“I must go home now, for dad is very ill, and he misses me so if Ileave him. Good-bye, and God help you in your undertaking.” Shehurried from the room as impulsively as she had entered, and weheard the wheels of her carriage rattle off down the street.
“I am ashamed of you, Holmes,” said Lestrade with dignity aftera few minutes’ silence. “Why should you raise up hopes which youare bound to disappoint? I am not over-tender of heart, but I callit cruel.”
“I think that I see my way to clearing James McCarthy,” saidHolmes. “Have you an order to see him in prison?”
“Yes, but only for you and me.”
“Then I shall reconsider my resolution about going out. Wehave still time to take a train to Hereford and see him to-night?”
“Ample.”
“Then let us do so. Watson, I fear that you will find it very slow,but I shall only be away a couple of hours.”
I walked down to the station with them, and then wanderedthrough the streets of the little town, finally returning to the hotel,where I lay upon the sofa and tried to interest myself in a yellowbackednovel. The puny plot of the story was so thin, however,when compared to the deep mystery through which we weregroping, and I found my attention wander so continually fromthe action to the fact, that I at last flung it across the room andgave myself up entirely to a consideration of the events of the day.
Supposing that this unhappy young man’s story were absolutelytrue, then what hellish thing, what absolutely unforeseen andextraordinary calamity could have occurred between the timewhen he parted from his father, and the moment when, drawnback by his screams, he rushed into the glade? It was somethingterrible and deadly. What could it be? Might not the nature ofthe injuries reveal something to my medical instincts? I rang thebell and called for the weekly county paper, which contained averbatim account of the inquest. In the surgeon’s deposition it wasstated that the posterior third of the left parietal bone and the lefthalf of the occipital bone had been shattered by a heavy blow froma blunt weapon. I marked the spot upon my own head. Clearlysuch a blow must have been struck from behind. That was tosome extent in favour of the accused, as when seen quarrelling hewas face to face with his father. Still, it did not go for very much,for the older man might have turned his back before the blow fell.
Still, it might be worth while to call Holmes’ attention to it. Thenthere was the peculiar dying reference to a rat. What could thatmean? It could not be delirium. A man dying from a sudden blowdoes not commonly become delirious. No, it was more likely tobe an attempt to explain how he met his fate. But what could itindicate? I cudgelled my brains to find some possible explanation.
And then the incident of the grey cloth seen by young McCarthy.
If that were true the murderer must have dropped some part ofhis dress, presumably his overcoat, in his flight, and must have hadthe hardihood to return and to carry it away at the instant whenthe son was kneeling with his back turned not a dozen paces off.
What a tissue of mysteries and improbabilities the whole thingwas! I did not wonder at Lestrade’s opinion, and yet I had somuch faith in Sherlock Holmes’ insight that I could not lose hopeas long as every fresh fact seemed to strengthen his conviction ofyoung McCarthy’s innocence.
It was late before Sherlock Holmes returned. He came backalone, for Lestrade was staying in lodgings in the town.
“The glass still keeps very high,” he remarked as he sat down. “Itis of importance that it should not rain before we are able to goover the ground. On the other hand, a man should be at his verybest and keenest for such nice work as that, and I did not wish todo it when fagged by a long journey. I have seen young McCarthy.”
“And what did you learn from him?”
“Nothing.”
“Could he throw no light?”
“None at all. I was inclined to think at one time that he knewwho had done it and was screening him or her, but I am convincednow that he is as puzzled as everyone else. He is not a very quickwittedyouth, though comely to look at and, I should think, soundat heart.”
“I cannot admire his taste,” I remarked, “if it is indeed a factthat he was averse to a marriage with so charming a young lady asthis Miss Turner.”
“Ah, thereby hangs a rather painful tale. This fellow is madly,insanely, in love with her, but some two years ago, when he wasonly a lad, and before he really knew her, for she had been awayfive years at a boarding-school, what does the idiot do but get intothe clutches of a barmaid in Bristol and marry her at a registryoffice? No one knows a word of the matter, but you can imaginehow maddening it must be to him to be upbraided for not doingwhat he would give his very eyes to do, but what he knows to beabsolutely impossible. It was sheer frenzy of this sort which madehim throw his hands up into the air when his father, at their lastinterview, was goading him on to propose to Miss Turner. On theother hand, he had no means of supporting himself, and his father,who was by all accounts a very hard man, would have thrown himover utterly had he known the truth. It was with his barmaid wifethat he had spent the last three days in Bristol, and his father didnot know where he was. Mark that point. It is of importance.
Good has come out of evil, however, for the barmaid, finding fromthe papers that he is in serious trouble and likely to be hanged, hasthrown him over utterly and has written to him to say that she hasa husband already in the Bermuda Dockyard, so that there is reallyno tie between them. I think that that bit of news has consoledyoung McCarthy for all that he has suffered.”
“But if he is innocent, who has done it?”