Sherlock Holmes.

Chapter 93 The Return (4)
"Mr. Holmes, I live with my parents at Dollington Flats in Blackheath, but I had something to do for Mr. Jonas Oldecke last night, so I stayed at the hotel there. I settled the matter there. I only found out about it when I read the newspaper on the train when it was done. I realized I was in danger and I rushed to you for help, knowing that if I was at home or in the office, I would definitely be caught .I believe I've been followed from London Bridge station. Why, who's here?"

At this moment the doorbell rang, and heavy footsteps came from the other side of the stairs.Presently our old friend Lethred stood at the door.Behind him stood two uniformed police officers.

The young man stood up, pale.

"I now formally arrest you for the malicious murder of Mr. Jonas Oldecke, of Lower Norwood."

McFarlane called out to both of us with desperate gestures.

"Wait a moment, Lethreid," said Holmes. "Give me half an hour more, will you? This man is relating to me a particularly interesting incident which may help us to investigate it. "

"I don't think it will be difficult to figure it out," replied Lethred coldly.

"If you will, I shall be glad to hear him finish."

"Well, sir, I really can't refuse any of your requests. Because you have helped me once or twice in the past, and we Scotland Police still owe you a favor." Lesred said, "I must With the prisoner, he must be warned that everything he says will be used against him."

"That is very good," said the young man, "and I beg you to hear me through it. I assure you that it is absolutely true."

Lethred looked down at his watch. "I'll give you half an hour," he said.

"I must begin," said MacFarlane, "that I know nothing of that Mr. Jonas Oldecke. His name is familiar to me, for he and my parents knew him many years ago, but gradually I have no contact with the land. That is, at around 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon, he walked into my office, which surprised me. When he explained his purpose, I was even more surprised. At that time, he took a few sheets in his hand and tore them out The paper with the scribbles all over it, these are the sheets--it's all on my desk.

"'Here is my will,' said he. 'Mr. Macfarlane, I would like to ask you to finish it in legal form, and I will sit here and wait.'

"So I started copying that will. You can imagine my surprise when I saw that he left me all but some of his own. He was a very queer eccentric. , with white eyebrows. When I looked up at him, I saw that he was staring at me with those piercing eyes, and the expression on his face was so happy. When I read those clauses in the will, I dared not Believe your own eyes. But he told me that he was a bachelor with no worries. He knew my parents when he was young, and later he heard that I was a trustworthy person, so he wanted to give me all the money. At that time, I The only thing that can be done is to say something to thank him. When the will is written, signed, and my clerk is the witness, it's all written on this blue paper. But these little notes are only drafts. He He told me that there are still some leases, house deeds, mortgage deeds, temporary certificates, etc., and I should take a look. He also said that he can rest assured only after all these materials are completed. He asked me to take this will at night. His family, so I can arrange everything. 'Remember children, don't tell your parents before everything is done, so as to give them a little surprise.' He asked me to follow what he said do it.

"As you can imagine, Mr. Holmes, I could not refuse his demands. He had become my protector, and I wanted to fulfill his wishes with all my heart. So I called home and said I was busy and couldn't." How late to get home. Mr. Oldacre wanted me to have dinner with him at nine o'clock, but his house was so hard to find, I didn't find it until 09:30. I found him..."

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

"A middle-aged lady, the housekeeper of his house, I suppose."

"Is she the one who said your name?"

"Yes!" McFarlane said.

"Please continue."

McFarlane wiped the sweat from his brow and continued:
"The woman took me into a living room where supper was already set. Then Mr. Jonas Oldecke took me to his bedroom where there was a safe. He opened it and from inside Take out a large stack of papers. After we read the papers carefully, it must be between eleven o'clock and twelve o'clock. He let me go out through the French window so as not to disturb the housekeeper. Always on."

"Was the curtain drawn then?" asked Holmes.

"I can't remember exactly, but I remember the curtains were half down. Yes, I remember him opening the window and drawing the curtains. I couldn't find my cane at all, and he said to me, 'It's okay. , child, I hope to see you here often in the future. I will definitely put away your cane and come to get it next time.' When I left, the door of the safe was open, and those papers were still on the table. It was very late, and I couldn't go back to Blackheath at all, so I spent the night in a hotel there. I don't know anything else, and I didn't know this terrible thing until this morning."

"Have you any further questions, Mr. Holmes," said Lesred.I saw him frown several times while listening to this extraordinary experience.

"There is nothing left to ask until I go to Blackheath."

"You mean before you go down to Norwood?" asked Lethred.

