He held out his band. On the palm were three little pyramids of black, doughy clay.
“Why, Holmes, you had only two yesterday.”
“And one more this morning. It is a fair argument that wherever No. 3 came from is also the source of Nos. 1 and 2. Eh, Watson? Well, come along and put friend Soames out of his pain.”
The unfortunate tutor was certainly in a state of pitiable agitation when we found him in his chambers. In a few hours the examinations would commence, and he was still in the dilemma between making the facts public and allowing the culprit to compete for the valuable scholarship. He could hardly stand still, so great was his mental agitation, and he ran towards Holmes with two eager hands outstretched.
“Thank heaven that you have come! I feared that you had given it up in despair. What am I to do? Shall the examination proceed?”
“Yes; let it proceed, by all means.”
“But this rascal—?”
“He shall not compete.”
“You know him?”
“I think so. If this matter is not to become public we must give ourselves certain powers, and resolve ourselves into a small private court-martial.22 You there, if you please, Soames! Watson, you here! I’ll take the arm chair in the middle. I think that we are now sufficiently imposing to strike terror into a guilty breast. Kindly ring the bell!”
Bannister entered, and shrank back in evident surprise and fear at our judicial appearance.
“You will kindly close the door,” said Holmes. “Now, Bannister, will you please tell us the truth about yesterday’s incident?”
The man turned white to the roots of his hair.
“I have told you everything, sir.”
“Nothing to add?”
“Nothing at all, sir.”
“Well, then, I must make some suggestions to you. When you sat down on that chair yesterday, did you do so in order to conceal some object which would have shown who had been in the room?”
Bannister’s face was ghastly.
“No, sir, certainly not.”
“It is only a suggestion,” said Holmes, suavely. “I frankly admit that I am unable to prove it. But it seems probable enough, since the moment that Mr. Soames’s back was turned you released the man who was hiding in that bedroom.”
Bannister explains.
Frederick Dorr Steele, Collier’s, 1904
Bannister licked his dry lips.
“There was no man, sir.”
“Ah, that’s a pity, Bannister. Up to now you may have spoken the truth, but now I know that you have lied.”
The man’s face set in sullen defiance.
“There was no man, sir.”
“Come, come, Bannister!”
“No, sir, there was no one.”
“In that case you can give us no further information. Would you please remain in the room? Stand over there near the bedroom door. Now, Soames, I am going to ask you to have the great kindness to go up to the room of young Gilchrist, and to ask him to step down into yours.”
An instant later the tutor returned, bringing with him the student. He was a fine figure of a man, tall, lithe, and agile, with a springy step and a pleasant, open face. His troubled blue eyes glanced at each of us, and finally rested with an expression of blank dismay upon Bannister in the farther comer.
“Just close the door,” said Holmes. “Now, Mr. Gilchrist, we are all quite alone here, and no one need ever know one word of what passes between us. We can be perfectly frank with each other. We want to know, Mr. Gilchrist, how you, an honourable man, ever came to commit such an action as that of yesterday?”
The unfortunate young man staggered back, and cast a look full of horror and reproach at Bannister.
“No, no, Mr. Gilchrist, sir; I never said a word—never one word!” cried the servant.
“No, but you have now,” said Holmes. “Now, sir, you must see that after Bannister’s words your position is hopeless, and that your only chance lies in a frank confession.”
For a moment Gilchrist, with upraised hand, tried to control his writhing features. The next he had thrown himself on his knees beside the table, and, burying his face in his hands, he had burst into a storm of passionate sobbing.
“Come, come,” said Holmes kindly; “it is human to err, and at least no one can accuse you of being a callous criminal. Perhaps it would be easier for you if I were to tell Mr. Soames what occurred, and you can check me where I am wrong. Shall I do so? Well, well, don’t trouble to answer. Listen, and see that I do you no injustice.
“An instant later the tutor returned, bringing with him the student.”
