The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes (17 page)

for other reasons I was convinced of his innocence."

"Then we're back where we started!"

"Hardly that. Had you thought, Gregson, of reconstructing this crime after the French

fashion?"

"How do you mean?"

Holmes moved to the end of the table, which still bore the marks of the recent tragedy.

"Let us suppose that I am Colonel Daley—a tall man, standing here at the head of the

table. I am about to drink with someone, who means to stab me. I pick up the cup like

this, and with both hands I lift it to my mouth. So! Gregson, we will suppose that you

are the murderer. Stab me in the throat!"

"What the devil do you mean?"

"Grasp an imaginary dagger in your right hand. That's it! Don't hesitate, man; stab me in

the throat!"

Gregson, as though half-hypnotised, took a step forward with his hand raised, and

stopped.

"But it can't be done, Mr. Holmes! Not like this, anyway!"

"Why not?"

"The direction of the colonel's wound was straight upwards through the throat. Nobody

could strike upwards from underneath, across the breadth of the table. It's impossible!"

My friend, who had been standing with his head back and the heavy cup lifted to his lips

by both handles, now straightened up and offered it to the Scotland Yard man. "Good!" said

he. "Now, Gregson, imagine that
you
are Colonel Daley. I am the murderer. Take my

place, and lift the Luck of Lavington."

"Very well. What next?"

"Do exactly what I did. But don't put the cup to your lips. That's it, Gregson; that's it!

Mark well what I say: don't put it to your lips!"

The light flashed back from the great drinking-vessel as it tilted.

"No, man, no!" shouted Holmes suddenly. "Not another inch, if you value your life!"

Even as he spoke, there came a click and a metallic slither. A slim, sharp blade shot from

the lower edge of the cup with the speed of a striking snake. Gregson sprang back with an oath,

while the vessel, falling from his hands, crashed and jangled across the floor.

"My God!" I cried.

"My God!" echoed a voice which struck across my own. Sir Reginald Lavington, his dark

features now livid, was standing behind us with one hand partly raised as though to ward off

a blow. Then, with a groan, he buried his face in his hands. We stared at each other in horror-

struck silence.

"If you hadn't warned me, the blade would have been through my throat," said Gregson in a

shaking voice.

"Our ancestors had a neat way of eliminating their enemies," observed Holmes, lifting the

heavy cup and once more examining it closely. "With such a toy in the house, it is a dangerous

thing for a guest to drink in his host's absence."

"Then this was only an appalling accident!" I exclaimed. "Daley was the innocent victim

of a trap fashioned four centuries ago!"

"Observe the cunning of this mechanism, very much as I suspected yesterday afternoon—"

"Mr. Holmes," burst out the baronet, "I have never asked favour of any man in my life—"

"Perhaps it would be as well, Sir Reginald, if you left the explanation to me," interrupted

Holmes quietly, his long, thin fingers moving over the chased surface of the cup. "The blade

cannot strike unless the cup be lifted fully to the lips, when the full pressure of both hands is

exerted on the handles. Then the handles themselves act as triggers for the spring-

mechanism, to which the old blade is attached. You will perceive the minute slot just below

the circlet of jewels and cleverly disguised by the carving."

There was awe in Gregson's face as he gazed down at the ancient vessel.

"Then you mean," he stated somberly, "that the person who drinks from the Luck of

Lavington is a dead man?"

"By no means. I would draw your attention to the small silver owl-figures on the crest

of the handles. If you look closely, you will see that the right-hand one turns on a pivot. I

believe this to act in the same way as a safety-catch on a rifle. Unfortunately, these old

mechanisms are apt to become unreliable with the passage of the centuries."

Gregson whistled.

"It was an accident, right enough!" he stated. "Your reference to a mischance, Sir Reginald,

has proved to be a lucky shot in the dark. I suspected it all the time. But one moment! Why

didn't we see the blade when we first saw the cup?"

"Let us suppose, Gregson," replied Holmes, "that there is some form of recoil-spring."

"But surely, Holmes," I cried, "there could be no such—"

"As you were about to say, Watson, there was no such description of the cup as I had

hoped to find in the Maidstone County Registry. However, it did yield me the interesting

document I read you."

"Well, well, Mr. Holmes, you can give me the historic details later," said Gregson, turning to

the baronet. "In regard to this affair, Sir Reginald, you can think yourself lucky that there are

some sharp men hereabouts. Your possession of this dangerous relic might have caused a

serious miscarriage of justice. Either you must have the mechanism removed, or entrust it to

Scotland Yard."

Sir Reginald Lavington, who had been biting his lip as though to suppress some

overmastering emotion, looked dazedly from Holmes to Gregson.

"Right willingly," he said at length. "But the Luck of Lavington has been in our family

for over four hundred years. If it passes beyond this door, then I feel it should go to Mr.

Sherlock Holmes."

Holmes's eyes met those of the baronet.

"I will accept it as a memento of a very gallant man," my friend replied gravely.

As Holmes and I made our way up the steep lane in the wind-swept darkness, we turned

at the brow of the hill and looked down on the old manor-house with its lights dimly reflected

in the moat.

"I do feel, Holmes," said I, somewhat nettled, "that you owe me an explanation. When I

tried to point to you an error in your case, you indicated plainly that you wished me to speak

no further."

"What error, Watson?"

"Your explanation of how the cup worked. By the release of a powerful spring from a

trigger controlled by the handles, it would have been quite easy to make the blade strike. But

to push it back again, unless this were done by hand so that the blade could be caught again in

the mechanism—that, my dear fellow, is quite a different thing."

For a moment Holmes did not reply. He stood gaunt and lonely, his gaze fixed on the

ancient tower of Lavington.

