"You can see for yourself that anyone going out through that open window could reach the front doorstep by taking a long stride.This was clearly what the burglar had done, so I went round and opened the door.Stepping out into the dark I nearly fell over a dead man who was lying there.I ran back for a light, and there was the poor fellow, a great gash in his throat and the whole place swimming in blood.He lay on his back, his knees drawn up, and his mouth horribly open.I shall see him in my dreams.I had just time to blow on my police-whistle, and then I must have fainted, for I knew nothing more until I found the policeman standing over me in the hall.""Well, who was the murdered man?" asked Holmes.
"There's nothing to show who he was," said Lestrade."You shall see the body at the mortuary, but we have made nothing of it up to now.He is a tall man, sunburned, very powerful, not more than thirty.He is poorly dressed, and yet does not appear to be a labourer.A horn-handled clasp knife was lying in a pool of blood beside him.Whether it was the weapon which did the deed, or whether it belonged to the dead man, I do not know.
There was no name on his clothing, and nothing in his pockets save an apple, some string, a shilling map of London, and a photograph.Here it is."It was evidently taken by a snap-shot from a small camera.
It represented an alert, sharp-featured simian man with thick eyebrows, and a very peculiar projection of the lower part of the face like the muzzle of a baboon.
"And what became of the bust?" asked Holmes, after a careful study of this picture.
"We had news of it just before you came.It has been found in the front garden of an empty house in Campden House Road.
It was broken into fragments.I am going round now to see it.
Will you come?"
"Certainly.I must just take one look round." He examined the carpet and the window."The fellow had either very long legs or was a most active man," said he."With an area beneath, it was no mean feat to reach that window-ledge and open that window.
Getting back was comparatively simple.Are you coming with us to see the remains of your bust, Mr.Harker?"The disconsolate journalist had seated himself at a writing-table.
"I must try and make something of it," said he, "though I have no doubt that the first editions of the evening papers are out already with full details.It's like my luck! You remember when the stand fell at Doncaster? Well, I was the only journalist in the stand, and my journal the only one that had no account of it, for I was too shaken to write it.And now I'll be too late with a murder done on my own doorstep."As we left the room we heard his pen travelling shrilly over the foolscap.
The spot where the fragments of the bust had been found was only a few hundred yards away.For the first time our eyes rested upon this presentment of the great Emperor, which seemed to raise such frantic and destructive hatred in the mind of the unknown.It lay scattered in splintered shards upon the grass.Holmes picked up several of them and examined them carefully.I was convinced from his intent face and his purposeful manner that at last he was upon a clue.
"Well?" asked Lestrade.
Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
"We have a long way to go yet," said he."And yet -- and yet --well, we have some suggestive facts to act upon.The possession of this trifling bust was worth more in the eyes of this strange criminal than a human life.That is one point.
Then there is the singular fact that he did not break it in the house, or immediately outside the house, if to break it was his sole object.""He was rattled and bustled by meeting this other fellow.
He hardly knew what he was doing."
"Well, that's likely enough.But I wish to call your attention very particularly to the position of this house in the garden of which the bust was destroyed."Lestrade looked about him.
"It was an empty house, and so he knew that he would not be disturbed in the garden.""Yes, but there is another empty house farther up the street which he must have passed before he came to this one.Why did he not break it there, since it is evident that every yard that he carried it increased the risk of someone meeting him?""I give it up," said Lestrade.
Holmes pointed to the street lamp above our heads.
"He could see what he was doing here and he could not there.
That was his reason."
"By Jove! that's true," said the detective."Now that I come to think of it, Dr.Barnicot's bust was broken not far from his red lamp.Well, Mr.Holmes, what are we to do with that fact?""To remember it -- to docket it.We may come on something later which will bear upon it.What steps do you propose to take now, Lestrade?""The most practical way of getting at it, in my opinion, is to identify the dead man.There should be no difficulty about that.When we have found who he is and who his associates are, we should have a good start in learning what he was doing in Pitt Street last night, and who it was who met him and killed him on the doorstep of Mr.Horace Harker.Don't you think so?""No doubt; and yet it is not quite the way in which I should approach the case.""What would you do, then?"
"Oh, you must not let me influence you in any way! I suggest that you go on your line and I on mine.We can compare notes afterwards, and each will supplement the other.""Very good," said Lestrade.
"If you are going back to Pitt Street you might see Mr.Horace Harker.Tell him from me that I have quite made up my mind, and that it is certain that a dangerous homicidal lunatic with Napoleonic delusions was in his house last night.It will be useful for his article."Lestrade stared.
"You don't seriously believe that?"
Holmes smiled.
"Don't I? Well, perhaps I don't.But I am sure that it will interest Mr.Horace Harker and the subscribers of the Central Press Syndicate.Now, Watson, I think that we shall find that we have a long and rather complex day's work before us.
