His Last Bow

Arthur Conan Doyle

Published: 1917
Categorie(s): Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Short Stories
Source: Wikisource
About Doyle:
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a
Scottish author most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes,
which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction,
and the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other
works include science fiction stories, historical novels, plays and romances,
poetry, and non-fiction. Conan was originally a given name, but Doyle used it as
part of his surname in his later years. Source: Wikipedia

Also available on Feedbooks Doyle:

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)

The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (1923)
The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1893)
A Study in Scarlet (1887)
The Sign of the Four (1890)
The Lost World (1912)
The Valley of Fear (1915)
The Disintegration Machine (1928)

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Chapter 1
The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
1. The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles

I find it recorded in my notebook that it was a bleak and windy day towards the
end of March in the year 1892. Holmes had received a telegram while we sat at
our lunch, and he had scribbled a reply. He made no remark, but the matter
remained in his thoughts, for he stood in front of the fire afterwards with a
thoughtful face, smoking his pipe, and casting an occasional glance at the
message. Suddenly he turned upon me with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
"I suppose, Watson, we must look upon you as a man of letters," said he.
"How do you define the word 'grotesque'?"
"Strange—remarkable," I suggested.
He shook his head at my definition.
"There is surely something more than that," said he; "some underlying
suggestion of the tragic and the terrible. If you cast your mind back to some of
those narratives with which you have afflicted a long-suffering public, you will
recognize how often the grotesque has deepened into the criminal. Think of that
little affair of the red-headed men. That was grotesque enough in the outset, and
yet it ended in a desperate attempt at robbery. Or, again, there was that most
grotesque affair of the five orange pips, which let straight to a murderous
conspiracy. The word puts me on the alert."
"Have you it there?" I asked.
He read the telegram aloud.
"Have just had most incredible and grotesque experience. May I consult you?
"Scott Eccles,
"Post Office, Charing Cross."
"Man or woman?" I asked.
"Oh, man, of course. No woman would ever send a reply-paid telegram. She
would have come."
"Will you see him?"
"My dear Watson, you know how bored I have been since we locked up
Colonel Carruthers. My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces
because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built. Life is
commonplace, the papers are sterile; audacity and romance seem to have passed
forever from the criminal world. Can you ask me, then, whether I am ready to
look into any new problem, however trivial it may prove? But here, unless I am
mistaken, is our client."
A measured step was heard upon the stairs, and a moment later a stout, tall,
gray-whiskered and solemnly respectable person was ushered into the room. His
life history was written in his heavy features and pompous manner. From his
spats to his gold-rimmed spectacles he was a Conservative, a churchman, a good
citizen, orthodox and conventional to the last degree. But some amazing
experience had disturbed his native composure and left its traces in his bristling
hair, his flushed, angry cheeks, and his flurried, excited manner. He plunged
instantly into his business.
"I have had a most singular and unpleasant experience, Mr. Holmes," said he.
"Never in my life have I been placed in such a situation. It is most improper—
most outrageous. I must insist upon some explanation." He swelled and puffed in
his anger.
"Pray sit down, Mr. Scott Eccles," said Holmes in a soothing voice. "May I
ask, in the first place, why you came to me at all?"
"Well, sir, it did not appear to be a matter which concerned the police, and yet,
when you have heard the facts, you must admit that I could not leave it where it
was. Private detectives are a class with whom I have absolutely no sympathy, but
none the less, having heard your name—"
"Quite so. But, in the second place, why did you not come at once?"
Holmes glanced at his watch.
"It is a quarter-past two," he said. "Your telegram was dispatched about one.
But no one can glance at your toilet and attire without seeing that your
disturbance dates from the moment of your waking."
Our client smoothed down his unbrushed hair and felt his unshaven chin.
"You are right, Mr. Holmes. I never gave a thought to my toilet. I was only too
glad to get out of such a house. But I have been running round making inquiries
before I came to you. I went to the house agents, you know, and they said that
Mr. Garcia's rent was paid up all right and that everything was in order at
Wisteria Lodge."
"Come, come, sir," said Holmes, laughing. "You are like my friend, Dr.
Watson, who has a bad habit of telling his stories wrong end foremost. Please
arrange your thoughts and let me know, in their due sequence, exactly what those
events are which have sent you out unbrushed and unkempt, with dress boots
and waistcoat buttoned awry, in search of advice and assistance."
Our client looked down with a rueful face at his own unconventional
appearance.
"I'm sure it must look very bad, Mr. Holmes, and I am not aware that in my
whole life such a thing has ever happened before. But will tell you the whole
queer business, and when I have done so you will admit, I am sure, that there has
been enough to excuse me."
But his narrative was nipped in the bud. There was a bustle outside, and Mrs.
Hudson opened the door to usher in two robust and official-looking individuals,
one of whom was well known to us as Inspector Gregson of Scotland Yard, an
energetic, gallant, and, within his limitations, a capable officer. He shook hands
with Holmes and introduced his comrade as Inspector Baynes, of the Surrey
Constabulary.
"We are hunting together, Mr. Holmes, and our trail lay in this direction." He
turned his bulldog eyes upon our visitor. "Are you Mr. John Scott Eccles, of
Popham House, Lee?"
"I am."
"We have been following you about all the morning."
"You traced him through the telegram, no doubt," said Holmes.
"Exactly, Mr. Holmes. We picked up the scent at Charing Cross Post-Office
and came on here."
"But why do you follow me? What do you want?"
"We wish a statement, Mr. Scott Eccles, as to the events which let up to the
death last night of Mr. Aloysius Garcia, of Wisteria Lodge, near Esher."
Our client had sat up with staring eyes and every tinge of colour struck from
his astonished face.
"Dead? Did you say he was dead?"
"Yes, sir, he is dead."
"But how? An accident?"
"Murder, if ever there was one upon earth."
"Good God! This is awful! You don't mean—you don't mean that I am
suspected?"
"A letter of yours was found in the dead man's pocket, and we know by it that
you had planned to pass last night at his house."
"So I did."
"Oh, you did, did you?"
Out came the official notebook.
"Wait a bit, Gregson," said Sherlock Holmes. "All you desire is a plain
statement, is it not?"
 "And it is my duty to warn Mr. Scott Eccles that it may be used against him."
"Mr. Eccles was going to tell us about it when you entered the room. I think,
Watson, a brandy and soda would do him no harm. Now, sir, I suggest that you
take no notice of this addition to your audience, and that you proceed with your
narrative exactly as you would have done had you never been interrupted."
Our visitor had gulped off the brandy and the colour had returned to his face.
With a dubious glance at the inspector's notebook, he plunged at once into his
extraordinary statement.
"I am a bachelor," said he, "and being of a sociable turn I cultivate a large
number of friends. Among these are the family of a retired brewer called
Melville, living at Abermarle Mansion, Kensington. It was at his table that I met
some weeks ago a young fellow named Garcia. He was, I understood, of Spanish
descent and connected in some way with the embassy. He spoke perfect English,
was pleasing in his manners, and as good-looking a man as ever I saw in my life.
"In some way we struck up quite a friendship, this young fellow and I. He
seemed to take a fancy to me from the first, and within two days of our meeting
he came to see me at Lee. One thing led to another, and it ended in his inviting
me out to spend a few days at his house, Wisteria Lodge, between Esher and
Oxshott. Yesterday evening I went to Esher to fulfil this engagement.
"He had described his household to me before I went there. He lived with a
faithful servant, a countryman of his own, who looked after all his needs. This
fellow could speak English and did his housekeeping for him. Then there was a
wonderful cook, he said, a half-breed whom he had picked up in his travels, who
could serve an excellent dinner. I remember that he remarked what a queer
household it was to find in the heart of Surrey, and that I agreed with him,
though it has proved a good deal queerer than I thought.
"I drove to the place—about two miles on the south side of Esher. The house
was a fair-sized one, standing back from the road, with a curving drive which
was banked with high evergreen shrubs. It was an old, tumbledown building in a
crazy state of disrepair. When the trap pulled up on the grass-grown drive in
front of the blotched and weather-stained door, I had doubts as to my wisdom in
visiting a man whom I knew so slightly. He opened the door himself, however,
and greeted me with a great show of cordiality. I was handed over to the
manservant, a melancholy, swarthy individual, who led the way, my bag in his
hand, to my bedroom. The whole place was depressing. Our dinner was tete-a-
tete, and though my host did his best to be entertaining, his thoughts seemed to
continually wander, and he talked so vaguely and wildly that I could hardly
understand him. He continually drummed his fingers on the table, gnawed his
nails, and gave other signs of nervous impatience. The dinner itself was neither
well served nor well cooked, and the gloomy presence of the taciturn servant did
not help to enliven us. I can assure you that many times in the course of the
evening I wished that I could invent some excuse which would take me back to
Lee.
"One thing comes back to my memory which may have a bearing upon the
business that you two gentlemen are investigating. I thought nothing of it at the
time. Near the end of dinner a note was handed in by the servant. I noticed that
after my host had read it he seemed even more distrait and strange than before.
He gave up all pretence at conversation and sat, smoking endless cigarettes, lost
in his own thoughts, but he made no remark as to the contents. About eleven I
was glad to go to bed. Some time later Garcia looked in at my door—the room
was dark at the time—and asked me if I had rung. I said that I had not. He
apologized for having disturbed me so late, saying that it was nearly one o'clock.
I dropped off after this and slept soundly all night.
"And now I come to the amazing part of my tale. When I woke it was broad
daylight. I glanced at my watch, and the time was nearly nine. I had particularly
asked to be called at eight, so I was very much astonished at this forgetfulness. I
sprang up and rang for the servant. There was no response. I rang again and
again, with the same result. Then I came to the conclusion that the bell was out
of order. I huddled on my clothes and hurried downstairs in an exceedingly bad
temper to order some hot water. You can imagine my surprise when I found that
there was no one there. I shouted in the hall. There was no answer. Then I ran
from room to room. All were deserted. My host had shown me which was his
bedroom the night before, so I knocked at the door. No reply. I turned the handle
and walked in. The room was empty, and the bed had never been slept in. He had
gone with the rest. The foreign host, the foreign footman, the foreign cook, all
had vanished in the night! That was the end of my visit to Wisteria Lodge."
Sherlock Holmes was rubbing his hands and chuckling as he added this
bizarre incident to his collection of strange episodes.
"Your experience is, so far as I know, perfectly unique," said he. "May I ask,
sir, what you did then?"
"I was furious. My first idea was that I had been the victim of some absurd
practical joke. I packed my things, banged the hall door behind me, and set off
for Esher, with my bag in my hand. I called at Allan Brothers', the chief land
agents in the village, and found that it was from this firm that the villa had been
rented. It struck me that the whole proceeding could hardly be for the purpose of
making a fool of me, and that the main objet must be to get out of the rent. It is
late in March, so quarter-day is at hand. But this theory would not work. The
agent was obliged to me for my warning, but told me that the rent had been paid
in advance. Then I made my way to town and called at the Spanish embassy. The
man was unknown there. After this I went to see Melville, at whose house I had
first met Garcia, but I found that he really knew rather less about him than I did.
Finally when I got your reply to my wire I came out to you, since I gather that
you are a person who gives advice in difficult cases. But now, Mr. Inspector, I
understand, from what you said when you entered the room, that you can carry
the story on, and that some tragedy had occurred. I can assure you that every
word I have said is the truth, and that, outside of what I have told you, I know
absolutely nothing about the fate of this man. My only desire is to help the law
in every possible way."
"I am sure of it, Mr. Scott Eccles—I am sure of it," said Inspector Gregson in
a very amiable tone. "I am bound to say that everything which you have said
agrees very closely with the facts as they have come to our notice. For example,
there was that note which arrived during dinner. Did you chance to observe what
became of it?"
"Yes, I did. Garcia rolled it up and threw it into the fire."
"What do you say to that, Mr. Baynes?"
The country detective was a stout, puffy, red man, whose face was only
redeemed from grossness by two extraordinarily bright eyes, almost hidden
behind the heavy creases of cheek and brow. With a slow smile he drew a folded
and discoloured scrap of paper from his pocket.
"It was a dog-grate, Mr. Holmes, and he overpitched it. I picked this out
unburned from the back of it."
Holmes smiled his appreciation.
"You must have examined the house very carefully to find a single pellet of
paper."
"I did, Mr. Holmes. It's my way. Shall I read it, Mr. Gregson?"
The Londoner nodded.
"The note is written upon ordinary cream-laid paper without watermark. It is a
quarter-sheet. The paper is cut off in two snips with a short-bladed scissors. It
has been folded over three times and sealed with purple wax, put on hurriedly
and pressed down with some flat oval object. It is addressed to Mr. Garcia,
Wisteria Lodge. It says:
"Our own colours, green and white. Green open, white shut. Main stair, first
corridor, seventh right, green baize. Godspeed. D.
"It is a woman's writing, done with a sharp-pointed pen, but the address is
either done with another pen or by someone else. It is thicker and bolder, as you
see."
"A very remarkable note," said Holmes, glancing it over. "I must compliment
you, Mr. Baynes, upon your attention to detail in your examination of it. A few
trifling points might perhaps be added. The oval seal is undoubtedly a plain
sleeve-link—what else is of such a shape? The scissors were bent nail scissors.
Short as the two snips are, you can distinctly see the same slight curve in each."
The country detective chuckled.
"I thought I had squeezed all the juice out of it, but I see there was a little
over," he said. "I'm bound to say that I make nothing of the note except that there
was something on hand, and that a woman, as usual was at the bottom of it."
Mr. Scott Eccles had fidgeted in his seat during this conversation.
