The Valley of Fear, Arthur Conan Doyle [books to read in your 30s TXT] 📗

sworn that the faintest shadow of a smile flickered over the woman’s lips.

“I really cannot tell,” she answered. “It is certainly a most extraordinary thing.”

“Well, we will not detain you any longer, and we are sorry to have put you to this trouble at such a time,” said the inspector. “There are some other points, no doubt; but we can refer to you as they arise.”

She rose, and I was again conscious of that quick, questioning glance with which she had just surveyed us. “What impression has my evidence made upon you?” The question might as well have been spoken. Then, with a bow, she swept from the room.

“She’s a beautiful woman⁠—a very beautiful woman,” said MacDonald thoughtfully, after the door had closed behind her. “This man Barker has certainly been down here a good deal. He is a man who might be attractive to a woman. He admits that the dead man was jealous, and maybe he knew best himself what cause he had for jealousy. Then there’s that wedding ring. You can’t get past that. The man who tears a wedding ring off a dead man’s⁠—What do you say to it, Mr. Holmes?”

My friend had sat with his head upon his hands, sunk in the deepest thought. Now he rose and rang the bell. “Ames,” he said, when the butler entered, “where is Mr. Cecil Barker now?”

“I’ll see, sir.”

He came back in a moment to say that Barker was in the garden.

“Can you remember, Ames, what Mr. Barker had on his feet last night when you joined him in the study?”

“Yes, Mr. Holmes. He had a pair of bedroom slippers. I brought him his boots when he went for the police.”

“Where are the slippers now?”

“They are still under the chair in the hall.”

“Very good, Ames. It is, of course, important for us to know which tracks may be Mr. Barker’s and which from outside.”

“Yes, sir. I may say that I noticed that the slippers were stained with blood⁠—so indeed were my own.”

“That is natural enough, considering the condition of the room. Very good, Ames. We will ring if we want you.”

A few minutes later we were in the study. Holmes had brought with him the carpet slippers from the hall. As Ames had observed, the soles of both were dark with blood.

“Strange!” murmured Holmes, as he stood in the light of the window and examined them minutely. “Very strange indeed!”

Stooping with one of his quick feline pounces, he placed the slipper upon the blood mark on the sill. It exactly corresponded. He smiled in silence at his colleagues.

The inspector was transfigured with excitement. His native accent rattled like a stick upon railings.

“Man,” he cried, “there’s not a doubt of it! Barker has just marked the window himself. It’s a good deal broader than any bootmark. I mind that you said it was a splayfoot, and here’s the explanation. But what’s the game, Mr. Holmes⁠—what’s the game?”

“Ay, what’s the game?” my friend repeated thoughtfully.

White Mason chuckled and rubbed his fat hands together in his professional satisfaction. “I said it was a snorter!” he cried. “And a real snorter it is!”

VI A Dawning Light

The three detectives had many matters of detail into which to inquire; so I returned alone to our modest quarters at the village inn. But before doing so I took a stroll in the curious old-world garden which flanked the house. Rows of very ancient yew trees cut into strange designs girded it round. Inside was a beautiful stretch of lawn with an old sundial in the middle, the whole effect so soothing and restful that it was welcome to my somewhat jangled nerves.

In that deeply peaceful atmosphere one could forget, or remember only as some fantastic nightmare, that darkened study with the sprawling, bloodstained figure on the floor. And yet, as I strolled round it and tried to steep my soul in its gentle balm, a strange incident occurred, which brought me back to the tragedy and left a sinister impression in my mind.

I have said that a decoration of yew trees circled the garden. At the end farthest from the house they thickened into a continuous hedge. On the other side of this hedge, concealed from the eyes of anyone approaching from the direction of the house, there was a stone seat. As I approached the spot I was aware of voices, some remark in the deep tones of a man, answered by a little ripple of feminine laughter.

An instant later I had come round the end of the hedge and my eyes lit upon Mrs. Douglas and the man Barker before they were aware of my presence. Her appearance gave me a shock. In the dining-room she had been demure and discreet. Now all pretense of grief had passed away from her. Her eyes shone with the joy of living, and her face still quivered with amusement at some remark of her companion. He sat forward, his hands clasped and his forearms on his knees, with an answering smile upon his bold, handsome face. In an instant⁠—but it was just one instant too late⁠—they resumed their solemn masks as my figure came into view. A hurried word or two passed between them, and then Barker rose and came towards me.

“Excuse me, sir,” said he, “but am I addressing Dr. Watson?”

I bowed with a coldness which showed, I dare say, very plainly the impression which had been produced upon my mind.

“We thought that it was probably you, as your friendship with Mr. Sherlock Holmes is so well known. Would you mind coming over and speaking to Mrs. Douglas for one instant?”

I followed him with a dour face. Very clearly I could see in my mind’s eye that shattered figure on the floor. Here within a few hours of the tragedy were his wife and his nearest friend laughing together behind a bush in the garden which had been his. I greeted the lady with reserve. I had grieved with her grief in the dining-room. Now I met her appealing gaze with