"Yes, I mean Lower Norwood," said Holmes, with an unfathomable smile.Lethrider knew from experience that his head was like a razor, capable of opening what was impenetrable to others.I saw him looking at my friend curiously.

"I should like to speak to you privately in a moment, Mr. Holmes," said he. "Well, Mr. MacFarlane, two policemen are just outside the door, and the carriage is also outside." The poor boy He stood up, gave us a longing look, and walked out of the house.The police took him into the carriage, but Lethred stayed behind.

Holmes gazed with interest at the few pages of the draft will in his hand.

"This will is very special, Lethred, did you find it?" He handed the manuscript to Lethred.

"I can see the first few lines, the middle of the second page, and the last one or two lines," he said. "I can't see the rest. There are three places where nothing is written at all."

"And how do you explain all this?" said Holmes.

"Then how do you explain it?" Lesred asked back.

"I think the will was made on a train. The clear part shows the train is at the station, the unclear part shows the train moving, and the least clear part shows the train passing the side road. I'm sure it was Completed on a suburban railway line, due to the possibility of encountering branch roads around the city. He will use the whole time to complete this will, which must be an express train, between Lower Norwood and London Bridge. Only stopped once."

Lesred laughed.

"You have a better analysis than I, Mr. Holmes," said he. "Is what you say relevant to the case?"

"It fully confirms what the young man said, that the will was written yesterday by Jonas Oldeker on his travels. How can a man draw up a very important document with such insincerity? Isn't it doubtful? It shows that he doesn't care about it at all, and I don't think he wants to give effect to this will at all."

"It's like giving yourself a death sentence," Lethred said.

"By the way, do you think so?" said Holmes.

"Don't you think so?" said Lethred.

"There is a certain possibility, but I don't know much about the case," said Holmes.

"Not sure, is it? What is there to be clear about even such a small case? A young man suddenly learns that if some old man dies, he can get all his property. What do you think he will do?" He will definitely not tell other people, and then find an excuse to arrange to visit the old man at night. After the third person is asleep, he kills the old man in the small room, puts his body on the wood pile and burns it, so that God Without knowing it, he left the accident site and went to stay in a nearby hotel.

"There was very little blood in the bedroom and on the cane, and it is probable that he thought that his murder did not involve bloodshed, and hoped that by destroying the body it would be possible to cover up all signs of how the client died, because those traces It was so obvious that sooner or later he would be exposed," Lethred said.

"My Mr. Lethreid, what you say is too obvious," said Holmes. "You have not the least imagination. Think about it from the standpoint of this young man. How can you choose?" Murder on the night the will was written? Don't you think it's dangerous to put the two together? Also, why would you choose a day when someone knows you're there, or his servants let you in? What? And more importantly, why did you take such pains to hide the body, leaving the deadly evidence of the cane? You must admit that it is impossible, Lethred."

"As for the cane, Mr. Holmes, we all know very well that the criminal must have been very nervous at that time, so he often did some unpredictable wrong things. He may not dare to go back to that room. Then you give me Another inference that fits the facts."

"I can easily give you a few examples," said Holmes. "For instance, there is this possible, even probable, conjecture which I present to you. The old man showed the man the expensive Securities, because the curtains were only half-opened at that time, and the tramp passing by on the street saw everything in the house. After the young man left, the tramp came in and beat Mr. Oldeke to death with a cane, then burned the body to wipe out all traces, and fled .”

"Then why did the homeless man burn his body to wipe out the traces?" Lesred said.

"If so, why did Macfarlane kill?" said Holmes.

"The purpose is to cover up the evidence," Lethred said.

"It is quite possible that the tramp has the same idea," said Holmes.

"And why don't the bums take things away?" said Lethred.

"Because those papers are not negotiable," said Holmes.

"Well, Mr. Holmes, you can go and find that bum. We won't let MacFarlane go until you find him. The future will prove who is right. Just a reminder: as we have now As far as I know, none of the papers have been tampered with. I think the criminal didn't want to take those things, mainly because he is the legal heir, and he is sure to get them no matter what the circumstances." My partner was told by him The words shocked.

"I admit that the present evidence supports your conjecture to some extent," said Holmes, "but I would like to say that there may well be other conjectures. As you say, it will become clear in the future. Today I think I have Necessary to go down to Lower Norwood and find out what's going on with the case."

After Lethreid left, Holmes stood up with a different expression than usual.He has a strong interest in this matter, and I think today's work is about to start.

"I think I should go to Blackheath first, Watson," he said, putting on his coat.

