Free The Ectoplasmic Man by Daniel Stashower

fascinated detachment, Lord O’Neill had become increasingly anxious, and he was now unable to control himself. “You have perceived the nature of our difficulty, and can now appreciate that it is sensitive beyond my ability to speculate.”
    “Letters, then?”
    “Letters,” confirmed Herr Osey. “Confound it! There is no milk for this tea!”
    “No matter, my friend,” said Herr Osey. “We shall take it dark.”
    “Yes, quite right,” said Lord O’Neill with an embarrassed laugh. “It’s a silly thing, I know, but my nerves—”
    “Indeed. We are all on edge.” Herr Osey took a cup of tea. “It is as yousay, Mr Holmes. We had met to discuss a number of indiscreet letters of which the countess was threatening to make use.”
    “And it is these letters which are now missing?”
    “Yes,” Lord O’Neill resumed. “She had turned them over to us, after much discussion and a promise of rather substantial remuneration. But when I returned the following morning, the letters were missing.”
    “Did you examine the room thoroughly? Was it disturbed in any way?”
    “Nothing was disturbed or missing save the letters. And the only evidence of an intruder was these footprints behind the desk.”
    “The footprints! Of course, let us have a look at the footprints,” said Holmes, crawling behind the desk. “Hmm. Most remarkable. Watson, would you step over here?” he asked, brandishing his convex lens. “Have a look, will you?”
    Behind the desk was a muddy cluster of footprints which seemed to have been made by someone shuffling in place for a time. “We are told that these are the footprints of Mr Houdini,” Lord O’Neill said.
    “Quite right!” Holmes agreed. “In fact, I’ve had occasion to examine his shoes recently and I recognise the tread. And yet, I must say that in all my years of practice I have never seen such unusual impressions.”
    “What is so extraordinary about them, Holmes?” I asked.
    “What? My good fellow, what about them is ordinary? Observe: In an ordinary footprint the greatest pressure is exerted by the heel and ball of the foot. In these impressions, the greatest weight has been placed on the direct centre of the foot, the arch. What does this suggest to you?”
    “Wooden legs?”
    Holmes turned to me with a look of surprise. “You never cease to amaze, Watson,” he murmured. “Indeed, one wooden appendage is possible, but two? I think it more likely that these prints were made by a hand bearing down on the centre of a shoe.”
    “In order to implicate Houdini?”
    “Obviously. But what is truly suspicious is that there are no footprints leading to or away from this cluster. Could our muddy-footed thief simply have appeared directly in the centre of the room? And as to the mud itself, that is indeed peculiar. You are aware, Watson, that I have made a little study of the varieties of mud to be found about London. It is a useful knowledge for tracing one’s movements by the spots upon his trouser cuff. Yet I cannot place the origin of this mud.”
    “Why, it is the mud from outside, surely,” volunteered Herr Osey.
    “Surely. But where outside? Not on the grounds of this estate. Of that I am certain. When we have located the source of this mud we shall have gone a long way towards our solution, I assure you.” Holmes stood up and gazed vaguely about the room. “It was just the four of you, then?”
    “Yes.”
    “No one else came in or out?”
    “Just the serving man.”
    “Oh?”
    “We had tea then, as well.”
    “At that hour?”
    “The prince enjoys it.”
    “Quite right. I had forgotten. And when your business was concluded, the letters were surrendered and placed in the desk?”
    “In this lower drawer.”
    “Pardon me,” I ventured, “but am I to understand that the letters were left in an unlocked drawer? We were told that they were placed in a vault.”
    Lord O’Neill could not resist chuckling at my confusion. “Dr Watson, this room is a