Her First Real Case

by "what a noble mind is here o'erthrown"

From where I sat in the window-seat, the out-of-doors did not look at all inviting. I had considered going out to hunt, but I could feel cold rain approaching. Far better to stay in, warm and snug, especially today: Mary is in a right swivet, and were it not for our efforts, the dark vapour of her mood would seriously upset the pleasance of the house. As Chief Presence, it is my task to prevent such. Chutney and I will stay close.

The study clock chimed two of the afternoon, and the pale light, which seeped in through the curtained windows, made it seem more like evening. Reluctantly I pushed my spectacles up on my head, a deplorable habit I think I caught from the Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, and pressed the palms of my hands against my weary eyes. Where had my discipline gone? I prided myself on my ability to focus single-mindedly on any task, on my invulnerability to distraction and, not least, on my self-discipline. The notebook and reference texts in front of me swam, the Hebrew and Greek letters performing an interesting dance, which did nothing to assist my research.

I had awakened late, about eight o'clock, having no reason to get up earlier. No Holmes bending over me as he set the tray with the morning tea on the bedside table, then brushed my hair back from my forehead; no clatter and clash of utensils and crockery from the kitchen, telegraphing Mrs Hudson's breakfast preparations. No "Halloo!" from the back door, Old Will asking if I wanted some of the kindling he had cut. No aroma of coffee and toast.

There was plenty of work awaiting me, so I rose, washed and dressed and made my way to the kitchen. The two orange cats, Marmalade and Chutney, sat side-by-side, tails wrapped around feet. Directly they saw me, they began to yowl in cacophony for their breakfast. I put the kettle on to boil, then poured their feed into their two-sided dish and refilled their water bowl. I made tea, toasted bread, found butter and a hard-cooked egg in the icebox, and thereon I made my breakfast. I brewed coffee, carried a large mug of it into the study, and set to work, Lord Marmalade standing watch from his favourite guard station, the basket chair in front of the hearth.

I was deep in meditation when a disturbance in the Nature of Things shook me. I bespoke my sister Chutney: "Has something happened that you know of? There is danger."
Chutney was on her feet, her tail as thick as a bottle-brush. "It's a motor car," she said. "Dreadful things: this one is roaring across the Downs, barely on the road. It is going towards the cliffs."
Motors are to be avoided by sensible People. They travel at terrifying speed and make a horrifying noise. One can get out of the way of a horse-drawn carriage or wagon, but not so with an iron behemoth: one crouches, paralysed with fright and imploring the Great Dam Above for protection -- one cannot escape. It is a hideous end. We will keep watch.

Now, in mid-afternoon, I needed a rest from my labours. I stretched my arms above my head, noticing the twinge in my injured shoulder; still not completely healed after several years. A walk would be just the thing: the rolling landscape of the Sussex Downs always rested my eyes, weary from too much close work, as the fresh, salty air revived my lungs and my spirit.

Should I take a shotgun and bring down a wild duck for dinner? The thought of Mrs Hudson's roast duck, with its crisp golden skin and tangy sour cherry sauce, surfaced pleasantly in my memory. Mrs Hudson, however, was not around to cook it, and I should probably produce no better than a gamy, tough or stringy flavourless bird. The foul mood I had hoped my work would rout returned. I would not dignify the unpleasant feeling by calling it loneliness.

Mrs Hudson had left a number of cooked dinners in the icebox so that I might not starve whilst she took care of her nephew, his wife and their newborn daughter in Guildford. Then, too, I was perfectly capable of walking down to the Monk's Tun and enjoying Mrs Tillie Whitehead's excellent cuisine. In truth, the thought of talking to another soul rankled me: far better that I remain in solitude, rather than to try to make conversation.

Mussels: that's the thing. The coastline was scalloped with many tide-pools, abundant in seaweed to which the oval, black mussels clung. I recalled a splendid supper of moules marinière that Holmes and I had enjoyed during our brief visit to Paris in search of the heir to Justice Hall. Although I generally avoid shellfish, that broad-rimmed white ironstone dish filled with savory, aromatic morsels in a buttery white wine and shallot sauce was tempting beyond refusal, and I enjoyed every bite, savoring the tender yet firm texture and the taste of the sea, and even mopping up the sauce with the crusty bread.

The memory of moules marinière returned unexpectedly every now and then. As Marcel Proust recalled his childhood entire from the aroma of baking madeleines, so could I recall Paris, the brasserie where I spent many hours watching our quarry's comings and goings from the hearty smell of fritures and the aroma of mussels simmering in white wine; and the smooth, thick linens of the bed Holmes and I shared in our hotel from the scent of lavender. I was certain that I could prepare the dish; it was simplicity itself. I would scrub the mussels, cook a shallot in butter, put the mussels in the pot, splash them with white wine and simmer them just until they opened, and bring myself back to the little brasserie and that most absorbing of cases.

I dressed warmly and fitted myself out with a heavy jacket, stout boots and mac, and tucked a waterproof sack into my knapsack, to hold the mussels if I should find any. Two orange heads turned briefly in my direction. Mistress Chutney yawned hugely and stretched one fat paw towards me, as if to say, "You're mad, going out in this weather! Marm and I will stay at home."

"Marm, what of that motor that frightened us this morning? Is it gone? I fear for Mary if it is racketing about the Downs." Chutney worried a great deal, often with reason. "It's gone, sister. I can't sense it anywhere. Mary is safe." I put my paw on Chutney's head, and she settled down next to me and commenced to wash her always-immaculate white feet. It makes her feel calm.

The wind slammed into me as I closed the door behind me: cold, damp, with the promise of rain. The sky was a mass of tumbled gray; birds flew low. The ground was still wet and spongy from last night's downpour. Resolutely I set out at a good pace, tramping across the Downs, until I was warm from the brisk walk, and even ventured to whistle "Early One Morning" through my teeth as I stepped along. I saw nothing remarkable, just the tan stalks and feathery heads of the grasses rippling and bending in the wind. A distant cow lowed; crows cawed their harsh cry.

