The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes Page 6

  “In an hour?”

  Arsene Lupin took no longer to solve the problem which you put to him.”

  “I! . . . Which I put to him?”

  “Why, yes, Arsene Lupin or Velmont, it’s all the same.”

  “I thought as much . . . Oh, the rascal! . . .”

  “Well, at ten o’clock last night you supplied Lupin with the facts which he lacked, and which he had been seeking for weeks. And during the course of the night Lupin found time to grasp these facts, to collect his gang, and to rob you of your property. I propose to be no less expeditious.”

  He walked from one end of the room to the other, thinking as he went, then sat down, crossed his long legs, and closed his eyes. Devanne waited in some perplexity.

  “Is he asleep? Is he thinking?”

  In any case, he went out to give his instructions. When he returned he found the Englishman on his knees at the foot of the staircase in the gallery, exploring the carpet.

  “What is it?”

  “Look at these candle stains.”

  “I see . . . they are quite fresh . . .”

  “And you will find others at the top of the stairs, and more still around this glass case which Arsene Lupin broke open, and from which he removed the curiosities and placed them on this chair. “And what do you conclude?”

  “Nothing. All these facts would no doubt explain the restitution which he effected. But that is a side of the question which I have no time to go into. The essential thing is the map of the underground passage.”

  “You still hope . . .”

  “I don’t hope; I know. There’s a chapel at two or three hundred yards from the castle, is there not?”

  “Yes, a ruined chapel, with the tomb of Duke Rollo.”

  “Tell your chauffeur to wait near the chapel.”

  “My chauffeur is not back yet . . . They are to let me know . . . So, I see, you consider that the underground passage ends at the chapel. What indication—”

  Holmlock Shears interrupted him:

  “May I ask you to get me a ladder and a lantern?”

  “Oh, do you want a ladder and a lantern?”

  “I suppose so, or I wouldn’t ask you for them.

  Devanne, a little taken aback by this cold logic, rang the bell. The ladder and the lantern were brought.

  Orders succeeded one another with the strictness and precision of military commands:

  “Put the ladder against the bookcase, to the left of the word Thibermesnil . . .”

  Devanne did as he was asked, and the Englishman continued: “More to the left . . . to the right . . . Stop! . . . Go up . . . Good . . . The letters are all in relief, are they not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Catch hold of the letter H, and tell me whether it turns in either direction.”

  Devanne grasped the letter H, and exclaimed:

  “Yes, it turns! A quarter of a circle to the right! How did you discover that? . . .”

  Shears, without replying, continued:

  “Can you reach the letter R from where you stand? Yes . . . Move it about, as you would a bolt which you were pushing or drawing.” Devanne moved the letter R. To his great astonishment, something became unlatched inside.

  “Just so,” said Holmlock Shears, “All that you now have to do is to push your ladder to the other end; that is to say, to the end of the word Thibermesnil . . . Good . . . Now, if I am not mistaken, if things go as they should, the letter L will open like a shutter.” With a certain solemnity, Devanne took hold of the letter L. The letter L opened, but Devanne tumbled off his ladder, for the whole section of the bookcase between the first and last letters of the word swung round upon a pivot and disclosed the opening of the tunnel. Holmlock Shears asked, phlegmatically:

  “Have you hurt yourself?”

  “No, no,” said Devanne, scrambling to his feet. “I’m not hurt, but flurried, I admit . . . Those moving letters . . . that yawning tunnel . . .”

  “And what then? Doesn’t it all fit in exactly with the Sully quotation?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Why, l’H tournoiey l’R fremit, et l’L s’ouvre . . .”[17]

  “But what about Louis XVI?”

  “Louis XVI was a really capable locksmith. I remember reading a Treatise on Combination-locks which was ascribed to him. On the part of a Thibermesnil, it would be an act of good courtiership to show his sovereign this masterpiece of mechanics. By the way of a memorandum, the king wrote down 2-6-12—that is to say, the second, sixth, and twelfth letters of the word: H, R, L.”

