Omaha Sherlockian Society

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=====The Reigate Squires=====
===Sir Arthur Conan Doyle===

It was some time before the health of my friend Mr. Sherlock
Holmes recovered from the strain caused by his immense exertions
in the spring of ’87. The whole question of the
Netherland-Sumatra Company and of the colossal schemes of Baron
Maupertuis are too recent in the minds of the public, and are too
intimately concerned with politics and finance to be fitting
subjects for this series of sketches. They led, however, in an
indirect fashion to a singular and complex problem which gave my
friend an opportunity of demonstrating the value of a fresh
weapon among the many with which he waged his life-long battle
against crime.

On referring to my notes I see that it was upon the 14th of April
that I received a telegram from Lyons which informed me that
Holmes was lying ill in the Hotel Dulong. Within twenty-four
hours I was in his sick-room, and was relieved to find that there
was nothing formidable in his symptoms. Even his iron
constitution, however, had broken down under the strain of an
investigation which had extended over two months, during which
period he had never worked less than fifteen hours a day, and had
more than once, as he assured me, kept to his task for five days
at a stretch. Even the triumphant issue of his labours could not
save him from reaction after so terrible an exertion, and at a
time when Europe was ringing with his name and when his room was
literally ankle-deep with congratulatory telegrams I found him a
prey to the blackest depression. Even the knowledge that he had
succeeded where the police of three countries had failed, and
that he had outmanœuvred at every point the most accomplished
swindler in Europe, was insufficient to rouse him from his
nervous prostration.

Three days later we were back in Baker Street together; but it
was evident that my friend would be much the better for a change,
and the thought of a week of spring time in the country was full
of attractions to me also. My old friend, Colonel Hayter, who had
come under my professional care in Afghanistan, had now taken a
house near Reigate in Surrey, and had frequently asked me to come
down to him upon a visit. On the last occasion he had remarked
that if my friend would only come with me he would be glad to
extend his hospitality to him also. A little diplomacy was
needed, but when Holmes understood that the establishment was a
bachelor one, and that he would be allowed the fullest freedom,
he fell in with my plans and a week after our return from Lyons
we were under the Colonel’s roof. Hayter was a fine old soldier
who had seen much of the world, and he soon found, as I had
expected, that Holmes and he had much in common.

On the evening of our arrival we were sitting in the Colonel’s
gun-room after dinner, Holmes stretched upon the sofa, while
Hayter and I looked over his little armoury of fire-arms.

“By the way,” said he suddenly, “I think I’ll take one of these
pistols upstairs with me in case we have an alarm.”

“An alarm!” said I.

“Yes, we’ve had a scare in this part lately. Old Acton, who is
one of our county magnates, had his house broken into last
Monday. No great damage done, but the fellows are still at
large.”

“No clue?” asked Holmes, cocking his eye at the Colonel.

“None as yet. But the affair is a petty one, one of our little
country crimes, which must seem too small for your attention, Mr.
Holmes, after this great international affair.”

Holmes waved away the compliment, though his smile showed that it
had pleased him.

“Was there any feature of interest?”

“I fancy not. The thieves ransacked the library and got very
little for their pains. The whole place was turned upside down,
drawers burst open, and presses ransacked, with the result that
an odd volume of Pope’s //Homer//, two plated candlesticks, an
ivory letter-weight, a small oak barometer, and a ball of twine
are all that have vanished.”

“What an extraordinary assortment!” I exclaimed.

“Oh, the fellows evidently grabbed hold of everything they could
get.”

Holmes grunted from the sofa.

“The county police ought to make something of that,” said he;
“why, it is surely obvious that---”

But I held up a warning finger.

“You are here for a rest, my dear fellow. For Heaven’s sake don’t
get started on a new problem when your nerves are all in shreds.”

Holmes shrugged his shoulders with a glance of comic resignation
towards the Colonel, and the talk drifted away into less
dangerous channels.

It was destined, however, that all my professional caution should
be wasted, for next morning the problem obtruded itself upon us
in such a way that it was impossible to ignore it, and our
country visit took a turn which neither of us could have
anticipated. We were at breakfast when the Colonel’s butler
rushed in with all his propriety shaken out of him.

“Have you heard the news, sir?” he gasped. “At the Cunningham’s
sir!”

