack.
"And what do you think you are going to do? You have no talent for this kind of thing; you have got any talent in anything..."
"I'll say something," I said smiling, "I mean I could just say I learned it all from you. Just think what the paper will say about you then when I tell them that the famous, young consulting detective Sherlock Holmes trained an idiot in the field of detective work." I could see his face pale just as I closed the door behind me. I could count the seconds on one hand before he opened the door, pulling on his coat quickly and passing by me in the hallway.
"Your exasperating you know that?" he told me as we hurried out onto the street and haled a cab. I smiled again. Holmes may have been the master of deduction but he could never push his buttons like I could. Soon we stopped on Brixton road as the letter instructed. As we stepped out onto the street, I expected Holmes to go charging in, being his own conceited self and rattling off his deductions. But he stopped and searched the grounds around the building, letting out noises of excitement at points along the path. The building itself and all the houses around it were not all that great to look at themselves. They all were the same size, shape, and color, with abnormally shaped bushes as dividers between them. People peaked out of their buildings, dressed in their pajamas, just to catch a glimpse of what was going on. I never could figure out what people found so interesting in murder scenes. I had seen dead bodies before and there was nothing interesting about them at all. I looked up as Holmes finally stopped looking at the ground and sky, and started towards the building. I fallowed, keeping close to Holmes as the police bustled about. Instantly we were met at the door way but a small mouse of a young man. His hair was a silver color; something that I figured was a dye or bleached in the sun. Either way, he was meek looking, with a pencil and pad in his hand. He shook Holmes's hand in excitement, although Holmes didn't seem to return the feeling.
"I'm so glad you came," the young man said quickly, "I really wasn't expecting you to come, I figured you would have better things to do with your time then come help me."
"Well I wasn't going to..." Holmes mumbled, sending me a cold look, at which I rolled my eyes. The young man blinked his eyes in a slight confusion.
"I know Holmes but I don't think I know you..." he said with a soft smile, "Tobias Gregson, and you must be a womanly friend of Holmes's, possibly his new girlfriend?" At this suggestion, Holmes burst out into laughter as if Gregson had made the funniest joke in history. I glared at Holmes as he leaned against the wall to catch his breath and stop laughing. I smiled at Gregson however shaking his hand.
"No, I'm Laura J. Galahad," I told him, "and I'm just his roommate."
"Just his roommate?"
"Yes, because I don't date spawns of the devil," I answered coolly, looking to Holmes who was finally able to calm himself.
"Spawns of the devil?" Gregson wondered out loud scratching his head.
"You haven't touched the body have you?" Holmes asked his voice calm now and ignoring Gregson's question. Gregson shook his head.
"No one has touched the body; we wanted to wait to see if you would come."
"And Lestrade is here?"
"Yes he is and he is looking after things as we speak. But I think I have taken care of everything that can be possibly done in this situation..."
"You didn't come by a car or cab did you?" Holmes asked.
"No but why is that..."
"And Lestrade didn't come in one either did he?"
"No..." Holmes smiled ignoring the confused looks on our faces and just passed by us without another word. We fallowed, not at all clear on what he was trying to get at.
"What does the fact that they didn't come in cars have to do with this?" I asked Holmes softly but he didn't answer. We walked down the hallway into a large square room, one as ugly as the outside of the building. Ugly and dull paper was all over the walls, with a bit of wear from the many year of abuse or not being taken care of properly. There was a fire place, surrounded by the fakest looking marble I have ever seen, with a large blotch of candle wax on the right edge of the mantle. The light was hazy in the room because there was only one window and it was covered with dust, just like the dust that covered the rest of the apartment.
I looked at all the little details afterwards, before that I was looking to the grim, motionless figure on the ground in the center of the room. His eyes seemed to stare straight at me yet were unseeing. An older man with black curly hair, and a similarly colored goatee. It wasn't the fact that there was a dead man in front of me that struck me in the heart but how his face was contorted into horrid and fearful like shapes, as if his death had been a terrible one. His ape like face was almost perfect for his irregular body that was now laying there in an unnatural pose. As I said before, as the daughter of a doctor, I have come face to face with death in many forms. But never so much as on that very day, something about it just didn't feel right. I back away slightly and I guess I paled a little because Gregson looked to me in concern. "Are you alright Miss Galahad?" he asked taking my arm, "Would you like some water or to go out for some air?"
"No I'm fine," I answered, smiling to stop his worrying.
"I'm surprised that you would bring a female to a murder scene, Holmes," the familiar voice of Lestrade said, his ferret like figure coming into view, "Although I'm surprised that you would even think of bringing a woman at all." Holmes shook his head kneeling down next to the body.
"It was not my idea, I assure you," he answered getting face to face with the body, "Are you sure that there is no wound, and all this blood around the room is not the victims?"
"Positive," Lestrade answered.
"Then of course the blood must belong to the murder or not considering this may not be a murder." Holmes then once again began to examine the body silently as he had done outside, taking one moment to sniff the man's lips. He also took a look at the man's leather boots, examining the souls carefully. "He hasn't been moved at all?" Holmes asked again.
"Not any more then needed," Gregson answered again.
"Then you can take him to the morgue now," Homes said standing, "There is nothing more that can be learned from him." Instantly the body was removed quickly with a gurney. As the body was lifted a ring tumbled out onto the floor, possibly from the dead man's pocket. Instantly Lestrade grabbed it in his greedy hands.
"A woman!" he cried, "There must have been a woman here, this a woman's wedding ring!"
"Well if things were complicated enough..." Gregson sighed.
"That's why we must simplify them," Holmes said quickly, "Is there anything else that you found in his pockets?"
