The second part of the letter did not cheer us. It revealed that we would not have the good fortune to interrogate Barlow. It seemed that the earth had swallowed up the wheezing churchman, who had disappeared with surprising speed and with all the money that he had managed to withdraw from the bank. Nor had he neglected to sweep up his tracks at the parish. According to Mycroft’s agents, this occurred soon after our departure from Fulworth and before the arrival of the men charged with tracking down the pastor.
“As soon as we succeed in opening one door, another one closes in the draft,” Holmes complained. “Nevertheless, we must persist, my friend, we must persist!”
He hurriedly scrawled a few sentences for Paolo in reply and while I covered him he hid the paper in a chink in the cover of the cast-iron candelabra lamp. Then we went to the hotel.
It happened soon after night fell over the city and the Venetian palaces became enshrouded in a golden robe of artificial light. A terrified scream echoed over the canal. It broke through the embankment all the way to our window and alarmed all the local residents in the block.
In the houses along the water the wooden shutters opened all at once, as though the old palaces were opening their tired eyes. The detective and I also looked out. The piteous howling of a woman, standing in the street in the middle of her spilled shopping, led our gaze to the canal.
Lying face down in the water was the body of a dead man. As always, whenever death appeared nearby, it piqued Holmes’s interest.
“Let us go take a look,” he said to me, putting on his overcoat.
We ran downstairs and arrived at the body before the police.
A gondolier had pulled the body up onto the shore and examined it to see if there was any point in attempting to revive him. But it was hopeless, as I could see at first glance. According to the colour of the skin the body had been in the water for too long.
But my initial professional interest suddenly turned to horror when I saw the face of the dead man. The detective also recognised him at the same time.
Lying at our feet on the embankment was Paolo.
“My God,” I cried.
I pushed aside the gondolier and kneeled next to the body. I moved the wet hair from the face and slapped it on the cheeks in a foolish attempt to revive the body. He had foam in his mouth and the water on his face smelled of grease.
I looked desperately at Holmes.
“We cannot help him,” he mumbled and knelt down next to us.
He closed the poor wretch’s eyelids and looked through his pockets. He frisked the soaked jacket and the pockets of the lining. None of the observers had the courage to protest.
“Are you looking for something?”
“His wallet. Aha, here it is!” said the detective, opening the leather portmanteau.
I winced when he removed a photograph of Paolo’s wife and children. There was also some money, from which Holmes deduced that the motive had not been robbery. Even his watch was still there. Otherwise the pockets of the jacket, vest and trousers were empty.
A carabinier finally appeared in the crowd.
The detective returned the wallet to the pocket and quickly surveyed the body before the police sealed off the area. There was nothing more that we could do besides stand silently by during the official examination.
“We ought to get out of here,” Holmes whispered to me. “I would not want someone to take notice of us and potentially take us in for questioning. It might reveal our connection to Paolo.”
It was easy to disappear, as the crowd kept pushing forward, and hence squeezed us out.
Holmes took me aside in order to collect his thoughts. He left me in front of the hotel and ran across the bridge to the illuminated island under the lamp on the other side of the canal in order to check the drop off point.
“Just as I feared,” he said when he returned.
In my heart I was still with dear Paolo and his family, so I had to ask him to explain what he meant. I was not capable of reflection.
“The drop off point is empty,” said the detective. “Somebody must have followed us, seen how we placed the message inside and waited for Paolo to come pick it up.”
“Followed us?” I cried.
“Yes, just as Paolo feared at our first meeting. Fool that I am, I thought his fears unfounded. I was quite wrong!”
“How awful!”
A police boat neared upon the water. The officers hopped out onto the bank and started to ask questions among the bystanders. They were looking for the woman who had discovered the body, and soon they naturally also learned about the two unknown men who had taken an interest in the body.
But we were already safe. Holmes’s thoughts were still occupied with Paolo’s murder.
“He drowned,” said the detective later that night when we returned to the hotel. “This was preceded by a struggle, probably following a sudden ambush.”
“On what do you base your assumptions?”
“I discovered a wound on the back of his head. It was not large enough to have been the primary cause of death; the attack from behind only stunned him. It clearly was not planned; this can be seen in the murder weapon, which was no doubt a randomly picked up stone. Then the murderer pushed him in the water and made sure that he was not swimming.”
“How brutal!”
“The angle of the hit and the power with which it was struck also suggest to me another interesting fact. This was a smaller person, not possessing great strength. I might almost say that it was a woman.”
“What woman would be capable of such a cold-hearted and premeditated murder?” I said, struggling to believe it.
“I haven’t the slightest idea, Watson. Please give me a moment to think; I must have peace and quiet.”
With these words he fell into a long silence, from which I did not want to disturb him further. I left him on the terrace of our hotel while I sampled a cigar and a bottle of the light local wine. Then I went to bed.
Just as I expected, however, this night too would be neither peaceful nor quiet.
After a few hours of sleep I felt somebody shaking me by the shoulder. It was Holmes. Clearly he had not gone to sleep at all. His eyes were bloodshot and there were deep circles beneath them. Evidently he had been thinking about the case the whole time.
“Get up,” he said. “We must go!”
“Have you gone mad? At this hour?” I said, drawing the blanket over my head. “It is still dark out! What would we do?”
“It will be daybreak soon,” he continued. “And Paolo’s murderer already has a big head start. I would not like to give him even more time to escape.”
Sighing, I yielded and pulled on my trousers and jacket. While the city slept we stole out of the hotel and returned to the spot where the dead body had been discovered.
All was peaceful. Nothing attested to the tragedy that had taken place here only a few hours earlier. The police had taken away the body, the crowd had left long ago, and the rats and pigeons had taken care of the bread that the terrified woman had spilled.
“What are we looking for? The corpse was carried here by the water and all of the tracks have floated away.”
“You must not give up so easily,” said the detective. “How many times have we faced a case that seemed unsolvable only to succeed in cracking it?”
Although he was undoubtedly correct, I was curious to see what the detective would do next. To my surprise he lay down on his stomach, leaned over the curb of the embankment, and put his hand in the water.
“Paolo’s body was discovered after nine o’clock in the evening,” said Holmes. “We left him the message at five. As he picked it up, it is clear that he died some time in between. The body was unusually cold; it had been lying in the water for more than an hour, which narrows the time of death even more. I believe that it happened at dusk, when the shadows lengthen.”