“Before examining the room I cross-questioned the servants,but only succeeded in eliciting the facts which I have alreadystated. One other detail of interest was remembered by JaneStewart, the housemaid. You will remember that on hearing thesound of the quarrel she descended and returned with the otherservants. On that first occasion, when she was alone, she says thatthe voices of her master and mistress were sunk so low that shecould hear hardly anything, and judged by their tones rather thantheir words that they had fallen out. On my pressing her, however,she remembered that she heard the word ‘David’ uttered twiceby the lady. The point is of the utmost importance as guiding ustowards the reason of the sudden quarrel. The colonel’s name, youremember, was James.
“There was one thing in the case which had made the deepestimpression both upon the servants and the police. This was thecontortion of the Colonel’s face. It had set, according to theiraccount, into the most dreadful expression of fear and horrorMemoirs of Sherlock Holmes 767
which a human countenance is capable of assuming. More thanone person fainted at the mere sight of him, so terrible was theeffect. It was quite certain that he had foreseen his fate, and thatit had caused him the utmost horror. This, of course, fitted in wellenough with the police theory, if the colonel could have seen hiswife making a murderous attack upon him. Nor was the fact ofthe wound being on the back of his head a fatal objection to this,as he might have turned to avoid the blow. No information couldbe got from the lady herself, who was temporarily insane from anacute attack of brain-fever.
“From the police I learned that Miss Morrison, who youremember went out that evening with Mrs. Barclay, denied havingany knowledge of what it was which had caused the ill-humor inwhich her companion had returned.
“Having gathered these facts, Watson, I smoked several pipesover them, trying to separate those which were crucial from otherswhich were merely incidental. There could be no question that themost distinctive and suggestive point in the case was the singulardisappearance of the door-key. A most careful search had failed todiscover it in the room. Therefore it must have been taken fromit. But neither the Colonel nor the Colonel’s wife could have takenit. That was perfectly clear. Therefore a third person must haveentered the room. And that third person could only have come inthrough the window. It seemed to me that a careful examinationof the room and the lawn might possibly reveal some traces of thismysterious individual. You know my methods, Watson. There wasnot one of them which I did not apply to the inquiry. And it endedby my discovering traces, but very different ones from those whichI had expected. There had been a man in the room, and he hadcrossed the lawn coming from the road. I was able to obtain fivevery clear impressions of his footmarks: one in the roadway itself,at the point where he had climbed the low wall, two on the lawn,and two very faint ones upon the stained boards near the windowwhere he had entered. He had apparently rushed across the lawn,for his toe-marks were much deeper than his heels. But it was notthe man who surprised me. It was his companion.”
“His companion!”
Holmes pulled a large sheet of tissue-paper out of his pocketand carefully unfolded it upon his knee.
“What do you make of that?” he asked.
The paper was covered with he tracings of the foot-marks ofsome small animal. It had five well-marked footpads, an indicationof long nails, and the whole print might be nearly as large as adessert-spoon.
“It’s a dog,” said I.
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“Did you ever hear of a dog running up a curtain? I founddistinct traces that this creature had done so.”
“A monkey, then?”
“But it is not the print of a monkey.”
“What can it be, then?”
“Neither dog nor cat nor monkey nor any creature that we arefamiliar with. I have tried to reconstruct it from the measurements.
Here are four prints where the beast has been standing motionless.
You see that it is no less than fifteen inches from fore-foot to hind.
Add to that the length of neck and head, and you get a creature notmuch less than two feet long—probably more if there is any tail.
But now observe this other measurement. The animal has beenmoving, and we have the length of its stride. In each case it is onlyabout three inches. You have an indication, you see, of a long bodywith very short legs attached to it. It has not been considerateenough to leave any of its hair behind it. But its general shapemust be what I have indicated, and it can run up a curtain, and itcarnivorous.”
“How do you deduce that?”
“Because it ran up the curtain. A canary’s cage was hanging inthe window, and its aim seems to have been to get at the bird.”
“Then what was the beast?”
“Ah, if I could give it a name it might go a long way towardssolving the case. On the whole, it was probably some creature ofthe weasel and stoat tribe—and yet it is larger than any of thesethat I have seen.”
“But what had it to do with the crime?”
“That, also, is still obscure. But we have learned a good deal,you perceive. We know that a man stood in the road looking atthe quarrel between the Barclays—the blinds were up and theroom lighted. We know, also, that he ran across the lawn, enteredthe room, accompanied by a strange animal, and that he eitherstruck the colonel or, as is equally possible, that the colonel felldown from sheer fright at the sight of him, and cut his head onthe corner of the fender. Finally, we have the curious fact that theintruder carried away the key with him when he left.”
“Your discoveries seem to have left the business more obscurethat it was before,” said I.