"A lie, Watson--a great, big, thumping, obtrusive, uncompromisinglie--that's what meets us on the threshold! There is our startingpoint. The whole story told by Barker is a lie. But Barker's story iscorroborated by Mrs. Douglas. Therefore she is lying also. They areboth lying, and in a conspiracy. So now we have the clear problem. Whyare they lying, and what is the truth which they are trying so hard toconceal? Let us try, Watson, you and I, if we can get behind the lieand reconstruct the truth.
"How do I know that they are lying? Because it is a clumsy fabricationwhich simply could not be true. Consider! According to the story givento us, the assassin had less than a minute after the murder had beencommitted to take that ring, which was under another ring, from thedead man's finger, to replace the other ring--a thing which he wouldsurely never have done--and to put that singular card beside hisvictim. 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 beforethe man was killed. The fact that the candle had been lit only a shorttime shows that there had been no lengthy interview. Was Douglas, fromwhat we hear of his fearless character, a man who would be likely togive up his wedding ring at such short notice, or could we conceive ofhis giving it up at all? No, no, Watson, the assassin was alone withthe dead man for some time with the lamp lit. Of that I have no doubtat all.
"But the gunshot was apparently the cause of death. Therefore the shotmust have been fired some time earlier than we are told. But therecould be no mistake about such a matter as that. We are in thepresence, therefore, of a deliberate conspiracy upon the part of thetwo people who heard the gunshot--of the man Barker and of the womanDouglas. When on the top of this I
am able to show that the blood markon the windowsill was deliberately placed there by Barker, in order togive a false clue to the police, you will admit that the case growsdark against him.
"Now we have to ask ourselves at what hour the murder actually didoccur. Up to half-past ten the servants were moving about the house; soit was certainly not before that time. At a quarter to eleven they hadall gone to their rooms with the exception of Ames, who was in thepantry. I have been trying some experiments after you left us thisafternoon, and I find that no noise which MacDonald can make in thestudy can penetrate to me in the pantry when the doors are all shut.
"It is otherwise, however, from the housekeeper's room. It is not sofar down the corridor, and from it I could vaguely hear a voice when itwas very loudly raised. The sound from a shotgun is to some extentmuffled when the discharge is at very close range, as it undoubtedlywas in this instance. It would not be very loud, and yet in the silenceof the night it should have easily penetrated to Mrs. Allen's room. Sheis, as she has told us, somewhat deaf; but none the less she mentionedin her evidence that she did hear something like a door slamming halfan hour before the alarm was given. Half an hour before the alarm wasgiven would be a quarter to eleven. I have no doubt that what she heardwas the report of the gun, and that this was the real instant of themurder.
"If this is so, we have now to determine what Barker and Mrs. Douglas,presuming that they are not the actual murderers, could have been doingfrom quarter to eleven, when the sound of the shot brought them down,until quarter past eleven, when they rang the bell and summoned theservants. What were they doing, and why did they not instantly give thealarm? That is the question which faces us, and when it has beenanswered we shall surely have gone some way to solve our problem."
"I am convinced myself," said I, "that there is an understandingbetween those two people. She must be a heartless creature to sitlaughing at some jest within a few hours of her husband's murder."
"Exactly. She does not shine as a wife even in her own account of whatoccurred. I am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind, as you areaware, Watson, but my experience of life has taught me that there arefew wives, having any regard for their husbands, who would let anyman's spoken word stand between them and that husband's dead body.Should I ever marry, Watson, I should hope to inspire my wife with somefeeling which would prevent her from being walked off by a housekeeperwhen my corpse was lying within a few yards of her. It was badlystage-managed; for even the rawest investigators must be struck by theabsence of the usual feminine ululation. If there had been nothingelse, this incident alone would have suggested a prearranged conspiracyto my mind."
"You think then, definitely, that Barker and Mrs. Douglas are guilty ofthe murder?"
"There is an appalling directness about your questions, Watson," saidHolmes, shaking his pipe at me. "They come at me like bullets. If youput it that Mrs. Douglas and Barker know the truth about the murder,and are conspiring to conceal it, then I can give you a whole-souledanswer. I am sure they do. But your more deadly proposition is not soclear. Let us for a moment consider the difficulties which stand in theway.
