“Sir,—Hi am the Sub-Warden of Brikespeare College, Cambridge—”
“Lord have mercy on us,” muttered Moon, making a backward movement as
men do when a gun goes off.
“Hi am the Sub-Warden of Brikespeare College, Cambridge,” proclaimed
the uncompromising Moses, “and I can endorse the description you gave
of the un’appy Smith. It was not alone my unfortunate duty to rebuke
many of the lesser violences of his undergraduate period, but I was
actually a witness to the last iniquity which terminated that period.
Hi happened to passing under the house of my friend the Warden of
Brikespeare, which is semi-detached from the College and connected with
it by two or three very ancient arches or props, like bridges, across a
small strip of water connected with the river. To my grive astonishment
I be’eld my eminent friend suspended in mid-air and clinging to one of
these pieces of masonry, his appearance and attitude indicatin’ that he
suffered from the grivest apprehensions. After a short time I heard two
very loud shots, and distinctly perceived the unfortunate undergraduate
Smith leaning far out of the Warden’s window and aiming at the Warden
repeatedly with a revolver. Upon seeing me, Smith burst into a loud
laugh (in which impertinence was mingled with insanity), and appeared
to desist. I sent the college porter for a ladder, and he succeeded in
detaching the Warden from his painful position. Smith was sent down.
The photograph I enclose is from the group of the University Rifle Club
prizemen, and represents him as he was when at the College.— Hi am,
your obedient servant, Amos Boulter.
“The other letter,” continued Gould in a glow of triumph, “is from the
porter, and won’t take long to read.
“Dear Sir,—It is quite true that I am the porter of Brikespeare
College, and that I ’elped the Warden down when the young man was
shooting at him, as Mr. Boulter has said in his letter. The young man
who was shooting at him was Mr. Smith, the same that is in the
photograph Mr. Boulter sends.— Yours respectfully, Samuel Barker.”
Gould handed the two letters across to Moon, who examined them. But for
the vocal divergences in the matter of h’s and a’s, the Sub-Warden’s
letter was exactly as Gould had rendered it; and both that and the
porter’s letter were plainly genuine. Moon handed them to Inglewood,
who handed them back in silence to Moses Gould.
“So far as this first charge of continual attempted murder is
concerned,” said Dr. Pym, standing up for the last time, “that is my
case.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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