The three of us spent the next half an hour asking questions to one another. We first established there were no familial ties between Sherlock Holmes of the current time and Sherlock Holmes from the future— at least, none of which we could reasonably trace without a detailed genealogy book. In case a client or a member of the police would visit us before Master Harry could resolve the portal problem, Holmes instructed Mr. Sherlock Holmes from the future, who insisted that we call him Sherlock, to claim he was his cousin.
"You have a considerable number of uncles and aunts?" asked Sherlock.
"Not a common thing anymore in your time period, I take it?" remarked Holmes, shocking me more than a little at the implications of this statement.
"We don't have as many children. I think the average birth rate is around 1.85," Sherlock replied.
Sherlock then inquired into Holmes's resume. He appeared deeply amused when Holmes told him he was a private consulting detective.
"So when the police are out of their depth, they consult you?" he asked.
I felt annoyed at his ironic tone.
"He stands alone in Europe as an investor of crime, both in his gifts and in his experience," I said tersely.
Sherlock's amusement lingered, "Famous?"
"Thanks to my chronicler here," said Holmes.
Sherlock smiled broadly but didn't comment on the matter.
We quickly moved to questions related to the future, particularly those related to scientific advancements. It soon became clear the difference in scientific knowledge of our time and that of our guest was simply too vast to cover. Moreover, Sherlock simply assumed his gadgets worked and never thought it necessary to inquire how they worked in depth, very much like the way Holmes and I assumed telegraphs and plumbing worked and felt betrayed whenever they did not. Thus Sherlock couldn't explain very well the mechanics behind a smartphone, let alone a time-jumping portal.
"It astonishes me that things so miraculous and marvelous would fail to draw a sense of wonder," said I.
Sherlock shrugged his shoulders.
"Overexposure and over-familiarity breeding contempt," he said. "It doesn't help the Market introduces a new gadget every quarter."
That moment, our doorbell rang. Holmes and I both remembered Sherlock's appalling state of dress, completely unfit for polite company, so we wasted no time rushing Sherlock into Holmes's bedroom to find suitable attire for him. Much to our consternation, we discovered Sherlock, while an equal to Holmes in height, had a much healthier and broader frame.
"Mr. Holmes? Dr. Watson?" inquired the voice of Inspector Stanley Hopkins of the Scotland Yard
I quickly reentered the sitting room to greet the young Inspector. After shaking hands, I told Hopkins that Holmes was in and would meet him shortly. As we waited, I found myself in a bit of a conundrum. On the one hand, I devoutly hoped Sherlock would remain hidden, lest his lack of everyday knowledge of my time may land him into trouble. On the other hand, I couldn't help but desire to see how he would react to the current-day police.
About five minutes later, Holmes and Sherlock re-entered the sitting room. Sherlock was wearing a blue tie that did his plum-coloured shirt no favours, a woolly waistcoat completely at odds with the silky texture of the shirt's fabric, and a dusty black jacket that clashed horribly against his sleek black trousers, which I only then noticed had a scandalously low waistline.
"Good Morning, Mr. Holmes," said Inspector Hopkins, as he regarded Sherlock curiously. "I didn't realize you already had a guest."
"Pray remain in your seat, Inspector," said Holmes, mischief twinkling in his grey eyes. "Hopkins, let me introduce you to my cousin, Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock, this is Inspector Stanley Hopkins from Scotland Yard."
Hopkins' jaw dropped in the wake of this statement. Sherlock gave the young police officer a brief smile before resuming a more saturnine expression.
Hopkins eventually regained his wits.
"Excuse me, sir, that was most unexpected," Hopkins stammered. "Is he your namesake, Mr. Holmes?"
"I was christened by parents who were unaware that I had a cousin who would later become famous," said Sherlock smoothly. "Please excuse my state of dress. I'm afraid my own has met an unfortunate demise in the chemical experiment I've been assisting my cousin in."
I privately marvelled at the ease in which Sherlock preemptively deflected Hopkins' scrutiny. The Inspector, to my dismay, had noticed the incongruity of Sherlock's attire, but his sense of discretion prevented him from mentioning it. The excuse that he was borrowing Holmes's clothes due to an unfortunate accident was a perfect cover.
"So what has brought you here this morning, Hopkins?" asked Holmes, after everyone seated themselves.
"A potential murder case, Mr. Holmes," said Hopkins, as he hastily drew a scrap of paper from his pocket. "Peter Rance is the dead man. He was forty-five years of age, and, prior to his death, a sailor by trade. A constable found him lying on the ground in an alley Tuesday morning. He first supposed Rance was a common drunkard sleeping off last night's gin, but then he noticed the dark puddle underneath the body. When the constable came and flipped him over, he discovered the man disemboweled with his stomach torn open."
