Since my accounts of the investigations of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were first published, I have often found myself taken to task, sometimes by absolute strangers, for what they see as omissions and inaccuracies in my tales. In my own defense, I can only say that the need for discretion has sometimes led me to alter some details in order to protect the privacy of innocent people. There is, however, one habit that is objected to more than any other, and that is my practise of referring once to a case, and never writing it up or even mentioning it again. In expiation for my sins, then, I shall now set down the facts surrounding the demise of Miss Sally Addleton, as referred to in my previous record of the "Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez".
It was, by my notes, September of 1894. Holmes and I, both having several small errands to perform, took advantage of an exceedingly clement morning to stroll casually from bootmaker to tobacconist to stationer's, and so on, only turning homeward when we realized that we were very late for luncheon. Mounting the steps to our rooms, to the well-known accompaniment of Mrs. Hudson's admonitions, Holmes surprised me by halting on the threshold and detaining me with his arm across the doorway.
"Halloa, Watson! We've had a visitor," said he, pointing to our wing-backed chair. This had been turned toward the bow-window, and a book lay upon its arm. Motioning me to stay at the door, Holmes got upon his hands and knees to examine the carpet, then rose, looked at the book, the chair and the ashtray on the side-table.
"A pretty little exercise in observation and deduction," said he. "Our guest is a tall man, rather advanced in years, and is accustomed to bohemian living. His eyesight is rather weak; perhaps through excessive reading, for he is something of an intellectual. Although a country dweller, he has discerning tastes."
"Now Holmes," said I, "I know you have his height from his stride, and I saw you remove a hair from the seat back. I assume it is gray, indicating the man's age. The intellectualism you get from the volume of Hegel, not every man's choice for idle reading. The chair was obviously turned toward the light, hence the weak eyesight. But…".
"Bravo, Watson, you scintillate today!"
"Not entirely. I fail to follow your reasoning on the man's tastes, his country residence, or his bohemianism."
"Observe," said Holmes, "the cigar end in this ashtray. It is from the stock of cigars in the coal scuttle, not from the excellent humidor upon the side board. It takes a certain degree of taste to recognize the superiority of this cigar over the others, and a certain laxity as to household arrangements to take your cigars out of the coal-scuttle at all, not to mention the cavalier way he made himself at home, rearranging our furniture, smoking our cigars and helping himself to our library. That he is a countryman is indicated by the marks of his boots. This thick carpet takes excellent impressions, and these are not the boots of a city dweller. Observe the marks of the nails. Anything more?" he asked.
"Only that the man is a schoolmaster, not a University man, and is from Wessex," I replied. I confess that I enjoyed the look of surprise that spread over Holmes' face.
"How on earth do you deduce that?" he cried.
"Simplicity itself. The fellow's left his card. 'Mr. Clement Yeobright, Headmaster, Mistover Day School, Mistover Knap, Wessex'. If he had a degree, it would certainly be indicated on a schoolmaster's card," I said. I turned the pasteboard over. "Going to luncheon. Will return soon," I read.
"Well, then," said he, a little perturbed, "if Mr. Yeobright wishes to see us, he will return. Until he does, pray let us occupy ourselves with the repast that Mrs. Hudson is bringing to us."
Mr. Yeobright did indeed return as we were finishing our meal. As Holmes had deduced, he was indeed a tall, white-headed man of considerable years, dressed in country "Sunday Best" and wearing dark spectacles. He seemed a sad man, and not entirely sure of himself, but Holmes exerted his not inconsiderable charm and soon put our guest at ease. Furnishing Mr. Yeobright with another cigar, we settled him into a chair and inquired what had brought him to us.
"Well, sir" he said, in a surprisingly refined, un-Wessex accent, "I have heard that you are a man who has succeeded in finding justice where the police have failed. I have traveled all night to see you, in the hopes that you will return with me to Wessex and avenge as foul a murder as has ever happened."
