the case, although what his conclusions were was more than I could
even dimly imagine. Several times during our homeward journey I
endeavored to sound him upon the point, but he always glided away to
some other topic, until at last I gave it over in despair. It was not
yet three when we found ourselves in our room once more. He hurried to
his chamber, and was down again in a few minutes dressed as a common
loafer. With his collar turned up, his shiny, seedy coat, his red
cravat, and his worn boots, he was a perfect sample of the class.
“I think that this should do,” said he, glancing into the glass above
the fireplace. “I only wish that you could come with me, Watson, but
I fear that it won’t do. I may be on the trail in this matter, or I
may be following a will-of-the-wisp, but I shall soon know which it
is. I hope that I may be back in a few hours.” He cut a slice of beef
from the joint upon the sideboard, sandwiched it between two rounds of
bread, and, thrusting this rude meal into his pocket, he started off
upon his expedition.
I had just finished my tea when he returned, evidently in excellent
spirits, swinging an old elastic-sided boot in his hand. He chucked it
down into a corner and helped himself to a cup of tea.
“I only looked in as I passed,” said he. “I am going right on.”
“Where to?”
“Oh, to the other side of the West End. It may be some time before I
get back. Don’t wait up for me in case I should be late.”
“How are you getting on?”
“Oh, so so. Nothing to complain of. I have been out to Streatham since
I saw you last, but I did not call at the house. It is a very sweet
little problem, and I would not have missed it for a good deal.
However, I must not sit gossiping here, but must get these disreputable
clothes off and return to my highly respectable self.”
I could see by his manner that he had stronger reasons for satisfaction
than his words alone would imply. His eyes twinkled, and there was even
a touch of color upon his sallow cheeks. He hastened up-stairs, and a
few minutes later I heard the slam of the hall door, which told me that
he was off once more upon his congenial hunt.
I waited until midnight, but there was no sign of his return, so I
retired to my room. It was no uncommon thing for him to be away for
days and nights on end when he was hot upon a scent, so that his
lateness caused me no surprise. I do not know at what hour he came in,
but when I came down to breakfast in the morning, there he was with a
cup of coffee in one hand and the paper in the other, as fresh and trim
as possible.
“You will excuse my beginning without you, Watson,” said he; “but you
remember that our client has rather an early appointment this morning.”
“Why, it is after nine now,” I answered. “I should not be surprised if
that were he. I thought I heard a ring.”
It was, indeed, our friend the financier. I was shocked by the change
which had come over him, for his face, which was naturally of a broad
and massive mould, was now pinched and fallen in, while his hair seemed
to me at least a shade whiter. He entered with a weariness and lethargy
which was even more painful than his violence of the morning before,
and he dropped heavily into the arm-chair which I pushed forward for
him.
“I do not know what I have done to be so severely tried,” said he.
“Only two days ago I was a happy and prosperous man, without a care in
the world. Now I am left to a lonely and dishonored age. One sorrow
comes close upon the heels of another. My niece, Mary, has deserted me.”
“Deserted you?”
“Yes. Her bed this morning had not been slept in, her room was empty,
and a note for me lay upon the hall table. I had said to her last
night, in sorrow and not in anger, that if she had married my boy all
might have been well with him. Perhaps it was thoughtless of me to say
so. It is to that remark that she refers in this note:
“‘MY DEAREST UNCLE,—I feel that I have brought trouble
upon you, and that if I had acted differently this terrible
misfortune might never have occurred. I cannot, with this
thought in my mind, ever again be happy under your roof, and
I feel that I must leave you for ever. Do not worry about my
future, for that is provided for; and, above all, do not search
for me, for it will be fruitless labor and an ill-service to
me. In life or in death, I am ever your loving MARY.’
“What could she mean by that note, Mr. Holmes? Do you think it points
to suicide?”
“No, no, nothing of the kind. It is perhaps the best possible solution.
I trust, Mr. Holder, that you are nearing the end of your troubles.”
“Ha! You say so! You have heard something, Mr. Holmes; you have learned
something! Where are the gems?”
“You would not think £1000 apiece an excessive sum for them?”
“I would pay ten.”
