The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes

Chapter 100 The Return (15)
The Duke stood thinking for a while, with a look of great astonishment on his face, then opened a door and led us into a large room decorated like a museum.He led us to a corner where there was a glass case and pointed out the inscription on it.The inscription reads: "This iron palm was dug out of the ditch of Holderez's mansion. It is a horseshoe, but the bottom of the iron palm is toe-shaped to confuse pursuers. Presumably, it belongs to medieval Holdereth All of the barons of constant conquest."

Holmes opened the cabinet and stroked the iron palm. His fingers were a little damp, leaving a thin layer of fresh soil on his skin.

He closed the glass case and said: "Thank you, this is the second most interesting thing I have seen in the North of England."

"And the first one?"

Holmes folded up his check, and put it carefully in his notebook.He tapped the notebook carefully, said, "I am a poor man," and put the notebook deep in his underwear pocket.

black peter

My friend Holmes in [-] was particularly in good spirits and in good health.This is something I have never seen before.As his reputation grew day by day, the cases he received were overwhelming.Not a few notable people visited our humble house in Baker Street.Even for a hint of who one or two of them were, I was reprimanded as an act of indiscretion.Just as all great artists live for their art, Holmes never asks for generous rewards for his immeasurable merits, except for the Duke Holderez case.Holmes is very noble, and it can be said that he is willful. If the client cannot win his sympathy, then no matter how rich and powerful he is, he will be rejected.But sometimes, for an ordinary client, he could spend weeks concentrating on studying the case, as long as the case was bizarre and moving, and he could use his imagination and resourcefulness.

[-] was an unforgettable year in which Holmes handled a series of strange and contradictory cases, including the wonderful investigation of the sudden death of Cardinal Tosca, which was carried out on the special instructions of the Holy Pope, and the The arrest of the notorious canary-keeper Wilson removed a curse from the East End.Next to the above two strange cases is the tragedy at Woodman Lee, which is the strange case of the death of Captain Peter Gary.No record of Mr. Sherlock Holmes' crimes would be complete without some account of this extraordinary case.

During the first week of July, my friend was away a lot, for a longer period of time, so I knew he had a case to deal with.During this period several vulgar persons visited and interrogated Captain Basil, which suggested to me that he was working somewhere under a false name.He has adopted many pseudonyms to conceal his intimidating identity.He had at least five temporary homes across London, using different names and occupations.He didn't tell me what case he was investigating, and I wasn't used to asking him.But it seemed that the case he was investigating this time was very special.He was out before breakfast, and when I sat down to eat he strode back into the house, hat on, and a short spear barbed like an umbrella under his arm.

I exclaimed: "My God! Holmes, you're walking around London with this thing?"

"I ran to a butcher shop and came back."

"The butcher shop?"

"I have a very good appetite now. My dear Watson, it is quite good to exercise before breakfast. I bet you can't guess what exercise I have had."

"I don't want to guess."

He said with a low laugh as he poured his coffee: "If you had been in the back of Arradès's butcher's just now, you would have seen a dead pig dangling from the ceiling, and a gentleman in a shirt with this I poked it hard with a weapon. The gentleman was me, and I'm glad I got the pig through without too much effort. Maybe you'd like to try?"

"I definitely don't want to try it. Why would you do such a thing?"

"Because this may have something to do with the mysterious case at Woodman Lee Manor. Ah, Hopkins, I received your telegram last night. I have been waiting for you. Please come and have breakfast with us."

Our guest was a very witty, about 30-year-old man, dressed in plain tweed but maintaining the crisp demeanor of an official uniform.I recognized him immediately as young Sheriff Stanley Hopkins.Holmes has high hopes for him, thinking that he is a promising young man, and this young man has a student-like admiration and respect for Holmes' use of scientific methods for investigation.Hopkins frowned, and sat down very dejectedly.

"Thank you, sir. I had breakfast before I came, and I spent the night in London. I came to report yesterday."

"What did you report?"

"Failure, sir, complete failure."

"No progress at all?"

"No."

"Well, I'd like to investigate this case."

"Mr. Holmes, I wish you could do this. This is the first serious case I have come across, and I am at my wit's end. For God's sake, please do me a favor."

"Okay, okay, I just went through all the materials I have so far, including the investigative report. By the way, what do you think of the tobacco pouch found at the crime scene? Are there any clues in it?"

Hopkins seemed taken aback, and said: "Sir, that's the man's own tobacco pouch. It has his initials on the inside. The tobacco pouch was made of sealskin, for he was a sealer." veteran."

"But he didn't find his pipe?"

"No, sir, we found no pipe. He does smoke very little indeed, and may have kept a little for a friend."

"There is such a possibility. I mention the tobacco-bag because, if I were to deal with the case, I would be inclined to regard it as the starting point of the investigation. My friend Dr. Watson knew nothing of the case, As for me, there is no harm in hearing the events again, so please give me a brief account of the main facts."

