The Adventure of the Plated Spoon and Other Tales of Sherlock Holmes (13 page)

Shortly we came into sight of our friend's dwelling, a picturesque and rambling abode, sitting far back in its own grounds and bordered by a square of sentinel oaks. A gravel pathway led from the roadway to the house entrance, and, as we passed, the sunlight struck glancing rays from an antique brass knocker on the door. The whole picture, with its background of gleaming countryside, was one of rural calm and comfort; we could with difficulty believe it the scene of the sinister tragedy we were come to investigate.

“We shall not enter yet,” said Sherlock Holmes, resolutely passing the gate leading into our client's acreage, “but we shall endeavor to be back in time for luncheon.”

From this point the road progressed downward in a gentle incline and the trees were thicker on either side of the road. Holmes kept his eyes stolidly on the path before us, and when we had covered about one hundred yards he stopped. “Here,” he said, pointing, “the assault occurred.”

I looked closely at the earth, but could see no sign of struggle.

“You recall it was midway between the two houses that it happened,” he continued. “No, there are few signs; there was no violent tussle. Fortunately, however, we had our proverbial fall of rain last evening and the earth has retained impressions nicely.” He indicated the faint imprint of a foot, then another, and another. Kneeling down, I was able to see that, indeed, many feet had passed along the road.

Holmes flung himself at full length in the dirt and wriggled swiftly about, his nose to the earth, muttering rapidly in French. Then he whipped out a glass, the better to examine a mark that had caught his eye; but in a moment he shook his head in disappointment and continued with his examination. I was irresistibly reminded of a noble hound at fault, sniffing in circles in an effort to reestablish the lost scent. In a moment, however, he had it, for with a little cry of pleasure he rose to his feet, zigzagged curiously across the road and paused before a hedge, a lean finger pointing accusingly at a break in the thicket.

“No wonder they disappeared,” he smiled as I came up. “Edwards thought they continued up the road, but here is where they broke through.” Then stepping back a little distance, he ran forward lightly and cleared the hedge at a bound, alighting on his hands on the other side.

“Follow me carefully,” he warned, “for we must not allow our own footprints to confuse us.” I fell more heavily than my companion, but in a moment he had me by the heels and had helped me to steady myself. “See,” he cried, lowering his face to the earth; and deep in the mud and grass I saw the prints of two pairs of feet.

“The small man broke through,” said Holmes, exultantly, “but the larger rascal leaped over the hedge. See how deeply his prints are marked; he landed heavily here in the soft ooze. It is very significant, Watson, that they came this way. Does it suggest nothing to you?”

“That they were men who knew Edwards's grounds as well as the Brooke-Bannerman estate,” I answered, and thrilled with pleasure at my friend's nod of approbation.

He lowered himself to his stomach without further conversation, and for some moments we crawled painfully across the grass. Then a shocking thought came to me.

“Holmes,” I whispered in horror, “do you see where these footprints tend? They are directed toward the home of our client, Mr. Harrington Edwards!”

He nodded his head slowly, and his lips were set tight and thin. The double line of impressions ended abruptly at the back door of Poke Stogis Manor!

Sherlock Holmes rose to his feet and looked at his watch.

“We are just in time for luncheon,” he announced, and hastily brushed his garments. Then, deliberately, he knocked on the door. In a few moments we were in the presence of our client.

“We have been roaming about the neighborhood,” apologized Holmes, “and took the liberty of coming to your rear entrance.”

“You have a clew?” asked Mr. Harrington Edwards, eagerly.

A queer smile of triumph sat upon Sherlock Holmes's lips.

“Indeed,” he said, quietly, “I believe I have solved your little problem, Mr. Harrington Edwards!”

“My dear Holmes!” I cried, and “My dear sir!” cried our client.

“I have yet to establish a motive,” confessed my friend, “but as to the main facts there can be no question.”

Mr. Harrington Edwards fell into a chair, white and shaking.

“The book,” he croaked. “Tell me!”

“Patience, my good sir,” counseled Holmes, kindly. “We have had nothing to eat since sunup, and are famished. All in good time. Let us first dine and then all shall be made clear. Meanwhile, I should like to telephone to Sir Nathaniel Brooke-Bannerman, for I wish him to hear what I have to say.”

