"Think, now. Tottenham Court Road!"
I started. "Of course," I said. "That never struck me. There's the
Horse-shoe Hotel, with the sign outside, there's the large toy and
fancy shop half-way up, where they have a captive balloon moored to the
roof as an advertisement, and there's the tobacco and snuff shop on the
left, toward the other end, where they have a life-size wooden
Highlander at the door--an uncommon thing, indeed, nowadays."
"You are right. The curious conjunction struck me at once. There they
are, all three, and just in the order in which one meets them going up
from Oxford Street. Also, as if to confirm the conjecture, note the
_dotted_ horse-shoe. Don't you remember that at night the Horse-shoe
Hotel sign is illuminated by two rows of gas lights?
"Now here was my clue at last. Plainly, this man, in his mechanical
sketching, was following a regular train of thought, and unconsciously
illustrating it as he went along. Many people in perfect health and
mental soundness do the same thing if a pen and a piece of waste paper
be near. The man's train of thought led him, in memory, up Tottenham
Court Road, and further, to where some disagreeable recollection upset
him. It was my business to trace this train of thought. Do you remember
the feat of Dupin in Poe's story, 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue'--how
he walks by his friend's side in silence for some distance, and then
suddenly breaks out with a divination of his thoughts, having silently
traced them from a fruiterer with a basket, through paving-stones,
Epicurus, Dr. Nichols, the constellation Orion, and a Latin poem, to a
cobbler lately turned actor?
"Well, it was some such task as this (but infinitely simpler, as a
matter of fact) that was set me. This man begins by drawing the
horse-shoe clock. Having done with that, and with the horse-shoe still
in his mind, he starts to draw a horse-shoe simply. It is a failure, and
he scribbles it out. His mind at once turns to the Horse-shoe Hotel,
which he knows from frequently passing it, and its sign of gas-jets. He
sketches _that_, making dots for the gas lights. Once started in
Tottenham Court Road, his mind naturally follows his usual route along
it. He remembers the advertising captive balloon half-way up, and down
_that_ goes on his paper. In imagination he crosses the road, and keeps
on till he comes to the very noticeable Highlander outside the
tobacconist's. _That_ is sketched. Thus it is plain that a familiar
route with him was from New Oxford Street up Tottenham Court Road.
"At the police-station I ventured to guess from this that he lived
somewhere near Seven Dials. Perhaps before long we shall know if this
was right. But to return to the sketches. After the Highlander there is
something at first not very distinct. A little examination, however,
shows it to be intended for a chimney-pot partly covered with a basket.
Now an old basket, stuck sideways on a chimney by way of cowl, is not an
uncommon thing in parts of the country, but it is very unusual in
London. Probably, then, it would be in some by-street or alley. Next and
last, there is a horse's head, and it was at this that the man's trouble
returned to him.
"Now, when one goes to a place and finds a horse there, that place is
not uncommonly a stable; and, as a matter of fact, the basket-cowl would
be much more likely to be found in use in a range of back stabling than
anywhere else. Suppose, then, that after taking the direction indicated
in the sketches--the direction of Fitzroy Square, in fact--one were to
find a range of stabling with a basket-cowl visible about it? I know my
London pretty well, as you are aware, and I could remember but two
likely stable-yards in that particular part--the two we looked at, in
the second of which you may possibly have noticed just such a
basket-cowl as I have been speaking of.
"Well, what we did you know, and that we found confirmation of my
conjecture about the loaves you also know. It was the recollection of
the horse and cart, and what they were to transport, and what the end
of it all had been, that upset Gerard as he drew the horse's head. You
will notice that the sketches have not been done in separate rows, left
to right--they have simply followed one another all round the paper,
which means preoccupation and unconsciousness on the part of the man who
made them."
"But," I asked, "supposing those loaves to contain bombs, how were the
bombs put there? Baking the bread round them would have been risky,
wouldn't it?"
"Certainly. What they did was to cut the loaves, each row, down the
centre. Then most of the crumb was scooped out, the explosive inserted,
and the sides joined up and glued. I thought you had spotted the joins,
though they certainly were neat."
"No, I didn't examine closely. Luigi, of course, had been told off for a
daily visit to feed the horse, and that is how we caught him."
"One supposes so. They hadn't rearranged their plans as to going on with
the outrages after Gerard's defection. By the way, I noticed that he was
accustomed to driving when I first saw him. There was an unmistakable
mark on his coat, just at the small of the back, that drivers get who
lean against a rail in a cart."
The loaves were examined by official experts, and, as everybody now
knows, were found to contain, as Hewitt had supposed, large charges of
dynamite. What became of some half-dozen of the men captured is also
well known: their sentences were exemplary.