身份问题 A Case of Identity （四）

I left him then, still puffing at his black clay pipe, with the

conviction that when I came again on the next evening I would

find that he held in his hands all the clews which would lead up

to the identity of the disappearing bridegroom of Miss Mary

Sutherland.

A professional case of great gravity was engaging my own

attention at the time, and the whole of next day I was busy at

the bedside of the sufferer. It was not until close upon six

o'clock that I found myself free and was able to spring into a

hansom and drive to Baker Street, half afraid that I might be too

late to assist at the denouement of the little mystery. I found

Sherlock Holmes alone, however, half asleep, with his long, thin

form curled up in the recesses of his armchair. A formidable

array of bottles and test-tubes, with the pungent cleanly smell

of hydrochloric acid, told me that he had spent his day in the

chemical work which was so dear to him.

"Well, have you solved it?" I asked as I entered.

"Yes. It was the bisulphate of baryta."

"No, no, the mystery!" I cried.

"Oh, that! I thought of the salt that I have been working upon.

There was never any mystery in the matter, though, as I said

yesterday, some of the details are of interest. The only drawback

is that there is no law, I fear, that can touch the scoundrel."

"Who was he, then, and what was his object in deserting Miss

Sutherland?"

The question was hardly out of my mouth, and Holmes had not yet

opened his lips to reply, when we heard a heavy footfall in the

passage and a tap at the door.

"This is the girl's stepfather, Mr. James Windibank," said

Holmes. "He has written to me to say that he would be here at

six. Come in!"

The man who entered was a sturdy, middle-sized fellow, some

thirty years of age, clean-shaven, and sallow-skinned, with a

bland, insinuating manner, and a pair of wonderfully sharp and

penetrating gray eyes. He shot a questioning glance at each of

us, placed his shiny top-hat upon the sideboard, and with a

slight bow sidled down into the nearest chair.

"Good-evening, Mr. James Windibank," said Holmes. "I think that

this typewritten letter is from you, in which you made an

appointment with me for six o'clock?"

"Yes, sir. I am afraid that I am a little late, but I am not

quite my own master, you know. I am sorry that Miss Sutherland

has troubled you about this little matter, for I think it is far

better not to wash linen of the sort in public. It was quite

against my wishes that she came, but she is a very excitable,

impulsive girl, as you may have noticed, and she is not easily

controlled when she has made up her mind on a point. Of course, I

did not mind you so much, as you are not connected with the

official police, but it is not pleasant to have a family

misfortune like this noised abroad. Besides, it is a useless

expense, for how could you possibly find this Hosmer Angel?"

"On the contrary," said Holmes quietly; "I have every reason to

believe that I will succeed in discovering Mr. Hosmer Angel."

Mr. Windibank gave a violent start and dropped his gloves. "I am

delighted to hear it," he said.

"It is a curious thing," remarked Holmes, "that a typewriter has

really quite as much individuality as a man's handwriting. Unless

they are quite new, no two of them write exactly alike. Some

letters get more worn than others, and some wear only on one

side. Now, you remark in this note of yours, Mr. Windibank, that

in every case there is some little slurring over of the 'e,' and

a slight defect in the tail of the 'r.' There are fourteen other

characteristics, but those are the more obvious."

"We do all our correspondence with this machine at the office,

and no doubt it is a little worn," our visitor answered, glancing

keenly at Holmes with his bright little eyes.

"And now I will show you what is really a very interesting study,

Mr. Windibank," Holmes continued. "I think of writing another

little monograph some of these days on the typewriter and its

relation to crime. It is a subject to which I have devoted some

little attention. I have here four letters which purport to come

from the missing man. They are all typewritten. In each case, not

only are the 'e's' slurred and the 'r's' tailless, but you will

observe, if you care to use my magnifying lens, that the fourteen

other characteristics to which I have alluded are there as well."

Mr. Windibank sprang out of his chair and picked up his hat. "I

cannot waste time over this sort of fantastic talk, Mr. Holmes,"

he said. "If you can catch the man, catch him, and let me know

when you have done it."

"Certainly," said Holmes, stepping over and turning the key in

the door. "I let you know, then, that I have caught him!"

"What! where?" shouted Mr. Windibank, turning white to his lips

and glancing about him like a rat in a trap.

"Oh, it won't do--really it won't," said Holmes suavely. "There

is no possible getting out of it, Mr. Windibank. It is quite too

transparent, and it was a very bad compliment when you said that

it was impossible for me to solve so simple a question. That's

right! Sit down and let us talk it over."

Our visitor collapsed into a chair, with a ghastly face and a

glitter of moisture on his brow. "It--it's not actionable," he

stammered.

"I am very much afraid that it is not. But between ourselves,

Windibank, it was as cruel and selfish and heartless a trick in a

petty way as ever came before me. Now, let me just run over the

course of events, and you will contradict me if I go wrong."

The man sat huddled up in his chair, with his head sunk upon his

breast, like one who is utterly crushed. Holmes stuck his feet up

on the corner of the mantelpiece and, leaning back with his hands

in his pockets, began talking, rather to himself, as it seemed,

than to us.

"The man married a woman very much older than himself for her

money," said he, "and he enjoyed the use of the money of the

daughter as long as she lived with them. It was a considerable

sum, for people in their position, and the loss of it would have

made a serious difference. It was worth an effort to preserve it.

