The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes Part 11 (1/2)

”I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson,” said he ”When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one you use a hansoh used, are by no h to justify the hansom”

”Excellent!” I cried

”Elementary,” said he ”It is one of those instances where the reasoner can produce an effect which seehbor, because the latter has missed the one little point which is the basis of the deduction The same may be said, my dear fellow, for the effect of some of these little sketches of yours, which is entirelyin your own hands some factors in the problem which are never imparted to the reader Now, at present I am in the position of these same readers, for I hold in this hand several threads of one of the strangest cases which ever perplexed a man's brain, and yet I lack the one or thich are needful to complete my theory But I'll have theht flush sprang into his thin cheeks For an instant only When I glanced again his face had resuard him as a machine rather than a man

”The problem presents features of interest,” said he ”I may even say exceptional features of interest I have already looked into the ht of my solution If you could accoht be of considerable service to o as far as Aldershot to-morrow?”

”I have no doubt Jackson would take ood I want to start by the 1110 froive ive you a sketch of what has happened, and of what remains to be done”

”I was sleepy before you came I am quite wakeful now”

”I will co anything vital to the case It is conceivable that you may even have read some account of the matter It is the supposed murder of Colonel Barclay, of the Royal Munsters, at Aldershot, which I a of it”

”It has not excited much attention yet, except locally The facts are only two days old Briefly they are these: ”The Royal Munsters is, as you know, one of the iments in the British army It did wonders both in the Criuished itself upon every possible occasion It was coallant veteran, who started as a full private, was raised to commissioned rank for his bravery at the tiiment in which he had once carried a musket

”Colonel Barclay had eant, and his wife, whose hter of a foreant in the sained, so couple (for they were still young) found thes They appear, however, to have quickly adapted themselves, and Mrs Barclay has always, I understand, been as popular with the ladies of the regiment as her husband ith his brother officers I reat beauty, and that even nohen she has been married for upwards of thirty years, she is still of a striking and queenly appearance

”Colonel Barclay's family life appears to have been a uniformly happy one Major Murphy, to whom I owe most of my facts, assuresbetween the pair On the whole, he thinks that Barclay's devotion to his as greater than his wife's to Barclay He was acutely uneasy if he were absent froh devoted and faithful, was less obtrusively affectionate But they were regarded in the regied couple There was absolutely nothing in their edy which was to follow

”Colonel Barclay hiular traits in his character He was a dashi+ng, jovial old soldier in his usual mood, but there were occasions on which he seemed to show himself capable of considerable violence and vindictiveness This side of his nature, however, appears never to have been turned towards his wife Another fact, which had struck Major Murphy and three out of five of the other officers hoular sort of depression which came upon him at times As the major expressed it, the smile had often been struck from histhe gayeties and chaff of the mess-table For days on end, when the looe of superstition were the only unusual traits in his character which his brother officers had observed The latter peculiarity took the for left alone, especially after dark This puerile feature in a nature which was conspicuously iven rise to comment and conjecture

”The first battalion of the Royal Munsters (which is the old 117th) has been stationed at Aldershot for some years The married officers live out of barracks, and the Colonel has during all this time occupied a villa called Lachine, about half a rounds, but the west side of it is not h-road A coachman and two maids form the staff of servants These with their master and mistress were the sole occupants of Lachine, for the Barclays had no children, nor was it usual for them to have resident visitors

”Now for the events at Lachine between nine and ten on the evening of last Monday”

”Mrs Barclay was, it appears, a member of the Roman Catholic Church, and had interested herself very e, which was formed in connection with the Watt Street Chapel for the purpose of supplying the poor with cast-off clothing A ht, and Mrs Barclay had hurried over her dinner in order to be present at it When leaving the house she was heard by the coachman to make some commonplace remark to her husband, and to assure hi She then called for Miss Morrison, a young lady who lives in the next villa, and the tent off together to theirIt lasted forty minutes, and at a quarter-past nine Mrs Barclay returned ho left Miss Morrison at her door as she passed