"Why don't you go down to Norwood first?"

"We found two strange things happened one after the other from the case. The police focused on the second and ignored the first. According to my experience, if you want to solve this case, you should first try to explain the first. A matter started, that is, the special will, was completed in a daze, and for some reason, it was handed over to someone who didn't know much. This point should be clarified, wouldn't the other things be much easier to handle?
"My dear friend, you can't help me now. There is no danger of me going there by myself, and if it were, I would not go alone. I will tell you what I have done when we meet in the evening." .”

My companion came back very late, and from the dejected and anxious expression on his face, I knew that all his hopes for the day were lost.He played the violin for a long time, his voice was low-key and boring, and he wanted to calm down his mood quickly.Suddenly he put down the piano and told me what happened today.

"It's all over, Watson, and the matter has gone very wrong. I pretended to be all right in front of Lethred, but in my heart I hoped I was on the right track this time, but it didn't." As I imagined, and quite wrongly. I do not think that the intelligence of the English jury is so high that they will only accept my speculations, and will not admit that Lesred The evidence is correct."

"Did you go to Blackheath?"

"Yes, Watson. It didn't take me long after I got there to learn that Oldacre was a hideous rascal. MacFarlane's father was looking for his son. His mother was at home waiting for news. The little man with blue eyes and everything The woman who didn't understand was trembling in resentment. Of course she believed that her son was a good man and would not do those crimes. She was not surprised at what happened to Oldek, but when talking about Oldek She also showed hatred for him at the time, which made the police evidence more plausible. If his son had heard her say that about Oldek before, he would probably have hated him and committed murder.'Ordek before Said he was a cruel monster,' she said. 'He was always like that when he was younger.'

"'You must have known him at that time?' said I.

"'Yeah, I knew him pretty well. In fact, he was the first one to propose to me then, and thank God I didn't marry him, but a man who was much better than him. .After I got engaged to Oldek, I was disgusted to hear that he had cruelly put a cat in an aviary. I wanted nothing to do with him. He gave me a picture of the People's faces are scratched, that's my picture,' she said, 'he sent it over on my wedding day to scare me.'

"'But,' said I, 'he must have forgiven you by now, for he has given your son all his property.'

"'Neither my son nor I will take anything from Oldacre, whether he lives or dies,' she exclaimed, with particular solemnity. 'Heaven has eyes, Mr. Holmes. God has dealt with the scoundrel, and the time will come. God will also restore my son's innocence.'

"I tried to look for one or two other clues, but couldn't find any support for my hypothesis, but there were a few points that were contrary to my hypothesis, and I had no choice but to give up. Then I went to Lower Norwood. .”

"The villa in Glen Manor is very good, all made of bricks. The garden in front is a lawn with many laurel trees, and the lumberyard is on the right, and there is still a distance from there to the road. This is what I drew in my notebook. The window on the left is the dead man's house, which can be seen from the street. It's a good thing Lethred is not there, otherwise I would be very uncomfortable, but his sheriff has done his best. They've just noticed a great treasure. They've been rummaging through the ashes all morning, and they've found, among other things, a few pieces of faded metal. I looked carefully and found that it was a button of a boy's trousers, which I could still recognize. One of them was marked 'Hyam', which was the surname of Oldec's tailor, and afterward I examined the lawn more closely for some other evidence, but the dry weather made everything Hard as iron, nothing can be found. The only thing that can be found is the trace of dragging, which is consistent with the police's speculation. I crawled on the lawn, with my back to the hot sun, and an hour later I stood Up, compared with just now, there is nothing new.

"I couldn't find any clues in the courtyard, so I went to the bedroom of the deceased to investigate. There was very little blood in it, only a little stained, and the color was very bright. Someone had already touched the cane, and there was very little blood on it. The cane was indeed McFarlane's, he had already admitted. There were his and Oldeker's footprints on the carpet, no third party at all. This puts the police ahead of us for the time being.

"I had a little hope, but it never came true. I checked the safe, and yes, most of it was out on the table, and the papers were still in their envelopes, and a few were opened. .In my experience, those are not worth much at all. The bank deposits do not show that Mr. Oldecker is rich. But my instinct tells me that not all the papers are there. There are some more valuable certificates that cannot be found. If If you can prove this, you can disprove what Lethred said. How can anyone steal something that will soon be theirs?
"I looked everywhere and found nothing, and finally had to try my luck at the housekeeper. Mrs. Lexington was a small, dark, very talkative woman with suspicious eyes. I'm sure As long as she is willing to speak, there will be gains.

(End of this chapter)