Sidney Paget, Strand Magazine, 1904
“From the moment, Mr. Soames, that you said to me that no one, not even Bannister, could have told that the papers were in your room, the case began to take a definite shape in my mind. The printer one could, of course, dismiss. He could examine the papers in his own office. The Indian I also thought nothing of. If the proofs were in roll, he could not possibly know what they were. On the other hand, it seemed an unthinkable coincidence that a man should dare to enter the room, and that by chance on that very day the papers were on the table. I dismissed that. The man who entered knew that the papers were there. How did he know?
“When I approached your room I examined the window. You amused me by supposing that I was contemplating the possibility of someone having in broad daylight, under the eyes of all these opposite rooms, forced himself through it. Such an idea was absurd. I was measuring how tall a man would need to be in order to see, as he passed, what papers were on the central table. I am six feet high, and I could do it with an effort. No one less than that would have a chance. Already you see I had reason to think that, if one of your three students was a man of unusual height, he was the most worth watching of the three.
“‘Come, come,’ said Holmes, kindly, ‘it is human to err.’”
Sidney Paget, Strand Magazine, 1904
“I entered, and I took you into my confidence as to the suggestions of the side-table. Of the centre table I could make nothing, until in your description of Gilchrist you mentioned that he was a long-distance jumper. Then the whole thing came to me in an instant, and I only needed certain corroborative proofs, which I speedily obtained.
“What happened was this: This young fellow had employed his afternoon at the athletic grounds, where he had been practising the jump. He returned carrying his jumping-shoes, which are provided, as you are aware, with several sharp spikes. As he passed your window he saw, by means of his great height, these proofs upon your table, and conjectured what they were. No harm would have been done had it not been that, as he passed your door, he perceived the key which had been left by the carelessness of your servant. A sudden impulse came over him to enter and see if they were indeed the proofs. It was not a dangerous exploit, for he could always pretend that he had simply looked in to ask a question.
“Well, when he saw that they were indeed the proofs, it was then that he yielded to temptation. He put his shoes on the table. What was it you put on that chair near the window?”
“Gloves,” said the young man.
Holmes looked triumphantly at Bannister. “He put his gloves on the chair, and he took the proofs, sheet by sheet, to copy them. He thought the tutor must return by the main gate, and that he would see him. As we know, he came back by the side-gate. Suddenly he heard him at the very door. There was no possible escape. He forgot his gloves, but he caught up his shoes and darted into the bedroom. You observe that the scratch on that table is slight at one side, but deepens in the direction of the bedroom door, That in itself is enough to show us that the shoes had been drawn in that direction, and that the culprit had taken refuge there. The earth round the spike had been left on the table, and a second sample was loosened and fell in the bedroom. I may add that I walked out to the athletic grounds this morning, saw that tenacious black clay is used in the jumping-pit,23 and carried away a specimen of it, together with some of t
he fine tan24 or sawdust which is strewn over it to prevent the athlete from slipping. Have I told the truth, Mr. Gilchrist?”
The student had drawn himself erect.
“Yes, sir, it is true,” said he.
“Good heavens! have you nothing to add?” cried Soames.
“Yes, sir, I have, but the shock of this disgraceful exposure has bewildered me. I have a letter here, Mr. Soames, which I wrote to you early this morning in the middle of a restless night. It was before I knew that my sin had found me out. Here it is, sir. You will see that I have said, ‘I have determined not to go in for the examination. I have been offered a commission in the Rhodesian Police,25 and I am going out to South Africa at once.’ ”
“I am indeed pleased to hear that you did not intend to profit by your unfair advantage,” said Soames. “But why did you change your purpose?26
Gilchrist pointed to Bannister.
“There is the man who set me in the right path,” said he.
“Come now, Bannister,” said Holmes. “It will be clear to you, from what I have said, that only you could have let this young man out, since you were left in the room and must have locked the door when you went out. As to his escaping by that window, it was incredible. Can you not clear up the last point in this mystery, and tell us the reason for your action?”
