The Case of the Mysterious Teeth
I struggled against the tide of pedestrians, all the while striving to keep the tall helmet in sight as the constable strode ahead of us, but I was losing the battle: buffeted and elbowed and quietly cursed, I was barely making headway.
“Watson! Make haste!” It was Holmes, his unusual height making him clearly visible above the strangers’ heads, turning briefly to me as he marched forward, apparently unhindered by the crowd and certainly gaining ground.
“Holmes!” I called out. “Holmes, a moment!” In desperation I shouldered a looming navvy with some vigour and ducked forward, weaving my way closer to Holmes. When I reached his side, my tie was awry, I had lost a coat button and I felt myself lucky to still possess my hat.
“And here is our constable,” I said to Holmes in some relief. “I thought I had lost him.”
“I find that if I keep close behind him, I get on very well,” said Holmes as we walked. “He creates an eddy much as a rock in the middle of a stream. It seems that our fellow foot travellers prefer not to bump a member of the constabulary.”
We put our heads down and continued on our way, glancing up at the constable every so often to make certain of our way. I still clutched the note he had brought Holmes not ten minutes since. “Something in your line,” it read. “Come at once. Morgue. Lestrade.” I had barely had time to throw on my hat and coat as I bustled to keep up with Holmes.
We reached the broad, imposing steps of Scotland Yard, and I paused for breath before mounting them two at a time, still trailing Holmes and the constable. Once inside and shouldering through the busy vestibule past citizens of all walks and in all humours, we were led down a deep flight of stairs to the gloomy cellars that housed the morgue.
Lestrade greeted us. “You got my message all right, then?” He nodded to the constable. “Very good, Johns. Off you go.” He turned to us with animation as the young policeman took the stairs. “I thought to myself you would very much like to see this one, Mr Holmes. I think you will agree that it is quite in your line. In here.”
We followed him through a pair of heavy doors into a large, low-ceilinged room lit by at least a dozen new electric lights. Their illumination was so intense I was momentarily blinded but by the time I had followed Lestrade and Holmes to the far corner of the room I could see that we were approaching a table upon which a sheet had been laid. I could see that under the sheet lay a body.
Lestrade stepped to the head of the table and drew back the sheet theatrically. Revealed lay a young woman, pale in death, her eyes closed and her cheeks alabaster, altogether giving one the impression of a marble goddess, an impression only heightened by her bare shoulders, the delicate underclothes she was wearing and the luxurious hair that tumbled over her shoulders. She was possessed of almost regal beauty.
“What dreadful misfortunate has overtaken this poor young lady?” I asked, moved by her untimely death.
“I rather fancy that the answer to your question is the reason we have been summoned,” said Holmes, looking to Lestrade. “Well, my friend? What are we to observe? You rather have the advantage of us.”
“And not the first time, I suppose,” said Lestrade, but Holmes bore his needling impassively. “Well now, look here.” Lestrade gently drew down the front of the woman’s camisole to reveal two red spots just above the top of her corset. They were each the size of a pea and were circled in an angry red.
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed. “What dreadful thing has happened here? What has caused these marks?”
“Ah,” said Lestrade, pointing his finger into the air with an expression of quiet triumph. “I am before you on this, Dr. Watson, Mr. Holmes. Clearly this is the bite of some deadly animal. Thus, I took the liberty of calling the head keeper from the London Zoo to help us identify the beast responsible. From thence we will be able to ascertain how it came about that she was bitten. I expect the keeper imminently.”
Holmes leaned closer to the dead woman, his keen eye following the line of her camisole, observing her throat and arms, then gently touching her closed fingers. “Gripping,” he said. “Possibly startled. No ring: apparently unmarried.” He leaned in over her face and head for a moment, a slightly quizzical expression on his face. “No rigour as yet. A very recent death.”
“That is certainly so,” said Lestrade with a touch of professional pride in his voice. She was found at the service entrance of St Bart’s Hospital not an hour since and brought here immediately.” He looked down at the lovely face with an air that suggested the proprietorial. “Almost warm, this one, though bless me we don’t know who she is.”
Holmes continued his examination. “No violence to be seen here. Does your pathologist believe there was an outrage?”
Lestrade was astonished. “But this death was not by human hand, Mr. Holmes. You can yourself see the bite. This was not murder, so no, there was no outrage perpetrated upon this woman. As it happens, our doctor has not yet attended, but he will confirm what I say, I am in no doubt.”
