'I tell you, he is quite safe! The park at Groxton Low Hall is patrolled, and the house is guarded. They cannot attack him.'
Whether my own outburst was caused by the smart clip of the landau, the rushing wind past our ears, or the maddening nature of the problem itself, to this day I cannot say.
'Forgive the bluntness of an old campaigner,' cried I, 'who has no answer for anything. But at least take pity on the poor young lady beside you! Who is Mr. Charles Hendon? Why does he smash clocks? For what reason should his life be in danger?'
'Tut, Watson,' said Holmes, with a touch of tartness. 'You yourself staggered me by enumerating the points in which Mr. Charles Hendon, as you put it, is confoundedly un-English.'
'Well? And why does that assist us?'
'Because the so-called 'Charles Hendon' is assuredly not English.'
'Not English?' said Celia Forsythe, stretching out her hand. 'But he speaks English perfectly!' The breath died in her throat. 'Too perfectly!' she whispered.
'This young man,' I exclaimed, 'is not, then, of exalted station?'
'On the contrary, my dear fellow. Your shrewdness never fails. He is of very exalted station indeed. Now name for me the one Imperial Court in Europe—ay, Watson, Imperial Court!—at which the speaking of English has all but superseded its own native language.'
'I cannot think. I don't know.'
'Then endeavour to remember what you do know. Shortly before Miss Forsythe first called upon us, I read aloud certain items from the daily press which at the time seemed tediously unimportant. One item stated that the Nihilists, that dangerous band of anarchists who would crush Imperial Russia to nothingness, were suspected of plotting against the life of the Grand Duke Alexei at Odessa. The Grand Duke Alexei, you perceive. Now Lady Mayo's nickname for 'Mr. Charles Hendon' was—'
'Alec!' cried I.
'It might have been the merest coincidence,' observed Holmes, shrugging his shoulders. 'However, when we reflect upon recent history, we recall that in an earlier attempt on the life of the late Tsar of all the Russias— who was blown to pieces in '81, by the explosion of a dynamite bomb—the ticking of the bomb was drowned beneath the playing of a piano. Dynamite bombs, Watson, are of two kinds. One, iron-sheathed and fairly light, may be ignited on a short fuse and thrown. The other, also of iron, is exploded by means of a clockwork mechanism whose loud ticking alone betrays its presence.'
Crack went the coachman's whip, and the hedgerows seemed to unreel as in a dream. Holmes and I sat with our backs to the driver, vis-а-vis the moon-whitened faces of Lady Mayo and Celia Forsythe.
'Holmes, all this is becoming as clear as crystal! That is why the young man cannot bear the sight of a clock!'
'No, Watson. No! The sound of a clock!'
'The sound?'
'Precisely. When I attempted to tell you as much, your native impatience cut me short at the first letter. On the two occasions when he destroyed a clock in public, bear in mind that in neither case could he actually see the clock. In one instance, as Miss Forsythe informed us, it was hidden inside a screen of greenery; in the other, it was behind a curtain. Hearing only that significant ticking, he struck before he had time to take thought. His purpose, of course, was to smash the clockwork and draw the fangs of what he believed to be a bomb.'
'But surely,' I protested, 'those blows of a stick might well have ignited and exploded a bomb?'
Again Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
'Had it been a real bomb, who can tell? Yet, against an iron casing, I think the matter doubtful. In either event, we deal with a very courageous gentleman, haunted and hounded, who rushed and struck blindly. It is not unnatural that the memory of his father's death and the knowledge that the same organization was on his own trail should tend toward hasty action.'
'And then?'
Yet Sherlock Holmes remained uneasy. I noticed that he glanced round more than once at the lonely sweep of the grey rolling country-side.
'Well,' said he, 'having determined so much in my first interview with Miss Forsythe, it seemed clear that the forged letter was bait to draw the Grand Duke to Odessa, urging on him the pluck to face these implacable men. But, as I have told you, he must have suspected. Therefore he would go—where?' .
'To England,' said I. 'Nay, more! To Groxton Low Hall, with the added inducement of an attractive young lady whom I urge to leave off weeping and dry her tears.'
Holmes looked exasperated.
'At least I could say,' replied he, 'that the balance of probability lay in that direction. Surely it was obvious from the beginning that one in the position of Lady Mayo would never have entered so casually into railway-carriage conversation with a young man unless they had been, in Miss Forsythe's unwitting but illuminating phrase, 'old friends.' '
'I underestimated your powers, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.' Lady Mayo, who had been patting Celia's hand, spoke harshly. 'Yes, I knew Alexei when he was a little boy in a sailor-suit at St. Petersburg.'
'Where your husband, I discovered, was First Secretary at the British Embassy. In Odessa I learned another fact of great interest.'
'Eh? What was that?'
'The name of the Nihilists' chief agent, a daring, mad, and fanatical spirit who has been very close to the Grand Duke for some time.'
'Impossible!'
'Yet true.'
For a moment Lady Mayo sat looking at him, her countenance far less stony, while the carriage bumped over a rut and veered.
'Attend to me, Mr. Holmes. My own dear Alec has already written to the police, in the person of Sir Charles Warren, the Commissioner.'
'Thank you; I have seen the letter. I have also seen the Imperial Russian Arms on the seal.'
'Meanwhile,' she continued, 'I repeat that the park is patrolled, the house guarded—'
'Yet a fox may escape the hounds none the less.'
'It is not only a question of guards! At this minute, Mr. Holmes, poor Alec sits in an old, thick-walled room, with its door double-locked on the inside. The windows are so closely barred that none could so much as stretch a hand inside. The chimney-piece is ancient and hooded, yet with so narrow an aperture that no man could climb down; and a fire burns there. How could an enemy attack him?'
'How?' muttered Holmes, biting his lip and tapping his fingers on his knee. 'It is true he may be safe for one night, since—'
Lady Mayo made a slight gesture of triumph.
'No precaution has been neglected,' said she. 'Even the roof is safeguarded. Alec's manservant, Trepley, after delivering the letter in London with commendable quickness, returned by an earlier train than yours, and bor rowed a horse at the village. At this moment he is on the roof of the Hall, faithfully guarding his master.'
The effect of this speech was extraordinary. Sherlock Holmes leaped to his feet in the carriage, his cape rising in grotesque black silhouette as he clutched at the box-rail for balance.
'On the roof?' he echoed. 'On the roof?'
Then he turned round, seizing the shoulders of the coachman.
'Whip up the horses!' he shouted. 'For God's sake, whip up the horses! We have not a second to lose!'
Crack! Crack! went the whip over the ears of the leader. The horses, snorting, settled down to a gallop and plunged away. In the confusion, as we were all thrown together, rose Lady Mayo's angry voice.
'Mr. Holmes, have you taken leave of your senses?'
'You shall see whether I have. Miss Forsythe! Did you ever actually hear the Grand Duke address his man as Trepley?'
'I—no!' faltered Celia Forsythe, shocked to alertness. 'As I informed you, Char—oh, heaven help me!—the Grand Duke called him 'Trep.' I assumed—'
'Exactly! You assumed. But his true name is Trepoff. From your first description I knew him to be a liar and a
