The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle

Silver Blaze

‘I am afraid, Watson, that I shall have to go,’ said Holmes, as we sat down together to our breakfast one morning.
‘Go! Where to?’
‘To Dartmoor—to King’s Pyland.’
I was not surprised. Indeed, my only wonder was that he had not already been mixed up in this extraordinary case, which was the one topic of conversation through the length and breadth of England. For a whole day my companion had rambled about the room with his chin upon his chest and his brows knitted, charging and re-charging his pipe with the strongest black tobacco, and absolutely deaf to any of my questions or remarks. Fresh editions of every paper had been sent up by our newsagent only to be glanced over and tossed down into a corner. Yet, silent as he was, I knew perfectly well what it was over which he was brooding. There was but one problem before the public which could challenge his powers of analysis, and that was the singular disappearance of the favorite for the Wessex Cup, and the tragic murder of its trainer. When, therefore, he suddenly announced his intention of setting out for the scene of the drama, it was only what I had both expected and hoped for.
‘I should be most happy to go down with you if I should not be in the way,’ said I.
‘My dear Watson, you would confer a great favor upon me by coming. And I think that your time will not be mis-spent, for there are points about this case which promise to make it an absolutely unique one. We have, I think, just time to catch our train at Paddington, and I will go further into the matter upon our journey. You would oblige me by bringing with you your very excellent field-glass.’
And so it happened that an hour or so later I found myself in the corner of a first-class carriage, flying along, en route for Exeter, while Sherlock Holmes, with his sharp, eager face framed in his ear-flapped traveling cap, dipped rapidly into the bundle of fresh papers which he had procured at Paddington. We had left Reading far behind us before he thrust the last of them under the seat, and offered me his cigar- case.
‘We are going well,’ said he, looking out of the window and glancing at his watch. ‘Our rate at present is fifty-three and a half miles an hour.’
‘I have not observed the quarter-mile posts,’ said I.
‘Nor have I. But the telegraph posts upon this line are sixty yards apart, and the calculation is a simple one. I presume that you have already looked into this matter of the murder of John Straker and the disappearance of Silver Blaze?’
‘I have seen what the Telegraph and the Chronicle have to say.’
‘It is one of those cases where the art of the reasoner should be used rather for the sifting of details than for the acquiring of fresh evidence. The tragedy has been so uncommon, so complete, and of such personal importance to so many people, that we are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture, and hypothesis. The difficulty is to detach the framework of fact—of absolute, undeniable fact—from the embellishments of theorists and reporters. Then, having established ourselves upon this sound basis, it is our duty to see what inferences may be drawn, and which are the special points upon which the whole mystery turns. On Tuesday evening I received telegrams, both from Colonel Ross, the owner of the horse, and from Inspector Gregory, who is looking after the case, inviting my co-operation.’
‘Tuesday evening!’ I exclaimed. ‘And this is Thursday morning. Why did you not go down yesterday?’
‘Because I made a blunder, my dear Watson—which is, I am afraid, a more common occurrence than anyone would think who only knew me through your memoirs. The fact is, that I could not believe it possible that the most remarkable horse in England could long remain concealed, especially in so sparsely inhabited a place as the north of Dartmoor. From hour to hour yesterday I expected to hear that he had been found, and that his abductor was the murderer of John Straker. When, however, another morning had come and I found that, beyond the arrest of young Fitzroy Simpson, nothing had been done, I felt that it was time for me to take action. Yet in some ways I feel that yesterday has not been wasted.’
‘You have formed a theory, then?’
‘At least I have a grip of the essential facts of the case. I shall enumerate them to you, for nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person, and I can hardly expect your co-operation if I do not show you the position from which we start.’
I lay back against the cushions, puffing at my cigar, while Holmes, leaning forward, with his long thin fore-finger checking off the points upon the palm of his left hand, gave me a sketch of the events which had led to our journey.
‘Silver Blaze,’ said he, ‘is from the Isonomy stock, and holds as brilliant a record as his famous ancestor. He is now in his fifth year, and has brought in turn each of the prizes of the turf to Colonel Ross, his fortunate owner. Up to the time of the catastrophe he was first favorite for the Wessex Cup, the betting being three to one on. He has always, however, been a prime favorite with the racing public, and has never yet disappointed them, so that even at short odds enormous sums of money have been laid upon him. It is obvious, therefore, that there were many people who had the strongest interest in preventing Silver Blaze from being there at the fall of the flag, next Tuesday.
‘This fact was, of course, appreciated at King’s Pyland, where the Colonel’s training stable is situated. Every precaution was taken to guard the favorite. The trainer, John Straker, is a retired jockey, who rode in Colonel Ross’s colors before he became too heavy for the weighing chair. He has served the Colonel for five years as jockey, and for seven as trainer, and has always shown himself to be a zealous and honest servant. Under him were three lads, for the establishment was a small one, containing only four horses in all. One of these lads sat up each night in the stable, while the others slept in the loft. All three bore excellent characters. John Straker, who is a married man, lived in a small villa about two hundred yards from the stables. He has no children, keeps one maid-servant, and is comfortably off. The country round is very lonely, but about half a mile to the north there is a small cluster of villas which have been built by a Tavistock contractor for the use of invalids and others who may wish to enjoy the pure Dartmoor air. Tavistock itself lies two miles to the west, while across the moor, also about two miles distant, is the larger training establishment of Capleton, which belongs to Lord Backwater, and is managed by Silas Brown. In every other direction the moor is a complete wilderness, inhabited only by a few roaming gipsies. Such was the general situation last Monday night, when the catastrophe occurred.
‘On that evening the horses had been exercised and watered as usual, and the stables were locked up at nine o’clock. Two of the lads walked up to the trainer’s house, where they had supper in the kitchen, while the third, Ned Hunter, remained on guard. At a few minutes after nine the maid, Edith Baxter, carried down to the stables his supper, which consisted of a dish of curried mutton. She took no liquid, as there was a water-tap in the stables, and it was the rule that the lad on duty should drink nothing else. The maid carried a lantern with her, as it was very dark, and the path ran across the open moor.
‘Edith Baxter was within thirty yards of the stables when a man appeared out of the darkness and called to her to stop. As he stepped into the circle of yellow light thrown by the lantern she saw that he was a person of gentlemanly bearing, dressed in a grey suit of tweed with a cloth cap. He wore gaiters, and carried a heavy stick with a knob to it. She was most impressed, however, by the extreme pallor of his face and by the nervousness of his manner. His age, she thought, would be rather over thirty than under it.
“‘Can you tell me where I am?” he asked. “I had almost made up my mind to sleep on the moor, when I saw the light of your lantern.”
“‘You are close to the King’s Pyland training stables,” she said.
“‘Oh, indeed! What a stroke of luck!” he cried. “I understand that a stable boy sleeps there alone every night. Perhaps that is his supper which you are carrying to him. Now I am sure that you would not be too proud to earn the price of a new dress, would you?” He took a piece of white paper folded up out of his waistcoat pocket. “See that the boy has this to-night, and you shall have the prettiest frock that money can buy.”
‘She was frightened by the earnestness of his manner, and ran past him to the window through which she was accustomed to hand the meals. It was already open, and Hunter was seated at the small table inside. She had begun to tell him of what had happened, when the stranger came up again.
“‘Good evening,” said he, looking through the window, “I wanted to have a word with you.” The girl has sworn that as he spoke she noticed the corner of the little paper packet protruding from his closed hand.
“‘What business has you here?” asked the lad.
“‘Its business that may put something into your pocket,” said the other. “You’ve two horses in for the Wessex Cup—Silver Blaze and Bayard. Let me have the straight tip, and you won’t be a loser. Is it a fact that at the weights Bayard could give the other a hundred yards in five furlongs, and that the stable have put their money on him?”
“‘So you’re one of those damned touts,” cried the lad. “I’ll show you how we serve them in King’s Pyland.” He sprang up and rushed across the stable to unloose the dog. The girl fled away to the house, but as she ran she looked back, and saw that the stranger was leaning through the window. A minute later, however, when Hunter rushed out with the hound he was gone, and though the lad ran all round the buildings he failed to find any trace of him.’
‘One moment!’ I asked. ‘Did the stable boy, when he ran out with the dog, leave the door unlocked behind him?’
‘Excellent, Watson; excellent!’ murmured my companion. ‘The importance of the point struck me so forcibly that I sent a special wire to Dartmoor yesterday to clear the matter up. The boy locked the door before he left it. The window, I may add, was not large enough for a man to get through.
‘Hunter waited until his fellow grooms had returned, when he sent a message up to the trainer and told him what had occurred. Straker was excited at hearing the account, although he does not seem to have quite realized its true significance. It left him, however, vaguely uneasy, and Mrs Straker, waking at one in the morning, found that he was dressing. In reply to her inquiries, he said that he could not sleep on account of his anxiety about the horses, and that he intended to walk down to the stables to see that all was well. She begged him to remain at home, as she could hear the rain pattering against the windows, but in spite of her entreaties he pulled on his large mackintosh and left the house.
‘Mrs Straker awoke at seven in the morning, to find that her husband had not yet returned. She dressed herself hastily, called the maid, and set off for the stables. The door was open; inside, huddled together upon a chair, Hunter was sunk in a state of absolute stupor, the favorite’s stall was empty, and there were no signs of his trainer.
‘The two lads who slept in the chaff-cutting loft above the harness-room were quickly aroused. They had heard nothing during the night, for they are both sound sleepers. Hunter was obviously under the influence of some powerful drug; and, as no sense could be got out of him, he was left to sleep it off while the two lads and the two women ran out in search of the absentees. They still had hopes that the trainer had for some reason taken out the horse for early exercise, but on ascending the knoll near the house, from which all the neighboring moors were visible, they not only could see no signs of the favorite, but they perceived something which warned them that they were in the presence of a tragedy.
‘About a quarter of a mile from the stables, John Straker’s overcoat was flapping from a furze bush. Immediately beyond there was a bowl-shaped depression in the moor, and at the bottom of this was found the dead body of the unfortunate trainer. His head had been shattered by a savage blow from some heavy weapon, and he was wounded in the thigh, where there was a long, clean cut, inflicted evidently by some very sharp instrument. It was clear, however, that Straker had defended himself vigorously against his assailants, for in his right hand he held a small knife, which was clotted with blood up to the handle, while in his left he grasped a red and black silk cravat, which was recognized by the maid as having been worn on the preceding evening by the stranger who had visited the stables.
‘Hunter, on recovering from his stupor, was also quite positive as to the ownership of the cravat. He was equally certain that the same stranger had, while standing at the window, drugged his curried mutton, and so deprived the stables of their watchman.
‘As to the missing horse, there were abundant proofs in the mud which lay at the bottom of the fatal hollow that he had been there at the time of the struggle. But from that morning he has disappeared; and, although a large reward has been offered, and all the gypsies of Dartmoor are on the alert, no news has come of him. Finally, an analysis has shown that the remains of his supper, left by the stable lad, contain an appreciable quantity of powdered opium, while the people of the house partook of the same dish on the same night without any ill effect.
‘Those are the main facts of the case stripped of all surmise and stated as baldly as possible. I shall now recapitulate what the police have done in the matter.
‘Inspector Gregory, to whom the case has been committed, is an extremely competent officer. Were he but gifted with imagination he might raise to great heights in his profession. On his arrival he promptly found and arrested the man upon whom suspicion naturally rested. There was little difficulty in finding him, for he was thoroughly well known in the neighborhood. His name, it appears, was Fitzroy Simpson. He was a man of excellent birth and education, who had squandered a fortune upon the turf, and who lived now by doing a little quiet and genteel book-making in the sporting clubs of London. An examination of his betting-book shows that bets to the amount of five thousand pounds had been registered by him against the favorite.
‘On being arrested, he volunteered the statement that he had come down to Dartmoor in the hope of getting some information about the King’s Pyland horses, and also about Desborough, the second favorite, which was in charge of Silas Brown, at the Capleton stables. He did not attempt to deny that he had acted as described upon the evening before, but declared that he had no sinister designs, and had simply wished to obtain first-hand information. When confronted with the cravat he turned very pale, and was utterly unable to account for its presence in the hand of the murdered man. His wet clothing showed that he had been out in the storm of the night before, and his stick, which was a Penang lawyer, weighted with lead, was just such a weapon as might, by repeated blows, have inflicted the terrible injuries to which the trainer had succumbed.
‘On the other hand, there was no wound upon his person, while the state of Straker’s knife would show that one, at least, of his assailants must bear his mark upon him. There you have it all in a nutshell, Watson, and if you can give me any light I shall be infinitely obliged to you.’
I had listened with the greatest interest to the statement which Holmes, with characteristic clearness, had laid before me. Though most of the facts were familiar to me, I had not sufficiently appreciated their relative importance, or their connection with each other.
‘Is it not possible,’ I suggested, ‘which the incised wound upon Straker may have been caused by his own knife in the convulsive struggles which follow any brain injury?’
‘It is more than possible; it is probable,’ said Holmes. ‘In that case, one of the main points in favor of the accused disappears.’
‘And yet,’ said I, ‘even now I fail to understand what the theory of the police can be.’
‘I am afraid that whatever theory we state has very grave objections to it,’ returned my companion. ‘The police imagine, I take it, that this Fitzroy Simpson, having drugged the lad, and having in some way obtained a duplicate key, opened the stable door, and took out the horse, with the intention, apparently, of kidnapping him altogether. His bridle is missing, so that Simpson must have put it on. Then, having left the door open behind him, he was leading the horse away over the moor, when he was either met or overtaken by the trainer. A row naturally ensued, Simpson beat out the trainer’s brains with his heavy stick without receiving any injury from the small knife which Straker used in self-defense, and then the thief either led the horse on to some secret hiding-place, or else it may have bolted during the struggle, and be now wandering out on the moors. That is the case as it appears to the police, and improbable as it is, all other explanations are more improbable still. However, I shall very quickly test the matter when I am once upon the spot, and until then I really cannot see how we can get much further than our present position.’
It was evening before we reached the little town of Tavistock, which lies, like the boss of a shield, in the middle of the huge circle of Dartmoor. Two gentlemen were awaiting us at the station; the one a tall, fair man with lion-like hair and beard, and curiously penetrating light-blue eyes, the other a small alert person, very neat and dapper, in a frock-coat and gaiters, with trim little side-whiskers and an eye-glass. The latter was Colonel Ross, the well-known sportsman, the other Inspector Gregory, a man who was rapidly making his name in the English detective service.
‘I am delighted that you have come down, Mr Holmes,’ said the Colonel. ‘The Inspector here has done all that could possibly be suggested; but I wish to leave no stone unturned in trying to avenge poor Straker, and in recovering my horse.’
‘Have there been any fresh developments?’ asked Holmes.
‘I am sorry to say that we have made very little progress,’ said the Inspector. ‘We have an open carriage outside, and as you would no doubt like to see the place before the light fails, we might talk it over as we drive.’
A minute later we were all seated in a comfortable landau and were rattling through the quaint old Devonshire town. Inspector Gregory was full of his case, and poured out a stream of remarks, while Holmes threw in an occasional question or interjection. Colonel Ross leaned back with his arms folded and his hat tilted over his eyes, while I listened with interest to the dialogue of the two detectives. Gregory was formulating his theory, which was almost exactly what Holmes had foretold in the train.
‘The net is drawn pretty close round Fitzroy Simpson.’ he remarked, ‘and I believe myself that he is our man. At the same time, I recognize that the evidence is purely circumstantial, and that some new development may upset it.’
‘How about Straker’s knife?’
‘We have quite come to the conclusion that he wounded himself in his fall.’
‘My friend Dr Watson made that suggestion to me as we came down. If so, it would tell against this man Simpson.’
‘Undoubtedly. He has neither a knife nor any sign of a wound. The evidence against him is certainly very strong. He had a great interest in the disappearance of the favorite, he lies under the suspicion of having poisoned the stable-boy, he was undoubtedly out in the storm, he was armed with a heavy stick, and his cravat was found in the dead man’s hand. I really think we have enough to go before a jury.’
Holmes shook his head. ‘A clever counsel would tear it all to rags,’ said he. ‘Why should he take the horse out of the stable? If he wished to injure it, why could he not do it there? Has a duplicate key been found in his possession? What chemist sold him the powdered opium? Above all, where could he, a stranger to the district, hide a horse, and such a horse as this? What is his own explanation as to the paper which he wished the maid to give to the stable-boy?’
‘He says that it was a ten-pound note. One was found in his purse. But your other difficulties are not as formidable as they seem. He is not a stranger to the district. He has twice lodged at Tavistock in the summer. The opium was probably brought from London. The key, having served its purpose, would be hurled away. The horse may lie at the bottom of one of the pits or old mines upon the moor.’
‘What does he say about the cravat?’
‘He acknowledges that it is his, and declares that he had lost it. But a new element has been introduced into the case which may account for his leading the horse from the stable.’
Holmes pricked up his ears.
‘We have found traces which show that a party of gypsies encamped on Monday night within a mile of the spot where the murder took place. On Tuesday they were gone. Now, presuming that there was some understanding between Simpson and these gypsies, might he not have been leading the horse to them when he was overtaken, and may they not have him now?’
‘It is certainly possible.’
‘The moor is being scoured for these gypsies. I have also examined every stable and outhouse in Tavistock, and for a radius of ten miles.’
‘There is another training stable quite close, I understand?’
‘Yes, and that is a factor which we must certainly not neglect. As Desborough, their horse was second in the betting, they had an interest in the disappearance of the favorite. Silas Brown, the trainer, is known to have had large bets upon the event, and he was no friend to poor Straker. We have, however, examined the stables, and there is nothing to connect him with the affair.’
‘And nothing to connect this man Simpson with the interests of the Capleton stables?’
‘Nothing at all.’
Holmes leaned back in the carriage and the conversation ceased. A few minutes later our driver pulled up at a neat little red-brick villa with overhanging eaves, which stood by the road. Some distance off, across a paddock, lay a long grey-tiled out-building. In every other direction the low curves of the moor, bronze-colored from the fading ferns, stretched away to the sky-line, broken only by the steeples of Tavistock, and by a cluster of houses away to the westward, which marked the Capleton stables. We all sprang out, with the exception of Holmes, who continued to lean back with his eyes fixed upon the sky in front of him, entirely absorbed in his own thoughts. It was only when I touched his arm that he roused himself with a violent start and stepped out of the carriage.
‘Excuse me,’ said he, turning to Colonel Ross, who had looked at him in some surprise. ‘I was day- dreaming.’ There was a gleam in his eyes and a suppressed excitement in his manner which convinced me, used as I was to his ways that his hand was upon a clue, though I could not imagine where he had found it.
‘Perhaps you would prefer at once to go on to the scene of the crime, Mr Holmes?’ said Gregory.
‘I think that I should prefer to stay here a little and go into one or two questions of detail. Straker was brought back here, I presume?’
‘Yes, he lies upstairs. The inquest is to-morrow.’
‘He has been in your service some years, Colonel Ross?’
‘I have always found him an excellent servant.’
‘I presume that you made an inventory of what he had in his pockets at the time of his death, Inspector?’
‘I have the things themselves in the sitting-room if you would care to see them.’
‘I should be very glad.’
We all filed into the front room and sat round the central table, while the Inspector unlocked a square tin box and laid a small heap of things before us. There was a box of vestas, two inches of tallow candle, an A.D.P. briar-root pipe, a pouch of sealskin with half an ounce of long-cut Cavendish, a silver watch with a gold chain, five sovereigns in gold, an aluminum pencil-case, a few papers, and an ivory-handled knife with a very delicate inflexible blade marked ‘Weiss and Co., London.’
‘This is a very singular knife,’ said Holmes, lifting it up and examining it minutely. ‘I presume, as I see bloodstains upon it, that it is the one which was found in the dead man’s grasp. Watson, this knife is surely in your line.’
‘It is what we call a cataract knife, said I.
‘I thought so. A very delicate blade devised for very delicate work. A strange thing for a man to carry with him upon a rough expedition, especially as it would not shut in his pocket.’
‘The tip was guarded by a disc of cork which we found beside his body,’ said the Inspector. ‘His wife tells us that the knife had lain for some days upon the dressing-table, and that he had picked it up as he left the room. It was a poor weapon, but perhaps the best that he could lay his hand on at the moment.’
‘Very possibly. How about these papers?’
‘Three of them are receipted hay-dealers’ accounts. One of them is a letter of instructions from Colonel Ross. This other is a milliner’s account for thirty-seven pounds fifteen, made out by Madame Lesurier, of Bond Street, to William Darbyshire. Mrs Straker tells us that Darbyshire was a friend of her husband’s, and that occasionally his letters were addressed here.’
‘Madame Darbyshire had somewhat expensive tastes,’ remarked Holmes, glancing down the account. ‘Twenty-two guineas are rather heavy for a single costume. However, there appears to be nothing more to learn, and we may now go down to the scene of the crime.’
As we emerged from the sitting-room a woman who had been waiting in the passage took a step forward and laid her hand upon the Inspector’s sleeve. Her face was haggard, and thin, and eager; stamped with the print of a recent horror.
‘Have you got them? Have you found them?’ she panted.
‘No, Mrs Straker; but Mr Holmes, here, has come from London to help us, and we shall do all that is possible.’
‘Surely I met you in Plymouth, at a garden party, some little time ago, Mrs Straker,’ said Holmes.
‘No, sir; you are mistaken.’
‘Dear me; why, I could have sworn to it. You wore a costume of dove-colored silk with ostrich feather trimming.’
‘I never had such a dress, sir,’ answered the lady.
‘Ah; that quite settles it,’ said Holmes; and, with an apology, he followed the Inspector outside. A short walk across the moor took us to the hollow in which the body had been found. At the brink of it was the furze bush upon which the coat had been hung.
‘There was no wind that night, I understand,’ said Holmes.
‘None; but very heavy rain.’
‘In that case the overcoat was not blown against the furze bushes, but placed there.’
‘Yes, it was laid across the bush.’
‘You fill me with interest. I perceive that the ground has been trampled up a good deal. No doubt many feet have been there since Monday night.’
‘A piece of matting has been laid here at the side, and we have all stood upon that.’
‘Excellent.’
‘In this bag I have one of the boots which Straker wore, one of Fitzroy Simpson’s shoes, and a cast horseshoe of Silver Blaze.’
‘My dear Inspector, you surpass yourself!’
Holmes took the bag, and descending into the hollow he pushed the matting into a more central position. Then stretching himself upon his face and leaning his chin upon his hands he made a careful study of the trampled mud in front of him.
‘Hullo!’ said he, suddenly, ‘what’s this?’
It was a wax vesta, half burned, which was so coated with mud that it looked at first like a little chip of wood.
‘I cannot think how I came to overlook it,’ said the Inspector, with an expression of annoyance.
‘It was invisible, buried in the mud. I only saw it because I was looking for it.’
‘What! You expected to find it?’
‘I thought it not unlikely.’ He took the boots from the bag and compared the impressions of each of them with marks upon the ground. Then he clambered up to the rim of the hollow and crawled about among the ferns and bushes.
‘I am afraid that there are no more tracks,’ said the Inspector, ‘I have examined the ground very carefully for a hundred yards in each direction.’
‘Indeed!’ said Holmes, rising, ‘I should not have the impertinence to do it again after what you say. But I should like to take a little walk over the moors before it grows dark, that I may know my ground to- morrow, and I think that I shall put this horseshoe into my pocket for luck.’
Colonel Ross, who had shown some signs of impatience at my companion’s quiet and systematic method of work, glanced at his watch.
‘I wish you would come back with me, Inspector,’ said he. ‘There are several points on which I should like your advice, and especially as to whether we do not owe it to the public to remove our horse’s name from the entries for the Cup.’
‘Certainly not,’ cried Holmes, with decision; ‘I should let the name stand.’
The Colonel bowed. ‘I am very glad to have had your opinion, sir,’ said he. ‘You will find us at poor Straker’s house when you have finished your walk, and we can drive together into Tavistock.’
He turned back with the Inspector, while Holmes and I walked slowly across the moor. The sun was beginning to sink behind the stables of Capleton, and the long sloping plain in front of us was tinged with gold, deepening into rich, ruddy brown where the faded ferns and brambles caught the evening light. But the glories of the landscape were all wasted upon my companion, who was sunk in the deepest thought.
‘It’s this way, Watson,’ he said at last. ‘We may leave the question of who killed John Straker for the instant, and confine ourselves to finding out what has become of the horse. Now supposing that he broke away during or after the tragedy, where could he have gone to? The horse is a very gregarious creature. If left to himself his instincts would have been either to return to King’s Pyland, or go over to Capleton. Why should he run wild upon the moor? He would surely have been seen by now. And why should gypsies kidnap him? These people always clear out when they hear of trouble, for they do not wish to be pestered by the police. They could not hope to sell such a horse. They would run a great risk and gain nothing by taking him. Surely that is clear.’
‘Where is he, then?’
‘I have already said that he must have gone to King’s Pyland or to Capleton. He is not at King’s Pyland, therefore he is at Capleton. Let us take that as a working hypothesis and see what it leads us to. This part of the moor, as the Inspector remarked, is very hard and dry. But it falls away towards Capleton, and you can see from here that there is a long hollow over yonder, which must have been very wet on Monday night. If our supposition is correct, then the horse must have crossed that, and there is the point where we should look for his tracks.’
We had been walking briskly during this conversation, and a few more minutes brought us to the hollow in question. At Holmes’s request I walked down the bank to the right, and he to the left, but I had not taken fifty paces before I heard him give a shout, and saw him waving his hand to me. The track of a horse was plainly outlined in the soft earth in front of him, and the shoe which he took from his pocket exactly fitted the impression.
‘See the value of imagination,’ said Holmes. ‘It is the one quality which Gregory lacks. We imagined what might have happened, acted upon the supposition, and find ourselves justified. Let us proceed.’
We crossed the marshy bottom and passed over a quarter of a mile of dry, hard turf. Again the ground sloped and again we came on the tracks. Then we lost them for half a mile, but only to pick them up once more quite close to Capleton. It was Holmes who saw them first, and he stood pointing with a look of triumph upon his face. A man’s track was visible beside the horse’s.
‘The horse was alone before,’ I cried.
‘Quite so. It was alone before. Hullo! What is this?’
The double track turned sharp off and took the direction of King’s Pyland. Holmes whistled, and we both followed along after it. His eyes were on the trail, but I happened to look a little to one side, and saw to my surprise the same tracks coming back again in the opposite direction.
‘One for you, Watson,’ said Holmes, when I pointed it out; ‘you have saved us a long walk which would have brought us back on our own traces. Let us follow the return track.’
We had not to go far. It ended at the paving of asphalt which led up to the gates of the Capleton stables. As we approached a groom ran out from them.
‘We don’t want any loiterers about here,’ said he.
‘I only wish to ask a question,’ said Holmes, with his finger and thumb in his waistcoat pocket. ‘Should I be too early to see your master, Mr Silas Brown, if I were to call at five o’clock to-morrow morning?’
‘Bless you, sir; if anyone is about he will be, for he is always the first stirring. But here he is, sir, to answer your questions for him. No, sir, no; it’s as much as my place is worth to let him see me touch your money. Afterwards, if you like.’
As Sherlock Holmes replaced the half-crown which he had drawn from his pocket, a fierce-looking, elderly man strode out from the gate with a hunting-crop swinging in his hand.
‘What’s this, Dawson?’ he cried. ‘No gossiping! Go about your business! And you—what the devil do you want here?’
‘Ten minutes’ talk with you, my good sir,’ said Holmes, in the sweetest of voices.
‘I’ve no time to talk to every gadabout. We want no strangers here. Be off, or you may find a dog at your heels.’
Holmes leaned forward and whispered something in the trainer’s ear. He started violently and flushed to the temples.
‘It’s a lie!’ he shouted. ‘An infernal lie!’
‘Very good! Shall we argue about it here in public, or talk it over in your parlor?’
‘Oh, come in if you wish to.’
Holmes smiled. ‘I shall not keep you more than a few minutes, Watson,’ he said. ‘Now, Mr Brown, I am quite at your disposal.’
It was quite twenty minutes, and the reds had all faded into grays before Holmes and the trainer reappeared. Never have I seen such a change as had been brought about in Silas Brown in that short time. His face was ashy pale, beads of perspiration shone upon his brow, and his hands shook until the hunting-crop wagged like a branch in the wind. His bullying, overbearing manner was all gone too, and he cringed along at my companion’s side like a dog with its master.
‘Your instructions will be done. It shall be done,’ said he.
‘There must be no mistake,’ said Holmes, looking round at him. The other winced as he read the menace in his eyes.
‘Oh, no, there shall be no mistake. It shall be there. Should I change it first or not?’
Holmes thought a little and then burst out laughing. ‘No, don’t,’ said he. ‘I shall write to you about it. No tricks now or—’
‘Oh, you can trust me, you can trust me!’
‘You must see to it on the day as if it were your own.’
‘You can rely upon me.’
‘Yes, I think I can. Well, you shall hear from me tomorrow.’ He turned upon his heel, disregarding the trembling hand which the other held out to him, and we set off for King’s Pyland.
‘A more perfect compound of the bully, coward, and sneak than Master Silas Brown I have seldom met with,’ remarked Holmes, as we trudged along together.
‘He has the horse, then?’
‘He tried to bluster out of it, but I described to him so exactly what his actions had been upon that morning, that he is convinced that I was watching him. Of course, you observed the peculiarly square toes in the impressions, and that his own boots exactly corresponded to them. Again, of course, no subordinate would have dared to have done such a thing. I described to him how when, according to his custom, he was the first down, he perceived a strange horse wandering over the moor; how he went out to it, and his astonishment at recognizing from the white forehead which has given the favorite its name that chance had put in his power the only horse which could beat the one upon which he had put his money. Then I described how his first impulse had been to lead it back to King’s Pyland, and how the devil had shown him how he could hide the horse until the race was over, and how he had led it back and concealed it at Capleton. When I told him every detail he gave it up, and thought only of saving his own skin.’
‘But his stables had been searched.’
‘Oh, an old horse-faker like him has many a dodge.’
‘But are you not afraid to leave the horse in his power now, since he has every interest in injuring it?’
‘My dear fellow, he will guard it as the apple of his eye. He knows that his only hope of mercy is to produce it safe.’
‘Colonel Ross did not impress me as a man who would be likely to show much mercy in any case.’
‘The matter does not rest with Colonel Ross. I follow my own methods, and tell as much or as little as I choose. That is the advantage of being unofficial. I don’t know whether you observed it, Watson, but the Colonel’s manner has been just a trifle cavalier to me. I am inclined now to have a little amusement at his expense. Say nothing to him about the horse.’
‘Certainly not, without your permission.’
‘And, of course, this is all quite a minor case compared with the question of who killed John Straker.’
‘And you will devote yourself to that?’
‘On the contrary, we both go back to London by the night train.’
I was thunderstruck by my friend’s words. We had only been a few hours in Devonshire, and that he should give up an investigation which he had begun so brilliantly was quite incomprehensible to me.
Not a word more could I draw from him until we were back at the trainer’s house. The Colonel and the Inspector were awaiting us in the parlor.
‘My friend and I return to town by the midnight express,’ said Holmes. ‘We have had a charming little breath of your beautiful Dartmoor air.’
The Inspector opened his eyes, and the Colonel’s lips curled in a sneer.
‘So you despair of arresting the murderer of poor Straker,’ said he.
Holmes shrugged his shoulders. ‘There are certainly grave difficulties in the way,’ said he. ‘I have every hope, however that your horse will start upon Tuesday and I beg that you will have your jockey in readiness. Might I ask for a photograph of Mr John Straker?’
The Inspector took one from an envelope in his pocket and handed it to him.
‘My dear Gregory, you anticipate all my wants. If I might ask you to wait here for an instant, I have a question which I should like to put to the maid.’
‘I must say that I am rather disappointed in our London consultant,’ said Colonel Ross, bluntly, as my friend left the room. ‘I do not see that we are any further than when he came.’
‘At least, you have his assurance that your horse will run,’ said I.
‘Yes, I have his assurance,’ said the Colonel, with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘I should prefer to have the horse.’
I was about to make some reply in defense of my friend, when he entered the room again.
‘Now, gentlemen,’ said he, ‘I am quite ready for Tavistock.’
As we stepped into the carriage one of the stable lads held the door open for us. A sudden idea seemed to occur to Holmes, for he leaned forward and touched the lad upon the sleeve.
‘You have a few sheep in the paddock,’ he said. ‘Who attends to them?’
‘I do, sir.’
‘Have you noticed anything amiss with them of late?’
‘Well, sir, not of much account; but three of them have gone lame, sir.’
I could see that Holmes was extremely pleased, for he chuckled and rubbed his hands together.
‘A long shot, Watson; a very long shot!’ said he, pinching my arm. ‘Gregory, let me recommend to your attention this singular epidemic among the sheep. Drive on, coachman!’
Colonel Ross still wore an expression which showed the poor opinion which he had formed of my companion’s ability, but I saw by the Inspector’s face that his attention had been keenly aroused.
‘You consider that to be important?’ he asked.
‘Exceedingly so.’
‘Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?’
‘To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.’
‘The dog did nothing in the night-time.’
‘That was the curious incident,’ remarked Sherlock Holmes.
Four days later Holmes and I were again in the train bound for Winchester, to see the race for the Wessex Cup. Colonel Ross met us, by appointment, outside the station, and we drove in his drag to the course beyond the town. His face was grave and his manner was cold in the extreme.
‘I have seen nothing of my horse,’ said he.
‘I suppose that you would know him when you saw him?’ asked Holmes.
The Colonel was very angry. ‘I have been on the turf for twenty years, and never was asked such a question as that before,’ said he. ‘A child would know Silver Blaze with his white forehead and his mottled off fore-leg.’
‘How is the betting?’
‘Well, that is the curious part of it. You could have got fifteen to one yesterday, but the price has become shorter and shorter, until you can hardly get three to one now.’
‘Hum!’ said Holmes. ‘Somebody knows something that is clear!’
As the drag drew up in the enclosure near the grandstand, I glanced at the card to see the entries. It ran:
Wessex Plate. 50 sovs. each, h ft, with 1,000 sovs. added, for four-and five-year olds. Second £300. Third £200. New course (one mile and five furlongs).
1. Mr Heath Newton’s The Negro (red cap, cinnamon jacket).
2. Colonel Wardlaw’s Pugilist (pink cap, blue and black jacket).
3. Lord Backwater’s Desborough (yellow cap and sleeves).
4. Colonel Ross’s Silver Blaze (black cap, red jacket).
5. Duke of Balmoral’s Iris (yellow and black stripes).
6. Lord Singleford’s Rasper (purple cap, black sleeves).
‘We scratched our other one and put all hopes on your word,’ said the Colonel. ‘Why, what is that? Silver Blaze favorite?’
‘Five to four against Silver Blaze!’ roared the ring. ‘Five to four against Silver Blaze! Fifteen to five against Des-borough! Five to four on the field!’
‘There are the numbers up,’ I cried. ‘They are all six there.’
‘All six there! Then my horse is running,’ cried the Colonel in great agitation. ‘But I don’t see him. My colors have not passed.’
‘Only five have passed. This must be he.’
As I spoke a powerful bay horse swept out from the weighing enclosure and cantered past us, bearing on its back the well-known black and red of the Colonel.
‘That’s not my horse,’ cried the owner. ‘That beast has not a white hair upon its body. What is this that you have done, Mr Holmes?’
‘Well, well, let us see how he gets on,’ said my friend, imperturbably. For a few minutes he gazed through my field-glass. ‘Capital! An excellent start!’ he cried suddenly. ‘There they are, coming round the curve!’
From our drag we had a superb view as they came up the straight. The six horses were so close together that a carpet could have covered them, but half way up the yellow of the Capleton stable showed to the front. Before they reached us, however, Desborough’s bolt was shot, and the Colonel’s horse, coming away with a rush, passed the post a good six lengths before its rival, the Duke of Balmoral’s Iris making a bad third.
‘It’s my race anyhow,’ gasped the Colonel, passing his hand over his eyes. ‘I confess that I can make neither head nor tail of it. Don’t you think that you have kept up your mystery long enough, Mr Holmes?’
‘Certainly, Colonel. You shall know everything. Let us all go round and have a look at the horse together. Here he is,’ he continued, as we made our way into the weighing enclosure where only owners and their friends find admittance. ‘You have only to wash his face and his leg in spirits of wine and you will find that he is the same old Silver Blaze as ever.’
‘You take my breath away!’
‘I found him in the hands of a faker, and took the liberty of running him just as he was sent over.’
‘My dear sir, you have done wonders. The horse looks very fit and well. It never went better in its life. I owe you a thousand apologies for having doubted your ability. You have done me a great service by recovering my horse. You would do me a greater still if you could lay your hands on the murderer of John Straker.’
‘I have done so,’ said Holmes, quietly.
The Colonel and I stared at him in amazement. ‘You have got him! Where is he, then?’
‘He is here.’
‘Here! Where?’
‘In my company at the present moment.’
The Colonel flushed angrily. ‘I quite recognize that I am under obligations to you, Mr Holmes,’ said he, ‘but I must regard what you have just said as either a very bad joke or an insult.’
Sherlock Holmes laughed. ‘I assure you that I have not associated you with the crime, Colonel,’ said he; ‘the real murderer is standing immediately behind you!’
He stepped past and laid his hand upon the glossy neck of the thoroughbred.
‘The horse!’ cried both the Colonel and me.
‘Yes, the horse. And it may lessen his guilt if I say that it was done in self-defense, and that John Straker was a man who was entirely unworthy of your confidence. But there goes the bell; and as I stand to win a little on this next race, I shall defer a more lengthy explanation until a more fitting time.’
We had the corner of a Pullman car to ourselves that evening as we whirled back to London, and I fancy that the journey was a short one to Colonel Ross as well as to me, as we listened to our companion’s narrative of the events which had occurred at the Dartmoor training stables upon that Monday night, and the means by which he had unraveled them.
‘I confess,’ said he, ‘that any theories which I had formed from the newspaper reports were entirely erroneous. And yet there were indications there, had they not been overlaid by other details which concealed their true import. I went to Devonshire with the conviction that Fitzroy Simpson was the true culprit, although, of course, I saw that the evidence against him was by no means complete.
‘It was while I was in the carriage, just as we reached the trainer’s house that the immense significance of the curried mutton occurred to me. You may remember that I was distrait, and remained sitting after you had all alighted. I was marveling in my own mind how I could possibly have overlooked so obvious a clue.’
‘I confess,’ said the Colonel, ‘that even now I cannot see how it helps us.’
‘It was the first link in my chain of reasoning. Powdered opium is by no means tasteless. The flavor is not disagreeable, but it is perceptible. Were it mixed with any ordinary dish, the eater would undoubtedly detect it, and would probably eat no more. A curry was exactly the medium which would disguise this taste. By no possible supposition could this stranger, Fitzroy Simpson, have caused curry to be served in the trainer’s family that night, and it is surely too monstrous a coincidence to suppose that he happened to come along with powdered opium upon the very night when a dish happened to be served which would disguise the flavor. That is unthinkable. Therefore Simpson becomes eliminated from the case, and our attention centers upon Straker and his wife, the only two people who could have chosen curried mutton for supper that night. The opium was added after the dish was set aside for the stable boy, for the others had the same for supper with no ill effects. Which of them, then, had access to that dish without the maid seeing them?
‘Before deciding that question I had grasped the significance of the silence of the dog, for one true inference invariably suggests others. The Simpson incident had shown me that a dog was kept in the stables, and yet, though someone had been in and had fetched out a horse, he had not barked enough to arouse the two lads in the loft. Obviously the midnight visitor was someone whom the dog knew well.
‘I was already convinced, or almost convinced, that John Straker went down to the stables in the dead of the night and took out Silver Blaze. For what purpose? For a dishonest one, obviously, or why should he drug his own stable-boy? And yet I was at a loss to know why. There have been cases before now where trainers have made sure of great sums of money by laying against their own horses, through agents, and then prevented them from winning by fraud. Sometimes it is a pulling jockey. Sometimes it is some surer and subtler means. What was it here? I hoped that the contents of his pockets might help me to form a conclusion.
‘And they did so. You cannot have forgotten the singular knife which was found in the dead man’s hand, a knife which certainly no sane man would choose for a weapon. It was, as Dr Watson told us, a form of knife which is used for the most delicate operations known in surgery. And it was to be used for a delicate operation that night. You must know, with your wide experience of turf matters, Colonel Ross, that it is possible to make a slight nick upon the tendons of a horse’s ham, and to do it subcutaneously so as to leave absolutely no trace. A horse so treated would develop a slight lameness which would be put down to a strain in exercise or a touch of rheumatism, but never to foul play.’
‘Villain! Scoundrel!’ cried the Colonel.
‘We have here the explanation of why John Straker wished to take the horse out on to the moor. So spirited a creature would have certainly roused the soundest of sleepers when it felt the prick of the knife. It was absolutely necessary to do it in the open air.’
‘I have been blind!’ cried the Colonel. ‘Of course, that was why he needed the candle, and struck the match.’
‘Undoubtedly. But in examining his belongings, I was fortunate enough to discover, not only the method of the crime, but even its motives. As a man of the world, Colonel, you know that men do not carry other people’s bills about in their pockets. We have most of us quite enough to do to settle our own. I at once concluded that Straker was leading a double life, and keeping a second establishment. The nature of the bill showed that there was a lady in the case, and one who had expensive tastes. Liberal as you are with your servants, one hardly expects that they can buy twenty-guinea walking dresses for their women. I questioned Mrs Straker as to the dress without her knowing it, and having satisfied myself that it had never reached her, I made a note of the milliner’s address, and felt that by calling there with Straker’s photograph, I could easily dispose of the mythical Darbyshire.
‘From that time on all was plain. Straker had led out the horse to a hollow where his light would be invisible. Simpson, in his flight, had dropped his cravat, and Straker had picked it up with some idea, perhaps, that he might use it in securing the horse’s leg. Once in the hollow he had got behind the horse, and had struck a light, but the creature, frightened at the sudden glare, and with the strange instinct of animals feeling that some mischief was intended, had lashed out, and the steel shoe had struck Straker full on the forehead. He had already, in spite of the rain, taken off his overcoat in order to do his delicate task, and so, as he fell, his knife gashed his thigh. Do I make it clear?’
‘Wonderful!’ cried the Colonel. ‘Wonderful! You might have been there.’
‘My final shot was, I confess, a very long one. It struck me that so astute a man as Straker would not undertake this delicate tendon-nicking without a little practice. What could he practice on? My eyes fell upon the sheep, and I asked a question which, rather to my surprise, showed that my surmise was correct.’
‘You have made it perfectly clear, Mr Holmes.’
‘When I returned to London I called upon the milliner, who at once recognized Straker as an excellent customer, of the name of Darbyshire, who had a very dashing wife with a strong partiality for expensive dresses. I have no doubt that this woman had plunged him over head and ears in debt, and so led him into this miserable plot.’
‘You have explained all but one thing,’ cried the Colonel. ‘Where was the horse?’
‘Ah, it bolted, and was cared for by one of your neighbors. We must have an amnesty in that direction, I think. This is Clapham Junction, if I am not mistaken, and we shall be in Victoria in less than ten minutes. If you care to smoke a cigar in our rooms, Colonel, I shall be happy to give you any other details which might interest you.’

