The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
“Oh, yes! In a hundred other ways he has helped him. Everybody about
here speaks of his kindness to him.”
“Really! Does it not strike you as a little singular that this
McCarthy, who appears to have had little of his own, and to have been
under such obligations to Turner, should still talk of marrying his son
to Turner’s daughter, who is, presumably, heiress to the estate, and
that in such a very cocksure manner, as if it were merely a case of a
proposal and all else would follow? It is the more strange, since we
know that Turner himself was averse to the idea. The daughter told us
as much. Do you not deduce something from that?”
“We have got to the deductions and the inferences,” said Lestrade,
winking at me. “I find it hard enough to tackle facts, Holmes, without
flying away after theories and fancies.”
“You are right,” said Holmes demurely; “you do find it very hard to
tackle the facts.”
“Anyhow, I have grasped one fact which you seem to find it difficult to
get hold of,” replied Lestrade with some warmth.
“And that is—”
“That McCarthy senior met his death from McCarthy junior and that all
theories to the contrary are the merest moonshine.”
“Well, moonshine is a brighter thing than fog,” said Holmes, laughing.
“But I am very much mistaken if this is not Hatherley Farm upon the
left.”
“Yes, that is it.” It was a widespread, comfortable-looking building,
two-storied, slate-roofed, with great yellow blotches of lichen upon
the grey walls. The drawn blinds and the smokeless chimneys, however,
gave it a stricken look, as though the weight of this horror still lay
heavy upon it. We called at the door, when the maid, at Holmes’
request, showed us the boots which her master wore at the time of his
death, and also a pair of the son’s, though not the pair which he had
then had. Having measured these very carefully from seven or eight
different points, Holmes desired to be led to the court-yard, from
which we all followed the winding track which led to Boscombe Pool.
Sherlock Holmes was transformed when he was hot upon such a scent as
this. Men who had only known the quiet thinker and logician of Baker
Street would have failed to recognise him. His face flushed and
darkened. His brows were drawn into two hard black lines, while his
eyes shone out from beneath them with a steely glitter. His face was
bent downward, his shoulders bowed, his lips compressed, and the veins
stood out like whipcord in his long, sinewy neck. His nostrils seemed
to dilate with a purely animal lust for the chase, and his mind was so
absolutely concentrated upon the matter before him that a question or
remark fell unheeded upon his ears, or, at the most, only provoked a
quick, impatient snarl in reply. Swiftly and silently he made his way
along the track which ran through the meadows, and so by way of the
woods to the Boscombe Pool. It was damp, marshy ground, as is all that
district, and there were marks of many feet, both upon the path and
amid the short grass which bounded it on either side. Sometimes Holmes
would hurry on, sometimes stop dead, and once he made quite a little
detour into the meadow. Lestrade and I walked behind him, the detective
indifferent and contemptuous, while I watched my friend with the
interest which sprang from the conviction that every one of his actions
was directed towards a definite end.
The Boscombe Pool, which is a little reed-girt sheet of water some
fifty yards across, is situated at the boundary between the Hatherley
Farm and the private park of the wealthy Mr. Turner. Above the woods
which lined it upon the farther side we could see the red, jutting
pinnacles which marked the site of the rich landowner’s dwelling. On
the Hatherley side of the pool the woods grew very thick, and there was
a narrow belt of sodden grass twenty paces across between the edge of
the trees and the reeds which lined the lake. Lestrade showed us the
exact spot at which the body had been found, and, indeed, so moist was
the ground, that I could plainly see the traces which had been left by
the fall of the stricken man. To Holmes, as I could see by his eager
face and peering eyes, very many other things were to be read upon the
trampled grass. He ran round, like a dog who is picking up a scent, and
then turned upon my companion.
“What did you go into the pool for?” he asked.
“I fished about with a rake. I thought there might be some weapon or
other trace. But how on earth—”
“Oh, tut, tut! I have no time! That left foot of yours with its inward
twist is all over the place. A mole could trace it, and there it
vanishes among the reeds. Oh, how simple it would all have been had I
been here before they came like a herd of buffalo and wallowed all over
it. Here is where the party with the lodge-keeper came, and they have
covered all tracks for six or eight feet round the body. But here are
three separate tracks of the same feet.” He drew out a lens and lay
down upon his waterproof to have a better view, talking all the time
rather to himself than to us. “These are young McCarthy’s feet. Twice
he was walking, and once he ran swiftly, so that the soles are deeply
marked and the heels hardly visible. That bears out his story. He ran
when he saw his father on the ground. Then here are the father’s feet
as he paced up and down. What is this, then? It is the butt-end of the
gun as the son stood listening. And this? Ha, ha! What have we here?
Tiptoes! tiptoes! Square, too, quite unusual boots! They come, they go,
they come again—of course that was for the cloak. Now where did they
come from?” He ran up and down, sometimes losing, sometimes finding the
track until we were well within the edge of the wood and under the
shadow of a great beech, the largest tree in the neighbourhood. Holmes
traced his way to the farther side of this and lay down once more upon
his face with a little cry of satisfaction. For a long time he remained
there, turning over the leaves and dried sticks, gathering up what
seemed to me to be dust into an envelope and examining with his lens
not only the ground but even the bark of the tree as far as he could
reach. A jagged stone was lying among the moss, and this also he
carefully examined and retained. Then he followed a pathway through the
wood until he came to the high road, where all traces were lost.
