Sherlock Holmes.

Chapter 85 Memoirs (19)
We arrived just in time, just in time for the first train from Waterloo station.An hour later we were in Woking's fir and heather woods.It takes only a few minutes to walk from the station to Briarbrae Mansion.It sits alone on a large piece of land.We were presented with business cards and taken to a very chic living room.A few minutes later we were greeted warmly by a very fit man.He is about 40 years old, with a ruddy complexion and excited eyes, but he always gives people a naive image of a naughty boy.

He shook our hands and said, "It's a pleasure to have you here. Percy has been looking forward to you all morning. Well, he's not letting a straw go now! His parents sent me." Greet you, for they will suffer terribly at the mention of it."

"We don't know anything about him yet, and I don't think you are part of his family," said Holmes.

The man was very surprised, he bowed his head, and then laughed loudly.

"You saw the letters 'JH' on my pendant, and I thought you had other tricks. My name is Joseph Harrison, and Percy is going to be married to my sister soon, so I'm Count one of his in-laws. My sister Anne must be in Percy's room, she has taken care of him tirelessly these past two months. Let's go in now, you don't know how anxious Percy is to see you. "

Percy's room was on the same floor as the drawing-room, and was tastefully furnished, with fragrant flowers here and there, like a bedroom and a sitting-room.Lying on the sofa was a very frail young man with an earthy complexion.The sofa is next to the window, and the refreshing fragrance of flowers and fresh air float in from the window.A woman sitting next to the young man stood up quickly when she saw us coming in.

She asked, "Do I need to back away, Percy?"

Percy held her hand and wouldn't let her go.

Percy said warmly: "How do you do, my dear Watson! With your short beard I hardly recognize you, and I'm sure you don't recognize me either. As for this, I think, it must be you The famous detective friend Sherlock Holmes?"

I made a brief introduction and we sat down together.The man who picked us up went out, but his sister stayed behind at the patient's request.

She was pleasant, if a little pudgy and out of shape, but she had a very pretty olive face, dark eyes, and shiny black hair like an Italian.Against the backdrop of her beautiful face, the pale Percy looked even more haggard.

Percy pushed himself up, and went on: "I don't want to waste your time, so let's get straight to the point. I'm a happy and accomplished man, Mr. Holmes, and I'm getting married soon. But a An unexpected disaster has ruined my career."

"Perhaps Watson has told you that I am now in the Foreign Office, and that I am about to be promoted on account of my uncle, Lord Holdhurst. My uncle is the Foreign Secretary in this government, and he has often Delivered to me, and I always did a great job. Anyway, I earned his recognition for my talents.

"Ten weeks ago, on the 23rd of May to be exact, he called me into his private office, first complimented me on my ability to work, and then told me that he had a new and important thing for me to do. .”

"He took out a gray roll of paper from his desk and said to me: 'This is the original copy of the secret agreement signed between Britain and Italy, but things are a bit troublesome, the newspapers have revealed some details, and the important thing is that they must never be repeated. Don't tell me anything. The French and Russian embassies are doing everything they can to get the contents of this document. I would never have taken it out if I didn't really need a copy. Do you have a safe in your office?'

"'Yes, sir.'

"'Then, take the document and lock it in the safe. But I want to remind you: it's best to wait until after get off work, and you stay and make a copy for me carefully, so that no one else can see it. After copying , you lock the original and the copy together in the safe, and you must hand it to me in person tomorrow morning.'

"I'll take the original and just..."

Holmes said suddenly, "Excuse me, but was anyone else present when you were speaking?"

"No."

"Is the room big?"

"About thirty feet."

"Are you standing in the middle of the room?"

"Yes, almost in the center."

"Is the conversation loud?"

"Not much, my uncle always speaks in a low voice, and I hardly speak."

Holmes closed his eyes and said again, "Go on, please."

