American Sherlocks Nick Rennison (best big ereader txt) 📖

Personally, I was resentful that Dr Sadler, an intruder as it seemed to me in a household where he had no moral right, should sit quietly in possession of property in which my people should have had a share. We had inherited the shame and the disgrace, and it seemed unfair that the law should deprive us of some portion of the worldly goods. Of this, Jennie and Mrs Barrister took no thought, but they continued in a state of such depression that I went with them for a trip South, remaining away for several weeks. The journey brought some of the colour back to Jennie’s cheeks, and in a measure benefited Mrs Barrister, so I returned with something of the gloom lifted from my spirits, and finally reappeared at my office.

After greeting Jeffries, and looking at the mail which had accumulated on my desk, I stepped along the hall and opened the door of Conners’s studio. An unfinished picture sat as usual on his easel, but he was not before it. The paintings, glowing in all the colours of his fancy, looked at me from the walls, and the raven poised above the bust of Poe seemed to extend to me a grim greeting. Alone, I found myself wondering at his fancy for the apostle of the pessimistic, and studying the countenance that he had given to the three pictures near the statue. They were three conceptions of the Chevalier Dupin, a character he much admired.

As I stood waiting he entered from his bedroom and came forward with a smile. His face expressed his welcome, but I knew from his serious eyes that he understood my absence, and had thought of me with sympathy.

‘Back at last, my dear fellow?’ he cried, cheerily. ‘You have been missed, of course. I know the anxiety you have experienced, and should have sought you if you had been alone. But I could not intrude upon your family circle. As the trouble was mainly theirs, I let you bear it in their company. I endeavour to avoid women.’

I glanced again at his pictures, where sylph and siren, Venus in nature with Venus à la mode, showed every phase of beauty to the eye. He saw my gaze, and understood it.

‘These do not count,’ he smiled, as he waved his hand about him. ‘You recall the temptation of St Anthony? I hold discipline to be good for a man. These I may love – none other.’

I looked at him curiously, struck by the sudden gloom of his manner; but almost immediately his demeanour changed.

‘Where have you been?’ he inquired.

I told him, and, cheered by the sympathy which looked from his eyes, I spoke of the grief of my wife, and how deeply the matter of our trouble had affected Mrs Barrister. He listened in silence until I had finished.

‘I know it all,’ he said, finally. ‘I have the papers here; every detail has been noted, while the articles are arranged in order. I have studied the matter carefully, wondering how much you knew of it.’

‘I believe all is known,’ I replied, ‘except the fate of my wife’s unfortunate uncle.’

‘Sit down,’ he said, kindly, looking at me with eyes which now displayed another and deeper interest. ‘You cannot understand how strongly such matters appeal to me. It is a faculty with me almost to know the solution of a crime when the leading circumstances connected with it are revealed. I form my conclusion first, and, confident of its correctness, hunt for evidence to sustain it. I do this because I am never wrong. It is not magic, telepathy, nor any form of mental science; it is a moral consciousness of the meaning of related facts, impressed upon my mind with unerring certainty.’

‘I do not understand you,’ I said.

‘When I am given certain figures,’ he replied, ‘the process of addition is instantaneous and sure. So, when I know of established incidents relating to a matter, they group themselves in my mind in such a manner as to reveal to me their meaning. You are grieved that your family must bear the shame of this crime of which Dr Haslam stands charged, that you can discover no trace of him. May I help you?’

‘Help me, indeed!’ I replied, earnestly. ‘From the facts, as you have read them, would you say that he is dead?’

‘Not altogether from the facts as I read them,’ Conners replied, ‘but from the facts not to be denied, he is dead without doubt. He was a man of character, made through a series of years, and intimately known to the best people of his vicinity; guilty or not of this crime, he was never a man to flee. He was a physician, and entirely sane – a man who would eagerly seek, rather than avoid, an explanation of any act he might commit. Whatever his connection with this murder, he would have remained to justify or deny it.’

‘That was, in fact, his character,’ I replied, eagerly.

‘Even though he had fled, his nature suddenly changed, or his mind suffering from a sudden shock,’ continued Conners, ‘he would have surrendered himself later to the authorities. He is dead, or detained in some spot against his will. Since the latter theory is scarcely tenable, the conviction is certain that he is dead.’

‘You believe, then, that he has made away with himself?’ I asked.

‘It is the first thing that I doubted,’ answered Conners, slowly, ‘and in your interest I hastened to investigate the matter. I found the task a light one. Why should Dr Haslam flee from his house to make away with himself? He had drugs about him with which he might have made a painless end. The facts as stated were hard to reconcile. Here was a man incapable of murder, who does murder; a man incapable of flight,