I was awakened the next morning with a firm shake of my shoulders. I snapped awake, prepared to defend against a threat, and saw Holmes standing over me. "I received word from Dr. Mauer that Silas Albright is dead."
"Dead?" I repeated. A sudden image of Mr. Blomberg, a silhouette framed by the light of his doorway, pointing his shotgun at Albright flashed into my mind.
"Quite so," Holmes replied. "Now come, Watson, we must move quickly, before Sheriff Sweet and Marshall Reagan trample the scene like a herd of buffalo."
With a groan, I hauled myself out of bed.
"Hurry, Watson, this may be our first substantial lead in either case."
I growled a rude reply which Holmes did not hear; he was already out of my room.
I dressed in a flurry of seconds and found myself ten minutes later in the back of a wagon driven by Dr. Mauer, blinking away sleep and torn between anticipation, dread, and regret that I would be forgoing breakfast.
Our destination was the Boyer River, nearly two miles west of town. The area was heavily wooded and the river, narrow in this region, was largely frozen over. Sheriff Sweet, Marshall Reagan, and Fr. Albright were already there.
Sweet was the first to approach us. "Thought you'd like to see this, Holmes, and that I might as well get your invasion out of the way, as you're sure to find out about this sooner or later."
"A wise decision," Holmes replied. "Where is the unfortunate Mr. Albright?"
Sweet led us into the grove of trees nearest us, and against a large oak lay the handsome scoundrel we had seen the night before, lying dead in the snow, the massive trunk and snowy ground flecked with frozen blood and gore. A gun was in his hand and his face was nearly unrecognisable. It was a gruesome sight.
Marshall Reagan spoke in an unsteady voice. "I—I think this note rather speaks for itself. The Sheriff found it in the dead man's pocket." He held a folded paper in his hand and did not look at the body in the snow.
"Which pocket?" Holmes asked.
"Lower coat pocket, our right and his left."
Holmes held out a thickly gloved hand and Reagan set the note in his palm. He unfolded it and began to read, brow furrowing as his eyes scanned down the page. When he was through, he handed it to me. "Cheap ink, cheaper paper, written under emotional stress while he was still indoors."
I nodded and read the missive.
To whom it may concern,
I'm not proud of who I am or what I've done. I wish I could start over, but I'd only make the same mistakes again. I'm a disgrace to my family and my town, and the woman I love will not have me. I don't want to be a burden to anyone any longer.
Silas Albright
When I had finished reading, I looked up to see Holmes was already carefully examining the area around the body. I made eye contact with Dr. Mauer. "May I?"
"A second opinion never hurts," he replied.
I knelt to the ground and examined the unfortunate man.
"He's been dead some hours now," I said. Between the cold air and rigor mortis, Albright was the definition of stone cold. "Bullet shattered the temporal bone above the left ear. Death was instantaneous."
Holmes nodded, lifting up Albright's right arm and examining the elbow with his magnifying glass. I glanced to Dr. Mauer, who nodded as well.
A thought struck me, and I stepped toward Marshall Reagan, who was some distance away, speaking quietly with the Sheriff. They stopped immediately when I approached.
"Was there anything else in the dead man's pockets?" I asked.
"Only the usual," Marshall Reagan replied.
Holmes was suddenly at my side. "Still, I should like to see whatever you found.
Thankfully, they acquiesced without further pressing. There was a watch, a mostly empty cigarette case, and a few odd coins. Holmes examined each object, then extended his hand with the watch in it. "What do you make of that, Watson?"
I picked up the watch, feeling like an understudy thrust onto the stage without time to memorize my lines. I vaguely recalled the details of Holmes' observations of my late brother's watch and looked for similar characteristics. This watch also had scratches around the hole, but nowhere else. I opened up the case. No markings were inside either.
"Well, I suppose he drinks," I began hesitantly, pointing out the scratches. "But there aren't any other scratches or dents, so he didn't keep it in a pocket with other hard objects."
Holmes motioned for me to continue.
"The owner was a reasonably careful person, since he was careful with his watch and apparently never had to pawn it, but he also drinks heavily enough to cause all these scratches."
"Good, Watson," said Holmes. "You are improving."
I felt my heart swell with pride.
"However, you missed all indications relevant to his demise."
I heaved a sigh, rather louder than I meant to and saw Fr. Albright and Marshall Reagan looking on with interest. The Sheriff and Dr. Mauer were moving Silas's body.
