"i have your letter here. you said, 'i desire to possess a
copy of devine's napoleon, and am prepared to pay you ten pounds
for the one which is in your possession.' is that right?"
"certainly."
"i was very much surprised at your letter, for i could not
imagine how you knew that i owned such a thing."
"of course you must have been surprised, but the
explanation is very simple. mr. harding, of harding
brothers, said that they had sold you their last copy,
and he gave me your address."
"oh, that was it, was it? did he tell you what i paid for it?"
"no, he did not."
"well, i am an honest man, though not a very rich one.
i only gave fifteen shillings for the bust, and i think you
ought to know that before i take ten pounds from you."
"i am sure the scruple does you honour, mr. sandeford.
but i have named that price, so i intend to stick to it."
"well, it is very handsome of you, mr. holmes. i brought
the bust up with me, as you asked me to do. here it is!"
he opened his bag, and at last we saw placed upon our table
a complete specimen of that bust which we had already seen
more than once in fragments.
holmes took a paper from his pocket and laid a ten-pound
note upon the table.
"you will kindly sign that paper, mr. sandeford, in the
presence of these witnesses. it is simply to say that you
transfer every possible right that you ever had in the bust
to me. i am a methodical man, you see, and you never know
what turn events might take afterwards. thank you, mr.
sandeford; here is your money, and i wish you a very good
evening."
when our visitor had disappeared sherlock holmes's
movements were such as to rivet our attention. he began by
taking a clean white cloth from a drawer and laying it over
the table. then he placed his newly-acquired bust in the
centre of the cloth. finally, he picked up his
hunting-crop and struck napoleon a sharp blow on the top of
the head. the figure broke into fragments, and holmes bent
eagerly over the shattered remains. next instant, with a
loud shout of triumph, he held up one splinter, in which a
round, dark object was fixed like a plum in a pudding.
"gentlemen," he cried, "let me introduce you to the famous
black pearl of the borgias."
lestrade and i sat silent for a moment, and then, with a
spontaneous impulse, we both broke out clapping as at the
well-wrought crisis of a play. a flush of colour sprang to
holmes's pale cheeks, and he bowed to us like the master
dramatist who receives the homage of his audience. it was
at such moments that for an instant he ceased to be a
reasoning machine, and betrayed his human love for
admiration and applause. the same singularly proud and
reserved nature which turned away with disdain from popular
notoriety was capable of being moved to its depths by
spontaneous wonder and praise from a friend.
"yes, gentlemen," said he, "it is the most famous pearl now
existing in the world, and it has been my good fortune, by
a connected chain of inductive reasoning, to trace it from
the prince of colonna's bedroom at the dacre hotel, where
it was lost, to the interior of this, the last of the six
busts of napoleon which were manufactured by gelder and
co., of stepney. you will remember, lestrade, the
sensation caused by the disappearance of this valuable
jewel, and the vain efforts of the london police to recover
it. i was myself consulted upon the case; but i was unable
to throw any light upon it. suspicion fell upon the maid
of the princess, who was an italian, and it was proved that
she had a brother in london, but we failed to trace any
connection between them. the maid's name was lucretia
venucci, and there is no doubt in my mind that this pietro
who was murdered two nights ago was the brother. i have
been looking up the dates in the old files of the paper,
and i find that the disappearance of the pearl was exactly
two days before the arrest of beppo for some crime of
violence, an event which took place in the factory of
gelder and co., at the very moment when these busts were
being made. now you clearly see the sequence of events,
though you see them, of course, in the inverse order to the
way in which they presented themselves to me. beppo had
the pearl in his possession. he may have stolen it from
pietro, he may have been pietro's confederate, he may have
been the go-between of pietro and his sister. it is of no
consequence to us which is the correct solution.
"the main fact is that he _had_ the pearl, and at that
moment, when it was on his person, he was pursued by the
police. he made for the factory in which he worked, and he
knew that he had only a few minutes in which to conceal
this enormously valuable prize, which would otherwise be
found on him when he was searched. six plaster casts of
napoleon were drying in the passage. o
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