Root Cause
THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
by
Arthur Conan Doyle
Silver Blaze
Chapter 17
Silver Blaze
Chapter 17
Silver Blaze
Four days later
Holmes and I
were again
in the train,
bound for Winchester
to see the race
for the Wessex Cup.
Colonel Ross
met us by appointment
outside the station,
and we drove
in his drag
to the course
beyond the town.
His face was grave,
and his manner
was cold in the extreme.
“I have seen nothing
of my horse,”
said he.
“I suppose
that you would know him
when you saw him?”
asked Holmes.
The Colonel
was very angry.
“I have been
on the turf
for twenty years,
and never was asked
such a question
as that before,”
said he.
“A child
would know Silver Blaze,
with his white forehead
and his mottled off-foreleg.”
“How is the betting?”
“Well, that is
the curious part
of it.
You could have got
fifteen to one yesterday,
but the price
has become shorter
and shorter,
until you can
hardly get
three to one now.”
“Hum!” said Holmes.
“Somebody knows something,
that is clear.”
As the drag
drew up in the enclosure
near the grand stand
I glanced
at the card
to see the entries.
It ran:—
Wessex Plate.
50 sovs each h ft
(The cost to enter a horse (50 sovereigns)
h ft: Half forfeit.
If a horse is withdrawn,
then only 25 sovereigns are returned.)
with 1000 sovs
added for four
and five year olds.
Second, £300.
Third, £200.
New course
(one mile
and five furlongs).
1. Mr. Heath Newton’s The Negro
(red cap, cinnamon jacket).
2. Colonel Wardlaw’s Pugilist
(pink cap, blue and black jacket).
3. Lord Backwater’s Desborough
(yellow cap and sleeves).
4. Colonel Ross’s Silver Blaze
(black cap, red jacket).
5. Duke of Balmoral’s Iris
(yellow and black stripes).
6. Lord Singleford’s Rasper
(purple cap, black sleeves).
“We scratched our other one,
and put all hopes on your word,”
said the Colonel.
“Why, what is that?
Silver Blaze favourite?”
“Five to four
against Silver Blaze!”
roared the ring.
“Five to four against Silver Blaze!
Five to fifteen against Desborough!
Five to four on the field!”
“There are the numbers up,”
I cried.
“They are all six there.”
“All six there?
Then my horse is running,”
cried the Colonel
in great agitation.
“But I don’t see him.
My colors
have not passed.”
“Only five have passed.
This must be he.”
As I spoke
a powerful bay horse
swept out from
the weighing enclosure
and cantered past us,
bearing on its back
the well known
black and red
of the Colonel.
“That’s not my horse,”
cried the owner.
“That beast
has not a white hair
upon its body.
What is this
that you have done,
Mr. Holmes?”
“Well, well,
let us see how he gets on,”
said my friend,
imperturbably.
For a few minutes
he gazed
through my field-glass.
“Capital!
An excellent start!”
he cried suddenly.
“There they are,
coming round the curve!”
From our drag
we had a superb view
as they came up
the straight.
The six horses
were so close together
that a carpet
could have
covered them,
but half way
up the yellow
of the Mapleton stable
showed to the front.
Before they reached us,
however,
Desborough’s bolt was shot,
and the Colonel’s horse,
coming away
with a rush,
passed the post
a good six lengths
before its rival,
the Duke of Balmoral’s Iris
making a bad third.
“It’s my race, anyhow,”
gasped the Colonel,
passing his hand over
his eyes.
“I confess that
I can make neither head
nor tail of it.
Don’t you think
that you have kept up
your mystery long enough,
Mr. Holmes?”
“Certainly, Colonel,
you shall know everything.
Let us all go round
and have a look
at the horse together.
Here he is,”
he continued,
as we made our way
into the weighing enclosure,
where only owners
and their friends
find admittance.
“You have only
to wash his face
and his leg in spirits of wine,
and you will find
that he is the same
old Silver Blaze as ever.”
“You take my breath away!”
“I found him
in the hands
of a faker,
and took the liberty
of running him
just as he was
sent over.”
