The Return of Sherlock Holmes
go down to Norfolk tomorrow, and to take our friend some very
definite news as to the secret of his annoyance.”
I confess that I was filled with curiosity, but I was aware that
Holmes liked to make his disclosures at his own time and in his
own way, so I waited until it should suit him to take me into his
confidence.
But there was a delay in that answering telegram, and two days of
impatience followed, during which Holmes pricked up his ears at
every ring of the bell. On the evening of the second there came a
letter from Hilton Cubitt. All was quiet with him, save that a
long inscription had appeared that morning upon the pedestal of
the sundial. He inclosed a copy of it, which is here reproduced:
ELSIE-PREPARE-TO-MEET-THY-GOD
Holmes bent over this grotesque frieze for some minutes, and then
suddenly sprang to his feet with an exclamation of surprise and
dismay. His face was haggard with anxiety.
“We have let this affair go far enough,” said he. “Is there a
train to North Walsham to-night?”
I turned up the time-table. The last had just gone.
“Then we shall breakfast early and take the very first in the
morning,” said Holmes. “Our presence is most urgently needed. Ah!
here is our expected cablegram. One moment, Mrs. Hudson, there
may be an answer. No, that is quite as I expected. This message
makes it even more essential that we should not lose an hour in
letting Hilton Cubitt know how matters stand, for it is a
singular and a dangerous web in which our simple Norfolk squire
is entangled.”
So, indeed, it proved, and as I come to the dark conclusion of a
story which had seemed to me to be only childish and bizarre, I
experience once again the dismay and horror with which I was
filled. Would that I had some brighter ending to communicate to
my readers, but these are the chronicles of fact, and I must
follow to their dark crisis the strange chain of events which for
some days made Riding Thorpe Manor a household word through the
length and breadth of England.
We had hardly alighted at North Walsham, and mentioned the name
of our destination, when the station-master hurried towards us.
“I suppose that you are the detectives from London?” said he.
A look of annoyance passed over Holmes’s face.
“What makes you think such a thing?”
“Because Inspector Martin from Norwich has just passed through.
But maybe you are the surgeons. She’s not dead—or wasn’t by last
accounts. You may be in time to save her yet—though it be for the
gallows.”
Holmes’s brow was dark with anxiety.
“We are going to Riding Thorpe Manor,” said he, “but we have
heard nothing of what has passed there.”
“It’s a terrible business,” said the station-master. “They are
shot, both Mr. Hilton Cubitt and his wife. She shot him and then
herself—so the servants say. He’s dead and her life is despaired
of. Dear, dear, one of the oldest families in the county of
Norfolk, and one of the most honoured.”
Without a word Holmes hurried to a carriage, and during the long
seven miles’ drive he never opened his mouth. Seldom have I seen
him so utterly despondent. He had been uneasy during all our
journey from town, and I had observed that he had turned over the
morning papers with anxious attention, but now this sudden
realization of his worst fears left him in a blank melancholy. He
leaned back in his seat, lost in gloomy speculation. Yet there
was much around to interest us, for we were passing through as
singular a countryside as any in England, where a few scattered
cottages represented the population of to-day, while on every
hand enormous square-towered churches bristled up from the flat
green landscape and told of the glory and prosperity of old East
Anglia. At last the violet rim of the German Ocean appeared over
the green edge of the Norfolk coast, and the driver pointed with
his whip to two old brick and timber gables which projected from
a grove of trees. “That’s Riding Thorpe Manor,” said he.
As we drove up to the porticoed front door, I observed in front
of it, beside the tennis lawn, the black tool-house and the
pedestalled sundial with which we had such strange associations.
A dapper little man, with a quick, alert manner and a waxed
moustache, had just descended from a high dog-cart. He introduced
himself as Inspector Martin, of the Norfolk Constabulary, and he
was considerably astonished when he heard the name of my
companion.
“Why, Mr. Holmes, the crime was only committed at three this
morning. How could you hear of it in London and get to the spot
as soon as I?”
“I anticipated it. I came in the hope of preventing it.”
“Then you must have important evidence, of which we are ignorant,
for they were said to be a most united couple.”
“I have only the evidence of the dancing men,” said Holmes. “I
will explain the matter to you later. Meanwhile, since it is too
late to prevent this tragedy, I am very anxious that I should use
the knowledge which I possess in order to insure that justice be
done. Will you associate me in your investigation, or will you
prefer that I should act independently?”
“I should be proud to feel that we were acting together, Mr.
Holmes,” said the inspector, earnestly.
