Holmes and I stood at the crime scene with vacant stares until he noticed a few spots of blood leading towards the waterfall. After he pointed this out we raced to the waterfall and found Isabelle washing blood from her hands just as we had expected.
“ It seems as if we have caught you red handed,” Holmes cried out as he chuckled under his breath.
Isabelle spun around in shock. “ You are terribly mistaken. I had nothing to do with the death of that man. After he was shot I tried to stop the blood loss, but the bullet had gone straight through his forehead and I saw no solutions.”
“ Then why did you run away?” I asked, still not convinced of her story.
“ I had no intention of being the next victim,” she replied in a sour tone. As she turned to make her way up to house we instantly followed behind. I inhaled a deep breath of courage as I prepared to see the body once more. I could never truly stand the sight of blood, but as we neared the house the body was no where to be seen, and in its place was a short letter.
Later that night as Holmes and I sat down for dinner I pondered about the events that had occurred earlier in the day. Was Isabelle lying? If not who had taken the body, left the note? Was there more than one person involved?
“ Do you believe isabelle?” I questioned.
“ Watson, do you remember when I could spot the tobacco on your clothes just after you started smoking? Well there was not even a single trace of gunpowder on Isabelle.” Holmes studied the note that we found. It was written in an unfamiliar language with a typewriter rather than written in script. “ I will be leaving town in the morning to see if I can find any clues that lead to this note. Perhaps someone who has sold a typewriter recently. I expect that you will be able to find someone to translate this message, perhaps a language teacher or even a student. Well, I have an early departure in the morning, so I must get some rest. Goodnight watson.”
“ Goodnight”. I replied even though I knew that Holmes would hardly receive any sleep and think about our clues while laying in bed.
The next morning I awoke to an empty house, and decided to visit Mr. Blair who gave me a list with all the names of the language teachers at Blair. I had almost given up hope when I ran into the last language professor, Adaline Harke. She was young with dark hair and freckles like sprinkled stardust. Her eyes reminded me of a day at the beach where the water meets the sand and the sun shines on the bluest ocean. A mix of gold and deep blue that was almost impossible to look away from. I then remembered my duties and approached her.
“Excuse me, miss Adaline”.
“ yes”?
“ I happen to have a note that is written in a language that I have not been able to translate, and I was wondering if you could help me decipher its meaning.”
I handed her the letter and she took it without hesitation, but after she received it her face grew weary.
“ It looks like it was written in Turkish, but I will have to look at my academic notes to know for sure. May I hold onto this?”
“Of course”. As we began to part ways I was once again entrapped by her beauty and the way her hair curls bounced about her shoulders, but I also noticed something else. It seemed as if there was something caught in her hair. Something that resembled gunpowder.