“That would be unnecessary. Three thousand will cover the matter. And
there is a little reward, I fancy. Have you your check-book? Here is a
pen. Better make it out for £4000 pounds.”
With a dazed face the banker made out the required check. Holmes walked
over to his desk, took out a little triangular piece of gold with three
gems in it, and threw it down upon the table.
With a shriek of joy our client clutched it up.
“You have it!” he gasped. “I am saved! I am saved!”
The reaction of joy was as passionate as his grief had been, and he
hugged his recovered gems to his bosom.
“There is one other thing you owe, Mr. Holder,” said Sherlock Holmes,
rather sternly.
“Owe!” He caught up a pen. “Name the sum, and I will pay it.”
“No, the debt is not to me. You owe a very humble apology to that noble
lad, your son, who has carried himself in this matter as I should be
proud to see my own son do, should I ever chance to have one.”
“Then it was not Arthur who took them?”
“I told you yesterday, and I repeat to-day, that it was not.”
“You are sure of it! Then let us hurry to him at once, to let him know
that the truth is known.”
“He knows it already. When I had cleared it all up I had an interview
with him, and, finding that he would not tell me the story, I told it
to him, on which he had to confess that I was right, and to add the
very few details which were not yet quite clear to me. Your news of
this morning, however, may open his lips.”
“For Heaven’s sake, tell me, then, what is this extraordinary mystery!”
“I will do so, and I will show you the steps by which I reached it. And
let me say to you, first, that which it is hardest for me to say and
for you to hear: there has been an understanding between Sir George
Burnwell and your niece Mary. They have now fled together.”
“My Mary? Impossible!”
“It is, unfortunately, more than possible; it is certain. Neither you
nor your son knew the true character of this man when you admitted
him into your family circle. He is one of the most dangerous men in
England—a ruined gambler, an absolutely desperate villain, a man
without heart or conscience. Your niece knew nothing of such men. When
he breathed his vows to her, as he had done to a hundred before her,
she flattered herself that she alone had touched his heart. The devil
knows best what he said, but at least she became his tool, and was in
the habit of seeing him nearly every evening.”
“I cannot, and I will not, believe it!” cried the banker, with an ashen
face.
“I will tell you, then, what occurred in your house last night. Your
niece, when you had, as she thought, gone to your room, slipped down
and talked to her lover through the window which leads into the stable
lane. His footmarks had pressed right through the snow, so long had
he stood there. She told him of the coronet. His wicked lust for gold
kindled at the news, and he bent her to his will. I have no doubt
that she loved you, but there are women in whom the love of a lover
extinguishes all other loves, and I think that she must have been one.
She had hardly listened to his instructions when she saw you coming
down-stairs, on which she closed the window rapidly, and told you about
one of the servants’ escapade with her wooden-legged lover, which was
all perfectly true.
“Your boy, Arthur, went to bed after his interview with you, but
he slept badly on account of his uneasiness about his club debts.
In the middle of the night he heard a soft tread pass his door, so
he rose, and looking out, was surprised to see his cousin walking
very stealthily along the passage, until she disappeared into your
dressing-room. Petrified with astonishment, the lad slipped on some
clothes, and waited there in the dark to see what would come of this
strange affair. Presently she emerged from the room again, and in the
light of the passage-lamp your son saw that she carried the precious
coronet in her hands. She passed down the stairs, and he, thrilling
with horror, ran along and slipped behind the curtain near your door,
whence he could see what passed in the hall beneath. He saw her
stealthily open the window, hand out the coronet to some one in the
gloom, and then closing it once more hurry back to her room, passing
quite close to where he stood hid behind the curtain.
“As long as she was on the scene he could not take any action without
a horrible exposure of the woman whom he loved. But the instant that
she was gone he realized how crushing a misfortune this would be for
you, and how all-important it was to set it right. He rushed down, just
as he was, in his bare feet, opened the window, sprang out into the
snow, and ran down the lane, where he could see a dark figure in the
moonlight. Sir George Burnwell tried to get away, but Arthur caught
him, and there was a struggle between them, your lad tugging at one
side of the coronet, and his opponent at the other. In the scuffle,
your son struck Sir George, and cut him over the eye. Then something
suddenly snapped, and your son, finding that he had the coronet in his
hands, rushed back, closed the window, ascended to your room, and had
just observed that the coronet had been twisted in the struggle, and
was endeavoring to straighten it when you appeared upon the scene.”
