More Twisted

sorrowful. And that’s when the judge is about to pass sentence,” said the pale officer. He added, “Forgive us, Mr. Goodcastle, you’ve been most patient. But you can understand the confusion.”
    “Of course. I’m pleased that that fellow is finally off the streets. I regret that I didn’t have the courage to come forward before.”
    “A respectable gentleman such as yourself,” offered the detective with the notebook, “can be easily excused on such a count, being alien to the world of crime and ruffians.”
    “Well, my thanks to you and all the rest at Scotland Yard,” he said to the chief inspector.
    But the man gave a laugh and turned toward the pale detective, who said, “Oh, you’re under a misapprehension, Mr. Goodcastle. Only I am with the Yard. My companions here are private consultants retained by Sir Robert Mayhew. I am Inspector Gregson.” He then nodded toward the dark, slim man Goodcastle had taken to be the chief detective. “And this is the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes.”
    “A pleasure,” Goodcastle said. “I believe I’ve heard of you.”
    “Indeed,” Holmes replied, as if a shopkeeper should most certainly have heard of him. The man seemed like a don at King’s College, brilliant but constantly distracted by complex thoughts.
    Gregson nodded toward the man who had portrayed the husband and introduced Dr. John Watson, who shook Goodcastle’s hand cordially and asked a few more questions about Bill Sloat, the answers to which he jotted into his notebook. He explained that he often wrote accounts of the more interesting cases he and Holmes were involved in.
    “Yes, of course. That’s where I’ve heard of you both. The accounts are often published in the newspapers. So that is you! An honor.”
    “Ah,” said Holmes, managing to summon a look simultaneously prideful and modest.
    Goodcastle asked, “Will this be one adventure you write about?”
    “No, it will not,” Holmes said. He seemed piqued—perhaps because, even though a villain was under arrest, his reading of the clues had led to the wrong suspect, at least in his perception of the affair.
    “But where, Holmes, is the ring?” Gregson asked.
    “I suspect that that Sloat has already disposed of it.”
    “Why do you think so?” Watson asked.
    “Elementary,” Holmes said. “He had the other ill-gotten gains on his person. Why not the ring too? I deduced from his clothing that the blackguard lives in the company of a woman; both the jacket and trousers of his sack suit had been darned with identical stitching, though in places that wear through at different rates—the elbow and the inseam—suggesting that they were repaired by the same person though at different times. The conclusion must be that a wife or female companion did the work. His request of Mr. Goodcastle here regarding the secret compartment makes clear that he does not trust people, so he would be loathe to leave the ring in an abode where another person dwells and would have kept it on him until the special music box was ready. Since he doesn’t have the ring on him any longer, we can conclude that he has disposed of it. And since he hasno significant sums of cash with him, other than Lord Mayhew’s guineas, we can conclude that he used the ring to settle an old debt.”
    “Where did he dispose of it, do you think?”
    “Alas, I’m afraid that the piece is on its way overseas.”
    When the others glanced at each other quizzically, Holmes continued, “You of course observed the fish scales on Sloat’s cuffs?”
    “Well,” said Gregson, “I’m afraid I for one did not.”
    “Nor I,” Watson said.
    “They were scales unique to saltwater fish.”
    “You knew that, Holmes?” the Yarder asked.
    “Data, data, data,” the man replied petulantly. “In this line of work, Gregson, you must fill your mind with every fact it is possible to retain. Now, the scales could mean nothing more than that he’d walked past a fishmonger. But you certainly observed the streaks of pitch on his shoes, did you not?” When the others merely shook their heads, Holmes sighed, his visage filled with exasperation. He continued. “You gentlemen know the expression, ‘devil to pay.’ ”
    “Of course.”
    “The figurative meaning is to suffer consequences. But most people don’t know its literal derivation. The phrase has nothing to do with handing money over to fallen angels. The ‘devil’ is that portion of a sailing vessel between the