"I am glad you found the note, since it corroborates my story," said he. "But I
beg to point out that I have not yet heard what has happened to Mr. Garcia, nor
what has become of his household."
"As to Garcia," said Gregson, "that is easily answered. He was found dead this
morning upon Oxshott Common, nearly a mile from his home. His head had
been smashed to pulp by heavy blows of a sandbag or some such instrument,
which had crushed rather than wounded. It is a lonely corner, and there is no
house within a quarter of a mile of the spot. He had apparently been struck down
first from behind, but his assailant had gone on beating him long after he was
dead. It was a most furious assault. There are no footsteps nor any clue to the
criminals."
"Robbed?"
"No, there was no attempt at robbery."
"This is very painful—very painful and terrible," said Mr. Scott Eccles in a
querulous voice, "but it is really uncommonly hard on me. I had nothing to do
with my host going off upon a nocturnal excursion and meeting so sad an end.
How do I come to be mixed up with the case?"
"Very simply, sir," Inspector Baynes answered. "The only document found in
the pocket of the deceased was a letter from you saying that you would be with
him on the night of his death. It was the envelope of this letter which gave us the
dead man's name and address. It was after nine this morning when we reached
his house and found neither you nor anyone else inside it. I wired to Mr. Gregson
to run you down in London while I examined Wisteria Lodge. Then I came into
town, joined Mr. Gregson, and here we are."
"I think now," said Gregson, rising, "we had best put this matter into an
official shape. You will come round with us to the station, Mr. Scott Eccles, and
let us have your statement in writing."
"Certainly, I will come at once. But I retain your services, Mr. Holmes. I
desire you to spare no expense and no pains to get at the truth."
My friend turned to the country inspector.
 "I suppose that you have no objection to my collaborating with you, Mr.
Baynes?"
"Highly honoured, sir, I am sure."
"You appear to have been very prompt and businesslike in all that you have
done. Was there any clue, may I ask, as to the exact hour that the man met his
death?"
"He had been there since one o'clock. There was rain about that time, and his
death had certainly been before the rain."
"But that is perfectly impossible, Mr. Baynes," cried our client. "His voice is
unmistakable. I could swear to it that it was he who addressed me in my
bedroom at that very hour."
"Remarkable, but by no means impossible," said Holmes, smiling.
"You have a clue?" asked Gregson.
"On the face of it the case is not a very complex one, though it certainly
presents some novel and interesting features. A further knowledge of facts is
necessary before I would venture to give a final and definite opinion. By the
way, Mr. Baynes, did you find anything remarkable besides this note in your
examination of the house?"
The detective looked at my friend in a singular way.
"There were," said he, "one or two VERY remarkable things. Perhaps when I
have finished at the police-station you would care to come out and give me your
opinion of them."
In am entirely at your service," said Sherlock Holmes, ringing the bell. "You
will show these gentlemen out, Mrs. Hudson, and kindly send the boy with this
telegram. He is to pay a five-shilling reply."
We sat for some time in silence after our visitors had left. Holmes smoked
hard, with his browns drawn down over his keen eyes, and his head thrust
forward in the eager way characteristic of the man.
"Well, Watson," he asked, turning suddenly upon me, "what do you make of
it?"
"I can make nothing of this mystification of Scott Eccles."
"But the crime?"
"Well, taken with the disappearance of the man's companions, I should say
that they were in some way concerned in the murder and had fled from justice."
"That is certainly a possible point of view. On the face of it you must admit,
however, that it is very strange that his two servants should have been in a
conspiracy against him and should have attacked him on the one night when he
had a guest. They had him alone at their mercy every other night in the week."
"Then why did they fly?"
 "Quite so. Why did they fly? There is a big fact. Another big fact is the
remarkable experience of our client, Scott Eccles. Now, my dear Watson, is it
beyond the limits of human ingenuity to furnish an explanation which would
cover both of these big facts? If it were one which would also admit of the
mysterious note with its very curious phraseology, why, then it would be worth
accepting as a temporary hypothesis. If the fresh facts which come to our
knowledge all fit themselves into the scheme, then our hypothesis may gradually
become a solution."
"But what is our hypothesis?"
Holmes leaned back in his chair with half-closed eyes.
"You must admit, my dear Watson, that the idea of a joke is impossible. There
were grave events afoot, as the sequel showed, and the coaxing of Scott Eccles
to Wisteria Lodge had some connection with them."
"But what possible connection?"
"Let us take it link by link. There is, on the face of it, something unnatural
about this strange and sudden friendship between the young Spaniard and Scott
Eccles. It was the former who forced the pace. He called upon Eccles at the other
end of London on the very day after he first met him, and he kept in close touch
with him until he got him down to Esher. Now, what did he want with Eccles?
What could Eccles supply? I see no charm in the man. He is not particulary
intelligent—not a man likely to be congenial to a quick-witted Latin. Why, then,
was he picked out from all the other people whom Garcia met as particularly
suited to his purpose? Has he any one outstanding quality? I say that he has. He
is the very type of conventional British respectability, and the very man as a
witness to impress another Briton. You saw yourself how neither of the
inspectors dreamed of questioning his statement, extraordinary as it was."
"But what was he to witness?"
"Nothing, as things turned out, but everything had they gone another way.
That is how I read the matter."
"I see, he might have proved an alibi."
"Exactly, my dear Watson; he might have proved an alibi. We will suppose,
for argument's sake, that the household of Wisteria Lodge are confederates in
some design. The attempt, whatever it may be, is to come off, we will say, before
one o'clock. By some juggling of the clocks it is quite possible that they may
have got Scott Eccles to bed earlier than he thought, but in any case it is likely
that when Garcia went out of his way to tell him that it was one it was really not
more than twelve. If Garcia could do whatever he had to do and be back by the
hour mentioned he had evidently a powerful reply to any accusation. Here was
this irreproachable Englishman ready to swear in any court of law that the
accused was in the house all the time. It was an insurance against the worst."
"Yes, yes, I see that. But how about the disappearance of the others?"
"I have not all my facts yet, but I do not think there are any insuperable
difficulties. Still, it is an error to argue in front of your data. You find yourself
insensibly twisting them round to fit your theories."
"And the message?"
"How did it run? 'Our own colours, green and white.' Sounds like racing.
'Green open, white shut.' That is clearly a signal. 'Main stair, first corridor,
seventh right, green baize.' This is an assignation. We may find a jealous
husband at the bottom of it all. It was clearly a dangerous quest. She would not
have said 'Godspeed' had it not been so. 'D'—that should be a guide."
"The man was a Spaniard. I suggest that 'D' stands for Dolores, a common
female name in Spain."
"Good, Watson, very good—but quite inadmissable. A Spaniard would write
to a Spaniard in Spanish. The writer of this note is certainly English. Well, we
can only possess our soul in patience until this excellent inspector come back for
us. Meanwhile we can thank our lucky fate which has rescued us for a few short
hours from the insufferable fatigues of idleness."
An answer had arrived to Holmes's telegram before our Surrey officer had
returned. Holmes read it and was about to place it in his notebook when he
caught a glimpse of my expectant face. He tossed it across with a laugh.
"We are moving in exalted circles," said he.
The telegram was a list of names and addresses:
Lord Harringby, The Dingle; Sir George Ffolliott, Oxshott Towers; Mr. Hynes
Hynes, J.P., Purdley Place; Mr. James Baker Williams, Forton Old Hall; Mr.
Henderson, High Gable; Rev. Joshua Stone, Nether Walsling.
"This is a very obvious way of limiting our field of operations," said Holmes.
"No doubt Baynes, with his methodical mind, has already adopted some similar
plan."
"I don't quite understand."
"Well, my dear fellow, we have already arrived at the conclusion that the
massage received by Garcia at dinner was an appointment or an assignation.
Now, if the obvious reading of it is correct, and in order to keep the tryst one has
to ascend a main stair and seek the seventh door in a corridor, it is perfectly clear
that the house is a very large one. It is equally certain that this house cannot be
more than a mile or two from Oxshott, since Garcia was walking in that
direction and hoped, according to my reading of the facts, to be back in Wisteria
Lodge in time to avail himself of an alibi, which would only be valid up to one
o'clock. As the number of large houses close to Oxshott must be limited, I
adopted the obvious method of sending to the agents mentioned by Scott Eccles
and obtaining a list of them. Here they are in this telegram, and the other end of
our tangled skein must lie among them."
It was nearly six o'clock before we found ourselves in the pretty Surrey village
of Esher, with Inspector Baynes as our companion.
Holmes and I had taken things for the night, and found comfortable quarters at
the Bull. Finally we set out in the company of the detective on our visit to
Wisteria Lodge. It was a cold, dark March evening, with a sharp wind and a fine
rain beating upon our faces, a fit setting for the wild common over which our
road passed and the tragic goal to which it led us.
 2. The Tiger of San Pedro

A cold and melancholy walk of a couple of miles brought us to a high wooden

gate, which opened into a gloomy avenue of chestnuts. The curved and
shadowed drive led us to a low, dark house, pitch-black against a slate-coloured
sky. From the front window upon the left of the door there peeped a glimmer of a
feeble light.
"There's a constable in possession," said Baynes. "I'll knock at the window."
He stepped across the grass plot and tapped with his hand on the pane. Through
the fogged glass I dimly saw a man spring up from a chair beside the fire, and
heard a sharp cry from within the room. An instant later a white-faced, hard-
breathing policeman had opened the door, the candle wavering in his trembling
hand.
"What's the matter, Walters?" asked Baynes sharply.
The man mopped his forehead with his handkerchief and agave a long sigh of
relief.
"I am glad you have come, sir. It has been a long evening, and I don't think my
nerve is as good as it was."
"Your nerve, Walters? I should not have thought you had a nerve in your
body."
"Well, sir, it's this lonely, silent house and the queer thing in the kitchen. Then
when you tapped at the window I thought it had come again."
"That what had come again?"
"The devil, sir, for all I know. It was at the window."
"What was at the window, and when?"
"It was just about two hours ago. The light was just fading. I was sitting
reading in the chair. I don't know what made me look up, but there was a face
looking in at me through the lower pane. Lord, sir, what a face it was! I'll see it
in my dreams."
"Tut, tut, Walters. This is not talk for a police-constable."
"I know, sir, I know; but it shook me, sir, and there's no use to deny it. It
wasn't black, sir, nor was it white, nor any colour that I know but a kind of queer
shade like clay with a splash of milk in it. Then there was the size of it—it was
twice yours, sir. And the look of it—the great staring goggle eyes, and the line of
white teeth like a hungry beast. I tell you, sir, I couldn't move a finger, nor get
my breath, till it whisked away and was gone. Out I ran and through the
shrubbery, but thank God there was no one there."
"If I didn't know you were a good man, Walters, I should put a black mark
against you for this. If it were the devil himself a constable on duty should never
thank God that he could not lay his hands upon him. I suppose the whole thing is
not a vision and a touch of nerves?"
"That, at least, is very easily settled," said Holmes, lighting his little pocket
lantern. "Yes," he reported, after a short examination of the grass bed, "a number
twelve shoe, I should say. If he was all on the same scale as his foot he must
certainly have been a giant."
"What became of him?"
"He seems to have broken through the shrubbery and made for the road."
"Well," said the inspector with a grave and thoughtful face, "whoever he may
have been, and whatever he may have wanted, he's gone for the present, and we
have more immediate things to attend to. Now, Mr. Holmes, with your
permission, I will show you round the house."
The various bedrooms and sitting-rooms had yielded nothing to a careful
search. Apparently the tenants had brought little or nothing with them, and all
the furniture down to the smallest details had been taken over with the house. A
good deal of clothing with the stamp of Marx and Co., High Holborn, had been
left behind. Telegraphic inquiries had been already made which showed that
Marx knew nothing of his customer save that he was a good payer. Odds and
ends, some pipes, a few novels, two of them in Spanish, and old-fashioned
pinfire revolver, and a guitar were among the personal property.
"Nothing in all this," said Baynes, stalking, candle in hand, from room to
room. "But now, Mr. Holmes, I invite your attention to the kitchen."
It was a gloomy, high-ceilinged room at the back of the house, with a straw
litter in one corner, which served apparently as a bed for the cook. The table was
piled with half-eaten dishes and dirty plates, the debris of last night's dinner.
"Look at this," said Baynes. "What do you make of it?"
He held up his candle before an extraordinary object which stood at the back
of the dresser. It was so wrinkled and shrunken and withered that it was difficult
to say what it might have been. One could but say that it was black and leathery
and that it bore some resemblance to a dwarfish, human figure. At first, as I
examined it, I thought that it was a mummified negro baby, and then it seemed a
very twisted and ancient monkey. Finally I was left in doubt as to whether it was
animal or human. A double band of white shells were strung round the centre of
it.
"Very interesting—very interesting, indeed!" said Holmes, peering at this
sinister relic. "Anything more?"
In silence Baynes led the way to the sink and held forward his candle. The
limbs and body of some large, white bird, torn savagely to pieces with the
feathers still on, were littered all over it. Holmes pointed to the wattles on the
severed head.
"A white cock," said he. "Most interesting! It is really a very curious case."
But Mr. Baynes had kept his most sinister exhibit to the last. From under the
sink he drew a zinc pail which contained a quantity of blood. Then from the
table he took a platter heaped with small pieces of charred bone.
"Something has been killed and something has been burned. We raked all
these out of the fire. We had a doctor in this morning. He says that they are not
human."
Holmes smiled and rubbed his hands.
"I must congratulate you, Inspector, on handling so distinctive and instructive
a case. Your powers, if I may say so without offence, seem superior to your
opportunities."