"Surely it was apparent from the first," said he, "that no living murderer could have stabbed

Daley, and that something was wrong with the appearance of the crime as we saw it?"

"You deduced this from the direction of the wound?"

"That, yes. But there were other facts equally indicative."

"Your behaviour suggested as much at the time! Yet I cannot see what facts."

"The scratches on the table, Watson! And the wine spilled on both table and floor."

"Pray be good enough to explain."

"Colonel Daley's finger-nails," replied Holmes, "had clawed at the table-top in his death-

throes, and all the wine had been spilled. You remarked that? Good! Taking as a working

hypothesis the theory that he was killed by a blade in the cup, what must follow? The blade

would strike. Then—?"

"Then the cup would fall, spilling the wine. I grant that."

"But is it reasonable that the cup, in falling, should land upright on the table—as we found

it? This was overwhelmingly unlikely. Further evidence made it impossible. I lifted the cup, if

you recall, when I first examined it. Underneath it, covered by it, you saw—?"

"Scratches!" I interrupted. "Scratches and spilled wine!"

"Precisely. Daley would die soon, but not instantly. If the cup fell from his hands, are we to

assume that it hung suspended in the air, and afterwards descended
over the
scratches and the

wine? No, Watson. There was, as you pointed out, no recoil-mechanism. With Daley dead, some

living hand picked up the cup from the floor. Some living hand pushed back the blade into the

cup, and set it upright on the table."

A gust of rain blew out of the dreary sky, but my companion remained motionless.

"Holmes," said I, "according to the butler—"

"According to the butler? Yes?"

"Sir Reginald Lavington was drinking with the colonel. At least, Daley is reported to have

said so."

"And, as he said so," commented Holmes, "gave so curious a laugh that Gillings could not

forget it. Had the laugh an ulterior meaning, Watson? But I had better say no more, lest I make

you an accessory after the fact like myself."

"You do me less than justice, Holmes, should I become accessory after the fact in a good

cause!"

"In my judgement," said Sherlock Holmes, "one of the best of causes."

"Then you may rely on my silence."

"Be it so, Watson! Now consider the behaviour of Sir Reginald Lavington. For an innocent

man, he acted very strangely."

"You mean that Sir Reginald—"

"Pray don't interrupt. Though he had witnesses that he had not been drinking with Daley,

he would not produce them. He preferred to be arrested. Why should Daley, a man of such

different character from his host, pay frequent visits to this house? What was Daley doing

there? Interpret the meaning of Lavington's statement, 'I
know his character
now!'
We saw the

answers to these questions played out in deadly pantomime. To me it suggested the blackest of

all crimes, blackmail."

"Sir Reginald," I exclaimed, "was guilty after all! He was a dangerous man, as I remarked

—"

"A dangerous man, yes," agreed Holmes. "But you have seen his character. He might kill.

But he would not kill and conceal."

"Conceal what?"

"Reflect again, Watson. Though we know that he was not drinking with Daley in the

banqueting-hall, he might have returned from the river just in time to find Daley dead. That

was when he thrust the blade back into the cup, and set it upright again. But guilt? No. His

behaviour, his willingness to be arrested, can be understood only if he had been shielding

someone else."

I followed my friend's gaze, which had never moved from the direction of Lavington Court.

"Holmes," I cried, "then who set the diabolical mechanism?"

"Think, Watson! Who was the only person who uttered that one word, 'jealousy'? Let us

suppose a woman has erred before a marriage, but never after it. Let us suppose, moreover,

that she believes her husband, a man of the old school, would not understand. She is at the

mercy of that most vicious of all parasites, a society blackmailer. She is present when the

blackmailer drinks a toast—by his own choice—from the Luck of Lavington. But, since she is

obliged to slip away at the entrance of the butler, the blackmailer laughed and died. Say no

more, Watson. Let the past sleep."

"As you wish. I am silent."

"It is a cardinal error, my dear fellow, to theorize without data. And yet, when we first

entered Lavington Court yesterday evening, I had a glimpse of the truth."

"But what did you see?"

As we turned away towards our inn and the comforting light of a fire, Sherlock Holmes

nodded over his shoulder.

"I saw a pale, beautiful woman descend a staircase, as once I had seen her on the stage.

Have you forgotten another ancient manor, and a hostess named Lady Macbeth?"

Since . . . our visit to Devonshire, he had been engaged in two affairs of the utmost

importance . . . the famous card scandal of the Nonpareil Club . . . and the unfortunate

Madame Montpensier.

FROM "THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES."

6

The Adventure of the Sealed Room

My wife had a slight cold, as my note-book records, when on that morning of April

12th, 1888, we were introduced in such dramatic fashion to one of the most singular problems

in the annals of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

At this time, as I have elsewhere recorded, my medical practice was in the Paddington district.

Being young and active, I was in the habit of arising betimes; and eight o'clock found me

downstairs, distressing the maid by lighting the fire in the hall, when I was startled by a ring

at the street-door.

A patient at this hour could have come on no trivial errand. And, when I had opened

the door to the clear April sunlight, I was struck no less by the pallor and agitation than

by the youth and beauty of the young lady who stood swaying on my humble threshold.

"Dr. Watson?" asked she, raising her veil.

"I am he, madam."

"Pray forgive this early intrusion. I have come to—I have come to—"

"Be good enough to step into the consulting-room," said I, leading the way with a vigorous

step, and meanwhile studying the young lady closely. It is as well for a medical man to impress

his patients by deducing their symptoms, and hence their ailments, before they have spoken at

all.

"The weather is warm for this season of the year," I continued, when we reached the

consulting-room, "yet there is always the possibility of a chill, unless the room be well sealed

against draughts."

The effect of this remark was extraordinary. For a moment my visitor stared at me with the