speculating, as to what Holmes was doing, what steps Lord Holdhurst
was taking, what news we should have in the morning. As the evening
wore on his excitement became quite painful.
"You have implicit faith in Holmes?" he asked.
"I have seen him do some remarkable things."
"But he never brought light into anything quite so dark as this?"
"Oh, yes, I have known him solve questions which presented fewer
clues than yours."
"But not where such large interests are at stake?"
"I don't know that. To my certain knowledge he has acted on behalf of
three of the reigning houses of Europe in very vital matters."
"But you know him well, Watson. He is such an inscrutable fellow that
I never quite know what to make of him. Do you think he is hopeful?
Do you think he expects to make a success of it?"
"He has said nothing."
"That is a bad sign."
"On the contrary, I have noticed that when he is off the trail he
generally says so. It is when he is on a scent and is not quite
absolutely sure yet that it is the right one that he is most
taciturn. Now, my dear fellow, we can't help matters by making
ourselves nervous about them, so let me implore you to go to bed and
so be fresh for whatever may await us to-morrow."
I was able at last to persuade my companion to take my advice, though
I knew from his excited manner that there was not much hope of sleep
for him. Indeed, his mood was infectious, for I lay tossing half the
night myself, brooding over this strange problem, and inventing a
hundred theories, each of which was more impossible than the last.
Why had Holmes remained at Woking? Why had he asked Miss Harrison to
remain in the sick-room all day? Why had he been so careful not to
inform the people at Briarbrae that he intended to remain near them?
I cudgelled my brains until I fell asleep in the endeavor to find
some explanation which would cover all these facts.
It was seven o'clock when I awoke, and I set off at once for Phelps's
room, to find him haggard and spent after a sleepless night. His
first question was whether Holmes had arrived yet.
"He'll be here when he promised," said I, "and not an instant sooner
or later."
And my words were true, for shortly after eight a hansom dashed up to
the door and our friend got out of it. Standing in the window we saw
that his left hand was swathed in a bandage and that his face was
very grim and pale. He entered the house, but it was some little time
before he came upstairs.
"He looks like a beaten man," cried Phelps.
I was forced to confess that he was right. "After all," said I, "the
clue of the matter lies probably here in town."
Phelps gave a groan.
"I don't know how it is," said he, "but I had hoped for so much from
his return. But surely his hand was not tied up like that yesterday.
What can be the matter?"
"You are not wounded, Holmes?" I asked, as my friend entered the
room.
"Tut, it is only a scratch through my own clumsiness," he answered,
nodding his good-mornings to us. "This case of yours, Mr. Phelps, is
certainly one of the darkest which I have ever investigated."
"I feared that you would find it beyond you."
"It has been a most remarkable experience."
"That bandage tells of adventures," said I. "Won't you tell us what
has happened?"
"After breakfast, my dear Watson. Remember that I have breathed
thirty miles of Surrey air this morning. I suppose that there has
been no answer from my cabman advertisement? Well, well, we cannot
expect to score every time."
The table was all laid, and just as I was about to ring Mrs. Hudson
entered with the tea and coffee. A few minutes later she brought in
three covers, and we all drew up to the table, Holmes ravenous, I
curious, and Phelps in the gloomiest state of depression.
"Mrs. Hudson has risen to the occasion," said Holmes, uncovering a
dish of curried chicken. "Her cuisine is a little limited, but she
has as good an idea of breakfast as a Scotch-woman. What have you
here, Watson?"
"Ham and eggs," I answered.
"Good! What are you going to take, Mr. Phelps--curried fowl or eggs,
or will you help yourself?"
"Thank you. I can eat nothing," said Phelps.
"Oh, come! Try the dish before you."
"Thank you, I would really rather not."
"Well, then," said Holmes, with a mischievous twinkle, "I suppose
that you have no objection to helping me?"
Phelps raised the cover, and as he did so he uttered a scream, and
sat there staring with a face as white as the plate upon which he
looked. Across the centre of it was lying a little cylinder of
blue-gray paper. He caught it up, devoured it with his eyes, and then
danced madly about the room, passing it to his bosom and shrieking
out in his delight. Then he fell back into an arm-chair so limp and
exhausted with his own emotions that we had to pour brandy down his
throat to keep him from fainting.
"There! there!" said Holmes, soothing, patting him upon the shoulder.
"It was too bad to spring it on you like this, but Watson here will
tell you that I never can resist a touch of the dramatic."
Phelps seized his hand and kissed it. "God bless you!" he cried. "You
have saved my honor."
"Well, my own was at stake, you know," said Holmes. "I assure you it
is just as hateful to me to fail in a case as it can be to you to
blunder over a commission."
Phelps thrust away the precious document into the innermost pocket of
his coat.
"I have not the heart to interrupt your breakfast any further, and
yet I am dying to know how you got it and where it was."
Sherlock Holmes swallowed a cup of coffee, and turned his attention
to the ham and eggs. Then he rose, lit his pipe, and settled himself
down into his chair.
"I'll tell you what I did first, and how I came to do it afterwards,"
said he. "After leaving you at the station I went for a charming walk
through some admirable Surrey scenery to a pretty little village
called Ripley, where I had my tea at an inn, and took the precaution
of filling my flask and of putting a paper of sandwiches in my
pocket. There I remained until evening, when I set off for Woking
again, and found myself in the high-road outside Briarbrae just after
sunset.