The path down to the shore was steep and rocky, and switched back and forth several times until it reached the shingle. Carefully I climbed down, holding on to roots and branches of the few bare shrubs that bordered the paths, and then I was there, facing the bottle-green water of the Channel, calm at low tide, with small dirty-cream foam crests on the gently breaking waves. There was a cluster of rocks about a quarter-mile away, known to house a variety of sea life, and I set out for it, stumbling now and then on the rocks, sometimes splashing along at the very edge of the water just for the pleasure of it.

Several large tide-pools had formed where the sand had been washed away from in between the bases of the rocks. I waded into them, in search of winkles, clams, and, perhaps, the blue-black-silver oval shells of mussels. As I pondered a large, irregular scallop shell, I felt a needle of ice on my ear. It had begun to sleet, not rain. I pulled my collar as close to my neck as I could, and jammed my wool hat down over my ears.

Mussels, mussels: I could see none. Then, I spied a long, thick skein of seaweed draped over a smaller rock on the other side of the pool; mussels were most often to be found clinging to seaweed. I splashed over towards my quarry, never noticing the round, potato-shaped rock that my foot found, and then slipped on. I lost my balance and fell flat into the tide-pool. Unfortunately, more than natural creations had found their way into this small backwater. The pool was awash in a gritty, oily mess that might have come from a motor car's underside; there were several rusted food tins, a battered old shoe, a man's glove, a ragged tyre, what looked like half a spanner, and a piece of twisted rope. I scrambled to my feet, and as it was under my left hand, I brought up the rope with me as I stood up, dripping.

I looked at the rope for a long space of time. Then, I rummaged in my knapsack, found a small towel, wrapped the rope in the towel, and put it into the knapsack again. Carefully I gained the other side, examined the seaweed. There were about a dozen and a half mussels clinging to it. I plucked the seaweed and put it into the sack. That done, I found a thick, strong branch to serve as a walking-stick, and, wet, freezing cold and covered with sand and dirty grit, made my way back up the path and back to the cottage.

I sat down on the step and tugged off my boots, shaking them upside down to dislodge what seemed like a liter of seawater and a pailful of sand from each. I put the boots on a mat just inside the door, next to a venerable pair of Wellingtons I knew all too well.

Once inside, I hung up my soaked cape and jacket on pegs in the entry, then padded through the empty house in my wet stocking feet. Two orange heads regarded me from the basket chair, and then sank back into afternoon naps. I put the mussels in a large pan of water in the kitchen sink, and walked into the bedroom that had been mine since I was fifteen, the sanctuary assigned to me by Mrs Hudson, and still my private den although I now shared the master bedroom with my husband. I pulled off my wet, cold, gritty clothing and left it in a heap in front of the wardrobe. I rummaged in the closet until I found an old robe of Holmes', which I often wear, and wrapped it around me.

When I turned, trying to decide which to have first, a cup of tea or a bath, I saw that I had a visitor. Although I had closed the door to the bedroom, the cats had learned that if they threw themselves against the door at a certain spot, the door would open and they could enter. Chutney had evidently done so, and as cats generally do, had made herself quite at home.

She had made a cosy nest in my heap of discarded clothing, burrowing and wriggling amidst the garments, emerging with my chemise draped over her head, the shoulder strap hanging coquettishly from one ear.

"That's disgusting, Chutney," I exclaimed, snatching up the clothes. "It's all sweaty and rank and covered in grit and salt water, and that's what you pick to wallow in?"

Chutney rolled over on her back, her front paws pointing north, her hind paws pointing south, her head upside down. "Never mind trying to distract me with your clowning, you miserable little thing!" I snapped. I looked around for a place to put the sodden garments and, finding none, brought them with me into the bathroom and dumped them on the floor under the washstand.

I filled the tub and submerged myself under the steaming water. I surfaced, rolled a towel and put it under my neck, and abandoned myself to the dreamy state that a hot bath induces. Which philosopher was it who developed his famous theories while bathing? Was it Diogenes? -- no, he went out with a lantern in search of an honest man. Surely not Plato...
I slitted my eyes open and set to work with brush, cloth and a large cake of lemon verbena soap. A movement distracted me: there, at the side of the tub, two pink-tipped, translucent triangles peeped up above the rim. Damn that cat! I was in no mood to play. As if she read my thoughts, the rest of Chutney's turnip-shaped head appeared, her round green eyes slightly crossed, the tip of her pink tongue sticking out of her mouth. "Mrah!" said she, and I heard the pad-pad-pad of her paws as she trotted out of the bathroom, presumably in search of more entertaining company.

Chutney returned to the study and settled herself on the hearth-rug. "Mary is in the water-tub. She was at the seashore; she came back wet with salt water and smelling of shellfish and petrol. She brought something back; it has a bad smell to it." I regarded the almost-dead coals in the fireplace. "Petrol, say you? Did she run afoul of that motor? She's not injured?" Chutney squeezed her eyes shut. "No, only dirty. Her spirit is perturbed."

After half an hour, I felt like myself again, and, climbing out of the tub, towelled myself dry and put on the old robe once more. I found a bottle of rose water and glycerine and applied it to my rough hands. I sat on the vanity stool and towelled my hair. Suppose I cut it off, the entire damned mop of it that Holmes is so fond of. I pulled my hair back severely with one hand. It was rather an interesting look, although it did make my nose appear more prominent.

Feeling somewhat calmer, I went into the bedroom and dressed in a pair of soft, shabby old trousers, a shirt whose underarm seams had given up the ghost from much washing, and an Aran knit pullover, warm and quite a bit too big. I tied all my hair up in back of my head and made one braid to hang down my back. Then I thrust my feet into an ancient pair of deerskin moccasins lined with sheep's fleece. They were my father's, bought from an Indian on a trip through the Pacific Northwest. The leather was worn to a burnished, soft brown, and the fleece lining was still fluffy and comforting. I retrieved my knapsack from the floor where I had tossed it, opened it carefully, and reached in to extract the item I had retrieved when I had come a cropper in the tidal pool. I lifted it with two fingers into a dry towel.