“Burglary!” cried the Colonel, with his coffee-cup in mid-air.

“Murder!”

The Colonel whistled. “By Jove!” said he. “Who’s killed, then?
The J.P. or his son?”

“Neither, sir. It was William the coachman. Shot through the
heart, sir, and never spoke again.”

“Who shot him, then?”

“The burglar, sir. He was off like a shot and got clean away.
He’d just broke in at the pantry window when William came on him
and met his end in saving his master’s property.”

“What time?”

“It was last night, sir, somewhere about twelve.”

“Ah, then, we’ll step over afterwards,” said the Colonel, coolly
settling down to his breakfast again. “It’s a baddish business,”
he added when the butler had gone; “he’s our leading man about
here, is old Cunningham, and a very decent fellow too. He’ll be
cut up over this, for the man has been in his service for years
and was a good servant. It’s evidently the same villains who
broke into Acton’s.”

“And stole that very singular collection,” said Holmes,
thoughtfully.

“Precisely.”

“Hum! It may prove the simplest matter in the world, but all the
same at first glance this is just a little curious, is it not? A
gang of burglars acting in the country might be expected to vary
the scene of their operations, and not to crack two cribs in the
same district within a few days. When you spoke last night of
taking precautions I remember that it passed through my mind that
this was probably the last parish in England to which the thief
or thieves would be likely to turn their attention---which shows
that I have still much to learn.”

“I fancy it’s some local practitioner,” said the Colonel. “In
that case, of course, Acton’s and Cunningham’s are just the
places he would go for, since they are far the largest about
here.”

“And richest?”

“Well, they ought to be, but they’ve had a lawsuit for some years
which has sucked the blood out of both of them, I fancy. Old
Acton has some claim on half Cunningham’s estate, and the lawyers
have been at it with both hands.”

“If it’s a local villain there should not be much difficulty in
running him down,” said Holmes with a yawn. “All right, Watson, I
don’t intend to meddle.”

“Inspector Forrester, sir,” said the butler, throwing open the
door.

The official, a smart, keen-faced young fellow, stepped into the
room. “Good-morning, Colonel,” said he; “I hope I don’t intrude,
but we hear that Mr. Holmes of Baker Street is here.”

The Colonel waved his hand towards my friend, and the Inspector
bowed.

“We thought that perhaps you would care to step across, Mr.
Holmes.”

“The fates are against you, Watson,” said he, laughing. “We were
chatting about the matter when you came in, Inspector. Perhaps
you can let us have a few details.” As he leaned back in his
chair in the familiar attitude I knew that the case was hopeless.

“We had no clue in the Acton affair. But here we have plenty to
go on, and there’s no doubt it is the same party in each case.
The man was seen.”

“Ah!”

“Yes, sir. But he was off like a deer after the shot that killed
poor William Kirwan was fired. Mr. Cunningham saw him from the
bedroom window, and Mr. Alec Cunningham saw him from the back
passage. It was quarter to twelve when the alarm broke out. Mr.
Cunningham had just got into bed, and Mr. Alec was smoking a pipe
in his dressing-gown. They both heard William the coachman
calling for help, and Mr. Alec ran down to see what was the
matter. The back door was open, and as he came to the foot of the
stairs he saw two men wrestling together outside. One of them
fired a shot, the other dropped, and the murderer rushed across
the garden and over the hedge. Mr. Cunningham, looking out of his
bedroom, saw the fellow as he gained the road, but lost sight of
him at once. Mr. Alec stopped to see if he could help the dying
man, and so the villain got clean away. Beyond the fact that he
was a middle-sized man and dressed in some dark stuff, we have no
personal clue; but we are making energetic inquiries, and if he
is a stranger we shall soon find him out.”

“What was this William doing there? Did he say anything before he
died?”

“Not a word. He lives at the lodge with his mother, and as he was
a very faithful fellow we imagine that he walked up to the house
with the intention of seeing that all was right there. Of course
this Acton business has put every one on their guard. The robber
must have just burst open the door---the lock has been forced---when
William came upon him.”

“Did William say anything to his mother before going out?”

“She is very old and deaf, and we can get no information from
her. The shock has made her half-witted, but I understand that
she was never very bright. There is one very important
circumstance, however. Look at this!”

