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Adventure VI. The Reigate Puzzle
It was some time before the health of my friend Mr.
Sherlock Holmes recovered from the strain caused by
his immense exertions in the spring of ’87. The whole
question of the Netherland-Sumatra Company and of the
colossal schemes of Baron Maupertuis are too recent in
the minds of the public, and are too intimately
concerned with politics and finance to be fitting
subjects for this series of sketches. They led,
however, in an indirect fashion to a singular and
complex problem which gave my friend an opportunity of
demonstrating the value of a fresh weapon among the
many with which he waged his life-long battle against
crime.
On referring to my notes I see that it was upon the
14th of April that I received a telegram from Lyons
which informed me that Holmes was lying ill in the
Hotel Dulong. Within twenty-four hours I was in his
sick-room, and was relieved to find that there was
nothing formidable in his symptoms. Even his iron
constitution, however, had broken down under the
strain of an investigation which had extended over two
months, during which period he had never worked less
than fifteen hours a day, and had more than once, as
he assured me, kept to his task for five days at a
stretch. Even the triumphant issue of his labors
could not save him from reaction after so terrible an
exertion, and at a time when Europe was ringing with
his name and when his room was literally ankle-deep
with congratulatory telegrams I found him a prey to
the blackest depression. Even the knowledge that he
had succeeded where the police of three countries had
failed, and that he had outmanoeuvred at every point
the most accomplished swindler in Europe, was
insufficient to rouse him from his nervous
prostration.
Three days later we were back in Baker Street
together; but it was evident that my friend would be
much the better for a change, and the thought of a
week of spring time in the country was full of
attractions to me also. My old friend, Colonel
Hayter, who had come under my professional care in
Afghanistan, had now taken a house near Reigate in
Surrey, and had frequently asked me to come down to
him upon a visit. On the last occasion he had
remarked that if my friend would only come with me he
would be glad to extend his hospitality to him also.
A little diplomacy was needed, but when Holmes
understood that the establishment was a bachelor one,
and that he would be allowed the fullest freedom, he
fell in with my plans and a week after our return from
Lyons we were under the Colonel’s roof. Hayter was a
fine old soldier who had seen much of the world, and
he soon found, as I had expected, that Holmes and he
had much in common.
On the evening of our arrival we were sitting in the
Colonel’s gun-room after dinner, Holmes stretched upon
the sofa, while Hayter and I looked over his little
armory of Eastern weapons.
“By the way,” said he suddenly, “I think I’ll take one
of these pistols upstairs with me in case we have an
alarm.”
“An alarm!” said I.
“Yes, we’ve had a scare in this part lately. Old
Acton, who is one of our county magnates, had his
house broken into last Monday. No great damage done,
but the fellows are still at large.”
“No clue?” asked Holmes, cocking his eye at the
Colonel.
“None as yet. But the affair is a pretty one, one of
our little country crimes, which must seem too small
for your attention, Mr. Holmes, after this great
international affair.”
Holmes waved away the compliment, though his smile
showed that it had pleased him.
“Was there any feature of interest?”
“I fancy not. The thieves ransacked the library and
got very little for their pains. The whole place was
turned upside down, drawers burst open, and presses
ransacked, with the result that an odd volume of
Pope’s ‘Homer,’ two plated candlesticks, an ivory
letter-weight, a small oak barometer, and a ball of
twine are all that have vanished.”
“What an extraordinary assortment!” I exclaimed.
“Oh, the fellows evidently grabbed hold of everything
they could get.”
Holmes grunted from the sofa.
“The county police ought to make something of that,”
said he; “why, it is surely obvious that–“
But I held up a warning finger.
“You are here for a rest, my dear fellow. For
Heaven’s sake don’t get started on a new problem when
your nerves are all in shreds.”
Holmes shrugged his shoulders with a glance of comic
resignation towards the Colonel, and the talk drifted
away into less dangerous channels.
It was destined, however, that all my professional
caution should be wasted, for next morning the problem
obtruded itself upon us in such a way that it was
impossible to ignore it, and our country visit took a
turn which neither of us could have anticipated. We
were at breakfast when the Colonel’s butler rushed in
with all his propriety shaken out of him.
“Have you heard the news, sir?” he gasped. “At the
Cunningham’s sir!”
“Burglary!” cried the Colonel, with his coffee-cup in
mid-air.
