True to his word, Holmes returned from his mysterious appointment in time for a light dinner of sliced roast beef with Mrs. Hudson’s homemade horseradish sauce and Holmes’ favorite baked beans on toast. Afterwards, the three of us reconvened in the sitting room for tea, coffee and trifle.
“I have been reading the 1954 trial transcripts that Watson deposited in the library,” Holmes confessed. “Several points cry out for explanation, and I’m certain you have the answers I need, Dr. Kirk.”
Kirk nodded and Holmes, pulling the small, tattered jotter out of his jacket pocket, began scanning his quickly scribbled notes.
“As you mentioned before dinner,” began Holmes, “the police never seriously searched for physical evidence until Officer Dombrowski was sent to the house on July 23 – nineteen full days after the murder. His court testimony has no mention of finding evidence of forcible entry – a most interesting omission — but he did mention finding a chip of a tooth on the carpet next to the murder bed about one-third of the bed’s length from its head.
“Now, Dr. Kirk, I read that this tooth chip was never linked to Mrs. Sheppard, and it was in addition to two other tooth fragments found by Gerber under Mrs. Sheppard’s body. Dombrowski also mentioned finding the stub of a burnt match, a piece of foil and a red paint chip. . . Now, how did the prosecution explain these important pieces of physical evidence – particularly, the tooth chip Dombrowski found on the floor and the two tooth fragments Gerber found in the bed?”
“Oh, they were never explained,” shrugged Kirk. “These objects and several other pieces of evidence could not be related to Dr. Sheppard, so they were considered unimportant. But since they had been found and reported, they were all introduced into evidence – except one.”
“And what was the exception?”
“The unfiltered cigarette butt that Bay Village Police officers had seen floating in the upstairs toilet. It could not be placed into evidence because no one had collected it. A potentially crucial piece of evidence – since Marilyn smoked only filtered cigarettes and Dr. Sam smoked only a pipe — simply flushed away.”
“Unthinkable!” exclaimed Holmes. “Dr. Watson mentioned that missing cigarette butt earlier. Damn fools. I find this cavalier attitude toward evidence extremely disturbing. I have solved major crimes with only one cigarette butt! And these bumblers had the audacity to ignore a burnt match, a piece of foil, a red paint chip and three teeth fragments!” he added with an angry scowl. “I must know, what other pieces of physical evidence were conveniently disregarded?”
Here Dr. Kirk heaved a great sigh and poured himself another cup of coffee, offering to pour tea for Holmes and myself as well. Holmes declined, but I accepted gratefully and took a short detour to my desk for pen and paper. I was ready to take notes when Kirk finally answered Sherlock Holmes’ most critical question.
Taking a seat near the fire, Dr. Kirk resumed his sordid tale. I found myself scribbling like mad, trying to keep abreast of the details as Kirk continued to describe the physical evidence discounted by the prosecution when it couldn’t be connected to Sam Sheppard. It was a much longer list than expected.
“In her microscopic examination of the scrapings taken from under Mrs. Sheppard’s fingernails, Miss Cowan (Gerber’s laboratory analyst) found dried blood; so-called nail polish; a brown plant fiber; a red wool fiber; a dark blue wool fiber; and a light blue fiber, probably mercerized cotton; and a fractured hair.”
“The red and blue fibers could well have led to the identity of the murderer,” mused Holmes. “They certainly were acquired during the murder, or shortly before. Fibers are not carried under the fingernails for any length of time by a woman who cares for her nails. And according to court testimony, Mrs. Sheppard removed polish from her nails before going upstairs that night.”
I glanced at my earlier note, “tidy, organized and immaculate.”
“Such fibers,” said Kirk, “would absolutely have given the likes of you and me invaluable information, Mr. Holmes. A careful and thorough investigation would, naturally, have included comparison of those red and blue fibers with all available garments in the home from which they might have come. And forensic analysis of that fractured hair could have cracked open this entire case!”
