The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories (82 page)

“And you do not propose to inform her who I am?” queried Combs.

“Not just yet, old friend,” I replied. Combs shrugged his shoulders.

“
Comme vous voulez
,” he replied in an irreproachable accent. “You married men are much to be admired.”

Then, dropping on his knees, he whipped out his tape measure and a large square magnifying glass.

“The
mise-en-scène
has not been touched since last night,” I said. “There is the desk, and that is the table.” And I pointed to the pieces of furniture in question.

“I wonder!” said Combs to himself, as he ceased for a moment crawling about the floor on all fours in order to draw a large note of interrogation in his note-book.

“Ha!” he suddenly exclaimed, with his eyes nearly on the carpet. “Fresh mud.”

“I don't know how it can have come there,” I said guiltily. “I took off my boots before dinner last night, and did not come into this room until after.”

“You must have brought it back with you when you returned from the Duke of Edinburgh,” said Combs, with a piercing glance.

I hung my head in silence.

His investigations concluded, Combs dropped into an armchair, and, lighting his pipe, was soon shrouded in thick smoke.

Suddenly he sprang up, walked across the room to the telephone, and made a noise like a telephone-bell.

“Go and tell your wife,” he said, “that a friend whose name you were unable to catch has rung up and wants her to go round immediately on urgent private business.”

I went and found my wife, and repeated Combs's message to her.

“Has she gone yet?” Combs asked eagerly on my return. “I want to examine the house.”

“I'm afraid not,” I replied. “She asked me how she was to know where to go if I hadn't caught the name of her would-be hostess.”

“Bah!” hissed Combs. “You always bungle everything. I must proceed upon my usual plan of examination.

“If I run into your wife I shall repeat to her your absurd yarn about me being the plumber, and add that you have called me in to see the windpipes which you suspect of having developed a leak. Mind you support me in any questions you are asked.” And before I had time to nod assent he had left the room.

I picked up a novel and tried to read, but I found my mind reverting to my tragic carelessness in having allowed my friend's precious documents to be stolen. I cursed the day I was born, the day I was introduced to Combs, the day my wife became a vegetarian, and, because it happened to be the same day, the day I first tasted alcoholic liquor.

I believe I must have dropped off to sleep, for I awoke to find Combs standing beside me. I could see at once that he had learnt nothing by his tour of the house.

“I should say from the dust that none of the windows or the back door have been opened for a twelvemonth,” he said wearily.

“It would be about that time,” I replied, “since the maids left.”

Combs towered above me, lost in thought, his chin sunk upon his breast.

“I will not be baffled,” he exclaimed suddenly. “It would be ill-fortune,” he went on, “if, after years spent successfully solving the solutions of others, I were to fail upon the most important and intricate case I have ever had to deal with, particularly when it affects me personally.”

At that moment my wife knocked at the door.

“The postman has just left a card for you,” she said.

“Grocers and butchers I can understand,” said Combs, “but I do not quite realise the value of being upon visiting terms with your postman.”

“Put it under the door, please,” I cried. And I leant down and picked up a postcard addressed to me, and which I read aloud to Combs. It ran as follows:

“Messrs. Emess and Script present their compliments to Mr. Whatson, and beg to inform him that an empty and unstamped foolscap envelope, addressed in his handwriting, was taken in by their office boy this morning, and the necessary surcharge postage paid thereon. They will be obliged if Mr. Whatson will kindly remit them threepence to cover this expenditure, or are prepared, if so desired, to debit it on Mr. Whatson's royalty account.”

“Do you think it is genuine?” I asked, handing it across to Combs, who took it and studied it minutely through his glass.

“Undoubtedly,” he replied.

“Then what do you make of it?” I queried.

Combs did not reply for a minute. Then he said, “I can imagine that the thief wished to rid himself of the valueless part of his booty at the earliest possible moment, and as he didn't know what to do with the envelope, he crossed the road and posted it.”

“It sounds feasible,” I said.

Combs flashed an angry glance at me.

“If you know of a better detective, you'd better go to him,” he said. “You know that I know that you know that you cannot know of a better one, since none better exists.”

I began to apologise. But Combs stopped me with another of his imperative gestures and rose.

“It's gone twelve o'clock,” he said. “Do you turn to the right or the left for the Duke of Edinburgh? I want to measure the distance,” he added.

I gave him the necessary directions, and ventured to add a warning as to certain drinks sold there which experience has taught me to avoid.

“Many thanks,” said Combs. “Come and see me at seven o'clock this evening. I hope to have solved the problem.” And he was gone.

I sat down and tried to think. I was in possession of all the facts, but could make nothing of them; while Combs, with the same facts, would, I felt happily sure, regain possession of the lost papers.

After some twenty minutes I gave up thinking in despair, and, slipping my revolver into my pocket, and telling my wife that I might not be home that night, I went off to the bedside of a patient who had been dying for the last three days, and who, I felt, might think he was being neglected.

I happily found him none the worse for my absence, but, owing to his insisting upon reading through his will to me before he would ask me to witness his signature thereto, it was nearer 7:15 than 7 o'clock when I knocked at Combs's door.

A young and fashionably-dressed lady, whose features seemed strangely familiar to me, was sitting in Combs's chair, smoking a pipe, and I was just about to withdraw an apology, when a sudden lifting of the eyebrow recalled her face to my recollection.

“Good evening, Miss Combs!” I said. “I assume your brother has not yet arrived home. May I come in and wait?”

“Mine name is Kammerad,” said the lady. “I for Herr Combs on pizziness wait.”

I judged from her accent that the lady was a German, a nation I had always disliked, and I decided that I would rather vait—I mean wait—for my friend in the street.

I was half-way down the stairs when a voice from upstairs called, “Herr Vatson! Herr Vatson!”

