“Ah! who? I would call your attention very particularly to twopoints. One is that the murdered man had an appointment withsomeone at the pool, and that the someone could not have beenhis son, for his son was away, and he did not know when he wouldreturn. The second is that the murdered man was heard to cry‘Cooee!’ before he knew that his son had returned. Those are thecrucial points upon which the case depends. And now let us talkabout George Meredith, if you please, and we shall leave all minormatters until to-morrow.”
There was no rain, as Holmes had foretold, and the morningbroke bright and cloudless. At nine o’clock Lestrade called forus with the carriage, and we set off for Hatherley Farm and theBoscombe Pool.
“There is serious news this morning,” Lestrade observed. “It issaid that Mr. Turner, of the Hall, is so ill that his life is despairedof.”
“An elderly man, I presume?” said Holmes.
“About sixty; but his constitution has been shattered by hislife abroad, and he has been in failing health for some time. Thisbusiness has had a very bad effect upon him. He was an old friendof McCarthy’s, and, I may add, a great benefactor to him, for Ihave learned that he gave him Hatherley Farm rent free.”
“Indeed! That is interesting,” said Holmes.
“Oh, yes! In a hundred other ways he has helped him. Everybodyabout here speaks of his kindness to him.”
“Really! Does it not strike you as a little singular that thisMcCarthy, who appears to have had little of his own, and tohave been under such obligations to Turner, should still talk ofmarrying his son to Turner’s daughter, who is, presumably, heiressto the estate, and that in such a very cocksure manner, as if itwere merely a case of a proposal and all else would follow? It is themore strange, since we know that Turner himself was averse to theidea. The daughter told us as much. Do you not deduce somethingfrom that?”
“We have got to the deductions and the inferences,” said Lestrade,winking at me. “I find it hard enough to tackle facts, Holmes,without flying away after theories and fancies.”
“You are right,” said Holmes demurely; “you do find it very hardto tackle the facts.”
“Anyhow, I have grasped one fact which you seem to find itdifficult to get hold of,” replied Lestrade with some warmth.
“And that is——”
“That McCarthy senior met his death from McCarthy juniorand that all theories to the contrary are the merest moonshine.”
“Well, moonshine is a brighter thing than fog,” said Holmes,laughing. “But I am very much mistaken if this is not HatherleyFarm upon the left.”
“Yes, that is it.” It was a widespread, comfortable-lookingbuilding, two-storied, slate-roofed, with great yellow blotches oflichen upon the grey walls. The drawn blinds and the smokelesschimneys, however, gave it a stricken look, as though the weight ofthis horror still lay heavy upon it. We called at the door, when themaid, at Holmes’ request, showed us the boots which her masterwore at the time of his death, and also a pair of the son’s, thoughnot the pair which he had then had. Having measured these verycarefully from seven or eight different points, Holmes desired tobe led to the court-yard, from which we all followed the windingtrack which led to Boscombe Pool.
Sherlock Holmes was transformed when he was hot uponsuch a scent as this. Men who had only known the quiet thinkerand logician of Baker Street would have failed to recognise him.
His face flushed and darkened. His brows were drawn into twohard black lines, while his eyes shone out from beneath themwith a steely glitter. His face was bent downward, his shouldersbowed, his lips compressed, and the veins stood out like whipcordin his long, sinewy neck. His nostrils seemed to dilate with apurely animal lust for the chase, and his mind was so absolutelyconcentrated upon the matter before him that a question orremark fell unheeded upon his ears, or, at the most, only provokeda quick, impatient snarl in reply. Swiftly and silently he made hisway along the track which ran through the meadows, and so byway of the woods to the Boscombe Pool. It was damp, marshyground, as is all that district, and there were marks of many feet,both upon the path and amid the short grass which bounded it oneither side. Sometimes Holmes would hurry on, sometimes stopdead, and once he made quite a little detour into the meadow.
Lestrade and I walked behind him, the detective indifferent andcontemptuous, while I watched my friend with the interest whichsprang from the conviction that every one of his actions wasdirected towards a definite end.
The Boscombe Pool, which is a little reed-girt sheet of watersome fifty yards across, is situated at the boundary between theHatherley Farm and the private park of the wealthy Mr. Turner.
Above the woods which lined it upon the farther side we couldsee the red, jutting pinnacles which marked the site of the richlandowner’s dwelling. On the Hatherley side of the pool the woodsgrew very thick, and there was a narrow belt of sodden grasstwenty paces across between the edge of the trees and the reedswhich lined the lake. Lestrade showed us the exact spot at whichthe body had been found, and, indeed, so moist was the ground,that I could plainly see the traces which had been left by the fallof the stricken man. To Holmes, as I could see by his eager faceand peering eyes, very many other things were to be read upon thetrampled grass. He ran round, like a dog who is picking up a scent,and then turned upon my companion.
“What did you go into the pool for?” he asked.
“I fished about with a rake. I thought there might be someweapon or other trace. But how on earth——”