Inspector Baynes's small eyes twinkled with pleasure.
"You're right, Mr. Holmes. We stagnate in the provinces. A case of this sort
gives a man a chance, and I hope that I shall take it. What do you make of these
bones?"
"A lamb, I should say, or a kid."
"And the white cock?"
"Curious, Mr. Baynes, very curious. I should say almost unique."
"Yes, sir, there must have been some very strange people with some very
strange ways in this house. One of them is dead. Did his companions follow him
and kill him? If they did we should have them, for every port is watched. But my
own views are different. Yes, sir, my own views are very different."
"You have a theory then?"
"And I'll work it myself, Mr. Holmes. It's only due to my own credit to do so.
Your name is made, but I have still to make mine. I should be glad to be able to
say afterwards that I had solved it without your help."
Holmes laughed good-humoredly.
"Well, well, Inspector," said he. "Do you follow your path and I will follow
mine. My results are always very much at your service if you care to apply to me
for them. I think that I have seen all that I wish in this house, and that my time
may be more profitably employed elsewhere. Au revoir and good luck!"
I could tell by numerous subtle signs, which might have been lost upon
anyone but myself, that Holmes was on a hot scent. As impassive as ever to the
casual observer, there were none the less a subdued eagerness and suggestion of
tension in his brightened eyes and brisker manner which assured me that the
game was afoot. After his habit he said nothing, and after mine I asked no
questions. Sufficient for me to share the sport and lend my humble help to the
capture without distracting that intent brain with needless interruption. All would
come round to me in due time.
I waited, therefore—but to my ever-deepening disappointment I waited in
vain. Day succeeded day, and my friend took no step forward. One morning he
spent in town, and I learned from a casual reference that he had visited the
British Museum. Save for this one excursion, he spent his days in long and often
solitary walks, or in chatting with a number of village gossips whose
acquaintance he had cultivated.
"I'm sure, Watson, a week in the country will be invaluable to you," he
remarked. "It is very pleasant to see the first green shoots upon the hedges and
the catkins on the hazels once again. With a spud, a tin box, and an elementary
book on botany, there are instructive days to be spent." He prowled about with
this equipment himself, but it was a poor show of plants which he would bring
back of an evening.
Occasionally in our rambles we came across Inspector Baynes. His fat, red
face wreathed itself in smiles and his small eyes glittered as he greeted my
companion. He said little about the case, but from that little we gathered that he
also was not dissatisfied at the course of events. I must admit, however, that I
was somewhat surprised when, some five days after the crime, I opened my
morning paper to find in large letters:
THE OXSHOTT MYSTERY
A SOLUTION
ARREST OF SUPPOSED ASSASSIN
Holmes sprang in his chair as if he had been stung when I read the headlines.
"By Jove!" he cried. "You don't mean that Baynes has got him?"
"Apparently," said I as I read the following report:
"Great excitement was caused in Esher and the neighbouring district when it
was learned late last night that an arrest had been effected in connection with the
Oxshott murder. It will be remembered that Mr. Garcia, of Wisteria Lodge, was
found dead on Oxshott Common, his body showing signs of extreme violence,
and that on the same night his servant and his cook fled, which appeared to show
their participation in the crime. It was suggested, but never proved, that the
deceased gentleman may have had valuables in the house, and that their
abstraction was the motive of the crime. Every effort was made by Inspector
Baynes, who has the case in hand, to ascertain the hiding place of the fugitives,
and he had good reason to believe that they had not gone far but were lurking in
some retreat which had been already prepared. It was certain from the first,
however, that they would eventually be detected, as the cook, from the evidence
of one or two tradespeople who have caught a glimpse of him through the
window, was a man of most remarkable appearance—being a huge and hideous
mulatto, with yellowish features of a pronounced negroid type. This man has
been seen since the crime, for he was detected and pursued by Constable Walters
on the same evening, when he had the audacity to revisit Wisteria Lodge.
Inspector Baynes, considering that such a visit must have some purpose in view
and was likely, therefore, to be repeated, abandoned the house but left an
ambuscade in the shrubbery. The man walked into the trap and was captured last
night after a struggle in which Constable Downing was badly bitten by the
savage. We understand that when the prison is brought before the magistrates a
remand will be applied for by the police, and that great developments are hoped
from his capture."
"Really we must see Baynes at once," cried Holmes, picking up his hat. "We
will just catch him before he starts." We hurried down the village street and
found, as we had expected, that the inspector was just leaving his lodgings.
"You've seen the paper, Mr. Holmes?" he asked, holding one out to us.
"Yes, Baynes, I've seen it. Pray don't think it a liberty if I give you a word of
friendly warning."
"Of warning, Mr. Holmes?"
"I have looked into this case with some care, and I am not convinced that you
are on the right lines. I don't want you to commit yourself too far unless you are
sure."
"You're very kind, Mr. Holmes."
"I assure you I speak for your good."
It seemed to me that something like a wink quivered for an instant over one of
Mr. Baynes's tiny eyes.
"We agreed to work on our own lines, Mr. Holmes. That's what I am doing."
"Oh, very good," said Holmes. "Don't blame me."
"No, sir; I believe you mean well by me. But we all have our own systems,
Mr. Holmes. You have yours, and maybe I have mine."
"Let us say no more about it."
"You're welcome always to my news. This fellow is a perfect savage, as strong
as a cart-horse and as fierce as the devil. He chewed Downing's thumb nearly off
before they could master him. He hardly speaks a word of English, and we can
get nothing out of him but grunts."
"And you think you have evidence that he murdered his late master?"
"I didn't say so, Mr. Holmes; I didn't say so. We all have our little ways. You
try yours and I will try mine. That's the agreement."
Holmes shrugged his shoulders as we walked away together. "I can't make the
man out. He seems to be riding for a fall. Well, as he says, we must each try our
own way and see what comes of it. But there's something in Inspector Baynes
which I can't quite understand."
"Just sit down in that chair, Watson," said Sherlock Holmes when we had
returned to our apartment at the Bull. "I want to put you in touch with the
situation, as I may need your help to-night. Let me show you the evolution of
this case so far as I have been able to follow it. Simple as it has been in its
leading features, it has none the less presented surprising difficulties in the way
of an arrest. There are gaps in that direction which we have still to fill.
"We will go back to the note which was handed in to Garcia upon the evening
of his death. We may put aside this idea of Baynes's that Garcia's servants were
concerned in the matter. The proof of this lies in the fact that it was HE who had
arranged for the presence of Scott Eccles, which could only have been done for
the purpose of an alibi. It was Garcia, then, who had an enterprise, and
apparently a criminal enterprise, in hand that night in the course of which he met
his death. I say 'criminal' because only a man with a criminal enterprise desires
to establish an alibi. Who, then, is most likely to have taken his life? Surely the
person against whom the criminal enterprise was directed. So far it seems to me
that we are on safe ground.
"We can now see a reason for the disappearance of Garcia's household. They
were ALL confederates in the same unknown crime. If it came off when Garcia
returned, any possible suspicion would be warded off by the Englishman's
evidence, and all would be well. But the attempt was a dangerous one, and if
Garcia did NOT return by a certain hour it was probable that his own life had
been sacrificed. It had been arranged, therefore, that in such a case his two
subordinates were to make for some prearranged spot where they could escape
investigation and be in a position afterwards to renew their attempt. That would
fully explain the facts, would it not?"
The whole inexplicable tangle seemed to straighten out before me. I
wondered, as I always did, how it had not been obvious to me before.
"But why should one servant return?"
"We can imagine that in the confusion of flight something precious, something
which he could not bear to part with, had been left behind. That would explain
his persistence, would it not?"
"Well, what is the next step?"
"The next step is the note received by Garcia at the dinner. It indicates a
confederate at the other end. Now, where was the other end? I have already
shown you that it could only lie in some large house, and that the number of
large houses is limited. My first days in this village were devoted to a series of
walks in which in the intervals of my botanical researches I made a
reconnaissance of all the large houses and an examination of the family history
of the occupants. One house, and only one, riveted my attention. It is the famous
old Jacobean grange of High Gable, one mile on the farther side of Oxshott, and
less than half a mile from the scene of the tragedy. The other mansions belonged
to prosaic and respectable people who live far aloof from romance. But Mr.
Henderson, of High Gable, was by all accounts a curious man to whom curious
adventures might befall. I concentrated my attention, therefore, upon him and his
household.
"A singular set of people, Watson—the man himself the most singular of them
all. I managed to see him on a plausible pretext, but I seemed to read in his dark,
deepset, brooding eyes that he was perfectly aware of my true business. He is a
man of fifty, strong, active, with iron-gray hair, great bunched black eyebrows,
the step of a deer and the air of an emperor—a fierce, masterful man, with a red-
hot spirit behind his parchment face. He is either a foreigner or has lived long in
the tropics, for he is yellow and sapless, but tough as whipcord. His friend and
secretary, Mr. Lucas, is undoubtedly a foreigner, chocolate brown, wily, suave,
and catlike, with a poisonous gentleness of speech. You see, Watson, we have
come already upon two sets of foreigners—one at Wisteria Lodge and one at
High Gable—so our gaps are beginning to close.
"These two men, close and confidential friends, are the centre of the
household; but there is one other person who for our immediate purpose may be
even more important. Henderson has two children—girls of eleven and thirteen.
Their governess is a Miss Burnet, an Englishwoman of forty or thereabouts.
There is also one confidential manservant. This little group forms the real family,
for their travel about together, and Henderson is a great traveller, always on the
move. It is only within the last weeks that he has returned, after a year's absence,
to High Gable. I may add that he is enormously rich, and whatever his whims
may be he can very easily satisfy them. For the rest, his house is full of butlers,
footmen, maidservants, and the usual overfed, underworked staff of a large
English country house.
"So much I learned partly from village gossip and partly from my own
observation. There are no better instruments than discharged servants with a
grievance, and I was lucky enough to find one. I call it luck, but it would not
have come my way had I not been looking out for it. As Baynes remarks, we all
have our systems. It was my system which enabled me to find John Warner, late
gardener of High Gable, sacked in a moment of temper by his imperious
employer. He in turn had friends among the indoor servants who unite in their
fear and dislike of their master. So I had my key to the secrets of the
establishment.
 "Curious people, Watson! I don't pretend to understand it all yet, but very
curious people anyway. It's a double-winged house, and the servants live on one
side, the family on the other. There's no link between the two save for
Henderson's own servant, who serves the family's meals. Everything is carried to
a certain door, which forms the one connection. Governess and children hardly
go out at all, except into the garden. Henderson never by any chance walks
alone. His dark secretary is like his shadow. The gossip among the servants is
that their master is terribly afraid of something. 'Sold his soul to the devil in
exchange for money,' says Warner, 'and expects his creditor to come up and
claim his own.' Where they came from, or who they are, nobody has an idea.
They are very violent. Twice Henderson has lashed at folk with his dog-whip,
and only his long purse and heavy compensation have kept him out of the courts.
"Well, now, Watson, let us judge the situation by this new information. We
may take it that the letter came out of this strange household and was an
invitation to Garcia to carry out some attempt which had already been planned.
Who wrote the note? It was someone within the citadel, and it was a woman.
Who then but Miss Burnet, the governess? All our reasoning seems to point that
way. At any rate, we may take it asa hypothesis and see what consequences it
would entail. I may add that Miss Burnet's age and character make it certain that
my first idea that there might be a love interest in our story is out of the question.
"If she wrote the note she was presumably the friend and confederate of
Garcia. What, then, might she be expected to do if she heard of his death? If he
met it in some nefarious enterprise her lips might be sealed. Still, in her heart,
she must retain bitterness and hatred against those who had killed him and would
presumably help so far as she could to have revenge upon them. Could we see
her, then and try to use her? That was my first thought. But now we come to a
sinister fact. Miss Burnet has not been seen by any human eye since the night of
the murder. From that evening she has utterly vanished. Is she alive? Has she
perhaps met her end on the same night as the friend whom she had summoned?
Or is she merely a prisoner? There is the point which we still have to decide.
"You will appreciate the difficulty of the situation, Watson. There is nothing
upon which we can apply for a warrant. Our whole scheme might seem fantastic
if laid before a magistrate. The woman's disappearance counts for nothing, since
in that extraordinary household any member of it might be invisible for a week.
And yet she may at the present moment be in danger of her life. All I can do is to
watch the house and leave my agent, Warner, on guard at the gates. We can't let
such a situation continue. If the law can do nothing we must take the risk
ourselves."
"What do you suggest?"
 "I know which is her room. It is accessible from the top of an outhouse. My
suggestion is that you and I go to-night and see if we can strike at the very heart
of the mystery."
It was not, I must confess, a very alluring prospect. The old house with its
atmosphere of murder, the singular and formidable inhabitants, the unknown
dangers of the approach, and the fact that we were putting ourselves legally in a
false position all combined to damp my ardour. But there was something in the
ice-cold reasoning of Holmes which made it impossible to shrink from any
adventure which he might recommend. One knew that thus, and only thus, could
a solution be found. I clasped his hand in silence, and the die was cast.
But it was not destined that our investigation should have so adventurous an
ending. It was about five o'clock, and the shadows of the March evening were
beginning to fall, when an excited rustic rushed into our room.
"They've gone, Mr. Holmes. They went by the last train. The lady broke away,
and I've got her in a cab downstairs."
"Excellent, Warner!" cried Holmes, springing to his feet. "Watson, the gaps
are closing rapidly."
