aware, with several sharp spikes. As he passed your window he saw, by
means of his great height, these proofs upon your table, and
conjectured what they were. No harm would have been done had it not
been that as he passed your door he perceived the key which had been
left by the carelessness of your servant. A sudden impulse came over
him to enter and see if they were indeed the proofs. It was not a
dangerous exploit, for he could always pretend that he had simply
looked in to ask a question.
"Well, when he saw that they were indeed the proofs, it was then that
he yielded to temptation. He put his shoes on the table. What was it
you put on that chair near the window?"
"Gloves," said the young man.
Holmes looked triumphantly at Bannister. "He put his gloves on the
chair, and he took the proofs, sheet by sheet, to copy them. He
thought the tutor must return by the main gate, and that he would see
him. As we know, he came back by the side gate. Suddenly he heard him
at the very door. There was no possible escape. He forgot his gloves,
but he caught up his shoes and darted into the bedroom. You observe
that the scratch on that table is slight at one side, but deepens in
the direction of the bedroom door. That in itself is enough to show
us that the shoe had been drawn in that direction and that the
culprit had taken refuge there. The earth round the spike had been
left on the table, and a second sample was loosened and fell in the
bedroom. I may add that I walked out to the athletic grounds this
morning, saw that tenacious black clay is used in the jumping-pit,
and carried away a specimen of it, together with some of the fine tan
or sawdust which is strewn over it to prevent the athlete from
slipping. Have I told the truth, Mr. Gilchrist?"
The student had drawn himself erect.
"Yes, sir, it is true," said he.
"Good heavens, have you nothing to add?" cried Soames.
"Yes, sir, I have, but the shock of this disgraceful exposure has
bewildered me. I have a letter here, Mr. Soames, which I wrote to you
early this morning in the middle of a restless night. It was before I
knew that my sin had found me out. Here it is, sir. You will see that
I have said, 'I have determined not to go in for the examination. I
have been offered a commission in the Rhodesian Police, and I am
going out to South Africa at once.'"
"I am indeed pleased to hear that you did not intend to profit by
your unfair advantage," said Soames. "But why did you change your
purpose?"
Gilchrist pointed to Bannister.
"There is the man who set me in the right path," said he.
"Come now, Bannister," said Holmes. "It will be clear to you from
what I have said that only you could have let this young man out,
since you were left in the room, and must have locked the door when
you went out. As to his escaping by that window, it was incredible.
Can you not clear up the last point in this mystery, and tell us the
reasons for your action?"
"It was simple enough, sir, if you only had known; but with all your
cleverness it was impossible that you could know. Time was, sir, when
I was butler to old Sir Jabez Gilchrist, this young gentleman's
father. When he was ruined I came to the college as servant, but I
never forgot my old employer because he was down in the world. I
watched his son all I could for the sake of the old days. Well, sir,
when I came into this room yesterday when the alarm was given, the
very first thing I saw was Mr. Gilchrist's tan gloves a-lying in that
chair. I knew those gloves well, and I understood their message. If
Mr. Soames saw them the game was up. I flopped down into that chair,
and nothing would budge me until Mr. Soames he went for you. Then out
came my poor young master, whom I had dandled on my knee, and
confessed it all to me. Wasn't it natural, sir, that I should save
him, and wasn't it natural also that I should try to speak to him as
his dead father would have done, and make him understand that he
could not profit by such a deed? Could you blame me, sir?"
"No, indeed," said Holmes, heartily, springing to his feet. "Well,
Soames, I think we have cleared your little problem up, and our
breakfast awaits us at home. Come, Watson! As to you, sir, I trust
that a bright future awaits you in Rhodesia. For once you have fallen
low. Let us see in the future how high you can rise."
THE ADVENTURE OF THE GOLDEN PINCE-NEZ
When I look at the three massive manuscript volumes which contain our
work for the year 1894 I confess that it is very difficult for me,
out of such a wealth of material, to select the cases which are most
interesting in themselves and at the same time most conducive to a
display of those peculiar powers for which my friend was famous. As I
turn over the pages I see my notes upon the repulsive story of the
red leech and the terrible death of Crosby the banker. Here also I
find an account of the Addleton tragedy and the singular contents of
the ancient British barrow. The famous Smith-Mortimer succession case
comes also within this period, and so does the tracking and arrest of
Huret, the Boulevard assassin--an exploit which won for Holmes an
autograph letter of thanks from the French President and the Order of
the Legion of Honour. Each of these would furnish a narrative, but on
the whole I am of opinion that none of them unite so many singular
points of interest as the episode of Yoxley Old Place, which includes
not only the lamentable death of young Willoughby Smith, but also
those subsequent developments which threw so curious a light upon the
causes of the crime.
It was a wild, tempestuous night towards the close of November.
Holmes and I sat together in silence all the evening, he engaged with
a powerful lens deciphering the remains of the original inscription
upon a palimpsest, I deep in a recent treatise upon surgery. Outside
the wind howled down Baker Street, while the rain beat fiercely
against the windows. It was strange there in the very depths of the
town, with ten miles of man's handiwork on every side of us, to feel
the iron grip of Nature, and to be conscious that to the huge
elemental forces all London was no more than the molehills that dot
the fields. I walked to the window and looked out on the deserted
street. The occasional lamps gleamed on the expanse of muddy road and
shining pavement. A single cab was splashing its way from the Oxford
Street end.
