Kronberg Crimes 01 - The Devils Grin

story drew the occasional glances from my fellow passengers. As I learned about Holmes flogging corpses in the morgue, I volunteered a very audible Good heavens!
    As he tried to explain to Watson how very exciting and significant his haemoglobin test was, I had to laugh out loud. He had been as excited as a child about this newly developed method, which would help solve crimes in the future. And he was apparently the only one who understood it. The situation felt so familiar to me.
    After thinking it over for a moment, I noticed that it wasn’t funny at all.
    Some of Watson’s descriptions gave me a weak glimpse of Holmes as I knew him. Some were very precise indeed while others seemed to speak of a stranger. But each friend will provide a different angle at our character, and we would be extraordinarily lucky to find one who is able to see the whole picture and still respect all of it.
    I have to confess that Watson’s narrative annoyed me a little. He described obvious symptoms of poisoning but did not draw the conclusion. His attention seemed to be focused on the superficial only. He thought it noteworthy how people were dressed, what colour their eyes had, or the state of the wallpaper at the crime scene. He saw and described, but never made the connections. I had to pull myself together to not slap the journal against my forehead.
    I started wondering how two so very different men could be friends. After a while, I thought I understood. Holmes was, in a way, the least judgemental person I had ever met. He could easily accept Watson’s blindness. In that, Watson did not differ from the other blind ninety-nine per cent of the human population. But one thing made him very special indeed: he did not resent Holmes’s sharpness – the main reason for the ninety-nine per cent to avoid Holmes, because he made them feel small. I wondered whether Watson sometimes did feel small next to Holmes and had accepted it as the little price to pay for their friendship. Somewhere inside my strange heart, I felt respect growing for the stocky surgeon.

    ~~~

    A train took me from Hamburg to Berlin. The city came into view and I started vibrating. Here, I had defended my thesis. This had been an exception – although I had studied medicine at the Leipzig University, I had spent several months at the Charité Hospital and had met Robert Koch there. He had been part of my thesis committee. To honour him, my PhD defence had been relocated to Berlin.
    And I had lost my so-called innocence here. But it wouldn’t help to pull the old horrors out of the pirate’s chest again.
    A student of Dr von Behring picked me up from the train station and showed to me my quarters. There was a small restaurant close by where I took a late supper. It was so odd to hear everyone speak German. It did not feel like my language anymore, sounding so rough.
    After I had eaten, I made my way back to my temporary room and quickly fell asleep, exhausted from my long journey.
    The next morning I took the tram to the Charité. Although I was familiar with the place and still knew some of the staff there, it made me feel very small.
    Dr Koch’s laboratory was spacious and the best equipped I had ever seen. I got a friendly reception from both Dr von Behring — diphtheria specialist, and Dr Kitasato — expert in tetanus. A lab space was assigned to me, equipment for my personal use, and an assistant to both Dr Kitasato and me. The two of us aimed to isolate tetanus germs as a first step in the production of a vaccine.
    We used solid media to isolate the germs, a novelty invented by Dr Koch. I was surprised at how much easier the cultivation of pure bacterial cultures was compared with the traditional liquid media. While I focused on the isolation of the germ itself, Dr Kitasato would spend his energies on the characterisation of the tetanus toxin — suspected in causing the typical muscle spasms. With these complementary approaches, we hoped to shorten the laborious and time-consuming path to vaccine development.
    For two months we worked almost around the clock. Twice I woke up lying face down on my lab bench, but more often I found myself close to falling off my stool. During that time of extensive work, any bodily needs were a bother. Eating and sleeping felt like a waste of time. Most nights I forgot to change into my female self.
    Despite all efforts, I had no success in cultivating tetanus bacteria. Before the dawn of my third month in Berlin, I