I shuffled into the study, stirred up the banked coals and worked with bellows, kindling and some stout logs to produce a merrily blazing fire. There stood my favourite chair, a shapeless shape of batting and down, its upholstered covering aged to an indeterminate brownish-gray. I fell into this sanctuary, leaving my slippers on the floor, placing the towel-wrapped object on the table next the chair, and stared at the fire. Marmalade jumped down from the basket chair, settled himself on my slippers, and after kneading them thoroughly, tucked his paws against his chest and hitched up his hip-bones, in the pose that Mrs Hudson calls "the meat loaf with a head." He looked over his shoulder at me with a slight smile on his handsome orange face, blinked his eyes and then returned his scrutiny to the flames.

I didn't bargain for this, I thought. Mycroft snaps his fingers and Holmes hurries to Paris, the sod, and Mrs Hudson's niece gives birth early and must have her aunt at Guildford, which leaves me to mind the cats. I should put them out of doors; they'd be fine in the garden shed and possibly catch a few mice. But it was still sleeting; a slanting pelting of icy needles that had started while I was still trying to extricate myself from the tangle of gritty oil, driftwood and kelp into which I had stumbled while looking for mussels in the tidal pools. You have only yourself to blame, a chilly little voice said inside my head. You could have gone along to Paris, but chose to remain buried in your books. You fear engagement in Holmes' profession, fear that you will lose yourself and no longer know who you are.

Something bumped against my ankle, and I looked down to see Chutney diligently rubbing the side of her face against my great toe. I shall never understand why cats insist on doing that; perhaps they consider it a demonstration of affection. I reached down to pat the broad furred back, and the fat creature lumbered over to the basket chair, considered jumping up into it, and settled for the hearth-rug.

Chutney wound herself around several times, trying to find a comfortable position. "Brother, I think Mary is somewhat better than she was when I visited her in the bath. I think she is ready to work on that rope she brought from the seaside, and it will do her good to do something other than pore over letters." I opened one eye and regarded her rotund self. "You sound like Holmes, Chutney. Mary's chief interest is in her letters; it is what her position is in this life. I believe that she works with Holmes because it is the best way for her to be close to him. That is to say, that is how they hunt together." Chutney squidged herself onto her back. "Indeed, Marm, they do. She will be returning to the seaside, I know. Perhaps we should accompany her; she is not used to hunting alone." Trust Chutney to know the female mind. I went to her and washed her head. She nestled against me. "Nice to be close," she purred.

The object waited. I took it into my lap, and opened the towel slowly. No, there was no mistaking it: it was an agahl, the heavy rope tie worn by Bedouins to secure the kuffiyah, a headcloth worn as a shield against the fierce desert heat. As I had done when I found it, I passed a long space of time staring at it. The last such I had seen had been thick with filth, tied around an equally noisome and tattered headcloth covering the shaggy-haired (and probably louse-infested) head of the man whom at that time the world must believe I despised. As soon as we were on board the boat, which would take us home to England and the resolution of the Donleavy case, Holmes had disappeared below-decks. He emerged some time later, clean, in shirt and trousers, with no trace of the rakish Arab he had been except for his copper skin. I never saw the robes, the headcloth or the rope tie again.

Surely the battered, waterlogged object I held in my lap was not the same agahl worn by Holmes! I looked at it closely, pushing my spectacles up on my head and bringing the thing almost to my nose. No, that was not close enough. Sighing, I rose, put my feet back into my slippers and went up to the laboratory. I had never scrutinised Holmes' agahl during the time he wore it; I had nothing with which to compare this one. Had he saved it, brought it home with him when we left Palestine, only to cast it into the sea an indeterminate time afterwards?

I recalled the Monk's Tun robbery, the first investigation I ever worked on with Holmes; "the case of the purloined hams," as he was wont to call it. Although I initiated the case and performed the actual detecting, Holmes was ever with me, at my shoulder and elbow. Was there a mystery in this piece of rope, and was it for me to puzzle out by myself, my true first case?

There is much to be said for the scientific method: it gives one a precise structure to follow in investigation, and also places one's mind in a most agreeable and logical frame. First, I wrung the rope out over a bowl and set the dingy liquid aside. Then, using a flexible measuring-tape, I measured its length. Using calipers, I measured its diameter. I took up a magnifying glass, and determined the thickness and size of the beads that allowed the tie to be adjusted; I wrote down their number, their color and their probable composition, wood.

Next, I turned my attention to the rope itself. It was hand-made out of what looked to be hemp fibres, six twisted together. I cut a very small piece off one loose end and set that aside for closer scrutiny. The magnifying glass showed me what my eyes had not: that the agahl was an old one and had been used many times; adjusting the fit as the tie was donned and later taken off had caused the hemp fibres to be quite worn on both sides of the beads. The ends were frayed, and one side of the rope was flatter than the other, probably the side worn next the head. The agahl was as black as ink, the colour favoured by Bedouins. The magnifying glass revealed that the underneath twists of the hemp fibres were slightly deeper in colour than the surface: how long had it been in the water?

I rummaged around for the new Swiss magnifier Holmes treasured; it was, he said, the equal of many a microscope and far more convenient to use. I could not find it and reasoned that he had taken it with him. Was that not the usual situation; I needed something, and it was in Holmes' possession? How true: not just for Swiss magnifiers, but also for my peace of mind, my contentment, my solace, my heart and my spirit! I slammed things about for a while, irritated at him, at myself, at the world in general, and in particular at the absence of the old beaker we used to make tea while we worked.

The beaker lurked in a heap of Bunsen-burner gas hoses. I washed it off at the laboratory bench faucet, filled it with water and set it to boil on the gas ring. I located a canister of Darjeeling, a lopsided old teapot, a crockery cup without ominous stains, and a spoon. The laboratory did not lack strainers; I found one that was usable. I spied a tin of evaporated milk supporting Holmes' execrable deerstalker cap. Tea made, milk added, I came back to the laboratory table and took the cover off the Zeiss microscope.

