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)
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“Now, Miss Dunbar,” said Holmes, “I beg you to tell us exactly what occurred that evening.”
“I can tell you the truth so far as I know it, Mr. Holmes, but I am in a position to prove nothing, and there are points—the most vital points—which I can neither explain nor can I imagine any explanation.”
“If you will find the facts, perhaps others may find the explanation.”
“With regard, then, to my presence at Thor Bridge that night, I received a note from Mrs. Gibson in the morning. It lay on the table of the schoolroom, and it may have been left there by her own hand. It implored me to see her there after dinner, said she had something important to say to me, and asked me to leave an answer on the sundial in the garden, as she desired no one to be in our confidence. I saw no reason for such secrecy, but I did as she asked, accepting the appointment. She asked me to destroy her note and I burned it in the schoolroom grate. She was very much afraid of her husband, who treated her with a harshness for which I frequently reproached him, and I could only imagine that she acted in this way because she did not wish him to know of our interview.”
“Yet she kept your reply very carefully?”
“Yes. I was surprised to hear that she had it in her hand when she died.”
“Well, what happened then?”
“I went down as I had promised. When I reached the bridge she was waiting for me. Never did I realize till that moment how this poor creature hated me. She was like a mad woman—indeed, I think she was a mad woman, subtly mad with the deep power of deception which insane people may have. How else could she have met me with unconcern every day and yet had so raging a hatred of me in her heart? I will not say what she said. She poured her whole wild fury out in burning and horrible words. I did not even answer—I could not. It was dreadful to see her. I put my hands to my ears and rushed away. When I left her she was standing still shrieking out her curses at me, in the mouth of the bridge.”
“She poured her whole wild fury out in burning and horrible words—I put my hands to my ears and rushed away.”
A. Gilbert, Strand Magazine, 1922
“Where she was afterwards found?”
“Within a few yards from the spot.”
“And yet, presuming that she met her death shortly after you left her, you heard no shot?”
“No, I heard nothing. But, indeed, Mr. Holmes, I was so agitated and horrified by this terrible outbreak that I rushed to get back to the peace of my own room, and I was incapable of noticing anything which happened.”
“You say that you returned to your room. Did you leave it again before next morning?”
“Yes, when the alarm came that the poor creature had met her death I ran out with the others.”
“Did you see Mr. Gibson?”
“Yes; he had just returned from the bridge when I saw him. He had sent for the doctor and the police.”
“Did he seem to you much perturbed?”
“Mr. Gibson is a very strong, self-contained man. I do not think that he would ever show his emotions on the surface. But I, who knew him so well, could see that he was deeply concerned.”
“Then we come to the all-important point. This pistol that was found in your room. Had you ever seen it before?”
“Never, I swear it.”
“When was it found?”
“Next morning, when the police made their search.”
“Among your clothes?”
“Yes; on the floor of my wardrobe under my dresses.”
“You could not guess how long it had been there?”
“It had not been there the morning before.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I tidied out the wardrobe.”
“That is final. Then someone came into your room and placed the pistol there in order to inculpate you.”
“It must have been so.”
“And when?”
“It could only have been at meal-time, or else at the hours when I would be in the schoolroom with the children.”
“As you were when you got the note?”
“Yes; from that time onward for the whole morning.”
“Thank you, Miss Dunbar. Is there any other point which could help me in the investigation?”
“I can think of none.”
“There was some sign of violence on the stonework of the bridge—a perfectly fresh chip just opposite the body. Could you suggest any possible explanation of that?”
“Surely it must be a mere coincidence.”
“Curious, Miss Dunbar, very curious. Why should it appear at the very time of the tragedy, and why at the very place?”
“But what could have caused it? Only great violence could have such an effect.”25
Holmes did not answer. His pale, eager face had suddenly assumed that tense, far-away expression which I had learned to associate with the supreme manifestations of his genius. So evident was the crisis in his mind that none of us dared to speak, and we sat, barrister, prisoner, and myself, watching him in a concentrated and absorbed silence. Suddenly he sprang from his chair, vibrating with nervous energy and the pressing need for action.
