The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes

Chapter 89 The Return (4)
"As this newspaper went to press, rumors were circulating that Mr MacFarlane had been arrested by the police for the murder of Jonas Oldeker. A warrant had been issued. The investigation now under way at Norwood had another ominous development. In the downstairs bedroom of the architect. In addition to the signs of fighting, French windows were found open, and there were traces of heavy objects being dragged from the room to the wood pile. Finally, it has been confirmed that the charred remains were found in the ashes of the fire. According to the police's speculation , this was a horrific homicide. The victim was shot dead in his bedroom, his papers were stolen, and his body dragged to a log pile for incineration. The case has been referred to Scotland Yard's experienced Constable Lestrade, who is now Pursue clues with her customary energy and tact."

With closed eyes and fingertips pressed together, Holmes listened to the astonishing report.

"There are a few points in this case that do deserve attention," he said slowly. "Mr. MacFarlane, I would like to ask first, how is it that you are still at large when there seems to be enough evidence to warrant your arrest?"

"Mr. Holmes, I live with my parents at Dorington House in Blackheath, but last night I was staying at a hotel in Norwood on some errand for Mr. Jonas Oldecke. He's got the job done. I didn't know what happened at Norwood until I saw the news you just heard in the papers on the train. I realized the danger I was in, and I came right away to entrust the case. Here you are. I know if I've been in my office in the city, or at home, I'd be taken at this very moment. I've been followed from London Bridge station, and I don't doubt it—oh! Who's here?"

At this time the doorbell rang, and then heavy footsteps came from the corridor.After a while our old friend Lestrade appeared at the door.From behind him, I saw two uniformed policemen standing outside the door.

Our unfortunate client arose, paler still.

"I am arresting you for your willful murder of Mr. Jonas Oldecke, of Norwood."

McFarlane made a desperate gesture and begged us for help.

"Wait a moment, Lestrade," said Holmes. "Another half an hour or so will do no harm to you. This gentleman is about to tell us the history of this very interesting case, which will be of great help to us. It should help to clarify things."

"I don't think there will be any difficulty in getting the case out," said Lestrade grimly.

"However, if you will allow me, I should be very interested in hearing him."

"Well, Mr. Holmes, I can hardly refuse anything from you, as you have done us a favor once or twice in the past, and owe you a debt of gratitude on our part at Scotland Yard," said Lestrade. You have to be with the prisoner, and you have to warn him that anything he says will be used against him in court."

"That is very good," said our client; "I only ask you to listen to me all the way through, and to understand that I am absolutely telling the truth."

Lestrade looked at his watch and said, "I'll give you half an hour."

"I must begin by stating," said MacFarlane, "that I do not know Mr. Jonas Oldeker at all. His name is familiar to me because my parents knew him many years ago, but they became estranged. I was therefore surprised when he came into my office in the city yesterday afternoon about three o'clock. I was even more surprised when he explained his purpose. He held in his hand several A single page, full of very scribbled words--that's it--set it on my desk.

"'This is my will,' said he. 'Mr. MacFarlane, I want you to write it out in the official legal form. You write yours and I sit here.'

"I started to copy this will. You can imagine my surprise when I saw that he left me all but a few properties. He was like a little ferret with eyebrows All white. I looked up at him and saw his piercing gray eyes staring at me with a happy expression on his face. I couldn't believe my eyes when I read those clauses in the will , but he explained that he was a single man with no living relatives, that he had known my parents in his youth, and had always heard that I was a trustworthy young man, so he was relieved to hand over the money to me. Of course, I Can only stammer a few words of thanks. The will is duly written and signed, and my clerk is the witness. It is written on this blue paper. As I have said, these little notes are only his Draft. Mr. Oldecker told me that there were still some papers, such as lease, deed, mortgage deed, interim certificate, etc., which should be shown to me. He said that he would not be relieved until all these were completed. , and wants me to go to Norwood with this will in the evening, and to arrange everything at his house. 'Remember, my boy, say nothing to your parents till this is done. Say. Let's not talk about it and give them a little surprise." He was very insistent on this and asked me to promise to do it.

"As you can imagine, Mr. Holmes, I had no intention of refusing any of his requests. He became my protector, and I was bent on fulfilling his wishes exactly. I therefore sent home a telegram saying that I had I don't know how late I'll be till I'm on business, and Mr. Oldacre told me he'd like me to have dinner with him at nine o'clock, as he might not be home by nine. However, it was hard to find where he lived, and it was almost 09:30 when I arrived at his house. I found him..."

