gave evidence as follows: ‘I had been away from home for three days at
Bristol, and had only just returned upon the morning of last Monday,
the 3rd. My father was absent from home at the time of my arrival, and
I was informed by the maid that he had driven over to Ross with John
Cobb, the groom. Shortly after my return I heard the wheels of his trap
in the yard, and, looking out of my window, I saw him get out and walk
rapidly out of the yard, though I was not aware in which direction he
was going. I then took my gun, and strolled out in the direction of
the Boscombe Pool, with the intention of visiting the rabbit-warren
which is upon the other side. On my way I saw William Crowder, the
game-keeper, as he had stated in his evidence; but he is mistaken in
thinking that I was following my father. I had no idea that he was in
front of me. When about a hundred yards from the Pool I heard a cry of
“Cooee!” which was a usual signal between my father and myself. I then
hurried forward, and found him standing by the Pool. He appeared to be
much surprised at seeing me, and asked me rather roughly what I was
doing there. A conversation ensued which led to high words, and almost
to blows, for my father was a man of a very violent temper. Seeing
that his passion was becoming ungovernable, I left him, and returned
towards Hatherley Farm. I had not gone more than 150 yards, however,
when I heard a hideous outcry behind me, which caused me to run back
again. I found my father expiring upon the ground, with his head
terribly injured. I dropped my gun, and held him in my arms, but he
almost instantly expired. I knelt beside him for some minutes, and then
made my way to Mr. Turner’s lodge-keeper, his house being the nearest,
to ask for assistance. I saw no one near my father when I returned, and
I have no idea how he came by his injuries. He was not a popular man,
being somewhat cold and forbidding in his manners; but he had, as far
as I know, no active enemies. I know nothing further of the matter.’
“The Coroner: Did your father make any statement to you before he died?
“Witness: He mumbled a few words, but I could only catch some allusion
to a rat.
“The Coroner: What did you understand by that?
“Witness: It conveyed no meaning to me. I thought that he was delirious.
“The Coroner: What was the point upon which you and your father had
this final quarrel?
“Witness: I should prefer not to answer.
“The Coroner: I am afraid that I must press it.
“Witness: It is really impossible for me to tell you. I can assure you
that it has nothing to do with the sad tragedy which followed.
“The Coroner: That is for the court to decide. I need not point out to
you that your refusal to answer will prejudice your case considerably
in any future proceedings which may arise.
“Witness: I must still refuse.
“The Coroner: I understand that the cry of ‘Cooee’ was a common signal
between you and your father?
“Witness: It was.
“The Coroner: How was it, then, that he uttered it before he saw you,
and before he even knew that you had returned from Bristol?
“Witness (with considerable confusion): I do not know.
“A Juryman: Did you see nothing which aroused your suspicions when you
returned on hearing the cry, and found your father fatally injured?
“Witness: Nothing definite.
“The Coroner: What do you mean?
“Witness: I was so disturbed and excited as I rushed out into the open,
that I could think of nothing except of my father. Yet I have a vague
impression that as I ran forward something lay upon the ground to the
left of me. It seemed to me to be something gray in color, a coat of
some sort, or a plaid perhaps. When I rose from my father I looked
round for it, but it was gone.
“‘Do you mean that it disappeared before you went for help?’
“‘Yes, it was gone.’
“‘You cannot say what it was?’
“‘No, I had a feeling something was there.’
“‘How far from the body?’
“‘A dozen yards or so.’
“‘And how far from the edge of the wood?’
“‘About the same.’
“‘Then if it was removed it was while you were within a dozen yards of
it?’
“‘Yes, but with my back towards it.’
“This concluded the examination of the witness.”
“I see,” said I, as I glanced down the column, “that the coroner in
his concluding remarks was rather severe upon young McCarthy. He calls
attention, and with reason, to the discrepancy about his father having
signalled to him before seeing him, also to his refusal to give details
of his conversation with his father, and his singular account of his
father’s dying words. They are all, as he remarks, very much against
the son.”
