A Double Barrelled Detective

M >> Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> A Double Barrelled Detective


He strode off swiftly southward, the files following, swaying and bending
in and out with the deep curves of the gorge. Thus a mile, and the mouth
of the gorge was reached; before them stretched the sagebrush plain, dim,
vast, and vague. Stillman called a halt, saying, "We mustn't start
wrong, now; we must take the direction again."

He took a lantern and examined the ground for a matter of twenty yards;
then said, "Come on; it's all right," and gave up the lantern. In and
out among the sage-bushes he marched, a quarter of a mile, bearing
gradually to the right; then took a new direction and made another great
semicircle; then changed again and moved due west nearly half a mile--and
stopped.

"She gave it up, here, poor little chap. Hold the lantern. You can see
where she sat."

But this was in a slick alkali flat which was surfaced like steel, and no
person in the party was quite hardy enough to claim an eyesight that
could detect the track of a cushion on a veneer like that. The bereaved
mother fell upon her knees and kissed the spot, lamenting.

"But where is she, then?" some one said. "She didn't stay here. We can
see that much, anyway."

Stillman moved about in a circle around the place, with the lantern,
pretending to hunt for tracks.

"Well!" he said presently, in an annoyed tone, "I don't understand it."
He examined again. "No use. She was here--that's certain; she never
walked away from here--and that's certain. It's a puzzle; I can't make
it out."

The mother lost heart then.

"Oh, my God! oh, blessed Virgin! some flying beast has got her. I'll
never see her again!"

"Ah, don't give up," said Archy. "We'll find her--don't give up."

"God bless you for the words, Archy Stillman!" and she seized his hand
and kissed it fervently.

Peterson, the new-comer, whispered satirically in Ferguson's ear:

"Wonderful performance to find this place, wasn't it? Hardly worth while
to come so far, though; any other supposititious place would have
answered just as well--hey?"

Ferguson was not pleased with the innuendo. He said, with some warmth:

"Do you mean to insinuate that the child hasn't been here? I tell you
the child has been here! Now if you want to get yourself into as tidy a
little fuss as--"

"All right!" sang out Stillman. "Come, everybody, and look at this! It
was right under our noses all the time, and we didn't see it."

There was a general plunge for the ground at the place where the child
was alleged to have rested, and many eyes tried hard and hopefully to see
the thing that Archy's finger was resting upon. There was a pause, then
a several-barreled sigh of disappointment. Pat Riley and Ham Sandwich
said, in the one breath:

"What is it, Archy? There's nothing here."

"Nothing? Do you call that nothing?" and he swiftly traced upon the
ground a form with his finger. "There--don't you recognize it now? It's
Injun Billy's track. He's got the child."

"God be praised!" from the mother.

"Take away the lantern. I've got the direction. Follow!"

He started on a run, racing in and out among the sage-bushes a matter of
three hundred yards, and disappeared over a sand-wave; the others
struggled after him, caught him up, and found him waiting. Ten steps
away was a little wickiup, a dim and formless shelter of rags and old
horse-blankets, a dull light showing through its chinks.

"You lead, Mrs. Hogan," said the lad. "It's your privilege to be first."

All followed the sprint she made for the wickiup, and saw, with her, the
picture its interior afforded. Injun Billy was sitting on the ground;
the child was asleep beside him. The mother hugged it with a wild
embrace, which included Archy Stillman, the grateful tears running down
her face, and in a choked and broken voice she poured out a golden stream
of that wealth of worshiping endearments which has its home in full
richness nowhere but in the Irish heart.

"I find her bymeby it is ten o'clock," Billy explained. "She 'sleep out
yonder, ve'y tired--face wet, been cryin', 'spose; fetch her home, feed
her, she heap much hungry--go 'sleep 'gin."

In her limitless gratitude the happy mother waived rank and hugged him
too, calling him "the angel of God in disguise." And he probably was in
disguise if he was that kind of an official. He was dressed for the
character.

At half past one in the morning the procession burst into the village
singing, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," waving its lanterns and
swallowing the drinks that were brought out all along its course. It
concentrated at the tavern, and made a night of what was left of the
morning.






