Chapter 12
Day 7 in the Victorian Era - Ottilie Godwin
Many thanks to Ernil i Pheriannath / Sparkypip for her beta work, feedback and friendship!
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Early Afternoon of Day 5 in 2016
An hour later Sherlock was on the sofa, trying to read more of the 1867 case files.
Obviously, he had broadcasted his frustration, because Greg returned for the third time offering his assistance.
He felt restless and jittery and in desperate need to occupy his brain with something challenging. Although his ability to concentrate still left a lot to be desired, he needed to work on the case.
So far, he hadn't found any clues that might connect the deaths of the maid and the boy. He was just going through random unsolved deaths from 1867 to 1870 no one had managed to explain. And those two just had been the first ones he hadn't solved within five minutes. They rather stood out. He had solved three overall, all now in a different folder with neat little notes on the sheets about the solution everyone else had overlooked.
The next sheet to read was a police report from the maid's case. He hadn't read the autopsy report yet, but it was the after next.
The fact that his eyesight was still blurry and he couldn't concentrate enough to read more than a few lines at once were beyond annoying, especially since most of the documents were handwritten as well as yellowed and therefore hard to read.
"Sherlock?"
Greg still stood in front of the sofa, his hand outstretched now.
"What?"
"Can I read that and summarise it for you?"
"Why?"
"Well, apparently, because you can't."
"Don't be-" Sherlock scrunched his eyes closed in annoyance at their burring and opened them again, shooting a glare at Greg.
"Oh, shut it. Give it to me. Come on," the DI interrupted him.
Sherlock frowned but held out the pile of high quality colour copies.
"Don't summarise it, read it all. Every word. The printouts are ordered chronologically. If there is a picture*1, tell me what it shows. I have studied them and will know which one you are referring to. The autopsy was finished with no result. The reason for this might be that the physician was incompetent. Therefore, I need to know every word and every fact to determine if something was overlooked or if there really was nothing out of the ordinary."
"Okay."
Lestrade put down the file on the coffee table, brought the chair from the other side of the room – the one that was usually reserved for clients - and sat down.
Well aware that the first pages were all just text Sherlock closed his eyes to concentrate better and this time he had no problem to enter the Victorian sector of his mind palace.
"Well, that handwriting is bloody hard to read." Greg cleared his throat. "Alright. March 5th, 1867. This is written by hand, into a book for reports..."
Sherlock made sure to allow Greg's voice in and let the facts that were coming in evolve into an autopsy setting.
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Tuesday, March 5th 1867 - Day 7 in the Victorian Era
When Holmes entered the morgue, irritation crept in on him the moment he saw Anderson instead of Hooper.
"Where is Mr Hooper?" he used the made salutation to maintain her cover although in this era it was custom to just use the last name and skip the Mister – at least when talking about or to a man.
"Upstairs, talking to Lestrade," Anderson answered grudgingly. "Feel free to wait outside until he comes back."
"I will wait here. Is the body ready for the examination, yet?"
"Which one?"
"The maid, Ottilie Godwin."
"I was just about to bring her in."
For unknown reasons Anderson was even more ill-disposed than usual and gave him another annoyed look, which Sherlock held - equally annoyed - until the other man walked away.
Shortly after that, Hooper entered the dimly lit room. It was their third meeting after he found out she was actually a female person.
Overall Holmes didn't care much about gender and gender roles. He had always failed to understand why people made such a fuss about it or regarded half of humanity to be less worthy or competent than the other half.*2
He not only had chosen long ago to treat both genders alike but also their statuses. In crime, those things didn't matter that much. Although women less often turned into perpetrators, if they did, their behaviour could easily stand up to men's.
Many people found his behaviour improper when he treated both genders or maid's and masters alike, with the same respect or disrespect he found suited their behaviour.
"Ah, Dr Hooper. Nice to meet you again," he greeted her.
However, his friendly words were met with a frown.
She either sensed his carefully hidden difficult mood or was wondering if he was mocking her. For a moment, he didn't know how to properly react to that.
"I would like to join you in the autopsy," he stated with a light bow of his head.
She shoved forward her chin, "Lestrade ordered me to let you if asked."
Obviously, she wasn't happy about that.
