The Case of the Standing Wheat

I returned one evening to the Baker Street flat I shared with Sherlock Holmes to find that my fellow-lodger was not alone; a furtive-looking little man was perched on the edge of the easy-chair, turning his hat round and round in his hands. He glanced up at me sharply as I entered.

“Ah, Watson!” exclaimed Holmes. “Your masterly sense of timing has not deserted you. Inspector Lestrade here is about to tell me of a case that has been causing the force some concern.”

“It is not my own case, you know,” said the inspector. “It’s down in Sussex, and the local constabulary is in charge. Perhaps you have heard about it; Lowe farm, near Birley, is the place, and the man held is the farmer, name of Queeny.”

“I read a report in this morning’s paper, yes,” I answered, settling into a chair.

“I wonder that you take an interest in it, Lestrade, if you are not handling the matter,” intervened Holmes. “I suppose you have not enough work of your own on hand.”

This remark elicited a snort of outrage from the inspector. “Believe me, Mr Holmes, I have enough and more on my plate, I can assure you of that. No, that’s not it, but I’ll tell you what my interest in the case is. The enquiry is in the hands of the local man, Chief Inspector Ellery, and Ellery is an old friend of mine. We trained together, and were promoted to inspector in the same year. There are a couple of oddities about this Lowe Farm case that Ellery couldn’t fathom, and last night he came up to see me about it. Quite informal, mind you; he doesn’t want to see the Yard called in. It would hurt his professional pride, you see. Of course, he knows of you, Mr Holmes, and he knows you have worked with me a few times. And he knows that when you have been involved in a case, you haven’t always insisted on taking the credit. Well, if you were able to give him any help, I should say that he’d be very grateful, though he’s too proud a man to ask. I should be grateful too; there’s not a finer man in the force than Jack Ellery, and I don’t want to see him fail.”

“So your old comrade Ellery consulted with you,” said Holmes, “and you in turn consult with me. I think I had better hear what has provoked this flurry of consultation.” He pushed the cigarette-box towards our visitor. “Take one of these, make yourself comfortable in the easy-chair, and tell us what you know about the death at Lowe Farm.”

The inspector gathered his thoughts for a few moments, frowning and turning his bowler hat round and round in his hands.

“There’s little enough to tell,” he began, “and I’m not sure old Jack Ellery isn’t making a mountain out of a molehill. Be that as it may, the facts of the matter are these:

“Yesterday, at about seven in the morning, the farm-hand at Lowe comes from the upper fields, where he has been mending a gate. He goes down to the barn, which lies by the lower field. The lower field is a wheat-field, not yet harvested. He notices a number of crows in one corner. So he goes into the wheat to scare them off, and up they rise in a great flock and he sees what they have been feeding on. It’s the body of a man, lying in the wheat. Straight away the lad runs over to the house to fetch his master, John Queeny. He finds Queeny at the house all right, but he’s the worse for drink, and refuses to move. When Fairbrother - that’s the farm-hand - begs him to come, his employer flings a bottle at him and tells him to go to the devil.”

“What an extraordinary response!” I exclaimed.

“Not so extraordinary as you might think, Dr Watson,” replied the inspector. “Not for this man Queeny, at any rate. He is given to occasional fits of very hard drinking, they say, when he becomes surly, violent, and morose. These bouts of drunkenness last several days, during which time nobody goes near him. In the end he sleeps it off and emerges, grim-faced and foul-tempered, to work again on the farm.

“Well, young Billy Fairbrother finds himself in a quandary. His master won’t come, and there’s no-one else he can turn to, for he’s the only hand on the farm, and Queeny lives alone without a housekeeper or servant. So Fairbrother has no choice but to go to the village himself and alert the constable. He is obliged to walk, for Queeny does not keep a horse. He sets off, and the village lying some four miles distant, it isn’t much before noon that he returns to the farm, accompanied by the village constable. As soon as they arrive the constable, having made a brief inspection of the scene, instructs Fairbrother to guard the body, while he himself makes sure that Queeny doesn’t leave the house. And so they remain for an hour or so until my friend Ellery comes on the scene, with two constables and surgeon.