He took a small piece of torn paper from a note-book and spread
it out upon his knee.

“This was found between the finger and thumb of the dead man. It
appears to be a fragment torn from a larger sheet. You will
observe that the hour mentioned upon it is the very time at which
the poor fellow met his fate. You see that his murderer might
have torn the rest of the sheet from him or he might have taken
this fragment from the murderer. It reads almost as though it
were an appointment.”

Holmes took up the scrap of paper, a facsimile of which is here
reproduced.

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“Presuming that it is an appointment,” continued the Inspector,
“it is of course a conceivable theory that this William
Kirwan---though he had the reputation of being an honest man, may
have been in league with the thief. He may have met him there,
may even have helped him to break in the door, and then they may
have fallen out between themselves.”

“This writing is of extraordinary interest,” said Holmes, who had
been examining it with intense concentration. “These are much
deeper waters than I had thought.” He sank his head upon his
hands, while the Inspector smiled at the effect which his case
had had upon the famous London specialist.

“Your last remark,” said Holmes, presently, “as to the
possibility of there being an understanding between the burglar
and the servant, and this being a note of appointment from one to
the other, is an ingenious and not entirely impossible
supposition. But this writing opens up---” He sank his head into
his hands again and remained for some minutes in the deepest
thought. When he raised his face again, I was surprised to see
that his cheek was tinged with colour, and his eyes as bright as
before his illness. He sprang to his feet with all his old
energy.

“I’ll tell you what,” said he, “I should like to have a quiet
little glance into the details of this case. There is something
in it which fascinates me extremely. If you will permit me,
Colonel, I will leave my friend Watson and you, and I will step
round with the Inspector to test the truth of one or two little
fancies of mine. I will be with you again in half an hour.”

An hour and half had elapsed before the Inspector returned alone.

“Mr. Holmes is walking up and down in the field outside,” said
he. “He wants us all four to go up to the house together.”

“To Mr. Cunningham’s?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What for?”

The Inspector shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t quite know, sir.
Between ourselves, I think Mr. Holmes had not quite got over his
illness yet. He’s been behaving very queerly, and he is very much
excited.”

“I don’t think you need alarm yourself,” said I. “I have usually
found that there was method in his madness.”

“Some folks might say there was madness in his method,” muttered
the Inspector. “But he’s all on fire to start, Colonel, so we had
best go out if you are ready.”

We found Holmes pacing up and down in the field, his chin sunk
upon his breast, and his hands thrust into his trousers pockets.

“The matter grows in interest,” said he. “Watson, your
country-trip has been a distinct success. I have had a charming
morning.”

“You have been up to the scene of the crime, I understand,” said
the Colonel.

“Yes; the Inspector and I have made quite a little reconnaissance
together.”

“Any success?”

“Well, we have seen some very interesting things. I’ll tell you
what we did as we walk. First of all, we saw the body of this
unfortunate man. He certainly died from a revolver wound as
reported.”

“Had you doubted it, then?”

“Oh, it is as well to test everything. Our inspection was not
wasted. We then had an interview with Mr. Cunningham and his son,
who were able to point out the exact spot where the murderer had
broken through the garden-hedge in his flight. That was of great
interest.”

“Naturally.”

“Then we had a look at this poor fellow’s mother. We could get no
information from her, however, as she is very old and feeble.”

“And what is the result of your investigations?”

“The conviction that the crime is a very peculiar one. Perhaps
our visit now may do something to make it less obscure. I think
that we are both agreed, Inspector that the fragment of paper in
the dead man’s hand, bearing, as it does, the very hour of his
death written upon it, is of extreme importance.”

“It should give a clue, Mr. Holmes.”

“It //does// give a clue. Whoever wrote that note was the man who
brought William Kirwan out of his bed at that hour. But where is
the rest of that sheet of paper?”

“I examined the ground carefully in the hope of finding it,” said
the Inspector.

“It was torn out of the dead man’s hand. Why was some one so
anxious to get possession of it? Because it incriminated him. And
what would he do with it? Thrust it into his pocket, most likely,
never noticing that a corner of it had been left in the grip of
the corpse. If we could get the rest of that sheet it is obvious
that we should have gone a long way towards solving the mystery.”

