Sherlock Holmes In Montague Street Volume 2 Read Online Free PDF Page B

Holford kept every document that was in the smallest degree important or valuable. I have seen him at it a hundred times, and he always maintained it was as secure as any iron safe. That may not have been altogether the fact, but the bureau is certainly a tremendously heavy and strong one. Feel it.”
    Holmes took down the front and pulled out a drawer that Mr. Crellan unlocked for the purpose.
    â€œSolid Spanish mahogany an inch thick,” was his verdict, “heavy, hard, and seasoned; not the sort of thing you can buy nowadays. Locks, Chubb’s patent, early pattern, but not easily to be picked by anything short of a blast of gunpowder. If there are no marks on this bureau it hasn’t been tampered with.”
    â€œWell,” Mr. Crellan pursued, “as I say, that was where Mr. Holford kept his will. I have often seen it when we have been here together, and this was the drawer, the top on the right, that he kept it in. The will was a mere single sheet of foolscap, and was kept, folded of course, in a blue envelope.”
    â€œWhen did you yourself last actually see the will?”
    â€œI saw it in my friend’s hand two days before he took to his bed. He merely lifted it in his hand to get at something else in the drawer, replaced it, and locked the drawer again.”
    â€œOf course there are other drawers, bureaux, and so on, about the place. You have examined them carefully, I take it?”
    â€œI’ve turned out ever possible receptacle for that will in the house, I positively assure you, and there isn’t a trace of it.”
    â€œYou’ve thought of secret drawers, I suppose?”
    â€œYes. There are two in the bureau which I always knew of. Here they are.” Mr. Crellan pressed his thumb against a partition of the pigeon-holes at the back of the bureau and a strip of mahogany flew out from below, revealing two shallow drawers with small ivory catches in lieu of knobs. “Nothing there at all. And this other, as I have said, was the drawer where the will was kept. The other papers kept in the same drawer are here as usual.”
    â€œDid anybody else know where Mr. Holford kept his will?”
    â€œEverybody in the house, I should think. He was a frank, above-board sort of man. His adopted daughter knew, and the butler knew, and there was absolutely no reason why all the other servants shouldn’t know; probably they did.”
    â€œFirst,” said Holmes, “we will make quite sure there are no more secret drawers about this bureau. Lock the door in case anybody comes.”
    Holmes took out every drawer of the bureau, and examined every part of each before he laid it aside. Then he produced a small pair of silver calipers and an ivory pocket-rule and went over every inch of the heavy framework, measuring, comparing, tapping, adding, and subtracting dimensions. In the end he rose to his feet satisfied. “There is most certainly nothing concealed there,” he said.
    The drawers were put back, and Mr. Crellan suggested lunch. At Holmes’s suggestion it was brought to the study.
    â€œSo far,” Holmes said, “we arrive at this: either Mr. Holford has destroyed his will, or he has most effectually concealed it, or somebody has stolen it. The first of these possibilities you don’t favor.”
    â€œI don’t believe it is a possibility for a moment. I have told you why; and I knew Holford so well, you know. For the same reasons I am sure he never concealed it.”
    â€œVery well, then. Somebody has stolen it. The question is, who?”
    â€œThat is so.”
    â€œIt seems to me that every one in this house had a direct and personal interest in preserving that will. The servants have all something left them, you say, and without the will that goes, of course. Miss Garth has the greatest possible interest in the will. The only person I have heard of as yet who would benefit by its loss or destruction would be the