A Study in Scarlet Page 4

  CHAPTER IV. WHAT JOHN RANCE HAD TO TELL.

  IT was one o'clock when we left No. 3, Lauriston Gardens. SherlockHolmes led me to the nearest telegraph office, whence he dispatched along telegram. He then hailed a cab, and ordered the driver to take usto the address given us by Lestrade.

  "There is nothing like first hand evidence," he remarked; "as a matterof fact, my mind is entirely made up upon the case, but still we may aswell learn all that is to be learned."

  "You amaze me, Holmes," said I. "Surely you are not as sure as youpretend to be of all those particulars which you gave."

  "There's no room for a mistake," he answered. "The very first thingwhich I observed on arriving there was that a cab had made two ruts withits wheels close to the curb. Now, up to last night, we have had no rainfor a week, so that those wheels which left such a deep impression musthave been there during the night. There were the marks of the horse'shoofs, too, the outline of one of which was far more clearly cut thanthat of the other three, showing that that was a new shoe. Since the cabwas there after the rain began, and was not there at any time during themorning--I have Gregson's word for that--it follows that it must havebeen there during the night, and, therefore, that it brought those twoindividuals to the house."

  "That seems simple enough," said I; "but how about the other man'sheight?"

  "Why, the height of a man, in nine cases out of ten, can be told fromthe length of his stride. It is a simple calculation enough, thoughthere is no use my boring you with figures. I had this fellow's strideboth on the clay outside and on the dust within. Then I had a way ofchecking my calculation. When a man writes on a wall, his instinct leadshim to write about the level of his own eyes. Now that writing was justover six feet from the ground. It was child's play."

  "And his age?" I asked.

  "Well, if a man can stride four and a-half feet without the smallesteffort, he can't be quite in the sere and yellow. That was the breadthof a puddle on the garden walk which he had evidently walked across.Patent-leather boots had gone round, and Square-toes had hopped over.There is no mystery about it at all. I am simply applying to ordinarylife a few of those precepts of observation and deduction which Iadvocated in that article. Is there anything else that puzzles you?"

  "The finger nails and the Trichinopoly," I suggested.

  "The writing on the wall was done with a man's forefinger dipped inblood. My glass allowed me to observe that the plaster was slightlyscratched in doing it, which would not have been the case if the man'snail had been trimmed. I gathered up some scattered ash from the floor.It was dark in colour and flakey--such an ash as is only made by aTrichinopoly. I have made a special study of cigar ashes--in fact, Ihave written a monograph upon the subject. I flatter myself that I candistinguish at a glance the ash of any known brand, either of cigaror of tobacco. It is just in such details that the skilled detectivediffers from the Gregson and Lestrade type."

  "And the florid face?" I asked.

  "Ah, that was a more daring shot, though I have no doubt that I wasright. You must not ask me that at the present state of the affair."

  I passed my hand over my brow. "My head is in a whirl," I remarked; "themore one thinks of it the more mysterious it grows. How came these twomen--if there were two men--into an empty house? What has become of thecabman who drove them? How could one man compel another to take poison?Where did the blood come from? What was the object of the murderer,since robbery had no part in it? How came the woman's ring there? Aboveall, why should the second man write up the German word RACHE beforedecamping? I confess that I cannot see any possible way of reconcilingall these facts."

  My companion smiled approvingly.

  "You sum up the difficulties of the situation succinctly and well," hesaid. "There is much that is still obscure, though I have quite made upmy mind on the main facts. As to poor Lestrade's discovery it was simplya blind intended to put the police upon a wrong track, by suggestingSocialism and secret societies. It was not done by a German. The A, ifyou noticed, was printed somewhat after the German fashion. Now, a realGerman invariably prints in the Latin character, so that we may safelysay that this was not written by one, but by a clumsy imitator whooverdid his part. It was simply a ruse to divert inquiry into a wrongchannel. I'm not going to tell you much more of the case, Doctor. Youknow a conjuror gets no credit when once he has explained his trick,and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to theconclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all."

  "I shall never do that," I answered; "you have brought detection as nearan exact science as it ever will be brought in this world."

  My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest wayin which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as sensitiveto flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty.

  "I'll tell you one other thing," he said. "Patent leathers [10] andSquare-toes came in the same cab, and they walked down the pathwaytogether as friendly as possible--arm-in-arm, in all probability.When they got inside they walked up and down the room--or rather,Patent-leathers stood still while Square-toes walked up and down. Icould read all that in the dust; and I could read that as he walked hegrew more and more excited. That is shown by the increased length of hisstrides. He was talking all the while, and working himself up, no doubt,into a fury. Then the tragedy occurred. I've told you all I know myselfnow, for the rest is mere surmise and conjecture. We have a good workingbasis, however, on which to start. We must hurry up, for I want to go toHalle's concert to hear Norman Neruda this afternoon."

  This conversation had occurred while our cab had been threading its waythrough a long succession of dingy streets and dreary by-ways. In thedingiest and dreariest of them our driver suddenly came to a stand."That's Audley Court in there," he said, pointing to a narrow slit inthe line of dead-coloured brick. "You'll find me here when you comeback."

  Audley Court was not an attractive locality. The narrow passage led usinto a quadrangle paved with flags and lined by sordid dwellings. Wepicked our way among groups of dirty children, and through lines ofdiscoloured linen, until we came to Number 46, the door of whichwas decorated with a small slip of brass on which the name Rance wasengraved. On enquiry we found that the constable was in bed, and we wereshown into a little front parlour to await his coming.

  He appeared presently, looking a little irritable at being disturbed inhis slumbers. "I made my report at the office," he said.

  Holmes took a half-sovereign from his pocket and played with itpensively. "We thought that we should like to hear it all from your ownlips," he said.