“The surgeon carries out a preliminary examination of the body, and then has the constables remove it, and in the meantime Ellery carefully checks the ground where the body lies. The greatest care was taken not to disturb the ground, Mr Holmes,” added the inspector, with a glance towards my friend.

“Of course,” answered Holmes. “Pray continue.”

“Well, the surgeon confirms what has been obvious enough already, that the dead man has suffered the most severe injuries, including a broken neck, a broken leg, broken ribs, severe bruising and some lacerations. Death, which must have followed the injuries immediately, occurred between ten and seven hours before the examination - in other words between three o’clock at night and six in the morning. Nothing was found that might identify him.”

Holmes had risen and walked over to the window, where he stood gazing out as though quite uninterested in the inspector’s tale. Without taking his eyes from the clouds that drifted across the sky he interrupted the policeman:

“Nothing at all?”

“Not a thing.”

“No wallet? No name in his hat? No card? No initials on his watch?”

“Nothing, Mr Holmes. All I can tell you is this, that he was a man in early middle age, in good health, of good height, slender frame, and well enough dressed.”

“I see. So the dead man remains unidentified?”

“That is so.”

“Pray continue.”

“Now, the farmer Queeny - or perhaps I should say the small-holder, for his place is not above thirty acres - John Queeny, I say, lives alone on his land. His wife is dead and, as I said, he has no servant or housekeeper. His only help in working his farm is this lad Fairbrother, who lives in the neighbouring farmstead with his parents and walks across to Queeny’s every day. In the summer months Fairbrother arrives there at dawn and leaves at dusk; so he did yesterday morning.”

“Whose word do you have for that?”

“Fairbrother’s own. He made a full statement to Inspector Ellery.”

“Not Queeny’s?”

“Queeny has not made a statement.”

Holmes nodded and waved the inspector to continue.

“There’s not much doubt about who did it, Mr Holmes. For one thing, only a great lumbering ox of a man like Queeny could have inflicted the injuries we saw. Further, he has a most foul reputation among his neighbours as a violent, ill-tempered bully. No man, woman or child is safe when he is in drink. They say that his cruel use of his wife hastened her early death, and he has twice been in trouble with the authorities over assaulting his hired men. Fairbrother is a very different type of person - a simple young man, he is, they say, a gentle soul. Besides which, he is half the size of Queeny - I don’t say he is a weakling, but he lacks the strength to inflict the terrible injuries that the stranger suffered. It all points one way, gentlemen, and accordingly Queeny is now under arrest on suspicion of murder.”

“I see. Well, as the local police seem to have the matter well in hand, I am not quite clear how I can help,” commented Holmes.

“I’m inclined to agree with you there, Mr Holmes. Ellery has his man under close arrest, and the process of the law can take its course. What more does he need to do? But you see, Ellery is a stickler for detail, and there are one or two details that he can’t quite explain to his satisfaction. He worries about them - worries too much, to my way of thinking. You can’t always expect to understand every little thing about a case. Life doesn’t work out that way and no more does police work. But he doesn’t see it like that. I have no doubt, Mr Holmes, that if you could be prevailed upon to help him he would be a deal happier.”

“Then you had better tell me about these details that so trouble your friend Inspector Ellery.”

“Well, firstly, the identity of the dead man. We can’t find out who he is - or was, should I say. None of the local men is missing. That’s one thing. Next, how did he get there? No tracks to where he lay, and no sign of what must surely have been a most terrible struggle. We don’t have a weapon, either. It must have been something akin to a sledgehammer that delivered those blows, but nothing has been found.”

“Considerable difficulties, are they not? Do you have any theory to explain them?”

“ ‘Theory?’ ” The inspector leaned forward in his chair. “I don’t know about theories, Mr Holmes,” he answered, “but I can make a plain guess. There are a few gangs of labourers travelling the area, looking for harvest work. Gipsies, some of them. They visit all the local farms, offering themselves for hire. Now, suppose Queeny is drinking at his place with one of those fellows, and they fall out. The labourer storms out; the farmer follows in a rage, and fells him. He carries the body away from the house to the field where he pitches it into the corn, leaving as few tracks as possible.”

