A case Of Identity

PART TWO

When she had left, I asked Holmes about the case.

'The  young  woman  is  quite  interesting,  but  her  little  problem  is  not  very

difficult  or  unusual.  Would  you  mind  reading  me  the  description  of  Hosmer

Angel?' I then read it to Holmes:

Missing,  a  gentleman  called  Hosmer  Angel.  About  5ft.  7in.  tall.  He's

strongly built with black hair, black sideboards and moustache; he's a little bald

in the centre; he wears dark glasses; and he's got a speech defect. He has got a

sallow complexion. He was wearing a black coat, black waistcoat, grey trousers

and brown boots. Please contact Miss Sutherland etc. etc.

'That  is  enough,'  said  Holmes.  'Now  look  at  these  letters  which  Hosmer

wrote to her. What do you see?'

'They are typed,' I said.

'Not only that, but the signature is typed too. The point about the signature

is very suggestive - in fact, we can call it conclusive.'

'Of what?'

'My dear fellow, can't you see how important this fact is to the case?'

'No,  I  can't,'  I  replied,  'unless  Hosmer  didn't  sign  his  letters  because  he

didn't want to be legally responsible for what he promised.'

'No, that was not the point,' said Holmes, 'but now I will write two letters

which will solve this mystery. One of the letters is to Mr Windibank's firm in the

City, and the other one will be to Mr Windibank himself to ask him to come here

to meet us tomorrow evening at six o'clock.'

A few minutes before six the next day I returned to Baker Street. When I

walked in, Holmes was doing chemistry experiments.

'Well, have you solved it?' I said as I walked into the room.

'Yes, it was the bisulphate of baryta.'

'No, Miss Sutherland's mystery!' I cried.

'Oh, that! I thought you were asking me about the chemistry experiment.

There  was  never  any  mystery  in  the  matter.  The  only  problem  is  that  the

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scoundrel did not do anything illegal, so he can't be punished.'

'Who was Hosmer Angel, and why did he abandon Miss Sutherland?'

But  Holmes  did  not  have  time  to  answer  me,  because  just  then  we  heard

someone knock at the door, and then someone walking towards Holmes' room.

'This  is  the  girl's  stepfather.  He  wrote  to  me  to  say  that  he  was  coming,'

said Holmes.

The  man  who  entered  the  room  was  a  strongly  built  fellow  without

sideboards or moustache, with a sallow complexion and he looked at us with a

pair of penetrating grey eyes. He was wearing a black top-hat.

'Good  evening,  Mr  James  Windibank,'  said  Holmes.  'I  believe  this  is  the

typed letter that you wrote to me to say that you were coming here!'

'Yes, sir. I am sorry that Miss Sutherland has troubled you about this little

problem.  Also  I  don't  like  other  people  knowing  about  our  family  misfortune.

Anyway, I don't think that you will ever find this Hosmer Angel.'

'On the contrary,' said Holmes quietly, 'I am almost certain that I will find

him.'

Mr  Windibank  started  violently,  and  dropped  his  gloves.  'I  am  happy  to

hear that,' he said.

'It  is  a  curious  thing,'  remarked  Holmes,  'that  a  typewriter  is  just  as

distinctive as a man's handwriting. For example, in this letter of yours, I can see

that  this  part  of  the  'r'  has  a  slight  defect.  There  are  also  fourteen  other

characteristics of your typewriter.'

'We  write  all  the  letters  in  the  office  with  this  typewriter,'  said  Mr

Windibank.

'And  now,'  continued  Holmes,  'I  will  show  you  what  is  really  very

interesting. In fact, I am thinking about writing a book on the typewriter and its

relation to crime.'

Mr  Windibank  jumped  out  of  his  chair  and  picked  up  his  hat.  'I  cannot

waste time over this ridiculous talk. If you can catch the man, catch him, and let

me know when you have caught him.'

'Certainly,' said Holmes, walking over to the door and locking it. 'I let you

know that I have caught him.'

---

'What!  Where?'  shouted  Mr  Windibank  becoming  white,  and  looking

around like a rat in a trap.

'You  can't  get  away,  Mr  Windibank,'  said  Holmes.  'This  case  was  really

very easy. Now sit down and we can talk about it.'

Mr  Windibank  fell  back  into  the  chair.  'I  did  not  do  anything  illegal,'  he

stammered.

