“Certainly. But I fail to see – ”
“Precisely,” said Holmes. “You fail to see.”
“There’s more,” our visitor interrupted, speaking in the dull tones of a man almost defeated. “Three days ago I received at the Langham this wire from my man Lear, who is operating Whitecrest in my absence.”
He handed the wire to my companion, who quickly scanned its few words, then handed it on to me. It read:
BIG PROBLEM WITH SPRING PLANTING. URGENT YOU RETURN IMMEDIATELY. LEAR
“Well, sir, you may be assured I am not in the habit of taking instructions from my employees without so much as asking a few questions first,” the Kentuckian resumed. “I wired right back inquiring the exact nature of this ‘problem.’ Went straight to the Wigmore Street telegraph office to send it myself. Late that evening I received this reply.”
The second wire was even more succinct:
WHAT PROBLEM? E. LEAR
“Lear never sent that first wire, Mr. Holmes,” said John Vincent Harden. “It was a hoax.”
“Surely this is only some ill-conceived joke,” I observed.
“I might have thought so myself, Doctor, but for what occurred within this very hour to leave my clothing in the sorry state you see before you. I was just leaving the Langham to spend the late afternoon hours at the galleries. Scarcely had I stepped off the curb before I heard a terrible clatter. It was a four-wheeled cab bearing down on me with the speed of a runaway. But it was no runaway, gentlemen. The driver was urging the horses forward, not trying to reign them in. The man was bent on running me down. I was frozen with terror. When I finally did move, I tripped. It seemed I lay in that street for hours waiting to be crushed beneath the onrush of horses’ hooves. Only the quick action of a brave young Englishman saved me.”
John Vincent Harden pulled a large bandana from his back pocket and mopped his perspiring brow.
“And your daughter?” asked Sherlock Holmes.
“Ophelia is resting in her room. She knows nothing of this murderous incident – nor will she.”
“I see.” Holmes leaned back, pressing his lean fingertips together. “And the man driving the cab, what did he look like?”
The millionaire shook his head. “I was looking at those horses, sir, not at the driver.” His voice sunk to a near-whisper. “I was looking at death.”
“Whom do you suspect, then?”
“No one, for I know no one in England. Well, only that wild-eyed poet friend of my daughter, Paul Herbert. Rash young fellow. Runs with that Oscar Wilde crowd. Just this afternoon I told him flat-out I didn’t want Ophelia mixing with the likes of him. Stood his ground like a man, I’ll give him that. Thought he was going to hit me right there in the lobby of the Langham. Say, do you suppose – ”
“I suppose nothing,” said Sherlock Holmes. “I deduce.”
“You have a clew, then?”
“I am very close to having a solution.”
“What!” Our visitor fairly bolted out of his seat. “Without moving from your chair? Pardon my skepticism, sir, but that’s – that’s incredible!”
“It is commonplace. I noted a few moments ago one or two cases with which I am familiar that seem to point in the direction of a solution. The rest of your narrative only strengthened the parallels. I shall be making inquiries in the next few days to confirm my deductions, but I have every confidence that matters shall be thoroughly resolved by week’s end.”
“But what shall I do in the meanwhile?”
“Do nothing, Mr. Harden. I shall do the doing. The forces working against you are real, but it isn’t your life they want. You are in no real danger.”
Two mornings later, rushing towards the High Street in Marylebone on a pre-dawn summons from Stanley Hopkins of Scotland Yard, I finally induced Sherlock Holmes to explain at least some of his reasoning.
“It was obvious from the first,” he said, “that someone wanted our client to return to Kentucky – or at least to leave England. The incident of the hotel room was designed to so disgust him that he would quit the country in a huff, which he very nearly did. The bogus telegram was to lure him away, the apparent attempt on his life to frighten him away. Each time, you see, a somewhat different approach toward the same end. There’s the touch of genius in that, Watson. We’re up against a worthy opponent this time. Hardly a killer, however.”
“But surely, Holmes, you owe it to Mr. Harden to pursue – ”
“And pursue I did, Watson. I talked with Evelyn Weber, the clerk at the Langham, this afternoon. Didn’t I mention that?” Really, at times Holmes was exasperating. “This Weber is a stooped fellow with a thick mustache. Squints at you through his spectacles. ‘Mr. Harden checked out right enough,’ says he, ‘no matter how he tells the tale.’ I have also wired the Lexington, Kentucky, police with two vital questions. Ah, here we are. Let’s see what compels friend Hopkins to roust us out of our beds at this hour of the morning.”
Stanley Hopkins was in those days a promising young official detective in whose career Sherlock Holmes had taken a great interest. One of his greatest assets, I had always suspected, was that he knew when to call on Holmes for help.
“It’s a rum business, Mr. Holmes,” said he, leading us into the main room of William Russell’s cluttered bookshop. The body of a small man lay outstretched there on the floor, within feet of a wall of bookshelves. Beneath his extended hand, as if he had just pulled it off a shelf, lay an ancient bound edition of Hamlet. From his back protruded a silver-handled knife.
“Mr. Russell here” – Hopkins nodded toward an old man with long white hair and a beard like Father Christmas – “lives upstairs. He found this corpse lying here just like this when he came down this morning. I warned everybody not to touch anything until you arrived, sir. The peculiar thing is, Mr. Russell says he’s never seen the man before. We are inclined to believe Mr. Russell, he being a well-known and well respected businessman in this neighborhood. So what the devil is this mysterious Mr. Unknown Bloke doing getting himself murdered on Mr. Russell’s floor during the night?”
He seemed to take this unfortunate occurrence as almost a personal affront.
Eager as a bloodhound, Holmes dropped to the floor and began examining the dusty area around the body with his lens. His eyes shone and his pale cheeks gained colour. He was in his element: “A falling-out among thieves suggests itself immediately, of course. Two thieves came in; only one left. But this man’s dress – ”
Holmes uttered a strangled cry as his examination of the body brought him face to face with the dead man. “I am an old woman, Watson! I am Lestrade’s idiot nephew! I am not competent to farm bees on the Sussex Downs! Hopkins, we know this man. His name is John Vincent Harden.”
Seldom have I seen my notoriously moody friend as melancholy as in the following twelve hours. He smoked prodigiously, scraped out mournful sounds on his violin, and scarcely acknowledged my existence.
“If you won’t tell me your conclusions about this case,” I said bitterly, “at least tell Stanley Hopkins.”
“Soon enough,” he replied tersely. “A few more days can’t hurt now.”
In this, however, Holmes was in error, as became apparent that evening with the arrival in our quarters of Miss Ophelia Harden.
“The police have made an awful mistake, Mr. Holmes,” she said. “They have arrested Paul – my friend, Mr. Herbert.”
Miss Harden was a handsome, full-figured young lady fashionably dressed in pale colours to accent her blonde hair and blue eyes. Though small, such was the force of her character that few would have labeled her “dainty.”