Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the
Incinerated EvidenceI looked at Mr. Holmes, trying to read his face, but he showed no emotion during our chess games. I captured his king's pawn with great trepidation, only for him to turn about and check my king in a single puff of his pipe. Only then did I notice that it was mate. I handed him my finished king to signal my concession to him as we both rose.
"Good game, old fellow," I politely stated as we shook hands.
"A victory it was indeed, but it's only good in the pursuit, my dear Dr. Watson," Holmes related. I nodded my agreement.
Just then, the petite bell which hung near the office door gave a dainty report. I walked over to open the door as Holmes looked toward it. I opened it to find a portly fellow with thin-rimmed spectacles perched upon his middle-sized protuberance. He had a generous face, like that of a child's grandfather.
"Good day, my apothecary Watson, " he said smilingly as he shook my hand. "And Holmes! How wonderful to finally meet you, sir."
"Lucius Anderson Waterhouse, I presume," Holmes said. "I have heard of wonders coming from your laboratories. A great scientist, a great firm indeed."
"Well, great may be overstated, but I appreciate the superlative nonetheless," Lucius chuckled.
"So, what brings you about Baker Street, Mr. Waterhouse?" I inquired.
"A mystery at my laboratories. One of my scientists has... died," he stated gravely and hesitantly. "A most loyal worker of mine who was working overnight with extremely cold materials &endash; dry ice and the such &endash; in a small laboratory. We call it haunted, (I sometimes wonder if it's true), and he was simply dead in the morning."
"Has an autopsy been conducted?" Holmes asked.
"No," replied Lucius quickly. "His relatives, who must have been in shock, had his body incinerated without calling the authorities. I'm sure Scotland Yard has dropped by to chastise them."
"I'm sure," Holmes replied curtly. "This definitely complicates the matter. I suppose you want me to conduct a thorough investigation."
"Exactly. I don't want any rumors of scandal tainting my- our laboratory's name."
"Let's go, then. Lead on, Mr. Waterhouse." Holmes took his overcoat, and I mine, and we followed Mr. Waterhouse out to the foggy London evening.
It was a long walk to the laboratories, although we walked briskly through the now senile dusk of London. Finally, we came upon a building which resembled the others. However, a sign hung above the door, which was barely lit by a small gas lamp.
"CERN Labs," read Lucius proudly."
Holmes looked at the sign, then at Lucius. "Not a catchy name, Mr. Waterhouse. What does it stand for?" Lucius shrugged. I stifled a small laugh.
Lucius led us up a few dew-drenched stairs and through a heavy door into the laboratories. Once inside, the setup almost resembled a modified house. It appeared that several walls had been removed, leaving an open space which was covered with tables. Upon these tables sat evidence of several running experiments. In the back were a few doors which were labeled "Specialized Laboratories." They appeared to be large closets, or small bedrooms.
"This is the main laboratory of our firm," explained Lucius. "Our mysteriously deceased doctor, Dr. Mitchell Yukon, was working in this specialized laboratory." He gestured to the room on the farthest right. We walked toward it, in a small queue, and Mr. Waterhouse opened the door which opened with a mysterious creak.
The room indeed had very tight quarters. A lab table took up most of the room, along with a chair, a small waste bin, and our bodies. A small wooden cup sat on the table, and water spots on the table gave evidence of an abandoned experiment. There was a small puddle of liquid near a vent in a corner of the room. "Dr. Yukon was exploring the effect of extremely cold temperatures on experiments which utilize certain gasses," explained Mr. Waterhouse. "He wore woolen gloves, a heavy coat, and rarely used a face guard made of glass. It was quite heavy and expensive, so he didn't like using it. I have it stored away now, if you want to see it."
"I believe that is of minimal importance, but thank you all the same, Mr. Waterhouse," said Holmes. "Would you mind if we took a look at this laboratory &endash; alone?"
"No, not at all," Mr. Waterhouse said, retiring to the regular lab. Over his shoulder he said, "I have an ornery furnace to tend to."
Mr. Holmes began surveying the place with his critical eye. I jumped at my first hunch. "Perhaps he was poisoned, Inspector Holmes," I suggested, picking up the wooden cup. "This cup could possibly contain some alkaline solution. Mayhap, Sherlock?"
