The photographer had gone to some considerable trouble to make the finished photograph as acceptable as possible presumably to Mr Crosby – using shadows and turning his subject into profile in order, clearly, to minimize the effect of the banker's disfigurement. But, alas, it had been to little avail.
In the photograph, Crosby's eyes spoke volumes about his attitude to the dark stain which, we subsequently discovered from Mr Cardew, ran from his left temple and down across his cheek to his chin. Those were eyes that barely hid a gross discomfort, hardened around the corners with something akin to outright hatred.
Cardew explained that, in the flesh, as it were, Crosby's stain was a deep magenta. The banker had grown his sideburns in an attempt to hide at least some of it but the effect had been that the sideburn on the left side had been wiry and white.
Believing that the answer to the puzzle involved a killer so mortally offended by such a mark that he would go to great lengths to remove it, we proceeded from the Daleside Bank to the school at which Gertrude Ridge had been, until recently, a teacher, having decided that it might not be necessary to trouble the young woman's grieving parents. On the way, Holmes seemed particularly thoughtful.
The story at the school was similar. Miss Ridge had had a large birthmark on the back of her right hand, stretching up over her wrist to an undetermined point above. Her colleagues at the school had been unable to comment as to how far that might be, Miss Ridge never deeming to appear at school in anything less than a long-sleeved blouse or dress, and even then one with the most ornate ruffled cuffs.
Diana Wetherall and Jean Woodward, widows of, respectively, the deceased landlord and the Hampsthwaite farmer, said that their husbands had suffered similar markings, Terence Wetherall's being a small circular stain about the size of a saucer, situated just to the left of centre of his chest, while Raymond Woodward's disfigurement had stretched across the back of his neck and down between his shoulder blades.
It was I who, eventually, back at the police station, voiced what had been Holmes's concern all along. "We now most probably know the reason for the killings," I said, "but how on earth did the killer know of Wetherall's and Woodward's marks? They were covered at all times when they were not at home."
Makinson frowned and considered this.
Holmes, meanwhile, said, "You say we know why the killer committed the acts, Watson. But do we really know?"
"Why, of course we do," I ventured. "The chap is mortally offended by what are, in his eyes, such abominations and he feels it his rigorous duty to remove them from sight. He came up with the idea of removing hearts simply to mislead us hence, on one occasion, even forgetting to remove the young woman's."
Holmes nodded. "I think you are almost correct, old fellow," he said, in a gentle tone that was anything but patronizing. "However, you have neglected to take into account the fact that the killer first stuns his victims and only then obliterates nature's handiwork. My point is," he continued, "the killer needs to stun his victim without interference with the mark."
"Whatever for, Mr Holmes?" enquired Makinson.
Holmes looked across at the Inspector and gave a thin smile that was devoid of any sense of pleasure. "In order to remove them, Inspector."
"Remove them?" I said. The suggestion seemed preposterous. "Indeed, Watson. Let us adapt the facts as we know them to my proposition.
"Wetherall, the landlord, was stunned or killed by a blow to the head. The killer then stripped his victim to the waist and skilfully removed the birthmark from his chest. Then, in order to conceal his action, he proceeded to open up the chest in such a heavy-handed manner that the disappearance of the piece of skin which once bore the mark would not be so noticeable. He concealed the opening of the chest with the removal of the heart.
"The farmer was next. Again, the blow to the head was the all-important immobilizing factor. Once that had been effected, the killer could concentrate on removing the mark from the victim's neck and back before training a shotgun on the exposed area and destroying all signs. However, the blast failed to cover up all signs of his work, as you noticed, Watson. The removal of Woodward's heart tied his murder into the first death quite neatly."
Holmes cleared his throat.
"Then came the teacher. With her it was more complicated. The position of Miss Ridge's mark – on her arm – was such that a blast to the affected area, once he had removed the skin bearing the mark, could not be the killing factor. Similarly, the removal of the heart would not conceal the removal of the mark. Thus he decided upon the method of removing her limbs, still tying the murder into the first two deaths by peripheral
association, only later to discard the three limbs for which he had no use. The final limb, the young woman's right arm, he discarded far from the scene of the crime and only then when he had removed the affected area.You mentioned earlier that he had forgotten to remove the heart: the fact was that he did not consider it necessary.
"With the banker he returns to the earlier method. A blow to the head, a common element throughout, then the careful removal of the facial skin bearing the mark, and then the shotgun blast to the face, destroying once again the evidence of his real reason for the murder. The removal of the heart ties the crime to the first two and, arguably, to the case of Miss Ridge."
Holmes stretched towards the fire and warmed his hands. "I read the reports from your forensics people, Inspector," Holmes continued. "I was interested to discover that, while there were traces of linen and wool fibre in the farmer's wound, there were no traces of skin except at the very extremities of the blasted area, confirming that, perhaps, a portion had been removed prior to the blast. And as for the banker, Mr Crosby, the gun shot damage to the wall bore no traces of skin or tissue. This indicates that the killing shot and the invasion which preceded it were done at some other location, with a second shot being fired directly at the wall."
"But what other place might that be, Mr Holmes?" Makinson enquired.
"Wherever Mr Crosby went after leaving the bank might give us a clue," Holmes retorted. "I saw from your report, Inspector, that Crosby's apartment showed no signs of anyone being there since the morning: the fire was burnt down and breakfast things were in the sink. It is my opinion that wherever Mr Crosby went early that evening is where he encountered his killer."
"Good lord," I said. I glanced across at Makinson and saw that he looked as queasy as I felt.
"But why would he want these… these marks in the first place? What does he do with them?"
Holmes turned to me. "Watson, perhaps you would be kind
enough to explain the causation of a so-called birthmark?" "Well," I said, "nobody actually knows why they are caused. "They are most common in newborn babies, often called
the 'stork's beak' mark because they occur on the forehead between the eyebrows and on the nape of the neck… as though a stork had had the child's head in its beak. These are transient phenomena that disappear as the baby grows. A popular but incorrect theory is that they are caused by the caul, the inner membrane enclosing the foetus, adhering itself to the child and becoming enmeshed into the child's own skin as it develops in the womb. Such marks are also sometimes referred to as 'God's fingerprints', and to many they signify good fortune."
Makinson snorted loudly. "Doesn't seem much like good fortune to me," he said, "carrying a big red mark on your face all your life."
"As I said, Inspector, these marks usually disappear as the child grows older. The ones that stay are called port wine stains or strawberry naevi, due to their colouring.The technical name is cutaneous haemangiomata, which refers to an abnormally large collection of blood vessels in the skin… an over production, if you will. These are most commonly on the face – the case of Crosby the banker is typical – although they can occur anywhere on the body.