detectable now.
“Voila tout!” Holmes exclaimed as he wrung his bony, acid-stained hands. “This surely will inspire the tongues to wag at the nascent fingerprint bureau of Scotland Yard! Imagine what this development could have accomplished in the Yard’s failed prosecutions of the scoundrel Jeremy Conway or the international swindler Benito Zito. I should think my finding will receive prominent mention in your chronicles, Watson.”
Holmes could hardly contain his excitement, so he persuaded me to help carry the glass globe, the burner, and the vial of iodine solution to Scotland Yard, where, with his flare for the dramatic, he recreated the scene in the hospital laboratory and demonstrated the technique for the incredulous fingerprint bureau personnel and a handful of sceptical inspectors. They were astonished, to say the least, at the result.
“I shall hazard a guess that one or two of you might find this somewhat useful in the future,” Holmes predicted, an understatement he intended for emphasis.
* * * *
Little did we know then that Holmes’s new method would play a key role in the adventure that awaited us upon our return to the flat at Baker Street, a ghastly case that took us to the sleepy farming village of Tarleton in the marshy Lancashire District, three hundred kilometers to the northwest of London.
When we arrived home, Mrs Hudson greeted us at the door to inform Holmes that a young special constable from the distant country town was in our sitting-room with a problem he chose not to discuss with her.
“I can’t tell you what it’s about because he wouldn’t confide in me,” she sniffed. “His name is Hubert Roddy.”
We went up the stairs and into our apartment, Holmes extending his hand and introducing himself. He told Roddy who I was and said I was helpful in many of the investigations Holmes had undertaken. Roddy, standing erect and alert, told Holmes no introduction was necessary because he had read my accounts of the exploits and admired how Holmes had solved the crimes.
“I hope my visit here will cause the same successful consequences in Tarleton,” he began. “I implore you, Mr Holmes, to lend your assistance in an urgent matter.” Roddy explained that what appeared to be a routine missing person enquiry had evolved into a grisly murder mystery over the last several weeks.
“Tell me more, Constable Roddy, I am all ears,” Holmes commented. “I am unoccupied for the time being and a trip to the hinterlands could be invigorating as well as challenging.”
Roddy continued: “This is my first exposure to a killing, Mr Holmes, and I am afraid that I must admit I am at a total loss as to how to proceed. If only the victim, James Harley Carroll, could talk, I wouldn’t be here to trouble you. But he can’t talk for two reasons, the first being that he is dead, of course, and the second because he has lost his head. Mr Carroll, one of our most prosperous grain farmers, was decapitated when his body washed up on the shore of the River Douglas to the east of the village.”
“Without a face to recognise,” Holmes interrupted, “how did you come to learn the identity of the remains?”
“As I said, Mr Carroll had been reported missing two weeks prior to the torso washing ashore,” Roddy answered, “and our town doctor who examined it noticed a fresh surgical scar on the abdomen. He reported that the incision had been made by him when he operated on Mr Carroll to repair a hernia just two months before. In addition, the clothing on the body was identified as what Mr Carroll was wearing when he was last seen.”
“Last seen by whom?” Holmes wanted to know.
“By the stable boy at Mr Carroll’s farm, a lad eighteen years of age—the person who filed the missing person information.”
“Pray tell,” Holmes went on, “what have you learned of Mr Carroll’s history?”
“He had led an interesting life, Mr Holmes,” said Roddy, “and only a fraction of it in Tarleton. Mr Carroll was raised there as an only child. His parents died of the plague when he was in his early twenties, and they bequeathed to him the expansive farm of nearly five hundred hectares. He left it in the care of a neighbour, who treated it as his own, while Mr Carroll went off to America to seek his fortune. He prospected in the western state of Utah and located a rich silver deposit, becoming the owner of a mine and a man of wealth.
“Mr Carroll bought cattle ranches in the Wyoming territory and eventually retired a millionaire, returning to his estate in Tarleton to spend the last of his years as a country gentleman.
“When Dr Brem performed the autopsy, Mr Carroll’s signature leather wallet, made from the hide of one of his steers and engraved with his initials, was not in his pocket, nor was there on his hand a gaudy silver ring with the letter C on the top. I have been working on the theory that the motive for this homicide was robbery, but I have no suspects. In a nutshell, that is where the case stands. Needless to say, I am experiencing severe pressure from community leaders and my superiors in the county police force to make an arrest, which is why I am turning to you, Mr Holmes.”
“Your dilemma,” Holmes informed the special constable, “arouses considerable curiosity in me. But before I agree to assist you in your probe, please answer some basic questions. One, did Mr Carroll have any enemies or feuds with anyone in the village?”
Roddy paused to think, then: “No enemies, for certain, Mr Holmes, but he was on the outs with Mr McNaughton, the local grain merchant, over the amount Mr McNaughton paid Mr Carroll for ten wagon-loads of oats.”
Holmes asked if Mr Carroll had associated with others in the village.
“He was friendly with everyone, but he was particularly close to his neighbour, Sir Ethan Tarleton, a boyhood friend whose ancestors founded the village. Mr Tarleton is in extremely poor health and Mr Carroll would visit with him frequently to cheer him up. It was Mr Tarleton who acted as caretaker of Mr Carroll’s farm while he was in the United States. Mr Tarleton has a son who lives with him and cares for his needs, along with a sister who lives in the village. The son, Zachary, is very protective of the family heritage and has held the family farm together ever since Sir Ethan’s health failed.”
“Did Dr Brem establish the cause of death to be anything prior to the beheading?” Holmes asked.
“There were no other fatal wounds or marks on the torso,” Roddy responded, “but without the head the autopsy was rendered incomplete.”
Holmes enquired if Mr Carroll left any heirs or a last will and testament.
“He was a man alone in this world, Mr Holmes, with no descendants or kin. I personally searched thoroughly his home and effects, but found nothing to indicate who would inherit Mr Carroll’s farm and his money. I suppose it’s a matter for the lawyers to haggle over as to who will benefit from Mr Carroll’s demise.”
Holmes concluded the interrogation with this question: “Was the neck wound jagged, as if the head had been hacked off with an axe, or was it a single, clean cut, such as what might be dealt by a sharp instrument, a knife or a wire perhaps?”
“Mr Holmes, it was as if he had been executed with a guillotine,” Roddy revealed.
“This puzzle beckons me to find the missing pieces,” Holmes said. “You are welcome to have dinner with Dr Watson and me, rest here tonight, and accompany us on the train tomorrow.”
Roddy politely declined the invitation, saying he had been away long enough and that he would board a train leaving Clapham Junction that evening.
“I had best be on my way if I am to be on time—and thank you both for your attention to my problem,” he said, adding as he departed: “You won’t find a hotel in Tarleton, but you may take up lodging in Mr Carroll’s empty house, because it is still in my custody. I shall leave the key in the postman’s box.”
Afterwards, Holmes said little. He was deep in thought. Once, he blurted: “As I have said before, Watson, there is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.”
And later, during supper at Simpson’s: