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Still have questions? Find more answers. Previously Viewed. Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. I know that he is right.
James never did it. And about his quarrel with his father, I am sure that the reason why he would not speak about it to the coroner was because I was concerned in it. James and his father had many disagreements about me. McCarthy was very anxious that there should be a marriage between us.
James and I have always loved each other as brother and sister; but of course he is young and has seen very little of life yet, and—and—well, he naturally did not wish to do anything like that yet. So there were quarrels, and this, I am sure, was one of them. No one but Mr. McCarthy was in favour of it. Poor father has never been strong for years back, but this has broken him down completely. He has taken to his bed, and Dr. Willows says that he is a wreck and that his nervous system is shattered.
McCarthy was the only man alive who had known dad in the old days in Victoria. No doubt you will go to the prison to see James. Oh, if you do, Mr. Holmes, do tell him that I know him to be innocent. Good-bye, and God help you in your undertaking. I am not over-tender of heart, but I call it cruel. We have still time to take a train to Hereford and see him to-night? Watson, I fear that you will find it very slow, but I shall only be away a couple of hours.
I walked down to the station with them, and then wandered through the streets of the little town, finally returning to the hotel, where I lay upon the sofa and tried to interest myself in a yellow-backed novel. The puny plot of the story was so thin, however, when compared to the deep mystery through which we were groping, and I found my attention wander so continually from the action to the fact, that I at last flung it across the room and gave myself up entirely to a consideration of the events of the day.
It was something terrible and deadly. What could it be? Might not the nature of the injuries reveal something to my medical instincts? I rang the bell and called for the weekly county paper, which contained a verbatim account of the inquest. I marked the spot upon my own head. Clearly such a blow must have been struck from behind. That was to some extent in favour of the accused, as when seen quarrelling he was face to face with his father. Still, it did not go for very much, for the older man might have turned his back before the blow fell.
Then there was the peculiar dying reference to a rat. What could that mean? It could not be delirium. A man dying from a sudden blow does not commonly become delirious.
No, it was more likely to be an attempt to explain how he met his fate. But what could it indicate? I cudgelled my brains to find some possible explanation. And then the incident of the grey cloth seen by young McCarthy. If that were true the murderer must have dropped some part of his dress, presumably his overcoat, in his flight, and must have had the hardihood to return and to carry it away at the instant when the son was kneeling with his back turned not a dozen paces off.
What a tissue of mysteries and improbabilities the whole thing was! It was late before Sherlock Holmes returned. He came back alone, for Lestrade was staying in lodgings in the town.
On the other hand, a man should be at his very best and keenest for such nice work as that, and I did not wish to do it when fagged by a long journey. I have seen young McCarthy. I was inclined to think at one time that he knew who had done it and was screening him or her, but I am convinced now that he is as puzzled as everyone else.
He is not a very quick-witted youth, though comely to look at and, I should think, sound at heart. This fellow is madly, insanely, in love with her, but some two years ago, when he was only a lad, and before he really knew her, for she had been away five years at a boarding-school, what does the idiot do but get into the clutches of a barmaid in Bristol and marry her at a registry office?
No one knows a word of the matter, but you can imagine how maddening it must be to him to be upbraided for not doing what he would give his very eyes to do, but what he knows to be absolutely impossible. It was sheer frenzy of this sort which made him throw his hands up into the air when his father, at their last interview, was goading him on to propose to Miss Turner. On the other hand, he had no means of supporting himself, and his father, who was by all accounts a very hard man, would have thrown him over utterly had he known the truth.
It was with his barmaid wife that he had spent the last three days in Bristol, and his father did not know where he was. Mark that point. It is of importance. Good has come out of evil, however, for the barmaid, finding from the papers that he is in serious trouble and likely to be hanged, has thrown him over utterly and has written to him to say that she has a husband already in the Bermuda Dockyard, so that there is really no tie between them.
I think that that bit of news has consoled young McCarthy for all that he has suffered. I would call your attention very particularly to two points. One is that the murdered man had an appointment with someone at the pool, and that the someone could not have been his son, for his son was away, and he did not know when he would return.