Holmes laughed softly to himself, and stretched himself out upon the
cushioned seat. “Both you and the coroner have been at some pains,”
said he, “to single out the very strongest points in the young man’s
favor. Don’t you see that you alternately give him credit for having
too much imagination and too little. Too little, if he could not invent
a cause of quarrel which would give him the sympathy of the jury;
too much, if he evolved from his own inner consciousness anything
so _outré_ as a dying reference to a rat, and the incident of the
vanishing cloth. No, sir, I shall approach this case from the point of
view that what this young man says is true, and we shall see whither
that hypothesis will lead us. And now here is my pocket Petrarch, and
not another word shall I say of this case until we are on the scene of
action. We lunch at Swindon, and I see that we shall be there in twenty
minutes.”
It was nearly four o’clock when we at last, after passing through
the beautiful Stroud Valley, and over the broad gleaming Severn,
found ourselves at the pretty little country-town of Ross. A lean,
ferret-like man, furtive and sly-looking, was waiting for us upon the
platform. In spite of the light brown dustcoat and leather-leggings
which he wore in deference to his rustic surroundings, I had no
difficulty in recognizing Lestrade, of Scotland Yard. With him we drove
to the Hereford Arms, where a room had already been engaged for us.
“I have ordered a carriage,” said Lestrade, as we sat over a cup of
tea. “I knew your energetic nature, and that you would not be happy
until you had been on the scene of the crime.”
“It was very nice and complimentary of you,” Holmes answered. “It is
entirely a question of barometric pressure.”
Lestrade looked startled. “I do not quite follow,” he said.
“How is the glass? Twenty-nine, I see. No wind, and not a cloud in the
sky. I have a caseful of cigarettes here which need smoking, and the
sofa is very much superior to the usual country hotel abomination. I do
not think that it is probable that I shall use the carriage to-night.”
Lestrade laughed indulgently. “You have, no doubt, already formed your
conclusions from the newspapers,” he said. “The case is as plain as a
pikestaff, and the more one goes into it the plainer it becomes. Still,
of course, one can’t refuse a lady, and such a very positive one, too.
She had heard of you, and would have your opinion, though I repeatedly
told her that there was nothing which you could do which I had not
already done. Why, bless my soul! here is her carriage at the door.”
He had hardly spoken before there rushed into the room one of the most
lovely young women that I have ever seen in my life. Her violet eyes
shining, her lips parted, a pink flush upon her cheeks, all thought of
her natural reserve lost in her overpowering excitement and concern.
“Oh, Mr. Sherlock Holmes!” she cried, glancing from one to the other
of us, and finally, with a woman’s quick intuition, fastening upon my
companion, “I am so glad that you have come. I have driven down to tell
you so. I know that James didn’t do it. I know it, and I want you to
start upon your work knowing it, too. Never let yourself doubt upon
that point. We have known each other since we were little children, and
I know his faults as no one else does; but he is too tender-hearted to
hurt a fly. Such a charge is absurd to any one who really knows him.”
“I hope we may clear him, Miss Turner,” said Sherlock Holmes. “You may
rely upon my doing all that I can.”
“But you have read the evidence. You have formed some conclusion? Do
you not see some loophole, some flaw? Do you not yourself think that he
is innocent?”
“I think that it is very probable.”
“There, now!” she cried, throwing back her head, and looking defiantly
at Lestrade. “You hear! He gives me hopes.”
Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. “I am afraid that my colleague has
been a little quick in forming his conclusions,” he said.
“But he is right. Oh! I know that he is right. James never did it. And
about his quarrel with his father, I am sure that the reason why he
would not speak about it to the coroner was because I was concerned in
it.”
“In what way?” asked Holmes.
“It is no time for me to hide anything. James and his father had many
disagreements about me. Mr. McCarthy was very anxious that there should
be a marriage between us. James and I have always loved each other as
brother and sister; but of course he is young, and has seen very little
of life yet, and—and—well, he naturally did not wish to do anything
like that yet. So there were quarrels, and this, I am sure, was one of
them.”
“And your father?” asked Holmes. “Was he in favor of such a union?”
“No, he was averse to it also. No one but Mr. McCarthy was in favor of
it.” A quick blush passed over her fresh young face as Holmes shot one
of his keen, questioning glances at her.
“Thank you for this information,” said he. “May I see your father if I
call to-morrow?”
“I am afraid the doctor won’t allow it.”
“The doctor?”
“Yes, have you not heard? Poor father has never been strong for years
back, but this has broken him down completely. He has taken to his bed,
and Dr. Willows says that he is a wreck, and that his nervous system is
shattered. Mr. McCarthy was the only man alive who had known dad in the
old days in Victoria.”
