Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures

It was startling to hear the violent tones of the woman's voice, and almost made my hair stand on end. Her husband, held tightly in the bear-like grip of the Laird of Uffa, made no response. Next instant, my blood ran cold, for with a quick, darting movement, her hand had dipped into her reticule and re-emerged gripping an evil-looking little revolver.

"Stand aside, all of you!" she said in a cold, clear voice, as she pointed the gun menacingly, from one person to another. "This pistol is loaded, and I am quite prepared to use it."

I saw Holmes catch the eye of Fergus Johnstone, then he spoke. "Mrs Morton," said he. For a fraction of a second, she turned her head, and in that instant, in a blur of movement, the gun was dashed from her hand. Fergus Johnstone, who had been standing a little to the side of her, had brought down the old lady's walking-stick on her wrist with a loud crack. Mrs

Morton cried wildly with pain, and clutched her wrist, and Holmes stepped forward quickly and picked up the gun. In a minute MacPherson had whistled up his special constables and the prisoners had been taken away. Then MacGlevin stepped forward to where his precious heirloom still lay on the paint-smeared rag. With an air of reverence, he picked it up. As he did so, there came a further surprise, for there lying beneath it was an exquisite little silver clasp, set with creamy pearls.

"Mrs Formartine's brooch!" cried MacLeod, almost beside himself with joy.

Some two hours later, after lunch, we were all seated in the drawing-room of the hotel. The Mortons were safely under guard at the local police station, awaiting an escort to take them to Inverness. Doctor Oliphant and Mrs Baird Duthie had long since departed, and the Loch Echil Hotel had returned to an atmosphere of normality.

"I cannot thank you enough," said Alexander Grice Paterson to Holmes. "Without your intervention, I dread to think what might have become of us."

"I regret I was a little heated," said MacGlevin in a sheepish tone, holding out his hand to the man he had accused. "I just couldna' think how anyone could've taken it but you."

"That is all right," said the other, accepting MacGlevin's hand. "Let's forgive and forget. What I'd like to know is how you got to the bottom of the matter so quickly, Mr Holmes."

"It was not difficult. I will give you a full explanation when Constable… Ah! MacPherson! We were just speaking of you."

"Please excuse the delay, Gentlemen," said the policeman briskly. "I have had a busy time of it. I wired details of the Mortons down to Glasgow, and I have their reply here. We've landed bigger fish than we realized, Mr Holmes! They're fairly certain that the man calling himself Hamish Morton is in fact Charlie Henderson, wanted in connection with the Blythswood Square burglary, earlier this year – "

"- in which the thieves got away with works of art worth thousands," interjected Holmes, "and left the owner of the house seriously injured. I recall it very well."

"And the woman, who has used so many names in her career that it's hard to keep track of her, is wanted under the name of Mary Monteith, for a long series of frauds and forgeries. Apparently she has real artistic gifts, but she's used them only in the cause of crime. She's suspected of being behind some of the most brilliant art forgeries of the last dozen years."

"Well, I never!" ejaculated Grice Paterson. "But come, Mr Holmes, tell us how you got on to them."

"My interest was first aroused," said Holmes after a moment, "by Morton's report of his boating accident. He declared that all his fishing equipment had sunk without trace, yet when I had seen it the previous evening in this very room, I had observed, without giving it any special attention, that his rod was of the sort which is fitted with a large cork handle. It seemed unlikely that such a rod should have sunk. It might, of course, have become entangled with some other equipment, and been dragged down by it, but Morton merely said it had sunk. It seemed to me that he was lying, but I could not think why, unless he merely wished to swindle the hotel out of a few pounds by way of compensation. It was a petty matter, and I gave it little more thought.

"When we went out to Uffa, to investigate the theft, I had no pre-conceived ideas as to what had taken place there. For all I knew, the result of my examination might have been to confirm Mr Grice Paterson's guilt. You did not look a very likely pair of thieves," he remarked, turning to the Grice Patersons with a chuckle; "but I have known many criminals in my time, and a good half of them did not appear capable of the crimes they had committed; so I preserved a professional detachment on the matter, and reserved my judgement.

"My examination of the museum revealed, as you saw, a small tear in the cushion upon which Mr MacGlevin's Buckle had been lying when last he saw it, which at once suggested to me that some hook, or other sharp device, had been used to lift the buckle. This in turn suggested, of course, that the thief had not been in a position to reach it with his hand. The obvious conclusion was that a line with a hook attached had been lowered from above, through one of the sky-lights. When I found on the floor a small piece of lead shot, such as fishermen use to weight their lines, this presumption became a certainty. The weight would help the line to drop straight, and give the thief more control over it. No doubt the piece of shot we found

had become detached when the hook snagged the cushion and had to be forcibly yanked free.

"The next thing then, was to examine the exterior of the building. Here I was fortunate enough to find very clear indications of where the thief had climbed the wall. The fact that I could only just reach the only usable hand-hold – and I am a good six foot in height – indicated that the thief was not a small man, as also did the size of the footprints. These indications eliminated the Grice Patersons, as far as I was concerned.

"I then examined the sky-light which lay immediately above the stand on which the buckle had been displayed, and it was obvious at once that one of the panes of glass had been removed and later replaced. The lead around the glass had clearly been bent back, and then flattened again. That would have presented no problem, and nor would it have been difficult to chip away the putty with a knife. But there were also galvanized nails bent over beneath the lead to hold the pane firmly, which would have required a greater application of force. Was this, I wondered, how the knife-blade came to be broken? This conjecture was at once confirmed, for there in the gutter below me was a little shiny triangle – the missing tip of the blade.

"It seemed clear enough, then, what had happened. The thief had been at work when you chanced upon the scene, Mr Grice Paterson, and was evidently the figure you saw cross the path in the darkness. He would then have returned to his boat, but must have taken the wrong path in the darkness, and mistakenly set off in your boat, rather than his own.You came along shortly afterwards, found your boat missing, and returned to seek Mr MacGlevin's aid. The thief, meanwhile, must have realized his mistake, and so returned your boat, in which he had dropped his knife, found his own boat, and left the island for the second time.

"So much seemed clear. But who, then, was the thief? There seemed no way of knowing. It was then that I recalled Morton's reported accident, and his claim to have lost all his fishing tackle, about which I had had some doubt at the time. Now it struck me as possible that his boat had not sunk at all, but had been hidden in the bushes by the shore on the south side of the bay, together with his fishing equipment. If that were so, he would be able to use it when he wished to commit this crime, without the slightest suspicion attaching to him, even if the crime were discovered before he and his accomplice had left Kilbuie. MacPherson and I therefore rowed over to the mainland, which is no great distance at that point, and soon found what we were looking for – one of this hotel's distinctive little skiffs dragged up behind some rocks, with a disordered heap of fishing tackle within it.