Eventually, and with much ill grace, Thursgood turned to Sherlock Holmes. “Look here, Holmes, you are supposed to be the detective. Can’t you throw some light on this? The governor will be back tomorrow, and I am in the most frightful stew imaginable. How will I explain to the dad the loss of a family heirloom valued at fifty-thousand pounds?”
“Am I to understand, Thursgood,” enquired Holmes suavely, “that you are actually seeking my advice?”
“Yes, damn it, yes I am, confound your cheek!”
“Very well, then,” said Holmes. “But first things first. You are no doubt aware that aluminium is one of the most expensive metals on the chemical market?”
“What of it?”
“Well, I would imagine that you need to compensate de Mornay for the destruction you have visited upon his crutch. Two hundred pounds would be a very fair recompense.”
“That is for de Mornay to ask.”
“I do ask it,” retorted de Mornay. “Holmes speaks for me.”
“And how will that help to restore the cuff-links to my possession?” demanded Thursgood petulantly.
“I didn’t say it would. The point being,” said Holmes sternly, “that there are some actions that are actuated by duty, not the desire for gratification. But as to what might actually help with the prospect of getting your jewelry back, may I suggest you announce a reward of three-hundred pounds to anyone who can tell you where to find the cuff-links?”
“Do you think that will help?” asked Thursgood suspiciously.
“At any rate, it can’t hurt,” responded Holmes.
“But two-hundred pounds for the blasted crutch and a reward of three-hundred pounds add up to five-hundred pounds,” muttered Thursgood sullenly.
“Your arithmetic is unflawed. I hope you are able to see, though, that five-hundred pounds for the prospect of recovering a family heirloom worth fifty-thousand pounds is a trifling bagatelle. Of course,” concluded Holmes with an indifferent shrug of his shoulders, “you are free to refuse. No doubt you are also free to explain the loss of the cuff-links to your father.”
“No, no, I will do as you say,” said a chastened Thursgood.
“Very well, then. May I suggest that we reassemble here in an hour’s time? If you, Thursgood, should arrive with five-hundred pounds in your pocket. Who knows? All might still end well.”
In an hour’s time we were all back in the hall. I saw Holmes brushing past Thursgood as they both passed through the door at the same time.
“Do you have any news for me, Holmes?” cried Thursgood anxiously.
“Indeed I do,” replied Holmes. “But first, let me see the colour of your money. Ah, five-hundred pounds! Excellent! Now as to where your cuff-links are. May I trouble you to examine your waist-coat pocket?”
“What manner of joke is this, Holmes?” enquired Thursgood, his face turning red with anger.
“Come, come, do as I say, and humour me, will you?” invited Holmes.
Thursgood inserted a suspicious hand in his waist-coat pocket, and withdrew it, clutching two dazzling diamond-encrusted golden cuff-links in his fingers. His face was a study in comical bafflement, relief, delight, and mortification, each chasing the other. “How – who – when – why – ?” he sputtered.
“No, no, Thursgood,” said Holmes, laughing heartily at the sight of Thursgood’s face. “Not another word of explanation or clarification will you receive from me, for that was no part of our contract. You will now make over two-hundred pounds to de Mornay in compensation for his crutch, and three-hundred pounds to me for telling you where to find your cuff-links. I am a poor man, and am glad to see that the singular affair of the aluminium crutch has contributed a little toward a more egalitarian distribution of this world’s wealth. As for you, I can only hope that this little event will have taught you something of the virtues of moderation, humility, prudence, and good taste.”
A few minutes later, de Mornay, Holmes, and I were sitting before a blazing hearth in de Mornay’s room, with an open bottle of de Mornay’s fine champagne in front of us.
“Holmes,” said I, “an explanation is surely overdue! Perhaps you can begin by telling me what on earth you found so fascinating about Sir Tobias Caterwauler when the attention of the rest of us was fixed on de Mornay here and his aluminium crutch.”
Holmes’s body was seized by racks of internal laughter. “Ah, Sir Tobias! I was staring at him because I suddenly realized that two identical dramas were being enacted close to each other in that hall and right in front of my eyes. Tobias lost his wall-lizard because he chose to be diverted by the wriggling, squirming tail the lizard dropped in order to distract him. And all of you fellows lost track of the cuff-links when you chose instead to be diverted by that aluminium crutch of de Mornay’s. The crutch was to de Mornay what the lizard’s tail was to the lizard – and he certainly built up the mystery of that crutch most assiduously and effectively. The hand-waving, the vapours, the crystallization, that apparent transfer from palm to crutch – these were the chemical and physical appurtenances of the illusionist’s craft. De Mornay had you exactly where he wanted you – believing in the impossible osmosis of a solid pair of cuff-links from a glass case into his crutch.