Did she still fear he'd blow her cover?
"You are an excellent chemist apparently. Dr Watson never fails to underline that," she spat.
"You might want to take the time to actually observe my skills instead of believing what you read. Getting to know me from talking to me might be better than from reading Watson's romantically glorified prose."
Their last meeting had been quite productive and he had hoped his appreciation of her skills would ease what she thought of him. Therefore, he was taken aback by her deprecating mood.
"You might find out that I am actually not really as depicted in those stories. A lot less intelligent and heroic, actually," he tried to stall her.
The words seemed to make her a bit insecure.
"Shall we begin?" he changed topics with a wide grin that was harder to accomplish than he had anticipated.
"I noticed the discoloration of her lips and fingernails," she answered, lifting one of the woman's hands up for closer inspection.
The first minutes of their outer visual examination were slow, stiff, and difficult.
When they inspected the burns – or at least what looked like burns – all over her right palm, they discovered that the underside of her forearm also looked slightly burned. There were two almost straight lines of redness, going from her hand to her elbows.
Due to the time she had spent in the water Sherlock hadn't been sure at first if the redness of the skin wasn't due to something else she had been in contact with after her death. Damage by other environmental factors couldn't be ruled out since these days, the Thames had more in common with a waste dump that moved than with a river.
"This looks as if there was liquid she put her hand in, then she raised her hand and the liquid ran down her forearm towards her elbow, doesn't it?" Hooper suggested.
Sherlock nodded, he had thought the same when inspecting the original black and white pictures of the victim's arm.
A bit annoyed, he shook the reminder of the 2016 reality off, wondering if he should establish more complex rules about what he could remember and what not from real life. It could be both helpful and counterproductive to not be aware of modern forensic science. On the other hand, he didn't know what exactly the marks looked like, the notes on the pictures were a bit superficial about the nuances of the discolouration. In addition, the photos were slightly out of focus. He decided to banish all thoughts that were out of Victorian reality for the moment and continue.
When they started more invasive medical procedures their communication became easier, probably because Molly had gotten used to his presence by then and felt more at home with it. He took great care not putting up a show but to value her opinion as a medical professional.
"Oh!" Hooper made when she finally managed to extracted a small amount of urine.
It was slightly blue-green in colour, which finally brought forth a revealing information about how Godwin had died.
"This is a telltale signs of phenol poisoning!" she explained and he agreed.
From then, they started to try to relate other findings to prove it or disconfirm that.
The slightly yellow tinted eyes were present, too and the discolouration of the fingertips and lips, which must have turned slightly blue, also fit into the picture.
"There might be other injuries that could tell us how severe the contamination was. The typical reactions to severe systemic poisoning could be…" Sherlock started.
"…Convulsions or seizures," Hooper finished, and nodded.
They searched her for physical damage that might have happened during a seizure.
After a few minutes, they found some small superficial puncture wounds on her scalp. It probably happened when her head had banged against a surface and her hairpins pierced the skin as a result. However, the pins were no longer there. They had probably loosened from the hair in the water and they couldn't prove she had seizures at first.
"The punctures might have happened in another way while she was in the water," Hooper muttered. "Also, some areas of her skull are free of hair, ripped out somehow, it seems."
"She might have bitten her tongue," Sherlock wondered out loud.
"I will check her mouth, then I will try to palpate the smaller bones that might break easier during a seizure," Hooper announced and Sherlock assisted by holding a light to shine into the mouth.
Hooper gave him a puzzled look; obviously, she hadn't expected him to do assistant work, but then she accepted it.
They found bite marks, at the side of her tongue as well as her inner cheek. Two small but nasty injuries that were deep in her buccal area and hard to see, unless one looked for it.
"She probably felt the burning but didn't realise what it meant, how serious it was. Chances are high she then tried to wash it off, but it was too late," Sherlock summarized.
"The phenol was absorbed through the skin rather quickly, resorptive poisoning can occur even with only a small area of skin. Then it can quickly lead to paralysis and a severe drop in body temperature. She fell, seized and shortly thereafter fell into an apparent-death-state*3. Death probably occurred shortly thereafter," Hooper finished.
"The only question now is, was this an accident or murder?"
"How can we distinguish that?"
