The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (71 page)

The invalid sank back upon his cushions, tired out by this long recital, while his nurse poured him out a glass of some stimulating medicine. Holmes sat silently with his head thrown back and his eyes closed in an attitude which might seem listless to a stranger, but which I knew betokened the most intense absorption.

‘Your statement has been so explicit,' said he at last, ‘that you have really left me very few questions to ask. There is one of the very utmost importance, however. Did you tell anyone that you had this special task to perform?'

‘No one.'

‘Not Miss Harrison here, for example?'

‘No. I had not been back to Woking between getting the order and executing the commission.'

‘And none of your people had by chance been to see you?'

‘None.'

‘Did any of them know their way about in the office?'

‘Oh, yes; all of them had been shown over it.'

‘Still, of course, if you said nothing to anyone about the treaty, these inquiries are irrelevant.'

‘I said nothing.'

‘Do you know anything of the commissionaire?'

‘Nothing, except that he is an old soldier.'

‘What regiment?'

‘Oh, I have heard – Coldstream Guards.'
¹³

‘Thank you. I have no doubt I can get details from Forbes. The authorities are excellent at amassing facts, though they do not always use them to advantage. What a lovely thing a rose is!'
¹⁴

He walked past the couch to the open window, and held up the drooping stalk of a moss rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects.

‘There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,' said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. ‘It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extra, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.'

Percy Phelps and his nurse looked at Holmes during this demonstration with surprise and a good deal of disappointment written upon their faces. He had fallen into a reverie, with the moss rose between his fingers. It had lasted some minutes before the young lady broke in upon it.

‘Do you see any prospect of solving this mystery, Mr Holmes?' she asked, with a touch of asperity in her voice.

‘Oh, the mystery!' he answered, coming back with a start to the realities of life. ‘Well, it would be absurd to deny that the case is a very
abstruse and complicated one, but I can promise you that I will look into the matter and let you know any points which may strike me.'

‘Do you see any clue?'

‘You have furnished me with seven, but of course I must test them before I can pronounce upon their value.'

‘You suspect someone?'

‘I suspect myself—'

‘What?'

‘Of coming to conclusions too rapidly.'

‘Then go to London and test your conclusions.'

‘Your advice is very excellent, Miss Harrison,' said Holmes, rising. ‘I think, Watson, we cannot do better. Do not allow yourself to indulge in false hopes, Mr Phelps. The affair is a very tangled one.'

‘I shall be in a fever until I see you again,' cried the diplomatist.

‘Well, I'll come out by the same train tomorrow, though it's more than likely that my report will be a negative one.'

‘God bless you for promising to come,' cried our client. ‘It gives me fresh life to know that something is being done. By the way, I have had a letter from Lord Holdhurst.'

‘Ha! What did he say?'

‘He was cold, but not harsh.I dare say my severe illness prevented him from being that. He repeated that the matter was of the utmost importance, and added that no steps would be taken about my future

– by which he means, of course, my dismissal – until my health was restored and I had an opportunity of repairing my misfortune.' ‘Well, that was reasonable and considerate,' said Holmes. ‘Come, Watson, for we have a good day's work before us in town.'

Mr Joseph Harrison drove us down to the station, and we were soon whirling up in a Portsmouth train. Holmes was sunk in profound thought, and hardly opened his mouth until we had passed Clapham Junction.

‘It's a very cheering thing to come into London by any of these lines which run high and allow you to look down upon the houses like this.'

I thought he was joking, for the view was sordid enough, but he soon explained himself.

‘Look at those big, isolated clumps of buildings rising up above the slates, like brick islands in a lead-coloured sea.'

‘The Board schools.'
¹⁵

‘Lighthouses, my boy! Beacons of the future! Capsules, with hundreds of bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wiser, better England of the future. I suppose that man Phelps does not drink?'

‘I should not think so.'

‘Nor should I. But we are bound to take every possibility into account. The poor devil has certainly got himself into very deep water, and it's a question whether we shall ever be able to get him ashore. What did you think of Miss Harrison?'

‘A girl of strong character.'

‘Yes, but she is a good sort, or I am mistaken. She and her brother are the only children of an ironmaster somewhere up Northumberland way. Phelps got engaged to her when travelling last winter, and she came down to be introduced to his people, with her brother as escort. Then came the smash, and she stayed on to nurse her lover, while brother Joseph, finding himself pretty snug, stayed on too. I've been making a few independent inquiries,
¹⁶
you see. But today must be a day of inquiries.'

‘My practice—'I began.

‘Oh, if you find your own cases more interesting than mine—' said Holmes, with some asperity.

‘I was going to say that my practice could get along very well for a day or two, since it is the slackest time in the year.'

‘Excellent,' said he, recovering his good humour. ‘Then we'll look into this matter together. I think that we should begin by seeing Forbes. He can probably tell us all the details we want, until we know from what side the case is to be approached.'

‘You said you had a clue.'

‘Well, we have several, but we can only test their value by further inquiry. The most difficult crime to track is the one which is purposeless. Now, this is not purposeless. Who is it that profits by it? There is the French Ambassador, there is the Russian, there is whoever might sell it to either of these, and there is Lord Holdhurst.'

‘Lord Holdhurst!'

‘Well, it is just conceivable that a statesman might find himself in a position where he was not sorry to have such a document accidentally destroyed.'

‘Not a statesman with the honourable record of Lord Holdhurst.'

‘It is a possibility, and we cannot afford to disregard it. We shall see the noble lord today, and find out if he can tell us anything. Meanwhile, I have already set inquiries upon foot.'