At the mention of murder, I drew a sharp, involuntary breath. Holmes, however, displayed only a gleam of interest in his eye. "If you please, sir, tell your story from the beginning, and in as much detail as you can. The smallest thing may be of importance."
"I have a small day school in the rural districts of Wessex, and for the last two years have been assisted by a young lady of eighteen called Sally Addleton. She is - was - a bright girl, very cheerful and intelligent, despite a childhood illness that left her with a pronounced limp. I had not seen her since school let out on Saturday. Yesterday afternoon, after church, I went to one of the old barrows, or burial mounds, that dot our heath, to continue some excavations I had been making. I am something of an amateur archaeologist. I was surprised to find that someone had filled in some of my diggings. I began removing the earth again, and I found… Oh, dear God!".
Here the old man seemed to break down. He put his face in his hands, and his body shuddered as if in pain.
Holmes leaned forward, and his gentle voice comforted the sorrowful old man. "I know it was horrible," he said, "but if we are to help you, we must know all you know. Please, take a little drink, compose yourself, and tell us. What had been done to her?"
The words came slowly. Without raising his eyes, Mr. Yeobright continued, "She had been struck on the forehead. Her skull was broken. The police say that it could have been anything heavy; a stone, a club, anything." His eye finally rose. "The police! A half-witted constable, and a Sergeant from Budmouth too good to get his boots dirty. They decided that a tramp -- we have a few on the heath now and then -- had done it. But Sally was terrified of tramps. She would never have stayed facing one long enough to be struck from the front."
"An interesting, and most crucial point," said Holmes. "Do not underestimate your own powers of deduction, Mr. Yeobright. Look up the trains to Budmouth, Watson, if you please. Mr. Yeobright, my friend and I will do all that is in our power to help. We shall continue this discussion en route."
"There is a good train in an hour and a half," I called, after consulting Bradshaw. "I'll go and pack our things, and inform Mrs. Hudson that we shall be away."
During the long train journey, Holmes questioned Mr. Yeobright further about the tragedy. "You say that Miss Addleton avoided crossing the heath alone. Is the barrow on the way to her home, or any other place she might have been going?"
The old man shook his head. "Leaving from the school, Sally's home is in the opposite direction from the barrow. I saw her go that way on Saturday."
"Is there any good reason why she should have gone to the barrow?"
"None that I can imagine. The police inquiry found that no one had seen her after she left the school. The men would have been on the heath, and the women seeing to supper. Sally lived alone since her father passed on last March." The schoolmaster raised his head, and fixed Holmes with the dark ovals of his smoked glasses. "She was not missed in church. Sally hasn't attended divine service since the vicar expressed the opinion that her lameness was God's retribution for some sin of her father's."
"Damned fool," I muttered.
"Agreed," said Holmes, "but it gets us no further, except in a negative way. Did Miss Addleton have any romantic attachments?"
Again Yeobright shook his head. "She'd not get many offers. The men in our community prefer a wife who can carry her share of the work. They're not very tolerant of her affliction, and some make sport of it when they've been drinking. And then, Sally wouldn't have taken up with them; her ideal man was someone who could write like Browning. Proper education is still a new idea in rural Wessex."
Holmes glanced at me, inviting me to put any questions I might have. He was scrupulous about extending this courtesy, even though my contributions were rare and of dubious value. This time, however, I did have a pertinent question. "Forgive me, sir, if the question pains you, but was the young lady interfered with in any way?"
"Thank goodness, no," the old man replied. "The police are at a loss for motive; the few shillings she had when she was found were the wages I had just paid her, and as much as she ever carried." Again he fixed Holmes with the black spectacles. "Can you see any hope, Mr. Holmes?"
Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his seat and steepled his fingers. "I would rather wait until I have examined the scene and asked a few questions locally before I express a definite opinion, but there is always hope. Watson will tell you that there have been times when all the evidence seemed to lead noplace, and just one additional piece showed me the pattern. We do progress, sir. We shall go forward until we can do so no longer."
