"I know perfectly well what you are going to say, but it is useless
to urge that the country is dull, and that a man must employ his brain
somehow. That kind of employment is the merest wool-gathering."
He plucked a small piece of Berlin worsted--I had been darning my
socks--off my left trouser, and examined it curiously. My admiration
for the man knew no bounds.
"Is that how you know?" I asked. "Do you mean to tell me that merely
by seeing that small piece of fancy wool on my trousers you guessed
I had been trying to calculate the number of words in the _Times_
leader? HOLES, HOLES, will you never cease from astounding me?"
He did not answer me, but bared his muscular arm and injected into it
a strong dose of morphia with a richly-chased little gold instrument
tipped with a ruby.
"A gift from the CZAR," said HOLES, in answer to my unspoken thoughts.
"When I discovered the missing silver-mine on board the yacht of
the Grand Duke IVANOFF, his Imperial Majesty first offered me the
Chancellorship of his dominions, but I begged him to excuse me, and
asked for this pretty toy. Bah, the Russian police are bunglers."
As he made this remark the door opened and Sergeant BLUFF of the
Dumpshire Constabulary entered hurriedly.
"I beg your pardon, Sir," he said, addressing me, with evident
perturbation; "but would you step outside with me for a moment.
There's been some strange work down at----"
HOLES interrupted him.
"Don't say any more," he broke in. "You've come to tell us about the
dreadful poaching affray in Hagley Wood. I know all about it, and
tired as I am I'll help you to find the criminals."
It was amusing to watch the Sergeant's face. He was ordinarily
an unemotional man, but as HOLES spoke to him he grew purple with
astonishment.
"Beggin' your pardon, Sir," he said; "I didn't know about no----"
"My name is HOLES," said my friend calmly.
"What, Mr. PICKLOCK HOLES, the famous detective?"
"The same, at your service; but we are wasting time. Let us be off."
The night was cold, and a few drops of rain were falling. As we walked
along the lane HOLES drew from the Sergeant all the information he
wanted as to the number of pheasants on the Duke's estate, the extent
of his cellars, his rent-roll, and the name of his London tailor.
BLUFF dropped behind after this cross-examination with a puzzled
expression, and whispered to me:
"A wonderful man that Mister HOLES. Now how did he know about this
'ere poaching business? _I_ knew nothing about it. Why I come to you,
Sir, to talk about that retriever dog you lost."
"Hush," I said; "say nothing. It would only annoy HOLES, and interfere
with his inductions. He knows his own business best." Sergeant BLUFF
gave a grumbling assent, and in another moment we entered the great
gate of Fourcastle Towers, and were ushered into the hall, where the
Duke was waiting to receive us.
"To what am I indebted for the honour of this visit?" said his Grace,
with all the courtly politeness of one in whose veins ran the blood
of the Crusaders. Then, changing his tone, he spoke in fierce
sailor-language: "Shiver my timbers! what makes you three stand there
like that? Why, blank my eyes, you ought to----" What he was going to
say will never be known, for HOLES dashed forward.
"Silence, Duke," he said, sternly. "We come to tell you that there
has been a desperate poaching affray. The leader of the gang lies
insensible in Hagley Wood. Do you wish to know who he was?" So saying,
he held up to the now terrified eyes of the Duke the tail-feather of
a golden pheasant. "I found it in his waistcoat pocket," he said,
simply.
"My son, my son!" shrieked the unfortunate Duke. "Oh ALURED, ALURED,
that it should have come to this!" and he fell to the floor in
convulsions.
"You will find Earl MOUNTRAVERS at the cross-roads in Hagley Wood,"
said HOLES to the Sergeant. "He is insensible."
The Earl was convicted at the following Assizes, and sentenced to a
long term of penal servitude. His ducal father has never recovered
from the disgrace. HOLES, as usual, made light of the matter and of
his own share in it.
"I met the Earl," he told me afterwards, "as I was walking to your
farmhouse. When he ventured to doubt one of my stories, I felled him
to the earth. The rest was easy enough. Poachers? Oh dear no, there
were none. But it is precisely in these cases that ingenuity comes
in."
"HOLES," I said, "I admire you more and more every day."
* * * * *
JOKE FOR JOKE.--A ruffian at Walsall, "for a joke," dropped a little
boy over the bridge into the river. The inhabitants of that town took
the cowardly brute to the same bridge, and dropped him over in the
same place. Bravo men (and women) of Walsall! If the _lex talionis_,
in the same spirit of impartial jocularity, could be applied as
efficaciously to _all_ "practical jokers," civilised Society might
soon be rid of one of its most intolerable pests.
* * * * *
"So much depends on _how you take things_," as the thief remarked
after a dexterous performance while the policeman's back was turned.
* * * * *