A few hours by the fireside did me a great service and I was able to sleep well. Holmes was out when I rose, but as I sat down to breakfast he returned. I could see from his face that this venture had been unsuccessful. He sat in his armchair and began to fill his pipe.
"Some breakfast, Holmes?" I enquired.

"I am not hungry."

"My dear Holmes, if you are to keep up this constant going about London in the freezing cold, you must permit yourself a little sustenance. My ministrations will be of little use to you if you are frozen!" I tried to be persuasive as he was so often determined to starve himself to avoid wasting nervous energy on digestion. But to my surprise, he put down his pipe and came to join me.

"How is your leg?" he asked, taking tea and eggs.

"Much recovered for the warm," I said. As well as being snug in our rooms with the roaring fire provided by Mrs Hudson, it was a much brighter day outside, with a tinge of the spring despite the sun being so low in the sky. "Are you to scour the riverbanks for sailors once more today?"
"Indeed."

There seemed little else to say.

We both enjoyed a cigarette after breakfast, and were interrupted by Mrs Hudson, carrying a telegram.

Holmes bounded over the back of the chaise to reach it. Mrs Hudson remained, slightly interested.

"Thank you, Mrs Hudson!" said Holmes, and almost bodily ushered her out of the room as he opened it.

"What is it Holmes?" I asked, as the look on face told me the matter was pressing.

He flung the telegram at me and ran off to his room, scrambling for his hat and coat. I read it.

MR Holmes

Meet at Scotland Yard

We have another

Lestrade

I extinguished my cigarette and, snatching my own hat and coat, followed Holmes into Baker Street for a cab.

Holmes muttered to himself with his fingers pressed together against his chin. I could not make out the whole of what he was saying, but he seemed to be verbally mulling over all the information he had gathered so far, as well as remonstrating with himself for having so far failed to prevent further loss of life. I did not interrupt him.

As we passed the river, I looked upon it, as did Holmes, perhaps in anticipation of it turning up some clue. All I could notice of it was that the water level was unusually low; the neap tide. There were some folk climbing up and down from the quaysides. Though it was a dying trade, these poor folk were the mudlarks. I felt a great sympathy for them, for they were the lowest class of working folk, down with the toshers and grubbers. They were often women and children. They would comb the mud flats revealed by the ebbing Thames for anything of value that could be sold or used. A neap tide strengthened their numbers as more of the shore was revealed by the great river. These people scoured the fetid, stinking river silt, no doubt home to every class of disease, risking drowning, hypothermia and being swept many miles downriver in an instant, for many hours a day, all in the hope of finding a penny or enough lead to sell to a merchant. For this they might get a loaf or a pint of beer, or perhaps a rag soaked in gin. I thought that God forbid I should ever have found myself in such a situation, I should have gone to the workhouse.

"Mudlarks," I said, audibly enough for Holmes to stop muttering. He shot me a look.

"The children are mudlarks." I was speaking more for the benefit of my own thoughts than for communication.

"Indeed," said Holmes, and resumed his previous occupation. He seemed irritated that I had made so obvious a statement. "There are few other occupations which might have drawn them in such numbers to the river and affected them all with drowning."

We hurried in to the pathology office where Lestrade met us with Patterson, who was again the duty surgeon. I was glad indeed; this man seemed to be open to Holmes' deductive skills.

"Gentlemen," said Patterson, seriously.

We were led through into the same examining room we used the last time we visited the Yard. Lestrade assumed his hawk-like watch of proceedings from the edge of the room.

"This is a much more foul thing, Mr Holmes; Dr Watson. Much more."

Patterson revealed the body to us. Again it was a thin, wispy boy of between seven and nine, in the clothes of a pauper. This was rather different that the others. The boy had a millstone slung over his shoulder like a satchel, tied with rope.

"Good God!" said I, horrified, for the boy also had severe damage to his face. His lower jaw was obviously broken, and his whole face was covered in a red stain. Two large shards of what appeared to be glass were pushes into his cheeks. It was a horrifying sight.

"Where was he found?" asked Holmes.

"Bermondsey, Mr Holmes. At the low tide the water drew back and revealed him, lying on the bottom in the mud," said Lestrade.

"May I?" asked Holmes.

"Please!" said Patterson, and stood back with a wave of his arm.
Holmes took of his jacket and circled the table. He checked first the fingers and pointed out the tied string to the little finger with the now familiar sailor's knot. He carefully examined the child's clothes. Inside his jacket was sewn a small label;

Property of the Poplar Workhouse Infirmary

Similar was discovered inside his cap, also pierced by one of the shards of glass. Under his clothes the boy bore scars of lashes. He also had a deep mark in his shoulder.

"There is some foul villainy afoot here, Mr Holmes."
"Yes, Lestrade," said Holmes. "Most foul."
"I take it you have not found your sailor."
"I have not."
"I have despatched your description to the beat officers, and they are instructed also to look for him." Lestrade lingered over the word 'description.' As much as Holmes was keen to unravel a mystery, Lestrade hungered to see guilty men in the hands of the law, and grew impatient. However, he was pursuing his case as best he could and knew that the matter would stand a greater chance of being resolved under the auspices of Mr Sherlock Holmes.

Patterson's examination revealed that the boy had drowned, and Holmes examined the mouth of the child and found him also to be suffering from saturnism. He had clearly been engaged with my medical texts once again.

"So, it is clear that this child was murdered," pronounced Lestrade.

"How so?" said Holmes.

Lestrade looked at him in wonderment that he could ask such a question.

"By being thrown into the river tied to a millstone!" said Lestrade.

Holmes sighed. "Why the facial injuries?"
"Some cruel depravity, no doubt," offered Lestrade.

I waited eagerly for Holmes' findings.

The boy was not pushed into the river. He did certainly enter it. Whether or not he did this of his own volition is not clear. The mark on his shoulder corresponds to the rope on the millstone; he has clearly been accustomed to carrying it for some time. He was alive when he entered the water. Also note the way the stone is attached. It could very easily have slipped off. It is slung in such a way as to make it comfortable to wear. One who wished to dispose of the child would not have gone to so much trouble. His clothes have been mended by the sailor, and it seems that either he or an acquaintance is a former ward of the workhouse in Poplar. His finding at Bermondsey is significant. We shall find our man thereabouts, Lestrade."
"How can you be sure?"

"I believe that this is the fate of all the children. They are mudlarks employed at or near Bermondsey. The others drowned, and either were without millstones or shed them in the water. This one was held down by his. I do not doubt that if the neap tide had not been so timely that we might never have found him before he sunk into the mud."

"And the face?" asked Lestrade, seemingly convinced.

"About that I am not sure. May I take one of the pieces?"

Lestrade looked to Patterson, who nodded. "Be sure to return it," he said.

Holmes grimaced. "Of course."

We retired once again to Baker Street. The South Bank at Bermondsey was very densely populated, and we were still looking among tens of thousands. Holmes felt that the investigation of the glass was more pressing.