Holmes was still standing at the window, watching the evening clouds scudding high overhead. After a long silence he turned to us. “There is something about this case that arouses my curiosity. How are you fixed for tomorrow, Watson? Could you leave your practice for the day?”

“Certainly. My neighbour will take my place. I have done as much for him several times recently.”

“Good man! That settles it. We shall go down to Birley, in Sussex, tomorrow.”

Lestrade, never at ease for long in a chair, leapt to his feet. “I’ll leave this copy of the surgeon’s summary for you,” he said, tapping the sheaf of papers he had brought with him. “I’m pleased you’ll be helping my friend Ellery, Mr Holmes, very pleased. I’ll admit it’s a puzzler in some respects, this case. But there’s only one man who could have done this murder, and that man is Queeny. He’ll swing for this, I’ll wager, and when he does, no-one will mourn his passing.”

With these prophetic words the inspector gave us goodnight, and left.

Holmes and I took an early train the next morning to Birley. We were met at the station by a constable and driven to the police station, where we were ushered into a side room to wait for Ellery. After a few minutes the door opened and in burst a splendid figure of a man, tall and broad-chested, with a bold stride that befitted the veldt better than the little fields of Surrey. He introduced himself as inspector Ellery; and as he shook my hand with a firm grip and looked me straight in the eye, I could not help thinking wryly that this fine specimen of English manhood was as different from the dark, furtive little Lestrade as it was possible for a fellow to be. Ellery thanked us for coming, and immediately got down to the matter in hand. The suspect Queeny was in the cell below, he told us, and the body of the man he was charged with murdering was also in the station; it was agreed that Holmes should interview Queeny, then examine the body, and finally pay a visit to Lowe Farm, Queeny’s smallholding where the body had been found. Ellery took us down to the cell, looked through the peep-hole, and unlocked the door. The three of us entered.

In the course of my association with Sherlock Holmes I have visited a number of suspects in police custody. It is a situation in which few men are seen to advantage, and Queeny cut as poor a figure as any. We found him slumped in the corner of his cell, glaring listlessly up at us as we entered. His huge bulk was more pathetic than menacing, like that of the caged bear whose claws and teeth are drawn. He sullenly denied having murdered the man; indeed, he was adamant that he had been alone all that night, and had not seen a soul until the hired man Fairbrother had burst in on him the next morning. On this simple point he was obstinate; further questioning brought nothing but oaths or grunts. After a few minutes even these unhelpful responses dried up and were replaced by a morose silence. “Friend Queeny was not very communicative, was he?” Holmes cheerfully remarked as we left the cell. “Let us hope the dead man will tell us more than the living one.”

The body was laid out under a sheet in an upstairs room, and beside it, on a bench, were laid out the dead man’s clothes and the contents of his pockets. Holmes looked through them one by one. “A remarkably sturdy coat and waist-coat for the summer months,” he muttered. “Perhaps he knew that he was to be abroad in the small hours. No maker’s name. Stout canvas boots ... with soles of gutta-percha. No hat.” He turned to the smaller basket. “Now, let us see what he carried in his pockets. A handkerchief; some coins; a clasp-knife: what do you make of the knife, Inspector?” he asked.

The inspector took the knife in his hand. “Well, I should say it was a pocket-knife of ordinary design, by no means new,” he answered, handing it back.

“Yes, it is well-worn,” agreed Holmes, “and also well-preserved. See how readily it opens; probably because--” he lifted it to his nostrils - “yes, a faint smell of gun-oil. He cleaned it, I see, as well as oiling it. Sharpened it recently, too - do you see the shine on the edge where it was honed?” he asked, turning the blade to catch the light. “And sharpened it often: see how the blade is worn hollow. What else do we have? Ah, his fob-watch! This is a fine time-piece - not quite a marine chronometer, I suppose - a deck-watch, perhaps. Well-tended, like his knife, but it isn’t going. It gives four minutes after three o’clock.” He put the watch to his ear. “Perhaps it needs winding ... no, it is broken. That is indicative. Nothing else - no pocket-book, for example?” he asked himself, looking through the basket. “No. Then let us turn to the body itself.”