Those are the crucial points upon which the case depends. And now let us talk about George Meredith, if you please, and we shall leave all minor matters until to-morrow. There was no rain, as Holmes had foretold, and the morning broke bright and cloudless. Turner, of the Hall, is so ill that his life is despaired of.
This business has had a very bad effect upon him. In a hundred other ways he has helped him. Everybody about here speaks of his kindness to him. It is the more strange, since we know that Turner himself was averse to the idea. The daughter told us as much. Do you not deduce something from that? The drawn blinds and the smokeless chimneys, however, gave it a stricken look, as though the weight of this horror still lay heavy upon it.
Having measured these very carefully from seven or eight different points, Holmes desired to be led to the court-yard, from which we all followed the winding track which led to Boscombe Pool. Sherlock Holmes was transformed when he was hot upon such a scent as this. Men who had only known the quiet thinker and logician of Baker Street would have failed to recognise him. His face flushed and darkened.
His brows were drawn into two hard black lines, while his eyes shone out from beneath them with a steely glitter. His face was bent downward, his shoulders bowed, his lips compressed, and the veins stood out like whipcord in his long, sinewy neck. His nostrils seemed to dilate with a purely animal lust for the chase, and his mind was so absolutely concentrated upon the matter before him that a question or remark fell unheeded upon his ears, or, at the most, only provoked a quick, impatient snarl in reply.
Swiftly and silently he made his way along the track which ran through the meadows, and so by way of the woods to the Boscombe Pool. It was damp, marshy ground, as is all that district, and there were marks of many feet, both upon the path and amid the short grass which bounded it on either side. Sometimes Holmes would hurry on, sometimes stop dead, and once he made quite a little detour into the meadow.
Lestrade and I walked behind him, the detective indifferent and contemptuous, while I watched my friend with the interest which sprang from the conviction that every one of his actions was directed towards a definite end. The Boscombe Pool, which is a little reed-girt sheet of water some fifty yards across, is situated at the boundary between the Hatherley Farm and the private park of the wealthy Mr. On the Hatherley side of the pool the woods grew very thick, and there was a narrow belt of sodden grass twenty paces across between the edge of the trees and the reeds which lined the lake.
Lestrade showed us the exact spot at which the body had been found, and, indeed, so moist was the ground, that I could plainly see the traces which had been left by the fall of the stricken man. To Holmes, as I could see by his eager face and peering eyes, very many other things were to be read upon the trampled grass. He ran round, like a dog who is picking up a scent, and then turned upon my companion. I thought there might be some weapon or other trace.
I have no time! That left foot of yours with its inward twist is all over the place. A mole could trace it, and there it vanishes among the reeds. Oh, how simple it would all have been had I been here before they came like a herd of buffalo and wallowed all over it.
She has just run home to the game lodge to tell her mother she thinks the two McCarthys are going to fight when the younger McCarthy runs up and says he's found his father dead in the forest. At this point, James McCarthy that's the son is not holding his gun or his hat, and his right hand is bloody. The lodge-keeper follows him out to Boscombe Pool, where the elder McCarthy lies dead with his head caved in, in a way that could have been caused by blows from the butt of his son's gun.
So, what with the bloody hand, the loud argument, and the murder weapon apparently near the body and belonging to McCarthy the Younger, there's enough evidence to convict him of murder. The case is about to appear before "the Assizes" the Assizes were courts set up by circuit court judges who traveled around England to hear serious cases that were beyond the authority or expertise of the local magistrates.
There are lots of people who believe James is innocent, including the daughter of McCarthy Senior's friend Turner. Holmes is pretty sure that, even though everything looks rough for James, he can bring a fresh and better perspective on the evidence. One thing that does look a little bad: in his first interview with the cops, James said he deserved to be arrested — but then he says he's still innocent.
So what does he mean by saying he's getting his just desserts? Isn't that a confession? Holmes thinks this I've-done-something-wrong-but-not- that statement is the best evidence of James's innocence, because what murderer trying to hide his crime would be honest enough to admit some kind of guilt when he's in the hands of the cops? Upon his arrest, James gives this account: James had been away from home for three days before the fatal Monday.
