The Valley of Fear Arthur Conan Doyle (general ebook reader .txt) 📖

“I fear that you think me callous and hardhearted,” said she.

I shrugged my shoulders. “It is no business of mine,” said I.

“Perhaps some day you will do me justice. If you only realized⁠—”

“There is no need why Dr. Watson should realize,” said Barker quickly. “As he has himself said, it is no possible business of his.”

“Exactly,” said I, “and so I will beg leave to resume my walk.”

“One moment, Dr. Watson,” cried the woman in a pleading voice. “There is one question which you can answer with more authority than anyone else in the world, and it may make a very great difference to me. You know Mr. Holmes and his relations with the police better than anyone else can. Supposing that a matter were brought confidentially to his knowledge, is it absolutely necessary that he should pass it on to the detectives?”

“Yes, that’s it,” said Barker eagerly. “Is he on his own or is he entirely in with them?”

“I really don’t know that I should be justified in discussing such a point.”

“I beg⁠—I implore that you will, Dr. Watson! I assure you that you will be helping us⁠—helping me greatly if you will guide us on that point.”

There was such a ring of sincerity in the woman’s voice that for the instant I forgot all about her levity and was moved only to do her will.

“Mr. Holmes is an independent investigator,” I said. “He is his own master, and would act as his own judgment directed. At the same time, he would naturally feel loyalty towards the officials who were working on the same case, and he would not conceal from them anything which would help them in bringing a criminal to justice. Beyond this I can say nothing, and I would refer you to Mr. Holmes himself if you wanted fuller information.”

So saying I raised my hat and went upon my way, leaving them still seated behind that concealing hedge. I looked back as I rounded the far end of it, and saw that they were still talking very earnestly together, and, as they were gazing after me, it was clear that it was our interview that was the subject of their debate.

“I wish none of their confidences,” said Holmes, when I reported to him what had occurred. He had spent the whole afternoon at the Manor House in consultation with his two colleagues, and returned about five with a ravenous appetite for a high tea which I had ordered for him. “No confidences, Watson; for they are mighty awkward if it comes to an arrest for conspiracy and murder.”

“You think it will come to that?”

He was in his most cheerful and debonair humour. “My dear Watson, when I have exterminated that fourth egg I shall be ready to put you in touch with the whole situation. I don’t say that we have fathomed it⁠—far from it⁠—but when we have traced the missing dumbbell⁠—”

“The dumbbell!”

“Dear me, Watson, is it possible that you have not penetrated the fact that the case hangs upon the missing dumbbell? Well, well, you need not be downcast; for between ourselves I don’t think that either Inspector Mac or the excellent local practitioner has grasped the overwhelming importance of this incident. One dumbbell, Watson! Consider an athlete with one dumbbell! Picture to yourself the unilateral development, the imminent danger of a spinal curvature. Shocking, Watson, shocking!”

He sat with his mouth full of toast and his eyes sparkling with mischief, watching my intellectual entanglement. The mere sight of his excellent appetite was an assurance of success, for I had very clear recollections of days and nights without a thought of food, when his baffled mind had chafed before some problem while his thin, eager features became more attenuated with the asceticism of complete mental concentration. Finally he lit his pipe, and sitting in the inglenook of the old village inn he talked slowly and at random about his case, rather as one who thinks aloud than as one who makes a considered statement.

“A lie, Watson⁠—a great, big, thumping, obtrusive, uncompromising lie⁠—that’s what meets us on the threshold! There is our starting point. The whole story told by Barker is a lie. But Barker’s story is corroborated by Mrs. Douglas. Therefore she is lying also. They are both lying, and in a conspiracy. So now we have the clear problem. Why are they lying, and what is the truth which they are trying so hard to conceal? Let us try, Watson, you and I, if we can get behind the lie and reconstruct the truth.

“How do I know that they are lying? Because it is a clumsy fabrication which simply could not be true. Consider! According to the story given to us, the assassin had less than a minute after the murder had been committed to take that ring, which was under another ring, from the dead man’s finger, to replace the other ring⁠—a thing which he would surely never have done⁠—and to put that singular card beside his victim. I say that this was obviously impossible.

“You may argue⁠—but I have too much respect for your judgment, Watson, to think that you will do so⁠—that the ring may have been taken before the man was killed. The fact that the candle had been lit only a short time shows that there had been no lengthy interview. Was Douglas, from what we hear of his fearless character, a man who would be likely to give up his wedding ring at such short notice, or could we conceive of his giving it up at all? No, no, Watson, the assassin was alone with the dead man for some time with the lamp lit. Of that I have no doubt at all.

“But the gunshot was apparently the cause of death. Therefore the shot must have been fired some time earlier than we are told. But there could be no mistake about such a matter as that. We are in the presence, therefore, of a deliberate conspiracy upon the part of the two people who