“Ha! In Victoria! That is important.”
“Yes, at the mines.”
“Quite so; at the gold-mines, where, as I understand, Mr. Turner made
his money.”
“Yes, certainly.”
“Thank you, Miss Turner. You have been of material assistance to me.”
“You will tell me if you have any news to-morrow. No doubt you will go
to the prison to see James. Oh, if you do, Mr. Holmes, do tell him that
I know him to be innocent.”
“I will, Miss Turner.”
“I must go home now, for dad is very ill, and he misses me so if I
leave him. Good-bye, and God help you in your undertaking.” She hurried
from the room as impulsively as she had entered, and we heard the
wheels of her carriage rattle off down the street.
“I am ashamed of you, Holmes,” said Lestrade, with dignity, after a few
minutes’ silence. “Why should you raise up hopes which you are bound to
disappoint? I am not over-tender of heart, but I call it cruel.”
“I think that I see my way to clearing James McCarthy,” said Holmes.
“Have you an order to see him in prison?”
“Yes, but only for you and me.”
“Then I shall reconsider my resolution about going out. We have still
time to take a train to Hereford and see him to-night?”
“Ample.”
“Then let us do so. Watson, I fear that you will find it very slow, but
I shall only be away a couple of hours.”
I walked down to the station with them, and then wandered through the
streets of the little town, finally returning to the hotel, where I
lay upon the sofa and tried to interest myself in a yellow-backed
novel. The puny plot of the story was so thin, however, when compared
to the deep mystery through which we were groping, and I found my
attention wander so continually from the fiction to the fact, that I
at last flung it across the room, and gave myself up entirely to a
consideration of the events of the day. Supposing that this unhappy
young man’s story was absolutely true, then what hellish thing, what
absolutely unforeseen and extraordinary calamity could have occurred
between the time when he parted from his father, and the moment when,
drawn back by his screams, he rushed into the glade? It was something
terrible and deadly. What could it be? Might not the nature of the
injuries reveal something to my medical instincts? I rang the bell,
and called for the weekly county paper, which contained a verbatim
account of the inquest. In the surgeon’s deposition it was stated that
the posterior third of the left parietal bone and the left half of the
occipital bone had been shattered by a heavy blow from a blunt weapon.
I marked the spot upon my own head. Clearly such a blow must have been
struck from behind. That was to some extent in favor of the accused,
as when seen quarrelling he was face to face with his father. Still,
it did not go for very much, for the older man might have turned his
back before the blow fell. Still, it might be worth while to call
Holmes’s attention to it. Then there was the peculiar dying reference
to a rat. What could that mean? It could not be delirium. A man dying
from a sudden blow does not commonly become delirious. No, it was more
likely to be an attempt to explain how he met his fate. But what could
it indicate? I cudgelled my brains to find some possible explanation.
And then the incident of the gray cloth, seen by young McCarthy. If
that were true, the murderer must have dropped some part of his dress,
presumably his overcoat, in his flight, and must have had the hardihood
to return and to carry it away at the instant when the son was kneeling
with his back turned not a dozen paces off. What a tissue of mysteries
and improbabilities the whole thing was! I did not wonder at Lestrade’s
opinion, and yet I had so much faith in Sherlock Holmes’s insight that
I could not lose hope as long as every fresh fact seemed to strengthen
his conviction of young McCarthy’s innocence.
It was late before Sherlock Holmes returned. He came back alone, for
Lestrade was staying in lodgings in the town.
“The glass still keeps very high,” he remarked, as he sat down. “It is
of importance that it should not rain before we are able to go over the
ground. On the other hand, a man should be at his very best and keenest
for such nice work as that, and I did not wish to do it when fagged by
a long journey. I have seen young McCarthy.”
“And what did you learn from him?”
“Nothing.”
“Could he throw no light?”
“None at all. I was inclined to think at one time that he knew who had
done it, and was screening him or her, but I am convinced now that he
is as puzzled as every one else. He is not a very quick-witted youth,
though comely to look at, and, I should think, sound at heart.”
“I cannot admire his taste,” I remarked, “if it is indeed a fact that
he was averse to a marriage with so charming a young lady as this Miss
Turner.”
