The Devil's Grin - a Crime Novel Featuring Anna Kronberg and Sherlock Holmes by Annelie Wendeberg Page B

onto my back. Any noise coming from things moving within had to be avoided. I rolled my trousers up to my knees. Holmes was dangerously close behind me now. He could probably touch my shoulder if he stretched out his hand.
    I ducked and started running. Behind me I heard him growl a quiet “ Anna! ” I had to smile, for he stood no chance against me here. I grew up with trees surrounding me, knew how to climb the slickest of them, and had learned to run barefoot through the woods, quiet and quick as a cat.
    After roughly ten minutes, the canopy lightened and the intimidating outer wall of Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum looked down on me. I ran along it and found a tree that suited my purpose - a mighty oak, split in two by lightning, with one half still alive. One of its thick branches reached over the wall.
    I climbed up and nestled close to its torso with my legs hugging the thick branch.
    The entire asylum stretched like a small city below me. I knew this place well. One of my first assignments as an epidemiologist had been the annual hygiene inspection of Broadmoor.
    To the left I saw the main building Holmes must have visited today. It was the oldest and now had the function of the lowest security block. It housed harmless cases such as female petty thieves with a depression or a nervous tick. Further to the right were the five male blocks built a year after the first. Most of these inhabitants were harmless, too.
    And then far to the right were the two high security blocks, one for women, and one for men. Many of these inmates were insane murderers who got their daily ration of groats pushed through a hatch at the bottom of a heavy iron door. Well away from me stood a chimney which stuck up like a scorched tree trunk—the central heating facility. I started wondering whether this building could be used as a hiding place during the summer months.
    After a moment of consideration, I decided to first check on the high security blocks that lay at some distance to the remaining complex and would be most suitable for any secret undertaking. I dearly hoped to get some information on Broadmoor’s medical experiments without running into the two security men, each armed with a club and a revolver.
    I heard a quiet crack and peered down. There was the gaunt figure of a man and I was surprised at how easy he moved in the dark. Holmes walked around looking at the ground as if he were trying to find my footprints, and I observed him curiously. What would he be able to see in this darkness? The soil was dry, and I had been running without shoes. I held my breath and waited for him to stop and bend down. But he never did. After he had passed me and disappeared behind the bend of the wall, I took the rucksack off my back and strapped it onto the tree. Then I balanced along the branch, carrying a length of rope. Just above the fifteen-foot-high wall, I tied the rope onto the branch before climbing down. The inner wall reached an elevation of only six feet and wouldn’t be too hard to scale.
    I rubbed dirt into my too-white face and started running. With a leap, I caught the top of the wall and pulled myself up.
    Cautiously, I peered around but could see no one. With a quiet thud, I dropped onto the other side and ran a few yards along the side of the wall. A bush provided limited cover and I took a look around and wondered what Holmes was doing. Or, for a matter of fact, what I was doing - a woman disguised as a man and now pretending to be an asylum burglar.
    I shook off the thought and ran to the next hiding place - a small tool shed close to the high security block for males. The night and this place were dead quiet, and I cautiously snuck up to the building and pressed against its wall. There was a window I could reach, and I peered inside - a hall devoid of people but with small bunks, each of them having four fetters - two for the ankles, two for the wrists. I counted ten empty bunks. The room did look tidy, as if recently cleaned