How many times had I sat on the high stool, peering into the twin eyepieces of the instrument, delicately adjusting the focus of a slide on the stage and wondering at the marvels revealed thereon? How many times had I straightened up, taken a sip of a half-forgotten cup of tea at my elbow, and returned to the astonishing world barely known to science only a hundred years ago? And, to my present despair, how many times had Holmes' head rested next to mine as he sighted down the eyepieces to see what I had seen? I moved the microscope back and fixed the magnifier to a metal stand.

For the next hour and a half, I edged the tie under the magnifier. The metal stand held it steady and gave me the use of both hands to tease apart the fibres with a fine probe and tweezers and retrieve tiny pieces of matter. I noted differences in colouration and thickness, and cuts where the rope might have encountered a knife or other sharp object. I deduced that the agahl had been in seawater for a short time, but that it had been elsewhere for considerably longer. Caught in its fibres I found a good amount of matter, and I brought these findings to the Zeiss.

I saw sand of the desert, not the ocean bottom; I found the remains of dust-mites, some shells of louse-nits; bits of a black material that turned out to be kohl, and, more than anything, I found extremely fine, irregular blackish-brown particles. They defied identification until I placed a quantity of them in water and applied a gentle heat. Coffee. It was coffee.

Immediately I was transported to a goat's-hair tent in a Bedouin encampment in the Palestine desert. The evening wind brought the clink and ching of camel bells, the smell of those camels and the tang of some herb that grew sparsely on the sides of the dunes. An old man was performing the ritual of the coffee, roasting the beans in a battered skillet until they were black and richly aromatic; grinding them finely, putting them with some water in the largest of the three finjan (coffee pots); holding the pot by its long handle over the small, smoky fire until the foam rose up and he could pour the brew into the second finjan, repeat the process, and then finally, when he poured it into the third and final vessel, he added lump sugar and poured the coffee into cups. Half of each minuscule cup was filled with the sediment that remained after the soul of the coffee, its essence, was coaxed to the top.

The coffee was like love: powerful, delicious, bitter and sweet. The same might be said of the feelings I harboured for the thin, tall, dark man in Bedouin garb who sat next to me, conversing easily in Arabic with the group of men in the tent, telling tales as if born to the desert. The old man handed the tiny coffee cups around, and I took mine and went to squat on my heels at the door flap of the tent, to see the sickle moon rise with a star hanging at its tip, like an earring.

I shook myself out of the reverie, and returned to my investigation. Using a glass pipette, I put a drop of the cloudy fluid I had wrung out of the agahl on a slide with a cover-glass, and placed it under the microscope. Tiny plankton wriggled through the fluid, specks of sea-grass and hemp fibres and other unidentifiable vegetable matter floated in it. The heat of the microscope's bright electric lamp dried the drop as I watched.

I put drops of the fluid into several test tubes, adding reagents, flocculants and other chemicals, which might identify the components of the liquid. Certainly there was water. It was salt water, as one might suppose, our local Sussex channel brine. To one test tube I had added a reagent that tested for the presence of blood, and it was positive: there had been blood on the agahl in sufficient quantity to remain in the fibres so that it could be wrung out along with the sea-water. I returned to the magnifier, and after another half hour, I found the blood. It was old blood, clotted and dried, probably under the desert sun, and it coated the insides of several of the beads and the portion of the rope that ran through them. One of the beads had an odd shape. I turned it around to study it; half of it had been sheared off by something that left a slight crescent on the bead's surface. A rifle bullet?

There was something else: a small piece of cloth was embedded in the clotted blood. Carefully I cut it out with a very sharp scalpel. I put it in a small specimen dish and poured distilled water on it, and then left it to soak.

Icy fingers tapped against the window, and the panes rattled. It was what John Watson liked to call "a filthy day;" chill enough to set one's bones to shivering, damp enough to drive one to the fire's side to ward off chilblains. "A fine day to investigate a murder," I muttered to myself. A fine time to be faced with what was rapidly becoming my real first case: I found the evidence myself, I conducted the preliminary investigation of the evidence myself: now what? Certainly, I should call the constable and tell him what I had found. "I'll call him later," I resolved, unready to hand everything over to the authorities before I had satisfied myself that I had learned everything the rope tie could tell me.

I took the small bit of cloth out of the dish with a forceps, pressed it in a clean towel and took it over to the magnifier. Cotton cloth, tightly woven. I shifted it back and forth; there was a pattern, which I could barely make out.

The pattern was woven into the cloth, not dyed. Black and white, the large houndstooth check favoured by some Arabs as an alternative to solid black or white for the kuffiyah. During my time in Palestine, I had seen such cloth on the heads of city Arabs, women as well as men. The little piece of cloth had been battered by whatever had sheared away the side of the agahl's bead to which it had been stuck: ends of threads were cut off, and there was hair, mashed in with the sheared ends. Carefully I prised out some bits of hair and put them on a slide.

In my mind's eye I followed the bullet as it struck the bead and smashed past it into the head of the agahl's wearer. Could it have been a suicide? My years of detection lessons from the master of the art and science of forensic investigation demanded that I explore all possibilities.

I found Headley, an aged, stained milliner's head form, which Holmes and I used for various purposes. Headley clamped securely to the edge of the laboratory table, I looked about for something to simulate the kuffiyah. The linen press yielded a small linen tea-cloth. It was close enough to the size of a real kuffiyah when I flung it over my own head. I settled the tea-cloth on Headley and carefully put the agahl on to hold it, arranging it, as it would have been worn, with the loose ends in back of the head. The damaged bead was directly over Headley's right temple. I took up the magnifier and looked at the bead. I had not turned it on the rope nor moved it; it was where it had been. Where had the bullet come from, to strike it just so, to carve a small crescent out of one side?

The messy drawer in the laboratory bench yielded a lump of modelling clay. I rolled a piece the size of a walnut between my palms, and then pulled off half of it. I moulded the clay into an oval, like the agahl's bead. I removed the agahl from Headley, and pressed the clay firmly against the bead's side. There, in an oval bulge, was the shape that had been cut into the bead, the curvature of the bullet that had most likely killed the wearer of the agahl.

