arrest. Over the soup Holmes asked if he might have a word with the prisoner. Barratt was surprised.
“I hardly think it’s a case worthy of your attention, but if it amuses you, by all means.”
An hour later, the three of us were sitting in a small room in the county jail, with Senor Alvarez handcuffed to a chair in front of us. In spite of his predicament, there was nothing hangdog about the man. He met Holmes’s eye and nodded recognition as if meeting an old acquaintance. Barratt started saying something about a cowardly attack, but Holmes held up a hand to silence him and spoke directly to the prisoner.
“I’m sorry I was not in when you called at our hotel last night,” he said. “It might have saved you some unpleasantness.”
Alvarez replied in the same civil tone.
“You had not called on me, as I hoped, so I came to call on you.”
“Bringing the violin?”
“Yes, senor, bringing the violin.”
Barratt almost exploded.
“You rogue, I suppose you were trying to get a reward from Mr. Holmes for bringing back Mrs. Legrange’s violin. The nerve of the man.”
“Except it wasn’t Mrs. Legrange’s violin, was it?” Holmes said.
“Well, whose else would it be?”
“I suggest we take a look at it. I assume it was brought in as evidence.”
Barely restraining his annoyance, Barratt went to the door and called for a sheriff’s officer. The violin was brought, wrapped loosely in a tablecloth, and handed to Holmes. He unwrapped it and held it up for us to see.
“You see, nothing like Mrs. Legrange’s.”
It was true. This was an entirely different fiddle, made of some pale wood and varnished the colour of light amber.
“Then what the thunder has happened to Mrs. Legrange’s violin?” Barratt said. “And who attacked my son?”
Holmes stood up.
“If we may call on you this evening, I shall have an answer to both questions. Meanwhile, if you’ll excuse us, Watson and I have work to do. I suggest that you tell them to release Senor Alvarez. Unless it’s against the law to walk through the streets of San Antonio with a violin.”
The hotel hired horses for us, and the cumbersome-looking saddles proved surprisingly comfortable. We rode past San Pedro Springs where we had attended our picnic, northward on a dirt track between broad and dry pastures grazed by cattle with horns wider than the handlebars of a bicycle. Holmes kept glancing from left to right and seemed to be sniffing the air like a hunting dog. Two miles or so along the track, he reined in his horse.
“Over there, in the trees.”
We followed a narrower track to the left, towards a clump of live oaks. It was a lonely spot, not a barn or homestead to be seen. When we came nearer, we saw that the leaves of one of the oaks were scorched brown, with a small pile of ash on the ground beneath them. Holmes dismounted and kneeled down by the ashes.
“Cold, but still light and dry. This fire was lit yesterday afternoon or evening.”
He picked up a stick and poked the ashes, then gave a sigh of satisfaction.
“Just as I thought. Do you recognize this?”
He was holding a piece of white Moroccan leather, singed at the edges.
“The case where Mrs. Legrange kept the violin,” I said. “So where’s the violin itself?”
He gave the ashes another stir.
“Here, Watson.”
When we arrived at the Barratt house that evening, Holmes suggested to our host that we should first pay a visit to his son. Barratt took it as proper consideration for the invalid, but when we were shown into the parlor that was doing duty as a sick room, the look of alarm on the lad’s face showed that he knew better.
“I’d be grateful if you’d leave us alone with Lee for a few minutes,” Holmes said.
Then the older man looked alarmed too, but he withdrew. Lee sat up against a bank of pillows, staring at us. His face was pale, with dark circles round the eyes. Holmes took a chair by the couch.
“Was it your idea or Mrs. Legrange’s?” Holmes said.
The lad said nothing.
“No matter,” Holmes said. “I fancy the idea came from the lady. She stayed in the carriage and watched while you burned the violin. Then you returned home with her, as if you’d simply been on a visit, and carried out the next part of the plan. The harder part, I daresay. It must have taken some resolution on your part to kneel there and wait for the second blow.”
Lee couldn’t help wincing from the memory of it. Holmes smiled.
“You told Mrs. Legrange that she must hit harder to make it look convincing, and the second time she managed it. A blow with a heavy brass poker is no laughing matter, even from a lady.”
“So she told you.” Lee blurted it out, a flush on his pale cheeks. Holmes did not contradict him.
“Does my father know?” Lee said.
“Not yet, but he must learn of it,” Holmes said. “It would come better from you than from me. Shall I send him in?”
Lee nodded, eyes downcast. We went out to the hall where Barratt was waiting anxiously, and Holmes said his son had something to tell him.
When the parlor door had closed on him, I turned to Holmes.
“How in the world did you know it was a poker?”
He smiled.
“You may have observed that I kissed the lady’s hand. I could see from your face that you thought I’d fallen victim to her charms. In fact, I wanted to smell her glove. I’d already observed ash on one of Lee’s boots…”
“And then you smelled it on her glove. Admirable.”
“No, I confess I expected to smell it. I should have known better. She’d leave such work to her male accomplice. The smell I caught was of something quite different: metal polish. Now, a lady of her standing would hardly polish her own household utensils; therefore she’d recently handled some metal object. In view of the young man’s injuries, a poker seemed a near certainty, confirmed by his reaction.”
“But why, Holmes?”
“Surely you can see. She knew I wasn’t taken in for a minute by that romantic tale about the fiddle. Rather than have it lose the contest, she decided to destroy it-with the help of a besotted young man.”
After a while, the parlor door opened. Barratt came out, sternfaced and led us through to the drawing room.
“Gentlemen, I must apologise to you for my son’s deception.”
“I believe it was Mrs. Legrange’s deception,” Holmes said.
“Lee would not stoop to putting the blame on a lady.”
“Even a lady who deserved it?”
“I’m sure you cannot find it in your heart to blame her. She had believed in the authenticity of that violin.”
“Just as you believe in yours?”
Holmes glanced at the instrument enshrined over the mantelpiece.
“That’s one good thing to come out of it at any rate,” I said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. “Mr. Barratt’s violin is now the only one in the field.”
Holmes and Barratt stared at each other. Barratt was the first to drop his gaze. Holmes settled himself in an armchair.
“Before we came here, Watson suggested that I should read the history of the Alamo.” His tone was conversational. “As he knows, I dislike burdening my mind with useless detail. Nonetheless, there was one aspect that interested me. The person out of step is always more interesting than the ones in step, don’t you find?”
I could not see where this was leading, but Barratt evidently did.