“My dear sir,
you have done wonders.
The horse looks very fit
and well.
It never went better
in its life.
I owe you
a thousand apologies
for having doubted
your ability.
You have done me
a great service
by recovering
my horse.
You would do me
a greater still
if you could
lay your hands
on the murderer
of John Straker.”
“I have done so,”
said Holmes quietly.
The Colonel and I
stared at him
in amazement.
“You have got him!
Where is he, then?”
“He is here.”
“Here! Where?”
“In my company
at the present moment.”
The Colonel flushed angrily.
“I quite recognise
that I am under obligations
to you, Mr. Holmes,”
said he,
“but I must regard
what you have just said
as either a very bad joke
or an insult.”
Sherlock Holmes laughed.
“I assure you
that I have not
associated you
with the crime, Colonel,”
said he.
“The real murderer
is standing
immediately behind you.”
He stepped past
and laid his hand
upon the glossy neck
of the thoroughbred.
“The horse!”
cried both the Colonel
and myself.
“Yes, the horse.
And it may lessen his guilt
if I say that
it was done in self-defence,
and that John Straker
was a man
who was entirely unworthy
of your confidence.
But there goes the bell,
and as I stand
to win a little
on this next race,
I shall defer
a lengthy explanation
until a more fitting time.”
We had
the corner
of a Pullman car
to ourselves
that evening
as we whirled back
to London,
and I fancy
that the journey
was a short one
to Colonel Ross
as well as to myself,
as we listened to
our companion’s narrative
of the events
which had occurred
at the
Dartmoor training-stables
upon the Monday night,
and the means
by which he had
unravelled them.
“I confess,”
said he,
“that any theories
which I had formed
from the newspaper reports
were entirely erroneous.
And yet
there were
indications there,
had they not been overlaid
by other details
which concealed
their true import.
I went to Devonshire
with the conviction
that Fitzroy Simpson
was the true culprit,
although,
of course,
I saw that
the evidence against him
was by no means
complete.
It was while
I was in the carriage,
just as we reached
the trainer’s house,
that the immense significance
of the curried mutton
occurred to me.
You may remember
that I was distrait,
and remained sitting
after you had all alighted.
I was marvelling
in my own mind
how I could possibly
have overlooked
so obvious
a clue.”
“I confess,”
said the Colonel,
“that even now
I cannot see how
it helps us.”
“It was the first link
in my chain of reasoning.
Powdered opium
is by no means tasteless.
The flavour is not disagreeable,
but it
is perceptible.
Were it mixed
with any ordinary dish
the eater
would undoubtedly detect it,
and would probably
eat no more.
A curry was exactly
the medium
which would disguise
this taste.
By no possible supposition
could this stranger,
Fitzroy Simpson,
have caused curry
to be served
in the trainer’s family
that night,
and it is surely
too monstrous
a coincidence
to suppose
that he happened
to come along
with powdered opium
upon the very night
when a dish
happened to be served
which would disguise
the flavour.
That is unthinkable.
Therefore Simpson
becomes eliminated
from the case,
and our attention
centers upon Straker
and his wife,
the only two people
who could have chosen
curried mutton for supper
that night.
The opium was added
after the dish
was set aside
for the stable-boy,
for the others had
the same for supper
with no ill effects.
Which of them,
then, had access
to that dish
without the maid
seeing them?
“Before deciding
that question
I had grasped
the significance
of the silence
of the dog,
for one true inference
invariably suggests others.
The Simpson incident
had shown me
that a dog
was kept
in the stables,
and yet,
though someone
had been in
and had
fetched out a horse,
he had not barked enough
to arouse
the two lads
in the loft.
Obviously the midnight visitor
was someone
whom the dog knew well.
“I was already convinced,
or almost convinced,
that John Straker
went down to the stables
in the dead of the night
and took out
Silver Blaze.
For what purpose?
For a dishonest one,
obviously,
or why should he drug
his own stable-boy?
And yet I was
at a loss
to know why.