I returned to the room.

“Well?” I said testily.

“Don't you me know?” asked the lady, with a smile that was intended to be ingratiating.

“I haven't the pleasure,” I said dryly.

“Then you ought to,” said Combs in his ordinary voice, for it was he.

I expressed my admiration, and could not help reflecting, as I had many times reflected before, upon the genius of my friend. Not only was he a perfect past master in the art of making up, but he was able to throw himself into the character he impersonated with such success that even I, who knew him perhaps better than any other living soul, was unable to penetrate his disguise. The cinema-loving public lost a rare treat when Combs decided that he would not act for the films.

Combs chuckled.

“I am glad to find that I have not lost all my old powers,” he said.

“Have you found the papers?” I asked anxiously.

“No,” he replied, “but you will be glad to hear that your wife had not got them.”

“How do you know that?” I cried in astonishment.

“I visited her in this disguise this afternoon,” he replied, “and, telling her that I had been sent by a registry office, applied for the position of
cook-parlour-maid. Fortunately, she shares your dislike for Germans, and my application was refused.”

I suppose I showed all too clearly my disappointment at his failure to recover the papers.

“Cheer up,” said Coombs, though the tone in which he said it was anything but cheering. “I am expecting the papers here at any moment.”

I confess that at the time I thought that he only said it to buck me up.

“How, when, and where?” I cried excitedly.

“Ah-ha!” replied Combs mysteriously.

At that moment there was a knock at the front door.

“A visitor during the dinner-hour!” ejaculated Combs in surprise. “It must be something important.”

“But you have just told me that you are expecting the papers,” I said.

“How silly of me! Of course I did,” replied Combs. “I had forgotten it for the moment.”

The knock was repeated upon the door of the room.

“Come in!” said Combs.

A postman opened the door and inquired, “Mr. Combs in?”

“Yes,” said Combs.

“Beggin' your pardon missie, but it's Mr. Combs as I want.”

“It's all right, postman,” said Combs, laughing, as he pulled off his wig.

“Oh, I beg your honour's pardon,” said the man. “I didn't recognise you in them joy rags of yourn. One shilling to pay,” he added, holding out a bulky-looking envelope.

“I never dispense charity at the door,” said Combs, waving it aside.

“Do you formally refuse to take it?” queried the man.

“What is it?” parried Combs.

“ 'Ere you are, you can see for yourself. It's a handstamped letter. You was hout the hother two hoccasions I called tod'y, an' I couldn't leave it,” replied the postman, his veneer of education wearing off in his excitement.

Combs took the proffered packet, and as he saw it a look of blank astonishment stole over his face.

“It's worth risking,” he muttered, as he handed the postman a shilling.

He tore open the envelope, and glanced rapidly at its contents.

“Catch!” he cried, with a sigh of relief, tossing the envelope over to me. “There are your valuable papers. Mind you take more care of them in the future.”

It was true. Not a paper was missing, and the envelope was the identical one I had myself addressed to Combs the previous evening.

I dropped on my knees at Combs's feet, and kissed his hands in gratitude.

“How did you manage it?” I gasped. But Combs waived the question aside.

“Leave me now,” he said. “I'm very tired, and I think I'll go to bed. Come round tomorrow morning, and I'll have an explan—and I'll explain it to you.” And he yawned.

I placed the precious packet securely in the inner lining of my waistcoat, and with reiterated thanks went home to bed and to sleep for the first time for two nights.

On the following morning I found Combs at breakfast, in a curiously shaped dressing gown of many colours. He had deep black lines under his eyes, which told me, as a medical man, quite clearly of the sleepless night he had spent pondering over the intricacies of some recent case, no doubt.

“You want to know how I found the papers,” he said. “I will tell you. I have been thinking about it all night. It was really very simple when once I satisfied myself that no one could have entered the house while you were out. You will recollect that you confirmed my suspicions that none of the windows or the back door had been opened for several months. And, indeed, anyone jumping out of your study window must have inevitably broken his neck in falling into the area below. There was nobody there yesterday morning, because I looked, and I learnt from inquiry at the local police-station that none had been removed during the night.

“These facts established, I felt confident that no burglary had been committed, and as you have no maids, and I had myself ascertained that your wife was quite innocent, I was driven to the conclusion that
you took the papers out of the study yourself.”

“Me!” I cried, forgetting my grammar again in my excitement.

“You,” said Combs. “It is clear to me that before leaving the room for the Duke of Edinburgh you stuffed the papers into one of the envelopes, thought of putting them away for safety, but realised that you hardly had the time to put them away and lock up your desk again, and you dashed out with the envelopes in one of your hands—I am not sure which.

“On closing the front door you found yourself on the doorstep with the envelopes in your hand, and subconsciously assumed that you had come out to post the letters, so you crossed the road and slipped them into the pillar-box. Then when you found yourself on the doorstep again, and felt in your pocket for your latchkey you found your flask, and, forgetting in your excitement all about your little trip to the pillar-box, you dashed off to the Duke of Edinburgh.

“To be honest, and so prevent you from running away with the idea that I solved the problem by deduction alone, and without the aid of clues, I ought to mention that the mud on your study carpet set me wondering. There is no mud between here and the Duke of Edinburgh, and you remember
coming straight back
. You made no mention, however, of having
gone straight there
, and when I saw the muddy state of the road between your front door and the pillar-box, I felt that I was on the right track, and the publishers' postcard helped me farther.

“I think that's about all there is to it, except to say that to go round to the local post-office and inquire the time of the next delivery was but the work of five minutes, or, rather, would have been had I not been kept waiting fifty minutes for an answer to my query.”

“Combs,” I cried enthusiastically, seizing both his hands in mine, “you are really wonderful! How can I show my gratitude?”