In the cab was a woman, half-collapsed from nervous exhaustion. She bore
upon her aquiline and emaciated face the traces of some recent tragedy. Her head
hung listlessly upon her breast, but as she raised it and turned her dull eyes upon
us I saw that her pupils were dark dots in the centre of the broad gray iris. She
was drugged with opium.
"I watched at the gate, same as you advised, Mr. Holmes," said our emissary,
the discharged gardener. "When the carriage came out I followed it to the station.
She was like one walking in her sleep, but when they tried to get her into the
train she came to life and struggled. They pushed her into the carriage. She
fought her way out again. I took her part, got her into a cab, and here we are. I
shan't forget the face at the carriage window as I led her away. I'd have a short
life if he had his way—the black-eyed, scowling, yellow devil."
We carried her upstairs, laid her on the sofa, and a couple of cups of the
strongest coffee soon cleared her brain from the mists of the drug. Baynes had
been summoned by Holmes, and the situation rapidly explained to him.
"Why, sir, you've got me the very evidence I want," said the inspector warmly,
shaking my friend by the hand. "I was on the same scent as you from the first."
"What! You were after Henderson?"
"Why, Mr. Holmes, when you were crawling in the shrubbery at High Gable I
was up one of the trees in the plantation and saw you down below. It was just
who would get his evidence first."
"Then why did you arrest the mulatto?"
 Baynes chuckled.
"I was sure Henderson, as he calls himself, felt that he was suspected, and that
he would lie low and make no move so long as he thought he was in any danger.
I arrested the wrong man to make him believe that our eyes were off him. I knew
he would be likely to clear off then and give us a chance of getting at Miss
Burnet."
Holmes laid his hand upon the inspector's shoulder.
"You will rise high in your profession. You have instinct and intuition," said
he.
Baynes flushed with pleasure.
"I've had a plain-clothes man waiting at the station all the week. Wherever the
High Gable folk go he will keep them in sight. But he must have been hard put
to it when Miss Burnet broke away. However, your man picked her up, and it all
ends well. We can't arrest without her evidence, that is clear, so the sooner we
get a statement the better."
"Every minute she gets stronger," said Holmes, glancing at the governess.
"But tell me, Baynes, who is this man Henderson?"
"Henderson," the inspector answered, "is Don Murillo, once call the Tiger of
San Pedro."
The Tiger of San Pedro! The whole history of the man came back to me in a
flash. He had made his name as the most lewd and bloodthirsty tyrant that had
ever governed any country with a pretence to civilization. Strong, fearless, and
energetic, he had sufficient virtue to enable him to impose his odious vices upon
a cowering people for ten or twelve years. His name was a terror through all
Central America. At the end of that time there was a universal rising against him.
But he was as cunning as he was cruel, and at the first whisper of coming trouble
he had secretly conveyed his treasures aboard a ship which was manned by
devoted adherents. It was an empty palace which was stormed by the insurgents
next day. The dictator, his two children, his secretary, and his wealth had all
escaped them. From that moment he had vanished from the world, and his
identity had been a frequent subject for comment in the European press.
"Yes, sir, Don Murillo, the Tiger of San Pedro," said Baynes. "If you look it up
you will find that the San Pedro colours are green and white, same as in the note,
Mr. Holmes. Henderson he called himself, but I traced him back, Paris and
Rome and Madrid to Barcelona, where his ship came in in '86. They've been
looking for him all the time for their revenge, but it is only now that they have
begun to find him out."
"They discovered him a year ago," said Miss Burnet, who had sat up and was
now intently following the conversation. "Once already his life has been
attempted, but some evil spirit shielded him. Now, again, it is the noble,
chivalrous Garcia who has fallen, while the monster goes safe. But another will
come, and yet another, until some day justice will be done; that is as certain as
the rise of to-morrow's sun." Her thin hands clenched, and her worn face
blanched with the passion of her hatred.
"But how come you into this matter, Miss Burnet?" asked Holmes. "How can
an English lady join in such a murderous affair?"
"I join in it because there is no other way in the world by which justice can be
gained. What does the law of England care for the rivers of blood shed years ago
in San Pedro, or for the shipload of treasure which this man has stolen? To you
they are like crimes committed in some other planet. But WE know. We have
learned the truth in sorrow and in suffering. To us there is no fiend in hell like
Juan Murillo, and no peace in life while his victims still cry for vengeance."
"No doubt," said Holmes, "he was as you say. I have heard that he was
atrocious. But how are you affected?"
"I will tell you it all. This villain's policy was to murder, on one pretext or
another, every man who showed such promise that he might in time come to be a
dangerous rival. My husband—yes, my real name is Signora Victor Durando—
was the San Pedro minister in London. He met me and married me there. A
nobler man never lived upon earth. Unhappily, Murillo heard of his excellence,
recalled him on some pretext, and had him shot. With a premonition of his fate
he had refused to take me with him. His estates were confiscated, and I was left
with a pittance and a broken heart.
"Then came the downfall of the tyrant. He escaped as you have just described.
But the many whose lives he had ruined, whose nearest and dearest had suffered
torture and death at his hands, would not let the matter rest. They banded
themselves into a society which should never be dissolved until the work was
done. It was my part after we had discovered in the transformed Henderson the
fallen despot, to attach myself to his household and keep the others in touch with
his movements. This I was able to do by securing the position of governess in his
family. He little knew that the woman who faced him at every meal was the
woman whose husband he had hurried at an hour's notice into eternity. I smiled
on him, did my duty to his children, and bided my time. An attempt was made in
Paris and failed. We zig-zagged swiftly here and there over Europe to throw off
the pursuers and finally returned to this house, which he had taken upon his first
arrival in England.
"But here also the ministers of justice were waiting. Knowing that he would
return there, Garcia, who is the son of the former highest dignitary in San Pedro,
was waiting with two trusty companions of humble station, all three fired with
the same reasons for revenge. He could do little during the day, for Murillo took
every precaution and never went out save with his satellite Lucas, or Lopez as he
was known in the days of his greatness. At night, however, he slept alone, and
the avenger might find him. On a certain evening, which had been prearranged, I
sent my friend final instructions, for the man was forever on the alert and
continually changed his room. I was to see that the doors were open and the
signal of a green or white light in a window which faced the drive was to give
notice if all was safe or if the attempt had better be postponed.
"But everything went wrong with us. In some way I had excited the suspicion
of Lopez, the secretary. He crept up behind me and sprang upon me just as I had
finished the note. He and his master dragged me to my room and held judgment
upon me as a convicted traitress. Then and there they would have plunged their
knives into me could they have seen how to escape the consequences of the
deed. Finally, after much debate, they concluded that my murder was too
dangerous. But they determined to get rid forever of Garcia. They had gagged
me, and Murillo twisted my arm round until I gave him the address. I swear that
he might have twisted it off had I understood what it would mean to Garcia.
Lopez addressed the note which I had written, sealed it with his sleeve-link, and
sent it by the hand of the servant, Jose. How they murdered him I do not know,
save that it was Murillo's hand who struck him down, for Lopez had remained to
guard me. I believe he must have waited among the gorse bushes through which
the path winds and struck him down as he passed. At first they were of a mind to
let him enter the house and to kill him as a detected burglar; but they argued that
if they were mixed up in an inquiry their own identity would at once be publicly
disclosed and they would be open to further attacks. With the death of Garcia,
the pursuit might cease, since such a death might frighten others from the task.
"All would now have been well for them had it not been for my knowledge of
what they had done. I have no doubt that there were times when my life hung in
the balance. I was confined to my room, terrorized by the most horrible threats,
cruelly ill-used to break my spirit—see this stab on my shoulder and the bruises
from end to end of my arms—and a gag was thrust into my mouth on the one
occasion when I tried to call from the window. For five days this cruel
imprisonment continued, with hardly enough food to hold body and soul
together. This afternoon a good lunch was brought me, but the moment after I
took it I knew that I had been drugged. In a sort of dream I remember being half-
led, half-carried to the carriage; in the same state I was conveyed to the train.
Only then, when the wheels were almost moving, did I suddenly realize that my
liberty lay in my own hands. I sprang out, they tried to drag me back, and had it
not been for the help of this good man, who led me to the cab, I should never had
broken away. Now, thank God, I am beyond their power forever."
We had all listened intently to this remarkable statement. It was Holmes who
broke the silence.
"Our difficulties are not over," he remarked, shaking his head. "Our police
work ends, but our legal work begins."
"Exactly," said I. "A plausible lawyer could make it out as an act of self-
defence. There may be a hundred crimes in the background, but it is only on this
one that they can be tried."
"Come, come," said Baynes cheerily, "I think better of the law than that. Self-
defence is one thing. To entice a man in cold blood with the object of murdering
him is another, whatever danger you may fear from him. No, no, we shall all be
justified when we see the tenants of High Gable at the next Guildford Assizes."
It is a matter of history, however, that a little time was still to elapse before the
Tiger of San Pedro should meet with his deserts. Wily and bold, he and his
companion threw their pursuer off their track by entering a lodging-house in
Edmonton Street and leaving by the back-gate into Curzon Square. From that
day they were seen no more in England. Some six months afterwards the
Marquess of Montalva and Signor Rulli, his secretary, were both murdered in
their rooms at the Hotel Escurial at Madrid. The crime was ascribed to Nihilism,
and the murderers were never arrested. Inspector Baynes visited us at Baker
Street with a printed description of the dark face of the secretary, and of the
masterful features, the magnetic black eyes, and the tufted brows of his master.
We could not doubt that justice, if belated, had come at last.
"A chaotic case, my dear Watson," said Holmes over an evening pipe. "It will
not be possible for you to present in that compact form which is dear to your
heart. It covers two continents, concerns two groups of mysterious persons, and
is further complicated by the highly respectable presence of our friend, Scott
Eccles, whose inclusion shows me that the deceased Garcia had a scheming
mind and a well-developed instinct of self-preservation. It is remarkable only for
the fact that amid a perfect jungle of possibilities we, with our worthy
collaborator, the inspector, have kept our close hold on the essentials and so been
guided along the crooked and winding path. Is there any point which is not quite
clear to you?"
"The object of the mulatto cook's return?"
"I think that the strange creature in the kitchen may account for it. The man
was a primitive savage from the backwoods of San Pedro, and this was his
fetish. When his companion and he had fled to some prearranged retreat—
already occupied, no doubt by a confederate—the companion had persuaded him
to leave so compromising an article of furniture. But the mulatto's heart was with
it, and he was driven back to it next day, when, on reconnoitering through the
window, he found policeman Walters in possession. He waited three days longer,
and then his piety or his superstition drove him to try once more. Inspector
Baynes, who, with his usual astuteness, had minimized the incident before me,
had really recognized its importance and had left a trap into which the creature
walked. Any other point, Watson?"
"The torn bird, the pail of blood, the charred bones, all the mystery of that
weird kitchen?"
Holmes smiled as he turned up an entry in his note-book.
"I spent a morning in the British Museum reading up on that and other points.
Here is a quotation from Eckermann's Voodooism and the Negroid Religions:
"'The true voodoo-worshipper attempts nothing of importance without certain
sacrifices which are intended to propitiate his unclean gods. In extreme cases
these rites take the form of human sacrifices followed by cannibalism. The more
usual victims are a white cock, which is plucked in pieces alive, or a black goat,
whose throat is cut and body burned.'
"So you see our savage friend was very orthodox in his ritual. It is grotesque,
Watson," Holmes added, as he slowly fastened his notebook, "but, as I have had
occasion to remark, there is but one step from the grotesque to the horrible."
Chapter 2
The Adventure of the Cardboard Box

In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable mental

qualities of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured, 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 entirely to
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 house 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 ninety 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 rumour 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 oportunity 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. Then you 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; you 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 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.
Halfway 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 coloured 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 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 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 end 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, did you 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
originally spelled 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 knee 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 meditation.
"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 dissectingrooms 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, sun-burned,
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 mantelpiece, 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,
then he quarrelled 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 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 quarrelled with your Liverpool relations."
"Yes, and they were the best of friends at one time. Why, she went up there to
live 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 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 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 the name," he said. "You cannot effect an arrest until to-morrow night
at the earliest. I should prefer that you do not mention my name at all in
connection with the case, as I choose to be only associated 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 'A 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 bulldog 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 more clear. 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 sailmakers 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 for whom the packet was meant. 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 for whom the packet was meant. 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 to-morrow
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 typewritten 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 S. S. 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 typewritten, 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. Ay, 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 a 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 a spark from a flint. But when little Mary was there I had never a thought of
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,
nor 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 ceaseless 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 forever.
" '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, 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 for 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 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 blur 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."
Chapter 3
The Adventure of the Red Circle
"Well, Mrs. Warren, I cannot see that you have any particular cause for
uneasiness, nor do I understand why I, whose time is of some value, should
interfere in the matter. I really have other things to engage me." So spoke
Sherlock Holmes and turned back to the great scrapbook in which he was
arranging and indexing some of his recent material.
But the landlady had the pertinacity and also the cunning of her sex. She held
her ground firmly.
"You arranged an affair for a lodger of mine last year," she said — "Mr.
Fairdale Hobbs."
"Ah, yes — a simple matter."
"But he would never cease talking of it — your kindness, sir, and the way in
which you brought light into the darkness. I remembered his words when I was
in doubt and darkness myself. I know you could if you only would."
Holmes was accessible upon the side of flattery, and also, to do him justice,
upon the side of kindliness. The two forces made him lay down his gum-brush
with a sigh of resignation and push back his chair.
"Well, well, Mrs. Warren, let us hear about it, then. You don't object to
tobacco, I take it? Thank you, Watson — the matches! You are uneasy, as I
understand, because your new lodger remains in his rooms and you cannot see
him. Why, bless you, Mrs. Warren, if I were your lodger you often would not see
me for weeks on end."
