Are you sure that everything is fastened?'
"'Quite sure, dad.'
"'Then, good-night.' I kissed her and went up to my bedroom again,
where I was soon asleep.
"I am endeavouring to tell you everything, Mr. Holmes, which may have
any bearing upon the case, but I beg that you will question me upon
any point which I do not make clear."
"On the contrary, your statement is singularly lucid."
"I come to a part of my story now in which I should wish to be
particularly so. I am not a very heavy sleeper, and the anxiety in my
mind tended, no doubt, to make me even less so than usual. About two
in the morning, then, I was awakened by some sound in the house. It
had ceased ere I was wide awake, but it had left an impression behind
it as though a window had gently closed somewhere. I lay listening
with all my ears. Suddenly, to my horror, there was a distinct sound
of footsteps moving softly in the next room. I slipped out of bed,
all palpitating with fear, and peeped round the corner of my
dressing-room door.
"'Arthur!' I screamed, 'you villain! you thief! How dare you touch
that coronet?'
"The gas was half up, as I had left it, and my unhappy boy, dressed
only in his shirt and trousers, was standing beside the light,
holding the coronet in his hands. He appeared to be wrenching at it,
or bending it with all his strength. At my cry he dropped it from his
grasp and turned as pale as death. I snatched it up and examined it.
One of the gold corners, with three of the beryls in it, was missing.
"'You blackguard!' I shouted, beside myself with rage. 'You have
destroyed it! You have dishonoured me forever! Where are the jewels
which you have stolen?'
"'Stolen!' he cried.
"'Yes, thief!' I roared, shaking him by the shoulder.
"'There are none missing. There cannot be any missing,' said he.
"'There are three missing. And you know where they are. Must I call
you a liar as well as a thief? Did I not see you trying to tear off
another piece?'
"'You have called me names enough,' said he, 'I will not stand it any
longer. I shall not say another word about this business, since you
have chosen to insult me. I will leave your house in the morning and
make my own way in the world.'
"'You shall leave it in the hands of the police!' I cried half-mad
with grief and rage. 'I shall have this matter probed to the bottom.'
"'You shall learn nothing from me,' said he with a passion such as I
should not have thought was in his nature. 'If you choose to call the
police, let the police find what they can.'
"By this time the whole house was astir, for I had raised my voice in
my anger. Mary was the first to rush into my room, and, at the sight
of the coronet and of Arthur's face, she read the whole story and,
with a scream, fell down senseless on the ground. I sent the
house-maid for the police and put the investigation into their hands
at once. When the inspector and a constable entered the house,
Arthur, who had stood sullenly with his arms folded, asked me whether
it was my intention to charge him with theft. I answered that it had
ceased to be a private matter, but had become a public one, since the
ruined coronet was national property. I was determined that the law
should have its way in everything.
"'At least,' said he, 'you will not have me arrested at once. It
would be to your advantage as well as mine if I might leave the house
for five minutes.'
"'That you may get away, or perhaps that you may conceal what you
have stolen,' said I. And then, realising the dreadful position in
which I was placed, I implored him to remember that not only my
honour but that of one who was far greater than I was at stake; and
that he threatened to raise a scandal which would convulse the
nation. He might avert it all if he would but tell me what he had
done with the three missing stones.
"'You may as well face the matter,' said I; 'you have been caught in
the act, and no confession could make your guilt more heinous. If you
but make such reparation as is in your power, by telling us where the
beryls are, all shall be forgiven and forgotten.'
"'Keep your forgiveness for those who ask for it,' he answered,
turning away from me with a sneer. I saw that he was too hardened for
any words of mine to influence him. There was but one way for it. I
called in the inspector and gave him into custody. A search was made
at once not only of his person but of his room and of every portion
of the house where he could possibly have concealed the gems; but no
trace of them could be found, nor would the wretched boy open his
mouth for all our persuasions and our threats. This morning he was
removed to a cell, and I, after going through all the police
formalities, have hurried round to you to implore you to use your
skill in unravelling the matter. The police have openly confessed
that they can at present make nothing of it. You may go to any
expense which you think necessary. I have already offered a reward of
?000. My God, what shall I do! I have lost my honour, my gems, and
my son in one night. Oh, what shall I do!"
He put a hand on either side of his head and rocked himself to and
fro, droning to himself like a child whose grief has got beyond
words.
Sherlock Holmes sat silent for some few minutes, with his brows
knitted and his eyes fixed upon the fire.
"Do you receive much company?" he asked.
"None save my partner with his family and an occasional friend of
Arthur's. Sir George Burnwell has been several times lately. No one
else, I think."
"Do you go out much in society?"
"Arthur does. Mary and I stay at home. We neither of us care for it."
"That is unusual in a young girl."
"She is of a quiet nature. Besides, she is not so very young. She is
four-and-twenty."
"This matter, from what you say, seems to have been a shock to her
also."
"Terrible! She is even more affected than I."
"You have neither of you any doubt as to your son's guilt?"
"How can we have when I saw him with my own eyes with the coronet in
his hands."
"I hardly consider that a conclusive proof. Was the remainder of the
coronet at all injured?"
"Yes, it was twisted."
"Do you not think, then, that he might have been trying to straighten
it?"