PART II


I

The next afternoon the village was electrified with an immense sensation.
A grave and dignified foreigner of distinguished bearing and appearance
had arrived at the tavern, and entered this formidable name upon the
register:

SHERLOCK HOLMES

The news buzzed from cabin to cabin, from claim to claim; tools were
dropped, and the town swarmed toward the center of interest. A man
passing out at the northern end of the village shouted it to Pat Riley,
whose claim was the next one to Flint Buckner's. At that time Fetlock
Jones seemed to turn sick. He muttered to himself:

"Uncle Sherlock! The mean luck of it!--that he should come just when...."
He dropped into a reverie, and presently said to himself: "But what's the
use of being afraid of him? Anybody that knows him the way I do knows he
can't detect a crime except where he plans it all out beforehand and
arranges the clues and hires some fellow to commit it according to
instructions.... Now there ain't going to be any clues this time--so,
what show has he got? None at all. No, sir; everything's ready. If I
was to risk putting it off--No, I won't run any risk like that. Flint
Buckner goes out of this world to-night, for sure." Then another trouble
presented itself. "Uncle Sherlock 'll be wanting to talk home matters
with me this evening, and how am I going to get rid of him? for I've got
to be at my cabin a minute or two about eight o'clock." This was an
awkward matter, and cost him much thought. But he found a way to beat
the difficulty. "We'll go for a walk, and I'll leave him in the road a
minute, so that he won't see what it is I do: the best way to throw a
detective off the track, anyway, is to have him along when you are
preparing the thing. Yes, that's the safest--I'll take him with me."


Meantime the road in front of the tavern was blocked with villagers
waiting and hoping for a glimpse of the great man. But he kept his room,
and did not appear. None but Ferguson, Jake Parker the blacksmith, and
Ham Sandwich had any luck. These enthusiastic admirers of the great
scientific detective hired the tavern's detained-baggage lockup, which
looked into the detective's room across a little alleyway ten or twelve
feet wide, ambushed themselves in it, and cut some peep-holes in the
window-blind. Mr. Holmes's blinds were down; but by and by he raised
them. It gave the spies a hair-lifting but pleasurable thrill to find
themselves face to face with the Extraordinary Man who had filled the
world with the fame of his more than human ingenuities. There he sat
--not a myth, not a shadow, but real, alive, compact of substance, and
almost within touching distance with the hand.

"Look at that head!" said Ferguson, in an awed voice. "By gracious!
that's a head!"

"You bet!" said the blacksmith, with deep reverence. "Look at his nose!
look at his eyes! Intellect? Just a battery of it!"

"And that paleness," said Ham Sandwich. "Comes from thought--that's what
it comes from. Hell! duffers like us don't know what real thought is."

"No more we don't," said Ferguson. "What we take for thinking is just
blubber-and-slush."

"Right you are, Wells-Fargo. And look at that frown--that's deep
thinking--away down, down, forty fathom into the bowels of things. He's
on the track of something."

"Well, he is, and don't you forget it. Say--look at that awful gravity
--look at that pallid solemness--there ain't any corpse can lay over it."

"No, sir, not for dollars! And it's his'n by hereditary rights, too;
he's been dead four times a'ready, and there's history for it. Three
times natural, once by accident. I've heard say he smells damp and cold,
like a grave. And he--"

"'Sh! Watch him! There--he's got his thumb on the bump on the near
corner of his forehead, and his forefinger on the off one. His
think-works is just a-grinding now, you bet your other shirt."

"That's so. And now he's gazing up toward heaven and stroking his
mustache slow, and--"

"Now he has rose up standing, and is putting his clues together on his
left fingers with his right finger. See? he touches the forefinger--now
middle finger--now ring-finger--"

"Stuck!"

"Look at him scowl! He can't seem to make out that clue. So he--"

"See him smile!--like a tiger--and tally off the other fingers like
nothing! He's got it, boys; he's got it sure!"

"Well, I should say! I'd hate to be in that man's place that he's
after."

Mr. Holmes drew a table to the window, sat down with his back to the
spies, and proceeded to write. The spies withdrew their eyes from the
peep-holes, lit their pipes, and settled themselves for a comfortable
smoke and talk. Ferguson said, with conviction:

"Boys, it's no use talking, he's a wonder! He's got the signs of it all
over him."

"You hain't ever said a truer word than that, Wells-Fargo," said Jake
Parker. "Say, wouldn't it 'a' been nuts if he'd a-been here last night?"

"Oh, by George, but wouldn't it!" said Ferguson. "Then we'd have seen
scientific work. Intellect--just pure intellect--away up on the upper
levels, dontchuknow. Archy is all right, and it don't become anybody to
belittle him, I can tell you. But his gift is only just eyesight, sharp
as an owl's, as near as I can make it out just a grand natural animal
talent, no more, no less, and prime as far as it goes, but no intellect
in it, and for awfulness and marvelousness no more to be compared to what
this man does than--than--Why, let me tell you what he'd have done. He'd
have stepped over to Hogan's and glanced--just glanced, that's all--at
the premises, and that's enough. See everything? Yes, sir, to the last
little detail; and he'll know more about that place than the Hogans would
know in seven years. Next, he would sit down on the bunk, just as ca'm,
and say to Mrs. Hogan--Say, Ham, consider that you are Mrs. Hogan. I'll
ask the questions; you answer them."