The daughter was of a good, amiable disposition, but affectionate

and warm-hearted in her ways, so that it was evident that with

her fair personal advantages, and her little income, she would

not be allowed to remain single long. Now her marriage would

mean, of course, the loss of a hundred a year, so what does her

stepfather do to prevent it? He takes the obvious course of

keeping her at home and forbidding her to seek the company of

people of her own age. But soon he found that that would not

answer forever. She became restive, insisted upon her rights, and

finally announced her positive intention of going to a certain

ball. What does her clever stepfather do then? He conceives an

idea more creditable to his head than to his heart. With the

connivance and assistance of his wife he disguised himself,

covered those keen eyes with tinted glasses, masked the face with

a moustache and a pair of bushy whiskers, sunk that clear voice

into an insinuating whisper, and doubly secure on account of the

girl's short sight, he appears as Mr. Hosmer Angel, and keeps off

other lovers by making love himself."

"It was only a joke at first," groaned our visitor. "We never

thought that she would have been so carried away."

"Very likely not. However that may be, the young lady was very

decidedly carried away, and, having quite made up her mind that

her stepfather was in France, the suspicion of treachery never

for an instant entered her mind. She was flattered by the

gentleman's attentions, and the effect was increased by the

loudly expressed admiration of her mother. Then Mr. Angel began

to call, for it was obvious that the matter should be pushed as

far as it would go if a real effect were to be produced. There

were meetings, and an engagement, which would finally secure the

girl's affections from turning towards anyone else. But the

deception could not be kept up forever. These pretended journeys

to France were rather cumbrous. The thing to do was clearly to

bring the business to an end in such a dramatic manner that it

would leave a permanent impression upon the young lady's mind and

prevent her from looking upon any other suitor for some time to

come. Hence those vows of fidelity exacted upon a Testament, and

hence also the allusions to a possibility of something happening

on the very morning of the wedding. James Windibank wished Miss

Sutherland to be so bound to Hosmer Angel, and so uncertain as to

his fate, that for ten years to come, at any rate, she would not

listen to another man. As far as the church door he brought her,

and then, as he could go no farther, he conveniently vanished

away by the old trick of stepping in at one door of a

four-wheeler and out at the other. I think that was the chain of

events, Mr. Windibank!"

Our visitor had recovered something of his assurance while Holmes

had been talking, and he rose from his chair now with a cold

sneer upon his pale face.

"It may be so, or it may not. Mr. Holmes," said he, "but if you

are so very sharp you ought to be sharp enough to know that it is

you who are breaking the law now, and not me. I have done nothing

actionable from the first, but as long as you keep that door

locked you lay yourself open to an action for assault and illegal

constraint."

"The law cannot, as you say, touch you," said Holmes, unlocking

and throwing open the door, "yet there never was a man who

deserved punishment more. If the young lady has a brother or a

friend, he ought to lay a whip across your shoulders. By Jove!"

he continued, flushing up at the sight of the bitter sneer upon

the man's face, "it is not part of my duties to my client, but

here's a hunting crop handy, and I think I shall just treat

myself to--" He took two swift steps to the whip, but before he

could grasp it there was a wild clatter of steps upon the stairs,

the heavy hall door banged, and from the window we could see Mr.

James Windibank running at the top of his speed down the road.

"There's a cold-blooded scoundrel!" said Holmes, laughing, as he

threw himself down into his chair once more. "That fellow will

rise from crime to crime until he does something very bad, and

ends on a gallows. The case has, in some respects, been not

entirely devoid of interest."

"I cannot now entirely see all the steps of your reasoning," I

remarked.

"Well, of course it was obvious from the first that this Mr.

Hosmer Angel must have some strong object for his curious

conduct, and it was equally clear that the only man who really

profited by the incident, as far as we could see, was the

stepfather. Then the fact that the two men were never together,

but that the one always appeared when the other was away, was

suggestive. So were the tinted spectacles and the curious voice,

which both hinted at a disguise, as did the bushy whiskers. My

suspicions were all confirmed by his peculiar action in

typewriting his signature, which, of course, inferred that his

handwriting was so familiar to her that she would recognize even

the smallest sample of it. You see all these isolated facts,

together with many minor ones, all pointed in the same

direction."

"And how did you verify them?"

"Having once spotted my man, it was easy to get corroboration. I

knew the firm for which this man worked. Having taken the printed

description. I eliminated everything from it which could be the

result of a disguise--the whiskers, the glasses, the voice, and I

sent it to the firm, with a request that they would inform me

whether it answered to the description of any of their

travellers. I had already noticed the peculiarities of the

typewriter, and I wrote to the man himself at his business

address asking him if he would come here. As I expected, his

reply was typewritten and revealed the same trivial but

characteristic defects. The same post brought me a letter from

Westhouse & Marbank, of Fenchurch Street, to say that the

description tallied in every respect with that of their employee,

James Windibank. Voila tout!"

"And Miss Sutherland?"

"If I tell her she will not believe me. You may remember the old

Persian saying, 'There is danger for him who taketh the tiger

cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman.'

There is as much sense in Hafiz as in Horace, and as much

knowledge of the world."