“How would I have it?”
“It sailed across the room and I thought itmight have gone in your direction.”
“Sorry.”
“Actually I don’t care if he gets away. Thepoint is, darlin’, are you okay?”
I almost didn’t register the “darlin’,” butwhen I did, I decided it he probably used the word for any womanwhose name he couldn’t remember at the moment. “So...”
“So, it’ll be all right. If we had the gun,we could turn it over to the police. And, if he bought it legally,they might be able to trace it and arrest him.”
“What about the bullet in the wall, the factAndrews had a broken neck instead of a gunshot wound?”
“Attempted murder then.” He shrugged andwiped at the blood on my mouth. “Are you still bleeding? Do youwant to see a doctor?”
“No, I’m fine.”
In spite of the fight with Parton, Watsonstill wore the gardening gloves, which were obviously too tight forhis large hands, and he pulled one off with effort.
Apparently satisfied I wasn’t badly injured,he retrieved my gloves, found where he’d left the flashlight andturned it on. He swept the room with its glow, as if making sure weleft no incriminating evidence behind.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Back at my own apartment, Holmes greeted uswith curiosity and asked the first question. “Did you find thebullet?”
“The bullet struck the wall next to thefireplace, but it’s not there anymore. Someone, probably thepolice, dug it out.”
Then I excused myself to wash my hands andface in the bathroom and examine the cut on my lip. It had stoppedbleeding but, somewhat swollen, made me look like a native of someAfrican tribe in an old Hollywood movie. Except that my hair andcomplexion were not dark enough to pass a screen test for therole.
Meanwhile Watson, having heard my part of theconversation, told Holmes about finding the bullet hole. He addedthat Parton had shown up, gun in hand, and gave a brief account ofthe fight that ensued.
When I returned to the sitting room with acold wet cloth on my mouth, Holmes insisted we give him ablow-by-blow account of our run-in with Parton.
“I believe you are correct in assuming theman was Parton, probably returning to the scene to retrieve theknapsack he left behind. I need details, so describe him please.His height, approximate weight, clothes. What type of boots did hewear?”
I relayed these questions to Watson, and, oneat a time, we described Parton as well as we could.
“The room was dark and he wore dark clothes,”I said. “I couldn’t see him very well.”
Watson did a better job, but then he’d beencloser to Parton during the skirmish and might even have been ableto identify the scent of his shaving lotion if necessary. “Isuspect he’s been in the military and trained in hand-to-handcombat.”
I removed the cloth from my face for amoment. “But you held your own with him.”
Doc grinned. “I was the champion wrestler onmy team in college.” He pointed at me. “Then you jumped in, so wewere two against one.”
I raised my voice, but it came out a littlemuffled. “He can’t have been scared of me.”
“Maybe not, but he might have had secondthoughts about shooting a woman, so that’s why he ran out.”
“He ran away?” Holmes asked.
“Yes, and we didn’t follow him, so I’m afraidwe lost him.”
Watson repeated, for Holmes’s benefit, whathe’d told me about hoping I had somehow picked up the gun so wecould turn it over to the police.
Holmes strode across the room, hands claspedtogether behind his back. “What do you intend to do next?”
I repeated the question and Watson said, “Wehaven’t decided yet.”
“It is of no consequence. True, you mighthave used the gun as a means of drawing him out of hiding. He wouldnot want you to turn it over to the authorities and tie him to thecrime.”
While I repeated that to Watson, Holmes movedto the chair near the fireplace and sat. “However, while you weregone, I thought of a different means of getting the man to comehere. One cannot draw correct conclusions about a crime unless onehas all the facts. Therefore, I need to question the man and gainthe necessary information.”
“You want him to come here?”
“Yes. How else may I question him?”
“How can you question him at all, even if hecomes, when he will probably not be able to see or hear you?”
Holmes raised a hand. “Elementary, my dear. Iwill tell you what questions to ask, just as we’ve been doing withthis young man and your grandmother.”
“I see. You say you think you know a way tolure him here for that questioning?”
“Indeed. I based my ‘lure,’ as you call it,on the incident of the necklace worn by the woman in thephotographs, the one we assume might have been Mr. Parton’ssister.”
“The necklace? We don’t have the necklace. Weonly saw it in the photographs.”
Watson had been listening and watching me,and apparently followed my conversation with Holmes to some extent.“Necklace?” he asked.
The pictures had been moved to the roll-topdesk earlier that evening while we ate dinner and then playedWhist, so I removed them and put them on the table for Doc. Ipointed to the necklace.
“Okay, I see that she’s wearing it in bothphotographs.”
“I believe that is significant,” Holmes said,“and I planned to propose we tell Parton we have the necklace.”
“Even though we don’t?” I asked.
Holmes looked smug. “A certain amount ofsubterfuge is often obligatory in the investigation of a crime. Youmay remember that in several cases Mr. Doyle wrote about, itsometimes became necessary for me to wear a disguise and pretend tobe someone else in order to learn the truth.”
I repeated that explanation to Watson, andHolmes continued.
“If we had the man’s pistol, we could, ofcourse, use that instead, but now the falsehood about having thenecklace will be useful.”
“So you’re saying,” I said for Watson’sbenefit as well as Holmes’s, “that we should attempt to contactParton and offer to return the necklace we saw in the pictures ifhe will just come here to be questioned by you.”
“Since he will no doubt be unable to see me,it will be necessary for you to ask the questions, and therefore myname need not be mentioned at
