attention to him. In the second place, to repeatedly appear at the station in ordinary garb and in London in a more peculiar form, might eventually draw the attention of someone who would wonder what he is about.’
He took his cigarette case from his pocket and offered it across. ‘I entirely agree with you, Watson, that the man has a bolthole somewhere in London. If he did not flee there when I followed him, it was because he did not wish to run the risk of me knowing where it is. He was safe in fleeing to Burriwell, because he knew that Miss Wortley-Swan would support him in the face of any enquiry I made - as she has done.’
‘Then you propose to seek his London pied-a-terre?’ I said, delighted that for once I had come to the right conclusion.
‘Certainly,’ he said, ‘but before that there are other measures to be taken, and, like you, there is still a matter which perplexes me.’
‘What matter is that?’ I asked.
‘While we are agreed that there is some unrevealed purpose in the connection between Gregorieff and his employer, I have not the least indication of where that purpose lies, Watson.’
He emphasized his remark by rapping his stick on the carriage floor, then stared thoughtfully out of the window, remaining silent until we reached Victoria. At the cab rank I was surprised when Holmes turned aside, leaving me to travel home to Baker Street alone.
‘You go on, Watson,’ he said. ‘There are arrangements which I must make.’
It was some time before he rejoined me at our lodgings, but his manner had that lightness which I had learnt to interpret as a sign of progress in his enquiry. We passed a pleasant dinner and he would, no doubt, have continued in the same mood, but for the arrival of a messenger from Mycroft‘’s
department.
The courier had brought the official file on the murder of Captain Parkes, and initially Holmes fell upon it eagerly. However, as he leafed through its many pages, he began to emit snorts of impatience and muttered comments.
‘Useless!’ he exclaimed, flinging the folder to the floor and reaching for his pipe. ‘They are worse than Scotland Yard. They have overlooked absolutely everything that might have been of importance.’
The French police?‘ I asked.
‘Indeed,’ said Holmes. ‘But our own investigators were as bad.’
‘Were they not Scotland Yarders?’ I enquired.
‘No!’ he said. ‘They might have been bad enough, but Mycroft’‘s underlings did not wish to embarrass the Paris police, so they sent only a retired officer to discuss the case with the French. He confined himself to reading the statements taken by the French and listening to their opinions, and came back to recommend that their conclusions be accepted - that it was a random killing by street bandits.’
‘Are there indications that it was not?’ I asked.
‘Consider, Watson. Captain Parkes was a fit young man and, having been to a diplomatic ball, was dressed in the more than ordinately decorative formal uniform of his rank and regiment. Why on earth would a street bandit risk an encounter with a man whose uniform proclaimed him as skilled in fighting?’
‘No,’ I agreed. ‘I imagine that they would avoid such a man.’
‘Precisely, Watson! Street garrotters in any city are cowardly vermin who prey upon the weak and unwary.’
‘Was he, perhaps, drunk?’ I hazarded.
‘It is in the highest degree unlikely,’ said Holmes. ‘He had attended an important diplomatic ball as escort to his newly acquired fiancee and had been in the presence of his superiors.’
‘Nevertheless, he may have been,’ I persisted. ‘I was a young officer myself once. I am not forgetful of their capabilities for foolish conduct.’
‘Ah!’ he said. ‘I always forget your illustrious military career, Watson. Can you recall, from your experience, a captain becoming seriously inebriated in the presence of his fiancee and his superiors at an important function?’
‘Well, no,’ I said, after a moment’s thought. ‘There was the occasion when Lieutenant Harrington misbehaved himself at Aldershot.’
‘A lieutenant,’ interjected Holmes. ‘Was he with his fiancee or any other lady?’
‘Well, no, but…’
‘Was he observed by his superiors?’ demanded Holmes.
‘Well, no, but…’
He flung up an imperious hand. ‘Enough!’ he said. ‘You make my point.’
He drummed his fingers impatiently on the arm of his chair. ‘Not only,’ he said, ‘does Mycroft’s file contain nothing that will assist in my investigation, there is one piece of information which indicates a considerable obstacle.’
‘What is that?’ I enquired.
‘There was a Captain Wilmshaw in Paris at the time, a friend of the murdered man. He was the man who identified the body. There is a statement from Wilmshaw in the file. It is completely useless. It merely sets out that he was an old friend of the dead man, that he was present at the ball and saw Parkes there with his fiancee, and recalls the time at which Parkes and Miss Wortley-Swan left. He says that he shared digs in Paris with Parkes and that he became concerned when Parkes failed to come home that night. After the ball he never saw his friend again until he was taken to the mortuary to identify his remains.’
‘You would have wished to question this man, I imagine, about Parkes’ mood, his associates, events at the ball and so on.’
‘Very good, Watson. That is exactly so.’
‘But is he not now available? Is he dead?’
‘He might as well be,’ said Holmes bitterly. ‘Mycroft has appended a note to the file to say that Wilmshaw is now a colonel and has been serving in the Sudan, where he remains.’
He drummed his fingers once more, then broke out again. ‘If I had been consulted at the time, Watson, there are two people that I would have wished to question very closely -Captain Wilmshaw and Miss Wortley-Swan. The French police - no doubt in a demonstration of French romantic delicacy -did not even question Miss Wortley-Swan! The fools!’
‘Surely that is understandable,’ I suggested.
‘Understandable?’ he snarled. ‘It is nothing less than crass incompetence! They allowed the lady to tell them - through the British Embassy - the time and address at which she and
Captain Parkes parted and that he intended to walk home because it was a fine night. She had been with him all evening, she was the last person known to have seen him alive and the idiots did not question her!‘
He prodded the scattered file with a contemptuous foot. ‘Worthless!’ he snorted. ‘Worthless!’
I recalled Agatha Wortley-Swan as I had first seen her, in her photographs and engravings of twenty years before. ‘She was a very beautiful young woman,’ I said, ‘who had just suffered a calamitous loss.
I imagine that they did not wish to press her.’
‘Press her?’ he repeated. ‘They never even spoke to her, Watson. How often have you and I had to deal with those in grief and press them for facts which will help us to reveal the truth? In the immediate aftermath of murder it is necessary to treat every witness as a potential killer, not least those whose relationship with the victim was a close one.’
‘You are not suggesting,’ I said, genuinely shocked, ‘that the French police should have treated Miss Wortley-Swan as a suspect, surely?’
‘Why not?’ he said. ‘Why not? On the material assembled in their inadequate enquiry it would be possible to base a theory that the lady had taken some extreme exception to marrying Captain Parkes but did not wish to be seen to break off their engagement. Ergo, she paid a gang of street assassins to murder him.’
‘But you cannot possibly believe that, Holmes!’
‘Of course not, Watson. I was merely demonstrating what I have remarked to you before - that, where the data is inadequate, almost any theory may be erected without contradiction. If only my confounded brother had called me in at the time!’