The Cardboard Box

In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable mental qualities of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavored, as far as possible, to select those which presented the minimum of sensationalism, while offering a fair field for his talents. It is, however, unfortunately, impossible to entirely separate the sensational from the criminal, and a chronicler is left in the dilemma that he must either sacrifice details which are essential to his statement, and so give a false impression of the problem, or he must use matter which chance, and not choice, has provided him with. With this short preface I shall turn to my notes of what proved to be a strange, though a peculiarly terrible, chain of events.
It was a blazing hot day in August. Baker Street was like an oven, and the glare of the sunlight upon the yellow brickwork of the houses across the road was painful to the eye. It was hard to believe that these were the same walls which loomed so gloomily through the fogs of winter. Our blinds were half- drawn, and Holmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading and re-reading a letter which he had received by the morning post. For myself, my term of service in India had trained me to stand heat better than cold, and a thermometer at 90 was no hardship. But the morning paper was uninteresting. Parliament had risen. Everybody was out of town, and I yearned for the glades of the New Forest or the shingle of Southsea. A depleted bank account had caused me to postpone my holiday, and as to my companion, neither the country nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to him. He loved to lie in the very centre of five millions of people, with his filaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to every little rumor or suspicion of unsolved crime. Appreciation of Nature found no place among his many gifts, and his only change was when he turned his mind from the evil-doer of the town to track down his brother of the country.
Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation I had tossed aside the barren paper and, leaning back in my chair, I fell into a brown study. Suddenly my companion’s voice broke in upon my thoughts.
‘You are right, Watson,’ said he. ‘It does seem a most preposterous way of settling a dispute.’
‘Most preposterous!’ I exclaimed, and then suddenly realizing how he had echoed the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in my chair and stared at him in blank amazement.
‘What is this, Holmes?’ I cried. ‘This is beyond anything which I could have imagined.’
He laughed heartily at my perplexity.
‘You remember,’ said he, ‘that some little time ago when I read you the passage in one of Poe’s sketches in which a close reasoner follows the unspoken thoughts of his companion, you were inclined to treat the matter as a mere tour-de-force of the author. On my remarking that I was constantly in the habit of doing the same thing you expressed incredulity.’
‘Oh, no!’
‘Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainly with your eyebrows. So when I saw you throw down your paper and enter upon a train of thought, I was very happy to have the opportunity of reading it off, and eventually of breaking into it, as a proof that I had been in rapport with you.’
But I was still far from satisfied. ‘In the example which you read to me,’ said I, ‘the reasoner drew his conclusions from the actions of the man whom he observed. If I remember right, he stumbled over a heap of stones, looked up at the stars, and so on. But I have been seated quietly in my chair, and what clues can I have given you?’
‘You do yourself an injustice. The features are given to man as the means by which he shall express his emotions, and yours are faithful servants.’
‘Do you mean to say that you read my train of thoughts from my features?’
‘Your features and especially your eyes. Perhaps you cannot yourself recall how your reverie commenced?’
‘No, I cannot.’
‘Then I will tell you. After throwing down your paper, which was the action which drew my attention to you, you sat for half a minute with a vacant expression. Then your eyes fixed themselves upon your newly-framed picture of General Gordon, and I saw by the alteration in your face that a train of thought had been started. But it did not lead very far. Your eyes flashed across to the unframed portrait of Henry Ward Beecher which stands upon the top of your books. You then glanced up at the wall, and of course your meaning was obvious. You were thinking that if the portrait were framed, it would just cover that bare space and correspond with Gordon’s picture over there.’
‘You have followed me wonderfully!’ I exclaimed.
‘So far I could hardly have gone astray. But now your thoughts went back to Beecher, and you looked hard across as if you were studying the character in his features. Then your eyes ceased to pucker, but you continued to look across, and your face was thoughtful. You were recalling the incidents of Beecher’s career. I was well aware that you could not do this without thinking of the mission which he undertook on behalf of the North at the time of the Civil War, for I remember your expressing your passionate indignation at the way in which he was received by the more turbulent of our people. You felt so strongly about it, that I knew you could not think of Beecher without thinking of that also. When a moment later I saw your eyes wander away from the picture, I suspected that your mind had now turned to the Civil War, and when I observed that your lips set, your eyes sparkled, and your hands clenched, I was positive that you were indeed thinking of the gallantry which was shown by both sides in that desperate struggle. But then, again, your face grew sadder; your shook your head. You were dwelling upon the sadness and horror and useless waste of life. Your hand stole towards your own old wound and a smile quivered on your lips, which showed me that the ridiculous side of this method of settling international questions had forced itself upon your mind. At this point I agreed with you that it was preposterous, and was glad to find that all my deductions had been correct.’
‘Absolutely!’ said I. ‘And now that you have explained it, I confess that I am as amazed as before.’
‘It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you. I should not have intruded it upon your attention had you not shown some incredulity the other day. But I have in my hands here a little problem which may prove to be more difficult of solution than my small essay in thought reading. Have you observed in the paper a short paragraph referring to the remarkable contents of a packet sent through the post to Miss Susan Cushing, of Cross Street, Croydon?’
‘No, I saw nothing.’
‘Ah! Then you must have overlooked it. Just toss it over to me. Here it is, under the financial column. Perhaps you would be good enough to read it aloud.’
I picked up the paper which he had thrown back to me, and read the paragraph indicated. It was headed, ‘A Gruesome Packet.’
‘Miss Susan Cushing, living at Cross Street, Croydon, has been made the victim of what must be regarded as a peculiarly revolting practical joke, unless some more sinister meaning should prove to be attached to the incident. At two o’clock yesterday afternoon a small packet, wrapped in brown paper, was handed in by the postman. A cardboard box was inside, which was filled with coarse salt. On emptying this, Miss Cushing was horrified to find two human ears, apparently quite freshly severed. The box had been sent by parcel post from Belfast upon the morning before. There is no indication as to the sender, and the matter is the more mysterious as Miss Cushing, who is a maiden lady of fifty, has led a most retired life, and has so few acquaintances or correspondents that it is a rare event for her to receive anything through the post. Some years ago, however, when she resided at Penge, she let apartments in her house to three young medical students, whom she was obliged to get rid of on account of their noisy and irregular habits. The police are of opinion that this outrage may have been perpetrated upon Miss Cushing by these youths, who owed her a grudge, and who hoped to frighten her by sending her these relics of the dissecting-rooms. Some probability is lent to the theory by the fact that one of these students came from the north of Ireland, and, to the best of Miss Cushing’s belief, from Belfast. In the meantime, the matter is being actively investigated, Mr Lestrade, one of the very smartest of our detective officers, being in charge of the case.’
‘So much for the Daily Chronicle,’ said Holmes, as I finished reading. ‘Now for our friend Lestrade. I had a note from him this morning, in which he says: “I think that this case is very much in your line. We have every hope of clearing the matter up, but we find a little difficulty in getting anything to work upon. We have, of course, wired to the Belfast post office, but a large number of parcels were handed in upon that day, and they have no means of identifying this particular one, or of remembering the sender. The box is a half-pound box of honeydew tobacco, and does not help us in any way. The medical student theory still appears to me to be the most feasible, but if you should have a few hours to spare, I should be very happy to see you out here. I shall be either at the house or in the police-station all day.” What say you, Watson? Can you rise superior to the heat, and run down to Croydon with me on the off chance of a case for your annals?’
‘I was longing for something to do.’
‘You shall have it, then. Ring for our boots, and tell them to order a cab. I’ll be back in a moment, when I have changed my dressing-gown and filled my cigar-case.’
A shower of rain fell while we were in the train, and the heat was far less oppressive in Croydon than in town. Holmes had sent on a wire, so that Lestrade, as wiry, as dapper, and as ferret-like as ever, was waiting for us at the station. A walk of five minutes took us to Cross Street, where Miss Cushing resided.
It was a very long street of two-story brick houses, neat and prim, with whitened stone steps and little groups of aproned women gossiping at the doors. Half-way down, Lestrade stopped and tapped at a door, which was opened by a small servant girl. Miss Cushing was sitting in the front room, into which we were ushered. She was a placid-faced woman with large, gentle eyes, and grizzled hair curving down over her temples on each side. A worked antimacassar lay upon her lap and a basket of colored. Silks stood upon a stool beside her.
‘They are in the outhouse, those dreadful things,’ said she, as Lestrade entered. ‘I wish that you would take them away altogether.’
‘So I shall, Miss Cushing. I only kept them here until my friend, Mr Holmes, should have seen them in your presence.’
‘Why in my presence, sir?’
‘In case he wished to ask any questions.’
‘What is the use of asking me questions, when I tell you that I know nothing whatever about it?’
‘Quite so, madam,’ said Holmes, in his soothing way. ‘I have no doubt that you have been annoyed more than enough already over this business.’
‘Indeed, I have, sir. I am a quiet woman and live a retired life. It is something new for me to see my name in the papers and to find the police in my house. I won’t have those things in here, Mr Lestrade. If you wish to see them you must go to the outhouse.’
It was a small shed in the narrow garden which ran down behind the house. Lestrade went in and brought out a yellow cardboard box, with a piece of brown paper and some string. There was a bench at the edge of the path, and we all sat down while Holmes examined, one by one, the articles which Lestrade had handed to him.
‘The string is exceedingly interesting,’ he remarked, holding it up to the light and sniffing at it. ‘What do you make of this string, Lestrade?’
‘It has been tarred.’
‘Precisely. It is a piece of tarred twine. You have also, no doubt, remarked that Miss Cushing has cut the cord with a scissors, as can be seen by the double fray on each side. This is of importance.’
‘I cannot see the importance,’ said Lestrade.
‘The importance lies in the fact that the knot is left intact, and that this knot is of a peculiar character.’
‘It is very neatly tied. I had already made a note to that effect,’ said Lestrade, complacently.
‘So much for the string then,’ said Holmes, smiling; ‘now for the box wrapper. Brown paper, with a distinct smell of coffee. What, you did not observe it? I think there can be no doubt of it. Address printed in rather straggling characters: “Miss S. Cushing, Cross Street, Croydon.” Done with a broad pointed pen, probably a J, and with very inferior ink. The word Croydon has been spelt originally with an i, which has been changed to y. The parcel was directed, then, by a man—the printing is distinctly masculine—of limited education and unacquainted with the town of Croydon. So far, so good! The box is a yellow, half-pound honeydew box, with nothing distinctive save two thumb marks at the left bottom corner. It is filled with rough salt of the quality used for preserving hides and other of the coarser commercial purposes. And embedded in it are these very singular enclosures.’
He took out the two ears as he spoke, and laying a board across his knees, he examined them minutely, while Lestrade and I, bending forward on each side of him, glanced alternately at these dreadful relics and at the thoughtful, eager face of our companion. Finally he returned them to the box once more, and sat for a while in deep thought.
‘You have observed, of course,’ said he at last, ‘that the ears are not a pair.’
‘Yes, I have noticed that. But if this were the practical joke of some students from the dissecting-rooms, it would be as easy for them to send two odd ears as a pair.’
‘Precisely. But this is not a practical joke.’
‘You are sure of it?’
‘The presumption is strongly against it. Bodies in the dissecting-rooms are injected with preservative fluid. These ears bear no signs of this. They are fresh, too. They have been cut off with a blunt instrument, which would hardly happen if a student had done it. Again, carbolic or rectified spirits would be the preservatives which would suggest themselves to the medical mind, certainly not rough salt. I repeat that there is no practical joke here, but that we are investigating a serious crime.’
A vague thrill ran through me as I listened to my companion’s words and saw the stern gravity which had hardened his features. This brutal preliminary seemed to shadow forth some strange and inexplicable horror in the background. Lestrade, however, shook his head like a man who is only half convinced.
‘There are objections to the joke theory, no doubt,’ said he; ‘but there are much stronger reasons against the other. We know that this woman has led a most quiet and respectable life at Penge and here for the last twenty years. She has hardly been away from her home for a day during that time. Why on earth, then, should any criminal send her the proofs of his guilt, especially as, unless she is a most consummate actress, she understands quite as little of the matter as we do?’
‘That is the problem which we have to solve,’ Holmes answered, ‘and for my part I shall set about it by presuming that my reasoning is correct, and that a double murder has been committed. One of these ears is a woman’s, small, finely formed, and pierced for an earring. The other is a man’s, sunburned, discoloured, and also pierced for an earring. These two people are presumably dead, or we should have heard their story before now. To-day is Friday. The packet was posted on Thursday morning. The tragedy, then, occurred on Wednesday or Tuesday, or earlier. If the two people were murdered, who but their murderer would have sent this sign of his work to Miss Cushing? We may take it that the sender of the packet is the man whom we want. But he must have some strong reason for sending Miss Cushing this packet. What reason, then? It must have been to tell her that the deed was done; or to pain her, perhaps. But in that case she knows who it is. Does she know? I doubt it. If she knew, why should she call the police in? She might have buried the ears, and no one would have been the wiser. That is what she would have done if she had wished to shield the criminal. But if she does not wish to shield him she would give his name. There is a tangle here which needs straightening out.’ He had been talking in a high, quick voice, staring blankly up over the garden fence, but now he sprang briskly to his feet and walked towards the house.
‘I have a few questions to ask Miss Cushing,’ said he.
‘In that case I may leave you here,’ said Lestrade, ‘for I have another small business on hand. I think that I have nothing further to learn from Miss Cushing. You will find me at the police-station.’
‘We shall look in on our way to the train,’ answered Holmes. A moment later he and I were back in the front room, where the impassive lady was still quietly working away at her antimacassar. She put it down on her lap as we entered, and looked at us with her frank, searching blue eyes.
‘I am convinced, sir,’ she said, ‘that this matter is a mistake, and that the parcel was never meant for me at all. I have said this several times to the gentleman from Scotland Yard, but he simply laughs at me. I have not an enemy in the world, as far as I know, so why should anyone play me such a trick?’
‘I am coming to be of the same opinion, Miss Cushing,’ said Holmes, taking a seat beside her. ‘I think that it is more than probable——’ he paused, and I was surprised on glancing round to see that he was staring with singular intentness at the lady’s profile. Surprise and satisfaction were both for an instant to be read upon his eager face, though when she glanced round to find out the cause of his silence he had become as demure as ever. I stared hard myself at her flat, grizzled hair, her trim cap, her little gilt earrings, her placid features; but I could see nothing which could account for my companion’s evident excitement.
‘There were one or two questions——’
‘Oh, I am weary of questions!’ cried Miss Cushing, impatiently.
‘You have two sisters, I believe.’
‘How could you know that?’
‘I observed the very instant that I entered the room that you have a portrait group of three ladies upon the mantel-piece, one of whom is undoubtedly yourself, while the others are so exceedingly like you that there could be no doubt of the relationship.’
‘Yes, you are quite right. Those are my sisters, Sarah and Mary.’
‘And here at my elbow is another portrait, taken at Liverpool, of your younger sister, in the company of a man who appears to be a steward by his uniform. I observe that she was unmarried at the time.’
‘You are very quick at observing.’
‘That is my trade.’
‘Well, you are quite right. But she was married to Mr Browner a few days afterwards. He was on the South American line when that was taken, but he was so fond of her that he couldn’t abide to leave her for so long, and he got into the Liverpool and London boats.’
‘Ah, the Conqueror, perhaps?’
‘No, the May Day, when last I heard. Jim came down here to see me once. That was before he broke the pledge; but afterwards he would always take drink when he was ashore, and a little drink would send him stark, staring mad. Ah! It was a bad day that ever he took a glass in his hand again. First he dropped me, and then he quarreled with Sarah, and now that Mary has stopped writing we don’t know how things are going with them.’
It was evident that Miss Cushing had come upon a subject on which she felt very deeply. Like most people who lead a lonely life, she was shy at first, but ended by becoming extremely communicative. She told us many details about her brother-in-law the steward, and then wandering off on to the subject of her former lodgers, the medical students, she gave us a long account of their delinquencies, with their names and those of their hospitals. Holmes listened attentively to everything, throwing in a question from time to time.
‘About your second sister, Sarah,’ said he. ‘I wonder, since you are both maiden ladies, that you do not keep house together.’
‘Ah! You don’t know Sarah’s temper, or you would wonder no more. I tried it when I came to Croydon, and we kept on until about two months ago, when we had to part. I don’t want to say a word against my own sister, but she was always meddlesome and hard to please, was Sarah.’
‘You say that she quarreled with your Liverpool relations.’
‘Yes, and they were the best of friends at one time. Why, she went up there to live just in order to be near them. And now she has no word hard enough for Jim Browner. The last six months that she was here she would speak of nothing but his drinking and his ways. He had caught her meddling, I suspect, and given her a bit of his mind, and that was the start of it.’
‘Thank you, Miss Cushing,’ said Holmes, rising and bowing. ‘Your sister Sarah lives, I think you said, at New Street, Wallington? Good-bye and I am very sorry that you should have been troubled over a case with which, as you say, you have nothing whatever to do.’
There was a cab passing as we came out, and Holmes hailed it.
‘How far to Wallington?’ he asked.
‘Only about a mile, sir.’
‘Very good. Jump in, Watson. We must strike while the iron is hot. Simple as the case is, there have been one or two very instructive details in connection with it. Just pull up at a telegraph office as you pass, cabby.’
Holmes sent off a short wire and for the rest of the drive lay back in the cab with his hat tilted over his nose to keep the sun from his face. Our driver pulled up at a house which was not unlike the one which we had just quitted. My companion ordered him to wait, and had his hand upon the knocker, when the door opened and a grave young gentleman in black, with a very shiny hat, appeared on the step.
‘Is Miss Sarah Cushing at home?’ asked Holmes.
‘Miss Sarah Cushing is extremely ill,’ said he. ‘She has been suffering since yesterday from brain symptoms of great severity. As her medical adviser, I cannot possibly take the responsibility of allowing anyone to see her. I should recommend you to call again in ten days.’ He drew on his gloves, closed the door, and marched off down the street.
‘Well, if we can’t, we can’t,’ said Holmes, cheerfully.
‘Perhaps she could not, or would not have told you much.’
‘I did not wish her to tell me anything. I only wanted to look at her. However, I think that I have got all that I want. Drive us to some decent hotel, cabby, where we may have some lunch, and afterwards we shall drop down upon friend Lestrade at the police-station.’
We had a pleasant little meal together, during which Holmes would talk about nothing but violins, narrating with great exultation how he had purchased his own Stradivarius, which was worth at least five hundred guineas, at a Jew broker’s in Tottenham Court Road for fifty-five shillings. This led him to Paganini, and we sat for an hour over a bottle of claret while he told me anecdote after anecdote of that extraordinary man. The afternoon was far advanced and the hot glare had softened into a mellow glow before we found ourselves at the police-station. Lestrade was waiting for us at the door.
‘A telegram for you, Mr Holmes,’ said he.
‘Ha! It is the answer!’ He tore it open, glanced his eyes over it, and crumpled it into his pocket. ‘That’s all right,’ said he.
‘Have you found out anything?’
‘I have found out everything!’
‘What!’ Lestrade stared at him in amazement. ‘You are joking.’
‘I was never more serious in my life. A shocking crime has been committed, and I think that I have now laid bare every detail of it.’
‘And the criminal?’
Holmes scribbled a few words upon the back of one of his visiting cards and threw it over to Lestrade.
‘That is it,’ he said; ‘you cannot affect an arrest until to-morrow night at the earliest. I should prefer that you would not mention my name at all in connection with the case, as I choose to be associated only with those crimes which present some difficulty in their solution. Come on, Watson.’ We strode off together to the station, leaving Lestrade still staring with a delighted face at the card which Holmes had thrown him.
‘The case,’ said Sherlock Holmes, as we chatted over our cigars that night in our rooms at Baker Street, ‘is one where, as in the investigations which you have chronicled under the names of the ‘Study in Scarlet’ and of the ‘Sign of Four,’ we have been compelled to reason backward from effects to causes. I have written to Lestrade asking him to supply us with the details which are now wanting, and which he will only get after he has secured his man. That he may be safely trusted to do, for although he is absolutely devoid of reason, he is as tenacious as a bull-dog when he once understands what he has to do, and indeed it is just this tenacity which has brought him to the top at Scotland Yard.’
‘Your case is not complete, then?’ I asked.
‘It is fairly complete in essentials. We know who the author of the revolting business is, although one of the victims still escapes us. Of course, you have formed your own conclusions.’
‘I presume that this Jim Browner, the steward of a Liverpool boat, is the man whom you suspect?’
‘Oh! It is more than a suspicion.’
‘And yet I cannot see anything save very vague indications.’
‘On the contrary, to my mind nothing could be clearer. Let me run over the principal steps. We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind, which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations. What did we see first? A very placid and respectable lady, who seemed quite innocent of any secret, and a portrait which showed me that she had two younger sisters. It instantly flashed across my mind that the box might have been meant for one of these. I set the idea aside as one which could be disproved or confirmed at our leisure. Then we went to the garden, as you remember, and we saw the very singular contents of the little yellow box.
‘The string was of the quality which is used by sail-makers aboard ship, and at once a whiff of the sea was perceptible in our investigation. When I observed that the knot was one which is popular with sailors, that the parcel had been posted at a port, and that the male ear was pierced for an earring which is so much more common among sailors than landsmen, I was quite certain that all the actors in the tragedy were to be found among our seafaring classes.
‘When I came to examine the address of the packet I observed that it was to Miss S. Cushing. Now, the oldest sister would, of course, be Miss Cushing, and although her initial was “S.,” it might belong to one of the others as well. In that case we should have to commence our investigation from a fresh basis altogether. I therefore went into the house with the intention of clearing up this point. I was about to assure Miss Cushing that I was convinced that a mistake had been made, when you may remember that I came suddenly to a stop. The fact was that I had just seen something which filled me with surprise and at the same time narrowed the field of our inquiry immensely.
‘As a medical man, you are aware, Watson, that there is no part of the body which varies so much as the human ear. Each ear is as a rule quite distinctive, and differs from all other ones. In last year’s Anthropological Journal you will find two short monographs from my pen upon the subject. I had therefore examined the ears in the box with the eyes of an expert, and had carefully noted their anatomical peculiarities. Imagine my surprise then, when, on looking at Miss Cushing, I perceived that her ear corresponded exactly with the female ear which I had just inspected. The matter was entirely beyond coincidence. There was the same shortening of the pinna, the same broad curve of the upper lobe, the same convolution of the inner cartilage. In all essentials it was the same ear.
‘Of course, I at once saw the enormous importance of the observation. It was evident that the victim was a blood relation, and probably a very close one. I began to talk to her about her family, and you remember that she at once gave us some exceedingly valuable details.
‘In the first place, her sister’s name was Sarah, and her address had, until recently, been the same, so that it was quite obvious how the mistake had occurred, and whom the packet was meant for. Then we heard of this steward, married to the third sister, and learned that he had at one time been so intimate with Miss Sarah that she had actually gone up to Liverpool to be near the Browners, but a quarrel had afterwards divided them. This quarrel had put a stop to all communications for some months, so that if Browner had occasion to address a packet to Miss Sarah, he would undoubtedly have done so to her old address.
‘And now the matter had begun to straighten itself out wonderfully. We had learned of the existence of this steward, an impulsive man, of strong passions—you remember that he threw up what must have been a very superior berth, in order to be nearer to his wife—subject, too, to occasional fits of hard drinking. We had reason to believe that his wife had been murdered, and that a man—presumably a seafaring man—had been murdered at the same time. Jealousy, of course, at once suggests itself as the motive for the crime. And why should these proofs of the deed be sent to Miss Sarah Cushing? Probably because during her residence in Liverpool she had some hand in bringing about the events which led to the tragedy. You will observe that this line of boats calls at Belfast, Dublin, and Waterford; so that, presuming that Browner had committed the deed, and had embarked at once upon his steamer, the May Day, Belfast would be the first place at which he could post his terrible packet.
‘A second solution was at this stage obviously possible, and although I thought it exceedingly unlikely, I was determined to elucidate it before going further. An unsuccessful lover might have killed Mr and Mrs Browner, and the male ear might have belonged to the husband. There were many grave objections to this theory, but it was conceivable. I therefore sent off a telegram to my friend Algar, of the Liverpool force, and asked him to find out if Mrs Browner were at home, and if Browner had departed in the May Day. Then we went on to Wallington to visit Miss Sarah.
‘I was curious, in the first place, to see how far the family ear had been reproduced in her. Then, of course, she might give us very important information, but I was not sanguine that she would. She must have heard of the business the day before, since all Croydon was ringing with it, and she alone could have understood whom the packet was meant for. If she had been willing to help justice she would probably have communicated with the police already. However, it was clearly our duty to see her, so we went. We found that the news of the arrival of the packet—for her illness dated from that time—had such an effect upon her as to bring on brain fever. It was clearer than ever that she understood its full significance, but equally clear that we should have to wait some time for any assistance from her.
‘However, we were really independent of her help. Our answers were waiting for us at the police-station, where I had directed Algar to send them. Nothing could be more conclusive. Mrs Browner’s house had been closed for more than three days, and the neighbours were of opinion that she had gone south to see her relatives. It had been ascertained at the shipping offices that Browner had left aboard of the May Day, and I calculate that she is due in the Thames tomorrow night. When he arrives he will be met by the obtuse but resolute Lestrade, and I have no doubt that we shall have all our details filled in.’
Sherlock Holmes was not disappointed in his expectations. Two days later he received a bulky envelope, which contained a short note from the detective, and a type-written document, which covered several pages of foolscap.
‘Lestrade has got him all right,’ said Holmes, glancing up at me. ‘Perhaps it would interest you to hear what he says.’
‘My dear Mr. Holmes,—In accordance with the scheme which we had formed in order to test our theories’—‘the “we” is rather fine, Watson, is it not?’—‘I went down to the Albert Dock yesterday at 6 p.m., and boarded the ss. May Day, belonging to the Liverpool, Dublin, and London Steam Packet Company. On inquiry, I found that there was a steward on board of the name of James Browner, and that he had acted during the voyage in such an extraordinary manner that the captain had been compelled to relieve him of his duties. On descending to his berth, I found him seated upon a chest with his head sunk upon his hands, rocking himself to and fro. He is a big, powerful chap, clean-shaven, and very swarthy—something like Aldridge, who helped us in the bogus laundry affair. He jumped up when he heard my business, and I had my whistle to my lips to call a couple of river police, who were round the corner, but he seemed to have no heart in him, and he held out his hands quietly enough for the darbies. We brought him along to the cells, and his box as well, for we thought there might be something incriminating; but, bar a big sharp knife, such as most sailors have, we got nothing for our trouble. However, we find that we shall want no more evidence, for, on being brought before the inspector at the station, he asked leave to make a statement, which was, of course, taken down, just as he made it, by our shorthand man. We had three copies type-written, one of which I enclose. The affair proves, as I always thought it would, to be an extremely simple one, but I am obliged to you for assisting me in my investigation. With kind regards, yours very truly,—G. Lestrade.’
‘Hum! The investigation really was a very simple one,’ remarked Holmes; ‘but I don’t think it struck him in that light when he first called us in. However, let us see what Jim Browner has to say for himself. This is his statement, as made before Inspector Montgomery at the Shadwell Police Station, and it has the advantage of being verbatim.’
‘Have I anything to say? Yes, I have a deal to say. I have to make a clean breast of it all. You can hang me, or you can leave me alone. I don’t care a plug which you do. I tell you I’ve not shut an eye in sleep since I did it, and I don’t believe I ever will again until I get past all waking. Sometimes it’s his face, but most generally it’s hers. I’m never without one or the other before me. He looks frowning and black-like, but she has a kind o’ surprise upon her face. Aye, the white lamb, she might well be surprised when she read death on a face that had seldom looked anything but love upon her before.
‘But it was Sarah’s fault, and may the curse of a broken man put blight on her and set the blood rotting in her veins! It’s not that I want to clear myself. I know that I went back to drink, like the beast that I was. But she would have forgiven me; she would have stuck as close to me as a rope to a block if that woman had never darkened our door. For Sarah Cushing loved me—that’s the root of the business—she loved me, until all her love turned to poisonous hate when she knew that I thought more of my wife’s footmark in the mud than I did of her whole body and soul.
‘There were three sisters altogether. The old one was just a good woman, the second was a devil, and the third was an angel. Sarah was thirty-three, and Mary was twenty-nine when I married. We were just as happy as the day was long when we set up house together, and in all Liverpool there was no better woman than my Mary. And then we asked Sarah up for a week, and the week grew into a month, and one thing led to another, until she was just one of ourselves.
‘I was blue ribbon at that time, and we were putting a little money by, and all was as bright as a new dollar. My God, whoever would have thought that it could have come to this? Whoever would have dreamed it?
‘I used to be home for the week-ends very often, and sometimes if the ship were held back for cargo I would have a whole week at a time, and in this way I saw a deal of my sister-in-law, Sarah. She was a fine tall woman, black and quick and fierce, with a proud way of carrying her head, and a glint from her eye like the spark from a flint. But when little Mary was there I had never a thought for her, and that I swear as I hope for God’s mercy.
‘It had seemed to me sometimes that she liked to be alone with me, or to coax me out for a walk with her, but I had never thought anything of that. But one evening my eyes were opened. I had come up from the ship and found my wife out, but Sarah at home. “Where’s Mary?” I asked. “Oh, she has gone to pay some accounts.” I was impatient and paced up and down the room. “Can’t you be happy for five minutes without Mary, Jim?” says she. “It’s a bad compliment to me that you can’t be contented with my society for so short a time.” “That’s all right, my lass,” said I, putting out my hand towards her in a kindly way, but she had it in both hers in an instant, and they burned as if they were in a fever. I looked into her eyes and I read it all there. There was no need for her to speak or for me either. I frowned and drew my hand away. Then she stood by my side in silence for a bit, and then put up her hand and patted me on the shoulder. “Steady old Jim!” said she; and, with a kind o’ mocking laugh, she ran out of the room.
‘Well, from that time Sarah hated me with her whole heart and soul, and she is a woman who can hate, too. I was a fool to let her go on biding with us—a besotted fool—but I never said a word to Mary, for I knew it would grieve her. Things went on much as before, but after a time I began to find that there was a bit of a change in Mary herself. She had always been so trusting and so innocent, but now she became queer and suspicious, wanting to know where I had been and what I had been doing, and whom my letters were from, and what I had in my pockets, and a thousand such follies. Day by day she grew queerer and more irritable, and we had causeless rows about nothing. I was fairly puzzled by it all. Sarah avoided me now, but she and Mary were just inseparable. I can see now how she was plotting and scheming and poisoning my wife’s mind against me, but I was such a blind beetle that I could not understand it at the time. Then I broke my blue ribbon and began to drink again, but I think I should not have done it if Mary had been the same as ever. She had some reason to be disgusted with me now, and the gap between us began to be wider and wider. And then this Alec Fairbairn chipped in, and things became a thousand times blacker.
‘It was to see Sarah that he came to my house first, but soon it was to see us, for he was a man with winning ways, and he made friends wherever he went. He was a dashing, swaggering chap, smart and curled who had seen half the world, and could talk of what he had seen. He was good company, I won’t deny it, and he had wonderful polite ways with him for a sailor man, so that I think there must have been a time when he knew more of the poop than the forecastle. For a month he was in and out of my house, and never once did it cross my mind that harm might come of his soft, tricky ways. And then at last something made me suspect, and from that day my peace was gone for ever.
‘It was only a little thing, too. I had come into the parlour unexpected, and as I walked in at the door I saw a light of welcome on my wife’s face. But as she saw who it was it faded again, and she turned away with a look of disappointment. That was enough for me. There was no one but Alec Fairbairn whose step she could have mistaken for mine. If I could have seen him then I should have killed him, for I have always been like a madman when my temper gets loose. Mary saw the devil’s light in my eyes, and she ran forward with her hands on my sleeve. “Don’t, Jim, don’t!” says she. “Where’s Sarah?” I asked. “In the kitchen,” says she. “Sarah,” says I, as I went in, “this man Fairbairn is never to darken my door again.” “Why not?” says she. “Because I order it.” “Oh!” says she, “if my friends are not good enough for this house, then I am not good enough for it either.” “You can do what you like,” says I, “but if Fairbairn shows his face here again, I’ll send you one of his ears for a keepsake.” She was frightened by my face, I think, for she never answered a word, and the same evening she left my house.
‘Well, I don’t know now whether it was pure devilry on the part of this woman, or whether she thought that she could turn me against my wife by encouraging her to misbehave. Anyway, she took a house just two streets off, and let lodgings to sailors. Fairbairn used to stay there, and Mary would go round to have tea with her sister and him. How often she went I don’t know, but I followed her one day, and as I broke in at the door Fairbairn got away over the back garden wall, like the cowardly skunk that he was. I swore to my wife that I would kill her if I found her in his company again, and I led her back with me, sobbing and trembling, and as white as a piece of paper. There was no trace of love between us any longer. I could see that she hated me and feared me, and when the thought of it drove me to drink, and then she despised me as well.
‘Well, Sarah found that she could not make a living in Liverpool, so she went back, as I understand, to live with her sister in Croydon, and things jogged on much the same as ever at home. And then came this last week and all the misery and ruin.
‘It was in this way. We had gone on the May Day for a round voyage of seven days, but a hogshead got loose and started one of our plates, so that we had to put back into port for twelve hours. I left the ship and came home, thinking what a surprise it would be for my wife and hoping that maybe she would be glad to see me so soon. The thought was in my head as I turned into my own street, and at that moment a cab passed me, and there she was, sitting by the side of Fairbairn, the two chatting and laughing, with never a thought for me as I stood watching them from the footpath.
‘I tell you, and I give you my word on it, that from that moment I was not my own master, and it is all like a dim dream when I look back on it. I had been drinking hard of late, and the two things together fairly turned my brain. There’s something throbbing in my head now, like a docker’s hammer, but that morning I seemed to have all Niagara whizzing and buzzing in my ears.
‘Well, I took to my heels, and I ran after the cab. I had a heavy oak stick in my hand, and I tell you that I saw red from the first; but as I ran I got cunning, too, and hung back a little to see them without being seen. They pulled up soon at the railway station. There was a good crowd round the booking-office, so I got quite close to them without being seen. They took tickets for New Brighton. So did I, but I got in three carriages behind them. When we reached it they walked along the Parade, and I was never more than a hundred yards from them. At last I saw them hire a boat and start for a row; for it was a very hot day, and they thought no doubt that it would be cooler on the water.
‘It was just as if they had been given into my hands. There was a bit of a haze, and you could not see more than a few hundred yards. I hired a boat for myself, and I pulled after them. I could see the blurr of their craft, but they were going nearly as fast as I, and they must have been a long mile from the shore before I caught them up. The haze was like a curtain all round us, and there were we three in the middle of it. My God, shall I ever forget their faces when they saw who was in the boat that was closing in upon them? She screamed out. He swore like a madman, and jabbed at me with an oar, for he must have seen death in my eyes. I got past it and got one in with my stick that crushed his head like an egg. I would have spared her, perhaps, for all my madness, but she threw her arms round him, crying out to him, and calling him “Alec.” I struck again, and she lay stretched beside him. I was like a wild beast then that had tasted blood. If Sarah had been there, by the Lord, she should have joined them. I pulled out my knife, and—well, there! I’ve said enough. It gave me a kind of savage joy when I thought how Sarah would feel when she had such signs as these of what her meddling had brought about. Then I tied the bodies into the boat, stove a plank, and stood by until they had sunk. I knew very well that the owner would think that they had lost their bearings in the haze, and had drifted off out to sea. I cleaned myself up, got back to land, and joined my ship without a soul having a suspicion of what had passed. That night I made up the packet for Sarah Cushing, and next day I sent it from Belfast.
‘There you have the whole truth of it. You can hang me, or do what you like with me, but you cannot punish me as I have been punished already. I cannot shut my eyes but I see those two faces staring at me—staring at me as they stared when my boat broke through the haze. I killed them quick, but they are killing me slow; and if I have another night of it I shall be either mad or dead before morning. You won’t put me alone into a cell, sir? For pity’s sake don’t, and may you be treated in your day of agony as you treat me now.’
‘What is the meaning of it, Watson?’ said Holmes, solemnly, as he laid down the paper. ‘What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.’