The orderly pulled back the sheet to reveal the body. Holmes examined it in silence for some ten minutes before replacing the sheet and turning to us. “Very much as the doctor reported, of course. Not much new to learn here, I think. Let us move on to Queeny’s place. I should like to see where the body was found.” We returned to the station to pick up a dog-cart.

“Tell me, Mr Holmes, did our doctor miss anything in his report? Have you learnt anything new about the dead man?” Ellery asked as we jolted along the lanes on our way to Queeny’s farm.

“No, no,” came the answer. “Only the hands. Did you not notice? The palms were calloused.”

“I had not noticed the palms of the hands, no. A labouring man, do you think?”

“I think not. His accoutrements do not suggest it, and his hands were well enough manicured. No case under the nails, for instance.”

Ellery looked puzzled, until his eyes lit on his own hands holding the reins. “A riding man!” he exclaimed.

Holmes, however, seemed to have lost interest in this line of enquiry, and became absorbed in the countryside through which we were passing. It was a bright day, and the wheat harvest was in spate. In some of the fields we passed, gangs of harvest-men were busy in the sun; some fields were empty, already harvested, and reduced to bare stubble; in others, the ripe wheat still stood, rippling in the breeze.

After some twenty minutes of this pleasant journey a sign saying LOWE FARM came into view. There we turned into a narrow, overgrown track, and as we headed up to the farmhouse we passed the wheat-field where the body had been found. Holmes desired to be let down immediately, and down we all jumped. The field, one of those as yet unharvested, was surrounded on three sides by a low, scrubby hedge, the fourth side being edged by a ditch. In the corner by which we entered grew two old elms, beyond whose spread began the wheat. A constable standing in the shade of the trees saluted our arrival. He was, Ellery explained, guarding the spot where the body had lain, about thirty yards beyond the trees. Holmes approached the spot with as much circumspection as if the body were still there, cautiously examining the damaged wheat, often dropping to his knees to peer at the ground with his magnifying lens, sometimes taking out his tape-measure, although to measure what, I could not see. Whatever the measurements were, he jotted them down in his note-book, while Ellery, his constable and I waited patiently under the trees, observing this procedure with some curiosity. If the two policemen were a little surprised by the minute care with which Holmes carried out his investigations, they were a good deal more surprised when he emerged from the wheat and knelt at their feet to examine their own footprints.

“Lord, Mr Holmes,” exclaimed Ellery with good humour, “I trust we are not suspects?”

“I need to know who went where, Inspector. I shall not be able to identify the footmarks of the murderer or his victim, if I cannot distinguish their tread from yours. Now, the labourer Fairbrother: he is a smallish fellow with a spring in his step?”

The inspector’s eyebrows shot up. “Quite right, Mr Holmes! You have him in one.”

Holmes nodded and looked about him. He wandered slowly about under the trees, looking in all directions: he peered over to the far corners of the field, and beyond them, I thought, towards the distant rolling hills of the South Downs. He then turned his gaze inland towards Surrey, whence we had come, and then eastwards towards the Romney Marshes. He looked up; the uppermost branches of the trees danced lightly over our heads, and far above a few hazy clouds were scudding across the sky. For what seemed many minutes my friend stood thus absorbed in his surroundings. Had I not known him better, I should perhaps have thought him rapt in some bucolic reverie, but my long acquaintance with him suggested otherwise. I was sure that his dreamy, abstracted mien reflected his musings not on the beauties of the Sussex countryside, but on the violent death that had disgraced them. Suddenly, as was his way, he snapped out of his dreamy speculations and was again his masterful self, taut with nervous vigour.

“Inspector Ellery, I should like a word with young Fairbrother; and also the use of a pair of field-glasses.”

“There is a pocket-telescope at the cottage, sir, if that will serve,” - Holmes nodded his assent - “and Fairbrother has been told to remain close at hand, at his family’s place, just over the way. I shall send for him. The cottage is this way, gentlemen.”