When he gets home, he's just in time to see his dad walking quickly across the yard. James, without knowing the direction his father had been walking, grabs his rifle and sets out to Boscombe Pool to do some rabbit shooting. He still doesn't know his father is in front of him.
As he approaches the pool, he hears his father yelling, "Cooee! So James runs forward, and finds his dad at the pool. McCarthy Senior is surprised and weirdly angry to see James, and they have words. Because his dad is in such a temper, James just heads back to Hatherley Farmhouse and skips the rabbit shooting.
Before he can get far, though, James hears a terrible struggle. He runs back to the pool to find his dad dying. He goes to the nearest house that of Turner's lodge-keeper for help. James adds that his father's last words were something about a rat, and that James absolutely will not say what the two were arguing about. Also, James cannot account for the fact that his father appeared to be calling for him "Cooee!
One last clue: James saw something out of the corner of his eye on the ground when he ran over to his father, something grey, but it was gone by the time he stood up and turned away from his dad to get help. It's Lestrade who meets Holmes and Watson at the train platform when they arrive in the country town of Ross, where all these shenanigans are going on.
Lestrade takes them to a hotel, where they encounter Miss Turner, the gal who's sure James didn't kill his dad.
Holmes tells her that he doesn't think James killed McCarthy Senior either. Miss Turner adds an important clue: that argument James had been having with his dad?
Probably about her. And it's not what we here at Shmoop thought. We were sure it was going to be a star-crossed lovers deal, but it's the opposite: James and Miss Turner love each other like brother and sister, but McCarthy Senior desperately wants the two of them to get married.
Nobody else wants this marriage except McCarthy Senior. Miss Turner also tells Holmes that, since McCarthy Senior's murder, her father, Turner Senior, has been in bed with a nervous breakdown.
By an examination of the ground I gained the trifling details which I gave to that imbecile Lestrade, as to the personality of the criminal. It is founded upon the observation of trifles. His boots, too, might be told from their traces. He put less weight upon it. Because he limped -- he was lame. The blow was struck from immediately behind, and yet was upon the left side.
Now, how can that be unless it were by a left-handed man? He had stood behind that tree during the interview between the father and son. He had even smoked there. I found the ash of a cigar, which my special knowledge of tobacco ashes enables me to pronounce as an Indian cigar. I have, as you know, devoted some attention to this, and written a little monograph on the ashes of different varieties of pipe, cigar, and cigarette tobacco.
Having found the ash, I then looked round and discovered the stump among the moss where he had tossed it. It was an Indian cigar, of the variety which are rolled in Rotterdam. Therefore he used a holder. The tip had been cut off, not bitten off, but the cut was not a clean one, so I deduced a blunt pen-knife. I see the direction in which all this points. The culprit is --". John Turner," cried the hotel waiter, opening the door of our sitting-room, and ushering in a visitor.
The man who entered was a strange and impressive figure. His slow, limping step and bowed shoulders gave the appearance of decrepitude, and yet his hard, deep-lined, craggy features, and his enormous limbs showed that he was possessed of unusual strength of body and of character.
His tangled beard, grizzled hair, and outstanding, drooping eyebrows combined to give an air of dignity and power to his appearance, but his face was of an ashen white, while his lips and the corners of his nostrils were tinged with a shade of blue. It was clear to me at a glance that he was in the grip of some deadly and chronic disease. You said that you wished to see me here to avoid scandal. I know all about McCarthy. The old man sank his face in his hands.
I give you my word that I would have spoken out if it went against him at the Assizes. It would break her heart -- it will break her heart when she hears that I am arrested. I understand that it was your daughter who required my presence here, and I am acting in her interests. Young McCarthy must be got off, however. My doctor says it is a question whether I shall live a month. Yet I would rather die under my own roof than in a jail.
Holmes rose and sat down at the table with his pen in his hand and a bundle of paper before him. You will sign it, and Watson here can witness it. Then I could produce your confession at the last extremity to save young McCarthy. I promise you that I shall not use it unless it is absolutely needed. And now I will make the thing clear to you; it has been a long time in the acting, but will not take me long to tell.
