Sherlock Holmes and the lost tiger (2)

For over an hour Holmes prowled back and forth, now inside the cage and now outside, inspecting the bath of mud outside the cage where the crowd was gathered, now inspecting the bars of the cage itself.

 

“Tell me what you can make out,” Holmes said eventually, gesturing to the sawn-through bars.

 

I carefully inspected the sliced metal, which had clearly been cut away with a saw.

 

“Well Watson?”

 

“A clean cut,” I said, “Not jagged at all, sawn through in one go, clearly by somebody who knows how to use a saw, a carpenter perhaps.”

 

“Excellent Watson, though a carpenter traditionally works with wood, rather than metal bars. I fancy we’re looking for a blacksmith, or, more likely, a professional burglar, someone who very trade is opening bolted doors and locked gates.”

 

“Possibly Holmes, I conceded. “By why would anyone want to break a tiger out of the zoo?”

 

“Speculation Watson, is for the idle fool in the coffee shop. I am interested in the business of facts, gathering facts and then piecing them together like a jigsaw.”

 

“Well what facts have I missed? All I can see is that someone handy with a saw has cut through the bars.”

 

“The man who released the tiger is six foot two inches tall, smokes a Prussian cigar sold in just three places in London, he is left footed and suspicious.”

 

I laughed. “How on earth did you come up with all that Holmes,” I said. “Sometimes I think you make it up to amuse me.”

 

But Holmes showed no hint of any amusement. “You’ve seen everything I’ve seen Watson, you just haven’t observed.”

 

“But there’s nothing to observe Holmes. There are barely any discernible footprints, the crowds have put paid to that, it’s as muddy as a football pitch at the end of a particularly reckless game. Even you can’t see a clue in this, there are too many prints.”

 

“But only one set of tiger prints, Watson, and only one set of footprints walking parallel to the tiger. Look again, approximately 18 inches to the left of the tiger, a clear line of the same square-toed boot.”

 

“I believe you may be right Holmes, and I see the cigar, but anyone could have dropped that.”

 

“But look at the shape of the shoe that has stubbed the cigar out, square toed.  It is our boot Watson, with his left foot mind, hence we know he is left-preferenced.”

 

“Holmes you’ve done it again. I can tell from the long strides that he is tall, perhaps just over six feet. But supersticious?”

 

“Look where the prints reach the pavement, Watson. We can follow the toes of the boot, look at the efforts he takes to avoid treading on the cracks in the pavement, he is almost contorting himself at this point.” Holmes demonstrated by enacting the position of the two boots with his own feet, and indeed I did fear he would inflict some injury on his spine, so contorted was his stance.

 

We returned to Baker Street via a certain disreputable tavern, where his ‘irregulars’, the youngsters he used to supply the bootwork of his investigation were known to frequent. He quickly dispatched three of them to the tobacco shops which sold the Prussian cigars. He passed instructions to other irregulars, but what these were he never said, Holmes liked to keep some cards close to his chest.

 

Back at Baker Street Holmes lit a pipe of ganja mixed with the latest foul tobacco concoction he favoured, and began one of the periods of solo reflection I knew so well.

 

However, his contemplation was interrupted by Lestrade in a furious hurry, he burst through the door without even waiting for Mrs Hudson to announce him.

 

“It’s St Paul’s Cathedral, Holmes. The tiger’s swallowed St Paul’s whole, there’s just a hole in the ground.”