“Too young to die like this,” Doyle murmured as he examined the body.
To Ian’s surprise, there were few signs of injury—a bruise here and there, but no obviously broken bones or deep wounds.
“It’s curious,” Doyle said. “It doesn’t appear he was—oh, hello,” he added as he turned the body over.
“What is it?” said Ian, his heart beating faster.
“Take a look,” said Doyle. “There, at the base of the skull.”
Ian looked at the place Doyle pointed to, and saw a small but deep wound, bits of dried blood clinging to the edges.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Hang on a minute,” Doyle said, looking through his medical bag. “Ah, this should do,” he said, grasping a long, thin instrument with a wooden handle. “A surgical probe,” he said, and proceeded to slide it into the wound. It went in nearly six inches before meeting resistance.
“I think we may have the cause of death,” he said, carefully extracting it. “And it would have been nearly instantaneous.”
“What did—?”
“Inserted at this angle, the weapon would have penetrated the brain, causing a massive, fatal hemorrhage.”
“So that means—”
“Jeremy Fitzpatrick was already dead when he fell in front of the carriage.”
“What could have inflicted a wound like this?” Ian said, struggling to comprehend this new information.
“Something long and thin and nearly perfectly round,” Doyle said, studying the wound. “And with a pointed end, I should think.”
“A metal knitting needle,” Ian said abruptly.
“That would do it.”
Ian slapped his forehead. “I’ve been a fool! It was there, right in front of my nose, all the time.”
“What was?” said Doyle.
“There’s no time to waste!” Ian cried. “We must hurry. Are you with me, Doyle?”
“Where are we going?”
“To intercept a murderer.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
“You said something was in front of your nose the whole time,” Doyle said as they rumbled across town in the back of a hansom. He imagined Ian Hamilton spent a small fortune on cabs. He wondered if the Edinburgh City Police reimbursed him. “What were you referring to?”
“Motive,” said the detective. “I was so fixated on evidence I forgot to consider the importance of motive. It might have led me to the solution more quickly.”
“What exactly was the motive?” said Doyle, intrigued.
“Revenge. The source of so much evil. Unfortunately, it is too often sneaky, like a thief in the night.”
Doyle took a deep breath and rubbed his hands together. His palms were sweating. His heart beat faster when he was accompanying Hamilton on a case. Everything took on more importance, urgency, meaning—he felt so alive when he joined the detective in pursuit of a criminal. Medical school was hard, demanding work, but crime solving—he felt useful, like he was really doing something in the service of humanity. He couldn’t help wondering if he would feel the same about medicine once he got his degree, or whether . . . He looked at Hamilton’s sharply etched profile as he stared intently out the window of the cab, as if willing it to go faster. Doyle sighed. He couldn’t imagine being a doctor would be nearly as satisfying as this.
“‘Oft have I heard that grief softens the mind, and makes it fearful and degenerate; think therefore on revenge and cease to weep,’” Hamilton murmured.
“Shakespeare?”
“It is as if he was writing about this killer, who used revenge to soothe grief,” he said as they pulled up in front of their destination on Jeffrey Street. Doyle wanted desperately to ask what he meant, but Hamilton handed the driver some coins and, without waiting for change, sprang from the cab and dashed up the walk to the well-maintained building near the intersection of Market Street.
Doyle caught a whiff of smoke from the train engines at Waverley Station as he followed the detective up to the front door. A woman who appeared to be the landlady answered his knock, and before he knew it, Hamilton had talked his way past her, conveying a sense of urgency that made the good lady back away as he climbed to the first-floor landing, taking the stairs two at a time.
This time his knocking produced a faint reply from within—a man’s voice, sounding very weak.
“Help . . . please help.”
“Please open the door!” Hamilton told the landlady, who obeyed, her hands trembling as she turned the key in the lock.
No sooner had the bolt clicked open than Hamilton dashed into the flat, with Doyle close behind. They followed the sound of the voice to a comfortable sitting room, where a middle-aged man lay upon the sofa, groaning and writhing in pain.
“Thank heaven you’ve . . . come,” he groaned upon seeing them.
Doyle knelt beside the stricken man and took his pulse, which was racing and irregular. He was sweating profusely and clutched at his stomach.
“What did she give you, Nielsen?” said Hamilton.
“Not sure . . . could have . . . been rat poison.”
Hamilton turned to his friend, his face taut. “Doyle?”
“That would fit his symptoms,” Doyle agreed. He turned to the landlady, who stood nearby, wringing her hands. “Have you any oil of castor?”
She stared back with wide, frightened eyes.
“There is no time to waste!” said Hamilton.
“And a large basin as well,” Doyle added.
“Now!” Hamilton commanded, and she fled the room.
Conan Doyle turned back to the ailing man, who was doubled over in pain, his breath coming in gasps. “Easy,” he said. “Try to breathe as deeply as you can.”
Nielsen gazed up at the medical student, his eyes glazed with pain, and Doyle’s knees went a little weak at the sight of such torment. He wondered how he could face such suffering day after day as a physician. Luckily, the landlady soon returned with a bottle of castor oil, which she thrust at him with trembling hands. He wasted no time in uncorking it and forcing a large swallow down the patient’s throat. Nielsen gurgled and retched before vomiting an immense amount of fluid, most of which Doyle was able to catch in the basin.
The landlady went pale and turned away, and even Hamilton appeared taken aback by the violence of his reaction. But almost immediately there were signs of relief in the patient. His breath slowed, his face relaxed, and he loosened his grip on his stomach. After a few moments, Doyle gave him another dose, with the same response. It was not pretty, but he hoped he had administered the remedy in time to save Mr. Nielsen.
“Where did she go?” Hamilton asked Nielsen.
“Madame . . . she went to Madame’s,” he replied weakly.
“Can you stay with him, Doyle?”
“Of course.”
“I must go—thank you, dear fellow,” he said, and with three long strides, was gone.
Doyle turned to the landlady, who was still shaking.
“W-will he be all right, sir?” she asked.
“I believe he will recover. We arrived just in time.”
She burst into tears, and Conan Doyle knew just how she felt.