the window himself. It's a good deal broader than any bootmark. I
mind that you said it was a splay-foot, and here's the explanation.
But what's the game, Mr. Holmes--what's the game?"
"Ay, what's the game?" my friend repeated thoughtfully.
White Mason chuckled and rubbed his fat hands together in his
professional satisfaction. "I said it was a snorter!" he cried. "And
a real snorter it is!"
CHAPTER VI
A Dawning Light
The three detectives had many matters of detail into which to
inquire; so I returned alone to our modest quarters at the village
inn. But before doing so I took a stroll in the curious old-world
garden which flanked the house. Rows of very ancient yew trees cut
into strange designs girded it round. Inside was a beautiful stretch
of lawn with an old sundial in the middle, the whole effect so
soothing and restful that it was welcome to my somewhat jangled
nerves.
In that deeply peaceful atmosphere one could forget, or remember only
as some fantastic nightmare, that darkened study with the sprawling,
bloodstained figure on the floor. And yet, as I strolled round it and
tried to steep my soul in its gentle balm, a strange incident
occurred, which brought me back to the tragedy and left a sinister
impression in my mind.
I have said that a decoration of yew trees circled the garden. At the
end farthest from the house they thickened into a continuous hedge.
On the other side of this hedge, concealed from the eyes of anyone
approaching from the direction of the house, there was a stone seat.
As I approached the spot I was aware of voices, some remark in the
deep tones of a man, answered by a little ripple of feminine
laughter.
An instant later I had come round the end of the hedge and my eyes
lit upon Mrs. Douglas and the man Barker before they were aware of my
presence. Her appearance gave me a shock. In the dining-room she had
been demure and discreet. Now all pretense of grief had passed away
from her. Her eyes shone with the joy of living, and her face still
quivered with amusement at some remark of her companion. He sat
forward, his hands clasped and his forearms on his knees, with an
answering smile upon his bold, handsome face. In an instant--but it
was just one instant too late--they resumed their solemn masks as my
figure came into view. A hurried word or two passed between them, and
then Barker rose and came towards me.
"Excuse me, sir," said he, "but am I addressing Dr. Watson?"
I bowed with a coldness which showed, I dare say, very plainly the
impression which had been produced upon my mind.
"We thought that it was probably you, as your friendship with Mr.
Sherlock Holmes is so well known. Would you mind coming over and
speaking to Mrs. Douglas for one instant?"
I followed him with a dour face. Very clearly I could see in my
mind's eye that shattered figure on the floor. Here within a few
hours of the tragedy were his wife and his nearest friend laughing
together behind a bush in the garden which had been his. I greeted
the lady with reserve. I had grieved with her grief in the
dining-room. Now I met her appealing gaze with an unresponsive eye.
"I fear that you think me callous and hard-hearted," said she.
I shrugged my shoulders. "It is no business of mine," said I.
"Perhaps some day you will do me justice. If you only realized--"
"There is no need why Dr. Watson should realize," said Barker
quickly. "As he has himself said, it is no possible business of his."
"Exactly," said I, "and so I will beg leave to resume my walk."
"One moment, Dr. Watson," cried the woman in a pleading voice. "There
is one question which you can answer with more authority than anyone
else in the world, and it may make a very great difference to me. You
know Mr. Holmes and his relations with the police better than anyone
else can. Supposing that a matter were brought confidentially to his
knowledge, is it absolutely necessary that he should pass it on to
the detectives?"
"Yes, that's it," said Barker eagerly. "Is he on his own or is he
entirely in with them?"
"I really don't know that I should be justified in discussing such a
point."
"I beg--I implore that you will, Dr. Watson! I assure you that you
will be helping us--helping me greatly if you will guide us on that
point."
There was such a ring of sincerity in the woman's voice that for the
instant I forgot all about her levity and was moved only to do her
will.
"Mr. Holmes is an independent investigator," I said. "He is his own
master, and would act as his own judgment directed. At the same time,
he would naturally feel loyalty towards the officials who were
working on the same case, and he would not conceal from them anything
which would help them in bringing a criminal to justice. Beyond this
I can say nothing, and I would refer you to Mr. Holmes himself if you
wanted fuller information."
So saying I raised my hat and went upon my way, leaving them still
seated behind that concealing hedge. I looked back as I rounded the
far end of it, and saw that they were still talking very earnestly
together, and, as they were gazing after me, it was clear that it was
our interview that was the subject of their debate.
"I wish none of their confidences," said Holmes, when I reported to
him what had occurred. He had spent the whole afternoon at the Manor
House in consultation with his two colleagues, and returned about
five with a ravenous appetite for a high tea which I had ordered for
him. "No confidences, Watson; for they are mighty awkward if it comes
to an arrest for conspiracy and murder."
"You think it will come to that?"
He was in his most cheerful and debonair humour. "My dear Watson,
when I have exterminated that fourth egg I shall be ready to put you
in touch with the whole situation. I don't say that we have fathomed
it--far from it--but when we have traced the missing dumb-bell--"
"The dumb-bell!"
"Dear me, Watson, is it possible that you have not penetrated the
fact that the case hangs upon the missing dumb-bell? Well, well, you
need not be downcast; for between ourselves I don't think that either
Inspector Mac or the excellent local practitioner has grasped the
overwhelming importance of this incident. One dumb-bell, Watson!