"Well, I waited until the road was clear--it is never a very
frequented one at any time, I fancy--and then I clambered over the
fence into the grounds."
"Surely the gate was open!" ejaculated Phelps.
"Yes, but I have a peculiar taste in these matters. I chose the place
where the three fir-trees stand, and behind their screen I got over
without the least chance of any one in the house being able to see
me. I crouched down among the bushes on the other side, and crawled
from one to the other--witness the disreputable state of my trouser
knees--until I had reached the clump of rhododendrons just opposite
to your bedroom window. There I squatted down and awaited
developments.
"The blind was not down in your room, and I could see Miss Harrison
sitting there reading by the table. It was quarter-past ten when she
closed her book, fastened the shutters, and retired.
"I heard her shut the door, and felt quite sure that she had turned
the key in the lock."
"The key!" ejaculated Phelps.
"Yes, I had given Miss Harrison instructions to lock the door on the
outside and take the key with her when she went to bed. She carried
out every one of my injunctions to the letter, and certainly without
her cooperation you would not have that paper in you coat-pocket. She
departed then and the lights went out, and I was left squatting in
the rhododendron-bush.
"The night was fine, but still it was a very weary vigil. Of course
it has the sort of excitement about it that the sportsman feels when
he lies beside the water-course and waits for the big game. It was
very long, though--almost as long, Watson, as when you and I waited
in that deadly room when we looked into the little problem of the
Speckled Band. There was a church-clock down at Woking which struck
the quarters, and I thought more than once that it had stopped. At
last however about two in the morning, I suddenly heard the gentle
sound of a bolt being pushed back and the creaking of a key. A moment
later the servant's door was opened, and Mr. Joseph Harrison stepped
out into the moonlight."
"Joseph!" ejaculated Phelps.
"He was bare-headed, but he had a black coat thrown over his shoulder
so that he could conceal his face in an instant if there were any
alarm. He walked on tiptoe under the shadow of the wall, and when he
reached the window he worked a long-bladed knife through the sash and
pushed back the catch. Then he flung open the window, and putting his
knife through the crack in the shutters, he thrust the bar up and
swung them open.
"From where I lay I had a perfect view of the inside of the room and
of every one of his movements. He lit the two candles which stood
upon the mantelpiece, and then he proceeded to turn back the corner
of the carpet in the neighborhood of the door. Presently he stopped
and picked out a square piece of board, such as is usually left to
enable plumbers to get at the joints of the gas-pipes. This one
covered, as a matter of fact, the T joint which gives off the pipe
which supplies the kitchen underneath. Out of this hiding-place he
drew that little cylinder of paper, pushed down the board, rearranged
the carpet, blew out the candles, and walked straight into my arms as
I stood waiting for him outside the window.
"Well, he has rather more viciousness than I gave him credit for, has
Master Joseph. He flew at me with his knife, and I had to grasp him
twice, and got a cut over the knuckles, before I had the upper hand
of him. He looked murder out of the only eye he could see with when
we had finished, but he listened to reason and gave up the papers.
Having got them I let my man go, but I wired full particulars to
Forbes this morning. If he is quick enough to catch is bird, well and
good. But if, as I shrewdly suspect, he finds the nest empty before
he gets there, why, all the better for the government. I fancy that
Lord Holdhurst for one, and Mr. Percy Phelps for another, would very
much rather that the affair never got as far as a police-court.
"My God!" gasped our client. "Do you tell me that during these long
ten weeks of agony the stolen papers were within the very room with
me all the time?"
"So it was."
"And Joseph! Joseph a villain and a thief!"
"Hum! I am afraid Joseph's character is a rather deeper and more
dangerous one than one might judge from his appearance. From what I
have heard from him this morning, I gather that he has lost heavily
in dabbling with stocks, and that he is ready to do anything on earth
to better his fortunes. Being an absolutely selfish man, when a
chance presented itself he did not allow either his sister's
happiness or your reputation to hold his hand."
Percy Phelps sank back in his chair. "My head whirls," said he. "Your
words have dazed me."
"The principal difficulty in your case," remarked Holmes, in his
didactic fashion, "lay in the fact of there being too much evidence.
What was vital was overlaid and hidden by what was irrelevant. Of all
the facts which were presented to us we had to pick just those which
we deemed to be essential, and then piece them together in their
order, so as to reconstruct this very remarkable chain of events. I
had already begun to suspect Joseph, from the fact that you had
intended to travel home with him that night, and that therefore it
was a likely enough thing that he should call for you, knowing the
Foreign Office well, upon his way. When I heard that some one had
been so anxious to get into the bedroom, in which no one but Joseph
could have concealed anything--you told us in your narrative how you
had turned Joseph out when you arrived with the doctor--my suspicions
all changed to certainties, especially as the attempt was made on the
first night upon which the nurse was absent, showing that the
intruder was well acquainted with the ways of the house."
"How blind I have been!"
"The facts of the case, as far as I have worked them out, are these:
this Joseph Harrison entered the office through the Charles Street
door, and knowing his way he walked straight into your room the
instant after you left it. Finding no one there he promptly rang the
bell, and at the instant that he did so his eyes caught the paper
upon the table. A glance showed him that chance had put in his way a
State document of immense value, and in an instant he had thrust it
