'David McPhizzle.'"
"There, my boy, is the case. Will you go and help a Scotch representative peer to recover his own? Think how terrible it must be to lose the march or boundary that separates your ancestral domain from that of a neighbour whose whole course of life may be antipathetic to you. Will you go?"
A wave of emotion passed over my friend's face. I could see that a struggle of no ordinary kind was raging in his breast. Finally, however, he looked at me, and his mind, I knew, was made up. In another ten minutes we had bidden adieu to his family, and were speeding northwards in the Scotch express.
Over the details of the journey it is not necessary to linger. Suffice it to say that on the following morning we arrived at Tochtachie, and took up our quarters in a deserted barn situated in the very centre of the estate. From this point we pursued our investigations. Our first proceeding was to interview the local constabulary, but we found them as obtuse and as foolishly incredulous as policemen are all the world over. One of them, indeed, went so far as to hint that Holes was "havering," which I understand to be an ancient Gaelic word signifying metaphysical talk, but a look from the great detective chilled him into silence. Day by day we worked, and not even the night gave us a rest from our self-sacrificing labours. We mapped out the whole district into square yards; we gathered the life-history of every single inhabitant on the estate; we left no clue untracked, no loophole unblocked, no single piece of evidence unexamined, no footstep unmeasured. We collected every scrap of torn letter, every crumpled telegram-form. The very heather of the moor, and the trees growing in the policies of the Castle were compelled by Holes' marvellous inductive powers to yield to us their secrets, until after weeks of patient toil we at last judged ourselves to be in possession not only of the stolen march, but also of evidence that would bring conviction home to the guilty party. We had paused, I remember, by a heap of granite at the roadside. Holes seemed strangely excited. "A march," I heard him muttering, "is performed by footsteps; steps are often made of stone. Can this be it? It must be! It is!" Then, with a shout of triumph, he gave orders to have the heap loaded on to a country cart, which was to follow us to the Castle.
We arrived in the great courtyard at about seven o'clock in the evening. Holes slipped from my side, entered the house, and after a few moments returned to my side. We then clanged the bell, and demanded to see his lordship. In a few moments Lord Tochtachie appeared, surrounded by kilted retainers, bearing torches, and intoning in unison the mournful sporan of the clan. It was a weird and awful sight. But Holes, unemotional as ever, advanced at once to the haughty Scotchman, before whose eye half a county was accustomed to tremble, and, without any ado, addressed him thus: "My Lord, your march has been stolen. Nay, do not interrupt me. Your guards are careless, but not criminal—of that I can assure you. Here is the stolen property; I restore it to you without cost." At this moment the cart rumbled up, and ere the peer had time to utter a word, it had discharged its contents into the middle of the yard. Holes went on, but in a lower voice, so as to be heard only by Lord Tochtachie: "The guilty party, my Lord, is your honoured father-in-law. He dare not, he cannot, deny it. He is, I know, blind and deaf and dumb. These qualities do not, however, exclude the possibility of crime. I have just found these pieces of granite in his morning-room. The proof is complete."
At this moment a shot was heard in the Castle, and directly afterwards a frightened butler rushed up to his lordship and whispered to him. "Ha! say you so?" almost screamed Lord Tochtachie. "That amounts to a confession. Mr. Holes," he continued, "you have indeed rendered me a service. My unfortunate, but guilty father-in-law has shot and missed himself through the head. But in any ease the honour of the house is, I know, safe in your hands."
I need hardly say that Holes has never violated his lordship's confidence, and the Daffshire peasants still speculate amongst themselves upon the tortuous mystery of the march which was stolen and restored.
Note.—There is no proof positive given by any eye-witness whose veracity is unimpeachable of the death of the great amateur detective as it has been described in the Strand Magazine for this month. Where is the merry Swiss boy who delivered the note and disappeared? What was the symbolic meaning of the alpenstock with the hook at the end, left on the rock? Why, that he had not "taken his hook." Picklock Holes has disappeared, but so have a great many other people. That he will turn up again no student of detective history and of the annals of crime can possibly doubt. Is it not probable that he has only dropped out of the Strand Magazine? And is it not equally probable that under some alias he will re-appear elsewhere?
Verb. sap.—Ed.
Father Christmas leaves his cards on everybody about this time, as he is here only for one day, and off the next. He has employed Messrs. Marcus Ward & Co. to do them, and excellent they are all round.