  “Oh, of course . . . I am beginning to understand . . . Only, look here . . . I can see how you get out of this room, but I can’t see how Lupin got in; for, remember, he came from the outside.”

  Holmlock Shears lit the lantern, and entered the underground passage.

  “Look, you can see the whole mechanism here, like the works of a watch, and all the letters are reversed. Lupin, therefore, had only to move them from this side of the wall.”

  “What proof have you?”

  “What proof? Look at this splash of oil. He even foresaw that the wheels would need greasing,” said Shears, not without admiration. “Then he knew the other outlet?”

  “Just as I know it. Follow me.”

  “Into the underground passage?”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “No; but are you sure you can find your way?”

  “I’ll find it with my eyes shut.”

  They first went down twelve steps, then twelve more, and again twice twelve more. Then they passed through a long tunnel whose brick walls showed traces of successive restorations, and oozed, in places, with moisture. The ground underfoot was damp.

  “We are passing under the pond,” said Devanne, who felt far from comfortable.

  The tunnel ended in a flight of twelve steps, followed by three other flights of twelve steps each, which they climbed with difficulty, and they emerged in a small hollow hewn out of the solid rock. The way did not go any farther.

  “Hang it all!” muttered Holmlock Shears. “Nothing but bare walls. This is troublesome.”

  “Suppose we go back,” suggested Devanne, “for I don’t see the use of learning any more. I have seen all I want to.”

  But on raising his eyes the Englishman gave a sigh of relief: above their heads the same mechanism was repeated as at the entrance. He had only to work the three letters. A block of granite turned on a pivot. On the other side it formed Duke Rollo’s tombstone, carved with the twelve letters in relief, Thibermesnil. And they found themselves in the little ruined chapel of which Holmlock Shears had spoken.

  “ ‘And you go to God’ . . . that is to say, to the chapel,” said Shears, quoting the end of the sentence.

  “Is it possible—” cried Devanne, amazed at the other’s perspicacity and keenness—for it possible that this simple clue told you all that you wanted to know?”

  “Tush!” said the Englishman. “It was even superfluous. In the copy belonging to the Bibliothèque Nationale the drawing of the tunnel ends on the left, as you know, in a circle, and on the right, as you do not know, in a little cross, which is so faintly marked that it can only be seen through a magnifying glass. This cross obviously points to the chapel.”

  Poor Devanne could not believe his Tears.

  “It’s wonderful, marvelous, and just as simple as A B C! How is it that the mystery was never seen through?”

  “Because nobody ever united the three or four necessary elements; that is to say, the two books and the quotations . . . nobody, except Arsene Lupin and myself.”

  “But-I also,” said Devanne, “and the Abbe Gelis . . . we both of us knew as much about it as you, and yet . . .”

  Shears smiled.

  “Monsieur Devanne, it is not given to all the world to succeed in solving riddles.”

  “But I have been hunting for ten years. And you, in ten minutes . . .”

  “Pooh! It’s a matter of habit.”


  They walked out of the chapel, and the Englishman exclaimed. “Hullo, a motorcar waiting!”

  “Why, it’s mine!”

  “Yours? But I thought the chauffeur hadn’t returned?”

  “No more he had . . . I can’t make out . . .”

  They went up to the car, and Devanne said to the chauffeur: “Victor, who told you to come here?”

  “Monsieur Velmont, sir,” replied the man.

  “Monsieur Velmont? Did you meet him?”

  “Yes, sir, near the station, and he told me to go to the chapel.”

  “To go to the chapel! What for?”

  “To wait for you, sir . . . and your friend.”

  Devanne and Holmlock Shears exchanged glances. Devanne said: “He saw that the riddle would be child’s play to you. He has paid you a delicate compliment.”

  A smile of satisfaction passed over the detective’s thin lips. The compliment pleased him. He jerked his head and said:

  “He’s a man, that! I took his measure the moment I saw him.”

  “So you’ve seen him?”

  “We crossed on my way here.”

  “And you knew that he was Horace Velmont—I mean to say, Arsene Lupin?”

  “No, but it did not take me long to guess as much . . . from a certain irony in his talk.”

  “And you let him escape?”