“It was simple enough, sir, if you only had known; but, with all your cleverness, it was impossible that you could know. Time was, sir, when I was butler to old Sir Jabez Gilchrist, this young gentleman’s father. When he was ruined I came to the college as servant, but I never forgot my old employer because he was down in the world. I watched his son all I could for the sake of the old days. Well, sir, when I came into this room yesterday, when the alarm was given, the very first thing I saw was Mr. Gilchrist’s tan gloves a-lying in that chair. I knew those gloves well, and I understood their message. If Mr. Soames saw them, the game was up. I flopped down into that chair, and nothing would budge me until Mr. Soames went for you. Then out came my poor young master, whom I had dandled on my knee, and confessed it all to me. Wasn’t it natural, sir, that I should save him, and wasn’t it natural also that I should try to speak to him as his dead father would have done, and make him understand that he could not profit by such a deed? Could you blame me, sir?”
“Here it is, sir.”
Sidney Paget, Strand Magazine, 1904
“No, indeed!” said Holmes, heartily, springing to his feet. “Well, Soames, I think we have cleared your little problem up, and our breakfast awaits us at home. Come, Watson! As to you, sir, I trust that a bright future awaits you in Rhodesia. For once you have fallen low. Let us see in the future how high you can rise.”27
THE STUDY OF EARLY ENGLISH CHARTERS
WATSON’S casual remark that Holmes was conducting research into early English charters may be a significant clue in the controversy over whether Holmes attended Oxford or Cambridge—or at least several scholars seize upon it as such. The first to lean heavily on this point is T. S. Blakeney, who declares in “The Location of ‘The Three Students’ ” that Holmes’s research must have been conducted at Oxford. As proof, he lauds Oxford’s history department, claiming that its status was unparalleled in England at this time. In part, the department owed its lofty reputation to the eminent William Stubbs, regius professor of history (as well as bishop respectively of Chester and Oxford), whose published works include the three-volume The Constitutional History of England in Its Origin and Development (1873–78), Select Charters and Other Illustrations of English Constitutional History from the Earliest Times to the Reign of Edward the First (1870) and nineteen volumes of medieval English chronicles that he edited for the government’s ambitious Rolls series. In addition, Blakeney notes, William H. Turner’s Calendar of Charters and Rolls was published by Oxford in 1878 and housed in Oxford’s Bodleian Library. Turner’s work was “just the sort of volume that an amateur historian, as Holmes was, would find invaluable. Against this solidly enthroned tradition of the Oxford Medieval History School, what had Cambridge to offer?”
Christopher Morley agrees with Blakeney and surmises that Holmes may have been at Oxford to consult with Stubbs on the eighth edition of Select Charters, which by this time had become a widely used textbook. Morley directs readers to the tenth section of Dialogus de Scaccario (Dialogue on the Exchequer), an essay, drawn up circa 1200, that comments upon the biannual meeting of the treasurer of England, as well as other matters of taxation and revenue. The tenth section is concerned with murder. In medieval times, apparently, murder was defined it as “the secret death of somebody, whose slayer is not known,” on the basis of the fact that the Old English word “murdrum” meant “hidden” or “occult.” (Stubbs explains that Anglo-Saxons seeking vengeance frequently laid ambushes for their Norman enemies, killing them in remote places.) Given Holmes’s general interest in things medieval (miracle plays and medieval pottery are mentioned in The Sign of Four, and in “The Bruce-Partington Plans” he has made a hobby of the music of the Middle Ages) and in British criminal law (Watson assesses him as having a “good practical knowledge” of it in A Study in Scarlet), Morley suggests that Holmes would find this particular work especially interesting.
Cambridge has its supporters, as well. While granting that Blakeney is “entirely fair” in making such an “erudite review” of charters at Oxford and Cambridge, W. S. Bristowe writes (in “Oxford or Cambridge?”) that Blakeney’s assessment passes over the many old, valuable documents at Cambridge that were being somewhat belatedly recognised as important. Bristowe seizes upon M. R. James’s “Catalogues of Manuscripts” series, published at Cambridge from 1895 to 1914, and observes that Holmes could have caught up with James just as he was at the cusp of his research. “This surely would be the very moment when a man interested in research in the same field would be eager to meet Dr. James and to examine documents freshly coming to light.”
