"It's impossible, Doctor. Just absolutely impossible."

Lestrade's puzzled words kept playing over and over in my mind as I walked back toward Park Lane. The rain had stopped at last, for which I was grateful since it was a rather long walk; but my mind was not on the change in weather but upon the case at hand.

Eliminate the impossible, Watson.

Very well then.

It was impossible that the shot had been fired from inside the house. We had already established that fact.

It was also impossible for a revolver to have shot from the house opposite with that kind of accuracy.

It was also impossible that a rifle, or any type of normal gun for that matter, could have been used – for someone would have heard the report.

Eliminate the impossible.

Therefore, none of the normal guns I and the police were acquainted with had been used.

Whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

What other kind of gun remained…

Wait.

Wait a moment.

That was it!


"You must hold still, M. Vernet, or I cannot finish the proportions correctly!"

I was wriggling with impatience – I had been posing for this bust for seven hours now, and Meurnier was taking his usual infernally painstaking time with it.

"It needs not be perfect, M. Meurnier, it will only be used in silhouette," I said, trying to rein in my impatience. It was now Saturday evening, the day after the inquest.

As I sat, trying to hold still, my mind drifted back to the newspaper and the Adair murder. What was Watson doing now?


I stood across the street from 427 Park Lane, my mind whirling with the staggering deduction I had just come up with.

It had been that newsboy back at the corner with his magazines, one of them being the Strand containing the Final Problem, that had triggered the reaction in my mind, and the thing had unfolded and made perfect sense as easily as two makes two.

"Do you have any objection to my closing your window-shutters?"

"None in the least. Holmes, what are you afraid of?"

"Air-guns."

"Air-guns?"

Air-guns.

An air-gun was relatively noiseless.

Eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

It had been an air-gun.

That would explain the marks in the dust in the front room of the condemned house – an air-gun was the size of a rifle. That would explain the prostrate figure and how the shot was fired.

I knew I was right. I had to be right.

At the sudden thrill that shot through me, I suddenly realized how ecstatic Holmes felt upon realizing some important fact in the midst of a case – no longer was it a mystery to me why his moods would swing so drastically upon the realization of the solution.

I did not have the solution, but I had solved the problem of method. Now only remained the motive, and who had done the deed.

But for now, I could go home and get a well-deserved night's sleep – the events of the day had completely worn me out, and I would be very glad of a rest. I should go and see Lestrade about the air-gun on the morrow.

I turned my steps toward Kensington, only wishing I could hear the voice of my dear friend congratulating me on my feeble little deductive efforts.


"How much longer, Meurnier?"

"Maybe, three, four hours, M. Vernet."

Three or four hours! The boat to Dover did not run on Sundays – I would not be able to get across the Channel until Monday morning!

I swore under my breath in frustration, cursing myself for not responding to Mycroft's first messages. No scientific experiment was worth causing more harm by the day to Watson's sensitive nature.

Monday it would have to be, though, for reasons beyond my control.

Monday.


Saturday morning broke clear and sunny at last, the rain having finally decided to take itself away for a holiday, albeit it would probably be a short one.

I was detained in the morning by several patients that I had not been able to see because of the inquest yesterday and that had been glad to reschedule for Saturday, and so it was after noon when I finally showed the last one out of my office.

I leaned back with a sigh, my mind at once reverting to the new information I had deduced from the facts of the Adair murder.

Odd, how a chance glimpse of my story in the Strand had instigated that train of thought to the air-gun. But it made perfect logical sense –

Except for one thing. Air-guns did not fire revolver bullets.

At least, not in my experience.

My brow furrowed as I pondered the problem. An air-gun made sense, but not one that fired soft-nosed revolver bullets.

I would have to tackle this problem from another angle.

I got up and grabbed my copy of Who's Who, idly flipping through the pages to find the girl Adair was to marry, Adair himself, his family, and the three men he played cards with, just to see if there were any noteworthy facts about them.

I noted absently that Sir John Hardy had Scottish ancestry as I did, and that Moran had served in Her Majesty's Indian Army – had served close to some of the areas I had actually been in, and that the ex-fiancée's family was not as wealthy as Adair's.

Nothing of interest.

But I had this odd feeling, that one of the people in that courtroom yesterday was the one who had killed Adair. I mean, the obvious planning involved in the murder indicated that someone knew him and his habits well. And though Adair supposedly had no enemies, he also had few friends.

I abstractedly looked again at the information about the three card partners – Murray, Moran, and Hardy. Nothing out of the ordinary in the columns of Who's Who, at any rate.

Surely one of them had done it?

Half a moment. There was one way, one sure way, to find out if any of them had a criminal bent.

The ability to pull off a crime such as this indicated a definite slant toward evil, and I doubted it was the first time such a crime had been committed by whoever was the murderer. He had to have done something earlier in time, at some point – and there was also the matter of the odd air-gun.

And if that were so, then only one man in London would have been able to deduce the existence of such a strange and unique weapon, and only that man would have been able to deduce that the man were dangerous; even if he had not had proof, he still would have known the hidden potential for crime.

Only one man had known criminals well enough to know those things.

But I was not really looking forward to paying the old home of that one man a visit – even after three years, the ghosts of time gone by still seemed to haunt the place as well as paying spectral visits to my nightmares.

But Holmes had said once that no ghosts need apply to this kind of work – and I would behave as he would.

It was time to pay a visit to Baker Street and go through some of the late Sherlock Holmes's files.


HAVE BEEN WATCHING DOCTOR STOP BELIEVE HE MIGHT HAVE STUMBLED UPON PART OR ALL OF TRUTH STOP HAVE NOTICED MAN FOLLOWING HIM STOP FELLOW IS NOT ONE OF MY SPIES STOP SUSPECT MORAN MEANS HIM HARM IF HE GETS TOO NEAR TRUTH STOP FOR THE LOVE OF HEAVEN MAKE HASTE BROTHER STOP M.

I stared at the paper in front of me – Watson, getting too close to the truth? What was he doing?! Why had he not dropped such a volatile case when the inquest closed? Was Lestrade putting him up to this? I would kill them both!

I knew without a doubt that Colonel Moran was the most dangerous man in London – in all England – and the thought of what he would do if somehow Watson stumbled upon the truth turned me absolutely sick inside.

"Meurnier, what time does the last train for Paris leave?" I asked suddenly, crumpling up the telegram and stuffing it into my pocket.

"It just left, M. Vernet," the man said, glancing up from his sculpting my head in wax, "you missed it by a half hour. But this bust is not yet done, Monsieur – give me an hour."

I missed it by a half hour. And now I could not cross the Channel until Monday.

I prayed that the sick feeling in my stomach was only nerves and not a premonition.

MISSED CHANNEL BOAT STOP CANNOT ARRIVE LONDON UNTIL MONDAY AFTERNOON STOP IF YOU LOVE ME GUARD WATSON STOP S.


To be continued - please review!