“Yes, but how can we get at the criminal’s pocket before we catch
the criminal?”

“Well, well, it was worth thinking over. Then there is another
obvious point. The note was sent to William. The man who wrote it
could not have taken it; otherwise, of course, he might have
delivered his own message by word of mouth. Who brought the note,
then? Or did it come through the post?”

“I have made inquiries,” said the Inspector. “William received a
letter by the afternoon post yesterday. The envelope was
destroyed by him.”

“Excellent!” cried Holmes, clapping the Inspector on the back.
“You’ve seen the postman. It is a pleasure to work with you.
Well, here is the lodge, and if you will come up, Colonel, I will
show you the scene of the crime.”

We passed the pretty cottage where the murdered man had lived,
and walked up an oak-lined avenue to the fine old Queen Anne
house, which bears the date of Malplaquet upon the lintel of the
door. Holmes and the Inspector led us round it until we came to
the side gate, which is separated by a stretch of garden from the
hedge which lines the road. A constable was standing at the
kitchen door.

“Throw the door open, officer,” said Holmes. “Now, it was on
those stairs that young Mr. Cunningham stood and saw the two men
struggling just where we are. Old Mr. Cunningham was at that
window---the second on the left---and he saw the fellow get away just
to the left of that bush. Then Mr. Alec ran out and knelt beside
the wounded man. The ground is very hard, you see, and there are
no marks to guide us.” As he spoke two men came down the garden
path, from round the angle of the house. The one was an elderly
man, with a strong, deep-lined, heavy-eyed face; the other a
dashing young fellow, whose bright, smiling expression and showy
dress were in strange contrast with the business which had
brought us there.

“Still at it, then?” said he to Holmes. “I thought you Londoners
were never at fault. You don’t seem to be so very quick, after
all.”

“Ah, you must give us a little time,” said Holmes good-humoredly.

“You’ll want it,” said young Alec Cunningham. “Why, I don’t see
that we have any clue at all.”

“There’s only one,” answered the Inspector. “We thought that if
we could only find---Good heavens, Mr. Holmes! What is the matter?”

My poor friend’s face had suddenly assumed the most dreadful
expression. His eyes rolled upwards, his features writhed in
agony, and with a suppressed groan he dropped on his face upon
the ground. Horrified at the suddenness and severity of the
attack, we carried him into the kitchen, where he lay back in a
large chair, and breathed heavily for some minutes. Finally, with
a shamefaced apology for his weakness, he rose once more.

“Watson would tell you that I have only just recovered from a
severe illness,” he explained. “I am liable to these sudden
nervous attacks.”

“Shall I send you home in my trap?” asked old Cunningham.

“Well, since I am here, there is one point on which I should like
to feel sure. We can very easily verify it.”

“What was it?”

“Well, it seems to me that it is just possible that the arrival
of this poor fellow William was not before, but after, the
entrance of the burglar into the house. You appear to take it for
granted that, although the door was forced, the robber never got
in.”

“I fancy that is quite obvious,” said Mr. Cunningham, gravely.
“Why, my son Alec had not yet gone to bed, and he would certainly
have heard any one moving about.”

“Where was he sitting?”

“I was smoking in my dressing-room.”

“Which window is that?”

“The last on the left next my father’s.”

“Both of your lamps were lit, of course?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“There are some very singular points here,” said Holmes, smiling.
“Is it not extraordinary that a burglar---and a burglar who had had
some previous experience---should deliberately break into a house
at a time when he could see from the lights that two of the
family were still afoot?”

“He must have been a cool hand.”

“Well, of course, if the case were not an odd one we should not
have been driven to ask you for an explanation,” said young Mr.
Alec. “But as to your ideas that the man had robbed the house
before William tackled him, I think it a most absurd notion.
Wouldn’t we have found the place disarranged, and missed the
things which he had taken?”

“It depends on what the things were,” said Holmes. “You must
remember that we are dealing with a burglar who is a very
peculiar fellow, and who appears to work on lines of his own.
Look, for example, at the queer lot of things which he took from
Acton’s---what was it?---a ball of string, a letter-weight, and I
don’t know what other odds and ends.”

“Well, we are quite in your hands, Mr. Holmes,” said old
Cunningham. “Anything which you or the Inspector may suggest will
most certainly be done.”

