"Yes, there is," said Pratt; "I found it in my lexicon two days ago.
I'd marked a word with it and clean forgotten. So that's all right."
"Not so right as you might think," I said.
But Peters kept his nerve jolly well, and, in fact, was more like
Sherlock Holmes at that terrible moment than ever I saw him before or
after.
"I'm glad it's turned up," said Peters, "and I hope the Doctor's will."
Then he and I went off, and I congratulated him.
"You've got a nerve of iron," I said.
"Yes," he said, "and I shall want it."
Then he told me there was nothing like this in Sherlock Holmes, and that
the whole piece of detective work was a failure, and rather a painful
failure to him.
"I don't mind the licking, and so on," he said, "but it's the inner
disgrace."
"It was a very natural mistake," I said, to cheer him up.
"Yes," he said; "but detectives of the first class don't make natural
mistakes--nor any other sort either. It's the disappointment of coming
such a howler over a simple felony that is so hard. At least, of
course, it's not a felony at all."
"If it is, you did it," I said; "and now of course you'll chuck away the
pencil-sharpener and sit tight about it?"
But he shook his head.
"No, Maydew. Of course I could evade the consequences with ease, if I
liked. But I have decided to give this back to the Doctor and tell him
the whole story," said Peters.
"Sherlock Holmes would never have done that," I said.
"No, he wouldn't," admitted Peters. "Because why? Because he'd never
have been such a fool as to be deluded by a false clue. He knew a true
clue from a false, as well as we know a nice smell from a nasty one."
"Well," I said, "if you take my advice for once, you'll do this: You'll
leave that thing on the Doctor's desk in a prominent place next time
you're in there alone, and you'll bury the rest in your brain. Holmes
buried scores of things in his brain. What's the sense of going out of
your way to get a licking?"
"If I told him the truth, I don't believe he would lick me," said
Peters. But I jolly soon showed him that was rot. In fact, Watson
never talked so straight to Holmes as I did to Peters then.
"My dear chap," I said, "you go to the Doctor and say, 'Here's your
pencil-sharpener, sir; I saw it on your mantelpiece and thought you'd
stolen it from Pratt, who has one exactly like it. So I took it to give
to Pratt, but his has turned up since.' Well, what would happen then?
Any fool could tell you."
All the same Peters went up next day at the appointed time, and,
curiously enough, James was in the study waiting for the Doctor too.
The muddle that followed was explained to me by Peters afterwards.
Me and James began to talk; then James said to Peters, "I am here,
Peters, about a very queer and sad thing, and it is evidently Providence
that has sent you here now."
And Peters said, "No, it isn't. I am here about a very queer thing too,
and it may also turn out to be sad--for me."
Then James, who was excited to a very great amount, said these strange
words--
"I had come to confess that it was me killed your guinea-pig! I
couldn't hide it any more. It's haunting me--not the pig, but the
killing of it. I hoped, and even prayed in my prayers, that you might
detect me, but you didn't. Then I wrote home for ten shillings for a
debt of honour, and put it in your desk, and disguised the spelling--but
still I was haunted by it. And now, as you are here, I confess it
openly to you that I killed your beautiful, kind-hearted pig, and I hope
you'll forgive me for doing a beastly, blackguard thing. And if you
can't forgive it, I'll tell the Doctor and get flogged rather than go on
like this; because it's haunting me."