"All right; go on."

"'Madam, if you please--attention--do not let your mind wander. Now,
then--sex of the child?'

"'Female, your Honor.'

"'Um--female. Very good, very good. Age?'

"'Turned six, your Honor.'

"'Um--young, weak--two miles. Weariness will overtake it then. It will
sink down and sleep. We shall find it two miles away, or less. Teeth?'

"'Five, your Honor, and one a-coming.'

"'Very good, very good, very good, indeed.' You see, boys, he knows a
clue when he sees it, when it wouldn't mean a dern thing to anybody else.
'Stockings, madam? Shoes?'

"'Yes, your Honor--both.'

"'Yarn, perhaps? Morocco?'

"'Yarn, your Honor. And kip.'

"'Um--kip. This complicates the matter. However, let it go--we shall
manage. Religion?'

"'Catholic, your Honor.'

"'Very good. Snip me a bit from the bed blanket, please. Ah, thanks.
Part wool--foreign make. Very well. A snip from some garment of the
child's, please. Thanks. Cotton. Shows wear. An excellent clue,
excellent. Pass me a pallet of the floor dirt, if you'll be so kind.
Thanks, many thanks. Ah, admirable, admirable! Now we know where we
are, I think.' You see, boys, he's got all the clues he wants now; he
don't need anything more. Now, then, what does this Extraordinary Man
do? He lays those snips and that dirt out on the table and leans over
them on his elbows, and puts them together side by side and studies them
--mumbles to himself, 'Female'; changes them around--mumbles, 'Six years
old'; changes them this way and that--again mumbles: 'Five teeth
--one a-coming--Catholic--yarn--cotton--kip--damn that kip.' Then he
straightens up and gazes toward heaven, and plows his hands through his
hair--plows and plows, muttering, 'Damn that kip!' Then he stands up and
frowns, and begins to tally off his clues on his fingers--and gets stuck
at the ring-finger. But only just a minute--then his face glares all up
in a smile like a house afire, and he straightens up stately and
majestic, and says to the crowd, 'Take a lantern, a couple of you, and go
down to Injun Billy's and fetch the child--the rest of you go 'long home
to bed; good-night, madam; good-night, gents.' And he bows like the
Matterhorn, and pulls out for the tavern. That's his style, and the
Only--scientific, intellectual--all over in fifteen minutes--no poking
around all over the sage-brush range an hour and a half in a mass-meeting
crowd for him, boys--you hear me!"

"By Jackson, it's grand!" said Ham Sandwich. "Wells-Fargo, you've got
him down to a dot. He ain't painted up any exacter to the life in the
books. By George, I can just see him--can't you, boys?"

"You bet you! It's just a photograft, that's what it is."

Ferguson was profoundly pleased with his success, and grateful. He sat
silently enjoying his happiness a little while, then he murmured, with a
deep awe in his voice,

"I wonder if God made him?"

There was no response for a moment; then Ham Sandwich said, reverently:

"Not all at one time, I reckon."




VII

At eight o'clock that evening two persons were groping their way past
Flint Buckner's cabin in the frosty gloom. They were Sherlock Holmes and
his nephew.

"Stop here in the road a moment, uncle," said Fetlock, "while I run to my
cabin; I won't be gone a minute."

He asked for something--the uncle furnished it--then he disappeared in
the darkness, but soon returned, and the talking-walk was resumed. By
nine o'clock they had wandered back to the tavern. They worked their way
through the billiard-room, where a crowd had gathered in the hope of
getting a glimpse of the Extraordinary Man. A royal cheer was raised.
Mr. Holmes acknowledged the compliment with a series of courtly bows, and
as he was passing out his nephew said to the assemblage:

"Uncle Sherlock's got some work to do, gentlemen, that 'll keep him till
twelve or one; but he'll be down again then, or earlier if he can, and
hopes some of you'll be left to take a drink with him."

"By George, he's just a duke, boys! Three cheers for Sherlock Holmes,
the greatest man that ever lived!" shouted Ferguson. "Hip, hip, hip--"

"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! Tiger!"

The uproar shook the building, so hearty was the feeling the boys put
into their welcome. Up-stairs the uncle reproached the nephew gently,
saying:

"What did you get me into that engagement for?"