  “I did . . . although I had only to put out my hand . . . five gendarmes rode past us.”

  “But, bless my soul, you’ll never get an opportunity like that again . . .”

  “Just so, Monsieur Devanne,” said the Englishman, proudly. “When Holmlock Shears has to do with an adversary like Arsene Lupin, he does not take opportunities . . . he creates them . . .”

  But time was pressing, and as Lupin had been so obliging as to send the motor, Devanne and Shears settled themselves in their seats. Victor started the engine, and they drove off. Fields, clumps of trees sped past. The gentle undulations of the Caux country leveled out before them. Suddenly Devanne’s eyes were attracted to a little parcel in one of the carriage pockets.

  “Hullo! What’s this? A parcel! Whom for? Why, it’s for you!”

  “For me?”

  “Read for yourself: Holmlock Shears, Esq., from Arsene Lupin!” The Englishman took the parcel, untied the string, and removed the two sheets of paper in which it was wrapped. It was a watch.

  “Oh!” he said, accompanying his exclamation with an angry gesture . . .

  “A watch,” said Devanne. “Can he have . . .”

  The Englishman did not reply.

  “What! It’s your watch? Is Arsene Lupin returning you your watch? Then he must have taken it! . . . He must have taken your watch! Oh, this is too good! Holmlock Shears’s watch spirited away by Arsene Lupin! Oh, this is too funny for words! No, upon my honor . . . you must excuse me . . . I can’t help laughing!”

  He laughed till he cried, utterly unable to restrain himself. When he had done, he declared, in a tone of conviction:

  “Yes, he’s a man, as you said.”

  The Englishman did not move a muscle. With his eyes fixed on the fleeting horizon he spoke not a word until they reached Dieppe, His silence was terrible, unfathomable, more violent than the fiercest fury. On the landing stage he said simply, this time without betraying any anger, but in a tone that revealed all the iron will and energy of his remarkable personality:

  “Yes, he’s a man, and a man on whose shoulder I shall have great pleasure in laying this hand with which I now grasp yours, Monsieur Devanne. And I have an idea, mark you, that Arsene Lupin and Holmlock Shears will meet again someday . . . Yes, the world is too small for them not to meet . . . And when they do . . .”

  THE ADVENTURE OF

  THE CLOTHES-LINE

  by CAROLYN WELLS

  “The Adventure of the Clothes-line” first appeared in “The Century” issue of May 1915—but to the best of your Editors’ knowledge this is the first time Carolyn Wells’s parody has ever been published in book form.

  Holmes is depicted as the president—who would challenge his right?—of the Society of Infallible Detectives. If you will look at the frontispiece of this volume, which served as one of the original illustrations in “The Century” magazine, you will see Holmes literally towering above his colleagues—The Thinking Machine, Raffles, M. Lecoq, and others—perfect symbolism on the part of that great Sherlockian artist, Frederic Dorr Steele.

  Shortly after the death of Carolyn Wells, a large part of her library was sent to the Parke-Bernet Galleries of New York City for auction. Through the kindness of Mr. Alfred Goldsmith, the eminent bookseller (and one of Carolyn Wells’s most intimate friends), and Messrs. Swann and Gaffney of the Galleries, your Editors were permitted to examine the Wellsian books before they were catalogued.

  It was a remarkable experience, this browsing among a lifetime of books, each touched with the memory of one of America’s most prolific detective story writers. There was almost a complete collection of Carolyn Wells’s own works—numbering 170-odd different titles! Through the further kindness of Mary O’Connell, to whom this portion of Miss Wells’s library was willed, your Editors were permitted to buy certain books in advance of the auction. Those are prized books now—a first edition of Rodrigues Ottolenguis final proof (New York, Putnam, 1898), a first edition of Jacques Futrelle’s the thinking machine on the case (New York., Appleton, 1905), and a few English anthologies.

  Later during the auction, Mr. Goldsmith successfully bid in for your Editors on a copy of Poe’s tai.es (London, Wiley & Putnam, 1845)—a rare and important book, in the original cloth, enclosed in a morocco slipcase, and enhanced by one of Carolyn Wells’s charming and ironic bookplates. But we have strayed off the main road into bibliobypaths . . .

