The Return of Sherlock Holmes
treasure-trove. They had spent the morning raking among the ashes
of the burned wood-pile, and besides the charred organic remains
they had secured several discoloured metal discs. I examined them
with care, and there was no doubt that they were trouser buttons.
I even distinguished that one of them was marked with the name of
‘Hyams,’ who was Oldacre's tailor. I then worked the lawn very
carefully for signs and traces, but this drought has made
everything as hard as iron. Nothing was to be seen save that some
body or bundle had been dragged through a low privet hedge which
is in a line with the wood-pile. All that, of course, fits in
with the official theory. I crawled about the lawn with an August
sun on my back, but I got up at the end of an hour no wiser than
before.
“Well, after this fiasco I went into the bedroom and examined
that also. The blood-stains were very slight, mere smears and
discolourations, but undoubtedly fresh. The stick had been
removed, but there also the marks were slight. There is no doubt
about the stick belonging to our client. He admits it. Footmarks
of both men could be made out on the carpet, but none of any
third person, which again is a trick for the other side. They
were piling up their score all the time and we were at a
standstill.
“Only one little gleam of hope did I get—and yet it amounted to
nothing. I examined the contents of the safe, most of which had
been taken out and left on the table. The papers had been made up
into sealed envelopes, one or two of which had been opened by the
police. They were not, so far as I could judge, of any great
value, nor did the bank-book show that Mr. Oldacre was in such
very affluent circumstances. But it seemed to me that all the
papers were not there. There were allusions to some
deeds—possibly the more valuable—which I could not find. This, of
course, if we could definitely prove it, would turn Lestrade’s
argument against himself, for who would steal a thing if he knew
that he would shortly inherit it?
“Finally, having drawn every other cover and picked up no scent,
I tried my luck with the housekeeper. Mrs. Lexington is her
name—a little, dark, silent person, with suspicious and sidelong
eyes. She could tell us something if she would—I am convinced of
it. But she was as close as wax. Yes, she had let Mr. McFarlane
in at half-past nine. She wished her hand had withered before she
had done so. She had gone to bed at half-past ten. Her room was
at the other end of the house, and she could hear nothing of what
had passed. Mr. McFarlane had left his hat, and to the best of
her belief his stick, in the hall. She had been awakened by the
alarm of fire. Her poor, dear master had certainly been murdered.
Had he any enemies? Well, every man had enemies, but Mr. Oldacre
kept himself very much to himself, and only met people in the way
of business. She had seen the buttons, and was sure that they
belonged to the clothes which he had worn last night. The
wood-pile was very dry, for it had not rained for a month. It
burned like tinder, and by the time she reached the spot, nothing
could be seen but flames. She and all the firemen smelled the
burned flesh from inside it. She knew nothing of the papers, nor
of Mr. Oldacre’s private affairs.
“So, my dear Watson, there’s my report of a failure. And yet—and
yet—” he clenched his thin hands in a paroxysm of conviction—“I
_know_ it’s all wrong. I feel it in my bones. There is something
that has not come out, and that housekeeper knows it. There was a
sort of sulky defiance in her eyes, which only goes with guilty
knowledge. However, there’s no good talking any more about it,
Watson; but unless some lucky chance comes our way I fear that
the Norwood Disappearance Case will not figure in that chronicle
of our successes which I foresee that a patient public will
sooner or later have to endure.”
“Surely,” said I, “the man’s appearance would go far with any
jury?”
“That is a dangerous argument my dear Watson. You remember that
terrible murderer, Bert Stevens, who wanted us to get him off in
’87? Was there ever a more mild-mannered, Sunday-school young
man?”
“It is true.”
“Unless we succeed in establishing an alternative theory, this
man is lost. You can hardly find a flaw in the case which can now
be presented against him, and all further investigation has
served to strengthen it. By the way, there is one curious little
point about those papers which may serve us as the starting-point
for an inquiry. On looking over the bank-book I found that the
low state of the balance was principally due to large checks
which have been made out during the last year to Mr. Cornelius. I
confess that I should be interested to know who this Mr.
Cornelius may be with whom a retired builder has such very large
transactions. Is it possible that he has had a hand in the
affair? Cornelius might be a broker, but we have found no scrip
to correspond with these large payments. Failing any other
indication, my researches must now take the direction of an
inquiry at the bank for the gentleman who has cashed these
checks. But I fear, my dear fellow, that our case will end
ingloriously by Lestrade hanging our client, which will certainly
be a triumph for Scotland Yard.”
I do not know how far Sherlock Holmes took any sleep that night,
but when I came down to breakfast I found him pale and harassed,
his bright eyes the brighter for the dark shadows round them. The
carpet round his chair was littered with cigarette-ends and with
the early editions of the morning papers. An open telegram lay
upon the table.
