The wretched young man arose, and with a last beseeching glanceat us walked from the room. The officers conducted him to thecab, but Lestrade remained.
Holmes had picked up the pages which formed the rough draftof the will, and was looking at them with the keenest interestupon his face.
“There are some points about that document, Lestrade, arethere not?” said he, pushing them over.
The official looked at them with a puzzled expression.
“I can read the first few lines and these in the middle of thesecond page, and one or two at the end. Those are as clear asprint,” said he, “but the writing in between is very bad, and thereare three places where I cannot read it at all.”
“What do you make of that?” said Holmes.
“Well, what do you make of it?”
“That it was written in a train. The good writing representsstations, the bad writing movement, and the very bad writingpassing over points. A scientific expert would pronounce at oncethat this was drawn up on a suburban line, since nowhere savein the immediate vicinity of a great city could there be so quicksuccession of points. Granting that his whole journey wasoccupied in drawing up the will, then the train was an express,only stopping once between Norwood and London Bridge.”
Lestrade began to laugh.
“You are too many for me when you begin to get on yourtheories, Mr. Holmes,” said he. “How does this bear on the case?”
“Well, it corroborates the young man’s story to the extent thatthe will was drawn up by Jonas Oldacre in his journey yesterday.
is curious—is it not?—that a man should draw up so importantdocument in so haphazard a fashion. It suggests that he did notthink it was going to be of much practical importance. If a mandrew up a will which he did not intend ever to be effective, hemight do it so.”
“Well, he drew up his own death warrant at the same time,” saidLestrade.
“Oh, you think so?”
“Don’t you?”
“Well, it is quite possible, but the case is not clear to me yet.”
“Not clear? Well, if that isn’t clear, what could be clear? Here isThe Return of Sherlock Holmes 875
a young man who learns suddenly that, if a certain older man dies,he will succeed to a fortune. What does he do? He says nothingto anyone, but he arranges that he shall go out on some pretext tosee his client that night. He waits until the only other person inthe house is in bed, and then in the solitude of a man’s room hemurders him, burns his body in the wood-pile, and departs to aneighbouring hotel. The blood-stains in the room and also on thestick are very slight. It is probable that he imagined his crime tobe a bloodless one, and hoped that if the body were consumed itwould hide all traces of the method of his death—traces which, forsome reason, must have pointed to him. Is not all this obvious?”
“It strikes me, my good Lestrade, as being just a trifle tooobvious,” said Holmes. “You do not add imagination to your othergreat qualities, but if you could for one moment put yourself inthe place of this young man, would you choose the very nightafter the will had been made to commit your crime? Would it notseem dangerous to you to make so very close a relation betweenthe two incidents? Again, would you choose an occasion when youare known to be in the house, when a servant has let you in? And,finally, would you take the great pains to conceal the body, and yetleave your own stick as a sign that you were the criminal? Confess,Lestrade, that all this is very unlikely.”
“As to the stick, Mr. Holmes, you know as well as I do that acriminal is often flurried, and does such things, which a cool manwould avoid. He was very likely afraid to go back to the room.
Give me another theory that would fit the facts.”
“I could very easily give you half a dozen,” said Holmes. “Herefor example, is a very possible and even probable one. I make youa free present of it. The older man is showing documents whichare of evident value. A passing tramp sees them through thewindow, the blind of which is only half down. Exit the solicitor.
Enter the tramp! He seizes a stick, which he observes there, killsOldacre, and departs after burning the body.”
“Why should the tramp burn the body?”
“For the matter of that, why should McFarlane?”
“To hide some evidence.”
“Possibly the tramp wanted to hide that any murder at all hadbeen committed.”
“And why did the tramp take nothing?”
“Because they were papers that he could not negotiate.”
Lestrade shook his head, though it seemed to me that hismanner was less absolutely assured than before.
“Well, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, you may look for your tramp, andwhile you are finding him we will hold on to our man. The futurewill show which is right. Just notice this point, Mr. Holmes: that876 The Complete Sherlock Holmes
so far as we know, none of the papers were removed, and thatthe prisoner is the one man in the world who had no reason forremoving them, since he was heir-at-law, and would come intothem in any case.”
My friend seemed struck by this remark.
“I don’t mean to deny that the evidence is in some ways verystrongly in favour of your theory,” said he. “I only wish to pointout that there are other theories possible. As you say, the futurewill decide. Good-morning! I dare say that in the course of the dayshall drop in at Norwood and see how you are getting on.”
When the detective departed, my friend rose and made hispreparations for the day’s work with the alert air of a man who hascongenial task before him.
“My first movement Watson,” said he, as he bustled into hisfrockcoat, “must, as I said, be in the direction of Blackheath.”
“And why not Norwood?”