I found the rack of sample bullets that we used to compare to markings such as the one to hand. The arc of the rounded body of the bullet would match the clay bulge I had taken off the damaged bead. The bullet that most closely matched the bulge was a 45-calibre type popular in America.

Very well: the wearer of the agahl had been shot in the right temple by a 45-calibre weapon. How close had it been? I returned to the magnifier: there was no sign of singeing, which would have been obvious if the gun had been held to the victim's head. The scrap of fabric also would have shown singe-marks, and there were none. I could, therefore, envision the bullet traversing a distance before it sheared off a portion of the agahl's bead before entering the head of the unfortunate wearer. How could one shoot oneself in the head from a sufficient distance to avoid burning the point of entry of the bullet? I found an old Colt .45 in the gun rack. Standing in front of the mirror, I took the gun in my left hand (it would be senseless to hold it in my right) and, holding it out as far as I could, pointed the barrel towards my left temple.

It was an awkward angle, and the heavy revolver tended to droop downwards. The victim could never have shot himself in the temple unless it was a lucky (or unlucky) shot. Putting the revolver back, I returned to the laboratory table and the clippings of hair that had been stuck in the tiny scrap of cloth under the bead. I put the slide on the Zeiss' stage and turned on the light. Hair is surprising, viewed under the microscope: neat little chevrons lined up like soldiers, some of them with their ends slightly askew. I moved the slide so the light would illuminate the hairs slightly from the side. Thick, straight hairs; a man's hair. I looked around me: Headley's featureless face regarded me, ludicrous under the makeshift kuffiyah and the mysterious agahl. The fit was perfect, I reflected: perhaps it had been made with Headley in mind?

Fit! I knocked over my tea in my excitement to reach Headley, the milliner's dummy. On the back of the neck was the manufacturer's mark: J. Goodman, London, Ladies' 7¼. Was the victim a woman? I could hear Holmes' smug voice: "Rather, Russell, the victim might have been a small man or a young boy with a Size 7¼ head." Whoever it was, was wearing Arab garb. I remembered my time in Palestine, when I became Amir, a pretentiously named, silent, shy and occasionally violent Bedouin lad. Would the agahl have fitted me? Was another woman in disguise the unfortunate target of a bullet meant for a man?

I returned to the laboratory table. I had read recently that medical researchers had identified four major blood groups, with the intent of preventing the disastrous results when someone received a transfusion of a blood incompatible with their own. Racking my brains for the source of the information, I ransacked the papers piled up on the laboratory desk. I found a Times from last week: there it was, on the front page: "American scientists identify four types of blood." Who in England could, or would, do such a study? Would it help to identify an individual?

I took up the tiny piece of bead that I had cut away for examination, and scrutinised it under the magnifying glass. Something about its grain disturbed me; I had assumed that the beads were wood, but I had never seen wood like this; it looked more like fingernail material. If I were Holmes, I thought, I would fill my pipe, pull up my knee under my chin and ruminate on the pattern until at last I exclaimed, "Aha!"

"Aha!" I cried. "It's not wood, it's ivory!" I went back to the bedroom and found my manicure set, with its ivory-handled tools, to use as comparison. Examination under the glass confirmed that the bead was indeed ivory; I checked the remainder of the beads and found them to be the same. Ivory? Was that not a precious commodity in the Arab lands, where there were no elephants? Holmes would have reminded me needlessly that Africa was full of elephants, and a brisk trade in ivory flourished in Arabian cities.

I took a notebook and laboriously noted my conclusions so far: someone had been shot while wearing an agahl and kuffiyah; the someone had been shot with a .45 calibre bullet, from a sufficient distance that the cloth and rope bore no singe marks; the someone had not shot themselves. The victim had been small (their head had been small, at the least), and the beads were made of ivory.

From the condition of the agahl and the blood-clot inside the bead, one might deduce that the shooting had occurred no more than six weeks ago, and after that, the agahl had found its way into the English Channel and washed up on the Sussex shore.

Gradually I began to put a scenario in place: a victim was shot in the temple and left in a dry place for about a month; then, either the victim or his/her headpiece went for a swim in the Channel. Any road, where was the body?

Exasperated, I put away the Zeiss, carefully covered my samples and snippets of evidence, and took myself downstairs, where Chutney and Marmalade supervised my preparation and consumption of the mussels. Oddly, they would not eat any of the tender orange flesh, preferring some leftover sole and a shared bowl of milk. I washed up, read Melville to calm my mind, and went to bed.

"You see, she's worked hard and now she's ready for a good sleep." I watched Mary bank the coals and head off to her chamber. "She may dream tonight," stated Chutney. "When she is perturbed, the sad dreams come, and she is thrown from the dreadful motor again and suffers the loss of her family."
"What do you prescribe, Chutney?" My sister is a physician of impeccable reputation and long standing; in other lives she has healed royalty and commoner alike.
"Let us stay with her tonight. Once she is asleep, we will go quietly onto her bed. I will observe her dreams, and you guard her humours." I agreed, and we waited until Mary's breath slowed into slumber.

I dreamt that I was dressed for a ball, and most uncomfortably: my satin dress pulled around the hips, was too loose at the shoulders and I trod on its much-too-long hem. My long gloves didn't fit, and I was tugging at them, trying ineffectually to button them at the wrists, but the buttons were too small for the button-holes and they kept slipping out. My hair suddenly escaped its pins and tumbled down over my face. I must have been in an old motor car; it made an appalling amount of noise and vibrated fearsomely. Worst of all, my fur boa kept riding up on my neck, wrapping around my chin, tickling my ears and resisting all efforts to keep it on my shoulders.

I woke with a start: the vibrations came from Chutney and Marmalade, the former nose to nose with me, her tickly whiskers exploring my face; her brother in back of me, with his thick, luxuriant tail wrapped around my neck. "Terrible cats!" I cried, sitting up, and they flew off the bed and galloped away towards the kitchen to await breakfast. Cats were strictly forbidden on the bed, and I could only think that they meant to protect me in Holmes' absence.

