The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes

unknown feller like you, I can get eight to one odds.'

'Do I understand, Sir Gervase,' said Holmes, 'that you wish me to box professionally in the ring?'

'You're the Scotland Yarder, ain't you? You comprey English, don't you?'

'When I hear it spoken, yes.'

'That's a joke, hey? Well, so is this!'

Playfully, deliberately, his heavy left fist whipped out a round-arm which passed—as it was meant to pass— just an inch in front of my friend's nose. Holmes did not even blink. Again Sir Gervase roared with laughter.

'Mind your manners, Mister Detective, when you speak to a gentleman. I could break you in two even if you didn't have a bad ankle, by God!'

Miss Eleanor Baxter, white-faced, uttered a little moaning cry and seemed to be trying to efface herself against the wall.

'Sir Gervase,' cried I, 'you will kindly refrain from using offensive language in the presence of a lady.'

Instantly our guest turned round, and looked me up and down in a most insolent manner.

'Who's this? Watson? Sawbones feller? Oh.' Suddenly he thrust his beefy red face into mine. 'Know anything about boxin'?'

'No,' said I. 'That is—not much.'

'Then see you don't get a lesson,' retorted Sir Ger­vase playfully, and roared with mirth again. 'Lady? What lady?' Seeing Miss Baxter, he looked a little disconcerted, but directed a killing ogle. 'No lady, Sawbones. But a fetchin' little piece, by God!'

'Sir Gervase,' said I, 'you are now warned, for the last time.'

'One moment, Watson,' interposed the calm voice of Sherlock Holmes. 'You must forgive Sir Gervase Darlington. No doubt Sir Gervase has not yet recovered from the visit he paid three days ago to the wax exhibition of Madame Taupin.'

In the brief silence that followed, we could hear a coal rattle in the grate and the eternal rain on the windows. But our guest could not be dismayed.

'The Scotland Yarder, eh?' he sneered. 'Who told you I was at Madame Taupin's three days ago?'

'No one. But, from certain facts in my possession, the inference was obvious. Such a visit looked innocent, did it not? It would arouse no suspicion on the part of anyone who might be following—some follower, for instance, employed by the eminent sportsman Sir Phileas Belch, who wished to make certain you did not win another fortune by secret information as you did on last year's Derby.'

'You don't interest me, my man!'

'Indeed? And yet, with your sporting proclivities, I feel sure you must be interested in cards.'

'Cards?'

'Playing-cards,' said Holmes blandly, taking some from his dressing-gown pocket and holding them up fan- wise. 'In fact, these nine cards.'

'What the devil's all this?'

'It is a singular fact, Sir Gervase, that a casual visitor to the Room of Horrors—on passing the gambling tableau —can see the cards in the hand of a certain wax figure without even giving them more than an innocent- appear­ing glance.

'Now some strange tampering was done one night with these cards. The cards in the hand of the other player, the 'young gentleman,' had not even been touched, as was shown by their dusty and gritty condition. But some person, a certain person, had removed a number of cards from the hand of the so-called 'wrong 'un,' throwing them down on the table, and, further, had added four cards from no less than two extra packs.

'Why was this done? It was not because someone wished to play a practical joke, in creating the illusion that wax dummies were occupied in reckless gambling. Had that been the culprit's motive, he would have moved the imitation gold coins as well as the cards. But the coins were not moved.

'The true answer is simple and indeed obvious. There are twenty-six letters in our alphabet; and twenty-six, twice multiplied, gives us fifty-two; the number of cards in a pack. Supposing that we were arbitrarily to choose one card for each letter, we could easily make a childish, elementary form of substitution-cipher—'

Sir Gervase Darlington's metal laugh blared shrilly. 'Substitution-cipher,' jeered he, with his red hand at the ruby in his cravat. 'What's that, hey? What's the fool talkin' about?'

'—which would be betrayed, however,' said Holmes, 'should a message of only nine letters contain a double 'e' or a double 's.' Let us imagine, therefore, that the knave of diamonds stands for the letter 's' and the ace of clubs for the letter 'e.' '

'Holmes,' interposed I, 'this may be inspiration. But it is not logic! Why should you think a message must con­tain those letters?'

'Because already I knew the message itself. You told it to me.'

'I told you?'

'Tut, Watson. If these cards represent the letters indicated, we have a double 'e' towards the beginning of the word and a double 's' at the end of it. The first letter of the word, we perceive, must be 'S,' and there is an 'e' before the double 's' at the end. No cunning is required to give us the word 'Sheerness.' '

'But what in the world has Sheerness—' I began.

'Geographically, you will find it towards the mouth of the Thames,' interrupted Holmes. 'But it is also, you informed me, the name of a horse owned by Lord Hove. Though this horse has been entered for the Grand Nation­ al, you told me that little is expected of it. But if the horse has been trained with the utmost secrecy as another smashing winner like Bengal Lady—'

'There would be a tremendous killing,' said I, 'for any gambler who could learn that well-guarded secret and back the horse!'

Sherlock Holmes held up the fan of cards in his left hand.

'My dear Miss Eleanor Baxter,' cried he, with a sor­rowful sternness, 'why did you let Sir Gervase Darling­ton persuade you? Your grandfather would not like to hear that you used the wax exhibition to leave this mes­sage— telling Sir Gervase what he wished to know without even speaking to him, writing to him, or approaching within a mile of him.'

If previously Miss Baxter had turned pale and uttered a moan at seeing Sir Gervase, it was as nothing to the piteous look now in her stricken grey eyes. Swaying on her feet, she began to falter out a denial.

'No, no!' said Holmes, gently. 'It really will not do. Within a few moments of the time you entered this room last night, I was aware of your—your acquaintanceship with Sir Gervase here.'

'Mr. Holmes, you cannot have known it!'

'I fear so. Kindly observe the small table at my left as I sit upon the sofa. When you approached me, there was nothing upon the table, save a sheet of note-paper em­blazoned with the somewhat conspicuous crest of Sir Gervase Darlington.'

'Oh, heaven help me!' cried the wretched young lady.

'Yet you were strangely affected. You looked fixedly at the table, as though in recognition. When you saw my eye upon you, you gave a start and changed colour. By apparently casual remarks, I elicited the fact that your employer is Lord Hove, the owner of Sheerness—'

'No! No! No!'

'It would have been easy for you to have substituted the new cards for those already in the wax figure's hand. As your grandfather said, there is a side door at Madame Taupin's which cannot properly be locked. You could have made the substitution secretly at night, before you called formally to escort your grandfather home in the morning.

'You might have destroyed the evidence before too late, if on the first night your grandfather had told you what was amiss in the museum. But he did not tell you until the following night, when both he and Robert Parsnip were there, and you could not be alone. How­ever, I do not wonder you protested when he wished to see me. Later, as Dr. Watson quite unconsciously told me, you tried to seize and scatter the cards, in the wax figure's hand.'

'Holmes,' cried I, 'enough of such torture! The true culprit is not Miss Baxter, but this ruffian who stands and laughs at us!'

'Believe me, Miss Baxter, I would not distress you,' said Holmes. 'I have no doubt you learned by accident of Sheerness' powers. Sporting peers will speak quite carelessly when they hear only the harmless clicking of a type-