Sherlock Holmes complete collection by sir arthur conan doyle

A Study In Scarlet PART 2 : Chapter 7 THE CONCLUSION

WE HAD all been warned to appear before the magistrates upon theThursday; but when the Thursday came there was no occasion for ourtestimony. A higher Judge had taken the matter in hand, and JeffersonHope had been summoned before a tribunal where strict justice would bemeted out to him. On the very night after his capture the aneurism burst,and he was found in the morning stretched upon the floor of the cell, witha placid smile upon his face, as though he had been able in his dyingmoments to look back upon a useful life, and on work well done."Gregson and Lestrade will be wild about his death," Holmesremarked, as we chatted it over next evening. "Where will their grandadvertisement be now?""I don't see that they had very much to do with his capture," I answered."What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence," returnedmy companion, bitterly. "The question is, what can you make peoplebelieve that you have done? Never mind," he continued, more brightly,after a pause. "I would not have missed the investigation for anything.There has been no better case within my recollection. Simple as it was,there were several most instructive points about it.""Simple!" I ejaculated."Well, really, it can hardly be described as otherwise," said SherlockHolmes, smiling at my surprise. "The proof of its intrinsic simplicity is,that without any help save a few very ordinary deductions I was able tolay my hand upon the criminal within three days.""That is true," said I."I have already explained to you that what is out of the common isusually a guide rather than a hindrance. In solving a problem of this sort,the grand thing is to be able to reason backward. That is a very usefulaccomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practise it much.In the everyday affairs of life it is more useful to reason forward, and sothe other comes to be neglected. There are fifty who can reasonsynthetically for one who can reason analytically.""I confess," said I, "that I do not quite follow you.""I hardly expected that you would. Let me see if I can make it clearer.Most people, if you describe a train of events to them, will tell you whatthe result would be. They can put those events together in their minds,and argue from them [84] that something will come to pass. There are fewpeople, however, who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolvefrom their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up tothat result. This power is what I mean when I talk of reasoning backward, or analytically.""I understand," said I."Now this was a case in which you were given the result and had tofind everything else for yourself. Now let me endeavour to show you thedifferent steps in my reasoning. To begin at the beginning. I approachedthe house, as you know, on foot, and with my mind entirely free from allimpressions. I naturally began by examining the roadway, and there, as Ihave already explained to you, I saw clearly the marks of a cab, which, Iascertained by inquiry, must have been there during the night. I satisfiedmyself that it was a cab and not a private carriage by the narrow gauge ofthe wheels. The ordinary London growler is considerably less wide than agentleman's brougham."This was the first point gained. I then walked slowly down the gardenpath, which happened to be composed of a clay soil, peculiarly suitablefor taking impressions. No doubt it appeared to you to be a mere trampledline of slush, but to my trained eyes every mark upon its surface had ameaning. There is no branch of detective science which is so importantand so much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps. Happily, I havealways laid great stress upon it, and much practice has made it secondnature to me. I saw the heavy footmarks of the constables, but I saw alsothe track of the two men who had first passed through the garden. It waseasy to tell that they had been before the others, because in places theirmarks had been entirely obliterated by the others coming upon the top ofthem. In this way my second link was formed, which told me that thenocturnal visitors were two in number, one remarkable for his height (as Icalculated from the length of his stride), and the other fashionablydressed, to judge from the small and elegant impression left by his boots."On entering the house this last inference was confirmed. My wellbooted man lay before me. The tall one, then, had done the murder, ifmurder there was. There was no wound upon the dead man's person, butthe agitated expression upon his face assured me that he had foreseen hisfate before it came upon him. Men who die from heart disease, or anysudden natural cause, never by any chance exhibit agitation upon theirfeatures. Having sniffed the dead man's lips, I detected a slightly soursmell, and I came to the conclusion that he had had poison forced uponhim. Again, I argued that it had been forced upon him from the hatred andfear expressed upon his face. By the method of exclusion, I had arrived atthis result, for no other hypothesis would meet the facts. Do not imaginethat it was a very unheard-of idea. The forcible administration of poison isby no means a new thing in criminal annals. The cases of Dolsky inOdessa, and of Leturier in Montpellier, will occur at once to anytoxicologist."And now came the great question as to the reason why. Robbery hadnot been the object of the murder, for nothing was taken. Was it politics,then, or was it a woman? That was the question which confronted me. Iwas inclined from the first to the latter supposition. Political assassins areonly too glad to do their work and to fly. This murder had, on thecontrary, been done most deliberately, and