Silence reigned in our rooms as we imagined the gruesome scene Inspector Hopkins described.
"How did you uncover the man's identity?" Sherlock asked, breaking the silence.
"Rance died right next to the boarding establishment he lived," Hopkins answered. "The landlord identified him as Peter Rance at once."
"I presume you interviewed the remaining boarders, once you had taken over the case," said Holmes.
"Yes, sir," said the Inspector, "and every single person told me they heard a loud yell at one o'clock in the morning, on the day Rance died. Since it was no unusual thing for him to bawl and shout when he was in drink, no notice was taken. His wife and children fled their rooms when they heard him coming, at around the same time the boarders heard Rance yell. Mrs. Rance told me her husband might have accidentally fallen out of the window and landed on a broken bottle."
"How likely is this?" Holmes asked.
"That's precisely the question that has been plaguing me," said Hopkins dejectedly. "The late Peter Rance was an intermittent drunkard, and when he had the fit on him, he was a perfect fiend. He has been known to flog his wife and children in the middle of the night until the whole street was aroused by their screams. He was summoned once for a savage assault upon an old vicar, who had called upon him to remonstrate with him upon his conduct. I need not say that he was loathed and avoided by every one of his neighbours, and that I have not heard one single word of sorrow about his terrible end. Yet at the same time, everyone was quick to affirm their and the wife's innocence."
Holmes started rubbing his palms, a clear sign the case intrigued him.
"I see your conundrum," said he. "Mr. Rance, being the sort of man that he was, had no shortage of people who wished him harm. That makes every person in the boarding establishment a suspect. Indeed, there is even the possibility that Rance had fallen off a window by accident, but his neighbours, who had heard his cries for help, chose not to give him assistance."
"The thought crossed my mind as well," said Hopkins. "I also considered the possibility Mrs. Rance had committed the murder and then convinced her neighbours to vouch for her innocence. However, Peter Rance's widow doesn't appear to have the necessary gumption to kill her husband. She is a furtive and fearful soul, Mr. Holmes. You will have to go far to find someone as worn out from enduring much hardship and ill-usage as she."
"What about the children?" Sherlock asked.
"Completely out of the question!" exclaimed Hopkins, looking quite scandalized, "The eldest is a daughter; a pale, fair-haired waif of a girl, no older than thirteen. The two remaining children are ten and six respectively."
"I suppose their age makes their culpability low," said Sherlock sardonically. "On what floor did the Rances live?"
"The third."
"And the rooms had actual windows?" Sherlock asked.
"Yes. I've confirmed it with my own eyes. The letter that alerted me about the case noted the open window. In my returning telegram I included instructions to leave it as is."
"Did you examine the grounds?" asked Holmes.
"I know your methods, Mr. Holmes, and I applied them," Hopkins said. "Before I permitted anything to be moved I examined most carefully the ground outside the building. Unfortunately, they were cobble, so finding footprints was nearly impossible. But I found shards of glass underneath as well as in the body, and there were broken bottles scattered all around it. Thus I hypothesized a broken bottle directly caused Rance's death."
Sherlock's eyes started to glitter. "What about the blood stains?"
"There was the pool of blood under the victim, as I mentioned before, and there was blood splattered all around the body."
"How big was the puddle? And what did the blood splatter pattern look like?" asked Sherlock irritably. "Big? Small? Circular? Elongated? Don't tell me you didn't take note of this!"
Hopkins frowned as he probed his memory.
"I can't say for certain what the pattern looked like," he said slowly. "But I did note they were only present on the cobble and the lower portion of the walls boarding the alley in which Rance was found dead."
"How wide is this alley?" asked Holmes
"I didn't think to measure it, sir," said the Young Inspector, wincing when Holmes gave him a hard look. "But I can tell you that it was wide enough for a constable to pass through comfortably."
Holmes was lost in thought for some time.
"Well," he said at last, "I suppose I shall have to come out and have a look at it."
Stanley Hopkins gave a cry of joy.
"Thank you, sir. That will indeed be a weight off my mind."
Holmes shook his finger at the inspector.
"I would have given you a definite answer right now had you not failed to measure the length of the alley and the size of the pool of blood," said he. "At any rate, you should be able to draw a reasonable conclusion based on the evidence we already have. It's quite obvious."
"Transparent," Sherlock agreed.
Hopkins blinked at the two Sherlock Holmeses, looking amazed.
"Come," I protested. "This is too much. How could you possibly make a guess?"
"One needs only use his imagination," said Holmes, his eyes closed. "Suppose Mr. Rance was murdered. Then he was either murdered in close proximity to his rooms or he was murdered elsewhere. Considering his neighbors heard his last cry – the yell at one o' clock – and the amount of blood pooled underneath his body, it is the former."