“Ah, thereby hangs a rather painful tale. This fellow is madly,
insanely in love with her, but some two years ago, when he was only a
lad, and before he really knew her, for she had been away five years at
a boarding-school, what does the idiot do but get into the clutches of
a barmaid in Bristol, and marry her at a registry office? No one knows
a word of the matter, but you can imagine how maddening it must be to
him to be upbraided for not doing what he would give his very eyes to
do, but what he knows to be absolutely impossible. It was sheer frenzy
of this sort which made him throw his hands up into the air when his
father, at their last interview, was goading him on to propose to Miss
Turner. On the other hand, he had no means of supporting himself, and
his father, who was by all accounts a very hard man, would have thrown
him over utterly had he known the truth. It was with his barmaid wife
that he had spent the last three days in Bristol, and his father did
not know where he was. Mark that point. It is of importance. Good has
come out of evil, however, for the barmaid, finding from the papers
that he is in serious trouble, and likely to be hanged, has thrown
him over utterly, and has written to him to say that she has a husband
already in the Bermuda Dockyard, so that there is really no tie between
them. I think that that bit of news has consoled young McCarthy for all
that he has suffered.”
“But if he is innocent, who has done it?”
“Ah! who? I would call your attention very particularly to two points.
One is that the murdered man had an appointment with some one at the
Pool, and that the some one could not have been his son, for his son
was away, and he did not know when he would return. The second is that
the murdered man was heard to cry ‘Cooee!’ before he knew that his son
had returned. Those are the crucial points upon which the case depends.
And now let us talk about George Meredith, if you please, and we shall
leave all minor matters until to-morrow.”
There was no rain, as Holmes had foretold, and the morning broke
bright and cloudless. At nine o’clock Lestrade called for us with the
carriage, and we set off for Hatherley Farm and the Boscombe Pool.
“There is serious news this morning,” Lestrade observed. “It is said
that Mr. Turner, of the Hall, is so ill that his life is despaired of.”
“An elderly man, I presume?” said Holmes.
“About sixty; but his constitution has been shattered by his life
abroad, and he has been in failing health for some time. This business
has had a very bad effect upon him. He was an old friend of McCarthy’s,
and, I may add, a great benefactor to him, for I have learned that he
gave him Hatherley Farm rent free.”
“Indeed! That is interesting,” said Holmes.
“Oh yes! In a hundred other ways he has helped him. Everybody about
here speaks of his kindness to him.”
“Really! Does it not strike you as a little singular that this
McCarthy, who appears to have had little of his own, and to have been
under such obligations to Turner, should still talk of marrying his
son to Turner’s daughter, who is, presumably, heiress to the estate,
and that in such a very cocksure manner, as if it were merely a case of
a proposal and all else would follow? It is the more strange, since we
know that Turner himself was averse to the idea. The daughter told us
as much. Do you not deduce something from that?”
“We have got to the deductions and the inferences,” said Lestrade,
winking at me. “I find it hard enough to tackle facts, Holmes, without
flying away after theories and fancies.”
“You are right,” said Holmes, demurely; “you do find it very hard to
tackle the facts.”
“Anyhow, I have grasped one fact which you seem to find it difficult to
get hold of,” replied Lestrade, with some warmth.
“And that is—”
“That McCarthy, senior, met his death from McCarthy, junior, and that
all theories to the contrary are the merest moonshine.”
“Well, moonshine is a brighter thing than fog,” said Holmes, laughing.
“But I am very much mistaken if this is not Hatherley Farm upon the
left.”
“Yes, that is it.” It was a wide-spread, comfortable-looking building,
two-storied, slate roofed, with great yellow blotches of lichen upon
the gray walls. The drawn blinds and the smokeless chimneys, however,
gave it a stricken look, as though the weight of this horror still
lay heavy upon it. We called at the door, when the maid, at Holmes’s
request, showed us the boots which her master wore at the time of his
death, and also a pair of the son’s, though not the pair which he had
then had. Having measured these very carefully from seven or eight
different points, Holmes desired to be led to the court-yard, from
which we all followed the winding track which led to Boscombe Pool.
[Illustration: “THE MAID SHOWED US THE BOOTS.”]
