The Return of Sherlock Holmes
as a baby, and came with her to England when they first left
Australia, eighteen months ago. Theresa Wright is her name, and
the kind of maid you don’t pick up nowadays. This way, Mr.
Holmes, if you please!”
The keen interest had passed out of Holmes’s expressive face, and
I knew that with the mystery all the charm of the case had
departed. There still remained an arrest to be effected, but what
were these commonplace rogues that he should soil his hands with
them? An abstruse and learned specialist who finds that he has
been called in for a case of measles would experience something
of the annoyance which I read in my friend’s eyes. Yet the scene
in the dining-room of the Abbey Grange was sufficiently strange
to arrest his attention and to recall his waning interest.
It was a very large and high chamber, with carved oak ceiling,
oaken panelling, and a fine array of deer’s heads and ancient
weapons around the walls. At the further end from the door was
the high French window of which we had heard. Three smaller
windows on the right-hand side filled the apartment with cold
winter sunshine. On the left was a large, deep fireplace, with a
massive, overhanging oak mantelpiece. Beside the fireplace was a
heavy oaken chair with arms and cross-bars at the bottom. In and
out through the open woodwork was woven a crimson cord, which was
secured at each side to the crosspiece below. In releasing the
lady, the cord had been slipped off her, but the knots with which
it had been secured still remained. These details only struck our
attention afterwards, for our thoughts were entirely absorbed by
the terrible object which lay upon the tigerskin hearthrug in
front of the fire.
It was the body of a tall, well-made man, about forty years of
age. He lay upon his back, his face upturned, with his white
teeth grinning through his short, black beard. His two clenched
hands were raised above his head, and a heavy, blackthorn stick
lay across them. His dark, handsome, aquiline features were
convulsed into a spasm of vindictive hatred, which had set his
dead face in a terribly fiendish expression. He had evidently
been in his bed when the alarm had broken out, for he wore a
foppish, embroidered nightshirt, and his bare feet projected from
his trousers. His head was horribly injured, and the whole room
bore witness to the savage ferocity of the blow which had struck
him down. Beside him lay the heavy poker, bent into a curve by
the concussion. Holmes examined both it and the indescribable
wreck which it had wrought.
“He must be a powerful man, this elder Randall,” he remarked.
“Yes,” said Hopkins. “I have some record of the fellow, and he is
a rough customer.”
“You should have no difficulty in getting him.”
“Not the slightest. We have been on the look-out for him, and
there was some idea that he had got away to America. Now that we
know that the gang are here, I don’t see how they can escape. We
have the news at every seaport already, and a reward will be
offered before evening. What beats me is how they could have done
so mad a thing, knowing that the lady could describe them and
that we could not fail to recognize the description.”
“Exactly. One would have expected that they would silence Lady
Brackenstall as well.”
“They may not have realized,” I suggested, “that she had
recovered from her faint.”
“That is likely enough. If she seemed to be senseless, they would
not take her life. What about this poor fellow, Hopkins? I seem
to have heard some queer stories about him.”
“He was a good-hearted man when he was sober, but a perfect fiend
when he was drunk, or rather when he was half drunk, for he
seldom really went the whole way. The devil seemed to be in him
at such times, and he was capable of anything. From what I hear,
in spite of all his wealth and his title, he very nearly came our
way once or twice. There was a scandal about his drenching a dog
with petroleum and setting it on fire—her ladyship’s dog, to make
the matter worse—and that was only hushed up with difficulty.
Then he threw a decanter at that maid, Theresa Wright—there was
trouble about that. On the whole, and between ourselves, it will
be a brighter house without him. What are you looking at now?”
Holmes was down on his knees, examining with great attention the
knots upon the red cord with which the lady had been secured.
Then he carefully scrutinized the broken and frayed end where it
had snapped off when the burglar had dragged it down.
“When this was pulled down, the bell in the kitchen must have
rung loudly,” he remarked.
“No one could hear it. The kitchen stands right at the back of
the house.”
“How did the burglar know no one would hear it? How dared he pull
at a bell-rope in that reckless fashion?”
“Exactly, Mr. Holmes, exactly. You put the very question which I
have asked myself again and again. There can be no doubt that
this fellow must have known the house and its habits. He must
have perfectly understood that the servants would all be in bed
at that comparatively early hour, and that no one could possibly
hear a bell ring in the kitchen. Therefore, he must have been in
close league with one of the servants. Surely that is evident.
But there are eight servants, and all of good character.”