“Murder!”
The Colonel whistled. “By Jove!” said he. “Who’s
killed, then? The J.P. or his son?”
“Neither, sir. It was William the coachman. Shot
through the heart, sir, and never spoke again.”
“Who shot him, then?”
“The burglar, sir. He was off like a shot and got
clean away. He’d just broke in at the pantry window
when William came on him and met his end in saving his
master’s property.”
“What time?”
“It was last night, sir, somewhere about twelve.”
“Ah, then, we’ll step over afterwards,” said the
Colonel, coolly settling down to his breakfast again.
“It’s a baddish business,” he added when the butler
had gone; “he’s our leading man about here, is old
Cunningham, and a very decent fellow too. He’ll be
cut up over this, for the man has been in his service
for years and was a good servant. It’s evidently the
same villains who broke into Acton’s.”
“And stole that very singular collection,” said
Holmes, thoughtfully.
“Precisely.”
“Hum! It may prove the simplest matter in the world,
but all the same at first glance this is just a little
curious, is it not? A gang of burglars acting in the
country might be expected to vary the scene of their
operations, and not to crack two cribs in the same
district within a few days. When you spoke last night
of taking precautions I remember that it passed
through my mind that this was probably the last parish
in England to which the thief or thieves would be
likely to turn their attention–which shows that I
have still much to learn.”
“I fancy it’s some local practitioner,” said the
Colonel. “In that case, of course, Acton’s and
Cunningham’s are just the places he would go for,
since they are far the largest about here.”
“And richest?”
“Well, they ought to be, but they’ve had a lawsuit for
some years which has sucked the blood out of both of
them, I fancy. Old Acton has some claim on half
Cunningham’s estate, and the lawyers have been at it
with both hands.”
“If it’s a local villain there should not be much
difficulty in running him down,” said Holmes with a
yawn. “All right, Watson, I don’t intend to meddle.”
“Inspector Forrester, sir,” said the butler, throwing
open the door.
The official, a smart, keen-faced young fellow,
stepped into the room. “Good-morning, Colonel,” said
he; “I hope I don’t intrude, but we hear that Mr.
Holmes of Baker Street is here.”
The Colonel waved his hand towards my friend, and the
Inspector bowed.
“We thought that perhaps you would care to step
across, Mr. Holmes.”
“The fates are against you, Watson,” said he,
laughing. “We were chatting about the matter when you
came in, Inspector. Perhaps you can let us have a few
details.” As he leaned back in his chair in the
familiar attitude I knew that the case was hopeless.
“We had no clue in the Acton affair. But here we have
plenty to go on, and there’s no doubt it is the same
party in each case. The man was seen.”
“Ah!”
“Yes, sir. But he was off like a deer after the shot
that killed poor William Kirwan was fired. Mr.
Cunningham saw him from the bedroom window, and Mr.
Alec Cunningham saw him from the back passage. It was
quarter to twelve when the alarm broke out. Mr.
Cunningham had just got into bed, and Mr. Alec was
smoking a pipe in his dressing-gown. They both heard
William the coachman calling for help, and Mr. Alec
ran down to see what was the matter. The back door
was open, and as he came to the foot of the stairs he
saw two men wrestling together outside. One of them
fired a shot, the other dropped, and the murderer
rushed across the garden and over the hedge. Mr.
Cunningham, looking out of his bedroom, saw the fellow
as he gained the road, but lost sight of him at once.
Mr. Alec stopped to see if he could help the dying
man, and so the villain got clean away. Beyond the
fact that he was a middle-sized man and dressed in
some dark stuff, we have no personal clue; but we are
making energetic inquiries, and if he is a stranger we
shall soon find him out.”
“What was this William doing there? Did he say
anything before he died?”
“Not a word. He lives at the lodge with his mother,
and as he was a very faithful fellow we imagine that
he walked up to the house with the intention of seeing
that all was right there. Of course this Acton
business has put every one on their guard. The robber
must have just burst open the door–the lock has been
forced–when William came upon him.”
“Did William say anything to his mother before going
out?”
“She is very old and deaf, and we can get no
information from her. The shock has made her
half-witted, but I understand that she was never very
bright. There is one very important circumstance,
however. Look at this!”
He took a small piece of torn paper from a note-book
and spread it out upon his knee.
