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"I know more about Watson than you ever shall," Holmes said, "and this time he has hit upon it. I know the look." He began to sneeze again; the cat with the missing ear had wandered into the room through the door which Lestrade had left open. It moved directly toward Holmes with an expression of what seemed to be affection on its ugly face.
"If this is how it is for you," I said, "I'll never envy you again, Holmes. My heart should burst."
"One becomes inured even to insight," Holmes said, with not the slightest trace of conceit in his voice. "Out with it, then… or shall we bring in the suspects, as in the last chapter of a detective novel?"
"No!" I cried in horror. I had seen none of them; I had no urge to. "Only I think I must show you how it was done. If you and Inspector Lestrade will only step out into the hall for a moment… "
The cat reached Holmes and jumped into his lap, purring like the most satisfied creature on earth.
Holmes exploded into a perfect fusillade of sneezes. The red patches on his face, which had begun to fade, burst out afresh. He pushed the cat away and stood up.
"Be quick, Watson, so we can leave this damned place," he said in a muffled voice, and left the room with his shoulders in an uncharacteristic hunch, his head down, and with not a single look back. Believe me when I say that a little of my heart went with him.
Lestrade stood leaning against the door, his wet coat steaming slightly, his lips parted in a detestable grin. "Shall I take Holmes's new admirer, Watson?"
"Leave it," I said, "and close the door when you go out."
"I'd lay a fiver you're wasting our time, old man," Lestrade said, but I saw something different in his eyes: if I'd offered to take him up on the wager, he would have found a way to squirm out of it.
"Close the door," I repeated. "I shan't be long."
He closed the door. I was alone in Hull's study… except for the cat, of course, which was now sitting in the middle of the rug, tail curled neatly about its paws, green eyes watching me.
I felt in my pockets and found my own souvenir from last night's di
"Pussy," said I, and put the bread beneath the coffee-table-the coffee-table to which Lord Hull would have presented his back when he sat down with his two wills, the wretched old one and the even more wretched new one. "Puss-puss-puss."
The cat rose and walked languidly beneath the table to investigate the crust.
I went to the door and opened it. "Holmes! Lestrade! Quickly!"
They came in.
"Step over here," I said, and walked to the coffee-table.
Lestrade looked about and began to frown, seeing nothing; Holmes, of course, began to sneeze again. "Can't we have that wretched thing out of here?" he managed from behind the table-napkin, which was now quite soggy.
"Of course," said I. "But where is the wretched thing, Holmes?"
A startled expression filled his wet eyes. Lestrade whirled, walked toward Hull 's writing-desk, and peered behind it. Holmes knew his reaction should not have been so violent if the cat had been on the far side of the room. He bent and looked beneath the coffee-table, saw nothing but the rug and the bottom row of the two bookcases opposite, and straightened up again. If his eyes had not been spouting like fountains, he should have seen all then; he was, after all, right on top of it. But one must also give credit where credit is due, and the illusion was devilishly good. The empty space beneath his father's coffee-table had been Jory Hull's masterpiece.
"I don't-" Holmes began, and then the cat, who found my friend much more to its liking than any stale crust of bread, strolled out from beneath the table and began once more to twine ecstatically about his ankles. Lestrade had returned, and his eyes grew so wide I thought they might actually fall out. Even having understood the trick, I myself was amazed. The scarred tomcat seemed to be materializing out of thin air; head, body, white-tipped tail last.
It rubbed against Holmes's leg, purring as Holmes sneezed.
"That's enough," I said. "You've done your job and may leave."
I picked it up, took it to the door (getting a good scratch for my pains), and tossed it unceremoniously into the hall. I shut the door behind it.
Holmes was sitting down. "My God," he said in a nasal, clogged voice. Lestrade was incapable of any speech at all. His eyes never left the table and the faded Turkish rug beneath its legs: an empty space that had somehow given birth to a cat.
"I should have seen," Holmes was muttering. "Yes… but you… how did you understand so quickly?" I detected the faintest hurt and pique in that voice, and forgave it at once.
"It was those," I said, and pointed at the rug.
"Of course!" Holmes nearly groaned. He slapped his welted forehead. "Idiot! I'm a perfect idiot!"
"Nonsense," I said tartly. "With a houseful of cats-and one who has apparently picked you out for a special friend-I suspect you were seeing ten of everything."
"What about the rug?" Lestrade asked impatiently. "It's very nice, I'll grant, and probably expensive, but-"
"Not the rug," I said. "The shadows"
"Show him, Watson," Holmes said wearily, lowering the napkin into his lap.
So I bent and picked one of them off the floor.
Lestrade sat down in the other chair, hard, like a man who has been unexpectedly punched.
"I kept looking at them, you see," I said, speaking in a tone which could not help being apologetic. This seemed all wrong. It was Holmes's job to explain the whos and hows at the end of the investigation. Yet while I saw that he now understood everything, I knew he would refuse to speak in this case. And I suppose a part of me-the part that knew I would probably never have another chance to do something like this-wanted to be the one to explain. And the cat was rather a nice touch, I must say. A magician could have done no better with a rabbit and a top-hat.
"I knew something was wrong, but it took a moment for it to sink in. This room is extremely bright, but today it's pouring down rain. Look around and you'll see that not a single object in this room casts a shadow… except for these table-legs."
Lestrade uttered an oath.
"It's rained for nearly a week," I said, "but both Holmes's barometer and the late Lord Hull's"-I pointed to it-"said that we could expect sun today. In fact, it seemed a sure thing. So he added the shadows as a final touch."
"Who did?"
"Jory Hull," Holmes said in that same weary tone. "Who else?"
I bent down and reached my hand beneath the right end of the coffee-table. It disappeared into thin air, just as the cat had appeared. Lestrade uttered another startled oath. I tapped the back of the canvas stretched tightly between the forward legs of the coffee-table. The books and the rug bulged and rippled, and the illusion, nearly perfect as it had been, was instantly dispelled.
Jory Hull had painted the nothing under his father's coffee-table, had crouched behind the nothing as his father entered the room, locked the door, and sat at his desk with his two wills, and at last had rushed out from behind the nothing, dagger in hand.
"He was the only one who could execute such an extraordinary piece of realism," I said, this time ru