The old man seemed so crestfallen that Holmes continued, "Let us examine the facts as we know them. The young lady was not seen from her departure from the school until the discovery on Sunday. Until we speak to the police surgeon, we cannot know what was the critical hour. There was no known reason for her to be at the barrow. We must try to determine from an examination of the scene whether she was killed there or elsewhere. Was the weapon found?"
"Not to my knowledge, Mr. Holmes."
"Watson, a job for you. Ingratiate yourself with the police surgeon and examine the wound. Find out the time of death, and any other medical evidence that may be of use." I nodded my assent, and he continued.
"The question of motive is of great importance."
"Why do you say so?" asked Yeobright.
"Because it is so obscure. We have no evidence of robbery, no romantic entanglements, and no motive of the baser sort. The usual motives for murder are gain, fear and momentary rage. It would surprise you how many murderers act in blind fury, and regret their deeds moments later."
Holmes' eyelids drooped as he continued musing. "Gain may apparently be ruled out; the victim was not robbed, and in any case would not have had enough money to be a tempting target. As to fear, could she have been a party to someone's guilty secret? We have no way of knowing, so we will not speculate in that direction. And, I confess, she does not sound the sort to inspire rage. Call it intuition, gentlemen, but when this case is solved, it will be the motive that shows us the way."
Conversation lagged, and I fell to looking out the window at the inhospitable Wessex countryside, reminiscent of the "blasted heath" in Macbeth. It was a strange Fate, I thought, that sent a game-legged medico hurtling across England at forty miles an hour, intent upon finding a killer. Not much like the dreams of my youth, in which a sunburnt Army doctor, married to the Colonel's daughter, enjoyed tea on some pleasant verandah at an Indian fort.
Holmes broke in on my thoughts. "Never mind, Watson. What's done is done, and cannot be undone."
I glared at him. Holmes knew quite well that his parlor trick of following my thoughts and breaking in with a pertinent comment was irritating in the extreme. He quickly changed the subject, remarking that we were approaching Budmouth station.
We were met on the platform by a sturdy, well-knit young man in his twenties, whom Yeobright introduced as his nephew Paul Venn. The lad conducted us to a wagon outside, and in this uncomfortable conveyance we took the road to the heath. The countryside was, if anything, even more inhospitable when seen close to. Yeobright surprised me by remarking on its beauty. "Some do not agree with me," he said, "but I find the heath restful."
Holmes looked up from a brown study. "I imagine that every man has a special feeling for his birthplace." His eyes lost their faraway look. "As we have time, sir, it would be helpful if we could proceed directly to the barrow where Miss Addleton was found. Every minute that passes could mean the destruction of a clue."
"Aye, sir," young Paul replied. "The barrow it is. And I hope you can lay hands on the dirty swine who did this. Sally was a friend," he added, sheepishly.
In due time, we arrived at the barrow, a dome of earth grown over with the rough vegetation of the heath. A small knot of men waited to greet us. Yeobright introduced Holmes and myself to a huge, porcine man, who turned out to be Detective Sergeant Whitlow of the Budmouth Police. He seemed none too pleased to see us.
"There bain't anything for you here, Mr. Holmes. No call to come all the way from London to chase a tramp. It's a job for the police," (he pronounced it "pollis") "and no question about it."
Holmes' urbanity flowed like a river. "My dear Sergeant, I am a mere student of criminology. If you can spare time to acquaint me with your methods, I would be most gratified."
The Sergeant mellowed visibly under this outrageous flattery. "Well, sir, it be this way. Mr. Yeobright, he come out here just yesterday a-diggin' for his charnel bones and such, and see that someone had messed about with his shovel and such. This here hole," he continued, leading us to an excavation in the side of the barrow, "was filed in a bit. He dug in, and found the young lass, and sent for us right quick. Doctor Mills, he took the corpus away, and he and it are at the Inn. We made our inquires and heard that a tramp had been seen this way Saturday. They be nasty people, these tramps. Break your skull for a few shillin's they would."
