The Complete Sherlock Holmes

Next morning, after breakfast, we found Inspector
MacDonald and White Mason seated in
close consultation in the small parlour of the local
police sergeant. On the table in front of them were
piled a number of letters and telegrams, which
they were carefully sorting and docketing. Three
had been placed on one side.
“Still on the track of the elusive bicyclist?”
Holmes asked cheerfully. “What is the latest news
of the ruffian?”
MacDonald pointed ruefully to his heap of correspondence.
“He is at present reported from Leicester, Nottingham,
Southampton, Derby, East Ham, Richmond,
and fourteen other places. In three of
them—East Ham, Leicester, and Liverpool—there
is a clear case against him, and he has actually
been arrested. The country seems to be full of the
fugitives with yellow coats.”
“Dear me!” said Holmes sympathetically.
“Now, Mr. Mac and you, Mr. White Mason, I wish
to give you a very earnest piece of advice. When
I went into this case with you I bargained, as you
will no doubt remember, that I should not present
you with half-proved theories, but that I should retain
and work out my own ideas until I had satisfied
myself that they were correct. For this reason
I am not at the present moment telling you all that
is in my mind. On the other hand, I said that I
would play the game fairly by you, and I do not
think it is a fair game to allow you for one unnecessary
moment to waste your energies upon a
profitless task. Therefore I am here to advise you
this morning, and my advice to you is summed up
in three words—abandon the case.”
MacDonald and White Mason stared in amazement
at their celebrated colleague.
“You consider it hopeless!” cried the inspector.
“I consider your case to be hopeless. I do not
consider that it is hopeless to arrive at the truth.”
“But this cyclist. He is not an invention. We
have his description, his valise, his bicycle. The
fellow must be somewhere. Why should we not
get him?”
“Yes, yes, no doubt he is somewhere, and no
doubt we shall get him; but I would not have you
waste your energies in East Ham or Liverpool. I
am sure that we can find some shorter cut to a result.”
The Valley Of Fear
CHAPTER VII.
The Solution
692
“You are holding something back. It’s hardly
fair of you, Mr. Holmes.” The inspector was annoyed.
“You know my methods of work, Mr. Mac. But
I will hold it back for the shortest time possible. I
only wish to verify my details in one way, which
can very readily be done, and then I make my bow
and return to London, leaving my results entirely
at your service. I owe you too much to act otherwise;
for in all my experience I cannot recall any
more singular and interesting study.”
“This is clean beyond me, Mr. Holmes. We saw
you when we returned from Tunbridge Wells last
night, and you were in general agreement with our
results. What has happened since then to give you
a completely new idea of the case?”
“Well, since you ask me, I spent, as I told you
that I would, some hours last night at the Manor
House.”
“Well, what happened?”
“Ah, I can only give you a very general answer
to that for the moment. By the way, I have been
reading a short but clear and interesting account
of the old building, purchasable at the modest sum
of one penny from the local tobacconist.”
Here Holmes drew a small tract, embellished
with a rude engraving of the ancient Manor
House, from his waistcoat pocket.
“It immensely adds to the zest of an investigation,
my dear Mr. Mac, when one is in conscious
sympathy with the historical atmosphere of one’s
surroundings. Don’t look so impatient; for I assure
you that even so bald an account as this raises
some sort of picture of the past in one’s mind. Permit
me to give you a sample. ‘Erected in the fifth
year of the reign of James I, and standing upon the
site of a much older building, the Manor House of
Birlstone presents one of the finest surviving examples
of the moated Jacobean residence—’ ”
“You are making fools of us, Mr. Holmes!”
“Tut, tut, Mr. Mac!—the first sign of temper I
have detected in you. Well, I won’t read it verbatim,
since you feel so strongly upon the subject.
But when I tell you that there is some account of
the taking of the place by a parliamentary colonel
in 1644, of the concealment of Charles for several
days in the course of the Civil War, and finally of
a visit there by the second George, you will admit
that there are various associations of interest
connected with this ancient house.”