Stanley Hopkins took a note from his pocket and said: "I have here a chronology of what Captain Peter Garry did in his life. He was born in 50 and is now fifty years old. He is good at catching seals and whales. In [-] he became the captain of the sealing ship "Sea Unicorn" in Port Dundee. He sailed several times in a row and gained a lot. The next year, [-] He retired in [-]. He traveled abroad for several years, and finally bought a small estate called Woodman Lee in a residential area near Forrest in Sussex. He lived here for six years. Killed last week.

"There was something very special about this man. On a daily basis he lived a puritanical life, he was taciturn and gloomy. He had a wife, a daughter in her 20s, and two maidservants. Employers changed frequently, Because the atmosphere in his house was very depressing and sometimes unbearable. He often drank heavily and became a complete devil when he was drunk. It was known that he sometimes drove his wife and daughter out of the house in the middle of the night and beat them all over the garden until the whole People in the village were awakened by screams.

"The parson once came to his house to accuse him of bad behaviour, and he hurled insults at the old vicar, for which he was arraigned. In short, Mr. Holmes, you could hardly find a more outrageous man than Peter Gary. I have heard that he It was the same character when he was a captain, and the sailors nicknamed him Black Peter, not only because of his swarthy face and his big black beard, but because everyone around him was afraid of his bad temper. Needless to say, There was no neighbor who didn't shun him because he hated him. After his tragic death, I didn't hear anyone say a word of regret.

"Mr. Holmes, you must have read in the report of the inquiry that he had a log cabin. Perhaps this friend of yours has not heard of it. He built a cabin a few hundred yards from his house. A wooden cabin, which he called 'the cabin,' where he slept every night. It was a single room, sixteen feet long and ten wide. The keys were in his pocket, and the bedding he made and washed himself, No one was ever allowed to step into the threshold of this wooden house. There were small windows on each side of the house, with curtains on them, and the windows were never opened. One window looked on the road, and when the lights were lit in the house at night, people used to Looking at this small room, guessing what Black Peter is doing. Mr. Holmes, what he got from his investigation is the few information provided by the window of this small room.

"You will also remember that two days before the accident, at one o'clock in the morning, a stonemason named Slater came from the Forrester housing estate. He stopped to look at the small house when he passed by the light in the window. In a few trees outside, the Mason swore: 'A man's head was clearly seen moving from side to side through the curtain, and the shadow was definitely not that of the Peter Garry he was familiar with. Quite differently, this man's beard is short and turned forward.' So says the mason, who spent two hours in the tavern, set on the road, some distance from the windows of the cabin. This is What happened on Monday, the murder happened on Wednesday.

"Peter Garry was drunk and rowdy again on Tuesday, as ferocious as a man-eating beast, and he prowled about his house, and his wife and daughter ran away when they heard him coming. In the middle of the night, he Back at the cabin. About two o'clock the next morning, his daughter heard horrible screams from the direction of the cabin, because his daughter always slept with the window open. He often yelled when he was drunk Shouting, so no one paid attention. One of the maids got up at seven and saw the cabin door open, but Black Peter was so frightening that no one had the guts to go and see how he was until noon. People Standing outside the door and looking in, the sight made them pale with fright, and they hurried back to the village. I arrived at the scene within an hour and took over the case.

"Mr. Holmes, you know I'm calm enough, but I'll tell you that I too was taken aback when I poked my head into the cabin. There were swarms of flies - blowflies buzzing. The floor and walls looked like a slaughterhouse. His room was called a cabin, and it was like a cabin, and you felt like you were on a boat. There was a bed at one end, a Lockers, maps and charts, a painting of the 'Sea Unicorn', and a row of logbooks on a shelf, exactly as we see them in the captain's cabin. He himself is in the room In the middle of the wall, his face is distorted like a person struggling to die in pain, his gray beard is upturned in pain. A fishing steel fork pierced his broad chest and pierced deeply. into the wooden wall behind him. He looked like a beetle nailed to cardboard. Apparently he let out that scream of pain and died.

"I am familiar with your methods, sir, and have used them. I have carefully checked the ground outside and the floor inside before allowing anything to be moved. No footprints were found."

"You mean no footprints were found?"

"Sir, I can assure you there are no footprints."

"My dear Hopkins, I have investigated many cases, but I have never encountered a flying animal committing a crime. As long as criminals have two legs, there must be trample marks, rub marks and inconspicuous movements. Traces, a detective using the scientific method can see. It is unbelievable that a blood-stained room can not find clues that can help us solve the case. From your investigation, I can see that some You haven't checked things carefully."

The young sheriff was embarrassed by my friend's sarcasm.

