“Would you kindly send one of your constables for two bucketsof water? Put the straw on the floor here, free from the wall oneither side. Now I think that we are all ready.”
Lestrade’s face had begun to grow red and angry. “I don’t knowwhether you are playing a game with us, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,”
said he. “If you know anything, you can surely say it without allthis tomfoolery.”
“I assure you, my good Lestrade, that I have an excellent reasonfor everything that I do. You may possibly remember that youchaffed me a little, some hours ago, when the sun seemed on yourside of the hedge, so you must not grudge me a little pomp andceremony now. Might I ask you, Watson, to open that window,and then to put a match to the edge of the straw?”
I did so, and driven by the draught a coil of gray smoke swirleddown the corridor, while the dry straw crackled and flamed.
“Now we must see if we can find this witness for you, Lestrade.
Might I ask you all to join in the cry of ‘Fire!’ ? Now then; one,two, three——”
“Fire!” we all yelled.
“Thank you. I will trouble you once again.”
“Fire!”
“Just once more, gentlemen, and all together.”
“Fire!” The shout must have rung over Norwood.
It had hardly died away when an amazing thing happened. Adoor suddenly flew open out of what appeared to be solid wall atthe end of the corridor, and a little, wizened man darted out of it,like a rabbit out of its burrow.
“Capital!” said Holmes, calmly. “Watson, a bucket of water overthe straw. That will do! Lestrade, allow me to present you withyour principal missing witness, Mr. Jonas Oldacre.”
The detective stared at the newcomer with blank amazement.
The latter was blinking in the bright light of the corridor, andpeering at us and at the smouldering fire. It was an odious face—crafty, vicious, malignant, with shifty, light-gray eyes and whitelashes.
“What’s this, then?” said Lestrade, at last. “What have you beendoing all this time, eh?”
Oldacre gave an uneasy laugh, shrinking back from the furiousred face of the angry detective.
“I have done no harm.”
“No harm? You have done your best to get an innocent manhanged. If it wasn’t for this gentleman here, I am not sure that youwould not have succeeded.”
The wretched creature began to whimper.
“I am sure, sir, it was only my practical joke.”
“Oh! a joke, was it? You won’t find the laugh on your side, Ipromise you. Take him down, and keep him in the sitting-roomuntil I come. Mr. Holmes,” he continued, when they had gone, “Icould not speak before the constables, but I don’t mind saying, inthe presence of Dr. Watson, that this is the brightest thing thatyou have done yet, though it is a mystery to me how you did it.
You have saved an innocent man’s life, and you have prevented avery grave scandal, which would have ruined my reputation in theForce.”
Holmes smiled, and clapped Lestrade upon the shoulder.
“Instead of being ruined, my good sir, you will find that yourreputation has been enormously enhanced. Just make a fewalterations in that report which you were writing, and they willunderstand how hard it is to throw dust in the eyes of InspectorLestrade.”
“And you don’t want your name to appear?”
“Not at all. The work is its own reward. Perhaps I shall get thecredit also at some distant day, when I permit my zealous historianto lay out his foolscap once more—eh, Watson? Well, now, let ussee where this rat has been lurking.”
A lath-and-plaster partition had been run across the passage sixfeet from the end, with a door cunningly concealed in it. It was litwithin by slits under the eaves. A few articles of furniture and asupply of food and water were within, together with a number ofbooks and papers.
“There’s the advantage of being a builder,” said Holmes, as wecame out. “He was able to fix up his own little hiding-place withoutany confederate—save, of course, that precious housekeeper of his,whom I should lose no time in adding to your bag, Lestrade.”
“I’ll take your advice. But how did you know of this place, Mr.
Holmes?”
“I made up my mind that the fellow was in hiding in the house.
When I paced one corridor and found it six feet shorter thanthe corresponding one below, it was pretty clear where he was. Ithought he had not the nerve to lie quiet before an alarm of fire.
We could, of course, have gone in and taken him, but it amusedme to make him reveal himself. Besides, I owed you a littlemystification, Lestrade, for your chaff in the morning.”
“Well, sir, you certainly got equal with me on that. But how inthe world did you know that he was in the house at all?”
“The thumb-mark, Lestrade. You said it was final; and so it was,in a very different sense. I knew it had not been there the daybefore. I pay a good deal of attention to matters of detail, as youmay have observed, and I had examined the hall, and was sure thatthe wall was clear. Therefore, it had been put on during the night.”
“But how?”
“Very simply. When those packets were sealed up, Jonas Oldacregot McFarlane to secure one of the seals by putting his thumbupon the soft wax. It would be done so quickly and so naturally,that I daresay the young man himself has no recollection of it.
Very likely it just so happened, and Oldacre had himself no notionof the use he would put it to. Brooding over the case in that den ofhis, it suddenly struck him what absolutely damning evidence hecould make against McFarlane by using that thumb-mark. It wasthe simplest thing in the world for him to take a wax impressionfrom the seal, to moisten it in as much blood as he could get froma pin-prick, and to put the mark upon the wall during the night,either with his own hand or with that of his housekeeper. If youexamine among those documents which he took with him intohis retreat, I will lay you a wager that you find the seal with thethumb-mark upon it.”
“Wonderful!” said Lestrade. “Wonderful! It’s all as clear ascrystal, as you put it. But what is the object of this deep deception,Mr. Holmes?”
It was amusing to me to see how the detective’s overbearingmanner had changed suddenly to that of a child asking questionsof its teacher.