Holmes cast me an inscrutable glance. “As you say,” he said quietly. “My mistake.”
At that moment the young constable came through the doors followed by a tall and vigorous man dressed in indeterminate garb, neither that of a gentleman nor of a labourer. I took him at once for the zookeeper.
“I came immediately, sir,” he said, glancing from Holmes to Lestrade. “I am Robert Morton, from the London Zoo.”
Introductions were made and Morton was brought forward to examine the bite on the woman’s breast.
“Well,” said Lestrade. “What say you: viper? Wild cat?”
Morton had given an initial start on observing the dead woman. I felt some pity for him: familiar as he must be with death in nature, I hazarded that he was not so accustomed to viewing the corpse of a young woman. Even I still found that death had a way of seeming always at odds with the living, always ill placed. Morton gathered himself, and leaning in to examine the bite, was clearly perplexed. “I would say neither, but I am not sure I can say what creature was responsible for this cruel bite. Unless…” he stood upright. “I shouldn’t like to suggest this, sir, if I could just see another solution, but I believe the only creature that could make a bite this big without savaging the skin is a vampire bat.”
His words struck a chill through me, and I read alarm in Lestrade’s face. He mouthed the word “vampire” apprehensively, for in recent months the London police had borne the heavy brunt of the near hysteria that had followed the publication of a lurid new tale of horror concerning just such a beast, but with human form and supernatural powers.
Holmes, however, retained his suave calm. “You think so?” he asked Morton mildly. “Your professional judgment is that this young woman was killed by a bat?”
“Well, I, that is, the bite …”
“Oh strike me,” said Lestrade suddenly. “Here I am forgetting the best part. Now, vampire bat or no vampire bat, what do you think of this?”
With a flourish he stepped towards the woman and reaching for her fist, prised open her still soft fingers to reveal in her palm a single arch of vulcanite and porcelain false teeth. “There!”
Holmes pounced upon the teeth and held them up to his eye. “Now we begin to see,” he said to himself, as he rotated the dentures for closer scrutiny.
“Well at least we know it has no bearing on the case at any rate,” said Lestrade. He moved to the woman’s face and gently opened her lips, revealing her teeth. “Not hers, you see. It was just a novelty I thought would amuse you, Mr Holmes.” He turned to the still flustered Morton. “I thank you sir, for clearing up this little mystery. Be so good, however, to tell us where these bats might be found. Perhaps we can issue a general warning to the public. Carefully worded of course, under the circumstances, carefully worded.”
“Not in London, sir,” said Morton. “We have none at the Zoo and the Desmodontinae are native to the Americas. I do not believe there are any private local collections. In short, sir, I cannot explain this young woman’s bite.”
Lestrade’s smile dropped. I fancied I could see the rush of thoughts tumbling through his head. A vampire was loose in London. It would take the merest spark to ignite a public frenzy about a real Dracula. An inflamed populace, riots, disturbances perhaps recalling those of the terrible Fenian bombings. The establishment of the London detective force was recent, and the need for it was still being debated in some powerful quarters. Lestrade’s authority was, with this one death, of a sudden in jeopardy.
“Now, now, Lestrade’” said Holmes soothingly. I could see he had also been observing our friend’s expressions. “I fancy your imagination is running away with you. Let us confine ourselves to the facts as we have them, and I believe we may release our friend Mr. Morton to return to his menagerie.”
Morton was only too happy to leave us as Lestrade waved him away. Holmes turned to the detective. “With your permission, I would like to take this keepsake.” He held the teeth aloft with an airy wave. “As they have no bearing on the case, I rather think they would make a splendid addition to my own personal Black Museum.” He was referring to Scotland Yard’s private crime gallery, about which I knew he harboured an intense fascination but had never been permitted to view.
“Take the wretched things,” said Lestrade. “But tell me, Mr. Holmes, what do you make of this vampire theory?”
“If those marks are the bite of a vampire bat,” said Holmes, pocketing the teeth, “then London does indeed face an unprecedented peril. Good day, Lestrade, we can see ourselves out.”
I hurried to keep pace with the striding Holmes. Mercifully the pavements were quieter now, and the elbows and shoulders more contained to their persons. “Did you mean that, Holmes?” I asked him. “Are we indeed facing a dreadful danger?”
“No,’ said Holmes simply, “we are not facing any danger.”
“But you said …”
“I said, if those were the marks of a vampire’s teeth. However, those were not the marks of a vampire’s teeth. Therefore, the peril, being conditional, no longer menaces us. Watson, you are a medical man. Did you closely examine these marks, this bite?”
