It represented an alert, sharp-featured simian man, with thickeyebrows and a very peculiar projection of the lower part of theface, like the muzzle of a baboon.
“And what became of the bust?” asked Holmes, after a carefulstudy of this picture.
“We had news of it just before you came. It has been found inthe front garden of an empty house in Campden House Road. Itwas broken into fragments. I am going round now to see it. Willyou come?”
“Certainly. I must just take one look round.” He examined thecarpet and the window. “The fellow had either very long legs orwas a most active man,” said he. “With an area beneath, it wasno mean feat to reach that window ledge and open that window.
Getting back was comparatively simple. Are you coming with usto see the remains of your bust, Mr. Harker?”
The disconsolate journalist had seated himself at a writing-table.
“I must try and make something of it,” said he, “though I haveno doubt that the first editions of the evening papers are outalready with full details. It’s like my luck! You remember when986 The Complete Sherlock Holmes the stand fell at Doncaster? Well, I was the only journalist in thestand, and my journal the only one that had no account of it, for Iwas too shaken to write it. And now I’ll be too late with a murderdone on my own doorstep.”
As we left the room, we heard his pen travelling shrilly over thefoolscap.
The spat where the fragments of the bust had been found wasonly a few hundred yards away. For the first time our eyes restedupon this presentment of the great emperor, which seemedto raise such frantic and destructive hatred in the mind of theunknown. It lay scattered, in splintered shards, upon the grass.
Holmes picked up several of them and examined them carefully.
was convinced, from his intent face and his purposeful manner,that at last he was upon a clue.
“Well?” asked Lestrade.
Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
“We have a long way to go yet,” said he. “And yet—and yet—well, we have some suggestive facts to act upon. The possessionof this trifling bust was worth more, in the eyes of this strangecriminal, than a human life. That is one point. Then there is thesingular fact that he did not break it in the house, or immediatelyoutside the house, if to break it was his sole object.”
“He was rattled and bustled by meeting this other fellow. Hehardly knew what he was doing.”
“Well, that’s likely enough. But I wish to call your attention veryparticularly to the position of this house, in the garden of whichthe bust was destroyed.”
Lestrade looked about him.
“It was an empty house, and so he knew that he would not bedisturbed in the garden.”
“Yes, but there is another empty house farther up the streetwhich he must have passed before he came to this one. Why didhe not break it there, since it is evident that every yard that hecarried it increased the risk of someone meeting him?”
“I give it up,” said Lestrade.
Holmes pointed to the street lamp above our heads.
“He could see what he was doing here, and he could not there.
That was his reason.”
“By Jove! that’s true,” said the detective. “Now that I come tothink of it, Dr. Barnicot’s bust was broken not far from his redlamp. Well, Mr. Holmes, what are we to do with that fact?”
“To remember it—to docket it. We may come on somethinglater which will bear upon it. What steps do you propose to takenow, Lestrade?”
“The most practical way of getting at it, in my opinion, is toThe Return of Sherlock Holmes 987 identify the dead man. There should be no difficulty about that.
When we have found who he is and who his associates are, weshould have a good start in learning what he was doing in PittStreet last night, and who it was who met him and killed him onthe doorstep of Mr. Horace Harker. Don’t you think so?”
“No doubt; and yet it is not quite the way in which I shouldapproach the case.”
“What would you do then?”
“Oh, you must not let me influence you in any way. I suggestthat you go on your line and I on mine. We can compare notesafterwards, and each will supplement the other.”
“Very good,” said Lestrade.
“If you are going back to Pitt Street, you might see Mr. HoraceHarker. Tell him for me that I have quite made up my mind,and that it is certain that a dangerous homicidal lunatic, withNapoleonic delusions, was in his house last night. It will be usefulfor his article.”
Lestrade stared.
“You don’t seriously believe that?”
Holmes smiled.
“Don’t I? Well, perhaps I don’t. But I am sure that it willinterest Mr. Horace Harker and the subscribers of the CentralPress Syndicate. Now, Watson, I think that we shall find that wehave a long and rather complex day’s work before us. I should beglad, Lestrade, if you could make it convenient to meet us at BakerStreet at six o’clock this evening. Until then I should like to keepthis photograph, found in the dead man’s pocket. It is possiblethat I may have to ask your company and assistance upon a smallexpedition which will have be undertaken to-night, if my chainof reasoning should prove to be correct. Until then good-bye andgood luck!”
Sherlock Holmes and I walked together to the High Street,where we stopped at the shop of Harding Brothers, whence thebust had been purchased. A young assistant informed us that Mr.
Harding would be absent until afternoon, and that he was himselfa newcomer, who could give us no information. Holmes’s faceshowed his disappointment and annoyance.
“Well, well, we can’t expect to have it all our own way, Watson,”
he said, at last. “We must come back in the afternoon, if Mr.
Harding will not be here until then. I am, as you have no doubtsurmised, endeavouring to trace these busts to their source, inorder to find if there is not something peculiar which may accountfor their remarkable fate. Let us make for Mr. Morse Hudson, ofthe Kennington Road, and see if he can throw any light upon theproblem.”
A drive of an hour brought us to the picture-dealer’s establishment.
He was a small, stout man with a red face and a peppery manner.