He was a devil incarnate. I tell you that. God keep you out of the clutches of such a man as he. His grip has been upon me these twenty years, and he has blasted my life. I'll tell you first how I came to be in his power. I was a young chap then, hot-blooded and reckless, ready to turn my hand at anything; I got among bad companions, took to drink, had no luck with my claim, took to the bush, and in a word became what you would call over here a highway robber. There were six of us, and we had a wild, free life of it, sticking up a station from time to time, or stopping the wagons on the road to the diggings.
Black Jack of Ballarat was the name I went under, and our party is still remembered in the colony as the Ballarat Gang. There were six troopers and six of us, so it was a close thing, but we emptied four of their saddles at the first volley. Three of our boys were killed, however, before we got the swag. I put my pistol to the head of the wagon-driver, who was this very man McCarthy. I wish to the Lord that I had shot him then, but I spared him, though I saw his wicked little eyes fixed on my face, as though to remember every feature.
We got away with the gold, became wealthy men, and made our way over to England without being suspected. There I parted from my old pals and determined to settle down to a quiet and respectable life. I bought this estate, which chanced to be in the market, and I set myself to do a little good with my money, to make up for the way in which I had earned it. I married, too, and though my wife died young she left me my dear little Alice.
Even when she was just a baby her wee hand seemed to lead me down the right path as nothing else had ever done. In a word, I turned over a new leaf and did my best to make up for the past. All was going well when McCarthy laid hls grip upon me. There's two of us, me and my son, and you can have the keeping of us.
If you don't -- it's a fine, law-abiding country is England, and there's always a policeman within hail. There was no rest for me, no peace, no forgetfulness; turn where I would, there was his cunning, grinning face at my elbow. It grew worse as Alice grew up, for he soon saw I was more afraid of her knowing my past than of the police.
Whatever he wanted he must have, and whatever it was I gave him without question, land, money, houses, until at last he asked a thing which I could not give. He asked for Alice. But there I was firm. I would not have his cursed stock mixed with mine; not that I had any dislike to the lad, but his blood was in him, and that was enough.
I stood firm. McCarthy threatened. I braved him to do his worst. We were to meet at the pool midway between our houses to talk it over. But as I listened to his talk all that was black and bitter in me seemed to come uppermost.
He was urging his son to marry my daughter with as little regard for what she might think as if she were a slut from off the streets. It drove me mad to think that I and all that I held most dear should be in the power of such a man as this.
Could I not snap the bond? I was already a dying and a desperate man. Though clear of mind and fairly strong of limb, I knew that my own fate was sealed. But my memory and my girl! Both could be saved if I could but silence that foul tongue.
I did it, Mr. I would do it again. Deeply as I have sinned, I have led a life of martyrdom to atone for it. But that my girl should be entangled in the same meshes which held me was more than I could suffer. I struck him down with no more compunction than if he had been some foul and venomous beast. His cry brought back his son; but I had gained the cover of the wood, though I was forced to go back to fetch the cloak which I had dropped in my flight.
That is the true story, gentlemen, of all that occurred. You are yourself aware that you will soon have to answer for your deed at a higher court than the Assizes. I will keep your confession, and if McCarthy is condemned I shall be forced to use it.
If not, it shall never be seen by mortal eye; and your secret, whether you be alive or dead, shall be safe with us. I never hear of such a case as this that I do not think of Baxter's words, and say, 'There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle. It was from Sherlock Holmes and ran in this way: Have you a couple of days to spare? Have just been wired for from the west of England in connection with Boscombe Valley tragedy.
Shall be glad if you will come with me. Air and scenery perfect. Leave Paddington by the I have not seen a paper for some days. And many men have been wrongfully hanged. It ran in this way: Mr. I need not point out to you that your refusal to answer will prejudice your case considerably in any future proceedings which may arise' "Witness: 'I must still refuse.
That is important. That is interesting," said Holmes. But how on earth --" "Oh, tut, tut! And what do you intend to do? Old Turner lived for seven months after our interview, but he is now dead; and there is every prospect that the son and daughter may come to live happily together in ignorance of the black cloud which rests upon their past.
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