"I reckon you don't want to be unpopular, do you, uncle? Well, then,
don't you put on any exclusiveness in a mining-camp, that's all. The
boys admire you; but if you was to leave without taking a drink with
them, they'd set you down for a snob. And besides, you said you had home
talk enough in stock to keep us up and at it half the night."

The boy was right, and wise--the uncle acknowledged it. The boy was wise
in another detail which he did not mention--except to himself: "Uncle and
the others will come handy--in the way of nailing an alibi where it can't
be budged."

He and his uncle talked diligently about three hours. Then, about
midnight, Fetlock stepped down-stairs and took a position in the dark a
dozen steps from the tavern, and waited. Five minutes later Flint
Buckner came rocking out of the billiard-room and almost brushed him as
he passed.

"I've got him!" muttered the boy. He continued to himself, looking after
the shadowy form: "Good-by--good-by for good, Flint Buckner; you called
my mother a--well, never mind what: it's all right, now; you're taking
your last walk, friend."

He went musing back into the tavern. "From now till one is an hour.
We'll spend it with the boys; it's good for the alibi."

He brought Sherlock Holmes to the billiard-room, which was jammed with
eager and admiring miners; the guest called the drinks, and the fun
began. Everybody was happy; everybody was complimentary; the ice was
soon broken, songs, anecdotes, and more drinks followed, and the pregnant
minutes flew. At six minutes to one, when the jollity was at its
highest--

BOOM!!

There was silence instantly. The deep sound came rolling and rumbling
frown peak to peak up the gorge, then died down, and ceased. The spell
broke, then, and the men made a rush for the door, saying:

"Something's blown up!"

Outside, a voice in the darkness said, "It's away down the gorge; I saw
the flash."

The crowd poured down the canyon--Holmes, Fetlock, Archy Stillman,
everybody. They made the mile in a few minutes. By the light of a
lantern they found the smooth and solid dirt floor of Flint Buckner's
cabin; of the cabin itself not a vestige remained, not a rag nor a
splinter. Nor any sign of Flint. Search-parties sought here and there
and yonder, and presently a cry went up.

"Here he is!"

It was true. Fifty yards down the gulch they had found him--that is,
they had found a crushed and lifeless mass which represented him.
Fetlock Jones hurried thither with the others and looked.

The inquest was a fifteen-minute affair. Ham Sandwich, foreman of the
jury, handed up the verdict, which was phrased with a certain unstudied
literary grace, and closed with this finding, to wit: that "deceased came
to his death by his own act or some other person or persons unknown to
this jury not leaving any family or similar effects behind but his cabin
which was blown away and God have mercy on his soul amen."

Then the impatient jury rejoined the main crowd, for the storm-center of
interest was there--Sherlock Holmes. The miners stood silent and
reverent in a half-circle, inclosing a large vacant space which included
the front exposure of the site of the late premises. In this
considerable space the Extraordinary Man was moving about, attended by
his nephew with a lantern. With a tape he took measurements of the cabin
site; of the distance from the wall of chaparral to the road; of the
height of the chaparral bushes; also various other measurements. He
gathered a rag here, a splinter there, and a pinch of earth yonder,
inspected them profoundly, and preserved them. He took the "lay" of the
place with a pocket-compass, allowing two seconds for magnetic variation.
He took the time (Pacific) by his watch, correcting it for local time.
He paced off the distance from the cabin site to the corpse, and
corrected that for tidal differentiation. He took the altitude with a
pocket-aneroid, and the temperature with a pocket-thermometer. Finally
he said, with a stately bow:

"It is finished. Shall we return, gentlemen?"

He took up the line of march for the tavern, and the crowd fell into his
wake, earnestly discussing and admiring the Extraordinary Man, and
interlarding guesses as to the origin of the tragedy and who the author
of it might he.

"My, but it's grand luck having him here--hey, boys?" said Ferguson.

"It's the biggest thing of the century," said Ham Sandwich. "It 'll go
all over the world; you mark my words."

"You bet!" said Jake Parker, the blacksmith. "It 'll boom this camp.
Ain't it so, Wells-Fargo?"

"Well, as you want my opinion--if it's any sign of how I think about it,
I can tell you this: yesterday I was holding the Straight Flush claim at
two dollars a foot; I'd like to see the man that can get it at sixteen
to-day."

"Right you are, Wells-Fargo! It's the grandest luck a new camp ever
struck. Say, did you see him collar them little rags and dirt and
things? What an eye! He just can't overlook a clue--'tain't in him."

"That's so. And they wouldn't mean a thing to anybody else; but to him,
why, they're just a book--large print at that."

"Sure's you're born! Them odds and ends have got their little old
secret, and they think there ain't anybody can pull it; but, land! when
he sets his grip there they've got to squeal, and don't you forget it."