"The next question to ask is: where exactly did he die," said Sherlock. "It's either in his rooms or in the alley. If he was killed in his rooms, you would've found blood all over it, considering the nature of his wound. But no, you didn't find any; you only found them in the alley. So, the alley is where Rance met his death. Obvious."
"Indeed," said Holmes, his eyes still closed, but a subtle smile upon his lips. "Now we must ask the question: in what manner did Rance meet his death? We know he had been disemboweled. You also found bottles all around the body. The scene suggests the bottle was the direct cause of death. Simple reasoning, however, suggests the cause is something else entirely."
"How so?" asked Hopkins.
"Have you ever tried to run a glass bottle through a body?" Sherlock asked. "I attempted to run a dead pig with a harpoon once for an experiment. I proved without sufficient entering velocity, the harpoon just bounces off the soft tissue, and the only way an average person can cause serious damage is to strap the body on the ground and drive the harpoon downwards. But even if you manage to impale the torso this way, you still have a devil of a time removing the spear-end. Conclusion: A flimsy bottle doesn't stand a chance."
"You confirm my suspicions, Sherlock, as well as relieve me the bother of performing the experiment myself," said Holmes, smiling. "So what made an energetic gentleman like you engage in such vigorous exercise?"
Sherlock shrugged. "I was bored."
Hopkins and I wordlessly gaped at the two for some time.
"So the broken bottles may be just a blind?" asked Hopkins.
"More than possible; I would say probable," said Sherlock. "You can always experiment if you're skeptical. Just place some bottles under a third story window and throw a cadaver out of it."
Hopkins clutched his head and gazed at Sherlock with awe-struck wonderment. Holmes, on the other hand, chuckled appreciatively.
"My cousin is a man after our own heart, Watson," he said. "Will you be joining us, Sherlock, I'm sure?"
Sherlock abruptly turned expressionless as he sat absolutely still and silent. It was clear to me he was warring against a temptation he knew better than to give in to.
In the end, Sherlock let out a long sigh that seemed to emerge from the depths of his soul.
"I will not, I'm afraid," said Sherlock regretfully. "I must wait for my family to call."
"...I see," said Holmes, looking quite put-out. "Yes, you do have your obligations ... But you can, at the very least, remain until the end of the case?"
"Of course."
"Excellent," said Holmes, now cheerfully rising to his feet. "Watson, if you can spare the time I should be very glad of your company. If you will call a four-wheeler, Hopkins, we shall be ready to start in a quarter of an hour."
Hopkins, who had been watching Holmes and Sherlock with his mouth slightly parted and his eyes as round as teacups, jerked out of his reverie and clumsily began to gather his bearings. I went to help the Inspector as Holmes went to retrieve his coat and hat. Sherlock remained in his seat, and carelessly took out his smartphone and started poring over it. His manifest eccentricity and air of mastery, however, made Hopkins overlook his astonishing behaviour.
"Mr. Holmes' cousin is the most remarkable person, Dr. Watson," Hopkins declared after we left the sitting room.
"That he is," I agreed.
"Was our Mr. Holmes like that when you first met him?" Hopkins asked.
I was intrigued by this question. I, too, had noticed the complex similarity between Holmes and Sherlock, and wondered what to make of it.
"Not quite, and yet, I couldn't help but notice how similar they are," I said. "I would've said it must be an inherited trait had I not learned about Holmes' ancestry during the case of the Greek Interpreter."
"I remember that case," said Hopkins thoughtfully. "Country Squires, weren't they?"
I nodded. Holmes joined us at the hallway afterward, and so the three of us headed downstairs. Soon we were driving through the winding streets of London.
The trip was a silent one, for each person was deep in their own thoughts. Unlike my companions, my thoughts were far from the peculiar death of Peter Rance. Instead, they dwelt upon Sherlock and his family, particularly his wife.
Who was this no-doubt remarkable woman, I wondered. Clearly, she captured the heart of a man so similar to Holmes, whose opinion of the fairer sex is of record, and this fact alone elevated her to lofty heights in my eyes. Indeed, the more I mused over this mysterious woman, the more I was gripped with an intense desire to meet her. So strong was my curiosity, I actually considered asking Sherlock if I may view a family photograph upon our return. My delicacy, however, made me shy away from a course of action that would force another man to disclose his private details to me.
Our four-wheeler eventually came to a lurching stop, and thus broke me away from my divergent thoughts.
"Swandam Lane," Hopkins announced.
~*~
Notes: I'll be posting the next and final part on Friday! I hope you enjoyed. Please vote!