"We will suppose that this couple are united by the bonds of a guiltylove, and that they have determined to get rid of the man who standsbetween them. It is a large supposition; for discreet inquiry amongservants and others has failed to corroborate it in any way. On thecontrary, there is a good deal of evidence that the Douglases were veryattached to each other."
"That, I am sure, cannot be true." said I, thinking of the beautifulsmiling face in the garden.
"Well at least they gave that impression. However, we will suppose thatthey are an extraordinarily astute couple, who deceive everyone uponthis point, and conspire to murder the husband. He happens to be a manover whose head some danger hangs--"
"We have only their word for that."
Holmes looked thoughtful. "I see, Watson. You are sketching out atheory by which everything they say from the beginning is false.According to your idea, there was never any hidden menace, or secretsociety, or Valley of Fear, or Boss MacSomebody, or anything else.Well, that is a good sweeping generalization. Let us see what thatbrings us to. They invent this theory to account for the crime. Theythen play up to the idea by leaving this bicycle in the park as proofof the existence of some outsider. The stain on the windowsill conveysthe same idea. So does the card on the body, which might have beenprepared in the house. That all fits into your hypothesis, Watson. Butnow we come on the nasty, angular, uncompromising bits which won't slipinto their places. Why a cut-off shotgun of all weapons--and anAmerican one at that? How could they be so sure that the sound of itwould not bring someone on to them? It's a mere chance as it is thatMrs. Allen did not start out to inquire for the slamming door. Why didyour guilty couple do all this, Watson?"
"I confess that I can't explain it."
"Then again, if a woman and her lover conspire to murder a husband, arethey going to advertise their guilt by ostentatiously removing hiswedding ring after his death? Does that strike you as very probable,Watson?"
"No, it does not."
"And once again, if the thought of leaving a bicycle concealed outsidehad occurred to you, would it really have seemed worth doing when thedullest detective would naturally say this is an obvious blind, as thebicycle is the first thing which the fugitive needed in order to makehis escape."
"I can conceive of no explanation."
"And yet there should be no combination of events for which the wit ofman cannot conceive an explanation. Simply as a mental exercise,without any assertion that it is true, let me indicate a possible lineof thought. It is, I admit, mere imagination; but how often isimagination the mother of truth?
"We will suppose that there was a guilty secret, a really shamefulsecret in the life of this man Douglas. This leads to his murder bysomeone who is, we will suppose, an avenger, someone from outside. Thisavenger, for some reason which I confess I am still at a loss toexplain, took the dead man's wedding ring. The vendetta mightconceivably date back to the man's first marriage, and the ring betaken for some such reason.
"Before this avenger got away, Barker and the wife had reached theroom. The assassin convinced them that any attempt to arrest him wouldlead to the publication of some hideous scandal. They were converted tothis idea, and preferred to let him go. For this purpose they probablylowered the bridge, which can be done quite noiselessly, and thenraised it again. He made his escape, and for some reason thought thathe could do so more safely on foot than on the bicycle. He thereforeleft his machine where it would not be discovered until he had gotsafely away. So far we are within the bounds of possibility, are wenot?"
"Well, it is possible, no doubt," said I, with some reserve.
"We have to remember, Watson, that whatever occurred is certainlysomething very extraordinary. Well, now, to continue our supposititiouscase, the couple--not necessarily a guilty couple--realize after themurderer is gone that they have placed themselves in a position inwhich it may be difficult for them to prove that they did notthemselves either do the deed or connive at it. They rapidly and ratherclumsily met the situation. The mark was put by Barker's bloodstainedslipper upon the window-sill to suggest how the fugitive got away. Theyobviously were the two who must have heard the sound of the gun; sothey gave the alarm exactly as they would have done, but a good halfhour after the event."
"And how do you propose to prove all this?"
"Well, if there were an outsider, he may be traced and taken. Thatwould be the most effective of all proofs. But if not--well, theresources of science are far from being exhausted. I think that anevening alone in that study would help me much."
"An evening alone!"