he darted away into the fog."
"Without a word?"
"He gave an exclamation; that was all. I waited but he never
returned. Then I walked home. Next morning, after the office opened,
they came to inquire. About twelve o'clock we heard the terrible
news. Oh, Mr. Holmes, if you could only, only save his honour! It was
so much to him."
Holmes shook his head sadly.
"Come, Watson," said he, "our ways lie elsewhere. Our next station
must be the office from which the papers were taken.
"It was black enough before against this young man, but our inquiries
make it blacker," he remarked as the cab lumbered off. "His coming
marriage gives a motive for the crime. He naturally wanted money. The
idea was in his head, since he spoke about it. He nearly made the
girl an accomplice in the treason by telling her his plans. It is all
very bad."
"But surely, Holmes, character goes for something? Then, again, why
should he leave the girl in the street and dart away to commit a
felony?"
"Exactly! There are certainly objections. But it is a formidable case
which they have to meet."
Mr. Sidney Johnson, the senior clerk, met us at the office and
received us with that respect which my companion's card always
commanded. He was a thin, gruff, bespectacled man of middle age, his
cheeks haggard, and his hands twitching from the nervous strain to
which he had been subjected.
"It is bad, Mr. Holmes, very bad! Have you heard of the death of the
chief?"
"We have just come from his house."
"The place is disorganized. The chief dead, Cadogan West dead, our
papers stolen. And yet, when we closed our door on Monday evening, we
were as efficient an office as any in the government service. Good
God, it's dreadful to think of! That West, of all men, should have
done such a thing!"
"You are sure of his guilt, then?"
"I can see no other way out of it. And yet I would have trusted him
as I trust myself."
"At what hour was the office closed on Monday?"
"At five."
"Did you close it?"
"I am always the last man out."
"Where were the plans?"
"In that safe. I put them there myself."
"Is there no watchman to the building?"
"There is, but he has other departments to look after as well. He is
an old soldier and a most trustworthy man. He saw nothing that
evening. Of course the fog was very thick."
"Suppose that Cadogan West wished to make his way into the building
after hours; he would need three keys, would he not, before the could
reach the papers?"
"Yes, he would. The key of the outer door, the key of the office, and
the key of the safe."
"Only Sir James Walter and you had those keys?"
"I had no keys of the doors--only of the safe."
"Was Sir James a man who was orderly in his habits?"
"Yes, I think he was. I know that so far as those three keys are
concerned he kept them on the same ring. I have often seen them
there."
"And that ring went with him to London?"
"He said so."
"And your key never left your possession?"
"Never."
"Then West, if he is the culprit, must have had a duplicate. And yet
none was found upon his body. One other point: if a clerk in this
office desired to sell the plans, would it not be simply to copy the
plans for himself than to take the originals, as was actually done?"
"It would take considerable technical knowledge to copy the plans in
an effective way."
"But I suppose either Sir James, or you, or West has that technical
knowledge?"
"No doubt we had, but I beg you won't try to drag me into the matter,
Mr. Holmes. What is the use of our speculating in this way when the
original plans were actually found on West?"
"Well, it is certainly singular that he should run the risk of taking
originals if he could safely have taken copies, which would have
equally served his turn."
"Singular, no doubt--and yet he did so."
"Every inquiry in this case reveals something inexplicable. Now there
are three papers still missing. They are, as I understand, the vital
ones."
"Yes, that is so."
"Do you mean to say that anyone holding these three papers, and
without the seven others, could construct a Bruce-Partington
submarine?"
"I reported to that effect to the Admiralty. But to-day I have been
over the drawings again, and I am not so sure of it. The double
valves with the automatic self-adjusting slots are drawn in one of
the papers which have been returned. Until the foreigners had
invented that for themselves they could not make the boat. Of course
they might soon get over the difficulty."
"But the three missing drawings are the most important?"
"Undoubtedly."
"I think, with your permission, I will now take a stroll round the
premises. I do not recall any other question which I desired to ask."
He examined the lock of the safe, the door of the room, and finally
the iron shutters of the window. It was only when we were on the lawn
outside that his interest was strongly excited. There was a laurel
bush outside the window, and several of the branches bore signs of
having been twisted or snapped. He examined them carefully with his
lens, and then some dim and vague marks upon the earth beneath.
Finally he asked the chief clerk to close the iron shutters, and he
pointed out to me that they hardly met in the centre, and that it
would be possible for anyone outside to see what was going on within
the room.
"The indications are ruined by three days' delay. They may mean
something or nothing. Well, Watson, I do not think that Woolwich can
help us further. It is a small crop which we have gathered. Let us
see if we can do better in London."
Yet we added one more sheaf to our harvest before we left Woolwich
Station. The clerk in the ticket office was able to say with
confidence that he saw Cadogan West--whom he knew well by sight--upon
the Monday night, and that he went to London by the 8.15 to London
Bridge. He was alone and took a single third-class ticket. The clerk
was struck at the time by his excited and nervous manner. So shaky
was he that he could hardly pick up his change, and the clerk had
helped him with it. A reference to the timetable showed that the 8.15
was the first train which it was possible for West to take after he
had left the lady about 7.30.
