Dust and Shadow Read Free

“My friend Dr. Watson has been good enough to accompany me.”
    I emerged cautiously from behind the stony outcropping.
    “So you have brought your spies!” cried the Baron. “You mean to ruin me!”
    “You must believe, Lord Ramsden, that I have no intention of causing you the slightest harm,” Holmes protested. “My friend and I are prepared to swear that no word shall be breathed of this business to any living person, provided the ring is returned.”
    “It is here.” The Baron placed his hand over his breast pocket. “But do you speak in earnest? It is incredible.”
    “My little career would soon enough suffer shipwreck if I neglected my clients’ best interests,” my friend averred.
    “Not the police, nor my family, nor any other person will ever hear of the matter now I have retrieved the ring? It is far more than I deserve.”
    “They shall not on my account. I give you my word,” Holmes declared gravely.
    “As do I,” I added.
    “Then that is enough.” The Baron’s head fell forward as if in a daze, exhausted by his grief.
    “It is not the first felony I have commuted, and I fear it is unlikely to be the last,” confessed my friend in the same calming tones.
    “I shall be eternally grateful for your silence. Indeed, your discretion has been unimpeachable throughout this affair, which is far higher praise than I can apply to my own.”
    “There I cannot agree with you,” Holmes began, but the Baron continued bitterly.
    “Ellie died alone rather than betray my trust. What have I offered her in return?”
    “Come, my lord. It is hardly practical to dwell on such matters. You acted in the interests of your family, and your secret is safe, after all.”
    “No doubt you are right,” he whispered. “You may proceed to the house, gentlemen. It is over. I shall be more silent hereafter, you may trust.”
    I had turned to go, but suddenly an inarticulate cry from Holmes swung me round again. The pistol fired just as Holmes, in a desperate leap, reached the Baron. My friend caught him round the torso and laid him on the frozen ground. I was beside them in an instant.
    “Quick, man! He breathes—can you not—”
    But Lord Ramsden had already passed beyond the aid of any man. As I loosened his collar, he emitted a low, shuddering sigh and was still.
    “Holmes, he—”
    “He is dead.” My friend passed a hand over the Baron’s eyes, his suavity of movement dulled in the shock of the tragedy. “If only I had—but Lord Ramsden would surely have revealed himself otherwise! No, no, Gregson is an ass, but he can see a brick wall when it is in front of him. Only I could have returned it in safety.” He descended quickly and removed a glittering band from the upper waistcoat pocket of the dead man.
    “What he must have seen to retrieve it,” I muttered in horror.
    “God help us, Watson.” My friend, though outwardly serene, was as shaken as I had ever before seen him. “I would not wish his history on any man.”
    We knelt in silence under the black shadows of the trees, slowly growing cognizant once more of the piercing cold.
    “What are we to tell them?”
    “There, at least, our course seems clear,” Holmes considered. “You and I heard a shot from just beyond the grounds and, considering the hour, went to investigate. We found the Baron already beyond assistance. That is all.”
    I nodded. “I suppose the pressures of financial ruin could account for suicide in a man of sensitive nature, but what of the ring?”
    “As for the ring, I am prepared to go rather further,” Holmes replied softly. “The Baron thought his life a threat to his secret, and I have no intention of allowing his death to be one likewise.”
     
    The grief which seized the household when we returned with our sad burden and raised the alarm was pitiable to behold. The lady of the house, in the loss of her eldest son, seemed to forget her mother’s ring had ever existed. Finding ourselves quite useless amid the