“This was found between the finger and thumb of the
dead man. It appears to be a fragment torn from a
larger sheet. You will observe that the hour
mentioned upon it is the very time at which the poor
fellow met his fate. You see that his murderer might
have torn the rest of the sheet from him or he might
have taken this fragment from the murderer. It reads
almost as though it were an appointment.”
Holmes took up the scrap of paper, a fac-simile of
which is here reproduced.
d at quarter to twelve
learn what
maybe
“Presuming that it is an appointment,” continued the
Inspector, “it is of course a conceivable theory that
this William Kirwan–though he had the reputation of
being an honest man, may have been in league with the
thief. He may have met him there, may even have
helped him to break in the door, and then they may
have fallen out between themselves.”
“This writing is of extraordinary interest,” said
Holmes, who had been examining it with intense
concentration. “These are much deeper waters than I
had though.” He sank his head upon his hands, while
the Inspector smiled at the effect which his case had
had upon the famous London specialist.
“Your last remark,” said Holmes, presently, “as to the
possibility of there being an understanding between
the burglar and the servant, and this being a note of
appointment from one to the other, is an ingenious and
not entirely impossible supposition. But this writing
opens up–” He sank his head into his hands again and
remained for some minutes in the deepest thought.
When he raised his face again, I was surprised to see
that his cheek was tinged with color, and his eyes as
bright as before his illness. He sprang to his feet
with all his old energy.
“I’ll tell you what,” said he, “I should like to have
a quiet little glance into the details of this case.
There is something in it which fascinates me
extremely. If you will permit me, Colonel, I will
leave my friend Watson and you, and I will step round
with the Inspector to test the truth of one or two
little fancies of mine. I will be with you again in
half an hour.”
An hour and half had elapsed before the Inspector
returned alone.
“Mr. Holmes is walking up and down in the field
outside,” said he. “He wants us all four to go up to
the house together.”
“To Mr. Cunningham’s?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What for?”
The Inspector shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t quite
know, sir. Between ourselves, I think Mr. Holmes had
not quite got over his illness yet. He’s been
behaving very queerly, and he is very much excited.”
“I don’t think you need alarm yourself,” said I. “I
have usually found that there was method in his
madness.”
“Some folks might say there was madness in his
method,” muttered the Inspector. “But he’s all on
fire to start, Colonel, so we had best go out if you
are ready.”
We found Holmes pacing up and down in the field, his
chin sunk upon his breast, and his hands thrust into
his trousers pockets.
“The matter grows in interest,” said he. “Watson,
your country-trip has been a distinct success. I have
had a charming morning.”
“You have been up to the scene of the crime, I
understand,” said the Colonel.
“Yes; the Inspector and I have made quite a little
reconnaissance together.”
“Any success?”
“Well, we have seen some very interesting things.
I’ll tell you what we did as we walk. First of all,
we saw the body of this unfortunate man. He certainly
died from a revolved wound as reported.”
“Had you doubted it, then?”
“Oh, it is as well to test everything. Our inspection
was not wasted. We then had an interview with Mr.
Cunningham and his son, who were able to point out the
exact spot where the murderer had broken through the
garden-hedge in his flight. That was of great
interest.”
“Naturally.”
“Then we had a look at this poor fellow’s mother. We
could get no information from her, however, as she is
very old and feeble.”
“And what is the result of your investigations?”
“The conviction that the crime is a very peculiar one.
Perhaps our visit now may do something to make it less
obscure. I think that we are both agreed, Inspector
that the fragment of paper in the dead man’s hand,
bearing, as it does, the very hour of his death
written upon it, is of extreme importance.”
“It should give a clue, Mr. Holmes.”
“It does give a clue. Whoever wrote that note was the
man who brought William Kirwan out of his bed at that
hour. But where is the rest of that sheet of paper?”
“I examined the ground carefully in the hope of
finding it,” said the Inspector.
“It was torn out of the dead man’s hand. Why was some
one so anxious to get possession of it? Because it
incriminated him. And what would he do with it?
Thrust it into his pocket, most likely, never noticing
that a corner of it had been left in the grip of the
corpse. If we could get the rest of that sheet it is
obvious that we should have gone a long way towards
solving the mystery.”
“Yes, but how can we get at the criminal’s pocket
before we catch the criminal?”