"Allow me to look at that watch for a moment," said Reagan. Holmes handed it to him and he scrutinized it closely.
"It's been taken apart," he noted. I looked over his shoulder and he pointed to four tiny dents just visible along the edge of the case.
"Strange," I intoned.
"Indeed," Holmes agreed. "Do you see anything else of note, Marshall?"
Reagan frowned and turned the article over in his hands. "It's a fine watch. Rather too fine, perhaps? Could he have inherited it?"
We looked to Fr. Albright.
"Was this your father's watch?" Holmes asked, taking it from Reagan and holding it toward the priest.
"No," Albright replied. "His was destroyed in the war. I've never looked too closely at Silas's watch—I don't know anything about it.
"Did your brother drink?" Holmes asked.
"Very little," Fr. Albright replied. "Whatever his other faults, drunkenness was not one of them."
Understanding dawned on me, but Reagan spoke before I could.
"Then this is likely not his watch at all!" he exclaimed. "Or, at any rate, he hasn't had it long, and somebody who did drink sold or gave it to him."
Fr. Albright quietly excused himself, departing for his home. I felt a pang of sadness watching him leave. He was a man who had just lost the last of his family.
A man I did not recognise approached us. "Are you gentlemen talking about Silas's watch? I'm Pat Lawler, by the way, his business partner." He extended a hand, and Holmes and I shook it and introduced ourselves in turn. "He only got that watch a week or so ago. I don't normally take note of that sort of thing, but he offered to sell me his old one for parts and I turned him down until he showed me he had another timepiece. I took him up on it then; one can never have too many gears."
"That is of interest," said Holmes, glancing over the watch again before handing it to Regan to keep with the other evidence. He looked curiously at Lawler for a moment. "But what brings you so far out of town this morning?"
Lawler frowned. "I was Silas's closest friend, and since Dr. Mauer and I live and work next door, he knocked on my door this morning to let me know. I came as soon as I could."
"The footprints!" said Holmes suddenly. "May I borrow one of the dead man's boots?"
With a grimace, Marshall Reagan dashed through the snow toward the retreating wagon Dr. Mauer drove, with Albright's body inside. Reagan stopped the wagon, retrieved a boot, and dashed back, panting. Dr. Mauer followed at a moderate walk.
Reagan handed the boot to Holmes, and we all looked on curiously as he compared the boots with some prints in the snow.
"Strange," said Holmes, rising to his feet and handing the boot to Dr. Mauer.
"What's strange?" asked Reagan, speaking for myself and Lawler; the Sheriff appeared disinterested.
"The prints were made to make it look as though there was only ever one set, when in fact there were three."
Reagan's eyebrow's shot into his hairline, no doubt a mirror of my own expression. Lawler and Dr. Mauer appeared similarly baffled. The Sheriff was nonplussed.
"One for Silas, one for the murderer's approach, and one for his departure."
Sheriff Sweet spoke, tone rife with skepticism. "A murderer followed closely in Albright's tracks without Silas hearing him, shot him, put the gun in his hand, and walked away backwards?"
Holmes shook his head. "No, it is more likely Albright knew he was being followed—that is why the note was written indoors—and rather than suggesting our killer walked backwards, I postulate that he leaned against the tree and reversed his boots before leaving. Observe the difference in pressure between those footprints and ours."
"By Jove," Marshall Reagan breathed. "You're brilliant, Mr. Holmes."
Holmes quirked a smile at the young man, but Sheriff Sweet was unimpressed. "Son, are you trying to tell me that this is all some elaborate set up and Albright didn't do himself in?"
"Yes," said Holmes simply.
The Sheriff crossed his arms and fixed my friend with a steely gaze. "You can spin mad stories till the cows come home, but there's one set of footprints, a note, and a gun in his hand. Maybe that's not as interesting as the sort of thing you investigate, Mr. London Detective, but it's what happened here."
"I would agree with you," said Holmes with a smile, "but then we would both be wrong."
The Sheriff's face reddened with anger, and he seemed to expand as he stood higher and squared his shoulders, becoming an imposing figure. He opened his mouth, closed it, and seemed to shrink again. "Well, you're welcome to believe any crackpot ideas you want—and that goes for you too, Reagan—but I need proof, real proof before I'll buy into anything other than the logical explanation at hand."
Holmes shrugged. "You work your way, and I shall work mine. Perhaps we will come to the same conclusions in the end. Good day, Sheriff."