'I am afraid that you are right. But, Mr Windibank, it was a cruel, selfish

and heartless trick. Now, let us look at what happened,' said Holmes.

Then Holmes sat down and began to talk.

'The man marries a woman older than himself for her money. He can also

use  the  money  of  the  daughter  as  long  as  the  daughter  lives  with  him  and  the

mother. The daughter has a lot of money so it is important not to lose it.

But  the  daughter  is  friendly  and  affectionate,  so  it  is  clear  that  she  will

soon find a husband. At first this man tells the daughter that she cannot go out,

but this will not solve the problem forever. Then one day the daughter says that

she  wants  to  go  to  a  ball.  What  does  the  clever  i  stepfather  do  then?  With  the

help of the wife, he disguises himself. He wears dark glasses, and puts on a fake

moustache. Then he changes his voice and speaks very softly. He is even more

certain that his plan will work because the girl is short-sighted. Then at the ball

this man keeps away other lovers by becoming the girl's lover himself.'

'It was just a joke at first,' groaned Mr Windibank. 'We didn't think that the

girl would fall in love.'

'Yes,  that  is  probably  true,'  continued  Holmes.  'But  the  girl  really  fell  in

love, and you decided to take the situation to the extreme. You began to see her

often,  and  the  mother  said  that  she  liked  him  very  much.  Then  you  decided  to

ask  Miss  Sutherland  to  marry  you  so  that  she  would  never  again  think  about

other men. But it was difficult for you to pretend to go to France every time Miss

Sutherland  had  to  see  Mr  Angel.  You  had  to  end  the  situation  dramatically.  In

some  way,  you  had  to  keep  Miss  Sutherland  from  thinking  about  other  men  in

the future. Therefore, you made her promise on the Bible, and you told her that

something  could  happen  on  the  very  morning  of  the  wedding.  You  took  her  to

the church, but obviously you could not marry her. You disappeared by using the

old trick of entering one door of a cab and walking out the other. I think this is

the chain of events, Mr Windibank!'

---

'Yes, maybe that is true,' replied Mr Windibank, 'but I did not do anything

illegal, and now you are breaking the law because you will not let me leave this

room.'

'You  are  right.  You  did  not  do  anything  illegal,'  said  Holmes  as  he

unlocked  and  opened  the  door,  'but  you  really  deserve  to  be  punished,  and  I

would do it.'

Then Holmes picked up a riding-crop, but Mr Windibank ran out the door

and out of the house.

'Now,  he  certainly  is  a  cold-blooded  scoundrel!'  said  Holmes  laughing.

'That fellow will continue doing worse and worse crimes until he does something

really  bad  and  finishes  on  the  gallows.  In  any  case,  this  case  had  some

interesting points.'

'I cannot completely follow your reasoning in this case,' I said.

'Well, it was clear from the first, that Mr Hosmer Angel had a very good

reason  for  his  actions,  and  that  the  only  man  who  could  really  profit  from  the

situation was the stepfather: he wanted to keep the hundred pounds a year. Then

it  was  very  suggestive  that  Mr  Windibank  and  Mr  Hosmer  Angel  were  never

together, and so were the dark glasses, the soft voice and the moustache; they all

suggested  a  disguise.  The  final  point  was  the  typed  signature.  This  made  me

think that the handwriting of the man must be very familiar to Miss Sutherland,

and that if she saw even a small portion of it, she would recognise it.'

'And how did you verify these ideas?' I asked.

'First  I  wrote  to  Mr  Windibank's  firm.  'In  the  letter  I  described  Mr  Angel

after  I  had  eliminated  everything  that  could  be  a  disguise,  like  the  glasses,  the

moustache  and  the  voice,  and  I  asked  them  if  they  had  an  employee  like  that.

They wrote back to me and said that I had described Mr James Windibank. Then

I wrote to Mr Windibank to invite him here, and as I expected he typed his reply

to me. Then I compared his letter with the letters of Mr Angel. Voila tout!'

'And Miss Sutherland?' I asked.

'If  I  tell  her,  she  will  not  believe  me,'  replied  Holmes.  'Maybe  you

remember  this  Persian  saying,  "It  is  dangerous  to  take  a  tiger  cub  from  its

mother, and it is dangerous to take a delusion from a woman.'"

- THE END -

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