The Adventure of the Skittering Shadow: Sherlock Holmes in Space (3 page)

“To your knowledge, did they ever disagree?” inquired Holmes.

Chapman thought for a few moments before saying, “Only about Julia’s chewing tobacco and Helen’s tendency to unthinkingly unravel or shred things. That’s all I remember them arguing about, anyway. I know it’s not much. I’m sorry that I can’t be more help to you.”

“On the contrary, you have been quite helpful,” said Holmes, surprising me. “Thank you for your time. Your information will be most useful in our investigation.”

We paid our portions of the tab and shook hands with Chapman before leaving him to the rest of his day. Holmes and I were some distance from the restaurant before I asked, “Was Chapman really that helpful?”

“Oh yes, indubitably. He has given me the inkling of an idea.”

I waited for him to elaborate, but Holmes merely smiled.

“What are you thinking?” I finally inquired, but Holmes merely shook his head. “Holmes! You’re not going to keep it to yourself, are you?”

“For the time being, I think I should. I’d prefer to have matters more clearly laid out in my own mind before I speak.”

And that was the end of the discussion, no matter how I pestered him.

The Stoner sisters lived in the western quadrant, otherwise known as the Yuri Gagarin borough, in one of the older, more cramped residential districts. One of the first areas to be built, it consequently had a harder, more utilitarian edge to it that the colony’s newer districts lacked, one which the residents had tried to alleviate with vibrant colors, cheerful lighting, and life.

Bicycles sped down the streets, their bells ringing out, and teenagers ambled in packs along the sidewalks. The children had claimed the narrow alleys as their own, shouting and laughing as they played their games, while high over their heads laundry lines had been strung between the buildings. Damp clothing fluttered in the recycled breeze, and neighborhood honeybees reeled between window boxes, pollinating flowers and herbs. Planters filled with small bushes had been tucked up against most of the buildings. And somewhere, someone was cooking cabbage while someone else barbequed.

The Stoner’s sisters’ apartment building looked like all of the others in the neighborhood: blocky, serviceable, and hastily welded together after the fact. The stairwells were open air and the elevators cramped. Most of the buildings had a fire escape crawling down at least one of their sides.

The sisters’ residence was a corner apartment on the fourth floor of their building, next to one of the two stairwells that bookended the building. In a row of grubby white or reddish-pink doors, theirs was painted sunshine yellow. In front of their door lay a slightly crooked mat, the word “WELCOME!” printed on it in green. And as promised, Helen Stoner was waiting for us.

“I’m so glad that you’ve come,” said the lady as she stepped aside.

The main room was an open space, its walls painted that same cheerful shade of yellow as the front door, with three doors branching off from it, two to my right and one at the back of the room. The first door on the right, the one closest to the front door, had the remnants of police tape on it. A striped tote bag hung from the second door on the right’s doorknob.

To my left, I found a
kitchen
where there should have been none. Tucked into the left-hand corner of the room, it was about seven feet long, two feet deep, and maybe three feet tall with overhead cabinets. The sheer luxury of it shocked me. On Mars, personal kitchens were the stuff of wealth.

“Is it yours or Julia’s?” inquired Holmes as he crossed the room to the secret kitchen, narrowly avoiding a collision with one of the room’s ottomans, which looked like nothing so much as a moveable storage cube. It was one of two such pieces, both having been designed to serve as chairs, footrests, or work surfaces anywhere within the main room.

“Julia’s. She loved to cook. The herbs in the window box are hers too.”

Holmes explored the refrigerator and freezer, both small units tucked beneath the kitchen counter, then rifled through the various shelves to their right. He peeked inside the stove, rapped his knuckles against the inside of the sink, and pulled himself up onto the counter, the better to examine a small ceiling vent.

Holmes abandoned the countertop, leaving the dusty outline of his footprints in his wake, and turned his attention on the moveable storage cubes, finding colorful pillows and towels inside one and folded sheets and blankets in the other. He was entirely disinterested in the table that folded out of the wall.

