The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes

'Mr. Holmes,' burst out the baronet, 'I have never asked favour of any man in my life—'

'Perhaps it would be as well, Sir Reginald, if you left the explanation to me,' interrupted Holmes quietly, his long, thin fingers moving over the chased surface of the cup. 'The blade cannot strike unless the cup be lifted fully to the lips, when the full pressure of both hands is exerted on the handles. Then the handles themselves act as triggers for the spring-mechanism, to which the old blade is attached. You will perceive the minute slot just below the circlet of jewels and cleverly disguised by the carving.'

There was awe in Gregson's face as he gazed down at the ancient vessel.

'Then you mean,' he stated somberly, 'that the person who drinks from the Luck of Lavington is a dead man?'

'By no means. I would draw your attention to the small silver owl-figures on the crest of the handles. If you look closely, you will see that the right-hand one turns on a pivot. I believe this to act in the same way as a safety- catch on a rifle. Unfortunately, these old mech­anisms are apt to become unreliable with the passage of the centuries.'

Gregson whistled.

'It was an accident, right enough!' he stated. 'Your reference to a mischance, Sir Reginald, has proved to be a lucky shot in the dark. I suspected it all the time. But one moment! Why didn't we see the blade when we first saw the cup?'

'Let us suppose, Gregson,' replied Holmes, 'that there is some form of recoil-spring.'

'But surely, Holmes,' I cried, 'there could be no such—'

'As you were about to say, Watson, there was no such description of the cup as I had hoped to find in the Maidstone County Registry. However, it did yield me the interesting document I read you.'

'Well, well, Mr. Holmes, you can give me the historic details later,' said Gregson, turning to the baronet. 'In regard to this affair, Sir Reginald, you can think yourself lucky that there are some sharp men hereabouts. Your possession of this dangerous relic might have caused a serious miscarriage of justice. Either you must have the mechanism removed, or entrust it to Scotland Yard.'

Sir Reginald Lavington, who had been biting his lip as though to suppress some overmastering emotion, looked dazedly from Holmes to Gregson.

'Right willingly,' he said at length. 'But the Luck of Lavington has been in our family for over four hundred years. If it passes beyond this door, then I feel it should go to Mr. Sherlock Holmes.'

Holmes's eyes met those of the baronet.

'I will accept it as a memento of a very gallant man,' my friend replied gravely.

As Holmes and I made our way up the steep lane in the wind-swept darkness, we turned at the brow of the hill and looked down on the old manor-house with its lights dimly reflected in the moat.

'I do feel, Holmes,' said I, somewhat nettled, 'that you owe me an explanation. When I tried to point to you an error in your case, you indicated plainly that you wished me to speak no further.'

'What error, Watson?'

'Your explanation of how the cup worked. By the release of a powerful spring from a trigger controlled by the handles, it would have been quite easy to make the blade strike. But to push it back again, unless this were done by hand so that the blade could be caught again in the mechanism—that, my dear fellow, is quite a different thing.'

For a moment Holmes did not reply. He stood gaunt and lonely, his gaze fixed on the ancient tower of Lavington.

'Surely it was apparent from the first,' said he, 'that no living murderer could have stabbed Daley, and that something was wrong with the appearance of the crime as we saw it?'

'You deduced this from the direction of the wound?'

'That, yes. But there were other facts equally in­dicative.'

'Your behaviour suggested as much at the time! Yet I cannot see what facts.'

'The scratches on the table, Watson! And the wine spilled on both table and floor.'

'Pray be good enough to explain.'

'Colonel Daley's finger-nails,' replied Holmes, 'had clawed at the table-top in his death-throes, and all the wine had been spilled. You remarked that? Good! Taking as a working hypothesis the theory that he was killed by a blade in the cup, what must follow? The blade would strike. Then—?'

'Then the cup would fall, spilling the wine. I grant that.'

'But is it reasonable that the cup, in falling, should land upright on the table—as we found it? This was overwhelmingly unlikely. Further evidence made it im­possible. I lifted the cup, if you recall, when I first ex­amined it. Underneath it, covered by it, you saw—?'

'Scratches!' I interrupted. 'Scratches and spilled wine!'

'Precisely. Daley would die soon, but not instantly. If the cup fell from his hands, are we to assume that it hung suspended in the air, and afterwards descended over the scratches and the wine? No, Watson. There was, as you pointed out, no recoil-mechanism. With Daley dead, some living hand picked up the cup from the floor. Some living hand pushed back the blade into the cup, and set it up­right on the table.'

A gust of rain blew out of the dreary sky, but my com­panion remained motionless.

'Holmes,' said I, 'according to the butler—'

'According to the butler? Yes?'

'Sir Reginald Lavington was drinking with the colonel. At least, Daley is reported to have said so.'

'And, as he said so,' commented Holmes, 'gave so curious a laugh that Gillings could not forget it. Had the laugh an ulterior meaning, Watson? But I had better say no more, lest I make you an accessory after the fact like myself.'

'You do me less than justice, Holmes, should I become accessory after the fact in a good cause!'

'In my judgement,' said Sherlock Holmes, 'one of the best of causes.'

'Then you may rely on my silence.'

'Be it so, Watson! Now consider the behaviour of Sir Reginald Lavington. For an innocent man, he acted very strangely.'

'You mean that Sir Reginald—'

'Pray don't interrupt. Though he had witnesses that he had not been drinking with Daley, he would not produce them. He preferred to be arrested. Why should Daley, a man of such different character from his host, pay frequent visits to this house? What was Daley doing there? Interpret the meaning of Lavington's statement, 'I know his character now!' We saw the answers to these questions played out in deadly pantomime. To me it suggested the blackest of all crimes, blackmail.'

'Sir Reginald,' I exclaimed, 'was guilty after all! He was a dangerous man, as I remarked—'

'A dangerous man, yes,' agreed Holmes. 'But you have seen his character. He might kill. But he would not kill and conceal.'

'Conceal what?'

'Reflect again, Watson. Though we know that he was not drinking with Daley in the banqueting-hall, he might have returned from the river just in time to find Daley dead. That was when he thrust the blade back into the cup, and set it upright again. But guilt? No. His be­haviour, his willingness to be arrested, can be understood only if he had been shielding someone else.'

I followed my friend's gaze, which had never moved from the direction of Lavington Court.

'Holmes,' I cried, 'then who set the diabolical mech­anism?'

'Think, Watson! Who was the only person who uttered that one word, 'jealousy'? Let us suppose a woman has erred before a marriage, but never after it. Let us sup­pose, moreover, that she believes her husband, a man of the old school, would not understand. She is at the mercy of that most vicious of all parasites, a society blackmailer. She is present when the blackmailer drinks a toast—by his own choice—from the Luck of Lavington. But, since she is obliged to slip away at the entrance of the butler, the blackmailer laughed and died. Say no more, Watson. Let the past sleep.'

'As you wish. I am silent.'

'It is a cardinal error, my dear fellow, to theorize without data. And yet, when we first entered Lavington Court yesterday evening, I had a glimpse of the truth.'

'But what did you see?'