From Fractals Parade - Paint: Somehow, an unusual color of Paint solves a mystery.
From the notes of Dr. John Watson, December 1900
I was pleased when Sherlock Holmes arranged to join me on my trip to Cambridge. The British Society of Scientific Advancement was hosting their triennial conference at the University of Cambridge. Scientists from all corners of Great Britain—biologists, chemists, physicists—would be congregating to give lectures and discuss theories. A buzzing hive of brilliant minds looking into the future! I planned to watch a series of lectures on the latest advances in medical science, and had agreed to give a brief lecture of my own (the importance of a high standard of hygiene, from the perspective of a metropolitan physician). I knew Holmes could do little to resist Dr. Oliver Barrett's lecture on the biochemistry of blood.
We traveled by train, escaping the heavy smog of London for the light smog of Cambridge. For lodging, we shared a room at an inn on the edge of town. A few of the other lecturers were lodging alongside us, scattered throughout the inn. With the conference in town, the place was near capacity. We waited in the lobby, all old dark wood and oil paintings, for a quarter of an hour before someone ushered us to our room.
On the first evening of the conference, Holmes and I caught a presentation on electromagnetism by Dr. Albert Ainsworth. His work pertained to modern electric motors powered by spinning magnets. The complexities of electromagnetism were a bit over my head, though Holmes seemed thoroughly engaged. Perhaps I had trouble following the lecture in part due to Dr. Ainsworth's eccentric nature, his rambling style of speech, and his sudden pause to adhere to a strict regimen of health supplement pills. My eyes got lost in the pattern of his checkered jacket. I was starting to doze off when he snapped at his assistant, apparently for failure to properly organize his lecture notes, jolting me awake. He was a rough old man, who seemed to have lived a few lifetimes already.
I made more sense of the next lecturer, the aforementioned Dr. Barrett, and his categorization of human blood based on its agglutination properties. Like Dr. Barrett, I imagined the benefits of his research in finding compatible donors for blood transfusions. Holmes had a more crime-based takeaway.
The next morning, we discussed over breakfast in the dining area of the inn. "Consider, Watson, the innumerable instances wherein the perpetrator of a crime leaves a trace of his blood at the scene. A burglar cutting himself on a broken window; a killer shedding blood during a pre-killing struggle. By determining the perpetrator's blood type, as Dr. Barrett called it, one could considerably narrow the pool of potential suspects."
A blond busboy at the table to my left gave up on cleaning a dark smear of jam off the forest green tablecloth. Holmes flagged him down for refills on our cups of hot tea. As the lanky, young man poured tea, Holmes continued on about the forensic applications of Dr. Barrett's research, and described similar blood analysis techniques of his own design. I was only half-listening. I leaned back in my chair, flipping through the newspaper. Biochemistry wasn't the only subject on my mind. Earlier in the week, I placed a wager on an ice hockey game that took place last night: University of London Dragons vs. Oxford University Blues. Without my usual London paper, I was lost, curious to learn how the game played out but unable to find any reports.
"Oxford won last night's game," said Holmes, spontaneously answering the question that had not left my mind.
I looked over the top of the newspaper. "As in, Oxford University?"
"Yes, the university's ice hockey club," said Holmes. "You wagered on London, I think. I hope it wasn't a large loss."
"In fact, I did wager on London," I said. I set the newspaper down. "But how the Devil did you know that? I never spoke a word about it."
Holmes sipped his tea. "Ah, but I observe your habits, old chap. Your routines. And beneath your grounded, evidence-based thoughts of medicine and literature there lies a penchant for sports gambling."
"I'll concede as much," I said. "But that hardly explains how you knew about this wager on this game. It's as if you sensed that the thought was at the front of my mind."
"For some time you've been following their games," said Holmes.
"I came here to see physicists, not psychics," I said.
"Back in London, you've been visiting your bookmaker friend, Frasier, recently," said Holmes. "No, I haven't been shadowing you. That much I deduced by the recurring marks of blue chalk on your left thumb and forefinger—Frasier is an avid billiards player—and the scent of Frasier's pungent Cuban tobacco on your clothing. You've been meeting with Frasier to play billiards, smoke cigars, and place bets. So, who are you betting on? Your usual collegiate rugby and cricket teams are off-season. You lost half a month's income on horse racing in October, so I doubt you would return to ponies so soon." Holmes touched his forefinger to his forehead, as if physically stimulating thoughts. "Over the past six weeks, I've noticed a positive correlation between 'your mood after reading the sports section' and 'the winning record of the University of London's ice hockey team.' You follow a routine: (1) visit with Frasier; (2) one to two days later, on the morning after a London hockey game, eagerly seek out the sports section; (3) celebrate when London wins, or sulk when London loses. I suspect you've been betting on them somewhat consistently, including last night's game against Oxford."