As I dressed, I reflected on the mysterious agahl with its bloody ivory beads. How had it gotten into the tide-pool? Yesterday I had assumed that it had floated there from the Channel, but of course, there were alternatives. What if it had been thrown, or fallen, from the cliffs? I recalled the gritty, oily stuff in the tide-pool, the scraps of a torn tyre. Had Holmes been there -- of course, had Holmes been there, I would not have been mucking about in the tide-pool! I never would have discovered the agahl and devoted half a day to its mystery!

Clearly, there was more to the story than the rope tie. There was nothing for it but that I return to the seaside. Perhaps the missing body had washed up on the shore during the night. I dressed, drank a cup of tea and set off. Luckily, the rain had passed during the night. The sun shone weakly, but at least it shone, and the air was mild. I shouldered my knapsack and struck off towards the cliffs, the tan grasses shaking dry in the breezes. I noticed that Marmalade had decided to accompany me. He trotted along companionably, making a side-trip now and then to observe a cricket or the escape route of a vole. Occasionally he ran on ahead, and all I could see was the bobbing orange head or the tail carried high, like a flag.

We came to the cliff edge, and I looked down. The water seemed rougher than it had been yesterday; the waves were edged with whitecaps. Marmalade ran back and forth, occasionally leaping into the air as if to swat a butterfly, though there was none. I lost sight of him as I approached the edge, and then I heard his plaintive cry, repeated until I found him crouched over tyre-marks that headed straight for the sheer drop.

I bent over the marks: an old motor, with worn tyres, indeed. I traced the marks almost to the drop, and noticed that one side seemed to veer away, then return. I looked closer; there were fragments of rubber in the tread-marks. I remembered the torn tyre in the tide-pool: from the same motorcar? If so, where was it? How did the tyre get down at the shore? I checked the marks again; apparently the car had been driven, or had rolled, directly over the edge. Last night's icy rain had erased any shear marks on the side of the cliff, although one shrub was sharply broken, as if struck from above. I had not seen the tyre-marks on my visit to the shore yesterday. Where was the motor then, if its broken tyre was in the tide-pool? I made my way down the switch-back path, Marmalade following me, pausing every now and then with one paw raised, sniffing the air, looking for all the world like a feline version of a pointer.

Once at the shingle, Marm took off towards the left, running nimbly over the stones. I wanted to return to the tide-pool, but Marmalade ran past it, and something told me to follow my feline partner in detection. The orange cat reached a point where he would have to walk in the water, and stood on a stone and yowled. "Do you want to go there, Marm?" I asked. I picked him up and sloshed through the water's edge, around a large pile of rocks. There, lying on its side, was the wreck of a motor car. Marmalade slipped out of my arms and with one leap was on top of the bonnet.

So this was why there was gritty, oily dirt and a torn tyre in the tide-pool: the motor car had fallen into it from the cliff, and had been washed round the rocks by the powerful high tide. Gingerly I approached what was left of the vehicle; I thought I could see something, or someone, inside. No-one could have survived the fall. I steeled myself to peer into the side window on the driver's side. Yes, there was someone in the car: someone who had been a passenger when they were alive. Whoever it was, was swathed in what looked like a heavy shawl; I could not tell if it was a man or a woman. I stood gazing on the unfortunate victim of the accident, my heart pounding. Could this be the wearer of the agahl?

Motor accidents are my Frankenstein's monster. At the age of fourteen, my family and I had been in a motor car on the California coastal road, when there was a terrible accident. My parents and my brother were killed; I was thrown clear, but left permanently scarred physically and in my mind. A recurring nightmare had me screaming helplessly at the burning wreckage, reliving the accident again and again. Months of therapy with a psychiatrist had given me understanding, but it was not until I shared my fears and old demons with Holmes that I was able to face them down. Now, I was at the scene of another wreck, and my stomach lurched as my hands and feet turned to ice.

My intrepid companion was not intimidated. As I watched, Marmalade walked delicately over to the windshield of the motor. He looked over his shoulder at me and mewed loudly. The glass was gone, with only one shard remaining. Marm raised his front paw, claws out, as if to strike the shard from the frame. "So, Marm, want to investigate?" I lifted him away from the window back on to the bonnet, and with my gloved hand, eased the shard away.

An orange streak flew past me, into the interior of the motor, and pounced on the shrouded shape in the passenger seat. As I watched, Marm seized the swathing fabric in his jaws and began to worry it, pulling it this way and that. A bowler hat fell off and rolled onto the floor. Then, he jumped onto the form and pounded it with his paws, biting and tugging at it. Gingerly I reached in through the open window and touched the form, which collapsed into a tangle of sheets, pillows and blankets. So this was the accident victim? With that, I wrenched open the door and pulled out what was obviously a dummy, made of pillows tied round about with cord, swathed in sheets for bulk and finally clad in blankets and topped with a bowler. I searched the interior of the motor carefully and found nothing in the front seat, now that the dummy had been extricated.

The back seat contained several beer bottles, the stubs of cigars, what looked to be the remains of a sandwich and a magazine of offensive photographs. I climbed out of the motor and sat down on a large, flat rock. Marm jumped on to my lap and rubbed his head under my chin, purring like a machine. "Dear old fellow," I said, stroking his fur, "you have earned your -- what? Medals? For an excellent turn at detecting on your own first case." The cat looked up at me and deliberately blinked his large amber eyes. "Well, well, is this what Mrs Hudson calls a cat kiss?" I took off my spectacles and returned the blink, upon which the orange-furred gentleman smiled, the corners of his mouth turning up in an almost human expression.

For a half hour Marmalade and I reconnoitered the spot, examined the motor in greater detail, determining that the tyre was indeed from the motor. I found the broken spanner, and having noticed an odd mark on the steering-wheel, confirmed that the spanner had probably been used to keep the wheel straight when the vehicle was pushed off the cliff. I found the broken-off portion of the spanner near the driver's seat.