“Well, no, I did not, but Lestrade had done so, and declared it a bite and then Morton believed …”
“Indeed. Our zoological friend accepted the idea that it was the bite of some animal without applying his own mind to the matter, and he suggested the only beast he could think of with the teeth that would fit the wounds. He was not deducing in a rational sequence, Watson, he was, if I may so express it, working backwards. Reflect: did you observe him studying the bites themselves and analysing them? No? No, indeed. He was carried away with Lestrade’s fancy, as perhaps you have been yourself. There is no quicker way of surrendering your powers of deductive reasoning, Watson, than to accept that what you observe is what someone tells you that you observe. Questioning Watson, questioning. It is at the core of all scientific understanding.”
I was crestfallen. How many times had Holmes drawn me in and then dismissed me in this way, I wondered to myself. I would almost have taken heart if I could but think I would know better another time, but I knew this hope to be false. I would never know better. Holmes would always trounce me.
“So, we are safe?” I asked him tentatively.
“There is no vampire roaming London, at least, though whether we are ever really safe, I would not hazard to say.”
“And the marks?”
“I fear, Watson, that the extreme oddness and yet banality of what caused those marks is what led you astray. Tell me, what is the most common small household injury?”
“Why burns, of course. Stoves, fires, gas lights and still in many homes, candles.”
“Indeed. And the lady we observed just now, was she of a slight build?”
“By no means. She was a handsome and well-made woman who would have been stately in life, I feel sure.”
“Now I come to a more delicate question. If one were to drop a small ember, perhaps while holding it up in a pair of tongs to light a taper or a gas jet, and it fell into the top of a well-made woman’s corset, how would the burn appear?”
I ran through my mind the conditions he had stated, and a moment later exclaimed with wonder, “The ember would lodge in her corset. The burn would appear as two symmetrical spots in the centre of the woman’s breast! Good heavens, Holmes! This is extraordinary! It was not a bite at all!”
“No, it was not a bite, and judging from its deep colour, I believe it to have occurred some days since, which perhaps will be confirmed by the pathologist. However, I bethought myself to leave Lestrade a little longer in his somewhat confused garden of thoughts.” Holmes reached into his pocket and drew out the false teeth. “This is where my interest lies. I believe these teeth hold the clue to the mysterious death, and perhaps the identity, of that young woman.” He strode forward and I hurried in his wake.
When I came into the breakfast room the following morning, I could see at once that Holmes had not been to bed. The air was thick with tobacco smoke, and still in his dress of the previous evening, he reclined over two dining chairs, his feet on the table and the false teeth resting on a short pile of books in front of him.
“Ah, Watson, unable to sleep, I see.”
“On the contrary, Holmes, I have slept very soundly for considerably more than eight hours. It is almost nine o’clock in the morning, and I smell the approach of a dish of bacon and some coffee.”
I went to the window and throwing back the curtains, flung open the casement. Sunlight streamed in and smoke began to drift out. Holmes roused himself with a dry chuckle as Mrs. Hudson knocked and entered, bearing a generous tray.
“Lord, the smell!” she grumbled. “And I know well where your big boots have been, Mr. Holmes. That’s my good tablecloth though how I can call it that now I couldn’t honestly say and that’s the truth.” As she placed the tray on the table, she caught sight of the false teeth. “Oh Lord, give me strength! It’s half of someone’s head on my best.”
Laughing, Holmes scooped the teeth into his pocket. “Just someone’s misplaced eating mechanism, Mrs. Hudson. I pity the poor soul who does not keep his own teeth in his head when I see this wondrous spread. Goodness, the best of a pig, and crisp, and is that your own sublime conserve? Mrs. Hudson, I revere you.”
She smiled at his charm, no more fooled than I, but warmed nonetheless. “Go on with you, Mr. Holmes, sir. I believe you are the very devil. I will bring some coffee directly.”
I sat at the table and set to, while Holmes cleared away the books and tapped out his noisome pipe. Mrs. Hudson returned to place the coffee on the table and withdrew.
“And what do you make of your keepsake after a night’s study?” I asked him.
“I believe they belong to the woman’s lover and not her murderer, but I believe the two are connected.” He reached behind him to the pile of newspapers stacked upon the footstool and began to rummage through them. “I hope you can clear your afternoon, Watson, as I rather think we are going to observe a game of football.”