"I did exactly what he said. After work, only Charles Gorot was in the office because he had nothing to do, so I went to dinner first, hoping that he would have left the office when I came back. After dinner, he really did. I have left. I hastened to do what I had to do, for I knew that Joseph—Mr. Harrison, who received you just now—was also in this town, and was going to Woking by the eleven o'clock train, and I wanted to Catch this train.

"When I looked at this agreement, I found that it was really important. What my uncle said was not an exaggeration. I basically knew its content without looking at it carefully. It confirmed the position of the Kingdom of Great Britain on the Triple Alliance. Measures that the British Navy will take when the navy is fully dominant in the Mediterranean. In short, the content of the agreement is about the navy. The agreement is signed by senior officials of both parties at the end. After a brief glance, I hurriedly began to copy.

"This document is very long and written in French. There are a total of 26 articles. Although I deliberately speeded up, I didn't copy nine until nine o'clock in the evening. From this point of view, it is hopeless to catch the eleven o'clock train. I've been working all day, and I haven't had a good dinner. At this time, my mind is very unconscious and I'm dozing off. So I want to drink a cup of coffee to refresh myself. There is a porter downstairs, and a porter will stay there all night , making coffee for the night shift with an alcohol lamp. I rang for him.

"To my surprise, a very tall, vulgar old woman came in. She wore an apron, and said she was the wife of the porter, and worked as a servant here. I told her to make coffee.

"I copied two more, and my head hurt even more. I had to stand up and walk around the room, stretching my legs. But the coffee hadn't come in. I wondered why, so I walked down the corridor to the concierge. From my There is a very straight corridor from the office, and the lights inside are very dark. One end of the corridor is the only exit of my office, and the other end is a winding staircase. The concierge is next to the corridor under the stairs. To another corridor, in the shape of a T. There is also a staircase at the end of the other corridor, which leads to a side door, which is reserved for servants and a shortcut to Charles Street. The general terrain of the office is like this."

"Thank you," said Holmes. "I have understood what you have to say."

"Please note, the following is the most critical time. I walked down the stairs. The doorman was sleeping soundly in the porter's room. The coffee on the alcohol lamp was boiling violently, and some spilled on the floor. I took down the pot and extinguished the alcohol lamp. , was about to wake him up. Suddenly, the bell above his head rang loudly, and he woke up all at once.

"He looked at me dazedly and said, 'Mr. Phelps!'

"'I've come for coffee.'

"He looked at me, then at the electric bell that was still ringing, and said, 'I was cooking, but somehow I fell asleep.' After speaking, he was suddenly even more surprised.

"He asked: 'Since you are here, sir, who is ringing the bell?'

"I was shocked: 'Ring the bell? What bell?'

"'The bell was rung in your office.'

"My heart was seized immediately. So there must be someone in my office, and my important papers are on the table. Mr. Holmes, you can imagine that I rushed up the stairs and ran into the corridor like a madman. But there is no one in the corridor, and there is no one in the room. Everything is the same, except that the original copy I just copied is gone, and there is only a half-copy copy left on the table."

Holmes sat upright, rubbing his hands together, and it seemed that the case had aroused great interest for him.

He asked in a low voice: "Excuse me, what did you do then?"

"I immediately thought that the thief must have come in from the side, because if he had come in by the front door, he would have met me."

"Are you sure he's not hiding in the house or in the corridor? You said the corridor was very dark."

"That's impossible because there's no place to hide, either indoors or in the corridors."

"Thank you, please continue."

"The janitor saw my panic, realized what was happening, and hurried up after me. Then the two of us ran down the corridor to the stairs leading to Charles Street. The downstairs side door was closed but unlocked. We immediately pushed Open the door and rush out. I remember it well, when the clock struck exactly three times, and it was nine forty-five."

Holmes wrote something on his shirt-sleeve, and said: "This is a very important clue."

"It was a light rainy night and it was very dark. Charles Street was deserted, but Whitehall Road, at the end of the high street, was very crowded. We ran down the path together before we had time to put on our hats, and we met at the right-hand bend. Arrived at a policeman.