Sherlock Holmes was transformed when he was hot upon such a scent
as this. Men who had only known the quiet thinker and logician of
Baker Street would have failed to recognize him. His face flushed and
darkened. His brows were drawn into two hard, black lines, while his
eyes shone out from beneath them with a steely glitter. His face was
bent downward, his shoulders bowed, his lips compressed, and the veins
stood out like whip-cord in his long, sinewy neck. His nostrils seemed
to dilate with a purely animal lust for the chase, and his mind was so
absolutely concentrated upon the matter before him, that a question
or remark fell unheeded upon his ears, or, at the most, only provoked
a quick, impatient snarl in reply. Swiftly and silently he made his
way along the track which ran through the meadows, and so by way of
the woods to the Boscombe Pool. It was damp, marshy ground, as is all
that district, and there were marks of many feet, both upon the path
and amid the short grass which bounded it on either side. Sometimes
Holmes would hurry on, sometimes stop dead, and once he made quite a
little _détour_ into the meadow. Lestrade and I walked behind him, the
detective indifferent and contemptuous, while I watched my friend with
the interest which sprang from the conviction that every one of his
actions was directed towards a definite end.
The Boscombe Pool, which is a little reed-girt sheet of water some
fifty yards across, is situated at the boundary between the Hatherley
Farm and the private park of the wealthy Mr. Turner. Above the woods
which lined it upon the farther side we could see the red, jutting
pinnacles which marked the site of the rich land-owner’s dwelling. On
the Hatherley side of the Pool the woods grew very thick, and there was
a narrow belt of sodden grass twenty paces across between the edge of
the trees and the reeds which lined the lake. Lestrade showed us the
exact spot at which the body had been found, and, indeed, so moist was
the ground, that I could plainly see the traces which had been left by
the fall of the stricken man. To Holmes, as I could see by his eager
face and peering eyes, very many other things were to be read upon the
trampled grass. He ran round, like a dog who is picking up a scent, and
then turned upon my companion.
“What did you go into the Pool for?” he asked.
“I fished about with a rake. I thought there might be some weapon or
other trace. But how on earth—”
“Oh, tut, tut! I have no time! That left foot of yours with its inward
twist is all over the place. A mole could trace it, and there it
vanishes among the reeds. Oh, how simple it would all have been had I
been here before they came like a herd of buffalo, and wallowed all
over it. Here is where the party with the lodge-keeper came, and they
have covered all tracks for six or eight feet round the body. But
here are three separate tracks of the same feet.” He drew out a lens,
and lay down upon his waterproof to have a better view, talking all
the time rather to himself than to us. “These are young McCarthy’s
feet. Twice he was walking, and once he ran swiftly so that the soles
are deeply marked, and the heels hardly visible. That bears out his
story. He ran when he saw his father on the ground. Then here are the
father’s feet as he paced up and down. What is this, then? It is the
butt-end of the gun as the son stood listening. And this? Ha, ha! What
have we here? Tiptoes! tiptoes! Square, too, quite unusual boots! They
come, they go, they come again—of course that was for the cloak.
Now where did they come from?” He ran up and down, sometimes losing,
sometimes finding the track until we were well within the edge of the
wood, and under the shadow of a great beech, the largest tree in the
neighborhood. Holmes traced his way to the farther side of this, and
lay down once more upon his face with a little cry of satisfaction.
For a long time he remained there, turning over the leaves and dried
sticks, gathering up what seemed to me to be dust into an envelope, and
examining with his lens not only the ground, but even the bark of the
tree as far as he could reach. A jagged stone was lying among the moss,
and this also he carefully examined and retained. Then he followed a
pathway through the wood until he came to the high-road, where all
traces were lost.
“It has been a case of considerable interest,” he remarked, returning
to his natural manner. “I fancy that this gray house on the right must
be the lodge. I think that I will go in and have a word with Moran, and
perhaps write a little note. Having done that, we may drive back to our
luncheon. You may walk to the cab, and I shall be with you presently.”
It was about ten minutes before we regained our cab, and drove back
into Ross, Holmes still carrying with him the stone which he had picked
up in the wood.
“This may interest you, Lestrade,” he remarked, holding it out. “The
murder was done with it.”
“I see no marks.”
“There are none.”
“How do you know, then?”
“The grass was growing under it. It had only lain there a few days.
There was no sign of a place whence it had been taken. It corresponds
with the injuries. There is no sign of any other weapon.”
“And the murderer?”