"On one arm or both?"

"Oh, both."

"Then she has been administered her shots by a second party, and your second theory loses some of its attractiveness. You've examined the woman yourself?"

"I've seen her. An uncommon-looking sort, if I do say so. But you may as well try talking with a statue, for all the conversation she's got. So we are left with the evidence; and there isn't any. So we must sit on our hands and wait until someone comes forward to identify her, if anyone does."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Holmes. "Perhaps the woman herself has more evidence to offer than you think. Although for once I'm forced to agree that your garment here offers very little scope for deduction."

Lestrade looked grimly pleased at this apparent admission of defeat.

"If we could find what she'd cut herself with, I'd be happier," said he. "For example, to use your sort of reasoning, if it were a kitchen knife, we might be able to say she was some poor housewife driven by her poverty to do the desperate thing; or some poor wench abandoned by her lover if it were, say, a cheap penknife."

Holmes held the sheet up to the light thoughtfully. "To use your sort of reasoning: She has a cut on her wrist and has been in the water; therefore she has tried to slash her wrists and drown herself, eh? It seems redundant somehow." Holmes smiled a bit sourly. "Well, I'll give you an alternative. You will find no knife because there is none, and she has not tried to commit suicide by drowning; in fact, she has not tried to commit suicide at all."

"How do you deduce that from a bedsheet?" asked Lestrade, a little startled, but too cautious to take up his usual stand against my friend's theorizing.

"The woman has been through or came from Camberwell on the night she was found. These clay stains are distinctive, although much diluted by their immersion in the river.