The Return of Sherlock Holmes

white-haired man, had just come down from Mrs. Hilton

  Cubitt's room, and he reported that her injuries were

  serious, but not necessarily fatal. The bullet had passed

  through the front of her brain, and it would probably be

  some time before she could regain consciousness. On the

  question of whether she had been shot or had shot herself

  he would not venture to express any decided opinion.

  Certainly the bullet had been discharged at very close

  quarters. There was only the one pistol found in the room,

  two barrels of which had been emptied. Mr. Hilton Cubitt

  had been shot through the heart. It was equally

  conceivable that he had shot her and then himself, or that

  she had been the criminal, for the revolver lay upon the

  floor midway between them.

  "Has he been moved?" asked Holmes.

  "We have moved nothing except the lady. We could not leave

  her lying wounded upon the floor."

  "How long have you been here, doctor?"

  "Since four o'clock."

  "Anyone else?"

  "Yes, the constable here."

  "And you have touched nothing?"

  "Nothing."

  "You have acted with great discretion. Who sent for you?"

  "The housemaid, Saunders."

  "Was it she who gave the alarm?"

  "She and Mrs. King, the cook."

  "Where are they now?"

  "In the kitchen, I believe."

  "Then I think we had better hear their story at once."

  The old hall, oak-panelled and high-windowed, had been

  turned into a court of investigation. Holmes sat in a

  great, old-fashioned chair, his inexorable eyes gleaming

  out of his haggard face. I could read in them a set

  purpose to devote his life to this quest until the client

  whom he had failed to save should at last be avenged. The

  trim Inspector Martin, the old, grey-headed country doctor,

  myself, and a stolid village policeman made up the rest of

  that strange company.

  The two women told their story clearly enough. They had

  been aroused from their sleep by the sound of an explosion,

  which had been followed a minute later by a second one.

  They slept in adjoining rooms, and Mrs. King had rushed in

  to Saunders. Together they had descended the stairs. The

  door of the study was open and a candle was burning upon

  the table. Their master lay upon his face in the centre of

  the room. He was quite dead. Near the window his wife was

  crouching, her head leaning against the wall. She was

  horribly wounded, and the side of her face was red with

  blood. She breathed heavily, but was incapable of saying

  anything. The passage, as well as the room, was full of

  smoke and the smell of powder. The window was certainly

  shut and fastened upon the inside. Both women were

  positive upon the point. They had at once sent for the

  doctor and for the constable. Then, with the aid of the

  groom and the stable-boy, they had conveyed their injured

  mistress to her room. Both she and her husband had

  occupied the bed. She was clad in her dress -- he in his

  dressing-gown, over his night clothes. Nothing had been

  moved in the study. So far as they knew there had never

  been any quarrel between husband and wife. They had always

  looked upon them as a very united couple.

  These were the main points of the servants' evidence. In

  answer to Inspector Martin they were clear that every door

  was fastened upon the inside, and that no one could have

  escaped from the house. In answer to Holmes they both

  remembered that they were conscious of the smell of powder

  from the moment that they ran out of their rooms upon the

  top floor. "I commend that fact very carefully to your

  attention," said Holmes to his professional colleague.

  "And now I think that we are in a position to undertake a

  thorough examination of the room."

  The study proved to be a small chamber, lined on three

  sides with books, and with a writing-table facing an

  ordinary window, which looked out upon the garden. Our

  first attention was given to the body of the unfortunate

  squire, whose huge frame lay stretched across the room.

  His disordered dress showed that he had been hastily

  aroused from sleep. The bullet had been fired at him from

  the front, and had remained in his body after penetrating

  the heart. His death had certainly been instantaneous and

  painless. There was no powder-marking either upon his

  dressing-gown or on his hands. According to the country

  surgeon the lady had stains upon her face, but none upon

  her hand.

  "The absence of the latter means nothing, though its

  presence may mean everything," said Holmes. "Unless the

  powder from a badly-fitting cartridge happens to spurt

  backwards, one may fire many shots without leaving a sign.

  I would suggest that Mr. Cubitt's body may now be removed.

  I suppose, doctor, you have not recovered the bullet which

  wounded the lady?"

  "A serious operation will be necessary before that can be

  done. But there are still four cartridges in the revolver.

  Two have been fired and two wounds inflicted, so that each

  bullet can be accounted for."

  "So it would seem," said Holmes. "Perhaps you can account

  also for the bullet which has so obviously struck the edge

  of the window?"

  He had turned suddenly, and his long, thin finger was

  pointing to a hole which had been drilled right through the

  lower window-sash about an inch above the bottom.

  "By George!" cried the inspector. "How ever did you see

  that?"

  "Because I looked for it."

  "Wonderful!" said the country doctor. "You are certainly

  right, sir. Then a third shot has been fired, and

  therefore a third person must have been present. But who

  could that have been and how could he have got away?"