All that Holmes said was true. Over the past two months, I had taken an interest in collegiate ice hockey. I was following a few teams, London included, and I had earned a small sum of coin in betting on their games. Frasier, an old soldier friend of mine, was indeed my bookie connection to the betting hall. He was always ready for a game of billiards or cards. I was saving one set of Frasier's Cuban cigars as a Christmas gift for Holmes.
"You follow the university hockey team?" I said.
"As much as any entity reported on in the paper," said Holmes. "You know how valuable it is for my work to keep a catalog of current events. I enjoy listening to the very pulse of London, in all ways that I can."
"Well, you're right as ever," I said. "I don't bet on all of their games, though I did bet on them last night."
"Of course," said Holmes. "You've been looking for the missing sports column of today's issue of the East England Chronicler for the past ten minutes. I suspect you selected the Chronicler because of its wide reach, and hence, higher likelihood of reporting on London's collegiate sports."
I nodded. "You say they lost," I said.
"Regrettably," said Holmes. "Check the Cambridge Bulletin." He passed me a folded newspaper from the other end of the table.
"I'm surprised they covered it," I said, flipping through.
"Oxford routed London by ten goals," said Holmes. "A new school record earns an article, I suppose."
A woman screamed on the floor above us. Holmes and I both looked up towards the source of the noise, and then at each other. Less than a minute later, an inn maid came sprinting down the stairs, nearly falling in the process. She charged straight for the hotel manager, Mr. Devon Quint.
"There's a body," she said through gasping breaths. "Dr. Ainsworth is dead."
Quint looked lost, and on the verge of panic. Holmes rose from his seat, and offered his assistance in sorting things out. He sent Quint to call the local constabulary, and then went upstairs to see the body. The maid, Ms. Elena Nightly, led the way. Dr. Ainsworth was lodging in room 2C. Two people waited for us in the sleeping and dining area of room 2C: Mrs. Judith Taylor, a member of the cleaning and cooking staff; and Mr. Norval Bray, Dr. Ainsworth's personal assistant. The private bathroom was ominously ajar by a thin sliver. It appeared that the door had been bolted from the inside with a simple metal sliding bolt, but the door had been forced open, bending the mechanism.
"He's in the bathroom," said Taylor.
I recognized Bray as the assistant that Dr. Ainsworth berated during last night's lecture. Bray explained that he had agreed to meet with Dr. Ainsworth at eight o'clock this morning, thirty minutes ago. Dr. Ainsworth didn't answer his door, so Bray let himself inside with an extra key. (As Dr. Ainsworth's assistant, he had been given a spare.) Bray couldn't find him in the room, nor was there any note. He knocked on the bathroom door and heard no response. The bathroom door was locked, so he knew Dr. Ainsworth must have been inside. Bray grew concerned that Dr. Ainsworth might have hurt himself in the bathroom, or suffered a heart attack or stroke. He flagged down two members of the inn staff, Taylor and Nightly, asking if there was any way to force the bathroom door open, or access the bathroom another way. There was none. Bray forced the door open with a firm kick, uncovering a gruesome scene.
Holmes and I stepped foot in the bathroom. Dr. Ainsworth's dead body was submerged in a bathtub full of red water. He had suffered an impact to the back of the head, and there was a bloody spot on the edge of the cream-colored bathtub. It was strange seeing Dr. Ainsworth's corpse so soon after watching his lecture. How death changes people.
"The old man slipped in the bathtub," said Bray. "Jesus, what a way to go."
By all accounts, it looked like a tragic accident. The hallway door required a key. The bathroom door was bolted from the inside. Dr. Ainsworth was alone. But some instinct itched at the back of my mind. Through adventuring with Holmes, I had grown a sixth sense. Not the intuition to instantly differentiate supposed accidents from foul play, but rather the intuition to realize when Holmes's mind was calculating, piecing things together and spotting discrepancies. I saw it in his eyes and the curl of his lip.
Holmes hovered over the body in the bath. He studied the head wound, and the bloody mark on the smooth ceramic tub. He gave strict instructions that nothing in Dr. Ainsworth's room was to be moved without cause. Holmes made a sweep of the entire room, rummaging through Dr. Ainsworth's discarded shirt, trousers and undergarments beside the bathtub. He paused to study the damaged bolting mechanism on the door, going so far as unsheathing a small magnifying glass, and inspecting the door with intensified detail. He continued outside of the bathroom, on to the slim wooden case on the table in the dining area. It had a thin crack down the side, and I recognized it as the case for Dr. Ainsworth's health supplement pills. Holmes opened the case, revealing a partitioned collection of pills, sorted by color—blue, green, red and white—into square subcompartments. I noticed a stray red pill in the green compartment, and a green pill in the red.
