“Perhaps,” I suggested at length, “the girl had waded up the pool a little way before she drowned.”

“You say you observed my experiments with the sticks. Do you recall then, the fate of those sticks, large and small, which I threw into the centre of the pool?”

“Not specifically.”

“Then I shall remind you. The current is much stronger and swifter in the centre of the pool, as one would expect, and anything floating there is swiftly borne to the extreme east end of the pool, where the stream leaves it.”

“But if her hair had become entangled in the overhanging brambles?”

“It could only have become so entangled if her body had been carried by the current into that side of the pool. My experiments this morning established beyond doubt that the current in the pool has no tendency to do that.”

“Then she must, after all, have entered the water from the far side.”

“But the brambles there would have prevented her getting any higher up the pool unless she waded further out into the centre, and the current in the centre would then have carried her away from the bank, not towards it.”

“Then it is impossible!” said I.

“Thank you,” said Holmes in a magisterial tone. “This inquest has therefore determined that it is practically impossible that the girl’s death was a mere mischance. It has also determined that it is practically impossible that the girl took her own life. What, then, is your final verdict?”

“I do not know,” I responded with some hesitation. “Your analysis seems to make everything impossible!”

“Not quite everything,” said he. “I refer you once more to the axiom that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. I believe you see the truth, Watson, but are reluctant to voice it.”

“I can still scarcely believe what you are suggesting,” said I.

“It is not a question of what I am suggesting,” returned my companion, “but of the verdict of this little inquest of ours. We have established beyond all reasonable doubt that the girl’s death was due neither to suicide nor to accident. What then remains?”

“Murder,” said I at last.

“Precisely, Watson. The verdict of the original inquest was ‘accidental death’; the opinion of many in the parish is clearly that the girl’s death was suicide; but they are all wrong. Sarah Dickens was murdered. She did not take her own life for love of Captain Reid, nor for love of anyone else, she did not accidentally lose her life while in a distracted state from love of Captain Reid or of anyone else; her life was cruelly taken from her in the most deliberate and cold-blooded manner. While all these people have been busying themselves in ostracizing poor Reid – who is, of course, perfectly innocent of all that he is charged with – the murderer of Sarah Dickens has been walking free, without a shadow of suspicion upon his name!”

“It is a terrible thought,” said I, “and one that almost defies belief! Can it really be so? Can your theory really explain satisfactorily all the difficulties you have raised with regard to the other views of the matter?”

“Certainly it can,” returned my friend in an assured tone. He refilled his pipe and put a match to it. “But you are right to ask the question, Watson. We shall make a detective of you yet, my dear fellow! One must, of course, always subject all theories to equally stringent analysis!”

“Well, then,” I continued, “what of the bruise to the side of the girl’s head, and the position of the body in the water, upstream of any place where she could have entered the pool?”

“Sarah Dickens was struck on the side of the head by the murderer,” responded Holmes, “probably with a heavy stick, as there are no loose stones in the vicinity of the Willow Pool. The blow would have rendered her unconscious. The murderer must then have held her head under the water until she drowned, then propelled her lifeless body across the pool with some force, so that it reached the other side, a little way up the pool, where her hair became entangled in the brambles.”

“Why should he push her body across the pool?”

“To delay its discovery. The footpath runs along the south bank of the pool, and an unobservant passer-by might well miss the body if it lay among the overhanging brambles by the north bank. So the murderer probably judged, anyway. He would wish to ensure that he was far from the scene before the body was discovered.”

“But who, then, can the murderer be?” I asked after a moment. “What a great misfortune it is that so much time has passed since Sarah Dickens’s death! There cannot possibly be any clue remaining now, after three years, which might guide us to her murderer!”

“On the contrary,” returned my friend. “There are a number of indications. However,” he continued, with a glance at the clock on the mantelpiece, “it is getting late, and as I must make an early start in the morning, I do not propose to stay up much longer. What I suggest,” he continued, giving a pull on the bell-rope, which hung beside the fireplace, “is that we order a hot toddy and smoke a last pipe together, and then I really must turn in.”

V: OAKBROOK HALL

I took my breakfast alone the following morning, for Sherlock Holmes had risen early and gone out before I was awake. He had been in a great hurry, so Mr Coleman informed me, and had declined the offer of breakfast.

“I understand you are leaving today, sir,” the landlord added after a moment in a slightly hesitant tone.

“I cannot be certain yet as to our plans,” I returned. “Did Mr Holmes inform you that we were leaving?”

The landlord shook his head. “No, sir. Admiral Blythe-Headley.”

“I see. Well, he may be right, but I cannot yet say for certain.”

“Admiral Blythe-Headley seemed very certain on the point,” muttered Coleman to himself with a shake of the head as he left the room.

The morning passed very slowly. I understood the account of the case that Holmes had given me the previous evening, but the account had not been complete and I did not know what it was that he intended to do that day. I thus had no idea how long it might be until he returned. In vain I attempted to distract myself with one of the vicar’s pamphlets on the prehistoric pathways of the South Downs, but the subject matter merely recalled to me the observations my friend had made on the subject of footpaths, at the Willow Pool, and brought my mind back once more to the strange business that had brought us down to this rural corner of England. I was aware from remarks Holmes had made that he had tasks to perform that morning which he regarded as very important, and it was thus extremely frustrating for me to be sitting idly in the White Hart all morning, with no idea of how his plans were proceeding. Eventually, impatient to be doing something, whatever it was, I took my hat and stick and set off to walk the length of the high street, up to the churchyard.

It was another balmy autumn day, and the street was bathed in sunlight, but there were few people about and the village seemed very quiet. As I passed the hardware shop, I paused to examine the quite amazing variety of merchandise which was displayed in piles and stacks on the pavement outside. The door of the shop stood open, and I had lingered there a moment, when all at once, to my very great surprise, I heard the voice of Sherlock Holmes from within. I could not catch what he was saying, but his clear, slightly strident tone was unmistakable. I glanced in through the doorway, but could see no one there. Evidently, Holmes was in some back room, but what he was doing there, I could not imagine. Puzzled, I continued my walk.

In the churchyard, I rambled for some time among the gravestones, until at length, in the remotest corner, I found myself by chance before the gravestone of Sarah Dickens. For a long while I stared at it, reading over and over the inscription it bore, as I fell into a brown study. Here rested the mortal remains of a young girl who had supposedly met her death as the result of a tragic accident. Many people no doubt believed that to be the case. But it was evident that many others were equally convinced that she had deliberately taken her own life. Holmes alone dissented from both these opinions. In his view, the girl had been murdered. As I stood there in silent contemplation in that quiet country churchyard, the dappled sunlight playing upon the old stones, this struck me afresh as so shocking and horrible that I was once more assailed with doubt. Surely, it was too strange and terrible to be believed? Was it really possible that my friend, clever and perceptive though I knew him to be, could be right in this matter and everyone else entirely wrong? In a state of some doubt and puzzlement, I retraced my steps down the road to the White Hart.