“Now, I remembered that when we went into the tap-room on Wednesday, some of his companions were chaffing Crockett about a certain Nancy Webb, and the chaff went home, as was plain to see. The woman, then, who could most easily entice Sammy Crockett away was Nancy Webb. I resolved to find who Nancy Webb was and learn more of her.
“Meantime I took a look at the road at the end of the lane. It was damper than the lane, being lower, and overhung by trees. There were many wheel tracks, but only one set that turned in the road and went back the way it came—towards the town—and they were narrow wheels, carriage wheels. Crockett tells me now that they drove him about for a long time before shutting him up—probably the inconvenience of taking him straight to the hiding-place didn’t strike them when they first drove off.
“A few inquiries soon set me in the direction of the ‘Plough’ and Miss Nancy Webb. I had the curiosity to look round the place as I approached, and there, in the garden behind the house, were Steggles and the young lady in earnest confabulation!
“Every conjecture became a certainty. Steggles was the lover of whom Crockett was jealous, and he had employed the girl to bring Sammy out. I watched Steggles home, and gave you a hint to keep him there.
“But the thing that remained was to find Steggles’s employer in this business. I was glad to be in when Danby called—he came, of course, to hear if you would blurt out anything, and to learn, if possible, what steps you were taking. He failed. By way of making assurance doubly sure, I took a short walk this morning in the character of a deaf gentleman, and got Miss Webb to write me a direction that comprised three of the words on these scraps of paper—‘left,’ ‘right,’ and ‘lane’—see, they correspond, the peculiar ‘f’s,’ ‘t’s,’ and all.
“Now, I felt perfectly sure that Steggles would go for his pay today. In the first place, I knew that people mixed up with shady transactions in professional pedestrianism are not apt to trust one another far—they know better. Therefore, Steggles wouldn’t have had his bribe first. But he would take care to get it before the Saturday heats were run, because once they were over the thing was done, and the principal conspirator might have refused to pay up, and Steggles couldn’t have helped himself. Again I hinted he should not go out till I could follow him, and this afternoon when he went, follow him I did. I saw him go into Danby’s house by the side way and come away again. Danby it was, then, who had arranged the business; and nobody was more likely, considering his large pecuniary stake against Crockett’s winning this race.
“But now, how to find Crockett? I made up my mind he wouldn’t be in Danby’s own house—that would be a deal too risky, with servants about, and so on. I saw that Danby was a builder, and had three shops to let—it was on a paper before his house. What more likely prison than an empty house? I knocked at Danby’s door and asked for the keys of those shops. I couldn’t have them. The servant told me Danby was out (a manifest lie, for I had just seen him), and that nobody could see the shops till Monday. But I got out of her the address of the shops, and that was all I wanted at the time.
“Now, why was nobody to see those shops till Monday? The interval was suspicious—just enough to enable Crockett to be sent away again and cast loose after the Saturday racing, supposing him to be kept in one of the empty buildings. I went off at once and looked at the shops, forming my conclusions as to which would be the most likely for Danby’s purpose. Here I had another confirmation of my ideas. A poor, half-bankrupt baker in one of the shops had, by the bills, the custody of a set of keys; but he, too, told me I couldn’t have them; Danby had taken them away—and on Thursday, the very day—with some trivial excuse, and hadn’t brought them back. That was all I wanted, or could expect in the way of guidance; the whole thing was plain. The rest you know all about.”
“Well, you’re certainly as smart as they give you credit for, I must say. But suppose Danby had taken down his ‘to let’ notice, what would you have done then?”
“We had our course even then. We should have gone to Danby, astounded him by telling him all about his little games, terrorised him with threats of the law, and made him throw up his hand and send Crockett back. But as it is, you see, he doesn’t know at this moment—probably won’t know till tomorrow afternoon—that the lad is safe and sound here. You will probably use the interval to make him pay for losing the game—by some of the ingenious financial devices you are no doubt familiar with.”
“Aye, that I will. He’ll give any price against Crockett now, so long as the bet don’t come direct from me.”
