suppose that this gun was ever brought into the house, and that all
these strange things were done by a person from outside. Oh, man,
it's just inconceivable! It's clean against common sense! I put it to
you, Mr. Holmes, judging it by what we have heard."
"Well, state your case, Mr. Mac," said Holmes in his most judicial
style.
"The man is not a burglar, supposing that he ever existed. The ring
business and the card point to premeditated murder for some private
reason. Very good. Here is a man who slips into a house with the
deliberate intention of committing murder. He knows, if he knows
anything, that he will have a deeficulty in making his escape, as the
house is surrounded with water. What weapon would he choose? You
would say the most silent in the world. Then he could hope when the
deed was done to slip quickly from the window, to wade the moat, and
to get away at his leisure. That's understandable. But is it
understandable that he should go out of his way to bring with him the
most noisy weapon he could select, knowing well that it will fetch
every human being in the house to the spot as quick as they can run,
and that it is all odds that he will be seen before he can get across
the moat? Is that credible, Mr. Holmes?"
"Well, you put the case strongly," my friend replied thoughtfully.
"It certainly needs a good deal of justification. May I ask, Mr.
White Mason, whether you examined the farther side of the moat at
once to see if there were any signs of the man having climbed out
from the water?"
"There were no signs, Mr. Holmes. But it is a stone ledge, and one
could hardly expect them."
"No tracks or marks?"
"None."
"Ha! Would there be any objection, Mr. White Mason, to our going down
to the house at once? There may possibly be some small point which
might be suggestive."
"I was going to propose it, Mr. Holmes; but I thought it well to put
you in touch with all the facts before we go. I suppose if anything
should strike you--" White Mason looked doubtfully at the amateur.
"I have worked with Mr. Holmes before," said Inspector MacDonald. "He
plays the game."
"My own idea of the game, at any rate," said Holmes, with a smile. "I
go into a case to help the ends of justice and the work of the
police. If I have ever separated myself from the official force, it
is because they have first separated themselves from me. I have no
wish ever to score at their expense. At the same time, Mr. White
Mason, I claim the right to work in my own way and give my results at
my own time--complete rather than in stages."
"I am sure we are honoured by your presence and to show you all we
know," said White Mason cordially. "Come along, Dr. Watson, and when
the time comes we'll all hope for a place in your book."
We walked down the quaint village street with a row of pollarded elms
on each side of it. Just beyond were two ancient stone pillars,
weather-stained and lichen-blotched bearing upon their summits a
shapeless something which had once been the rampant lion of Capus of
Birlstone. A short walk along the winding drive with such sward and
oaks around it as one only sees in rural England, then a sudden turn,
and the long, low Jacobean house of dingy, liver-coloured brick lay
before us, with an old-fashioned garden of cut yews on each side of
it. As we approached it, there was the wooden drawbridge and the
beautiful broad moat as still and luminous as quicksilver in the
cold, winter sunshine.
Three centuries had flowed past the old Manor House, centuries of
births and of homecomings, of country dances and of the meetings of
fox hunters. Strange that now in its old age this dark business
should have cast its shadow upon the venerable walls! And yet those
strange, peaked roofs and quaint, overhung gables were a fitting
covering to grim and terrible intrigue. As I looked at the deep-set
windows and the long sweep of the dull-coloured, water-lapped front,
I felt that no more fitting scene could be set for such a tragedy.
"That's the window," said White Mason, "that one on the immediate
right of the drawbridge. It's open just as it was found last night."
"It looks rather narrow for a man to pass."
"Well, it wasn't a fat man, anyhow. We don't need your deductions,
Mr. Holmes, to tell us that. But you or I could squeeze through all
right."
Holmes walked to the edge of the moat and looked across. Then he
examined the stone ledge and the grass border beyond it.
"I've had a good look, Mr. Holmes," said White Mason. "There is
nothing there, no sign that anyone has landed--but why should he
leave any sign?"
"Exactly. Why should he? Is the water always turbid?"
"Generally about this colour. The stream brings down the clay."
"How deep is it?"
"About two feet at each side and three in the middle."
"So we can put aside all idea of the man having been drowned in
crossing."
"No, a child could not be drowned in it."
We walked across the drawbridge, and were admitted by a quaint,
gnarled, dried-up person, who was the butler, Ames. The poor old
fellow was white and quivering from the shock. The village sergeant,
a tall, formal, melancholy man, still held his vigil in the room of
Fate. The doctor had departed.
"Anything fresh, Sergeant Wilson?" asked White Mason.
"No, sir."
"Then you can go home. You've had enough. We can send for you if we
want you. The butler had better wait outside. Tell him to warn Mr.
Cecil Barker, Mrs. Douglas, and the housekeeper that we may want a
word with them presently. Now, gentlemen, perhaps you will allow me
to give you the views I have formed first, and then you will be able
to arrive at your own."
He impressed me, this country specialist. He had a solid grip of fact
and a cool, clear, common-sense brain, which should take him some way
in his profession. Holmes listened to him intently, with no sign of
that impatience which the official exponent too often produced.
"Is it suicide, or is it murder--that's our first question,
gentlemen, is it not? If it were suicide, then we have to believe
that this man began by taking off his wedding ring and concealing it;
that he then came down here in his dressing gown, trampled mud into a
corner behind the curtain in order to give the idea someone had
waited for him, opened the window, put blood on the--"
"We can surely dismiss that," said MacDonald.
