Entry 33

"Any idea as to what the murder weapon may be?"

It was always a joy to see Shirleigh in her element. There was something in the way she conducted her investigations; the way she manoeuvred around scenes of interest, her long legs carrying her as she was careful not to disturb any evidence that lay around; her countenance ever the mirror for her internal thoughts; her mannerisms—while most of the time were involuntary—often gave hints as to how she was feeling. She got to her knees and leaned over James Stoner's motionless body.

Harry Stoner shook his head before saying, "We believe he was strangled. There seems to be bruising around his neck, but there are other signs of..."

Harry Stoner didn't need to finish his sentence to know what he was insinuating. When looking upon the body of the late James Stoner, there were, indeed, multiple signs that could hint at various murder methods. The evident bruising around the neck suggested strangulation; however, the body lay in a crimson pool of blood, a knife lying a few feet away. His body lay underneath one of the tightrope towers—which reminded me of the crow's nests on pirate ships—and his broken legs told us that he either fell or was pushed off.

"Interesting..." Shirleigh muttered, her attention fixed on the bruises. "What do you think, Watson?"

"Huh?" Caught off guard by the question, I met my partner's unwavering gaze.

I knelt on the other side of the body, across from Shirleigh, and examined the neck injury inflicted upon James Stoner. The bruising was visible around the circumference of his neck and was a little less than two inches in width. I checked for other signs of strangulation and concluded that he had been strangled, but I could not say for certain if it was the definite cause of his unfortunate death. As I rose to my feet, something on his skin sparkled as my shadow allowed the light to pass over his body, snagging my attention.

"These are a bit strange, no?" I pointed out the small, glittering flakes to Shirleigh, and a slight smile danced on her lips.

"Did you notice these?"

Shirleigh took a pair of forceps from her bag and removed something from the victim's skin. She stood up, holding the tool before her and instinctively, Harry Stoner in closer to see what it was between the metal prongs.

Harry Stoner once again shook his head, doing his best to keep his eyes from his brother's lifeless body.

"I never came this close to his..." his voice hitched. "Someone else had told me that he may have been killed due to asphyxiation. I didn't bother to find out if it was true."

"Oh?" One of Shirleigh's eyebrows arched. "And who might have told you?"

"She's the majorette of our band."

"Where might I find her?"

"Everyone has gathered in her office since we aren't allowed to leave until the culprit has been caught. You may be able to find her in there if she isn't speaking with one of the officers in the hall."

In that instant, Shirleigh turned on her heel and started toward the direction of the majorette's office. I followed after, and a few police officers replaced us, one of them I could hear beginning to question Harry Stoner.

"Shirleigh," I caught up to my companion, now walking in step beside her. Her eyes were focused ahead as she was set on her next objective. "There was something else that bothered me regarding James Stoner's injuries."

She remained silent.

"You would think that when someone was being strangled by whatever it was that killed him—whether it was a rope or a belt—that they would fight for whatever air they could get. Wouldn't one fight to free their trachea? Yet, I didn't see any sign of resistance. There should have been scratches around the bruises at the very least."

Shirleigh spun on her heels to face me, but she never stopped moving. Now walking backwards, she looked me in the eye and the corners of her lips tugged upward. Her eyes sparkled like the ocean underneath the afternoon sun.

"A wonderful observation," was all she said before she turned back around and gave a little hop and a skip. "There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact!"

A group of people was communing inside the office. Each of their uniforms was vivid in colour.

There was a woman sitting on the sofa alongside two others. She was fair-skinned, and her blonde hair framed her face. Her garb led me to the conclusion that she was a magician, consisting of a black, swallowtail suit jacket, lined with red fabric, a white, pleated dress underneath, which all stopped just above her knees. Her eyes were noticeably red and swollen, and when she spoke, I could hear that her nasal passage was congested. It would appear that allergies were wreaking havoc on her sinuses. She dabbed at her nose with a handkerchief before taking a few tablets from a small box.

The two men who sat along with her wore identical uniforms. It dawned on me that Harry Stoner also wore the same attire, and I came to the conclusion that they must have been a part of the marching band. The two of them wore bright red mufflers speckled with golden flakes, which tied in well with the rest of the garments. It suddenly occurred to me that the flakes in their scarves resembled those of the flakes I noticed on James Stoner's skin. Come to think of it, neither he nor Harry Stoner was wearing a muffler of any kind, yet they were members of he band.

Another woman sat at the desk in the centre back of the room, her head lowered as she gazed mindlessly at her phone. From what I could see, she was possibly middle-aged. Her jet black hair had begun to grey, and it was pinned up into a bun, her tall hat on the desk before her. She oscillated in the chair, unaware of our arrival—I don't doubt that the long, dense eyelashes obscured us from her sight. She looked up when she heard us approaching, setting her phone face down on the desk.

"And who might you be? You two don't look like cops."

"My name is Juniper Watson, student of medicine," I told her. "And this is Shirleigh Holmes, she's a, um, consulting...detective...?"

I hoped that the unconfident inflection at the end of my introductions went unnoticed.

"Consulting...detective?"

