The Return of Sherlock Holmes
“I should like to have a glance round. What a charming,
old-fashioned room! Perhaps you will kindly wait a minute, until
I have examined the floor. No, I see nothing. What about this
curtain? You hang your clothes behind it. If anyone were forced
to conceal himself in this room he must do it there, since the
bed is too low and the wardrobe too shallow. No one there, I
suppose?”
As Holmes drew the curtain I was aware, from some little rigidity
and alertness of his attitude, that he was prepared for an
emergency. As a matter of fact, the drawn curtain disclosed
nothing but three or four suits of clothes hanging from a line of
pegs. Holmes turned away, and stooped suddenly to the floor.
“Halloa! What’s this?” said he.
It was a small pyramid of black, putty-like stuff, exactly like
the one upon the table of the study. Holmes held it out on his
open palm in the glare of the electric light.
“Your visitor seems to have left traces in your bedroom as well
as in your sitting-room, Mr. Soames.”
“What could he have wanted there?”
“I think it is clear enough. You came back by an unexpected way,
and so he had no warning until you were at the very door. What
could he do? He caught up everything which would betray him, and
he rushed into your bedroom to conceal himself.”
“Good gracious, Mr. Holmes, do you mean to tell me that, all the
time I was talking to Bannister in this room, we had the man
prisoner if we had only known it?”
“So I read it.”
“Surely there is another alternative, Mr. Holmes. I don’t know
whether you observed my bedroom window?”
“Lattice-paned, lead framework, three separate windows, one
swinging on hinge, and large enough to admit a man.”
“Exactly. And it looks out on an angle of the courtyard so as to
be partly invisible. The man might have effected his entrance
there, left traces as he passed through the bedroom, and finally,
finding the door open, have escaped that way.”
Holmes shook his head impatiently.
“Let us be practical,” said he. “I understand you to say that
there are three students who use this stair, and are in the habit
of passing your door?”
“Yes, there are.”
“And they are all in for this examination?”
“Yes.”
“Have you any reason to suspect any one of them more than the
others?”
Soames hesitated.
“It is a very delicate question,” said he. “One hardly likes to
throw suspicion where there are no proofs.”
“Let us hear the suspicions. I will look after the proofs.”
“I will tell you, then, in a few words the character of the three
men who inhabit these rooms. The lower of the three is Gilchrist,
a fine scholar and athlete, plays in the Rugby team and the
cricket team for the college, and got his Blue for the hurdles
and the long jump. He is a fine, manly fellow. His father was the
notorious Sir Jabez Gilchrist, who ruined himself on the turf. My
scholar has been left very poor, but he is hard-working and
industrious. He will do well.
“The second floor is inhabited by Daulat Ras, the Indian. He is a
quiet, inscrutable fellow; as most of those Indians are. He is
well up in his work, though his Greek is his weak subject. He is
steady and methodical.
“The top floor belongs to Miles McLaren. He is a brilliant fellow
when he chooses to work—one of the brightest intellects of the
university; but he is wayward, dissipated, and unprincipled. He
was nearly expelled over a card scandal in his first year. He has
been idling all this term, and he must look forward with dread to
the examination.”
“Then it is he whom you suspect?”
“I dare not go so far as that. But, of the three, he is perhaps
the least unlikely.”
“Exactly. Now, Mr. Soames, let us have a look at your servant,
Bannister.”
He was a little, white-faced, clean-shaven, grizzly-haired fellow
of fifty. He was still suffering from this sudden disturbance of
the quiet routine of his life. His plump face was twitching with
his nervousness, and his fingers could not keep still.
“We are investigating this unhappy business, Bannister,” said his
master.
“Yes, sir.”
“I understand,” said Holmes, “that you left your key in the
door?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was it not very extraordinary that you should do this on the
very day when there were these papers inside?”
“It was most unfortunate, sir. But I have occasionally done the
same thing at other times.”
“When did you enter the room?”
“It was about half-past four. That is Mr. Soames’ tea time.”
“How long did you stay?”
“When I saw that he was absent, I withdrew at once.”
“Did you look at these papers on the table?”
“No, sir—certainly not.”
“How came you to leave the key in the door?”
“I had the tea-tray in my hand. I thought I would come back for
the key. Then I forgot.”
“Has the outer door a spring lock?”
“No, sir.”
“Then it was open all the time?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anyone in the room could get out?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When Mr. Soames returned and called for you, you were very much
disturbed?”
“Yes, sir. Such a thing has never happened during the many years
that I have been here. I nearly fainted, sir.”
“So I understand. Where were you when you began to feel bad?”
“Where was I, sir? Why, here, near the door.”
“That is singular, because you sat down in that chair over yonder
near the corner. Why did you pass these other chairs?”