The Yellow Face

In publishing these short sketches, based upon the numerous cases in which my companion’s singular gifts have made me the listener to, and eventually the actor in some strange drama, it is only natural that I should dwell rather upon his successes than upon his failures. And this is not so much for the sake of his reputation, for indeed it was when he was at his wits’ end that his energy and his versatility were most admirable, but because where he failed it happened too often that no one else succeeded, and that the tale was left for ever without a conclusion. Now and again, however, it chanced that even when he erred the truth was still discovered. I have notes of some half-dozen cases of the kind, of which the affair of the second stain, and that which I am now about to recount, are the two which present the strongest features of interest.
Sherlock Holmes was a man who seldom took exercise for exercise’s sake. Few men were capable of greater muscular effort, and he was undoubtedly one of the finest boxers of his weight that I have ever seen; but he looked upon aimless bodily exertion as a waste of energy, and he seldom bestirred himself save where there was some professional object to be served. Then he was absolutely untiring and indefatigable. That he should have kept himself in training under such circumstances is remarkable, but his diet was usually of the sparest, and his habits were simple to the verge of austerity. Save for the occasional use of cocaine he had no vices and he only turned to the drug as a protest against the monotony of existence when cases were scanty and the papers uninteresting.
One day in early spring he had so far relaxed as to go for a walk with me in the Park, where the first faint shoots of green were breaking out upon the elms, and the sticky spearheads of the chestnuts were just beginning to burst into their five-fold leaves. For two hours we rambled about together, in silence for the most part, as befits two men who know each other intimately. It was nearly five before we were back in Baker Street once more.
‘Beg pardon, sir,’ said our page-boy, as he opened the door; ‘there’s been a gentleman here asking for you, sir.’
Holmes glanced reproachfully at me. ‘So much for afternoon walks!’ said he. ‘Has this gentleman gone, then?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Didn’t you ask him in?’
‘Yes, sir; he came in.’
‘How long did he wait?’
‘Half an hour, sir. He was a very restless gentleman, sir, a walkin’ and a stampin’ all the time he was here. I was waitin’ outside the door, sir, and I could hear him. At last he goes out into the passage and he cries: “Is that man never goin’ to come?” Those were his very words, sir. “You’ll only need to wait a little longer,” says I. “Then I’ll wait in the open air, for I feel half choked,” says he. “I’ll be back before long,” and with that he ups and he outs, and all I could say wouldn’t hold him back.’
‘Well, well, you did your best,’ said Holmes, as we walked into our room. ‘It’s very annoying though, Watson. I was badly in need of a case, and this looks, from the man’s impatience, as if it were of importance. Hullo! That’s not your pipe on the table! He must have left his behind him. A nice old briar, with a good long stem of what the tobacconists call amber. I wonder how many real amber mouth-pieces there are in London. Some people think a fly in it is a sign. Why, it is quite a branch of trade, the putting of sham flies into the sham amber. Well, he must have been disturbed in his mind to leave a pipe behind him which he evidently values highly.’
‘How do you know that he values it highly?’ I asked.
‘Well, I should put the original cost of the pipe at seven-and-sixpence. Now it has, you see, been twice mended: once in the wooden stem and once in the amber. Each of these mends, done, as you observe, with silver bands, must have cost more than the pipe did originally. The man must value the pipe highly when he prefers to patch it up rather than buy a new one with the same money.’
‘Anything else?’ I asked, for Holmes was turning the pipe about in his hand and staring at it in his peculiar, pensive way.
He held it up and tapped on it with his long, thin fore-finger as a professor might who was lecturing on a bone.
‘Pipes are occasionally of extraordinary interest,’ said he. ‘Nothing has more individuality save, perhaps, watches and bootlaces. The indications here, however, are neither very marked nor very important. The owner is obviously a muscular man, left-handed, with an excellent set of teeth, careless in his habits, and with no need to practise economy.’
My friend threw out the information in a very off-hand way, but I saw that he cocked his eye at me to see if I had followed his reasoning.
‘You think a man must be well-to-do if he smokes a seven-shilling pipe?’ said I.
‘This is Grosvenor mixture at eight pence an ounce,’ Holmes answered, knocking a little out on his palm. ‘As he might get an excellent smoke for half the price, he has no need to practise economy.’
‘And the other points?’
‘He has been in the habit of lighting his pipe at lamps and gas-jets. You can see that it is quite charred all down one side. Of course, a match could not have done that. Why should a man hold a match to the side of his pipe? But you cannot light it at a lamp without getting the bowl charred. And it is all on the right side of the pipe. From that I gather that he is a left-handed man. You hold your own pipe to the lamp, and see how naturally you, being right-handed, hold the left side to the flame. You might do it once the other way, but not as a constancy. This has always been held so. Then he has bitten through his amber. It takes a muscular, energetic fellow, and one with a good set of teeth to do that. But if I am not mistaken I hear him upon the stair, so we shall have something more interesting than his pipe to study.’
An instant later our door opened, and a tall young man entered the room. He was well but quietly dressed in a dark-grey suit, and carried a brown wide-awake in his hand. I should have put him at about thirty, though he was really some years older.
‘I beg your pardon,’ said he, with some embarrassment; ‘I suppose I should have knocked. Yes, of course I should have knocked. The fact is that I am a little upset, and you must put it all down to that.’ He passed his hand over his forehead like a man who is half dazed, and then fell, rather than sat, down upon a chair.
‘I can see that you have not slept for a night or two,’ said Holmes, in his easy, genial way. ‘That tries a man’s nerves more than work, and more even than pleasure. May I ask how I can help you?’
‘I wanted your advice, sir. I don’t know what to do, and my whole life seems to have gone to pieces.’
‘You wish to employ me as a consulting detective?’
‘Not that only. I want your opinion as a judicious man—as a man of the world. I want to know what I ought to do next. I hope to God you’ll be able to tell me.’
He spoke in little, sharp, jerky outbursts, and it seemed to me that to speak at all was very painful to him, and that his will all through was overriding his inclinations.
‘It’s a very delicate thing,’ said he. ‘One does not like to speak of one’s domestic affairs to strangers. It seems dreadful to discuss the conduct of one’s wife with two men whom I have never seen before. It’s horrible to have to do it. But I’ve got to the end of my tether, and I must have advice.’
‘My dear Mr Grant Munro—’ began Holmes.
Our visitor sprang from his chair. ‘What!’ he cried. ‘You know my name?’
‘If you wish to preserve your incognito,’ said Holmes, smiling, ‘I should suggest that you cease to write your name upon the lining of your hat, or else that you turn the crown towards the person whom you are addressing. I was about to say that my friend and I have listened to many strange secrets in this room, and that we have had the good fortune to bring peace to many troubled souls. I trust that we may do as much for you. Might I beg you, as time may prove to be of importance, to furnish me with the facts of your case without further delay?’
Our visitor again passed his hand over his forehead as if he found it bitterly hard. From every gesture and expression I could see that he was a reserved, self-contained man, with a dash of pride in his nature, more likely to hide his wounds than to expose them. Then suddenly, with a fierce gesture of his closed hand, like one who throws reserve to the winds, he began.
‘The facts are these, Mr Holmes,’ said he. ‘I am a married man, and have been so for three years. During that time my wife and I have loved each other as fondly, and lived as happily, as any two that ever were joined. We have not had a difference, not one, in thought, or word, or deed. And now, since last Monday, there has suddenly sprung up a barrier between us, and I find that there is something in her life and in her thoughts of which I know as little as if she were the woman who brushes by me in the street. We are estranged, and I want to know why.
‘Now there is one thing I want to impress upon you before I go any further, Mr Holmes: Effie loves me. Don’t let there be any mistake about that. She loves me with her whole heart and soul, and never more than now. I know it, I feel it. I don’t want to argue about that. A man can tell easily enough when a woman loves him. But there’s this secret between us, and we can never be the same until it is cleared.’
‘Kindly let me have the facts, Mr Munro,’ said Holmes, with some impatience.
‘I’ll tell you what I know about Effie’s history. She was a widow when I met her first, though quite young—only twenty-five. Her name then was Mrs Hebron. She went out to America when she was young and lived in the town of Atlanta, where she married this Hebron, who was a lawyer with a good practice. They had one child, but the yellow fever broke out badly in the place, and both husband and child died of it. I have seen his death certificate. This sickened her of America, and she came back to live with a maiden aunt at Pinner, in Middlesex. I may mention that her husband had left her comfortably off, and that she had a capital of about four thousand five hundred pounds, which had been so well invested by him that it returned an average of 7 per cent. She had only been six months at Pinner when I met her; we fell in love with each other, and we married a few weeks afterwards.
‘I am a hop merchant myself, and as I have an income of seven or eight hundred, we found ourselves comfortably off, and took a nice eighty-pound-a-year villa at Norbury. Our little place was very countrified, considering that it is so close to town. We had an inn and two houses a little above us, and a single cottage at the other side of the field which faces us, and except those there were no houses until you get half-way to the station. My business took me into town at certain seasons, but in summer I had less to do, and then in our country home my wife and I were just as happy as could be wished. I tell you that there never was a shadow between us until this accursed affair began.
‘There’s one thing I ought to tell you before I go further. When we married, my wife made over all her property to me—rather against my will, for I saw how awkward it would be if my business affairs went wrong. However, she would have it so, and it was done. Well, about six weeks ago she came to me.
‘ “Jack,” said she, “when you took my money you said that if ever I wanted any I was to ask you for it.”
‘ “Certainly,” said I, “it’s all your own.”
‘ “Well,” said she, “I want a hundred pounds.”
‘I was a bit staggered at this, for I had imagined it was simply a new dress or something of the kind that she was after.
‘ “What on earth for?” I asked.
‘ “Oh,” said she, in her playful way, “you said that you were only my banker, and bankers never ask questions, you know.”
‘ “If you really mean it, of course you shall have the money,” said I.
‘ “Oh, yes, I really mean it.”
‘ “And you won’t tell me what you want it for?”
‘ “Some day, perhaps, but not just at present, Jack.”
‘So I had to be content with that, though it was the first time that there had ever been any secret between us. I gave her a cheque, and I never thought any more of the matter. It may have nothing to do with what came afterwards, but I thought it only right to mention it.
‘Well, I told you just now that there is a cottage not far from our house. There is just a field between us, but to reach it you have to go along the road and then turn down a lane. Just beyond it is a nice little grove of Scotch firs, and I used to be very fond of strolling down there, for trees are always neighbourly kinds of things. The cottage had been standing empty these eight months, and it was a pity, for it was a pretty two-storied place, with an old-fashioned porch and honeysuckle about it. I have stood many a time and thought what a neat little homestead it would make.
‘Well, last Monday evening I was taking a stroll down that way, when I met an empty van coming up the lane, and saw a pile of carpets and things lying about on the grass-plot beside the porch. It was clear that the cottage had at last been let. I walked past it, and then stopping, as an idle man might, I ran my eye over it, and wondered what sort of folk they were who had come to live so near us. And as I looked I suddenly became aware that a face was watching me out of one of the upper windows.
‘I don’t know what there was about that face, Mr Holmes, but it seemed to send a chill right down my back. I was some little way off, so that I could not make out the features, but there was something unnatural and inhuman about the face. That was the impression I had, and I moved quickly forwards to get a nearer view of the person who was watching me. But as I did so the face suddenly disappeared, so suddenly that it seemed to have been plucked away into the darkness of the room. I stood for five minutes thinking the business over, and trying to analyse my impressions. I could not tell if the face was that of a man or a woman. But the colour was what impressed me most. It was of a livid dead yellow, and with something set and rigid about it, which was shockingly unnatural. So disturbed was I, that I determined to see a little more of the new inmates of the cottage. I approached and knocked at the door, which was instantly opened by a tall, gaunt woman, with a harsh, forbidding face.
‘ “What may you be wantin’?” she asked, in a northern accent.
‘ “I am your neighbour over yonder,” said I, nodding towards my house. “I see that you have only just moved in, so I thought that if I could be of any help to you in any—”
‘ “Aye, we’ll just ask ye when we want ye,” said she, and shut the door in my face. Annoyed at the churlish rebuff, I turned my back and walked home. All the evening, though I tried to think of other things, my mind would still turn to the apparition at the window and the rudeness of the woman. I determined to say nothing about the former to my wife, for she is a nervous, highly-strung woman, and I had no wish that she should share the unpleasant impression which had been produced upon me. I remarked to her, however, before I fell asleep that the cottage was now occupied, to which she returned no reply.
‘I am usually an extremely sound sleeper. It has been a standing jest in the family that nothing could ever wake me during the night; and yet somehow on that particular night, whether it may have been the slight excitement produced by my little adventure or not, I know not, but I slept much more lightly than usual. Half in my dreams I was dimly conscious that something was going on in the room, and gradually became aware that my wife had dressed herself and was slipping on her mantle and her bonnet. My lips were parted to murmur out some sleepy words of surprise or remonstrance at this untimely preparation, when suddenly my half-opened eyes fell upon her face, illuminated by the candle light, and astonishment held me dumb. She wore an expression such as I had never seen before—such as I should have thought her incapable of assuming. She was deadly pale and breathing fast, glancing furtively towards the bed, as she fastened her mantle, to see if she had disturbed me. Then, thinking that I was still asleep, she slipped noiselessly from the room, and an instant later I heard a sharp creaking, which could only come from the hinges of the front door. I sat up in bed and rapped my knuckles against the rail to make certain that I was truly awake. Then I took my watch from under the pillow. It was three in the morning. What on earth could my wife be doing out on the country road at three in the morning?
‘I had sat for about twenty minutes turning the thing over in my mind and trying to find some possible explanation. The more I thought the more extraordinary and inexplicable did it appear. I was still puzzling over it when I heard the door gently close again and her footsteps coming up the stairs.
‘ “Where in the world have you been, Effie?” I asked, as she entered.
‘She gave a violent start and a kind of gasping cry when I spoke, and that cry and start troubled me more than all the rest, for there was something indescribably guilty about them. My wife had always been a woman of a frank, open nature, and it gave me a chill to see her slinking into her own room, and crying out and wincing when her own husband spoke to her.
‘ “You awake, Jack?” she cried, with a nervous laugh. “Why, I thought that nothing could awaken you.”
‘ “Where have you been?” I asked, more sternly.
‘ “I don’t wonder that you are surprised,” said she, and I could see that her fingers were trembling as she undid the fastening of her mantle. “Why, I never remember having done such a thing in my life before. The fact is that I felt as though I were choking, and had a perfect longing for a breath of fresh air. I really think that I should have fainted if I had not gone out. I stood at the door for a few minutes, and now I am quite myself again.”
‘All the time that she was telling me this story she never once looked in my direction, and her voice was quite unlike her usual tones. It was evident to me that she was saying what was false. I said nothing in reply, but turned my face to the wall, sick at heart, with my mind filled with a thousand venomous doubts and suspicions. What was it that my wife was concealing from me? Where had she been during that strange expedition? I felt that I should have no peace until I knew, and yet I shrank from asking her again after once she had told me what was false. All the rest of the night I tossed and tumbled, framing theory after theory, each more unlikely than the last.
‘I should have gone to the City that day, but I was too perturbed in my mind to be able to pay attention to business matters. My wife seemed to be as upset as myself, and I could see from the little questioning glances which she kept shooting at me, that she understood that I disbelieved her statement, and that she was at her wits’ ends what to do. We hardly exchanged a word during breakfast, and immediately afterwards I went out for a walk, that I might think the matter over in the fresh morning air.
‘I went as far as the Crystal Palace, spent an hour in the grounds, and was back in Norbury by one o’clock. It happened that my way took me past the cottage, and I stopped for an instant to look at the windows and to see if I could catch a glimpse of the strange face which had stared out at me on the day before. As I stood there, imagine my surprise, Mr Holmes, when the door suddenly opened and my wife walked out!
‘I was struck dumb with astonishment at the sight of her, but my emotions were nothing to those which showed themselves upon her face when our eyes met. She seemed for an instant to wish to shrink back inside the house again, and then, seeing how useless all concealment must be, she came forward with a very white face and frightened eyes which belied the smile upon her lips.
‘ “Oh, Jack!” she said, “I have just been in to see if I can be of any assistance to our new neighbours. Why do you look at me like that, Jack? You are not angry with me?”
‘ “So,” said I, “this is where you went during the night?”
‘ “What do you mean?” she cried.
‘ “You came here. I am sure of it. Who are these people that you should visit them at such an hour?”
‘ “I have not been here before.”
‘ “How can you tell me what you know is false?” I cried. “Your very voice changes as you speak. When have I ever had a secret from you? I shall enter that cottage, and I shall probe the matter to the bottom.”
‘ “No, no, Jack, for God’s sake!” she gasped, in incontrollable emotion. Then as I approached the door, she seized my sleeve and pulled me back with convulsive strength.
‘ “I implore you not to do this, Jack,” she cried. “I swear that I will tell you everything some day, but nothing but misery can come of it if you enter that cottage.” Then, as I tried to shake her off, she clung to me in a frenzy of entreaty.
‘ “Trust me, Jack!” she cried. “Trust me only this once. You will never have cause to regret it. You know that I would not have a secret from you if it were not for your own sake. Our whole lives are at stake on this. If you come home with me all will be well. If you force your way into that cottage, all is over between us.”
‘There was such earnestness, such despair in her manner that her words arrested me, and I stood irresolute before the door.
‘ “I will trust you on one condition, and on one condition only,” said I at last. “It is that this mystery comes to an end from now. You are at liberty to preserve your secret, but you must promise me that there shall be no more nightly visits, no more doings which are kept from my knowledge. I am willing to forget those which are passed if you will promise that there shall be no more in the future.”
‘ “I was sure that you would trust me,” she cried, with a great sigh of relief. “It shall be just as you wish. Come away, oh, come away up to the house!” Still plucking at my sleeve she led me away from the cottage. As we went I glanced back, and there was that yellow, livid face watching us out of the upper window. What link could there be between that creature and my wife? Or how could the coarse, rough woman whom I had seen the day before be connected with her? It was a strange puzzle, and yet I knew that my mind could never know ease again until I had solved it.
‘For two days after this I stayed at home, and my wife appeared to abide loyally by our engagement, for, as far as I know, she never stirred out of the house. On the third day, however, I had ample evidence that her solemn promise was not enough to hold her back from this secret influence which drew her away from her husband and her duty.
‘I had gone into town on that day, but I returned by the 2.40 instead of the 3.36, which is my usual train. As I entered the house the maid ran into the hall with a startled face.
‘ “Where is your mistress?” I asked.
‘ “I think that she has gone out for a walk,” she answered.
‘My mind was instantly filled with suspicion. I rushed upstairs to make sure that she was not in the house. As I did so I happened to glance out of one of the upper windows, and saw the maid with whom I had just been speaking running across the field in the direction of the cottage. Then, of course, I saw exactly what it all meant. My wife had gone over there and had asked the servant to call her if I should return. Tingling with anger, I rushed down and strode across, determined to end the matter once and for ever. I saw my wife and the maid hurrying back together along the lane, but I did not stop to speak with them. In the cottage lay the secret which was casting a shadow over my life. I vowed that, come what might, it should be a secret no longer. I did not even knock when I reached it, but turned the handle and rushed into the passage.
‘It was all still and quiet upon the ground-floor. In the kitchen a kettle was singing on the fire, and a large black cat lay coiled up in a basket, but there was no sign of the woman whom I had seen before. I ran into the other room, but it was equally deserted. Then I rushed up the stairs, but only to find two other rooms empty and deserted at the top. There was no one at all in the whole house. The furniture and pictures were of the most common and vulgar description, save in the one chamber at the window of which I had seen the strange face. That was comfortable and elegant, and all my suspicions rose into a fierce, bitter blaze when I saw that on the mantelpiece stood a full-length photograph of my wife, which had been taken at my request only three months ago.
‘I stayed long enough to make certain that the house was absolutely empty. Then I left it, feeling a weight at my heart such as I had never had before. My wife came out into the hall as I entered my house, but I was too hurt and angry to speak with her, and pushing past her I made my way into my study. She followed me, however, before I could close the door.
‘ “I am sorry that I broke my promise, Jack,” said she, “but if you knew all the circumstances I am sure you would forgive me.”
‘ “Tell me everything, then,” said I.
‘ “I cannot, Jack, I cannot!” she cried.
‘ “Until you tell me who it is that has been living in that cottage, and who it is to whom you have given that photograph, there can never be any confidence between us,” said I, and breaking away from her I left the house. That was yesterday, Mr Holmes, and I have not seen her since, nor do I know anything more about this strange business. It is the first shadow that has come between us, and it has so shaken me that I do not know what I should do for the best. Suddenly this morning it occurred to me that you were the man to advise me, so I have hurried to you now, and I place myself unreservedly in your hands. If there is any point which I have not made clear, pray question me about it. But above all tell me quickly what I have to do, for this misery is more than I can bear.’
Holmes and I had listened with the utmost interest to this extraordinary statement, which had been delivered in the jerky, broken fashion of a man who is under the influence of extreme emotion. My companion sat silent now for some time, with his chin upon his hand, lost in thought.
‘Tell me,’ said he at last, ‘could you swear that this was a man’s face which you saw at the window?’
‘Each time that I saw it I was some distance away from it, so that it is impossible for me to say.’
‘You appear, however, to have been disagreeably impressed by it.’
‘It seemed to be of an unnatural colour and to have a strange rigidity about the features. When I approached, it vanished with a jerk.’
‘How long is it since your wife asked you for a hundred pounds?’
‘Nearly two months.’
‘Have you ever seen a photograph of her first husband?’
‘No; there was a great fire at Atlanta very shortly after his death, and all her papers were destroyed.’
‘And yet she had a certificate of death. You say that you saw it?’
‘Yes, she got a duplicate after the fire.’
‘Did you ever meet anyone who knew her in America?’
‘No.’
‘Did she ever talk of revisiting the place?’
‘No.’
‘Or get letters from it?’
‘Not to my knowledge.’
‘Thank you. I should like to think over the matter a little now. If the cottage is permanently deserted we may have some difficulty; if on the other hand, as I fancy is more likely, the inmates were warned of your coming, and left before you entered yesterday, then they may be back now, and we should clear it all up easily. Let me advise you, then, to return to Norbury and to examine the windows of the cottage again. If you have reason to believe that it is inhabited do not force your way in, but send a wire to my friend and me. We shall be with you within an hour of receiving it, and we shall then very soon get to the bottom of the business.’
‘And if it is still empty?’
‘In that case I shall come out to-morrow and talk it over with you. Good-bye, and above all things do not fret until you know that you really have a cause for it.’
‘I am afraid that this is a bad business, Watson,’ said my companion, as he returned after accompanying Mr Grant Munro to the door. ‘What do you make of it?’
‘It has an ugly sound,’ I answered.
‘Yes. There’s blackmail in it, or I am much mistaken.’
‘And who is the blackmailer?’
‘Well, it must be this creature that lives in the only comfortable room in the place, and has her photograph above his fireplace. Upon my word, Watson, there is something very attractive about that livid face at the window, and I would not have missed the case for worlds.’
‘You have a theory?’
‘Yes, a provisional one. But I shall be surprised if it does not turn out to be correct. This woman’s first husband is in that cottage.’
‘Why do you think so?’
‘How else can we explain her frenzied anxiety that her second one should not enter it? The facts, as I read them, are something like this: This woman was married in America. Her husband developed some hateful qualities, or, shall we say, that he contracted some loathsome disease, and became a leper or an imbecile. She fled from him at last, returned to England, changed her name, and started her life, as she thought, afresh. She had been married three years, and believed that her position was quite secure—having shown her husband the death certificate of some man, whose name she had assumed—when suddenly her whereabouts was discovered by her first husband, or, we may suppose, by some unscrupulous woman, who had attached herself to the invalid. They write to the wife and threaten to come and expose her. She asks for a hundred pounds and endeavours to buy them off. They come in spite of it, and when the husband mentions casually to the wife that there are new-comers in the cottage, she knows in some way that they are her pursuers. She waits until her husband is asleep, and then she rushes down to endeavour to persuade them to leave her in peace. Having no success, she goes again next morning, and her husband meets her, as he has told us, as she came out. She promises him then not to go there again, but two days afterwards, the hope of getting rid of those dreadful neighbours is too strong for her, and she makes another attempt, taking down with her the photograph which had probably been demanded from her. In the midst of this interview the maid rushes in to say that the master has come home, on which the wife, knowing that he would come straight down to the cottage, hurries the inmates out at the back door, into that grove of fir trees probably which was mentioned as standing near. In this way he finds the place deserted. I shall be very much surprised, however, if it is still so when he reconnoitres it this evening. What do you think of my theory?’
‘It is all surmise.’
‘But at least it covers all the facts. When new facts come to our knowledge which cannot be covered by it, it will be time enough to reconsider it. At present we can do nothing until we have a fresh message from our friend at Norbury.’
But we had not very long to wait. It came just as we had finished our tea. ‘The cottage is still tenanted,’ it said. ‘Have seen the face again at the window. I’ll meet the seven o’clock train, and take no steps until you arrive.’
He was waiting on the platform when we stepped out, and we could see in the light of the station lamps that he was very pale, and quivering with agitation.
‘They are still there, Mr Holmes,’ said he, laying his hand upon my friend’s sleeve. ‘I saw lights in the cottage as I came down. We shall settle it now, once and for all.’
‘What is your plan, then?’ asked Holmes, as we walked down the dark, tree-lined road.
‘I am going to force my way in and see for myself who is in the house. I wish you both to be there as witnesses.’
‘You are quite determined to do this, in spite of your wife’s warning that it is better that you should not solve the mystery?’
‘Yes, I am determined.’
‘Well, I think that you are in the right. Any truth is better than indefinite doubt. We had better go up at once. Of course, legally we are putting ourselves hopelessly in the wrong, but I think that it is worth it.’
It was a very dark night and a thin rain began to fall as we turned from the high road into a narrow lane, deeply rutted, with hedges on either side. Mr Grant Munro pushed impatiently forward, however, and we stumbled after him as best we could.
‘There are the lights of my house,’ he murmured, pointing to a glimmer among the trees, ‘and here is the cottage which I am going to enter.’
We turned a corner in the lane as he spoke, and there was the building close beside us. A yellow bar falling across the black foreground showed that the door was not quite closed, and one window in the upper story was brightly illuminated. As we looked we saw a dark blur moving across the blind.
‘There is that creature,’ cried Grant Munro; ‘you can see for yourselves that someone is there. Now follow me, and we shall soon know all.’
We approached the door, but suddenly a woman appeared out of the shadow and stood in the golden track of the lamp-light. I could not see her face in the darkness, but her arms were thrown out in an attitude of entreaty.
‘For God’s sake, don’t, Jack!’ she cried. ‘I had a presentiment that you would come this evening. Think better of it, dear! Trust me again, and you will never have cause to regret it.’
‘I have trusted you too long, Effie!’ he cried, sternly. ‘Leave go of me! I must pass you. My friends and I are going to settle this matter once and for ever.’ He pushed her to one side and we followed closely after him. As he threw the door open an elderly woman ran out in front of him and tried to bar his passage, but he thrust her back, and an instant afterwards we were all upon the stairs. Grant Munro rushed into the lighted room at the top, and we entered it at his heels.
It was a cosy, well-furnished apartment, with two candles burning upon the table and two upon the mantelpiece. In the corner, stooping over a desk, there sat what appeared to be a little girl. Her face was turned away as we entered, but we could see that she was dressed in a red frock, and that she had long white gloves on. As she whisked round to us I gave a cry of surprise and horror. The face which she turned towards us was of the strangest livid tint, and the features were absolutely devoid of any expression. An instant later the mystery was explained. Holmes, with a laugh, passed his hand behind the child’s ear, a mask peeled off from her countenance, and there was a little coal-black negress with all her white teeth flashing in amusement at our amazed faces. I burst out laughing out of sympathy with her merriment, but Grant Munro stood staring, with his hand clutching at his throat.
‘My God!’ he cried, ‘what can be the meaning of this?’
‘I will tell you the meaning of it,’ cried the lady, sweeping into the room with a proud, set face. ‘You have forced me against my own judgment to tell you, and now we must both make the best of it. My husband died at Atlanta. My child survived.’
‘Your child!’
She drew a large silver locket from her bosom. ‘You have never seen this open.’
‘I understood that it did not open.’
She touched a spring, and the front hinged back. There was a portrait within of a man, strikingly handsome and intelligent, but bearing unmistakable signs upon his features of his African descent.
‘That is John Hebron, of Atlanta,’ said the lady, ‘and a nobler man never walked the earth. I cut myself off from my race in order to wed him; but never once while he lived did I for one instant regret it. It was our misfortune that our only child took after his people rather than mine. It is often so in such matches and little Lucy is darker far than ever her father was. But, dark or fair, she is my own dear little girlie, and her mother’s pet.’ The little creature ran across at the words and nestled up against the lady’s dress.
‘When I left her in America,’ she continued, ‘it was only because her health was weak, and the change might have done her harm. She was given to the care of a faithful Scotchwoman who had once been our servant. Never for an instant did I dream of disowning her as my child. But when chance threw you in my way, Jack, and I learned to love you, I feared to tell you about my child. God forgive me, I feared that I should lose you, and I had not the courage to tell you. I had to choose between you, and in my weakness I turned away from my own little girl. For three years I have kept her existence a secret from you, but I heard from the nurse, and I knew that all was well with her. At last, however, there came an overwhelming desire to see the child once more. I struggled against it, but in vain. Though I knew the danger I determined to have the child over, if it were but for a few weeks. I sent a hundred pounds to the nurse, and I gave her instructions about this cottage, so that she might come as a neighbour without my appearing to be in any way connected with her. I pushed my precautions so far as to order her to keep the child in the house during the daytime, and to cover up her little face and hands, so that even those who might see her at the window should not gossip about there being a black child in the neighbourhood. If I had been less cautious I might have been wiser, but I was half crazy with fear lest you should learn the truth.
‘It was you who told me first that the cottage was occupied. I should have waited for the morning, but I could not sleep for excitement, and so at last I slipped out, knowing how difficult it is to awaken you. But you saw me go, and that was the beginning of my troubles. Next day you had my secret at your mercy, but you nobly refrained from pursuing your advantage. Three days later, however, the nurse and child only just escaped from the back door as you rushed in at the front one. And now to-night you at last know all, and I ask you what is to become of us, my child and me?’ She clasped her hands and waited for an answer.
It was a long two minutes before Grant Munro broke the silence, and when his answer came it was one of which I love to think. He lifted the little child, kissed her, and then, still carrying her, he held his other hand out to his wife, and turned towards the door.
‘We can talk it over more comfortably at home,’ said he. ‘I am not a very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you have given me credit for being.’
Holmes and I followed them down to the lane, and my friend plucked at my sleeve as we came out. ‘I think,’ said he, ‘that we shall be of more use in London than in Norbury.’
Not another word did he say of the case until late that night when he was turning away, with his lighted candle, for his bedroom.
‘Watson,’ said he, ‘if it should ever strike you that I am getting a little over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case than it deserves, kindly whisper “Norbury” in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you.’