The door at the back of the main room led to the bathroom, which had lilac walls and a tiled floor. Standing in the doorway, there was a sink and mirror directly across from us and a toilet to our right. To our left was the shower stall, over the door of which was folded a pair of towels, one black and the other bright purple. A third towel, smaller and bright orange, hung from a steel towel ring near the sink. Nearly hidden within the orange towel’s folds was a steel toothbrush holder, also affixed to the wall.

Behind the mirror, toiletries were aligned with military precision, while stowed beneath the sink were the cleaning products and laundry detergent. In the sink, someone had left a stack of folded laundry, while on its rim was balanced a brush, dark strands of hair still tangled in its tines.

Holmes popped into the shower, the towels swinging in his wake, and then emerged moments later to fetch a storage cube from the main room. Standing on it, he examined the small vent in the ceiling at length before declaring that he was done in there.

To the right of the bathroom door, there was a series of panels that stretched from floor to ceiling. Nodding at them, Holmes asked, “What are they?”

“Environmental controls,” answered Miss Stoner. “The housing in this neighborhood was made from obsolete construction workers’ barracks, all stacked on top of each other. The hallways, stairwells, and central heating and cooling systems were all added after the fact. If the worst should happen, I could theoretically refill the tanks in that wall, close off the pipes and vents that attach this condo to the rest of the complex, and survive on my own power until help arrived. But it’s cheaper and easier to breathe the ambient air and pay the utilities bills.”

“Of course,” murmured Holmes. “I’d like to see Julia Stoner’s bedroom now.”

The late Miss Julia Stoner’s bedroom was just long enough to hold a bed frame and barely wide enough to accommodate the width of the bed and a narrow wardrobe. At the foot of the bed was a window, across which a navy blue curtain had been drawn.

Standing on the threshold, Holmes crouched down and pressed a hand into the room’s plush navy blue carpet. He examined every millimeter of the carpet before moving to the bed.

The bed, which filled all the space to the left of the door, sat about three feet off of the ground on a frame that had a dresser built into its base. It had been stripped of its bedding. Looking at that bare mattress, I could not help but to imagine a corpse lying there, her limbs as twisted as the white sheets.

Shivering, I looked away from Holmes’ investigation of the mattress and its drawers. My gaze fell on the cluster of framed photographs and short videos that had been hung across from the bed, snapshots of a happy life. As I watched, they cycled into their next set of captured moments.

Wedged between the side of the bed and the wall, the wardrobe had flowers painted on its door and a half full bag of dirty laundry hanging from its handle. It was filled with dark suits and light blouses. Neatly arranged beneath them were a pair of flip-flops, several pairs of high heels, and a pair of sneakers. On the shelf above the suits, Holmes found a black jewelry box, some trinkets, and a data pad, remarkable only for the sheer number of romance novels downloaded. A full length mirror was bolted on the inside of the closet’s door.

By virtue of standing on the bed, Holmes inspected the ceiling vent before shuffling down the bed’s length to haul back the curtain and open the window, whereupon he discovered a window box filled with dead plants and the fire escape. Closing the window and its curtain, Holmes abandoned the bed. He was frowning when he turned to us, but all he said was, “I’d like to see the other bedroom now.”

Without waiting for, or even, I’d wager, particularly wanting a reply, he led us to Helen Stoner’s bedroom. Although it was no bigger than her sister’s, her room was… overwhelming, to phrase it kindly.

Holmes began his inspection, and, knowing what I did of his methods, I stayed where I was, only daring to brace my hands on either side of the doorframe and lean forward over the threshold to study parts of the room in greater detail.

The room’s basic setup was the same, but the walls had been painted lilac and decorated with puffy white clouds and plastic glow in the dark stars, placed seemingly at random, and the bed raised to within a few feet of the ceiling so that a short ladder was needed to reach it. Ribbons had been woven around its metal frame, thick black words carefully printed on each one. In the space beneath the bed stood a U-shaped work station, its area clearly divided between sewing, a home office, and a rock collection. And at the center of the work station stood a chair with a bowl of fruit painted on its seat and a small, brilliantly red pillow resting against one of its legs.

