And Then There Was No One полностью

‘Well … yes, sir, I suppose I can do that if you believe it’ll be of service to you,’ said a puzzled Cushing.

‘It will be of immeasurable service,’ said Holmes. ‘Mrs. Treadwell, if I may trouble you again,’ he called over to the housekeeper.

She appeared at once before us.

‘Please forgive me, Mrs. Treadwell, for trespassing further upon your time, but I should like to ask you two final questions.’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘First, do you know the name of Dr. Gable’s solicitor?’

‘That would be Mr. Hunter, sir, of Hunter and Dove in Aylesbury.’

‘Excellent. Now – and I wish you to reflect very carefully before answering – when you returned upstairs to the attic bedroom after awakening Mary Jane, am I right in assuming that young James Gable had shed rather more blood than when you first saw him?’

The housekeeper did not wait to reflect. ‘Why yes, sir!’ she replied with a look of surprise on her corpulent features. ‘I didn’t think of it again till this very minute, but there was more blood on the poor boy’s nightshirt.’

‘Then,’ cried Holmes, ‘the problem admits of only one solution and, if I may prevail upon you now, Cushing, for the man and the carriage that you have promised me, I feel certain I shall be able to disclose it to you before tomorrow morning is out.’

*

Holmes proved to be as good as his word. It was at sunrise that he set off from the house, to return exactly as the library clock was striking the tenth hour. Followed by the constable who had accompanied him on his enigmatic excursion – and who now carried a shapeless bundle wrapped up in a linen kerchief – Holmes invited Cushing and myself to join him in the billiard-room where we would be able to talk undisturbed.

On seeing how solemn his countenance was, in a chilling contrast to the barely suppressed excitement and even jubilation which I had read on his face as he departed, I ventured to remark that he had been disappointed in his mission.

‘Au contraire, Watson,’ he answered. ‘It is only that I was so intoxicated by the thrill of the chase that I near forgot the implications of what I would uncover were I to be proved right.’

‘And,’ said the Inspector, his gruff voice betraying the profound curiosity he felt, ‘were you proved right?’

‘I was, Cushing, I was, and when you have listened to what I have to say, I do not doubt that you will at once decide to arrest Edward Gable for the murder of his half-brother James.’

The police officer was dumbfounded by this extraordinary statement, although not more so than I was myself.

‘Unfortunately,’ Holmes continued, ‘it is the very truth. And my fear is that the poor father will take it badly, this blow following so soon upon the other.’

‘Really, Holmes,’ I expostulated, ‘you owe us an explanation. For I believe I speak for Cushing here when I say that we are both utterly in the dark.’

‘And yet, Watson, it was an astute observation of yours which first put me upon the scent.’

‘Of mine?’ I echoed incredulously, for I had the impression of having contributed next to nothing to his investigation.

‘Yes, indeed. When faced with that ghoulish scene upstairs, you likened it to a stage-set, as I remember. Well, that is precisely what it was, a stage-set, a tableau vivant, very possibly inspired by those for which our Baker Street neighbour Madame Tussaud is justly famous.’

‘Not truly vivant, after all,’ I demurred.

‘Yet it was initially so,’ retorted Holmes. ‘But we ought to begin at the beginning. Never having been a devotee of Penny Dreadfuls, I at once eliminated the hypothesis of the rat. Rats, especially giant ones with phosphorescent eyes, tend to make footprints; and when I noted the complete absence of dust in a room that I was told was never occupied and never cleaned – the minor oddity, Watson, which I tried to call to your attention – I suspected that we must be dealing with murder, and a murder that was particularly cold-blooded in its execution.’

‘Very well, but why Edward?’ asked the Inspector.

‘My suspicions of him were aroused almost at once. As you will recall, Watson, Mrs. Treadwell told us that, on hearing James’s scream, Edward had rushed into the corridor partially undressed. Yet, when you and I arrived not more than half-an-hour later, we found him in nothing but his nightshirt. Now who, upon discovering his own sibling violently slain, would still go tranquilly about preparing for bed? No, Cushing, I fancy young Edward was obliged to remove his clothes in haste because they had become stained with his half-brother’s blood, and you would do well to have one of your constables search his bedroom, as he certainly cannot have had the time to dispose of them.