“Come, Watson, come!” he cried.
“What is it, Mr. Holmes?”
“Never mind, my dear lady. You will hear from me, Mr. Cummings. With the help of the god of justice I will give you a case which will make England ring. You will get news by to-morrow, Miss Dunbar, and meanwhile take my assurance that the clouds are lifting and that I have every hope that the light of truth is breaking through.”
It was not a long journey from Winchester to Thor Place, but it was long to me in my impatience, while for Holmes it was evident that it seemed endless; for, in his nervous restlessness, he could not sit still, but paced the carriage or drummed with his long, sensitive fingers upon the cushions beside him. Suddenly, however, as we neared our destination he seated himself opposite to me—we had a first-class carriage to ourselves—and laying a hand upon each of my knees he looked into my eyes with the peculiarly mischievous gaze which was characteristic of his more imp-like moods.
“Watson,” said he, “I have some recollection that you go armed upon these excursions of ours.”
“Suddenly Holmes sprang from his chair. ‘Come, Watson, come!’ he said. ‘With the help of the God of justice I will give you a case which will make England ring.’”
A. Gilbert, Strand Magazine, 1922
It was as well for him that I did so, for he took little care for his own safety when his mind was once absorbed by a problem, so that more than once my revolver had been a good friend in need. I reminded him of the fact.
“Yes, yes, I am a little absent-minded in such matters. But have you your revolver on you?”
I produced it from my hip-pocket, a short, handy, but very serviceable little weapon. He undid the catch,26 shook out the cartridges, and examined it with care.
“It’s heavy—remarkably heavy,” said he.
“Yes, it is a solid bit of work.”
He mused over it for a minute.
“Do you know, Watson,” said he, “I believe your revolver is going to have a very intimate connection with the mystery which we are investigating.”
“My dear Holmes, you are joking.”
“No, Watson, I am very serious. There is a test before us. If the test comes off, all will be clear. And the test will depend upon the conduct of this little weapon. One cartridge out. Now we will replace the other five and put on the safety-catch. So! That increases the weight and makes it a better reproduction.”
I had no glimmer of what was in his mind, nor did he enlighten me, but sat lost in thought until we pulled up in the little Hampshire station. We secured a ramshackle trap, and in a quarter of an hour were at the house of our confidential friend, the sergeant.
“A clue, Mr. Holmes? What is it?”
“It all depends upon the behaviour of Dr. Watson’s revolver,” said my friend. “Here it is. Now, officer, can you give me ten yards
of string?”
The village shop provided a ball of stout twine.
“I think that this is all we will need,” said Holmes. “Now, if you please, we will get off on what I hope is the last stage of our journey.”
The sun was setting and turning the rolling Hampshire moor into a wonderful autumnal panorama. The sergeant, with many critical and incredulous glances, which showed his deep doubts of the sanity of my companion, lurched along beside us. As we approached the scene of the crime I could see that my friend under all his habitual coolness was in truth deeply agitated.
“Yes,” he said in answer to my remark, “you have seen me miss my mark before, Watson. I have an instinct for such things, and yet it has sometimes played me false. It seemed a certainty when first it flashed across my mind in the cell at Winchester, but one drawback of an active mind is that one can always conceive alternative explanations which would make our scent a false one. And yet—and yet—Well, Watson, we can but try.”27
As he walked he had firmly tied one end of the string to the handle of the revolver. We had now reached the scene of the tragedy. With great care he marked out under the guidance of the policeman the exact spot where the body had been stretched. He then hunted among the heather and the ferns until he found a considerable stone. This he secured to the other end of his line of string, and he hung it over the parapet of the bridge so that it swung clear above the water. He then stood on the fatal spot, some distance from the edge of the bridge, with my revolver in his hand, the string being taut between the weapon and the heavy stone on the farther side.
“Now for it!” he cried.
