The Adventure of Bruce-Partington Plans (3 page)

"It was this horrible scandal," said he. "My brother, Sir James, was a
man of very sensitive honour, and he could not survive such an affair.
It broke his heart. He was always so proud of the efficiency of his
department, and this was a crushing blow."

"We had hoped that he might have given us some indications which would
have helped us to clear the matter up."

"I assure you that it was all a mystery to him as it is to you and to
all of us. He had already put all his knowledge at the disposal of the
police. Naturally he had no doubt that Cadogan West was guilty. But
all the rest was inconceivable."

"You cannot throw any new light upon the affair?"

"I know nothing myself save what I have read or heard. I have no
desire to be discourteous, but you can understand, Mr. Holmes, that we
are much disturbed at present, and I must ask you to hasten this
interview to an end."

"This is indeed an unexpected development," said my friend when we had
regained the cab. "I wonder if the death was natural, or whether the
poor old fellow killed himself! If the latter, may it be taken as some
sign of self-reproach for duty neglected? We must leave that question
to the future. Now we shall turn to the Cadogan Wests."

A small but well-kept house in the outskirts of the town sheltered the
bereaved mother. The old lady was too dazed with grief to be of any
use to us, but at her side was a white-faced young lady, who introduced
herself as Miss Violet Westbury, the fiancee of the dead man, and the
last to see him upon that fatal night.

"I cannot explain it, Mr. Holmes," she said. "I have not shut an eye
since the tragedy, thinking, thinking, thinking, night and day, what
the true meaning of it can be. Arthur was the most single-minded,
chivalrous, patriotic man upon earth. He would have cut his right hand
off before he would sell a State secret confided to his keeping. It is
absurd, impossible, preposterous to anyone who knew him."

"But the facts, Miss Westbury?"

"Yes, yes; I admit I cannot explain them."

"Was he in any want of money?"

"No; his needs were very simple and his salary ample. He had saved a
few hundreds, and we were to marry at the New Year."

"No signs of any mental excitement? Come, Miss Westbury, be absolutely
frank with us."

The quick eye of my companion had noted some change in her manner. She
coloured and hesitated.

"Yes," she said at last, "I had a feeling that there was something on
his mind."

"For long?"

"Only for the last week or so. He was thoughtful and worried. Once I
pressed him about it. He admitted that there was something, and that
it was concerned with his official life. 'It is too serious for me to
speak about, even to you,' said he. I could get nothing more."

Holmes looked grave.

"Go on, Miss Westbury. Even if it seems to tell against him, go on.
We cannot say what it may lead to."

"Indeed, I have nothing more to tell. Once or twice it seemed to me
that he was on the point of telling me something. He spoke one evening
of the importance of the secret, and I have some recollection that he
said that no doubt foreign spies would pay a great deal to have it."

My friend's face grew graver still.

"Anything else?"

"He said that we were slack about such matters—that it would be easy
for a traitor to get the plans."

"Was it only recently that he made such remarks?"

"Yes, quite recently."

"Now tell us of that last evening."

"We were to go to the theatre. The fog was so thick that a cab was
useless. We walked, and our way took us close to the office. Suddenly
he darted away into the fog."

"Without a word?"

"He gave an exclamation; that was all. I waited but he never returned.
Then I walked home. Next morning, after the office opened, they came
to inquire. About twelve o'clock we heard the terrible news. Oh, Mr.
Holmes, if you could only, only save his honour! It was so much to
him."

Holmes shook his head sadly.

"Come, Watson," said he, "our ways lie elsewhere. Our next station
must be the office from which the papers were taken.

"It was black enough before against this young man, but our inquiries
make it blacker," he remarked as the cab lumbered off. "His coming
marriage gives a motive for the crime. He naturally wanted money. The
idea was in his head, since he spoke about it. He nearly made the girl
an accomplice in the treason by telling her his plans. It is all very
bad."

"But surely, Holmes, character goes for something? Then, again, why
should he leave the girl in the street and dart away to commit a
felony?"

"Exactly! There are certainly objections. But it is a formidable case
which they have to meet."

Mr. Sidney Johnson, the senior clerk, met us at the office and received
us with that respect which my companion's card always commanded. He
was a thin, gruff, bespectacled man of middle age, his cheeks haggard,
and his hands twitching from the nervous strain to which he had been
subjected.

"It is bad, Mr. Holmes, very bad! Have you heard of the death of the
chief?"

"We have just come from his house."

"The place is disorganized. The chief dead, Cadogan West dead, our
papers stolen. And yet, when we closed our door on Monday evening, we
were as efficient an office as any in the government service. Good
God, it's dreadful to think of! That West, of all men, should have
done such a thing!"

"You are sure of his guilt, then?"

"I can see no other way out of it. And yet I would have trusted him as
I trust myself."

"At what hour was the office closed on Monday?"

"At five."

"Did you close it?"

"I am always the last man out."

"Where were the plans?"

"In that safe. I put them there myself."

"Is there no watchman to the building?"

"There is, but he has other departments to look after as well. He is an
old soldier and a most trustworthy man. He saw nothing that evening.
Of course the fog was very thick."

"Suppose that Cadogan West wished to make his way into the building
after hours; he would need three keys, would he not, before he could
reach the papers?"

"Yes, he would. The key of the outer door, the key of the office, and
the key of the safe."

"Only Sir James Walter and you had those keys?"

"I had no keys of the doors—only of the safe."

"Was Sir James a man who was orderly in his habits?"

"Yes, I think he was. I know that so far as those three keys are
concerned he kept them on the same ring. I have often seen them there."

"And that ring went with him to London?"

"He said so."

"And your key never left your possession?"

"Never."

