A girl calls on Sherlock Holmes in great
distress. A murder has been committed in her village - her uncle has
been found shot in his bedroom, apparently through the open window.
Her lover has been arrested. He is suspected on several grounds:
(1) He has had a violent quarrel with the old man,
who has threatened to alter his will, which is in the girl's favour, if she
ever speaks to her lover again.
(2) A revolver has been found in his house, with
his initials scratched on the butt and one chamber discharged. The bullet
found in the dead man's body fits this revolver.
(3) He possesses a light ladder, the only one in
the village, and there are marks of the foot of such a ladder on the soil
below the bedroom window, while similar soil (fresh) has been found on the
feet of the ladder.
His only reply is that he
never possessed a revolver, and that it has been discovered in a drawer
of the hatstand in his hall, where it would be easy for anyone to place
it. As for the mould on the ladder (which he has not used for a month)
he has no explanation whatever.
Notwithstanding these damning
proofs, however, the girl persists in believing her lover to be perfectly
innocent, while she suspects another man, who has also been making love
to her, though she has no evidence whatever against him, except that she
feels by instinct that he is a villain who would stick at nothing.
Sherlock and Watson go down
to the village and inspect the spot, together with the detective in charge
of the case. The marks of the ladder attract Holmes's special attention.
He ponders - looks about him - inquires if there is any place where anything
bulky could be concealed. There is - a disused well, which has not
been searched because apparently nothing is missing. Sherlock, however,
insists on the well being explored. A village boy consents to be
lowered into it, with a candle. Before he goes down Holmes whispers
something in his ear - he appears surpised. The boy is lowered and,
on his signal, pulled up again. He brings to the surface a pair of stilts!
"Good Lord!" cries the detective,
"who on earth could have expected this?" - "I did," replies Holmes.
- "But, why?" - "Because the marks on the garden soil were made by two
perpendicular poles - the feet of a ladder, which is on the slope, would
have made depressions slanting towards the wall."
(N.B. The soil was a strip beside a gravel path
on which the stilts left no impression.)
This discovery lessened the weight of the evidence
of the ladder, though the other evidence remained.
The next step was to trace
the user of the stilts, if possible. But he had been to wary, and
after two days nothing had been discovered. At the inquest the young
man was found guilty of murder. But, Holmes is convinced of his innocence.
In these circumstances, and as a last hope, he resolves on a sensational stratagem.
He goes up to London, and,
returning on the evening of the day when the old man is buried, he and
Watson and the detective go to the cottage of the man whom the girl suspects,
taking with them a man whom Holmes has brought from London, who has a disguise
which makes him the living image of the murdered man, wizened body, grey
shriveled face, skullcap and all. They have also with them the pair
of stilts. On reaching the cottage, the disguised man mounts the
stilts and stalks up the path towards the man's open bedroom window, at
the same time crying out his name in a ghastly sepulchral voice.
The man, who is already half mad with guilty terrors, rushes to the window
and beholds in the moonlight the terrific spectacle of his victim stalking
towards him. He reels back with a scream as the apparition, advancing
to the window, calls in the same unearthly voice - "as you came for me,
I have come for you!" When the party rush upstairs into his room
he darts to them, clinging to them, gasping, and, pointing to the window,
where the dead man's face is glaring in, shrieks out, "Save me! My
God! He has come for me as I came for him."
Collapsing after this dramatic
scene, he makes a full confession. He has marked the revolver, and
concealed it where it was found - he has also smeared the ladder-foot with
soil from the old man's garden. His object was to put his rival out
of the way, in the hope of gaining possession of the girl and her money. |