“Precisely. Unless my instincts deceive me, he was not spying on his boys—just one boy. It was Patrick Riley, who had ventured out of the sanatorium for some reason of his own. I am entirely satisfied that the lad was not contemplating suicide. Far more likely he was attempting to meet someone. Winter would give a good deal to know who—and for what purpose. And so would I.”
I thought about this for scarcely a moment before saying,
“It can’t see it, Holmes. Whether Riley was hoping to meet someone—or even commit suicide—how could Reginald Winter know in advance? As I understand it, the boy was incommunicado and he would hardly tell Winter himself. Unless he was there by pure fluke, Winter would not know what time to take up watch or even where.”
“Winter does not strike me as a man who does anything by a fluke.”
“Well, there you are. Even if he knew Riley had slipped away from the sanatorium and was running across the field, it would be far too late and much too obvious to start running after him. Winter could only spy on him at the railway bank by being in place here before him. And he could not do that unless he knew which way he was going to run and when he was going to do it. There is a hopeless inconsistency.”
“No, my dear fellow, what lies at the heart of this is a mystery. It is an article of faith in our detective agency that all mysteries have a solution.”
He was looking back towards the stretch of line running on its embankment. If anyone was going to spy, I thought, this was certainly the place from which to do it.
“We had best be getting back,” I said.
But he was still looking about him in this little enclosure. I had no idea what else he expected to find, nor, I think, did he. Presently he chuckled, relaxed and took out his pocket-knife. He was staring at an elder branch, or rather what remained of it. Someone had cut through it at a point where it was the thickness of a large thumb. The cut was recent, to judge by the light colour of the exposed wood. It suggested to me that a walker had improvised a stick for himself, perhaps in the muddy weather. The absence of wood shavings indicated that the stick had been cut to size from the bush without any immediate need for trimming or shaping.
“Goodness knows how many boys cut sticks and whittle them,” I said sceptically.
He opened his pocket-knife and cut a further length of the sapling, no more than three inches, for what good that would do. He slipped the cutting into his pocket, closed his knife and we began to walk back. Perhaps evidence of a kind against Winter had begun to accumulate in that cold rational brain. But evidence of what?
I thought we were going to walk back the way we had come, but Holmes set off on a path behind the hedge. This was parallel to the School Field though concealed from it. At the far end, a small iron gate opened into a domestic “chicken field” where St Vincent’s grew its vegetables. A further gate let us into an enclosed lawn whose door was evidently the headmaster’s direct entrance to his own quarters. A hand-bell had rung and it seemed that the “cadets” were now released from their classes. They were curiously dressed, like child sailors in their blue uniforms. A few wore a grey, braided edging to the lapels and the hems of their “Engineer” jackets.
In the corridor on which Winter’s study was located Holmes stopped again, as if to check his appearance in the hall-stand mirror, a vanity he seldom indulged. No one who saw him would have thought twice about what he was doing. Unobtrusively, he slipped his left hand into his pocket and withdrew the three-inch cutting of the elder branch. His right hand moved cautiously over the umbrella stand. Presently he relaxed and drew out a freshly-cut stick.
“I must confess that I noticed this when we came out, Watson. I have been looking for its partner ever since.”
He turned it over and joined to its end the three-inch cutting he had taken from his pocket.
It was, of course, a perfect fit.
4
Something of a change had come over Reginald Winter in the past half-hour. It was so abrupt that I wonder to this day whether he had not received a peremptory telegram or even a telephone call from Sir John Fisher. No more obstacles were put in our path. He went so far as to hint that if an interview with Cadet Porson should be necessary, he would bend the rules to allow it. Far more important, for the time being, was our first meeting with young Patrick Riley.
The sanatorium lay at the top of a winding stone staircase just above the study. It was little more than a well-lit, high-ceilinged room with a wash-room to one side. There were four beds, three of them unoccupied, and a central table with upright chairs. It appeared to be the domain of a grey-haired nurse, Sister Elliston. She seemed admirably untroubled by having as her patient one who was a condemned thief and an attempted suicide.
As we entered, Patrick Riley was sitting on his bed turning the pages of a picture magazine. His situation was not to be envied. For ten days he had been almost entirely isolated and with no idea of what was going on or what might happen to him. He was forbidden to speak to or associate with any other boy. Frankly, if he were not an attempted suicide an environment like this might go far to make him one. He got to his feet and stood at attention in his blue uniform with its tell-tale grey braiding of the Engineer Cadets.
He was indeed the lightly-built but nimble fourteen-year-old of Holmes’s description. His appearance was hardly memorable, the soft features yet to be defined by manhood. An unruly flop of fair hair was perhaps the most prominent characteristic, through not while wearing his cap. His expression was downcast, as it well might be, but he appeared and sounded apathetic rather than distressed. No doubt he believed that the worst had happened and that no one would trust his explanations. He had little emotional energy left for histrionics.
“Patrick Riley?” Holmes spoke quietly as he stepped forward and held out his hand, “I am Sherlock Holmes. It is possible you may have heard of me.”
Riley nodded and said, “Yes, sir,” only because he felt he must say something rather than nothing.
“May we sit round the table and talk?” Holmes continued courteously. “I am here at Admiral Fisher’s request to ensure that justice is done, and I fear it may not have been so far. That is all. You have nothing to fear so long as you speak the truth.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy repeated, still as if he did not care much either way. “They said you were coming.”
“I propose to see if truth is not on your side,” Holmes said more firmly, obliging Patrick Riley to recognise his presence.
“I don’t see how you can ensure anything, when all their minds are made up. How can you?”
“Because, my boy, I am Sherlock Holmes and there is very little I cannot do once I put my mind to it—and once those for whom I fight supply me with a little ammunition.”
He smiled, lifted his arm and laid it on the boy’s shoulder, shepherding him towards the table. He was not at his best with the very young, but so far he had not made an irretrievable mistake with Patrick Riley. The miniature cadet stared at him and then, to my very great relief, returned the smile, albeit half-heartedly.
So the ice was broken. I guessed there had been few smiles in the boy’s life recently. But Riley was now encouraged to see himself as the hero of his own adventure story with Sherlock Holmes at his side.
“Sit here,” said Holmes politely, drawing out a chair.
So the interview began. Riley now looked up at us with a helpless appeal.
“It was just a joke, Mr Holmes! A bit of fun!”
To my dismay, I thought Riley was about to blurt out a confession to the theft and plead that it had been a prank. So—I am sure—did my friend, from the expression on his face. “A joke” must be one of the oldest and certainly least successful defences to a charge of fraud.