A Study in Charlotte

The sun was rising in the distance, pulled up by its lazy, invisible string, and the sky was shot through with color. Her hair was washed in gold, her cheeks, in gold, and her eyes were as knowing as a psychic’s.

In that moment, I would’ve followed her anywhere.

“We shouldn’t be talking about Dobson,” she said, starting off across the quad, “because we should be examining his room.”

I stopped short. “I’m sorry, what?”

IT WAS ALREADY TEN PAST SEVEN, AND OUR HALLWAY IN Michener was on the second floor. I had no idea how we’d sneak by Mrs. Dunham at the front desk, not to mention the hordes of junior boys emerging from their rooms to shower before breakfast. I watched Holmes consider it for a moment, frowning, before she slid around to the side of the ivy-covered building.

She told me to stand back, then flung herself down on the ground, examining it inch by inch. For footprints, I realized. If we’d thought of accessing Dobson’s room this way, someone else probably had too. Nervously, I looked around to see if we were being watched, but we were shrouded by a cluster of ash trees. Thank God Sherringford was so damn picturesque.

“Four girls went by here last night in a group,” she said finally, getting to her feet. “You can tell by the stampede of Ugg boots. But no solo travelers, not even to smoke. Strange, this seems like a good spot for it.” She methodically brushed the dirt and grass from her clothes. “They must have entered through the front doors. Michener isn’t connected to the access tunnels, the way Stevenson and Harris are.”

“Access tunnels?” I said.

“You really should explore more. We’ll remedy that, but not now.” Holmes glanced at the first floor’s thick stone windowsills, at the windowsills above those, and bent down to untie her shoes. “Stuff these in my bag, will you,” she said, putting a socked foot up on the sill. “Yours too. And put your gloves on. We can’t leave prints of any kind. Come on, quickly, they might open their blinds at any moment. At least his roommate is away on that rugby tourney.”

“Don’t you need to find out which room is theirs?” I asked.

She tossed me a look, like I had asked her if the earth went around the sun. “Watson, just give me a lift.”

I cradled my hands for her to step into, and in seconds she had climbed up the ivy to Dobson’s second-floor window. Clinging to the sill with one hand, she used the other to pull a length of wire from her pocket, and bent one end into a hook with her teeth. I couldn’t see what she did next, but I could hear her humming. It sounded like a Sousa march.

“Right,” I whispered. “When I found you, you were just going to your lab.”

“Shut up, Watson.” With a slight hiss and crack, the window opened. Holmes eased herself inside, as delicate as a dancer.

Her head reappeared. “Aren’t you coming?”

I swore. Loudly.

Thankfully, all that rugby I’d been playing meant I was in passable shape. I had a good six inches on her too, so I didn’t need a leg up to reach the hanging ivy. When I scrambled into Dobson’s room, she patted me on the shoulder absently; she was already surveying her surroundings.

Dobson’s was the sort of room I’d seen all over Michener: he had that black-and-white poster of two girls kissing, and the floor was thick with crumpled clothing. Randall’s side wasn’t any cleaner, but at least his bed was made. Dobson’s sheets were a mess, kicked down to the end of his mattress. The coroner must’ve already removed the body.

There was a framed photo of him and what looked like his sister on the bedside table. The two of them were squinting into the lens, big smiles on. I felt an unexpected pang of guilt.

Holmes had no such hesitation. “Hold my bag,” she said, and immediately fell to her hands and knees. I jumped back about a foot. From what seemed like thin air, she produced a penlight in one hand, a pair of tweezers in the other.

“Did you order some sort of spy kit online?” I asked, irritated. I’d had barely an hour of sleep, and, to be honest, I was trying hard not to give in to a lurking sort of terror. Anyone could come in at any moment and catch us tampering with the crime scene for a murder I’d sort of wanted to commit.

And then there was Holmes. While I stood there, shaking with fear, she was efficient, cool-headed, working swiftly to get us absolved. I thought once more about the two of us racing through a runaway train and smothered a laugh. In reality, she’d make a clean escape while I’d trip over my own feet and get hauled away for waterboarding.

“Be quiet,” she whispered back. “And pull one of those specimen jars from my bag, I’ve found something.”

I took a small glass bottle from her backpack and undid the stopper, then crouched so she could tip the tweezers in. Through the glass, the sample looked like a sliver of onion skin; as I examined it, she added another piece, and a third. She pulled up a bit of the carpet and tucked that into another jar, and used her piece of wire to poke around under the bed, dislodging a number of pens, an old toothbrush, some odds and ends. She inspected a glass of milk by his bed and the old-fashioned slide whistle beside it. With one gloved finger, she traced an invisible line from a high vent down the wall to Dobson’s pillow. Then she looked up, sharply, at the ceiling, and I heard her counting—why, I wasn’t sure. Every small noise sounded to me like our inevitable imprisonment, and my heart hammered in my ears.

She bent to examine Dobson’s pillow and gestured me over. The indentation that his head had made was still visible. “Is that spit?” I whispered, pointing.