The Stockbroker's Clerk

Shortly after my marriage I had bought a connection in the Paddington district. Old Mr Farquhar, from whom I purchased it, had at one time an excellent general practice, but his age, and an affliction of the nature of St Vitus’s Dance from which he suffered, had very much thinned it. The public, not unnaturally, goes upon the principle that he who would heal others must himself be whole, and looks askance at the curative powers of the man whose own case is beyond the reach of his drugs. Thus, as my predecessor weakened, his practice declined, until when I purchased it from him it had sunk from twelve hundred to little more than three hundred a year. I had confidence, however, in my own youth and energy, and was convinced that in a very few years the concern would be as flourishing as ever.
For three months after taking over the practice I was kept very closely at work, and saw little of my friend Sherlock Holmes, for I was too busy to visit Baker Street, and he seldom went anywhere himself save upon professional business. I was surprised, therefore, when one morning in June, as I sat reading the British Medical Journal after breakfast, I heard a ring at the bell followed by the high, somewhat strident, tones of my old companion’s voice.
‘Ah, my dear Watson,’ said he, striding into the room, ‘I am very delighted to see you. I trust that Mrs Watson has entirely recovered from all the little excitements connected with our adventure of the “Sign of Four”?’
‘Thank you, we are both very well,’ said I, shaking him warmly by the hand.
‘And I hope also,’ he continued, sitting down in the rocking-chair, ‘that the cares of medical practice have not entirely obliterated the interest which you used to take in our little deductive problems.’
‘On the contrary,’ I answered; ‘it was only last night that I was looking over my old notes and classifying some of our past results.’
‘I trust that you don’t consider your collection closed?’
‘Not at all. I should wish nothing better than to have some more of such experiences.’
‘To-day, for example?’
‘Yes; to-day, if you like.’
‘And as far off as Birmingham?’
‘Certainly, if you wish it.’
‘And the practice?’
‘I do my neighbour’s when he goes. He is always ready to work off the debt.’
‘Ha! Nothing could be better!’ said Holmes, leaning back in his chair and looking keenly at me from under his half-closed lids. ‘I perceive that you have been unwell lately. Summer colds are always a little trying.’
‘I was confined to the house by a severe chill for three days last week. I thought, however, that I had cast off every trace of it.’
‘So you have. You look remarkably robust.’
‘How, then, did you know of it?’
‘My dear fellow, you know my methods.’
‘You deduced it, then?’
‘Certainly.’
‘And from what?’
‘From your slippers.’
I glanced down at the new patent leathers which I was wearing. ‘How on earth—?’ I began, but Holmes answered my question before it was asked.
‘Your slippers are new,’ he said. ‘You could not have had them more than a few weeks. The soles which you are at this moment presenting to me are slightly scorched. For a moment I thought they might have got wet and been burned in the drying. But near the instep there is a small circular wafer of paper with the shop man’s hieroglyphics upon it. Damp would of course have removed this. You had then been sitting with your feet outstretched to the fire, which a man would hardly do even in so wet a June as this if he were in his full health.’
Like all Holmes’s reasoning the thing seemed simplicity itself when it was once explained. He read the thought upon my features, and his smile had a tinge of bitterness.
‘I am afraid that I rather give myself away when I explain,’ said he. ‘Results without causes are much more impressive. You are ready to come to Birmingham, then?’
‘Certainly. What is the case?’
‘You shall hear it all in the train. My client is outside in a four-wheeler. Can you come at once?’
‘In an instant.’ I scribbled a note to my neighbour, rushed upstairs to explain the matter to my wife, and joined Holmes upon the doorstep.
‘Your neighbour is a doctor?’ said he, nodding at the brass plate.
‘Yes. He bought a practice as I did.’
‘An old-established one?’
‘Just the same as mine. Both have been ever since the houses were built.’
‘Ah, then you got hold of the best of the two.’
‘I think I did. But how do you know?’
‘By the steps, my boy. Yours are worn three inches deeper than his. But this gentleman in the cab is my client, Mr Hall Pycroft. Allow me to introduce you to him. Whip your horse up, cabby, for we have only just time to catch our train.’
The man whom I found myself facing was a well-built, fresh-complexioned young fellow with a frank, honest face and a slight, crisp, yellow moustache. He wore a very shiny top-hat and a neat suit of sober black, which made him look what he was—a smart young City man, of the class who have been labelled Cockneys, but who give us our crack Volunteer regiments, and who turn out more fine athletes and sportsmen than any body of men in these islands. His round, ruddy face was naturally full of cheeriness, but the corners of his mouth seemed to me to be pulled down in a half-comical distress. It was not, however, until we were all in a first-class carriage and well started upon our journey to Birmingham, that I was able to learn what the trouble was which had driven him to Sherlock Holmes.
‘We have a clear run here of seventy minutes,’ Holmes remarked. ‘I want you, Mr Hall Pycroft, to tell my friend your very interesting experience exactly as you have told it to me, or with more detail if possible. It will be of use to me to hear the succession of events again. It is a case, Watson, which may prove to have something in it, or may prove to have nothing, but which at least presents those unusual and outré features which are as dear to you as they are to me. Now, Mr Pycroft, I shall not interrupt you again.’
Our young companion looked at me with a twinkle in his eye.
‘The worst of the story is,’ said he, ‘that I show myself up as such a confounded fool. Of course, it may work out all right, and I don’t see that I could have done otherwise; but if I have lost my crib and get nothing in exchange, I shall feel what a soft Johnny I have been. I’m not very good at telling a story, Dr Watson, but it is like this with me.
‘I used to have a billet at Coxon and Woodhouse, of Drapers’ Gardens, but they were let in early in the spring through the Venezuelan loan, as no doubt you remember, and came a nasty cropper. I had been with them five years, and old Coxon gave me a ripping good testimonial when the smash came; but, of course, we clerks were all turned adrift, the twenty-seven of us. I tried here and tried there, but there were lots of other chaps on the same lay as myself, and it was a perfect frost for a long time. I had been taking three pounds a week at Coxon’s, and I had saved about seventy of them, but I soon worked my way through that and out at the other end. I was fairly at the end of my tether at last, and could hardly find the stamps to answer the advertisements or the envelopes to stick them to. I had worn out my boots padding up office stairs, and I seemed just as far from getting a billet as ever.
‘At last I saw a vacancy at Mawson and Williams’, the great stock broking firm in Lombard Street. I dare say EC is not much in your line, but I can tell you that this is about the richest house in London. The advertisement was to be answered by letter only. I sent in my testimonial and application, but without the least hope of getting it. Back came an answer by return saying that if I would appear next Monday I might take over my new duties at once, provided that my appearance was satisfactory. No one knows how these things are worked. Some people say the manager just plunges his hand into the heap and takes the first that comes. Anyhow, it was my innings that time, and I don’t ever wish to feel better pleased. The screw was a pound a week rise, and the duties just about the same as at Coxon’s.
‘And now I come to the queer part of the business. I was in diggings out Hampstead way—17, Potter’s Terrace, was the address. Well, I was sitting doing a smoke that very evening after I had been promised the appointment, when up came my landlady with a card which had “Arthur Pinner, financial agent,” printed upon it. I had never heard the name before, and could not imagine what he wanted with me, but of course I asked her to show him up. In he walked—a middle-sized, dark-haired, dark-eyed, black- bearded man, with a touch of the sheeny about his nose. He had a brisk kind of way with him and spoke sharply, like a man that knew the value of time.
‘ “Mr Hall Pycroft, I believe?” said he.
‘ “Yes, sir,” I answered, and pushed a chair towards him.
‘ “Lately engaged at Coxon and Woodhouse’s?”
‘ “Yes, sir.”
‘ “And now on the staff of Mawson’s?”
‘ “Quite so.”
‘ “Well,” said he. “The fact is that I have heard some really extraordinary stories about your financial ability. You remember Parker who used to be Coxon’s manager? He can never say enough about it.”
‘Of course I was pleased to hear this. I had always been pretty smart in the office, but I had never dreamed that I was talked about in the City in this fashion.
‘ “You have a good memory?” said he.
‘ “Pretty fair,” I answered, modestly.
‘ “Have you kept in touch with the market while you have been out of work?” he asked.
‘ “Yes; I read the Stock Exchange List every morning.”
‘ “Now, that shows real application!” he cried. “That is the way to prosper! You won’t mind my testing you, will you? Let me see! How are Ayrshires?”
‘ “One hundred and five, to one hundred and five and a quarter,” I answered.
‘ “And New Zealand Consolidated?”
‘ “A hundred and four.”
‘ “And British Broken Hills?”
‘ “Seven to seven and six.”
‘ “Wonderful!” he cried, with his hands up. “This quite fits in with all that I had heard. My boy, my boy, you are very much too good to be a clerk at Mawson’s!”
‘This outburst rather astonished me, as you can think. “Well,” said I, “other people don’t think quite so much of me as you seem to do, Mr Pinner. I had a hard enough fight to get this berth, and I am very glad to have it.”
‘ “Pooh, man, you should soar above it. You are not in your true sphere. Now, I’ll tell you how it stands with me. What I have to offer is little enough when measured by your ability, but when compared with Mawson’s it is light to dark. Let me see! When do you go to Mawson’s?”
‘ “On Monday.”
‘ “Ha! ha! I think I would risk a little sporting flutter that you don’t go there at all.”
‘ “Not go to Mawson’s?”
‘ “No, sir. By that day you will be the business manager of the Franco-Midland Hardware Company, Limited, with one hundred and thirty-four branches in the towns and villages of France, not counting one in Brussels and one in San Remo.”
‘This took my breath away. “I never heard of it,” said I.
‘ “Very likely not. It has been kept very quiet, for the capital was all privately subscribed, and it is too good a thing to let the public into. My brother, Harry Pinner, is promoter, and joins the board after allotment as managing director. He knew that I was in the swim down here, and he asked me to pick up a good man cheap—a young pushing man, with plenty of snap about him. Parker spoke of you, and that brought me here tonight. We can only offer you a beggarly five hundred to start with—”
‘ “Five hundred a year!” I shouted.
‘ “Only that at the beginning, but you are to have an over-riding commission of 1 per cent on all business done by your agents, and you may take my word for it that this will come to more than your salary.”
‘ “But I know nothing about hardware.”
‘ “Tut, my boy, you know about figures.”
‘My head buzzed, and I could hardly sit still in the chair. But suddenly a little chill of doubt came over me.
‘ “I must be frank with you,” said I. “Mawson only gives me two hundred, but Mawson is safe. Now, really, I know so little about your company that—”
‘ “Ah, smart, smart!” he cried, in a kind of ecstasy of delight. “You are the very man for us! You are not to be talked over, and quite right too. Now here’s a note for a hundred pounds; and if you think that we can do business you may just slip it into your pocket as an advance upon your salary.”
‘ “That is very handsome,” said I. “When shall I take over my new duties?”
‘ “Be in Birmingham tomorrow at one,” said he. “I have a note in my pocket here which you will take to my brother. You will find him at 126B, Corporation Street, where the temporary offices of the company are situated. Of course he must confirm your engagement, but between us it will be all right.”
‘ “Really, I hardly know how to express my gratitude, Mr Pinner,” said I.
‘ “Not at all, my boy. You have only got your deserts. There are one or two small things—mere formalities—which I must arrange with you. You have a bit of paper beside you there. Kindly write upon it, ‘I am perfectly willing to act as business manager to the Franco-Midland Hardware Company, Limited, at a minimum salary of £500.”’
‘I did as he asked, and he put the paper in his pocket.
‘ “There is one other detail,” said he. “What do you intend to do about Mawson’s?”
‘I had forgotten all about Mawson’s in my joy.
‘ “I’ll write and resign,” said I.
‘ “Precisely what I don’t want you to do. I had a row over you with Mawson’s manager. I had gone up to ask him about you, and he was very offensive—accused me of coaxing you away from the service of the firm, and that sort of thing. At last I fairly lost my temper. ‘If you want good men you should pay them a good price,’ said I. ‘He would rather have our small price than your big one,’ said he. ‘I’ll lay you a fiver,’ said I, ‘that when he has my offer you will never as much as hear from him again.’ ‘Done!’ said he. ‘We picked him out of the gutter, and he won’t leave us so easily.’ Those were his very words.”
‘ “The impudent scoundrel!” I cried. “I’ve never so much as seen him in my life. Why should I consider him in any way? I shall certainly not write if you would rather that I didn’t.”
‘ “Good! That’s a promise!” said he, rising from his chair. “Well, I am delighted to have got so good a man for my brother. Here is your advance of a hundred pounds, and here is the letter. Make a note of the address, 126B, Corporation Street, and remember that one o’clock tomorrow is your appointment. Good-night, and may you have all the fortune that you deserve.”
‘That’s just about all that passed between us as near as I can remember it. You can imagine, Dr Watson, how pleased I was at such an extraordinary bit of good fortune. I sat up half the night hugging myself over it, and next day I was off to Birmingham in a train that would take me in plenty of time for my appointment. I took my things to an hotel in New Street, and then I made my way to the address which had been given me.
‘It was a quarter of an hour before my time, but I thought that would make no difference. 126B was a passage between two large shops which led to a winding stone stair, from which there were many flats, let as offices to companies or professional men. The names of the occupants were painted up at the bottom on the wall, but there was no such name as the Franco-Midland Hardware Company, Limited. I stood for a few minutes with my heart in my boots, wondering whether the whole thing was an elaborate hoax or not, when up came a man and addressed me. He was very like the chap that I had seen the night before, the same figure and voice, but he was clean shaven and his hair was lighter.
‘ “Are you Mr Hall Pycroft?” he asked.
‘ “Yes,” said I.
‘ “Ah! I was expecting you, but you are a trifle before your time. I had a note from my brother this morning, in which he sang your praises very loudly.”
‘ “I was just looking for the offices when you came.”
‘ “We have not got our name up yet, for we only secured these temporary premises last week. Come up with me and we will talk the matter over.”
‘I followed him to the top of a very lofty stair, and there right under the slates were a couple of empty and dusty little rooms, uncarpeted and uncurtained, into which he led me. I had thought of a great office with shining tables and rows of clerks such as I was used to, and I dare say I stared rather straight at the two deal chairs and one little table, which, with a ledger and a waste-paper basket, made up the whole furniture.
‘ “Don’t be disheartened, Mr Pycroft,” said my new acquaintance, seeing the length of my face. “Rome was not built in a day, and we have lots of money at our backs, though we don’t cut much dash yet in offices. Pray sit down and let me have your letter.”
‘I gave it to him, and he read it over very carefully.
‘ “You seem to have made a vast impression upon my brother, Arthur,” said he, “and I know that he is a pretty shrewd judge. He swears by London, you know, and I by Birmingham, but this time I shall follow his advice. Pray consider yourself definitely engaged.”
‘ “What are my duties?” I asked.
‘ “You will eventually manage the great depôt in Paris, which will pour a flood of English crockery into the shops of one hundred and thirty-four agents in France. The purchase will be completed in a week, and meanwhile you will remain in Birmingham and make yourself useful.”
‘ “How?”
‘For answer he took a big red book out of a drawer. “This is a directory of Paris,” said he, “with the trades after the names of the people. I want you to take it home with you, and to mark off all the hardware sellers with their addresses. It would be of the greatest use to me to have them.”
‘ “Surely there are classified lists?” I suggested.
‘ “Not reliable ones. Their system is different to ours. Stick at it and let me have the lists by Monday, at twelve. Good day, Mr Pycroft; if you continue to show zeal and intelligence, you will find the company a good master.”
‘I went back to the hotel with the big book under my arm, and with very conflicting feelings in my breast. On the one hand I was definitely engaged, and had a hundred pounds in my pocket. On the other, the
look of the offices, the absence of name on the wall, and other of the points which would strike a business man had left a bad impression as to the position of my employers. However, come what might, I had my money, so I settled down to my task. All Sunday I was kept hard at work, and yet by Monday I had only got as far as H. I went round to my employer, found him in the same dismantled kind of room, and was told to keep at it until Wednesday, and then come again. On Wednesday it was still unfinished, so I hammered away until Friday—that is, yesterday. Then I brought it round to Mr Harry Pinner.
‘ “Thank you very much,” said he. “I fear that I underrated the difficulty of the task. This list will be of very material assistance to me.”
‘ “It took some time,” said I.
‘ “And now,” said he, “I want you to make a list of the furniture shops, for they all sell crockery.”
‘ “Very good.”
‘ “And you can come up to-morrow evening at seven, and let me know how you are getting on. Don’t overwork yourself. A couple of hours at Day’s Music-Hall in the evening would do you no harm after your labours.” He laughed as he spoke, and I saw with a thrill that his second tooth upon the left-hand side had been very badly stuffed with gold.’
Sherlock Holmes rubbed his hands with delight, and I stared in astonishment at our client.
‘You may well look surprised, Dr Watson, but it is this way,’ said he. ‘When I was speaking to the other chap in London at the time that he laughed at my not going to Mawson’s, I happened to notice that his tooth was stuffed in this very identical fashion. The glint of the gold in each case caught my eye, you see. When I put that with the voice and figure being the same, and only those things altered which might be changed by a razor or a wig, I could not doubt that it was the same man. Of course, you expect two brothers to be alike, but not that they should have the same tooth stuffed in the same way. He bowed me out and I found myself in the street, hardly knowing whether I was on my head or my heels. Back I went to my hotel, put my head in a basin of cold water, and tried to think it out. Why had he sent me from London to Birmingham; why had he got there before me; and why had he written a letter from himself to himself? It was altogether too much for me, and I could make no sense of it. And then suddenly it struck me that what was dark to me might be very light to Mr Sherlock Holmes. I had just time to get up to town by the night train, to see him this morning, and to bring you both back with me to Birmingham.’
There was a pause after the stockbroker’s clerk had concluded his surprising experience. Then Sherlock Holmes cocked his eye at me, leaning back on the cushions with a pleased and yet critical face, like a connoisseur who had just taken his first sip of a comet vintage.
‘Rather fine, Watson, is it not?’ said he. ‘There are points in it which please me. I think you will agree with me that an interview with Mr Arthur Harry Pinner in the temporary offices of the Franco-Midland Hardware Company, Limited, would be a rather interesting experience for both of us.’
‘But how can we do it?’ I asked.
‘Oh, easily enough,’ said Hall Pycroft, cheerily. ‘You are two friends of mine who are in want of a billet, and what could be more natural than that I should bring you both round to the managing director?’
‘Quite so! Of course!’ said Holmes. ‘I should like to have a look at the gentleman and see if I can make anything of his little game. What qualities have you, my friend, which would make your services so valuable? or is it possible that—’ He began biting his nails and staring blankly out of the window, and we hardly drew another word from him until we were in New Street.
At seven o’clock that evening we were walking, the three of us, down Corporation Street to the company’s offices.
‘It is of no use our being at all before our time,’ said our client. ‘He only comes there to see me apparently, for the place is deserted up to the very hour he names.’
‘That is suggestive,’ remarked Holmes.
‘By Jove, I told you so!’ cried the clerk. ‘That’s he walking ahead of us there.’
He pointed to a smallish, blond, well-dressed man, who was bustling along the other side of the road. As we watched him he looked across at a boy who was bawling out the latest edition of the evening paper, and, running over among the cabs and ’buses, he bought one from him. Then clutching it in his hand he vanished through a doorway.
‘There he goes!’ cried Hall Pycroft. ‘Those are the company’s offices into which he has gone. Come with me and I’ll fix it up as easily as possible.’
Following his lead we ascended five stories, until we found ourselves outside a half-opened door, at which our client tapped. A voice within bade us ‘come in,’ and we entered a bare, unfurnished room, such as Hall Pycroft had described. At the single table sat the man whom we had seen in the street, with his evening paper spread out in front of him, and as he looked up at us it seemed to me that I had never looked upon a face which bore such marks of grief, and of something beyond grief—of a horror such as comes to few men in a lifetime. His brow glistened with perspiration, his cheeks were of the dull dead white of a fish’s belly, and his eyes were wild and staring. He looked at his clerk as though he failed to recognize him, and I could see, by the astonishment depicted upon our conductor’s face, that this was by no means the usual appearance of his employer.
‘You look ill, Mr Pinner,’ he exclaimed.
‘Yes, I am not very well,’ answered the other, making obvious efforts to pull himself together, and licking his dry lips before he spoke. ‘Who are these gentlemen whom you have brought with you?’
‘One is Mr Harris, of Bermondsey, and the other is Mr Price, of this town,’ said our clerk glibly. ‘They are friends of mine, and gentlemen of experience, but they have been out of a place for some little time, and they hoped that perhaps you might find an opening for them in the company’s employment.’
‘Very possibly! Very possibly!’ cried Mr Pinner, with a ghastly smile. ‘Yes, I have no doubt that we shall be able to do something for you. What is your particular line, Mr Harris?’
‘I am an accountant,’ said Holmes.
‘Ah, yes, we shall want something of the sort. And you, Mr Price?’
‘A clerk,’ said I.
‘I have every hope that the company may accommodate you. I will let you know about it as soon as we come to any conclusion. And now I beg that you will go. For God’s sake, leave me to myself!’
These last words were shot out of him, as though the constraint which he was evidently setting upon himself had suddenly and utterly burst asunder. Holmes and I glanced at each other, and Hall Pycroft took a step towards the table.
‘You forget, Mr Pinner, that I am here by appointment to receive some directions from you,’ said he.
‘Certainly, Mr Pycroft, certainly,’ the other answered in a calmer tone. ‘You may wait here a moment, and there is no reason why your friends should not wait with you. I will be entirely at your service in three minutes, if I might trespass upon your patience so far.’ He rose with a very courteous air, and bowing to us he passed out through a door at the further end of the room, which he closed behind him.
‘What now?’ whispered Holmes. ‘Is he giving us the slip?’
‘Impossible,’ answered Pycroft.
‘Why so?’
‘That door leads into an inner room.’
‘There is no exit?’
‘None.’
‘Is it furnished?’
‘It was empty yesterday.’
‘Then what on earth can he be doing? There is something which I don’t understand in this matter. If ever a man was three parts mad with terror, that man’s name is Pinner. What can have put the shivers on him?’
‘He suspects that we are detectives,’ I suggested.
‘That’s it,’ said Pycroft.
Holmes shook his head. ‘He did not turn pale. He was pale when we entered the room,’ said he. ‘It is just possible that—’
His words were interrupted by a sharp rat-tat from the direction of the inner door.
‘What the deuce is he knocking at his own door for?’ cried the clerk.
Again and much louder came the rat-tat-tat. We all gazed expectantly at the closed door. Glancing at Holmes I saw his face turn rigid, and he leaned forward in intense excitement. Then suddenly came a low gurgling, gargling sound and a brisk drumming upon woodwork. Holmes sprang frantically across the room and pushed at the door. It was fastened on the inner side. Following his example, we threw ourselves upon it with all our weight. One hinge snapped, then the other, and down came the door with a crash. Rushing over it we found ourselves in the inner room.
It was empty.
But it was only for a moment that we were at fault. At one corner, the corner nearest the room which we had left, there was a second door. Holmes sprang to it and pulled it open. A coat and waistcoat were lying on the floor, and from a hook behind the door, with his own braces round his neck, was hanging the managing director of the Franco-Midland Hardware Company. His knees were drawn up, his head hung at a dreadful angle to his body, and the clatter of his heels against the door made the noise which had broken in upon our conversation. In an instant I had caught him round the waist and held him up, while Holmes and Pycroft untied the elastic bands which had disappeared between the livid creases of skin. Then we carried him into the other room, where he lay with a slate-coloured face, puffing his purple lips in and out with every breath—a dreadful wreck of all that he had been but five minutes before.
‘What do you think of him, Watson?’ asked Holmes.
I stooped over him and examined him. His pulse was feeble and intermittent, but his breathing grew longer, and there was a little shivering of his eyelids which showed a thin white slit of ball beneath.
‘It has been touch and go with him,’ said I, ‘but he’ll live now. Just open that window and hand me the water carafe.’ I undid his collar, poured the cold water over his face, and raised and sank his arms until he drew a long natural breath.
‘It’s only a question of time now,’ said I, as I turned away from him.
Holmes stood by the table with his hands deep in his trousers pockets and his chin upon his breast.
‘I suppose we ought to call the police in now,’ said he; ‘and yet I confess that I like to give them a complete case when they come.’
‘It’s a blessed mystery to me,’ cried Pycroft, scratching his head. ‘Whatever they wanted to bring me all the way up here for, and then—’
‘Pooh! All that is clear enough,’ said Holmes impatiently. ‘It is this last sudden move.’
‘You understand the rest, then?’
‘I think that is fairly obvious. What do you say, Watson?’
I shrugged my shoulders.
‘I must confess that I am out of my depths,’ said I.
‘Oh, surely, if you consider the events at first they can only point to one conclusion.’
‘What do you make of them?’
‘Well, the whole thing hinges upon two points. The first is the making of Pycroft write a declaration by which he entered the service of this preposterous company. Do you not see how very suggestive that is?’
‘I am afraid I miss the point.’
‘Well, why did they want him to do it? Not as a business matter, for these arrangements are usually verbal, and there was no earthly business reason why this should be an exception. Don’t you see, my young friend, that they were very anxious to obtain a specimen of your handwriting, and had no other way of doing it?’
‘And why?’
‘Quite so. Why? When we answer that, we have made some progress with our little problem. Why? There can be only one adequate reason. Someone wanted to learn to imitate your writing, and had to procure a specimen of it first. And now if we pass on to the second point, we find that each throws light upon the other. That point is the request made by Pinner that you should not resign your place, but should leave the manager of this important business in the full expectation that a Mr Hall Pycroft, whom he had never seen, was about to enter the office upon the Monday morning.’
‘My God!’ cried our client, ‘what a blind beetle I have been!’
‘Now you see the point about the handwriting. Suppose that someone turned up in your place who wrote a completely different hand from that in which you had applied for the vacancy, of course the game would
have been up. But in the interval the rogue learnt to imitate you, and his position was therefore secure, as I presume that nobody in the office had ever set eyes upon you?’
‘Not a soul,’ groaned Hall Pycroft.
‘Very good. Of course, it was of the utmost importance to prevent you from thinking better of it, and also to keep you from coming into contact with anyone who might tell you that your double was at work in Mawson’s office. Therefore, they gave you a handsome advance on your salary, and ran you off to the Midlands, where they gave you enough work to do to prevent your going to London, where you might have burst their little game up. That is all plain enough.’
‘But why should this man pretend to be his own brother?’
‘Well, that is pretty clear also. There are evidently only two of them in it. The other is personating you at the office. This one acted as your engager, and then found that he could not find you an employer without admitting a third person into his plot. That he was most unwilling to do. He changed his appearance as far as he could, and trusted that the likeness, which you could not fail to observe, would be put down to a family resemblance. But for the happy chance of the gold stuffing your suspicions would probably have never been aroused.’
Hall Pycroft shook his clenched hands in the air. ‘Good Lord!’ he cried. ‘While I have been fooled in this way, what has this other Hall Pycroft been doing at Mawson’s? What should we do, Mr Holmes? Tell me what to do!’
‘We must wire to Mawson’s.’
‘They shut at twelve on Saturdays.’
‘Never mind; there may be some door-keeper or attendant—’
‘Ah, yes; they keep a permanent guard there on account of the value of the securities that they hold. I remember hearing it talked of in the City.’
‘Very good, we shall wire to him, and see if all is well, and if a clerk of your name is working there. That is clear enough, but what is not so clear is why at sight of us one of the rogues should instantly walk out of the room and hang himself.’
‘The paper!’ croaked a voice behind us. The man was sitting up, blanched and ghastly, with returning reason in his eyes, and hands which rubbed nervously at the broad red band which still encircled his throat.
‘The paper! Of course!’ yelled Holmes, in a paroxysm of excitement. ‘Idiot that I was! I thought so much of our visit that the paper never entered my head for an instant. To be sure, the secret must lie there.’ He flattened it out on the table, and a cry of triumph burst from his lips.
‘Look at this, Watson!’ he cried. ‘It is a London paper, an early edition of the Evening Standard. Here is what we want. Look at the headlines—“Crime in the City. Murder at Mawson and Williams’. Gigantic Attempted Robbery; Capture of the Criminal.” Here, Watson, we are all equally anxious to hear it, so kindly read it aloud to us.’
It appeared from its position in the paper to have been the one event of importance in town, and the account of it ran in this way:
‘A desperate attempt at robbery, culminating in the death of one man and the capture of the criminal, occurred this afternoon in the City. For some time back Mawson and Williams, the famous financial house, have been the guardians of securities which amount in the aggregate to a sum of considerably over a million sterling. So conscious was the manager of the responsibility which devolved upon him in consequence of the great interests at stake, that safes of the very latest construction have been employed, and an armed watchman has been left day and night in the building. It appears that last week a new clerk, named Hall Pycroft, was engaged by the firm. This person appears to have been none other than Beddington, the famous forger and cracksman, who, with his brother, has only recently emerged from a five years’ spell of penal servitude. By some means, which are not yet clear, he succeeded in winning, under a false name, this official position in the office, which he utilized in order to obtain mouldings of various locks, and a thorough knowledge of the position of the strong room and the safes.
‘It is customary at Mawson’s for the clerks to leave at midday on Saturday. Sergeant Tuson, of the City Police, was somewhat surprised therefore to see a gentleman with a carpet bag come down the steps at twenty minutes past one. His suspicions being aroused, the sergeant followed the man, and with the aid of Constable Pollock succeeded, after a most desperate resistance, in arresting him. It was at once clear that a daring and gigantic robbery had been committed. Nearly a hundred thousand pounds’ worth of American railway bonds, with a large amount of scrip in other mines and companies, were discovered in the bag. On examining the premises the body of the unfortunate watchman was found doubled up and thrust into the largest of the safes, where it would not have been discovered until Monday morning had it not been for the prompt action of Sergeant Tuson. The man’s skull had been shattered by a blow from a poker, delivered from behind. There could be no doubt that Beddington had obtained entrance by pretending that he had left something behind him, and having murdered the watchman, rapidly rifled the large safe, and then made off with his booty. His brother, who usually works with him, has not appeared in this job, so far as can at present be ascertained, although the police are making energetic inquiries as to his whereabouts.’
‘Well, we may save the police some little trouble in that direction,’ said Holmes, glancing at the haggard figure huddled up by the window. ‘Human nature is a strange mixture, Watson. You see that even a villain and a murderer can inspire such affection that his brother turns to suicide when he learns that his neck is forfeited. However, we have no choice as to our action. The doctor and I will remain on guard, Mr Pycroft, if you will have the kindness to step out for the police.