Holmes checked Dr. Ainsworth's luggage. He rifled through research notes on the principles of electromagnetism, and Dr. Ainsworth's electric motor design, as well as a set of black cubic magnets for demonstration purposes. Dr. Ainsworth's cash and valuables—a gold watch and ring—remained on the side table and secured in a luggage pocket. Holmes asked Bray if, as Dr. Ainsworth's assistant, he noticed anything missing from Dr. Ainsworth's belongings. According to Bray, everything seemed to be accounted for.
Holmes moved away from the luggage, drawn to the oil painting of an autumn tree on the wall. Red and yellow leaves fluttered down onto the surface of a glimmering pond. Morning light cast through the window at Holmes's side across the canvas, highlighting the rich colors and textures. I walked to the window and looked out at Cambridge, down at the winding River Cam. The gothic beauty and opulence of the University of Cambridge contrasted with the shanty town of destitute men, women and children by the river's edge. For such a revered place of learning, the city of Cambridge had yet to figure out how to help all of its sorriest souls.
Holmes's nose was nearly touching the canvas when a loud crash of breaking glass and splashing liquid sounded through the room. Bray gripped the broken stem of a wine bottle at the end of the table. The base of the sealed bottle had shattered, spilling a full bottle of wine onto the wood floor. For a moment, Holmes looked ready to assault him.
"I hardly touched it!" said Bray in defense.
"Why did you touch it at all?" said Holmes.
"I just wanted to see what kind it was," said Bray. He meekly held up the labelside. Bordeaux, 1877. He set the broken bottle on the table by a half-eaten plate of steak and potatoes, and gingerly stepped away from the pool of wine. Taylor and Nightly went to work cleaning up the mess before it irreparably damaged the floor.
Two constables arrived on the scene, along with the inn manager, Quint. Within a minute, they came to the same conclusion as Bray—Dr. Ainsworth's death was an accident. The constables lifted the body out of the bloody bathtub and laid it down on a sheet. There were no other objects submerged in the tub. In addition to the head wound, Dr. Ainsworth had a broken wrist, which appeared to have been sustained around the time of death. Holmes made a thorough examination of the body, including putting his ear against the dead man's chest, and pressing fingers down on the cool skin. Judging by the temperature, coloration and rigidity of the body, I estimated that Dr. Ainsworth died at least eight hours ago. The constables figured that he had slipped while getting into or out of the bathtub, cracking the back of his head on the tub's edge and breaking his wrist in the fall.
Constable Green recognized Holmes's name and profession. He acknowledged that Holmes worked regularly with Scotland Yard, and he was technically qualified to offer consultation, but he and Constable Fitzgerald agreed that Holmes wasn't needed on this matter. No crime had been committed.
Holmes leaned back against the wall, deep in thought. "Who was the last known person to see Dr. Ainsworth alive?" he said.
We watched Dr. Ainsworth's speech yesterday evening between five o'clock and six. Bray claimed that he parted ways with Dr. Ainsworth around seven-thirty last night, when they returned to the inn from the conference. Quint recalled that Dr. Ainsworth ordered a plate of steak and potatoes, and a bottle of wine, delivered to his room by one of the kitchen crew at eight o'clock. Nobody else was known to have interacted with Dr. Ainsworth beyond that hour. There were no reports of any disturbances originating from room 2C. Holmes asked to gather up the inn staff and speak with them.
"Is that really necessary, Mr. Holmes?" said Quint as he pushed his glasses up his nose. "We're already stretched quite thin, and I'm not sure we can accommodate a disruption like this."
"I'm sorry that this man's death disrupted your business operations," said Holmes. "But by making assumptions we risk misinterpretations."
"Misinterpretations?" said Constable Green. He was the shorter of the two constables, with sharp, squinted eyes. "What is there to misinterpret? The man fell in the bath. He was elderly and the tub was slippery."
Holmes shook his head. "It's highly probable that Dr. Ainsworth was murdered, and the murderer is still here at the inn."
Holmes's comment elicited a snort from Constable Green. "Come back to reality, Mr. Holmes! Murder isn't probable. It isn't even improbable. It's categorically impossible. The bathroom could only be locked and unlocked from the inside. He was here alone."