"We need to find more clues. If we can't, we are at an impasse."
"The great Sherlock Holmes can get stuck?" she asked, with the unnerved undertone from before.
"It actually happens quite often in the early stages of a case when too little evidence leave me in the dark for a short period of time," Sherlock explained. "I already told you I am not as Dr Watson depicts me."
She just made a humming noise in response.
"There was a note that contained numbers in her pocket. After these findings, I assume it might be an instruction how to create the cleanser. If it was, it could be the reason that this happened. The setting implies the reaction was intense and occurred fast after contact with the liquid, which means the dilution played a major role. She maybe came into contact with a substance that was 10 times more intense than it should be. Someone noted how to create a solution but forgot to write down that the solution needed to be diluted further before use, too."
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After they finished the autopsy in the early afternoon, Sherlock went shopping on his way home. He bought some more chemistry equipment and something to counteract his headaches – aspirin was luckily available. He also brought home a bottle of carbolic acid – which was used for cleaning and likely to have caused the maid's phenol poisoning - and four pig legs to test it on.
He had just returned to Baker Street and changed into more comfortable clothes when Mrs Hudson brought in tea. Watson wouldn't be in for another few hours.
Holmes plans for the afternoon included testing tissue samples from the maid's forearm for carbolic acid.
But before he had time to finish his tea, he felt so utterly exhausted that he lay down on the settee, planning to just rest his aching body for a few minutes before setting up the experiments.
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He was woken by a knock on the door and a moment later Mrs Hudson entered, announcing he had a visitor. She looked a bit surprised to see him hastily sitting up from a nap, his hair ruffled and his dressing gown crumpled. He felt even worse than when he had before sleeping.
Hooper followed the landlady into the living room and Sherlock hurried to the mirror to sort out his hair with his hands. They came back greasy and he huffed in annoyance. Victorian hair products definitely took some time to get used to. The mixture was making a mess on whatever the hair came in contact with, which was overall too inconvenient. In addition, the feeling on his scalp was sometimes so annoying it made him feel close to losing his temper - or maybe it was from the smell.
Hooper's grin told him she was knowing exactly what he was doing and was amused about the fact that she had caught him in a rather private moment.
"What can I do for you?" he asked, when he returned to her side, deliberately not holding out a hand, but he wiped them on his dressing gown before he offered her a seat at the table by gesturing at it.
"I've come to apologize. I was rude today and it was not your fault... nevertheless I took it out on you."
Sherlock pressed his lips into a thin line, trying to figure out what would be the right thing to say.
"My sister keeps putting pressure on me to end the charade and become a 'ministering angel of domestic bliss'*5, which leads to nasty arguments now and then. She is the only one aware of my... real occupation, besides you and the Watsons, obviously. Everyone else thinks I am a nurse. Since my parents died a few years ago, I live alone at the family home and that is the only way I can keep this up. My sister visited yesterday and we didn't part in a friendly way. Although she shares my view that women should be allowed to vote, she can be a church-bell*6 sometimes and I am not too fond of that. It was not your fault I was angry, and after Lestrade's colleague once more demonstrated his view about working women..."
"I understand. Don't worry about it."
"I am sorry to have woken you. Are you ill?"
"I am just tired, thank you. But I have a request... I don't mind you doing what you are doing, in fact, I find it very interesting that it seems to work so well. It is a valuable insight about human behaviour and this culture you must have gained by doing this. I might be interested in interviewing you about it later if you were fond of the idea? Wearing those closes and hiding your figure is fine with me, but... a shave would... I mean the moustache is a bit... distracting. Could you take it off?"
At first she frowned, but then, much to his surprise she laughed out loud.
"You are aware you need a shave, too, aren't you?"
"I am. I am sorry I am asking this of you when I myself am in such an... unpresentable state."
"No, to be honest, it is a nuisance," she unceremoniously ripped it off and placed it on the table, the sticky side up.
"It itches and is hard to eat with, and sometimes it comes off at the most inconvenient moments."
Now Sherlock was the one who grinned, too.
"Quite like a real one. My stubble is starting to itch, too."
She looked puzzled as if not getting why he didn't shave then.
A moment later, they were interrupted when Mrs Hudson knocked again and brought in fresh tea.