"Mr. Holmes, I was very careless in not inviting you, but this cannot be undone. There are some objects in the room which are of particular note. One is the murder weapon, the harpoon. The murderer was caught from a tool rack on the wall. Yes. The other two are still there, one place is empty. The wooden handle of this harpoon is engraved with the words 'SS, Unicorn of the Seas, Dandy'. It can be concluded that the murder was committed in anger Yes, the murderer grabbed the weapon and used it. The murder happened at two o'clock in the morning, and Peter Garry was fully dressed, which means he had a date with the murderer. A bottle of rum on the table The wine and the two used glasses also testify to that."

"Well, I think both inferences are reasonable," said Holmes. "Is there anything other than rum in the house?"

"Yes, there's a small wine cabinet above the glove box with brandy and whiskey. But that doesn't matter to us, since the flasks are full and apparently untouched."

"Nevertheless," said Holmes, "the liquor in the cupboard is of interest. But you must first tell us about the other objects which you think may be relevant to the case."

"There's that tobacco pouch on the table."

"Which part of the table?"

"In the middle of the table. The tobacco pouch is made of sealskin - raw furry sealskin, and has a leather cord to hold it together. The tobacco pouch has the lettering 'PC' on the inside of the lid. Inside the pouch is Half an ounce of seaman's tobacco."

"Good! Anything else?"

Stanley Hopkins took from his pocket a tawny-covered notebook, old and rough, with dirty edges.The first page bears the initials "JHN" and the date "[-]".Holmes put the notebook on the table and examined it carefully, while Hopkins and I stood behind him and watched from both sides.On the second page it has the letters "CPR" in print, and the following pages are all numbers.Then there are the headings "Argentina", "Costa Rica", "São Paulo", etc., each followed by pages of symbols and numbers.

"What does this mean?" asked Holmes.

"These look like statements of exchange securities. I think 'JHN' is the broker's initials and 'CPR' is probably his client."

Holmes said: "Do you think 'CPR' is the Canadian Pacific Railway?"

Stanley Hopkins slapped his thighs and scolded himself under his breath.

Hopkins then exclaimed: "I'm so stupid! Of course you're right. Then only the prefix 'JHN' is what we have to deal with. I checked the old statements of these stock exchanges, and in I cannot find in the statements for [-] the initials of any broker, whether inside or outside the firm. But I think this is the most important of all my leads. You may admit the possibility, Mr. Holmes. Sex, the initials are the initials of the second person at the scene, in other words the murderer. I also think that the discovery of this notebook, which contains a large amount of valuable securities, just points us to the motive of the murder .”

The expression on Sherlock Holmes's face showed that this new discovery had taken him completely by surprise.

He said: "I agree with both of your arguments. I admit that this notebook, which was not mentioned in the original investigation, has changed my original opinion. I have not considered the contents of this notebook in reasoning this case. You have Didn't manage to investigate the securities mentioned in the notebook?"

"The exchange is looking into it, but I think most of the owners of these South American companies are in South America. It will only be a few weeks before we can find out what happened to the shares."

Holmes took out his magnifying glass and examined the cover of the notebook carefully. "It's a little dirty here," he said.

"Yes, sir, that's blood. I told you I picked it up from the ground."

"Is the blood spot on the top or bottom of the book?"

"It's on the side next to the floor."

"This proves that the notebook was dropped after the murder."

"Exactly, Mr. Holmes, and I think so too. I suppose the murderer dropped it in his haste, near the door."

"I suppose none of these securities belonged to the deceased, did I?"

"No, sir."

"Do you have any basis to infer that this is a case of robbery and murder?"

"No, sir. Nothing in the house seems to have been touched."

"Oh, it's an interesting case. There's a knife there, isn't it?"

"There was a sheathed knife, not drawn, lying at the dead man's feet. Mrs. Garry testified that it belonged to her husband."

Holmes was lost in thought, and it was some time before he said: "I think I must examine it myself."

Stanley Hopkins exclaimed happily: "Thank you so much, sir. That's a relief indeed."

Holmes waved his hand to the sheriff. "It was an easy job a week ago. It may not be entirely useless to go now. If you can spare the time, Watson, I would like you to come with me. Hopkins, please call a carriage, and we shall set off for Forrest House in a quarter of an hour."

We got out of the carriage at a little post by the road, and hurried through a vast forest.The forest is several miles long and is part of the great forest - the impenetrable "woodland", the fortress of England - that held off Saxon invaders for 60 years.Much of the forest has been cleared, as it was here that Britain's first steel works were cut down to make iron.Now that the steel mills have moved to the mineral-rich northern region, only some desolate groves and uneven ground can prove that there were steel mills here.There was a long, low stone house in a clearing on the slope of a green hill, to which a path wound its way through the fields.Near the road was a cottage, surrounded on three sides by bushes, with its door and one window facing us.This is the scene of the incident.

(End of this chapter)