"And yet the young lady was not robbed, according to Mr. Yeobright. Why then was she attacked?" Holmes was still the picture of the eager student.
The Sergeant had his answer ready, no doubt having been asked before. "Old Henry Gayforth, he and his missus come this way Saturday about six of the evenin'. Might be they scared him off."
"Ah, I see," replied Holmes. He turned to the hole in the earth. "Mr. Yeobright, how deeply had you dug here before leaving off last?"
The old man thought a moment. "Much deeper than this, Mr. Holmes. I was down a good three or four feet further."
Holmes smiled, a look that meant inspiration. "Sergeant, if I may, I suggest you dig down to where Mr. Yeobright was before the crime."
The Sergeant was horrified. "You think there's another corpus down there?"
"We have no way of knowing, until you dig." Holmes was even more amused now, knowing that he had gotten some of his own back. "We will proceed to the Inn and interview this Doctor Mills." We left the Sergeant and his two constables wielding shovels, and remounted the wagon.
The Quiet Woman Inn provided me with a brief moment of humor in this depressing landscape; its sign was a lady carrying her head over her arm, and its motto was "Since the Woman's Quiet, Let No Man Start a Riot". Inside, Yeobright introduced us to Mrs. Venn, his cousin and the owner of the Inn. We also met Dr. Mills, an old country doctor with the most splendid set of side-whiskers I have ever seen. Claiming the privilege of a fellow medico, I asked him to let me examine the victim. Mills, impressed by my London provenance and under the impression (fostered most mendaciously by Holmes) that I was a distinguished forensic specialist, complied with alacrity.
In a small bedroom at the back of the Inn, I turned back the sheet that covered the poor girl's face. Her forehead was horribly marked by an indentation about three inches across; the skull had been obviously been crushed into the frontal lobes of the brain, and death must have been nearly instantaneous. Closer examination of the wound revealed a few points that I knew would be of interest to Holmes.
Dr. Mills gave it as his opinion that the wound was the sole cause of death, and that only one blow had been struck. I concurred, and described my findings to him, which made his eyebrows rise in surprise. He further favored me with his observations upon the general condition of the body, noting that some wood splinters had been found in the back of the victim's dress and some coarse fibers, probably from a blanket, entangled in the locket she wore. I knew that Holmes would consider this to be of utmost importance, so we returned to the private parlor to convey the news to him.
"Ah, a report from the medical men," he greeted us. "Mrs. Venn and Mr. Yeobright have given me a most thorough briefing on the poor young lady's life and associations; as you know, Watson, in a small country community, everyone's life story is known to all. I think we can eliminate personal motives against the victim."
"That seems to leave accident and suicide, Holmes," I retorted, "and it is neither of those. The wound..." I halted as Holmes raised his palm, indicating the lady.
Mrs. Venn saw the gesture, and spoke. "You won't offend me, doctor. We live close to life and close to death here in the country." At a nod from Holmes, I continued.
"I've examined the deceased, and the cause of death is certainly a single blow, struck to the front of the skull from the victim's left. The cranium is shattered; the instrument must have been something heavy and of considerable superficies…" I corrected myself when I observed the puzzled frown on Mrs. Venn's face, "it had a fairly broad face to it. It wasn't anything like a poker or walking stick, unless the handle had a large, square knob. I'm fairly sure, and my colleague agrees, that she was struck with the flat face of something, about three or four inches square."
"Excellent work, Watson!" cried Holmes. "And by you, too, sir," he added, to the country practitioner.
Dr. Mills thanked him, and continued. "There's more, Mr. Holmes, that your friend spotted after I'd had my say. Me not being a regular police doctor, I missed a thing or two."
In reply to my friend's inquiring lift of the eyebrows, I took the floor again. "Two things that may be of use, Holmes. Firstly, there were traces of rust and what I believe is light machine oil in the wound. You might find your weapon in a toolbox. Secondly, there were bruises, made before death, on the underside of the girl's wrists."