“Well, well, it was worth thinking over. Then there
is another obvious point. The note was sent to
William. The man who wrote it could not have taken
it; otherwise, of course, he might have delivered his
own message by word of mouth. Who brought the note,
then? Or did it come through the post?”
“I have made inquiries,” said the Inspector. “William
received a letter by the afternoon post yesterday.
The envelope was destroyed by him.”
“Excellent!” cried Holmes, clapping the Inspector on
the back. “You’ve seen the postman. It is a pleasure
to work with
you. Well, here is the lodge, and if you
will come up, Colonel, I will show you the scene of
the crime.”
We passed the pretty cottage where the murdered man
had lived, and walked up an oak-lined avenue to the
fine old Queen Anne house, which bears the date of
Malplaquet upon the lintel of the door. Holmes and
the Inspector led us round it until we came to the
side gate, which is separated by a stretch of garden
from the hedge which lines the road. A constable was
standing at the kitchen door.
“Throw the door open, officer,” said Holmes. “Now, it
was on those stairs that young Mr. Cunningham stood
and saw the two men struggling just where we are. Old
Mr. Cunningham was at that window–the second on the
left–and he saw the fellow get away just to the left
of that bush. Then Mr. Alec ran out and knelt beside
the wounded man. The ground is very hard, you see,
and there are no marks to guide us.” As he spoke two
men came down the garden path, from round the angle of
the house. The one was an elderly man, with a strong,
deep-lined, heavy-eyed face; the other a dashing young
fellow, whose bright, smiling expression and showy
dress were in strange contract with the business which
had brought us there.
“Still at it, then?” said he to Holmes. “I thought
you Londoners were never at fault. You don’t seem to
be so very quick, after all.”
“Ah, you must give us a little time,” said Holmes
good-humoredly.
“You’ll want it,” said young Alec Cunningham. “Why, I
don’t see that we have any clue at all.”
“There’s only one,” answered the Inspector. “We
thought that if we could only find–Good heavens, Mr.
Holmes! What is the matter?”
My poor friend’s face had suddenly assumed the most
dreadful expression. His eyes rolled upwards, his
features writhed in agony, and with a suppressed groan
he dropped on his face upon the ground. Horrified at
the suddenness and severity of the attack, we carried
him into the kitchen, where he lay back in a large
chair, and breathed heavily for some minutes.
Finally, with a shamefaced apology for his weakness,
he rose once more.
“Watson would tell you that I have only just recovered
from a severe illness,” he explained. “I am liable to
these sudden nervous attacks.”
“Shall I send you home in my trap?” asked old
Cunningham.
“Well, since I am here, there is one point on which I
should like to feel sure. We can very easily verify
it.”
“What was it?”
“Well, it seems to me that it is just possible that
the arrival of this poor fellow William was not
before, but after, the entrance of the burglary into
the house. You appear to take it for granted that,
although the door was forced, the robber never got
in.”
“I fancy that is quite obvious,” said Mr. Cunningham,
gravely. “Why, my son Alec had not yet gone to bed,
and he would certainly have heard any one moving
about.”
“Where was he sitting?”
“I was smoking in my dressing-room.”
“Which window is that?”
“The last on the left next my father’s.”
“Both of your lamps were lit, of course?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“There are some very singular points here,” said
Holmes, smiling. “Is it not extraordinary that a
burglary–and a burglar who had had some previous
experience–should deliberately break into a house at
a time when he could see from the lights that two of
the family were still afoot?”
“He must have been a cool hand.”
“Well, of course, if the case were not an odd one we
should not have been driven to ask you for an
explanation,” said young Mr. Alec. “But as to your
ideas that the man had robbed the house before William
tackled him, I think it a most absurd notion.
Wouldn’t we have found the place disarranged, and
missed the things which he had taken?”
“It depends on what the things were,” said Holmes.
“You must remember that we are dealing with a burglar
who is a very peculiar fellow, and who appears to work
on lines of his own. Look, for example, at the queer
lot of things which he took from Acton’s–what was
it?–a ball of string, a letter-weight, and I don’t
know what other odds and ends.”
“Well, we are quite in your hands, Mr. Holmes,” said
old Cunningham. “Anything which you or the Inspector
may suggest will most certainly be done.”
