Together with Samuel Baxter and his grand-daughter, I ventured forth into the rain-whipped blackness. Despite Miss Baxter's protests, within ten minutes we were all three standing before the gambling tableau in the Room of Horrors.
A not ill-looking young man named Robert Parsnip, clearly much smitten with the charms of Eleanor Baxter, turned up the blue sparks of gas in dusty globes. But even so the gloomy room remained in a semi-darkness in which the ranks of grim wax figures seemed imbued with a horrible spider-like repose, as though waiting only until a visitor turned away, before reaching out to touch him.
Madame Taupin's exhibition is too well known to need any general description. But I was unpleasantly impressed by the tableau called 'The History of a Crime.' The scenes were most lifelike in both effect and colour, with the wigs and small-swords of the eighteenth century. Had I in fact been guilty of those mythical gambling lapses charged upon me by Holmes's ill-timed sense of humour, the display might well have harassed my conscience.
This was especially so when we lowered our heads under the iron railing, and approached the two gamblers in the mimic room.
'Drat it, Nellie, don't touch them cards!' cried Mr. Baxter, much more testy and irascible in his own domain. But his tone changed as he spoke to me. 'Look there, sir! There's,' he counted slowly, 'there's nine cards in the wicked wrong 'un's hand. And sixteen in the young gentleman's.'
'Listen!' whispered the young lady. 'Isn't someone walking about upstairs?'
'Drat it, Nellie, it's only Bob Parsnip. Who else would it be?'
'As you said, the cards on the table are not much disarranged,' I remarked. 'Indeed, the small pile in front of your 'young gentleman' is not disarranged at all. Twelve cards lie at his elbow—'
'Ah, and nineteen by the wrong 'un. Funny card game, sir!'
I agreed and, curiously repulsed by the touch of waxen fingers against my own, I put the various sets of playing-cards into four marked envelopes, and hastened up from the stuffy den. Miss Baxter and her grandfather, despite the latter's horrified protest, I insisted on sending home in a stray cab whose driver had just deposited some hopelessly intoxicated gentleman against his own door.
I was not sorry to return to the snug warmth of my friend's sitting-room. To my dismay, however, Holmes had risen from the couch. He was standing by his desk with the green-shaded lamp, eagerly studying an open atlas and supported by a crutch under his right arm.
'Enough, Watson!' he silenced my protests. 'You have the envelopes? Good, good! Give them to me. Thank you. In the hand of the older gambler, the wax figure with his back turned, were there not nine cards?'
'Holmes, this is amazing! How could you have known that?'
'Logic, my dear fellow. Now let us see.'
'One moment,' I said firmly. 'You spoke earlier of a crutch, but where could you have obtained one at such short notice? That is an extraordinary crutch. It seems to be constructed of some light-weight metal, and shines where the rays of the lamp—'
'Yes, yes, I already had it in my possession.'
'Already had it?'
'It is made of aluminum, and is the relic of a case before my biographer came to glorify me. I have already mentioned it to you, but you have forgotten. Now be good enough to forget the crutch while you examine these cards. Oh, beautiful, beautiful!'
Were all the jewels of Golconda spread out before him, he could not have been more ecstatic. He even rejoiced when I told him what I had seen and heard.
'What, you are still in the dark? Then do you take these nine cards, Watson. Put them upon the desk in their order, and announce the name of each as you do so.'
'Knave of diamonds,' said I, placing the cards under the lamp, 'seven of hearts, ace of clubs—Good heavens, Holmes!'
'Do you see anything, then?'
'Yes. There are two aces of clubs, one following the other!'
'Did I not call it beautiful? But you have counted only four cards. Proceed with the remaining five.'
'Deuce of spades,' said I, 'ten of hearts—merciful powers, here is a third ace of clubs, and two more knaves of diamonds!'
'And what do you deduce from that?'
'Holmes, I think I see light. Madame Taupin's is famous for its real-life effects. The older wax figure is a brazen gambler, who is depicted as cheating the young man. By a subtle effect, they have shown him as holding false cards for his winning hand.'
'Hardly subtle, I fancy. Even so brazen a gambler as yourself, Watson, would surely feel some embarrassment at putting down a winning hand which contained no less than three knaves of diamonds and three aces of clubs?'
'Yes, there are difficulties.'
'Further. If you count all the cards, both those in the hands and upon the table, you will observe that their total number is fifty-six: which is four more than I, at least, am accustomed to use in one pack.'
'But what can it mean? What is the answer to our problem?'
The atlas lay upon the desk where Holmes had thrown it down when I gave him the envelopes. Snatching up the book, groaning as he staggered and all but fell on that curious crutch, he eagerly opened the book again.
' 'At the mouth of the Thames,' ' he read, ' 'on the island of—''
'Holmes, my question concerned the answer to our problem!'
'This is the answer to our problem.'
Though I am the most long-suffering of men, I protested strongly when he packed me off upstairs to my old room. I believed that I should get no sleep upon the rack of this mystery, yet I slept heavily, and it was nearly eleven o'clock when I descended to breakfast.
Sherlock Holmes, who had already breakfasted, again sat upon the sofa. I was glad of my clean, fresh shave when I found him deep in conversation with Miss Eleanor, whose timidity was lessened by his easy manner.
Yet something in the gravity of his face arrested my hand as I rang the bell for rashers and eggs.
'Miss Baxter,' said he, 'though there still remains an objection to my hypothesis, the time has come to tell you something of great importance. But what the devil—!'
Our door had been suddenly dashed open. To be precise, it was kicked open with a crash. But this had been done only as a jest by the man who kicked it, for his loud, overfed burst of laughter rang like a brazen trumpet.
In the aperture stood a burly, red-faced gentleman with a shining hat, a costly frock-coat open over a white waistcoat to show the diamonds on his watch-guard, and the single flaming ruby in his cravat.
Though not so tall as Holmes, he was far broader and heavier; indeed, with a figure not unlike my own. His loud laugh rang out again, and his cunning little eyes flashed, as he held up a leather bag and shook it.
'Here you are, cully!' cried he. 'You're the Scotland Yard man, ain't you? A thousand gold sovereigns, and all yours for the askin'!'
Sherlock Holmes, though astonished, regarded him with the utmost composure.
'Sir Gervase Darlington, I think?'
Without paying the slightest notice of either Miss Baxter or myself, the newcomer strode across and rattled the bag of coins under Holmes's nose.
'That's me, Mister Detective!' said he. 'Saw you fight yesterday. You could be better, but you'll do. One day, my man, they may make prize-fightin' legal. Till they do, a gentleman's got to arrange a neat little mill in secret. Stop a bit, though!'
Suddenly, cat-footed despite his weight, he went to the window and peered down into the street.
'Curse old Phileas Belch! He's had a man following me for months. Ay, and two blasted manservants in succession to steam open my letters. Broke the back for one of 'em, though.' Sir Gervase's shattering laugh rang again. 'Nevermind!'
Holmes's face seemed to change; but an instant later he was his cool, imperturbable self as Sir Gervase Darlington turned back, flinging the bag of money on the sofa.
'Keep the dibs, Scotland Yarder. I don't need 'em. Now, then. In three months we'll match you with Jem Garlick, the Bristol Smasher. Fight a cross, and I'll skin you; do me proud, and I can be a good patron. With an