“Is it possible?” gasped the banker.
“You then roused his anger by calling him names at a moment when he
felt that he had deserved your warmest thanks. He could not explain
the true state of affairs without betraying one who certainly deserved
little enough consideration at his hands. He took the more chivalrous
view, however, and preserved her secret.”
“And that was why she shrieked and fainted when she saw the coronet,”
cried Mr. Holder. “Oh, my God! what a blind fool I have been! And his
asking to be allowed to go out for five minutes! The dear fellow wanted
to see if the missing piece were at the scene of the struggle. How
cruelly I have misjudged him!”
“When I arrived at the house,” continued Holmes, “I at once went very
carefully round it to observe if there were any traces in the snow
which might help me. I knew that none had fallen since the evening
before, and also that there had been a strong frost to preserve
impressions. I passed along the tradesmen’s path, but found it all
trampled down and indistinguishable. Just beyond it, however, at the
far side of the kitchen door, a woman had stood and talked with a man,
whose round impressions on one side showed that he had a wooden leg.
I could even tell that they had been disturbed, for the woman had run
back swiftly to the door, as was shown by the deep toe and light heel
marks, while Wooden-leg had waited a little, and then had gone away.
I thought at the time that this might be the maid and her sweetheart,
of whom you had already spoken to me, and inquiry showed it was so.
I passed round the garden without seeing anything more than random
tracks, which I took to be the police; but when I got into the stable
lane a very long and complex story was written in the snow in front of
me.
“There was a double line of tracks of a booted man, and a second double
line which I saw with delight belonged to a man with naked feet. I was
at once convinced from what you had told me that the latter was your
son. The first had walked both ways, but the other had run swiftly,
and, as his tread was marked in places over the depression of the boot,
it was obvious that he had passed after the other. I followed them up,
and found that they led to the hall window, where Boots had worn all
the snow away while waiting. Then I walked to the other end, which was
a hundred yards or more down the lane. I saw where Boots had faced
round, where the snow was cut up as though there had been a struggle,
and, finally, where a few drops of blood had fallen, to show me that I
was not mistaken. Boots had then run down the lane, and another little
smudge of blood showed that it was he who had been hurt. When he came
to the high-road at the other end, I found that the pavement had been
cleared, so there was an end to that clew.
“On entering the house, however, I examined, as you remember, the sill
and framework of the hall window with my lens, and I could at once
see that some one had passed out. I could distinguish the outline of
an instep where the wet foot had been placed in coming in. I was then
beginning to be able to form an opinion as to what had occurred. A man
had waited outside the window, some one had brought the gems; the deed
had been overseen by your son, he had pursued the thief, had struggled
with him, they had each tugged at the coronet, their united strength
causing injuries which neither alone could have effected. He had
returned with the prize, but had left a fragment in the grasp of his
opponent. So far I was clear. The question now was, who was the man,
and who was it brought him the coronet?
“It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible,
whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Now, I knew
that it was not you who had brought it down, so there only remained
your niece and the maids. But if it were the maids, why should your son
allow himself to be accused in their place? There could be no possible
reason. As he loved his cousin, however, there was an excellent
explanation why he should retain her secret—the more so as the secret
was a disgraceful one. When I remembered that you had seen her at
that window, and how she had fainted on seeing the coronet again, my
conjecture became a certainty.
“And who could it be who was her confederate? A lover evidently, for
who else could outweigh the love and gratitude which she must feel to
you? I knew that you went out little, and that your circle of friends
was a very limited one. But among them was Sir George Burnwell. I had
heard of him before as being a man of evil reputation among women. It
must have been he who wore those boots and retained the missing gems.
Even though he knew that Arthur had discovered him, he might still
flatter himself that he was safe, for the lad could not say a word
without compromising his own family.
“Well, your own good sense will suggest what measures I took next. I
went in the shape of a loafer to Sir George’s house, managed to pick
up an acquaintance with his valet, learned that his master had cut his
head the night before, and, finally, at the expense of six shillings,
made all sure by buying a pair of his cast-off shoes. With these I
journeyed down to Streatham, and saw that they exactly fitted the
tracks.”