the perpetrator had left histracks all over the room, showing that he had been there all the time. It must have been a private wrong, and not a political one, which called forsuch a methodical revenge. When the inscription was discovered [85]upon the wall, I was more inclined than ever to my opinion. The thingwas too evidently a blind. When the ring was found, however, it settledthe question. Clearly the murderer had used it to remind his victim ofsome dead or absent woman. It was at this point that I asked Gregsonwhether he had inquired in his telegram to Cleveland as to any particularpoint in Mr. Drebber's former career. He answered, you remember, in thenegative."I then proceeded to make a careful examination of the room, whichconfirmed me in my opinion as to the murderer's height, and furnishedme with the additional details as to the Trichinopoly cigar and the lengthof his nails. I had already come to the conclusion, since there were nosigns of a struggle, that the blood which covered the floor had burst fromthe murderer's nose in his excitement. I could perceive that the track ofblood coincided with the track of his feet. It is seldom that any man,unless he is very full-blooded, breaks out in this way through emotion, soI hazarded the opinion that the criminal was probably a robust and ruddyfaced man. Events proved that I had judged correctly."Having left the house, I proceeded to do what Gregson had neglected.I telegraphed to the head of the police at Cleveland, limiting my inquiryto the circumstances connected with the marriage of Enoch Drebber. Theanswer was conclusive. It told me that Drebber had already applied forthe protection of the law against an old rival in love, named JeffersonHope, and that this same Hope was at present in Europe. I knew now thatI held the clue to the mystery in my hand, and all that remained was tosecure the murderer."I had already determined in my own mind that the man who hadwalked into the house with Drebber was none other than the man who haddriven the cab. The marks in the road showed me that the horse hadwandered on in a way which would have been impossible had there beenanyone in charge of it. Where, then, could the driver be, unless he wereinside the house? Again, it is absurd to suppose that any sane man wouldcarry out a deliberate crime under the very eyes, as it were, of a thirdperson, who was sure to betray him. Lastly, supposing one man wished todog another through London, what better means could he adopt than toturn cabdriver? All these considerations led me to the irresistibleconclusion that Jefferson Hope was to be found among the jarveys of theMetropolis."If he had been one, there was no reason to believe that he had ceasedto be. On the contrary, from his point of view, any sudden change wouldbe likely to draw attention to himself. He would probably, for a time atleast, continue to perform his duties. There was no reason to suppose thathe was going under an assumed name. Why should he change his name ina country where no one knew his original one? I therefore organized mystreet Arab detective corps, and sent them systematically to every cabproprietor in London until they ferreted out the man that I wanted. Howwell they succeeded, and how quickly I took advantage of it, are still freshin your recollection. The murder of Stangerson was an incident which was entirely unexpected, but which could hardly in any case have beenprevented. Through it, as you know, I came into possession of the pills,the existence of which I had already surmised. You see, the whole thing isa chain of logical sequences without a break or flaw.""It is wonderful!" I cried. "Your merits should be publicly recognized.You should publish an account of the case. If you won't, I will for you.""You may do what you like, Doctor," he answered. "See here!" hecontinued, handing a paper over to me, "look at this!"[86] It was the Echo for the day, and the paragraph to which he pointedwas devoted to the case in question."The public," it said, "have lost a sensational treat through the suddendeath of the man Hope, who was suspected of the murder of Mr. EnochDrebber and of Mr. Joseph Stangerson. The details of the case willprobably be never known now, though we are informed upon goodauthority that the crime was the result of an old-standing and romanticfeud, in which love and Mormonism bore a part. It seems that both thevictims belonged, in their younger days, to the Latter Day Saints, andHope, the deceased prisoner, hails also from Salt Lake City. If the casehas had no other effect, it, at least, brings out in the most striking mannerthe efficiency of our detective police force, and will serve as a lesson toall foreigners that they will do wisely to settle their feuds at home, and notto carry them on to British soil. It is an open secret that the credit of thissmart capture belongs entirely to the well-known Scotland Yard officials,Messrs. Lestrade and Gregson. The man was apprehended, it appears, inthe rooms of a certain Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who has himself, as anamateur, shown some talent in the detective line and who, with suchinstructors, may hope in time to attain to some degree of their skill. It isexpected that a testimonial of some sort will be presented to the twoofficers as a fitting recognition of their services.""Didn't I tell you so when we started?" cried Sherlock Holmes with alaugh. "That's the result of all our Study in Scarlet: to get them atestimonial!""Never mind," I answered; "I have all the facts in my journal, and thepublic shall know them. In the meantime you must make yourselfcontented by the consciousness of success, like the Roman miser-"Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudoIpse domi simul ac nummos contemplar in arca."