“In the first place,” said Holmes, “I should like you to offer a
reward---coming from yourself, for the officials may take a little
time before they would agree upon the sum, and these things
cannot be done too promptly. I have jotted down the form here, if
you would not mind signing it. Fifty pounds was quite enough, I
thought.”

“I would willingly give five hundred,” said the J.P., taking the
slip of paper and the pencil which Holmes handed to him. “This is
not quite correct, however,” he added, glancing over the
document.

“I wrote it rather hurriedly.”

“You see you begin, ‘Whereas, at about a quarter to one on
Tuesday morning an attempt was made,’ and so on. It was at a
quarter to twelve, as a matter of fact.”

I was pained at the mistake, for I knew how keenly Holmes would
feel any slip of the kind. It was his specialty to be accurate as
to fact, but his recent illness had shaken him, and this one
little incident was enough to show me that he was still far from
being himself. He was obviously embarrassed for an instant, while
the Inspector raised his eyebrows, and Alec Cunningham burst into
a laugh. The old gentleman corrected the mistake, however, and
handed the paper back to Holmes.

“Get it printed as soon as possible,” he said; “I think your idea
is an excellent one.”

Holmes put the slip of paper carefully away into his pocket-book.

“And now,” said he, “it really would be a good thing that we
should all go over the house together and make certain that this
rather erratic burglar did not, after all, carry anything away
with him.”

Before entering, Holmes made an examination of the door which had
been forced. It was evident that a chisel or strong knife had
been thrust in, and the lock forced back with it. We could see
the marks in the wood where it had been pushed in.

“You don’t use bars, then?” he asked.

“We have never found it necessary.”

“You don’t keep a dog?”

“Yes, but he is chained on the other side of the house.”

“When do the servants go to bed?”

“About ten.”

“I understand that William was usually in bed also at that hour.”

“Yes.”

“It is singular that on this particular night he should have been
up. Now, I should be very glad if you would have the kindness to
show us over the house, Mr. Cunningham.”

A stone-flagged passage, with the kitchens branching away from
it, led by a wooden staircase directly to the first floor of the
house. It came out upon the landing opposite to a second more
ornamental stair which came up from the front hall. Out of this
landing opened the drawing-room and several bedrooms, including
those of Mr. Cunningham and his son. Holmes walked slowly, taking
keen note of the architecture of the house. I could tell from his
expression that he was on a hot scent, and yet I could not in the
least imagine in what direction his inferences were leading him.

“My good sir,” said Mr. Cunningham with some impatience, “this is
surely very unnecessary. That is my room at the end of the
stairs, and my son’s is the one beyond it. I leave it to your
judgment whether it was possible for the thief to have come up
here without disturbing us.”

“You must try round and get on a fresh scent, I fancy,” said the
son with a rather malicious smile.

“Still, I must ask you to humour me a little further. I should
like, for example, to see how far the windows of the bedrooms
command the front. This, I understand is your son’s room”---he
pushed open the door---“and that, I presume, is the dressing-room
in which he sat smoking when the alarm was given. Where does the
window of that look out to?” He stepped across the bedroom,
pushed open the door, and glanced round the other chamber.

“I hope that you are satisfied now?” said Mr. Cunningham, tartly.

“Thank you, I think I have seen all that I wished.”

“Then if it is really necessary we can go into my room.”

“If it is not too much trouble.”

The J.P. shrugged his shoulders, and led the way into his own
chamber, which was a plainly furnished and commonplace room. As
we moved across it in the direction of the window, Holmes fell
back until he and I were the last of the group. Near the foot of
the bed stood a dish of oranges and a carafe of water. As we
passed it Holmes, to my unutterable astonishment, leaned over in
front of me and deliberately knocked the whole thing over. The
glass smashed into a thousand pieces and the fruit rolled about
into every corner of the room.

“You’ve done it now, Watson,” said he, coolly. “A pretty mess
you’ve made of the carpet.”

I stooped in some confusion and began to pick up the fruit,
understanding for some reason my companion desired me to take the
blame upon myself. The others did the same, and set the table on
its legs again.

“Halloa!” cried the Inspector, “where’s he got to?”

Holmes had disappeared.

