The case-book of Sherlock Holmes
jealousy became a frantic mania. Rightly or wrongly, he suspected an
intrigue. He determined to have his revenge, and he planned it with
diabolical cleverness. Come here!"
Holmes led us along the passage with as much certainty as if he had
lived in the house, and halted at the open door of the strong-room.
"Pooh! What an awful smell of paint!" cried the Inspector.
"That was our first clue," said Holmes. "You can thank Dr. Watson's
observation for that, though he failed to draw the inference. It set
my foot upon the trail. Why should this man at such a time be filling
his house with strong odours? Obviously, to cover some other smell
which he wished to conceal--some guilty smell which would suggest
suspicions. Then came the idea of a room such as you see here with
iron door and shutter--a hermetically sealed room. Put those two facts
together, and whither do they lead? I could only determine that by
examining the house myself. I was already certain that the case was
serious, for I had examined the box-office chart at the Haymarket
Theatre--another of Dr. Watson's bull's-eyes--and ascertained that
neither B thirty nor thirty-two of the upper circle had been occupied
that night. Therefore, Amberley had not been to the theatre, and his
alibi fell to the ground. He made a bad slip when he allowed my astute
friend to notice the number of the seat taken for his wife. The
question now arose how I might be able to examine the house. I sent an
agent to the most impossible village I could think of, and summoned my
man to it at such an hour that he could not possibly get back. To
prevent any miscarriage, Dr. Watson accompanied him. The good vicar's
name I took, of course, out of my Crockford. Do I make it all clear to
you?"
"It is masterly," said the Inspector, in an awed voice.
"There being no fear of interruption I proceeded to burgle the house.
Burglary has always been an alternative profession, had I cared to
adopt it, and I have little doubt that I should have come to the front.
Observe what I found. You see the gas-pipe along the skirting here.
Very good. It rises in the angle of the wall, and there is a tap here
in the corner. The pipe runs out into the strong-room, as you can see,
and ends in that plaster rose in the centre of the ceiling, where it is
concealed by the ornamentation. That end is wide open. At any moment
by turning the outside tap the room could be flooded with gas. With
door and shutter closed and the tap full on I would not give two
minutes of conscious sensation to anyone shut up in that little
chamber. By what devilish device he decoyed them there I do not know,
but once inside the door they were at his mercy."
The Inspector examined the pipe with interest. "One of our officers
mentioned the smell of gas," said he, "but, of course, the window and
door were open then, and the paint--or some of it--was already about.
He had begun the work of painting the day before, according to his
story. But what next, Mr. Holmes?"
"Well, then came an incident which was rather unexpected to myself. I
was slipping through the pantry window in the early dawn when I felt a
hand inside my collar, and a voice said: 'Now, you rascal, what are you
doing in there?' When I could twist my head round I looked into the
tinted spectacles of my friend and rival, Mr. Barker. It was a curious
forgathering, and set us both smiling. It seems that he had been
engaged by Dr. Ray Ernest's family to make some investigations, and had
come to the same conclusion as to foul play. He had watched the house
for some days, and had spotted Dr. Watson as one of the obviously
suspicious characters who had called there. He could hardly arrest
Watson, but when he saw a man actually climbing out of the pantry
window there came a limit to his restraint. Of course, I told him how
matters stood and we continued the case together."
"Why him? Why not us?"
"Because it was in my mind to put that little test which answered so
admirably. I fear you would not have gone so far."
The Inspector smiled.
"Well, maybe not. I understand that I have your word, Mr. Holmes, that
you step right out of the case now and that you turn all your results
over to us."
"Certainly, that is always my custom."
"Well, in the name of the Force I thank you. It seems a clear case, as
you put it, and there can't be much difficulty over the bodies."
"I'll show you a grim little bit of evidence," said Holmes, "and I am
sure Amberley himself never observed it. You'll get results,
Inspector, by always putting yourself in the other fellow's place, and
thinking what you would do yourself. It takes some imagination, but it
pays. Now, we will suppose that you were shut up in this little room,
had not two minutes to live, but wanted to get even with the fiend who
was probably mocking at you from the other side of the door. What
would you do?"