“In the first place,” said Holmes, “I should like you
to offer a reward–coming from yourself, for the
officials may take a little time before they would
agree upon the sum, and these things cannot be done
too promptly. I have jotted down the form here, if
you would not mind signing it. Fifty pound was quite
enough, I thought.”
“I would willingly give five hundred,” said the J.P.,
taking the slip of paper and the pencil which Holmes
handed to him. “This is not quite correct, however,”
he added, glancing over the document.
“I wrote it rather hurriedly.”
“You see you begin, ‘Whereas, at about a quarter to
one on Tuesday morning an attempt was made,’ and so
on. It was at a quarter to twelve, as a matter of
fact.”
I was pained at the mistake, for I knew how keenly
Holmes would feel any slip of the kind. It was his
specialty to be accurate as to fact, but his recent
illness had shaken him, and this one little incident
was enough to show me that he was still far from being
himself. He was obviously embarrassed for an instant,
while the Inspector raised his eyebrows, and Alec
Cunningham burst into a laugh. The old gentleman
corrected the mistake, however, and handed the paper
back to Holmes.
“Get it printed as soon as possible,” he said; “I
think your idea is an excellent one.”
Holmes put the slip of paper carefully away into his
pocket-book.
“And now,” said he, “it really would be a good thing
that we should all go over the house together and make
certain that this rather erratic burglar did not,
after all, carry anything away with him.”
Before entering, Holmes made an examination of the
door which had been forced. It was evident that a
chisel or strong knife had been thrust in, and the
lock forced back with it. We could see the marks in
the wood where it had been pushed in.
“You don’t use bars, then?” he asked.
“We have never found it necessary.”
“You don’t keep a dog?”
“Yes, but he is chained on the other side of the
house.”
“When do the servants go to bed?”
“About ten.”
“I understand that William was usually in bed also at
that hour.”
“Yes.”
“It is singular that on this parti
cular night he
should have been up. Now, I should be very glad if
you would have the kindness to show us over the house,
Mr. Cunningham.”
A stone-flagged passage, with the kitchens branching
away from it, led by a wooden staircase directly to
the first floor of the house. It came out upon the
landing opposite to a second more ornamental stair
which came up from the front hall. Out of this
landing opened the drawing-room and several bedrooms,
including those of Mr. Cunningham and his son. Holmes
walked slowly, taking keen note of the architecture of
the house. I could tell from his expression that he
was on a hot scent, and yet I could not in the least
imagine in what direction his inferences were leading
him.
“My good sir,” said Mr. Cunningham with some
impatience, “this is surely very unnecessary. That is
my room at the end of the stairs, and my son’s is the
one beyond it. I leave it to your judgment whether it
was possible for the thief to have come up here
without disturbing us.”
“You must try round and get on a fresh scent, I
fancy,” said the son with a rather malicious smile.
“Still, I must ask you to humor me a little further.
I should like, for example, to see how far the windows
of the bedrooms command the front. This, I understand
is your son’s room”–he pushed open the door–“and
that, I presume, is the dressing-room in which he sat
smoking when the alarm was given. Where does the
window of that look out to?” He stepped across the
bedroom, pushed open the door, and glanced round the
other chamber.
“I hope that you are satisfied now?” said Mr.
Cunningham, tartly.
“Thank you, I think I have seen all that I wished.”
“Then if it is really necessary we can go into my
room.”
“If it is not too much trouble.”
The J. P. shrugged his shoulders, and led the way into
his own chamber, which was a plainly furnished and
commonplace room. As we moved across it in the
direction of the window, Holmes fell back until he and
I were the last of the group. Near the foot of the
bed stood a dish of oranges and a carafe of water. As
we passed it Holmes, to my unutterable astonishment,
leaned over in front of me and deliberately knocked
the whole thing over. The glass smashed into a
thousand pieces and the fruit rolled about into every
corner of the room.
“You’ve done it now, Watson,” said he, coolly. “A
pretty mess you’ve made of the carpet.”
I stooped in some confusion and began to pick up the
fruit, understanding for some reason my companion
desired me to take the blame upon myself. The others
did the same, and set the table on its legs again.
“Hullo!” cried the Inspector, “where’s he got to?”
Holmes had disappeared.
“Wait here an instant,” said young Alec Cunningham.
“The fellow is off his head, in my opinion. Come with
me, father, and see where he has got to!”