"God bless you! You are doing what you can for him and for me. But it
is too heavy a task. What was he doing there at all? If his purpose
were innocent, why did he not say so?"
"Precisely. And if it were guilty, why did he not invent a lie? His
silence appears to me to cut both ways. There are several singular
points about the case. What did the police think of the noise which
awoke you from your sleep?"
"They considered that it might be caused by Arthur's closing his
bedroom door."
"A likely story! As if a man bent on felony would slam his door so as
to wake a household. What did they say, then, of the disappearance of
these gems?"
"They are still sounding the planking and probing the furniture in
the hope of finding them."
"Have they thought of looking outside the house?"
"Yes, they have shown extraordinary energy. The whole garden has
already been minutely examined."
"Now, my dear sir," said Holmes. "is it not obvious to you now that
this matter really strikes very much deeper than either you or the
police were at first inclined to think? It appeared to you to be a
simple case; to me it seems exceedingly complex. Consider what is
involved by your theory. You suppose that your son came down from his
bed, went, at great risk, to your dressing-room, opened your bureau,
took out your coronet, broke off by main force a small portion of it,
went off to some other place, concealed three gems out of the
thirty-nine, with such skill that nobody can find them, and then
returned with the other thirty-six into the room in which he exposed
himself to the greatest danger of being discovered. I ask you now, is
such a theory tenable?"
"But what other is there?" cried the banker with a gesture of
despair. "If his motives were innocent, why does he not explain
them?"
"It is our task to find that out," replied Holmes; "so now, if you
please, Mr. Holder, we will set off for Streatham together, and
devote an hour to glancing a little more closely into details."
My friend insisted upon my accompanying them in their expedition,
which I was eager enough to do, for my curiosity and sympathy were
deeply stirred by the story to which we had listened. I confess that
the guilt of the banker's son appeared to me to be as obvious as it
did to his unhappy father, but still I had such faith in Holmes'
judgment that I felt that there must be some grounds for hope as long
as he was dissatisfied with the accepted explanation. He hardly spoke
a word the whole way out to the southern suburb, but sat with his
chin upon his breast and his hat drawn over his eyes, sunk in the
deepest thought. Our client appeared to have taken fresh heart at the
little glimpse of hope which had been presented to him, and he even
broke into a desultory chat with me over his business affairs. A
short railway journey and a shorter walk brought us to Fairbank, the
modest residence of the great financier.
Fairbank was a good-sized square house of white stone, standing back
a little from the road. A double carriage-sweep, with a snow-clad
lawn, stretched down in front to two large iron gates which closed
the entrance. On the right side was a small wooden thicket, which led
into a narrow path between two neat hedges stretching from the road
to the kitchen door, and forming the tradesmen's entrance. On the
left ran a lane which led to the stables, and was not itself within
the grounds at all, being a public, though little used, thoroughfare.
Holmes left us standing at the door and walked slowly all round the
house, across the front, down the tradesmen's path, and so round by
the garden behind into the stable lane. So long was he that Mr.
Holder and I went into the dining-room and waited by the fire until
he should return. We were sitting there in silence when the door
opened and a young lady came in. She was rather above the middle
height, slim, with dark hair and eyes, which seemed the darker
against the absolute pallor of her skin. I do not think that I have
ever seen such deadly paleness in a woman's face. Her lips, too, were
bloodless, but her eyes were flushed with crying. As she swept
silently into the room she impressed me with a greater sense of grief
than the banker had done in the morning, and it was the more striking
in her as she was evidently a woman of strong character, with immense
capacity for self-restraint. Disregarding my presence, she went
straight to her uncle and passed her hand over his head with a sweet
womanly caress.
"You have given orders that Arthur should be liberated, have you not,
dad?" she asked.
"No, no, my girl, the matter must be probed to the bottom."
"But I am so sure that he is innocent. You know what woman's
instincts are. I know that he has done no harm and that you will be
sorry for having acted so harshly."
"Why is he silent, then, if he is innocent?"
"Who knows? Perhaps because he was so angry that you should suspect
him."
"How could I help suspecting him, when I actually saw him with the
coronet in his hand?"
"Oh, but he had only picked it up to look at it. Oh, do, do take my
word for it that he is innocent. Let the matter drop and say no more.
It is so dreadful to think of our dear Arthur in a prison!"
"I shall never let it drop until the gems are found--never, Mary!
Your affection for Arthur blinds you as to the awful consequences to
me. Far from hushing the thing up, I have brought a gentleman down
from London to inquire more deeply into it."
"This gentleman?" she asked, facing round to me.
"No, his friend. He wished us to leave him alone. He is round in the
stable lane now."
"The stable lane?" She raised her dark eyebrows. "What can he hope to
find there? Ah! this, I suppose, is he. I trust, sir, that you will
succeed in proving, what I feel sure is the truth, that my cousin
Arthur is innocent of this crime."
"I fully share your opinion, and I trust, with you, that we may prove
it," returned Holmes, going back to the mat to knock the snow from
his shoes. "I believe I have the honour of addressing Miss Mary
Holder. Might I ask you a question or two?"
"Pray do, sir, if it may help to clear this horrible affair up."
