“Surely there is not a moment to lose,” I cried, “shall I go and order you a cab?”
“I’m not sure about whether I shall go. I am incurably lazy.”
“Isn’t this your chance?”
“My dear friend, if I unravel the whole matter, you may be sure that Gregson and Lestrade will pocket all the credit[18]. However, we may go and have a look. Why not? Come on! Get your hat,” he said.
“You wish me to come?”
“Yes, if you have nothing better to do.”
A minute later we were both in a hansom. We were driving furiously for the Brixton Road.
It was a foggy, cloudy morning. My companion was talking about fiddles. As for myself, I was silent, for the dull weather depressed my spirits.
Number 3, Lauriston Gardens, was one of four houses which stood back some little way from the street. Two of them were occupied and two were empty. There was a “To Let” card near the house. A small garden separated each of these houses from the street, and was traversed by a narrow pathway. It was yellowish in colour, and consisted of a mixture of clay and of gravel. The whole place was very sloppy from the night rain.
Sherlock Holmes lounged up and down the pavement, and gazed vacantly at the ground, the sky, the opposite houses and the line of railings. Then he proceeded slowly down the path, or rather down the fringe of grass, and looked at the ground. Twice he stopped. He smiled, and uttered an exclamation of satisfaction.
At the door of the house, a tall, white-faced, flaxen-haired[19] man met us. He had a notebook in his hand. He rushed forward and wrung my companion’s hand with effusion.
“It is indeed kind of you to come,” he said, “My colleague, Mr. Lestrade, is here.”
Holmes glanced at me and raised his eyebrows sardonically.
“With two such men as yourself and Lestrade here, I am useless,” he said.
Gregson rubbed his hands.
“I think,” he answered; “it’s a queer case, and I knew your taste for such things.”
“You did not come here in a cab?” asked Sherlock Holmes.
“No, sir.”
“Nor Lestrade?”
“No, sir.”
“Then let us go and look at the room.”
And Sherlock Holmes entered the house.
A short passage led to the kitchen and offices. I saw two doors to the left and to the right. One of these was closed. The other belonged to the dining-room, where the mysterious affair occurred. Holmes walked in, and I followed him.
It was a large square room without furniture. A vulgar paper adorned the walls. Opposite the door was a showy fireplace, surmounted by a mantelpiece. On one corner of this was the stump of a red wax candle. The window was so dirty that the light was hazy and uncertain. All these details I observed afterwards.
A single grim motionless figure lay upon the floor. It was a man about forty-three or forty-four years of age, middle-sized, broad shouldered, with curling black hair, and a short stubbly beard. He was dressed in a frock coat[20] and waistcoat, with light-coloured trousers. A top hat[21] was placed upon the floor beside him. His hands were clenched and his arms thrown abroad[22], while his legs were interlocked[23]. On his rigid face there stood an expression of horror and of hatred. This malignant and terrible contortion, the low forehead, blunt nose, and prognathous jaw[24] gave the dead man an ape-like[25] appearance.
Lestrade was standing by the doorway, and greeted my companion and myself.
Sherlock Holmes approached the body. He knelt down and examined it intently.
“You are sure that there is no wound?” he asked. He pointed to numerous gouts and splashes of blood which lay all round.
“Yes!” cried both detectives.
“Then, of course, this blood belongs to somebody else, maybe to the murderer, if it is a murder?”
As he spoke, his nimble fingers were flying here, there, and everywhere. They were feeling, pressing, unbuttoning, examining. Finally, he sniffed the dead man’s lips, and then glanced at the soles of his patent leather boots.
“You can take him to the mortuary now,” he said.
Four men entered the room, and they lifted and carried the stranger out. As they raised him, a ring tinkled down and rolled across the floor. Lestrade took it.
“There was a woman here,” he cried. “It’s a woman’s wedding-ring.”
He held it upon the palm of his hand. We all gazed at it.
“This complicates matters,” said Gregson.
“You’re sure it doesn’t simplify them?” observed Holmes. “What did you find in his pockets?”
“Here,” said Gregson. “A gold watch, No. 97163, by Barraud[26], of London. Gold chain, very heavy and solid. Gold ring, with masonic device. Gold pin-bull-dog’s head, with rubies as eyes.
Russian leather card-case, with cards of Enoch J. Drebber of Cleveland. No purse, but seven pounds thirteen. Pocket edition of Boccaccio’s ‘Decameron,’[27]with name of Joseph Stangerson upon the fly-leaf[28]. Two letters-one addressed to E. J. Drebber and one to Joseph Stangerson.”
“At what address?”
“American Exchange, Strand-to be left till called for[29]. They are both from the Guion Steamship Company[30], and refer to the boats from Liverpool. It is clear that this unfortunate man wanted to return to New York.”
“What about this man, Stangerson?”