They rushed out of the room, leaving the Inspector,
the Colonel, and me staring at each other.
“‘Pon my word, I am inclined to agree with Master
Alec,” said the official. “It may be the effect of
this illness, but it seems to me that–“
His words were cut short by a sudden scream of “Help!
Help! Murder!” With a thrill I recognized the voice
of that of my friend. I rushed madly from the room on
to the landing. The cries, which had sunk down into a
hoarse, inarticulate shouting, came from the room
which we had first visited. I dashed in, and on into
the dressing-room beyond. The two Cunninghams were
bending over the prostrate figure of Sherlock Holmes,
the younger clutching his throat with both hands,
while the elder seemed to be twisting one of his
wrists. In an instant the three of us had torn them
away from him, and Holmes staggered to his feet, very
pale and evidently greatly exhausted.
“Arrest these men, Inspector,” he gasped.
“On what charge?”
“That of murdering their coachman, William Kirwan.”
The Inspector stared about him in bewilderment. “Oh,
come now, Mr. Holmes,” said he at last, “I’m sure you
don’t really mean to–“
“Tut, man, look at their faces!” cried Holmes, curtly.
Never certainly have I seen a plainer confession of
guilt upon human countenances. The older man seemed
numbed and dazed with a heavy, sullen expression upon
his strongly-marked face. The son, on the other hand,
had dropped all that jaunty, dashing style which had
characterized him, and the ferocity of a dangerous
wild beast gleamed in his dark eyes and distorted his
handsome features. The Inspector said nothing, but,
stepping to the door, he blew his whistle. Two of his
constables came at the call.
“I have no alternative, Mr. Cunningham,” said he. “I
trust that this may all prove to be an absurd mistake,
but you can see that–Ah, would you? Drop it!” He
struck out with his hand, and a revolver which the
younger man was in the act of cocking clattered down
upon the floor.
“Keep that,” said Holmes, quietly putting his foot
upon it; “you will find it useful at the trial. But
this is what we really wanted.” He held up a little
crumpled piece of paper.
“The remainder of the sheet!” cried the Inspector.
“Precisely.”
“And where was it?”
“Where I was sure it must be. I’ll make the whole
matter clear to you presently. I think, Colonel, that
you and Watson might return now, and I will be with
you again in an hour at the furthest. The Inspector
and I must have a word with the prisoners, but you
will certainly see me back at luncheon time.”
Sherlock Holmes was as good as his word, for about one
o’clock he rejoined us in the Colonel’s smoking-room.
He was accompanied by a little elderly gentleman, who
was introduced to me as the Mr. Acton whose house had
been the scene of the original burglary.
“I wished Mr. Acton to be present while I demonstrated
this small matter to you,” said Holmes, “for it is
natural that he should take a keen interest in the
details. I am afraid, my dear Colonel, that you must
regret the hour that you took in such a stormy petrel
as I am.”
“On the contrary,” answered the Colonel, warmly, “I
consider it the greatest privilege to have been
permitted to study your methods of working. I confess
that they quite surpass my expectations, and that I am
utterly unable to account for you result. I have not
yet seen the vestige of a clue.”
“I am afraid that my explanation may disillusion you
but it has always been my habit to hide none of my
methods, either from my friend Watson or from any one
who might take an intelligent interest in them. But,
first, as I am rather shaken by the knocking about
which I had in the dressing-room, I think that I shall
help myself to a dash of your brandy, Colonel. My
strength had been rather tried of late.”
“I trust that you had no more of those nervous
attacks.”
Sherlock Holmes laughed heartily. “We will come to
that in its turn,” said he. “I will lay an account of
the case before you in its due order, showing you the
various points which guided me in my decision. Pray
interrupt me if there is any inference which is not
perfectly clear to you.
“It is of the highest importance in the art of
detection to be able to recognize, out of a number of
facts, which are incidental and which vital.
Otherwise your energy and attention must be dissipated
instead of being concentrated. Now, in this case
there was not the slightest doubt in my mind from the
first that the key of the whole matter must be looked
for in the scrap of paper in the dead man’s hand.
“Before going into this, I would draw your attention
to the fact that, if Alec Cunningham’s narrative was
correct, and if the assailant, after shooting William
Kirwan, had instantly fled, then it obviously could
not be he who tore the paper from the dead man’s hand.
