“Yes, sir, I have, but the shock of this disgraceful exposure hasbewildered me. I have a letter here, Mr. Soames, which I wroteto you early this morning in the middle of a restless night. It wasbefore I knew that my sin had found me out. Here it is, sir. Youwill see that I have said, ‘I have determined not to go in for theexamination. I have been offered a commission in the RhodesianPolice, and I am going out to South Africa at once.’ ”
“I am indeed pleased to hear that you did not intend to profitby your unfair advantage,” said Soames. “But why did you changeyour purpose?”
Gilchrist pointed to Bannister.
“There is the man who set me in the right path,” said he.
“Come now, Bannister,” said Holmes. “It will be clear to you,from what I have said, that only you could have let this young manout, since you were left in the room, and must have locked thedoor when you went out. As to his escaping by that window, it wasincredible. Can you not clear up the last point in this mystery, andtell us the reasons for your action?”
“It was simple enough, sir, if you only had known, but, withall your cleverness, it was impossible that you could know. Timewas, sir, when I was butler to old Sir Jabez Gilchrist, this younggentleman’s father. When he was ruined I came to the college asservant, but I never forgot my old employer because he was downin the world. I watched his son all I could for the sake of the olddays. Well, sir, when I came into this room yesterday, when thealarm was given, the very first thing I saw was Mr. Gilchrist’stan gloves a-lying in that chair. I knew those gloves well, and Iunderstood their message. If Mr. Soames saw them, the game wasup. I flopped down into that chair, and nothing would budge meuntil Mr. Soames he went for you. Then out came my poor youngmaster, whom I had dandled on my knee, and confessed it all to1012 The Complete Sherlock Holmes
me. Wasn’t it natural, sir, that I should save him, and wasn’t itnatural also that I should try to speak to him as his dead fatherwould have done, and make him understand that he could notprofit by such a deed? Could you blame me, sir?”
“No, indeed,” said Holmes, heartily, springing to his feet. “Well,Soames, I think we have cleared your little problem up, and ourbreakfast awaits us at home. Come, Watson! As to you, sir, I trustthat a bright future awaits you in Rhodesia. For once you havefallen low. Let us see, in the future, how high you can rise.”
The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez
When I look at the three massive manuscript volumes whichcontain our work for the year 1894, I confess that it is verydifficult for me, out of such a wealth of material, to select thecases which are most interesting in themselves, and at the sametime most conducive to a display of those peculiar powers forwhich my friend was famous. As I turn over the pages, I see mynotes upon the repulsive story of the red leech and the terribledeath of Crosby, the banker. Here also I find an account of theAddleton tragedy, and the singular contents of the ancient Britishbarrow. The famous Smith-Mortimer succession case comes alsowithin this period, and so does the tracking and arrest of Huret,the Boulevard assassin—an exploit which won for Holmes anautograph letter of thanks from the French President and theOrder of the Legion of Honour. Each of these would furnish anarrative, but on the whole I am of opinion that none of themunites so many singular points of interest as the episode of YoxleyOld Place, which includes not only the lamentable death of youngWilloughby Smith, but also those subsequent developments whichthrew so curious a light upon the causes of the crime.
It was a wild, tempestuous night, towards the close ofNovember. Holmes and I sat together in silence all the evening,he engaged with a powerful lens deciphering the remains of theoriginal inscription upon a palimpsest, I deep in a recent treatiseupon surgery. Outside the wind howled down Baker Street, whilethe rain beat fiercely against the windows. It was strange there, inthe very depths of the town, with ten miles of man’s handiwork onevery side of us, to feel the iron grip of Nature, and to be consciousthat to the huge elemental forces all London was no more than themolehills that dot the fields. I walked to the window, and lookedout on the deserted street. The occasional lamps gleamed on theexpanse of muddy road and shining pavement. A single cab wassplashing its way from the Oxford Street end.
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“Well, Watson, it’s as well we have not to turn out to-night,”
said Holmes, laying aside his lens and rolling up the palimpsest.
“I’ve done enough for one sitting. It is trying work for the eyes. Sofar as I can make out, it is nothing more exciting than an Abbey’saccounts dating from the second half of the fifteenth century.
Halloa! halloa! halloa! What’s this?”
Amid the droning of the wind there had come the stamping of ahorse’s hoofs, and the long grind of a wheel as it rasped against thecurb. The cab which I had seen had pulled up at our door.
“What can he want?” I ejaculated, as a man stepped out of it.
“Want? He wants us. And we, my poor Watson, want overcoatsand cravats and goloshes, and every aid that man ever inventedto fight the weather. Wait a bit, though! There’s the cab off again!
There’s hope yet. He’d have kept it if he had wanted us to come.
Run down, my dear fellow, and open the door, for all virtuous folkhave been long in bed.”
When the light of the hall lamp fell upon our midnight visitor,I had no difficulty in recognizing him. It was young StanleyHopkins, a promising detective, in whose career Holmes hadseveral times shown a very practical interest.
“Is he in?” he asked, eagerly.
“Come up, my dear sir,” said Holmes’s voice from above. “I hopeyou have no designs upon us such a night as this.”
The detective mounted the stairs, and our lamp gleamed uponhis shining waterproof. I helped him out of it, while Holmesknocked a blaze out of the logs in the grate.
“Now, my dear Hopkins, draw up and warm your toes,” said he.