"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 backwards, 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 has 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, and 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 ensure 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, Elrige's 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 fore-runners 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 recognised, 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
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