But if it was not he, it must have been Alec
Cunningham himself, for by the time that the old man
had descended several servants were upon the scene.
The point is a simple one, but the Inspector had
overlooked it because he had started with the
supposition that these county magnates had had nothing
to do with the matter. Now, I make a pint of never
having any prejudices, and of following docilely
wherever fact may lead me, and so, in the very first
stage of the investigation, I found myself looking a
little askance at the part which had been played by
Mr. Alec Cunningham.
“And now I made a very careful examination of the
corner of paper which the Inspector had submitted to
us. It was at once clear to me that it formed part of
a very remarkable document. Here it is. Do you not
now observed something very suggestive about it?”
“It has a very irregular look,” said the Colonel.
“My dear sir,” cried Holmes, “there cannot be the
least doubt in the world that it has been written by
two persons doing alternate words. When I draw your
attention to the strong t’s of ‘at’ and ‘to’, and ask
you to compare them with the weak ones of ‘quarter’
and ‘twelve,’ you will instantly recognize the fact.
A very brief analysis of these four words would enable
you to say with the utmost confidence that the ‘learn’
and the ‘maybe’ are written in the stronger hand, and
the ‘what’ in the weaker.”
“By Jove, it’s as clear as day!” cried the Colonel.
“Why on earth should two men write a letter in such a
fashion?”
“Obviously the business was a bad one, and one of the
men who distrusted the other was determined that,
whatever was done, each should have an equal hand in
it. Now, of the two men, it is clear that the one who
wrote the ‘at’ and ‘to’ was the ringleader.”
“How do you get at that?”
“We might deduce it from the mere character of the one
hand as compared with the other. But we have more
assured reasons than that for supposing it. If you
examine this scrap with attention you will come to the
conclusion that the man with the stronger hand wrote
all his words first, leaving blanks for the other to
fill up. These blanks were not always sufficient, and
you can see that the second man had a squeeze to fit
his ‘quarter’ in between the ‘at’ and the ‘to,’
showing that the latter were already written. The man
who wrote all his words first in undoubtedly the man
who planned the affair.”
“Excellent!” cried Mr. Acton.
“But very superficial,” said Holmes. “We come now,
however, to a point which is of importance. You may
not be aware that the deduction of a man’s age from
his writing is one which has brought to considerable
accuracy by experts. In normal cases one can place a
man in his true decade with tolerable confidence. I
say normal cases, because ill-health and physical
weakness reproduce the signs of old age, even when the
invalid is a youth. In this case, looking at the
bold, strong hand of the one, and the rather
broken-backed appearance of the other, which still
retains its legibility although the t’s have begun to
lose their crossing, we can say that the one was a
young man and the other was advanced in years without
being positively decrepit.”
“Excellent!” cried Mr. Acton again.
“There is a further point, however, which is subtler
and of greater interest. There is something in common
between these hands. They belong to men who are
blood-relatives. It may be most obvious to you in the
Greek e’s, but to me there are many small points which
indicate the same thing. I have no doubt at all that
a family mannerism can be traced in these two
specimens of writing. I am only, of course, giving
you the leading results now of my examination of the
paper. There were twenty-three other deductions which
would be of more interest to experts than to you.
They all tend to deepen the impression upon my mind
that the Cunninghams, father and son, had written this
letter.
“Having got so far, my next step was, of course, to
examine into the details of the crime, and to see how
far they would help us. I went up to the house with
the Inspector, and saw all that was to be seen. The
wound upon the dead man was, as I was able to
determine with absolute confidence, fired from a
revolver at the distance of something over four yards.
There was no powder-blackening on the clothes.
Evidently, therefore, Alec Cunningham had lied when
he said that the two men were struggling when the shot
was fired. Again, both father and son agreed as to
the place where the man escaped into the road. At
that point, however, as it happens, there is a
broadish ditch, moist at the bottom. As there were no
indications of bootmarks about this ditch, I was
absolutely sure not only that the Cunninghams had
again lied, but that there had never been any unknown
man upon the scene at all.
“And now I have to consider the motive of this
singular crime. To get at this, I endeavored first of
all to solve the reason of the original burglary at
Mr. Acton’s. I understood, from something which the
Colonel told us, that a lawsuit had been going on
between you, Mr. Acton, and the Cunninghams. Of
course, it instantly occurred to me that they had
broken into your library with the intention of getting
at some document which might be of importance in the
case.”