“But about Crockett, now,” Hewitt went on. “Won’t this confinement be likely to have damaged his speed for a day or two?”
“Ah, perhaps,” the landlord replied; “but, bless ye, that won’t matter. There’s four more in his heat tomorrow. Two I know aren’t tryers, and the other two I can hold in at a couple of quid apiece any day. The third round and final won’t be till tomorrow week, and he’ll be as fit as ever by then. It’s as safe as ever it was. How much are you going to have on? I’ll lump it on for you safe enough. This is a chance not to be missed—it’s picking money up.”
“Thank you; I don’t think I’ll have anything to do with it. This professional pedestrian business doesn’t seem a pretty one at all. I don’t call myself a moralist, but, if you’ll excuse my saying so, the thing is scarcely the game I care to pick up money at in any way.”
“Oh! very well, if you think so, I won’t persuade ye, though I don’t think so much of your smartness as I did, after that. Still, we won’t quarrel—you’ve done me a mighty good turn, that I must say, and I only feel I aren’t level without doing something to pay the debt. Come, now, you’ve got your trade as I’ve got mine. Let me have the bill, and I’ll pay it like a lord, and feel a deal more pleased than if you made a favour of it—not that I’m above a favour, of course. But I’d prefer paying, and that’s a fact.”
“My dear sir, you have paid,” Hewitt said, with a smile. “You paid in advance. It was a bargain, wasn’t it, that I should do your business if you would help me in mine? Very well, a bargain’s a bargain, and we’ve both performed our parts. And you mustn’t be offended at what I said just now.”
“That I won’t. But as to that Raggy Steggles, once those heats are over tomorrow, I’ll—well—!”
It was on the following Sunday week that Martin Hewitt, in his rooms in London, turned over his paper and read, under the head “Padfield Annual 135 Yards Handicap,” this announcement: “Final Heat: Crockett, first; Willis, second; Trewby, third; Owen, 0; Howell, 0. A runaway win by nearly three yards.”
The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter
Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (1859–1930) is a towering figure in British popular literature, the creator of the most renowned character in the history of fiction. So frustrated was he by the way that his Sherlock Holmes stories overshadowed his other work that he went to the extreme length of killing off his hero, only to be persuaded to bring him back in The Hound of the Baskervilles and then reveal in “The Empty House” that Dr. Watson’s reports of the detective’s death were exaggerated. Doyle was a keen sportsman who played ten first class cricket matches and took the wicket of the legendary W. G. Grace (admittedly Grace was in his fifties at the time). He also enjoyed boxing, which features in books such as Rodney Stone, football, golf, ski-ing—and even baseball.
This story was first published in the Strand in 1904, and was collected in The Return of Sherlock Holmes. As the leading authority on Holmes, Leslie Klinger, has pointed out, it is the only case in the canon which directly involves amateur sport, although Dr. Watson was just as keen a sportsman as Doyle. We learn in “The Sussex Vampire” that Watson played rugby, while his multi-talented friend was an accomplished exponent of fencing, singlestick, and boxing—despite disclaiming here any sporting connections. It is significant that Holmes refers to amateur sport as “the best and soundest thing in England”; there can be little d
oubt that he was speaking for his creator.
We were fairly accustomed to receive weird telegrams at Baker Street, but I have a particular recollection of one which reached us on a gloomy February morning some seven or eight years ago and gave Mr. Sherlock Holmes a puzzled quarter of an hour. It was addressed to him, and ran thus:—
“Please await me. Terrible misfortune. Right wing three-quarter missing; indispensable tomorrow.—Overton.”
“Strand post-mark and dispatched ten-thirty-six,” said Holmes, reading it over and over. “Mr. Overton was evidently considerably excited when he sent it, and somewhat incoherent in consequence. Well, well, he will be here, I dare say, by the time I have looked through the Times, and then we shall know all about it. Even the most insignificant problem would be welcome in these stagnant days.”
