第 11 页

for some time to come. Hence those vows of fidelity exacted

upon a Testament, and hence also the allusions to a possibility of

something happening on the very morning of the wedding. James

Windibank wished Miss Sutherland to be so bound to Hosmer

Angel, and so uncertain as to his fate, that for ten years to come,

at any rate, she would not listen to another man. As far as the

church door he brought her, and then, as he could go no farther,

he conveniently vanished away by the old trick of stepping in at

one door of a four-wheeler and out at the other. I think that was

the chain of events, Mr. Windibank!"

Our visitor had recovered something of his assurance while

Holmes had been talking, and he rose from his chair now with a

cold sneer upon his pale face.

"It may be so, or it may not. Mr. Holmes," said he. "but if

you are so very sharp you ought to be sharp enough to know that

it is you who are breaking the law now, and not me. I have done

nothing actionable from the first, but as long as you keep that

door locked you lay yourself open to an action for assault and

illegal constraint."

"The law cannot, as you say, touch you," said Holmes,

unlocking and throwing open the door, "yet there never was a

man who deserved punishment more. If the young lady has a

brother or a friend, he ought to lay a whip across your shoulders.

By Jove!" he continued, flushing up at the sight of the bitter

sneer upon the man's face, "it is not part of my duties to my

client, but here's a hunting crop handy, and I think I shall just

treat myself to --" He took two swift steps to the whip, but

before he could grasp it there was a wild clatter of steps upon the

stairs, the heavy hall door banged, and from the window we

could see Mr. James Windibank running at the top of his speed

down the road.

"There's a cold-blooded scoundrel!" said Holmes, laughing,

as he threw himself down into his chair once more. "That fellow

will rise from crime to crime until he does something very bad,

and ends on a gallows. The case has, in some respects, been not

entirely devoid of interest."

"I cannot now entirely see all the steps of your reasoning," I

remarked.

"Well, of course it was obvious from the first that this Mr.

Hosmer Angel must have some strong object for his curious

conduct, and it was equally clear that the only man who really

profited by the incident, as far as we could see, was the step-

father. Then the fact that the two men were never together, but

that the one always appeared when the other was away, was

suggestive. So were the tinted spectacles and the curious voice,

which both hinted at a disguise, as did the bushy whiskers. My

suspicions were all confirmed by his peculiar action in typewrit-

ing his signature, which, of course, inferred that his handwriting

was so familiar to her that she would recognize even the smallest

sample of it. You see all these isolated facts, together with many

minor ones, all pointed in the same direction."

"And how did you verify them?"

"Having once spotted my man, it was easy to get corrobora-

tion. I knew the firm for which this man worked. Having taken

the printed description. I eliminated everything from it which

could be the result of a disguise -- the whiskers, the glasses, the

voice, and I sent it to the firm, with a request that they would

inform me whether it answered to the description of any of their

travellers. I had already noticed the peculiarities of the type-

writer, and I wrote to the man himself at his business address

asking him if he would come here. As I expected, his reply was

typewritten and revealed the same trivial but characteristic de-

fects. The same post brought me a letter from Westhouse &

Marbank, of Fenchurch Street, to say that the description tallied

in every respect with that of their employee, James Windibank.

Voila tout!"

"And Miss Sutherland?"

"If I tell her she will not believe me. You may remember the

old Persian saying, 'There is danger for him who taketh the tiger

cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a

woman.' There is as much sense in Hafiz as in Horace, and as

much knowledge of the world."

The Boscombe Valley Mystery

We were seated at breakfast one morning, my wife and I,

when the maid brought in a telegram. It was from Sherlock

Holmes and ran in this way:

Have you a couple of days to spare? Have just been wired

for from the west of England in connection with Boscombe

Valley tragedy. Shall be glad if you will come with me. Air

and scenery perfect. Leave Paddington by the 11:15.

"What do you say, dear?" said my wife, looking across at

me. "Will you go?"

"I really don't know what to say. I have a fairly long list at

present."

"Oh, Anstruther would do your work for you. You have been

looking a little pale lately. I think that the change would do you

good, and you are always so interested in Mr. Sherlock Holmes's

cases."

"I should be ungrateful if I were not, seeing what I gained

through one of them," I answered. "But if I am to go, I must

pack at once, for I have only half an hour."

My experience of camp life in Afghanistan had at least had the

effect of making me a prompt and ready traveller. My wants

were few and simple, so that in less than the time stated I was in

a cab with my valise, rattling away to Paddington Station.

Sherlock Holmes was pacing up and down the platform, his tall,

gaunt figure made even gaunter and taller by his long gray

travelling-cloak and close-fitting cloth cap.

"It is reaily very good of you to come, Watson," said he. "It

makes a considerable difference to me, having someone with me

on whom I can thoroughly rely. Local aid is always either

worthless or else biassed. If you will keep the two corner seats I

shall get the tickets."

We had the carriage to ourselves save for an immense litter of

papers which Holmes had brought with him. Among these he

rummaged and read, with intervals of note-taking and of medita-

tion, until we were past Reading. Then he suddenly rolled them

all into a gigantic ball and tossed them up onto the rack.

"Have you heard anything of the case?" he asked.

"Not a word. I have not seen a paper for some days."

"The London press has not had very full accounts. I have just

been looking through all the recent papers in order to master the

particulars. It seems, from what I gather, to be one of those

simple cases which are so extremely difficult."

"That sounds a little paradoxical."

"But it is profoundly true. Singularity is almost invariably a

clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the

more difficult it is to bring it home. In this case, however, they

have established a very serious case against the son of the

murdered man."