“Precisely so,” said Mr. Acton. “There can be no
possible doubt as to their intentions. I have the
clearest claim upon half of their present estate, and
if they could have found a single paper–which,
fortunately, was in the strong-box of my
solicitors–they would undoubtedly have crippled our
case.”
“There you are,” said Holmes, smiling. “It was a
dangerous, reckless attempt, in which I seem to trace
the influence of young Alec. Having found nothing
they tried to divert suspicion by making it appear to
be an ordinary burglary, to which end they carried off
whatever they could lay their hands upon. That is all
clear enough, but there was much that was still
obscure. What I wanted above all was to get the
missing part of that note. I was certain that Alec
had torn it out of the dead man’s hand, and almost
certain that he must have thrust it into the pocket of
his dressing-gown. Where else could he have put it?
The only question was whether it was still there. It
was worth an effort to find out, and for that object
we all went up to the house.
“The Cunninghams joined us, as you doubtless remember,
outside the kitchen door. It was, of course, of the
very first importance that they should not be reminded
of the existence of this paper, otherwise they would
naturally destroy it without delay. The Inspector was
about to tell them the importance which we attached to
it when, by the luckiest chance in the world, I
tumbled down in a sort of fit and so changed the
conversation.
“Good heavens!” cried the Colonel, laughing, “do you
mean to say all our sympathy was wasted and your fit
an imposture?”
“Speaking professionally, it was admirably done,”
cried I, looking in amazement at this man who was
forever confounding me with some new phase of his
astuteness.
“It is an art which is often useful,” said he. “When
I recovered I managed, by a device which had perhaps
some little merit of ingenuity, to get old Cunningham
to write the word ‘twelve,’ so that I might compare it
with the ‘twelve’ upon the paper.”
“Oh, what an ass I have been!” I exclaimed.
“I could see that you were commiserating me over my
weakness,” said Holmes, laughing. “I was sorry to
cause you the sympathetic pain which I know that you
felt. We then went upstairs together, and having
entered the room and seen the dressing-gown hanging up
behind the door, I contrived, by upsetting a table, to
engage their attention for the moment, and slipped
back to examine the pockets. I had hardly got the
paper, however–which was, as I had expected, in one
of them–when the two Cunninghams were on me, and
would, I verily believe, have murdered me then and
there but for your prompt and friendly aid. As it is,
I feel that young man’s grip on my throat now, and the
father has twisted my wrist round in the effort to get
the paper out of my hand. They saw that I must know
all about it, you see, and the sudden change from
absolute security to complete despair made them
perfectly desperate.
“I had a little talk with old Cunningham afterwards as
to the motive of the crime. He was tractable enough,
though his son was a perfect demon, ready to blow out
his own or anybody else’s brains if he could have got
to his revolver. When Cunningham saw that the case
against him was so strong he lost all heart and made a
clean breast of everything. It seems that William had
secretly followed his two masters on the night when
they made their raid upon Mr. Acton’s, and having thus
got them into his power, proceeded, under threats of
exposure, to levy black-mail upon them. Mr. Alec,
however, was a dangerous man to play games of that
sort with. It was a stroke of positive genius on his
part to see in the burglary scare which was convulsing
the country side an opportunity of plausibly getting
rid of the man whom he feared. William was decoyed up
and shot, and had they only got the whole of the note
and paid a little more attention to detail in the
accessories, it is very possible that suspicion might
never have been aroused.”
“And the note?” I asked.
Sherlock Holmes placed the subjoined paper before us.
If you will only come around
to the east gate you will
will very much surprise you and
be of the greatest service to you and also
to Annie Morrison. But say nothing to
anyone upon the matter
“It is very much the sort of thing that I expected,”
said he. “Of course, we do not yet know what the
relations may have been between Alec Cunningham,
William Kirwan, and Annie Morrison. The results shows
that the trap was skillfully baited. I am sure that
you cannot fail to be delighted with the traces of
heredity shown in the p’s and in the tails of the g’s.
The absence of the i-dots in the old man’s writing is
also most characteristic. Watson, I think our quiet
rest in the country has been a distinct success, and I
shall certainly return much invigorated to Baker
Street to-morrow.”