"No doubt, sir; but this is different. It frightens me, Mr. Holmes. I can't sleep
for fright. To hear his quick step moving here and moving there from early
morning to late at night, and yet never to catch so much as a glimpse of him —
it's more than I can stand. My husband is as nervous over it as I am, but he is out
at his work all day, while I get no rest from it. What is he hiding for? What has
he done? Except for the girl, I am all alone in the house with him, and it's more
than my nerves can stand."
Holmes leaned forward and laid his long, thin fingers upon the woman's
shoulder. He had an almost hypnotic power of soothing when he wished. The
scared look faded from her eyes, and her agitated features smoothed into their
usual commonplace. She sat down in the chair which he had indicated
"If I take it up I must understand every detail," said he. "Take time to consider.
The smallest point may be the most essential. You say that the man came ten
days ago and paid you for a fortnight's board and lodging?"
"He asked my terms, sir. I said fifty shillings a week. There is a small sitting-
room and bedroom, and all complete, at the top of the house."
"Well?"
"He said, 'I'll pay you five pounds a week if I can have it on my own terms.'
I'm a poor woman, sir, and Mr. Warren earns little, and the money meant much
to me. He took out a tenpound note, and he held it out to me then and there. 'You
can have the same every fortnight for a long time to come if you keep the terms,'
he said. 'If not, I'll have no more to do with you.' "
"What were the terms?"
"Well, sir, they were that he was to have a key of the house. That was all right.
Lodgers often have them. Also, that he was to be left entirely to himself and
never, upon any excuse, to be disturbed."
"Nothing wonderful in that, surely?"
"Not in reason, sir. But this is out of all reason. He has been there for ten days,
and neither Mr. Warren, nor I, nor the girl has once set eyes upon him. We can
hear that quick step of his pacing up and down, up and down, night, morning,
and noon; but except on that first night he has never once gone out of the house."
"Oh, he went out the first night, did he?"
"Yes, sir, and returned very late — after we were all in bed. He told me after
he had taken the rooms that he would do so and asked me not to bar the door. I
heard him come up the stair after midnight."
"But his meals?"
"It was his particular direction that we should always, when he rang, leave his
meal upon a chair, outside his door. Then he rings again when he has finished,
and we take it down from the same chair. If he wants anything else he prints it on
a slip of paper and leaves it."
"Prints it?"
"Yes, sir; prints it in pencil. Just the word, nothing more. Here's one I brought
to show you — SOAP. Here's another — MATCH. This is one he left the first
morning — DAILY GAZETTE. I leave that paper with his breakfast every
morning."
"Dear me, Watson," said Holmes, staring with great curiosity at the slips of
foolscap which the landlady had handed to him, "this is certainly a little unusual.
Seclusion I can understand; but why print? Printing is a clumsy process. Why
not write? What would it suggest, Watson?"
"That he desired to conceal his handwriting."
"But why? What can it matter to him that his landlady should have a word of
his writing? Still, it may be as you say. Then, again, why such laconic
messages?"
"I cannot imagine."
"It opens a pleasing field for intelligent speculation. The words are written
with a broad-pointed, violet-tinted pencil of a not unusual pattern. You will
observe that the paper is torn away at the side here after the printing was done,
so that the s of 'SOAP' is partly gone. Suggestive, Watson, is it not?"
"Of caution?"
"Exactly. There was evidently some mark, some thumbprint, something which
might give a clue to the person's identity. Now, Mrs. Warren, you say that the
man was of middle size, dark, and bearded. What age would he be?"
"Youngish, sir — not over thirty."
"Well, can you give me no further indications?"
"He spoke good English, sir, and yet I thought he was a foreigner by his
accent."
"And he was well dressed?"
"Very smartly dressed, sir — quite the gentleman. Dark clothes -nothing you
would note."
"He gave no name?"
"No, sir."
"And has had no letters or callers?"
"None."
"But surely you or the girl enter his room of a morning?"
"No, sir; he looks after himself entirely."
"Dear me! that is certainly remarkable. What about his luggage?"
"He had one big brown bag with him — nothing else."
"Well, we don't seem to have much material to help us. Do you say nothing
has come out of that room — absolutely nothing?"
The landlady drew an envelope from her bag; from it she shook out two burnt
matches and a cigarette-end upon the table.
"They were on his tray this morning. I brought them because I had heard that
you can read great things out of small ones."
Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
"There is nothing here," said he. "The matches have, of course, been used to
light cigarettes. That is obvious from the shortness of the but end. Half the match
is consumed in lighting a pipe or cigar. But, dear me! this cigarette stub is
certainly remarkable. The gentleman was bearded and moustached, you say?"
"Yes, sir."
"I don't understand that. I should say that only a cleanshaven man could have
smoked this. Why, Watson, even your modest moustache would have been
singed."
"A holder?" I suggested.
"No, no; the end is matted. I suppose there could not be two people in your
rooms, Mrs. Warren?"
"No, sir. He eats so little that I often wonder it can keep life in one."
"Well, I think we must wait for a little more material. After all, you have
nothing to complain of. You have received your rent, and he is not a troublesome
lodger, though he is certainly an unusual one. He pays you well, and if he
chooses to lie concealed it is no direct business of yours. We have no excuse for
an intrusion upon his privacy until we have some reason to think that there is a
guilty reason for it. I've taken up the matter, and I won't lose sight of it. Report to
me if anything fresh occurs, and rely upon my assistance if it should be needed.
"There are certainly some points of interest in this case, Watson," he remarked
when the landlady had left us. "It may, of course, be trivial — individual
eccentricity; or it may be very much deeper than appears on the surface. The first
thing that strikes one is the obvious possibility that the person now in the rooms
may be entirely different from the one who engaged them."
"Why should you think so?"
"Well, apart from this cigarette-end, was it not suggestive that the only time
the lodger went out was immediately after his taking the rooms? He came back
— or someone came back — when all witnesses were out of the way. We have
no proof that the person who came back was the person who went out. Then,
again, the man who took the rooms spoke English well. This other, however,
prints 'match' when it should have been 'matches.' I can imagine that the word
was taken out of a dictionary, which would give the noun but not the plural. The
laconic style may be to conceal the absence of knowledge of English. Yes,
Watson, there are good reasons to suspect that there has been a substitution of
lodgers."
"But for what possible end?"
"Ah! there lies our problem. There is one rather obvious line of investigation."
He took down the great book in which, day by day, he filed the agony columns
of the various London journals. "Dear me!" said he, turning over the pages,
"what a chorus of groans, cries, and bleatings! What a rag-bag of singular
happenings! But surely the most valuable hunting-ground that ever was given to
a student of the unusual! This person is alone and cannot be approached by letter
without a breach of that absolute secrecy which is desired. How is any news or
any message to reach him from without? Obviously by advertisement through a
newspaper. There seems no other way, and fortunately we need concern
ourselves with the one paper only. Here are the Daily Gazette extracts of the last
fortnight. 'Lady with a black boa at Prince's Skating Club' — that we may pass.
'Surely Jimmy will not break his mother's heart' — that appears to be irrelevant.
'If the lady who fainted in the Brixton bus' — she does not interest me. 'Every
day my heart longs —' Bleat, Watson — unmitigated bleat! Ah, this is a little
more possible. Listen to this: 'Be patient. Will find some sure means of
communication. Meanwhile, this column. G.' That is two days after Mrs.
Warren's lodger arrived. It sounds plausible, does it not? The mysterious one
could understand English, even if he could not print it. Let us see if we can pick
up the trace again. Yes, here we are — three days later. 'Am making successful
arrangements. Patience and prudence. The clouds will pass. G.' Nothing for a
week after that. Then comes something much more definite: 'The path is
clearing. If I find chance signal message remember code agreed -one A, two B,
and so on. You will hear soon. G.' That was in yesterday's paper, and there is
nothing in to-day's. It's all very appropriate to Mrs. Warren's lodger. If we wait a
little, Watson, I don't doubt that the affair will grow more intelligible."
So it proved; for in the morning I found my friend standing on the hearthrug
with his back to the fire and a smile of complete satisfaction upon his face.
"How's this, Watson?" he cried, picking up the paper from the table. " 'High
red house with white stone facings. Third floor. Second window left. After dusk.
G.' That is definite enough. I think after breakfast we must make a little
reconnaissance of Mrs. Warren's neighbourhood. Ah, Mrs. Warren! what news
do you bring us this morning?"
Our client had suddenly burst into the room with an explosive energy which
told of some new and momentous development.
"It's a police matter, Mr. Holmes!" she cried. "I'll have no more of it! He shall
pack out of there with his baggage. I would have gone straight up and told him
so, only I thought it was but fair to you to take your opinion first. But I'm at the
end of my patience, and when it comes to knocking my old man about "
"Knocking Mr. Warren about?"
"Using him roughly, anyway."
"But who used him roughly?"
"Ah! that's what we want to know! It was this morning, sir. Mr. Warren is a
timekeeper at Morton and Waylight's, in Tottenham Court Road. He has to be out
of the house before seven. Well, this morning he had not gone ten paces down
the road when two men came up behind him, threw a coat over his head, and
bundled him into a cab that was beside the curb. They drove him an hour, and
then opened the door and shot him out. He lay in the roadway so shaken in his
wits that he never saw what became of the cab. When he picked himself up he
found he was on Hampstead Heath; so he took a bus home, and there he lies now
on the sofa, while I came straight round to tell you what had happened."
"Most interesting," said Holmes. "Did he observe the appearance of these men
— did he hear them talk?"
"No; he is clean dazed. He just knows that he was lifted up as if by magic and
dropped as if by magic. Two at least were in it, and maybe three."
"And you connect this attack with your lodger?"
"Well, we've lived there fifteen years and no such happenings ever came
before. I've had enough of him. Money's not everything. I'll have him out of my
house before the day is done."
"Wait a bit, Mrs. Warren. Do nothing rash. I begin to think that this affair may
be very much more important than appeared at first sight. It is clear now that
some danger is threatening your lodger. It is equally clear that his enemies, lying
in wait for him near your door, mistook your husband for him in the foggy
morning light. On discovering their mistake they released him. What they would
have done had it not been a mistake, we can only conjecture."
"Well, what am I to do, Mr. Holmes?"
"I have a great fancy to see this lodger of yours, Mrs. Warren."
"I don't see how that is to be managed, unless you break in the door. I always
hear him unlock it as I go down the stair after I leave the tray."
"He has to take the tray in. Surely we could conceal ourselves and see him do
it."
The landlady thought for a moment.
"Well, sir, there's the box-room opposite. I could arrange a looking-glass,
maybe, and if you were behind the door —"
"Excellent!" said Holmes. "When does he lunch?"
"About one, sir."
"Then Dr. Watson and I will come round in time. For the present, Mrs.
Warren, good-bye."
At half-past twelve we found ourselves upon the steps of Mrs. Warren's house
— a high, thin, yellow-brick edifice in Great Orme Street, a narrow thoroughfare
at the northeast side of the British Museum. Standing as it does near the corner
of the street it commands a view down Howe Street, with its more pretentious
houses. Holmes pointed with a chuckle to one of these, a row of residential flats,
which projected so that they could not fail to catch the eye.
"See, Watson!" said he. " 'High red house with stone facings.' There is the
signal station all right. We know the place, and we know the code; so surely our
task should be simple. There's a 'to let' card in that window. It is evidently an
empty flat to which the confederate has access. Well, Mrs. Warren, what now?"
"I have it all ready for you. If you will both come up and leave your boots
below on the landing, I'll put you there now."
It was an excellent hiding-place which she had arranged. The mirror was so
placed that, seated in the dark, we could very plainly see the door opposite. We
had hardly settled down in it, and Mrs. Warren left us, when a distant tinkle
announced that our mysterious neighbour had rung. Presently the landlady
appeared with the tray, laid it down upon a chair beside the closed door, and
then, treading heavily, departed. Crouching together in the angle of the door, we
kept our eyes fixed upon the mirror. Suddenly, as the landlady's footsteps died
away, there was the creak of a turning key, the handle revolved, and two thin
hands darted out and lifted the tray from the chair. An instant later it was
hurriedly replaced, and I caught a glimpse of a dark, beautiful, horrified face
glaring at the narrow opening of the boxroom. Then the door crashed to, the key
turned once more, and all was silence. Holmes twitched my sleeve, and together
we stole down the stair.
"I will call again in the evening," said he to the expectant landlady. "I think,
Watson, we can discuss this business better in our own quarters."
"My surmise, as you saw, proved to be correct," said he, speaking from the
depths of his easy-chair. "There has been a substitution of lodgers. What I did
not foresee is that we should find a woman, and no ordinary woman, Watson."
"She saw us."
"Well, she saw something to alarm her. That is certain. The general sequence
of events is pretty clear, is it not? A couple seek refuge in London from a very
terrible and instant danger. The measure of that danger is the rigour of their
precautions. The man, who has some work which he must do, desires to leave
the woman in absolute safety while he does it. It is not an easy problem, but he
solved it in an original fashion, and so effectively that her presence was not even
known to the landlady who supplies her with food. The printed messages, as is
now evident, were to prevent her sex being discovered by her writing. The man
cannot come near the woman, or he will guide their enemies to her. Since he
cannot communicate with her direct, he has recourse to the agony column of a
paper. So far all is clear."
"But what is at the root of it?"
"Ah, yes, Watson — severely practical, as usual! What is at the root of it all?