The 'Gloria Scott'

‘I have some papers here,’ said my friend, Sherlock Holmes, as we sat one winter’s night on either side of the fire, ‘which I really think, Watson, it would be worth your while to glance over. These are the documents in the extraordinary case of the Gloria Scott, and this is the message which struck Justice of the Peace Trevor dead with horror when he read it.’
He had picked from a drawer a little tarnished cylinder, and, undoing the tape, he handed me a short note scrawled upon a half sheet of slate-grey paper.
‘The supply of game for London is going steadily up,’ it ran. ‘Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orders for fly paper, and for preservation of your hen pheasant’s life.’
As I glanced up from reading this enigmatical message I saw Holmes chuckling at the expression upon my face.
‘You look a little bewildered,’ said he.
‘I cannot see how such a message as this could inspire horror. It seems to me to be rather grotesque than otherwise.’
‘Very likely. Yet the fact remains that the reader, who was a fine, robust old man, was knocked clean down by it, as if it had been the butt-end of a pistol.’
‘You arouse my curiosity,’ said I. ‘But why did you say just now that there were very particular reasons why I should study this case?’
‘Because it was the first in which I was ever engaged.’
I had often endeavoured to elicit from my companion what had first turned his mind in the direction of criminal research, but I had never caught him before in a communicative humour. Now he sat forward in his arm-chair, and spread out the documents upon his knees. Then he lit his pipe and sat for some time smoking and turning them over.
‘You never heard me talk of Victor Trevor?’ he asked. ‘He was the only friend I made during the two years that I was at college. I was never a very sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond of moping in my rooms and working out my own little methods of thought, so that I never mixed much with the men of my year. Bar fencing and boxing I had few athletic tastes, and then my line of study was quite distinct from that of the other fellows, so that we had no points of contact at all. Trevor was the only man I knew, and that only through the accident of his bull-terrier freezing on to my ankle one morning as I went down to chapel.
‘It was a prosaic way of forming a friendship, but it was effective. I was laid by the heels for ten days, and Trevor used to come in to inquire after me. At first it was only a minute’s chat, but soon his visits lengthened, and before the end of the term we were close friends. He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of spirit and energy, the very opposite to me in most respects; but we found we had some subjects in common, and it was a bond of union when I learned that he was as friendless as I. Finally, he invited me down to his father’s place at Donnithorpe, in Norfolk, and I accepted his hospitality for a month of the long vacation.
‘Old Trevor was evidently a man of some wealth and consideration, a J.P. and a landed proprietor. Donnithorpe is a little hamlet just to the north of Langmere, in the country of the Broads. The house was an old- fashioned, wide-spread, oak-beamed, brick building, with a fine lime-lined avenue leading up to it. There was excellent wild duck shooting in the fens, remarkably good fishing, a small but select library, taken over, as I understood, from a former occupant, and a tolerable cook, so that it would be a fastidious man who could not put in a pleasant month there.
‘Trevor senior was a widower, and my friend was his only son. There had been a daughter, I heard, but she had died of diphtheria while on a visit to Birmingham. The father interested me extremely. He was a man of little culture, but with a considerable amount of rude strength both physically and mentally. He knew hardly any books, but he had travelled far, had seen much of the world, and had remembered all that he had learned. In person he was a thick-set, burly man with a shock of grizzled hair, a brown, weather-beaten face, and blue eyes which were keen to the verge of fierceness. Yet he had a reputation for kindness and charity in the countryside, and was noted for the leniency of his sentences from the bench.
‘One evening, shortly after my arrival, we were sitting over a glass of port after dinner, when young Trevor began to talk about those habits of observation and inference which I had already formed into a system, although I had not yet appreciated the part which they were to play in my life. The old man evidently thought that his son was exaggerating in his description of one or two trivial feats which I had performed.
‘ “Come now, Mr Holmes,” said he, laughing good-humouredly, “I’m an excellent subject, if you can deduce anything from me.”
‘ “I fear there is not very much,” I answered. “I might suggest that you have gone about in fear of some personal attack within the last twelve months.”
‘The laugh faded from his lips, and he stared at me in great surprise.
‘ “Well, that’s true enough,” said he. “You know, Victor,” turning to his son, “when we broke up that poaching gang, they swore to knife us; and Sir Edward Hoby has actually been attacked. I’ve always been on my guard since then, though I have no idea how you know it.”
‘ “You have a very handsome stick,” I answered. “By the inscription, I observed that you had not had it more than a year. But you have taken some pains to bore the head of it and pour melted lead into the hole, so as to make it a formidable weapon. I argued that you would not take such precautions unless you had some danger to fear.”
‘ “Anything else?’ he asked, smiling.
‘ “You have boxed a good deal in your youth.”
‘ “Right again. How did you know it? Is my nose knocked a little out of the straight?”
‘ “No,” said I, “It is your ears. They have the peculiar flattening and thickening which marks the boxing man.”
‘ “Anything else?”
‘ “You have done a great deal of digging, by your callosities.”
‘ “Made all my money at the gold-fields.”
‘ “You have been in New Zealand.”
‘ “Right again.”
‘ “You have visited Japan.”
‘ “Quite true.”
‘ “And you have been most intimately associated with someone whose initials were J.A., and whom you afterwards were eager to entirely forget.”
‘Mr Trevor stood slowly up, fixed his large blue eyes on me with a strange, wild stare, and then pitched forward on his face among the nutshells which strewed the cloth, in a dead faint.
‘You can imagine, Watson, how shocked both his son and I were. His attack did not last long, however, for when we undid his collar and sprinkled the water from one of the finger glasses over his face, he gave a gasp or two and sat up.
‘ “Ah, boys!” said he, forcing a smile. “I hope I haven’t frightened you. Strong as I look, there is a weak place in my heart, and it does not take much to knock me over. I don’t know how you manage this, Mr Holmes, but it seems to me that all the detectives of fact and of fancy would be children in your hands. That’s your line of life, sir, and you may take the word of a man who has seen something of the world.”
‘And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby. At the moment, however, I was too much concerned at the sudden illness of my host to think of anything else.
‘ “I hope that I have said nothing to pain you,” said I.
‘ “Well, you certainly touched upon rather a tender point. Might I ask how you know and how much you know?” He spoke now in a half jesting fashion, but a look of terror still lurked at the back of his eyes.
‘ “It is simplicity itself,” said I. “When you bared your arm to draw that fish into the boat, I saw that ‘J. A.’ had been tattooed in the bend of the elbow. The letters were still legible, but it was perfectly clear from their blurred appearance, and from the staining of the skin round them, that efforts had been made to obliterate them. It was obvious, then, that those initials had once been very familiar to you, and that you had afterwards wished to forget them.”
‘ “What an eye you have!” he cried, with a sigh of relief. “It is just as you say. But we won’t talk of it. Of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old loves are the worst. Come into the billiard-room and have a quiet cigar.”
‘From that day, amid all his cordiality, there was always a touch of suspicion in Mr Trevor’s manner towards me. Even his son remarked it. “You’ve given the governor such a turn,” said he, “that he’ll never be sure again of what you know and what you don’t know.” He did not mean to show it, I am sure, but it was so strongly in his mind that it peeped out at every action. At last I became so convinced that I was causing him uneasiness, that I drew my visit to a close. On the very day, however, before I left, an incident occurred which proved in the sequel to be of importance.
‘We were sitting out upon the lawn on garden chairs, the three of us, basking in the sun and admiring the view across the Broads, when the maid came out to say that there was a man at the door who wanted to see Mr Trevor.
‘ “What is his name?” asked my host.
‘ “He would not give any.”
‘ “What does he want, then?”
‘ “He says that you know him, and that he only wants a moment’s conversation.”
‘ “Show him round here.” An instant afterwards there appeared a little wizened fellow, with a cringing manner and a shambling style of walking. He wore an open jacket, with a splotch of tar on the sleeve, a red and black check shirt, dungaree trousers, and heavy boots badly worn. His face was thin and brown and crafty, with a perpetual smile upon it, which showed an irregular line of yellow teeth, and his crinkled hands were half-closed in a way that is distinctive of sailors. As he came slouching across the lawn I heard Mr Trevor make a sort of hiccoughing noise in his throat, and, jumping out of his chair, he ran into the house. He was back in a moment, and I smelt a strong reek of brandy as he passed me.
‘ “Well, my man,” said he, “what can I do for you?”
‘The sailor stood looking at him with puckered eyes, and with the same loose-lipped smile upon his face.
‘ “You don’t know me?” he asked.
‘ “Why, dear me, it is surely Hudson!” said Mr Trevor, in a tone of surprise.
‘ “Hudson it is, sir,” said the seaman. “Why, it’s thirty year and more since I saw you last. Here you are in your house, and me still picking my salt meat out of the harness cask.”
‘ “Tut, you will find that I have not forgotten old times,” cried Mr Trevor, and, walking towards the sailor, he said something in a low voice. “Go into the kitchen,” he continued out loud, “and you will get food and drink. I have no doubt that I shall find you a situation.”
‘ “Thank you, sir,” said the seaman, touching his forelock. “I’m just off a two-yearer in an eight-knot tramp, short-handed at that, and I wants a rest. I thought I’d get it either with Mr Beddoes or with you.”
‘ “Ah!” cried Mr Trevor, “you know where Mr Beddoes is?”
‘ “Bless you, sir, I know where all my old friends are,” said the fellow, with a sinister smile, and slouched off after the maid to the kitchen. Mr Trevor mumbled something to us about having been shipmates with the man when he was going back to the diggings, and then, leaving us on the lawn, he went indoors. An hour later, when we entered the house we found him stretched dead drunk upon the dining-room sofa. The whole incident left a most ugly impression upon my mind, and I was not sorry next day to leave Donnithorpe behind me, for I felt that my presence must be a source of embarrassment to my friend.
‘All this occurred during the first month of the long vacation. I went up to my London rooms, where I spent seven weeks working out a few experiments in organic chemistry. One day, however, when the autumn was far advanced and the vacation drawing to a close, I received a telegram from my friend imploring me to return to Donnithorpe, and saying that he was in great need of my advice and assistance. Of course I dropped everything and set out for the north once more.
‘He met me with the dog-cart at the station, and I saw at a glance that the last two months had been very trying ones for him. He had grown thin and careworn, and had lost the loud, cheery manner for which he had been remarkable.
‘ “The governor is dying,” were the first words he said.
‘ “Impossible!” I cried. “What is the matter?”
‘ “Apoplexy. Nervous shock. He’s been on the verge all day. I doubt if we shall find him alive.”
‘I was, as you may think, Watson, horrified at this unexpected news.
‘ “What has caused it?” I asked.
‘ “Ah, that is the point. Jump in, and we can talk it over while we drive. You remember that fellow who came upon the evening before you left us?”
‘ “Perfectly.”
‘ “Do you know who it was that we let into the house that day?”
‘ “I have no idea.”
‘ “It was the Devil, Holmes!” he cried.
‘I stared at him in astonishment.
‘ “Yes; it was the Devil himself. We have not had a peaceful hour since—not one. The governor has never held up his head from that evening, and now the life has been crushed out of him, and his heart broken, all through this accursed Hudson.”
‘ “What power had he, then?”
‘ “Ah, that is what I would give so much to know. The kindly, charitable, good old governor! How could he have fallen into the clutches of such a ruffian? But I am so glad that you have come, Holmes. I trust very much to your judgment and discretion, and I know that you will advise me for the best.”
‘We were dashing along the smooth, white country road, with the long stretch of Broads in front of us glimmering in the red light of the setting sun. From a grove upon our left I could already see the high chimneys and the flag-staff which marked the squire’s dwelling.
‘ “My father made the fellow gardener,” said my companion, “and then, as that did not satisfy him, he was promoted to be butler. The house seemed to be at his mercy, and he wandered about and did what he chose in it. The maids complained of his drunken habits and his vile language. The dad raised their wages all round to recompense them for the annoyance. The fellow would take the boat and my father’s best gun and treat himself to little shooting parties. And all this with such a sneering, leering, insolent face, that I would have knocked him down twenty times over if he had been a man of my own age. I tell you, Holmes, I have had to keep a tight hold upon myself all this time, and now I am asking myself whether, if I had let myself go a little more, I might not have been a wiser man.
‘ “Well, matters went from bad to worse with us, and this animal, Hudson, became more and more intrusive, until at last, on his making some insolent reply to my father in my presence one day, I took him by the shoulder and turned him out of the room. He slunk away with a livid face, and two venomous eyes which uttered more threats than his tongue could do. I don’t know what passed between the poor dad and him after that, but the dad came to me next day and asked me whether I would mind apologizing to Hudson. I refused, as you can imagine, and asked my father how he could allow such a wretch to take such liberties with himself and his household.
‘ “Ah, my boy,” said he, “it is all very well to talk, but you don’t know how I am placed. But you shall know, Victor. I’ll see that you shall know, come what may! You wouldn’t believe harm of your poor old father, would you, lad?” He was very much moved, and shut himself up in the study all day, where I could see through the window that he was writing busily.
‘ “That evening there came what seemed to me to be a grand release, for Hudson told us that he was going to leave us. He walked into the dining-room as we sat after dinner and announced his intention in the thick voice of a half-drunken man.
‘ “I’ve had enough of Norfolk,” said he, “I’ll run down to Mr Beddoes, in Hampshire. He’ll be as glad to see me as you were, I dare say.”
‘ “You’re not going away in an unkind spirit, Hudson, I hope?” said my father, with a tameness which made my blood boil.
‘ “I’ve not had my ’pology,” said he, sulkily, glancing in my direction.
‘ “Victor, you will acknowledge that you have used this worthy fellow rather roughly?” said the dad, turning to me.
‘ “On the contrary, I think that we have both shown extraordinary patience towards him,” I answered.
‘ “Oh, you do, do you?” he snarled. “Very good, mate. We’ll see about that!” He slouched out of the room, and half an hour afterwards left the house, leaving my father in a state of pitiable nervousness. Night after night I heard him pacing his room, and it was just as he was recovering his confidence that the blow did at last fall.
‘ “And how?” I asked eagerly.
‘ “In a most extraordinary fashion. A letter arrived for my father yesterday evening, bearing the Fordingbridge postmark. My father read it, clapped both his hands to his head, and began running round the room in little circles like a man who has been driven out of his senses. When I at last drew him down on to the sofa, his mouth and eyelids were all puckered on one side, and I saw that he had a stroke. Dr Fordham came over at once, and we put him to bed; but the paralysis has spread, he has shown no sign of returning consciousness, and I think that we shall hardly find him alive.”
‘ “You horrify me, Trevor!” I cried. “What, then, could have been in this letter to cause so dreadful a result?”
‘ “Nothing. There lies the inexplicable part of it. The message was absurd and trivial. Ah, my God, it is as I feared!”
‘As he spoke we came round the curve of the avenue, and saw in the fading light that every blind in the house had been drawn down. As we dashed up to the door, my friend’s face convulsed with grief, a gentleman in black emerged from it.
‘ “When did it happen, doctor?” asked Trevor.
‘ “Almost immediately after you left.”
‘ “Did he recover consciousness?”
‘ “For an instant before the end.”
‘ “Any message for me?”
‘ “Only that the papers were in the back drawer of the Japanese cabinet.”
‘My friend ascended with the doctor to the chamber of death, while I remained in the study, turning the whole matter over and over in my head, and feeling as sombre as ever I had done in my life. What was the past of this Trevor: pugilist, traveller, and gold-digger; and how had he placed himself in the power of this acid-faced seaman? Why, too, should he faint at an allusion to the half-effaced initials upon his arm, and die of fright when he had a letter from Fordingbridge? Then I remembered that Fordingbridge was in Hampshire, and that this Mr Beddoes, whom the seaman had gone to visit, and presumably to blackmail, had also been mentioned as living in Hampshire. The letter, then, might either come from Hudson, the seaman, saying that he had betrayed the guilty secret which appeared to exist, or it might come from Beddoes, warning an old confederate that such a betrayal was imminent. So far it seemed clear enough. But, then, how could the letter be trivial and grotesque as described by the son? He must have misread it. If so, it must have been one of those ingenious secret codes which mean one thing while they seem to mean another. I must see this letter. If there were a hidden meaning in it, I was confident that I could pluck it forth. For an hour I sat pondering over it in the gloom, until at last a weeping maid brought in a lamp, and close at her heels came my friend Trevor, pale but composed, with these very papers, which lie upon my knee, held in his grasp. He sat down opposite to me, drew the lamp to the edge of the table, and handed me a short note scribbled, as you see, upon a single sheet of grey paper. “The supply of game for London is going steadily up,” it ran. “Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orders for fly paper and for preservation of your hen pheasant’s life.”
‘I dare say my face looked as bewildered as yours did just now when first I read this message. Then I re-read it very carefully. It was evidently as I had thought, and some second meaning must be buried in this strange combination of words. Or could it be that there was a prearranged significance to such phrases as “fly paper” and “hen pheasant”? Such a meaning would be arbitrary, and could not be deduced in any way. And yet I was loth to believe that this was the case, and the presence of the word “Hudson” seemed to show that the subject of the message was as I had guessed, and that it was from Beddoes rather than the sailor. I tried it backwards, but the combination, “Life pheasant’s hen,” was not encouraging. Then I tried alternate words, but neither “The of for” nor “supply game London” promised to throw any light upon it. And then in an instant the key of the riddle was in my hands, and I saw that every third word beginning with the first would give a message which might well drive old Trevor to despair.
‘It was short and terse, the warning, as I now read it to my companion:
‘ “The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your life.”
‘Victor Trevor sank his face into his shaking hands. “It must be that, I suppose,” said he. “This is worse than death, for it means disgrace as well. But what is the meaning of these ‘head-keepers’ and ‘hen- pheasants’?”
‘ “It means nothing to the message, but it might mean a good deal to us if we had no other means of discovering the sender. You see that he has begun by writing, ‘The … game … is,’ and so on. Afterwards he had, to fulfil the prearranged cipher, to fill in any two words in each space. He would naturally use the first words which came to his mind, and if there were so many which referred to sport among them, you may be tolerably sure that he is either an ardent shot or interested in breeding. Do you know anything of this Beddoes?”
‘ “Why, now that you mention it,” said he, “I remember that my poor father used to have an invitation from him to shoot over his preserves every autumn.”
‘ “Then it is undoubtedly from him that the note comes,” said I. “It only remains for us to find out what this secret was which the sailor Hudson seems to have held over the heads of these two wealthy and respected men.”
‘ “Alas, Holmes, I fear that it is one of sin and shame!” cried my friend. “But from you I shall have no secrets. Here is the statement which was drawn up by my father when he knew that the danger from Hudson had become imminent. I found it in the Japanese cabinet, as he told the doctor. Take it and read it to me, for I have neither the strength nor the courage to do it myself.”
‘These are the very papers, Watson, which he handed to me, and I will read them to you as I read them in the old study that night to him. They are indorsed outside, as you see: “Some particulars of the voyage of the barque Gloria Scott, from her leaving Falmouth on the 8th October, 1855, to her destruction in N. lat. 15° 20´, W. long. 25° 14´, on November 6th.” It is in the form of a letter, and runs in this way:
‘My dear, dear son,—Now that approaching disgrace begins to darken the closing years of my life, I can write with all truth and honesty that it is not the terror of the law, it is not the loss of my position in the county, nor is it my fall in the eyes of all who have known me, which cuts me to the heart; but it is the thought that you should come to blush for me—you who love me, and who have seldom, I hope, had reason to do other than respect me. But if the blow falls which is for ever hanging over me, then I should wish you to read this that you may know straight from me how far I have been to blame. On the other hand, if all should go well (which may kind God Almighty grant!), then if by any chance this paper
should be still undestroyed, and should fall into your hands, I conjure you by all you hold sacred, by the memory of your dear mother, and by the love which has been between us, to hurl it into the fire, and to never give one thought to it again.
‘If, then, your eye goes on to read this line, I know that I shall already have been exposed and dragged from my home, or, as is more likely—for you know that my heart is weak—be lying with my tongue sealed for ever in death. In either case the time for suppression is past, and every word which I tell you is the naked truth; and this I swear as I hope for mercy.
‘My name, dear lad, is not Trevor. I was James Armitage in my younger days, and you can understand now the shock that it was to me a few weeks ago when your college friend addressed me in words which seemed to imply that he had surmised my secret. As Armitage it was that I entered a London banking house, and as Armitage I was convicted of breaking my country’s laws, and was sentenced to transportation. Do not think very harshly of me, laddie. It was a debt of honour, so-called, which I had to pay, and I used money which was not my own to do it, in the certainty that I could replace it before there could be any possibility of its being missed. But the most dreadful ill-luck pursued me. The money which I had reckoned upon never came to hand, and a premature examination of accounts exposed my deficit. The case might have been dealt leniently with, but the laws were more harshly administered thirty years ago than now, and on my twenty-third birthday I found myself chained as a felon with thirty-seven other convicts in the ’tween decks of the barque Gloria Scott, bound for Australia.
‘It was the year ’55, when the Crimean War was at its height, and the old convict ships had been largely used as transports in the Black Sea. The Government was compelled therefore to use smaller and less suitable vessels for sending out their prisoners. The Gloria Scott had been in the Chinese tea trade, but she was an old-fashioned, heavybowed, broad-beamed craft, and the new clippers had cut her out. She was a 500-ton boat, and besides her thirty-eight jail-birds, she carried twenty-six of a crew, eighteen soldiers, a captain, three mates, a doctor, a chaplain, and four warders. Nearly a hundred souls were in her, all told, when we set sail from Falmouth.
‘The partitions between the cells of the convicts, instead of being of thick oak, as is usual in convict ships, were quite thin and frail. The man next to me upon the aft side was one whom I had particularly noticed when we were led down to the quay. He was a young man with a clear, hairless face, a long thin nose, and rather nutcracker jaws. He carried his head very jauntily in the air, had a swaggering style of walking, and was above all else remarkable for his extraordinary height. I don’t think any of our heads would come up to his shoulder, and I am sure that he could not have measured less than six and a half feet. It was strange among so many sad and weary faces to see one which was full of energy and resolution. The sight of it was to me like a fire in a snowstorm. I was glad then to find that he was my neighbour, and gladder still when, in the dead of the night, I heard a whisper close to my ear, and found that he had managed to cut an opening in the board which separated us.
‘ “Hullo, chummy!” said he, “what’s your name, and what are you here for?”
‘I answered him, and asked in turn who I was talking with.
‘ “I’m Jack Prendergast,” said he, “and, by God, you’ll learn to bless my name before you’ve done with me!”
‘I remembered hearing of his case, for it was one which had made an immense sensation throughout the country, some time before my own arrest. He was a man of good family and of great ability, but of incurably vicious habits, who had, by an ingenious system of fraud, obtained huge sums of money from the leading London merchants.
‘ “Ah, ah! You remember my case?” said he, proudly.
‘ “Very well indeed.”
‘ “Then maybe you remember something queer about it?”
‘ “What was that, then?”
‘ “I had nearly a quarter of a million, hadn’t I?”
‘ “So it was said.”
‘ “But none was recovered, eh?”
‘ “No.”
‘ “Well, where d’ye suppose the balance is?” he asked.
‘ “I have no idea,” said I.
‘ “Right between my finger and thumb,” he cried. “By God, I’ve got more pounds to my name than you have hairs on your head. And if you’ve money, my son, and know how to handle it and spread it, you can do anything! Now, you don’t think it likely that a man who could do anything is going to wear his breeches out sitting in the stinking hold of a rat-gutted, beetle-ridden, mouldy old coffin of a China coaster? No, sir, such a man will look after himself, and will look after his chums. You may lay to that! You hold on to him, and you may kiss the Book that he’ll haul you through.”
‘That was his style of talk, and at first I thought it meant nothing, but after a while, when he had tested me and sworn me in with all possible solemnity, he let me understand that there really was a plot to gain command of the vessel. A dozen of the prisoners had hatched it before they came aboard; Prendergast was the leader, and his money was the motive power.
‘ “I’d a partner,” said he, “a rare good man, as true as a stock to a barrel. He’s got the dibbs, he has, and where do you think he is at this moment? Why, he’s the chaplain of this ship—the chaplain, no less! He came aboard with a black coat and his papers right, and money enough in his box to buy the thing right from keel to main-truck. The crew are his, body and soul. He could buy ’em at so much a gross with a cash discount, and he did it before ever they signed on. He’s got two of the warders and Mercer the second mate, and he’d get the captain himself if he thought him worth it.”
‘ “What are we to do, then?” I asked.
‘ “What do you think?” said he. “We’ll make the coats of some of these soldiers redder than ever the tailor did.”
‘ “But they are armed,” said I.
‘ “And so shall we be, my boy. There’s a brace of pistols for every mother’s son of us, and if we can’t carry this ship, with the crew at our back, it’s time we were all sent to a young Miss’s boarding school. You speak to your mate on the left to-night, and see if he is to be trusted.”
‘I did so, and found my other neighbour to be a young fellow in much the same position as myself, whose crime had been forgery. His name was Evans but he afterwards changed it, like myself, and he is now a rich and prosperous man in the South of England. He was ready enough to join the conspiracy, as the only means of saving ourselves, and before we had crossed the Bay there were only two of the prisoners who were not in the secret. One of these was of weak mind, and we did not dare to trust him, and the other was suffering from jaundice, and could not be of any use to us.
‘From the beginning there was really nothing to prevent us taking possession of the ship. The crew were a set of ruffians, specially picked for the job. The sham chaplain came into our cells to exhort us, carrying a black bag, supposed to be full of tracts; and so often did he come that by the third day we had each stowed away at the foot of our bed a file, a brace of pistols, a pound of powder, and twenty slugs. Two of the warders were agents of Prendergast, and the second mate was his right-hand man. The captain, the two mates, two warders, Lieutenant Martin, his eighteen soldiers, and the doctor were all that we had against us. Yet, safe as it was, we determined to neglect no precaution, and to make our attack suddenly at night. It came, however, more quickly than we expected, and in this way:
‘One evening, about the third week after our start, the doctor had come down to see one of the prisoners, who was ill, and, putting his hand down the bottom of his bunk, he felt the outline of the pistols. If he had been silent he might have blown the whole thing; but he was a nervous little chap, so he gave a cry of surprise and turned so pale, that the man knew what was up in an instant and seized him. He was gagged before he could give the alarm, and tied down upon the bed. He had unlocked the door that led to the deck, and we were through it in a rush. The two sentries were shot down, and so was a corporal who came running to see what was the matter. There were two more soldiers at the door of the state-room, and their muskets seemed not to be loaded, for they never fired upon us, and they were shot while trying to fix their bayonets. Then we rushed on into the captain’s cabin, but as we pushed open the door there was an explosion from within, and there he lay with his head on the chart of the Atlantic, which was pinned upon the table, while the chaplain stood, with a smoking pistol in his hand, at his elbow. The two mates had both been seized by the crew, and the whole business seemed to be settled.
‘The state-room was next the cabin, and we flocked in there and flopped down on the settees, all speaking together, for we were just mad with the feeling that we were free once more. There were lockers all round, and Wilson, the sham chaplain, knocked one of them in, and pulled out a dozen of brown sherry. We cracked off the necks of the bottles, poured the stuff out into tumblers, and were just tossing them off, when in an instant, without warning, there came the roar of muskets in our ears, and the saloon was so full of smoke that we could not see across the table. When it cleared away again the place was a shambles. Wilson and eight others were wriggling on the top of each other on the floor, and the blood and the brown sherry on that table turn me sick now when I think of it. We were so cowed by the sight that I think we should have given the job up if it had not been for Prendergast. He bellowed like a bull and rushed for the door with all that were left alive at his heels. Out we ran, and there on the poop were the lieutenant and ten of his men. The swing skylights above the saloon table had been a bit open, and they had fired on us through the slit. We got on them before they could load, and they stood to it like men, but we had the upper hand of them, and in five minutes it was all over. My God! was there ever a slaughter-house like that ship? Prendergast was like a raging devil, and he picked the soldiers up as if they had been children and threw them overboard, alive or dead. There was one sergeant that was horribly wounded, and yet kept on swimming for a surprising time, until someone in mercy blew out his brains. When the fighting was over there was no one left of our enemies except just the warders, the mates, and the doctor.
‘It was over them that the great quarrel arose. There were many of us who were glad enough to win back our freedom, and yet who had no wish to have murder on our souls. It was one thing to knock the soldiers over with their muskets in their hands, and it was another to stand by while men were being killed in cold blood. Eight of us, five convicts and three sailors, said that we would not see it done. But there was no moving Prendergast and those who were with him. Our only chance of safety lay in making a clean job of it, said he, and he would not leave a tongue with power to wag in a witness-box. It nearly came to our sharing the fate of the prisoners, but at last he said that if we wished we might take a boat and go. We jumped at the offer, for we were already sick of these bloodthirsty doings, and we saw that there would be worse before it was done. We were given a suit of sailors’ togs each, a barrel of water, two casks, one of junk and one of biscuits, and a compass. Prendergast threw us over a chart, told us that we were shipwrecked mariners whose ship had foundered in lat. 15° N. and long. 25° W., and then cut the painter and let us go.
‘And now I come to the most surprising part of my story, my dear son. The seamen had hauled the foreyard aback during the rising, but now as we left them they brought it square again, and, as there was a light wind from the north and east, the barque began to draw slowly away from us. Our boat lay, rising and falling, upon the long, smooth rollers, and Evans and I, who were the most educated of the party, were sitting in the sheets working out our position and planning what coast we should make for. It was a nice question, for the Cape de Verds was about 500 miles to the north of us, and the African coast about 700 miles to the east. On the whole, as the wind was coming round to north, we thought that Sierra Leone might be best, and turned our head in that direction, the barque being at that time nearly hull down on our starboard quarter. Suddenly as we looked at her we saw a dense black cloud of smoke shoot up from her, which hung like a monstrous tree upon the sky-line. A few seconds later a roar like thunder burst upon our ears, and as the smoke thinned away there was no sign left of the Gloria Scott. In an instant we swept the boat’s head round again, and pulled with all our strength for the place where the haze, still trailing over the water, marked the scene of this catastrophe.
‘It was a long hour before we reached it, and at first we feared that we had come too late to save anyone. A splintered boat and a number of crates and fragments of spars rising and falling on the waves showed us where the vessel had foundered, but there was no sign of life, and we had turned away in despair when we heard a cry for help, and saw at some distance a piece of wreckage with a man lying stretched across it. When we pulled him aboard the boat he proved to be a young seaman of the name of Hudson, who was so burned and exhausted that he could give us no account of what had happened until the following morning.
‘It seemed that, after we had left, Prendergast and his gang had proceeded to put to death the remaining five prisoners: the two warders had been shot and thrown overboard, and so also had the third mate. Prendergast then descended into the ’tween decks, and with his own hands cut the throat of the unfortunate surgeon. There only remained the first mate, who was a bold and active man. When he saw the convict approaching him with the bloody knife in his hand, he kicked off his bonds, which he had somehow contrived to loosen, and rushing down the deck he plunged into the after-hold.
‘A dozen convicts who descended with their pistols in search of him found him with a match-box in his hand seated beside an open powder barrel, which was one of a hundred carried on board, and swearing that he would blow all hands up if he were in any way molested. An instant later the explosion occurred, though Hudson thought it was caused by the misdirected bullet of one of the convicts rather than the mate’s match. Be the cause what it may, it was the end of the Gloria Scott, and of the rabble who held command of her.
‘Such, in a few words, my dear boy, is the history of this terrible business in which I was involved. Next day we were picked up by the brig Hotspur, bound for Australia, whose captain found no difficulty in believing that we were the survivors of a passenger ship which had foundered. The transport ship, Gloria Scott, was set down by the Admiralty as being lost at sea, and no word has ever leaked out as to her true fate. After an excellent voyage the Hotspur landed us at Sydney, where Evans and I changed our names and made our way to the diggings, where among the crowds who were gathered from all nations, we had no difficulty in losing our former identities.
‘The rest I need not relate. We prospered, we travelled, we came back as rich Colonials to England, and we bought country estates. For more than twenty years we have led peaceful and useful lives, and we hoped that our past was for ever buried. Imagine, then, my feelings when in the seaman who came to us I recognized instantly the man who had been picked off the wreck! He had tracked us down somehow, and had set himself to live upon our fears. You will understand now how it was that I strove to keep peace with him, and you will in some measure sympathize with me in the fears which fill me, now that he has gone from me to his other victim with threats upon his tongue.
‘Underneath is written, in a hand so shaky as to be hardly legible, “Beddoes writes in cipher to say that H. has told all. Sweet Lord, have mercy on our souls!”
‘That was the narrative which I read that night to young Trevor, and I think, Watson, that under the circumstances it was a dramatic one. The good fellow was heartbroken at it, and went out to the Terai tea planting, where I hear that he is doing well. As to the sailor and Beddoes, neither of them was ever heard of again after that day on which the letter of warning was written. They both disappeared utterly and completely. No complaint had been lodged with the police, so that Beddoes had mistaken a threat for a deed. Hudson had been seen lurking about, and it was believed by the police that he had done away with Beddoes, and had fled. For myself, I believe that the truth was exactly the opposite. I think it is most probable that Beddoes, pushed to desperation, and believing himself to have been already betrayed, had revenged himself upon Hudson, and had fled from the country with as much money as he could lay his hands on. Those are the facts of the case, Doctor, and if they are of any use to your collection, I am sure that they are very heartily at your service.’