"As you mentioned, we are not officers; her investigations are conducted separately and independently, without the influence of the metropolitan police department. I occasionally assist with medicinal matters."

"Oh, so you're like, private investigators, then," she planted a hand on her hip.

"If that makes it easier..." I muttered.

"My name's Jacqueline. Jacqueline Mortimer," she shifted her weight. "I'm the majorette of the Stoke Manor Circus marching band. You'll find the rest of my band in here, as well as some of the other members of the circus, when the murder occurred."

"The victim's brother, Harry Stoner, mentioned you," Shirleigh finally said. "He said that you were the one who determined that his brother's cause of death was due to asphyxiation."

"Oh, yeah," she reached up and began to twirl a loose section of hair. "I used to be a medical student, too," she glanced over at me. "Charing Cross Hospital intern. Couldn't afford it, though, so I ended up working here. I saw the injuries on his neck. Bruising like that usually forms when someone is strangled. I found it interesting..."

"What's that?" I asked.

"Harry wasn't wearing his scarf today," she told us. "James' was still in his locker, but the police couldn't find Harry's."

"They're looking for it because they believe it's the murder weapon, I assume."

Miss Mortimer nodded.

"Were you the one who found his body?" Shirleigh inquired.

"Oh, no, one of the tightrope walkers found him a couple of hours ago."

She nodded in a direction behind us, and we turned around to see a young lady being consoled by a young man. She was distressed, and the man beside her was doing his best to calm her nerves.

"Her name is Alice Lafontaine. She's got bad anxiety, poor thing." Mortimer's gaze was fixed on the girl. "To think her love would meet such an end under the tent. As if she didn't have enough to worry about."

"Love?" I echoed.

"They had been dating for a few months. From what I've heard, the lad had been planning to propose soon." Mortimer explained. "But, just between you and me, I believe he was seeing other people without telling her."

"Do you think we should talk to her next?" I turned, expecting to find my companion standing beside me, but she wasn't there. I glanced over the group of people in the room. "Shirleigh?"

"What? You can't be serious."

My attention landed on the man who had been consoling the girl who had found James Stoner's corpse. Shirleigh was standing before her, and given the reaction of the man beside her, I take it that she must have said something a little insensitive. I hurried over to them to hopefully act as a mediator of some kind.

"You were the one to 'find' him, yes?" Shirleigh interrogated. "His body was found underneath the tightropes. That is where you perform, no?"

"You're joking," the man turned to me as I approached. "She's joking, right?"

"I seldom do," Shirleigh bounced on her toes, staring down at the young girl, waiting for an answer. The girl wiped her eyes with her arms, sniffling. Whenever she attempted to speak, her voice would catch, throwing her into a cycle of crying, calm, and hysterics. Shirleigh sighed.

"I think you should go talk to someone else," the man told us.

"Then I shall talk to you," Shirleigh turned her attention to him, and he froze under her icy stare. "What is your name?"

"Joaquín García."

Shirleigh silently stared at him.

"I'm the lion tamer," he said, under the pressure of her stare. "I was with Harry when they told us they found James."

"And what is your relationship with Miss Lafontaine?"

Mr García glanced down at Miss Lafontaine, then looked up at us again, pulling us a few feet away.

"Alice and I have known each other for years," he said, a look of melancholy across his face. "We both joined this travelling circus when we were very young. I guess you could say we're childhood friends, though we never got to spend much time with each other. It's strict work, being a part of this troupe. With that and..."

"You were fond of Miss Lafontaine. But you found out about her relationship with James Stoner."

Mr García folded in on himself, trembling with rage. "That scumbag got what was coming to him if you ask me. Taking my Alice just to toy with her heart..."

"Do you know if he was seeing someone else?" I jumped in.

"Oh, yeah. He and Genevieve were together for a while before she found out about Alice." His anger simmered slightly. "She's our magician, you'll find her over there."

We turned to the centre of the room, where he had pointed out the woman with the allergies.

I turned back to thank him and found that Shirleigh had disappeared once more. She had planted herself in a seat across from the magician and had already begun her questioning.

"Harry and I were seeing each other. He even proposed to me," Miss Roylott—Genevieve's surname—admitted. "But after finding out he was seeing Alice on the side, I dropped him."

"Did you feel any disdain toward Miss Lafontaine?" I asked.

"Toward Alice? Goodness, no. It wasn't her fault. She had no idea that he had even proposed to me before I told her. We were both being played for fools."

"Your allergies seem to be flaring up," Shirleigh mentioned. "They seem rather troublesome."

"Yeah..." Miss Roylott rubbed at her nose. "They get worse when the weather turns. I've been taking over-the-counter medicine for it, but I may see about getting a prescription medication, instead." She chuckled. "James had pretty bad allergies as well. I may ask about what he's taking. It seems to do him good."

"May I ask what it is that you're taking?

"Oh, it's just loratadine," she handed me the box. "It's not cutting it anymore, I'm afraid.

"And what was Harry Stoner taking?" Shirleigh inquired.

"I believe it was something called pre...presni..."

"Prednisone?" I asked.

"Yeah! That was it. I believe he's been taking it for a long time."

