Sherlock Holmes and the Chinese Junk Affair and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

of dust, to examine the furniture hidden beneath. We went out into the sunshine to breathe once again fresh air and sneeze the dust from our nostrils.
    ‘Watson, we have searched high and low. I greatly fear we shall not discover any clues here.’ Holmes kicked a stone away and continued. ‘I fear Rodger Hardy and his team of Chinamen will have gone over every inch to prevent anyone finding out anything.’ He reached out with his foot again and kicked another stone away. ‘Yet, perhaps that alone gives us our first clue. Why, if the discovery is genuine, should he take such great care to obliterate any sign of the great “Transposer”?’
    I replied, ‘Perhaps he just gave the order to his Chinamen to clear away everything, and they took him at his word, being very zealous chaps, and did just that.’ Holmes nodded thoughtfully, ‘Maybe, maybe.’
    We went back into the Hall and looked again at the downstairs morning-room the Chinamen had used to cook, dine and sleep in. It was obvious from the remaining aroma of oriental spices that this was so. Again outside in the grounds near the overgrown bushes a freshly covered piece of earth indicated where the privy had been sited, and a huge area of burnt grass, covered with charcoal, told us that it was the site where rubbish, shavings and discarded wood had been disposed of. We did though observe a few deep ruts left by the steam tractors near the turning circle at the front of the Hall.
    Holmes suddenly turned and, striding back into the Hall, began lighting the two lanterns. ‘Watson, we must examine the ballroom again, the answer must be there.’
    We spent the next half hour scraping the concrete here and there with an old rusty horseshoe he had picked up in the grounds. The corners and walls we probed with the horseshoe, but proved there was no hidden joint, no secret sliding section, only the rasp of the iron upon the concrete revealing the pebbles, sand and cement beneath years of grime and discoloration.
    ‘Upon my word, Watson, my dear fellow, we have found hardly a single clue to indicate the event ever happened at all, other than the obvious ones, the curry smell, the tractor tracks... any dull-witted bobby could not fail to observe these.’ He shook his head several times. ‘Without clues, I am like a bloodhound without a scent to follow.’
    I had never seen Holmes so tired and dejected. I followed him up the steps. Our driver had returned and, following the instructions given us by Sir Simon, we visited the site by the riverside to which the junk had been transposed. But even the hawk-like examination by Holmes revealed nothing more than would have been expected; grass trodden down around the post upon the bank where the junk had been made fast.
    ‘There are so many questions, Watson, I would like the answers to. For instance, assuming it all happened as described by Sir Simon, how did the junk suddenly appear from seemingly nowhere? Did someone in the darkness hear the splash as it arrived? How did the Chinamen know exactly where to find it and make it fast before it floated away?
    ‘One moment I am convinced it is the confidence trick of the century, and the next moment, when I think of the impossibility of moving the junk out of the ballroom and transporting that huge heavy vessel over three miles of countryside, I become more and more convinced of the “Transposer” discovery.’
    I had never seen Holmes so concerned and serious. We returned to the trap and went back to the Hall making sure all was secure and, after again tipping the elderly caretaker, returned in the gathering dusk to the Station Hotel there to be greeted by the jolly proprietor and his wife.
    Their humour and general bonhomie lifted our low spirits and the fine meal followed by a steaming hot pudding revived our flagging weary bodies. The stairs and the endless passages we had gone along in the Hall had taken it out of us, but we were returning back to our normal selves by the