The Reichenbach Problem Read online

  Reaching the feet, I noticed particularly the shoes: the scuff marks and the residue of soil and vegetation. It was moss and grass mainly, along the edge of the sole and upon the sole itself. I noted the condition of both soles, which were leather. By their wear, I should have said that they were at least a month old. More used to the scuffing that came from city streets than an alpine village with its preponderance of grass and earth tracks. They were worn pretty evenly on both balls of the feet and both outsides at the heels.

  I completed my initial observation and decided that the next thing was to search the pockets. I did not believe that this would have been done to date, since no one who had so far encountered the body, with the possible exception of Father Vernon, would have had cause to do so. The sum total of my inspection was a watch; some local currency; a wallet containing banknotes and other documentation; a fountain pen; a pipe; a tobacco pouch containing, according to the sweet aroma, Virginia tobacco; some matches and a striking case. In his trouser pockets I found just a handkerchief. Having showed them, one by one, to Holloway, I replaced them all and stood back.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “Well what?”

  “What next? Strip him down, I suppose. Do you want a hand?”

  I looked at Brown and considered. I was not squeamish. I had helped undress any number of bodies in my time; one or two in an advanced state of decomposition. Yet there was something about the sanctity of the environment, the violence of his end, and the fact that he was being honoured by this gentle laying-out, that stayed my hand. I could not bring myself to unbutton a single item of the unfortunate fellow’s clothing.

  Instead, I leaned forward and started to sniff. All those years ago at medical school I had had it drummed into me. When examining a patient, use all of the senses. I had looked. I had rummaged in his pockets but had found nothing that warranted tasting. Now it was smell. Apart from the first odours of corruption and the wet-wool smell, there was little else as my nose travelled along his body a few inches above the surface. Then, when I reached Brown’s face, I caught a whiff of something abnormal. Something herbal on his lips? Peppermint? What? I inhaled again and tried to place it. I beckoned Holloway over.

  “What is that smell on the lips, do you think?”

  Holloway bent to Brown’s mouth and breathed in. He looked up and exhaled. “Don’t know – liquorice?”

  “Yes. Bravo! But not liquorice. Anise-seed.”

  “Anise-seed? What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know, yet.”

  I continued my examination. Having finished with smell, it remained only for me to feel and to listen. I palpated the body through the clothes, twisting the limbs this way and that, gently turning the head first onto its left temple, and then onto its right. It was not easy – rigor mortis had set in. All the time I was listening for any unusual clicks, crackling or moist, even liquid, sounds. Noises that would indicate, for example, the presence of broken bones and the formation of any fluids under the skin.

  It was a long, laborious process. At last, I stood up and eased my aching back. I then declared myself to be satisfied that I had gleaned as much information from the body as was possible, considering the circumstances.

  “Finished? How can you be finished?”

  “I have all the information that I need from the cadaver.”

  “That’s nonsense. You have to examine the whole body – you haven’t even taken the jacket off.”

  “I have no need to…”

  “What do you mean, you have no need to? Of course you have need to. There could be stab marks, a gunshot wound, anything…”

  “They would have left a mark where they penetrated the clothing. You saw me roll the body over, first on one side and then the other. There were no such entry marks.”

  “But how can you tell if he’d been struck, or something, before he died?”

  I started to turn down the first oil lamp in the manner of a professor who had just successfully concluded another illuminating and engrossing lecture. “My purpose was not to determine the cause of death, but –”

  “Hang your purpose! Your squeamishness means that you have most probably missed vital evidence and, further, you have rendered all the risks we have taken here farcical and a waste of time.”

  “I can assure you, I am missing nothing that –”

  At that point, Holloway leapt from his observation point and knocked my hand away from the second lamp.

  “Don’t turn them down!”

  Too late, we both noticed that in the knocking away of my hand, the oil lamp had been overset and cast onto the flagged floor. The glass shattered, the oil spilled and the flame that had lain practically dormant burst from the wick. It began devouring the oil hungrily. A bright and, considering the small space, large and hungry flame resulted.

  “Run!” said Holloway, and bolted for the door.

  The flames were large, and the prospect of them growing larger was increasing by the second. Yet, while everything within me urged me to emulate Holloway and make good my escape, I could not leave the chapel, or Brown, to be consumed by the blaze.

  Pulling the top sheet away from Brown’s body, with a flourish of which a magician or a matador with his cape might be proud, I folded it in half two or three times and then dropped the wad on top of the flames. The rectangle was agreeably large enough and thick enough to cover the spreading fire, enclose it, deprive it of oxygen and, thankfully, within just a few seconds, extinguish it.

  I began to collect everything back up off the floor and restore what I might back in its rightful place; the lamp without its glass, the sheet, singed and crumpled, over Brown’s body, when Holloway hissed at me from outside the building.

  “Psst! Doyle!”

  “Yes?” I was haughty; I had stood upon the burning deck whence all but I had fled.

  “Quick! Get out of there. The padre’s coming.”