Dr. Kirk’s frustration was clear. After all, he had established the fundamentals of microscopic hair analysis in 1953 as author of a text frequently used by police investigators, Crime Investigation: Physical Evidence and the Police Laboratory Interscience.
“I’ll bet they misplaced the fractured hair before you had a chance to analyze it,” I snorted. Kirk nodded silently in the affirmative.
As I recall,” Holmes added, “all parties agreed that Dr. Sam was wearing a white T-shirt, tan cord trousers, and white socks — nothing red or blue — on the night of the murder. Failure to find a source for those fibers within the house would have been a strong indication of an origin outside the Sheppard home.”
“That is true, but while the prosecution admitted the source of the fibers had not been determined, they disposed of the issue by saying, ‘the evidence shows that the wool fibers found under her fingernails were insignificant, as testified by Mary Cowan.’
“Also, of interest” Kirk continued in the face of our flabbergasted reaction, “is the red paint chip found under the bed by Officer Dombrowski. Miss Cowan identified it, incorrectly, as nail polish. This material, I later determined scientifically, was red-colored commercial lacquer or paint and most certainly did not come from the victim. This fact might well have assumed great significance had the laboratory technician not misidentified the evidence.”
“But according to trial transcripts,” said Holmes, once again flipping through his well-worn jotter, “Miss Cowan testified that the red fragments from the fingernail scrapings appeared to be the same color as the nail polish fragment found on the floor. Miss Cowan further testified that she examined the larger red fragment under a microscope, and she dissolved a small piece of it in ethyl acetate, a common solvent for nail polish.”
“Exactly right,” Kirk responded. “However, as you know I examined the Sheppard home after the trial, and I found a number of microscopic fragments of what looked like red nail polish from the rug beside the murder bed. I concluded that these bits of red material must be more of the so-called nail polish examined by Miss Cowan.”
Dr. Kirk had our full attention. Well aware that Sherlock Holmes and I shared his love of scientific analysis, he pulled two capped glass vials out of his briefcase. I could see that both vials contained red-colored flakes.
“I have here fragments of dried nail polish and chips of paint. Might we adjourn to your laboratory and microscope, Mr. Holmes, to examine the obvious difference between these two substances?”
No doubt eager to show Dr. Kirk his well-equipped laboratory, Holmes crossed the room and opened the door to the adjoining apartment. Turning up the oil lamp, he politely invited us to precede him through the doorway, but I urged him to enter first – knowing full well that Holmes’ laboratory was impossible to navigate without knowing exactly where to step and how to avoid towering piles of old documents and dusty books. Be that as it may, Holmes led us without incident to the bench that held his microscope and, pushing aside several encrusted beakers and a pile of glass slides, cleared a space for Dr. Kirk to work.
Producing a leather pouch from his jacket pocket, Kirk removed a small bottle labeled “ethyl acetate” and a clean test tube. He poured the ethyl acetate into the test tube, and taking up one of the chip-containing vials, carefully tapped one small red fragment into the liquid. It dissolved. Uncapping the second vial, he added one of its fragments to the ethyl acetate. It also dissolved.
“Nail polish, invented in the 1920s, is simply a lacquer with organic red dye added. Commercial lacquer or paint generally contains mineral pigments. The distinction is very simple,” said Kirk.
“It is obvious, however,” said Holmes, “That testing solubility in ethyl acetate cannot distinguish between nail polish and paint because it attacks only the vehicle that is the same in both materials.”
“Precisely!” said Kirk. Uncapping the first vial once again, he mounted one of its red fragments on a glass slide, which he marked #1. Following the same procedure with the second vial, he labeled that slide #2.
“Apparently Miss Cowan was unaware that her tests did not prove the origin of the red fragment. In addition to her meaningless solubility test, she examined the fragment with a stereo microscope – a modern instrument that illuminates the specimen by reflected light. If, instead, she had used an ordinary optical microscope, which utilizes transmitted light, she could readily have distinguished between fingernail polish and commercial lacquer.