Mrs. Warren's whimsical problem enlarges somewhat and assumes a more
sinister aspect as we proceed. This much we can say: that it is no ordinary love
escapade. You saw the woman's face at the sign of danger. We have heard, too,
of the attack upon the landlord, which was undoubtedly meant for the lodger.
These alarms, and the desperate need for secrecy, argue that the matter is one of
life or death. The attack upon Mr. Warren further shows that the enemy, whoever
they are, are themselves not aware of the substitution of the female lodger for the
male. It is very curious and complex, Watson."
"Why should you go further in it? What have you to gain from it?"
"What, indeed? It is art for art's sake, Watson. I suppose when you doctored
you found yourself studying cases without thought of a fee?"
"For my education, Holmes."
"Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with the greatest for
the last. This is an instructive case. There is neither money nor credit in it, and
yet one would wish to tidy it up. When dusk comes we should find ourselves one
stage advanced in our investigation."
When we returned to Mrs. Warren's rooms, the gloom of a London winter
evening had thickened into one gray curtain, a dead monotone of colour, broken
only by the sharp yellow squares of the windows and the blurred haloes of the
gas-lamps. As we peered from the darkened sitting-room of the lodginghouse,
one more dim light glimmered high up through the obscurity.
"Someone is moving in that room," said Holmes in a whisper, his gaunt and
eager face thrust forward to the window-pane. "Yes, I can see his shadow. There
he is again! He has a candle in his hand. Now he is peering across. He wants to
be sure that she is on the lookout. Now he begins to flash. Take the message also,
Watson, that we may check each other. A single flash — that is A, surely. Now,
then. How many did you make it? Twenty. So did I. That should mean T. AT —
that's intelligible enough! Another T. Surely this is the beginning of a second
word. Now, then — TENTA. Dead stop. That can't be all, Watson? ATTENTA
gives no sense. Nor is it any better as three words AT, TEN, TA, unless T. A. are
a person's initials. There it goes again! What's that? ATTE why, it is the same
message over again. Curious, Watson, very curious! Now he is off once more!
AT -why, he is repeating it for the third time. ATTENTA three times! How often
will he repeat it? No, that seems to be the finish. He has withdrawn from the
window. What do you make of it, Watson?"
"A cipher message, Holmes."
My companion gave a sudden chuckle of comprehension.
"And not a very obscure cipher, Watson," said he. "Why, of course, it is
Italian! The A means that it is addressed to a woman. 'Beware! Beware! Beware!'
How's that, Watson?"
"I believe you have hit it."
 "Not a doubt of it. It is a very urgent message, thrice repeated to make it more
so. But beware of what? Wait a bit; he is coming to the window once more."
Again we saw the dim silhouette of a crouching man and the whisk of the
small flame across the window as the signals were renewed. They came more
rapidly than before — so rapid that it was hard to follow them.
"PERICOLO pericolo — eh, what's that, Watson? 'Danger,' isn't it? Yes, by
Jove, it's a danger signal. There he goes again! PERI. Halloa, what on earth —"
The light had suddenly gone out, the glimmering square of window had
disappeared, and the third floor formed a dark band round the lofty building,
with its tiers of shining casements. That last warning cry had been suddenly cut
short. How, and by whom? The same thought occurred on the instant to us both.
Holmes sprang up from where he crouched by the window.
"This is serious, Watson," he cried. "There is some devilry going forward!
Why should such a message stop in such a way? I should put Scotland Yard in
touch with this business — and yet, it is too pressing for us to leave."
"Shall I go for the police?"
"We must define the situation a little more clearly. It may bear some more
innocent interpretation. Come. Watson, let us go across ourselves and see what
we can make of it."
As we walked rapidly down Howe Street I glanced back at the building which
we had left. There, dimly outlined at the top window, I could see the shadow of a
head, a woman's head, gazing tensely, rigidly, out into the night, waiting with
breathless suspense for the renewal of that interrupted message. At the doorway
of the Howe Street flats a man, muffled in a cravat and greatcoat, was leaning
against the railing. He started as the hall-light fell upon our faces.
"Holmes!" he cried.
"Why, Gregson!" said my companion as he shook hands with the Scotland
Yard detective. "Journeys end with lovers' meetings. What brings you here?"
"The same reasons that bring you, I expect," said Gregson. "How you got on
to it I can't imagine."
"Different threads, but leading up to the same tangle. I've been taking the
signals."
"Signals?"
"Yes, from that window. They broke off in the middle. We came over to see
the reason. But since it is safe in your hands I see no object in continuing the
business."
"Wait a bit!" cried Gregson eagerly. "I'll do you this justice, Mr. Holmes, that I
was never in a case yet that I didn't feel stronger for having you on my side.
There's only the one exit to these flats, so we have him safe."
 "Who is he?"
"Well, well, we score over you for once, Mr. Holmes. You must give us best
this time." He struck his stick sharply upon the ground, on which a cabman, his
whip in his hand, sauntered over from a four-wheeler which stood on the far side
of the street. "May I introduce you to Mr. Sherlock Holmes?" he said to the
cabman. "This is Mr. Leverton, of Pinkerton's American Agency."
"The hero of the Long Island cave mystery?" said Holmes. "Sir, I am pleased
to meet you."
The American, a quiet, businesslike young man, with a cleanshaven, hatchet
face, flushed up at the words of commendation. "I am on the trail of my life now,
Mr. Holmes," said he. "If I can get Gorgiano —"
"What! Gorgiano of the Red Circle?"
"Oh, he has a European fame, has he? Well, we've learned all about him in
America. We know he is at the bottom of fifty murders, and yet we have nothing
positive we can take him on. I tracked him over from New York, and I've been
close to him for a week in London, waiting some excuse to get my hand on his
collar. Mr. Gregson and I ran him to ground in that big tenement house, and
there's only the one door, so he can't slip us. There's three folk come out since he
went in, but I'll swear he wasn't one of them."
"Mr. Holmes talks of signals," said Gregson. "I expect, as usual, he knows a
good deal that we don't."
In a few clear words Holmes explained the situation as it had appeared to us.
The American struck his hands together with vexation.
"He's on to us!" he cried.
"Why do you think so?"
"Well, it figures out that way, does it not? Here he is, sending out messages to
an accomplice — there are several of his gang in London. Then suddenly, just as
by your own account he was telling them that there was danger, he broke short
off. What could it mean except that from the window he had suddenly either
caught sight of us in the street, or in some way come to understand how close the
danger was, and that he must act right away if he was to avoid it? What do you
suggest, Mr. Holmes?"
"That we go up at once and see for ourselves."
"But we have no warrant for his arrest."
"He is in unoccupied premises under suspicious circumstances," said Gregson.
"That is good enough for the moment. When we have him by the heels we can
see if New York can't help us to keep him. I'll take the responsibility of arresting
him now."
Our official detectives may blunder in the matter of intelligence, but never in
that of courage. Gregson climbed the stair to arrest this desperate murderer with
the same absolutely quiet and businesslike bearing with which he would have
ascended the official staircase of Scotland Yard. The Pinkerton man had tried to
push past him, but Gregson had firmly elbowed him back. London dangers were
the privilege of the London force.
The door of the left-hand flat upon the third landing was standing ajar.
Gregson pushed it open. Within all was absolute silence and darkness. I struck a
match and lit the detective's lantern. As I did so, and as the flicker steadied into a
flame, we all gave a gasp of surprise. On the deal boards of the carpetless floor
there was outlined a fresh track of blood. The red steps pointed towards us and
led away from an inner room, the door of which was closed. Gregson flung it
open and held his light full blaze in front of him, while we all peered eagerly
over his shoulders.
In the middle of the floor of the empty room was huddled the figure of an
enormous man, his clean-shaven, swarthy face grotesquely horrible in its
contortion and his head encircled by a ghastly crimson halo of blood, lying in a
broad wet circle upon the white woodwork. His knees were drawn up, his hands
thrown out in agony, and from the centre of his broad, brown, upturned throat
there projected the white haft of a knife driven blade-deep into his body. Giant as
he was, the man must have gone down like a pole-axed ox before that terrific
blow. Beside his right hand a most formidable horn-handled, two-edged dagger
lay upon the floor, and near it a black kid glove.
"By George! it's Black Gorgiano himself!" cried the American detective.
"Someone has got ahead of us this time."
"Here is the candle in the window, Mr. Holmes," said Gregson. "Why,
whatever are you doing?"
Holmes had stepped across, had lit the candle, and was passing it backward
and forward across the window-panes. Then he peered into the darkness, blew
the candle out, and threw it on the floor.
"I rather think that will be helpful," said he. He came over and stood in deep
thought while the two professionals were examining the body. "You say that
three people came out from the flat while you were waiting downstairs," said he
at last. "Did you observe them closely?"
"Yes, I did."
"Was there a fellow about thirty, black-bearded, dark, of middle size?"
"Yes; he was the last to pass me."
"That is your man, I fancy. I can give you his description, and we have a very
excellent outline of his footmark. That should be enough for you."
"Not much, Mr. Holmes, among the millions of London."
 "Perhaps not. That is why I thought it best to summon this lady to your aid."
We all turned round at the words. There, framed in the doorway, was a tall and
beautiful woman — the mysterious lodger of Bloomsbury. Slowly she advanced,
her face pale and drawn with a frightful apprehension, her eyes fixed and staring,
her terrified gaze riveted upon the dark figure on the floor.
"You have killed him!" she muttered. "Oh, Dio mio, you have killed him!"
Then I heard a sudden sharp intake of her breath, and she sprang into the air with
a cry of joy. Round and round the room she danced, her hands clapping, her dark
eyes gleaming with delighted wonder, and a thousand pretty Italian exclamations
pouring from her lips. It was terrible and amazing to see such a woman so
convulsed with joy at such a sight. Suddenly she stopped and gazed at us all with
a questioning stare.
"But you! You are police, are you not? You have killed Giuseppe Gorgiano. Is
it not so?"
"We are police, madam."
She looked round into the shadows of the room.
"But where, then, is Gennaro?" she asked. "He is my husband, Gennaro
Lucca. I am Emilia Lucca, and we are both from New York. Where is Gennaro?
He called me this moment from this window, and I ran with all my speed."
"It was I who called," said Holmes.
"You! How could you call?"
"Your cipher was not difficult, madam. Your presence here was desirable. I
knew that I had only to flash 'Vieni' and you would surely come."
The beautiful Italian looked with awe at my companion.
"I do not understand how you know these things," she said. "Giuseppe
Gorgiano — how did he —" She paused, and then suddenly her face lit up with
pride and delight. "Now I see it! My Gennaro! My splendid, beautiful Gennaro,
who has guarded me safe from all harm, he did it, with his own strong hand he
killed the monster! Oh, Gennaro, how wonderful you are! What woman could
ever be worthy of such a man?"
"Well, Mrs. Lucca," said the prosaic Gregson, laying his hand upon the lady's
sleeve with as little sentiment as if she were a Notting Hill hooligan, "I am not
very clear yet who you are or what you are; but you've said enough to make it
very clear that we shall want you at the Yard."
"One moment, Gregson," said Holmes. "I rather fancy that this lady may be as
anxious to give us information as we can be to get it. You understand, madam,
that your husband will be arrested and tried for the death of the man who lies
before us? What you say may be used in evidence. But if you think that he has
acted from motives which are not criminal, and which he would wish to have
known, then you cannot serve him better than by telling us the whole story."
"Now that Gorgiano is dead we fear nothing," said the lady. "He was a devil
and a monster, and there can be no judge in the world who would punish my
husband for having killed him."
"In that case," said Holmes, "my suggestion is that we lock this door, leave
things as we found them, go with this lady to her room, and form our opinion
after we have heard what it is that she has to say to us."
Half an hour later we were seated, all four, in the small sitting-room of
Signora Lucca, listening to her remarkable narrative of those sinister events, the
ending of which we had chanced to witness. She spoke in rapid and fluent but
very unconventional English, which, for the sake of clearness, I will make
grammatical.
"I was born in Posilippo, near Naples," said she, "and was the daughter of
Augusto Barelli, who was the chief lawyer and once the deputy of that part.
Gennaro was in my father's employment, and I came to love him, as any woman
must. He had neither money nor position — nothing but his beauty and strength
and energy — so my father forbade the match. We fled together, were married at
Bari, and sold my jewels to gain the money which would take us to America.
This was four years ago, and we have been in New York ever since.
"Fortune was very good to us at first. Gennaro was able to do a service to an
Italian gentleman— he saved him from some ruffians in the place called the
Bowery and so made a powerful friend. His name was Tito Castalotte and he
was the senior partner of the great firm of Castalotte and Zamba, who are the
chief fruit importers of New York. Signor Zamba is an invalid, and our new
friend Castalotte has all power within the firm, which employs more than three
hundred men. He took my husband into his employment, made him head of a
department, and showed his good-will towards him in every way. Signor
Castalotte was a bachelor, and I believe that he felt as if Gennaro was his son,
and both my husband and I loved him as if he were our father. We had taken and
furnished a little house in Brooklyn, and our whole future seemed assured when
that black cloud appeared which was soon to overspread our sky.
"One night, when Gennaro returned from his work, he brought a fellow-
countryman back with him. His name was Gorgiano, and he had come also from
Posilippo. He was a huge man, as you can testify, for you have looked upon his
corpse. Not only was his body that of a giant but everything about him was
grotesque, gigantic, and terrifying. His voice was like thunder in our little house.
There was scarce room for the whirl of his great arms as he talked. His thoughts,
his emotions, his passions, all were exaggerated and monstrous. He talked, or
rather roared, with such energy that others could but sit and listen, cowed with
the mighty stream of words. His eyes blazed at you and held you at his mercy.