The Musgrave Ritual

An anomaly which often struck me in the character of my friend Sherlock Holmes was that, although in his methods of thought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind, and although also he affected a certain quiet primness of dress, he was none the less in his personal habits one of the most untidy men that ever drove a fellow-lodger to distraction. Not that I am in the least conventional in that respect myself. The rough-and-tumble work in Afghanistan, coming on the top of a natural Bohemianism of disposition, has made me rather more lax than befits a medical man. But with me there is a limit, and when I find a man who keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin to give myself virtuous airs. I have always held, too, that pistol practice should distinctly be an open-air pastime; and when Holmes in one of his queer humours would sit in an arm- chair, with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges, and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V.R. done in bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved by it.
Our chambers were always full of chemicals and of criminal relics, which had a way of wandering into unlikely positions, and of turning up in the butter-dish, or in even less desirable places. But his papers were my great crux. He had a horror of destroying documents, especially those which were connected with his past cases, and yet it was only once in every year or two that he would muster energy to docket and arrange them, for, as I have mentioned somewhere in these incoherent memoirs, the outbursts of passionate energy when he performed the remarkable feats with which his name is associated were followed by reactions of lethargy, during which he would lie about with his violin and his books, hardly moving, save from the sofa to the table. Thus month after month his papers accumulated, until every corner of the room was stacked with bundles of manuscript which were on no account to be burned, and which could not be put away save by their owner.
One winter’s night, as we sat together by the fire, I ventured to suggest to him that as he had finished pasting extracts into his commonplace book he might employ the next two hours in making our room a little more habitable. He could not deny the justice of my request, so with a rather rueful face he went off to his bedroom, from which he returned presently pulling a large tin box behind him. This he placed in the middle of the floor, and squatting down upon a stool in front of it he threw back the lid. I could see that it was already a third full of bundles of paper tied up with red tape into separate packages.
‘There are cases enough here, Watson,’ said he, looking at me with mischievous eyes. ‘I think that if you knew all that I have in this box you would ask me to pull some out instead of putting others in.’
‘These are the records of your early work, then?’ I asked. ‘I have often wished that I had notes of those cases.’
‘Yes, my boy; these were all done prematurely before my biographer had come to glorify me.’ He lifted bundle after bundle in a tender, caressing sort of way. ‘They are not all successes, Watson,’ said he, ‘but there are some pretty little problems among them. Here’s the record of the Tarleton murders and the case of Vamberry, the wine merchant, and the adventure of the old Russian woman, and the singular affair of the aluminium crutch, as well as a full account of Ricoletti of the club foot and his abominable wife. And here—ah, now! this really is something a little recherché.’
He dived his arm down to the bottom of the chest, and brought up a small wooden box, with a sliding lid, such as children’s toys are kept in. From within he produced a crumpled piece of paper, an old- fashioned brass key, a peg of wood with a ball of string attached to it, and three rusty old discs of metal.
‘Well, my boy, what do you make of this lot?’ he asked, smiling at my expression.
‘It is a curious collection.’
‘Very curious; and the story that hangs round it will strike you as being more curious still.’
‘These relics have a history, then?’
‘So much so that they are history.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
Sherlock Holmes picked them up one by one, and laid them along the edge of the table. Then he re- seated himself in his chair, and looked them over with a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.
‘These,’ said he, ‘are all that I have left to remind me of the episode of the Musgrave Ritual.’
I had heard him mention the case more than once, though I had never been able to gather the details.
‘I should be so glad,’ said I, ‘if you would give me an account of it.’
‘And leave the litter as it is?’ he cried, mischievously. ‘Your tidiness won’t bear much strain, after all, Watson. But I should be glad that you should add this case to your annals, for there are points in it which make it quite unique in the criminal records of this or, I believe, of any other country. A collection of my trifling achievements would certainly be incomplete which contained no account of this very singular business.
‘You may remember how the affair of the Gloria Scott, and my conversation with the unhappy man whose fate I told you of, first turned my attention in the direction of the profession which has become my life’s work. You see me now when my name has become known far and wide, and when I am generally recognised both by the public and by the official force as being a final court of appeal in doubtful cases. Even when you knew me first, at the time of the affair which you have commemorated in A Study in Scarlet, I had already established a considerable, though not a very lucrative, connection. You can hardly realize, then, how difficult I found it at first, and how long I had to wait before I succeeded in making any headway.
‘When I first came up to London I had rooms in Montague Street, just round the corner from the British Museum, and there I waited, filling in my too abundant leisure time by studying all those branches of science which might make me more efficient. Now and again cases came in my way, principally through the introduction of old fellow students, for during my last years at the university there was a good deal of talk there about myself and my methods. The third of these cases was that of the Musgrave Ritual, and it is to the interest which was aroused by that singular chain of events, and the large issues which proved to be at stake, that I trace my first stride towards the position which I now hold.
‘Reginald Musgrave had been in the same college as myself, and I had some slight acquaintance with him. He was not generally popular among the undergraduates, though it always seemed to me that what was set down as pride was really an attempt to cover extreme natural diffidence. In appearance he was a man of an exceedingly aristocratic type, thin, high-nosed, and large-eyed, with languid and yet courtly manners. He was indeed a scion of one of the very oldest families in the kingdom, though his branch was a cadet one which had separated from the northern Musgraves some time in the sixteenth century, and had established itself in western Sussex, where the manor house of Hurlstone is perhaps the oldest inhabited building in the county. Something of his birthplace seemed to cling to the man, and I never looked at his pale, keen face, or the poise of his head, without associating him with grey archways and mullioned windows and all the venerable wreckage of a feudal keep. Now and again we drifted into talk, and I can remember that more than once he expressed a keen interest in my methods of observation and inference.
‘For four years I had seen nothing of him, until one morning he walked into my room in Montague Street. He had changed little, was dressed like a young man of fashion—he was always a bit of a dandy—and preserved the same quiet, suave manner which had formerly distinguished him.
“‘How has all gone with you, Musgrave?” I asked, after we had cordially shaken hands.
“‘You probably heard of my poor father’s death,” said he. “He was carried off about two years ago. Since then I have, of course, had the Hurlstone estates to manage, and as I am member for the district as well, my life has been a busy one; but I understand, Holmes, that you are turning to practical ends those powers with which you used to amaze us.”
“‘Yes,” said I, “I have taken to living by my wits.”
“‘I am delighted to hear it, for your advice at present would be exceedingly valuable to me. We have had some very strange doings at Hurlstone, and the police have been able to throw no light upon the matter. It is really the most extraordinary and inexplicable business.”
‘You can imagine with what eagerness I listened to him, Watson, for the very chance for which I had been panting during all those months of inaction seemed to have come within my reach. In my inmost heart I believed that I could succeed where others failed, and now I had the opportunity to test myself.
“‘Pray let me have the details,” I cried.
‘Reginald Musgrave sat down opposite to me, and lit the cigarette which I had pushed towards him.
“‘You must know,” said he, “that though I am a bachelor I have to keep up a considerable staff of servants at Hurlstone, for it is a rambling old place, and takes a good deal of looking after. I preserve, too, and in the pheasant months I usually have a house party, so that it would not do to be short-handed. Altogether there are eight maids, the cook, the butler, two footmen, and a boy. The garden and the stables, of course, have a separate staff.
“‘Of these servants the one who had been longest in our service was Brunton, the butler. He was a young schoolmaster out of place when he was first taken up by my father, but he was a man of great energy and character, and he soon became quite invaluable in the household. He was a well-grown, handsome man, with a splendid forehead, and though he has been with us for twenty years he cannot be more than forty now. With his personal advantages and his extraordinary gifts, for he can speak several languages and play nearly every musical instrument, it is wonderful that he should have been satisfied so long in such a position, but I suppose that he was comfortable and lacked energy to make any change. The butler of Hurlstone is always a thing that is remembered by all who visit us.
“‘But this paragon has one fault. He is a bit of a Don Juan, and you can imagine that for a man like him it is not a very difficult part to play in a quiet country district.
“‘When he was married it was all right, but since he has been a widower we have had no end of trouble with him. A few months ago we were in hopes that he was about to settle down again, for he became engaged to Rachel Howells, our second housemaid, but he has thrown her over since then and taken up with Janet Tregellis, the daughter of the head gamekeeper. Rachel, who is a very good girl, but of an excitable Welsh temperament, had a sharp touch of brain fever, and goes about the house now—or did until yesterday—like a black-eyed shadow of her former self. That was our first drama at Hurlstone, but a second one came to drive it from our minds, and it was prefaced by the disgrace and dismissal of butler Brunton.
“‘This is how it came about. I have said that the man was intelligent, and this very intelligence has caused his ruin, for it seems to have led to an insatiable curiosity about things which did not in the least concern him. I had no idea of the lengths to which this would carry him until the merest accident opened my eyes to it.
“‘I have said that the house is a rambling one. One night last week—on Thursday night, to be more exact—I found that I could not sleep, having foolishly taken a cup of strong cafe noir after my dinner. After struggling against it until two in the morning I felt that it was quite hopeless, so I rose and lit the candle with the intention of continuing a novel which I was reading. The book, however, had been left in the billiard-room, so I pulled on my dressing-gown and started off to get it.
“‘In order to reach the billiard-room I had to descend a flight of stairs, and then to cross the head of the passage which led to the library and the gun-room. You can imagine my surprise when as I looked down this corridor I saw a glimmer of light coming from the open door of the library. I had myself extinguished the lamp and closed the door before coming to bed. Naturally, my first thought was of burglars. The corridors at Hurlstone have their walls largely decorated with trophies of old weapons. From one of these I picked a battle-axe, and then, leaving my candle behind me, I crept on tip-toe down the passage and peeped in at the open door.
“‘Brunton, the butler, was in the library. He was sitting, fully dressed, in an easy chair, with a slip of paper, which looked like a map, upon his knee, and his forehead sunk forward upon his hand in deep thought. I stood, dumb with astonishment, watching him from the darkness. A small taper on the edge of the table shed a feeble light, which sufficed to show me that he was fully dressed. Suddenly, as I looked, he rose from his chair, and walking over to a bureau at the side, he unlocked it and drew out one of the drawers. From this he took a paper, and, returning to his seat, he flattened it out beside the taper on the edge of the table, and began to study it with minute attention. My indignation at this calm examination of our family documents overcame me so far that I took a step forward, and Brunton looking up saw me standing in the doorway. He sprang to his feet, his face turned livid with fear, and he thrust into his breast the chart-like paper which he had been originally studying.
““So!’ said I, ‘this is how you repay the trust which we have reposed in you! You will leave my service tomorrow.’
“‘He bowed with the look of a man who is utterly crushed, and slunk past me without a word. The taper was still on the table, and by its light I glanced to see what the paper was which Brunton had taken from the bureau. To my surprise it was nothing of any importance at all, but simply a copy of the questions and answers in the singular old observance called the Musgrave Ritual. It is a sort of ceremony peculiar to our family, which each Musgrave for centuries past has gone through upon his coming of age—a thing of private interest, and perhaps of some little importance to the archaeologist, like our own blazonings and charges, but of no practical use whatever.”
“‘We had better come back to the paper afterwards,” said I.
“‘If you think it really necessary,” he answered, with some hesitation. “To continue my statement, however, I re-locked the bureau, using the key which Brunton had left, and I had turned to go, when I was surprised to find that the butler had returned and was standing before me.
““Mr Musgrave, sir,’ he cried, in a voice which was hoarse with emotion, ‘I can’t bear disgrace, sir. I’ve always been proud above my station in life, and disgrace would kill me. My blood will be on your head, sir—it will, indeed—if you drive me to despair. If you cannot keep me after what has passed, then for God’s sake let me give you notice and leave in a month, as if of my own free will. I could stand that, Mr Musgrave, but not to be cast out before all the folk that I know so well.’
““You don’t deserve much consideration, Brunton,’ I answered. ‘Your conduct has been most infamous. However, as you have been a long time in the family, I have no wish to bring public disgrace upon you. A month, however, is too long. Take yourself away in a week, and give what reason you like for going.’
““Only a week, sir?” he cried in a despairing voice. ‘A fortnight—say at least a fortnight.’
““A week,’ I repeated, ‘and you may consider yourself to have been very leniently dealt with.’
‘ “He crept away, his face sunk upon his breast, like a broken man, while I put out the light and returned to my room.
‘ “For two days after this Brunton was most assiduous in his attention to his duties. I made no allusion to what had passed, and waited with some curiosity to see how he would cover his disgrace. On the third morning, however, he did not appear, as was his custom, after breakfast to receive my instructions for the day. As I left the dining-room I happened to meet Rachel Howells, the maid. I have told you that she had only recently recovered from an illness, and was looking so wretchedly pale and wan that I remonstrated with her for being at work.
‘ “ ‘You should be in bed,’ I said. ‘Come back to your duties when you are stronger.’
‘ “She looked at me with so strange an expression that I began to suspect that her brain was affected.
‘ “ ‘I am strong enough, Mr Musgrave,’ said she.
‘ “ ‘We will see what the doctor says,’ I answered. ‘You must stop work now, and when you go downstairs just say that I wish to see Brunton.’
‘ “ ‘The butler is gone,’ said she.
‘ “ ‘Gone! Gone where?’
‘ “ ‘He is gone. No one has seen him. He is not in his room. Oh, yes, he is gone—he is gone!’ She fell back against the wall with shriek after shriek of laughter, while I, horrified at this sudden hysterical attack, rushed to the bell to summon help. The girl was taken to her room, still screaming and sobbing, while I made inquiries about Brunton. There was no doubt about it that he had disappeared. His bed had not been slept in; he had been seen by no one since he had retired to his room the night before; and yet it was difficult to see how he could have left the house, as both windows and doors were found to be fastened in the morning. His clothes, his watch, and even his money were in his room—but the black suit which he usually wore was missing. His slippers, too, were gone, but his boots were left behind. Where, then, could butler Brunton have gone in the night, and what could have become of him now?
‘ “Of course we searched the house and the outhouses, but there was no trace of him. It is, as I have said, a labyrinth of an old building, especially the original wing, which is now practically uninhabited, but we ransacked every room and attic without discovering the least sign of the missing man. It was incredible to me that he could have gone away leaving all his property behind him, and yet where could he be? I called in the local police, but without success. Rain had fallen on the night before, and we examined the lawn and the paths all round the house, but in vain. Matters were in this state when a new development quite drew our attention away from the original mystery.
‘ “For two days Rachel Howells had been so ill, sometimes delirious, sometimes hysterical, that a nurse had been employed to sit up with her at night. On the third night after Brunton’s disappearance, the nurse, finding her patient sleeping nicely, had dropped into a nap in the arm-chair, when she woke in the early morning to find the bed empty, the window open, and no signs of the invalid. I was instantly aroused, and with the two footmen started off at once in search of the missing girl. It was not difficult to tell the direction which she had taken, for, starting from under her window, we could follow her footmarks easily across the lawn to the edge of the mere, where they vanished, close to the gravel path which leads out of the grounds. The lake there is 8 ft. deep, and you can imagine our feelings when we saw that the trail of the poor demented girl came to an end at the edge of it.
‘ “Of course, we had the drags at once, and set to work to recover the remains; but no trace of the body could we find. On the other hand, we brought to the surface an object of a most unexpected kind. It was a linen bag, which contained within it a mass of old rusted and discoloured metal and several dull- coloured pieces of pebble or glass. This strange find was all that we could get from the mere, and although we made every possible search and inquiry yesterday, we know nothing of the fate either of Rachel Howells or Richard Brunton. The county police are at their wits’ end, and I have come up to you as a last resource.”
‘You can imagine, Watson, with what eagerness I listened to this extraordinary sequence of events, and endeavoured to piece them together, and to devise some common thread upon which they might all hang.
‘The butler was gone. The maid was gone. The maid had loved the butler, but had afterwards had cause to hate him. She was of Welsh blood, fiery and passionate. She had been terribly excited immediately after his disappearance. She had flung into the lake a bag containing some curious contents. These were all factors which had to be taken into consideration, and yet none of them got quite to the heart of the matter. What was the starting-point of this chain of events? There lay the end of this tangled line.
‘ “I must see that paper, Musgrave,” said I, “which this butler of yours thought it worth his while to consult, even at the risk of the loss of his place.”
‘ “It is rather an absurd business, this Ritual of ours,” he answered, “but it has at least the saving grace of antiquity to excuse it. I have a copy of the questions and answers here, if you care to run your eye over them.”
‘He handed me the very paper which I have here, Watson, and this is the strange catechism to which each Musgrave had to submit when he came to man’s estate. I will read you the questions and answers as they stand:
‘ “Whose was it?
‘ “His who is gone.
‘ “Who shall have it?
‘ “He who will come.
‘ “What was the month?
‘ “The sixth from the first.
‘ “Where was the sun?
‘ “Over the oak.
‘ “Where was the shadow?
‘ “Under the elm.
‘ “How was it stepped?
‘ “North by ten and by ten, east by five and by five, south by two and by two, west by one and by one, and so under.
‘ “What shall we give for it?
‘ “All that is ours.
‘ “Why should we give it?
‘ “For the sake of the trust.”
‘ “The original has no date, but is in the spelling of the middle of the seventeenth century,” remarked Musgrave. “I am afraid, however, that it can be of little help to you in solving this mystery.”
‘ “At least,” said I, “it gives us another mystery, and one which is even more interesting than the first. It may be that the solution of the one may prove to be the solution of the other. You will excuse me, Musgrave, if I say that your butler appears to me to have been a very clever man, and to have had a clearer insight than ten generations of his masters.”
‘ “I hardly follow you,” said Musgrave. “The paper seems to me to be of no practical importance.”
‘ “But to me it seems immensely practical, and I fancy that Brunton took the same view. He had probably seen it before that night on which you caught him.”
‘ “It is very possible. We took no pains to hide it.”
‘ “He simply wished, I should imagine, to refresh his memory upon that last occasion. He had, as I understand, some sort of map or chart which he was comparing with the manuscript, and which he thrust into his pocket when you appeared?”
‘ “That is true. But what could he have to do with this old family custom of ours, and what does this rigmarole mean?”
‘ “I don’t think that we should have much difficulty in determining that,” said I. “With your permission we will take the first train down to Sussex and go a little more deeply into the matter upon the spot.”
‘The same afternoon saw us both at Hurlstone. Possibly you have seen pictures and read descriptions of the famous old building, so I will confine my account of it to saying that it is built in the shape of an L, the long arm being the more modern portion, and the shorter the ancient nucleus from which the other has developed. Over the low, heavy-lintelled door, in the centre of this old part, is chiselled the date 1607, but experts are agreed that the beams and stonework are really much older than this. The enormously thick walls and tiny windows of this part had in the last century driven the family into building the new wing, and the old one was used now as a storehouse and a cellar when it was used at all. A splendid park, with fine old timber, surrounded the house, and the lake, to which my client had referred, lay close to the avenue, about two hundred yards from the building.
‘I was already firmly convinced, Watson, that there were not three separate mysteries here, but one only, and that if I could read the Musgrave Ritual aright, I should hold in my hand the clue which would lead me to the truth concerning both the butler Brunton, and the maid Howells. To that, then, I turned all my energies. Why should this servant be so anxious to master this old formula? Evidently because he saw something in it which had escaped all those generations of country squires, and from which he expected some personal advantage. What was it, then, and how had it affected his fate?
‘It was perfectly obvious to me on reading the Ritual that the measurements must refer to some spot to which the rest of the document alluded, and that if we could find that spot we should be in a fair way towards knowing what the secret was which the old Musgraves had thought it necessary to embalm in so curious a fashion. There were two guides given us to start with, an oak and an elm. As to the oak, there could be no question at all. Right in front of the house, upon the left-hand side of the drive, there stood a patriarch among oaks, one of the most magnificent trees that I have ever seen.
‘ “That was there when your Ritual was drawn up?” said I, as we drove past it.
‘ “It was there at the Norman Conquest, in all probability,” he answered. “It has a girth of 23 ft.”
‘Here was one of my fixed points secured.
‘ “Have you any old elms?” I asked.
‘ “There used to be a very old one over yonder, but it was struck by lightning ten years ago, and we cut down the stump.”
‘ “You can see where it used to be?”
‘ “Oh, yes.”
‘ “There are no other elms?”
‘ “No old ones, but plenty of beeches.”
‘ “I should like to see where it grew.”
‘We had driven up in a dog-cart, and my client led me away at once, without our entering the house, to the scar on the lawn where the elm had stood. It was nearly midway between the oak and the house. My investigation seemed to be progressing.
‘ “I suppose it is impossible to find out how high the elm was?” I asked.
‘ “I can give you it at once. It was 64 ft.”
‘ “How do you come to know it?” I asked in surprise.
‘ “When my old tutor used to give me an exercise in trigonometry it always took the shape of measuring heights. When I was a lad I worked out every tree and building on the estate.”
‘This was an unexpected piece of luck. My data were coming more quickly than I could have reasonably hoped.
‘ “Tell me,” I asked, “did your butler ever ask you such a question?”
‘Reginald Musgrave looked at me in astonishment. “Now that you call it to my mind,” he answered, “Brunton did ask me about the height of the tree some months ago, in connection with some little argument with the groom.”
‘This was excellent news, Watson, for it showed me that I was on the right road. I looked up at the sun. It was low in the heavens, and I calculated that in less than an hour it would lie just above the topmost branches of the old oak. One condition mentioned in the Ritual would then be fulfilled. And the shadow of the elm must mean the further end of the shadow, otherwise the trunk would have been chosen as the guide. I had then to find where the far end of the shadow would fall when the sun was just clear of the oak.’
‘That must have been difficult, Holmes, when the elm was no longer there.’
‘Well, at least, I knew that if Brunton could do it, I could also. Besides, there was no real difficulty. I went with Musgrave to his study and whittled myself this peg, to which I tied this long string, with a knot at each yard. Then I took two lengths of a fishing-rod, which came to just six feet, and I went back with my client to where the elm had been. The sun was just grazing the top of the oak. I fastened the rod on end, marked out the direction of the shadow, and measured it. It was 9 ft. in length.
‘Of course, the calculation was now a simple one. If a rod of 6 ft. threw a shadow of 9 ft., a tree of 64 ft. would throw one of 96 ft., and the line of one would of course be the line of the other. I measured out the distance, which brought me almost to the wall of the house, and I thrust a peg into the spot. You can imagine my exultation, Watson, when within 2 in. of my peg I saw a conical depression in the ground. I knew that it was the mark made by Brunton in his measurements, and that I was still upon his trail.
‘From this starting point I proceeded to step, having first taken the cardinal points by my pocket compass. Ten steps with each foot took me along parallel with the wall of the house, and again I marked my spot with a peg. Then I carefully paced off five to the east and two to the south. It brought me to the very threshold of the old door. Two steps to the west meant now that I was to go two paces down the stone- flagged passage, and this was the place indicated by the Ritual.
‘Never have I felt such a cold chill of disappointment, Watson. For a moment it seemed to me that there must be some radical mistake in my calculations. The setting sun shone full upon the passage floor, and I could see that the old foot-worn grey stones, with which it was paved, were firmly cemented together, and had certainly not been moved for many a long year. Brunton had not been at work here. I tapped upon the floor, but it sounded the same all over, and there was no sign of any crack or crevice. But fortunately, Musgrave, who had begun to appreciate the meaning of my proceedings, and who was now as excited as myself, took out his manuscript to check my calculations.
‘ “And under,” he cried: “you have omitted the ‘and under’.”
‘I had thought that it meant that we were to dig, but now, of course, I saw at once that I was wrong. “There is a cellar under this, then?” I cried.
‘ “Yes, and as old as the house. Down here, through this door.”
‘We went down a winding stone stair, and my companion, striking a match, lit a large lantern which stood on a barrel in the corner. In an instant it was obvious that we had at last come upon the true place, and that we had not been the only people to visit the spot recently.
‘It had been used for the storage of wood, but the billets, which had evidently been littered over the floor, were now piled at the sides so as to leave a clear space in the middle. In this space lay a large and heavy flagstone, with a rusted iron ring in the centre, to which a thick shepherd’s check muffler was attached.
‘ “By Jove!” cried my client, “that’s Brunton’s muffler. I have seen it on him, and could swear to it. What has the villain been doing here?”
‘At my suggestion a couple of the county police were summoned to be present, and I then endeavoured to raise the stone by pulling on the cravat. I could only move it slightly, and it was with the aid of one of the constables that I succeeded at last in carrying it to one side. A black hole yawned beneath, into which we all peered, while Musgrave, kneeling at the side, pushed down the lantern.
‘A small chamber about 7 ft. deep and 4 ft. square lay open to us. At one side of this was a squat, brass-bound, wooden box, the lid of which was hinged upwards, with this curious, old-fashioned key projecting from the lock. It was furred outside by a thick layer of dust, and damp and worms had eaten through the wood so that a crop of livid fungi was growing on the inside of it. Several discs of metal—old coins apparently—such as I hold here, were scattered over the bottom of the box, but it contained nothing else.
‘At that moment, however, we had no thought for the old chest, for our eyes were riveted upon that which crouched beside it. It was the figure of a man, clad in a suit of black, who squatted down upon his hams with his forehead sunk upon the edge of the box and his two arms thrown out on each side of it. The attitude had drawn all the stagnant blood to his face, and no man could have recognised that distorted, liver-coloured countenance; but his height, his dress, and his hair were all sufficient to show my client, when we had drawn the body up, that it was indeed his missing butler. He had been dead some days, but there was no wound or bruise upon his person to show how he had met his dreadful end. When his body had been carried from the cellar we found ourselves still confronted with a problem which was almost as formidable as that with which we had started.
‘I confess that so far, Watson, I had been disappointed in my investigation. I had reckoned upon solving the matter when once I had found the place referred to in the Ritual; but now I was there, and was apparently as far as ever from knowing what it was which the family had concealed with such elaborate precautions. It is true that I had thrown a light upon the fate of Brunton, but now I had to ascertain how that fate had come upon him, and what part had been played in the matter by the woman who had disappeared. I sat down upon a keg in the corner and thought the whole matter carefully over.
‘You know my methods in such cases, Watson: I put myself in the man’s place, and having first gauged his intelligence, I try to imagine how I should myself have proceeded under the same circumstances. In this case the matter was simplified by Brunton’s intelligence being quite first rate, so that it was unnecessary to make any allowance for the personal equation, as the astronomers have dubbed it. He knew that something valuable was concealed. He had spotted the place. He found that the stone which covered it was just too heavy for a man to move unaided. What would he do next? He could not get help from outside, even if he had someone whom he could trust, without the unbarring of doors, and considerable risk of detection. It was better, if he could, to have his helpmate inside the house. But whom could he ask? This girl had been devoted to him. A man always finds it hard to realize that he may have finally lost a woman’s love, however badly he may have treated her. He would try by a few attentions to make his peace with the girl Howells, and then would engage her as his accomplice. Together they would come at night to the cellar, and their united force would suffice to raise the stone. So far I could follow their actions as if I had actually seen them.
‘But for two of them, and one a woman, it must have been heavy work, the raising of that stone. A burly Sussex policeman and I had found it no light job. What would they do to assist them? Probably what I should have done myself. I rose and examined carefully the different billets of wood which were scattered round the floor. Almost at once I came upon what I expected. One piece, about 3 ft. in length, had a marked indentation at one end, while several were flattened at the sides as if they had been compressed by some considerable weight. Evidently, as they had dragged the stone up they had thrust the chunks of wood into the chink, until at last, when the opening was large enough to crawl through, they would hold it open by a billet placed lengthwise, which might very well become indented at the lower end, since the whole weight of the stone would press it down on to the edge of the other slab. So far I was still on safe ground.
‘And now, how was I to proceed to reconstruct this midnight drama? Clearly only one could get into the hole, and that one was Brunton. The girl must have waited above. Brunton then unlocked the box, handed up the contents, presumably—since they were not to be found—and then—and then what happened?
‘What smouldering fire of vengeance had suddenly sprung into flame in this passionate Celtic woman’s soul when she saw the man who had wronged her—wronged her, perhaps, far more than we suspected—in her power? Was it a chance that the wood had slipped and that the stone had shut Brunton into what had become his sepulchre? Had she only been guilty of silence as to his fate? Or had some sudden blow from her hand dashed the support away and sent the slab crashing down into its place. Be that as it might, I seemed to see that woman’s figure, still clutching at her treasure-trove, and flying wildly up the winding stair with her ears ringing perhaps with the muffled screams from behind her, and with the drumming of frenzied hands against the slab of stone which was choking her faithless lover’s life out.
‘Here was the secret of her blanched face, her shaken nerves, her peals of hysterical laughter on the next morning. But what had been in the box? What had she done with that? Of course, it must have been the old metal and pebbles which my client had dragged from the mere. She had thrown them in there at the first opportunity, to remove the last trace of her crime.
‘For twenty minutes I had sat motionless thinking the matter out. Musgrave still stood with a very pale face swinging his lantern and peering down into the hole.
‘ “These are coins of Charles I,” said he, holding out the few which had been left in the box. “You see we were right in fixing our date for the Ritual.”
‘ “We may find something else of Charles I,” I cried, as the probable meaning of the first two questions of the Ritual broke suddenly upon me. “Let me see the contents of the bag you fished from the mere.”
‘We ascended to his study, and he laid the débris before me. I could understand his regarding it as of small importance when I looked at it, for the metal was almost black, and the stones lustreless and dull. I rubbed one of them on my sleeve, however, and it glowed afterwards like a spark, in the dark hollow of my hand. The metal-work was in the form of a double-ring, but it had been bent and twisted out of its original shape.
‘ “You must bear in mind,” said I, “that the Royal party made head in England even after the death of the King, and that when they at last fled they probably left many of their most precious possessions buried behind them, with the intention of returning for them in more peaceful times.”
‘ “My ancestor, Sir Ralph Musgrave, was a prominent Cavalier, and the right-hand man of Charles II in his wanderings,” said my friend.
‘ “Ah, indeed!” I answered. “Well, now, I think that really should give us the last link that we wanted. I must congratulate you on coming into possession, though in rather a tragic manner, of a relic which is of great intrinsic value, but even of greater importance as an historical curiosity.”
‘ “What is it, then?” he gasped in astonishment.
‘ “It is nothing less than the ancient crown of the Kings of England.”
‘ “The crown!”
‘ “Precisely. Consider what the Ritual says. How does it run? ‘Whose was it?’ ‘His who is gone.’ That was after the execution of Charles. Then, ‘Who shall have it?’ ‘He who will come.’ That was Charles II, whose advent was already foreseen. There can, I think, be no doubt that this battered and shapeless diadem once encircled the brows of the Royal Stuarts.”
‘ “And how came it in the pond?”
‘ “Ah, that is a question which will take some time to answer,” and with that I sketched out the whole long chain of surmise and of proof which I had constructed. The twilight had closed in and the moon was shining brightly in the sky before my narrative was finished.
‘ “And how was it, then, that Charles did not get his crown when he returned?” asked Musgrave, pushing back the relic into its linen bag.
‘ “Ah, there you lay your finger upon the one point which we shall probably never be able to clear up. It is likely that the Musgrave who held the secret died in the interval, and by some oversight left this guide to his descendant without explaining the meaning of it. From that day to this it has been handed down from father to son, until at last it came within reach of a man who tore its secret out of it and lost his life in the venture.”
‘And that’s the story of the Musgrave Ritual, Watson. They have the crown down at Hurlstone—though they had some legal bother, and a considerable sum to pay before they were allowed to retain it. I am sure that if you mentioned my name they would be happy to show it to you. Of the woman nothing was ever heard, and the probability is that she got away out of England, and carried herself, and the memory of her crime, to some land beyond the seas.’