My fork paused halfway to my mouth. Holmes had never been known to express the slightest interest in, nor understanding of, sport. “Oh yes?” I said in as offhand a manner as I could summon. “What match shall we see?”
“I rather fancy seeing …” he picked up a folded paper and checked it “Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool.”
My fork continued its journey and I chewed meditatively. I could ask him why. I could express my surprise or even perhaps frustration at being once again kept in ignorance. I well knew that he was toying with me. Yet my hearty breakfast was suffusing me with a healthy morning warmth and just for the moment I felt equal to this challenge. I would do a little toying of my own.
“What else do you deduce about the teeth, Holmes old man? At what conclusions have you arrived?”
Still oblivious to the hot dish of eggs and bacon, Holmes leant back and tilted the chair in a manner strongly disapproved of by Mrs. Hudson. He held the teeth up in one hand and used the other for explanatory waves and pointing. “They are quite new,” he began. “I would say not more than six months old, possibly even less, and expensive. You see they are handmade porcelain and not the more common Waterloo teeth, suggesting that their owner has come into money quite recently. Now observe Watson, it is not a full set for an upper mandible. There are spaces for the owner’s remaining strong and healthy teeth. An older man is more likely to require the replacement of every tooth. Thus, I believe we are not looking for an old man, for man it is: the shape of the jawline makes that clear. I believe we are looking for a young man, somewhat concerned with his appearance.”
“Fascinating,” I said, as I finished my plate and reached for some toast and conserve. “Please go on.”
“Now, observe these faint marks on the sides,” said Holmes, angling the teeth towards me. “I rather think they may have been caused by one of those new gum shields.”
“Ah, the teeth protectors? Gutta-percha I believe? A sound idea for anyone likely to get a knock.”
“Yes, yes, indeed. In fact this leads me to believe that we are tracking a sportsman, Watson, and a sportsman either accustomed to some bruising treatment in the pursuit of his game, or perhaps fearing it, and taking care to protect his new investment.”
I leant back with satisfaction, my coffee in my hand. “May I summarise? We are in pursuit of a young, vain, sportsman with access to money who has lost his artificial teeth to the death grip of a mysterious corpse.”
Mrs. Hudson knocked and entered. “Finished, gentlemen?” She made to clear the table and Holmes let out a short bark.
“My breakfast! What the devil?” He eyed me suspiciously. “Sometimes I almost think, Watson – “ but he left his sentence unfinished as I coolly sipped my coffee, my face expressionless.
As we sat in the hansom rattling us towards Crystal Palace later that day, Holmes unfolded part of a newspaper from his greatcoat pocket. “Something is amiss with the Tottenham team, Watson. Read this.”
The article described the outcry from fans the previous week when goalkeeper, William Anders, was inexplicably absent on the day of the match. As the team’s rising star, his absence was critical, and Tottenham lost the match.
“Oh yes,” I said, “I have heard something of this, though as you know, I am more of a rugby man. I believe there were rumours that this chap was being pursued by another club, or something of that nature. Do we expect Anders to be playing today?”
“That remains to be seen. I believe he is listed to play. Altogether I am rather interested in being on the spot.”
“Holmes, what does this Anders have to do with the false teeth?”
“If I have deduced aright, I believe he will be missing them.”
“They are his teeth?”
“That is my surmise. Recall if you will our process of deduction and your admirable summary: young, vain, moneyed sportsman. Anders is all of these.”
“But so also are his teammates, surely.”
“By no means. These men are amateurs, mostly I understand drawn from the working classes. And I might also add that his teammates have not inexplicably disappeared on the day of an important game, to return without public explanation, nor have they sought the help of Scotland Yard in recent weeks.”
“Anders has been to the police?”
“Indeed, he has, but it seems he received no satisfaction from that quarter. His complaint was not held to be serious. He believed his life to be in danger but was reluctant to provide details. Our official friends were justifiably obliged to let the matter rest, indeed believing that successful football players will always attract some animosity from fans of rival teams.”
“How on earth do you know this, Holmes?”
“As it happens, I had been following this story in a desultory way and had sought information from Lestrade, who, though willing to provide me with the bare facts, made sure to inform me that this was not ‘in my line.’ In fact, I believe he was attempting to keep me in my place yesterday by inviting me to the morgue. He prefers that I restrict myself to the eccentric and bizarre, and leave crime to the official force.”
“But look here, Holmes, how is it that this Anders has come into money? Perhaps an inheritance?”
“Ah, here we venture into speculation and you know my views about deducing ahead of the data, Watson.”