"Dragged somewhere, by someone?" asked Yeobright.
"If that had been so, the bruises would have been all the way around the wrist. I think she fended off one blow with her arms up, palms outward. This probably hurt her arms so much that she let down her guard, and the second blow was fatal."
Holmes lay back in his chair, his eyes glittering behind half-closed lids. I knew that look of introspection. "Thank you, Watson," he murmured, and dropped into a brown study. Mrs. Venn started to speak, and was hushed by a gesture from her cousin. In silence we waited for about two minutes, until Holmes rose from his chair. Collecting his hat and stick, he crossed to where Mrs. Venn stood. "I wonder, madam, if you would..."
We were all momentarily stunned as Holmes whirled his stick as if to strike our hostess, stopping the blow an inch from her upheld arms. "Please do not move, madam," he cried. "Watson, look at the position of my stick and the lady's arms. Would they correspond to the bruises you mentioned?" I nodded. "I am very sorry to have startled you, madam, but I had no other way to verify the nature of the blows struck. I apologize, and if it is any satisfaction to you, it may help to hang a killer."
Mrs. Venn pulled herself together with a visible effort. "You do that one thing, sir, and you'll have our eternal thanks." She turned her head at a rap on the parlour door. "Yes?"
A middle-aged man stepped hesitatingly into the room. He was short and thin, with the washed-out look of a man who suffered from chronic mild illnesses. "Just me, Mistress Venn. I've brought those new kitchen things you ordered."
"What do I owe you, then?" she asked.
"Oh, no, time enough to settle up later. You're busy," the man replied.
Yeobright introduced the man as Mr. Cantle, who kept the general goods shop just down the road. Holmes seemed interested. "Mr. Cantle, we are investigating the demise of Miss Addleton. Can you spare a moment? You may be able to help us."
Cantle seemed taken aback by the idea. "Me, sir? Little enough I know about it."
Waving the shopkeeper to a chair, Holmes explained. "Miss Addleton had just been paid her week's wages when she was last seen. It seems reasonable that a young woman who had just been paid would go to a shop. Did she come to yours Saturday?"
"No, sir," replied Cantle. "I was in the shop all afternoon and evenin', cleaning up like, and she never come in. Do someone say she did?"
"Oh, no," Holmes reassured him. "Just my theory about her wanting to go shopping. That is all I wanted to ask, but if you hear of anyone who saw the girl Saturday, please inform us, or the police. Village shops, I know, are popular local gossiping places. No doubt you hear all sorts of things."
The man smiled for the first time. "That I do, but I keep myself to myself. Wouldn't do to go talking round my customers' private business. Wouldn't have no customers soon, would I?"
Holmes agreed he would not, thanked him and showed him to the door. Mrs. Venn then invited us to have some supper. After the long train journey and hard waggon ride, we consented with some alacrity.
Supper was served by Mrs. Venn's niece, a darkly handsome young lady with the romantic name of Eustacia Wildeve. We discussed the case as we ate. When Holmes commented on Cantle's nervous demeanour, Miss Wildeve broke into the conversation.
"You needn't pay and mind to that, sir. Christian Cantle's been afraid of his own shadow as long as anyone can remember. He keeps a shop because he's too sickly for man's work." Her voice dripped with contempt.
Across the table, I saw Holmes' eyes narrow. "We cannot all be the broad-shouldered, steely-eyed heroes of popular fiction, Miss Wildeve. I'm sure Mr. Cantle is simply doing the best with what God has given him."
The girl's only reply was a snort and a petulant twitch of her sable mane as she glided through the kitchen doorway.
Holmes lowered his voice. "Watson, you're the resident specialist on the subject of ladies' tempers. What do you make of Miss Wildeve's attitude toward Mr. Cantle?" Mrs. Venn started to speak, but Holmes deterred her with an upraised palm. "Please, madam."
