“Then we shall breakfast early and take the very first in the
morning,” said Holmes. “Our presence is most urgently needed. Ah!
here is our expected cablegram. One moment, Mrs. Hudson, there
may be an answer. No, that is quite as I expected. This message
makes it even more essential that we should not lose an hour in
letting Hilton Cubitt know how matters stand, for it is a
singular and a dangerous web in which our simple Norfolk squire
is entangled.”
So, indeed, it proved, and as I come to the dark conclusion of a
story which had seemed to me to be only childish and bizarre, I
experience once again the dismay and horror with which I was
filled. Would that I had some brighter ending to communicate to
my readers, but these are the chronicles of fact, and I must
follow to their dark crisis the strange chain of events which for
some days made Riding Thorpe Manor a household word through the
length and breadth of England.
We had hardly alighted at North Walsham, and mentioned the name
of our destination, when the station-master hurried towards us.
“I suppose that you are the detectives from London?” said he.
A look of annoyance passed over Holmes’s face.
“What makes you think such a thing?”
“Because Inspector Martin from Norwich has just passed through.
But maybe you are the surgeons. She’s not dead—or wasn’t by last
accounts. You may be in time to save her yet—though it be for the
gallows.”
Holmes’s brow was dark with anxiety.
“We are going to Riding Thorpe Manor,” said he, “but we have
heard nothing of what has passed there.”
“It’s a terrible business,” said the station-master. “They are
shot, both Mr. Hilton Cubitt and his wife. She shot him and then
herself—so the servants say. He’s dead and her life is despaired
of. Dear, dear, one of the oldest families in the county of
Norfolk, and one of the most honoured.”
Without a word Holmes hurried to a carriage, and during the long
seven miles’ drive he never opened his mouth. Seldom have I seen
him so utterly despondent. He had been uneasy during all our
journey from town, and I had observed that he had turned over the
morning papers with anxious attention, but now this sudden
realization of his worst fears left him in a blank melancholy. He
leaned back in his seat, lost in gloomy speculation. Yet there
was much around to interest us, for we were passing through as
singular a countryside as any in England, where a few scattered
cottages represented the population of to-day, while on every
hand enormous square-towered churches bristled up from the flat
green landscape and told of the glory and prosperity of old East
Anglia. At last the violet rim of the German Ocean appeared over
the green edge of the Norfolk coast, and the driver pointed with
his whip to two old brick and timber gables which projected from
a grove of trees. “That’s Riding Thorpe Manor,” said he.
As we drove up to the porticoed front door, I observed in front
of it, beside the tennis lawn, the black tool-house and the
pedestalled sundial with which we had such strange associations.
A dapper little man, with a quick, alert manner and a waxed
moustache, had just descended from a high dog-cart. He introduced
himself as Inspector Martin, of the Norfolk Constabulary, and he
was considerably astonished when he heard the name of my
companion.
“Why, Mr. Holmes, the crime was only committed at three this
morning. How could you hear of it in London and get to the spot
as soon as I?”
“I anticipated it. I came in the hope of preventing it.”
“Then you must have important evidence, of which we are ignorant,
for they were said to be a most united couple.”
“I have only the evidence of the dancing men,” said Holmes. “I
will explain the matter to you later. Meanwhile, since it is too
late to prevent this tragedy, I am very anxious that I should use
the knowledge which I possess in order to insure that justice be
done. Will you associate me in your investigation, or will you
prefer that I should act independently?”
“I should be proud to feel that we were acting together, Mr.
Holmes,” said the inspector, earnestly.
“In that case I should be glad to hear the evidence and to
examine the premises without an instant of unnecessary delay.”
Inspector Martin had the good sense to allow my friend to do
things in his own fashion, and contented himself with carefully
noting the results. The local surgeon, an old, white-haired man,
had just come down from Mrs. Hilton Cubitt’s room, and he
reported that her injuries were serious, but not necessarily
fatal. The bullet had passed through the front of her brain, and
it would probably be some time before she could regain
consciousness. On the question of whether she had been shot or
had shot herself, he would not venture to express any decided
opinion. Certainly the bullet had been discharged at very close
quarters. There was only the one pistol found in the room, two
barrels of which had been emptied. Mr. Hilton Cubitt had been
shot through the heart. It was equally conceivable that he had
shot her and then himself, or that she had been the criminal, for
the revolver lay upon the floor midway between them.
