His last bow Some later reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes
you, Lestrade, could you favour us with your company for an hour or
two? We will begin our investigation by a visit to Aldgate Station.
Good-bye, Mycroft. I shall let you have a report before evening, but I
warn you in advance that you have little to expect.”
An hour later Holmes, Lestrade and I stood upon the Underground
railroad at the point where it emerges from the tunnel immediately
before Aldgate Station. A courteous red-faced old gentleman represented
the railway company.
“This is where the young man’s body lay,” said he, indicating a spot
about three feet from the metals. “It could not have fallen from above,
for these, as you see, are all blank walls. Therefore, it could only
have come from a train, and that train, so far as we can trace it, must
have passed about midnight on Monday.”
“Have the carriages been examined for any sign of violence?”
“There are no such signs, and no ticket has been found.”
“No record of a door being found open?”
“None.”
“We have had some fresh evidence this morning,” said Lestrade. “A
passenger who passed Aldgate in an ordinary Metropolitan train about
11:40 on Monday night declares that he heard a heavy thud, as of a body
striking the line, just before the train reached the station. There was
dense fog, however, and nothing could be seen. He made no report of it
at the time. Why, whatever is the matter with Mr. Holmes?”
My friend was standing with an expression of strained intensity upon
his face, staring at the railway metals where they curved out of the
tunnel. Aldgate is a junction, and there was a network of points. On
these his eager, questioning eyes were fixed, and I saw on his keen,
alert face that tightening of the lips, that quiver of the nostrils,
and concentration of the heavy, tufted brows which I knew so well.
“Points,” he muttered; “the points.”
“What of it? What do you mean?”
“I suppose there are no great number of points on a system such as
this?”
“No; they are very few.”
“And a curve, too. Points, and a curve. By Jove! if it were only so.”
“What is it, Mr. Holmes? Have you a clue?”
“An idea—an indication, no more. But the case certainly grows in
interest. Unique, perfectly unique, and yet why not? I do not see any
indications of bleeding on the line.”
“There were hardly any.”
“But I understand that there was a considerable wound.”
“The bone was crushed, but there was no great external injury.”
“And yet one would have expected some bleeding. Would it be possible
for me to inspect the train which contained the passenger who heard the
thud of a fall in the fog?”
“I fear not, Mr. Holmes. The train has been broken up before now, and
the carriages redistributed.”
“I can assure you, Mr. Holmes,” said Lestrade, “that every carriage has
been carefully examined. I saw to it myself.”
It was one of my friend’s most obvious weaknesses that he was impatient
with less alert intelligences than his own.
“Very likely,” said he, turning away. “As it happens, it was not the
carriages which I desired to examine. Watson, we have done all we can
here. We need not trouble you any further, Mr. Lestrade. I think our
investigations must now carry us to Woolwich.”
At London Bridge, Holmes wrote a telegram to his brother, which he
handed to me before dispatching it. It ran thus:
See some light in the darkness, but it may possibly flicker out.
Meanwhile, please send by messenger, to await return at Baker Street, a
complete list of all foreign spies or international agents known to be
in England, with full address.—Sherlock.
“That should be helpful, Watson,” he remarked as we took our seats in
the Woolwich train. “We certainly owe Brother Mycroft a debt for having
introduced us to what promises to be a really very remarkable case.”
His eager face still wore that expression of intense and high-strung
energy, which showed me that some novel and suggestive circumstance had
opened up a stimulating line of thought. See the foxhound with hanging
ears and drooping tail as it lolls about the kennels, and compare it
with the same hound as, with gleaming eyes and straining muscles, it
runs upon a breast-high scent—such was the change in Holmes since the
morning. He was a different man from the limp and lounging figure in
the mouse-coloured dressing-gown who had prowled so restlessly only a
few hours before round the fog-girt room.
“There is material here. There is scope,” said he. “I am dull indeed
not to have understood its possibilities.”
“Even now they are dark to me.”
“The end is dark to me also, but I have hold of one idea which may lead
us far. The man met his death elsewhere, and his body was on the _roof_
of a carriage.”
“On the roof!”
“Remarkable, is it not? But consider the facts. Is it a coincidence
that it is found at the very point where the train pitches and sways as
it comes round on the points? Is not that the place where an object
upon the roof might be expected to fall off? The points would affect no
object inside the train. Either the body fell from the roof, or a very
curious coincidence has occurred. But now consider the question of the
blood. Of course, there was no bleeding on the line if the body had
bled elsewhere. Each fact is suggestive in itself. Together they have a
cumulative force.”
“And the ticket, too!” I cried.
“Exactly. We could not explain the absence of a ticket. This would
explain it. Everything fits together.”
“But suppose it were so, we are still as far as ever from unravelling
the mystery of his death. Indeed, it becomes not simpler but stranger.”
“Perhaps,” said Holmes, thoughtfully, “perhaps.” He relapsed into a
silent reverie, which lasted until the slow train drew up at last in
Woolwich Station. There he called a cab and drew Mycroft’s paper from
his pocket.
“We have quite a little round of afternoon calls to make,” said he. “I
think that Sir James Walter claims our first attention.”
