The Adventure of the Lady on the Embankment Read online

  The Adventure of the Lady on the Embankment

  Lois Mcmaster Bujold

  Lois McMaster Bujold

  The Adventure of the Lady on the Embankment

  It was late in an unseasonably cool morning of June, 1903, when I dropped in upon my friend Sherlock Holmes, in our old rooms in Baker Street. I had spent the night in a weary deathwatch at the bedside of a patient who was also an old friend of mine and my wife's. He had been riddled through with cancer. But even the knowledge that he had welcomed death as a release from the lingering agony that even the strongest doses of morphia I dared give him no longer had the power to mitigate, did nothing to decrease the intense depression I felt about his passing. It had been a helpless, hopeless case throughout, and the grey and miserable drizzle that fell that morning seemed to echo and amplify my mood. My meditations upon mortality had reached a particularly grotesque stage when my cab turned down Baker Street from Marylebone Road on its way to my own lodgings in Queen Anne Street, and it was partly to shake them off, and partly to put off a little longer the moment when I must pain Alicia with my unpleasant news, that I yielded to impulse as I passed the old familiar facade to stop up and see my friend.

  Billy the page passed me through to find Holmes seated at the remains of a sparse breakfast, smoking his first pipe of the day (composed of the dottles of yesterday's) and studying one of several newspapers scattered about in the usual untidiness. He glanced up at me keenly.

  "Fetch some fresh coffee, Billy," were the first words out of his mouth. "Sit down, old man. You look exhausted."

  I nodded and sank gratefully into the comfort of the old chair. Holmes maintained an undemanding silence until I had finished my first cup of coffee. We spoke then for a while of old Hastings, whom Holmes had known slightly.

  "Have you anything on hand?" I inquired at length, to turn the conversation to some more cheerful topic. I nodded at the paper folded open beside his plate.

  "Possibly. Although at first glance it looks like it might be more in your line than mine." He tapped the paper with one long, nervous finger. "The state of your chin tells me you have not seen this morning's paper; have you seen yesterday's? No? You are just in time, if you would be interested; Lestrade rang up a short while ago-the man himself should be by soon. Center column," he handed the paper across. "They're all running much the same version; this one is typical."

  The headline read, "Woman Found on Embankment. Possible Suicide Attempt? Police Seek Clues to Identity." The paper bore yesterday's date.

  "About two AM this morning an unidentified woman was found by Constable John Harmon as he made his rounds by the Embankment not far from Northumberland Avenue. She was sitting upon the steps by the river, soaking wet, and wrapped in a bedsheet. She appeared to be in an unnatural state of mind, approximating deep shock, and would neither speak nor respond to questions. The constable took her to New Scotland Yard, from which she was later transferred to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. She is described by the police as being 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighing about 9 stone, with long dark blonde hair and grey eyes. She appears to be between 30 and 35 years old. She has an old burn scar upon her left calf, another scar upon her left upper arm, and a fresh cut upon her right wrist. Anyone with a clue to the identity of the woman is asked to contact the police. The conduct of the investigation has been left in the experienced hands of Inspector Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, who is following up the case with his accustomed energy and sagacity."

  "Most peculiar," I responded, handing back the paper. "But not very detailed."

  "It was a late inclusion, I imagine," said Holmes. "But the paper of today has little more, although they have not quite come round to making remarks about the bafflement of the police yet. There is not quite enough here to tell if the case falls into the category of the exotic or the merely sordid. But if I do not mistake that regulation tread, here is the man himself to tell us all about it."

  Inspector Lestrade was ushered in by the boy in buttons. He had a dirty white bundle under his arm and a slightly frustrated look upon his ferret-like features. He greeted us both with that subdued and polite manner he acquired when his cases were not going well.

  "Well, Mr. Holmes, I can scarcely recall any case I've ever had that presented less to go on," he remarked in aggrieved tones as he opened his bundle for Holmes's inspection. "Clothing can tell you something about a person; sometimes it can even be traced. I've seen you do some remarkable things with pocket-linings, I know; but this poor lady has neither pocket-linings nor pockets to line."