“Has he been moved?” asked Holmes.
“We have moved nothing except the lady. We could not leave her
lying wounded upon the floor.”
“How long have you been here, Doctor?”
“Since four o’clock.”
“Anyone else?”
“Yes, the constable here.”
“And you have touched nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“You have acted with great discretion. Who sent for you?”
“The housemaid, Saunders.”
“Was it she who gave the alarm?”
“She and Mrs. King, the cook.”
“Where are they now?”
“In the kitchen, I believe.”
“Then I think we had better hear their story at once.”
The old hall, oak-panelled and high-windowed, had been turned
into a court of investigation. Holmes sat in a great,
old-fashioned chair, his inexorable eyes gleaming out of his
haggard face. I could read in them a set purpose to devote his
life to this quest until the client whom he had failed to save
should at last be avenged. The trim Inspector Martin, the old,
grey-headed country doctor, myself, and a stolid village
policeman made up the rest of that strange company.
The two women told their story clearly enough. They had been
aroused from their sleep by the sound of an explosion, which had
been followed a minute later by a second one. They slept in
adjoining rooms, and Mrs. King had rushed in to Saunders.
Together they had descended the stairs. The door of the study was
open, and a candle was burning upon the table. Their master lay
upon his face in the centre of the room. He was quite dead. Near
the window his wife was crouching, her head leaning against the
wall. She was horribly wounded, and the side of her face was red
with blood. She breathed heavily, but was incapable of saying
anything. The passage, as well as the room, was full of smoke and
the smell of powder. The window was certainly shut and fastened
upon the inside. Both women were positive upon the point. They
had at once sent for the doctor and for the constable. Then, with
the aid of the groom and the stable-boy, they had conveyed their
injured mistress to her room. Both she and her husband had
occupied the bed. She was clad in her dress—he in his
dressing-gown, over his night-clothes. Nothing had been moved in
the study. So far as they knew, there had never been any quarrel
between husband and wife. They had always looked upon them as a
very united couple.
These were the main points of the servants’ evidence. In answer
to Inspector Martin, they were clear that every door was fastened
upon the inside, and that no one could have escaped from the
house. In answer to Holmes, they both remembered that they were
conscious of the smell of powder from the moment that they ran
out of their rooms upon the top floor. “I commend that fact very
carefully to your attention,” said Holmes to his professional
colleague. “And now I think that we are in a position to
undertake a thorough examination of the room.”
The study proved to be a small chamber, lined on three sides with
books, and with a writing-table facing an ordinary window, which
looked out upon the garden. Our first attention was given to the
body of the unfortunate squire, whose huge frame lay stretched
across the room. His disordered dress showed that he had been
hastily aroused from sleep. The bullet had been fired at him from
the front, and had remained in his body, after penetrating the
heart. His death had certainly been instantaneous and painless.
There was no powder-marking either upon his dressing-gown or on
his hands. According to the country surgeon, the lady had stains
upon her face, but none upon her hand.
“The absence of the latter means nothing, though its presence may
mean everything,” said Holmes. “Unless the powder from a badly
fitting cartridge happens to spurt backward, one may fire many
shots without leaving a sign. I would suggest that Mr. Cubitt’s
body may now be removed. I suppose, Doctor, you have not
recovered the bullet which wounded the lady?”
“A serious operation will be necessary before that can be done.
But there are still four cartridges in the revolver. Two have
been fired and two wounds inflicted, so that each bullet can be
accounted for.”
“So it would seem,” said Holmes. “Perhaps you can account also
for the bullet which has so obviously struck the edge of the
window?”
He had turned suddenly, and his long, thin finger was pointing to
a hole which had been drilled right through the lower
window-sash, about an inch above the bottom.
“By George!” cried the inspector. “How ever did you see that?”
“Because I looked for it.”