[Illustration: “I CLAPPED A PISTOL TO HIS HEAD”]
“I saw an ill-dressed vagabond in the lane yesterday evening,” said Mr.
Holder.
“Precisely. It was I. I found that I had my man, so I came home and
changed my clothes. It was a delicate part which I had to play then,
for I saw that a prosecution must be avoided to avert scandal, and I
knew that so astute a villain would see that our hands were tied in the
matter. I went and saw him. At first, of course, he denied everything.
But when I gave him every particular that had occurred, he tried to
bluster, and took down a life-preserver from the wall. I knew my man,
however, and I clapped a pistol to his head before he could strike.
Then he became a little more reasonable. I told him that we would give
him a price for the stones he held—£1000 apiece. That brought out the
first signs of grief that he had shown. ‘Why, dash it all!’ said he,
‘I’ve let them go at six hundred for the three!’ I soon managed to get
the address of the receiver who had them, on promising him that there
would be no prosecution. Off I set to him, and after much chaffering I
got our stones at £1000 apiece. Then I looked in upon your son, told
him that all was right, and eventually got to my bed about two o’clock,
after what I may call a really hard day’s work.”
“A day which has saved England from a great public scandal,” said the
banker, rising. “Sir, I cannot find words to thank you, but you shall
not find me ungrateful for what you have done. Your skill has indeed
exceeded all that I have heard of it. And now I must fly to my dear boy
to apologize to him for the wrong which I have done him. As to what you
tell me of poor Mary, it goes to my very heart. Not even your skill can
inform me where she is now.”
“I think that we may safely say,” returned Holmes, “that she is
wherever Sir George Burnwell is. It is equally certain, too, that
whatever her sins are, they will soon receive a more than sufficient
punishment.”
Adventure XII
THE ADVENTURE OF THE COPPER BEECHES
“To the man who loves art for its own sake,” remarked Sherlock Holmes,
tossing aside the advertisement sheet of _The Daily Telegraph_, “it is
frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the
keenest pleasure is to be derived. It is pleasant to me to observe,
Watson, that you have so far grasped this truth that in these little
records of our cases which you have been good enough to draw up, and, I
am bound to say, occasionally to embellish, you have given prominence
not so much to the many _causes célèbres_ and sensational trials in
which I have figured, but rather to those incidents which may have been
trivial in themselves, but which have given room for those faculties
of deduction and of logical synthesis which I have made my special
province.”
“And yet,” said I, smiling, “I cannot quite hold myself absolved from
the charge of sensationalism which has been urged against my records.”
“You have erred, perhaps,” he observed, taking up a glowing cinder with
the tongs, and lighting with it the long cherry-wood pipe which was
wont to replace his clay when he was in a disputatious, rather than a
meditative mood—“you have erred perhaps in attempting to put color and
life into each of your statements, instead of confining yourself to the
task of placing upon record that severe reasoning from cause to effect
which is really the only notable feature about the thing.”
“It seems to me that I have done you full justice in the matter,” I
remarked, with some coldness, for I was repelled by the egotism which
I had more than once observed to be a strong factor in my friend’s
singular character.
“No, it is not selfishness or conceit,” said he, answering, as was his
wont, my thoughts rather than my words. “If I claim full justice for my
art, it is because it is an impersonal thing—a thing beyond myself.
Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather
than upon the crime that you should dwell. You have degraded what
should have been a course of lectures into a series of tales.”
It was a cold morning of the early spring, and we sat after breakfast
on either side of a cheery fire in the old room at Baker Street. A
thick fog rolled down between the lines of dun-colored houses, and the
opposing windows loomed like dark, shapeless blurs through the heavy
yellow wreaths. Our gas was lit, and shone on the white cloth and
glimmer of china and metal, for the table had not been cleared yet.
Sherlock Holmes had been silent all the morning, dipping continuously
into the advertisement columns of a succession of papers, until at
last, having apparently given up his search, he had emerged in no very
sweet temper to lecture me upon my literary shortcomings.