  Passing from book to book, opening an occasional volume and dipping like bees into its honey, your Editors were deeply impressed by the catholicity and vigor of Miss Wells’s literary taste. Certain deductions were obvious—or, shall we say, elementary? That Miss Wells loved the excitement of life on the printed page was all too clear—her favorite books were by Walt Whitman and Herman Melville; but judging front the treasured Conan Doyle volumes which she kept throughout her life, she must always have had a warm spot in her affections for that towering figure of a man, Sherlock Holmes.

  The members of the Society of Infallible Detectives were just sitting around and being socially infallible, in their rooms in Fakir Street, when President Holmes strode in. He was much saturniner than usual, and the others at once deduced there was something toward.

  “And it’s this,” said Holmes, perceiving that they had perceived it. “A reward is offered for the solution of a great mystery—so great, my colleagues, that I fear none of you will be able to solve it, or even to help me in the marvelous work I shall do when ferreting it out.”

  “Humph!” grunted the Thinking Machine, riveting his steel-blue eyes upon the speaker.

  “He voices all our sentiments,” said Raffles, with his winning smile. “Fire away, Holmes. What’s the problem?”

  “To explain a most mysterious proceeding down on the East Side.” Though a tall man, Holmes spoke shortly, for he was peeved at the inattentive attitude of his collection of colleagues. But of course he still had his Watson, so he put up with the indifference of the rest of the cold world.

  “Aren’t all proceedings down on the East Side mysterious?” asked Arsene Lupin, with an aristocratic look.

  Holmes passed his brow wearily under his hand.

  “Inspector Spyer,” he said, “was riding on the Elevated Road—one of the small numbered Avenues—when, as he passed a tenement-house district, he saw a clothes-line strung from one high window to another across a courtyard.”

  “Was it Monday?” asked the Thinking Machine, who for the moment was thinking he was a washing machine.

  “That doesn’t matter. About the middle of the line was suspended—”

  “By clothes-pins?” asked two or three of the
Infallibles at once. “Was suspended a beautiful woman.”

  “Hanged?”

  “No. Do listen!” She hung by her hands, and was evidently trying to cross from one house to the other. By her exhausted and agonized face, the inspector feared she could not hold on much longer. He sprang from his seat to rush to her assistance, but the train had already started, and he was too late to get off.”

  “What was she doing there?”

  “Did she fall?”

  “What did she look like?” and various similar nonsensical queries fell from the lips of the great detectives.

  “Be silent, and I will tell you all the known facts. She was a society woman, it is clear, for she was robed in a chiffon evening gown, one of those roll-top things. She wore rich jewelry and dainty slippers with jeweled buckles. Her hair, unloosed from its moorings, hung in heavy masses far down her back.”

  “How extraordinary! What does it all mean?” asked M. Dupin, ever straightforward of speech.

  “I don’t know yet,” answered Holmes, honestly. “I’ve studied the matter only a few months. But I will find out, if I have to raze the whole tenement block. There must be a clue somewhere.”

  “Marvelous! Holmes, marvelous!” said a phonograph in the corner, which Watson had fixed up, as he had to go out.

  “The police have asked us to take up the case and have offered a reward for its solution. Find out who was the lady, what she was doing, and why she did it.”

  “Are there any clues?” asked M. Vidocq, while M. Lecoq said simultaneously, “Any footprints?”

  “There is one footprint; no other clue.”

  “Where is the footprint?”

  “On the ground, right under where the lady was hanging.”

  “But you said the rope was high from the ground.”

  “More than a hundred feet.”

  “And she stepped down and made a single footprint. Strange! Quite strange!” and the Thinking Machine shook his yellow old head.

  “She did nothing of the sort,” said Holmes, petulantly. “If you fellows would listen, you might hear something. The occupants of the tenement houses have been questioned. But, as it turns out, none of them chanced to be at home at the time of the occurrence. There was a parade in the next street, and they had all gone to see it.”