The Return of Sherlock Holmes Part 5 (1/2)
”It is a privilege to be associated with you in the handling of a case,” said the inspector, warmly ”You will excuse me, however, if I speak frankly to you You are only answerable to yourself, but I have to answer to e's, is indeed the murderer, and if he has et into serious trouble”
”You need not be uneasy He will not try to escape”
”How do you know?”
”To fly would be a confession of guilt”
”Then let us go arrest him”
”I expect him here every instant”
”But why should he come”
”Because I have written and asked him”
”But this is incredible, Mr Holmes! Why should he come because you have asked him? Would not such a request rather rouse his suspicions and cause him to fly?”
”I think I have kno to frame the letter,” said Sherlock Holentle up the path which led to the door He was a tall, handsoray flannel, with a Panaressive hooked nose, and flourishi+ng a cane as he walked He swaggered up a path as if as if the place belonged to him, and we heard his loud, confident peal at the bell
”I think, gentlemen,” said Holmes, quietly, ”that we had best take up our position behind the door Every precaution is necessary when dealing with such a fellow You will need your handcuffs, Inspector You can leave the talking to me”
We waited in silence for a et Then the door opened and the man stepped in In an instant Holmes clapped a pistol to his head, and Martin slipped the handcuffs over his wrists It was all done so swiftly and deftly that the felloas helpless before he knew that he was attacked He glared fro black eyes Then he burst into a bitter laugh
”Well, gentlemen, you have the drop onhard But I came here in answer to a letter from Mrs Hilton Cubitt Don't tell me that she is in this? Don't tell me that she helped to set a trap for me?”
”Mrs Hilton Cubitt was seriously injured, and is at death's door”
The h the house
”You're crazy!” he cried, fiercely ”It was he that was hurt, not she Who would have hurt little Elsie? I ive me!--but I would not have touched a hair of her pretty head Take it back--you! Say that she is not hurt!”
”She was found badly wounded, by the side of her dead husband”
He sank with a deep groan on the settee and buried his face in his manacled hands For five minutes he was silent Then he raised his face once more, and spoke with the cold coentlemen,” said he ”If I shot the man he had his shot at me, and there's no murder in that But if you think I could have hurt that woman, then you don't know either me or her I tell you, there was never a man in this world loved a woed to lishman that he should coht to her, and that I was only clai my own
”She broke away from your influence when she found the man that you are,” said Holmes, sternly ”She fled froentleed her and followed her and made her life a misery to her, in order to induce her to abandon the husband whom she loved and respected in order to fly with you, who about the death of a noblehis wife to suicide That is your record in this business, Mr Abe Slaney, and you will answer for it to the law”
”If Elsie dies, I care nothing what becomes of me,” said the American He opened one of his hands, and looked at a note crulea to scare me over this, are you? If the lady is hurt as bad as you say, as it that wrote this note?” He tossed it forward on to the table
”I wrote it, to bring you here”
”You wrote it? There was no one on earth outside the Joint who knew the secret of the dancing men How came you to write it?”
”What one man can invent another can discover,” said Hol to convey you to Norwich, Mr Slaney But meanwhile, you have tiht Are you aware that Mrs Hilton Cubitt has herself lain under grave suspicion of the murder of her husband, and that it was only e which I happened to possess, which has saved her from the accusation? The least that you owe her is to make it clear to the whole world that she was in no way, directly or indirectly, responsible for his tragic end”
”I ask nothing better,” said the Auess the very best case I can make for myself is the absolute naked truth”
”It is ainst you,” cried the inspector, with the nificent fair play of the British cried his shoulders
”I'll chance that,” said he ”First of all, I want you gentlemen to understand that I have known this lady since she was a child There were seven of us in a gang in Chicago, and Elsie's father was the boss of the Joint He was a clever , which would pass as a child's scrawl unless you just happened to have the key to it Well, Elsie learned some of our ways, but she couldn't stand the business, and she had a bit of honest ot away to London She had been engaged to me, and she would have married me, I believe, if I had taken over another profession, but she would have nothing to do with anything on the cross It was only after her lishman that I was able to find out where she was I wrote to her, but got no answer After that I caes where she could read them
”Well, I have been here a month now I lived in that faret in and out every night, and no one the wiser I tried all I could to coax Elsie away I knew that she read the es, for once she wrote an answer under one of thean to threaten her She sentthat it would break her heart if any scandal should come upon her husband She said that she would co, and speak with o away afterwards and leave her in peace She cao This h theAt that moment in rushed the husband with his revolver in his hand Elsie had sunk down upon the floor, and ere face to face I was heeled also, and I held up et away He fired and missed me I pulled off almost at the saarden, and as I went I heard theshut behind entlemen, every word of it, and I heard noup with a note which ive myself into your hands”
A cab had driven up whilst the A Two uniformed policemen sat inside Inspector Martin rose and touched his prisoner on the shoulder
”It is tio”
”Can I see her first?”
