Sherlock Holmes 01: The Breath of God Read Online Free PDF

dead.
    “Welcome, gentlemen,” Cuthbert Wells said, a police surgeon of our acquaintance, “what brings you back amongst the ranks of the brutally deceased?”
    “We wish to examine what remains of Hilary De Montfort,” Holmes responded.
    “Then you are only just in time,” Wells replied, “his family are impatient to claim him for their own.” He smiled. “There is snobbery even beyond the mortal coil,” he explained, “and they do not like the company their son has fallen into.”
    Holmes glanced around at the cold halls. “I am not sure I blame them.”
    “Come now, Holmes,” laughed Wells, “you have dabbled in less salubrious quarters, I’m sure.”
    “If we could see the body, then?” Gregson interrupted, impatient to be at the business in hand.
    “But of course, gentlemen,” Wells replied. “Follow me.”
    He led us through to one of the small dissecting rooms. The body of young De Montfort was laid out on the slab beneath its heavy sheet.
    Holmes whipped the cloth back so as to fully appreciate the state of the corpse beneath. Even my famously cool friend couldn’t quite hide his surprise at how battered the body was, drawing a quick breath between clenched teeth.
    “The poor fellow is in a bad way. Watson, your opinion?”
    I took his place at the dead body’s side and, as was always the way once about the business of my profession, all emotional response to the man before me vanished, to be replaced by the cold, automatic response of the pathologist. I like to think that I am not a man who is without a sense of empathy – indeed according to Holmes it is something I possess to the point of distraction – but once reduced to a biological puzzle on the mortician’s table, a body becomes just that. You are a thing of ligature marks and contusions, a book to be read from. I have never caught a glimpse of the human soul in an empty cadaver.
    “If I didn’t know better,” I said, “I would suggest he died from a considerable fall. The last time I saw such wounds was when my wife and I went hiking in Wales.” I looked up towards my fellows. “Something of a marred holiday as Mary and I stumbled on a young man who had fallen from the Blorenge.”
    “We wondered if he was the victim of several assailants,” commented Gregson, “if a handful of men gave him a sound kicking...”
    “...Then the wounds would have been quite different,” explained Wells. “The majority of the damage is caused by one, relatively even, blow.”
    “Such as one would expect had a man fallen from a great height,” I agreed, “or perhaps had something dropped upon him.”
    “Then you would expect a more even crushing of the bones,” Wells said, “whereas the damage here is shallow yet dramatic.” He clapped his hands together. “The bones are shattered, the bruising prodigious.”
    “Which doesn’t make any sense,” Gregson said.
    “The inexplicable it is then,” Holmes said.
    We left the mortuary bound for Grosvenor Square. Holmes gazing out of the cab window and refusing to enter into our discussions as we moved through the city streets. He had thoughts of his own and had never been one to suppress them for the sake of public chat.
    “I fear this is going to be a mystery that remains so,” Gregson said. “An investigator needs some fuel to fire him and this affair exists in a vacuum.”
    “Surely you must have been close to the truth when you suggested he was attacked by a gang of roughs,” I said. “A base crime of opportunity, ruffians eager for what he may have carried in his purse?”
    “It was my first thought, for we could not locate his purse,” Gregson admitted, “but murderers like that don’t chase their quarry through the streets, they leap out of a dark corner, strike quickly, then fade away.”
    I thought about it for a moment. “Unless one of the attackers was known to De Montfort?” I suggested. “Perhaps a member of staff at one of the clubs? Working with a gang,