"Let us reconstruct, Watson," said Holmes after half an hour of
silence. "I am not aware that in all our joint researches we have
ever had a case which was more difficult to get at. Every fresh
advance which we make only reveals a fresh ridge beyond. And yet we
have surely made some appreciable progress.
"The effect of our inquiries at Woolwich has in the main been against
young Cadogan West; but the indications at the window would lend
themselves to a more favourable hypothesis. Let us suppose, for
example, that he had been approached by some foreign agent. It might
have been done under such pledges as would have prevented him from
speaking of it, and yet would have affected his thoughts in the
direction indicated by his remarks to his fiancee. Very good. We will
now suppose that as he went to the theatre with the young lady he
suddenly, in the fog, caught a glimpse of this same agent going in
the direction of the office. He was an impetuous man, quick in his
decisions. Everything gave way to his duty. He followed the man,
reached the window, saw the abstraction of the documents, and pursued
the thief. In this way we get over the objection that no one would
take originals when he could make copies. This outsider had to take
originals. So far it holds together."
"What is the next step?"
"Then we come into difficulties. One would imagine that under such
circumstances the first act of young Cadogan West would be to seize
the villain and raise the alarm. Why did he not do so? Could it have
been an official superior who took the papers? That would explain
West's conduct. Or could the chief have given West the slip in the
fog, and West started at once to London to head him off from his own
rooms, presuming that he knew where the rooms were? The call must
have been very pressing, since he left his girl standing in the fog
and made no effort to communicate with her. Our scent runs cold here,
and there is a vast gap between either hypothesis and the laying of
West's body, with seven papers in his pocket, on the roof of a
Metropolitan train. My instinct now is to work form the other end. If
Mycroft has given us the list of addresses we may be able to pick our
man and follow two tracks instead of one."
Surely enough, a note awaited us at Baker Street. A government
messenger had brought it post-haste. Holmes glanced at it and threw
it over to me.
There are numerous small fry, but few who would handle so big an
affair. The only men worth considering are Adolph Mayer, of 13 Great
George Street, Westminster; Louis La Rothiere, of Campden Mansions,
Notting Hill; and Hugo Oberstein, 13 Caulfield Gardens, Kensington.
The latter was known to be in town on Monday and is now reported as
having left. Glad to hear you have seen some light. The Cabinet
awaits your final report with the utmost anxiety. Urgent
representations have arrived from the very highest quarter. The whole
force of the State is at your back if you should need it.
Mycroft.
"I'm afraid," said Holmes, smiling, "that all the queen's horses and
all the queen's men cannot avail in this matter." He had spread out
his big map of London and leaned eagerly over it. "Well, well," said
he presently with an exclamation of satisfaction, "things are turning
a little in our direction at last. Why, Watson, I do honestly believe
that we are going to pull it off, after all." He slapped me on the
shoulder with a sudden burst of hilarity. "I am going out now. It is
only a reconnaissance. I will do nothing serious without my trusted
comrade and biographer at my elbow. Do you stay here, and the odds
are that you will see me again in an hour or two. If time hangs heavy
get foolscap and a pen, and begin your narrative of how we saved the
State."
I felt some reflection of his elation in my own mind, for I knew well
that he would not depart so far from his usual austerity of demeanour
unless there was good cause for exultation. All the long November
evening I waited, filled with impatience for his return. At last,
shortly after nine o'clock, there arrived a messenger with a note:
Am dining at Goldini's Restaurant, Gloucester Road, Kensington.
Please come at once and join me there. Bring with you a jemmy, a dark
lantern, a chisel, and a revolver.
S.H.
It was a nice equipment for a respectable citizen to carry through
the dim, fog-draped streets. I stowed them all discreetly away in my
overcoat and drove straight to the address given. There sat my friend
at a little round table near the door of the garish Italian
restaurant.
"Have you had something to eat? Then join me in a coffee and curacao.
Try one of the proprietor's cigars. They are less poisonous than one
would expect. Have you the tools?"
"They are here, in my overcoat."
"Excellent. Let me give you a short sketch of what I have done, with
some indication of what we are about to do. Now it must be evident to
you, Watson, that this young man's body was placed on the roof of the
train. That was clear from the instant that I determined the fact
that it was from the roof, and not from a carriage, that he had
fallen."
"Could it not have been dropped from a bridge?"
"I should say it was impossible. If you examine the roofs you will
find that they are slightly rounded, and there is no railing round
them. Therefore, we can say for certain that young Cadogan West was
placed on it."
"How could he be placed there?"
"That was the question which we had to answer. There is only one
possible way. You are aware that the Underground runs clear of
tunnels at some points in the West End. I had a vague memory that as
I have travelled by it I have occasionally seen windows just above my
head. Now, suppose that a train halted under such a window, would
there be any difficulty in laying a body upon the roof?"
"It seems most improbable."
"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other
contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the
truth. Here all other contingencies have failed. When I found that
the leading international agent, who had just left London, lived in a
row of houses which abutted upon the Underground, I was so pleased