The cottage was a low, ill-favoured building. The constable standing on guard by the door was duly sent on his mission to fetch Fairbrother, and we three went in, all of us being obliged to lower our heads as we entered. Ellery and I sat down at the deal table, while Holmes ferreted about for anything that could give him information. He examined and measured two pairs of boots, peered into drawers and cupboards, read papers, and sniffed or tasted the contents of jars and bottles. Once satisfied that he had seen all that was to be seen downstairs, he continued his researches upstairs. For several minutes we heard his quick, light steps above our heads, and then he scurried down the stairs and out of the house, where he fell to examining the muddy grass and flags as he had examined the corner of the wheatfield. Eventually he pocketed his measure, lens and note-book, and joined us at the table. Ellery was eager to know, naturally, if he had he had as yet any idea as to what had happened, but he was to be disappointed, for before Holmes had time to answer him, the constable returned with the farm-hand Fairbrother.

The young labourer stood before us, his hair the colour of straw, his skin burnt to a darker shade. He shifted his weight from one foot to another and picked at the straw hat in his hands.

“This is Mr Holmes, the detective,” said Ellery. “He would like to ask you a few questions.”

Holmes took a cigarette from his case and lit it. “Billy,” said he, “I want you to tell me what happened yesterday morning.”

“When I got here, which it had not been daylight long, I went to the cottage first of all--”

“One moment,” interrupted Holmes. “Before you reached the cottage, as you walked to Queeny’s place, did you see anything unusual? Did you see someone on Queeny’s land, for instance? Did you see someone leaving it?”

“I didn’t see no-one, sir, no, but that don’t mean they weren’t there.”

“Surely you would have seen anyone who was there?”

“Not yesterday morning, sir. There was a mist that morning. When I looked over to Queeny’s place all I could see was clouds.”

“I see. How long did the mist last?”

“It was clear and bright by 7 o’clock, sir. Sea-mists don’t last long.”

“It came in off the sea, you think?”

“Oh yes, sir, I reckon so. That was a fierce wind, too, the night before last. An east wind, blowing in off the German Ocean and bringing a deal of the ocean with it.”

“Tell us what happened once you reached the farm.”

Billy Fairbrother continued his story of the morning’s events. I shall not weary the reader with all the details again, for the labourer’s account agreed in every respect with that of Lestrade given at the beginning of this record. One detail of Lestrade’s account in particular Fairbrother confirmed categorically, namely, that the body when he found it lay in untouched, standing wheat. He could suggest no answer to Holmes’s question as to how the body might have got there, but was none the less insistent that there were no trodden-down stalks; the body had lay in the midst of virgin wheat.

“It’s a poser,” said Ellery, shaking his head, after the labourer had left us. “I’ve puzzled over it, Mr Holmes, again and again, but I can’t fathom it at all. What do you make of it?”

“I make nothing of it as yet, Inspector.”

At these words Ellery’s face fell. “Well, if it’s got England’s premier consulting detective flummoxed,” he said, “I don’t know what a country policeman can do.” We knew in what high regard the inspector regarded Holmes; it was natural that he should be sadly disenchanted to find that his idol had feet of clay.

“Do you not have enough information, Mr Holmes?” asked Ellery. “We thought that there might be an answer to this case somewhere here, some vital clue that we had missed.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “We set our hopes too high, it seems. I guess we have overlooked nothing, after all. Perhaps we will never know just what happened last night.”

“Perhaps so,” answered Holmes. “After all, success in these matters cannot be commanded, inspector, as you know. But to answer your question, I think that I do have enough information. In any event, no further information is likely to come to light now; we have garnered all we can. No, the problem now is not to gather more facts; it is to put together the facts we have and make sense of them. And that, gentlemen, requires uninterrupted thought.”

So saying, he rose to his feet and, without another word to either of us, went out of the cottage into the yard and crossed to a dilapidated outhouse. There he climbed into the back of a broken cart, settled himself comfortably, and lit his pipe. Soon puffs of smoke were drifting up from his motionless figure as if in answer to the clouds drifting across the sky. The inspector and I exchanged a few words as we awaited Holmes’ return, but when after a good many minutes my friend showed no sign of returning, the inspector decided to ‘cut his losses’, as he phrased it to me, and went over to the wheatfield to confer with his constable. I whiled away the time by strolling around Queeny’s smallholding.