“Wait here an instant,” said young Alec Cunningham. “The fellow
is off his head, in my opinion. Come with me, father, and see
where he has got to!”

They rushed out of the room, leaving the Inspector, the Colonel,
and me staring at each other.

“’Pon my word, I am inclined to agree with Master Alec,” said the
official. “It may be the effect of this illness, but it seems to
me that---”

His words were cut short by a sudden scream of “Help! Help!
Murder!” With a thrill I recognised the voice of that of my
friend. I rushed madly from the room on to the landing. The
cries, which had sunk down into a hoarse, inarticulate shouting,
came from the room which we had first visited. I dashed in, and
on into the dressing-room beyond. The two Cunninghams were
bending over the prostrate figure of Sherlock Holmes, the younger
clutching his throat with both hands, while the elder seemed to
be twisting one of his wrists. In an instant the three of us had
torn them away from him, and Holmes staggered to his feet, very
pale and evidently greatly exhausted.

“Arrest these men, Inspector!” he gasped.

“On what charge?”

“That of murdering their coachman, William Kirwan!”

The Inspector stared about him in bewilderment. “Oh, come now,
Mr. Holmes,” said he at last, “I’m sure you don’t really mean
to---”

“Tut, man, look at their faces!” cried Holmes, curtly.

Never, certainly, have I seen a plainer confession of guilt upon
human countenances. The older man seemed numbed and dazed with a
heavy, sullen expression upon his strongly-marked face. The son,
on the other hand, had dropped all that jaunty, dashing style
which had characterized him, and the ferocity of a dangerous wild
beast gleamed in his dark eyes and distorted his handsome
features. The Inspector said nothing, but, stepping to the door,
he blew his whistle. Two of his constables came at the call.

“I have no alternative, Mr. Cunningham,” said he. “I trust that
this may all prove to be an absurd mistake, but you can see
that---Ah, would you? Drop it!” He struck out with his hand, and a
revolver which the younger man was in the act of cocking
clattered down upon the floor.

“Keep that,” said Holmes, quietly putting his foot upon it; “you
will find it useful at the trial. But this is what we really
wanted.” He held up a little crumpled piece of paper.

“The remainder of the sheet!” cried the Inspector.

“Precisely.”

“And where was it?”

“Where I was sure it must be. I’ll make the whole matter clear to
you presently. I think, Colonel, that you and Watson might return
now, and I will be with you again in an hour at the furthest. The
Inspector and I must have a word with the prisoners, but you will
certainly see me back at luncheon time.”

Sherlock Holmes was as good as his word, for about one o’clock he
rejoined us in the Colonel’s smoking-room. He was accompanied by
a little elderly gentleman, who was introduced to me as the Mr.
Acton whose house had been the scene of the original burglary.

“I wished Mr. Acton to be present while I demonstrated this small
matter to you,” said Holmes, “for it is natural that he should
take a keen interest in the details. I am afraid, my dear
Colonel, that you must regret the hour that you took in such a
stormy petrel as I am.”

“On the contrary,” answered the Colonel, warmly, “I consider it
the greatest privilege to have been permitted to study your
methods of working. I confess that they quite surpass my
expectations, and that I am utterly unable to account for your
result. I have not yet seen the vestige of a clue.”

“I am afraid that my explanation may disillusionize you but it
has always been my habit to hide none of my methods, either from
my friend Watson or from any one who might take an intelligent
interest in them. But, first, as I am rather shaken by the
knocking about which I had in the dressing-room, I think that I
shall help myself to a dash of your brandy, Colonel. My strength
has been rather tried of late.”

“I trust that you had no more of those nervous attacks.”

Sherlock Holmes laughed heartily. “We will come to that in its
turn,” said he. “I will lay an account of the case before you in
its due order, showing you the various points which guided me in
my decision. Pray interrupt me if there is any inference which is
not perfectly clear to you.

“It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be
able to recognise, out of a number of facts, which are incidental
and which vital. Otherwise your energy and attention must be
dissipated instead of being concentrated. Now, in this case there
was not the slightest doubt in my mind from the first that the
key of the whole matter must be looked for in the scrap of paper
in the dead man’s hand.