"The killer covered his tracks quite well," said Holmes.
"Regardless of how well covered, the tracks would have ended in the bathroom," said Constable Green. "No one could have left that room. Do you mean that a killer is hiding there now, at this very moment? Where? Under the bath mat?"
"Not quite," said Holmes. "He didn't hide in the bathroom—he escaped last night. Take a closer look at the painting." Holmes gestured to the oil painting on the wall.
I was close enough to turn and examine the painting. I saw nothing at first—nothing but an artistic rendition of autumn in the countryside. Then I saw it, on a painted red leaf in the middle of the canvas there were drops of blood. The blood blended in, camouflaged by red paint, but it was unmistakable up close. The smell and texture were those of blood. The spots were recently congealed, surely flecked onto the painting last night. Constable Green peered over my shoulder, jumping when he too noticed the fresh blood.
"Is that blood?" said Constable Fitzgerald. He too studied the oil painting.
"Dr. Ainsworth's, presumably," said Holmes. "He was standing beside the painting when he was struck in the head."
Constable Green tapped his foot, running a hand through his hair. "We don't know that with certainty. A bloody nose and a sneeze could achieve the same effect."
"The murderer struck Dr. Ainsworth from behind with a smooth, blunt object," said Holmes. "There was a small spray of blood from Dr. Ainsworth's head. He fell forward, breaking his wrist upon landing. He also dropped and cracked his pill box, which the murderer set there, on the table."
"Where's the rest of the blood, then?" said Constable Green. "This can't have been all of it."
"The murderer cleaned up after himself," said Holmes. "The blood on the painting is only the blood he missed."
"There's no blood on the clothing in the bathroom," said Constable Green. "If he was hit so hard that blood flecked onto the painting, then some blood would make its way onto his shirt. You think someone cleaned that too?"
"When you saw him last, was Dr. Ainsworth wearing the same clothing he had worn earlier in the day?" said Holmes to Bray. Bray affirmed as much, and Holmes continued. "I notice that the heap of clothing on the floor by the bath does not include Dr. Ainsworth's grey checkered jacket, nor can I locate the jacket anywhere in this room. To your point, constable, Dr. Ainsworth's jacket was stained with blood, leaving it too difficult to fully clean. Instead, the killer took it with him."
Constable Green frowned. Holmes pointed out the lack of evidence of water splashing out of the tub, which would have been expected if Dr. Ainsworth slipped into a full bath. Additionally, an examination of the body's chest and face yielded no evidence of water in the lungs or effervescence around the lips, telltale signs of death by drowning, which would have been present if Dr. Ainsworth slipped and stunned himself without dying on impact. Holmes theorized that Dr. Ainsworth was killed outright near the painting, carried to the bathroom and stripped, and then placed in the tub. Only afterwards, the killer filled the tub with water.
Constable Green's frown persisted. "There's still a gaping hole in your theory. The bathroom door. If what you say is true, then the supposed killer had to have slid the bolt from the outside."
"Precisely," said Holmes.
"That's not possible," said Constable Green.
"The murderer was clever," said Holmes.
"Go on, then," said Constable Green. "Let's hear it. How does someone bolt a door from the other side?"
Holmes walked over to the bag by Dr. Ainsworth's bed. He drew out one of the black magnetic cubes and held it in his palm. "Magnetic attraction." To demonstrate his point, Holmes hovered the magnet near a fork on the table, guiding the metal fork without making physical contact. He rotated the magnet, and the fork was softly repelled. "This cube of ferromagnetic iron and nickel appears totally symmetrical, but it has distinct north and south poles, only discernible by the attractive or repellant behavior of other nearby ferromagnetic materials. Note that all eight of Dr. Ainsworth's magnetic cubes were placed south-pole-down in his carrying case, except for this one. I suspect that his killer returned this cube to the case without realizing the placement discrepancy." Holmes walked to the bathroom door, fixing the forced bolting mechanism as well as he could manage, and then closed the door. He held the magnet against the door, level with the bolt on the opposite side, and slowly slid the magnet from left to right. Holmes tried the doorknob. Sure enough, the door was bolted shut.
"Unbelievable," I said. "It's like a magic trick."
"A magnet trick, perhaps," said Holmes. "It is merely the effect of a lightweight iron bolt, a thin door, and a powerful magnet."
Constable Green stood in silent disbelief. He tried Holmes's magnetic locking and unlocking technique, acquiring a physical understanding of how a murderer could have potentially staged the scene. He rechecked the painting, and then the body, and then the door once again.
"It's possible," he finally conceded.
(End of Part 1 of 2)