The Return of Sherlock Holmes Part 4 (2/2)
”So it would seem,” said Holmes ”Perhaps you can account also for the bullet which has so obviously struck the edge of the ?”
He had turned suddenly, and his long, thin finger was pointing to a hole which had been drilled right through the lo-sash, about an inch above the bottoe!” cried the inspector ”How ever did you see that?”
”Because I looked for it”
”Wonderful!” said the country doctor ”You are certainly right, sir Then a third shot has been fired, and therefore a third person must have been present But who could that have been, and how could he have got away?”
”That is the problem which we are now about to solve,” said Sherlock Holmes ”You reme their room they were at once conscious of a smell of powder, I remarked that the point was an extremely important one?”
”Yes, sir; but I confess I did not quite follow you”
”It suggested that at the ti, the ell as the door of the room had been open Otherwise the fuh the house A draught in the room was necessary for that Both door and ere only open for a very short time, however”
”How do you prove that?”
”Because the candle was not guttered”
”Capital!” cried the inspector ”Capital!
”Feeling sure that thehad been open at the tiht have been a third person in the affair, who stood outside this opening and fired through it Any shot directed at this person h, was the bullet mark!”
”But how came theto be shut and fastened?”
”The woman's first instinct would be to shut and fasten theBut, halloa! What is this?”
It was a lady's hand-bag which stood upon the study table--a tri of crocodile-skin and silver Holmes opened it and turned the contents out There were twenty fifty-pound notes of the Bank of England, held together by an india-rubber band--nothing else
”This ure in the trial” said Hol with its contents to the inspector ”It is now necessary that we should try to throw soht upon this third bullet, which has clearly, fro of the wood, been fired fro, the cook, again You said, Mrs King, that you were awakened by a LOUD explosion When you said that, did you mean that it seemed to you to be louder than the second one?”
”Well, sir, it wakened e But it did seeht have been two shots fired almost at the same instant?”
”I am sure I couldn't say, sir”
”I believe that it was undoubtedly so I rather think, Inspector Martin, that we have now exhausted all that this room can teach us If you will kindly step round with arden has to offer”
A flower-bed extended up to the study , and we all broke into an exclamation as we approached it The floere trampled down, and the soft soil was ie, , sharp toes Holrass and leaves like a retriever after a wounded bird Then, with a cry of satisfaction, he bent forward and picked up a little brazen cylinder
”I thought so,” said he, ”the revolver had an ejector, and here is the third cartridge I really think, Inspector Martin, that our case is almost complete”
The country inspector's face had shown his intense aress of Holation At first he had shown some disposition to assert his own position, but noas overcome with admiration, and ready to folloithout question wherever Holo into that later There are several points in this problem which I have not been able to explain to you yet Now that I have got so far, I had best proceed on my own lines, and then clear the whole matter up once and for all”
”Just as you wish, Mr Holet our man”
”I have no desire to make mysteries, but it is i and complex explanations I have the threads of this affair all in my hand Even if this lady should never recover consciousness, we can still reconstruct the events of last night and insure that justice be done First of all, I wish to knohether there is any inn in this neighbourhood known as `Elrige's'?”
The servants were cross-questioned, but none of theht upon thethat a farmer of that name lived some miles off, in the direction of East Ruston
”Is it a lonely farm?”
”Very lonely, sir”
”Perhaps they have not heard yet of all that happened here during the night?”