On my return I found Holmes exactly as I had left him, sprawled in the back of the cart. A frown of concentration on his brow told me that the mystery remained unsolved. “An impasse, Watson. I cannot make headway. The question is, how did the body get into the field without the wheat being disturbed? Until that question is answered, everything else is mere speculation. That one circumstance is the key to the understanding of this case, would you not agree?” He frowned again and drew on his pipe. “How many times have I said that it is the bizarre cases that can be understood, and the commonplace ones that can have any number of solutions? Well, this case seems to be the exception to my rule. It looks as if friend Ellery is going to be disappointed,” he said with a shrug of resignation, leaning back against the boards. “I cannot delay my return to London any longer. The train leaving at half-past four this afternoon is the latest I can take if I am to keep my appointment with the Foreign Secretary. I had better have a word with Ellery, and then we shall be on our way back.”

Holmes clambered out of the cart and brushed the dust and straw from his coat. We walked to the wheatfield, where we found Ellery still in conservation with his constable. The inspector strode up to us as we approached him. “Well, Mr Holmes, have you come to an opinion?”

“I’m sorry to tell you, inspector, that I have not. I wish that I could spend more time looking into your very interesting case, but, alas, I cannot.”

The inspector tried to hide his disappointment. “At least,” he said, “it is some consolation to know that where I failed, the great Sherlock Holmes failed too.”

We drove with him in silence to the station, where we shook hands and parted. Holmes and I sat on the platform bench to wait for the train. Above us a few white clouds moved slowly in the blue sky, while around us floated thistledown, shining in the sunlight. To the constant murmuring of the doves was added an occasional distant shout from the labourers in the fields. It was indeed a perfect summer’s day; more the pity, I thought, that Holmes’ failure soured its sweetness for us. As this rueful reflection crossed my mind, I suddenly felt my companion stiffen next to me. In an instant he leapt to his feet and smote his brow with the flat of his hand. “How slow I have been!” he exclaimed. “The thistledown, Watson! The thistledown!”

“Yes, I see some thistledown,” I answered, unable to share his sudden enthusiasm. “Perhaps you could tell me what bearing a few wisps--”

Before I could finish my question Holmes was running down the platform. He hammered on the station-master’s door and without waiting for a reply flung it open and rushed in. I followed him and looked in at the door to see an open-mouthed railwayman handing him a telephone. Holmes grasped the instrument and demanded the police station.

“This is Sherlock Holmes. I wish to speak to Inspector Ellery. No? Then please to give him this message. You have a pencil and paper? My compliments to the inspector, and I suggest that he search for a hot-air balloon station lying on a line east-north-east from here at a distance of at least 20 miles. That is all.”

He passed the apparatus back to the open-mouthed official. “Thank you. Is that the London train I hear coming in?”

Too astonished to speak, the man nodded his assent.

“Come then, Watson!” Holmes turned on his heel, and brushed past me. I followed him out, and we climbed aboard the train.

As we jolted back to London Holmes lay back in his seat and gazed out at the fields and hamlets of Sussex rolling past. “Not my finest moment, Watson. How can I have been so slow? After all, the case was fundamentally a simple one. It hinged upon a single question; how did the body arrive in an untouched cornfield? Ellery was quite right not to ignore that question. It was the key to the whole mystery. You noticed, I dare say, that I was careful to confirm that the wheat had indeed been undisturbed, and that the trampling we saw had been done only by Fairbrother and the police, and not by Queeny, the dead man, or anybody else. The dead man’s hands and belongings suggested a sea-faring background, but that simply added to the mystery; why would a sailor, of all people, end up dead in a Sussex corn-field fifteen miles from the coast? Then there was the matter of the weather; there had been a wind and a fog during the night. Was that connected somehow with the man’s death? Possibly, but I could not see how. I puzzled over it for hours, trying in vain to connect these different threads. It was only once I had given up the case as a bad job that those wisps of thistledown carried by the breeze told me the truth. The dead man had been carried by the wind himself, in a balloon, and fallen from it. That is why there were no tracks leading to his body, and why he suffered such crushing injuries.”

“But that hardly explains - ah, but it does!” I exclaimed as the truth dawned on me. “The shoes, the watch - what seemed to be sailor’s gear was really balloonist’s gear.”

