The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes - Jamyang Norbu [34]
Indeed, the crowd before the Horniman Circle police station was so large that the progress of our carriage was severely impeded. In spite of my remonstrances, barefooted little street urchins clambered like monkeys all over our carriage to secure a loftier view point. Finally Strickland and the police sergeant had to dismount and force their way through the press of bodies. After paying off the ghariwallah, Mr Holmes and I followed.
'Chale jao, you chaps,' Strickland shouted above the hubbub, 'move along there.' Swinging his swagger-stick vigorously before him, he managed to clear a path through the throng. Some constables spotted us and, brandishing their lathis, came to our assistance. Once we got through the crowd I saw a large pool of blood on the ground. The body had been removed to the police station. Inside, a visibly distraught Inspector MacLeod met us, his grey scraggly moustache looking more dishevelled than ever.
'I'm very sorry about this, Sir,' he stammered. 'For the life of me I just can't imagine ...'
'My dear MacLeod,' Strickland interrupted,'just tell us exactly what happened ...'
'Well Sir,' the inspector began, 'I escorted the prisoner from the hotel in the police victoria. I had two constables with me. When the victoria got to the thana and I was alighting, something struck the prisoner on the chest, mutilating it horribly. The effect was that of a gun-shot wound, but it could nae have been one. since neither I nor the constables heard the sound of a fire-arm being discharged. We managed to get the wounded man inside and Dr Patterson immediately attended to him, but it was nae use. He died a few minutes later.'
A stout middle-aged Englishman in a white surgical gown came out from another room. I presumed this was Dr Patterson.
'Good evening, Mr Strickland ... gentlemen,' he greeted us quickly and turned to Inspector MacLeod. 'Your man was definitely shot, MacLeod, and here's the bullet that did it. I just got it out of his chest.'
He held out a white enamel dish in which a single bloodstained bullet rolled to and fro. Sherlock Holmes bent over to examine it.
'A soft revolver bullet,' he declared. 'As you will perceive, it expanded considerably after discharge, thus inflicting the horrible mutilation on the body that Inspector MacLeod described.'
'But it could nae have been a revolver,' cried the bewildered inspector, tugging his scraggly whiskers in irritation. 'As I said before there was no sound of a gun being fired. And at this time of the night there is nae so much ado in the streets, that a pistol shot could nae have been heard.'
'See for yourself then,' Sherlock Holmes replied, pointing to the small bullet in the dish.
'I am nae denying it is a bullet, Sir,' protested the nettled inspector, 'but Captain Strickland, Sir, you know that the whole courtyard in front of the station is well lit with gas lamps. I am willing to stake my pension that there was nobody around the prisoner and me, at least within pistol range.'
'But further away,' suggested Strickland, 'on the other side of the street maybe.'
'That's a good eighty feet or more away,' replied the inspector, 'and I can nae be sure.'
'Was there any traffic on the street then, any carriage passed you by at that moment?'
'Nae, I am sure of it. Well there was this van — one of those covered delivery things — parked in front of one of the shops on the other side of the street. But nae even a crack shot could have hit a man at that range with just a pistol — especially at night.'
'Wouldn't it be rather late to make deliveries?' remarked Holmes, walking to the open window and peering out into the night. 'It is not there now, at any rate.' He turned away from the window to face us. 'Dear me. Dear me. What a singular problem.'
Something in his tone caught my ear. It seemed to me that the tone of his voice, far from sounding puzzled, hinted at privileged