Page:The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927).djvu/319

 of three witnesses, practically confessed, by trying to commit suicide, that he had murdered his wife and her lover. What other facts have you?”

“Have you arranged for a search?”

“There are three constables on their way.”

“Then you will soon get the clearest fact of all. The bodies cannot be far away. Try the cellars and the garden. It should not take long to dig up the likely places. This house is older than the waterpipes. There must be a disused well somewhere. Try your luck there.”

“But how did you know of it, and how was it done?”

“I’ll show you first how it was done, and then I will give the explanation which is due to you, and even more to my long-suffering friend here, who has been invaluable throughout. But, first, I would give you an insight into this man’s mentality. It is a very unusual one—so much so that I think his destination is more likely to be Broadmoor than the scaffold. He has, to a high degree, the sort of mind which one associates with the medieval Italian nature rather than with the modern Briton. He was a miserable miser who made his wife so wretched by his niggardly ways that she was a ready prey for any adventurer. Such a one came upon the scene in the person of this chess-playing doctor. Amberley excelled at chess—one mark, Watson, of a scheming mind. Like all misers, he was a jealous man, and his jealousy became a frantic mania. Rightly or wrongly, he suspected an intrigue. He determined to have his revenge, and he planned it with diabolical cleverness. Come here!”

Holmes led us along the passage with as much cer-