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eerie, that’s what. But what time shall you be needing the cart?”
    “In all honesty, Mrs. Green, I should not like to discuss my goods with anyone other than your son. I cannot convey to you my absolute trust in his discretion except to offer my warmest compliments regarding his upbringing. We shall return at a later time.” Holmes bade a cordial farewell to the woman, who limped appreciably on her right foot as she showed us to the door.
    “You were quite effective at gaining an entrance,” I noted as we returned to the cab.
    Holmes smiled, but his gaze was distant. “It goes without saying in this community that, given even a single male member of the household, any resident will be acquainted with a man who has access to a cart. You can hardly fail, provided your pronouns are vague enough.”
    “It is a pity she could tell us nothing.”
    “On the contrary,” my friend replied softly, “she told us a great deal.”
    “How do you mean?”
    “I had hoped, despite its cool execution, that this was some monstrous crime of passion. Mrs. Green’s room overlooks the scene of the assault, and I know for a fact that Nichols was not moved. If Mrs. Green is a light sleeper, and if Nichols was not moved, and Mrs. Green heard nothing, then there was no quarrel. If there was no quarrel…”
    “Then the murder was premeditated,” I continued. “And if the murder was premeditated—”
    “Then it is worse than I thought,” Holmes concluded grimly. “Whitehall, please, driver! Scotland Yard.”
     
    We entered the Yard’s headquarters through the rear of the building and hastened up the familiar staircase to locate Inspector Lestrade. Our associate’s office was hardly a shrine to organization at the best of times, but that afternoon we found the windowless room could hardly be glimpsed beneath its litter of notes, maps, and memoranda. He looked up from his chair with a decided smirk.
    The inspector appeared to have recovered a deal of composure within the haven of the Yard, along with the officious manners which were wont so often to chafe the considerable vanity of my companion. I had watched the pair collaborate over crimes both trivial and momentous over the years, and despite their mutual love of justice and regard for each other’s talents—tenacity on Lestrade’s part and innate brilliance on the part of Sherlock Holmes—I had never yet witnessed a meeting when the two friends failed to pique one another’s temper, either deliberately or incidentally. The fact that both would end up nettled and self-important was a foregone conclusion, even if Holmes religiously delivered full credit to Lestrade in all their mutual cases, and Holmes was Lestrade’s first and last defense against the incomprehensible.
    “Well, Mr. Holmes, the notion we’d a homicidal maniac on our hands was a bit rich, don’t you think? I’ve put together the evidence regarding the Tabram case for you, and I think you’ll see it’s hardly the work of the same man.”
    “I do not recall stating that the crimes were perpetrated by the same individual, only that they are both singular and similar.”
    Lestrade proceeded to rummage through his papers primly.
    “Very well, Mr. Holmes. Lecture as you like. I will confine myself to the facts. Deceased, one Martha Tabram, an unfortunate, found in George Yard Buildings on August the seventh stabbed thirty-nine times. Took us a full week to identify the body, finally confirmed by Henry Samuel Tabram, her former husband. They had two sons, but she seems to have been more interested in gin than in children, so she deserted him. He cut off her maintenance money when he discovered how she was supplementing her income. One can hardly blame him.” Here the inspector coughed discreetly before continuing his report. “She was last seen in the company of a drunken sergeant, and whoever he may be, the case is black against him. Tabram ducked into an alleyway with the chap and that’s the last we