“One moment,” interrupted Holmes. “The key of the door—was it on the inside of the lock or not?” “It was nowhere to be seen,” said Lestrade. “I was getting frantic for, by this time, I could feel the vibration of the engines and hear the first churning sound of the screw as the great boat began to slide slowly down towards the landing stage. “We were at our wits’ end; Mr Booth must be hiding somewhere on board, but there was now no time to make a proper search for him, and in a very few minutes passengers would be leaving the boat. At last the captain promised us that, under the circumstances, only one landing gangway should be run out and, in company with the purser and stewards, I should stand by it with a complete list of passengers, ticking off each one as he or she left. By this means it would be quite impossible for Booth to escape us even if he attempted some disguise, for no person whatever would be allowed to cross the gangway until identified by the purser or one of the stewards. “I was delighted with the arrangement, for there was now no way by which Booth could give me the slip. “One by one the passengers crossed the gangway and joined the jostling crowd on the landing stage and each one was identified and his or her name crossed off my list. There were one hundred and ninety-three first-class passengers on board the Empress Queen, including Booth, and, when one hundred and ninety-two had disembarked, his was the only name which remained!” “You can scarcely realize what a fever of impatience we were in,” said Lestrade, mopping his brow at the very recollection, “nor how interminable the time seemed as we slowly but carefully ticked off one by one the whole of the three hundred and twenty-four second-class passengers and the three hundred and ten steerage from my list. Every passenger except Mr Booth crossed that gangway, but he certainly did not do so. There was no possible room for doubt on that point. “He must therefore be still on the boat, we agreed, but I was getting panic-stricken and wondered if there were any possibility of his getting smuggled off in some of the luggage which the great cranes were now beginning to swing up onto the pier. “I hinted my fear to detective Forsyth, and he at once arranged that every trunk or box in which there was any chance for a man to hide should be opened and examined by the customs officers.”
“It was a tedious business, but they didn’t shirk it, and at the end of two hours were able to assure us that by no possibility could Booth have been smuggled off the boat in this way. “This left only one possible solution to the mystery. He must be still in hiding somewhere on board. We had had the boat kept under the closest observation ever since she came up to the landing stage, and now the superintendent of police lent us a staff of twenty men and, with the consent of the captain and the assistance of the pursers and stewards, etc., the Empress Queen was searched and re-searched from stem to stern. We didn’t leave unexamined a place in which a cat could have hidden, but the missing man wasn’t there. Of that I’m certain—and there you have the whole mystery in a nutshell, Mr Holmes. Mr Booth certainly was on board the Empress Queen up to, and at, eleven o’clock on the morning of the tenth, and although he could not by any possibility have left it, we are nevertheless face to face with the fact that he wasn’t there at five o’clock in the afternoon.”
Lestrade’s face, as he concluded his curious and mysterious narrative, bore a look of the most hopeless bewilderment I ever saw, and I fancy my own must have pretty well matched it, but Holmes threw himself back in his easy chair, with his long thin legs stuck straight out in front of him, his whole frame literally shaking with silent laughter. “What conclusion have you come to?” he gasped at length. “What steps do you propose to take next?” “I’ve no idea. Who could know what to do? The whole thing is impossible, perfectly impossible; it’s an insoluble mystery. I came to you to see if you could, by any chance, suggest some entirely fresh line of inquiry upon which I might begin to work”
“Well,” said Holmes, cocking his eye mischievously at the bewildered Lestrade, “I can give you Booth’s present address, if it will be of any use to you?” “His what!” cried Lestrade. “His present address,” repeated Holmes quietly. “But before I do so, my dear Lestrade, I must make one stipulation. Mr. Jervis has treated me very shabbily in the matter, and I don’t desire that my name shall be associated with it any further. Whatever you do you must not hint the source from which any information I may give you has come. You promise?” “Yes,” murmured Lestrade, who was in a state of bewildered excitement. Holmes tore a leaf from his pocket book and scribbled on it: Mr A Winter, c/o Mrs Thackary, Glossop Road, Broomhill, Sheffield.
“You will find there the present name and address of the man you are in search of,” he said, handing the paper across to Lestrade. “I should strongly advise you to lose no time in getting hold of him, for though the wire I received a short time ago—which unfortunately interrupted your most interesting narrative—was to tell me that Mr. Winter had arrived back home again after a temporary absence, still it’s more than probable that he will leave there, for good, at an early date. I can’t say how soon—not for a few days, I should think.” Lestrade rose. “Mr. Holmes, you’re a brick,” he said, with more real feeling than I have ever seen him show before. “You’ve saved my reputation in this job just when I was beginning to look like a perfect fool, and now you’re forcing me to take all the credit, when I don’t deserve one atom. As to how you have found this out, it’s as great a mystery to me as Booth’s disappearance was.”