Things had indeed been very slow with us, and I had learned to dread such periods of inaction, for I knew by experience that my companion’s brain was so abnormally active that it was dangerous to leave it without material upon which to work. For years I had gradually weaned him from that drug mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable career. Now I knew that under ordinary conditions he no longer craved for this artificial stimulus, but I was well aware that the fiend was not dead, but sleeping; and I have known that the sleep was a light one and the waking near when in periods of idleness I have seen the drawn look upon Holmes’s ascetic face, and the brooding of his deep-set and inscrutable eyes. Therefore I blessed this Mr. Overton, whoever he might be, since he had come with his enigmatic message to break that dangerous calm which brought more peril to my friend than all the storms of his tempestuous life.
As we had expected, the telegram was soon followed by its sender, and the card of Mr. Cyril Overton, of Trinity College, Cambridge, announced the arrival of an enormous young man, sixteen stone of solid bone and muscle, who spanned the doorway with his broad shoulders and looked from one of us to the other with a comely face which was haggard with anxiety.
“Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”
My companion bowed.
“I’ve been down to Scotland Yard, Mr. Holmes. I saw Inspector Stanley Hopkins. He advised me to come to you. He said the case, so far as he could see, was more in your line than in that of the regular police.”
“Pray sit down and tell me what is the matter.”
“It’s awful, Mr. Holmes, simply awful! I wonder my hair isn’t grey. Godfrey Staunton—you’ve heard of him, of course? He’s simply the hinge that the whole team turns on. I’d rather spare two from the pack and have Godfrey for my three-quarter line. Whether it’s passing, or tackling, or dribbling, there’s no one to touch him; and then, he’s got the head and can hold us all together. What am I to do? That’s what I ask you, Mr. Holmes. There’s Moorhouse, first reserve, but he is trained as a half, and he always edges right in on to the scrum instead of keeping out on the touch-line. He’s a fine place-kick, it’s true, but, then, he has no judgement, and he can’t sprint for nuts. Why, Morton or Johnson, the Oxford fliers, could romp round him. Stevenson is fast enough, but he couldn’t drop from the twenty-five line, and a three-quarter who can’t either punt or drop isn’t worth a place for pace alone. No, Mr. Holmes, we are done unless you can help me to find Godfrey Staunton.”
My friend had listened with amused surprise to this long speech, which was poured forth with extraordinary vigour and earnestness, every point being driven home by the slapping of a brawny hand upon the speaker’s knee. When our visitor was silent Holmes stretched out his hand and took down letter “S” of his commonplace book. For once he dug in vain into that mine of varied information.
“There is Arthur H. Staunton, the rising young forger,” said he, “and there was Henry Staunton, whom I helped to hang, but Godfrey Staunton is a new name to me.”
It was our visitor’s turn to look surprised.
“Why, Mr. Holmes, I thought you knew things,” said he. “I suppose, then, if you have never heard of Godfrey Staunton you don’t know Cyril Overton either?”
Holmes shook his head good-humouredly.
“Great Scot!” cried the athlete. “Why, I was first reserve for England against Wales, and I’ve skippered the ’Varsity all this year. But that’s nothing! I didn’t think there was a soul in England who didn’t know Godfrey Staunton, the crack three-quarter, Cambridge, Blackheath, and five Internationals. Good Lord! Mr. Holmes, where have you lived?”
Holmes laughed at the young giant’s naïve astonishment,
“You live in a different world to me, Mr. Overton, a sweeter and healthier one. My ramifications stretch out into many sections of society, but never, I am happy to say, into amateur sport, which is the best and soundest thing in England. However, your unexpected visit this morning shows me that even in that world of fresh air and fair play there may be work for me to do; so now, my good sir, I beg you to sit down and to tell me slowly and quietly exactly what it is that has occurred, and how you desire that I should help you.”
Young Overton’s face assumed the bothered look of the man who is more accustomed to using his muscles than his wits; but by degrees, with many repetitions and obscurities which I may omit from his narrative, he laid his strange story before us.
