by Bill Peschel
“Thank you,” said Holmes to the maid. “That is quite sufficient for the present. I should now like, if possible, to go to your office.”
“Certainly,” said the Prince, “let us go.”
We walked down to the office, which was about five minutes’ walk from the house, during which time Holmes carried on an animated conversation with the Prince on the political situation in Russia. We reached the office, and entered into a bare room, furnished with a stove and a writing-table, where we found two clerks at work. One of the clerks was the young man whom the Prince had just interviewed.
“Which is the gentleman you mentioned?” asked Holmes in an aside to the Prince.
“The man with a blue shirt,” replied the Prince: “would you like to examine him?”
“No thank you,” replied Holmes. “I have seen all I wanted to see. I will now, if you permit me, go for a walk in the village by myself; I wish to think over a few things.”
We returned to the house, and Holmes set out by himself for the village. I went up to my room to take a nap, for I was still rather tired after the journey.
Holmes returned towards five o’clock in the afternoon, and, settling himself in an arm-chair, he said: “If you care to hear, Watson, I will tell you the result of my investigations.”
“If you found the thief,” I said, “you deserve credit, for the vagueness of this family and the unconcern with which they regard this robbery appalls me.”
“Very true,” replied Holmes. “The matter was, as I had anticipated, far more complicated than appeared at first sight. It frequently happens that problems which appeared to consist of mere trifles turn out to be matters of deep importance and difficult of solution. In this case, what put me on the scent was the disappearance of the skat-book. It is obvious that a thief, whose object is money, would not steal such a thing. When I found the saucepans in the garden my supposition was confirmed. The theft was a blind.”
“But there was money in the book,” I interrupted; “and, besides, some shirts and a pair of links disappeared.”
“I am coming to that presently,” answered Holmes. “I concluded from the manner in which the saucepans had been stolen and hidden that the thief was no ordinary thief. Further data in our possession told me that one of the clerks was under suspicion of carrying on revolutionary propaganda. The young Prince interviews him and receives from him a small cardboard box which he was carrying when we met him, a fact which you no doubt overlooked. He placed the box in a drawer which has no lock. (Note once more the vagueness and the carelessness of these people!) While the young Prince was interviewing the clerk I overheard a portion of their conversation, and I ascertained that the contents of the cardboard box consisted of bombs, and that it was proposed to bring about a coup to-morrow, which was to take place at the railway station.”
“With what object?” I asked.
“We will come to that later,” said Holmes. “Let us take things in their order. When we visited the office, I noticed that on the clerk’s table lay a sheet of paper perforated at the edge, covered on one side with figures, and evidently torn from a card scoring book, for it had divisions and lines printed on it for scoring.
“When I returned from the office on my way to the village the young Prince took me once more into his room, and by skilfully leading the conversation into a channel of argument (the young man is, you have noticed, argumentative) I finally made him a bet on the matter of a date, the settling of which made it necessary for him to fetch a book of reference; he went eagerly in search of a dictionary of biography, which I knew was in the other house, and once left alone I made two important discoveries. In one of his writing-table drawers I found a cardboard box containing four narrow bombs made of a high explosive, and in another drawer I found the silver links and nine roubles in paper which the young Prince said he had lost at cards last night.
“But more important still was my second discovery. I found several pages torn from a scoring book and covered with figures, which are not those which occur in skat or in any other game; and I also found on the edge of the fireplace a half-burnt piece of paper, torn from the same book, but, mark this, from the text of the book, and not a blank leaf perforated at the edge, likewise covered with figures.
“I then went to the village and had a notable conversation with the village policeman. He furnished me with interesting information with regard to the inhabitants of the village and the political situation generally. When asked as to the clerk we saw to-day he said he was very ‘red,’ meaning revolutionary. He said the old Prince refused to send him away at the instigation of his son. The young Prince was also ‘red,’ he said, and this was the most dangerous feature in the situation. The policeman had no doubt that he communicated with the revolutionary party through the channel of the clerk.
“I questioned him as to the theft of the saucepans, and to my astonishment he said he knew quite well who had stolen them. I asked who. He said there was a man in the village formerly employed in the Prince’s office who had once been sent to Siberia but who had returned. He was now a professional pick-pocket, and was enjoying a holiday.
“‘But if you know he did this why don’t you arrest him?’ I asked.
“‘God be with him, no,’ replied this astonished and astonishing policeman. ‘Why arrest him? He has already been in prison once.’”
“‘What for?’ I asked.
“‘He killed the brother of the gamekeeper,’ said the policeman, ‘and he stole hens.’ Of course I knew that he was lying, because a real thief would have taken the saucepans away, and had the policeman known him he would have arrested him.
“‘Does the Prince know this?’ I asked.
“‘Of course he knows it,’ answered the policeman.
“‘Then why does not he insist on his arrest?’ I asked.