“Before going into this, I would draw your attention to the fact
that, if Alec Cunningham’s narrative was correct, and if the
assailant, after shooting William Kirwan, had //instantly// fled,
then it obviously could not be he who tore the paper from the
dead man’s hand. But if it was not he, it must have been Alec
Cunningham himself, for by the time that the old man had
descended several servants were upon the scene. The point is a
simple one, but the Inspector had overlooked it because he had
started with the supposition that these county magnates had had
nothing to do with the matter. Now, I make a point of never
having any prejudices, and of following docilely wherever fact
may lead me, and so, in the very first stage of the
investigation, I found myself looking a little askance at the
part which had been played by Mr. Alec Cunningham.

“And now I made a very careful examination of the corner of paper
which the Inspector had submitted to us. It was at once clear to
me that it formed part of a very remarkable document. Here it is.
Do you not now observe something very suggestive about it?”

“It has a very irregular look,” said the Colonel.

“My dear sir,” cried Holmes, “there cannot be the least doubt in
the world that it has been written by two persons doing alternate
words. When I draw your attention to the strong t’s of ‘at’ and
‘to’, and ask you to compare them with the weak ones of ‘quarter’
and ‘twelve,’ you will instantly recognise the fact. A very brief
analysis of these four words would enable you to say with the
utmost confidence that the ‘learn’ and the ‘maybe’ are written in
the stronger hand, and the ‘what’ in the weaker.”

“By Jove, it’s as clear as day!” cried the Colonel. “Why on earth
should two men write a letter in such a fashion?”

“Obviously the business was a bad one, and one of the men who
distrusted the other was determined that, whatever was done, each
should have an equal hand in it. Now, of the two men, it is clear
that the one who wrote the ‘at’ and ‘to’ was the ringleader.”

“How do you get at that?”

“We might deduce it from the mere character of the one hand as
compared with the other. But we have more assured reasons than
that for supposing it. If you examine this scrap with attention
you will come to the conclusion that the man with the stronger
hand wrote all his words first, leaving blanks for the other to
fill up. These blanks were not always sufficient, and you can see
that the second man had a squeeze to fit his ‘quarter’ in between
the ‘at’ and the ‘to,’ showing that the latter were already
written. The man who wrote all his words first is undoubtedly the
man who planned the affair.”

“Excellent!” cried Mr. Acton.

“But very superficial,” said Holmes. “We come now, however, to a
point which is of importance. You may not be aware that the
deduction of a man’s age from his writing is one which has been
brought to considerable accuracy by experts. In normal cases one
can place a man in his true decade with tolerable confidence. I
say normal cases, because ill-health and physical weakness
reproduce the signs of old age, even when the invalid is a youth.
In this case, looking at the bold, strong hand of the one, and
the rather broken-backed appearance of the other, which still
retains its legibility although the t’s have begun to lose their
crossing, we can say that the one was a young man and the other
was advanced in years without being positively decrepit.”

“Excellent!” cried Mr. Acton again.

“There is a further point, however, which is subtler and of
greater interest. There is something in common between these
hands. They belong to men who are blood-relatives. It may be most
obvious to you in the Greek //e//’s, but to me there are many small
points which indicate the same thing. I have no doubt at all that
a family mannerism can be traced in these two specimens of
writing. I am only, of course, giving you the leading results now
of my examination of the paper. There were twenty-three other
deductions which would be of more interest to experts than to
you. They all tend to deepen the impression upon my mind that the
Cunninghams, father and son, had written this letter.

“Having got so far, my next step was, of course, to examine into
the details of the crime, and to see how far they would help us.
I went up to the house with the Inspector, and saw all that was
to be seen. The wound upon the dead man was, as I was able to
determine with absolute confidence, fired from a revolver at the
distance of something over four yards. There was no
powder-blackening on the clothes. Evidently, therefore, Alec
Cunningham had lied when he said that the two men were struggling
when the shot was fired. Again, both father and son agreed as to
the place where the man escaped into the road. At that point,
however, as it happens, there is a broadish ditch, moist at the
bottom. As there were no indications of bootmarks about this
ditch, I was absolutely sure not only that the Cunninghams had
again lied, but that there had never been any unknown man upon
the scene at all.