“It’s this way, Mr. Holmes. As I have said, I am the skipper of the Rugger team of Cambridge ’Varsity, and Godfrey Staunton is my best man. Tomorrow we play Oxford. Yesterday we all came up and we settled at Bentley’s private hotel. At ten o’clock I went round and saw that all the fellows had gone to roost, for I believe in strict training and plenty of sleep to keep a team fit. I had a word or two with Godfrey before he turned in. He seemed to me to be pale and bothered. I asked him what was the matter. He said he was all right—just a touch of headache. I bade him good-night and left him. Half an hour later the porter tells me that a rough-looking man with a beard called with a note for Godfrey. He had not gone to bed and the note was taken to his room. Godfrey read it and fell back in a chair as if he had been pole-axed. The porter was so scared that he was going to fetch me, but Godfrey stopped him, had a drink of water, and pulled himself together. Then he went downstairs, said a few words to the man who was waiting in the hall, and the two of them went off together. The last that the porter saw of them, they were almost running down the street in the direction of the Strand. This morning Godfrey’s room was empty, his bed had never been slept in, and his things were all just as I had seen them the night before. He had gone off at a moment’s notice with this stranger, and no word has come from him since. I don’t believe he will ever come back. He was a sportsman, was Godfrey, down to his marrow, and he wouldn’t have stopped his training and let in his skipper if it were not for some cause that was too strong for him. No; I feel as if he were gone for good and we should never see him again.”
Sherlock Holmes listened with the deepest attention to this singular narrative.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“I wired to Cambridge to learn if anything had been heard of him there. I have had an answer. No one has seen him.”
“Could he have got back to Cambridge?”
“Yes, there is a late train—quarter-past eleven.”
“But so far as you can ascertain he did not take it?”
“No, he has not been seen.”
“What did you do next?”
“I wired to Lord Mount-James.”
“Why to Lord Mount-James?”
“Godfrey is an orphan, and Lord Mount-James is his nearest relative—his uncle, I believe.”
“Indeed. This throws new light upon the matter. Lord Mount-James is one of the richest men in England.”
“So I’ve heard Godfrey say.”
“And your friend was closely related?”
“Yes, he was his heir, and the old boy is nearly eighty—cram full of gout, too. They say he could chalk his billiard-cue with his knuckles. He never allowed Godfrey a shilling in his life, for he is an absolute miser, but it will all come to him right enough.”
/> “Have you heard from Lord Mount-James?”
“No.”
“What motive could your friend have in going to Lord Mount-James?”
“Well, something was worrying him the night before, and if it was to do with money it is possible that he would make for his nearest relative who had so much of it, though from all I have heard he would not have much chance of getting it. Godfrey was not fond of the old man. He would not go if he could help it.”
“Well, we can soon determine that. If your friend was going to his relative, Lord Mount-James, you have then to explain the visit of this rough-looking fellow at so late an hour, and the agitation that was caused by his coming.”
Cyril Overton pressed his hands to his head. “I can make nothing of it,” said he.
“Well, well, I have a clear day, and I shall be happy to look into the matter,” said Holmes. “I should strongly recommend you to make your preparations for your match without reference to this young gentleman. It must, as you say, have been an overpowering necessity which tore him away in such a fashion, and the same necessity is likely to hold him away. Let us step round together to this hotel, and see if the porter can throw any fresh light upon the matter.”
Sherlock Holmes was a past-master in the art of putting a humble witness at his ease, and very soon, in the privacy of Godfrey Staunton’s abandoned room, he had extracted all that the porter had to tell. The visitor of the night before was not a gentleman, neither was he a working man. He was simply what the porter described as a “medium-looking chap”; a man of fifty, beard grizzled, pale face, quietly dressed. He seemed himself to be agitated. The porter had observed his hand trembling when he had held out the note. Godfrey Staunton had crammed the note into his pocket. Staunton had not shaken hands with the man in the hall. They had exchanged a few sentences, of which the porter had only distinguished the one word “time.” Then they had hurried off in the manner described. It was just half-past ten by the hall clock.
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