"I gasped and said: 'There has been a theft, someone stole an important document from the Foreign Office, did you see anyone passing by?'

"'I've only been standing here for fifteen minutes, sir. During that time only an old woman, a tall woman with a paisley turban, passed by.'

"The gatekeeper said loudly: 'That's my wife, is there anyone else?'

"'No.'

"The gatekeeper tugged at my sleeve and said, 'The thief must have escaped by turning the left.'

"But I didn't trust him, and the way he tried to draw me away made me suspicious of him.

"'Where did that woman go from?'

"'I don't know, sir. I just saw her hurrying past here, but didn't pay her much attention.'

"'How long has she been gone?'

"'Ah, not very long.'

"'Have 5 minutes?'

"'Less than 5 minutes.'

"'Time is precious now, but, sir, you are wasting it!' cried the porter. 'Believe me, it has nothing to do with her. Look across the street! If you don't go, I will!' After speaking, he ran to the left.

"I immediately chased after him, grabbed him and asked:
"'Where is your home?'

"'No. 16 Ivey Lane, Brixton,' he replied, 'but don't be fooled by appearances, Mr. Phelps, we'd better look to the left of the street and see if Some clues can be found.'

"I thought, maybe what he said made sense, so the three of us hurried to the opposite side again, but everyone on the street was in a hurry, and everyone wanted to go home quickly to avoid the rain, and no one would stop to talk to us .

"We had to go back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and searched the stairs and corridors, but found nothing. The corridor leading to the office was covered with a kind of linoleum, very light in color, and footprints would be found. We carefully checked several but found no footprints.'”

"Did it rain that night?"

"Yes."

"So, that woman came into the office at about nine o'clock, her shoes should be muddy, how could there be no footprints?"

"I'm glad you've taken that into consideration. This maid has a habit of taking off her shoes when entering a door downstairs and putting on cloth slippers."

"Got it. That means, although it rained that night, there were no footprints left, yes? That's important information. What did you do afterward?"

"We went over the room again. There was no hidden door, and the windows were about thirty feet off the ground. Both windows were bolted from the inside. The floor was carpeted, there would be no tunnels, and the ceiling was painted in plain white-gray. Yes. I dare to guarantee my life, whoever steals the documents can only go out through the door."

"Where's the fireplace?"

"There is no fireplace, only a stove. To the right of my desk is an electric bell, and anyone who wants to ring it has to go there. But why should the burglar ring the bell? It is a difficult question to explain."

"It was very strange. What did you do next? I suppose you searched the house. Didn't you find any traces left by the burglars, like cigarette butts, gloves, hairpins, and other small things?"

"No."

"Didn't you smell anything special?"

"Oh, we didn't notice that."

"Even a faint smell of tobacco is useful to us in case investigations."

"I never smoked, so if there was tobacco in the room at that time, I must have smelled it. There was no tobacco smell at all. The only clue was Mrs. Tangle, the wife of the gatekeeper, who chose that time to rush out. Even the janitor couldn't explain it himself. He just said that his wife usually comes home at this time. The police and I agreed that if the woman was indeed the one who stole the documents, it would be best to arrest her before they changed hands.

"At this time, Scotland Yard received our report. Detective Mr. Woobles arrived immediately, and immediately put himself into the investigation. We hired a carriage and arrived at the gatekeeper's house in half an hour. Mrs. Tangle Our eldest daughter opened the door for us. She told us to wait in the living room while her mother was not home yet.

"After 10 minutes, someone knocked on the door and one thing we did wrong was not answering the door ourselves. We can only blame ourselves. The girl opened the door and said: 'Mom, there are two people in the living room. They want to see you.' Then We heard a flurry of footsteps in the hallway. Woobles flung the door open and we ran to the back room, but the woman had gone in before us. She looked at us hostilely, but when she recognized me , showing a surprised expression again.

"'You are Mr. Phelps, aren't you?'

"My companion asked her: 'Hey! Who do you take us for? Why are you running?'

