A/N: As I've commented to some of you already, readers will recognize who is who and a bit of what is going on before Holmes and Watson do, but I hope you enjoy watching them try to figure it out. Regular readers of mine will also recongize the fact that I've borrowed from my own PotC writings just a little here. :)

Chapter Two

~~o~~

It would not be an exaggeration of the truth to say that Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard, as he strode briskly along Baker Street and then out of sight, was an unhappy man. Such was often the case for him when leaving the company of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and that summer night would prove no different.

Upon declaring the contents of the plain, dull flask to be nothing more than water with an exceptionally high sulphur and mineral content, Holmes had recapped the container and handed it back to Lestrade, evidently having concluded that he had nothing more to gain from its further examination.

What he did deem he would gain supplementary information from, however, was inspection of the body of the unfortunate Mr. Matthews, and after a bit of persuasive haggling with Lestrade that obviously left the inspector feeling somewhat unsettled as the notion that all was not right with his world crept upon him, Holmes had arranged for us to view the remains first thing in the morning.

After watching Lestrade turn the corner, Holmes stepped away from the window and addressed me in a familiar manner of mildly suppressed excitement. "I should value your opinion on the morrow, dear Watson. Will you have time between your duties to accompany me on my visit to Mr. Matthews?"

"I would be delighted to," I said, infected by the energy that was welling back up within my companion. "Thursdays are always the slowest day of my week, so I shouldn't find it difficult to accomplish my one call immediately after breakfast."

"Splendid," said he, as he began rubbing his hands together, "that shall leave us the afternoon for a visit to Owlsmoor, if that's quite agreeable?"

"Of course," I replied, already eagerly anticipating the next day's adventure.

"Then I believe we have time for a little Mendelssohn before supper," he said, opening the Stradivarius's case and lovingly amending her tuning until she would sing true for him. "I shall play the sonata for you, my dear fellow, if you would be so kind as to find the train we will require for our venture tomorrow."

By 'the sonata' he meant a favourite one of mine, and his as well, which I often called for when his mood left him inclined to accept requests from me, and with considerably more life to his being than when I had first come in, he launched into the Allegro vivace.

For my part, I was content to plan our travel arrangements with the Bradshaw, and quite pleased to observe Holmes held in thrall by the music he so loved as it freed him from his deep melancholy and the tenacious clutches of his drug.

~~o~~

During my career I have had cause to witness many a post-mortem and to view numerous cadavers, but I must say that I was not entirely prepared for what I would encounter with our visit to the late Mr. Henry Matthews.

I was, however, prepared for the fact that Lestrade would not be completely pleased to see us that morning. Shortly after I had finished my visit with the ailing Mrs. Turcotte, I had met up with Holmes and proceeded to Scotland Yard, whereupon the two of us had been accompanied to the police morgue by the inspector.

"I really still don't see the need," Lestrade was saying unhappily as we walked along the dim corridor together.

"While that may be true, Lestrade," Holmes said pleasantly, after the subtlest of sideways glances in my direction which said the inspector's comment had not revealed anything novel, "I am in your debt once more for indulging my whims."

While it is true that Inspector Lestrade is only a fraction as gifted as my dear friend in the matters of detection, that doesn't mean he is at all dull, and I could tell by the way he narrowed his eyes that he recognized the vaguest hint of sarcasm in Holmes's statement.

"Indulge me upon another point while we walk," Holmes continued, redirecting the conversation away from Lestrade's failure to grasp the need for any further examination of a body with such an obvious cause of death. "I gather you have some notion as to the character of Mr. Matthews from your interview with the housekeeper?"

Lestrade nodded. "Mrs. Clayton was very clear about that. It seems he kept to himself, and rarely had company."

"A retiring disposition; I must say I am not surprised to hear it."

"I'm sure you're not," Lestrade replied, a pale infusion of sarcasm of his own in his words.

"And what of his habits?" Holmes asked, paying no heed to Lestrade's comment.