“It has been a case of considerable interest,” he remarked, returning
to his natural manner. “I fancy that this grey house on the right must
be the lodge. I think that I will go in and have a word with Moran, and
perhaps write a little note. Having done that, we may drive back to our
luncheon. You may walk to the cab, and I shall be with you presently.”
It was about ten minutes before we regained our cab and drove back into
Ross, Holmes still carrying with him the stone which he had picked up
in the wood.
“This may interest you, Lestrade,” he remarked, holding it out. “The
murder was done with it.”
“I see no marks.”
“There are none.”
“How do you know, then?”
“The grass was growing under it. It had only lain there a few days.
There was no sign of a place whence it had been taken. It corresponds
with the injuries. There is no sign of any other weapon.”
“And the murderer?”
“Is a tall man, left-handed, limps with the right leg, wears
thick-soled shooting-boots and a grey cloak, smokes Indian cigars, uses
a cigar-holder, and carries a blunt pen-knife in his pocket. There are
several other indications, but these may be enough to aid us in our
search.”
Lestrade laughed. “I am afraid that I am still a sceptic,” he said.
“Theories are all very well, but we have to deal with a hard-headed
British jury.”
“_Nous verrons_,” answered Holmes calmly. “You work your own method,
and I shall work mine. I shall be busy this afternoon, and shall
probably return to London by the evening train.”
“And leave your case unfinished?”
“No, finished.”
“But the mystery?”
“It is solved.”
“Who was the criminal, then?”
“The gentleman I describe.”
“But who is he?”
“Surely it would not be difficult to find out. This is not such a
populous neighbourhood.”
Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. “I am a practical man,” he said, “and
I really cannot undertake to go about the country looking for a
left-handed gentleman with a game leg. I should become the
laughing-stock of Scotland Yard.”
“All right,” said Holmes quietly. “I have given you the chance. Here
are your lodgings. Good-bye. I shall drop you a line before I leave.”
Having left Lestrade at his rooms, we drove to our hotel, where we
found lunch upon the table. Holmes was silent and buried in thought
with a pained expression upon his face, as one who finds himself in a
perplexing position.
“Look here, Watson,” he said when the cloth was cleared “just sit down
in this chair and let me preach to you for a little. I don’t know quite
what to do, and I should value your advice. Light a cigar and let me
expound.”
“Pray do so.”
“Well, now, in considering this case there are two points about young
McCarthy’s narrative which struck us both instantly, although they
impressed me in his favour and you against him. One was the fact that
his father should, according to his account, cry ‘Cooee!’ before seeing
him. The other was his singular dying reference to a rat. He mumbled
several words, you understand, but that was all that caught the son’s
ear. Now from this double point our research must commence, and we will
begin it by presuming that what the lad says is absolutely true.”
“What of this ‘Cooee!’ then?”
“Well, obviously it could not have been meant for the son. The son, as
far as he knew, was in Bristol. It was mere chance that he was within
earshot. The ‘Cooee!’ was meant to attract the attention of whoever it
was that he had the appointment with. But ‘Cooee’ is a distinctly
Australian cry, and one which is used between Australians. There is a
strong presumption that the person whom McCarthy expected to meet him
at Boscombe Pool was someone who had been in Australia.”
“What of the rat, then?”
Sherlock Holmes took a folded paper from his pocket and flattened it
out on the table. “This is a map of the Colony of Victoria,” he said.
“I wired to Bristol for it last night.” He put his hand over part of
the map. “What do you read?”
“ARAT,” I read.
“And now?” He raised his hand.
“BALLARAT.”
“Quite so. That was the word the man uttered, and of which his son only
caught the last two syllables. He was trying to utter the name of his
murderer. So and so, of Ballarat.”
“It is wonderful!” I exclaimed.
“It is obvious. And now, you see, I had narrowed the field down
considerably. The possession of a grey garment was a third point which,
granting the son’s statement to be correct, was a certainty. We have
come now out of mere vagueness to the definite conception of an
Australian from Ballarat with a grey cloak.”
“Certainly.”
“And one who was at home in the district, for the pool can only be
approached by the farm or by the estate, where strangers could hardly
wander.”
“Quite so.”
“Then comes our expedition of to-day. By an examination of the ground I
gained the trifling details which I gave to that imbecile Lestrade, as
to the personality of the criminal.”
“But how did you gain them?”
“You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.”
“His height I know that you might roughly judge from the length of his
stride. His boots, too, might be told from their traces.”
“Yes, they were peculiar boots.”
“But his lameness?”
“The impression of his right foot was always less distinct than his
left. He put less weight upon it. Why? Because he limped—he was lame.”
“But his left-handedness.”
“You were yourself struck by the nature of the injury as recorded by