I was a little nettled at his pomposity. “I know that you scorn to speculate as a general rule,” I replied, “yet I warrant that I could name half a dozen occasions when you have done just so.”
Holmes gazed out the hansom window for a moment, apparently turning this over in his mind. “Very well, Watson, there is perhaps something in what you say, however I grant you only five instances, and in each of those circumstances the surrounding facts were prodigiously suggestive.”
I chuckled at his admission. “But not in this case?”
“Not in this case. At present I have four possible explanations to test against the events of the afternoon ahead. Whether these will reduce in number or indeed increase, it is impossible for me to say.”
We arrived at the ground a good half hour before the scheduled start of the match. There was a sizeable crowd already in attendance, but it was, I was pleased to see, a peaceful one. To my surprise we made straight for the pavilion, directing our steps to the team changing rooms below ground level.
A harassed looking, sparse-haired man in team colours was remonstrating with a young man in cloth cap and working clothes.
“You should be already kitted up, Sterne! The team is almost ready yonder. Get your kecks on and toss that damned charch!” The young man slouched off with the cigarette still hanging from his lips and his interlocutor turned to us with a momentarily quizzical look. His face lightened. “You’ll be Mr Holmes! Most welcome, I’m sure. And Dr. Watson? Good, good, I’m Morrison. Let’s us have a little talk before I get this team ready to run out. Still missing a couple,” he checked his pocket watch. “But Howard will be right, and I daresay Lennie with him, so we should be bang up to the elephant.”
“And young Anders?” asked Holmes.
“Well, there you have me, in a sense, Mr. Holmes. He is here, but is he here? I mean to say he is in the outer room there with the others but not so bricky. Got the morbs and no mistake. Can’t honestly say as he can play but there I am in a pickle. If I put young James back out again this week there will be mafficking in the stands you may be sure, and believe me, we will never take the egg.”
I looked enquiringly at Holmes, who nodded to Morison and said, “So Anders seems preoccupied, but without him playing you will lose.”
Morrison looked at him, puzzled. “Yes, so I said just now.”
We gained Morrison’s permission to speak to Anders and settled ourselves in a small tearoom to the side of the hall. A moment later, Anders came through to join us. He was wiry rather than muscular, of middle height; strong and fit but with a very downcast countenance. A glimpse as he greeted us confirmed Holmes’ surmise that the false teeth were indeed his.
“My friend and I know that you are sorely troubled, Mr. Anders,” Holmes began. “In fact, I believe you are facing a trial which is beyond your powers to resolve. Mr. Anders, your wife is missing.”
He was visibly taken aback for a moment. “She is not my wife, sir.”
“Yes, yes, your common law wife is missing, is she not?”
‘She is, sir, though how you know of this I cannot say.”
“I believe you asked the official police for assistance when your own life was threatened?”
“I did sir.” His voice shook and he rubbed his face with his hand. “They turned me away.”
“Perhaps they were hampered by the fact that they had no names and no evidence.”
“Well how could I give them names?” Anders burst out. “That was the very thing they told me would be punished. Yes, I did ask the police for help, but I had to give it away. God help me, I never thought they would harm Eliza. I got in fair deep with those scoundrels before I knew what they were about. I should never have taken their money and you may be sure I rue it, but it is now all spent, and I thought at least that Eliza was safe. And now they have her, I am sure of it. They are rogues of the worst kind. Mr. Holmes, I don’t know what business you have here but if you are on my side, if there is some power that might aid me, I beg you to act.” He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, shaking his head in distress.
Holmes inclined gently towards the young man. “Mr. Anders, I have grave news indeed. I regret that I bring you yet more sorrow. Your persecutors did indeed take Eliza, but this much of course you already know, for you were there when she was taken, were you not?”
Anders nodded slowly; his eyes fixed upon Holmes in trepidation.
“I think it may have been an accident, but I am now certain she has been slain.”
Anders looked at Holmes in horror, his face a mask of ashen terror. “Killed?” Holmes gave him a slight, sombre nod and the young man put his face in his hands and sobbed.
Morrison was obliged to put young James in the goal after all since the unfortunate Anders was prostrated by shock. He was transported to Scotland Yard where he had the unhappy task of identifying Eliza’s body.
Holmes and I sat in thoughtful silence as our cab bore us homeward.
“Well, we missed the game after all,” he remarked after some minutes.
I sighed. “That unfortunate young man. Not only this dreadful event but I fancy he might have lost his position on the team.”