Shirleigh got to her feet, which told me she was finished. She pivoted on her heel and started for the door. I ran up beside her as we exited into the hallway.

"A lot of interesting people," I said aloud. "I feel as though they all have a motive. What should we do?"

"I have formed a theory as to what transpired," she told me, her eyes fixed on the exit ahead.

"You've figured it out? What happened?"

"I have formed a theory," she emphasised. "It is dangerous to put forth a hypothesis without gathering the necessary knowledge. Doing so will only create bias. It would be akin to forcing pieces from a puzzle into one where it does not belong." She paused and turned to me. "Do you have any medical journals with you? Particularly ones containing information on allergy medication?"

🙤♔🙦

"I'm sorry, but..." the lab researcher said, handing us a few sheets of paper. "I wasn't able to find anything in his system that was out of the ordinary."

"What?" I flipped through the test results. "How is that possible?"

"Magic." Genevieve shuffled a deck of cards in various ways before making them disappear into thin air. "I am a magician, after all."

"So you're not denying having murdered James Stoner?" Lestrade stated, her face set.

"I'm also not admitting it. I very well could have taken the life of that liar and cheat, but without the necessary test results, I'm afraid your accusation won't stick."

"The absence of anything in his system tells us how she murdered him." Shirleigh's voice rang throughout the concrete room.

"Huh?" Lestrade and I looked up at her in surprise.

"Lestrade, you have her belongings in the other room, yes?"

"Yeah, but we already went through all of it earlier, remember?"

"I would like to present something as evidence."

Lestrade nodded her head toward the door, motioning Shirleigh to follow through with her idea, and in the blink of an eye, Shirleigh left and came back into the room, a bottle in one of her hands.

"Surely you recognise this, Miss Roylott," Shirleigh lifted the bottle into view, holding it so that we all could see.

"I mean, yeah," Miss Roylott was unfazed as she shrugged her shoulders indifferently. "That's my allergy medicine. I told you my allergies tend to flare up horribly during the Wintertime."

"Funnily enough, my sister was also tormented with allergies when we were younger and was prescribed this same medicine," Shirleigh handed the box to me. "Watson, would you be so kind as to read the label?"

I took the container and read the name of the medicine aloud. "It's loratadine. It's a common medication used to treat allergies."

"If you would remove one of the tablets from within and run a search of its imprint code."

I slid the blister from inside the box and removed one of the tablets. It was a small, round tablet, white in colour. I turned it over to reveal a few engraved numbers. I handed the tablet to Lestrade, where she typed the imprint code into her laptop. Gregson and I leaned over to take a look at the results on her screen.

"Why, this is prescription prednisone!" I exclaimed.

"So it is," Shirleigh smiled at me. "Say that someone had been taking a low dose of prednisone for a few months but suddenly stopped. What would be the consequences?"

"Oh, they would go into adrenal crisis, no doubt," I told her. "When someone stops taking prednisone, they have to be weaned off; otherwise, it can cause a number of serious complications. James Stoner was taking prednisone..." I gazed up at her, realisation striking me. "Are you saying...?"

"Indeed. Miss Roylott had swapped her allergy medication for James Stoner's prednisone tablets. He had been taking the medicine for several months, but after finding out about his infidelity, and as the others began to find out about his true nature, she swapped out his tablets with her loratidine. Having been off the medicine for some time, it naturally wouldn't be found in his system. When Miss Roylott found James Stoner's unconscious body, she strangled him with his muffler, leaving behind flakes of gold due to its flecked material, thus creating a false lead. You, Watson, however, noticed that there were no signs of a struggle. He had succumbed to the withdrawal side effects—the adrenal crisis, you have so kindly mentioned. The other injuries found on his person were inflicted afterwards by the other members of the troupe, for they conspired together to end James Stoner's life. All of this to rid the Earth of a good-for-nothing and to confuse the police so much that if they weren't already incompetent, they either would have arrested the wrong person or would have had to give up the case. Magic."

"Hey, we've still got colleagues working over there," Lestrade warned.

"If they haven't been as brave enough to stand against the force or step down just as you did amidst the lacklustre performance of their 'chief', I wouldn't call them 'colleagues' any longer."

A cogitative look crossed Lestrade's face.

Shirleigh fell into her chair, satisfied with her explanation of the facts. Genevieve Roylott's once cocky expression was now replaced with one of a more guilty nature.

"Sounds like they all ought to be taken in," said Gregson. "Desecration of a body is a felony."

"Poor Alice..." I whispered.

"She was in on it, too," Shirleigh told me. "She was the one who pushed his body from her own crow's nest."

"My word...what a terrible and awfully convoluted crime..."

"I can't say I feel particularly sorry for the man."

"Yeah, well, a crime's a crime and a life's a life," Gregson said, rising from her seat. "Looks like they'll all be going away for quite some time, yeah?"

"Did we ever find out what happened to James Stoner's muffler?" I asked Shirleigh as Lestrade and Gregson removed Roylott from the room.

"She more than likely disposed of it," she said, watching the group leave. "I am willing to bet it was by use of the incinerator they kept outside of their circus tent. Making it disappear."