“Precisely.”

“A brilliant insight, Holmes! The whole mystery clears away like morning mist. But how did you know what instructions to give on the position of the balloonist’s station? I can’t follow you there, I’m afraid.”

“Simple enough, Watson. The wind that blew in the fog and the balloon was an East-north-easterly. So the balloon had come from that direction. How far in that direction I am uncertain, but somewhere roughly along that line must lie the station from which the balloon set out.

“Quite the deus ex machina, is it not? But you may have been somewhat hasty in your congratulations, Watson. Perhaps my explanation does have something in the way of ingenuity, but it is, after all, a speculation only. The most brilliant theory is of little value if it has not the merit of truth. What if no hot-air balloon station is to be found? What then? I shall have made a thorough-going fool of myself, and inspector Ellery’s estimation of me will fall even lower than it is at present. I could wish that I had the time to search for the balloon station myself, but alas! the matter is out of my hands. I dared not risk missing this train; foreign secretaries do not like to be kept waiting. I can only hope that my surmise will prove correct, after all, and that my reputation, such as it is, will be spared from ridicule.”

Thus ended my friend’s involvement in the strange case of the body in the wheatfield. Like it or not, he was obliged by promises given and by his sense of public duty to leave the final details of this rural mystery to the local police, and to plunge himself instead into an autumn of extraordinary activity, some of which I have chronicled elsewhere. The story itself, however, did not end quite there. A week after Holmes and I had left the village of Birley the following paragraph appeared in the Daily Telegraph:

DEATH IN THE SEA FOG.

EXPERIENCED BALLOONIST IN FATAL ACCIDENT.

Triumph of Local Constabulary.

We can reveal the identity of the hitherto unknown man whose body was found in mysterious circumstances in the Sussex village of Birley, as reported in this journal two weeks ago. The dead man was Mr Warrington Maude, of Farrell, in Kent. Mr Maude, an engineer and farmer, was well known locally as an enthusiastic and devoted balloonist. He was the owner of a ballooning station which he ran with his younger brother Alfred. The Maude brothers, who made many flights for the entertainment of passengers, were equally assiduous in carrying out scientific investigations in their balloons, and for some weeks, we are informed, the elder Mr Maude had been engaged in a series of flights as part of his research into Aetherial Drift. On the morning of his untimely death, Mr Warrington Maude set out on such a flight just after dawn, as had become his custom. The weather at that hour was calm, and Mr Maude, it must be supposed, effected a rapid and easy ascent. On that morning, however, as ill-luck would have it, a strong east-north-easterly wind sprang up within an hour of sunrise, carrying with it a thick bank of sea-fog. Fog, we are informed, is the balloonist’s greatest enemy, as it is the mariner’s, for deprived of the power of observation, he must perforce remain unaware of even the most imminent danger. Mr Maude was blown twenty miles, unable to know where he was or whither he was going, until the top branches of an unusually high tree in a Sussex small-holding caught the carriage of his balloon. Precipitated from it, he fell to his immediate death, leaving the balloon to continue its journey unmanned.

The astute reader may ask how the details given in the preceding paragraph came to be known, since the lamentable episode was unwitnessed. His answer lies in the keen detective power of Inspector Ellery, the officer in charge of the case. As was reported in these pages earlier, the small-holder on whose land the dead man was found, Mr John Queeny, was initially held on suspicion, but the enquiry, as it proceeded, revealed circumstances which mitigated strongly against Mr Queeny’s guilt. The appearance of the body in the midst of undamaged wheat indicated that it had arrived from above; “an extraordinary conclusion,” the inspector told your correspondent, “but the body could not have arrived by any other way; and when all other possibilities have been excluded, the remaining one, however improbable, must be the truth.” The inspector’s reasoning was vindicated, for a careful calculation of the wind’s direction and strength guided the investigation to the Maude station in Farrell, where the sad truth was discovered.

Mr Warrington Maude, originally from Northallerton, was a well-known figure in local circles, and a respected contributor to several scientific and philosophical publications. He was a bachelor, and leaves as his closest kin his brother Alfred.