“I’ll trouble you to walk out of my house, sir,” said he. “You cantell your employer, Lord Mount-James, that I do not wish to haveanything to do either with him or with his agents. No, sir—notanother word!” He rang the bell furiously. “John, show thesegentlemen out!” A pompous butler ushered us severely to the door,and we found ourselves in the street. Holmes burst out laughing.
“Dr. Leslie Armstrong is certainly a man of energy andcharacter,” said he. “I have not seen a man who, if he turns histalents that way, was more calculated to fill the gap left by theillustrious Moriarty. And now, my poor Watson, here we are,stranded and friendless in this inhospitable town, which we cannotThe Return of Sherlock Holmes 1041
leave without abandoning our case. This little inn just oppositeArmstrong’s house is singularly adapted to our needs. If you wouldengage a front room and purchase the necessaries for the night, Imay have time to make a few inquiries.”
These few inquiries proved, however, to be a more lengthyproceeding than Holmes had imagined, for he did not return tothe inn until nearly nine o’clock. He was pale and dejected, stainedwith dust, and exhausted with hunger and fatigue. A cold supperwas ready upon the table, and when his needs were satisfied andhis pipe alight he was ready to take that half comic and whollyphilosophic view which was natural to him when his affairs weregoing awry. The sound of carriage wheels caused him to rise andglance out of the window. A brougham and pair of grays, under theglare of a gas-lamp, stood before the doctor’s door.
“It’s been out three hours,” said Holmes; “started at half-pastsix, and here it is back again. That gives a radius of ten or twelvemiles, and he does it once, or sometimes twice, a day.”
“No unusual thing for a doctor in practice.”
“But Armstrong is not really a doctor in practice. He is a lecturerand a consultant, but he does not care for general practice, whichdistracts him from his literary work. Why, then, does he makethese long journeys, which must be exceedingly irksome to him,and who is it that he visits?”
“His coachman——”
“My dear Watson, can you doubt that it was to him that I firstapplied? I do not know whether it came from his own innatedepravity or from the promptings of his master, but he was rudeenough to set a dog at me. Neither dog nor man liked the lookof my stick, however, and the matter fell through. Relations werestrained after that, and further inquiries out of the question. Allthat I have learned I got from a friendly native in the yard ofour own inn. It was he who told me of the doctor’s habits and ofhis daily journey. At that instant, to give point to his words, thecarriage came round to the door.”
“Could you not follow it?”
“Excellent, Watson! You are scintillating this evening. The ideadid cross my mind. There is, as you may have observed, a bicycleshop next to our inn. Into this I rushed, engaged a bicycle, andwas able to get started before the carriage was quite out of sight.
I rapidly overtook it, and then, keeping at a discreet distance of ahundred yards or so, I followed its lights until we were clear of thetown. We had got well out on the country road, when a somewhatmortifying incident occurred. The carriage stopped, the doctoralighted, walked swiftly back to where I had also halted, and toldme in an excellent sardonic fashion that he feared the road wasnarrow, and that he hoped his carriage did not impede the passage1042 The Complete Sherlock Holmes
of my bicycle. Nothing could have been more admirable than hisway of putting it. I at once rode past the carriage, and, keepingto the main road, I went on for a few miles, and then halted in aconvenient place to see if the carriage passed. There was no signof it, however, and so it became evident that it had turned downone of several side roads which I had observed. I rode back, butagain saw nothing of the carriage, and now, as you perceive, it hasreturned after me. Of course, I had at the outset no particularreason to connect these journeys with the disappearance ofGodfrey Staunton, and was only inclined to investigate themon the general grounds that everything which concerns Dr.
Armstrong is at present of interest to us, but, now that I find hekeeps so keen a look-out upon anyone who may follow him onthese excursions, the affair appears more important, and I shallnot be satisfied until I have made the matter clear.”
“We can follow him to-morrow.”
“Can we? It is not so easy as you seem to think. You are notfamiliar with Cambridgeshire scenery, are you? It does not lenditself to concealment. All this country that I passed over to-nightas flat and clean as the palm of your hand, and the man we arefollowing is no fool, as he very clearly showed to-night. I havewired to Overton to let us know any fresh London developmentsat this address, and in the meantime we can only concentrate ourattention upon Dr. Armstrong, whose name the obliging younglady at the office allowed me to read upon the counterfoil ofStaunton’s urgent message. He knows where the young man is—tothat I’ll swear, and if he knows, then it must be our own fault if wecannot manage to know also. At present it must be admitted thatthe odd trick is in his possession, and, as you are aware, Watson, itnot my habit to leave the game in that condition.”
And yet the next day brought us no nearer to the solution ofthe mystery. A note was handed in after breakfast, which Holmespassed across to me with a smile.
Sir [it ran]: