A Letter of Mary - Laurie R. King [13]
When I came out sometime later, I found Holmes by himself in an office that adjoined the morgue. He was seated at a desk, before a neat pile of clothing, clothes that I had last seen upon the woman who now lay on the slab. Beside the clothes lay a large manila envelope, the flap of which had been opened and not yet tied closed again; next to the envelope was a piece of white typing paper, on which were arranged three steel hairpins and a metal button. I knew without looking that the objects would bear evidence of some kind, most likely that of the paint left by the car that had hit her. He looked up from his close examination of one of her boots when I came in.
"Better?"
"Thanks. I was all right, but it was a choice between leaving or hitting that giggling fool over the head with some unspeakable instrument. Can we go now, or are there more forms to sign?"
"Sit down for a moment, Russell, and have a look at her boots."
I did not sit down. I stood looking at him, and I saw the familiar, subtle signs of excitement in the flash of his deep-set grey eyes, the small smile on his lips, the way his fingertips wandered over the leather. The object in his hand had somehow transformed Miss Dorothy Ruskin from a friend who had died into a factor in a case, and I had a brief vision of him on the open hillside, with the wind in his sparse hair, saying that a case was sniffing about his door. It had not come with the woman's arrival, not for him anyway, but it looked very much as if it had come now, and I wanted nothing to do with it. I wanted to go home and walk the cliffs and mourn the loss of a good woman, not pick up the boot she had worn.
"What am I going to see on those boots, Holmes?"
Wordlessly, he held out the right one and his powerful glass. Reluctantly, I carried them over to the window. The boots were quite new, the toes only slightly scuffed, the soles barely worn. They were the sort that have holes for the laces along the foot, turning at the ankle into two long rows of protruding hooks— sturdy, comfortable, easy to lace up. I had a similar pair at home, though mine were of softer leather and had the new crêpe rubber soles. And no bloodstains. I held the glass over the lowest pair of hooks. Unlike the others, these were slightly crooked, and each had a minute nick at the underside, matching a hair-thin line in the leather which extended an inch on either side of the hooks. I concentrated on it, and the magnifier brought it into focus: Some thin, sharp edge had cut into the leather, caught from below against the two lowest hooks.
The other boot appeared at my side, and I took it. This was the left one, and it had a similar, almost invisible line, this time running at an angle across the toe, nearly obscured by the scuffs that lay beneath it. I placed the boots parallel to the edge of the desk and handed Holmes back his glass. The basement window looked up onto the street level, and I watched several pairs of feet walk by before I spoke.
"I don't suppose she could have had those marks on her boots when she was with us?"
Holmes paused in the task of securely folding the hairpins and button into the sheet of paper before replacing them in the large evidence envelope. "Is something the matter with your eyes, Russell? Those cuts are on top of everything else. There isn't even much dust in them."
"If she was tripped, then the car was deliberate." I took a deep breath and rubbed my shoulder. "Murder. I must say I wondered, a hit-and-run accident at that time of night. And her bag missing. It seemed unlikely."
"I should think so, Russell. I am relieved to hear that my efforts in your training have not been entirely in vain. I will go and ask the location of the corner where she was killed."
"And the witnesses?"
"And their addresses. Wait here."
* * *
We managed to shake off the helpful young laughing police constable and took a cab to the corner