It was a dashed embarrassing situation, but I supposed that Holmes must have a reason for his question. "Obviously, Cantle's not the man of her dreams," I said, "which means that she's not suffering from unrequited passion. I rather expect it's the other way around; that Cantle paid his addresses to Miss Wildeve, and..."
I was not allowed to finish. Sergeant Whitlow burst through the door, crying "We found it! We found it, sir! How did you know it was there?"
"Calm down," I admonished him. "What have you found, and where?"
"This, sir," he wheezed, unwrapping a cloth bundle to reveal a heavy claw hammer. "It were in the hole, buried deep." His gaze swiveled to Holmes. "You knew it was there, Mr. Holmes. How?"
My friend leaned back in his chair, a satisfied smile on his face. "I didn't know, Sergeant, I merely had a theory, which you graciously tested for me. Less than a month ago, the newspapers carried reports of how Gaudet, the French axe-murderer, concealed his weapon by burying it beneath his victim, reasoning that digging would cease when the body was encountered. No doubt you read up the case yourself, Sergeant?"
Whitlow resented the taunt. "Some of us have got to be out enforcin' the law, sir, and don't have leisure for readin'."
Holmes smoothed things over by pointing out the bright side. "Be that as it may, Sergeant, you can report to your superiors that you've uncovered a valuable piece of evidence. Stout piece of work." Whitlow's look brightened as the thought struck him.
"Now, let's see what you've found," Holmes continued. He passed the hammer to me. "Doctor, would you say that this could have caused the wound?"
I only had to glance at the instrument to be sure. "Undoubtedly. The smooth, square striking surface would cause just such a wound, and there are some flakes of rust and the same light oil I saw." I gave the hammer to Dr. Mills, who nodded agreement and handed it back to Holmes. For a few seconds, he turned the hammer over in his hands.
"What do you make of this hammer, Sergeant?" he asked.
Whitlow was surprised at being asked for an opinion. "Just a hammer, Mr. Holmes. No different from any other hammer."
Holmes’ face was grim. "You may want to look again," he said as he passed the hammer to Whitlow. "What's there doesn't matter; what is not there tells the story." Leaving the policeman to wrestle with this declaration, he turned again to Mrs. Venn. "When we were interrupted, Dr. Watson was analyzing your niece's behaviour toward Mr. Cantle. Was he correct?" Noticing the wary look in her eye, he added, "I do not suggest that Miss Wildeve had anything to do with the crime, but it is vital that you answer."
"Christian asked her to marry him. And he old enough to be her father! He told her she needed the steadying influence of an older man, as if she were some sort of loose woman. And he bragged about how much money he had, as if he were offering to buy her hand in marriage. Eustacia's a strong-willed girl, and doesn't take kindly to being lectured, much less insulted. She told him what she thought of him."
Holmes steepled his fingers under his chin. "So Cantle has never been married?"
"Not for want of trying," Mrs. Venn replied. "He's asked just about every single woman within a day's ride. He asked me once, years ago. I just told him I'd never marry again, after burying two husbands."
Looking across the table, I could almost see the wheels and gears turning in the brain that housed the finest detective mind in the world. For perhaps two minutes, Holmes sat in silence. Then, he roused himself and again asked Sergeant Whitlow what he made of the murder weapon.
"Why, nothing special, sir," Whitlow said. "Not a mark on it."
"Precisely!" cried Holmes. "Are you ready to make an arrest?"
Whitlow was stunned. "No, sir!"
"You will be," replied Holmes. "Come with me. Watson!" I was out of my chair before he uttered my name. Guided by Yeobright, we left the inn and walked down the road to Cantle's shop. The one large room was packed with all sorts of household and farm implements, all arranged neat as a new pin. The floors were polished, the brass scale gleamed in the lamplight. Cantle looked up from behind the counter.
"More questions, sir?" he asked in his thin, quavering voice.