"Wait a moment!" said Holmes. "Who opened the door?"

"A middle-aged woman, I take it to be his housekeeper."

"It was she who said your name, I suppose."

"Not bad," McFarlane said.

"Please go on."

MacFarlane wiped the sweat from his brow before going on with his story: "The woman led me into a living room where a simple supper had been set. Later Mr. Jonas Oldeker brought I went to his bedroom, where there was a safe. He opened it, and brought out a great pile of papers. We went through the pile of papers until between eleven and twelve o'clock. He said we should leave the housekeeper alone, and just let me out the French window. That window was always open."

"Have the curtains been drawn?" asked Holmes.

"I can't tell, but I think it was half down. Yes, I remember he drew the curtains to open the window. I couldn't find my cane, and he said, 'Never mind, my boy, I hope See you often from now on. I'll put away your cane until your next visit.' When I left him, the safe in the bedroom was open, and the papers in small packets It was still on the table. It was very late, and of course I couldn't go back to Blackheath, so I stayed overnight at the Annaly Arms Hotel. I don't know what happened afterwards, and I didn't report it until this morning. God knows of this dreadful thing."

"Have you any further questions, Mr. Holmes?" said Lestrade.I saw the young man raise his eyebrows once or twice as he related this extraordinary experience.

"Until I go to Blackheath, there is nothing to ask."

"You mean before you went to Norwood?" said Lestrade.

"Ah, yes, I mean Norwood," said Holmes, with his customary inscrutable smile.Lestrade knew from experience many times that Holmes's mind was a razor-sharp razor, capable of cutting through what seemed to him invulnerable.He just didn't want to admit it, and I saw him looking at my companion with curiosity.

"I should like to say a word or two to you in a moment, Mr. Holmes," said he. "Well, Mr. Macfarlane, my two constables are at the door, and there is a carriage waiting outside. ’” The poor young man stood up, gave us one last imploring look, and walked out of the house.The police took him into the carriage, but Lestrade stayed behind.

Holmes was reading the few pages of the will in his hand with an expression of great interest.

"There's something about this will, Lestrade, don't you think?" he said, handing over the draft.

"I can make out the first few lines and the middle sentences of the second page, and the last line or two, and these are as clear as printed," said he; "the rest are illegible, and in three places I can't read them at all." come out."

"How do you explain that?" said Holmes.

"How do you explain that?"

"Written on a train. The clear part indicates that the train is at a station, the unclear part indicates that the train is moving, and the least clear part indicates that the train is passing a side-track. An experienced expert can immediately conclude that this will was in written on a railway line in the suburbs, for it is only near the big cities that one can come across one branch after another. If he had taken the whole journey to write this will, it must have been an express train, between Norwood and London There was only one stop between the bridges."

Lestrade laughed.

"You are more analytical than I am, Mr. Holmes," said he. "What does this have to do with the case?"

"It confirms that the draft of the will which the young man speaks of was drawn up by Jonas Oldeker during his journey yesterday. Isn't it strange that a man should write such an important document so casually? It shows that he actually doesn't attach importance to this will. By doing so, he doesn't intend to make his own will valid at all."

"This is equivalent to a death sentence for himself at the same time." Lestrade said.

"Oh, do you think so?"

"Don't you think so?"

"Very likely, but I don't know the case very well."

"I don't know? If such a case is not clear, what else is clear? A young man suddenly knows that as long as an old man dies, he can inherit a fortune. What should he do? He doesn't tell Anyone who arranges some kind of pretext to visit his client that night, wait until the only third person in the house is asleep, kill his client in a separate bedroom, and put the body in the Burned in a wood pile, then left the scene to go to a nearby hotel. There was very little blood in the bedroom and on the cane. Probably he thought that even this little blood would not be left, and believed that by destroying the body, he could cover the commission All traces of how a man died, because sooner or later those traces would reveal him. Isn't that obvious?"

"My good Lestrade, what you say seems a little too obvious to me," said Holmes. "You lack imagination in your many virtues, but if you would try to put yourself in the young man's place, Come to think of it, would you choose the night of the making of your will to commit the murder? Don't you think it's dangerous to connect the making of the will and the killing of the murder so closely? Also, would you choose to be known where you were, and Is it the time when the servant of the house opened the door to let you in? And lastly, would you take pains to hide the body, and leave behind the stick as proof that you were the murderer? Lestrade, would you It has to be admitted that none of this is possible."