Content that I had gathered every possible bit of evidence, I climbed back up the cliff, returning home just in time for lunch. I made myself a thick sandwich, fed Marm and his greedy sister Chutney some cuttings of the roast (I cannot seem to produce a thin slice of anything, meat or cheese or even bread), and took my lunch and a cup of tea out to the garden. "Why," I said aloud, "would anyone put a dummy into a motor car? Was it schoolboys, who had managed to get hold of a dilapidated motor, and careered about the Downs in it, up hill and down dale, ruining what was left of its tyres? Did they devise an elaborate prank with a faked murder, putting the dummy into the car and rolling it off the cliff?"

Then I remembered the agahl. Suppose it was not schoolboys, or local rowdies. Suppose it was international murderers, who had killed the wearer of the agahl -- no, that made no sense. There was nothing in the motor to indicate that it had been carrying a corpse. I remembered Holmes' teachings: if the wearer of the agahl had not had the headgear removed shortly after the fatal shot, he (or she) would have bled copiously on it, and the rest of the rope tie and its beads would have been smirched with blood. Still, there had been enough blood to congeal on the beads next the wound. What was the connexion between the motor and the agahl, if any?

Every way that I turned, the search came up fruitless. I was certain that the wearer of the agahl had met his (or her) end at least six weeks ago. I doubted that the murderers would cart a corpse around for six weeks before attempting to stage a motor accident; I was certain that they had not hidden the corpse, headgear and all, for six weeks. And why, in Heaven's name, would they kill the victim, remove the headgear, hide the corpse for six weeks and then stage the accident? Nothing made sense.

I decided that I must call the constable, in any case. An hour later, he arrived, and together we went down to the shoreline. The constable's men measured and took photographs, examined the dummy closely, picked up the beer bottles in handkerchiefs (Holmes, after all, had taught their predecessors about fingerprints) and even took the sandwich, wrapped in a cloth. I returned home, determined to puzzle out the presence of the agahl.

The constable called some time later to say that it was indeed some local characters who had liberated Old Man Mooney's venerable motor from the chicken-shed and gone larking about in it. When the car had given out on the Downs, not far from the cliffs, they decided to bury it at sea, and helped themselves to some of Mrs Elliott's washing from her line to construct a pilot for the doomed vehicle. He went on to say that they would be punished severely by their parents, and would have to pay a fine as well. It was not that the motor was worth a farthing, and indeed, Mooney had not ventured out in it for over a year, but still, theft is theft, and is against the law.

Could it have been a coincidence that the rope tie drifted into the same tide-pool as the crashed motor car? My first very own case was proceeding badly, in my estimation. The light was fading; it was coming on to evening, another long and lonely evening, and I had done no work of my own on this day, discovered what amounted to a foolish prank, and was no further along in understanding the agahl and its bloody beads. A couple of birds twittered in the bare tree outside the kitchen window. The cottage was cold; there were no embers left in the study fireplace. The laboratory was likewise chilly, as I had not been there all day. I reminded myself that Mrs Hudson was due back tomorrow, which cheered me somewhat. The post had come with no letter from Holmes. No telegrams. I felt very small and frail, a dot against the immensity of land and sky. "Alone, alone, all, all alone..." I muttered, "and nary a drop to drink." Perhaps tonight would be a good time to walk down to the Monk's Tun for supper.

I cleaned myself up and prepared to leave the cottage, when the telephone rang. It startled me; we did not often receive calls. I lifted the receiver, and heard a hollow hissing, as one hears when putting a seashell to one's ear. "Hallo! Hallo!" I shouted. Miserable thing, the telephone. One day they will either make it work properly, or abandon it as a clever but impractical invention. I slammed the receiver back into its cradle, whereupon the damned thing rang immediately.

"Hallo! Are you there?" an echoing voice inquired. I was pretty sure it was Holmes, but he was in Paris.

"No, it's my other ghost!" I exclaimed peevishly. "Where are you?"

"Mary, my dear, it's Mycroft. Are you all right?" Suddenly he sounded as if he was speaking from the next room.

"Mycroft, I am well. Have you heard from your brother?"

"Every day, at least once. We correspond by telegraph. He has been successful in his mission, my dear, and I expect that he will take train for home tomorrow morning. I wanted to let you know."

I felt a black despair sink over me. "Thank you, Mycroft. I appreciate your consideration; it seems beyond my husband at most times."

"Now, Mary, he would have contacted you if he could have done, but this has been a most critical case, with international implications, and he was afraid to address you by telegraph directly for fear the message should be intercepted and some harm befall you."

Contritely, I replied, "I know, I know he thinks of me in all things. It's just that -- I wish I had gone with him on this case. I miss him -- but please, don't say that to him; his ego will swell up until his head bursts."

Mycroft laughed loudly. "You have the right of him, sister Mary. He has solved a perplexing murder, and he will likely come back fuming and fussing because one tiny thread eludes him."

I smiled. "That's Holmes, all right. Well, I have a little mystery of my own; perhaps it will amuse him." Then I remembered: "Mycroft, you would know: is ivory considered of great value in the Bedouin Arab world?"

A brief silence. I could hear Mycroft's heavy breath. Then: "A little mystery of your own, you say. Mary, only extremely wealthy Arabs own ivory. Will you share your case with me, or wait until Sherlock returns?"

I thought about it. I was bursting with my frustrating find and would have liked nothing better than to ask Mycroft's opinion, but after the disappointment involving the motor car, I was not about to relinquish the rest of my mystery. "Thank you, brother Mycroft, but I'm still conducting my investigation." We exchanged a few pleasantries, then he bade me goodnight and rang off.

I took myself down to the Monk's Tun, and was given a warm welcome by Tillie, the proprietress. "What would ye like, Missus Mary? How about a stew o' fresh mussels to start with?"

I had to laugh, and told her about my adventure with the mussels. Thereupon she served me a delicious potato and leek soup, followed by half of a savoury roasted spring chicken with braised turnips and carrots, accompanied by the refreshing local ale.

