The Circus Murders

Chasing Ghosts

I felt a shiver caress my spine as we approached the desolate cottage. I wondered if it were just my imagination or if the air had actually dropped several degrees and become frigid. I imagined the ghost of one of the dead performers within, waiting for the chance to point an accusing finger at her murderer.

I followed Holmes down the flagstone path, wondering if it was possible to know a crime had been committed in a place by the very energy that surrounded it, before one should even peep through a foggy window or keyhole into the horror that lay silently lurking within. I wondered if Holmes felt the presence of evil here as strongly as I did.

By the tense set of his shoulders, I thought it was just possible.

He threw up an arm to stop me, and bade that I continue no further. He strode back and forth down the flagstone path leading up to the cottage three times, occasionally crouching down to examine one of the stones. He then carefully examined the door and lock, and shook his head, frowning. At last, he motioned for me to join him near the door.

I shivered violently, thinking of the dead.

"Balderdash!" He cried, startling me. "No ghosts need apply, dear fellow."

"My God, how did you read my thoughts?" I knew, of course, that he had somehow, miraculously deduced it from a quirk of my eyebrow.

"One who does not wish to have their thoughts so openly read should not leave their journals lying around for casual inspection," he said dryly.

"You read it, then?"

"Of course I did. I was bored."

"You read my journal. My personal journal, meant for my eyes only. That says very boldly on the front of it Dr. John H. Watson, and says on the very second page, Holmes keep out?"

"Naturally. To quote the second page, paragraph 2. The dead woman lay on the floor of the foyer in a wash of her own wet blood. She had died a mere hour before Holmes and myself arrived on the scene, though she still present. A chill caused the hairs on my arms to prick as I entertained the thought that some ghost of herself lingered as Holmes anxiously went about searching the lengthening shadows."

"You're impossible," I sighed.

"I am improbable. If I were impossible, I would not exist."

At this declaration, he wrenched open the door and ducked inside and I momentarily held my breath. My view of the inside of the cottage was mercifully blocked by my friend's long, slender back for an instant. He stood very still, surveying every minute detail of the scene.

Sherlock Holmes, the blood hound, the crime King, was on the case. Death always stopped my heart, though Sherlock Holmes seemed to draw a positive energy from it. For him, it was a problem to focus upon and solve, a puzzle with pieces to be snapped together. I had once ventured to ask what profession he would have chosen if not for world's first consulting detective. "Nothing good," he had answered, between puffs of smoke. I shuddered to think what should happen if he turned his formidable brain to the creation of the crimes he so delighted in solving. I had no doubt he could create an unsolvable murder.

Finally, he crouched to the ground and I had my first view of the scene.

They were both dead, laying on their sides in a pool of blood that spanned about three feet in diameter. Ms. Paltrow had neglected to tell us that Robbie was a little over three feet tall, a dwarfish man with flaming red hair and pince nez. Kimmy had a coarse, black beard and lay with her glazed eyes staring at our boots.

"What do you notice, Watson?"

"The obvious. Nothing has been stolen. Nothing disturbed. The man, Robbie, is a dwarf, and Kimmy is a bearded woman."

"And?"

"And the door has not been forced."

"Come man, you have missed the most important thing!"

His knees creaked as he stood, and he rubbed them with a look of both annoyance towards my slower wits and for the infirmities of aging. It occurred to me suddenly that we were not as nimble as we used to be. He turned to me expectantly, a pistol laying flat in the palm of his hand, wrapped in a cloth he'd brought along.

"It's as I feared," murmured Holmes, turning on his heel and heading for the door. "There is nothing more to see here. I must send two telegrams immediately on our way back to Baker Street."

"What is, though? The important thing?"

"The blood pool. What was missing from it?"

I turned back to stare at the darkening pool. "What an ass I have been. The footprints." It dawned upon me finally, and I felt a twinge of annoyance I had not seen it sooner.

"It's all in the blood. Blood tells a story, if you're patient enough to observe. I remarked, as soon as she entered our lodgings that the blood was not hers, though I found it queer that though her blouse, face, and skirt were spattered, her boots were dry. Also, why would her blouse be wet if she had simply knelled down to take their pulses? Nothing about that story made the least sense."

I nodded. "If she was the murderer, why would she seek your assistance? Unless, of course, this is a case of amnesia or some sort of multiple personality disorder."

"A solid guess. But no," he said, flagging down and stepping into a cab.

"By Jove," I nearly shouted, "forget the telegrams!"

He raised his eyebrows at me.

"We've left Mrs. Hudson alone with a psychopath!"

"I think she is perfectly able to handle herself. She keeps a revolver between the hollowed out pages of Crime and Punishment on the bookshelf."

"She really is a remarkable lady."

A smile quirked at the corners of his lips. "Do you think I would hire a landlady any less than remarkable?"

"Now you will tell me she is some type of agent or another."

"She knows how to handle herself."

As we reached the telegraph offices, Holmes leapt from the cab and vaulted up the front steps. One telegram to the police, I rationalized. I was in the dark who the other was to.

As he flung his slender figure down next to me, I made my enquiry.

"A master of his art and one of the top ten criminals in this city. I have been after him for a time."

I opened my mouth to ask another question.

"Patience. All will be revealed soon."