We waited in silence for a minute—one of those minutes whichone can never forget. Then the door opened and the man steppedin. In an instant Holmes clapped a pistol to his head, and Martinslipped the handcuffs over his wrists. It was all done so swiftlyand deftly that the fellow was helpless before he knew that hewas attacked. He glared from one to the other of us with a pair ofblazing black eyes. Then he burst into a bitter laugh.
“Well, gentlemen, you have the drop on me this time. I seemto have knocked up against something hard. But I came here inanswer to a letter from Mrs. Hilton Cubitt. Don’t tell me that sheis in this? Don’t tell me that she helped to set a trap for me?”
“Mrs. Hilton Cubitt was seriously injured, and is at death’sdoor.”
The man gave a hoarse cry of grief, which rang through thehouse.
“You’re crazy!” he cried, fiercely. “It was he that was hurt, notshe. Who would have hurt little Elsie? I may have threatenedher—God forgive me!—but I would not have touched a hair of herpretty head. Take it back—you! Say that she is not hurt!”
“She was found badly wounded, by the side of her deadhusband.”
He sank with a deep groan on the settee and buried his face inhis manacled hands. For five minutes he was silent. Then he raisedhis face once more, and spoke with the cold composure of despair.
“I have nothing to hide from you, gentlemen,” said he. “If I shotthe man he had his shot at me, and there’s no murder in that. Butif you think I could have hurt that woman, then you don’t knoweither me or her. I tell you, there was never a man in this worldloved a woman more than I loved her. I had a right to her. She waspledged to me years ago. Who was this Englishman that he shouldcome between us? I tell you that I had the first right to her, andthat I was only claiming my own.
“She broke away from your influence when she found the manthat you are,” said Holmes, sternly. “She fled from America toavoid you, and she married an honourable gentleman in England.
You dogged her and followed her and made her life a misery toher, in order to induce her to abandon the husband whom sheloved and respected in order to fly with you, whom she feared andhated. You have ended by bringing about the death of a noble manand driving his wife to suicide. That is your record in this business,Mr. Abe Slaney, and you will answer for it to the law.”
“If Elsie dies, I care nothing what becomes of me,” said theAmerican. He opened one of his hands, and looked at a notecrumpled up in his palm. “See here, mister! he cried, with a gleamof suspicion in his eyes, “you’re not trying to scare me over this,are you? If the lady is hurt as bad as you say, who was it that wrotethis note?” He tossed it forward on to the table.
“I wrote it, to bring you here.”
“You wrote it? There was no one on earth outside the Joint whoknew the secret of the dancing men. How came you to write it?”
“What one man can invent another can discover,” said Holmes.
There is a cab coming to convey you to Norwich, Mr. Slaney.
But meanwhile, you have time to make some small reparationfor the injury you have wrought. Are you aware that Mrs. HiltonCubitt has herself lain under grave suspicion of the murder ofher husband, and that it was only my presence here, and theknowledge which I happened to possess, which has saved herfrom the accusation? The least that you owe her is to make it clearto the whole world that she was in no way, directly or indirectly,responsible for his tragic end.”
“I ask nothing better,” said the American. “I guess the very bestcase I can make for myself is the absolute naked truth.”
“It is my duty to warn you that it will be used against you,” criedthe inspector, with the magnificent fair play of the British criminallaw.
Slaney shrugged his shoulders.
“I’ll chance that,” said he. “First of all, I want you gentlemento understand that I have known this lady since she was a child.
There were seven of us in a gang in Chicago, and Elsie’s father wasthe boss of the Joint. He was a clever man, was old Patrick. It washe who invented that writing, which would pass as a child’s scrawlunless you just happened to have the key to it. Well, Elsie learnedsome of our ways, but she couldn’t stand the business, and she hada bit of honest money of her own, so she gave us all the slip andgot away to London. She had been engaged to me, and she wouldhave married me, I believe, if I had taken over another profession,but she would have nothing to do with anything on the cross. Itwas only after her marriage to this Englishman that I was able tofind out where she was. I wrote to her, but got no answer. Afterthat I came over, and, as letters were no use, I put my messageswhere she could read them.
“Well, I have been here a month now. I lived in that farm, whereI had a room down below, and could get in and out every night,and no one the wiser. I tried all I could to coax Elsie away. I knewthat she read the messages, for once she wrote an answer underone of them. Then my temper got the better of me, and I began tothreaten her. She sent me a letter then, imploring me to go away,and saying that it would break her heart if any scandal should comeupon her husband. She said that she would come down when herhusband was asleep at three in the morning, and speak with methrough the end window, if I would go away afterwards and leaveher in peace. She came down and brought money with her, tryingto bribe me to go. This made me mad, and I caught her arm andtried to pull her through the window. At that moment in rushed thehusband with his revolver in his hand. Elsie had sunk down uponthe floor, and we were face to face. I was heeled also, and I held upmy gun to scare him off and let me get away. He fired and missedme. I pulled off almost at the same instant, and down he dropped.
I made away across the garden, and as I went I heard the window shutbehind me. That’s God’s truth, gentlemen, every word of it, and I heardno more about it until that lad came riding up with a note whichmade me walk in here, like a jay, and give myself into your hands.”
A cab had driven up whilst the American had been talking.