“What do you think of this, Watson?” he asked, tossing it across.
It was from Norwood, and ran as follows:
Important fresh evidence to hand. McFarlane’s guilt definitely
established. Advise you to abandon case.—LESTRADE.
“This sounds serious,” said I.
“It is Lestrade’s little cock-a-doodle of victory,” Holmes
answered, with a bitter smile. “And yet it may be premature to
abandon the case. After all, important fresh evidence is a
two-edged thing, and may possibly cut in a very different
direction to that which Lestrade imagines. Take your breakfast,
Watson, and we will go out together and see what we can do. I
feel as if I shall need your company and your moral support
today.”
My friend had no breakfast himself, for it was one of his
peculiarities that in his more intense moments he would permit
himself no food, and I have known him presume upon his iron
strength until he has fainted from pure inanition. “At present I
cannot spare energy and nerve force for digestion,” he would say
in answer to my medical remonstrances. I was not surprised,
therefore, when this morning he left his untouched meal behind
him, and started with me for Norwood. A crowd of morbid
sightseers were still gathered round Deep Dene House, which was
just such a suburban villa as I had pictured. Within the gates
Lestrade met us, his face flushed with victory, his manner
grossly triumphant.
“Well, Mr. Holmes, have you proved us to be wrong yet? Have you
found your tramp?” he cried.
“I have formed no conclusion whatever,” my companion answered.
“But we formed ours yesterday, and now it proves to be correct,
so you must acknowledge that we have been a little in front of
you this time, Mr. Holmes.”
“You certainly have the air of something unusual having
occurred,” said Holmes.
Lestrade laughed loudly.
“You don’t like being beaten any more than the rest of us do,”
said he. “A man can’t expect always to have it his own way, can
he, Dr. Watson? Step this way, if you please, gentlemen, and I
think I can convince you once for all that it was John McFarlane
who did this crime.”
He led us through the passage and out into a dark hall beyond.
“This is where young McFarlane must have come out to get his hat
after the crime was done,” said he. “Now look at this.” With
dramatic suddenness he struck a match, and by its light exposed a
stain of blood upon the whitewashed wall. As he held the match
nearer, I saw that it was more than a stain. It was the
well-marked print of a thumb.
“Look at that with your magnifying glass, Mr. Holmes.”
“Yes, I am doing so.”
“You are aware that no two thumb-marks are alike?”
“I have heard something of the kind.”
“Well, then, will you please compare that print with this wax
impression of young McFarlane’s right thumb, taken by my orders
this morning?”
As he held the waxen print close to the blood-stain, it did not
take a magnifying glass to see that the two were undoubtedly from
the same thumb. It was evident to me that our unfortunate client
was lost.
“That is final,” said Lestrade.
“Yes, that is final,” I involuntarily echoed.
“It is final,” said Holmes.
Something in his tone caught my ear, and I turned to look at him.
An extraordinary change had come over his face. It was writhing
with inward merriment. His two eyes were shining like stars. It
seemed to me that he was making desperate efforts to restrain a
convulsive attack of laughter.
“Dear me! Dear me!” he said at last. “Well, now, who would have
thought it? And how deceptive appearances may be, to be sure!
Such a nice young man to look at! It is a lesson to us not to
trust our own judgment, is it not, Lestrade?”
“Yes, some of us are a little too much inclined to be cock-sure,
Mr. Holmes,” said Lestrade. The man’s insolence was maddening,
but we could not resent it.
“What a providential thing that this young man should press his
right thumb against the wall in taking his hat from the peg! Such
a very natural action, too, if you come to think of it.” Holmes
was outwardly calm, but his whole body gave a wriggle of
suppressed excitement as he spoke.
“By the way, Lestrade, who made this remarkable discovery?”
“It was the housekeeper, Mrs. Lexington, who drew the night
constable’s attention to it.”
“Where was the night constable?”
“He remained on guard in the bedroom where the crime was
committed, so as to see that nothing was touched.”
“But why didn’t the police see this mark yesterday?”
“Well, we had no particular reason to make a careful examination
of the hall. Besides, it’s not in a very prominent place, as you
see.”
“No, no—of course not. I suppose there is no doubt that the mark
was there yesterday?”
Lestrade looked at Holmes as if he thought he was going out of
his mind. I confess that I was myself surprised both at his
hilarious manner and at his rather wild observation.
“I don’t know whether you think that McFarlane came out of jail
in the dead of the night in order to strengthen the evidence
against himself,” said Lestrade. “I leave it to any expert in the