The Dancing Men (6)

Hello guys,

Here is the sixth episode of our story, retold by Anne Collins.

Enjoy!

Episode 6: Holmes sends a note

The room was small, with a window looking onto the garden. Mr Cubitt’s body lay on the floor.

‘You can take away the body now,’ said Holmes. Then he turned to the doctor. ‘Have you found the bullet which injured Mrs Cubitt?’ he asked.

‘No,’ replied the doctor. ‘The bullet is still somewhere in her brain. We will have to operate to remove the bullet.’

‘We know the two bullets were fired from the gun,’ said Inspector Martin. ‘And we know where each bullet went. One bullet killed Mr Cubitt and the other injured his wife.’

‘Yes,’ said Holmes, ‘but what about the third bullet- the bullet which passed through the window frame?’

He turned suddenly and pointed to a hole in the bottom of the window frame. This hole was the exact shape and size of a bullet.

‘Wonderful!’ cried Inspector Martin. ‘Then three shots were fired, not two. A third person was in the room.

‘But, Mr Holmes, how did you know a bullet had passed through the window frame?’

‘Well,’ said Holmes, ‘you remember that the two servants smelt gunpowder as soon as they left their rooms?’

‘Yes,’ said the Inspector, ‘but I still don’t understand.’

‘The servants’ rooms are upstairs. But the gun was fired downstairs. So the smell of the gunpowder must have been blown from this room to the rooms upstairs. Therefore the window must have been open.’

‘A third person could have stood outside the window and fired through it. If somebody inside the room fired at this person and missed, the bullet would pass through the window frame.’

‘I understand,’ said Inspector Martin. ‘But when the servants entered this room, they said the window was shut.’

‘That was because Mrs Cubitt had just shut it,’ replied Holmes. ‘But what’s this?’

A lady’s handbag was standing on a small table. I saw it was full of money. The money was tied together. We counted twenty fifty-pound notes.

‘This money is important evidence,’ said Holmes. ‘And now let’s find out where the third bullet went, after it passed through the window frame.’

We all went outside into the garden. There were flowers planted underneath the window. The flowers were broken and there were large footprints on the ground.

Holmes searched in the grass. Suddenly he bent forward and picked something up. It was the missing bullet.

‘I think, Inspector,’ he said, ‘that our case is nearly solved.’

‘But, Mr Holmes,’ said the Inspector, ‘who was this other person and how did he get away?’

‘I will tell you later,’ said Holmes. ‘First, I want to know if there is a place near here called Elrige’s?’

We asked the servants, but none of them had ever heard the name. Then the boy who worked with the horses remembered a farm with that name. This farm was a very lonely place, many miles away, near a village called East Rushton.

Holmes thought for a moment, then he smiled strangely.

‘Bring a horse,’ he said to a boy. ‘I want you to take a message to Elrige’s Farm.’

Then Holmes took from his pocket all the papers with the pictures of the dancing men on them. He sat down at a table and worked carefully. Finally, he handed a note to the boy.

‘Give this note to the person whose name is written on the outside,’ said Holmes. ‘And don’t answer any questions.’

I looked at the outside of the note. It was addressed, in large written, to:

Mr Abe Slaney,

Elrige’s Farm,

East Rushton,

Norfolk

Then Holmes turned to Inspector Martin.

‘I think you should get more policemen,’ he said.

‘We’ll have to catch a dangerous criminal.’




                                                    (to be continued)