"Then West, if he is the culprit, must have had a duplicate. And yet
none was found upon his body. One other point: if a clerk in this
office desired to sell the plans, would it not be simply to copy the
plans for himself than to take the originals, as was actually done?"

"It would take considerable technical knowledge to copy the plans in an
effective way."

"But I suppose either Sir James, or you, or West has that technical
knowledge?"

"No doubt we had, but I beg you won't try to drag me into the matter,
Mr. Holmes. What is the use of our speculating in this way when the
original plans were actually found on West?"

"Well, it is certainly singular that he should run the risk of taking
originals if he could safely have taken copies, which would have
equally served his turn."

"Singular, no doubt—and yet he did so."

"Every inquiry in this case reveals something inexplicable. Now there
are three papers still missing. They are, as I understand, the vital
ones."

"Yes, that is so."

"Do you mean to say that anyone holding these three papers, and without
the seven others, could construct a Bruce-Partington submarine?"

"I reported to that effect to the Admiralty. But to-day I have been
over the drawings again, and I am not so sure of it. The double valves
with the automatic self-adjusting slots are drawn in one of the papers
which have been returned. Until the foreigners had invented that for
themselves they could not make the boat. Of course they might soon get
over the difficulty."

"But the three missing drawings are the most important?"

"Undoubtedly."

"I think, with your permission, I will now take a stroll round the
premises. I do not recall any other question which I desired to ask."

He examined the lock of the safe, the door of the room, and finally the
iron shutters of the window. It was only when we were on the lawn
outside that his interest was strongly excited. There was a laurel bush
outside the window, and several of the branches bore signs of having
been twisted or snapped. He examined them carefully with his lens, and
then some dim and vague marks upon the earth beneath. Finally he asked
the chief clerk to close the iron shutters, and he pointed out to me
that they hardly met in the centre, and that it would be possible for
anyone outside to see what was going on within the room.

"The indications are ruined by three days' delay. They may mean
something or nothing. Well, Watson, I do not think that Woolwich can
help us further. It is a small crop which we have gathered. Let us see
if we can do better in London."

Yet we added one more sheaf to our harvest before we left Woolwich
Station. The clerk in the ticket office was able to say with
confidence that he saw Cadogan West—whom he knew well by sight—upon
the Monday night, and that he went to London by the 8:15 to London
Bridge. He was alone and took a single third-class ticket. The clerk
was struck at the time by his excited and nervous manner. So shaky was
he that he could hardly pick up his change, and the clerk had helped
him with it. A reference to the timetable showed that the 8:15 was the
first train which it was possible for West to take after he had left
the lady about 7:30.

"Let us reconstruct, Watson," said Holmes after half an hour of
silence. "I am not aware that in all our joint researches we have ever
had a case which was more difficult to get at. Every fresh advance
which we make only reveals a fresh ridge beyond. And yet we have surely
made some appreciable progress.

"The effect of our inquiries at Woolwich has in the main been against
young Cadogan West; but the indications at the window would lend
themselves to a more favourable hypothesis. Let us suppose, for
example, that he had been approached by some foreign agent. It might
have been done under such pledges as would have prevented him from
speaking of it, and yet would have affected his thoughts in the
direction indicated by his remarks to his fiancee. Very good. We will
now suppose that as he went to the theatre with the young lady he
suddenly, in the fog, caught a glimpse of this same agent going in the
direction of the office. He was an impetuous man, quick in his
decisions. Everything gave way to his duty. He followed the man,
reached the window, saw the abstraction of the documents, and pursued
the thief. In this way we get over the objection that no one would
take originals when he could make copies. This outsider had to take
originals. So far it holds together."

"What is the next step?"

"Then we come into difficulties. One would imagine that under such
circumstances the first act of young Cadogan West would be to seize the
villain and raise the alarm. Why did he not do so? Could it have been
an official superior who took the papers? That would explain West's
conduct. Or could the chief have given West the slip in the fog, and
West started at once to London to head him off from his own rooms,
presuming that he knew where the rooms were? The call must have been
very pressing, since he left his girl standing in the fog and made no
effort to communicate with her. Our scent runs cold here, and there is
a vast gap between either hypothesis and the laying of West's body,
with seven papers in his pocket, on the roof of a Metropolitan train.
My instinct now is to work form the other end. If Mycroft has given us
the list of addresses we may be able to pick our man and follow two
tracks instead of one."

Surely enough, a note awaited us at Baker Street. A government
messenger had brought it post-haste. Holmes glanced at it and threw it
over to me.

There are numerous small fry, but few who would handle so big an
affair. The only men worth considering are Adolph Mayer, of 13 Great
George Street, Westminster; Louis La Rothiere, of Campden Mansions,
Notting Hill; and Hugo Oberstein, 13 Caulfield Gardens, Kensington.
The latter was known to be in town on Monday and is now reported as
having left. Glad to hear you have seen some light. The Cabinet
awaits your final report with the utmost anxiety. Urgent
representations have arrived from the very highest quarter. The whole
force of the State is at your back if you should need it.

Mycroft.

"I'm afraid," said Holmes, smiling, "that all the queen's horses and
all the queen's men cannot avail in this matter." He had spread out
his big map of London and leaned eagerly over it. "Well, well," said he
presently with an exclamation of satisfaction, "things are turning a
little in our direction at last. Why, Watson, I do honestly believe
that we are going to pull it off, after all." He slapped me on the
shoulder with a sudden burst of hilarity. "I am going out now. It is
only a reconnaissance. I will do nothing serious without my trusted
comrade and biographer at my elbow. Do you stay here, and the odds are
that you will see me again in an hour or two. If time hangs heavy get
foolscap and a pen, and begin your narrative of how we saved the State."