I sat, digesting, enjoying the cheerful surroundings, conversation and laughter, and trying to decide between a pastry made with Patrick's dried peaches and a cup of chocolate pudding, when I noticed a copy of the Times on the next table, which was unoccupied. I reached over and took it and perused the latest news, most of which was depressing, some of which was trivial and a good portion of which was boring.

"Tillie, I'll have the peach pastry, and a cup of tea," I called to her as she passed. "Good choice, Missus Mary. I'll put some custard over the pastry for ye."

My sumptuous dessert before me, I took a sip of tea. A headline caught my eye: Shaykh Abdel ibn-Faisal's Remains Discovered In France. Suspects Are Under Interrogation in Paris.

The paper went on to describe the deceased, a member of the Saudi Arabian royal family in line for his father's throne. He had been involved in negotiations over the vast reserves of petroleum under his country's shifting sands, in particular those which would have involved rapacious European interests. It was thought that his own countrymen might have killed him because they were opposed to any dealings with the aggressive Europeans and feared repercussions.

Although the body had been recovered and the cause of death determined (a shot to the head), authorities were pursuing details of the shooting: the bullet had passed straight through his cranium from right to left and exited his left ear, and could not be found. The renowned detective Mr Sherlock Holmes had worked with the international police to locate and apprehend three Arabians who were the prime suspects in the case.

I ate a forkful of the pastry. It was delicious. I smiled. "Tillie, may I take the newspaper?"

"Sure, Missus Mary, take it. I'll wrap t'other half o'the chicken for ye to carry home."

I walked home slowly under a bright silver moon, my breath puffing up in frosty clouds, and even ventured to whistle loudly through my teeth a jazz song I loved and Holmes loathed: "If I should decide to jump into the ocean, Ain't nobody's business if I do!" My own case was still mine! It was clear, I reasoned, that I held one of the missing pieces to the solution of the murder of Shaykh Abdel ibn-Faisal: the evidence that he was shot by a .45 calibre revolver. Now, I thought, we have the name of the victim, who he was, and how he was murdered. I shall write a tidy report on the results of my study and submit it to Scotland Yard, and they may do with it as they please; it will bear my name -- only my name.

Like a balloon left too long in a warm place, my euphoric mood had swelled for a time, and now it burst. Holmes had solved the case without my missing piece; he surely had the murderers to rights and was peeved only because he lacked one tiny bit of evidence. I reached the house and let myself in. Slowly I made a fire in the study hearth, and sat down on the hearth-rug in front of it. I could not get warm.

"I thought it was my case, and it turns out that I've merely done the lower-level laboratory work. Holmes has solved the murder, and without my contribution. Is nothing my own?"

I pulled an afghan over my shoulders. "Am I an afterthought, a convenience, following the master like a dog -- I should say, like Watson?" I put my head in my hands and wept from the depths of my soul. "I do not know who I am, or what. I've lost myself. Better had I left you in the Thames, given you up for dead and gone back to Oxford, to make a life for myself? Better than to be an appendage, a postscript. Better than to endure your sneers at my work and my career." I gritted out great wracking sobs; my heart had broken.

What if Holmes were killed on this engagement? In all the years we had been together, both before and after our marriage, I had worried myself to distraction every time he had not appeared when he was expected; had envisioned him dead, or worse than dead, as I lingered by the window into the early hours of the dawn, waiting for a carriage or taxi-cab to come up our lane and deposit its occupant in front of the door; had lain wide-eyed and sleepless in a cold bed or sat in front of a dwindling fire, anticipating the ring of the telephone announcing his demise. What would I do then? Live alone in this cottage, hearing voices, seeing ghosts?

A soft furry bulk leaned against my shoulder. I put my arms around the rotund shape, which, from its size, could only be Chutney, and I cried into her dark orange fur, feeling rather than hearing her comforting purrs. I half-walked, half-stumbled off to the bedroom, collapsed on the bed and crawled under the covers. Chutney squirmed beneath the covers next to me, and I shivered and trembled against her warmth.

Chutney was busy doctoring Mary, preparing to heal the dark, roiling misery within. I settled myself across Mary's legs, to support both of them. Chutney bespoke me: "Marm, I am close to the old wounds. Join your spirit with mine and let us entreat the Great Dam to help us to heal Mary." I focused my concentration and reached out to my sister's glowing spirit, the true Medicine, and together we carefully picked apart the tangled and strained strings that trapped old pain and sorrow inside of Mary's soul. We retrieved her faith that she is indeed loved by those she loves. That is the sovereign remedy for all that ails us, human or Person.

I was deeply touched. Chutney is extraordinary; her healing is without peer, and indeed she seemed to have gifted Mary with some of her own Gift. "Dear sister, you have saved another life. Let us awaken her, for it is late, and we are weary from our task." I rose and stretched up to the tips of my toes. I smelled bacon frying: our assistant, Mrs Hudson, had returned and was in the kitchen, and I realized I was ravenous. Chutney chose to wake Mary by treading out the thick mass of her tumbled hair.

I woke slowly, to the fragrance of freshly brewed coffee and frying bacon. A shaft of pale-yellow sunlight lay across the bed, and in it danced Chutney, up on her hind feet, trying to catch floating dust motes. I sat up, and she pounced lightly on my knees as they moved under the coverlet, then jumped to the floor with a grunt and a thud, and ran side-by-side with Marmalade in the direction of the good smells.

Mary followed us down to the kitchen and threw herself on Mrs Hudson, who embraced her fondly, fussed at her and sat her down with a bowl of porridge. Chutney and I addressed ourselves to our bowls, in which Mrs Hudson had put some crisp little pieces of bacon amongst our feed. The righteous pleasance of the house was it should be, lying gently over all like the morning sunlight.

I finished my breakfast and sat back to groom my paws and whiskers prior to a thorough morning bath. Then I betook myself to the window-seat in the study, where the sun streamed in. A meerschaum pipe lay on the cushion, and I recalled, with a little touch of sadness, that in Mary's healing dream three People played in the tall green grass of the land of the Tenth Life; two orange and one golden, but no lean gray shape ran with them. Great Dam Above, help us to learn wisdom.

Finis