Our client's pleas were in vain. Holmes would have his little joke and his luncheon. In the end, Mr. Harrington Edwards staggered away to the kitchen to order a repast, and Sherlock Holmes talked rapidly and unintelligibly into the telephone for a moment and came back with a smile on his face, which, to me, boded ill for someone. But I asked no questions; in good time this amazing man would tell his story in his own way. I had heard all he had heard, and had seen all he had seen; yet I was completely at sea. Still, our host's ghastly smile hung in my mind, and come what would I felt sorry for him. In a little time we were seated at table. Our client, haggard and nervous, ate slowly and with apparent discomfort; his eyes were never long absent from Holmes's inscrutable face. I was little better off, but Holmes ate with gusto, relating meanwhile a number of his earlier adventures, which I may some day give to the world, if I am able to read my illegible notes made on the occasion.

When the sorry meal had been concluded, we went into the library, where Sherlock Holmes took possession of the big easy chair, with an air of proprietorship that would have been amusing in other circumstances. He screwed together his long pipe and lighted it with a malicious lack of haste, while Mr. Harrington Edwards perspired against the mantel in an agony of apprehension.

“Why must you keep us waiting, Mr. Holmes?” he whispered. “Tell us, at once, please, who—who—” His voice trailed off into a moan.

“The criminal,” said Sherlock Holmes, smoothly, “is—”

“Sir Nathaniel Brooke-Bannerman!” said a maid, suddenly putting her head in at the door, and on the heels of her announcement stalked the handsome baronet, whose priceless volume had caused all this stir and unhappiness.

Sir Nathaniel was white, and appeared ill. He burst at once into talk.

“I have been much upset by your call,” he said, looking meanwhile at our client. “You say you have something to tell me about the quarto. Don't say—that—anything has happened—to it!” He clutched nervously at the wall to steady himself, and I felt deep pity for him.

Mr. Harrington Edwards looked at Sherlock Holmes. “Oh, Mr. Holmes,” he cried, pathetically, “why did you send for him?”

“Because,” said my friend, firmly, “I wish him to hear the truth about the Shakespeare quarto. Sir Nathaniel, I believe you have not been told as yet that Mr. Edwards was robbed, last night, of your precious volume—robbed by the trusted servants whom you sent with him to protect it.”

“What!” shrieked the titled collector. He staggered and fumbled madly at his heart; then collapsed into a chair. “Good God!” he muttered, and then again: “Good God!”

“I should have thought you would have been suspicious of evil when your servants did not return,” pursued Holmes.

“I have not seen them,” whispered Sir Nathaniel. “I do not mingle with my servants. I did not know they had failed to return. Tell me—tell me all!”

“Mr. Edwards,” said Sherlock Holmes, turning to our client, “will you repeat your story, please?”

Mr. Harrington Edwards, thus adjured, told the unhappy tale again, ending with a heartbroken cry of “Oh, Sir Nathaniel, can you ever forgive me?”

“I do not know that it was entirely your fault,” observed Holmes, cheerfully. “Sir Nathaniel's own servants are the guilty ones, and surely he sent them with you.”

“But you said you had solved the case, Mr. Holmes,” cried our client, in a frenzy of despair.

“Yes,” agreed Holmes, “it is solved. You have had the clue in your own hands ever since the occurrence, but you did not know how to use it. It all turns upon the curious actions of the taller servant, prior to the assault.”

“The actions of—” stammered Mr. Harrington Edwards. “Why, he did nothing—said nothing!”

“That is the curious circumstance,” said Sherlock Holmes, meaningly.

Sir Nathaniel got to his feet with difficulty.

“Mr. Holmes,” he said, “this has upset me more than I can tell you. Spare no pains to recover the book, and to bring to justice the scoundrels who stole it. But I must go away and think—think—”

“Stay,” said my friend. “I have already caught one of them.”

“What! Where?” cried the two collectors, together.

“Here,” said Sherlock Holmes, and stepping forward he laid a hand on the baronet's shoulder. “You, Sir Nathaniel, were the taller servant; you were one of the thieves who throttled Mr. Harrington Edwards and took from him your own book. And now, sir, will you tell us why you did it?”

Sir Nathaniel Brooke-Bannerman toppled and would have fallen had not I rushed forward and supported him. I placed him in a chair. As we looked at him, we saw confession in his eyes; guilt was written in his haggard face.

