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“Oh?”

He consulted his notebook. “Les Freres Heureux, it’s called. Ever heard of it?”

“Your pronunciation could stand some improvement, Lestrade,” I remarked. “But, yes, I believe we’ve dined there once or twice. An excellent cellar.”

“Although the manager’s cigars are quite as poisonous as I have ever experienced,” Holmes added. “It’s the curse of the modern age, I fear. I find it hard to believe that a detective of your undoubted abilities would experience even the mildest of difficulties running the culprit to ground. You seem to have an over-abundance of witnesses, and more than adequate supplies of the energy required for such a task.”

Lestrade twitched visibly. “You might think so, Mr. Holmes, but … well, it’s a peculiar thing … impossible, even.”

“I make it a habit to eliminate the impossible before proceeding in an enquiry. Come, come! Surely this is a matter for which the old hound remains the best.”

“I should have thought so, too. But you tell me what it means when a man is brutally murdered in front of some twenty-odd people and yet not one of them claims to have seen a thing… Almost as though the killer were unvisible.”

“Brutally?” I wondered aloud.

“You’re a medical man, Dr. Watson, and a soldier to boot but I doubt if even you have ever…” Lestrade’s voice failed and I imagined for a moment that he was actually stifling a sob. “You’ll never see anything like it this side of hell, I swear it.”

Holmes rose to his feet and stuffed his pipe into the pocket of his dressing gown. I saw at once that his mood had altered from extreme languor to devouring energy.

“If we are content to sit here chatting about it, I too swear that we will never see it. You said that the post-mortem is due to begin at any moment. If we make a start now, we should be in time to interview the surgeon. Watson, Professor Cawthorne is a member of your club, yes? Then we should have no difficulty in breaching the inner sanctum of one of London’s most respected police surgeons. No, no, Lestrade, you need not accompany us. I see from your haggard features that you have already had far too much of the unsavory side of this investigation. By all means, finish your drink, and show yourself out when you are ready.”

I was struck, upon entering the mortuary, how long I had been away from the world of practical medicine. The smell of carbolic and decaying flesh could never be described as palatable, but our ability to become accustomed to even the most unattractive circumstance will invariably out. On this occasion, however, it took some effort on my part not to gag as the odor assailed my nostrils.

Cawthorne was soaping his hands as we entered, and gave no more than a brief backward glance. It was not his way, however, to be ungracious, even in the most morbid situation.

“Why, John, what a pleasant surprise. Though I shouldn’t really be surprised at all, I suppose. And Mr. Holmes.” The two men exchanged no more than a nod of assent, for feelings were somewhat cool between them, ever since Holmes had called Cawthorne’s competence into question during our investigation into the shooting of a vagrant on the grounds of Colonel James Moriarty’s Chelmsford home. “You’re here about the late Mr. Molinet, I imagine?”

With his stick, Holmes indicated a corpse beneath a bloody shroud. “This is he?” he asked.

“It is. I’ve more or less finished with him, but you’re welcome to take a look. I confess, there are still a good many questions concerning the nature of his death I’d like answering. You have George’s permission to be here, of course?”

It took a moment before I realized that Cawthorne was referring to the Inspector, with whom, it seemed, he was on first-name terms. To Sherlock Holmes and myself, however, he was simply ‘Lestrade’.

I explained, in the most diplomatic terms, that our mutual acquaintance had chosen to remain behind at Baker Street, rather than view the body once more.

“You won’t judge him harshly, I hope. This is a shocking matter, even for an old war-horse like