He was a terrible and wonderful man. I thank God that he is dead!
"He came again and again. Yet I was aware that Gennaro was no more happy
than I was in his presence. My poor husband would sit pale and listless, listening
to the endless raving upon politics and upon social questions which made up our
visitor's conversation. Gennaro said nothing, but I, who knew him so well, could
read in his face some emotion which I had never seen there before. At first I
thought that it was dislike. And then, gradually, I understood that it was more
than dislike. It was fear — a deep, secret, shrinking fear. That night — the night
that I read his terror — I put my arms round him and I implored him by his love
for me and by all that he held dear to hold nothing from me, and to tell me why
this huge man overshadowed him so.
"He told me, and my own heart grew cold as ice as I listened. My poor
Gennaro, in his wild and fiery days, when all the world seemed against him and
his mind was driven half mad by the injustices of life, had joined a Neapolitan
society, the Red Circle, which was allied to the old Carbonari. The oaths and
secrets of this brotherhood were frightful, but once within its rule no escape was
possible. When we had fled to America Gennaro thought that he had cast it all
off forever. What was his horror one evening to meet in the streets the very man
who had initiated him in Naples, the giant Gorgiano, a man who had earned the
name of 'Death' in the south of Italy, for he was red to the elbow in murder! He
had come to New York to avoid the Italian police, and he had already planted a
branch of this dreadful society in his new home. All this Gennaro told me and
showed me a summons which he had received that very day, a Red Circle drawn
upon the head of it telling him that a lodge would be held upon a certain date,
and that his presence at it was required and ordered.
"That was bad enough, but worse was to come. I had noticed for some time
that when Gorgiano came to us, as he constantly did, in the evening, he spoke
much to me; and even when his words were to my husband those terrible,
glaring, wild-beast eyes of his were always turned upon me. One night his secret
came out. I had awakened what he called 'love' within him — the love of a brute
— a savage. Gennaro had not yet returned when he came. He pushed his way in,
seized me in his mighty arms, hugged me in his bear's embrace, covered me with
kisses, and implored me to come away with him. I was struggling and screaming
when Gennaro entered and attacked him. He struck Gennaro senseless and fled
from the house which he was never more to enter. It was a deadly enemy that we
made that night.
"A few days later came the meeting. Gennaro returned from it with a face
which told me that something dreadful had occurred. It was worse than we could
have imagined possible. The funds of the society were raised by blackmailing
rich Italians and threatening them with violence should they refuse the money. It
seems that Castalotte, our dear friend and benefactor, had been approached. He
had refused to yield to threats, and he had handed the notices to the police. It was
resolved now that such an example should be made of him as would prevent any
other victim from rebelling. At the meeting it was arranged that he and his house
should be blown up with dynamite. There was a drawing of lots as to who should
carry out the deed. Gennaro saw our enemy's cruel face smiling at him as he
dipped his hand in the bag. No doubt it had been prearranged in some fashion,
for it was the fatal disc with the Red Circle upon it, the mandate for murder,
which lay upon his palm. He was to kill his best friend, or he was to expose
himself and me to the vengeance of his comrades. It was part of their fiendish
system to punish those whom they feared or hated by injuring not only their own
persons but those whom they loved, and it was the knowledge of this which
hung as a terror over my poor Gennaro's head and drove him nearly crazy with
apprehension.
"All that night we sat together, our arms round each other, each strengthening
each for the troubles that lay before us. The very next evening had been fixed tor
the attempt. By midday my husband and I were on our way to London, but not
before he had given our benefactor full warning of his danger, and had also left
such information for the police as would safeguard his life for the future.
"The rest, gentlemen, you know for yourselves. We were sure that our
enemies would be behind us like our own shadows. Gorgiano had his private
reasons for vengeance, but in any case we knew how ruthless, cunning, and
untiring he could be. Both Italy and America are full of stories of his dreadful
powers. If ever they were exerted it would be now. My darling made use of the
few clear days which our start had given us in arranging for a refuge for me in
such a fashion that no possible danger could reach me. For his own part, he
wished to be free that he might communicate both with the American and with
the Italian police. I do not myself know where he lived, or how. All that I learned
was through the columns of a newspaper. But once as I looked through my
window, I saw two Italians watching the house, and I understood that in some
way Gorgiano had found out our retreat. Finally Gennaro told me, through the
paper, that he would signal to me from a certain window, but when the signals
came they were nothing but warnings, which were suddenly interrupted. It is
very clear to me now that he knew Gorgiano to be close upon him, and that,
thank God, he was ready for him when he came. And now, gentlemen, I would
ask you whether we have anything to fear from the law, or whether any judge
upon earth would condemn my Gennaro for what he has done?"
 "Well, Mr. Gregson," said the American, looking across at the official, "I don't
know what your British point of view may be, but I guess that in New York this
lady's husband will receive a pretty general vote of thanks."
"She will have to come with me and see the chief," Gregson answered. "If
what she says is corroborated, I do not think she or her husband has much to
fear. But what I can't make head or tail of, Mr. Holmes, is how on earth you got
yourself mixed up in the matter."
"Education, Gregson, education. Still seeking knowledge at the old university.
Well, Watson, you have one more specimen of the tragic and grotesque to add to
your collection. By the way, it is not eight o'clock, and a Wagner night at Covent
Garden! If we hurry, we might be in time for the second act."
Chapter 4
The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
In the third week of November, in the year 1895, a dense yellow fog settled
down upon London. From the Monday to the Thursday I doubt whether it was
ever possible from our windows in Baker Street to see the loom of the opposite
houses. The first day Holmes had spent in cross-indexing his huge book of
references. The second and third had been patiently occupied upon a subject
which he had recently made his hobby — the music of the Middle Ages. But
when, for the fourth time, after pushing back our chairs from breakfast we saw
the greasy, heavy brown swirl still drifting past us and condensing in oily drops
upon the window-panes, my comrade's impatient and active nature could endure
this drab existence no longer. He paced restlessly about our sitting-room in a
fever of suppressed energy, biting his nails, tapping the furniture, and chafing
against inaction.
"Nothing of interest in the paper, Watson?" he said.
I was aware that by anything of interest, Holmes meant anything of criminal
interest. There was the news of a revolution, of a possible war, and of an
impending change of government; but these did not come within the horizon of
my companion. I could see nothing recorded in the shape of crime which was
not commonplace and futile. Holmes groaned and resumed his restless
meanderings.
"The London criminal is certainly a dull fellow," said he in the querulous
voice of the sportsman whose game has failed him. "Look out of this window,
Watson. See how the figures loom up, are dimly seen, and then blend once more
into the cloudbank. The thief or the murderer could roam London on such a day
as the tiger does the jungle, unseen until he pounces, and then evident only to his
victim."
"There have," said I, "been numerous petty thefts."
Holmes snorted his contempt.
"This great and sombre stage is set for something more worthy than that," said
he. "It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal."
"It is, indeed!" said I heartily.
 "Suppose that I were Brooks or Woodhouse, or any of the fifty men who have
good reason for taking my life, how long could I survive against my own
pursuit? A summons, a bogus appointment, and all would be over. It is well they
don't have days of fog in the Latin countries — the countries of assassination. By
Jove! here comes something at last to break our dead monotony."
It was the maid with a telegram. Holmes tore it open and burst out laughing.
"Well, well! What next?" said he. "Brother Mycroft is coming round."
"Why not?" I asked.
"Why not? It is as if you met a tram-car coming down a country lane. Mycroft
has his rails and he runs on them. His Pall Mall lodgings, the Diogenes Club,
Whitehall — that is his cycle. Once, and only once, he has been here. What
upheaval can possibly have derailed him?"
"Does he not explain?"
Holmes handed me his brother's telegram.
Must see you over Cadogan West. Coming at once.
MYCROFT.
"Cadogan West? I have heard the name."
"It recalls nothing to my mind. But that Mycroft should break out in this
erratic fashion! A planet might as well leave its orbit. By the way, do you know
what Mycroft is?"
I had some vague recollection of an explanation at the time of the Adventure
of the Greek Interpreter.
"You told me that he had some small office under the British government."
Holmes chuckled.
"I did not know you quite so well in those days. One has to be discreet when
one talks of high matters of state. You are right in thinking that he is under the
British government. You would also be right in a sense if you said that
occasionally he is the British government."
"My dear Holmes!"
"I thought I might surprise you. Mycroft draws four hundred and fifty pounds
a year, remains a subordinate, has no ambitions of any kind, will receive neither
honour nor title, but remains the most indispensable man in the country."
"But how?"
"Well, his position is unique. He has made it for himself. There has never been
anything like it before, nor will be again. He has the tidiest and most orderly
brain, with the greatest capacity for storing facts, of any man living. The same
great powers which I have turned to the detection of crime he has used for this
particular business. The conclusions of every department are passed to him, and
he is the central exchange, the clearing-house, which makes out the balance. All
other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience. We will suppose
that a minister needs information as to a point which involves the Navy, India,
Canada and the bimetallic question; he could get his separate advices from
various departments upon each, but only Mycroft can focus them all, and say
offhand how each factor would affect the other. They began by using him as a
short-cut, a convenience; now he has made himself an essential. In that great
brain of his everything is pigeon-holed and can be handed out in an instant.
Again and again his word has decided the national policy. He lives in it. He
thinks of nothing else save when, as an intellectual exercise, he unbends if I call
upon him and ask him to advise me on one of my little problems. But Jupiter is
descending to-day. What on earth can it mean? Who is Cadogan West, and what
is he to Mycroft?"
"I have it," I cried, and plunged among the litter of papers upon the sofa. "Yes,
yes, here he is, sure enough! Cadogan West was the young man who was found
dead on the Underground on Tuesday morning."
Holmes sat up at attention, his pipe halfway to his lips.
"This must be serious, Watson. A death which has caused my brother to alter
his habits can be no ordinary one. What in the world can he have to do with it?
The case was featureless as I remember it. The young man had apparently fallen
out of the train and killed himself. He had not been robbed, and there was no
particular reason to suspect violence. Is that not so?"
"There has been an inquest," said I, "and a good many fresh facts have come
out. Looked at more closely, I should certainly say that it was a curious case."
"Judging by its effect upon my brother, I should think it must be a most
extraordinary one." He snuggled down in his armchair. "Now, Watson, let us
have the facts."
"The man's name was Arthur Cadogan West. He was twenty-seven years of
age, unmarried, and a clerk at Woolwich Arsenal."
"Government employ. Behold the link with Brother Mycroft!"
"He left Woolwich suddenly on Monday night. Was last seen by his fiancee,
Miss Violet Westbury, whom he left abruptly in the fog about 7:30 that evening.
There was no quarrel between them and she can give no motive for his action.
The next thing heard of him was when his dead body was discovered by a plate-
layer named Mason, just outside Aldgate Station on the Underground system in
London."
"When?"
"The body was found at six on the Tuesday morning. It was lying wide of the
metals upon the left hand of the track as one goes eastward, at a point close to
the station, where the line emerges from the tunnel in which it runs. The head
was badly crushed — an injury which might well have been caused by a fall
from the train. The body could only have come on the line in that way. Had it
been carried down from any neighbouring street, it must have passed the station
barriers, where a collector is always standing. This point seems absolutely
certain."
"Very good. The case is definite enough. The man, dead or alive, either fell or
was precipitated from a train. So much is clear to me. Continue."
"The trains which traverse the lines of rail beside which the body was found
are those which run from west to east, some being purely Metropolitan, and
some from Willesden and outlying junctions. It can be stated for certain that this
young man when he met his death, was travelling in this direction at some late
hour of the night, but at what point he entered the train it is impossible to state."
"His ticket, of course, would show that."
"There was no ticket in his pockets."
"No ticket! Dear me, Watson, this is really very singular. According to my
experience it is not possible to reach the platform of a Metropolitan train without
exhibiting one's ticket. Presumably, then, the young man had one. Was it taken
from him in order to conceal the station from which he came? It is possible. Or
did he drop it in the carriage? That also is possible. But the point is of curious
interest. I understand that there was no sign of robbery?"
"Apparently not. There is a list here of his possessions. His purse contained
two pounds fifteen. He had also a check-book on the Woolwich branch of the
Capital and Counties Bank. Through this his identity was established. There
were also two dress-circle tickets for the Woolwich Theatre, dated for that very
evening. Also a small packet of technical papers."
Holmes gave an exclamation of satisfaction.
"There we have it at last, Watson! British government — Woolwich. Arsenal
— technical papers — Brother Mycroft, the chain is complete. But here he
comes, if I am not mistaken, to speak for himself."
A moment later the tall and portly form of Mycroft Holmes was ushered into
the room. Heavily built and massive, there was a suggestion of uncouth physical
inertia in the figure, but above this unwieldy frame there was perched a head so
masterful in its brow, so alert in its steel-gray, deep-set eyes, so firm in its lips,
and so subtle in its play of expression, that after the first glance one forgot the
gross body and remembered only the dominant mind.
At his heels came our old friend Lestrade, of Scotland Yard — thin and
austere. The gravity of both their faces foretold some weighty quest. The
detective shook hands without a word. Mycroft Holmes struggled out of his
overcoat and subsided into an armchair.
 "A most annoying business, Sherlock," said he. "I extremely dislike altering
my habits, but the powers that be would take no denial. In the present state of
Siam it is most awkward that I should be away from the office. But it is a real
crisis. I have never seen the Prime Minister so upset. As to the Admiralty — it is
buzzing like an overturned bee-hive. Have you read up the case?"
"We have just done so. What were the technical papers?"
