A Study in Sherlock

“Read the police report.” She handed it to me. “They found her in the basement of her apartment building, hanging by a wire wrapped around her neck, the other end around a hook in a ceiling rafter. Near her was a stool, an aerosol can of cold-start ether, and a rag. The investigators concluded she strung herself up, then used the ether to anesthetize herself so she’d fall off the stool but not suffer while she was strangling to death.” Emmy looked away. “This is so awful. Poor Ina.”

It was awful, I thought, then pointed to the report. “Says here no signs of struggle. Suppose there were no signs of struggle because Ina was already unconscious when she was strung up?”

“No struggle because she trusted the other person and wasn’t expecting a faceful of ether.” Boothby cocked his right eyebrow up, pointed at me, and turned to Emmy. “Let’s take a look at Ina’s basement. Before suggesting the police got it wrong, let’s see whether what we’re brainifying about makes sense. Tomorrow afternoon?”

“And just what are you three desperadoes conspiring about here?” We all looked up to find Judge Watts leaning against the doorjamb and munching on some grapes, an eyebrow raised in mock suspicion.

“Hi, Gibson,” said Boothby. “Great party! We’re talking to Emmy here about Ina Lederer. Ina was Emmy’s niece.”

He turned to her. “I’m so sorry about what happened, Emmy. Losing a loved one to suicide is the worst kind of loss.”

“I don’t believe it was suicide,” Emmy said. Watts moved into the room and furrowed his brow. “What else could it be then—except … murder?”

“Bingo.” Boothby nodded.

Watts looked incredulous. “Who’d want to murder her?”

Boothby shrugged. “No idea. We’re just brainifying.”

“Wow—murder,” Watts said. “Linwood,” he said to Boothby, “this is both horrifying and intriguing. I’d like to hear your, uh, brainifying when you have a chance—and when I don’t have a party to conduct.” He nodded toward the people in the adjoining room. “Got to go. Again, Emmy, my condolences.”

After Watts left, Boothby stood and held up his glass. “Time to refuel. Emmy, you need to try some of Gibson’s lobster dip. You too, Artie—let’s mingle.”

Ina’s apartment was on the ground floor of a four-story tenement in Lewiston, a dingy nineteenth-century mill town that had been dying for eighty years. Emmy let us in. Ina’s place was neat, but dust on the furniture indicated no one had been there in a while.

She led us to the back of the apartment, then through a door and down steps to the basement. It was a large, open area with brick columns evenly spaced along the length of the room to support carrying timbers. Clotheslines drooped between the columns; a bicycle was chained to one of them; a stool stood next to another. A decrepit upright piano occupied what had probably been the coal bin.

Emmy showed us the hook, embedded in one of the joists, from which Ina was found hanging, and pointed out the stool that Ina was supposed to have used.

“How big was Ina?” Boothby asked Emmy.

“Five-three, a hundred and ten pounds maybe.”

“So how would someone be able to lift her and hold her aloft long enough to hang her off that hook?” Boothby asked me.

“Had to be strong,” I said, “so I’m guessing a man. Maybe he wrapped the wire around her neck, boosted her onto his shoulder, climbed onto the stool, wrapped the other end of the wire around the hook, and let her go.”

“Next question: Why use a wire? Why not some of that clothesline?”

“Clothesline’s fragile, might break. The police report says it was a piano wire, probably from that wrecked piano.”

We walked over to it. Its keyboard resembled a mouthful of rotted teeth, and it lacked its upper and lower front panels. Several strings dangled free of their pins, and some were missing altogether.

Boothby studied it. “Using a piano wire supports the idea of suicide because the means of death is right here.”

Emmy spoke up: “Ina’s apartment is the only one in the building with direct access to the basement. That other door”—she pointed to the rear—“leads to a common stairway for the other apartments. Someone in Ina’s apartment could get down here and back up without much risk of being seen.”

Boothby nodded. “What’s going to happen to her apartment?”

“I’ve got to sublet it. Ina’s lease has another six months to run and doesn’t have a clause that terminates it upon death. So if you’re done, why don’t I show you out? I need to clean it to get it ready.”

As we got into Boothby’s vehicle of choice, a gray 1980s four-door Citroën—another of his iconoclasms—I said, “Judge, the wire didn’t come from that piano.”

“Why not?”

“I know that the longest bass string on an upright is about three feet. To do the job right—sorry—with a stool as short as the one we saw, you need something long enough to wrap around the hook, wrap around her neck, and still leave slack. Like a string from a grand piano.”

“Okay, so?”

“Bear with me. What do you know about cocaine?”