Sherlock Holmes & the Red
Roses
And now that I have the proper time to put quill to paper, I shall recall another mystery of the famous and very clever Sherlock Holmes. It was the night of September the twelfth during which Holmes and I were recalling our past times while smoking our pipes next to the fire when a knock upon the door arose.
"Come in, Mr. Hidalgo," said Holmes
"How do you do that?" I questioned him, but did not get a response, for Mr. Hidalgo, a friend of Holmes, had just entered. He told us about the event that had happened the night before in the London streets.
"This morning I with other witnesses found the corpse of Mrs. Jane Walker on the corner of Bells and Adin Avenue. The cause of death is now presumed to be strangled by her murderer."
"This sounds like another mystery for us, Holmes," I said.
"Indeed, my dear Watson," said Holmes as he grabbed his coat and cap and we headed out the door.
When we got to the scene of the crime, we clearly saw the ring around her neck. Holmes examined the body while I looked around for more clues. After not finding any more evidence, I went back to Holmes just as he was asking the police to take the body to the morgue.
After visiting the scene of the crime, Holmes wanted to go interrogate Mr. Walker, Jane's husband.
"Why would that be, Holmes," I questioned.
"Inside of Mrs. Walker's overcoat was a small notation from Mr. Walker."
"Oh, I see."
"But we'll have to wait until tomorrow to visit him for it is almost midnight now."
"Dear, Dear; I hadn't noticed"
Early the next morning, Holmes awaked me. "Quickly Watson, I have an appointment with Mr. Walker promptly at seven
o'clock."
"I'll be ready soon, Holmes," I replied.
We arrived at Mr. Walker's home soon enough and he gladly invited us in.
"Welcome, welcome," he said, followed by a yawn. "Help yourself to some biscuits," he said after leading us into the living room.
"No, thank you, though," Holmes said as I helped myself to one. "Would you mind telling me about your past? I see you must have been involved somewhat in drama, may I presume?" He said while looking around at the lavishly decorated home with some articles that had a connection to drama.
"Ah, yes. You see, in my early days, I was an actor. That is where I met Jane. A year later, we were married. That was eight years ago from yesterday. It was quite unfortunate that she happened to be murdered on our anniversary." Mr. Walker turned away quickly to hide a tear.
"I give my sympathy to you," said Holmes.
"Thank you, thank you. Let me continue. When we got married, that meant also meeting my sister Margot. From the time they met until the last couple days of her life, they never got along together much. I thought they might finally get along a little better when Margot bought Jane some perfume."
"Do you still have the perfume, perhaps?" asked Holmes.
"Yes, let me get it." Said Mr. Walker as he got up and went to the tabletop to get the perfume. He then handed it to Holmes and Holmes smelt it.
"Ah, yes. I remember this from when I was at the-I'm so sorry," he replied quickly.
"That's alrightâ¤|Do you think that this could have anything to do with my wife's death?"
"I'm not quite sure at the moment, but I will investigate later," replied Holmes.
"Thank you," said Mr. Walker in gratitude.
"How about yourself? What did you purchase for your wife?" I asked
"Oh-I bought her some lovely red roses; let me go get them. It will just take me a second since they are in her bedroom." Mr. Walker went up to a door and tried to open it, but it was locked. "How peculiar. |I just went in here an hour ago! |Well, I'm so dreadfully sorry, but I must ask you to leave, for I need to attend work promptly at eleven o'clock."
"That is alright. We have had a nice time spent with you. Come Watson. We must be off now," said Holmes.
"Thank you for your hospitality and the biscuits," I said as we exited the house. "It seems we still have much of this mystery to solve, Holmes."
"Or do we?" replied Holmes.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I'm starting to fit together the puzzle pieces. I just need to hear the results of the autopsy."
"Yes, that would help us tremendously to solve this crime," I replied.
Back at 221b Baker Street, the real cause of death was revealed finally at half past eight.
"After many examinations of the corpse, " reported Dr. Manson, the morgue founder, "Dr. Jamison and I have concluded that the cause of death was not of the murderer strangling the victim, but being exposed to the poisonous gas of sodium cyanide."
"I knew it! Come, Watson, quickly!" exclaimed Holmes. "It all fits together now! We shall bring justice to Mrs. Jane Walker!"
Off we were again and when we arrived at our destination, I was surprised to see that it was Mr. Walker's home. "But Holmes-I don't understand. How did you know?" I asked, being very shocked in deed.
"Soon enough, you will see," replied Holmes.
We barged inside of Mr. Walker's home to find Mr. Walker now standing up from reading his novel. He was very surprised indeed at our entrance. "Holmes! Watson! What is the meaning of this?"
"We have solved the mystery of your wife's death!" proclaimed Holmes. Mr. Walker stayed silent. "The first thing I notice when we came to visit you was how tired you looked. I then noticed a sliced lemon as we passed your kitchen--"
"What should that have to do with it?"
"Please Mr. Walker; if you would listen and I shall show you the murderer. The next thing I noticed was how you seemed quite against your own sister, Margot, as if to push our investigation over to her." Holmes was now talking quite fast. " I also saw a slice of wrinkly lemon out on the counter; it looked as though it had been used days ago and left out. You put a single drop of the lemon juice in the water of which preserved the roses on the nightstand, you then added sodium cyanide which releases a deadly gas. Careful not to inhale even a single breath of it, you covered you face with that hanker-chief on the mantel. Then you put it back on the nightstand and waited for her to go to sleep in her deadly bedroom. Once inside went back inside to retrieve the body. You took the body outside on the dead streets of London in complete darkness and made it look as though she had been strangled," Holmes concluded.
"Very impressive, Detective Holmes. But tell me this. Why did I do it?" questioned Mr. Walker very bitterly.
"Ah, I can answer this, too. When you got back later that night, you still had not gotten any sleep. The following morning you had to attend work promptly at eleven o'clock. When you got off work most likely around nine o'clock (I found this since you could not afford these furnishings with much less of a work schedule), you hadn't had any sleep for almost thirty-six hours. Recovering only about ten hours last night, you still were quite drowsy today when we came to investigate you. And seeing you haven't taken your weekly bath yet, you will see you still have a little bit a make-up underneath your chin. This is most likely the woman's make-up of which you have been having an affair with (Mr. Walker looking quite embarrassed at this moment). Starting to dislike your present wife more and more, you decided to put her to her death." Holmes now looked very satisfied with himself.
"Ah! I remember. You were an actor, so those drips of tears that appeared when we spoke of your deceased wife were all very wonderful acting." I said.
"Good thinking, Watson."
"And I was so close to getting away with it! You fools!" shouted Mr. Walker angrily.
Just then the police arrived on the scene that Holmes sent note to and took Mr. Walker away to his new home: the jail.
So this concludes one of my favorite adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Until I again have the time to write about Holmes, my quill and parchment shall remain in the desk.