The Reigate Squire

It was some time before the health of my friend, Mr Sherlock Holmes, recovered from the strain caused by his immense exertions in the spring of ’87. The whole question of the Netherland-Sumatra Company and of the colossal schemes of Baron Maupertuis is too recent in the minds of the public, and too intimately concerned with politics and finance, to be a fitting subject for this series of sketches. It led, however, in an indirect fashion to a singular and complex problem, which gave my friend an opportunity of demonstrating the value of a fresh weapon among the many with which he waged his life-long battle against crime.
On referring to my notes, I see that it was on the 14th of April that I received a telegram from Lyons, which informed me that Holmes was lying ill in the Hotel Dulong. Within twenty-four hours I was in his sick-room, and was relieved to find that there was nothing formidable in his symptoms. His iron constitution, however, had broken down under the strain of an investigation which had extended over two months, during which period he had never worked less than fifteen hours a day, and had more than once, as he assured, me, kept to his task for five days at a stretch. The triumphant issue of his labours could not save him from reaction after so terrible an exertion, and at a time when Europe was ringing with his name and when his room was literally ankle-deep with congratulatory telegrams, I found him a prey to the blackest depression. Even the knowledge that he had succeeded where the police of three countries had failed, and that he had out-manoeuvred at every point the most accomplished swindler in Europe, was insufficient to rouse him from his nervous prostration.
Three days later we were back in Baker Street together, but it was evident that my friend would be much the better for a change, and the thought of a week of spring-time in the country was full of attractions to me also. My old friend, Colonel Hayter, who had come under my professional care in Afghanistan, had now taken a house near Reigate, in Surrey, and had frequently asked me to come down to him upon a visit. On the last occasion he had remarked that if my friend would only come with me, he would be glad to extend his hospitality to him also. A little diplomacy was needed, but when Holmes understood that the establishment was a bachelor one, and that he would be allowed the fullest freedom, he fell in with my plans, and a week after our return from Lyons we were under the Colonel’s roof. Hayter was a fine old soldier, who had seen much of the world, and he soon found, as I had expected, that Holmes and he had plenty in common.
On the evening of our arrival we were sitting in the Colonel’s gun-room after dinner, Holmes stretched upon the sofa, while Hayter and I looked over his little armoury of fire-arms.
‘By the way,’ said he, suddenly, ‘I’ll take one of these pistols upstairs with me in case we have an alarm.’
‘An alarm!’ said I.
‘Yes, we’ve had a scare in this part lately. Old Acton, who is one of our county magnates, had his house broken into last Monday. No great damage done, but the fellows are still at large.’
‘No clue?’ asked Holmes, cocking his eye at the Colonel.
‘None as yet. But the affair is a petty one, one of our little country crimes, which must seem too small for your attention, Mr Holmes, after this great international affair.’
Holmes waved away the compliment, though his smile showed that it had pleased him.
‘Was there any feature of interest?’
‘I fancy not. The thieves ransacked the library, and got very little for their pains. The whole place was turned upside down, drawers burst open and presses ransacked, with the result that an odd volume of Pope’s “Homer”, two plated candlesticks, an ivory letter-weight, a small oak barometer, and a ball of twine are all that have vanished.’
‘What an extraordinary assortment!’ I exclaimed.
‘Oh, the fellows evidently grabbed hold of anything they could get.’
Holmes grunted from the sofa.
‘The county police ought to make something of that,’ said he. ‘Why, it is surely obvious that—’
But I held up a warning finger.
‘You are here for a rest, my dear fellow. For Heaven’s sake, don’t get started on a new problem when your nerves are all in shreds.’
Holmes shrugged his shoulders with a glance of comic resignation towards the Colonel, and the talk drifted away into less dangerous channels.
It was destined, however, that all my professional caution should be wasted, for next morning the problem obtruded itself upon us in such a way that it was impossible to ignore it, and our country visit took a turn which neither of us could have anticipated. We were at breakfast when the Colonel’s butler rushed in with all his propriety shaken out of him.
‘Have you heard the news, sir?’ he gasped. ‘At the Cunninghams’, sir!’
‘Burglary?’ cried the Colonel, with his coffee cup in mid air.
‘Murder!’
The Colonel whistled. ‘By Jove!’ said he, ‘who’s killed, then? The J.P., or his son?’
‘Neither, sir. It was William, the coachman. Shot through the heart, sir, and never spoke again.’
‘Who shot him, then?’
‘The burglar, sir. He was off like a shot and got clean away. He’d just broke in at the pantry window when William came on him and met his end in saving his master’s property.’
‘What time?’
‘It was last night, sir, somewhere about twelve.’
‘Ah, then, we’ll step over presently,’ said the Colonel, coolly settling down to his breakfast again. ‘It’s a baddish business,’ he added, when the butler had gone. ‘He’s our leading squire about here, is old Cunningham, and a very decent fellow, too. He’ll be cut up over this, for the man has been in his service for years, and was a good servant. It’s evidently the same villains who broke into Acton’s.’
‘And stole that very singular collection?’ said Holmes, thoughtfully.
‘Precisely.’
‘Hum! It may prove the simplest matter in the world; but, all the same, at first glance this is just a little curious, is it not? A gang of burglars acting in the country might be expected to vary the scene of their operations, and not to crack two cribs in the same district within a few days. When you spoke last night of taking precautions, I remember that it passed through my mind that this was probably the last parish in England to which the thief or thieves would be likely to turn their attention; which shows that I have still much to learn.’
‘I fancy it’s some local practitioner,’ said the Colonel. ‘In that case, of course, Acton’s and Cunningham’s are just the places he would go for, since they are far the largest about here.’
‘And richest?’
‘Well, they ought to be; but they’ve had a law-suit for some years which has sucked the blood out of both of them, I fancy. Old Acton has some claim on half Cunningham’s estate, and the lawyers have been at it with both hands.’
‘If it’s a local villain, there should not be much difficulty in running him down,’ said Holmes, with a yawn. ‘All right, Watson, I don’t intend to meddle.’
‘Inspector Forrester, sir,’ said the butler, throwing open the door.
The official, a smart, keen-faced young fellow, stepped into the room. ‘Good morning, Colonel,’ said he. ‘I hope I don’t intrude, but we hear that Mr Holmes, of Baker Street, is here.’
The Colonel waved his hand towards my friend, and the Inspector bowed.
‘We thought that perhaps you would care to step across, Mr Holmes.’
‘The Fates are against you, Watson,’ said he, laughing. ‘We were chatting about the matter when you came in, Inspector. Perhaps you can let us have a few details.’ As he leaned back in his chair in the familiar attitude, I knew that the case was hopeless.
‘We had no clue in the Acton affair. But here we have plenty to go on, and there’s no doubt it is the same party in each case. The man was seen.’
‘Ah!’
‘Yes, sir. But he was off like a deer after the shot that killed poor William Kirwan was fired. Mr Cunningham saw him from the bedroom window, and Mr Alec Cunningham saw him from the back passage. It was a quarter to twelve when the alarm broke out. Mr Cunningham had just got into bed, and Mister Alec was smoking a pipe in his dressing-gown. They both heard William, the coachman, calling for help, and Mister Alec he ran down to see what was the matter. The back door was open, and as he came to the foot of the stairs he saw two men wrestling together outside. One of them fired a shot, the other dropped, and the murderer rushed across the garden and over the hedge. Mr Cunningham, looking out of his bedroom window, saw the fellow as he gained the road, but lost sight of him at once. Mister Alec stopped to see if he could help the dying man, and so the villain got clean away. Beyond the fact that he was a middle-sized man, and dressed in some dark stuff, we have no personal clue, but we are making energetic inquiries, and if he is a stranger we shall soon find him out.’
‘What was this William doing there? Did he say anything before he died?’
‘Not a word. He lives at the lodge with his mother, and as he was a very faithful fellow, we imagine that he walked up to the house with the intention of seeing that all was right there. Of course, this Acton business has put everyone on their guard. The robber must have just bust open the door—the lock has been forced—when William came upon him.’
‘Did William say anything to his mother before going out?’
‘She is very old and deaf, and we can get no information from her. The shock has made her half-witted, but I understand that she was never very bright. There is one very important circumstance, however. Look at this!’
He took a small piece of torn paper from a note-book and spread it out upon his knee.
‘This was found between the finger and thumb of the dead man. It appears to be a fragment torn from a larger sheet. You will observe that the hour mentioned upon it is the very time at which the poor fellow met his fate. You see that his murderer might have torn the rest of the sheet from him or he might have taken this fragment from the murderer. It reads almost as though it was an appointment.’
Holmes took up the scrap of paper, a facsimile of which is here reproduced.
‘Presuming that it is an appointment,’ continued the Inspector, ‘it is, of course, a conceivable theory that this William Kirwan, although he had the reputation of being an honest man, may have been in league with the thief. He may have met him there, may even have helped him to break in the door, and then they may have fallen out between themselves.’
‘This writing is of extraordinary interest,’ said Holmes, who had been examining it with intense concentration. ‘These are much deeper waters than I had thought.’ He sank his head upon his hands, while the Inspector smiled at the effect which his case had had upon the famous London specialist.
‘Your last remark,’ said Holmes, presently, ‘as to the possibility of there being an understanding between the burglar and the servant, and this being a note of appointment from one to the other, is an ingenious and not entirely an impossible supposition. But this writing opens up—’ he sank his head into his hands again and remained for some minutes in the deepest thought. When he raised his face I was surprised to see that his cheek was tinged with colour, and his eyes as bright as before his illness. He sprang to his feet with all his old energy.
‘I’ll tell you what!’ said he. ‘I should like to have a quiet little glance into the details of this case. There is something in it which fascinates me extremely. If you will permit me, Colonel, I will leave my friend, Watson, and you, and I will step round with the Inspector to test the truth of one or two little fancies of mine. I will be with you again in half an hour.’
An hour and a half had elapsed before the Inspector returned alone.
‘Mr Holmes is walking up and down in the field outside,’ said he. ‘He wants us all four to go up to the house together.’
‘To Mr Cunningham’s?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What for?’
The Inspector shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t quite know, sir. Between ourselves, I think Mr Holmes has not quite got over his illness yet. He’s been behaving very queerly, and he is very much excited.’
‘I don’t think you need alarm yourself,’ said I. ‘I have usually found that there was method in his madness.’
‘Some folk might say there was madness in his method,’ muttered the Inspector. ‘But he’s all on fire to start, Colonel, so we had best go out, if you are ready.’
We found Holmes pacing up and down in the field, his chin sunk upon his breast, and his hands thrust into his trouser pockets.
‘The matter grows in interest,’ said he. ‘Watson, your country trip has been a distinct success. I have had a charming morning.’
‘You have been up to the scene of the crime, I understand?’ said the Colonel.
‘Yes; the Inspector and I have made quite a little reconnaissance together.’
‘Any success?’
‘Well, we have seen some very interesting things. I’ll tell you what we did as we walk. First of all we saw the body of this unfortunate man. He certainly died from a revolver wound, as reported.’
‘Had you doubted it, then?’
‘Oh, it is as well to test everything. Our inspection was not wasted. We then had an interview with Mr Cunningham and his son, who were able to point out the exact spot where the murderer had broken through the garden hedge in his flight. That was of great interest.’
‘Naturally.’
‘Then we had a look at this poor fellow’s mother. We could get no information from her, however, as she is very old and feeble.’
‘And what is the result of your investigations?’
‘The conviction that the crime is a very peculiar one. Perhaps our visit now may do something to make it less obscure. I think that we are both agreed, Inspector, that the fragment of paper in the dead man’s hand, bearing, as it does, the very hour of his death written upon it, is of extreme importance.’
‘It should give a clue, Mr Holmes.’
‘It does give a clue. Whoever wrote that note was the man who brought William Kirwan out of his bed at that hour. But where is the rest of that sheet of paper?’
‘I examined the ground carefully in the hope of finding it,’ said the Inspector.
‘It was torn out of the dead man’s hand. Why was someone so anxious to get possession of it? Because it incriminated him. And what would he do with it? Thrust it into his pocket most likely, never noticing that a corner of it had been left in the grip of the corpse. If we could get the rest of that sheet, it is obvious that we should have gone a long way towards solving the mystery.’
‘Yes, but how can we get at the criminal’s pocket before we catch the criminal?’
‘Well, well, it was worth thinking over. Then there is another obvious point. The note was sent to William. The man who wrote it could not have taken it, otherwise of course he might have delivered his own message by word of mouth. Who brought the note, then? Or did it come through the post?’
‘I have made inquiries,’ said the Inspector. ‘William received a letter by the afternoon post yesterday. The envelope was destroyed by him.’
‘Excellent!’ cried Holmes, clapping the Inspector on the back. ‘You’ve seen the postman. It is a pleasure to work with you. Well, here is the lodge, and if you will come up, Colonel, I will show you the scene of the crime.’
We passed the pretty cottage where the murdered man had lived, and walked up an oak-lined avenue to the fine old Queen Anne house, which bears the date of Malplaquet upon the lintel of the door. Holmes and the Inspector led us round it until we came to the side gate, which is separated by a stretch of garden from the hedge which lines the road. A constable was standing at the kitchen door.
‘Throw the door open, officer,’ said Holmes. ‘Now it was on those stairs that young Mr Cunningham stood and saw the two men struggling just where we are. Old Mr Cunningham was at that window—the second on the left—and he saw the fellow get away just to the left of that bush. So did the son. They are both sure of it, on account of the bush. Then Mister Alec ran out and knelt beside the wounded man. The ground is very hard, you see, and there are no marks to guide us.’
As he spoke two men came down the garden path, from round the angle of the house. The one was an elderly man, with a strong, deep-lined, heavy-eyed face; the other a dashing young fellow, whose bright, smiling expression and showy dress were in strange contrast with the business which had brought us there.
‘Still at it, then?’ said he to Holmes. ‘I thought you Londoners were never at fault. You don’t seem to be so very quick, after all.’
‘Ah! you must give us a little time,’ said Holmes, good-humouredly.
‘You’ll want it,’ said young Alec Cunningham. ‘Why, I don’t see that we have any clue at all.’
‘There’s only one,’ answered the Inspector. ‘We thought that if we could only find—Good heavens! Mr Holmes, what is the matter?’
My poor friend’s face had suddenly assumed the most dreadful expression. His eyes rolled upwards, his features writhed in agony, and with a suppressed groan he dropped on his face upon the ground. Horrified at the suddenness and severity of the attack, we carried him into the kitchen, where he lay back in a large chair and breathed heavily for some minutes. Finally, with a shame-faced apology for his weakness, he rose once more.
‘Watson would tell you that I have only just recovered from a severe illness,’ he explained. ‘I am liable to these sudden nervous attacks.’
‘Shall I send you home in my trap?’ asked old Cunningham.
‘Well, since I am here there is one point on which I should like to feel sure. We can very easily verify it.’
‘What is it?’
‘Well, it seems to me that it is just possible that the arrival of this poor fellow William was not before but after the entrance of the burglar into the house. You appear to take it for granted that although the door was forced the robber never got in.’
‘I fancy that is quite obvious,’ said Mr Cunningham, gravely. ‘Why, my son Alec had not yet gone to bed, and he would certainly have heard anyone moving about.’
‘Where was he sitting?’
‘I was sitting smoking in my dressing-room.’
‘Which window is that?’
‘The last on the left, next my father’s.’
‘Both your lamps were lit, of course?’
‘Undoubtedly.’
‘There are some very singular points here,’ said Holmes, smiling. ‘Is it not extraordinary that a burglar—and a burglar who had had some previous experience—should deliberately break into a house at a time when he could see from the lights that two of the family were still afoot?’
‘He must have been a cool hand.’
‘Well, of course, if the case were not an odd one we should not have been driven to ask you for an explanation,’ said Mister Alec. ‘But as to your idea that the man had robbed the house before William tackled him, I think it a most absurd notion. Shouldn’t we have found the place disarranged and missed the things which he had taken?’
‘It depends on what the things were,’ said Holmes. ‘You must remember that we are dealing with a burglar who is a very peculiar fellow, and who appears to work on lines of his own. Look, for example, at the queer lot of things which he took from Acton’s—what was it?—a ball of string, a letter-weight, and I don’t know what other odds and ends!’
‘Well, we are quite in your hands, Mr Holmes,’ said old Cunningham. ‘Anything which you or the Inspector may suggest will most certainly be done.’
‘In the first place,’ said Holmes, ‘I should like you to offer a reward—coming from yourself, for the officials may take a little time before they would agree upon the sum, and these things cannot be done too promptly. I have jotted down the form here, if you would not mind signing it. Fifty pounds was quite enough, I thought.’
‘I would willingly give five hundred,’ said the J.P., taking the slip of paper and the pencil which Holmes handed to him. ‘This is not quite correct, however,’ he added, glancing over the document.
‘I wrote it rather hurriedly.’
‘You see you begin: “Whereas, at about a quarter to one on Tuesday morning, an attempt was made”—and so on. It was at a quarter to twelve, as a matter of fact.’
I was pained at the mistake, for I knew how keenly Holmes would feel any slip of the kind. It was his speciality to be accurate as to fact, but his recent illness had shaken him, and this one little incident was enough to show me that he was still far from being himself. He was obviously embarrassed for an instant, while the Inspector raised his eyebrows and Alec Cunningham burst into a laugh. The old gentleman corrected the mistake, however, and handed the paper back to Holmes.
‘Get it printed as soon as possible,’ he said. ‘I think your idea is an excellent one.’
Holmes put the slip of paper carefully away in his pocket-book.
‘And now,’ said he, ‘it would really be a good thing that we should all go over the house together, and make certain that this rather erratic burglar did not, after all, carry anything away with him.’
Before entering, Holmes made an examination of the door which had been forced. It was evident that a chisel or strong knife had been thrust in, and the lock forced back with it. We could see the marks in the wood where it had been pushed in.
‘You don’t use bars, then?’ he asked.
‘We have never found it necessary.’
‘You don’t keep a dog?’
‘Yes; but he is chained on the other side of the house.’
‘When do the servants go to bed?’
‘About ten.’
‘I understand that William was usually in bed also at that hour?’
‘Yes.’
‘It is singular that on this particular night he should have been up. Now, I should be very glad if you would have the kindness to show us over the house, Mr Cunningham.’
A stone-flagged passage, with the kitchens branching away from it, led by a wooden staircase directly to the first floor of the house. It came out upon the landing opposite to a second more ornamental stair which led up from the front hall. Out of this landing opened the drawing-room and several bedrooms, including those of Mr Cunningham and his son. Holmes walked slowly, taking keen note of the architecture of the house. I could tell from his expression that he was on a hot scent, and yet I could not in the least imagine in what direction his inferences were leading him.
‘My good sir,’ said Mr Cunningham, with some impatience, ‘this is surely very unnecessary. That is my room at the end of the stairs, and my son’s is the one beyond it. I leave it to your judgment whether it was possible for the thief to have come up here without disturbing us.’
‘You must try round and get on a fresh scent, I fancy,’ said the son, with a rather malicious smile.
‘Still, I must ask you to humour me a little further. I should like, for example, to see how far the windows of the bedrooms command the front. This, I understand, is your son’s room’—he pushed open the door—‘and that, I presume, is the dressing-room in which he sat smoking when the alarm was given. Where does the window of that look out to?’ He stepped across the bedroom, pushed open the door, and glanced round the other chamber.
‘I hope you are satisfied now?’ said Mr Cunningham testily.
‘Thank you; I think I have seen all that I wished.’
‘Then, if it is really necessary, we can go into my room.’
‘If it is not too much trouble.’
The J.P. shrugged his shoulders, and led the way into his own chamber, which was a plainly furnished and commonplace room. As we moved across it in the direction of the window, Holmes fell back until he and I were the last of the group. Near the foot of the bed was a small square table, on which stood a dish of oranges and a carafe of water. As we passed it, Holmes, to my unutterable astonishment, leaned over in front of me and deliberately knocked the whole thing over. The glass smashed into a thousand pieces, and the fruit rolled about into every corner of the room.
‘You’ve done it now, Watson,’ said he, coolly. ‘A pretty mess you’ve made of the carpet.’
I stooped in some confusion and began to pick up the fruit, understanding that for some reason my companion desired me to take the blame upon myself. The others did the same, and set the table on its legs again.
‘Hallo!’ cried the Inspector, ‘where’s he got to?’
Holmes had disappeared.
‘Wait here an instant,’ said young Alec Cunningham. ‘The fellow is off his head, in my opinion. Come with me, father, and see where he has got to!’
They rushed out of the room, leaving the Inspector, the Colonel, and me, staring at each other.
‘’Pon my word, I am inclined to agree with Mister Alec,’ said the official. ‘It may be the effect of this illness, but it seems to me that—’
‘It is singular that on this particular night he should have been up. Now, I should be very glad if you would have the kindness to show us over the house, Mr Cunningham.’
A stone-flagged passage, with the kitchens branching away from it, led by a wooden staircase directly to the first floor of the house. It came out upon the landing opposite to a second more ornamental stair which led up from the front hall. Out of this landing opened the drawing-room and several bedrooms, including those of Mr Cunningham and his son. Holmes walked slowly, taking keen note of the architecture of the house. I could tell from his expression that he was on a hot scent, and yet I could not in the least imagine in what direction his inferences were leading him.
‘My good sir,’ said Mr Cunningham, with some impatience, ‘this is surely very unnecessary. That is my room at the end of the stairs, and my son’s is the one beyond it. I leave it to your judgment whether it was possible for the thief to have come up here without disturbing us.’
‘You must try round and get on a fresh scent, I fancy,’ said the son, with a rather malicious smile.
‘Still, I must ask you to humour me a little further. I should like, for example, to see how far the windows of the bedrooms command the front. This, I understand, is your son’s room’—he pushed open the door—‘and that, I presume, is the dressing-room in which he sat smoking when the alarm was given. Where does the window of that look out to?’ He stepped across the bedroom, pushed open the door, and glanced round the other chamber.
‘I hope you are satisfied now?’ said Mr Cunningham testily.
‘Thank you; I think I have seen all that I wished.’
‘Then, if it is really necessary, we can go into my room.’
‘If it is not too much trouble.’
The J.P. shrugged his shoulders, and led the way into his own chamber, which was a plainly furnished and commonplace room. As we moved across it in the direction of the window, Holmes fell back until he and I were the last of the group. Near the foot of the bed was a small square table, on which stood a dish of oranges and a carafe of water. As we passed it, Holmes, to my unutterable astonishment, leaned over in front of me and deliberately knocked the whole thing over. The glass smashed into a thousand pieces, and the fruit rolled about into every corner of the room.
‘You’ve done it now, Watson,’ said he, coolly. ‘A pretty mess you’ve made of the carpet.’
I stooped in some confusion and began to pick up the fruit, understanding that for some reason my companion desired me to take the blame upon myself. The others did the same, and set the table on its legs again.
‘Hallo!’ cried the Inspector, ‘where’s he got to?’
Holmes had disappeared.
‘Wait here an instant,’ said young Alec Cunningham. ‘The fellow is off his head, in my opinion. Come with me, father, and see where he has got to!’
They rushed out of the room, leaving the Inspector, the Colonel, and me, staring at each other.
‘’Pon my word, I am inclined to agree with Mister Alec,’ said the official. ‘It may be the effect of this illness, but it seems to me that—’
them. But first, as I am rather shaken by the knocking about which I had in the dressing-room, I think that I shall help myself to a dash of your brandy, Colonel. My strength has been rather tried of late.’
‘I trust you had no more of those nervous attacks.’
Sherlock Holmes laughed heartily. ‘We will come to that in its turn,’ said he. ‘I will lay an account of the case before you in its due order, showing you the various points which guided me in my decision. Pray interrupt me if there is any inference which is not perfectly clear to you.
‘It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognise out of a number of facts which are incidental and which vital. Otherwise your energy and attention must be dissipated instead of being concentrated. Now, in this case there was not the slightest doubt in my mind from the first that the key of the whole matter must be looked for in the scrap of paper in the dead man’s hand.
‘Before going into this I would draw your attention to the fact that if Alec Cunningham’s narrative were correct, and if the assailant after shooting William Kirwan had instantly fled, then it obviously could not be he who tore the paper from the dead man’s hand. But if it was not he, it must have been Alec Cunningham himself, for by the time the old man had descended several servants were upon the scene. The point is a simple one, but the Inspector had overlooked it because he had started with the supposition that these county magnates had had nothing to do with the matter. Now, I make a point of never having any prejudices and of following docilely wherever fact may lead me, and so in the very first stage of the investigation I found myself looking a little askance at the part which had been played by Mr Alec Cunningham.
‘And now I made a very careful examination of the corner of paper which the Inspector had submitted to us. It was at once clear to me that it formed part of a very remarkable document. Here it is. Do you not now observe something very suggestive about it?’
‘It has a very irregular look,’ said the Colonel.
‘My dear sir,’ cried Holmes, ‘there cannot be the least doubt in the world that it has been written by two persons doing alternate words. When I draw your attention to the strong t’s of “at” and “to” and ask you to compare them with the weak ones of “quarter” and “twelve,” you will instantly recognise the fact. A very brief analysis of those four words would enable you to say with the utmost confidence that the “learn” and the “maybe” are written in the stronger hand, and the “what” in the weaker.’
‘By Jove, it’s as clear as day!’ cried the Colonel. ‘Why on earth should two men write a letter in such a fashion?’
‘Obviously the business was a bad one, and one of the men who distrusted the other was determined that, whatever was done, each should have an equal hand in it. Now, of the two men it is clear that the one who wrote the “at” and “to” was the ringleader.’
‘How do you get at that?’
‘We might deduce it from the mere character of the one hand as compared with the other. But we have more assured reasons than that for supposing it. If you examine this scrap with attention you will come to the conclusion that the man with the stronger hand wrote all his words first, leaving blanks for the other to fill up. These blanks were not always sufficient, and you can see that the second man had a squeeze to fit his “quarter” in between the “at” and the “to”, showing that the latter were already written. The man who wrote all his words first is undoubtedly the man who planned this affair.’
‘Excellent!’ cried Mr Acton.
‘But very superficial,’ said Holmes. ‘We come now, however, to a point which is of importance. You may not be aware that the deduction of a man’s age from his writing is one which has been brought to considerable accuracy by experts. In normal cases one can place a man in his true decade with tolerable confidence. I say normal cases, because ill-health and physical weakness reproduce the signs of old age, even when the invalid is a youth. In this case, looking at the bold, strong hand of the one, and the rather broken-backed appearance of the other, which still retains its legibility, although the t’s have begun to lose their crossings, we can say that the one was a young man, and the other was advanced in years without being positively decrepit.’
‘Excellent!’ cried Mr Acton again.
‘There is a further point, however, which is subtler and of greater interest. There is something in common between these hands. They belong to men who are blood-relatives. It may be most obvious to you in the Greek e’s, but to me there are many small points which indicate the same thing. I have no doubt at all that a family mannerism can be traced in these two specimens of writing. I am only, of course, giving you the leading results now of my examination of the paper. There were twenty-three other deductions which would be of more interest to experts than to you. They all tended to deepen the impression upon my mind that the Cunninghams, father and son, had written this letter.
‘Having got so far, my next step was, of course, to examine into the details of the crime and to see how far they would help us. I went up to the house with the Inspector, and saw all that was to be seen. The wound upon the dead man was, as I was able to determine with absolute confidence, caused by a shot from a revolver fired at the distance of something over four yards. There was no powder-blackening on the clothes. Evidently, therefore, Alec Cunningham had lied when he said that the two men were struggling when the shot was fired. Again, both father and son agreed as to the place where the man escaped into the road. At that point, however, as it happens, there is a broadish ditch, moist at the bottom. As there were no indications of boot-marks about this ditch, I was absolutely sure not only that the Cunninghams had again lied, but that there had never been any unknown man upon the scene at all.
‘And now I had to consider the motive of this singular crime. To get at this I endeavoured first of all to solve the reason of the original burglary at Mr Acton’s. I understood from something which the Colonel told us that a law-suit had been going on between you, Mr Acton, and the Cunninghams. Of course, it instantly occurred to me that they had broken into your library with the intention of getting at some document which might be of importance in the case.’
‘Precisely so,’ said Mr Acton; ‘there can be no possible doubt as to their intentions. I have the clearest claim upon half their present estate, and if they could have found a single paper—which, fortunately, was in the strong box of my solicitors—they would undoubtedly have crippled our case.’
‘There you are!’ said Holmes, smiling. ‘It was a dangerous, reckless attempt, in which I seem to trace the influence of young Alec. Having found nothing, they tried to divert suspicion by making it appear to be an ordinary burglary, to which end they carried off whatever they could lay their hands upon. That is all clear enough, but there was much that was still obscure. What I wanted above all was to get the missing part of that note. I was certain that Alec had torn it out of the dead man’s hand, and almost certain that he must have thrust it into the pocket of his dressing-gown. Where else could he have put it? The only question was whether it was still there. It was worth an effort to find out, and for that object we all went up to the house.
‘The Cunninghams joined us, as you doubtless remember, outside the kitchen door. It was, of course, of the very first importance that they should not be reminded of the existence of this paper, otherwise they would naturally destroy it without delay. The Inspector was about to tell them the importance which we attached to it when, by the luckiest chance in the world, I tumbled down in a sort of fit and so changed the conversation.’
‘Good heavens!’ cried the Colonel, laughing. ‘Do you mean to say all our sympathy was wasted and your fit an imposture?’
‘Speaking professionally, it was admirably done,’ cried I, looking in amazement at this man who was for ever confounding me with some new phase of his astuteness.
‘It is an art which is often useful,’ said he. ‘When I recovered I managed by a device, which had, perhaps, some little merit of ingenuity, to get old Cunningham to write the word “twelve”, so that I might compare it with the “twelve” upon the paper.’
‘Oh, what an ass I have been!’ I exclaimed.
‘I could see that you were commiserating with me over my weakness,’ said Holmes, laughing. ‘I was sorry to cause you the sympathetic pain which I know that you felt. We then went upstairs together, and having entered the room and seen the dressing-gown hanging up behind the door, I contrived by upsetting a table to engage their attention for the moment and slipped back to examine the pockets. I had hardly got the paper, however, which was as I had expected, in one of them, when the two Cunninghams were on me, and would, I verily believe, have murdered me then and there but for your prompt and friendly aid. As it is, I feel that young man’s grip on my throat now, and the father has twisted my wrist round in the effort to get the paper out of my hand. They saw that I must know all about it, you see, and the sudden change from absolute security to complete despair made them perfectly desperate.
‘I had a little talk with old Cunningham afterwards as to the motive of the crime. He was tractable enough, though his son was a perfect demon, ready to blow out his own or anybody else’s brains if he could have got to his revolver. When Cunningham saw that the case against him was so strong he lost all heart, and made a clean breast of everything. It seems that William had secretly followed his two masters on the night when they made their raid upon Mr Acton’s, and, having thus got them into his power, proceeded under threats of exposure to levy blackmail upon them. Mister Alec, however, was a dangerous man to play games of that sort with. It was a stroke of positive genius on his part to see in the burglary scare, which was convulsing the country-side, an opportunity of plausibly getting rid of the man whom he feared. William was decoyed up and shot; and, had they only got the whole of the note, and paid a little more attention to detail in their accessories, it is very possible that suspicion might never have been aroused.’
‘And the note?’ I asked.
Sherlock Holmes placed the subjoined paper before us:
‘It is very much the sort of thing that I expected,’ said he. ‘Of course, we do not yet know what the relations may have been between Alec Cunningham, William Kirwan, and Annie Morrison. The result shows that the trap was skilfully baited. I am sure that you cannot fail to be delighted with the traces of heredity shown in the p’s and in the tails of the g’s. The absence of the i-dots in the old man’s writing is also most characteristic. Watson, I think our quiet rest in the country has been a distinct success, and I shall certainly return, much invigorated, to Baker Street to-morrow.’

