The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes

'Quite so. A most suggestive circumstance.'

'It is suggestive merely of the madness that drove Colonel Warburton to his dreadful deed,' answered MacDonald.

'Come, Mr. Holmes,' interposed young Lasher. 'We all know your reputation for serving justice through your own clever methods and naturally we are as keen as mustard to clear poor uncle's name. But, devil take it, there is no way round the evidence and whether we like it or not we are forced to agree with the Inspector here that Colonel Warburton was the victim of his own in­sanity.'

Holmes raised one long, thin hand.

'Colonel Warburton was the victim of a singularly cold-blooded murder,' he stated quietly.

His words were followed by a tense silence as we all stared at each other.

'By God, sir, whom are you accusing?' roared Major Earnshaw. 'I'll have you know that there are slander laws in this country.'

'Well, well,' said Holmes good-humoredly. 'I will take you into my confidence, Major, by telling you that my case rests largely on all those broken portions of glass from the French window which, you will perceive, I have gathered up into the fireplace. When I return tomorrow morning to piece them together, I trust that I will then be able to prove my case to your satisfaction. By the way, Inspector Mac, I take it that you eat oysters?'

MacDonald's face reddened.

'Mr. Holmes, I have had aye a liking and a respect for ye,' he said sharply. 'But there are times when it is neither douce nor seemly in a man to—what the deil have oysters to do with it?'

'Merely that to eat them you would presumably take the oyster fork nearest to hand. To the trained observer, surely there would be something significant if you reached instead for the fork beside your neighbor's plate. I give you the thought for what it is worth.'

For a long moment MacDonald stared intently at my friend.

'Aye, Mr. Holmes,' he said at length. 'Verra interest­ing. I should be glad of your suggestions.'

'I would advise that you have the broken window boarded up,' replied Holmes. 'Apart from that, let noth­ing be touched until we all meet again tomorrow morning. Come, Watson, I see that it is already past one o'clock. A dish of calamare alia siciliana at Pelligrini's would not come amiss.'

During the afternoon, I was busy upon my belated medical round and it was not until the early evening that I found myself once more in Baker Street. Mrs. Hudson opened the door to me and I had paused on the stairs to answer her enquiry whether I would be staying for dinner when a loud report rang through the house. Mrs. Hudson clutched at the banister.

'There, sir, he's at it again,' she wailed. 'Them dratted pistols. And not six months since he blew the points off the mantelpiece! In the interests of justice, Mr. Holmes said. Oh, Dr. Watson, sir, if you don't get up there quick, like as not it will be that expensive gasogene that will have gone this time.'

Throwing the worthy woman a word of comfort, I raced up the stairs and threw open the door of our old sitting-room just as a second report rang out. Through a cloud of pungent black powder-smoke, I caught a glimpse of Sherlock Holmes. He was lounging back in his arm-chair, clad in a dressing-gown, with a cigar between his lips and a smoking revolver poised in his right hand.

'Ah, Watson,' he said languidly.

'Good heavens, Holmes, this is really intolerable,' I cried. 'The place smells like a rifle range. If you care nothing for the damage, I beg of you to consider the effect on Mrs. Hudson's nerves and those of your clients.' I threw wide the windows and was relieved to observe that the noisy stream of passing hansoms and carriages had apparently concealed the sound of the shots. 'The atmosphere is most unhealthy,' I added severely.

Holmes stretched up an arm and placed the revolver on the mantelpiece.

'Really Watson, I don't know what I would do without you,' he remarked. 'As I have had occasion to observe before, you have a certain genius for supplying the element of a touchstone to the higher workings of the trained mind.'

'A touchstone that has, to my knowledge, broken the law three times in order to be of assistance to you,' I replied a trifle bitterly.

'My dear fellow,' said he, and there was that in his voice that banished all resentment and mollified my ruffled feelings.

'It is some time since I saw you smoking a cigar,' I pronounced, as I threw myself into my old chair.