A. Carson Simpson is another Cambridge supporter, writing in a letter to the Baker Street Journal that he changed his early backing of Oxford after reading F. E. Harmer’s Anglo-Saxon Writs (1952) and finding that most of the documents mentioned were located in Cambridge libraries. Acknowledging that these documents were writs and not charters, Simpson ventures that the distinction between charters, which are legal contracts, and writs, which are official declarations, has been established only fairly recently. Sorting out the differences could very well have been connected to Holmes’s “striking results.”
The foregoing arguments are made without any apparent regard to Watson’s explicit statement, in the first sentence of the case, that “a combination of events, into which I need not enter, caused Mr. Sherlock Holmes and myself to spend some weeks in one of our great university towns.” That is, Holmes did not come to the university town solely to study charters. This point is clearly understood by Trevor H. Hall, in “Sherlock Holmes’s University and College,” where he states that “the opportunity to consult Early English charters was only one ingredient in Holmes’s motive in visiting Cambridge or Oxford [italics added].” Hall suggests that the reason for Holmes’s interest in the charters was probably an investigation of a forged historical document. If a “combination of events” brought Holmes to the university town, Hall concludes, the richness of the collection of one or the other had no bearing on the matter.
1 “The Three Students” appeared in the Strand Magazine in June 1904 and in Collier’s Weekly on September 24, 1904.
2 As will be seen, Watson’s cautionary words are completely ignored by the commentators, who endeavour to discern whether the university was Cambridge or Oxford. Holmes’s evident familiarity with the town, the customs, and some of its inhabitants leads many scholars to conclude that whatever university is depicted in “The Three Students” must be the university Holmes himself attended. However, the clues are ambiguous, at best, and the controversy remains unsettled.
3 See the appendix on page 1089 for a discussion of the Oxford vs. Cambridge aspects
of the study of early English charters.
4 In this case, “tutor” is meant to describe a fellow who instructs the undergraduates at one of Oxford or Cambridge’s many colleges. Being a tutor is quite prestigious—the position carries both a stipend and permanent membership on the college’s governing board. It is awarded on the basis of superior performance on one’s undergraduate exams. The Encyclopædia Britannica (11th Ed.) distinguishes the responsibilities of the tutor at Oxford and the tutor at Cambridge, noting that the former lectures and supervises undergraduates, whereas the latter is not required to teach. Is this a point for Oxford?
5 Although scholars analyse “The Three Students” in detail considering whether it displays evidence of Holmes’s familiarity with the University town, this phrase implies that Watson knew Soames well before “the year ’95.” How Watson and Soames came into contact with each other remains a mystery, for Watson never mentions any university career (in A Study in Scarlet) other than his years at the University of London, where he eventually obtained his M.D. Perhaps Soames was earlier employed as an instructor at the public school attended by Percy Phelps and Watson (“The Naval Treaty”)?
6 Christopher Redmond, in A Sherlock Holmes Handbook, finds it “improbable” that avoiding scandal was Soames’s main goal, noting that a university (or tutor) truly interested in keeping things quiet would try to settle the matter internally rather than call in a famous detective to investigate the matter.
7 “The true Holmes is never discourteous to a client,” contends Ronald A. Knox, who, in “Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes,” rejects all of the stories of Return of Sherlock Holmes as “lucubrations of [Watson’s] unaided inventions.”
8 The manuscript, owned by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, originally read “day after tomorrow.”
9 One of ancient Greece’s greatest historians, the Athenian Thucydides (ca. 460–400 B.C.) served as a general in the Peloponnesian War and was exiled after failing to prevent the city of Amphipolis from falling to the Spartans. During the twenty years he was banished from Athens, Thucydides wrote his only work, History of the Peloponnesian War, a military history of relations between Athens and Sparta that incorporated a chronological narrative as well as imagined speeches that were inserted into the narration. (The most famous of these is Pericles’s funeral oration.) It differed significantly from previous historical accounts in that it was a work meant to be read, not recited. Rather than just recording events, Thucydides analysed their significance and strived for factual accuracy, clearly attempting to create a definitive history that would be studied by future generations.
The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories: The Return of Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow and The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (Non-slipcased edition) (Vol. 2) (The Annotated Books) Page 35