"Boys, I ain't sorry, now, that he wasn't here to roust out the child;
this is a bigger thing, by a long sight. Yes, sir, and more tangled up
and scientific and intellectual."

"I reckon we're all of us glad it's turned out this way. Glad? 'George!
it ain't any name for it. Dontchuknow, Archy could 've learnt something
if he'd had the nous to stand by and take notice of how that man works
the system. But no; he went poking up into the chaparral and just missed
the whole thing."

"It's true as gospel; I seen it myself. Well, Archy's young. He'll know
better one of these days."

"Say, boys, who do you reckon done it?"

That was a difficult question, and brought out a world of unsatisfying
conjecture. Various men were mentioned as possibilities, but one by one
they were discarded as not being eligible. No one but young Hillyer had
been intimate with Flint Buckner; no one had really had a quarrel with
him; he had affronted every man who had tried to make up to him, although
not quite offensively enough to require bloodshed. There was one name
that was upon every tongue from the start, but it was the last to get
utterance--Fetlock Jones's. It was Pat Riley that mentioned it.

"Oh, well," the boys said, "of course we've all thought of him, because
he had a million rights to kill Flint Buckner, and it was just his plain
duty to do it. But all the same there's two things we can't get around:
for one thing, he hasn't got the sand; and for another, he wasn't
anywhere near the place when it happened."

"I know it," said Pat. "He was there in the billiard-room with us when
it happened."

"Yes, and was there all the time for an hour before it happened."

"It's so. And lucky for him, too. He'd have been suspected in a minute
if it hadn't been for that."




III

The tavern dining-room had been cleared of all its furniture save one
six-foot pine table and a chair. This table was against one end of the
room; the chair was on it; Sherlock Holmes, stately, imposing,
impressive, sat in the chair. The public stood. The room was full. The
tobacco-smoke was dense, the stillness profound.

The Extraordinary Man raised his hand to command additional silence; held
it in the air a few moments; then, in brief, crisp terms he put forward
question after question, and noted the answers with "Um-ums," nods of the
head, and so on. By this process he learned all about Flint Buckner,
his character, conduct, and habits, that the people were able to tell
him. It thus transpired that the Extraordinary Man's nephew was the only
person in the camp who had a killing-grudge against Flint Buckner.
Mr. Holmes smiled compassionately upon the witness, and asked, languidly:

"Do any of you gentlemen chance to know where the lad Fetlock Jones was
at the time of the explosion?"

A thunderous response followed:

"In the billiard-room of this house!"

"Ah. And had he just come in?"

"Been there all of an hour!"

"Ah. It is about--about--well, about how far might it be to the scene of
the explosions."

"All of a mile!"

"Ah. It isn't much of an alibi, 'tis true, but--"

A storm-burst of laughter, mingled with shouts of "By jiminy, but he's
chain-lightning!" and "Ain't you sorry you spoke, Sandy?" shut off the
rest of the sentence, and the crushed witness drooped his blushing face
in pathetic shame. The inquisitor resumed:

"The lad Jones's somewhat distant connection with the case" (laughter)
"having been disposed of, let us now call the eye-witnesses of the
tragedy, and listen to what they have to say."

He got out his fragmentary clues and arranged them on a sheet of
cardboard on his knee. The house held its breath and watched.

"We have the longitude and the latitude, corrected for magnetic
variation, and this gives us the exact location of the tragedy. We have
the altitude, the temperature, and the degree of humidity prevailing
--inestimably valuable, since they enable us to estimate with precision
the degree of influence which they would exercise upon the mood and
disposition of the assassin at that time of the night."

(Buzz of admiration; muttered remark, "By George, but he's deep.") He
fingered his clues. "And now let us ask these mute witnesses to speak to
us.

"Here we have an empty linen shot-bag. What is its message? This: that
robbery was the motive, not revenge. What is its further message?
This: that the assassin was of inferior intelligence--shall we say
light-witted, or perhaps approaching that? How do we know this? Because
a person of sound intelligence would not have proposed to rob the man
Buckner, who never had much money with him. But the assassin might have
been a stranger? Let the bag speak again. I take from it this article.
It is a bit of silver-bearing quartz. It is peculiar. Examine it,
please--you--and you--and you. Now pass it back, please. There is but
one lode on this coast which produces just that character and color of
quartz; and that is a lode which crops out for nearly two miles on a
stretch, and in my opinion is destined, at no distant day, to confer upon
its locality a globe-girdling celebrity, and upon its two hundred owners
riches beyond the dreams of avarice. Name that lode, please."