"The housekeeper informed me that Mr. Matthews was a man of apparent great wealth, although not one to advertise it. She couldn't say how he had come into his fortune, only that she thought it seemed to have been some time ago from his occasional comments. She reported that he was generous to her in her salary, in return for her minding her business and making sure that others did as well when it came to his affairs.

"She also tells me that he had discerning tastes in clothes, food, wine and horses, but on the odd week's end, a fondness for rum."

"Interesting. Any notion as to the man's temperament?"

"Tolerant of the housekeeper, if not somewhat terse at times, but she reports that the one or two times his ire was up that it was not a pleasant thing to witness."

"Violent?" Holmes asked as we approached our destination.

"Known to occasionally throw a bottle or knock a glass off a table, but never raised a hand against the housekeeper. Cuffed the young groom once or twice for shirking his duties in the stable, but..."

"No more than any master might discipline his inferiors," Holmes finished for him, provoking another irritated glance from our escort.

"I still don't know why you want to see him," Lestrade replied yet again as our trio halted at the door. "The man was shot by an intruder, he's dead, and that's that. You're wasting your time, Mr. Holmes, if you ask me."

"That may be true, my good Lestrade," Holmes said, clapping him on the shoulder convivially, "but though my time is my own to waste as I see fit, I shall not waste any more of yours. I am certain you have more worthwhile pursuits than viewing a cadaver you have already examined."

Lestrade nodded reluctantly.

"Then I shall not detain you further," Holmes said, indicating that Lestrade was free to go.

I could see that Lestrade didn't miss the implied dismissal in Holmes's polite consideration of his other duties.

"Just try not to stir things up too much," he admonished my companion sternly. "I'd like to have this wrapped up by week's end, and it's just like you to look for trouble where there isn't any. I won't be happy if this case is delayed."

"I should think not." Holmes gave Lestrade the most congenial smile he could manage, and we both watched the man give us one last dubious look and then turn to retrace his steps to the exit.

Holmes sighed as he watched Lestrade retreat. "If only he were open to more imaginative considerations...but it seems as though once again we must endeavour to shed more light in the dark corners of the good inspector's investigation. Perhaps someday..." said Holmes, slightly wistful.

"But for now," he said, taking my elbow and leading me through the door he had opened. "À jeune chasseur, il faut un vieux chien."

Henry Matthews lay in his next to final resting place, covered in a coarse cloth. I find it intiguing how after such a narrative as Lestrade had given us concerning the man, I usually form a notion as to what the appearance of the victim should be like. Often I am wrong, but the details with which I am confronted upon viewing remains at least fit into what one might be able to reconcile with one's pre-conceived notions. Such was not the case with Mr. Matthews.

Holmes gestured to indicate that I should do the honors, and he leaned over my shoulder as I drew back the shroud. Under it lay a man of perhaps fifty, but his appearance did not at all meet my expectations of what a retiring country gentleman of accustomed affluence and discriminating tastes should appear like, and I paused in place with the cloth still in my hand.

"My word!" I gasped softly.

"Well! This fellow has certainly led an interesting life," Holmes commented as we both gazed at the countenence before us.

Although his complexion was somewhat fair, it was most obvious that the man had been exposed to a great deal of sun at some point in his past; his weathered features spoke to that. The chestnut hair on his head and his chin, shot through with a generous amount of grey, supported my estimation of his age, but the bullet hole between his eyes was quite obviously not the only major injury the man had ever sustained. A faded scar slashed down his right cheek, and there were perhaps a dozen small scars here and there across his shoulders and torso, the most curious being a perfectly round one, a bit smaller than a shilling, just off the centre of his chest.

"What do you make of that, Watson?" Holmes asked, apparently speaking of the same wound I had my attention on. "This old salt apparently was very lucky, I think."

Holmes's thoughts had evidently mimicked my own: the scar indicated what likely had been a gunshot to the chest at some time in the past. The only explanations were two: either the aged wound was not was it appeared to be at first glance, or the man had been extremely lucky. Until two nights prior, that is.

