The Complete Sherlock Holmes

she is lying also. They are both lying, and in a conspiracy.
So now we have the clear problem. Why
are they lying, and what is the truth which they are
trying so hard to conceal? Let us try, Watson, you
and I, if we can get behind the lie and reconstruct
the truth.
“How do I know that they are lying? Because it
is a clumsy fabrication which simply could not be
true. Consider! According to the story given to us,
the assassin had less than a minute after the murder
had been committed to take that ring, which
was under another ring, from the dead man’s finger,
to replace the other ring—a thing which he
would surely never have done—and to put that
singular card beside his victim. I say that this was
obviously impossible.
“You may argue—but I have too much respect
for your judgment, Watson, to think that you will
do so—that the ring may have been taken before
the man was killed. The fact that the candle had
been lit only a short time shows that there had
been no lengthy interview. Was Douglas, from
what we hear of his fearless character, a man who
would be likely to give up his wedding ring at such
short notice, or could we conceive of his giving it
up at all? No, no, Watson, the assassin was alone
with the dead man for some time with the lamp
lit. Of that I have no doubt at all.
“But the gunshot was apparently the cause of
death. Therefore the shot must have been fired
some time earlier than we are told. But there could
be no mistake about such a matter as that. We are
in the presence, therefore, of a deliberate conspiracy
upon the part of the two people who heard
the gunshot—of the man Barker and of the woman
Douglas. When on the top of this I am able to show
that the blood mark on the windowsill was deliberately
placed there by Barker, in order to give a
false clue to the police, you will admit that the case
grows dark against him.
“Now we have to ask ourselves at what hour
the murder actually did occur. Up to half-past ten
the servants were moving about the house; so it
was certainly not before that time. At a quarter to
eleven they had all gone to their rooms with the
exception of Ames, who was in the pantry. I have
been trying some experiments after you left us this
afternoon, and I find that no noise which MacDonald
can make in the study can penetrate to me in
the pantry when the doors are all shut.
“It is otherwise, however, from the housekeeper’s
room. It is not so far down the corridor,
and from it I could vaguely hear a voice when it
was very loudly raised. The sound from a shotgun
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is to some extent muffled when the discharge is at
very close range, as it undoubtedly was in this instance.
It would not be very loud, and yet in the silence
of the night it should have easily penetrated
to Mrs. Allen’s room. She is, as she has told us,
somewhat deaf; but none the less she mentioned
in her evidence that she did hear something like a
door slamming half an hour before the alarm was
given. Half an hour before the alarm was given
would be a quarter to eleven. I have no doubt that
what she heard was the report of the gun, and that
this was the real instant of the murder.
“If this is so, we have now to determine what
Barker and Mrs. Douglas, presuming that they are
not the actual murderers, could have been doing
from quarter to eleven, when the sound of the
shot brought them down, until quarter past eleven,
when they rang the bell and summoned the servants.
What were they doing, and why did they
not instantly give the alarm? That is the question
which faces us, and when it has been answered
we shall surely have gone some way to solve our
problem.”
“I am convinced myself,” said I, “that there is
an understanding between those two people. She
must be a heartless creature to sit laughing at some
jest within a few hours of her husband’s murder.”
“Exactly. She does not shine as a wife even
in her own account of what occurred. I am not
a whole-souled admirer of womankind, as you
are aware, Watson, but my experience of life has
taught me that there are few wives, having any regard
for their husbands, who would let any man’s
spoken word stand between them and that husband’s
dead body. Should I ever marry, Watson, I
should hope to inspire my wife with some feeling
which would prevent her from being walked off by
a housekeeper when my corpse was lying within a
few yards of her. It was badly stage-managed; for
even the rawest investigators must be struck by the
absence of the usual feminine ululation. If there
had been nothing else, this incident alone would
have suggested a prearranged conspiracy to my
mind.”
“You think then, definitely, that Barker and
Mrs. Douglas are guilty of the murder?”
“There is an appalling directness about your
questions, Watson,” said Holmes, shaking his pipe
at me. “They come at me like bullets. If you put
it that Mrs. Douglas and Barker know the truth
about the murder, and are conspiring to conceal it,
then I can give you a whole-souled answer. I am
sure they do. But your more deadly proposition
is not so clear. Let us for a moment consider the
difficulties which stand in the way.