“Now Mr. Holmes, using your very fine Powell & Lealand No.1 microscope[1] – which of course uses transmitted light – please take a look at these two specimens. I would appreciate your views as well, Dr. Watson.”
Sherlock Holmes eagerly peered through the microscope, first examining slide #1 and then slide #2. I did the same.
“Ah hah,” exclaimed Holmes. “The red fragment on slide #1 appears black under the microscope because it allows no light to pass through it. Specimen #2, however, allows some light to pass through and appears red. I must conclude, therefore, that #1 is commercial paint and #2 is nail polish.”
“You are correct, of course,” smiled Kirk. “Lack of opacity is an important characteristic of paints, lacquers and similar coatings meant to hide or cover metal, wood and other materials.”
“And what, exactly, did you observe when looking at the red fragments you found beside Mrs. Sheppard’s bed?” Holmes asked.
“Using an optical microscope with transmitted light similar to yours, the fragments that I vacuumed from the rug appeared totally black. The red fragments found in the murder room were commercial lacquer, not fingernail polish.”
“So, this whole nail polish thing was another red herring!” I shouted in frustration. “If the red paint chip was not nail polish and did not come from Marilyn Sheppard, where did it come from?”
“Any hard object – a weapon, for example – might have been painted with red lacquer,” postulated Holmes.
“Yes,” said Kirk, “and, as I discovered through laboratory experiments, a most likely weapon is often painted in such a fashion.”
“You are referring, no doubt, to the flashlight you mention in your affidavit,” I inserted.
“Most assuredly. The cylindrical edge of a common metal flashlight, somewhat heavy with batteries and often painted red, fits every wound profile and the arc of the weapon as wielded by the murderer and revealed in the blood spatter in the murder room.”
I wanted to discuss the pattern of blood spatter further, but Holmes had already grabbed the oil lamp and was headed out the laboratory door. Dr. Kirk and I had to follow or be left stranded in the dark, cluttered and acrid-smelling laboratory. As I suspected, Holmes had an agenda of his own and pounced on Kirk the minute we emerged into the warm glow of the sitting room.
“As you and I agree, Dr. Kirk, microscopic evidence is frequently the most important and useful of all evidence. It is so small that no one is aware of it, and a criminal cannot protect himself against transferring it during commission of a crime. Although it is generally useless when the criminal and his victim live in the same environment, as is true of husband and wife, such evidence becomes crucial in proving the presence and identity of an intruder.”
“Of course,” countered Dr. Kirk, “but the Cleveland investigators never considered this microscopic evidence as indicating the presence of an intruder. None of it was traced to its source, and items plainly visible were checked only to the extent that they might incriminate Sam Sheppard. Regarding that chip of tooth found under the bed, for example, the prosecution stated: As heretofore pointed out, this was not found until July 23, after many people had been in and out of that room, and after the victim had been buried.’ And although the prosecution said the tooth fragment did not belong to Marilyn or to Sam, they made no effort to locate its source.”
“Now that is ridiculous, I must say,” I was jumping to my feet once again. “Visitors to murder rooms do not chip their teeth, unless they are engaged in bludgeoning a victim!”
Kirk shot me a grim smile and said, “It gets worse. A torn fragment of leather was found beside the murder bed. According to Miss Cowan, Coroner Gerber’s laboratory analyst, it was triangular in shape and about 5/8 inch wide by 5/8 inch long. It is unlikely that an object the size of that piece of leather would have been left sitting on the rug for any length of time preceding the murder. It is far more likely that it was connected with the murder than that some chance happening, at another time, was responsible for its being there.
“But while the prosecution did admit that the leather was never identified as having come from anything belonging to Dr. Sheppard (and believe me, they searched long and hard to find its source in his possessions), this admission was followed by a second typical statement: ‘The evidence shows that only one piece of leatherette was found on July 5, after many persons such as Dr. Richard Sheppard, Dr. Steve Sheppard, numerous Bay Village policemen, numerous photographers and others had been in and out of the room.’ This, of course, was the prosecution’s constant refrain in dismissing all pieces of evidence that did not fit their case against Sam Sheppard.”