There have been cases
before now
where trainers
have made sure
of great sums of money
by laying against
their own horses,
through agents,
and then preventing them
from winning by fraud.
Sometimes
it is a pulling jockey.
Sometimes it is some
surer and subtler means.
What was it here?
I hoped that
the contents
of his pockets
might help me
to form a conclusion.
“And they did so.
You cannot have forgotten
the singular knife
which was found
in the dead man’s hand,
a knife which certainly
no sane man
would choose
for a weapon.
It was,
as Dr. Watson told us,
a form of knife
which is used
for the most
delicate operations
known in surgery.
And it was
to be used
for a delicate
operation that night.
You must know,
with your wide experience
of turf matters,
Colonel Ross,
that it is possible
to make a slight nick
upon the tendons
of a horse’s ham,
and to do it
subcutaneously,
so as to leave
absolutely no trace.
A horse
so treated
would develop
a slight lameness,
which would
be put down to
a strain in exercise
or a touch of
rheumatism,
but never
to foul play.”
“Villain! Scoundrel!”
cried the Colonel.
“We have here
the explanation
of why John Straker
wished to take
the horse out
on to the moor.
So spirited a creature
would have certainly
roused the soundest
of sleepers
when it felt
the prick
of the knife.
It was absolutely necessary
to do it
in the open air.”
“I have been blind!”
cried the Colonel.
“Of course
that was why
he needed the candle,
and struck the match.”
“Undoubtedly.
But in examining
his belongings
I was fortunate enough
to discover
not only
the method
of the crime,
but even its motives.
As a man of the world,
Colonel,
you know
that men do not
carry other people’s bills
about in their pockets.
We have
most of us
quite enough to do
to settle our own.
I at once concluded
that Straker
was leading
a double life,
and keeping
a second establishment.
The nature of the bill
showed that there was
a lady in the case,
and one who had
expensive tastes.
Liberal as you are
with your servants,
one can hardly expect
that they can buy
twenty-guinea
walking dresses
for their ladies.
I questioned
Mrs. Straker
as to the dress
without her knowing it,
and having satisfied myself
that it had never reached her,
I made a note
of the milliner’s address,
and felt that
by calling there
with Straker’s photograph
I could easily dispose of
the mythical Derbyshire.
“From that time on
all was plain.
Straker had led out the horse
to a hollow
where his light
would be invisible.
Simpson in his flight
had dropped his cravat,
and Straker had picked it up –
with some idea, perhaps,
that he might use it
in securing the horse’s leg.
Once in the hollow,
he had got behind the horse
and had struck a light;
but the creature frightened
at the sudden glare,
and with the strange instinct
of animals feeling
that some mischief was intended,
had lashed out,
and the steel shoe
had struck Straker
full on the forehead.
He had already,
in spite of the rain,
taken off his overcoat
in order to do
his delicate task,
and so,
as he fell,
his knife gashed his thigh.
Do I make it clear?”
“Wonderful!”
cried the Colonel.
“Wonderful!
You might have
been there!”
“My final shot was,
I confess
a very long one.
It struck me that
so astute a man
as Straker
would not undertake
this delicate tendon-nicking
without a little practice.
What could he
practice on?
My eyes fell upon
the sheep,
and I asked a question
which,
rather to my surprise,
showed that my surmise
was correct.
“When I returned to London
I called upon the milliner,
who had recognised Straker
as an excellent customer
of the name of
Derbyshire,
who had a very dashing wife,
with a strong partiality
for expensive dresses.
I have no doubt
that this woman
had plunged him
over head and ears
in debt,
and so led him
into this
miserable plot.”
“You have explained all
but one thing,”
cried the Colonel.
“Where was the horse?”
“Ah, it bolted,
and was cared for
by one of your neighbors.
We must have
an amnesty
in that direction,
I think.
This is Clapham Junction,
if I am not mistaken,
and we shall be
in Victoria
in less than ten minutes.
If you care
to smoke a cigar
in our rooms, Colonel,
I shall be happy
to give you
any other details
which might interest you.”
The End