The house of the famous official was a fine villa with green lawns
stretching down to the Thames. As we reached it the fog was lifting,
and a thin, watery sunshine was breaking through. A butler answered our
ring.
“Sir James, sir!” said he with solemn face. “Sir James died this
morning.”
“Good heavens!” cried Holmes in amazement. “How did he die?”
“Perhaps you would care to step in, sir, and see his brother, Colonel
Valentine?”
“Yes, we had best do so.”
We were ushered into a dim-lit drawing-room, where an instant later we
were joined by a very tall, handsome, light-bearded man of fifty, the
younger brother of the dead scientist. His wild eyes, stained cheeks,
and unkempt hair all spoke of the sudden blow which had fallen upon the
household. He was hardly articulate as he spoke of it.
“It was this horrible scandal,” said he. “My brother, Sir James, was a
man of very sensitive honour, and he could not survive such an affair.
It broke his heart. He was always so proud of the efficiency of his
department, and this was a crushing blow.”
“We had hoped that he might have given us some indications which would
have helped us to clear the matter up.”
“I assure you that it was all a mystery to him as it is to you and to
all of us. He had already put all his knowledge at the disposal of the
police. Naturally he had no doubt that Cadogan West was guilty. But all
the rest was inconceivable.”
“You cannot throw any new light upon the affair?”
“I know nothing myself save what I have read or heard. I have no desire
to be discourteous, but you can understand, Mr. Holmes, that we are
much disturbed at present, and I must ask you to hasten this interview
to an end.”
“This is indeed an unexpected development,” said my friend when we had
regained the cab. “I wonder if the death was natural, or whether the
poor old fellow killed himself! If the latter, may it be taken as some
sign of self-reproach for duty neglected? We must leave that question
to the future. Now we shall turn to the Cadogan Wests.”
A small but well-kept house in the outskirts of the town sheltered the
bereaved mother. The old lady was too dazed with grief to be of any use
to us, but at her side was a white-faced young lady, who introduced
herself as Miss Violet Westbury, the fiancée of the dead man, and the
last to see him upon that fatal night.
“I cannot explain it, Mr. Holmes,” she said. “I have not shut an eye
since the tragedy, thinking, thinking, thinking, night and day, what
the true meaning of it can be. Arthur was the most single-minded,
chivalrous, patriotic man upon earth. He would have cut his right hand
off before he would sell a State secret confided to his keeping. It is
absurd, impossible, preposterous to anyone who knew him.”
“But the facts, Miss Westbury?”
“Yes, yes; I admit I cannot explain them.”
“Was he in any want of money?”
“No; his needs were very simple and his salary ample. He had saved a
few hundreds, and we were to marry at the New Year.”
“No signs of any mental excitement? Come, Miss Westbury, be absolutely
frank with us.”
The quick eye of my companion had noted some change in her manner. She
coloured and hesitated.
“Yes,” she said at last, “I had a feeling that there was something on
his mind.”
“For long?”
“Only for the last week or so. He was thoughtful and worried. Once I
pressed him about it. He admitted that there was something, and that it
was concerned with his official life. ‘It is too serious for me to
speak about, even to you,’ said he. I could get nothing more.”
Holmes looked grave.
“Go on, Miss Westbury. Even if it seems to tell against him, go on. We
cannot say what it may lead to.”
“Indeed, I have nothing more to tell. Once or twice it seemed to me
that he was on the point of telling me something. He spoke one evening
of the importance of the secret, and I have some recollection that he
said that no doubt foreign spies would pay a great deal to have it.”
My friend’s face grew graver still.
“Anything else?”
“He said that we were slack about such matters—that it would be easy
for a traitor to get the plans.”
“Was it only recently that he made such remarks?”
“Yes, quite recently.”
“Now tell us of that last evening.”
“We were to go to the theatre. The fog was so thick that a cab was
useless. We walked, and our way took us close to the office. Suddenly
he darted away into the fog.”
“Without a word?”
“He gave an exclamation; that was all. I waited but he never returned.
Then I walked home. Next morning, after the office opened, they came to
inquire. About twelve o’clock we heard the terrible news. Oh, Mr.
Holmes, if you could only, only save his honour! It was so much to
him.”
Holmes shook his head sadly.
“Come, Watson,” said he, “our ways lie elsewhere. Our next station must
be the office from which the papers were taken.
“It was black enough before against this young man, but our inquiries
make it blacker,” he remarked as the cab lumbered off. “His coming
marriage gives a motive for the crime. He naturally wanted money. The
idea was in his head, since he spoke about it. He nearly made the girl
an accomplice in the treason by telling her his plans. It is all very
bad.”
“But surely, Holmes, character goes for something? Then, again, why
should he leave the girl in the street and dart away to commit a
felony?”
“Exactly! There are certainly objections. But it is a formidable case
which they have to meet.”
Mr. Sidney Johnson, the senior clerk, met us at the office and received
us with that respect which my companion’s card always commanded. He was
a thin, gruff, bespectacled man of middle age, his cheeks haggard, and
his hands twitching from the nervous strain to which he had been
subjected.
“It is bad, Mr. Holmes, very bad! Have you heard of the death of the
chief?”