”There is a roo-roolass folding-door on to the lawn The lawn is thirty yards across, and is only divided frohway by a loith an iron rail above it It was into this room that Mrs Barclay went upon her return The blinds were not down, for the roo, but Mrs Barclay herself lit the la Jane Stewart, the house- her a cup of tea, which was quite contrary to her usual habits The Colonel had been sitting in the dining-roo that his wife had returned he joined her in the -room The coachain alive

”The tea which had been ordered was brought up at the end of ten minutes; but the maid, as she approached the door, was surprised to hear the voices of her master andany answer, and even turned the handle, but only to find that the door was locked upon the inside Naturally enough she ran down to tell the cook, and the tomen with the coachman came up into the hall and listened to the dispute which was still raging They all agreed that only two voices were to be heard, those of Barclay and of his wife Barclay's remarks were subdued and abrupt, so that none of them were audible to the listeners The lady's, on the other hand, were most bitter, and when she raised her voice could be plainly heard 'You coward!' she repeated over and over again 'What can be done now? What can be done now? Give me back my life I will never so ain! You coward! You coward!' Those were scraps of her conversation, ending in a sudden dreadful cry in thescreaedy had occurred, the coachman rushed to the door and strove to force it, while scream after scream issued from within He was unable, however, to make his way in, and the maids were too distracted with fear to be of any assistance to hih the hall door and round to the lawn upon which the long French s open One side of the as open, which I understand was quite usual in the summer-time, and he passed without difficulty into the room His mistress had ceased to scream and was stretched insensible upon a couch, while with his feet tilted over the side of an arround near the corner of the fender, was lying the unfortunate soldier stone dead in a pool of his own blood

”Naturally, the coach for his ular difficulty presented itself The key was not in the inner side of the door, nor could he find it anywhere in the rooh the , and having obtained the help of a policeainst whoest suspicion rested, was removed to her room, still in a state of insensibility The Colonel's body was then placed upon the sofa, and a careful exaedy

”The injury fro was found to be a jagged cut so at the back part of his head, which had evidently been caused by a violent blow frouess what that weapona singular club of hard carved ith a bone handle The Colonel possessed a varied collection of weapons brought froht, and it is conjectured by the police that his club was a seen it before, but a the numerous curiosities in the house it is possible that itelse of importance was discovered in the room by the police, save the inexplicable fact that neither upon Mrs Barclay's person nor upon that of the victi key to be found The door had eventually to be opened by a lockss, Watson, when upon the TuesdayI, at the request of Major Murphy, went down to Aldershot to supplement the efforts of the police I think that you will acknowledge that the problem was already one of interest, but my observations soon made me realize that it was in truth ht appear

”Before exa the room I cross-questioned the servants, but only succeeded in eliciting the facts which I have already stated One other detail of interest was remembered by Jane Stewart, the house the sound of the quarrel she descended and returned with the other servants On that first occasion, when she was alone, she says that the voices of her master and , and judged by their tones rather than their words that they had fallen out Onher, however, she remembered that she heard the word David uttered twice by the lady The point is of the ut us towards the reason of the sudden quarrel The Colonel's na in the case which had made the deepest impression both upon the servants and the police This was the contortion of the Colonel's face It had set, according to their account, into the most dreadful expression of fear and horror which a hu More than one person fainted at the ht of him, so terrible was the effect It was quite certain that he had foreseen his fate, and that it had caused hih with the police theory, if the Colonel could have seen his wifeaon the back of his head a fatal objection to this, as he ot from the lady herself, as temporarily insane from an acute attack of brain-fever

”From the police I learned that Miss Morrison, who you re any knowledge of what it hich had caused the ill-huathered these facts, Watson, I s to separate those which were crucial from others which were merely incidental There could be no question that the ular disappearance of the door-key A most careful search had failed to discover it in the room Therefore it must have been taken from it But neither the Colonel nor the Colonel's wife could have taken it That was perfectly clear Therefore a third person must have entered the rooh theIt seemed to ht possibly reveal some traces of this mysterious individual You know my methods, Watson There was not one of them which I did not apply to the inquiry And it ended bytraces, but very different ones from those which I had expected There had been afrom the road I was able to obtain five very clear impressions of his foot-marks: one in the roadway itself, at the point where he had climbed the loall, two on the lawn, and two very faint ones upon the stained boards near the here he had entered He had apparently rushed across the lawn, for his toe-marks were much deeper than his heels But it was not the man who surprised me It was his coe sheet of tissue-paper out of his pocket and carefully unfolded it upon his knee

”What do you make of that?” he asked

The paper was covered with he tracings of the foot-marks of some small ani nails, and the whole print ,” said I

”Did you ever hear of a dog running up a curtain? I found distinct traces that this creature had done so”

”A monkey, then?”