“I don’t know, sir, it didn’t matter to me where I sat.”
“I really don’t think he knew much about it, Mr. Holmes. He was
looking very bad—quite ghastly.”
“You stayed here when your master left?”
“Only for a minute or so. Then I locked the door and went to my
room.”
“Whom do you suspect?”
“Oh, I would not venture to say, sir. I don’t believe there is
any gentleman in this university who is capable of profiting by
such an action. No, sir, I’ll not believe it.”
“Thank you, that will do,” said Holmes. “Oh, one more word. You
have not mentioned to any of the three gentlemen whom you attend
that anything is amiss?”
“No, sir—not a word.”
“You haven’t seen any of them?”
“No, sir.”
“Very good. Now, Mr. Soames, we will take a walk in the
quadrangle, if you please.”
Three yellow squares of light shone above us in the gathering
gloom.
“Your three birds are all in their nests,” said Holmes, looking
up. “Halloa! What’s that? One of them seems restless enough.”
It was the Indian, whose dark silhouette appeared suddenly upon
his blind. He was pacing swiftly up and down his room.
“I should like to have a peep at each of them,” said Holmes. “Is
it possible?”
“No difficulty in the world,” Soames answered. “This set of rooms
is quite the oldest in the college, and it is not unusual for
visitors to go over them. Come along, and I will personally
conduct you.”
“No names, please!” said Holmes, as we knocked at Gilchrist’s
door. A tall, flaxen-haired, slim young fellow opened it, and
made us welcome when he understood our errand. There were some
really curious pieces of mediæval domestic architecture within.
Holmes was so charmed with one of them that he insisted on
drawing it in his notebook, broke his pencil, had to borrow one
from our host and finally borrowed a knife to sharpen his own.
The same curious accident happened to him in the rooms of the
Indian—a silent, little, hook-nosed fellow, who eyed us askance,
and was obviously glad when Holmes’s architectural studies had
come to an end. I could not see that in either case Holmes had
come upon the clue for which he was searching. Only at the third
did our visit prove abortive. The outer door would not open to
our knock, and nothing more substantial than a torrent of bad
language came from behind it. “I don’t care who you are. You can
go to blazes!” roared the angry voice. “Tomorrow’s the exam, and
I won’t be drawn by anyone.”
“A rude fellow,” said our guide, flushing with anger as we
withdrew down the stair. “Of course, he did not realize that it
was I who was knocking, but none the less his conduct was very
uncourteous, and, indeed, under the circumstances rather
suspicious.”
Holmes’s response was a curious one.
“Can you tell me his exact height?” he asked.
“Really, Mr. Holmes, I cannot undertake to say. He is taller than
the Indian, not so tall as Gilchrist. I suppose five foot six
would be about it.”
“That is very important,” said Holmes. “And now, Mr. Soames, I
wish you good-night.”
Our guide cried aloud in his astonishment and dismay. “Good
gracious, Mr. Holmes, you are surely not going to leave me in
this abrupt fashion! You don’t seem to realize the position.
To-morrow is the examination. I must take some definite action
to-night. I cannot allow the examination to be held if one of the
papers has been tampered with. The situation must be faced.”
“You must leave it as it is. I shall drop round early to-morrow
morning and chat the matter over. It is possible that I may be in
a position then to indicate some course of action. Meanwhile, you
change nothing—nothing at all.”
“Very good, Mr. Holmes.”
“You can be perfectly easy in your mind. We shall certainly find
some way out of your difficulties. I will take the black clay
with me, also the pencil cuttings. Good-bye.”
When we were out in the darkness of the quadrangle, we again
looked up at the windows. The Indian still paced his room. The
others were invisible.
“Well, Watson, what do you think of it?” Holmes asked, as we came
out into the main street. “Quite a little parlour game—sort of
three-card trick, is it not? There are your three men. It must be
one of them. You take your choice. Which is yours?”
“The foul-mouthed fellow at the top. He is the one with the worst
record. And yet that Indian was a sly fellow also. Why should he
be pacing his room all the time?”
“There is nothing in that. Many men do it when they are trying to
learn anything by heart.”
“He looked at us in a queer way.”
“So would you, if a flock of strangers came in on you when you
were preparing for an examination next day, and every moment was
of value. No, I see nothing in that. Pencils, too, and knives—all
was satisfactory. But that fellow _does_ puzzle me.”
“Who?”
“Why, Bannister, the servant. What’s his game in the matter?”
“He impressed me as being a perfectly honest man.”
“So he did me. That’s the puzzling part. Why should a perfectly
honest man—well, well, here’s a large stationer’s. We shall begin
our researches here.”
There were only four stationers of any consequences in the town,
and at each Holmes produced his pencil chips, and bid high for a
duplicate. All were agreed that one could be ordered, but that it