"A gold watch; a gold pin with the head of a bulldog with ruby eyes; a leather card case (possibly Russian) with the name Enoch J. Drebber on the front and his initials on the side; No wallet but a bunch of loose change in his pockets; and two letters addressed to E. J. Drebber and one to Joseph Stangerson," Gregson rattled off, "It's all here if you want to look at it."
"What were the addresses?" Holmes asked.
"Both were from the George and Gene Shipping Company, referring to their boats from Liverpool. They were both going to head back to New York..."
"Have you found out who Stangerson is?"
"I sent out an all points bulletin this morning," Gregson answered, "But I haven't got anything back yet, we also sent a telegram to Cleveland as well detailing the situation and if they could send us any help to send it quick."
"Did you ask any particulars?"
"I asked about Stangerson but nothing much else."
"Well I guess you have said all that you are going to say then hmmm?" Gregson nodded his head and Holmes chuckled. "Then I guess I'll have to do all the questioning won't I?" Holmes continued his examination, looking around the room. He stopped at a particular section of the wall and stood there for a moment studying it. "Miss Laura!" he called to me, "Come and stand here!" He pointed to a spot and with a sigh, I walked to that spot.
"I'm only doing this because I believe I'm going to catch a murderer and help somebody," I told him, "Normally I wouldn't let you order me to do anything if it weren't for that-"
"Would you be quiet and just look forward?" Holmes interrupted quickly with his annoyed voice. I sighed again but reluctantly looked forward. As I said before, the wallpaper was falling away in some places and in this one corner, a large piece had fallen away to revel something that looked like letters written in blood. I had a blink a few times to realize that there was a word written on the wall. It spelled out one word:
RACHE
"Now what do you say to that?" my roommate asked as Gregson and Lestrade came over to join us, "It was over looked as it was in the darker corner of the room and was written with the writers blood. You can tell that by the trickle here, right where it has been smeared. We now know it was suicide. And why do you think he chose to write in this corner? Because at the time he had the candle on the corner of the mantle and it lit up this corner, making it the brightest and not the darkest part of the room." I couldn't help but roll my eyes at the fact that Holmes sounded so much like he was standing in front of a classroom full of his DUMB students. My feelings of disgust were only built on as I saw his smug look. He could have been a little nicer about it, I remember thinking as I went back to looking at the wall as to not let him get a boost from seeing me annoyed (as I knew he would).
"So what do we do with now that WE'VE found it?" Gregson asked.
"WE'VE?" I asked. But my question went without answer as Lestrade stepped forward to look at the wall closer.
"Well it has to be Rachel," Lestrade finally said after a few moments, "The writer began to write the female name Rachel when he was interrupted and couldn't finish it. It would explain the wedding ring. I bet you that this Rachel has some thing to do with- Laughing doesn't help any thing Holmes!" Holmes had burst out into laughter listening to the law student bather on. I must admit, I had to giggle as Lestrade's face grew redder and redder in anger with each passing minuet.
"Sorry Lestrade," Holmes said after a moment to calm himself, "You have all the credit for figuring out the information that it must have been written by the other participant in last night's deed. But if I could examine a little more, I might be able to shed a little more light on what really happened here..." Holmes had his investigation even before Lestrade had told him he could go a head, moving about the room, kneeling once in a while, and one time laying flat on his face on the floor. He forgot we were there as he muttered to himself things no one else could hear, not that they would have likely made sense to anyone else but him anyway. He reminded me of some kind of bloodhound, tracing back and forth looking for a sent. He somehow was able to determine measurements between invisible marks on the ground and he once in a while tapped on the walls, making his investigation even more confusing. He took a sample of dust from the mantle and put in a police baggy. His final observation was taking a magnifying glass to the wall going over every letter of the word with the most exactness I had ever seen a human give to a subject. After that he let out a satisfied sigh and once again joined reality but flashing his devilish smile to me. I frowned, but didn't look away. Gregson and Lestrade stood on their toes waiting for Holmes to 'give' them the answer.
"Well?" Lestrade said anxiously.
"I wouldn't want to rob you of any credit you may get boys," Holmes answered, "Your doing so well so far, but you know I will be happy to give you any help I can. Of course I would like to talk to the officer who found him. Do you know where I might find him?"
"46, Audley Court, Kennington Park Gate," Gregson answered, "We sent him home soon after we questioned him." Holmes nodded, with a smirk turning towards the door.
"I suppose you'll be joining me Laura," Holmes said coolly looking back over his shoulder at me, "Being a busy body seems to be what you do best isn't it?" I frowned deeper, bringing my shoulders up as I often did when I get mad.
"Spawn of Satan..." I growled. I did fallow him but he and I paused next to him. I saw a sparkle in his eyes as he turned to Lestrade and Gregson, who still stood waiting intently.
"There has been a murder here gentlemen," Holmes said, his voice confident, "I believe the murder was more then six feet high, a younger man. He had small feet, on which were worn down square-toed boots. He also smoked a cigar, the old Trichinopoly brand. He came here with his victim in a cab which had one new tire and three older ones. His nails on his right hand were remarkably long as well. I'm sure these clues will help you get a better idea of what your dealing with."
"Wait a minuet!" Gregson said quickly and loudly, "If it was a murder, how was it done?" Holmes's smile grew wider.
"Poison," he said quickly as he turned to leave again. But he again turned back as if he had nearly forgotten something but at the same time hadn't. "By the way Lestrade," he said looking straight at the man in question, "'Rache' is the German word for 'revenge', so don't go and get lost looking for Miss Rachel. Don't want to waist any of the government's money now do we?" With that final parting shot, Holmes strutted out of the building. And I fallowed him, although I wished I had stayed sometimes, I would have loved to see the open mouthed expressions of the two rivals now left in the dust.