"It is a murder, then?"

"Well, it is conjectured to be so. I shall take nothing for

granted until I have the opportunity of looking personally into it.

I will explain the state of things to you, as far as I have been able

to understand it, in a very few words.

"Boscombe Valley is a country district not very far from

Ross, in Herefordshire. The largest landed proprietor in that part

is a Mr. John Turner, who made his money in Australia and

returned some years ago to the old country. One of the farms

which he held, that of Hatherley, was let to Mr. Charles McCar-

thy, who was also an ex-Australian. The men had known each

other in the colonies, so that it was not unnatural that when they

came to settle down they should do so as near each other as

possible. Turner was apparently the richer man, so McCarthy

became his tenant but still remained, it seems, upon terms of

perfect equality, as they were frequently together. McCarthy had

one son, a lad of eighteen, and Turner had an only daughter of

the same age, but neither of them had wives living. They appear

to have avoided the society of the neighbouring English families

and to have led retired lives, though both the McCarthys were

fond of sport and were frequently seen at the race-meetings of

the neighbourhood. McCarthy kept two servants -- a man and a

girl. Turner had a considerable household, some half-dozen at

the least. That is as much as I have been able to gather about the

families. Now for the facts.

"On June 3rd, that is, on Monday last, McCarthy left his

house at Hatherley about three in the afternoon and walked down

to the Boscombe Pool, which is a small lake formed by the

spreading out of the stream which runs down the Boscombe

Valley. He had been out with his serving-man in the morning at

Ross, and he had told the man that he must hurry, as he had an

appointment of importance to keep at three. From that appoint-

ment he never came back alive.

"From Hatherley Farmhouse to the Boscombe Pool is a quar-

ter of a mile, and two people saw him as he passed over this

ground. One was an old woman, whose name is not mentioned,

and the other was William Crowder, a game-keeper in the em-

ploy of Mr. Turner. Both these witnesses depose that Mr. McCarthy

was walking alone. The game-keeper adds that within a few

minutes of his seeing Mr. McCarthy pass he had seen his son,

Mr. James McCarthy, going the same way with a gun under

his arm. To the best of his belief, the father was actually in sight

at the time, and the son was following him. He thought no more

of the matter until he heard in the evening of the tragedy that had

occurred.

"The two McCarthys were seen after the time when William

Crowder, the game-keeper, lost sight of them. The Boscombe

Pool is thickly wooded round, with just a fringe of grass and of

reeds round the edge. A girl of fourteen, Patience Moran, who is

the daughter of the lodge-keeper of the Boscombe Valley estate,

was in one of the woods picking flowers. She states that while

she was there she saw, at the border of the wood and close by

the lake, Mr. McCarthy and his son, and that they appeared to be

having a violent quarrel. She heard Mr. McCarthy the elder

using very strong language to his son, and she saw the latter

raise up his hand as if to strike his father. She was so frightened

by their violence that she ran away and told her mother when she

reached home that she had left the two McCarthys quarrelling

near Boscombe Pool, and that she was afraid that they were

going to fight. She had hardly said the words when young Mr.

McCarthy came running up to the lodge to say that he had found

his father dead in the wood, and to ask for the help of the

lodge-keeper. He was much excited, without either his gun or his

hat, and his right hand and sleeve were observed to be stained

with fresh blood. On following him they found the dead body

stretched out upon the grass beside the pool. The head had been

beaten in by repeated blows of some heavy and blunt weapon.

The injuries were such as might very well have been inflicted by

the butt-end of his son's gun, which was found lying on the grass

within a few paces of the body. Under these circumstances the

young man was instantly arrested, and a verdict of 'wilful mur-

der' having been returned at the inquest on Tuesday, he was on

Wednesday brought before the magistrates at Ross, who have

referred the case to the next Assizes. Those are the main facts of

the case as they came out before the coroner and the police-court."

"I could hardly imagine a more damning case," I remarked.

"If ever circumstantial evidence pointed to a criminal it does so

here."

"Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing," answered

Holmes thoughtfully. "It may seem to point very straight to one

thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may

find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to some-

thing entirely different. It must be confessed, however, that the

case looks exceedingly grave against the young man, and it is

very possible that he is indeed the culprit. There are several

people in the neighbourhood, however, and among them Miss

Turner, the daughter of the neighbouring landowner, who be-

lieve in his innocence, and who have retained Lestrade, whom

you may recollect in connection with 'A Study in Scarlet', to

work out the case in his interest. Lestrade, being rather puzzled,

has referred the case to me, and hence it is that two middle-aged

gentlemen are flying westward at fifty miles an hour instead of

quietly digesting their breakfasts at home."

"I am afraid," said I, "that the facts are so obvious that you

will find little credit to be gained out of this case."

"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact," he

answered, laughing. "Besides, we may chance to hit upon some

other obvious facts which may have been by no means obvious

to Mr. Lestrade. You know me too well to think that I am

boasting when I say that I shall either confirm or destroy his

theory by means which he is quite incapable of employing, or

even of understanding. To take the first example to hand, I very

clearly perceive that in your bedroom the window is upon the

right-hand side, and yet I question whether Mr. Lestrade would

have noted even so self-evident a thing as that."

"How on earth --"

"My dear fellow, I know you well. I know the military

neatness which characterizes you. You shave every morning, and

in this season you shave by the sunlight; but since your shaving

is less and less complete as we get farther back on the left side,

until it becomes positively slovenly as we get round the angle of

the jaw, it is surely very clear that that side is less illuminated

than the other. I could not imagine a man of your habits looking