Introduction
Detective Murdoch crouched down over the body. It lay slumped into the corner of the laneway, a makeshift mask made from a grain sack on the ground next to him and blood staining the front of his tan waistcoat.
“Are you sure this is the chap driving the carriage?” Constable Crabtree, just across the lane, asks a young flower seller. At the early hour, her basket still overflows with lilacs and daffodils.
“Yes,” she nods. “His horse took off and he ran away with another man.”
“Thank you.” Crabtree tipped his hat at her and she scurried out of the laneway to find new customers.
Murdoch abandoned his examination of the body, content to wait for Dr. Grace’s analysis at the morgue, and continued down the lane towards the back door of the Bank of Toronto, Spadina Branch.
“No real loss,” interrupted a bearded man with a British accent, who had watched their preliminary examination without comment. His shirt and waistcoat hung loosely, rumpled and worn, and his jacket stank of beer. “He wasn’t long for this world anyway.”
“I’m sorry?” Murdoch asked.
“He was cirrhotic,” the stranger replied.
“Oh, you knew him?”
“I observed him.” The correction is audible.
Murdoch isn’t one for being talked down to, but he is thankfully interrupted by Constable Henry Higgins, escorting another man down the lane. “Detective Murdoch! We have a suspect, sir. He was in possession of a mask and a bank box.”
“Very good, Henry., Bring him down to Station House 4.”
“Sir.” Higgins turned and left with the suspect, as the bearded man from before stepped further into the street.
“No, that’s not your man. Note his hands. The left hand is clean; the right hand is soiled and scratched. The bridge of his nose and temples are reddened as if he wears glasses, but he’s not wearing them now. Clearly he’s a left-handed machinist. There’s a machine shop just down on Durand, but the shift ended at 6 am. The robbery occurred at 5:30 am, so. That is not your man.”
Murdoch sighed and turned to face him fully. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
The man peeled off his beard and moustache with emphatic motions and pulled a deer stalker hat out of his jacket pocket before settling it on his head.
“My name–” he paused for dramatic effect. “–is Sherlock Holmes.”