  The priest had been roused from the dreamless sleep of the innocent by the noises of the excitements of the past few minutes. I dropped everything and scuttled out of the building. Outside, Holloway was waiting for me, hopping from one foot to the other. Grabbing me roughly by the elbow, he bundled me off into the darkness.

  “Forgive us our trespasses, eh, Holloway?”

  We reconvened in my room at ten o’clock the next morning. The sun was high, but the morning’s lingering freshness hindered its sturdy heat. The sky was clear and the gleaming mountains sang their silent Gloria. I had been making some notes, so I set them aside when Holloway came in. I was interested to establish what impressions he had acquired of last evening’s escapade.

  “Never mind all that. The whole village is in a ferment. Eva told me. They’re clucking away like chickens with a fox in the coop. A person or persons unknown invaded the sanctity of the church at midnight and tried to cremate Brown’s earthly remains.”

  “By Jove! Is that what they are saying?”

  “Rumours and counter rumours abound, according to Eva. But the main contention is that it is either some form of devil worship or possibly a pagan funeral.”

  I could not resist a smile. “So, no one suspects us directly, nor what we were really there for?” Relief was starting to grow within me. Last night’s exploits had left me tense and strained and I had not slept at all well.

  “Who knows what they suspect, or whom? We were the two who asked to see him; we were the two who were refused. It would not take too long for someone to establish that with the vicar and reach his or her own conclusions. It is early days yet in the rumour-machine.”

  “Thank you, Holloway. Most reassuring. We can only hope that we were not seen, and that there was nothing left behind to connect us directly with the event.”

  “So, what did you get?” He took an apple from my breakfast table and sank his fangs into it.

  I cast a glance at my notebook, which was still on the table where I had been working on it, and then looked back at Holloway. “Before I say anything,
I would be interested to hear what you feel you found out last night.”

  Holloway snorted and shrugged. “Never mind me. You’re the doctor.” His eyes fell on my notebook and, before I could stop him, he had picked it up and had begun to read. After a moment or two he lowered it to his lap.

  “Is that it?”

  “How do you mean?” I responded, indignantly.

  “There you go again with your ‘how do you means’!” Then, referring to my notebook, he read aloud a few selected words and phrases: “‘Broken bones… lesions and abrasions… consistent with a fall down a rocky slope… alive… shoes… pipe knife… anise-seed…’ What is all this, Doyle?”

  “Well,” I replied, bristling, “if you would let me explain, rather than misappropriating my personal effects without so much as a by-your-leave, then we would progress this conversation more efficiently.”

  He looked at me, startled. In all the length of our – albeit brief but intense – association, this was the first time that he had actually noticed how disgruntled I was. There was no apology. I could not read contrition in his eyes. But he was compliant at last – which was a start.

  “Let me take you through all of this step by step,” I began, like the patient yet authoritative professor I had once had in Edinburgh – Dr Bell, upon whom I had based, at least in part, the character and methods of Sherlock Holmes. As I spoke, I began, most extraordinarily, to feel as though I were growing in stature and assurance. As if there may be something to this notional “spirit of Holmes” after all. Although I knew that, patently, it could not truly be the case. But suddenly, beyond stories and into the real world itself, all the concepts I had grappled with in Scarlet and Four and the other stories started to take shape. To coalesce. To gather into solid form and invest in me a degree of knowledge, wisdom and insight that, hitherto, I had not realized I possessed.

  The vague concept of the science of detection no longer seemed to me quite as fanciful as I had thought while composing my tales. To me, they were a good device and an excellent, original approach to mystery writing. But that was it. I no more believed that they were actually physically possible than to have a man with a wooden leg scale a mountain in real life. Although in literature, if wrought carefully and crafted dextrously, he would be able to attempt the climb, and every reader would cheer as he stood upon the summit and believe that if it were possible for him, then it could be possible for them. Wish that it were. Urge it to be so.

  There is a glass divide between fiction and reality. Although it would seem as if one might be part of the other, there is an impassable and invisible obstacle between the two. The art is to help readers – who are complicit in this – to suspend their disbelief. To start to want to accept that such-and-such a thing were possible even though they knew that it was patently impossible. Yet, as I related to Holloway my findings and my propositions, I began to think that, after all, there was indeed something very real about this science of deduction. And also, may I be forgiven my undisputed vanity, that I was actually really rather good at it.

  “First – broken bones, lesions, abrasions. From what I could feel and hear and see of them led me to the conclusion that he was still alive when he pitched – or was pitched – down the gorge or rock face on that fateful evening. I had no need to undress the gentleman since there was more than enough evidence on the surface for me to reach this conclusion. Moreover, I propose to wire the hospital in the valley and ask them, in my official capacity as a doctor, if they would be so good as to allow me sight of their post-mortem report, when they have completed it.”

  Understanding, and something which I was vain enough to believe was respect, began to dawn in Holloway’s ever-widening eyes. I continued.

