Free Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Tainted Canister by Thomas A. Turley Page A

tomorrow night.”
    â€œOh, yes, Doctor, we at the Yard keep track of Mr. Holmes. Actually, this time it’s you I need to see. I’m afraid that one of your medical colleagues has met with an untimely end.” He gave me a keen glance, meanwhile accepting my silent offer of a glass of sherry.
    â€œIndeed? And who is the unfortunate?”
    â€œRichard Anstruther. I believe he was a friend of yours.”
    â€œMy God, yes!” I collapsed into the chair behind my desk. “Of Mary’s, too. He knew her when she was a girl.” And once asked her to marry him , I might have added, but I saw no reason to impart that fact to the inspector. “We were neighbours near Paddington Station when I first began my practice. He used to see my patients for me when I was away with Holmes.”
    â€œBut you’d not seen him for some time.” Although Lestrade appeared to state a fact, his face wore that bulldog look it sometimes got when he had clenched his teeth around some unwarranted assumption.
    â€œNot often since he moved to Brook Street. In fact,” I added, forestalling an impending question, “I decided—quite upon the inspiration of the moment—to visit him last night. I waited at his home for perhaps half an hour, but he did not return.”
    â€œThat would explain why we found your calling card in his foyer.” With a reluctant nod, the inspector weighed this explanation. “What time was it when you left?”
    â€œJust after ten o’clock, as I remember. Too late by then to pay a social call.” I could not help smiling at Lestrade’s air of disappointment. “I hope that this agrees with what his butler told you!”
    â€œOf course, Dr. Watson.” Belatedly, it occurred to him that the two of us had captured criminals together for a decade. “And I’m bound to say there’s very little evidence that Dr. Anstruther did not die a natural death. Heart failure, by the look of it.”
    â€œUltimately, heart failure is the cause of every death,” I noted in my medical capacity. “Was there anything about the body that led you to think otherwise?”
    â€œNothing definite,” Lestrade parried, before caution fell victim to his natural loquacity. “He died in bed, apparently alone, without any evident wounds or signs of trauma. Pending the autopsy, of course. Based on his condition, I really couldn’t see why Merrick called us in.”
    Merrick, Anstruther’s manservant since his days in India, had risen to the dignity of butler when the practice moved to Brook Street. “Well, he was undoubtedly devoted.” I waited, knowing there was something Lestrade had not told me. His face could seldom maintain the wooden impassivity appropriate to his profession.
    â€œHe said there was a cry, late in the night.” Grudgingly, the inspector yielded up his clue. “It woke him, but he heard nothing else and fell asleep again almost immediately. He wasn’t sure about the time. Merrick’s old, and his room is located one floor up from Anstruther’s, in the opposite wing. It would have taken more than a half-heard cry to make him get up and investigate.”
    â€œAnything else?” By now, I was flattering myself that not even Holmes could have extracted more information from a police inspector.
    â€œHis face. A look of terror, Doctor, such as I’ve not seen on any other corpse that I’ve examined. It fair frightened me, I tell you, even after all these years.”
    â€œYes,” I admitted, “that result can be disturbing. But it’s far from uncommon in cases of sudden cardiac arrest. If Anstruther woke and found himself in the middle of a heart attack, it could easily account for the cry that Merrick heard. I can’t imagine anything more terrifying.
    â€œWould you like me to examine the body?” I suggested. “Anstruther was rather young for heart