"Write a message."
"Exactly. You would like to tell people how you died. No use writing
on paper. That would be seen. If you wrote on the wall some eye might
rest upon it. Now, look here! Just above the skirting is scribbled
with a purple indelible pencil: 'We we----' That's all."
"What do you make of that?"
"Well, it's only a foot above the ground. The poor devil was on the
floor and dying when he wrote it. He lost his senses before he could
finish."
"He was writing, 'We were murdered.'"
"That's how I read it. If you find an indelible pencil on the body----"
"We'll look out for it, you may be sure. But those securities?
Clearly there was no robbery at all. And yet he _did_ possess those
bonds. We verified that."
"You may be sure he has them hidden in a safe place. When the whole
elopement had passed into history he would suddenly discover them, and
announce that the guilty couple had relented and sent back the plunder
or had dropped it on the way."
"You certainly seem to have met every difficulty," said the Inspector.
"Of course, he was bound to call us in, but why he should have gone to
you I can't understand."
"Pure swank!" Holmes answered. "He felt so clever and so sure of
himself that he imagined no one could touch him. He could say to any
suspicious neighbour, 'Look at the steps I have taken. I have
consulted not only the police, but even Sherlock Holmes.'"
The Inspector laughed.
"We must forgive you your 'even,' Mr. Holmes," said he; "it's as
workmanlike a job as I can remember."
A couple of days later my friend tossed across to me a copy of the
bi-weekly _North Surrey Observer_. Under a series of flaming
headlines, which began with "The Haven Horror" and ended with
"Brilliant Police Investigation," there was a packed column of print
which gave the first consecutive account of the affair. The concluding
paragraph is typical of the whole. It ran thus:
"The remarkable acumen by which Inspector MacKinnon deduced from the
smell of paint that some other smell, that of gas, for example, might
be concealed; the bold deduction that the strongroom might also be the
death-chamber, and the subsequent inquiry which led to the discovery of
the bodies in a disused well, cleverly concealed by a dog-kennel,
should live in the history of crime as a standing example of the
intelligence of our professional detectives."
"Well, well, MacKinnon is a good fellow," said Holmes, with a tolerant
smile. "You can file it in our archives, Watson. Some day the true
story may be told."
Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London
* * * * *
By A. CONAN DOYLE
THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
MICAH CLARKE.
THE CAPTAIN OF THE POLE STAR.
THE SIGN OF FOUR.
THE WHITE COMPANY
THE REFUGEES.
THE STARK MUNRO LETTERS.
THE EXPLOITS OF BRIGADIER GERARD.
RODNEY STONE.
UNCLE BERNAC.
THE TRAGEDY OF THE "KOROSKO."
A DUET, WITH AN OCCASIONAL CHORUS.
THE GREEN FLAG.
THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES.
THE ADVENTURES OF GERARD.
SIR NIGEL.
THROUGH THE MAGIC DOOR.
ROUND THE FIRE STORIES.
THE LAST GALLEY.
THE LOST WORLD.
ROUND THE RED LAMP.
THE VALLEY OF FEAR.
HIS LAST BOW.
DANGER! AND OTHER STORIES.
THE FIRM OF GIRDLESTONE.
TALES OF ADVENTURE AND MEDICAL LIFE.
TALES OF LONG AGO.
TALES OF PIRATES AND BLUE WATER.
TALES OF THE RING AND CAMP.
TALES OF TERROR AND MYSTERY.
TALES OF TWILIGHT AND THE UNSEEN.
SONGS OF ACTION.
SONGS OF THE ROAD.
THE GUARDS CAME THROUGH, AND OTHER POEMS.
POEMS: COLLECTED EDITION.
THREE OF THEM: A REMINISCENCE.
THE MYSTERY OF JOAN OF ARC. BY LÉON
DENIS. Translated from the French by
A. CONAN DOYLE.