”No, she is not conscious Mr Sherlock Holain I have an iood fortune to have you by my side”
We stood at theand watched the cab drive away As I turned back, ht the pellet of paper which the prisoner had tossed upon the table It was the note hich Holmes had decoyed him
”See if you can read it, Watson,” said he, with a smile
It contained no word, but this little line of dancing men: GRAPHIC ”If you use the code which I have explained,” said Holmes, ”you will find that it simply means `Come here at once' I was convinced that it was an invitation which he would not refuse, since he could never iine that it could come from anyone but the lady And so, ood when they have so often been the agents of evil, and I think that I have fulfilledunusual for your notebook Three-forty is our train, and I fancy we should be back in Baker Street for dinner”
Only one word of epilogue The American, Abe Slaney, was condemned to death at the winter assizes at Norwich, but his penalty was changed to penal servitude in consideration ofcircumstances, and the certainty that Hilton Cubitt had fired the first shot Of Mrs Hilton Cubitt I only know that I have heard she recovered entirely, and that she still re her whole life to the care of the poor and to the administration of her husband's estate
THE ADVENTURE OF THE SOLITARY CYCLIST
From the years 1894 to 1901 inclusive, Mr Sherlock Holmes was a very busy man It is safe to say that there was no public case of any difficulty in which he was not consulted during those eight years, and there were hundreds of private cases, some of them of the most intricate and extraordinary character, in which he played a pro successes and a few unavoidable failures were the outco period of continuous work As I have preserved very full notes of all these cases, and was ined that it is no easy task to knohich I should select to lay before the public I shall, however, preserve ive the preference to those cases which derive their interest not so enuity and dramatic quality of the solution For this reason I will now lay before the reader the facts connected with Miss Violet Ston, and the curious sequel of our investigation, which culedy It is true that the circu illustration of those powers for which my friend was famous, but there were so records of criather theto my notebook for the year 1895, I find that it was upon Saturday, the 23rd of April, that we first heard of Miss Violet Smith Her visit was, I remember, extremely unwelcome to Holmes, for he was immersed at thethe peculiar persecution to which John Vincent Harden, the well known tobacco millionaire, had been subjected My friend, who loved above all things precision and concentration of thought, resented anything which distracted his attention from the n to his nature, it was i and beautiful woraceful, and queenly, who presented herself at Baker Street late in the evening, and ie that his ti lady had come with the deter short of force could get her out of the rooned air and a soed the beautiful intruder to take a seat, and to infor her
”At least it cannot be your health,” said he, as his keen eyes darted over her, ”so ardent a bicyclist lanced down in surprise at her own feet, and I observed the slight roughening of the side of the sole caused by the friction of the edge of the pedal
”Yes, I bicycle a good deal, Mr Hol to do with loved hand, and examined it with as close an attention and as little sentiment as a scientist would show to a specimen
”You will excuse me, I am sure It is my business,” said he, as he dropped it ”I nearly fell into the error of supposing that you were typewriting Of course, it is obvious that it is er-ends, Watson, which is common to both professions? There is a spirituality about the face, however”--she gently turned it towards the light--”which the typewriter does not generate This lady is a musician”
”Yes, Mr Holmes, I teach music”