“In that case I should be glad to hear the evidence and to
examine the premises without an instant of unnecessary delay.”
Inspector Martin had the good sense to allow my friend to do
things in his own fashion, and contented himself with carefully
noting the results. The local surgeon, an old, white-haired man,
had just come down from Mrs. Hilton Cubitt’s room, and he
reported that her injuries were serious, but not necessarily
fatal. The bullet had passed through the front of her brain, and
it would probably be some time before she could regain
consciousness. On the question of whether she had been shot or
had shot herself, he would not venture to express any decided
opinion. Certainly the bullet had been discharged at very close
quarters. There was only the one pistol found in the room, two
barrels of which had been emptied. Mr. Hilton Cubitt had been
shot through the heart. It was equally conceivable that he had
shot her and then himself, or that she had been the criminal, for
the revolver lay upon the floor midway between them.
“Has he been moved?” asked Holmes.
“We have moved nothing except the lady. We could not leave her
lying wounded upon the floor.”
“How long have you been here, Doctor?”
“Since four o’clock.”
“Anyone else?”
“Yes, the constable here.”
“And you have touched nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“You have acted with great discretion. Who sent for you?”
“The housemaid, Saunders.”
“Was it she who gave the alarm?”
“She and Mrs. King, the cook.”
“Where are they now?”
“In the kitchen, I believe.”
“Then I think we had better hear their story at once.”
The old hall, oak-panelled and high-windowed, had been turned
into a court of investigation. Holmes sat in a great,
old-fashioned chair, his inexorable eyes gleaming out of his
haggard face. I could read in them a set purpose to devote his
life to this quest until the client whom he had failed to save
should at last be avenged. The trim Inspector Martin, the old,
grey-headed country doctor, myself, and a stolid village
policeman made up the rest of that strange company.
The two women told their story clearly enough. They had been
aroused from their sleep by the sound of an explosion, which had
been followed a minute later by a second one. They slept in
adjoining rooms, and Mrs. King had rushed in to Saunders.
Together they had descended the stairs. The door of the study was
open, and a candle was burning upon the table. Their master lay
upon his face in the centre of the room. He was quite dead. Near
the window his wife was crouching, her head leaning against the
wall. She was horribly wounded, and the side of her face was red
with blood. She breathed heavily, but was incapable of saying
anything. The passage, as well as the room, was full of smoke and
the smell of powder. The window was certainly shut and fastened
upon the inside. Both women were positive upon the point. They
had at once sent for the doctor and for the constable. Then, with
the aid of the groom and the stable-boy, they had conveyed their
injured mistress to her room. Both she and her husband had
occupied the bed. She was clad in her dress—he in his
dressing-gown, over his night-clothes. Nothing had been moved in
the study. So far as they knew, there had never been any quarrel
between husband and wife. They had always looked upon them as a
very united couple.
These were the main points of the servants’ evidence. In answer
to Inspector Martin, they were clear that every door was fastened
upon the inside, and that no one could have escaped from the
house. In answer to Holmes, they both remembered that they were
conscious of the smell of powder from the moment that they ran
out of their rooms upon the top floor. “I commend that fact very
carefully to your attention,” said Holmes to his professional
colleague. “And now I think that we are in a position to
undertake a thorough examination of the room.”
The study proved to be a small chamber, lined on three sides with
books, and with a writing-table facing an ordinary window, which
looked out upon the garden. Our first attention was given to the
body of the unfortunate squire, whose huge frame lay stretched
across the room. His disordered dress showed that he had been
hastily aroused from sleep. The bullet had been fired at him from
the front, and had remained in his body, after penetrating the
heart. His death had certainly been instantaneous and painless.
There was no powder-marking either upon his dressing-gown or on
his hands. According to the country surgeon, the lady had stains
upon her face, but none upon her hand.
“The absence of the latter means nothing, though its presence may
mean everything,” said Holmes. “Unless the powder from a badly
fitting cartridge happens to spurt backward, one may fire many
shots without leaving a sign. I would suggest that Mr. Cubitt’s
body may now be removed. I suppose, Doctor, you have not
recovered the bullet which wounded the lady?”
“A serious operation will be necessary before that can be done.
But there are still four cartridges in the revolver. Two have
been fired and two wounds inflicted, so that each bullet can be
accounted for.”
“So it would seem,” said Holmes. “Perhaps you can account also
for the bullet which has so obviously struck the edge of the
window?”
He had turned suddenly, and his long, thin finger was pointing to
a hole which had been drilled right through the lower
window-sash, about an inch above the bottom.