'It is a matter of mood, Watson. In this instance, I took the liberty of purloining one from the stock of the late Colonel Warburton.' He broke off to glance at the clock on the mantelpiece. 'H'm. We have an hour to spare,' he concluded. 'So let us exchange the problems of Man's manifold wickedness for the expression of that higher power that exists even in the worst of us. Watson, the Stradivarius. It is in the corner behind you.'

It was nearly eight o'clock and I had just lit the gas when there came a knock on the door and Inspector MacDonald, his long, angular figure wrapped in a plaid over-coat, bustled into the room.

'I got your message, Mr. Holmes,' he cried, 'and everything has been carried out in accordance with your suggestions. There'll be a constable in the front garden at midnight. Don't worry about the French window; we can get in without rousing the house.'

Holmes rubbed his thin fingers together.

'Excellent, excellent! You have a gift for promptly carrying out---eh—suggestions that will take you far,' he said warmly. 'Mrs. Hudson will serve us supper here and afterwards a pipe or two may help to fill in the time. I consider that it might be fatal to my plans should we take up our positions before midnight. Now, Mr. Mac, draw up your chair and try this shag. Watson can tell you that it has marked characteristics of its own.'

The evening passed pleasantly enough. Sherlock Holmes, who was in his most genial mood, lent an atten­tive ear to the Scotland Yard man's account of a gang of French coiners whose operations were actually threat­ening the stability of the louis d'or, and thereafter pro­ceeded to bemuse the Scotsman with a highly ingenious theory as to the effects of runic lore upon the develop­ment of the highland clans. It was the striking of mid­night which brought us back at last to the grim realities of the night.

Holmes crossed to his desk and, in the pool of light cast by the green-shaded reading lamp, I caught the grave expression on his face as he opened a drawer and took out a life-preserver.

'Slip this into your pocket, Watson,' said he. 'I fancy that our man may be inclined to violence. Now, Mr. Mac, as Mrs. Hudson has probably been in bed an hour since, if you are ready we will step downstairs and hail the first hansom.'

It was a clear starlit night, and a short drive through a network of small streets carried us across Edgeware Road. At a word from Holmes, the cabby pulled up at a corner and as we alighted I saw the long expanse of Cambridge Terrace stretching away before us in an empty desolation of lamplight and shadow. We hurried down the street and turned through the gate leading to our destination.

MacDonald nodded towards the planks which now blocked the shattered window.

'They're loose on one side,' he whispered. 'But move carefully.'

There was a slight creaking and, an instant later, we had squeezed our way past the boards to find ourselves in the utter darkness of Colonel Warburton's curio room.

Holmes had produced a dark lantern from the pocket of his Inverness and following its faint beam we groped our way along the wall until we came to an alcove con­taining a couch.

'This will do,' whispered my friend. 'We might have found a worse roost and it is near enough to the fireplace for our purposes.'

The night was singularly quiet and, as it turned out, our vigil a dreary one. Once, some belated revellers went by in a hansom, the sound of their singing and the clip-clop of the horse's hoofs gradually dying away towards Hyde Park and, an hour or so later, there came to us the deep rumbling gallop of a fire-engine tearing furiously along Edgeware Road with a clamour of bells and the sharp pistol-shot cracking of the driver's whip. Otherwise, the silence was unbroken save for the ticking of a grand­father clock at the other end of the room.

The atmosphere, which was heavy with the aromatic mustiness of an Oriental museum, began to weigh me down with an increasing lethargy until I had to concen­trate all my faculties to keep myself from falling asleep.

I have referred to the utter darkness, but as my eyes grew accustomed to the conditions I became aware of a pale reflection of light from some distant street-lamp steal­ing through the unboarded French window and I was idly following its path when my gaze fell upon something that brought a chill to my senses. A face, faint and nebulous yet dreadful as the figment of a nightmare, was glaring down at me from the far end of that dim radiance.