"As for the cane, Mr. Holmes, you and I both know that a criminal is always in a hurry, and that a cool-headed man can often avoid things. He probably didn't dare to go back to the room to retrieve the stick. .You give me another conjecture that fits the facts."

"I could easily give you several conjectures," said Holmes, "for example, there is this possible, even probable, conjecture which I offer you as a present: that the old man is showing the young man those precious securities, because the curtains were only half drawn, and a tramp passing by saw them from the window. The young lawyer had gone, and the tramp entered the house, and seeing the stick, he seized it and beat Oldek to death, burning After picking up the body, he ran away."

"Why do homeless people burn their bodies?"

"At this point, it may also be asked, why did McFarlane do this?"

"To cover up some evidence."

"Maybe homeless people don't want people to know that a murder happened."

"Then why doesn't the tramp take something?"

"Because those documents are not transferable."

"Well, Mr. Holmes, you may go to your tramp. We will not let the young man go until you have him. Who will be proved right. Take note of this, Mr. Holmes, as far as we are concerned You know, none of the papers have been touched. Our prisoner has no reason to take the papers, because he is the legal heir, and he will have them in any case."

My friend seemed to be stung by this sentence. "It is not my intention to deny that the present evidence is in some respects very favorable to your theory," he said. "I just want to point out that there are other possible theories. As you say, judgment will be made in the future. Goodbye! About today I'll drop by Norwood to see how your investigation is going."

The detective was gone, and my friend rose from his chair, ready for the day's work, with the air of a man faced with a task that interests him.

"As I said, Watson, the first object of my operation must be Blackheath," he said, pulling on his long coat hastily.

"Why not Norwood?"

"In this case, we see two oddities happening in succession. The police authorities are making the mistake of focusing only on the second oddity because it happens to be a real crime. But in my case It seems obvious that the reasonable course of the case should be to try to proceed with the first incident first. The unusual will was so hastily drawn up, and it was given to such an unexpected heir. It is clear, Maybe the next step will be easier.

"My dear friend, I don't think you can help me. There is no danger of me being alone, or I would not act alone. When I see you in the evening, I trust I can tell you that I have What did this client who asked for my protection do?"

My friend came back very late.His face was haggard and anxious, and it was obvious at a glance that the hopes he had set out with were shattered.He played the violin for an hour, the sound of the piano was monotonous and low, and he was trying to calm down his restless mood.Finally he dropped his violin abruptly and began to detail his failed attempt.

"It was all wrong, Watson, very wrong. I pretended not to care in front of Lestrade, but in my heart I believed he was on the right track, and we were on the wrong track. My intuition pointed in one direction, and all the facts in another. I am afraid that English juries are so far short of intelligence that they would rather accept my hypothesis than consider Lestrade's evidence."

"Did you go to Blackheath?"

"Go, Watson. When I got there, I soon found that the dead Oldacre was a villain to be reckoned with. Macfarlane's father had gone out to find his son, and his mother was at home. She was an ignorant woman with a couple Blue-eyed and short in stature, she trembled with fear and anger. Of course, she thought it impossible for her son to commit a crime, and she expressed neither surprise nor sympathy at what had happened to Oldek. On the contrary, she The way she spoke of Oldacre with abhorrence was tantamount to automatically supporting the police's argument, because if her son had ever heard her speak of Oldacre in that way, it would have naturally made him hate and commit violence. 'Ordek was more of a vicious and cunning monster than a man,' she said, 'and he has been a monster since his youth.'

"'You knew him then?' I said.

"'Yes, I know him well. In fact, he was the first to propose to me. Thank God I had eyes, and I left him and married a better-hearted man who was perhaps poorer than he was. After I got engaged to Oldeker, I heard how he put a cat in a cage. I was so disgusted by his cruelty that I never wanted to have anything to do with him again.' She dug out a picture of a woman from her desk drawer, her face shattered with a knife. 'This is a picture of me when I was young,' she said. and sent it to me.'

"'But,' said I, 'at least he forgives you now, because he left all his fortune to your son.'

"'Neither my son nor I want anything from Jonas Oldecke, dead or alive,' she cried solemnly. 'There is a God in heaven, Mr. Holmes. God has punished the villain. Then God will prove that my son has no blood on his hands.'

"I tried to follow a clue or two, but couldn't find anything that would support our hypothesis, and there were several points that were contrary to our hypothesis. At last I gave up and went to Norwood.

(End of this chapter)