  "That is the problem which we are now about to solve," said

  Sherlock Holmes. "You remember, Inspector Martin, when the

  servants said that on leaving their room they were at once

  conscious of a smell of powder I remarked that the point

  was an extremely important one?"

  "Yes, sir; but I confess I did not quite follow you."

  "It suggested that at the time of the firing the window as

  well as the door of the room had been open. Otherwise the

  fumes of powder could not have been blown so rapidly

  through the house. A draught in the room was necessary for

  that. Both door and window were only open for a very short

  time, however."

  "How do you prove that?"

  "Because the candle has not guttered."

  "Capital!" cried the inspector. "Capital!"

  "Feeling sure that the window had been open at the time of

  the tragedy I conceived that there might have been a third

  person in the affair, who stood outside this opening and

  fired through it. Any shot directed at this person might

  hit the sash.
I looked, and there, sure enough, was the

  bullet mark!"

  "But how came the window to be shut and fastened?"

  "The woman's first instinct would be to shut and fasten the

  window. But, halloa! what is this?"

  It was a lady's hand-bag which stood upon the study table --

  a trim little hand-bag of crocodile-skin and silver.

  Holmes opened it and turned the contents out. There were

  twenty fifty-pound notes of the Bank of England, held

  together by an india-rubber band -- nothing else.

  "This must be preserved, for it will figure in the trial,"

  said Holmes, as he handed the bag with its contents to the

  inspector. "It is now necessary that we should try to

  throw some light upon this third bullet, which has clearly,

  from the splintering of the wood, been fired from inside

  the room. I should like to see Mrs. King, the cook, again.

  You said, Mrs. King, that you were awakened by a _loud_

  explosion. When you said that, did you mean that it seemed

  to you to be louder than the second one?"

  "Well, sir, it wakened me from my sleep, and so it is hard

  to judge. But it did seem very loud."

  "You don't think that it might have been two shots fired

  almost at the same instant?"

  "I am sure I couldn't say, sir."

  "I believe that it was undoubtedly so. I rather think,

  Inspector Martin, that we have now exhausted all that this

  room can teach us. If you will kindly step round with me,

  we shall see what fresh evidence the garden has to offer."

  A flower-bed extended up to the study window, and we all

  broke into an exclamation as we approached it. The flowers

  were trampled down, and the soft soil was imprinted all

  over with footmarks. Large, masculine feet they were, with

  peculiarly long, sharp toes. Holmes hunted about among the

  grass and leaves like a retriever after a wounded bird.

  Then, with a cry of satisfaction, he bent forward and

  picked up a little brazen cylinder.

  "I thought so," said he; "the revolver had an ejector, and

  here is the third cartridge. I really think, Inspector

  Martin, that our case is almost complete."

  The country inspector's face had shown his intense

  amazement at the rapid and masterful progress of Holmes's

  investigation. At first he had shown some disposition to

  assert his own position; but now he was overcome with

  admiration and ready to follow without question wherever

  Holmes led.

  "Whom do you suspect?" he asked.

  "I'll go into that later. There are several points in this

  problem which I have not been able to explain to you yet.

  Now that I have got so far I had best proceed on my own

  lines, and then clear the whole matter up once and for

  all."

  "Just as you wish, Mr. Holmes, so long as we get our man."

  "I have no desire to make mysteries, but it is impossible

  at the moment of action to enter into long and complex

  explanations. I have the threads of this affair all in my

  hand. Even if this lady should never recover consciousness

  we can still reconstruct the events of last night and

  ensure that justice be done. First of all I wish to know

  whether there is any inn in this neighbourhood known as

  'Elrige's'?"

  The servants were cross-questioned, but none of them had

  heard of such a place. The stable-boy threw a light upon

  the matter by remembering that a farmer of that name lived

  some miles off in the direction of East Ruston.

  "Is it a lonely farm?"

  "Very lonely, sir."

  "Perhaps they have not heard yet of all that happened here

  during the night?"

  "Maybe not, sir."

  Holmes thought for a little and then a curious smile played

  over his face.

  "Saddle a horse, my lad," said he. "I shall wish you to

  take a note to Elrige's Farm."

  He took from his pocket the various slips of the dancing

  men. With these in front of him he worked for some time at

  the study-table. Finally he handed a note to the boy, with

  directions to put it into the hands of the person to whom

  it was addressed, and especially to answer no questions of

  any sort which might be put to him. I saw the outside of

  the note, addressed in straggling, irregular characters,

  very unlike Holmes's usual precise hand. It was consigned

  to Mr. Abe Slaney, Elrige's Farm, East Ruston, Norfolk.

  "I think, inspector," Holmes remarked, "that you would do

  well to telegraph for an escort, as, if my calculations

  prove to be correct, you may have a particularly dangerous

  prisoner to convey to the county gaol. The boy who takes

  this note could no doubt forward your telegram. If there

  is an afternoon train to town, Watson, I think we should do

  well to take it, as I have a chemical analysis of some

  interest to finish, and this investigation draws rapidly to

  a close."