“I sent advertisements to all the newspapers, sir,” said Gregson. “And one of my men went to the American Exchange.”
“What about Cleveland?”
“We telegraphed this morning.”
“What were your inquiries?”
“We simply detailed the circumstances, and said that we were glad to receive any information which could help us.”
Sherlock Holmes chuckled to himself. Suddenly Lestrade reappeared.
“Mr. Gregson,” he said, “I made a discovery of the highest importance! I carefully examined the walls. Come here. Now, stand there!”
He struck a match on his boot.
“Look at that!” he said, triumphantly.
In the corner of the room, across the wall there was in blood-red letters a single word – RACHE.
“What do you think of that?” cried the detective. “The murderer wrote it with his or her own blood. Why that corner? I will tell you. See that candle on the mantelpiece. It was the brightest corner of the room.”
“And what does it mean?” asked Gregson.
“Mean? It means that the writer was going to write the female name Rachel. But he or she had no time to finish. You can laugh, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. You may be very smart and clever, but the old hound is the best here!”
“I really beg your pardon!” said my companion. “You are certainly the best. I had no time to examine this room, but with your permission I shall do so now.”
And he whipped a tape measure[31] and a large round magnifying glass[32] from his pocket. With these two implements he trotted noiselessly about the room. Sometimes he stopped, occasionally knelt. For twenty minutes or more he continued his researches. In one place he gathered up very carefully a little pile of grey dust from the floor, and packed it in an envelope. Finally, he examined with his magnifying glass the word upon the wall. After that he was satisfied, for he replaced his tape and his glass in his pocket.
Gregson and Lestrade watched the manoeuvres of Sherlock Holmes with considerable curiosity and some contempt.
“What do you think of it, sir?” they both asked.
“You are doing so well now,” remarked my friend. “that I can’t interfere.” There was sarcasm in his voice as he spoke. “If you let me know how your investigations go,” he continued, “I shall be happy to give you any help I can. But I want to speak to the constable who found the body. Can you give me his name and address?”
“John Rance,” said Lestrade. “You will find him at 46, Audley Court, Kennington Park Gate.”
“Come along, Doctor,” said Holmes; “we shall go to him. I’ll tell you one thing which may help you in the case,” he turned to the two detectives. “It was a murder, and the murderer was a man. He was more than six feet high, was in the prime of life[33], had small feet for his height, wore coarse, square-toed boots[34] and smoked a cigar. He came here with his victim in a four-wheeled cab, which was drawn by a horse with three old shoes and one new one on his off fore leg[35]. The murderer had a florid face, and the finger-nails of his right hand were remarkably long. These indications may assist you.”
Lestrade and Gregson glanced at each other with an incredulous smile.
“How was this man murdered?” asked they.
“Poison,” said Sherlock Holmes curtly. “One other thing, Lestrade,” he added: “‘Rache,’ is the German for ‘revenge;’ so don’t look for Miss Rachel.”
Chapter IV
What John Rance Had to Tell
It was one o’clock when we left No. 3, Lauriston Gardens. Sherlock Holmes led me to the nearest telegraph office, whence he dispatched a long telegram. He then hailed a cab, and ordered the driver to take us to the address which Lestrade gave us.
“You amaze me, Holmes,” said I. “How do you know all those particulars of the case?”
“Look,” he answered. “the first thing: a cab made two ruts with its wheels close to the curb. Now, up to last night, we had no rain. So those wheels – which left such a deep impression – were there during the night. There were the marks of the horse’s hoofs, too, the outline of one hoof was very clear. This was a new shoe. Since the cab was there after the rain began, and was not there at any time during the morning, it was there during the night, and, therefore, it brought those two men to the house.”
“But how did you know the man’s height?” said I.
“The height of a man is connected to the length of his stride. It is a simple calculation. I had this fellow’s stride both on the clay outside and on the dust within. Moreover: when a man writes on a wall, he usually writes about the level of his own eyes. That writing was just over six feet from the ground.”
“And his age?” I asked.
“Well, if a man can stride four and a half feet without the effort, he is strong enough. That was the breadth of a puddle on the garden walk which he jumped over. There is no mystery about it at all. I am simply applying to ordinary life some deduction. Is there anything else that puzzles you?”
“The finger nails and the cigar,” I suggested.
“The writing on the wall was done with a man’s forefinger dipped in blood. The plaster was
scratched. This is impossible if the man’s nail is trimmed. I gathered up some ash from the floor.
It was dark in colour and flakey-a cigar, for sure. I made a special study of cigar ashes-in fact, I wrote a monograph upon the subject.”
“And the florid face?” I asked.
“Ah, please don’t ask about it now, though I have no doubt that I was right.”
“But, Holmes,” I remarked; “why did these two men-if there were two men-come into an empty house? How did the victim take poison? Where did the blood come from? What was the object of the murderer? What about the woman’s ring there? Why did the second man write the German word RACHE?”
