Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly by Donald Thomas Page A

pocket. Had he only had a few minutes warning of this interrogation, he might have destroyed or hidden his pad of permits or at least made up a story to explain the missing one before his mind was thrown into turmoil. But Sherlock Holmes had ambushed him pitilessly and repeatedly in every question.
    There is only one description that I can give of the young Captain of Boats as we left the sanatorium. His self-confidence had been comprehensively wrecked after fifteen minutes in the presence of an accomplished cross-examiner. I caught him by the arm to steady him as he stumbled on the winding staircase that led down to the dormitories and reading rooms.
    Without a word, he handed me the pad of yellow permits, from which a few had been torn off by this early stage in the summer term. We made our way back, and once again the unfortunate cadet stood before Holmes, who took the pad from me and fingered it.
    â€œExcellent,” he said, glancing up at Sovran-Phillips. “These are your record of Saturday afternoon exeats , as I believe the word is. You have received three exeats so far, I understand, yet four permits have been used. How does that come about?”
    Phillips had now recovered sufficiently to say, “A chap can easily get one wrong and have to write it again.”
    At first it might have saved him, but now it was far too late for this sort of thing.
    â€œI’m sure a chap can,” said Holmes patiently, “and you need have no fear. There will be fair play. Mr Thomas Gurrin, of the Home Office, is now retained in this case to make a full examination of all papers and documents. Even to the extent of seeing where a pencil may have pressed down to leave an indentation of its writing on the layer below—on a permit as well as a postal order. We all know, do we not, that a forgery may be traced rather than copied? So does Mr Gurrin. I feel quite sure that a chap may have every confidence in Mr Gurrin. His evidence, in one or two cases at least, has seen men hanged. A chap could not be in better hands. That will be all. Thank you.”
    And so the witness, whom I can only keep describing as an unfortunate youth, was dismissed.

9
    S pithead fell behind us as the paddles of the steamer Ryde cut the calm evening water with late sunlight on the grey battleship hulls and dock cranes of Portsmouth ahead. Holmes drew the pipe from his pocket and began to fill it from his pouch. Faced by his deductive power, small wonder that the venomous Sovran-Phillips should have crumpled before our eyes that morning. By tea-time, Sherlock Holmes had been only too pleased to be quit of what he called the spite and snobbery of St Vincent’s.
    â€œI would remind you of the first article of our creed,” he said casually. “What matters in this life is not what you can do but what you can make people think you can do. In the case of Sovran-Phillips that equation was not difficult. He was bowled middle stump, was he not?”
    â€œThe linesman’s hut was never searched?”
    â€œSovran-Phillips enticed Patrick Riley there in the knowledge that Winter would be watching. Phillips did not intend that he himself should be seen. But then he did not intend that a railway engine should be brought to a halt by Riley standing in front of it!”
    The breath of a seagull’s wing, diving for a catch, caught both our faces.
    â€œPhillips feared that Riley’s goose was not quite cooked by the theft alone,” Holmes said. “That is what this is all about. Suspicion was strong but not absolute. Suppose, however, that Riley should be seen by Winter on that Sunday afternoon near the hut or, better still, entering it. Suppose that the hut should then be inspected and the money—or an equivalent sum—found there.”
    â€œProceedings which were interrupted by the stopping train from Bradstone.”
    â€œIndeed. And circumstances arose which enabled Phillips to embroider a story of