The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures - Mike Ashley [84]
“The next thing then, was to examine the exterior of the building. Here I was fortunate enough to find very clear indications of where the thief had climbed the wall. The fact that I could only just reach the only usable hand-hold – and I am a good six foot in height – indicated that the thief was not a small man, as also did the size of the footprints. These indications eliminated the Grice Patersons, as far as I was concerned.
“I then examined the sky-light which lay immediately above the stand on which the buckle had been displayed, and it was obvious at once that one of the panes of glass had been removed and later replaced. The lead around the glass had clearly been bent back, and then flattened again. That would have presented no problem, and nor would it have been difficult to chip away the putty with a knife. But there were also galvanized nails bent over beneath the lead to hold the pane firmly, which would have required a greater application of force. Was this, I wondered, how the knife-blade came to be broken? This conjecture was at once confirmed, for there in the gutter below me was a little shiny triangle – the missing tip of the blade.
“It seemed clear enough, then, what had happened. The thief had been at work when you chanced upon the scene, Mr Grice Paterson, and was evidently the figure you saw cross the path in the darkness. He would then have returned to his boat, but must have taken the wrong path in the darkness, and mistakenly set off in your boat, rather than his own. You came along shortly afterwards, found your boat missing, and returned to seek Mr MacGlevin’s aid. The thief, meanwhile, must have realized his mistake, and so returned your boat, in which he had dropped his knife, found his own boat, and left the island for the second time.
“So much seemed clear. But who, then, was the thief? There seemed no way of knowing. It was then that I recalled Morton’s reported accident, and his claim to have lost all his fishing tackle, about which I had had some doubt at the time. Now it struck me as possible that his boat had not sunk at all, but had been hidden in the bushes by the shore on the south side of the bay, together with his fishing equipment. If that were so, he would be able to use it when he wished to commit this crime, without the slightest suspicion attaching to him, even if the crime were discovered before he and his accomplice had left Kilbuie. MacPherson and I therefore rowed over to the mainland, which is no great distance at that point, and soon found what we were looking for – one of this hotel’s distinctive little skiffs dragged up behind some rocks, with a disordered heap of fishing tackle within it.
“The case was therefore complete, and it remained only to locate the buckle. I was quite certain that the Mortons had it, but finding it might have taken some time. However, as you may recall, they had claimed on the day the crime was committed to have gone inland so that Mrs Morton might sketch – probably they did so, earlier in the day – and had therefore had the satchel containing the art materials with them. It seemed likely, then, that the stolen buckle had been secreted in there in the first place, and, if so, it seemed to me possible that it was still there, especially as Mrs Morton was demonstrating an unusual attachment to the bag. This surmise proved correct, and the rest you know. Mr MacGlevin has his heirloom restored to him, Mrs Formartine will soon have her brooch back – that was something of an unexpected bonus, I must confess – clearly Morton had been keeping his hand in – and two dangerous criminals are safely under lock