The Circus Murders

Blood tells it's Story

Of the horrific case of the circus murders, I have had rare occasion to speak of due to the disturbing nature of the details, yet alone write about. It was a thing that challenged Holmes himself, and as we were thrown headfirst into the whole predicament, I had no chance to bargain with him for a more sane and reasonable mystery to occupy our time.

On the day that Ms. Paltrow showed up at 221B Baker Street, washed to the elbows in blood, Holmes was wearing a drab dressing gown and smoking beside the fireplace. He had developed a terrible, wracking cough (smoker's cough indeed) and I shuddered for him as I idly flipped through the morning paper.

"The fog is worse today than yesterday," muttered Holmes. His fingers tapped relentlessly against the arm of his chair.

"You must be patient." I said, with the air of one remonstrating a small child. "It may clear by this afternoon."

"And pray, what would I do then? There's nothing to be done, even if the fog were to evepaorate like so much smoke..." Here he gestured emphatically to the fumes he was blowing out of his mouth with a sardonic espression on his thin lips.

"Go for a walk, perhaps. You could-"

"Pah. I think Brother Mycroft is due a visit at the Diogenes," said Holmes, getting to his feet. "I believe he had some unimportant business to discuss with me."

"By all means." I gestured empthatically at the door. "Don't keep him waiting."

He crossed to the window to look out upon the raucous cabs clacking over the street. "Hello there," he whispered. "Turn left, if you would. Aha!"

The knock came at the door then, softly at first and then with more conviction. Mrs. Hudson darted past Holmes, who was again seated in his velvet lined chair, as though the force of the knocking had swept him off his feet as surely as a gale of wind.

I daresay there was an expression of hope and expectancy on my dearest friend's features. I believe only I could have read it there, for I knew the slight raise of the eyebrows and the small quirking of his lips meant that he was in a state of suppressed excitement.

"Oh!" Mrs. Hudson uttered from the entranceway, and I could tell it took every last ounce of Holmes' reserve to stay seated and not go running out to greet our visitor.

"Holmes, you had better come here!" Said Mrs. Hudson, her voice an octave higher in her distress. "There's a lady here, there's a lady here to...Watson, come along too!"

I was on my feet in an instant, but still slower than Holmes, who reached the doorway in about three seconds and then stopped so suddenly that I almost collided into the back of his dressing gown.

As I have noted earlier, the woman standing in our modest rooms was covered up to the elbows in drying blood with splashes of the same across the front of her blouse. She was crying softly to herself, holding her arms away from her body as though she could not stand for them touching her sides.

Holmes moved aside so that I could take stock of our visitor. "Mr. Holmes, please help me," she whispered. A curl of blond hair obscured her left eye as she bent her head in shame.

"I am a doctor," I said succinctly, wishing very much that I had my medical bag within arm's reach. "Where have you been wounded? We must see to that first."

"I'm not harmed."

Indeed, I could not see a wound on her regardless of the blood.

"Ms. Paltrow," murmured Holmes from behind me.

"You know her?" I turned violently to peer at Holmes, wondering if there was no end to his maddening store house of information gleamed from sources unknown.