“It’s the Napoleon bust business again,” said Lestrade. “Youseemed interested last night, Mr. Holmes, so I thought perhapsyou would be glad to be present now that the affair has taken avery much graver turn.”
“What has it turned to, then?”
“To murder. Mr. Harker, will you tell these gentlemen exactlywhat has occurred?”
The man in the dressing-gown turned upon us with a mostmelancholy face.
“It’s an extraordinary thing,” said he, “that all my life I havebeen collecting other people’s news, and now that a real piece ofnews has come my own way I am so confused and bothered that Ican’t put two words together. If I had come in here as a journalist,I should have interviewed myself and had two columns in everyevening paper. As it is, I am giving away valuable copy by tellingmy story over and over to a string of different people, and I canmake no use of it myself. However, I’ve heard your name, Mr.
Sherlock Holmes, and if you’ll only explain this queer business, Ishall be paid for my trouble in telling you the story.”
Holmes sat down and listened.
“It all seems to centre round that bust of Napoleon which Ibought for this very room about four months ago. I picked it upcheap from Harding Brothers, two doors from the High StreetStation. A great deal of my journalistic work is done at night,and I often write until the early morning. So it was to-day. I wassitting in my den, which is at the back of the top of the house,about three o’clock, when I was convinced that I heard somesounds downstairs. I listened, but they were not repeated, and Iconcluded that they came from outside. Then suddenly, about fiveminutes later, there came a most horrible yell—the most dreadfulsound, Mr. Holmes, that ever I heard. It will ring in my ears aslong as I live. I sat frozen with horror for a minute or two. Then Iseized the poker and went downstairs. When I entered this roomI found the window wide open, and I at once observed that thebust was gone from the mantelpiece. Why any burglar should takesuch a thing passes my understanding, for it was only a plaster castand of no real value whatever.
“You can see for yourself that anyone going out through thatopen window could reach the front doorstep by taking a longstride. This was clearly what the burglar had done, so I went roundand opened the door. Stepping out into the dark, I nearly fell overa dead man, who was lying there. I ran back for a light and therewas the poor fellow, a great gash in his throat and the whole placeswimming in blood. He lay on his back, his knees drawn up, andhis mouth horribly open. I shall see him in my dreams. I had justtime to blow on my police-whistle, and then I must have fainted,for I knew nothing more until I found the policeman standingover me in the hall.”
“Well, who was the murdered man?” asked Holmes.
“There’s nothing to show who he was,” said Lestrade. “Youshall see the body at the mortuary, but we have made nothing ofit up to now. He is a tall man, sunburned, very powerful, not morethan thirty. He is poorly dressed, and yet does not appear to be alabourer. A horn-handled clasp knife was lying in a pool of bloodbeside him. Whether it was the weapon which did the deed,or whether it belonged to the dead man, I do not know. Therewas no name on his clothing, and nothing in his pockets save anapple, some string, a shilling map of London, and a photograph.
Here it is.”
It was evidently taken by a snapshot from a small camera.
It represented an alert, sharp-featured simian man, with thickeyebrows and a very peculiar projection of the lower part of theface, like the muzzle of a baboon.
“And what became of the bust?” asked Holmes, after a carefulstudy of this picture.
“We had news of it just before you came. It has been found inthe front garden of an empty house in Campden House Road. Itwas broken into fragments. I am going round now to see it. Willyou come?”
“Certainly. I must just take one look round.” He examined thecarpet and the window. “The fellow had either very long legs orwas a most active man,” said he. “With an area beneath, it wasno mean feat to reach that window ledge and open that window.
Getting back was comparatively simple. Are you coming with usto 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 haveno doubt that the first editions of the evening papers are outalready with full details. It’s like my luck! You remember whenthe stand fell at Doncaster? Well, I was the only journalist in thestand, and my journal the only one that had no account of it, for Iwas too shaken to write it. And now I’ll be too late with a murderdone on my own doorstep.”
As we left the room, we heard his pen travelling shrilly over thefoolscap.
The spat where the fragments of the bust had been found wasonly a few hundred yards away. For the first time our eyes restedupon this presentment of the great emperor, which seemedto raise such frantic and destructive hatred in the mind of theunknown. 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 possessionof this trifling bust was worth more, in the eyes of this strangecriminal, than a human life. That is one point. Then there is thesingular fact that he did not break it in the house, or immediatelyoutside the house, if to break it was his sole object.”
“He was rattled and bustled by meeting this other fellow. Hehardly knew what he was doing.”
“Well, that’s likely enough. But I wish to call your attention veryparticularly to the position of this house, in the garden of whichthe bust was destroyed.”
Lestrade looked about him.
“It was an empty house, and so he knew that he would not bedisturbed in the garden.”
