And Then There Was No One полностью

‘Not at all,’ I answered impatiently; then, mutely signalling my suspicion as to what might still be cowering under the bed, I said, ‘There is, I suppose, absolutely nothing to this queer story of a rat?’

Holmes looked up at me interrogatively and managed the closest to a true smile that I had seen on his features since we had ventured into this tragic house.

‘Your conjecture is,’ he said, ‘that the Sumatran rat is even now preparing to ambush us from beneath the bed?’

‘No, no, of course not,’ I muttered, none too convincingly, I fear. ‘However, as I see it, no man could have left this room, but a small animal might have climbed on to the chest-of-drawers, crept out of the window and plunged into the stream below.’

‘Precisely!’ said Holmes in triumph. ‘A small animal. Logic, man, logic! Oh, I grant you a giant rat might just have slain the boy – but then, it could no more have squeezed itself under the bed nor escaped by the window than I could. And no normal rodent capable of taking flight in the way you have just conjectured could ever have inflicted those teeth marks. No, Watson, instead of searching for major monstrosities, you should confine yourself, as I do, to minor oddities – such as this,’ and he drew his forefinger along one of the floorboards and held up its tip for my inspection.

‘Why,’ I said upon examining it, ‘I see nothing there.’

‘That,’ said Holmes, ‘is the minor oddity.’

*

Nearly two hours elapsed before the police arrived from Aylesbury, in the person of an Inspector Cushing, who turned out to be a genial red-haired man in his middle forties with a tendency to stoutness, and who came accompanied by two uniformed constables. Just a few minutes after that, we were all discreetly conversing in the library, Holmes, Cushing and myself standing some way apart from the members of the household staff, most of whom were gathered about the pathetic figure of Dr. Gable. The poor man, he sat still and hunched in an armchair, his head lolling limply forward over his chest like that of an unstrung marionette.

This library was a dark, splendidly-proportioned room, three of whose walls were lined with tall bookcases and the fourth dominated by a superb Adam fireplace above which had been mounted the stuffed heads of a trio of magnificently antlered Highland stags. Sprawled in front of the blazing fire, a pair of cocker-spaniel dogs, so alike one to the other as to be surely twins, mournfully contemplated their master’s distress.

Cushing, already conversant with Holmes’s exploits, was more than amenable to the prospect of my friend assisting him in his inquiries. He had heard, too, of the story of the rat as, before he decided to seek help from farther afield, it was the Aylesbury police that Dr. Gable had originally approached with his strange narrative.

‘Alas, Mr. Holmes,’ said Cushing, ‘I informed the Doctor that the matter which exercised him seemed hardly to fall under our domain. I even suggested that he send out for a rodent-killer such as are to be found in these farming areas. I realise now that I was too hasty in dismissing him and should have paid closer attention.’

‘You cannot be faulted for having failed to anticipate such a fantastical crime as this,’ answered Holmes, puffing on his briar. ‘Besides which, I categorically assure you that, until this very night, you would not have found one solitary clue as to what was about to occur.’

‘Why, Mr. Holmes,’ said Cushing, staring at him open-mouthed, ‘you are speaking as if you know exactly what lies at the heart of the mystery.’

‘Scarcely that, Inspector. Naturally, I know who killed young James Gable, but I still have a very incomplete picture as to how the thing was done and no conception at all as to why.’

‘Ah! And the rat?’ asked Cushing, his tone now inflected with a touch of sarcasm. ‘Would you be knowing where that might currently hide out?’

‘The rat?’ Holmes drawled. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

I had been observing Holmes throughout this exchange and could not help noticing that, although he appeared to give all his attention to the Inspector, his gaze had almost imperceptibly begun to shift to some point above the other’s head.

Suddenly, his face illumined from within, he slapped the palm of his hand against his brow.

‘Blind, blind, blind!’ he exclaimed. ‘I have been here in this library for well-nigh two hours and I have observed nothing! And like every blind man I flattered myself that I was some kind of a seer. Well, now I know where the rat is!’

Once again he addressed himself to the police officer.

‘Inspector Cushing, you were good enough to express a certain respect for my past successes in the forensic sciences, were you not?’

‘That I was,’ answered the other; ‘and considerably more than “a certain respect”, I’d like to add.’

‘Then in the light of that respect will you now indulge me to the extent of lending me your carriage and one of your constables, and granting me no more than, shall we say, four hours to prove a point?’