”But it is not the print of anor cat nor monkey nor any creature that we are familiar with I have tried to reconstruct it from the measure motionless You see that it is no less than fifteen inches froth of neck and head, and you get a creature not --probably more if there is any tail But now observe this other th of its stride In each case it is only about three inches You have an indication, you see, of a long body with very short legs attached to it It has not been considerate enough to leave any of its hair behind it But its general shape must be what I have indicated, and it can run up a curtain, and it is carnivorous”

”How do you deduce that?”

”Because it ran up the curtain A canary's cage was hanging in the , and its aiet at the bird”

”Then as the beast?”

”Ah, if I could give it a na the case On the whole, it was probably soer than any of these that I have seen”

”But what had it to do with the crime?”

”That, also, is still obscure But we have learned a good deal, you perceive We know that aat the quarrel between the Barclays--the blinds were up and the roohted We know, also, that he ran across the lawn, entered the rooe animal, and that he either struck the Colonel or, as is equally possible, that the Colonel fell down froht of him, and cut his head on the corner of the fender Finally, we have the curious fact that the intruder carried away the key with him when he left”

”Your discoveries seem to have left the business more obscure that it was before,” said I

”Quite so They undoubtedly showed that the affair was ht the matter over, and I came to the conclusion that I must approach the case fro you up, and I ht just as well tell you all this on our way to Aldershot to-one rather too far to stop”

”It is quite certain that when Mrs Barclay left the house at half-past seven she was on good terms with her husband She was never, as I think I have said, ostentatiously affectionate, but she was heard by the coach with the Colonel in a friendly fashi+on Now, it was equally certain that, ione to the room in which she was least likely to see her husband, had flown to tea as an agitated wo in to her, had broken into violent recri had occurred between seven-thirty and nine o'clock which had cos towards hi the whole of that hour and a half It was absolutely certain, therefore, in spite of her denial, that sheof the matter

”My first conjecture was, that possibly there had been so lady and the old soldier, which the former had now confessed to the wife That would account for the angry return, and also for the girl's denial that anything had occurred Nor would it be entirely incompatible with most of the words overhead But there was the reference to David, and there was the known affection of the Colonel for his wife, to weigh against it, to say nothing of the tragic intrusion of this other ht, of course, be entirely disconnected hat had gone before It was not easy to pick one's steps, but, on the whole, I was inclined to dis between the Colonel and Miss Morrison, butlady held the clue as to what it hich had turned Mrs Barclay to hatred of her husband I took the obvious course, therefore, of calling upon Miss M, of explaining to her that I was perfectly certain that she held the facts in her possession, and of assuring her that her friend, Mrs Barclay, e unless the matter were cleared up

”Miss Morrison is a little ethereal slip of a girl, with ti in shrewdness and co for so to me with a brisk air of resolution, she broke into a remarkable statement which I will condense for your benefit

”'I pro of the matter, and a promise is a promise,' said she; 'but if I can really help her when so serious a charge is laid against her, and when her own , is closed by illness, then I think I am absolved from my promise I will tell you exactly what happened upon Monday evening

”'We were returning from the Watt Street Mission about a quarter to nine o'clock On our e had to pass through Hudson Street, which is a very quiet thoroughfare There is only one lamp in it, upon the left-hand side, and as we approached this la towards us with his back very bent, and so over one of his shoulders He appeared to be deformed, for he carried his head low and walked with his knees bent We were passing hiht thrown by the lamp, and as he did so he stopped and screamed out in a dreadful voice, ”My God, it's Nancy!” Mrs Barclay turned as white as death, and would have fallen down had the dreadful-looking creature not caught hold of her I was going to call for the police, but she, to my surprise, spoke quite civilly to the fellow