“I then returned to the house. In the hallway, I examined the glove that Inspector Sturridge had mentioned. It was a woman’s right-hand glove, of a soft light-grey fabric, with small embroidered flowers on the back, very similar to the gloves I had seen upstairs in Lady Latchmere’s dressing room, except that the embroidery on those had included two little pink flowers, whereas the embroidery on this one contained two little blue flowers. There was nothing at all unusual about it, and no sign that it had been used for anything out of the ordinary. This glove intrigued me, Watson. The whole business was admittedly impenetrable, but over all the other mystifying points in the case, this glove reigned supreme. I could not agree with Inspector Sturridge that it had fallen or been dragged from the window accidentally. It had, I felt sure, been cast out deliberately.
“Then it struck me that there was something which I had overlooked, namely the other glove of the pair. In Lady Latchmere’s dressing room I had seen a pair of grey gloves, a left hand and a right; here was a third glove, but where, then, was the fourth? I could not recall seeing it anywhere. I asked Yardley, who had been hovering about all this time, to conduct me once more to Lady Latchmere’s chamber, and I took the odd glove with me. There, I proceeded to make a thorough search for the fourth glove. It was nowhere near the other pair, nor, indeed, anywhere in the dressing room, but I did find it eventually. In the bedroom, immediately to the side of the doorway into the dressing room, stood an upright wooden chair, on the seat of which lay a large-brimmed straw hat. Beneath this hat lay the fourth glove. I asked the butler if the room had been cleaned or tidied since the robbery, and he shook his head.
“‘Viscount Latchmere gave strict instructions that it should remain untouched until the police had completed their examination of it,’ he said, ‘and no instructions to the contrary have yet been received.’ Clearly, then, the glove I had found under the hat had been there since Saturday.
“And that, Watson, is that!” said Holmes, leaning back in his chair. “I believe I have given you a reasonably accurate account of my morning’s work, if in a somewhat condensed form. It illustrates well,” he continued as he took up his pipe and began to fill it with tobacco from the old Persian slipper, “what should be the fundamental tenet of any detective’s work, that one should never make assumptions before beginning an investigation, but should follow with an open mind wherever the evidence leads. That genial dunderhead, Inspector Sturridge, having assumed at the outset that there were intruders at Latchmere Hall on Saturday night, is obliged to make more and more assumptions – as to the almost supernatural cleverness of these intruders, for instance – when the evidence fails to confirm his initial assumption. I, on the other hand, made no such assumption, and the evidence has led me to a quite different conclusion.”
“What, then?” I asked in surprise.
“There were no intruders at Latchmere Hall on Saturday night, Watson. The pendant was taken by someone staying in the house, someone who deliberately threw that glove out of the window to lead us astray.”
I confess I was astonished at this suggestion. “But they are all highly respectable people, Holmes,” I protested.
“Highly respectable they may be, Watson, but I am convinced that one of them is a thief. Incidentally, all those concerned are now in London. I have their addresses here,” he continued, taking his notebook from his pocket: “The Rajah of Banniphur is staying at Claridge’s Hotel, Miss Norman has an apartment in Ladbroke Gardens, Mr Brocklehurst is at an address in Curzon Street and Miss Wiltshire is at her parents’ house in Doughty Street. Lady Latchmere herself is also in town, staying at their house in Belgrave Square for a few days. I could, of course, go to see any of them in pursuit of my enquiries, but I do not think it will be necessary. They were not able to speak freely at Latchmere Hall – that much was clear – and may wish to amplify their answers to my questions in circumstances of greater privacy. I have given each of them my card, and strongly suspect that one or two of them will come to see me before the day is out.”
I watched as he lit a spill in the fire and applied it to the bowl of his pipe, then leaned back once more in his chair, puffing away contentedly.
“But we have heard that Lady Latchmere’s bedroom door was locked on Saturday night,” I said after a moment, “and there is no way into her dressing room save through that bedroom. So how could anyone in the house have got in there to take the pendant?”
“Quite so. The evidence as we have it has brought us to an impasse. It makes it equally impossible that the pendant was taken either by someone outside the house or by someone inside the house. And yet it was certainly taken by someone, Watson, as it is no longer in the jewel case. I believe I know the answer to this conundrum, an answer I have been led to by the evidence of the fourth glove. This not only suggests to me who has taken the pendant, but suggests also that at least two people – possibly more – have lied to me.”
My friend fell silent then, and sat for several minutes with his eyes tightly closed and his brow furrowed with concentration. I knew better than to question him further. It was evident he was re-weighing all the evidence in his mind and verifying his conclusions to his own satisfaction. He would enlighten me when he felt ready to do so. As to my own thoughts on the matter, for some time I went over and over all that my friend had told me, but, despite my best efforts, reached no sensible conclusion.
All at once, the silence in our room was broken by a sharp pull at the front-door bell. A moment later, the maid entered to announce that Mr Peter Brocklehurst had called for Sherlock Holmes, and a tall, angular, dark-haired young man was shown into the room. Holmes waved him to a chair, but for a moment he hesitated and glanced in my direction.
“There is something I thought you ought to know,” he began, addressing Holmes. “I mean no offence to your colleague, but I would rather speak to you alone.”
“Whatever you wish to say you may say as well before Dr Watson as before me. He is the very soul of discretion.”
“I do not doubt it, but it is a very delicate, private matter, and I must insist that you do not repeat to a soul what I tell you.”
“You have our word on that.”
“Very well,” said the young man. “The fact is,” he continued, taking the chair that Holmes offered him, “that something rather odd occurred at Latchmere Hall on Saturday evening, which may perhaps have a bearing on your attempt to recover the pendant. Whether it does or not, I don’t know, but I didn’t want you to waste your time on a wild-goose chase. It is not really any concern of mine, and under other circumstances I should not have dreamt of interfering, nor of retailing unpleasant gossip. Nor should I have said anything – whatever the circumstances – if I had thought that you were one of those common enquiry agents who will snoop and spy on anyone for a few shillings. But I could see when we spoke earlier that you are a gentleman, Mr Holmes, and it is in that belief that I will entrust to you what may be extremely delicate information.”
“I will endeavour to justify your trust in me.”
“Then I will come straight to the point. I did not enjoy the dinner at Latchmere Hall on Saturday. The trouble was that I couldn’t think of a single thing to say to anyone. At Oxford I was considered something of a wit, but at Latchmere on Saturday I was like a block of wood. The conversation was dominated partly by matters to do with the Latchmere estate, and partly by the subject of education, and, to speak frankly, I was bored. I attempted to have a sort of side-conversation with Miss Wiltshire, but that was not successful. I also attempted to intervene in the main conversation with some humorous remarks, which I thought might draw Miss Wiltshire in – for she was almost as silent as I was – but my remarks fell flat, and that, too, proved a failure.