"She said: 'I thought it was a junk dealer with whom we had a problem.'

"'That's not a good enough excuse,' said Woobles. 'We have evidence that you are the one who stole the Foreign Office papers, and you came in hastily to dispose of it. You must come back to Scotland Yard with us.'

"She protested for a long time, but she was taken away. We hired a four-wheeled carriage, and all three of us sat in it. Before we left, we carefully inspected the back room, especially the stove inside, wondering if she Did the papers be burned. However, we found no paper ashes. As soon as we arrived at Scotland Yard, we handed her over to the lady searcher. We were in a hurry and waited a long time for the report from the lady searcher, but the report said nothing.

"At this point, I fully realized how terrible my situation is. I was only looking for documents before, and I didn't have time to think about it. At first, I always thought that I could find the agreement, so I didn't think about the consequences at all. But now I look at the search. The work was fruitless, so I started to worry about my situation. The consequences are really serious. Watson may have told you that I was very sensitive and timid when I was in school. This is my character. When I think of my uncle and those The officials mentioned in the content, thinking of the shame I brought to them, and the shame I brought to my relatives and friends, I can't bear it. And my personal fate doesn't matter, what matters is the loss this brings to the country and shame. I was disgracefully ruined. I didn't know what I did afterward, just a daze of people surrounding me, comforting me. I thought I was stealing the show. A colleague accompanied me I got to Waterloo and put me on the train home. I believe that if I hadn’t met my neighbor, Dr. Ferrier, my colleagues would have sent me home. The doctor took good care of me, thanks to I had to take care of him, because I passed out once at the station. Anyway, when I got home, I was a complete gibberish madman.

"You can imagine how sad it was for poor mother and Anne when the doctor rang the bell to wake my family and they saw me. Dr. Ferrier told my family what they had heard from the detective at the station. Everyone knows that it seems that my illness is difficult to cure in a short period of time. So Joseph moved out of his beloved bedroom and used it as my ward. Mr. Holmes, I slept here for nine weeks. Completely deranged. I would have died if it hadn't been for Miss Anne's careful attention and the doctor's constant treatment. Miss Anne was with me during the day and another nurse at night. come out.

"It wasn't until the last three days that I slowly woke up, and my memory gradually recovered, but I was more preoccupied. The first thing I did after waking up was to send a telegram to the Wu Bosi police officer in charge of the case. He They rushed over after receiving the telegram and introduced the situation after I was unconscious. Although they tried their best, they still found no clues. The gatekeeper and his wife have also been checked several times, and there is no sign that they have anything to do with this The case is related. Later, they took young Gorot as a suspect because he stayed in the office the longest that day. There are really two suspicious points about him: one is that he was the last to leave that day, and the other is his French name But, actually, I haven't taken out that document before he left. Besides, his ancestors are French Protestant Huguenots. But as an Englishman, his living habits and emotional orientation are the same as ours. So there is no solid evidence against him, by any means. The case is shelved. Mr. Holmes, you are my last hope, and if you fail me too, it will be all over for me."

Due to the long talk, the patient was a little tired and leaned on the cushion.The nurse brought him a cup of sedative.Holmes threw back his head, closed his eyes, and sat motionless.Others may think that he is resting his mind, but I know that he is thinking nervously.

Finally, he said, "It's very clear, so I don't have many questions to ask. However, there is one most important question that must be clarified. Does anyone else know about your copying of this document?"

"No."

"For example, Miss Anne doesn't even know?"

"Yes. During the time I received the order and performed the mission, I never came back at all."

"Hasn't any of your friends and relatives happened to visit you?"

"No."

"Does anyone in your family know how to get to your office?"

"Yes, they all know this."

"These inquiries are meaningless if you haven't told other people about the documents."

"I never told anyone."

"Do you know anything about the gatekeeper?"

"I just know he's a veteran."

"Which unit?"

"It is said to belong to the Cortris Guard."

(End of this chapter)