14
Stanley Goode's capture took place precisely as Holmes had foretold.
The police, who had quietly surrounded Northleigh Manor long before the banquet commenced, intercepted him within minutes of his departure from the house.
The waiting carriage, whose purpose had at first so puzzled me, carried him no farther than the estate gates.
There his attempted flight came to an abrupt conclusion, and he surrendered without offering any resistance worthy of the name.
His subsequent trial excited enormous public interest.
The revelation that the apparently harmless medieval banquet had in reality been conceived as the means for murdering a carefully selected company of distinguished gentlemen occupied the newspapers for many weeks.
Indeed, there were occasions when I feared the singular circumstances of the affair threatened to eclipse even the crime itself.
"He did not merely intend to murder those gentlemen, Watson—ourselves among them," Holmes informed me at one point.
"He intended that the manner of their deaths should become as celebrated as the crime itself. Had his plan succeeded, every newspaper in Europe and America would have recounted how such distinguished men were poisoned whilst attending an authentic medieval banquet at Northleigh Manor.
The story would have passed into criminal history. Goode wished the world to know precisely how he had avenged his father's ruin—for the motive would have undoubtedly been realised in time. The banquet was not merely the instrument of his revenge; it was intended to be its lasting memorial."
Stanley Goode was convicted and ultimately paid the full penalty of the law.
He revealed nothing of consequence beyond what Holmes had already deduced.
One question, however, remained forever unanswered.
Holmes had satisfied himself that Professor Stratton had somehow discovered the terrible purpose for which the banquet had been arranged, and I have never found reason to doubt his conclusion.
Yet by what chain of circumstance the unfortunate scholar arrived at that knowledge neither Holmes nor the authorities ever succeeded in determining. Stanley Goode maintained an obstinate silence upon the subject from first to last, carrying the secret with him to the scaffold.
There was, however, one further point connected with the affair which continued to trouble me.
Some evenings after the trial had concluded I sat in our familiar sitting room at Baker Street, laying aside yet another newspaper—one owned by Mr. Cedric Frobisher, in fact—whose front page devoted fresh columns to the Northleigh Manor case.
Holmes occupied his customary chair beside the fire, the black clay pipe resting between his lips while thin wreaths of smoke drifted lazily upward.
For some little time I regarded him thoughtfully.
"Holmes."
He looked across at me.
"Yes, Watson?"
"There is one question I have never asked."
"Indeed?"
"How certain were you that the poison had been placed only in the pie?"
He removed the pipe from his mouth.
"In what respect?"
"It occurs to me that every one of us had already consumed a considerable quantity of food before the pie ever appeared."
I laid the newspaper upon my knee.
"The pottage, the capon, the trout, the vegetables, the wine..."
I looked steadily at him.
"How certain were you, in spite of Professor Stratton's final words, that none of those dishes contained poison also?"
Holmes considered the matter for a moment.
Then there appeared that infuriatingly thin smile which so often announced an answer I suspected I should not altogether enjoy.
"Reasonably certain."
I stared at him.
"Reasonably?"
"Certainly."
"Reasonably certain?" I repeated.
I confess my composure deserted me.
"It seems to me, Holmes, that you took something of a chance."
"My dear Watson?"
"With all our lives."
For an instant he merely regarded me.
Then, with complete serenity, he replaced the pipe between his lips and leaned back in his chair.
"Quel drame, Watson," he murmured.
"You can quote all the French you like, Holmes," I said tightly. "That tendency of yours to welcome danger for its own sake is not one of your more attractive qualities—especially when it is not merely your own life that you are treating somewhat cavalierly."
A thin stream of smoke drifted slowly toward the ceiling, while Holmes continued to observe me with that slight, but somehow still almost maddening smile.
"Quel drame, indeed..."