The Crooked Man

One summer night, a few months after my marriage, I was seated by my own hearth smoking a last pipe and nodding over a novel, for my day’s work had been an exhausting one. My wife had already gone upstairs, and the sound of the locking of the hall door some time before told me that the servants had also retired. I had risen from my seat and was knocking out the ashes of my pipe, when I suddenly heard the clang of the bell.
I looked at the clock. It was a quarter to twelve. This could not be a visitor at so late an hour. A patient, evidently, and possibly an all-night sitting. With a wry face I went out into the hall and opened the door. To my astonishment, it was Sherlock Holmes who stood upon my step.
‘Ah, Watson,’ said he, ‘I hoped that I might not be too late to catch you.’
‘My dear fellow, pray come in.’
‘You look surprised, and no wonder! Relieved, too, I fancy! Hum! you still smoke the Arcadia mixture of your bachelor days, then! There’s no mistaking that fluffy ash upon your coat. It’s easy to tell that you’ve been accustomed to wear a uniform, Watson; you’ll never pass as a purebred civilian as long as you keep that habit of carrying your handkerchief in your sleeve. Could you put me up to-night?’
‘With pleasure.’
‘You told me that you had bachelor quarters for one, and I see that you have no gentleman visitor at present. Your hat-stand proclaims as much.’
‘I shall be delighted if you will stay.’
‘Thank you. I’ll fill a vacant peg, then. Sorry to see that you’ve had the British workman in the house. He’s a token of evil. Not the drains, I hope?’
‘No, the gas.’
‘Ah! He has left two nail marks from his boot upon your linoleum just where the light strikes it. No, thank you, I had some supper at Waterloo, but I’ll smoke a pipe with you with pleasure.’
I handed him my pouch, and he seated himself opposite to me, and smoked for some time in silence. I was well aware that nothing but business of importance could have brought him to me at such an hour, so I waited patiently until he should come round to it.
‘I see that you are professionally rather busy just now,’ said he, glancing very keenly across at me.
‘Yes, I’ve had a busy day,’ I answered. ‘It may seem very foolish in your eyes,’ I added, ‘but really I don’t know how you deduced it.’
Holmes chuckled to himself.
‘I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson,’ said he. ‘When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one you use a hansom. As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at present busy enough to justify the hansom.’
‘Excellent!’ I cried.
‘Elementary,’ said he. ‘It is one of those instances where the reasoner can produce an effect which seems remarkable to his neighbour, because the latter has missed the one little point which is the basis of the deduction. The same may be said, my dear fellow, for the effect of some of these little sketches of yours, which is entirely meretricious, depending as it does upon your retaining in your own hands some factors in the problem which are never imparted to the reader. Now, at present I am in the position of these same readers, for I hold in this hand several threads of one of the strangest cases which ever perplexed a man’s brain, and yet I lack the one or two which are needful to complete my theory. But I’ll have them, Watson, I’ll have them!’ His eyes kindled and a slight flush sprang into his thin cheeks. For an instant the veil had lifted upon his keen, intense nature, but for an instant only. When I glanced again his face had resumed that Red Indian composure which had made so many regard him as a machine rather than a man.
‘The problem presents features of interest,’ said he; ‘I may even say very exceptional features of interest. I have already looked into the matter, and have come, as I think, within sight of my solution. If you could accompany me in that last step, you might be of considerable service to me.’
‘I should be delighted.’
‘Could you go as far as Aldershot to-morrow?’
‘I have no doubt Jackson would take my practice.’
‘Very good. I want to start by the 11.10 from Waterloo.’
‘That would give me time.’
‘Then, if you are not too sleepy, I will give you a sketch of what has happened and of what remains to be done.’
‘I was sleepy before you came. I am quite wakeful now.’
‘I will compress the story as far as may be done without omitting anything vital to the case. It is conceivable that you may even have read some account of the matter. It is the supposed murder of Colonel Barclay, of the Royal Mallows, at Aldershot, which I am investigating.’
‘I have heard nothing of it.’
‘It has not excited much attention yet, except locally. The facts are only two days old. Briefly they are these:
‘The Royal Mallows is, as you know, one of the most famous Irish regiments in the British Army. It did wonders both in the Crimea and the Mutiny, and has since that time distinguished itself upon every possible occasion. It was commanded up to Monday night by James Barclay, a gallant veteran, who started as a full private, was raised to commissioned rank for his bravery at the time of the Mutiny, and so lived to command the regiment in which he had once carried a musket.
‘Colonel Barclay had married at the time when he was a sergeant, and his wife, whose maiden name was Miss Nancy Devoy, was the daughter of a former colour-sergeant in the same corps. There was, therefore, as can be imagined, some little social friction when the young couple (for they were still young) found themselves in their new surroundings. They appear, however, to have quickly adapted themselves, and Mrs Barclay has always, I understand, been as popular with the ladies of the regiment as her husband was with his brother officers. I may add that she was a woman of great beauty, and that even now, when she has been married for upwards of thirty years, she is still of a striking appearance.
‘Colonel Barclay’s family life appears to have been a uniformly happy one. Major Murphy, to whom I owe most of my facts, assures me that he has never heard of any misunderstanding between the pair. On the whole he thinks that Barclay’s devotion to his wife was greater than his wife’s to Barclay. He was acutely uneasy if he were absent from her for a day. She, on the other hand, though devoted and faithful, was less obtrusively affectionate. But they were regarded in the regiment as the very model of a middle-aged couple. There was absolutely nothing in their mutual relations to prepare people for the tragedy which was to follow.
‘Colonel Barclay himself seems to have had some singular traits in his character. He was a dashing, jovial old soldier in his usual mood, but there were occasions on which he seemed to show himself capable of considerable violence and vindictiveness. This side of his nature, however, appears never to have been turned towards his wife. Another fact which had struck Major Murphy, and three out of five of the other officers with whom I conversed, was the singular sort of depression which came upon him at times. As the Major expressed it, the smile had often been struck from his mouth, as if by some invisible hand, when he has been joining in the gaieties and chaff of the mess table. For days on end, when the mood was on him, he had been sunk in the deepest gloom. This and a certain tinge of superstition were the only unusual traits in his character which his brother officers had observed. The latter peculiarity took the form of a dislike to being left alone, especially after dark. This puerile feature in a nature which was conspicuously manly had often given rise to comment and conjecture.
‘The first battalion of the Royal Mallows (which is the old 117th) has been stationed at Aldershot for some years. The married officers live out of barracks, and the Colonel has during all this time occupied a villa called Lachine, about half a mile from the North Camp. The house stands in its own grounds, but the west side of it is not more than thirty yards from the high road. A coachman and two maids form the staff of servants. These, with their master and mistress, were the sole occupants of Lachine, for the Barclays had no children, nor was it usual for them to have resident visitors.
‘Now for the events at Lachine between nine and ten on the evening of last Monday.
‘Mrs Barclay was, it appears, a member of the Roman Catholic Church, and had interested herself very much in the establishment of the Guild of St George, which was formed in connection with the Watt Street Chapel for the purpose of supplying the poor with cast-off clothing. A meeting of the Guild had been held that evening at eight, and Mrs Barclay had hurried over her dinner in order to be present at it. When leaving the house, she was heard by the coachman to make some commonplace remark to her husband, and to assure him that she would be back before long. She then called for Miss Morrison, a young lady who lives in the next villa, and the two went off together to their meeting. It lasted forty minutes, and at a quarter-past nine Mrs Barclay returned home, having left Miss Morrison at her door as she passed.
‘There is a room which is used as a morning-room at Lachine. This faces the road, and opens by a large glass folding door on to the lawn. The lawn is thirty yards across, and is only divided from the highway by a low wall with an iron rail above it. It was into this room that Mrs Barclay went upon her return. The blinds were not down, for the room was seldom used in the evening, but Mrs Barclay herself lit the lamp and then rang the bell, asking Jane Stewart, the housemaid, to bring her a cup of tea, which was quite contrary to her usual habits. The Colonel had been sitting in the dining-room, but hearing that his wife had returned, he joined her in the morning-room. The coachman saw him cross the hall, and enter it. He was never seen again alive.
‘The tea which had been ordered was brought up at the end of ten minutes, but the maid, as she approached the door, was surprised to hear the voices of her master and mistress in furious altercation. She knocked without receiving any answer, and even turned the handle, but only to find that the door was locked upon the inside. Naturally enough, she ran down to tell the cook, and the two women with the coachman came up into the hall and listened to the dispute which was still raging. They all agree that only two voices were to be heard, those of Barclay and his wife. Barclay’s remarks were subdued and abrupt, so that none of them were audible to the listeners. The lady’s, on the other hand, were most bitter, and, when she raised her voice, could be plainly heard. “You coward!” she repeated over and over again. “What can be done now? Give me back my life. I will never so much as breathe the same air as you again! You coward! You coward!” Those were scraps of her conversation, ending in a sudden dreadful cry in the man’s voice, with a crash, and a piercing scream from the woman. Convinced that some tragedy had occurred, the coachman rushed to the door and strove to force it, while scream after scream issued from within. He was unable, however, to make his way in, and the maids were too distracted with fear to be of any assistance to him. A sudden thought struck him, however, and he ran through the hall door and round to the lawn, upon which the long french windows opened. One side of the window was open, which I understand was quite usual in the summer-time, and he passed without difficulty into the room. His mistress had ceased to scream, and was stretched insensible upon a couch, while with his feet tilted over the side of an armchair, and his head upon the ground near the corner of the fender, was lying the unfortunate soldier, stone dead, in a pool of his own blood.
‘Naturally the coachman’s first thought, on finding that he could do nothing for his master, was to open the door. But here an unexpected and singular difficulty presented itself. The key was not on the inner side of the door, nor could he find it anywhere in the room. He went out again, therefore, through the window, and having obtained the help of a policeman and of a medical man, he returned. The lady, against whom naturally the strongest suspicion rested, was removed to her room, still in a state of insensibility. The Colonel’s body was then placed upon the sofa, and a careful examination made of the scene of the tragedy.
‘The injury from which the unfortunate veteran was suffering was found to be a ragged cut, some two inches long, at the back part of his head, which had evidently been caused by a violent blow from a blunt weapon. Nor was it difficult to guess what that weapon may have been. Upon the floor, close to the body, was lying a singular club of hard carved wood with a bone handle. The Colonel possessed a varied collection of weapons brought from the different countries in which he had fought, and it is conjectured by the police that this club was among his trophies. The servants deny having seen it before, but among the numerous curiosities in the house it is possible that it may have been overlooked. Nothing else of importance was discovered in the room by the police, save the inexplicable fact that neither upon Mrs Barclay’s person, nor upon that of the victim, nor in any part of the room was the missing key to be found. The door had eventually to be opened by a locksmith from Aldershot.
‘That was the state of things, Watson, when upon the Tuesday morning I, at the request of Major Murphy, went down to Aldershot to supplement the efforts of the police. I think you will acknowledge that the problem was already one of interest, but my observations soon made me realize that it was in truth much more extraordinary than would at first sight appear.
‘Before examining the room I cross-questioned the servants, but only succeeded in eliciting the facts which I have already stated. One other detail of interest was remembered by Jane Stewart, the housemaid. You will remember that on hearing the sound of the quarrel she descended and returned with the other servants. On that first occasion, when she was alone, she says that the voices of her master and mistress were sunk so low that she could hear hardly anything, and judged by their tones, rather than their words, that they had fallen out. On my pressing her, however, she remembered that she heard the word “David” uttered twice by the lady. The point is of the utmost importance as guiding us towards the reason of the sudden quarrel. The Colonel’s name, you remember, was James.
‘There was one thing in the case which had made the deepest impression both upon the servants and the police. This was the contortion of the Colonel’s face. It had set, according to their account, into the most dreadful expression of fear and horror which a human countenance is capable of assuming. More than one person fainted at the mere sight of him, so terrible was the effect. It was quite certain that he had foreseen his fate, and that it had caused him the utmost horror. This, of course, fitted in well enough with the police theory, if the Colonel could have seen his wife making a murderous attack upon him. Nor was the fact of the wound being on the back of his head a fatal objection to this, as he might have turned to avoid the blow. No information could be got from the lady herself, who was temporarily insane from an acute attack of brain fever.
‘From the police I learned that Miss Morrison, who, you remember, went out that evening with Mrs Barclay, denied having any knowledge of what it was which had caused the ill-humour in which her companion had returned.
‘Having gathered these facts, Watson, I smoked several pipes over them, trying to separate those which were crucial from others which were merely incidental. There could be no question that the most distinctive and suggestive point in the case was the singular disappearance of the door key. A most careful search had failed to discover it in the room. Therefore, it must have been taken from it. But neither the Colonel nor the Colonel’s wife could have taken it. That was perfectly clear. Therefore a third person must have entered the room. And that third person could only have come in through the window. It seemed to me that a careful examination of the room and the lawn might possibly reveal some traces of this mysterious individual. You know my methods, Watson. There was not one of them which I did not apply to the inquiry. And it ended by my discovering traces, but very different ones from those which I had expected. There had been a man in the room, and he had crossed the lawn coming from the road. I was able to obtain five very clear impressions of his footmarks—one on the roadway itself, at the point where he had climbed the low wall, two on the lawn, and two very faint ones upon the stained boards near the window where he had entered. He had apparently rushed across the lawn, for his toe marks were much deeper that his heels. But it was not the man who surprised me. It was his companion.’
‘His companion!’
Holmes pulled a large sheet of tissue paper out of his pocket and carefully unfolded it upon his knee.
‘What do you make of that?’ he asked.
The paper was covered with tracings of the footmarks of some small animal. It had five well-marked footpads, an indication of long nails, and the whole print might be nearly as large as a dessert spoon.
‘It’s a dog,’ said I.
‘Did you ever hear of a dog running up a curtain? I found distinct traces that this creature had done so.’
‘A monkey, then?’
‘But it is not the print of a monkey.’
‘What can it be, then?’
‘Neither dog, nor cat, nor monkey, nor any creature that we are familiar with. I have tried to reconstruct it from the measurements. Here are four prints where the beast has been standing motionless. You see that it is no less than fifteen inches from fore foot to hind. Add to that the length of neck and head, and you get a creature not much less than two feet long—probably more if there is any tail. But now observe this other measurement. The animal has been moving, and we have the length of its stride. In each case it is only about three inches. You have an indication, you see, of a long body with very short legs attached to it. It has not been considerate enough to leave any of its hair behind it. But its general shape must be what I have indicated, and it can run up a curtain and is carnivorous.’
‘How do you deduce that?’
‘Because it ran up the curtain. A canary’s cage was hanging in the window, and its aim seems to have been to get at the bird.’
‘Then what was the beast?’
‘Ah, if I could give it a name it might go a long way towards solving the case. On the whole it was probably some creature of the weasel or stoat tribe—and yet it is larger than any of these that I have seen.’
‘But what had it to do with the crime?’
‘That also is still obscure. But we have learned a good deal, you perceive. We know that a man stood in the road looking at the quarrel between the Barclays—the blinds were up and the room lighted. We know also that he ran across the lawn, entered the room, accompanied by a strange animal, and that he either struck the Colonel, or, as is equally possible, that the Colonel fell down from sheer fright at the sight of him, and cut his head on the corner of the fender. Finally, we have the curious fact that the intruder carried away the key with him when he left.’
‘Your discoveries seem to have left the business more obscure than it was before,’ said I.
‘Quite so. They undoubtedly showed that the affair was much deeper than was at first conjectured. I thought the matter over, and I came to the conclusion that I must approach the case from another aspect. But really, Watson, I am keeping you up, and I might just as well tell you all this on our way to Aldershot to-morrow.’
‘Thank you, you’ve gone rather too far to stop.’
‘It was quite certain that when Mrs Barclay left the house at half-past seven she was on good terms with her husband. She was never, as I think I have said, ostentatiously affectionate, but she was heard by the coachman chatting with the Colonel in a friendly fashion. Now, it was equally certain that immediately on her return she had gone to the room in which she was least likely to see her husband, had flown to tea, as an agitated woman will, and, finally, on his coming in to her, had broken into violent recriminations. Therefore, something had occurred between seven-thirty and nine o’clock which had completely altered her feelings towards him. But Miss Morrison had been with her during the whole of that hour and a half. It was absolutely certain, therefore, in spite of her denial, that she must know something of the matter.
‘My first conjecture was that possibly there had been some passages between this young woman and the old soldier, which the former had now confessed to the wife. That would account for the angry return and also for the girl’s denial that anything had occurred. Nor would it be entirely incompatible with most of the words overheard. But there was the reference to David, and there was the known affection of the Colonel for his wife to weigh against it, to say nothing of the tragic intrusion of this other man, which might, of course, be entirely disconnected with what had gone before. It was not easy to pick one’s steps, but on the whole I was inclined to dismiss the idea that there had been anything between the Colonel and Miss Morrison, but more than ever convinced that the young lady held the clue as to what it was which had turned Mrs Barclay to hatred of her husband. I took the obvious course, therefore, of calling upon Miss Morrison, of explaining to her that I was perfectly certain that she held the facts in her possession, and of assuring her that her friend, Mrs Barclay, might find herself in the dock upon a capital charge unless the matter were cleared up.
‘Miss Morrison is a little, ethereal slip of a girl, with timid eyes and blonde hair, but I found her by no means wanting in shrewdness and common sense. She sat thinking for some time after I had spoken, and then turning to me with a brisk air of resolution, she broke into a remarkable statement, which I will condense for your benefit.
‘ “I promised my friend that I would say nothing of the matter, and a promise is a promise,” said she. “But if I can really help her when so serious a charge is made against her, and when her own mouth, poor darling, is closed by illness, then I think I am absolved from my promise. I will tell you exactly what happened on Monday evening.
‘ “We were returning from the Watt Street Mission, about a quarter to nine o’clock. On our way we had to pass through Hudson Street, which is a very quiet thoroughfare. There is only one lamp in it upon the left-hand side, and as we approached this lamp I saw a man coming towards us with his back very bent, and something like a box slung over one of his shoulders. He appeared to be deformed, for he carried his head low, and walked with his knees bent. We were passing him when he raised his face to look at us in the circle of light thrown by the lamp, and as he did so he stopped and screamed out in a dreadful voice, ‘My God, it’s Nancy!’ Mrs Barclay turned as white as death, and would have fallen down
had the dreadful-looking creature not caught hold of her. I was going to call for the police, but she, to my surprise, spoke quite civilly to the fellow.
‘ “ ‘I thought you had been dead this thirty years, Henry,’ said she, in a shaking voice.
‘ “ ‘So I have,’ said he, and it was awful to hear the tones that he said it in. He had a very dark, fearsome face, and a gleam in his eyes that comes back to me in my dreams. His hair and whiskers were shot with grey, and his face was all crinkled and puckered like a withered apple.
‘ “ ‘Just walk on a little way, dear,’ said Mrs Barclay. ‘I want to have a word with this man. There is nothing to be afraid of.’ She tried to speak boldly, but she was still deadly pale, and could hardly get her words out for the trembling of her lips.
‘ “I did as she asked me, and they talked together for a few minutes. Then she came down the street with her eyes blazing, and I saw the crippled wretch standing by the lamp-post and shaking his clenched fists in the air, as if he were mad with rage. She never said a word until we were at the door here, when she took me by the hand and begged me to tell no one what had happened. ‘It is an old acquaintance of mine who has come down in the world,’ said she. When I promised her that I would say nothing she kissed me, and I have never seen her since. I have told you now the whole truth, and if I withheld it from the police it is because I did not realize then the danger in which my dear friend stood. I know that it can only be to her advantage that everything should be known.”
‘There was her statement, Watson, and to me, as you can imagine, it was like a light on a dark night. Everything which had been disconnected before began at once to assume its true place, and I had a shadowy presentiment of the whole sequence of events. My next step obviously was to find the man who had produced such a remarkable impression upon Mrs Barclay. If he were still in Aldershot it should not be a very difficult matter. There are not such a very great number of civilians, and a deformed man was sure to have attracted attention. I spent a day in the search, and by evening—this very evening, Watson—I had run him down. The man’s name is Henry Wood, and he lives in lodgings in the same street in which the ladies met him. He has only been five days in the place. In the character of a registration agent I had a most interesting gossip with his landlady. The man is by trade a conjurer and performer, going round the canteens, after nightfall, and giving a little entertainment at each. He carries some creature about with him in his box, about which the landlady seemed to be in considerable trepidation, for she had never seen an animal like it. He uses it in some of his tricks, according to her account. So much the woman was able to tell me, and also that it was a wonder the man lived, seeing how twisted he was, and that he spoke in a strange tongue sometimes, and that for the last two nights she had heard him groaning and weeping in his bedroom. He was all right as far as money went, but in his deposit he had given her what looked like a bad florin. She showed it to me, Watson, and it was an Indian rupee.
‘So now, my dear fellow, you see exactly how we stand and why it is I want you. It is perfectly plain that after the ladies parted from this man he followed them at a distance, that he saw the quarrel between husband and wife through the window, that he rushed in, and that the creature which he carried in his box got loose. That is all very certain. But he is the only person in this world who can tell us exactly what happened in that room.’
‘And you intend to ask him?’
‘Most certainly—but in the presence of a witness.’
‘And I am the witness?’
‘If you will be so good. If he can clear the matter up, well and good. If he refuses, we have no alternative but to apply for a warrant.’
‘But how do you know he will be there when we return?’
‘You may be sure that I took some precautions. I have one of my Baker Street boys mounting guard over him who would stick to him like a burr, go where he might. We shall find him in Hudson Street to- morrow, Watson; and meanwhile I should be the criminal myself if I kept you out of bed any longer.’
It was midday when we found ourselves at the scene of the tragedy, and, under my companion’s guidance, we made our way at once to Hudson Street. In spite of his capacity for concealing his emotions I could easily see that Holmes was in a state of suppressed excitement, while I was myself tingling with that half-sporting, half-intellectual pleasure which I invariably experienced when I associated myself with him in his investigations.
‘This is the street,’ said he, as he turned into a short thoroughfare lined with plain, two-storied brick houses—‘Ah! here is Simpson to report.’
‘He’s in all right, Mr Holmes,’ cried a small street Arab, running up to us.
‘Good, Simpson!’ said Holmes, patting him on the head. ‘Come along, Watson. This is the house.’ He sent in his card with a message that he had come on important business, and a moment later we were face to face with the man whom we had come to see. In spite of the warm weather he was crouching over a fire, and the little room was like an oven. The man sat all twisted and huddled in his chair in a way which gave an indescribable impression of deformity, but the face which he turned towards us, though worn and swarthy, must at some time have been remarkable for its beauty. He looked suspiciously at us now out of yellow-shot bilious eyes, and, without speaking or rising, he waved towards two chairs.
‘Mr Henry Wood, late of India, I believe?’ said Holmes, affably. ‘I’ve-come over this little matter of Colonel Barclay’s death.’
‘What should I know about that?’
‘That’s what I wanted to ascertain. You know, I suppose, that unless the matter is cleared up, Mrs Barclay, who is an old friend of yours, will in all probability be tried for murder?’
The man gave a violent start.
‘I don’t know who you are,’ he cried, ‘nor how you come to know what you do know; but will you swear that this is true that you tell me?’
‘Why, they are only waiting for her to come to her senses to arrest her.’
‘My God! Are you in the police yourself?’
‘No.’
‘What business is it of yours, then?’
‘It’s every man’s business to see justice done.’
‘You can take my word that she is innocent.’
‘Then you are guilty?’
‘No, I am not.’
‘Who killed Colonel James Barclay, then?’
‘It was a just Providence that killed him. But mind you this, that if I had knocked his brains out, as it was in my heart to do, he would have had no more than his due from my hands. If his own guilty conscience
had not struck him down, it is likely enough that I might have had his blood upon my soul. You want me to tell the story? Well, I don’t know why I shouldn’t, for there’s no cause for me to be ashamed of it.
‘It was in this way, sir. You see me now with my back like a camel and my ribs all awry, but there was a time when
Corporal Henry Wood was the smartest man in the 117th Foot. We were in India then, in cantonments, at a place we’ll call Bhurtee. Barclay, who died the other day, was sergeant in the same company as myself, and the belle of the regiment—aye, and the finest girl that ever had the breath of life between her lips—was Nancy Devoy, the daughter of the colour-sergeant. There were two men who loved her, and one whom she loved; and you’ll smile when you look at this poor thing huddled before the fire, and hear me say that it was for my good looks that she loved me.
‘Well, though I had her heart her father was set upon her marrying Barclay. I was a harum-scarum, reckless lad, and he had had an education, and was already marked for the sword-belt. But the girl held true to me, and it seemed that I would have had her, when the Mutiny broke out, and all Hell was loose in the country.
‘We were shut up in Bhurtee, the regiment of us, with half a battery of artillery, a company of Sikhs, and a lot of civilians and women-folk. There were ten thousand rebels round us, and they were as keen as a set of terriers round a rat-cage. About the second week of it our water gave out, and it was a question whether we could communicate with General Neill’s column, which was moving up country. It was our only chance, for we could not hope to fight our way out with all the women and children, so I volunteered to go out and warn General Neill of our danger. My offer was accepted, and I talked it over with Sergeant Barclay, who was supposed to know the ground better than any other man, and who drew up a route by which I might get through the rebel lines. At ten o’clock the same night I started off upon my journey. There were a thousand lives to save, but it was of only one that I was thinking when I dropped over the wall that night.
‘My way ran down a dried-up watercourse, which we hoped would screen me from the enemy’s sentries, but as I crept round the corner of it I walked right into six of them, who were crouching down in the dark waiting for me. In an instant I was stunned with a blow, and bound hand and foot. But the real blow was to my heart and not to my head, for as I came to and listened to as much as I could understand of their talk, I heard enough to tell me that my comrade, the very man who had arranged the way I was to take, had betrayed me by means of a native servant into the hands of the enemy.
‘Well, there’s no need for me to dwell on that part of it. You know now what James Barclay was capable of. Bhurtee was relieved by Neill next day, but the rebels took me away with them in their retreat, and it was many a long year before ever I saw a white face again. I was tortured, and tried to get away, and was captured and tortured again. You can see for yourselves the state in which I was left. Some of them that fled into Nepal took me with them, and then afterwards I was up past Darjeeling. The hill- folk up there murdered the rebels who had me, and I became their slave for a time until I escaped, but instead of going south I had to go north, until I found myself among the Afghans. There I wandered about for many a year, and at last came back to the Punjab, where I lived mostly among the natives, and picked up a living by the conjuring tricks that I had learned. What use was it for me, a wretched cripple, to go back to England, or to make myself known to my old comrades? Even my wish for revenge would not make me do that. I had rather that Nancy and my old pals should think of Harry Wood as having died with a straight back, than see him living and crawling with a stick like a chimpanzee. They never doubted that I was dead, and I meant that they never should. I heard that Barclay had married Nancy, and that he was rapidly rising in the regiment, but even that did not make me speak.
‘But when one gets old, one has a longing for home. For years I’ve been dreaming of the bright green fields and the hedges of England. At last I determined to see them before I died. I saved enough to bring me across, and then I came here where the soldiers are, for I know their ways, and how to amuse them, and so earn enough to keep me.’
‘Your narrative is most interesting,’ said Sherlock Holmes. ‘I have already heard of your meeting with Mrs Barclay and your mutual recognition. You then, as I understand, followed her home and saw through the window an altercation between her husband and her, in which she doubtless cast his conduct to you in his teeth. Your own feelings overcame you, and you ran across the lawn, and broke in upon them.’
‘I did, sir, and at the sight of me he looked as I have never seen a man look before, and over he went with his head on the fender. But he was dead before he fell. I read death on his face as plain as I can read that text over the fire. The bare sight of me was like a bullet through his guilty heart.’
‘And then?’
‘Then Nancy fainted, and I caught up the key of the door from her hand, intending to unlock it and get help. But as I was doing it it seemed to me better to leave it alone and get away, for the thing might look black against me, and any way my secret would be out if I were taken. In my haste I thrust the key into my pocket, and dropped my stick while I was chasing Teddy, who had run up the curtain. When I got him into his box, from which he had slipped, I was off as fast as I could run.’
‘Who’s Teddy?’ asked Holmes.
The man leaned over and pulled up the front of a kind of hutch in the corner. In an instant out there slipped a beautiful reddish-brown creature, thin, and lithe, with the legs of a stoat, a long thin nose, and a pair of the finest red eyes that ever I saw in an animal’s head.
‘It’s a mongoose!’ I cried.
‘Well, some call them that, and some call them ichneumon,’ said the man. ‘Snake-catcher is what I call them, and Teddy is amazing quick on cobras. I have one here without the fangs, and Teddy catches it every night to please the folk in the canteen. Any other point, sir?’
‘Well, we may have to apply to you again if Mrs Barclay should prove to be in serious trouble.’
‘In that case, of course, I’d come forward.’
‘But if not, there is no object in raking up this scandal against a dead man, foully as he has acted. You have, at least, the satisfaction of knowing that for thirty years of his life his conscience bitterly reproached him for his wicked deed. Ah, there goes Major Murphy on the other side of the street. Good-bye, Wood; I want to learn if anything has happened since yesterday.’
We were in time to overtake the Major before he reached the corner.
‘Ah, Holmes,’ he said, ‘I suppose you have heard that all this fuss has come to nothing?’
‘What, then?’
‘The inquest is just over. The medical evidence showed conclusively that death was due to apoplexy. You see, it was quite a simple case after all.’
‘Oh, remarkably superficial,’ said Holmes, smiling. ‘Come, Watson, I don’t think we shall be wanted in Aldershot any more.’
‘There’s one thing,’ said I, as we walked down to the station; ‘if the husband’s name was James, and the other was Henry, what was this talk about David?’
‘That one word, my dear Watson, should have told me the whole story had I been the ideal reasoner which you are so fond of depicting. It was evidently a term of reproach.’
‘Of reproach?’
‘Yes, David strayed a little now and then, you know, and on one occasion in the same direction as Sergeant James Barclay. You remember the small affair of Uriah and Bathsheba? My Biblical knowledge is a trifle rusty, I fear, but you will find the story in the first or second of Samuel.’

~jet aime~