“‘The Prince has pity on us,’ said the policeman. ‘We are poor people. If he were arrested he would soon come back again and probably kill me; he would certainly burn my house. The Prince knows. What does it matter if he stole a few saucepans? The Prince will buy new ones. The Prince does not mind. He will do no further harm. He has come back to see his home and his native village.’
Questioned as to whether the clerk was connected with the theft, the policeman laughed. He said the clerk was ‘red,’ and busied himself with politics, but was not a hooligan.
“I asked him if sufficient proof were found whether he would arrest the thief. ‘May God forfend!’ answered this amazing policeman. I also ascertained from him that a large sum of money, about half a million roubles, will be transported from the town of O— — — to the town of X— — — to-morrow. Then I returned home.
“You now doubtless understand the object of the coup. It is to obtain money for the revolutionary funds, and the object of the theft of saucepans was to throw suspicion, when the coup should take place, on an indefinite band of robbers who would be supposed to be lurking in the neighbourhood.
“Now we come to further links in the chain. The young Prince, as you remember, was in the habit of taking the skat-scoring book every evening from the drawing-room in the wooden house to his sitting-room in this house, and of bringing it back every morning and leaving it in the front hall. Why did he do this; and why the front hall? I suppose that even you, Watson, have already concluded that the spurious thief of the saucepans and the leading spirit of this dark conspiracy is none other than the young Prince. He could not communicate openly with the clerk, nor see him too often without raising suspicion, so every evening he wrote what he had to say in cipher on the blank leaves provided at the end of the book for scoring purposes, and left the book in a prominent place. The clerk called at the house on business matters and tore off a leaf from the book and left an answer in it, if he wished to do so.”
“Most ingenious,” I interrupted; “but why did the book disappear?”
“The Prince destroyed it. The scrap of burnt paper I found in the fireplace told me that; since it
was not, as I told you, one of the blank leaves, but a page of the text of the book itself. The Prince being, like all the members of his family, as you yourself have observed, and like most Russian revolutionaries, excessively vague happy-go-lucky, had worked out his cipher all over the book, and as the coup is to come off to-morrow he thought it best to be on the safe side and to destroy a document which might possibly prove compromising. By the ingenious lie of the money left in it he included it in the robbery.”
“And what steps have you taken?” I asked.
“I sent an express telegram, in cipher, to my friend L— — — of the Chief Department of the Police in St. Petersburg acquainting him of the facts.”
“And what will be the result?” I asked.
“They will prevent the coup coming off—it was to be to-morrow evening,” answered Holmes.
The bell now rang for tea, and during the rest of the evening the matter of the theft was only once or twice jokingly referred to. Holmes and the Prince appeared to think that as the saucepans had been found there was no further use bothering about the thief.
After dinner, Holmes, the young Prince, and the young Princess delighted us with a trio for flute, violin and piano, and the time passed rapidly and pleasantly. I found it difficult to believe that the young man who was so carelessly and easily “entertaining” us was really a dangerous criminal on the eve of carrying out a gigantic coup; but my experience as Holmes’ biographer has convinced me that such cases are, alas! only too frequent.
The next morning I spent in writing letters, and Holmes did nothing but lie on the sofa and smoke a quantity of shag tobacco. We all met once more at luncheon. After luncheon, as we were drinking our coffee in the drawing-room, the young Prince said he had an interesting communication to make to us, which was as follows: At the railway station there is a large wooden building made for storing corn. The merchants store their corn there, for which they receive a receipt stating the value of what is stored. If it is destroyed the Government is responsible for the amount.
Now it appeared that the stationmaster had arranged with one of the merchants to give him a duplicate receipt for an amount of corn worth an immense sum. He made out a false duplicate for this immense sum. It was further arranged that the merchant should deliver an infinitesimal quantity of corn, worth a few shillings, and that the corn storing-house should be set on fire and burnt. The stationmaster was to receive a handsome commission. But, as it was impossible to tamper with the books, owing to the number of officials employed, in which the amounts received were entered and kept at the station, it was likewise settled to burn the station and thus destroy the compromising documents it contained, and render comparison between the false duplicate received by the merchant and the original receipt entered in the station books impossible. It was further settled to do the burning by means of bombs and to attribute the whole affair to the revolutionaries.
The plot, however, had been discovered by the clerk in the Prince’s office who was a friend of a new assistant stationmaster, and he had brought the bombs to the house and had told the whole story to the young Prince, who had immediately communicated with the Police Captain of the district in the town of O— — — .
As he finished his story the young Prince added: “It shows what idiots our local police are, because they suspected this very clerk of being a revolutionary.” Holmes’ face remained impassive during the recital of this story, but I could not help feeling that my friend was somewhat anxious. “It was quite a problem in your line Mr. Holmes,” said the Princess, “but I feel you have done enough for us in finding our saucepans, only I do wish we could find the scoring book.”
“I can’t remember,” said the young Prince,” whether it was yesterday or the day before yesterday morning that the book was in my room. I remember tearing a leaf out of it, having no other paper handy, to write a receipt for the clerk who brought me some money from the Kontora. But there was no money in it, because I found the money I won last night, and the silver links also, in a drawer. So the book wasn’t stolen.”