”Maybe not, sir”
Holht for a little, and then a curious smile played over his face
”Saddle a horse, e's Farm”
He took fro men With these in front of him, he worked for some time at the study-table Finally he handed a note to the boy, with directions to put it into the hands of the person to whom it was addressed, and especially to answer no questions of any sort which ht be put to hi, irregular characters, very unlike Holned to Mr Abe Slaney, Elriges Farm, East Ruston, Norfolk
”I think, Inspector,” Holraph for an escort, as, if my calculations prove to be correct, you erous prisoner to convey to the county jail The boy who takes this note could no doubt forward your telegram If there is an afternoon train to town, Watson, I think we should do well to take it, as I have a chemical analysis of soation draws rapidly to a close”
When the youth had been dispatched with the note, Sherlock Holave his instructions to the servants If any visitor were to call asking for Mrs Hilton Cubitt, no inforiven as to her condition, but he was to be shown at once into the drawing-room He impressed these points upon them with the ut-room, with the remark that the business was now out of our hands, and that we ht until we could see as in store for us The doctor had departed to his patients, and only the inspector and myself remained
”I think that I can help you to pass an hour in an interesting and profitablehis chair up to the table, and spreading out in front of him the various papers upon which were recorded the antics of the dancing men ”As to you, friend Watson, I owe you every atone allowed your natural curiosity to re unsatisfied To you, Inspector, the whole incident may appeal as a remarkable professional study Icircumstances connected with the previous consultations which Mr Hilton Cubitt has had with me in Baker Street” He then shortly recapitulated the facts which have already been recorded ”I have here in front of ht smile, had they not proved theedy I as, and araph upon the subject, in which I analyze one hundred and sixty separate ciphers, but I confess that this is entirely new to me The object of those who invented the system has apparently been to conceal that these characters convey a ive the idea that they are the nized, however, that the syuide us in all forh The first e submitted to me was so short that it was impossible for me to do more than to say, with some confidence, that the symbol xxx stood for E As you are aware, E is the lish alphabet, and it predominates to so marked an extent that even in a short sentence one would expect to find it e, four were the same, so it was reasonable to set this down as E It is true that in so, and in some cases not, but it was probable, fros were distributed, that they were used to break the sentence up into words I accepted this as a hypothesis, and noted that E was represented by xxx
”But now calish letters after E is by no means well e of a printed sheet hly, T, A, O, I, N, S, H, R, D, and L are the numerical order in which letters occur, but T, A, O, and I are very nearly abreast of each other, and it would be an endless task to try each co was arrived at I therefore waited for fresh material In ive e, which appeared--since there was no flag--to be a single word Here are the syot the two E's coht be `sever,' or `lever,' or `never' There can be no question that the latter as a reply to an appeal is far thea reply written by the lady Accepting it as correct, we are now able to say that the symbols stand respectively for N, V, and R
”Even noas in considerable difficulty, but a happy thought put me in possession of several other letters It occurred to me that if these appeals came, as I expected, from someone who had been intimate with the lady in her early life, a combination which contained two E's with three letters between ht very well stand for the name `ELSIE' On examination I found that such a coe which was three times repeated It was certainly soot my L, S, and I But what appeal could it be? There were only four letters in the hich preceded `Elsie,' and it ended in E Surely the wordin E, but could find none to fit the case So noas in possession of C, O, and M, and I was in a position to attack the firstdots for each symbol which was still unknown So treated, it worked out in this fashi+on: M ERE E SLNE
”Now the first letter CAN only be A, which is a most useful discovery, since it occurs no fewer than three times in this short sentence, and the H is also apparent in the second word Now it beco in the obvious vacancies in the name: AM HERE ABE SLANEY
I had so many letters now that I could proceed with considerable confidence to the second e, which worked out in this fashi+on: A ELRI ES
Here I could onlyletters, and supposing that the name was that of so”
Inspector Martin and I had listened with the utmost interest to the full and clear account of how my friend had produced results which had led to so complete a command over our difficulties
”What did you do then, sir?” asked the inspector
”I had every reason to suppose that this Abe Slaney was an American, since Abe is an American contraction, and since a letter fro-point of all the trouble I had also every cause to think that there was some criminal secret in the matter The lady's allusions to her past, and her refusal to take her husband into her confidence, both pointed in that direction I therefore cabled to reave, of the New York Police Bureau, who has e of London crime I asked him whether the name of Abe Slaney was known to hio' On the very evening upon which I had his answer, Hilton Cubitt sentwith known letters, it took this form: ELSIE REARE TO MEET THY GO
The addition of a P and a D coe which showedfroe of the crooks of Chicago prepared ht very rapidly put his words into action I at once caue, Dr Watson, but, unhappily, only in time to find that the worst had already occurred”