“Rose?”
“Yes, Louis Rose. The coward of the Alamo. The man who supposedly brought your father Colonel Crockett’s violin.”
“Supposedly? You doubt my father’s word, sir?”
“I do not doubt that your father acquired that violin under circumstances exactly as you described. Equally, I don’t doubt that he believed the vagabond at his back door to be Louis Rose. But he wasn’t.”
I expected an outburst from Barratt but he said nothing.
“I’ve done a little reading about Rose,” Holmes went on. “One detail interested me. The man was illiterate. He couldn’t read or write. You’re an intelligent man. You must have done your own research. I think you knew that he couldn’t have written that statement.”
Silence from Barratt.
“But why should any man impersonate a notorious coward?” I said.
“Because whoever the man was, he needed money and had a violin he could sell,” Holmes said. “He must have been sharp enough to realise that a hero’s violin from the Alamo would be worth much more than any old fiddle.”
Holmes took his pipe from his pocket and asked Barratt’s permission to smoke. It was given with an abstracted nod.
“I played a trick on Watson when we were walking home from your house the other night,” Holmes said. “I asked him which pocket I’d put my pipe in. He gave the matter his close attention, ignoring the obvious fact-that I hadn’t brought my pipe at all.”
“Really, Holmes, I… ”
He ignored me, and went on speaking to Barratt.
“You take my point, I’m sure. The question you posed to me from the start was which one of two, hoping that little puzzle would distract me from other possibilities. As it happened, it was of small importance to you which I chose. The thing that mattered above all was that the violin which eventually went on display at the Alamo should be certified as genuine by none other than Sherlock Holmes. Who would question that? I believe you expected me to pick up that point about Rose and to be so pleased with myself that I would give the verdict in favour of Mrs. Legrange’s instrument. Unfortunately, you neglected to inform Mrs. Legrange of your plan. Rather than have her violin slighted, she destroyed it-proving in the process that she’d never in her heart believed the family legend about it, or she couldn’t have brought herself to do it.”
“So neither of you believed in your violins?” I said to Barratt in astonishment. He raised his eyes and gave me a long look.
“There are things you believe with your head and things you believe with your heart. My heart said that violin should have survived.”
Holmes puffed at his pipe.
“You remember Senor Alvarez wished to see me?” he said.
Barratt nodded, his thoughts clearly elsewhere. Holmes slid a rough-looking piece of paper from his pocket.
“Do you read Spanish, Mr. Barratt?”
Barratt shook his head.
“It seemed more likely to me that if Crockett’s violin had survived at all, it would be in Mexican hands,” Holmes said. “You know the saying-‘to the victor, the spoils of war.’”
Barratt snapped out of his abstraction and stared at Holmes.
“You mean, the man Alvarez and his violin? Has he proof?”
Holmes said nothing, only smoothed out the piece of paper. I could see the struggle in Barratt’s face.
“Crockett’s violin, in a Mexican’s possession?”
Still Holmes said nothing. Barratt paced the room, backwards and forwards.
“I put it in your hands,” he said at last. “If you think the man’s claim is authentic, then negotiate for us. I authorise you to go up to five hundred dollars if necessary.”
“Thank you.”
Holmes rose and thumbed out his pipe.
“You’ll go tonight?” Barratt said.
“Certainly, if you wish. Come, Watson.”
From my earlier wanderings, I knew my way to the stockyards area. The house of Senor Alvarez was a white painted cube of a dwelling, sandwiched between an ironmonger’s shop and a baker’s shop with a galaxy of brightly sugared pastries in its lamp-lit window. The house door was wide open, cheerful voices speaking Spanish coming from inside. When Holmes called, Juan Alvarez came out to meet us, like a prince welcoming an equal. We were led to seats by an open fireplace where something savoury was cooking in a pot, and introduced to his wife, children, and grandmother. After some minutes of this, Holmes brought us to business.
“You wished to talk to me about your violin.”
“Yes, senor.”
The violin, still wrapped in the tablecloth, was lying on a shelf. Alvarez took it down and placed it in Holmes’s hands.
“Colonel Crockett’s violin, rescued from destruction by my father’s father, an officer in the Mexican army. He found it by Colonel Crockett’s body and kept it in memory of a brave enemy. No man has played it since Colonel Crockett himself. I offer you that honour now, senor.”
Holmes took the violin, nodded, and rose to his feet. A bow was produced. Holmes tightened the bow, tuned the instrument to his satisfaction, then began to play. The tune he chose was a simple melody that I had heard one of the cowboys singing, called “The Streets of Laredo.” The sight of his absorbed face in the firelight, the rapt expressions of Senor Alvarez and his family, and the thought of all that this rustic fiddle stood for brought a tear to my eye. When he’d finished there was a little silence. He bowed and handed the instrument back to Alvarez.
“Mr. Barratt is offering you five hundred dollars for the violin,” he said.
“To put in their museum?”
“Yes.”
Alvarez stood for a while, deep in thought.
“It was our victory, not theirs,” he said at last. “It was our country, not theirs.”
Then he threw down the violin to the stone-flagged floor and stamped on it time and time again, like a man performing a Spanish dance, until he’d smashed it to smithereens.
“It is the greatest of pities,” I said, still shaken, as we walked towards the hotel through the warm night. “To find Crockett’s violin and then have it end like this.”
Holmes laughed.
“My dear Watson, why should you think that fiddle was any more genuine than the other two? I’m sure Crockett was more likely to have died with his rifle beside him than his violin. No, Alvarez’s family tale was as much a fiction as the others, though I think the man himself believed it.”
“But the statement, Holmes, the paper in Spanish that you showed Barratt. Whatever it said seemed to be enough to convince you.”
He laughed.
“Did I say so? I simply showed Barratt a paper, and he chose to draw his own conclusion. I admit I took a small gamble. If he had happened to read Spanish, I should have had to do some quick thinking.”
“Holmes, what is this? What was on the paper?”
“You remember that first night, when we walked in the Mexican market, I found one of the local delicacies suited my taste. This morning, I descended to the kitchens of our hotel and was lucky enough to find a Mexican cook. She spoke few words of English but was obliging enough to understand what I wanted and write down the recipe.
“And you led Mr. Barratt to believe that this recipe was proof that-”
“I led him nowhere, Watson. He led himself. He had tried, for reasons that doubtless seemed honorable and