The sewing station had an old-fashioned sewing machine on it, a half finished project draped over it, and drawers filled with a carefully organized array of small boxes, spools of brightly colored thread and ribbon, and neatly folded lengths of fabric.

The center work station was improbably neat and tidy.

The last arm of the desk was filled with chunks of rock of various sizes and colors, all carefully arranged into a grid and according to a system perhaps known only to their owner. Its drawers contained more rock specimens and a data pad filled with technical manuals for mining equipment and trade publications in the areas of astrophysics and astrogeology.

Past the desk, it was nearly impossible to see the window’s scarlet curtains, never mind reaching them. It seemed likely that the curtains had been drawn once, rarely thought of since then, and even more rarely dusted.

In an emergency, the room’s occupant would have had to knock the rocks to the floor, eel out between the desktop and the bottom of the bed, and fall head first onto the fire escape. Only a small child would have had any chance of success, and a child might not have been able to reach the window sash from the desktop.

Crammed between the side of the bed and the wall was the closet. Its door was hanging open, and, from what I could see, most of its contents seemed to be strewn across the floor. Only a single purple dress hung from the bar in the closet. At the bottom of the closet there was a tall stack of neatly folded gray or brown jumpsuits, most liberally stained from frequent exposure to grease and what I could only guess was space dirt, although Sherlock Holmes no doubt knew at a glance what it was and where it had originated. There was also a pair of black high heeled boots and a basket filled with paints and brushes. On the shelf over the empty clothes rack was a series of boxes, including a jewelry box.

Clothes, no doubt in varying states of cleanliness, a pair of sneakers, flip-flops, and at least two pairs of battered work boots filled the narrow strip of floor space. It was obvious to me that Miss Helen Stoner preferred bright colors, floral prints, and bold patterns. She seemed to possess a particular fondness for stripes and polka dots, especially when they were combined in the same article of clothing. Between wrinkled fabric and shoes, I could see snippets of the plush indigo carpet.

The sheer amount of
stuff
crammed into the space was amazing. Since coming to Mars, I had only once met someone so determined to own things, and his belongings frequently ended up all over the recreation area that was meant to be shared by all of the
Tommy Hudson
’s passengers.

“Are you finished with the other rooms?” inquired Miss Stoner from her place beside me. She showed not a speck of embarrassment at the deplorable conditions under which she lived.

“Yes.”

“Will it destroy any evidence if I clean up a bit? And maybe see to the plants?”

Holmes, who was carefully going through the detritus on the floor, absently flapped a hand at her. “Do whatever you like anywhere but here. Do not set foot in here.”

“Understood,” said Miss Stoner crisply.

Bemused, I watched as she collected laundry and detergent before disappearing out the front door. When she returned, Helen Stoner set the little vacuum bot loose in Julia’s bedroom and began cleaning out the refrigerator.

I began to feel awkward. Holmes and Miss Stoner were both busy with their respective tasks, while I did nothing productive. The quickest way to remedy that feeling was make myself useful, so I returned the pillows and bedding to their respective storage cubes then found myself conscripted to take the bag of spoiled food down to the appropriate recycling receptacle.

In short order, the refrigerator was clean, the kitchen scrubbed, and the bathroom scoured. Miss Stoner left to move the laundry from the washer to the dryer, and I took the opportunity to check on Holmes’s progress. Just as I reached the doorframe, Sherlock Holmes exclaimed, “Aha! Come and look at this, Watson!” and turned to show me a neat little square that he had
cut out of the carpet.

“Holmes,” I cried, appalled. “What will your client say?”

“That it is a small price to pay for finally achieving forward momentum in her sister’s case,” Holmes snapped.
“Look
at it, Watson! Can you believe that no less than three people have trod on it?”