flower-bed. I can't see the traces now, but they were clear to me
then."
"Yes, yes; someone has passed along," said Holmes, stooping over the
grass border. "Our lady must have picked her steps carefully, must
she not, since on the one side she would leave a track on the path,
and on the other an even clearer one on the soft bed?"
"Yes, sir, she must have been a cool hand."
I saw an intent look pass over Holmes's face.
"You say that she must have come back this way?"
"Yes, sir; there is no other."
"On this strip of grass?"
"Certainly, Mr. Holmes."
"Hum! It was a very remarkable performance--very remarkable. Well, I
think we have exhausted the path. Let us go farther. This garden door
is usually kept open, I suppose? Then this visitor had nothing to do
but to walk in. The idea of murder was not in her mind, or she would
have provided herself with some sort of weapon, instead of having to
pick this knife off the writing-table. She advanced along this
corridor, leaving no traces upon the cocoanut matting. Then she found
herself in this study. How long was she there? We have no means of
judging."
"Not more than a few minutes, sir. I forgot to tell you that Mrs.
Marker, the housekeeper, had been in there tidying not very long
before--about a quarter of an hour, she says."
"Well, that gives us a limit. Our lady enters this room and what does
she do? She goes over to the writing-table. What for? Not for
anything in the drawers. If there had been anything worth her taking
it would surely have been locked up. No; it was for something in that
wooden bureau. Halloa! what is that scratch upon the face of it? Just
hold a match, Watson. Why did you not tell me of this, Hopkins?"
The mark which he was examining began upon the brass work on the
right-hand side of the keyhole, and extended for about four inches,
where it had scratched the varnish from the surface.
"I noticed it, Mr. Holmes. But you'll always find scratches round a
keyhole."
"This is recent, quite recent. See how the brass shines where it is
cut. An old scratch would be the same colour as the surface. Look at
it through my lens. There's the varnish, too, like earth on each side
of a furrow. Is Mrs. Marker there?"
A sad-faced, elderly woman came into the room.
"Did you dust this bureau yesterday morning?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did you notice this scratch?"
"No, sir, I did not."
"I am sure you did not, for a duster would have swept away these
shreds of varnish. Who has the key of this bureau?"
"The Professor keeps it on his watch-chain."
"Is it a simple key?"
"No, sir; it is a Chubb's key."
"Very good. Mrs. Marker, you can go. Now we are making a little
progress. Our lady enters the room, advances to the bureau, and
either opens it or tries to do so. While she is thus engaged young
Willoughby Smith enters the room. In her hurry to withdraw the key
she makes this scratch upon the door. He seizes her, and she,
snatching up the nearest object, which happens to be this knife,
strikes at him in order to make him let go his hold. The blow is a
fatal one. He falls and she escapes, either with or without the
object for which she has come. Is Susan the maid there? Could anyone
have got away through that door after the time that you heard the
cry, Susan?"
"No sir; it is impossible. Before I got down the stair I'd have seen
anyone in the passage. Besides, the door never opened, for I would
have heard it."
"That settles this exit. Then no doubt the lady went out the way she
came. I understand that this other passage leads only to the
Professor's room. There is no exit that way?"
"No, sir."
"We shall go down it and make the acquaintance of the Professor.
Halloa, Hopkins! this is very important, very important indeed. The
Professor's corridor is also lined with cocoanut matting."
"Well, sir, what of that?"
"Don't you see any bearing upon the case? Well, well, I don't insist
upon it. No doubt I am wrong. And yet it seems to me to be
suggestive. Come with me and introduce me."
We passed down the passage, which was of the same length as that
which led to the garden. At the end was a short flight of steps
ending in a door. Our guide knocked, and then ushered us into the
Professor's bedroom.
It was a very large chamber, lined with innumerable volumes, which
had overflowed from the shelves and lay in piles in the corners, or
were stacked all round at the base of the cases. The bed was in the
centre of the room, and in it, propped up with pillows, was the owner
of the house. I have seldom seen a more remarkable-looking person. It
was a gaunt, aquiline face which was turned towards us, with piercing
dark eyes, which lurked in deep hollows under overhung and tufted
brows. His hair and beard were white, save that the latter was
curiously stained with yellow around his mouth. A cigarette glowed
amid the tangle of white hair, and the air of the room was fetid with
stale tobacco-smoke. As he held out his hand to Holmes I perceived
that it also was stained yellow with nicotine.
"A smoker, Mr. Holmes?" said he, speaking well-chosen English with a
curious little mincing accent. "Pray take a cigarette. And you, sir?
I can recommend them, for I have them especially prepared by Ionides
of Alexandria. He sends me a thousand at a time, and I grieve to say
that I have to arrange for a fresh supply every fortnight. Bad, sir,
very bad, but an old man has few pleasures. Tobacco and my work--that
is all that is left to me."
Holmes had lit a cigarette, and was shooting little darting glances
all over the room.
"Tobacco and my work, but now only tobacco," the old man exclaimed.
"Alas! what a fatal interruption! Who could have foreseen such a
terrible catastrophe? So estimable a young man! I assure you that
after a few months' training he was an admirable assistant. What do
you think of the matter, Mr. Holmes?"
"I have not yet made up my mind."
"I shall indeed be indebted to you if you can throw a light where all
is so dark to us. To a poor bookworm and invalid like myself such a
blow is paralyzing. I seem to have lost the faculty of thought. But
you are a man of action--you are a man of affairs. It is part of the
everyday routine of your life. You can preserve your balance in every
emergency. We are fortunate indeed in having you at our side."