“It would certainly be regrettable if that were the case,” remarked Holmes, dusting his legs offhandedly. “It was his position on the team that brought him his troubles.”
“Indeed? How so?”
“Because, Watson, his unique position made him an object of value to the unscrupulous scoundrels who sought to benefit from some dishonest wagering. I think you will find that the expression is ‘fixing.’ They sought to ‘fix’ some matches by influencing our young friend to miss some goals, in effect, to lose deliberately.”
“And this influence was a threat to his life?”
“It became so. Money was first, of course.”
“Hence the teeth.”
“Hence the teeth. However, as they did not receive that which they believed they had purchased, they progressed to threats. But as you saw, while Anders did take his fears to the police, he would not then disclose the information they required to take action, and unfortunately by this stage the money he had accepted was gone. You heard his regrets there. This confirmed for me the sequence of events.
“After Anders’ abortive attempt to recruit the protection of the official force, I am certain the miscreants then escalated their threats to include the young woman, Eliza. I believe a plan to kidnap her went awry. Once I heard from Anders’ own lips that he had been there when she was abducted, I knew that his silence had been assured by his fears for her safety.”
“Abducted!” I said. “Why, that is monstrous! What scoundrels. But how came she to perish?
“You recall that there were no obvious signs of violence upon the corpse? This raised a question in my mind, and I made a point to lean in close to her face. I detected the distinct odour of chloroform. The lack of rigour told us she had died only shortly prior to being brought to the morgue, nonetheless, the odour was surprisingly strong, and I suspected that she had been accidentally murdered by those who had wished to keep her unconscious.”
“This is ghastly, Holmes. She was seized from her own home by these criminals who chloroformed her and carried her away!”
“And continued to apply the drug to keep her quiet until they accidentally applied too much. Thereupon they left her at the hospital. Incidentally, that was a most telling detail of Lestrade’s. If the young woman had indeed been the victim of some sort of dangerous bite, one would expect her friends to summon a doctor or take her with all speed to the hospital. To leave a body at the service entrance and quit the scene rather suggests a reluctance to be involved with the authorities, which in turn is suggestive of murder rather than injury.” He paused thoughtfully for a moment. “Indeed, it occurs to me, Watson, that we might do well to alter our route and make for Scotland Yard. I rather fancy that Lestrade will be all astonishment at these developments.”
I readily assented, and Holmes redirected the driver.
Lestrade welcomed us into his office. Holmes asked him about Anders.
“Well, the young man came in all right,” said Lestrade. “And a poor state he was in. Took it quite bad indeed when he saw the young lady. So we know who she is at least. But he could tell us nothing about the bite. That aspect is still a mystery. But Mr Holmes, how in heaven did you figure out he was involved in this?”
“The teeth, Lestrade, the teeth. As you so rightly indicated, they were very much in my line. However, we do have some far graver news to impart, news that is in your line.”
As Holmes had predicted, Lestrade was indeed all astonishment at the story we had to relate. We took our leave as he bustled off to commence his murder investigation, crying out over his shoulder, “and there is no vampire! Such excellent news!”
We had dismissed the cab, so Holmes and I made our way homeward on foot. I saw with some dismay that the pedestrian throng was dense.
“I say, Holmes,” I said, ”shall we try some side roads this time? These elbows are too much for me.”
“By all means. In fact, I know of a short cut, if you do not object to a rough path.”
“Not at all,” I replied, and followed him as he ducked down a narrow laneway, wonderfully free of foot traffic. “There is still one thing that puzzles me,” I said to his back, as there was no room to walk abreast. “How came Anders’ teeth to be in the young lady’s hand?”
“Ah, well. I think it would help if you visualise the scene.” Holmes took a turn into another anonymous lane. “The young couple was preparing to retire, hence her state of deshabille, when the rogues broke in. They restrained young Anders and seized the young lady, immediately holding the chloroform to her face. In the moments before she succumbed to unconsciousness, in her panic she reached out and grabbed whatever came within her reach.”
“It was the teeth!” I cried. “I can see it. They lay on the bedside table.”
“So I believe,” said Holmes. “And they remained in her grasp until she died. It was fortunate indeed that Lestrade thought to bring me in on what he believed would be a little joke at my expense. If he had not done so, perhaps London would be in lockdown to save the populace from a giant vampire bat.” He chuckled. “Well now, Watson,” he said, as we emerged miraculously through a narrow gap between two houses into Baker Street. “What do you think of my little shortcut? Rather in my line, wouldn’t you say?”
