point of view that what this young man says is true, and we shall see
whither that hypothesis will lead us. And now here is my pocket
Petrarch, and not another word shall I say of this case until we are
on the scene of action. We lunch at Swindon, and I see that we shall
be there in twenty minutes."
It was nearly four o'clock when we at last, after passing through the
beautiful Stroud Valley, and over the broad gleaming Severn, found
ourselves at the pretty little country-town of Ross. A lean,
ferret-like man, furtive and sly-looking, was waiting for us upon the
platform. In spite of the light brown dustcoat and leather-leggings
which he wore in deference to his rustic surroundings, I had no
difficulty in recognising Lestrade, of Scotland Yard. With him we
drove to the Hereford Arms where a room had already been engaged for
us.
"I have ordered a carriage," said Lestrade as we sat over a cup of
tea. "I knew your energetic nature, and that you would not be happy
until you had been on the scene of the crime."
"It was very nice and complimentary of you," Holmes answered. "It is
entirely a question of barometric pressure."
Lestrade looked startled. "I do not quite follow," he said.
"How is the glass? Twenty-nine, I see. No wind, and not a cloud in
the sky. I have a caseful of cigarettes here which need smoking, and
the sofa is very much superior to the usual country hotel
abomination. I do not think that it is probable that I shall use the
carriage to-night."
Lestrade laughed indulgently. "You have, no doubt, already formed
your conclusions from the newspapers," he said. "The case is as plain
as a pikestaff, and the more one goes into it the plainer it becomes.
Still, of course, one can't refuse a lady, and such a very positive
one, too. She has heard of you, and would have your opinion, though I
repeatedly told her that there was nothing which you could do which I
had not already done. Why, bless my soul! here is her carriage at the
door."
He had hardly spoken before there rushed into the room one of the
most lovely young women that I have ever seen in my life. Her violet
eyes shining, her lips parted, a pink flush upon her cheeks, all
thought of her natural reserve lost in her overpowering excitement
and concern.
"Oh, Mr. Sherlock Holmes!" she cried, glancing from one to the other
of us, and finally, with a woman's quick intuition, fastening upon my
companion, "I am so glad that you have come. I have driven down to
tell you so. I know that James didn't do it. I know it, and I want
you to start upon your work knowing it, too. Never let yourself doubt
upon that point. We have known each other since we were little
children, and I know his faults as no one else does; but he is too
tender-hearted to hurt a fly. Such a charge is absurd to anyone who
really knows him."
"I hope we may clear him, Miss Turner," said Sherlock Holmes. "You
may rely upon my doing all that I can."
"But you have read the evidence. You have formed some conclusion? Do
you not see some loophole, some flaw? Do you not yourself think that
he is innocent?"
"I think that it is very probable."
"There, now!" she cried, throwing back her head and looking defiantly
at Lestrade. "You hear! He gives me hopes."
Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. "I am afraid that my colleague has
been a little quick in forming his conclusions," he said.
"But he is right. Oh! I know that he is right. James never did it.
And about his quarrel with his father, I am sure that the reason why
he would not speak about it to the coroner was because I was
concerned in it."
"In what way?" asked Holmes.
"It is no time for me to hide anything. James and his father had many
disagreements about me. Mr. McCarthy was very anxious that there
should be a marriage between us. James and I have always loved each
other as brother and sister; but of course he is young and has seen
very little of life yet, and--and--well, he naturally did not wish to
do anything like that yet. So there were quarrels, and this, I am
sure, was one of them."
"And your father?" asked Holmes. "Was he in favour of such a union?"
"No, he was averse to it also. No one but Mr. McCarthy was in favour
of it." A quick blush passed over her fresh young face as Holmes shot
one of his keen, questioning glances at her.
"Thank you for this information," said he. "May I see your father if
I call to-morrow?"
"I am afraid the doctor won't allow it."
"The doctor?"
"Yes, have you not heard? Poor father has never been strong for years
back, but this has broken him down completely. He has taken to his
bed, and Dr. Willows says that he is a wreck and that his nervous
system is shattered. Mr. McCarthy was the only man alive who had
known dad in the old days in Victoria."
"Ha! In Victoria! That is important."
"Yes, at the mines."
"Quite so; at the gold-mines, where, as I understand, Mr. Turner made
his money."
"Yes, certainly."
"Thank you, Miss Turner. You have been of material assistance to me."
"You will tell me if you have any news to-morrow. No doubt you will
go to the prison to see James. Oh, if you do, Mr. Holmes, do tell him
that I know him to be innocent."
"I will, Miss Turner."
"I must go home now, for dad is very ill, and he misses me so if I
leave him. Good-bye, and God help you in your undertaking." She
hurried from the room as impulsively as she had entered, and we heard
the wheels of her carriage rattle off down the street.
"I am ashamed of you, Holmes," said Lestrade with dignity after a few
minutes' silence. "Why should you raise up hopes which you are bound
to disappoint? I am not over-tender of heart, but I call it cruel."
"I think that I see my way to clearing James McCarthy," said Holmes.
"Have you an order to see him in prison?"
"Yes, but only for you and me."
"Then I shall reconsider my resolution about going out. We have still
time to take a train to Hereford and see him to-night?"
"Ample."
"Then let us do so. Watson, I fear that you will find it very slow,
but I shall only be away a couple of hours."