“Has any one looked in the card table?” asked the young Princess. And as no one had looked there, a leaf of the card table was raised, and there lay a small green book—the skat scoring book. At that moment the butler entered the room endeavouring to master convulsions of laughter, and said that the village police-inspector, the Stanovoi, was outside saying he had received orders from St. Petersburg to arrest Prince Alexander and to send him immediately to the town of O— — — for being implicated in an “expropriation” plot to rob the train.
The whole family burst into fits of uncontrollable laughter, and the old Prince explained to Holmes that the police-inspector had probably made this idiotic mistake on purpose, since he had twice been found poaching in their woods and that they had complained and asked for his removal.
Then together with his son he went and interviewed the police-inspector. They came back presently saying that the matter was an idiotic and inexplicable mistake connected with the affair of the station, but that the police-inspector, although he was well aware of this, owing to the grudge he bore the family insisted on carrying out his orders.
So the young Prince had to leave for O— — — that afternoon, amidst universal merriment, and he exhorted Holmes as he departed to obtain his release. We also left for Moscow the next day, whither Holmes said he had suddenly been summoned upon urgent business.
When we arrived at Moscow we received a telegram saying that Prince Alexander had been immediately released with many apologies for the mistake, that the police-inspector had been dismissed from his post, and that the merchant and the station-master had been arrested.
Holmes never referred to the matter again, nor does he like any mention made of the game of skat. But it seems to me that this comparative failure only serves to heighten the brilliance of his many successes, and it is for this reason I have recorded it.
The Great Detective Who Unearthed Things
Frank E. Kellogg
Illustrated by Louis F. Grant
Frank E. Kellogg (1880-1923) wrote children’s books including The Boy Fisherman, The Boy Duck Hunters, and The Young Express Agent. This was taken from Flip-Flap Fables: A Bunch of Twenty-Seven Tales Concerning Animals of Various Kinds from Which May be Deducted Many Morals. Louis F. Grant was a book illustrator who worked for New England newspapers. He covered the trial of Lizzie Borden and the inquiry into the sinking of the Titanic, and illustrated books such as A.L. Drummond’s True Detective Stories (1909). The story’s peculiar capitalization were retained.
Once there was a Great Detective. He was very great. From a professional point of view, he was “Two Looks” high and still climbing. He could detect anything. He had been known to locate a wobbly-legged calf that the old cow had hidden so effectually she couldn’t find it herself. He came on deck after the Hoopskirt Age and before the dress pocket was abolished, and it has passed into History that he once found his wife’s dress pocket in forty-five minutes by the parlor clock. But of course he couldn’t do that every time; not without straining himself. He also did a fairly good Stunt on Collar Buttons. Could generally locate one in about thirty minutes if the dust wasn’t too thick under the Dresser. His long suit, however, was in putting the Tag on aspirants for jobs in the State Government Works at Peoria, and in that particular field he was on the 400 class, batter up.
One day a roughly-dressed, stocky man walked into the office, and, squatting on a Chair without waiting for an invite, remarked:
“Say, pardner, be you the Brass Collared Detective we hear so much about nowadays?”
“The same. Have you something in My Line? I can give you ten minutes,” and the Great Detective fished out a note-book and began whittling the end of a Pencil.
The Stocky One pulled out a slab of tobacco the size of a six-inch section of 2X4 scantling, and detaching a chunk big as a piece of pie with his eye teeth, remarked:
“Ten minutes will do, I guess, if you’r
e drawing as many Loads as they say. I am a farmer—”
The Great Detective interrupted him with a wave of the hand and smiled. “It is not necessary to inform me of that Fact, my Dear Sir. You live on a farm seventeen and a quarter miles north of here. Your farm is Part Clay and part a Sandy Loam.”
The Stocky One appeared to be greatly impressed, and said:
“Well, I’ll be Switched. How did you get onto that?”
The Great Detective smiled in a patronizing, indulgent way. “We do not generally make a practice of Exhaling state secrets, but as you are a simple-minded farmer the knowledge will go no further, so I don’t mind telling you. You started out this morning with a fresh plug of tobacco, did you not?”
“Yep.”
“You have taken just Chews enough to go seventeen and a quarter Miles.”
“Good Guess. But why north?”
“The wind is in the west and there is more dust in your right ear than in your left. The nature of the soil upon your farm I detected instantly by the different shades of dust on your Collar, which are easily noted and classified by an expert.”
“Say, but you’re onto your job all right, pardner. You make me ashamed of myself. Now I’ll shoot my wad and give you a chance to meditate.”
The Great Detective once more waved his hand. “Wait. You keep seven horses and nine cows.”
The Stocky One stared and scratched his head. “I’ve evidently come to the right party, but what’s your recipe for the last batch of wisdom?”
“Simple again, when you know how. There are seven different distinct equine smells on your garments and nine separate and clearly-defined odors from the cow. Every animal has an odor peculiar to itself. Now tell your business.”