At the words he raised the pistol to his head, and then let go his grip. In an instant it had been whisked away by the weight of the stone, had struck with a sharp crack against the parapet, and had vanished over the side into the water. It had hardly gone before Holmes was kneeling beside the stonework, and a joyous cry showed that he had found what he expected.
“Holmes was kneeling beside the stonework, and a joyous cry showed that he had found what he expected.”
A. Gilbert, Strand Magazine, 1922
“Was there ever a more exact demonstration?” he cried. “See, Watson, your revolver has solved the problem!” As he spoke he pointed to a second chip of the exact size and shape of the first which had appeared on the under edge of the stone balustrade.28
“We’ll stay at the inn to-night,” he continued as he rose and faced the astonished sergeant. “You will, of course, get a grappling-hook and you will easily restore my friend’s revolver. You will also find beside it the revolver, string and weight with which this vindictive woman attempted to disguise her own crime29 and to fasten a charge of murder upon an innocent victim.30 You can let Mr. Gibson know that I will see him in the morning, when steps can be taken for Miss Dunbar’s vindication.”
Late that evening, as we sat together smoking our pipes in the village inn, Holmes gave me a brief review of what had passed.
“I fear, Watson,” said he, “that you will not improve any reputation which I may have acquired by adding the Case of the Thor Bridge Mystery to your annals. I have been sluggish in mind and wanting in that mixture of imagination and reality which is the basis of my art. I confess that the chip in the stonework was a sufficient clue to suggest the true solution, and that I blame myself for not having attained it sooner.
“It must be admitted that the workings of this unhappy woman’s mind were deep and subtle, so that it was no very simple matter to unravel her plot. I do not think that in our adventures we have ever come across a stranger example of what perverted love can bring about. Whether Miss Dunbar was her rival in a physical or in a merely mental sense seems to have been equally unforgivable in her eyes. No doubt she blamed this innocent lady for all those harsh dealings and unkind words with which her husband tried to repel her too demonstrative affection. Her first resolution was to end her own life. Her second was to do it in such a way as to involve her victim in a fate which was worse far than any sudden death could be.
“We can follow the various steps quite clearly, and they show a remarkable subtlety of mind. A note was extracted very cleverly from Miss Dunbar which would make it appear that she had chosen the scene of the crime. In her anxiety that it should be discovered she somewhat overdid it, by holding it in her hand to the last. This alone should have excited my suspicions earlier than it did.
“Then she took one of her husband’s revolvers—there was, as you saw, an arsenal in the house—and kept it for her own use. A similar one she concealed that morning in Miss Dunbar’s wardrobe after discharging one barrel, which she could easily do in the woods without attracting attention. She then went down to the bridge where she had contrived this exceedingly ingenious method for getting rid of her weapon. When Miss Dunbar appeared she used her last breath in pouring out her hatred, and then, when she was out of hearing, carried out her terrible purpose. Every link is now in its place and the chain is complete. The papers may ask why the mere was not dragged in the first instance, but it is easy to be wise after the event, and in any case the expanse of a reed-filled lake is no easy matter to drag unless you have a clear perception of what you are looking for and where. Well, Watson, we have helped a remarkable woman, and also a formidable man. Should they in the future join their forces, as seems not unlikely,31 the financial world may find that Mr. Neil Gibson has learned something in that schoolroom of Sorrow where our earthly lessons are taught.”32
SYNOPSIS OF THE FIRST PART OF THE STORY
(Strand Magazine, March 1922)
“THE THREE leading figures in this Adventure are Neil Gibson, a famous gold-mining magnate, his wife, and their children’s young governess, the attractive Miss Dunbar. The wife was found in the grounds of Thor Place, nearly half a mile from the house, late at night, clad in her dinner dress, with a revolver bullet through her brain. No weapon was found near her. There was no trace of a struggle, but in her left hand was clutched a note reading: ‘I will be at Thor Bridge at nine o’clock.—G. Dunbar.’ Later, the police discovered on the floor of the wardrobe in the governess’s room a revolver with one discharged chamber and a calibre which corresponded with the bullet. Miss Dunbar, when arrested, could prove no alibi—on the contrary, she admitted she was near Thor Bridge, the scene of the tragedy, about the time of Mrs. Gibson’s death. She also admitted writing the note, but would say no more.