  "This sheet, I take it, was the garment referred to in the papers," said Holmes, taking it up and beginning to examine it closely. "Well, negative evidence can sometimes be suggestive all the same." He carried it over to the window. "It is a rather common article, is it not? Of a size and grade suitable to a hospital cot. You have, I take it, checked out the most obvious possibility, that this unfortunate woman has escaped from some institution?"

  "I've had men out since yesterday morning. I believe we've covered every public and private hospital and asylum in town-my Lord, and there are a number of 'em-but none of them seem to be missing a lady of this description."

  "These bloodstains-what were the woman's injuries?"

  "Not too much-a cut and a scrape or two. She hasn't been beaten, she hasn't been tied up, and the doctor at Bart's tells me she hasn't been assaulted, either."

  "What a lot of negatives. What about drugs?"

  "That was what sent me off to the hospitals. She has a number of needle marks; she's clearly been a patient somewhere, unless she's been feeding a private addiction, a theory I've been coming around to."

  "On one arm or both?"

  "Oh, both."

  "Then she has been administered her shots by a second party, and your second theory loses some of its attractiveness. You've examined the woman yourself?"

  "I've seen her. An uncommon-looking sort, if I do say so. But you may as well try talking with a statue, for all the conversation she's got. So we are left with the evidence; and there isn't any. So we must sit on our hands and wait until someone comes forward to identify her, if anyone does."

  "Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Holmes. "Perhaps the woman herself has more evidence to offer than you think. Although for once I'm forced to agree that your garment here offers very little scope for deduction."

  Lestrade looked grimly pleased at this apparent admission of defeat.

  "If we could find what she'd cut herself with, I'd be happier," said he. "For example, to use your sort of reasoning, if it were a kitchen knife, we might be able to say she was some poor housewife driven by her poverty to do the desperate thing; or some poor wench abandoned by her lover if it were, say, a cheap penknife."

  Holmes held the sheet up to the light thoughtfully. "To use your sort of reasoning: She has a cut on her wrist and has been in the water; therefore she has tried to slash her wrists and drown herself, eh? It seems redundant somehow." Holmes smiled a bit sourly. "Well, I'll give you an alternative. You will find no knife because there is none, and she has not tried to commit suicide by drowning; in fact, she has not tried to commit suicide at all."

  "How do you deduce that from a bedsheet?" asked Lestrade, a little startled, but too cautious to take up his usual stand against my friend's theorizing.

  "The woman has been through or came from Camberwell on the night she was found. These clay stains are distinctive, although much diluted by their immersion in the river. I think she swam across the river; and a woman who can swim the Thames is unlikely to regard water as deadly enough to invite a suicide attempt. However, beyond the fact that she has escap
ed from wherever she came by wrapping this sheet around her right arm and breaking a window, and that she has eaten porridge, any further information we can glean from physical clues must come from Bart's. I would be pleased if you could join us, Watson; I have a suspicion that your medical background may be of some use in this. Just ring for Billy, will you, and we'll get a cab."

  ***

  Within a short time a four-wheeler had deposited us at the door of the great hospital. The house-officer was just coming out of the lady's hospital room as we turned down the dimly-lit corridor.

  "Ah, Mr. Lestrade," he cried upon seeing the inspector. "Have the police found something then?"

  "Well, not exactly," returned Lestrade. "I brought these gentlemen along by way of consultation. Dr. Stanley, this is Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and of course Dr. Watson. Dr. Stanley was on duty yesterday morning when the constables brought her around."

  Dr. Stanley blinked with interest at the name of my companion. "I have heard of you, of course, Mr. Holmes. A privilege, I'm sure." Dr. Stanley was a young man something under middle height, who peered at the world through thick-lensed, gold-rimmed glasses with an uncertain, flickering smile. He was clearly of the impoverished senior medical student type.

