The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures

finished.'

'Dear me!' cried Doctor Oliphant. 'Yet more adventures?'

'Indeed! You have not yet heard the strangest episode. We eventually reached the western extremity of Uffa, although it was not easy finding our way in the pitch blackness, and the lantern was little help. There, where we had secured the dinghy, was – ' He paused and looked about the room.

'Well?' queried Doctor Oliphant impatiently.

'Nothing.'

'Nothing?'

'Not a thing. No sign whatever of our boat. Just the dark sea splashing over the black rocks. We could see the Puffin riding at anchor a little distance off, for we'd lit a lamp on her before we'd left, but we'd no way of reaching her. And I was as certain that the dinghy had been secured properly as I'd ever been certain of anything in my life.'

'What did you do?' queried Fergus Johnstone.

'We had no choice but to trudge all the way back to MacGlevin's domain and throw ourselves on his mercy. He seemed none too pleased to see us again, but said he would row us round to the Puffin in his own skiff, which was moored in an inlet just below the castle.You continue, Donald.'

'Just as we were rounding the western head of the island, approaching the Puffin, my father cried out. I looked where he pointed, and there was our little dinghy, neatly tucked in the inlet, just as we had left it. Of course, Mr MacGlevin was a wee bit upset at this, and expressed himself somewhat warmly. Even a whelk would realize, he said, that we had simply taken the wrong path and looked for our boat in the wrong place. His parting words to us as he rowed off, after setting us aboard our own dinghy, were that we should henceforth confine our inept navigational activities to the streets of Edinburgh.'

'There it might have ended,' continued the elder Grice Paterson: 'as an embarrassing experience, but no more although I was still convinced that the boat had not been there when we had looked for it before – but, as we were climbing from dinghy to yacht, Donald found something by his feet. Show them, my boy.'

Donald Grice Paterson put his hand in his pocket, and pulled out a large, wooden-handled clasp-knife. He unfolded the blade, which was broad and strong-looking, with a curiously square end.

'It's not ours,' said his father, 'so how came it in the bottom of our boat?'

'May I see it?' said Holmes. He took the knife and examined it closely. 'Made in Sheffield,' he remarked; 'which is hardly surprising information. The tip has been snapped off, which must have taken some considerable force.'

The knife was passed around the room, amid much murmuring of interest, but no-one could make any useful suggestion regarding it.

'Someone has been playing tricks upon you,' declared Doctor Oliphant.

'Someone – or something,' said Murdoch MacLeod.

'A mischievous sprite,' suggested Mrs Morton.

Sherlock Holmes offered no observation of his own, and later, when I queried his silence on the matter, he shook his head and smiled.

'My dear fellow,' said he, 'you must have observed in the past that an unresolved mystery possesses a charm and romance

which its solution can rarely aspire to. It is for this reason that unless it is likely to involve them in a personal loss – men often prefer mystery to enlightenment. I could have suggested at least seven possible explanations, but all of them were fairly prosaic, I'm afraid, and not really what the company was seeking!'

With that he retired for the night, and there the singular adventures of the Grice Patersons might have remained, but for the surprising sequel.

We were seated at breakfast the following morning when there came the sound of raised voices from the hallway outside. Moments later, the door was flung open, and, ignoring the protests of the manager, in strode a gigantic figure, whose tangled ginger hair and beard identified him instantly as MacGlevin, closely followed by a police constable. The Laird of Uffa's eyes passed quickly over the assembled diners, until they alighted upon the luckless Grice Patersons.

'There they are!' he roared. 'There are the villains! Arrest those men at once, MacPherson!'

Like everyone else, Grice Paterson had been frozen into immobility by this sudden, amazing irruption, his egg- spoon poised half-way to his lips, but now he sprang to his feet.

'How dare you!' he cried angrily. 'What is the meaning of this?'

'The meaning,' returned MacGlevin in an equally heated voice, 'is that you have abused my hospitality. I took you in out of the dark night, and you have returned this favour by treacherously stealing that which is most dear to my clan, the MacGlevin Buckle!'

'This is nonsense,' snorted Grice Paterson. 'I have stolen nothing. I have never in my life taken that which was not mine. Why, I have never even seen your wretched buckle!'

MacGlevin's face assumed a dark, angry hue, and the veins on his temples stood out like whipcord.

'How dare you refer to the heirloom of my family in those insulting terms!' he roared. 'You despicable villain!'

How long this aggressive exchange might have continued, it is difficult to say. Certainly, MacGlevin appeared on the verge of imposing his huge physical presence on the little Edinburgh lawyer. But Constable MacPherson placed his considerable bulk between them, and managed to calm the atmosphere a little.

'Gentlemen, gentlemen,' he said, 'let us discuss the matter like the civilized men we are!'

The facts of the matter were soon told. The Laird of Uffa had last seen his family's heirloom during the previous afternoon, when he had been re-arranging some of the exhibits in his museum. He had not entered the museum with Mr Grice Paterson and his son, but had given them a lantern and told them to look round by themselves if they wished. They had done so for two or three minutes before rejoining him for a hot toddy. Later he had entered the museum to fetch a book, and had found the buckle gone. It had not been protected from theft in any way, but had lain, uncovered, upon a velvet cushion, atop a small stand. No-one but the Grice Patersons had entered the house all day, and nor were there any signs of a forced entry. The case against the Edinburgh men seemed, then, on circumstantial evidence at least, to be conclusive, although, having conversed with them at length the previous evening, I could not really believe either of them to be guilty of so mean a crime. For their part, they declared that they had not observed the buckle the previous evening, having taken only a cursory glance around the museum.

The impasse was broken in a surprising manner. Sherlock Holmes abruptly pushed back his chair from the breakfast-table and rose to his feet. In a very few words, he introduced himself, and although he had not then achieved the celebrity he was later to enjoy, the name was recognized instantly by several of those there.

'I followed the Maupertuis case in the papers,' said the policeman with respect, but Holmes waved his hand dismissively.

'I think it would be as well to examine the scene of this crime before any arrests are contemplated,' said he, in a voice of quiet authority. 'It may well be that the circumstances there will decide the question of guilt or innocence once and for all, and may also suggest some other line of inquiry.'

'Suggest fiddlesticks!' cried MacGlevin in contempt, but Constable MacPherson nodded his head.

'I canna arrest anybody merely on your say-so, Mr MacGlevin,' said he. 'This gentleman is correct. We must examine the scene. You will favour us with your assistance, Mr Holmes?'

My friend assented, and MacPherson quickly made his arrangements. Holmes and he had a brief discussion, during which my friend made several specific suggestions, the upshot being that two of the local fishermen who were special constables were to take charge of matters in Kilbuie in our absence, and the Puffin was to be temporarily impounded. Then MacGlevin, MacPherson, the elder Grice Paterson, Holmes and myself set off for the islands in the steam launch, Alba.

The black tower of MacGlevin's abode loomed above us as we approached Uffa, gaunt and solitary. Beyond it stretched the length of the bleak and featureless island, its surface a mottled dun colour. It was a strange and inhospitable place to make one's home, and perhaps the most unlikely spot in which my friend had ever investigated a crime. A hundred yards or so to the north were further, smaller islands, the sea breaking in white foam over their jagged rocks, and, perhaps two hundred yards to the south, the nearest point on the mainland, an area of tumbled