“Wonderful!” said the country doctor. “You are certainly right,
sir. Then a third shot has been fired, and therefore a third
person must have been present. But who could that have been, and
how could he have got away?”
“That is the problem which we are now about to solve,” said
Sherlock Holmes. “You remember, Inspector Martin, when the
servants said that on leaving their room they were at once
conscious of a smell of powder, I remarked that the point was an
extremely important one?”
“Yes, sir; but I confess I did not quite follow you.”
“It suggested that at the time of the firing, the window as well
as the door of the room had been open. Otherwise the fumes of
powder could not have been blown so rapidly through the house. A
draught in the room was necessary for that. Both door and window
were only open for a very short time, however.”
“How do you prove that?”
“Because the candle was not guttered.”
“Capital!” cried the inspector. “Capital!”
“Feeling sure that the window had been open at the time of the
tragedy, I conceived that there might have been a third person in
the affair, who stood outside this opening and fired through it.
Any shot directed at this person might hit the sash. I looked,
and there, sure enough, was the bullet mark!”
“But how came the window to be shut and fastened?”
“The woman’s first instinct would be to shut and fasten the
window. But, halloa! What is this?”
It was a lady’s hand-bag which stood upon the study table—a trim
little hand-bag of crocodile-skin and silver. Holmes opened it and
turned the contents out. There were twenty fifty-pound notes of
the Bank of England, held together by an india-rubber
band—nothing else.
“This must be preserved, for it will figure in the trial,” said
Holmes, as he handed the bag with its contents to the inspector.
“It is now necessary that we should try to throw some light upon
this third bullet, which has clearly, from the splintering of the
wood, been fired from inside the room. I should like to see Mrs.
King, the cook, again. You said, Mrs. King, that you were
awakened by a _loud_ explosion. When you said that, did you mean
that it seemed to you to be louder than the second one?”
“Well, sir, it wakened me from my sleep, so it is hard to judge.
But it did seem very loud.”
“You don’t think that it might have been two shots fired almost
at the same instant?”
“I am sure I couldn’t say, sir.”
“I believe that it was undoubtedly so. I rather think, Inspector
Martin, that we have now exhausted all that this room can teach
us. If you will kindly step round with me, we shall see what
fresh evidence the garden has to offer.”
A flower-bed extended up to the study window, and we all broke
into an exclamation as we approached it. The flowers were
trampled down, and the soft soil was imprinted all over with
footmarks. Large, masculine feet they were, with peculiarly long,
sharp toes. Holmes hunted about among the grass and leaves like a
retriever after a wounded bird. Then, with a cry of satisfaction,
he bent forward and picked up a little brazen cylinder.
“I thought so,” said he, “the revolver had an ejector, and here
is the third cartridge. I really think, Inspector Martin, that
our case is almost complete.”
The country inspector’s face had shown his intense amazement at
the rapid and masterful progress of Holmes’s investigation. At
first he had shown some disposition to assert his own position,
but now he was overcome with admiration, and ready to follow
without question wherever Holmes led.
“Whom do you suspect?” he asked.
“I’ll go into that later. There are several points in this
problem which I have not been able to explain to you yet. Now
that I have got so far, I had best proceed on my own lines, and
then clear the whole matter up once and for all.”
“Just as you wish, Mr. Holmes, so long as we get our man.”
“I have no desire to make mysteries, but it is impossible at the
moment of action to enter into long and complex explanations. I
have the threads of this affair all in my hand. Even if this lady
should never recover consciousness, we can still reconstruct the
events of last night and insure that justice be done. First of
all, I wish to know whether there is any inn in this
neighbourhood known as ‘Elrige’s’?”
The servants were cross-questioned, but none of them had heard of
such a place. The stable-boy threw a light upon the matter by
remembering that a farmer of that name lived some miles off, in
the direction of East Ruston.
“Is it a lonely farm?”
“Very lonely, sir.”
“Perhaps they have not heard yet of all that happened here during
the night?”
“Maybe not, sir.”
Holmes thought for a little, and then a curious smile played over
his face.