  “In addition, you may recall in my tale A Study in Scarlet, Holmes’s character is introduced early on by description. This is given by an acquaintance of Watson’s called Stamford, who says that Holmes had been conducting dubious experiments upon cadavers by beating them, to analyse the extent that injuries manifest themselves after death. This is no mere fantasy, but was in fact testament to the genius of one of my tutors at Edinburgh, Dr Bell. It was a subject upon which he was most expansive and illuminating, and from which I learned a very great deal. I can assure you, therefore, that I discovered more than enough evidence in what I could see and feel to guarantee that Brown was still a living, breathing, sentient being as he fell. May God rest his soul.”

  Holloway shuddered. The horror of such a dread misfortune as to be fully conscious as you began the terrifying and grisly plummet to extinction, was too unbearable to contemplate.

  “Second, shoes. First, we note that the heels are worn down at the outside edge. This denotes a male; men tend as a sex to wear this part down rather than the inner. It is not significant – although it might be if another part of the heel were worn.”

  “Why?”

  “Because although Brown dressed like a man, he might possibly have been a woman, which would have explained his taciturn behaviour. But as he was not, the observation of the heels is of no further use to us. The smooth but worn leather on the soles, however, told me a completely different tale.”

  “What?”

  “That they were his daily wear in town; consistent with paving and cobbles, not country paths and mountain tracks. They were not walking shoes. There was no support for the ankles and, scuffed and bruised though they were, they were not damaged by continual use on mountains. More likely the damage was new and therefore consistent with a fall down a gorge. This proves very little in practical terms, other than that they were most probably the shoes he wore when he tumbled. The alpine grasses clinging to them bears this out. However, the significance of these shoes lies in the question: why was he wearing them? He was an experienced walker. He would know that to go up a slope after rain in town shoes with smooth leather soles would be sheer folly.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Third, I mention that there is no pipe knife in the list of his personal effects. Do you not consider this strange, Holloway? You know my own list of smoking implements: pipe, pouch, matches and… disembowelling tool. The tool which scrapes out the clinker welded on the inside of the bowl, tamps the newly rubbed tobacco firmly in place, and loosens it with the spike if it is too firm? It is indispensable. So, where is Brown’s?

  “Finally, the smell of anise-seed upon his lips and which, when I parted his jaw, was present within his mouth also… Strongly present, along with an odour which, if I dare leap to any conclusions at this desperately early stage, could only be alcohol.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My dear Holloway, why do you ask, ‘What do you mean?’ Do you not have any thoughts of your own?”

  “He had been drinking.”

  “It is one possibility. Nevertheless, again I should rather receive the post-mortem report from the valley hospital before any further conjecture of this nature.”

  “And the anise-seed?”

  “There, I would dare to venture, lies the key to this whole mystery. In terms of simple facts, although one might also fairly place what I am about to say in the realm of conjecture also, the herb is a quite common additive in a number of strong alcoholic liquors. The French, and by close association the Swiss, and the Germans are particularly partial to this flavouring as they complete the distilling process.”

  “So, what should we do now?”

  I deliberated. It was hard to know exactly what to do with all this information. We, or rather I, had established some anomalies that begged further investigation at the very least. Should I, perhaps, bring my findings to the police? Well, no, I couldn’t, because they would like to know, with justifiable reason, how I had come by such evidence. This, therefore, left me outside the law, yet working to uphold it. I have to say that I found the thought quite diverting.

  But only for a moment. A greater realization was hard on its heels. I had, after all, broken into a church. I had also caused criminal damage. It wasn’t
serious and I doubted I would have more than a fine to discharge my obligations to society, if ever I found myself before a magistrate. But the concern was how any information of this nature would be received at home if it became public. Touie would understand; she always does. But my “public” and my publishers? The gentlemen of the press? I wished, above and beyond Holmes, to be taken seriously as an historian and literate novelist. How would such mischief advance my ambitions? And as for my being a medical man… To all intents and purposes, it could easily be interpreted as a macabre act equal to the worst excesses of Messrs Burke and Hare. A doctor practising on a corpse of someone who wasn’t even his patient? I could be struck off.

  The thought was too awful to dwell upon. It made it all the more clear to me that I needs must try to discover whomever, if anyone, killed Brown. Once that person, or persons, were discovered by me, my minor unorthodoxy could be forgiven in the light of the greater good. The thought that I might have to see the whole business through to its bitter conclusion provided cold comfort. All I had wanted to do was to come for two weeks and clear away the cobwebs. What if everything I undertook from here on did not resolve before the end of my stay? What if I were identified as the chapel invader before I had a chance to advance my theories? What if something worse happened to me?

  I shivered again and decided that such speculation served little purpose save to create a sense of dread and undermine confidence. I had a great deal of confidence. If only I would take a moment and employ it. Had I not expertly read all the signs upon Brown’s body as if reading a textbook? Had I not established, beyond reasonable doubt, that something untoward had happened upon that mountain two nights ago? Had I not revealed that Holmes’s methods were, indeed, practicable in the real world beyond the pages? I should have more faith in myself.