"So I think. Suicide is out of the question. Then a murder has been
done. What we have to determine is, whether it was done by someone
outside or inside the house."
"Well, let's hear the argument."
"There are considerable difficulties both ways, and yet one or the
other it must be. We will suppose first that some person or persons
inside the house did the crime. They got this man down here at a time
when everything was still and yet no one was asleep. They then did
the deed with the queerest and noisiest weapon in the world so as to
tell everyone what had happened--a weapon that was never seen in the
house before. That does not seem a very likely start, does it?"
"No, it does not."
"Well, then, everyone is agreed that after the alarm was given only a
minute at the most had passed before the whole household--not Mr.
Cecil Barker alone, though he claims to have been the first, but Ames
and all of them were on the spot. Do you tell me that in that time
the guilty person managed to make footmarks in the corner, open the
window, mark the sill with blood, take the wedding ring off the dead
man's finger, and all the rest of it? It's impossible!"
"You put it very clearly," said Holmes. "I am inclined to agree with
you."
"Well, then, we are driven back to the theory that it was done by
someone from outside. We are still faced with some big difficulties;
but anyhow they have ceased to be impossibilities. The man got into
the house between four-thirty and six; that is to say, between dusk
and the time when the bridge was raised. There had been some
visitors, and the door was open; so there was nothing to prevent him.
He may have been a common burglar, or he may have had some private
grudge against Mr. Douglas. Since Mr. Douglas has spent most of his
life in America, and this shotgun seems to be an American weapon, it
would seem that the private grudge is the more likely theory. He
slipped into this room because it was the first he came to, and he
hid behind the curtain. There he remained until past eleven at night.
At that time Mr. Douglas entered the room. It was a short interview,
if there were any interview at all; for Mrs. Douglas declares that
her husband had not left her more than a few minutes when she heard
the shot."
"The candle shows that," said Holmes.
"Exactly. The candle, which was a new one, is not burned more than
half an inch. He must have placed it on the table before he was
attacked; otherwise, of course, it would have fallen when he fell.
This shows that he was not attacked the instant that he entered the
room. When Mr. Barker arrived the candle was lit and the lamp was
out."
"That's all clear enough."
"Well, now, we can reconstruct things on those lines. Mr. Douglas
enters the room. He puts down the candle. A man appears from behind
the curtain. He is armed with this gun. He demands the wedding
ring--Heaven only knows why, but so it must have been. Mr. Douglas
gave it up. Then either in cold blood or in the course of a
struggle--Douglas may have gripped the hammer that was found upon the
mat--he shot Douglas in this horrible way. He dropped his gun and
also it would seem this queer card--V. V. 341, whatever that may
mean--and he made his escape through the window and across the moat
at the very moment when Cecil Barker was discovering the crime. How's
that, Mr. Holmes?"
"Very interesting, but just a little unconvincing."
"Man, it would be absolute nonsense if it wasn't that anything else
is even worse!" cried MacDonald. "Somebody killed the man, and
whoever it was I could clearly prove to you that he should have done
it some other way. What does he mean by allowing his retreat to be
cut off like that? What does he mean by using a shotgun when silence
was his one chance of escape? Come, Mr. Holmes, it's up to you to
give us a lead, since you say Mr. White Mason's theory is
unconvincing."
Holmes had sat intently observant during this long discussion,
missing no word that was said, with his keen eyes darting to right
and to left, and his forehead wrinkled with speculation.
"I should like a few more facts before I get so far as a theory, Mr.
Mac," said he, kneeling down beside the body. "Dear me! these
injuries are really appalling. Can we have the butler in for a
moment? ... Ames, I understand that you have often seen this very
unusual mark--a branded triangle inside a circle--upon Mr. Douglas's
forearm?"
"Frequently, sir."
"You never heard any speculation as to what it meant?"
"No, sir."
"It must have caused great pain when it was inflicted. It is
undoubtedly a burn. Now, I observe, Ames, that there is a small piece
of plaster at the angle of Mr. Douglas's jaw. Did you observe that in
life?"
"Yes, sir, he cut himself in shaving yesterday morning."
"Did you ever know him to cut himself in shaving before?"
"Not for a very long time, sir."
"Suggestive!" said Holmes. "It may, of course, be a mere coincidence,
or it may point to some nervousness which would indicate that he had
reason to apprehend danger. Had you noticed anything unusual in his
conduct, yesterday, Ames?"
"It struck me that he was a little restless and excited, sir."
"Ha! The attack may not have been entirely unexpected. We do seem to
make a little progress, do we not? Perhaps you would rather do the
questioning, Mr. Mac?"
"No, Mr. Holmes, it's in better hands than mine."
"Well, then, we will pass to this card--V. V. 341. It is rough
cardboard. Have you any of the sort in the house?"
"I don't think so."
Holmes walked across to the desk and dabbed a little ink from each
bottle on to the blotting paper. "It was not printed in this room,"
he said; "this is black ink and the other purplish. It was done by a
thick pen, and these are fine. No, it was done elsewhere, I should
say. Can you make anything of the inscription, Ames?"
"No, sir, nothing."
"What do you think, Mr. Mac?"
"It gives me the impression of a secret society of some sort; the
same with his badge upon the forearm."