I have never seen Holmes so deadly serious. "Just one, Mr. Cantle. Did she laugh at you? Did she throw back her head and laugh at the thought of marrying you? Did she find you so ridiculous, so pitiful that she had to laugh, and laugh, and laugh..."
With a howl out of Dante's pit, Cantle raced around the counter. His hand went out to a box on a shelf, and snatched up a hammer, the twin of the one that had killed Sally Addleton! Before he could reach Holmes, Whitlow and I leapt forward and attached ourselves to his arms. He struggled in our grip, raving and sobbing like a man possessed by demons. Whitlow snapped a pair of manacles over his wrists, and looked to Holmes for instructions.
"You have your man, Sergeant," Holmes said morosely. "Make him secure, then meet us at the Quiet Woman. I shall explain it all."
Half an hour later found Holmes and I seated next to a roaring fire in the parlor of the inn. The Sergeant had just come in, and he, Yeobright, Mrs. Venn, Dr. Mills and Miss Wildeve faced us, waiting for an explanation of the evening's events.
His pipe going well, Holmes commenced in the voice of a lecturer. "In my initial analysis of the case, I made the statement that motive would be crucial to the solution. Events have borne this out. We were able to eliminate the obvious theories of robbery, revenge, and so on, which indicated that the motive was obscure and possibly out of the ordinary. Miss Wildeve, you gave me my first pointer toward that motive."
"Did I, Mr. Holmes?" she asked.
"Indeed you did. Your attitude toward Cantle led me to Mrs. Venn's description of his attempts to find a wife. It appeared to be something of an ideé fixe with him, an obsession."
Yeobright nodded. "I remember Christian saying once that he wanted a wife because ghosts only appear to those who sleep alone."
"Indeed," murmured Holmes. "And yet, I have never seen a ghost. Corporeal villains are quite enough for me. However, that is neither here nor there. My second indication of a possible culprit was the weapon which Sergeant Whitlow found. I advised you, Sergeant, to examine the hammer closely."
The Sergeant growled, "I did, sir, and there wasn't anything about it to tell me whose it was. Not a mark on it."
"Precisely my point," replied the detective. "It was a brand new hammer with an unmarked striking face. It had never driven a nail. Where would you be likely to find a new hammer? In a shop. And who was my only suspect on the basis of motive? A shopkeeper."
Holmes' face became pensive. "It is a lesson to us, to never mock the timid little man. Such people allow a lifetime of derision and abuse to build up, until one day the dam bursts. With Cantle, this last rejection was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. He may never face the gallows; he is so mentally disturbed that the court may consider him unfit to plead."
Our somber little party broke up at this point, and Holmes and I went to our room and prepared for bed. My friend was still morose over the possible fate of Christian Cantle. "I hope they do not hang him, Watson. I've met his kind before; any malice that's in them was put there by a world that will not tolerate weakness or deviation from the norm. The courts, the prisons and the gallows cannot minister to a mind diseased, or pluck from the heart a rooted sorrow. I shall make it my business to see that Cantle is given proper treatment."
I agreed. "One can't compare the man to a cold and calculating villain like Grimesby Roylott or Jonas Oldacre," I said, thinking of some of our past adventures.
"Indeed not," replied Holmes. "It seems unfair that a vicious blackmailer serves a five year sentence for systematically destroying people's lives, while a moment of hot anger can invoke the law's harshest punishment."
A final word about the case. Christian Cantle confessed to the killing of Sally Addleton. In his coherent moments, the man was appalled at what he had done. When the case reached the Assizes, his defence (prompted by Holmes) contended that he was unfit to plead, and Cantle was remanded to a mental hospital under the care of Dr. Moore Agar, whom Holmes had consulted when preparing his suggestions for the defence. As I write this, six years later, Cantle is still under treatment.
Holmes was prompted by this case to write another of his many monographs, entitled "Suggested Reforms in the Treatment of the Non-Habitual Criminal". It was privately printed and copies were sent to the Home Secretary, the Commissioner of Police and several members of Parliament, and has had some influence on judicial reform.