The Three Locks by Bonnie MacBird (books for 8th graders .TXT) 📗

examined and smelled the inside of the drawer. He picked up the bottle of purple ink Buttons had used in the doll incident, now paired next to the original black bottle on the desk. ‘Half empty,’ he remarked. ‘Cap is cracked.’ He flipped through a Bible with numerous small bits of paper marking pages. Noting something on the wall, he scraped it with a fingernail. Then he picked up a candle which had been knocked from its holder and lay on the desk.

The deacon’s small carpet-bag stood upright in the same corner. Empty.

Holmes spent a long time on the bed. Folding back the coverlet, he removed a small card from his pocket, gently brushed something into it, folded it, and replaced it in his pocket. He smelled the pillow, examined the coverlet in minute detail, removed it and examined between the sheets. He moved the bed away from the wall and carefully inspected the newly uncovered area.

At the washstand, he picked up a water-jug. ‘Ah!’ he said, then ran his hands along the back of the desk chair, the arms of the chair, the desk and its drawers. He dropped to the floor, crawled to the corners, looked under the bed and desk, and finally got up, dusting off his clothing.

The window remained open and a steady spray of small droplets pattered against it, some wetting the sill and the stone floor directly below. Holmes re-examined the sill, the lock, the edges of this window, nodding and murmuring something unintelligible as he did so.

It took no incisive deductions on my part to see that some invisible history was playing out vividly in his mind.

He turned to look at me and exclaimed in surprise. He dashed across the small room towards me and minutely examined an area of the wall abutting the doorframe. ‘Your pocketknife, Watson,’ he commanded. ‘I have forgotten mine.’

I complied. He scraped something from the edge of the doorframe. ‘Aha!’ The scrapings went into a second small card which he folded and placed in his pocket.

The armoire came last. Deacon Buttons’ few clothes hung neatly. Three pairs of shoes were perfectly aligned along the bottom. Holmes picked up each in turn, exclaiming over the last, ‘Hmm. This pair is damp, the others are dry.’

He frowned, perplexed, then moved to the centre of the room and remained there for some time, unmoving, with one finger to his lips.

It was coming on to four in the morning. My energy was flagging and the wound in my leg was now shouting for attention. ‘Holmes?’ I ventured. I would need to sit down soon.

He shook his head ruefully.

‘It is a singular case, Watson. A kind of obsession. Miss Wyndham arrived with a plan, I would estimate. Either she asked Buttons to pawn the rings, or … he took them from her. Somehow things went terribly wrong.’

‘I would never think Buttons capable of hurting the girl.’

Holmes shrugged. ‘Great violence was done in this room.’

‘I don’t see it. But of course, I am standing out here.’

‘Watson, it is obvious! Candle wax spattered on the wall. Broken glass in that corner over there, cleaned up but not fully. Dents on the arm of that chair. Picture it, Watson! I found evidence that the girl was in his bed. Her scent on the pillow. A hair. And that ironstone water-jug. Cracked along the edge with a smear of blood.’

‘The head wound!’

‘Precisely. And the ink bottle! The ink!’

‘What of the ink?’

‘The bottle was thrown – there – at the door about head height. The cap cracked, some ink spattered. The ink was then cleaned off the wall, leaving a small amount, here, in the moulding. Whoever cleaned up did so quickly, missing much. Even the police might deduce that a fight raged here.’

‘Or I would, had I been allowed into the room!’

Holmes smiled up at me. ‘Yes, even you, Watson. Dillie put up a tremendous fight. She was overcome, and the killer pushed her naked, unconscious body out of this window and into the garden just below.’

‘The killer? You mean Deacon Buttons, then, do you not? Or do you mean Leo Vitale? Or Eden-Summers?’

‘I do not know yet.’

‘But how can you tell that she was put out through the window?’

‘Because I was looking for it. Another hair, caught on the edge of the sill, just there. And a tiny smear of blood on the clasp. Outside I saw an indentation in the earth just below, where the body landed. This was under an eave, and so the rain had not entirely washed away the imprint. Although the footprints nearby are indicative but not conclusive. One appears to be Vitale’s. But damn this rain! I cannot be sure.’

Vitale’s!

Holmes continued to stare around the room, willing more information.

‘I suppose the mud was washed off in the river as I saw none in the autopsy,’ I said. ‘But I don’t understand why the killer would dump her body out of the window?’

‘Simple. It was safer than carrying her through the corridor and risking running into someone. The window faces away from the church and towards the river. It would not be seen. Remember, this was between four and six a.m. There was no moon last night. It would have been quite dark. And raining. There are no buildings or roads with a nearby view of this place.’

I shook my head at the image. ‘Appalling.’

Holmes said. ‘It was as I feared. Poor Dillie underestimated whatever fury was unleashed here. She did not read the signs.’

‘Perhaps there were no signs, Holmes.’

‘She accepted rings from two suitors, Watson. Then asked a third young man to pawn them. Consider what she said or did to induce him to do this in the middle of the night?’

‘But … Buttons, then? The deacon was so eager to have you on the case,’ I continued.

‘Well, he was eager to find her. And he lied to us – twice.’ Holmes retrieved his boots from the hall and sat at Buttons’ desk to put them on.

‘But where is the