Page:The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927).djvu/324

 The Inspector laughed.

“We must forgive you your ‘even,’ Mr. Holmes,” said he; “it’s as workmanlike a job as I can remember.”

A couple of days later my friend tossed across to me a copy of the bi-weekly North Surrey Observer. Under a series of flaming headlines, which began with “The Haven Horror” and ended with “Brilliant Police Investigation,” there was a packed column of print which gave the first consecutive account of the affair. The concluding paragraph is typical of the whole. It ran thus:

“The remarkable acumen by which Inspector MacKinnon deduced from the smell of paint that some other smell, that of gas, for example, might be concealed; the bold deduction that the strong-room might also be the death-chamber, and the subsequent inquiry which led to the discovery of the bodies in a disused well, cleverly concealed by a dog-kennel, should live in the history of crime as a standing example of the intelligence of our professional detectives.”

“Well, well, MacKinnon is a good fellow,” said Holmes, with a tolerant smile. “You can file it in our archives, Watson. Some day the true story may be told.”