Hooper discretely covered her mouth and the moustache on the table with her hands while the landlady put the tablet down.
"Don't serve it, I can do it. Thank you," Sherlock sent her off, much to her surprise. A moment later, she was out of the door again.
"Any more ideas about the maid?" Hooper asked.
"I assume she mixed the solution, used a mop and then she somehow put her right hand where she had already mopped or spilled the solution. It started to burn, she tried to wash it off and returned to work, then fell and shortly after that died."
"That much we assumed already before you left the morgue," Molly teased.
"Whoever found her... It took time after that to clean up that mess, and the person who did it must have been very careful not to come into contact with the substance, too. Additionally they must have understood what was happening immediately, and aired the house thoroughly, otherwise we'd have more bodies."
"Oh! Maybe the reason why she was dumped in the river was that she was already soaking wet from the attempt to clean the room she died in and her in one go. Moving her without cleaning her up first would have been dangerous," Hooper added.
"There was a room that seemed quite damp when we went to interview the family she worked for. They also had a lot of windows open I now remember."
"This does look like an accident," Molly pointed out.
"Don't forget the piece of paper. If someone wrote down the wrong numbers it was either stupidity or ill intention."
"If it was the latter, that person must have made sure somehow the right victim would be affected. A skilled maid or housewife might have prevented this from happening."
"Don't forget that the discovery of germs happened not that long ago and we know about it because it is our profession. The use of carbolic acid and carbolic soap as a germ killer is very new to many maids," Sherlock stated.
"Yes, right. There are dangerous chemical now used to eradicate that invisible threat. I read that the improvements help to sterilise the surgical field have significantly raised the numbers of patients surviving surgery. Antiseptic procedures in surgery is a very interesting field I plan to study soon," Hooper explained with enthusiasm.
Sherlock was aware that in the 1850th and early 60th had been a very bad time when it came to public health; London had gone through the peak of unhealthy living conditions that caused cholera and later tuberculosis epidemics.
People were desperate for cures and to prevent something like that to happen again. They turned to pharmacies and anything that promised to eliminate the recently discovered pathogens.
The germ theory set off a wave of downright germ paranoia that started after Pasteur's works were published, the microscope was invented and bacteria could be seen. People started scrubbing and cleaning everything, which led to a new definition of cleanliness.
The Victorians worshipped science and quite often the hazards were ignored when it came to scientific progress and new inventions.
Dangerous chemicals were used lavishly, companies didn't take the time to test them thoroughly before selling them, so people weren't aware of the risks.
Carbolic soap sold well, as did other cleaning products and for local pharmacies the new scientific knowledge meant lucrative business.
"I was about to test the skin sample for chemical residues and then try different solutions on pig skin. If you'd like to join me?"
She smiled at him, obviously quite happy about the offer.
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*1 The author is aware that this little fact is not correct. In the 1860s, there was not really forensic photography yet, it wasn't used until the late 19th century. This is not a mistake, it is artistic freedom to bend facts a bit, but I did my research.
*2 During the first minutes of the episode TAB I wondered why Holmes' behaviour towards women was different from Victorian Lestrade and Watson, who seemed to share a certain view of how a Victorian woman had to be and was treated, a view that Holmes obviously didn't share.
He treated Mary like an equal, in contrast to Watson. During the episode, he continued to do so and I wondered why.
I still do, to be honest. Was it like this in the original stories by ACD, was Holmes ahead of his time? The more odd I found that he - in the end - was the one who not only admitted society had treated them wrong, but he himself, too. Sure, he treats other people bad sometimes, but that is not related to gender.
Overall TAB underlines the discrepancy between how Sherlock sees himself and how others see him. Maybe this was just one more of those differences. Feel free to comment on this, I'd be interested in what readers think about this.
*3 I wasn't sure if the word coma was used already in that decade. The words 'apparently dead' was used thought. If anyone is interested, I got this from 'Worldneurologyonline' and there is an article about 'Apparent Death and Coma in the 18th century'. Sorry, I can't post links here, therefore you have to google it if you are interested.
*5 Term used by Charles Dickens
*6 Victorian Slang for a 'talkative woman'
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Some feedback would make my day :)