Holmes and I looked at each other aghast – such casual dismissal of evidence was completely foreign to the core principles of investigation!
“Evidence doesn’t just happen,” Holmes growled, grabbing his pipe and stirring the logs in the fireplace with an iron poker. “Evidence is present through human agency, and that human agency must be identified, not rationalized away with simplistic excuses.”
“Since reading the trial transcript, Mr. Holmes,” said Kirk, “you are also aware, I’m sure, that the prosecution spent a great deal of time arguing that a burglary of the home was faked by Dr. Sam in an attempt to mislead authorities into thinking that a casual burglar had murdered his wife. The defense argued that a casual burglar did murder Mrs. Sheppard and produced witnesses who testified that loiterers had been seen in the neighborhood that night.”
Holmes, tossing his notes aside, squinted narrowly at Kirk and said, “Indeed. But the prosecution trumped that theory by arguing that Sheppard had to be the murderer because, according to neighbors and Dr. Sam’s own testimony, the family dog had not barked the night of the murder. Both sides were wrong, however, because they missed the third – and more likely — explanation. The burglary was faked, alright, but not by Sam Sheppard.”
“Wait a minute. I thought you would have agreed with the prosecutor’s conclusion, Holmes!” I blurted, referring, of course, to Holmes’ investigation into the theft of a racehorse named Silver Blaze and the murder of his trainer. In that case, the stable dog had not barked on the night of the murder, and Holmes had concluded, therefore, that the dog’s master had taken the horse and murdered the trainer.
“My dear Watson,” snapped Holmes, “a dog will not bark when it knows the person who enters its home – whomever that person may be. In this case, the dog’s silence is consistent with another possibility as to who murdered Mrs. Marilyn Sheppard!
“Furthermore, this dog and her superior nose had the ability to identify the murderer with great accuracy.”
“Wh. . . what?” chorused both Dr. Kirk and myself with incredulous disbelief.
Holmes, completely ignoring our confusion, continued his remarkably unexpected lecture on dogs and their noses.
“I have found that a dog’s nose is far more reliable at identifying a perpetrator than any number of human so-called eyewitnesses. The scene of a recent crime holds the scent of the perpetrator. This dog, although not specifically trained for the task, if handled correctly may have been able to help identify the killer.”
Holmes continued, unfazed. “Now Watson, what information do you have regarding the dog’s behavior the night of the murder and, especially, the following morning?”
Although I was gob smacked, I had to take Holmes seriously, so I searched my notes and, gloriously, found a useful notation.
“As you already know,” I said, reading through my scribbles, “the prosecution insisted that the family dog would have barked at an unknown intruder, and in an effort to prove that the dog was in the house and not barking at Sheppard, the prosecutor asked Esther Houk if she saw the dog when she first entered the house.
“According to the court transcript, Mrs. Houk replied: ‘I remember seeing the dog go out the door. I don’t recall whether it was when we first opened the door or when it was opened later. I don’t recall seeing the dog except when he went out the front door.’ Later she added that the dog came back into the house, and Esther saw her lying on a rug in the kitchen.”
“And,” said Holmes, half closing his eyes and puffing away on his pipe, “did that dog bark when the Houk’s opened the door?”
“Mrs. Houk didn’t mention barking.” I reported. “Of course, the prosecution didn’t ask that question, but it appears the dog simply ran out the door.”
“Uh huh. Obviously, the dog knew Mr. and Mrs. Houk quite well. Add the dog to the prosecution’s oversight.”
“What are you getting at Holmes?” “Based on testimony, the family dog normally barked at strangers. The dog did not bark when Mr. and Mrs. Houk entered the house, Watson. That fact negates any argument accusing Dr. Sheppard due to a non-barking dog . . . and opens the door to more interesting possibilities.”
[1] First manufactured in 1840, the Powell & Lealand No. 1 microscope was the most well-designed and precise monocular optical microscope of Holmes’ time.