‘Already?'

‘Yes, I sent wires from Woking station to every evening paper in London. This advertisement will appear in each of them.'

He handed over a sheet torn from the notebook. On it was scribbled in pencil:

£10 Reward. – The number of the cab which dropped a fare at or about the door of the Foreign Office in Charles Street, at a quarter to ten in the evening of May 23rd. Apply 221B, Baker Street.

‘You are confident that the thief came in a cab?'

‘If not, there is no harm done. But if Mr Phelps is correct in stating that there is no hiding-place either in the room or the corridors, then the person must have come from outside. If he came from outside on so wet a night, and yet left no trace of damp upon the linoleum, which was examined with in a few minutes of his passing, then it is exceedingly probable that he came in a cab. Yes, I think that we may safely deduce a cab.'

‘It sounds plausible.'

‘That is one of the clues of which I spoke. It may lead us to something. And then of course there is the bell – which is the most distinctive feature of the case. Why should the bell ring? Was it the thief who did it out of bravado? Or was it someone who was with the thief who did it in order to prevent the crime? Or was it an accident? Or was it—?' He sank back into the state of intense and silent thought from which he had emerged, but it seemed to me, accustomed as I was to his every mood, that some new possibility had dawned suddenly upon him.

It was twenty past three when we reached our terminus, and after
a hasty luncheon at the buffet we pushed on at once to Scotland Yard. Holmes had already wired to Forbes, and we found him waiting to receive us: a small, foxy man, with a sharp but by no means amiable expression. He was decidedly frigid in his manner to us, especially when he heard the errand upon which we had come.

‘I've heard of your methods before now, Mr Holmes,' said he tartly. ‘You are ready enough to use all the information that the police can lay at your disposal, and then you try to finish the case yourself and bring discredit upon them.'

‘On the contrary,' said Holmes; ‘out of my last fifty-three cases my name has only appeared in four, and the police have had all the credit in forty-nine. I don't blame you for not knowing this; for you are young and inexperienced; but if you wish to get on in your new duties you will work with me, and not against me.'

‘I'd be very glad of a hint or two,' said the detective, changing his manner. ‘I've certainly had no credit from the case so far.'

‘What steps have you taken?'

‘Tangey, the commissionaire, has been shadowed. He left the Guards with a good character, and we can find nothing against him. His wife is a bad lot, though. I fancy she knows more about this than appears.'

‘Have you shadowed her?'

‘We have set one of our women on to her. Mrs Tangey drinks, and our woman has been with her twice when she was well on, but she could get nothing out of her.'

‘I understand that they have had brokers in the house?'

‘Yes, but they were paid off.'

‘Where did the money come from?'

‘That was all right. His pension was due; they have not shown any sign of being in funds.'

‘What explanation did she give of having answered the bell when Mr Phelps rang for the coffee?'

‘She said that her husband was very tired and she wished to relieve him.'

‘Well, certainly that would agree with his being found, a little later, asleep in his chair. There is nothing against them, then, but the
woman's character. Did you ask her why she hurried away that night? Her haste attracted the attention of the police constable.'

‘She was later than usual, and wanted to get home.'

‘Did you point out to her that you and Mr Phelps, who started at least twenty minutes after her, got home before her?'

‘She explains that by the difference between a bus and a hansom.'

‘Did she make it clear why, on reaching her house, she ran into the back kitchen?'

‘Because she had the money there with which to pay off the brokers.'

‘She has at least an answer for everything. Did you ask her whether in leaving she met anyone or saw anyone loitering about Charles Street?'

‘She saw no one but the constable.'

‘Well, you seem to have cross-examined her pretty thoroughly. What else have you done?'

‘The clerk, Gorot, has been shadowed all these nine weeks, but without result. We can show nothing against him.'

‘Anything else?'

‘Well, we have nothing else to go upon – no evidence of any kind.'

‘Have you formed any theory about how that bell rang?'

‘Well, I must confess that it beats me. It was a cool hand, whoever it was, to go and give the alarm like that.'

‘Yes, it was a queer thing to do. Many thanks to you for what you have told me. If I can put the man into your hands you shall hear from me. Come along, Watson!'

‘Where are we going to now?'I asked, as we left the office.

‘We are now going to interview Lord Holdhurst, the Cabinet minister and future Premier of England.'

We were fortunate in finding that Lord Holdhurst was still in his chambers at Downing Street, and on Holmes sending in his card we were instantly shown up. The statesman received us with that old-fashioned courtesy for which he is remarkable, and seated us on the two luxurious easy chairs on either side of the fireplace. Standing on the rug between us, with his slight, tall figure, his sharp-featured, thoughtful face, and his curling hair prematurely tinged with grey, he
seemed to represent that not too common type, a nobleman who is in truth noble.

‘Your name is very familiar to me, Mr Holmes,' said he, smiling. ‘And of course I cannot pretend to be ignorant of the object of your visit. There has only been one occurrence in these offices which could call for your attention. In whose interest are you acting, may I ask?'

‘In that of Mr Percy Phelps,' answered Holmes.

‘Ah, my unfortunate nephew! You can understand that our kinship makes it the more impossible for me to screen him in any way. I fear that the incident must have a very prejudicial effect upon his career.'

‘But if the document is found?'

‘Ah, that of course would be different.'

‘I had one or two questions which I wished to ask you, Lord Holdhurst.'

‘I shall be happy to give you any information in my power.'

‘Was it in this room that you gave your instructions as to the copying of the document?'