第 3 页

hasten this interview to an end."

"This is indeed an unexpected development," said my friend when

we had regained the cab. "I wonder if the death was natural, or

whether the poor old fellow killed himself! If the latter, may

it be taken as some sign of self-reproach for duty neglected? We

must leave that question to the future. Now we shall turn to the

Cadogan Wests."

A small but well-kept house in the outskirts of the town

sheltered the bereaved mother. The old lady was too dazed with

grief to be of any use to us, but at her side was a white-faced

young lady, who introduced herself as Miss Violet Westbury, the

fiancee of the dead man, and the last to see him upon that fatal

night.

"I cannot explain it, Mr. Holmes," she said. "I have not shut an

eye since the tragedy, thinking, thinking, thinking, night and

day, what the true meaning of it can be. Arthur was the most

single-minded, chivalrous, patriotic man upon earth. He would

have cut his right hand off before he would sell a State secret

confided to his keeping. It is absurd, impossible, preposterous

to anyone who knew him."

"But the facts, Miss Westbury?"

"Yes, yes; I admit I cannot explain them."

"Was he in any want of money?"

"No; his needs were very simple and his salary ample. He had

saved a few hundreds, and we were to marry at the New Year."

"No signs of any mental excitement? Come, Miss Westbury, be

absolutely frank with us."

The quick eye of my companion had noted some change in her

manner. She coloured and hesitated.

"Yes," she said at last, "I had a feeling that there was

something on his mind."

"For long?"

"Only for the last week or so. He was thoughtful and worried.

Once I pressed him about it. He admitted that there was

something, and that it was concerned with his official life. 'It

is too serious for me to speak about, even to you,' said he. I

could get nothing more."

Holmes looked grave.

"Go on, Miss Westbury. Even if it seems to tell against him, go

on. We cannot say what it may lead to."

"Indeed, I have nothing more to tell. Once or twice it seemed to

me that he was on the point of telling me something. He spoke

one evening of the importance of the secret, and I have some

recollection that he said that no doubt foreign spies would pay a

great deal to have it."

My friend's face grew graver still.

"Anything else?"

"He said that we were slack about such matters--that it would be

easy for a traitor to get the plans."

"Was it only recently that he made such remarks?"

"Yes, quite recently."

"Now tell us of that last evening."

"We were to go to the theatre. The fog was so thick that a cab

was useless. We walked, and our way took us close to the office.

Suddenly 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