  "Has there been any change in her condition?" asked Lestrade. "Yes, indeed," said Dr. Stanley. "That is, I think so. She spoke to the nurses this morning; they managed to get some breakfast into her at last. So she can speak - I had been toying with the idea of complete aphasia, as from a stroke, even though she has no right-sided weakness; that would be a terrible thing in a woman so young."

  "What did she say?" asked Lestrade, highly interested. "She would scarcely even look at me yesterday, much less talk."

  "Well, not much," admitted Dr. Stanley. "Actually, all she said was 'Thank you.' But at least it was something. Yesterday I was thinking of diagnosing her as an hysterical cataleptic, but it won't wash. She's not hysteric nor cataleptic today, exactly; but she is still withdrawn. She sits and stares past one into space with a profound, um, indifference. She still will not talk to me. Perhaps you may have better luck; it's worth a try, anyway."

  He turned to escort us through the door. The plainly furnished little hospital room was lit by a cool grey light through a pair of tall, narrow windows. The patient we had come to see was sitting up against a pile of pillows upon her metal cot, dressed in a hospital gown, crisp white sheets pulled into her lap. She was a most extraordinary-looking woman. A thick, silken mane of lion-colored hair framed a pale face of prominent but very harmonious bone structure. High, white forehead, high, wide cheekbones, and a square jaw were accentuated by a thinness of flesh almost suggestive of undernourishment. Lips of palest coral were surmounted by a strong, straight nose and deep-set, crystal-grey eyes which took no notice of us at first, but seemed fixed upon the foot of the bed in an inward tenseness. She sat quietly but for some movement of her long, strong-looking hands, tracing small circles upon the hem of the sheet with a short, unevenly broken fingernail.

  "Hm," muttered Holmes, standing at the foot of the bed and looking down at her. He moved to the right side of the bed and lifted her hands. They were unresisting, but for the first time her eyelids flickered and it seemed to me she focused on my companion.

  "We see at once that she is right-handed, literate, and not a menial," he began, in the tone of a professor addressing his class. His acid-stained finger traced a prominent writer's callus upon the lady's right middle digit. "She has handled chemicals extensively. And she is a woman who cares little for social conventions. Can you see these very faint, washed-out stains upon her fingers?" I peered closely, barely able to distinguish the brownish marks he pointed out. "The lady smokes. Cigars, I think. She plays a stringed musical instrument-as a hobby, not professionally-probably a guitar. Unquestionably a guitar. She has not worn rings lately, which suggests she is unmarried, or has been widowed for some time."

  "Unquestionably unmarried," put in Dr. Stanley.

  "Ah? That is something, at least. Some fingernails broken, some bitten; none filed. I think we may take it that she has been in her trouble for several days at a minimum. But not, you see, more than three or four weeks-that by the age of the puncture marks upon her arms. These scrapes upon her palms date only from her adventures of night before last, however. Gravel. The cut upon her wrist is indeed from broken glass, also from night before last, and is the principal source of the bloodstains found upon the sheet. Let us see what her feet have to tell us."

  He began to drop the hands, but suddenly they tightened upon his own. The lady was now staring at him intently, and her own fingers began to trace over his hands. Her brow furrowed slightly as her index finger passed over a sticking plaster upon the back of his hand and began to turn up his left shirt cuff, then let it fall back into place abruptly. Holmes watched her with utmost intentness, head tilted to one side, an amazed half-smile upon his lips. She raised her chin to look him full in the face.

  "You are..." she began, and paused, the phrase unfinished. She spoke in a mellow alto so quiet I could scarcely catch her words. She appeared to think better of what she had been about to say, and let her hands fall back into her lap. She leaned back upon her pillows. "Go on," she said to Holmes. Holmes stepped back a pace, a tiny frown between his eyes. "She spoke to you!" cried Dr. Stanley in delight. "Somewhat nonsensically," put in Lestrade. "Her accent," I began, but Holmes held up a warning finger. "We shall return to her accent later."

  "But she can speak." Dr. Stanley stepped eagerly up to the bedside to capture one of those long white hands for himself. "Madam. What is your name?"

