Kronberg Crimes 01 - The Devils Grin

tinge looked paper thin, most definitely cholera in the final stage. I was about to examine his clothes for signs of violence when Mr Holmes barked, ‘Stop!’
    Before I could protest, he pushed me aside, pulled a magnifying glass from his waistcoat pocket, and hovered over the corpse. The fact that his nose almost touched the man’s coat was rather unsettling.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘He has been dressed by someone else,’ he noted.
    ‘Show me!’
    Looking a little irritated, he handed me his magnifying glass and I took it after pulling my gloves off. The thick rubber hindered my work and made me feel like a butcher. I could disinfect my hands later.
    Mr Holmes started to talk rather fast then. ‘The man was obviously right-handed — that hand having more calluses on the palms. Yet you will observe greasy thumbprints pushing in from the left-hand side of his coat buttons.’
    I spotted the prints, put my nose as close as possible and sniffed — corpse smell, Thames water, and possibly the faintest hint of petroleum.
    ‘I smell petroleum; maybe from an oil lamp,’ I remarked quietly.
    Upon examining his hands, I found superficial scratches, swelling and bruises on the knuckles of the right hand. Probably from a fist fight only a day or two before his death — odd, given his weakness. His hands seemed to have been strong and rough once, but he had not been doing hard work with them for a while now as the calluses had started to peel off. His fingernails had multiple discolourations, showing that he had been undernourished and sick for weeks before contracting cholera. He must have been very poor during his last few months, and I wondered where he had come from. His clothes looked worn and too big now, and a lot of debris from the river had collected in them. I examined his sleeves, turned his hands around and found a pale red banding pattern around his wrists.
    ‘Restraint marks,’ said Mr Holmes. ‘The man used to be a farm worker but lost his occupation three to four months ago.’
    ‘Could be correct,’ I answered. He had obviously based his judgement on the man’s clothes, boots and hands.
    ‘But the man could have had any other physically demanding occupation, Mr Holmes. He could as well have been a coal mine worker. The clothes are not necessarily his.’
    Mr Holmes sat erect, pulling one eyebrow up. ‘I think we can safely assume that he had owned these boots for at least ten years,’ said he while extracting a bare foot and holding its shoe next to it. The sole, worn down to a thin layer of rubber contained a major hole where the man’s heel used to be and showed a perfect imprint of the shape of the man’s foot and toes.
    ‘You examined him before I arrived?’
    ‘Superficially only; I found it more pressing to investigate how he had entered the trench.’
    I nodded, not at all relieved. ‘Mr Holmes, you have put your hands to your face at least twice, even scratched your chin very close to your lips. That is rather reckless considering that you have touched a cholera victim.’
    Now the other eyebrow went up, too. I passed him a handkerchief soaked in creosote and he wiped himself off with care. Then, without touching the corpse, he bent down low over it and pointed. ‘What is this?’ The genuine interest in his voice was bare of indignation, as if he had not taken offence. I was surprised and wondered whether he did not mind being corrected by a woman or whether he was so focused on the examination that he had no time to spend on feeling resentful.
    I picked at the smudge he had indicated. It was a small green feather that had been tucked into a small tear just underneath the coat’s topmost buttonhole. I smoothed it and rubbed off the muck.
    ‘An oriole female. How unusual! I haven’t heard their call for many years.’
    ‘A rare bird?’ asked Mr Holmes.
    ‘Yes, but I can’t tell where this feather would have come from. I have never heard the bird’s call in the London area. The man may have found the feather anywhere and could have been carrying it around for quite a while…’ I trailed off, gazing at the small quill and the light grey down.
    ‘The quill is still somewhat soft,’ I mumbled, ‘and the down is not worn. This feather wasn’t plucked by a bird of prey or a fox or the like; it was moulted. He had it for a few weeks at the most, that means he must have found it just before he became ill or someone gave it to him while he was sick.’
    Mr Holmes looked