"Let me handle the cup," he asked. He took the cup from my hand, while drawing something from inside his coat pocket. He withdrew a strange pen. I had never seen him use it before. He gingerly placed the tip of the pen in the cup, trying not to splatter the solution. He tipped it so I could see.
"What's going on, Sherlock?" I inquired. I was shocked to see bubbles spawning off the tip of the pen. "What reaction is it?"
He took the pen out of the solution and carefully placed it in the refuse bin, saying, "That pen's tip is made from zinc. In the presence of a strong acid, it reacts by producing hydrogen gas."
"Ah, so that means that the acid probably did not kill him," I deduced. Holmes nodded. "The most it would have done was give him a sour stomach and a painful throat."
"Exactly, Watson. I would guess that this was planted by someone so it would appear he was poisoned. Something's being covered up."
"True, inspector," I said in accord.
"What else appears suspicious here?" Holmes asked himself. He looked about, then his eyes locked on the puddle in the corner. "What do you suppose that fluid is, Watson?"
"I've only noticed the odor in this room," I replied. "It smells like some kind of fuel."
"Yes, this must be that fuel. First, however, how did it get in this laboratory?"
"There's only one door," I observed. I looked up at the ceiling and then said, "Cracks in ceiling, perhaps."
"They appear small, though. A puddle this size couldn't have proceeded through those fissures. And there isn't even a fissure above the puddle. It must be something else."
I looked around the room, up, down, around, anywhere and I couldn't find anything. Suddenly Holmes looked at me, and then again at the corner of the room. "The vent! Of course! Somehow, this dangerous fluid was inducted through the vent. How?"
I again looked at the vent, then an idea struck. I signaled to Holmes to follow me into the next laboratory. I walked into the next room. It was cleaner, although about the same size. In the opposite corner of that from the last room, there was a vent. The vents in the two rooms appeared to be connected.
"What's this?" asked Holmes, apparently to nobody. He picked up a book which sat on the lab table. It appeared to be a ledger, but inside was a list of experiments. "This must be the list of experiments conducted here." He took a magnifying glass from his coat and took a close look at the last entry in the log.
I read over his shoulder. "'Experiment on the heating qualities of separate hydrocarbon gasses. Hydrocarbons tested successfully: Methane, ethane, ethanol, propane, butane, butanol. Testing failures: Propanol not tested &endash; Chemical misplaced.'"
Holmes and I looked at each other. I could tell Holmes was making connections. Finally, I figured out what happened.
"Charles's Law," I proclaimed simply. "The volume of gas in a chamber will increase as the gas is heated, and conversely, the volume will decrease as temperature decreases. These two chambers are connected solely by a small vent."
"So," Holmes finished my thought, "the propanol was placed near the vent and due to the heat in this room and the cool in the next room, the propanol was inducted by Charles's Law to the room with less volume to equalize the volume of air. The propanol stayed in this room and slowly deprived our Dr. Yukon of oxygen. Then, when Mr. Waterhouse's furnace was acting up, the temperature equalized and some of the propanol retreated. And according to that log, no scientists have been in either lab since the death."
"Mr. Holmes, pardon me," I said. I began to feel slightly nauseated, and light of head. I stepped out of the laboratory and sat on a chair in the large laboratory. Sherlock stepped out with me. "You see, some of the propanol still lingers. Our contact with it is beginning to affect us, after only a half hour. Furthermore, I believe that when Mr. Waterhouse discovered the death, he tried to cover it up by framing another scientist with murder, or on Dr. Yukon for suicide. He makes a better scientist than he does a fraud."
"Very well deduced, Mr. Holmes," I stated, beginning to feel better already. "How did you connect all of that, inspector?"
Assuring that he was not near a dangerous gas, Sherlock packed a cube of tobacco in his pipe and lit it gingerly with a match. He cooled that match's flame, tossing it into a refuse bin, he took a puff. He said, simply as ever, "It's elementary, my dear Watson. I understand that our friend Lucius had good intentions, but I'm afraid he shall get a speech from the bobbies along with Dr. Yukon's family."
So there it was, another case solved by deduction and science. Even after these long years of working beside my good friend Sherlock, he still amazes me. No body, two possible reasons to die, and he deduces the solution. From a small cup of acid to two enclosed chambers and an accidental death and its cover-up, we have again single-handedly solved a case &endash; the case of the incinerated evidence.