My companion smiled approvingly.
“My dear Watson,” Holmes said, “many things are still obscure. About Lestrade’s discovery. Not a German man wrote it. The letter A, if you noticed, was printed after the German fashion[36]. But a real German invariably prints in the Latin character[37]. So we may say that a clumsy imitator wrote that. I’ll tell you more. Both men came in the same cab, and they walked down the pathway together. When they got inside they walked up and down the room. I could read all that in the dust. Then the tragedy occurred.”
Our cab was going through a long succession of dingy streets and dreary by-ways. In the dingiest and dreariest of them our driver suddenly stopped.
“That’s Audley Court in there,” he said. “You’ll find me here when you come back.”
We came to Number 46, and saw a small slip of brass on which the name Rance was engraved. The constable appeared.
“I made my report at the office,” he said.
Holmes took a half-sovereign from his pocket.
“We want to hear it all from your own lips,” he said.
“I shall be most happy to tell you anything I can,” the constable answered.
“How did it occur?”
Rance sat down on the sofa, and knitted his brows.
“I’ll tell it from the beginning,” he said. “My time is from ten at night to six in the morning. At one o’clock it began to rain, and I met Harry Murcher and we stood together and talked a little. After that-maybe about two or a little after-I decided to take a look round. The road was dirty and lonely. I met nobody all the way down, though a cab or two went past me. Suddenly I saw a light in the window of that house. When I came to the door…”
“You stopped, and then walked back to the garden gate,” my companion interrupted. “Why did you do that?”
Rance stared at Sherlock Holmes with the utmost amazement.
“Yes, that’s true, sir,” he said; “but how do you know it? When I got up to the door it was so still and so lonesome, that I decided to take somebody with me, maybe Murcher. And I walked back. But I saw no one.”
“There was no one in the street?”
“Not a soul, sir. Then I went back and opened the door. All was quiet inside, so I went into the room where the light was burning. There was a candle on the mantelpiece-a red wax one-and I saw…”
“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 opened the kitchen door, and then…”
John Rance sprang to his feet with a frightened face.
“Where were you, sir, that time? You saw all that!” he cried. “It seems to me that you know too much.”
Holmes laughed and threw his card across the table to the constable.
“Don’t arrest me for the murder,” he said. “I am one of the hounds; Mr. Gregson or Mr. Lestrade can say that as well. Go on, though. What did you do next?”
“I went back to the gate and sounded my whistle. Murcher and two more arrived.”
“Was the street empty then?”
“Only a drunker. I saw many drunkers in my life,” he said, “but not like that one. He was at the gate when I came out, he was leaning up against the railings, and singing a song. He couldn’t stand at all.”
“What sort of a man was he?” asked Sherlock Holmes. “His face-his dress-didn’t you notice them?”
“He was a long chap, with a red face, the lower part muffled round[38]…”
“What became of him?” cried Holmes.
“I think he found his way home,” the policeman said.
“How was he dressed?”
“A brown overcoat.”
“Had he a whip in his hand?”
“A whip-no.”
“Did you see or hear a cab?” asked Holmes.
“No.”
“There’s a half-sovereign for you,” my companion said. “I am afraid, Rance, that you will never became a sergeant. That man is the man who holds the clue of this mystery, and whom we are seeking. Come along, Doctor.”
“The fool,” Holmes said, bitterly, as we drove back to our lodgings.
“Holmes, it is true that the description of this man tallies with your idea of the second person in this mystery. But why did the criminal come back to the house again?”
“The ring, the ring. We will use that ring, Doctor, to catch him. I must thank you for this case. I was lazy enough to go, but you forced me! A study in scarlet, eh? Let’s use a little art jargon. There’s the scarlet thread of murder through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it.”
Chapter V
Our Advertisement Brings a Visitor
I lay down upon the sofa and tried to sleep. But every time that I closed my eyes I saw before me the distorted baboon-like countenance of the murdered man.
Was that man poisoned? Holmes sniffed his lips, and probably detected something. And if not poison, what caused the man’s death? There was neither wound nor marks of strangulation. But, on the other hand, whose blood was there upon the floor? We saw no signs of a struggle, the victim did not have any weapon. My friend’s quiet self-confident manner convinced me that he had a theory which explained all the facts.
Holmes came very late. Dinner was on the table before he appeared.
“What’s the matter?” he answered. “Does this Brixton Road affair trouble you?”
“To tell the truth, it does,” I said.
“I can understand. There is a mystery about this which stimulates the imagination. Did you see the evening paper?”
“No.”
“It tells about the affair. And it does not mention the woman’s wedding ring. That’s good.”
“Why?”
“Look at this advertisement,” he answered. “I sent it to every paper in the morning immediately after the affair.”