“At the same time,” he remarked, after a pause, during which he had sat
puffing at his long pipe and gazing down into the fire, “you can hardly
be open to a charge of sensationalism, for out of these cases which you
have been so kind as to interest yourself in, a fair proportion do not
treat of crime, in its legal sense, at all. The small matter in which I
endeavored to help the King of Bohemia, the singular experience of Miss
Mary Sutherland, the problem connected with the man with the twisted
lip, and the incident of the noble bachelor, were all matters which are
outside the pale of the law. But in avoiding the sensational, I fear
that you may have bordered on the trivial.”
“The end may have been so,” I answered, “but the methods I hold to have
been novel and of interest.”
“Pshaw, my dear fellow, what do the public, the great unobservant
public, who could hardly tell a weaver by his tooth or a compositor by
his left thumb, care about the finer shades of analysis and deduction!
But, indeed, if you are trivial, I cannot blame you, for the days of
the great cases are past. Man, or at least criminal man, has lost all
enterprise and originality. As to my own little practice, it seems to
be degenerating into an agency for recovering lost lead pencils and
giving advice to young ladies from boarding-schools. I think that I
have touched bottom at last, however. This note I had this morning
marks my zero-point, I fancy. Read it!” He tossed a crumpled letter
across to me.
It was dated from Montague Place upon the preceding evening, and ran
thus:
“DEAR MR. HOLMES,—I am very anxious to consult you as
to whether I should or should not accept a situation which has
been offered to me as governess. I shall call at half-past ten
to-morrow, if I do not inconvenience you.
“Yours faithfully, VIOLET HUNTER.”
“Do you know the young lady?” I asked.
“Not I.”
“It is half-past ten now.”
“Yes, and I have no doubt that is her ring.”
“It may turn out to be of more interest than you think. You remember
that the affair of the blue carbuncle, which appeared to be a mere whim
at first, developed into a serious investigation. It may be so in this
case, also.”
“Well, let us hope so. But our doubts will very soon be solved, for
here, unless I am much mistaken, is the person in question.”
As he spoke the door opened and a young lady entered the room. She was
plainly but neatly dressed, with a bright, quick face, freckled like a
plover’s egg, and with the brisk manner of a woman who has had her own
way to make in the world.
“You will excuse my troubling you, I am sure,” said she, as my
companion rose to greet her; “but I have had a very strange experience,
and as I have no parents or relations of any sort from whom I could ask
advice, I thought that perhaps you would be kind enough to tell me what
I should do.”
“Pray take a seat, Miss Hunter. I shall be happy to do anything that I
can to serve you.”
I could see that Holmes was favorably impressed by the manner and
speech of his new client. He looked her over in his searching fashion,
and then composed himself, with his lids drooping and his finger tips
together, to listen to her story.
“I have been a governess for five years,” said she, “in the family
of Colonel Spence Munro, but two months ago the colonel received an
appointment at Halifax, in Nova Scotia, and took his children over
to America with him, so that I found myself without a situation. I
advertised, and I answered advertisements, but without success. At last
the little money which I had saved began to run short, and I was at my
wits’ end as to what I should do.
“There is a well-known agency for governesses in the West End called
Westaway’s, and there I used to call about once a week in order to
see whether anything had turned up which might suit me. Westaway was
the name of the founder of the business, but it is really managed by
Miss Stoper. She sits in her own little office, and the ladies who are
seeking employment wait in an ante-room, and are then shown in one by
one, when she consults her ledgers, and sees whether she has anything
which would suit them.
“Well, when I called last week I was shown into the little office as
usual, but I found that Miss Stoper was not alone. A prodigiously stout
man with a very smiling face, and a great heavy chin which rolled down
in fold upon fold over his throat, sat at her elbow with a pair of
glasses on his nose, looking very earnestly at the ladies who entered.
As I came in he gave quite a jump in his chair, and turned quickly to
Miss Stoper:
“‘That will do,’ said he; ‘I could not ask for anything better. Capital!
capital!’ He seemed quite enthusiastic, and rubbed his hands together
in the most genial fashion. He was such a comfortable-looking man that
it was quite a pleasure to look at him.
“‘You are looking for a situation, miss?’ he asked.
“‘Yes, sir.’
“‘As governess?’
“‘Yes, sir.’
“‘And what salary do you ask?’
“‘I had £4 a month in my last place with Colonel Spence Munro.’