Part 3 (1/1)
There was silence in the room It was broken by Mycroft Holmes
”Can you not make reparation? It would ease your conscience, and possibly your punishment”
”What reparation can I make?”
”Where is Oberstein with the papers?”
”I do not know”
”Did he give you no address?”
”He said that letters to the Hotel du Louvre, Paris, would eventually reach him”
”Then reparation is still within your power,” said Sherlock Holmes
”I will do anything I can I owe this fellow no particular good- will He has been my ruin and my downfall”
”Here are paper and pen Sit at this desk and write to iven That is right Now the letter: ”Dear Sir: ”With regard to our transaction, you will no doubt have observed by now that one essential detail iswhich will make it complete This has involved me in extra trouble, however, and I must ask you for a further advance of five hundred pounds I will not trust it to the post, nor will I take anything but gold or notes I would come to you abroad, but it would excite remark if I left the country at present Therefore I shall expect toCross Hotel at noon on Saturday Reold, will be taken
”That will do very well I shall be very much surprised if it does not fetch our man”
And it did! It is a matter of history--that secret history of a nation which is often sothan its public chronicles--that Oberstein, eager to complete the coup of his lifetiulfed for fifteen years in a British prison In his trunk were found the invaluable Bruce-Partington plans, which he had put up for auction in all the naval centres of Europe
Colonel Walter died in prison towards the end of the second year of his sentence As to Holraph upon the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus, which has since been printed for private circulation, and is said by experts to be the last word upon the subject Some weeks afterwards I learned incidentally that my friend spent a day at Windsor, whence he returned with a reht it, he answered that it was a present froracious lady in whose interests he had once been fortunate enough to carry out a suess at that lady's august name, and I have little doubt that the emerald pin will forever recall to ton plans