"You think him a man of the sea?" I asked.

"Most decidedly," Holmes replied, "at least earlier in his life. This fellow has seen a good deal of sun and weather, and the piercing makes it all the more likely that it was upon the deck of a ship and not in some equatorial location.

"Nor in Afghanistan," Holmes added, giving me a slight acknowledging smile. He then gestured at the unoccupied hole in Matthews's right earlobe, which I had missed.

"Navy?" I asked, finally drawing back the shroud fully.

Holmes shook his head. "Improbable. I should think more likely a merchant marine, although either way I doubt he made his fortune at sea.

"Watson! Look here," he said suddenly with great animation, and he directed my attention to the man's right forearm. There was another faded but more pronounced set of scars. "What did this, would you say?"

"It looks like the sort of thing I've seen with a severe dog bite," I replied, examining what appeared to be perhaps deep tooth marks in nature, "but for the sheer size."

"I'd wager a great deal that no dog made these," I heard Holmes say, and I followed his gaze down the man's leg, where great gashes of some sort had healed long ago into cris-crossing scar tissue.

"My god, Holmes! Certainly no dog did that unless it was a great brute of a beast. That looks more as if some sort of wild animal, and a good size one at that inflicted those wounds."

"I concur, Watson," Holmes said, moving on to examine Matthews's fingernails, "although I wouldn't be able to venture a guess as to what. I will venture a theory, however, that our friend here may have spent some time in an exotic locale after all. Perhaps Africa?"

"Perhaps," I replied with a shrug, still contemplating the different creatures I had encountered in my past travels which might have inflicted the great gashes in Matthews's leg.

"Let us roll him up a little, Watson, and see if we can learn anything else," said Holmes, reaching for the body.

Most people I know outside the realm of medicine would fine the notion of voluntary contact with a cadaver most distasteful, but such things rarely disturbed Holmes. He was usually much too absorbed in the particulars of his cases to be put off by so slight a thing as a dead body.

Together we rolled Matthews up on his left side and were able to see that the animal marks on his leg extended completely around it. There was no doubt in my mind that the man must have walked with a limp.

"A man with an uneven gait and, I suspect, a bit of a troublemaker in his youth," Holmes said, and I followed his gaze away from the scars on the leg to Matthews's back.

"Good Heavens!" I cried. "Somebody has beaten this man, and quite severely at that."

"More exactly, somebody has flogged this man, and so we record another vote in favour of Matthews having been at sea, for that is surely the most likely place he received these." Holmes gestured at the pale lines of long-healed wounds across the man's back. "What is your best professional guess at to the age of these marks, Watson?"

"It's difficult to say with certainty, but I would say decidedly older than two decades, if not three," I replied.

"Really? And on what changes do you base your conclusion?" Holmes asked curiously, lens in hand as he bent to scrutinize the scars.

I admit to indulging myself a small congratulatory smile. "Why no changes at all, my dear Holmes," I replied smugly, "but every military man knows that it's been twenty years since the Royal Navy abolished flogging as a means of punishment, and it had been against public opinion well before that." I waited for my companion to congratulate me on my logic.

Holmes frowned as he looked up from his glass. "Surely we've already established it to be unlikely Mr. Matthews was a Navy man," he chastised me gently, and my smile faded. "Still," he said, trying to cushion the blow to my ego, "I do agree with your estimations, Watson; it seems to me a man who was able to retire a very wealthy country gentleman must have been clever enough to have learned his lessons young and learned them once, especially one such as the cat might have taught him."

"Mr. Holmes?"

Holmes looked up as we laid Matthews back in place and a young constable entered the room with a box in hand.

"Inspector Lestrade said that you'd be wanting to see these," the young man said, gesturing with the box.

"Ah, good! Matthews's personal effects, I take it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Excellent. Just set them here, my good man," Holmes said, gesturing to a small table in the corner of the room. The constable did as he was told, and sneaking a last curious glance at my companion, whose reputation, if not his person, was well known throughout the ranks of the Yard, he exited the room.