"Well, Watson, it's as well we have not to turn out to-night," said
Holmes, laying aside his lens and rolling up the palimpsest. "I've
done enough for one sitting. It is trying work for the eyes. So far
as I can make out it is nothing more exciting than an Abbey's
accounts dating from the second half of the fifteenth century.
Halloa! halloa! halloa! What's this?"
Amid the droning of the wind there had come the stamping of a horse's
hoofs and the long grind of a wheel as it rasped against the kerb.
The cab which I had seen had pulled up at our door.
"What can he want?" I ejaculated, as a man stepped out of it.
"Want! He wants us. And we, my poor Watson, want overcoats and
cravats and goloshes, and every aid that man ever invented to fight
the weather. Wait a bit, though! There's the cab off again! There's
hope yet. He'd have kept it if he had wanted us to come. Run down, my
dear fellow, and open the door, for all virtuous folk have been long
in bed."
When the light of the hall lamp fell upon our midnight visitor I had
no difficulty in recognising him. It was young Stanley Hopkins, a
promising detective, in whose career Holmes had several times shown a
very practical interest.
"Is he in?" he asked, eagerly.
"Come up, my dear sir," said Holmes's voice from above. "I hope you
have no designs upon us on such a night as this."
The detective mounted the stairs, and our lamp gleamed upon his
shining waterproof. I helped him out of it while Holmes knocked a
blaze out of the logs in the grate.
"Now, my dear Hopkins, draw up and warm your toes," said he. "Here's
a cigar, and the doctor has a prescription containing hot water and a
lemon which is good medicine on a night like this. It must be
something important which has brought you out in such a gale."
"It is indeed, Mr. Holmes. I've had a bustling afternoon, I promise
you. Did you see anything of the Yoxley case in the latest editions?"
"I've seen nothing later than the fifteenth century to-day."
"Well, it was only a paragraph, and all wrong at that, so you have
not missed anything. I haven't let the grass grow under my feet. It's
down in Kent, seven miles from Chatham and three from the railway
line. I was wired for at three-fifteen, reached Yoxley Old Place at
five, conducted my investigation, was back at Charing Cross by the
last train, and straight to you by cab."
"Which means, I suppose, that you are not quite clear about your
case?"
"It means that I can make neither head nor tail of it. So far as I
can see it is just as tangled a business as ever I handled, and yet
at first it seemed so simple that one couldn't go wrong. There's no
motive, Mr. Holmes. That's what bothers me--I can't put my hand on a
motive. Here's a man dead--there's no denying that--but, so far as I
can see, no reason on earth why anyone should wish him harm."
Holmes lit his cigar and leaned back in his chair.
"Let us hear about it," said he.
"I've got my facts pretty clear," said Stanley Hopkins. "All I want
now is to know what they all mean. The story, so far as I can make it
out, is like this. Some years ago this country house, Yoxley Old
Place, was taken by an elderly man, who gave the name of Professor
Coram. He was an invalid, keeping his bed half the time, and the
other half hobbling round the house with a stick or being pushed
about the grounds by the gardener in a bath-chair. He was well liked
by the few neighbours who called upon him, and he has the reputation
down there of being a very learned man. His household used to consist
of an elderly housekeeper, Mrs. Marker, and of a maid, Susan Tarlton.
These have both been with him since his arrival, and they seem to be
women of excellent character. The Professor is writing a learned
book, and he found it necessary about a year ago to engage a
secretary. The first two that he tried were not successes; but the
third, Mr. Willoughby Smith, a very young man straight from the
University, seems to have been just what his employer wanted. His
work consisted in writing all the morning to the Professor's
dictation, and he usually spent the evening in hunting up references
and passages which bore upon the next day's work. This Willoughby
Smith has nothing against him either as a boy at Uppingham or as a
young man at Cambridge. I have seen his testimonials, and from the
first he was a decent, quiet, hardworking fellow, with no weak spot
in him at all. And yet this is the lad who has met his death this
morning in the Professor's study under circumstances which can point
only to murder."
The wind howled and screamed at the windows. Holmes and I drew closer
to the fire while the young inspector slowly and point by point
developed his singular narrative.
"If you were to search all England," said he, "I don't suppose you
could find a household more self-contained or free from outside
influences. Whole weeks would pass and not one of them go past the
garden gate. The Professor was buried in his work and existed for
nothing else. Young Smith knew nobody in the neighbourhood, and lived
very much as his employer did. The two women had nothing to take them
from the house. Mortimer the gardener, who wheels the bath-chair, is
an Army pensioner--an old Crimean man of excellent character. He does
not live in the house, but in a three-roomed cottage at the other end
of the garden. Those are the only people that you would find within
the grounds of Yoxley Old Place. At the same time, the gate of the
garden is a hundred yards from the main London to Chatham road. It
opens with a latch, and there is nothing to prevent anyone from
walking in.
"Now I will give you the evidence of Susan Tarlton, who is the only
person who can say anything positive about the matter. It was in the
forenoon, between eleven and twelve. She was engaged at the moment in
hanging some curtains in the upstairs front bedroom. Professor Coram
was still in bed, for when the weather is bad he seldom rises before
midday. The housekeeper was busied with some work in the back of the
house. Willoughby Smith had been in his bedroom, which he uses as a
sitting-room; but the maid heard him at that moment pass along the
passage and descend to the study immediately below her. She did not
see him, but she says that she could not be mistaken in his quick,