“Other things being equal,” said Holmes, “one would suspect the
one at whose head the master threw a decanter. And yet that would
involve treachery towards the mistress to whom this woman seems
devoted. Well, well, the point is a minor one, and when you have
Randall you will probably find no difficulty in securing his
accomplice. The lady’s story certainly seems to be corroborated,
if it needed corroboration, by every detail which we see before
us.” He walked to the French window and threw it open. “There are
no signs here, but the ground is iron hard, and one would not
expect them. I see that these candles in the mantelpiece have
been lighted.”
“Yes, it was by their light and that of the lady’s bedroom
candle, that the burglars saw their way about.”
“And what did they take?”
“Well, they did not take much—only half a dozen articles of plate
off the sideboard. Lady Brackenstall thinks that they were
themselves so disturbed by the death of Sir Eustace that they did
not ransack the house, as they would otherwise have done.”
“No doubt that is true, and yet they drank some wine, I
understand.”
“To steady their nerves.”
“Exactly. These three glasses upon the sideboard have been
untouched, I suppose?”
“Yes, and the bottle stands as they left it.”
“Let us look at it. Halloa, halloa! What is this?”
The three glasses were grouped together, all of them tinged with
wine, and one of them containing some dregs of beeswing. The
bottle stood near them, two-thirds full, and beside it lay a
long, deeply stained cork. Its appearance and the dust upon the
bottle showed that it was no common vintage which the murderers
had enjoyed.
A change had come over Holmes’s manner. He had lost his listless
expression, and again I saw an alert light of interest in his
keen, deep-set eyes. He raised the cork and examined it minutely.
“How did they draw it?” he asked.
Hopkins pointed to a half-opened drawer. In it lay some table
linen and a large corkscrew.
“Did Lady Brackenstall say that screw was used?”
“No, you remember that she was senseless at the moment when the
bottle was opened.”
“Quite so. As a matter of fact, that screw was _not_ used. This
bottle was opened by a pocket screw, probably contained in a
knife, and not more than an inch and a half long. If you will
examine the top of the cork, you will observe that the screw was
driven in three times before the cork was extracted. It has never
been transfixed. This long screw would have transfixed it and
drawn it up with a single pull. When you catch this fellow, you
will find that he has one of these multiplex knives in his
possession.”
“Excellent!” said Hopkins.
“But these glasses do puzzle me, I confess. Lady Brackenstall
actually _saw_ the three men drinking, did she not?”
“Yes; she was clear about that.”
“Then there is an end of it. What more is to be said? And yet,
you must admit, that the three glasses are very remarkable,
Hopkins. What? You see nothing remarkable? Well, well, let it
pass. Perhaps, when a man has special knowledge and special
powers like my own, it rather encourages him to seek a complex
explanation when a simpler one is at hand. Of course, it must be
a mere chance about the glasses. Well, good-morning, Hopkins. I
don’t see that I can be of any use to you, and you appear to have
your case very clear. You will let me know when Randall is
arrested, and any further developments which may occur. I trust
that I shall soon have to congratulate you upon a successful
conclusion. Come, Watson, I fancy that we may employ ourselves
more profitably at home.”
During our return journey, I could see by Holmes’s face that he
was much puzzled by something which he had observed. Every now
and then, by an effort, he would throw off the impression, and
talk as if the matter were clear, but then his doubts would
settle down upon him again, and his knitted brows and abstracted
eyes would show that his thoughts had gone back once more to the
great dining-room of the Abbey Grange, in which this midnight
tragedy had been enacted. At last, by a sudden impulse, just as
our train was crawling out of a suburban station, he sprang on to
the platform and pulled me out after him.
“Excuse me, my dear fellow,” said he, as we watched the rear
carriages of our train disappearing round a curve, “I am sorry to
make you the victim of what may seem a mere whim, but on my life,
Watson, I simply _can’t_ leave that case in this condition. Every
instinct that I possess cries out against it. It’s wrong—it’s all
wrong—I’ll swear that it’s wrong. And yet the lady’s story was
complete, the maid’s corroboration was sufficient, the detail was
fairly exact. What have I to put up against that? Three
wine-glasses, that is all. But if I had not taken things for
granted, if I had examined everything with the care which I
should have shown had we approached the case _de novo_ and had no
cut-and-dried story to warp my mind, should I not then have found
something more definite to go upon? Of course I should. Sit down
on this bench, Watson, until a train for Chiselhurst arrives, and
allow me to lay the evidence before you, imploring you in the
first instance to dismiss from your mind the idea that anything
which the maid or her mistress may have said must necessarily be
true. The lady’s charming personality must not be permitted to
warp our judgment.