Holmes went to the box as I draped the shroud respectfully back over Henry Matthews.

"Let us see what our friend deemed it necessary to carry within the depths of his pockets," Holmes said as he rubbed his hands together in anticipation not unlike that of a young boy on Christmas morning. He opened the box and first extracted a crumpled sheet of paper and held it up. "What does this say to you, my dear Watson?"

I shrugged. "He was in a hurry and hadn't time to fold it?"

"Possibly," Holmes replied, "but why else would a man abuse a piece of paper this way? Think upon the occasions when you yourself have done such a thing; what were the circumstances?"

I pondered the matter for a moment or two before answering. "Why, I should think the only times I have crumpled a piece of paper that way were when I planned to discard it."

"Exactly! But apparently Matthews hadn't discarded it; it remained in his pocket for better than five weeks, according to the date visible on a protruding corner. I must therefore infer that the contents must have agitated or frustrated the man in some way, and after crumpling it in a temper, he shoved it into his pocket and saved it rather than discarding it.

"Let us see what vexed this man enough that he crushed the news upon it," Holmes said, opening and smoothing out the sheet of paper.

Having finished re-shrouding the body, I joined my companion to look over the paper. Upon it, curiously enough, was emblazoned an advertisement for the upcoming celebration of the seventy-fifth birthday of Admiral Sir George Greville Wellesley. The festivities had been ordered by Her Majesty herself, and were to not only include a grand ball and fireworks, but a display of Royal Naval might with a parade of ships up the river, also to be accompanied by some of the grandest old vessels from the quarters of the globe were Wellesley had served: India and the West Indies.

"This man held a grudge against Sir George?" I asked, unable to fathom why the celebration would provoke a response of such irritation.

"I think not, Watson, but let us proceed further before we infer any specifics from this document," Holmes replied, setting the sheet of paper aside and reaching into the box again. "Halloa! What have we here?"

Holmes held up what appeared to be a two-inch bit of ivory on a gold setting and let it dangle from his long fingers.

"My God, Holmes!" I exclaimed. "That's a tooth!"

"Yes, and one that I wager formerly hung in the place of honor at Henry Matthews's right ear," Holmes said, narrowing his eyes as he thought for another moment. "You know, Watson, unless I miss my mark, this belonged to whatever gave the man those scars on his leg and possibly his arm."

"A trophy of revenge?" I speculated.

"Quite." Holmes was delving back into the box, and sifting through a handful of coins, banknotes and three peanuts in amongst them. Holmes eyed one and added it to his mental catalog of the box's inventory as I picked up the watch that lay ignored in a corner.

"Aren't you going to have a look at his watch?" I asked, having experienced several times first-hand the information my dear friend could discern just from the scrutiny of a personal timepiece.

Holmes was still contemplating the peanut upon his palm and shook his head. "I expect to gain nothing more from it other than the facts that it has run down in the two days since he died, it is an expensive piece as would befit a man of Matthews's station, and that there are a few scratches on the back from when he wound it after his indulgence in rum once a fortnight."

"Oh." I gazed at the face, and found Holmes was correct; it appeared quite expensive, and had stopped working in the neighborhood of ten o'clock, probably the night before. Although I quite anticipated the handfull of small scratches Holmes had predicted near the keyhole when I turned it over, I certainly never expected that which I would also find, and my jaw dropped open of its own accord.

"I really think you ought to have a look at this," I said, and upon hearing the gravity in my voice, Holmes interrupted his musings to glance over my shoulder.

"Well, well, well," he said after raising an eyebrow at my discovery. "It certainly appears as though we have found some additional dark corners in this matter."

Perhaps for another half minute, we both stared back at the watch's engraved grinning skull gazing up at us from the palm of my hand.

~~o~~

À jeune chasseur, il faut un vieux chien: Someone inexperienced needs someone more experienced to show him the ropes. (Literally: A young hunter needs an old dog.)

Oh, and Holmes plays the first movement of Mendelssohn's second Violin Sonata in F Major. :)