“Gibson urges Sherlock Holmes to spare neither trouble nor expense to clear Miss Dunbar. ‘It’s very black against her,’ he admits. ‘I can’t deny that. . . . And there is no doubt that my wife was bitterly jealous.’
“The revolver is found to belong to Gibson, but there is no evidence that he had been out of doors since his return from town at five o’clock. Miss Dunbar, on the other hand, admitted making the appointment with Mrs. Gibson.
“On viewing the scene of the tragedy, Sherlock Holmes’s careful examination of the bridge reveals a small and apparently recently-made chip on the parapet. ‘It took some violence to do that,’ said Holmes, thoughtfully. ‘It was a hard knock. In a curious place, too. It was not from above but from below, for you see that it is on the lower edge of the parapet.’
“As the following instalment shows, this apparently insignificant chip in the stone was really the clue to the solution of the mystery.”
THE ORIGINAL “PROBLEM OF THOR BRIDGE”
DR. HANS GROSS (1847–1915) was professor of criminology at the University of Graz, Austria, and one of the founders of police science. In his monumental Handbuch für Untersuchungsrichter (Handbook for Criminal Investigators), Gross reports the following case:
Early one morning the authorities were informed that the corpse of a murdered man had been found. At the spot indicated, in the middle of a bridge crossing a rather deep stream, the body was found of a grain merchant, A. M., supposed to be a well-to-do man, face downward with a gunshot wound behind the ear. The bullet, after passing through the brain, had lodged in the frontal bone
above the left eye. His pocket book was missing and the seam of the inside pocket in which it was usually carried was ripped up, as if the pocket-book had been rapidly and violently snatched out. His watch and chain were also missing; of the latter the ring attaching it to the waistcoat button was alone left. A policeman stated that A. M. had been seen the evening before in a spirit shop, where he drank with moderation and left about 10:30 P.M., stating he was about to return home. To reach his house he had to pass over the bridge where he was found dead. In the spirit shop there was at the same time as A. M. an unknown, wretched-looking man, who throughout the evening drank but a single glass of spirits and left shortly after A. M. The latter had several times taken out his pocket-book, which appeared well filled, though no one could say whether he had any money or how much. The supposition was therefore natural that the unknown had followed A. M., murdered him on the bridge, and robbed him; he was accordingly searched for, arrested, and brought to the spot. He denied all knowledge of the crime and said he had passed the night in a barn, which however he could not point out to the police. Just when the inquiry was concluding and the corpse was about to be removed after the postmortem, the Investigating Officer observed quite by chance that on the decayed wooden parapet of the bridge, almost opposite the spot where the corpse lay, there was a small, but perfectly fresh injury which appeared to have been caused by the violent blow on the upper edge of the parapet of a hard and angular body. He immediately suspected that this injury had some connection with the murder; examination with a magnifying glass showed nothing important, but it was impossible to avoid the impression that here the murderer had thrown something into the water and thus damaged the parapet. Accordingly the Investigating Officer determined to drag the bed of the stream below the bridge, when almost immediately there was picked up a strong cord about 14 feet long with a large stone at one end and at the other a discharged pistol, the barrel of which fitted exactly the bullet extracted from the head of A. M. The case was thus evidently one of suicide; A. M. had hung the stone over the parapet of the bridge and discharged the pistol behind his ear. The moment he fired he let go the pistol, which the weight of the stone dragged over the parapet into the water, but the pistol had struck violently against the parapet in passing over and so caused the injury observed. Experiment showed the trick to be quite easy and that the parapet was damaged every time. Subsequent inquiries disclosed that the pistol actually belonged to A. M., that his affairs were hopelessly involved, and that he had just effected an insurance on his life for the benefit of his family for a large sum. As the company did not pay in cases of suicide, A. M. had adopted this means to conceal the suicide and lead to the belief that he had been murdered.33