Holmes was pacing up and down one side of the room whilst the old
Professor was talking. I observed that he was smoking with
extraordinary rapidity. It was evident that he shared our host's
liking for the fresh Alexandrian cigarettes.
"Yes, sir, it is a crushing blow," said the old man. "That is my
magnum opus--the pile of papers on the side table yonder. It is my
analysis of the documents found in the Coptic monasteries of Syria
and Egypt, a work which will cut deep at the very foundations of
revealed religion. With my enfeebled health I do not know whether I
shall ever be able to complete it now that my assistant has been
taken from me. Dear me, Mr. Holmes; why, you are even a quicker
smoker than I am myself."
Holmes smiled.
"I am a connoisseur," said he, taking another cigarette from the
box--his fourth--and lighting it from the stub of that which he had
finished. "I will not trouble you with any lengthy cross-examination,
Professor Coram, since I gather that you were in bed at the time of
the crime and could know nothing about it. I would only ask this.
What do you imagine that this poor fellow meant by his last words:
'The Professor--it was she'?"
The Professor shook his head.
"Susan is a country girl," said he, "and you know the incredible
stupidity of that class. I fancy that the poor fellow murmured some
incoherent delirious words, and that she twisted them into this
meaningless message."
"I see. You have no explanation yourself of the tragedy?"
"Possibly an accident; possibly--I only breathe it among ourselves--a
suicide. Young men have their hidden troubles--some affair of the
heart, perhaps, which we have never known. It is a more probable
supposition than murder."
"But the eye-glasses?"
"Ah! I am only a student--a man of dreams. I cannot explain the
practical things of life. But still, we are aware, my friend, that
love-gages may take strange shapes. By all means take another
cigarette. It is a pleasure to see anyone appreciate them so. A fan,
a glove, glasses--who knows what article may be carried as a token or
treasured when a man puts an end to his life? This gentleman speaks
of footsteps in the grass; but, after all, it is easy to be mistaken
on such a point. As to the knife, it might well be thrown far from
the unfortunate man as he fell. It is possible that I speak as a
child, but to me it seems that Willoughby Smith has met his fate by
his own hand."
Holmes seemed struck by the theory thus put forward, and he continued
to walk up and down for some time, lost in thought and consuming
cigarette after cigarette.
"Tell me, Professor Coram," he said, at last, "what is in that
cupboard in the bureau?"
"Nothing that would help a thief. Family papers, letters from my poor
wife, diplomas of Universities which have done me honour. Here is the
key. You can look for yourself."
Holmes picked up the key and looked at it for an instant; then he
handed it back.
"No; I hardly think that it would help me," said he. "I should prefer
to go quietly down to your garden and turn the whole matter over in
my head. There is something to be said for the theory of suicide
which you have put forward. We must apologize for having intruded
upon you, Professor Coram, and I promise that we won't disturb you
until after lunch. At two o'clock we will come again and report to
you anything which may have happened in the interval."
Holmes was curiously distrait, and we walked up and down the garden
path for some time in silence.
"Have you a clue?" I asked, at last.
"It depends upon those cigarettes that I smoked," said he. "It is
possible that I am utterly mistaken. The cigarettes will show me."
"My dear Holmes," I exclaimed, "how on earth--"
"Well, well, you may see for yourself. If not, there's no harm done.
Of course, we always have the optician clue to fall back upon, but I
take a short cut when I can get it. Ah, here is the good Mrs. Marker!
Let us enjoy five minutes of instructive conversation with her."
I may have remarked before that Holmes had, when he liked, a
peculiarly ingratiating way with women, and that he very readily
established terms of confidence with them. In half the time which he
had named he had captured the housekeeper's goodwill, and was
chatting with her as if he had known her for years.
"Yes, Mr. Holmes, it is as you say, sir. He does smoke something
terrible. All day and sometimes all night, sir. I've seen that room
of a morning--well, sir, you'd have thought it was a London fog. Poor
young Mr. Smith, he was a smoker also, but not as bad as the
Professor. His health--well, I don't know that it's better nor worse
for the smoking."
"Ah!" said Holmes, "but it kills the appetite."
"Well, I don't know about that, sir."
"I suppose the Professor eats hardly anything?"
"Well, he is variable. I'll say that for him."
"I'll wager he took no breakfast this morning, and won't face his
lunch after all the cigarettes I saw him consume."
"Well, you're out there, sir, as it happens, for he ate a remarkable
big breakfast this morning. I don't know when I've known him make a
better one, and he's ordered a good dish of cutlets for his lunch.
I'm surprised myself, for since I came into that room yesterday and
saw young Mr. Smith lying there on the floor I couldn't bear to look
at food. Well, it takes all sorts to make a world, and the Professor
hasn't let it take his appetite away."
We loitered the morning away in the garden. Stanley Hopkins had gone
down to the village to look into some rumours of a strange woman who
had been seen by some children on the Chatham Road the previous
morning. As to my friend, all his usual energy seemed to have
deserted him. I had never known him handle a case in such a
half-hearted fashion. Even the news brought back by Hopkins that he
had found the children and that they had undoubtedly seen a woman
exactly corresponding with Holmes's description, and wearing either
spectacles or eye-glasses, failed to rouse any sign of keen interest.
