‘Precisely!’ said Holmes in triumph. ‘A small animal. Logic, man, logic! Oh, I grant you a giant rat might just have slain the boy – but then, it could no more have squeezed itself under the bed nor escaped by the window than I could. And no normal rodent capable of taking flight in the way you have just conjectured could ever have inflicted those teeth marks. No, Watson, instead of searching for major monstrosities, you should confine yourself, as I do, to minor oddities – such as this,’ and he drew his forefinger along one of the floorboards and held up its tip for my inspection.
‘Why,’ I said upon examining it, ‘I see nothing there.’
‘That,’ said Holmes, ‘is the minor oddity.’
*
Nearly two hours elapsed before the police arrived from Aylesbury, in the person of an Inspector Cushing, who turned out to be a genial red-haired man in his middle forties with a tendency to stoutness, and who came accompanied by two uniformed constables. Just a few minutes after that, we were all discreetly conversing in the library, Holmes, Cushing and myself standing some way apart from the members of the household staff, most of whom were gathered about the pathetic figure of Dr. Gable. The poor man, he sat still and hunched in an armchair, his head lolling limply forward over his chest like that of an unstrung marionette.
This library was a dark, splendidly-proportioned room, three of whose walls were lined with tall bookcases and the fourth dominated by a superb Adam fireplace above which had been mounted the stuffed heads of a trio of magnificently antlered Highland stags. Sprawled in front of the blazing fire, a pair of cocker-spaniel dogs, so alike one to the other as to be surely twins, mournfully contemplated their master’s distress.
Cushing, already conversant with Holmes’s exploits, was more than amenable to the prospect of my friend assisting him in his inquiries. He had heard, too, of the story of the rat as, before he decided to seek help from farther afield, it was the Aylesbury police that Dr. Gable had originally approached with his strange narrative.
‘Alas, Mr. Holmes,’ said Cushing, ‘I informed the Doctor that the matter which exercised him seemed hardly to fall under our domain. I even suggested that he send out for a rodent-killer such as are to be found in these farming areas. I realise now that I was too hasty in dismissing him and should have paid closer attention.’
‘You cannot be faulted for having failed to anticipate such a fantastical crime as this,’ answered Holmes, puffing on his briar. ‘Besides which, I categorically assure you that, until this very night, you would not have found one solitary clue as to what was about to occur.’
‘Why, Mr. Holmes,’ said Cushing, staring at him open-mouthed, ‘you are speaking as if you know exactly what lies at the heart of the mystery.’
‘Scarcely that, Inspector. Naturally, I know who killed young James Gable, but I still have a very incomplete picture as to how the thing was done and no conception at all as to why.’
‘Ah! And the rat?’ asked Cushing, his tone now inflected with a touch of sarcasm. ‘Would you be knowing where that might currently hide out?’
‘The rat?’ Holmes drawled. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’
I had been observing Holmes throughout this exchange and could not help noticing that, although he appeared to give all his attention to the Inspector, his gaze had almost imperceptibly begun to shift to some point above the other’s head.
Suddenly, his face illumined from within, he slapped the palm of his hand against his brow.
‘Blind, blind, blind!’ he exclaimed. ‘I have been here in this library for well-nigh two hours and I have observed nothing! And like every blind man I flattered myself that I was some kind of a seer. Well, now I know where the rat is!’
Once again he addressed himself to the police officer.
‘Inspector Cushing, you were good enough to express a certain respect for my past successes in the forensic sciences, were you not?’
‘That I was,’ answered the other; ‘and considerably more than “a certain respect”, I’d like to add.’
‘Then in the light of that respect will you now indulge me to the extent of lending me your carriage and one of your constables, and granting me no more than, shall we say, four hours to prove a point?’
‘Well … yes, sir, I suppose I can do that if you believe it’ll be of service to you,’ said a puzzled Cushing.
‘It will be of immeasurable service,’ said Holmes. ‘Mrs. Treadwell, if I may trouble you again,’ he called over to the housekeeper.
She appeared at once before us.
‘Please forgive me, Mrs. Treadwell, for trespassing further upon your time, but I should like to ask you two final questions.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘First, do you know the name of Dr. Gable’s solicitor?’
‘That would be Mr. Hunter, sir, of Hunter and Dove in Aylesbury.’
‘Excellent. Now – and I wish you to reflect very carefully before answering – when you returned upstairs to the attic bedroom after awakening Mary Jane, am I right in assuming that young James Gable had shed rather more blood than when you first saw him?’
The housekeeper did not wait to reflect. ‘Why yes, sir!’ she replied with a look of surprise on her corpulent features. ‘I didn’t think of it again till this very minute, but there was more blood on the poor boy’s nightshirt.’
‘Then,’ cried Holmes, ‘the problem admits of only one solution and, if I may prevail upon you now, Cushing, for the man and the carriage that you have promised me, I feel certain I shall be able to disclose it to you before tomorrow morning is out.’
*
Holmes proved to be as good as his word. It was at sunrise that he set off from the house, to return exactly as the library clock was striking the tenth hour. Followed by the constable who had accompanied him on his enigmatic excursion – and who now carried a shapeless bundle wrapped up in a linen kerchief – Holmes invited Cushing and myself to join him in the billiard-room where we would be able to talk undisturbed.
On seeing how solemn his countenance was, in a chilling contrast to the barely suppressed excitement and even jubilation which I had read on his face as he departed, I ventured to remark that he had been disappointed in his mission.
‘Au contraire, Watson,’ he answered. ‘It is only that I was so intoxicated by the thrill of the chase that I near forgot the implications of what I would uncover were I to be proved right.’
‘And,’ said the Inspector, his gruff voice betraying the profound curiosity he felt, ‘were you proved right?’
‘I was, Cushing, I was, and when you have listened to what I have to say, I do not doubt that you will at once decide to arrest Edward Gable for the murder of his half-brother James.’
The police officer was dumbfounded by this extraordinary statement, although not more so than I was myself.
‘Unfortunately,’ Holmes continued, ‘it is the very truth. And my fear is that the poor father will take it badly, this blow following so soon upon the other.’
‘Really, Holmes,’ I expostulated, ‘you owe us an explanation. For I believe I speak for Cushing here when I say that we are both utterly in the dark.’
‘And yet, Watson, it was an astute observation of yours which first put me upon the scent.’
‘Of mine?’ I echoed incredulously, for I had the impression of having contributed next to nothing to his investigation.
‘Yes, indeed. When faced with that ghoulish scene upstairs, you likened it to a stage-set, as I remember. Well, that is precisely what it was, a stage-set, a tableau vivant, very possibly inspired by those for which our Baker Street neighbour Madame Tussaud is justly famous.’