“Saddle a horse, my lad,” said he. “I shall wish you to take a
note to Elrige’s Farm.”
He took from his pocket the various slips of the dancing men.
With these in front of him, he worked for some time at the
study-table. Finally he handed a note to the boy, with directions
to put it into the hands of the person to whom it was addressed,
and especially to answer no questions of any sort which might be
put to him. I saw the outside of the note, addressed in
straggling, irregular characters, very unlike Holmes’s usual
precise hand. It was consigned to Mr. Abe Slaney, Elriges Farm,
East Ruston, Norfolk.
“I think, Inspector,” Holmes remarked, “that you would do well to
telegraph for an escort, as, if my calculations prove to be
correct, you may have a particularly dangerous prisoner to convey
to the county jail. The boy who takes this note could no doubt
forward your telegram. If there is an afternoon train to town,
Watson, I think we should do well to take it, as I have a
chemical analysis of some interest to finish, and this
investigation draws rapidly to a close.”
When the youth had been dispatched with the note, Sherlock Holmes
gave his instructions to the servants. If any visitor were to
call asking for Mrs. Hilton Cubitt, no information should be
given as to her condition, but he was to be shown at once into
the drawing-room. He impressed these points upon them with the
utmost earnestness. Finally he led the way into the drawing-room,
with the remark that the business was now out of our hands, and
that we must while away the time as best we might until we could
see what was in store for us. The doctor had departed to his
patients, and only the inspector and myself remained.
“I think that I can help you to pass an hour in an interesting
and profitable manner,” said Holmes, drawing his chair up to the
table, and spreading out in front of him the various papers upon
which were recorded the antics of the dancing men. “As to you,
friend Watson, I owe you every atonement for having allowed your
natural curiosity to remain so long unsatisfied. To you,
Inspector, the whole incident may appeal as a remarkable
professional study. I must tell you, first of all, the
interesting circumstances connected with the previous
consultations which Mr. Hilton Cubitt has had with me in Baker
Street.” He then shortly recapitulated the facts which have
already been recorded. “I have here in front of me these singular
productions, at which one might smile, had they not proved
themselves to be the forerunners of so terrible a tragedy. I am
fairly familiar with all forms of secret writings, and am myself
the author of a trifling monograph upon the subject, in which I
analyze one hundred and sixty separate ciphers, but I confess
that this is entirely new to me. The object of those who invented
the system has apparently been to conceal that these characters
convey a message, and to give the idea that they are the mere
random sketches of children.
“Having once recognized, however, that the symbols stood for
letters, and having applied the rules which guide us in all forms
of secret writings, the solution was easy enough. The first
message submitted to me was so short that it was impossible for
me to do more than to say, with some confidence, that the symbol
XXX stood for E. As you are aware, E is the most common letter in
the English alphabet, and it predominates to so marked an extent
that even in a short sentence one would expect to find it most
often. Out of fifteen symbols in the first message, four were the
same, so it was reasonable to set this down as E. It is true that
in some cases the figure was bearing a flag, and in some cases
not, but it was probable, from the way in which the flags were
distributed, that they were used to break the sentence up into
words. I accepted this as a hypothesis, and noted that E was
represented by
E
“But now came the real difficulty of the inquiry. The order of
the English letters after E is by no means well marked, and any
preponderance which may be shown in an average of a printed sheet
may be reversed in a single short sentence. Speaking roughly, T,
A, O, I, N, S, H, R, D, and L are the numerical order in which
letters occur, but T, A, O, and I are very nearly abreast of each
other, and it would be an endless task to try each combination
until a meaning was arrived at. I therefore waited for fresh
material. In my second interview with Mr. Hilton Cubitt he was
able to give me two other short sentences and one message, which
appeared—since there was no flag—to be a single word. Here are
the symbols. Now, in the single word I have already got the two
E’s coming second and fourth in a word of five letters. It might
be ‘sever,’ or ‘lever,’ or ‘never.’ There can be no question that
the latter as a reply to an appeal is far the most probable, and
the circumstances pointed to its being a reply written by the
lady. Accepting it as correct, we are now able to say that the
symbols stand respectively for N, V, and R.