  When the youth had been dispatched with the note, Sherlock

  Holmes gave his instructions to the servants. If any

  visitor were to call asking for Mrs. Hilton Cubitt no

  information should be given as to her condition, but he was

  to be shown at once into the drawing-room. He impressed

  these points upon them with the utmost earnestness.

  Finally he led the way into the drawing-room with the

  remark that the business was now out of our hands, and that

  we must while away the time as best we might until we could

  see what was in store for us. The doctor had departed to

  his patients, and only the inspector and myself remained.

  "I think that I can help you to pass an hour in an

  interesting and profitable manner," said Holmes, drawing

  his chair up to the table and spreading out in front of him

  the various papers upon which were recorded the antics of

  the dancing men. "As to you, friend Watson, I owe you

  every atonement for having allowed your natural curiosity

  to remain so long unsatisfied. To you, inspector, the

  whole incident may appeal as a remarkable professional

  study. I must tell you first of all the interesting

  circumstances connected with the previous consultations

  which Mr. Hilton Cubitt has had with me in Baker Street."

  He then shortly recapitulated the facts which have already

  been recorded. "I have here in front of me these singular

  productions, at which one might smile had they not proved

  themselves to be the fore-runners of so terrible a tragedy.

  I am fairly familiar with all forms of secret writings, and

  am myself the author of a trifling monograph upon the

  subject, in which I analyze one hundred and sixty separate

  ciphers; but I confess that this is entirely new to me.

  The object of those who invented the system has apparently

  been to conceal that these characters convey a message, and

  to give the idea that they are the mere random sketches of

  children.

  "Having once recognised, however, that
the symbols stood

  for letters, and having applied the rules which guide us in

  all forms of secret writings, the solution was easy enough.

  The first message submitted to me was so short that it was

  impossible for me to do more than to say with some

  confidence that the symbol

  {GRAPHIC}

  stood for E. As you are aware, E is the most common letter

  in the English alphabet, and it predominates to so marked

  an extent that even in a short sentence one would expect to

  find it most often. Out of fifteen symbols in the first

  message four were the same, so it was reasonable to set

  this down as E. It is true that in some cases the figure

  was bearing a flag and in some cases not, but it was

  probable from the way in which the flags were distributed

  that they were used to break the sentence up into words. I

  accepted this as a hypothesis, and noted that E was

  represented by

  {GRAPHIC}

  "But now came the real difficulty of the inquiry. The

  order of the English letters after E is by no means well

  marked, and any preponderance which may be shown in an

  average of a printed sheet may be reversed in a single

  short sentence. Speaking roughly, T, A, O, I, N, S, H, R,

  D, and L are the numerical order in which letters occur;

  but T, A, O, and I are very nearly abreast of each other,

  and it would be an endless task to try each combination

  until a meaning was arrived at. I, therefore, waited for

  fresh material. In my second interview with Mr. Hilton

  Cubitt he was able to give me two other short sentences and

  one message, which appeared -- since there was no flag --

  to be a single word. Here are the symbols. Now, in the

  single word I have already got the two E's coming second

  and fourth in a word of five letters. It might be 'sever,'

  or 'lever,' or 'never.' There can be no question that the

  latter as a reply to an appeal is far the most probable,

  and the circumstances pointed to its being a reply written

  by the lady. Accepting it as correct, we are now able to

  say that the symbols

  {GRAPHIC}

  stand respectively for N, V, and R.

  "Even now I was in considerable difficulty, but a happy

  thought put me in possession of several other letters. It

  occurred to me that if these appeals came, as I expected,

  from someone who had been intimate with the lady in her

  early life, a combination which contained two E's with

  three letters between might very well stand for the name

  'ELSIE.' On examination I found that such a combination

  formed the termination of the message which was three times

  repeated. It was certainly some appeal to 'Elsie.' In

  this way I had got my L, S, and I. But what appeal could

  it be? There were only four letters in the word which

  preceded 'Elsie,' and it ended in E. Surely the word must

  be 'COME.' I tried all other four letters ending in E, but

  could find none to fit the case. So now I was in

  possession of C, O, and M, and I was in a position to

  attack the first message once more, dividing it into words

  and putting dots for each symbol which was still unknown.

  So treated it worked out in this fashion:--

  .M .ERE ..E SL.NE.

  "Now the first letter _can_ only be A, which is a most

  useful discovery, since it occurs no fewer than three times

  in this short sentence, and the H is also apparent in the

  second word. Now it becomes:--

  AM HERE A.E SLANE.

  Or, filling in the obvious vacancies in the name:--

  AM HERE ABE SLANEY.

  I had so many letters now that I could proceed with

  considerable confidence to the second message, which worked

  out in this fashion:--

  A. ELRI.ES.

  Here I could only make sense by putting T and G for the

  missing letters, and supposing that the name was that of

  some house or inn at which the writer was staying."

  Inspector Martin and I had listened with the utmost

  interest to the full and clear account of how my friend had