Consider an athlete with one dumb-bell! Picture to yourself the
unilateral development, the imminent danger of a spinal curvature.
Shocking, Watson, shocking!"
He sat with his mouth full of toast and his eyes sparkling with
mischief, watching my intellectual entanglement. The mere sight of
his excellent appetite was an assurance of success, for I had very
clear recollections of days and nights without a thought of food,
when his baffled mind had chafed before some problem while his thin,
eager features became more attenuated with the asceticism of complete
mental concentration. Finally he lit his pipe, and sitting in the
inglenook of the old village inn he talked slowly and at random about
his case, rather as one who thinks aloud than as one who makes a
considered statement.
"A lie, Watson--a great, big, thumping, obtrusive, uncompromising
lie--that's what meets us on the threshold! There is our starting
point. The whole story told by Barker is a lie. But Barker's story is
corroborated by Mrs. Douglas. Therefore she is lying also. They are
both lying, and in a conspiracy. So now we have the clear problem.
Why are they lying, and what is the truth which they are trying so
hard to conceal? Let us try, Watson, you and I, if we can get behind
the lie and reconstruct the truth.
"How do I know that they are lying? Because it is a clumsy
fabrication which simply could not be true. Consider! According to
the story given to us, the assassin had less than a minute after the
murder had been committed to take that ring, which was under another
ring, from the dead man's finger, to replace the other ring--a thing
which he would surely never have done--and to put that singular card
beside his victim. I say that this was obviously impossible.
"You may argue--but I have too much respect for your judgment,
Watson, to think that you will do so--that the ring may have been
taken before the man was killed. The fact that the candle had been
lit only a short time shows that there had been no lengthy interview.
Was Douglas, from what we hear of his fearless character, a man who
would be likely to give up his wedding ring at such short notice, or
could we conceive of his giving it up at all? No, no, Watson, the
assassin was alone with the dead man for some time with the lamp lit.
Of that I have no doubt at all.
"But the gunshot was apparently the cause of death. Therefore the
shot must have been fired some time earlier than we are told. But
there could be no mistake about such a matter as that. We are in the
presence, therefore, of a deliberate conspiracy upon the part of the
two people who heard the gunshot--of the man Barker and of the woman
Douglas. When on the top of this I am able to show that the blood
mark on the windowsill was deliberately placed there by Barker, in
order to give a false clue to the police, you will admit that the
case grows dark against him.
"Now we have to ask ourselves at what hour the murder actually did
occur. Up to half-past ten the servants were moving about the house;
so it was certainly not before that time. At a quarter to eleven they
had all gone to their rooms with the exception of Ames, who was in
the pantry. I have been trying some experiments after you left us
this afternoon, and I find that no noise which MacDonald can make in
the study can penetrate to me in the pantry when the doors are all
shut.
"It is otherwise, however, from the housekeeper's room. It is not so
far down the corridor, and from it I could vaguely hear a voice when
it was very loudly raised. The sound from a shotgun is to some extent
muffled when the discharge is at very close range, as it undoubtedly
was in this instance. It would not be very loud, and yet in the
silence of the night it should have easily penetrated to Mrs. Allen's
room. She is, as she has told us, somewhat deaf; but none the less
she mentioned in her evidence that she did hear something like a door
slamming half an hour before the alarm was given. Half an hour before
the alarm was given would be a quarter to eleven. I have no doubt
that what she heard was the report of the gun, and that this was the
real instant of the murder.
"If this is so, we have now to determine what Barker and Mrs.
Douglas, presuming that they are not the actual murderers, could have
been doing from quarter to eleven, when the sound of the shot brought
them down, until quarter past eleven, when they rang the bell and
summoned the servants. What were they doing, and why did they not
instantly give the alarm? That is the question which faces us, and
when it has been answered we shall surely have gone some way to solve
our problem."
"I am convinced myself," said I, "that there is an understanding
between those two people. She must be a heartless creature to sit
laughing at some jest within a few hours of her husband's murder."
"Exactly. She does not shine as a wife even in her own account of
what occurred. I am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind, as you
are aware, Watson, but my experience of life has taught me that there
are few wives, having any regard for their husbands, who would let
any man's spoken word stand between them and that husband's dead
body. Should I ever marry, Watson, I should hope to inspire my wife
with some feeling which would prevent her from being walked off by a
housekeeper when my corpse was lying within a few yards of her. It
was badly stage-managed; for even the rawest investigators must be
struck by the absence of the usual feminine ululation. If there had
been nothing else, this incident alone would have suggested a
prearranged conspiracy to my mind."
"You think then, definitely, that Barker and Mrs. Douglas are guilty
of the murder?"
"There is an appalling directness about your questions, Watson," said
Holmes, shaking his pipe at me. "They come at me like bullets. If you
put it that Mrs. Douglas and Barker know the truth about the murder,
and are conspiring to conceal it, then I can give you a whole-souled
answer. I am sure they do. But your more deadly proposition is not so
clear. Let us for a moment consider the difficulties which stand in
the way.
"We will suppose that this couple are united by the bonds of a guilty
love, and that they have determined to get rid of the man who stands
between them. It is a large supposition; for discreet inquiry among
servants and others has failed to corroborate it in any way. On the
contrary, there is a good deal of evidence that the Douglases were