“And now I have to consider the motive of this singular crime. To
get at this, I endeavoured first of all to solve the reason of
the original burglary at Mr. Acton’s. I understood, from
something which the Colonel told us, that a lawsuit had been
going on between you, Mr. Acton, and the Cunninghams. Of course,
it instantly occurred to me that they had broken into your
library with the intention of getting at some document which
might be of importance in the case.”

“Precisely so,” said Mr. Acton. “There can be no possible doubt
as to their intentions. I have the clearest claim upon half of
their present estate, and if they could have found a single
paper---which, fortunately, was in the strong-box of my
solicitors---they would undoubtedly have crippled our case.”

“There you are,” said Holmes, smiling. “It was a dangerous,
reckless attempt, in which I seem to trace the influence of young
Alec. Having found nothing they tried to divert suspicion by
making it appear to be an ordinary burglary, to which end they
carried off whatever they could lay their hands upon. That is all
clear enough, but there was much that was still obscure. What I
wanted above all was to get the missing part of that note. I was
certain that Alec had torn it out of the dead man’s hand, and
almost certain that he must have thrust it into the pocket of his
dressing-gown. Where else could he have put it? The only question
was whether it was still there. It was worth an effort to find
out, and for that object we all went up to the house.

“The Cunninghams joined us, as you doubtless remember, outside
the kitchen door. It was, of course, of the very first importance
that they should not be reminded of the existence of this paper,
otherwise they would naturally destroy it without delay. The
Inspector was about to tell them the importance which we attached
to it when, by the luckiest chance in the world, I tumbled down
in a sort of fit and so changed the conversation.

“Good heavens!” cried the Colonel, laughing, “do you mean to say
all our sympathy was wasted and your fit an imposture?”

“Speaking professionally, it was admirably done,” cried I,
looking in amazement at this man who was forever confounding me
with some new phase of his astuteness.

“It is an art which is often useful,” said he. “When I recovered
I managed, by a device which had perhaps some little merit of
ingenuity, to get old Cunningham to write the word ‘twelve,’ so
that I might compare it with the ‘twelve’ upon the paper.”

“Oh, what an ass I have been!” I exclaimed.

“I could see that you were commiserating me over my weakness,”
said Holmes, laughing. “I was sorry to cause you the sympathetic
pain which I know that you felt. We then went upstairs together,
and having entered the room and seen the dressing-gown hanging up
behind the door, I contrived, by upsetting a table, to engage
their attention for the moment, and slipped back to examine the
pockets. I had hardly got the paper, however---which was, as I had
expected, in one of them---when the two Cunninghams were on me, and
would, I verily believe, have murdered me then and there but for
your prompt and friendly aid. As it is, I feel that young man’s
grip on my throat now, and the father has twisted my wrist round
in the effort to get the paper out of my hand. They saw that I
must know all about it, you see, and the sudden change from
absolute security to complete despair made them perfectly
desperate.

“I had a little talk with old Cunningham afterwards as to the
motive of the crime. He was tractable enough, though his son was
a perfect demon, ready to blow out his own or anybody else’s
brains if he could have got to his revolver. When Cunningham saw
that the case against him was so strong he lost all heart and
made a clean breast of everything. It seems that William had
secretly followed his two masters on the night when they made
their raid upon Mr. Acton’s, and having thus got them into his
power, proceeded, under threats of exposure, to levy blackmail
upon them. Mr. Alec, however, was a dangerous man to play games
of that sort with. It was a stroke of positive genius on his part
to see in the burglary scare which was convulsing the country
side an opportunity of plausibly getting rid of the man whom he
feared. William was decoyed up and shot, and had they only got
the whole of the note and paid a little more attention to detail
in the accessories, it is very possible that suspicion might
never have been aroused.”

“And the note?” I asked.

Sherlock Holmes placed the subjoined paper before us.

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“It is very much the sort of thing that I expected,” said he. “Of
course, we do not yet know what the relations may have been
between Alec Cunningham, William Kirwan, and Annie Morrison. The
results shows that the trap was skillfully baited. I am sure that
you cannot fail to be delighted with the traces of heredity shown
in the //p//’s and in the tails of the //g//’s. The absence of the
//i//-dots
in the old man’s writing is also most characteristic. Watson, I
think our quiet rest in the country has been a distinct success,
and I shall certainly return much invigorated to Baker Street
to-morrow.”
Omaha Sherlockian Society

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