I walked down to the station with them, and then wandered through the
streets of the little town, finally returning to the hotel, where I
lay upon the sofa and tried to interest myself in a yellow-backed
novel. The puny plot of the story was so thin, however, when compared
to the deep mystery through which we were groping, and I found my
attention wander so continually from the action to the fact, that I
at last flung it across the room and gave myself up entirely to a
consideration of the events of the day. Supposing that this unhappy
young man's story were absolutely true, then what hellish thing, what
absolutely unforeseen and extraordinary calamity could have occurred
between the time when he parted from his father, and the moment when,
drawn back by his screams, he rushed into the glade? It was something
terrible and deadly. What could it be? Might not the nature of the
injuries reveal something to my medical instincts? I rang the bell
and called for the weekly county paper, which contained a verbatim
account of the inquest. In the surgeon's deposition it was stated
that the posterior third of the left parietal bone and the left half
of the occipital bone had been shattered by a heavy blow from a blunt
weapon. I marked the spot upon my own head. Clearly such a blow must
have been struck from behind. That was to some extent in favour of
the accused, as when seen quarrelling he was face to face with his
father. Still, it did not go for very much, for the older man might
have turned his back before the blow fell. Still, it might be worth
while to call Holmes' attention to it. Then there was the peculiar
dying reference to a rat. What could that mean? It could not be
delirium. A man dying from a sudden blow does not commonly become
delirious. No, it was more likely to be an attempt to explain how he
met his fate. But what could it indicate? I cudgelled my brains to
find some possible explanation. And then the incident of the grey
cloth seen by young McCarthy. If that were true the murderer must
have dropped some part of his dress, presumably his overcoat, in his
flight, and must have had the hardihood to return and to carry it
away at the instant when the son was kneeling with his back turned
not a dozen paces off. What a tissue of mysteries and improbabilities
the whole thing was! I did not wonder at Lestrade's opinion, and yet
I had so much faith in Sherlock Holmes' insight that I could not lose
hope as long as every fresh fact seemed to strengthen his conviction
of young McCarthy's innocence.
It was late before Sherlock Holmes returned. He came back alone, for
Lestrade was staying in lodgings in the town.
"The glass still keeps very high," he remarked as he sat down. "It is
of importance that it should not rain before we are able to go over
the ground. On the other hand, a man should be at his very best and
keenest for such nice work as that, and I did not wish to do it when
fagged by a long journey. I have seen young McCarthy."
"And what did you learn from him?"
"Nothing."
"Could he throw no light?"
"None at all. I was inclined to think at one time that he knew who
had done it and was screening him or her, but I am convinced now that
he is as puzzled as everyone else. He is not a very quick-witted
youth, though comely to look at and, I should think, sound at heart."
"I cannot admire his taste," I remarked, "if it is indeed a fact that
he was averse to a marriage with so charming a young lady as this
Miss Turner."
"Ah, thereby hangs a rather painful tale. This fellow is madly,
insanely, in love with her, but some two years ago, when he was only
a lad, and before he really knew her, for she had been away five
years at a boarding-school, what does the idiot do but get into the
clutches of a barmaid in Bristol and marry her at a registry office?
No one knows a word of the matter, but you can imagine how maddening
it must be to him to be upbraided for not doing what he would give
his very eyes to do, but what he knows to be absolutely impossible.
It was sheer frenzy of this sort which made him throw his hands up
into the air when his father, at their last interview, was goading
him on to propose to Miss Turner. On the other hand, he had no means
of supporting himself, and his father, who was by all accounts a very
hard man, would have thrown him over utterly had he known the truth.
It was with his barmaid wife that he had spent the last three days in
Bristol, and his father did not know where he was. Mark that point.
It is of importance. Good has come out of evil, however, for the
barmaid, finding from the papers that he is in serious trouble and
likely to be hanged, has thrown him over utterly and has written to
him to say that she has a husband already in the Bermuda Dockyard, so
that there is really no tie between them. I think that that bit of
news has consoled young McCarthy for all that he has suffered."
"But if he is innocent, who has done it?"
"Ah! who? I would call your attention very particularly to two
points. One is that the murdered man had an appointment with someone
at the pool, and that the someone could not have been his son, for
his son was away, and he did not know when he would return. The
second is that the murdered man was heard to cry 'Cooee!' before he
knew that his son had returned. Those are the crucial points upon
which the case depends. And now let us talk about George Meredith, if
you please, and we shall leave all minor matters until to-morrow."
There was no rain, as Holmes had foretold, and the morning broke
bright and cloudless. At nine o'clock Lestrade called for us with the
carriage, and we set off for Hatherley Farm and the Boscombe Pool.
"There is serious news this morning," Lestrade observed. "It is said
that Mr. Turner, of the Hall, is so ill that his life is despaired
of."
"An elderly man, I presume?" said Holmes.
"About sixty; but his constitution has been shattered by his life
abroad, and he has been in failing health for some time. This
business has had a very bad effect upon him. He was an old friend of
McCarthy's, and, I may add, a great benefactor to him, for I have
learned that he gave him Hatherley Farm rent free."
"Indeed! That is interesting," said Holmes.
"Oh, yes! In a hundred other ways he has helped him. Everybody about
here speaks of his kindness to him."
"Really! Does it not strike you as a little singular that this