  It seemed to me she gave a tiny shake of her head, but she did not look up. Dr. Stanley gazed at her hopefully for a moment, then drew back with a sigh and a shrug. Holmes in the meanwhile completed a brief examination of the lady's feet.

  "The marks here also date from the night before last; none older. She has been accustomed to wearing well-fitting shoes. She has been quite athletic at one time but has led of late a more sedentary, indoor life. This burn scar upon her leg is many years old; it dates from the same period as that scar on her left arm, which, by the way, is undoubtedly a bullet wound."

  "But what does it all add up to?" asked Lestrade, more puzzled by this flow of information by the minute.

  "Well, both your frenzied housewife and your remorseful castaway vanish, I'm afraid. We are left," he went on more slowly, as if not yet absolutely sure of the points he was enumerating, "with a strong-minded, even somewhat eccentric spinster who has led a very active and unconventional youth, and who until a month ago made a decent living as either a chemist or a chemist's assistant."

  The grey eyes of the woman were fixed on the detective with a flame-like intensity, but she retained her masked silence.

  "You have solved it!" cried Dr. Stanley, who had been following Holmes's demonstration with close and amazed attention.

  "Hardly," responded Holmes dryly, wholly unflattered. "I cannot yet begin to suggest how such a woman could have turned up in her condition on the Thames Embankment at two in the morning. There is something very unlikely..."

  I could see something was puzzling my friend very much. He stood with his chin upon his hand a moment without completing his last thought, then returned to the head of the bed. He gently lifted the mass of tawny hair to look at the back of the lady's neck, then began to examine her scalp.

  "Too bad you washed her hair; there may have been something suggestive. .. Necessary, I suppose... Hm. Here, what's this? Now what do you make of that, Watson?" Holmes lifted a lock of the lady's hair to point out a small patch about the size of a farthing just above her right occipital area. "Shaved, I believe. Note that small circular scab in the center. Wait, here's another. Identical," he continued, lifting hair above the left occipital.

  "It looks like the mark of a hypodermic needle," I volunteered.

  Holmes raised an eyebrow. "A most peculiar place for an injection, is it not?"

  "Perhap
s it was intradermal," I suggested.

  Dr. Stanley examined it also. "I didn't spot these yesterday." He looked faintly nonplused. "I've never seen anything like it."

  Holmes reexamined the spots closely with his pocket lens. I could tell from the grim set of his features that some uncommonly unpleasant idea had occurred to him.

  "I say, Watson," he said, walking over to the window and lowering his voice, by which I understood he wanted a private word with me. I joined him, gazing down into a little courtyard formed by the labyrinthine angles of

  the old buildings. "I have an odd notion with regard to those spots, but I don't know if it's medically possible." He stared unseeingly down into the little gulf of air. "Suppose that for some reason, let us say to gain control of some property, someone wished to simulate an incapacitating stroke in a second party. Consider for a moment, Watson, how a frog is prepared for dissection."

  "Holmes, what a horrible idea!" I cried, as I caught the drift of his thinking.

  A little gesture of his hand warned me to keep my voice down. "The insertion of a needle, a little twist," his index finger twirled suggestively by way of demonstration, "and it would be done. It would leave practically no mark after the tiny spot had had a few days to heal. No trace at all once the scab dropped off and the hair grew back. But-is it possible?"

  "I'm not quite sure," I spoke slowly. "It would be a horrible shot in the dark for anyone but a skilled surgeon. The least little slip and it would be murder or some equally unpredictable effect."

  "Yes. The hand would have to be very skilled-or very lucky. The first hypothesis gives rather more to go on, although one can't entirely discount the second at this stage of the game. If it were so ..."

  "Yes?" I could see the idea was peculiarly appalling to him, though indeed it would be dreadful enough to anyone. It clearly stirred a horror and a pity in him. He shrugged, as though to shake it off.

  "I'm not sure it wouldn't be murder in either case. But we are getting rather ahead of our data. There are other possibilities. Electricity, perhaps?"