“Come, come,” said Holmes, impatiently. “Or will it make it easier for you if I tell the story as it occurred? Let it be so, then. You parted with Mr. Harrington Edwards on your doorsill, Sir Nathaniel, bidding your best friend good night with a smile on your lips and evil in your heart. And as soon as you had closed the door, you slipped into an enveloping raincoat, turned up your collar, and hastened by a shorter road to the porter's lodge, where you joined Mr. Edwards and Miles as one of your own servants. You spoke no word at any time, because you feared to speak. You were afraid Mr. Edwards would recognize your voice, while your beard, hastily assumed, protected your face, and in the darkness your figure passed unnoticed.

“Having choked and robbed your best friend, then, of your own book, you and your scoundrelly assistant fled across Mr. Edwards's fields to his own back door, thinking that, if investigation followed, I would be called in, and would trace those footprints and fix the crime upon Mr. Harrington Edwards, as part of a criminal plan, prearranged with your rascally servants, who would be supposed to be in the pay of Mr. Edwards and the ringleaders in a counterfeit assault upon his person. Your mistake, sir, was in ending your trail abruptly at Mr. Edwards's back door. Had you left another trail, then, leading back to your own domicile, I should unhesitatingly have arrested Mr. Harrington Edwards for the theft.

“Surely, you must know that in criminal cases handled by me, it is never the obvious solution that is the correct one. The mere fact that the finger of suspicion is made to point at a certain individual is sufficient to absolve that individual from guilt. Had you read the little works of my friend and colleague, here, Dr. Watson, you would not have made such a mistake. Yet you claim to be a bookman!”

A low moan from the unhappy baronet was his only answer.

“To continue, however: there at Mr. Edwards's own back door you ended your trail, entering his house—his own house—and spending the night under his roof, while his cries and ravings over his loss filled the night, and brought joy to your unspeakable soul. And in the morning, when he had gone forth to consult me, you quietly left—you and Miles—and returned to your own place by the beaten highway.”

“Mercy!” cried the defeated wretch, cowering in his chair. “If it is made public, I am ruined. I was driven to it. I could not let Mr. Edwards examine the book, for exposure would follow, that way; yet I could not refuse him—my best friend—when he asked its loan.''

“Your words tell me all that I did not know,” said Sherlock Holmes, sternly. “The motive now is only too plain. The work, sir, was a forgery, and knowing that your erudite friend would discover it, you chose to blacken his name to save your own. Was the book insured?”

“Insured for £350,000, he told me,” interrupted Mr. Harrington Edwards, excitedly.

“So that he planned at once to dispose of this dangerous and dubious item, and to reap a golden reward,” commented Holmes. “Come, sir, tell us about it. How much of it was forgery? Merely the inscription?”

“I will tell you,” said the baronet, suddenly, “and throw myself upon the mercy of my friend, Mr. Edwards. The whole book, in effect, was a forgery. It was originally made up of two imperfect copies of the 1604 quarto. Out of the pair, I made one perfect volume, and a skillful workman, now dead, changed the date for me so cleverly that only an expert of the first water could have detected it. Such an expert, however, is Mr. Harrington Edwards—the one man in the world who could have unmasked me.”

“Thank you, Nathaniel,” said Mr. Harrington Edwards, gratefully.

“The inscription, of course, also was forged,” continued the baronet. “You may as well know all.”

“And the book?” asked Holmes. “Where did you destroy it?”

A grim smile settled on Sir Nathaniel's features. “It is even now burning in Mr. Edwards's own furnace,” he said.

“Then it cannot yet be consumed,” cried Holmes, and dashed into the basement. He was absent for some little time, and we heard the clinking of bottles, and, finally, the clang of a great metal door. He emerged, some moments later, in high spirits, carrying a charred leaf in his hand.

“It is a pity,” he cried, “a pity! In spite of its questionable authenticity, it was a noble specimen. It is only half consumed, but let it burn away. I have preserved one leaf as a souvenir of the occasion.” He folded it carefully and placed it in his wallet. “Mr. Harrington Edwards, I fancy the decision in this matter is for you to announce. Sir Nathaniel, of course, must make no effort to collect the insurance.”