  "I shall be most happy to tell you anything I can," the constableanswered with his eyes upon the little golden disk.

  "Just let us hear it all in your own way as it occurred."

  Rance sat down on the horsehair sofa, and knitted his brows as thoughdetermined not to omit anything in his narrative.

  "I'll tell it ye from the beginning," he said. "My time is from ten atnight to six in the morning. At eleven there was a fight at the 'WhiteHart'; but bar that all was quiet enough on the beat. At one o'clock itbegan to rain, and I met Harry Murcher--him who has the Holland Grovebeat--and we stood together at the corner of Henrietta Street a-talkin'.Presently--maybe about two or a little after--I thought I would takea look round and see that all was right down the Brixton Road. It wasprecious dirty and lonely. Not a soul did I meet all the way down,though a cab or two went past me. I was a strollin' down, thinkin'between ourselves how uncommon handy a four of gin hot would be, whensuddenly the glint of a light caught my eye in the window of that samehouse. Now, I knew that them two houses in Lauriston Gardens was emptyon account of him that owns them who won't have the drains seen to,though the very last tenant what lived in one of them died o' typhoidfever. I was knocked all in a heap therefore at seeing a light inthe window, and I suspected as something was wrong. When I got to thedoor----"

  "You stopped, and then walked back to the garden gate," my co
mpanioninterrupted. "What did you do that for?"

  Rance gave a violent jump, and stared at Sherlock Holmes with the utmostamazement upon his features.

  "Why, that's true, sir," he said; "though how you come to know it,Heaven only knows. Ye see, when I got up to the door it was so still andso lonesome, that I thought I'd be none the worse for some one with me.I ain't afeared of anything on this side o' the grave; but I thoughtthat maybe it was him that died o' the typhoid inspecting the drainswhat killed him. The thought gave me a kind o' turn, and I walked backto the gate to see if I could see Murcher's lantern, but there wasn't nosign of him nor of anyone else."

  "There was no one in the street?"

  "Not a livin' soul, sir, nor as much as a dog. Then I pulled myselftogether and went back and pushed the door open. All was quiet inside,so I went into the room where the light was a-burnin'. There was acandle flickerin' on the mantelpiece--a red wax one--and by its light Isaw----"

  "Yes, I know all that you saw. You walked round the room several times,and you knelt down by the body, and then you walked through and triedthe kitchen door, and then----"

  John Rance sprang to his feet with a frightened face and suspicion inhis eyes. "Where was you hid to see all that?" he cried. "It seems to methat you knows a deal more than you should."

  Holmes laughed and threw his card across the table to the constable."Don't get arresting me for the murder," he said. "I am one of thehounds and not the wolf; Mr. Gregson or Mr. Lestrade will answer forthat. Go on, though. What did you do next?"

  Rance resumed his seat, without however losing his mystified expression."I went back to the gate and sounded my whistle. That brought Murcherand two more to the spot."

  "Was the street empty then?"

  "Well, it was, as far as anybody that could be of any good goes."

  "What do you mean?"

  The constable's features broadened into a grin. "I've seen many a drunkchap in my time," he said, "but never anyone so cryin' drunk asthat cove. He was at the gate when I came out, a-leanin' up agin therailings, and a-singin' at the pitch o' his lungs about Columbine'sNew-fangled Banner, or some such stuff. He couldn't stand, far lesshelp."

  "What sort of a man was he?" asked Sherlock Holmes.

  John Rance appeared to be somewhat irritated at this digression. "He wasan uncommon drunk sort o' man," he said. "He'd ha' found hisself in thestation if we hadn't been so took up."

  "His face--his dress--didn't you notice them?" Holmes broke inimpatiently.

  "I should think I did notice them, seeing that I had to prop him up--meand Murcher between us. He was a long chap, with a red face, the lowerpart muffled round----"

  "That will do," cried Holmes. "What became of him?"

  "We'd enough to do without lookin' after him," the policeman said, in anaggrieved voice. "I'll wager he found his way home all right."

  "How was he dressed?"

  "A brown overcoat."

  "Had he a whip in his hand?"

  "A whip--no."

  "He must have left it behind," muttered my companion. "You didn't happento see or hear a cab after that?"

  "No."

  "There's a half-sovereign for you," my companion said, standing up andtaking his hat. "I am afraid, Rance, that you will never rise in theforce. That head of yours should be for use as well as ornament. Youmight have gained your sergeant's stripes last night. The man whom youheld in your hands is the man who holds the clue of this mystery, andwhom we are seeking. There is no use of arguing about it now; I tell youthat it is so. Come along, Doctor."

  We started off for the cab together, leaving our informant incredulous,but obviously uncomfortable.

  "The blundering fool," Holmes said, bitterly, as we drove back to ourlodgings. "Just to think of his having such an incomparable bit of goodluck, and not taking advantage of it."

  "I am rather in the dark still. It is true that the description of thisman tallies with your idea of the second party in this mystery. But whyshould he come back to the house after leaving it? That is not the wayof criminals."

  "The ring, man, the ring: that was what he came back for. If we have noother way of catching him, we can always bait our line with the ring. Ishall have him, Doctor--I'll lay you two to one that I have him. I mustthank you for it all. I might not have gone but for you, and so havemissed the finest study I ever came across: a study in scarlet, eh?Why shouldn't we use a little art jargon. There's the scarlet thread ofmurder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty isto unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it. And nowfor lunch, and then for Norman Neruda. Her attack and her bowingare splendid. What's that little thing of Chopin's she plays somagnificently: Tra-la-la-lira-lira-lay."

  Leaning back in the cab, this amateur bloodhound carolled away like alark while I meditated upon the many-sidedness of the human mind.