"Ah, there's the point! Fortunately, it has not come out. The press would be
furious if it did. The papers which this wretched youth had in his pocket were the
plans of the Bruce-Partington submarine."
Mycroft Holmes spoke with a solemnity which showed his sense of the
importance of the subject. His brother and I sat expectant.
"Surely you have heard of it? I thought everyone had heard of it."
"Only as a name."
"Its importance can hardly be exaggerated. It has been the most jealously
guarded of all government secrets. You may take it from me that naval warfare
becomes impossible within the radius of a Bruce-Partington's operation. Two
years ago a very large sum was smuggled through the Estimates and was
expended in acquiring a monopoly of the invention. Every effort has been made
to keep the secret. The plans, which are exceedingly intricate, comprising some
thirty separate patents, each essential to the working of the whole, are kept in an
elaborate safe in a confidential office adjoining the arsenal, with burglar-proof
doors and windows. Under no conceivable circumstances were the plans to be
taken from the office. If the chief constructor of the Navy desired to consult
them, even he was forced to go to the Woolwich office for the purpose. And yet
here we find them in the pocket of a dead junior clerk in the heart of London.
From an official point of view it's simply awful."
"But you have recovered them?"
"No, Sherlock, no! That's the pinch. We have not. Ten papers were taken from
Woolwich. There were seven in the pocket of Cadogan West. The three most
essential are gone — stolen, vanished. You must drop everything, Sherlock.
Never mind your usual petty puzzles of the police-court. It's a vital international
problem that you have to solve. Why did Cadogan West take the papers, where
are the missing ones, how did he die, how came his body where it was found,
how can the evil be set right? Find an answer to all these questions, and you will
have done good service for your country."
"Why do you not solve it yourself, Mycroft? You can see as far as I."
"Possibly, Sherlock. But it is a question of getting details. Give me your
details, and from an armchair I will return you an excellent expert opinion. But
to run here and run there, to cross-question railway guards, and lie on my face
with a lens to my eye — it is not my metier. No, you are the one man who can
clear the matter up. If you have a fancy to see your name in the next honours list
—"
My friend smiled and shook his head.
"I play the game for the game's own sake," said he. "But the problem certainly
presents some points of interest, and I shall be very pleased to look into it. Some
more facts, please."
"I have jotted down the more essential ones upon this sheet of paper, together
with a few addresses which you will find of service. The actual official guardian
of the papers is the famous government expert, Sir James Walter. whose
decorations and sub-titles fill two lines of a book of reference. He has grown
gray in the service, is a gentleman, a favoured guest in the most exalted houses,
and, above all, a man whose patriotism is beyond suspicion. He is one of two
who have a key of the safe. I may add that the papers were undoubtedly in the
office during working hours on Monday, and that Sir James left for London
about three o'clock taking his key with him. He was at the house of Admiral
Sinclair at Barclay Square during the whole of the evening when this incident
occurred."
"Has the fact been verified?"
"Yes; his brother, Colonel Valentine Walter, has testified to his departure from
Woolwich, and Admiral Sinclair to his arrival in London; so Sir James is no
longer a direct factor in the problem."
"Who was the other man with a key?"
"The senior clerk and draughtsman, Mr. Sidney Johnson. He is a man of forty,
married, with five children. He is a silent, morose man, but he has, on the whole,
an excellent record in the public service. He is unpopular with his colleagues,
but a hard worker. According to his own account, corroborated only by the word
of his wife, he was at home the whole of Monday evening after office hours, and
his key has never left the watch-chain upon which it hangs."
"Tell us about Cadogan West."
"He has been ten years in the service and has done good work. He has the
reputation of being hot-headed and impetuous, but a straight, honest man. We
have nothing against him. He was next to Sidney Johnson in the office. His
duties brought him into daily, personal contact with the plans. No one else had
the handling of them."
"Who locked the plans up that night?"
"Mr. Sidney Johnson, the senior clerk."
"Well, it is surely perfectly clear who took them away. They are actually found
upon the person of this junior clerk, Cadogan West. That seems final, does it
not?"
"It does, Sherlock, and yet it leaves so much unexplained. In the first place,
why did he take them?"
"I presume they were of value?"
"He could have got several thousands for them very easily."
"Can you suggest any possible motive for taking the papers to London except
to sell them?"
"No, I cannot."
"Then we must take that as our working hypothesis. Young West took the
papers. Now this could only be done by having a false key —"
"Several false keys. He had to open the building and the room."
"He had, then, several false keys. He took the papers to London to sell the
secret, intending, no doubt, to have the plans themselves back in the safe next
morning before they were missed. While in London on this treasonable mission
he met his end."
"How?"
"We will suppose that he was travelling back to Woolwich when he was killed
and thrown out of the compartment."
"Aldgate, where the body was found, is considerably past the station for
London Bridge, which would be his route to Woolwich."
"Many circumstances could be imagined under which he would pass London
Bridge. There was someone in the carriage, for example, with whom he was
havitlg an absorbing interview. This interview led to a violent scene in which he
lost his life. Possibly he tried to leave the carriage, fell out on the line, and so
met his end. The other closed the door. There was a thick fog, and nothing could
be seen."
"No better explanation can be given with our present knowledge; and yet
consider, Sherlock, how much you leave untouched. We will suppose, for
argument's sake, that young Cadogan West had determined to convey these
papers to London. He would naturally have made an appointment with the
foreign agent and kept his evening clear. Instead of that he took two tickets for
the theatre, escorted his fiancee halfway there, and then suddenly disappeared."
"A blind," said Lestrade, who had sat listening with some impatience to the
conversation.
"A very singular one. That is objection No. 1. Objection No. 2: We will
suppose that he reaches London and sees the foreign agent. He must bring back
the papers before morning or the loss will be discovered. He took away ten. Only
seven were in his pocket. What had become of the other three? He certainly
would not leave them of his own free will. Then, again, where is the price of his
treason? One would have expected to find a large sum of money in his pocket."
"It seems to me perfectly clear," said Lestrade. "I have no doubt at all as to
what occurred. He took the papers to sell them. He saw the agent. They could
not agree as to price. He started home again, but the agent went with him. In the
train the agent murdered him, took the more essential papers, and threw his body
from the carriage. That would account for everything, would it not?"
"Why had he no ticket?"
"The ticket would have shown which station was nearest the agent's house.
Therefore he took it from the murdered man's pocket."
"Good, Lestrade, very good," said Holmes. "Your theory holds together. But if
this is true, then the case is at an end. On the one hand, the traitor is dead. On the
other, the plans of the Bruce-Partington submarine are presumably already on the
Continent. What is there for us to do?"
"To act, Sherlock — to act!" cried Mycroft, springing to his feet. "All my
instincts are against this explanation. Use your powers! Go to the scene of the
crime! See the people concerned! Leave no stone unturned! In all your career
you have never had so great a chance of serving your country."
"Well, well!" said Holmes, shrugging his shoulders. "Come, Watson! And
you, Lestrade, could you favour us with your company for an hour or two? We
will begin our investigation by a visit to Aldgate Station. Good-bye, Mycroft. I
shall let you have a report before evening, but I warn you in advance that you
have little to expect."
An hour later Holmes, Lestrade and I stood upon the Underground railroad at
the point where it emerges from the tunnel immediately before Aldgate Station.
A courteous red-faced old gentleman represented the railway company.
"This is where the young man's body lay," said he, indicating a spot about
three feet from the metals. "It could not have fallen from above, for these, as you
see, are all blank walls. Therefore, it could only have come from a train, and that
train, so far as we can trace it, must have passed about midnight on Monday."
"Have the carriages been examined for any sign of violence?"
"There are no such signs, and no ticket has been found."
"No record of a door being found open?"
"None."
"We have had some fresh evidence this morning," said Lestrade. "A passenger
who passed Aldgate in an ordinary Metropolitan train about 11:40 on Monday
night declares that he heard a heavy thud, as of a body striking the line, just
before the train reached the station. There was dense fog, however, and nothing
could be seen. He made no report of it at the time. Why whatever is the matter
with Mr. Holmes?"
 My friend was standing with an expression of strained intensity upon his face,
staring at the railway metals where they curved out of the tunnel. Aldgate is a
junction, and there was a network of points. On these his eager, questioning eyes
were fixed, and I saw on his keen, alert face that tightening of the lips, that
quiver of the nostrils, and concentration of the heavy tufted brows which I knew
so well.
"Points," he muttered, "the points."
"What of it? What do you mean?"
"I suppose there are no great number of points on a system such as this?"
"No; there are very few."
"And a curve, too. Points, and a curve. By Jove! if it were only so."
"What is it, Mr. Holmes? Have you a clue?"
"An idea — an indication, no more. But the case certainly grows in interest.
Unique, perfectly unique, and yet why not? I do not see any indications of
bleeding on the line."
"There were hardly any."
"But I understand that there was a considerable wound."
"The bone was crushed, but there was no great external injury."
"And yet one would have expected some bleeding. Would it be possible for
me to inspect the train which contained the passenger who heard the thud of a
fall in the fog?"
"I fear not, Mr. Holmes. The train has been broken up before now, and the
carriages redistributed."
"I can assure you, Mr. Holmes," said Lestrade, "that every carriage has been
carefully examined. I saw to it myself."
It was one of my friend's most obvious weaknesses that he was impatient with
less alert intelligences than his own.
"Very likely," said he, turning away. "As it happens, it was not the carriages
which I desired to examine. Watson, we have done all we can here. We need not
trouble you any further, Mr. Lestrade. I think our investigations must now carry
us to Woolwich."
At London Bridge, Holmes wrote a telegram to his brother, which he handed
to me before dispatching it. It ran thus:
See some light in the darkness, but it may possibly flicker
out. Meanwhile, please send by messenger, to await return
at Baker Street, a complete list of all foreign spies or
international agents known to be in England, with full
address.
SHERLOCK.
 "That should be helpful, Watson," he remarked as we took our seats in the
Woolwich train. "We certainly owe Brother Mycroft a debt for having introduced
us to what promises to be a really very remarkable case."
His eager face still wore that expression of intense and high-strung energy,
which showed me that some novel and suggestive circumstance had opened up a
stimulating line of thought. See the foxhound with hanging ears and drooping
tail as it lolls about the kennels, and compare it with the same hound as, with
gleaming eyes and straining muscles, it runs upon a breast-high scent — such
was the change in Holmes since the morning. He was a different man from the
limp and lounging figure in the mouse-coloured dressing-gown who had prowled
so restlessly only a few hours before round the fog-girt room.
"There is material here. There is scope," said he. "I am dull indeed not to have
understood its possibilities."
"Even now they are dark to me."
"The end is dark to me also, but I have hold of one idea which may lead us far.
The man met his death elsewhere, and his body was on the roof of a carriage."
"On the roof!"
"Remarkable, is it not? But consider the facts. Is it a coincidence that it is
found at the very point where the train pitches and sways as it comes round on
the points? Is not that the place where an object upon the roof might be expected
to fall off? The points would affect no object inside the train. Either the body fell
from the roof, or a very curious coincidence has occurred. But now consider the
question of the blood. Of course, there was no bleeding on the line if the body
had bled elsewhere. Each fact is suggestive in itself. Together they have a
cumulative force."
"And the ticket, too!" I cried.
"Exactly. We could not explain the absence of a ticket. This would explain it.
Everything fits together."
"But suppose it were so, we are still as far as ever from unravelling the
mystery of his death. Indeed, it becomes not simpler but stranger."
"Perhaps," said Holmes thoughtfully, "perhaps." He relapsed into a silent
reverie, which lasted until the slow train drew up at last in Woolwich Station.
There he called a cab and drew Mycroft's paper from his pocket.
"We have quite a little round of afternoon calls to make," said he. "I think that
Sir James Walter claims our first attention. "
The house of the famous official was a fine villa with green lawns, stretching
down to the Thames. As we reached it the fog was lifting, and a thin, watery
sunshine was breaking through. A butler answered our ring.
"Sir James, sir!" said he with solemn face. "Sir James died this morning."
 "Good heavens!" cried Holmes in amazement. "How did he die?"
"Perhaps you would care to step in, sir, and see his brother, Colonel
Valentine?"
"Yes, we had best do so."
We were ushered into a dim-lit drawing-room, where an instant later we were
joined by a very tall, handsome, light-bearded man of fifty, the younger brother
of the dead scientist. His wild eyes, stained cheeks, and unkempt hair all spoke
of the sudden blow which had fallen upon the household. He was hardly
articulate as he spoke of it.
"It was this horrible scandal," said he. "My brother, Sir James, was a man of
very sensitive honour, and he could not survive such an affair. It broke his heart.
He was always so proud of the efficiency of his department, and this was a
crushing blow."
"We had hoped that he might have given us some indications which would
have helped us to clear the matter up."
"I assure you that it was all a mystery to him as it is to you and to all of us. He
had already put all his knowledge at the disposal of the police. Naturally he had
no doubt that Cadogan West was guilty. But all the rest was inconceivable."
"You cannot throw any new light upon the affair?"
"I know nothing myself save what I have read or heard. I have no desire to be
discourteous, but you can understand, Mr. Holmes, that we are much disturbed at
present, and I must ask you to hasten this interview to an end."
"This is indeed an unexpected development," said my friend when we had
regained the cab. "I wonder if the death was natural, or whether the poor old
fellow killed himself! If the latter, may it be taken as some sign of self-reproach
for duty neglected? We must leave that question to the future. Now we shall turn
to the Cadogan Wests."
A small but well-kept house in the outskirts of the town sheltered the bereaved
mother. The old lady was too dazed with grief to be of any use to us, but at her
side was a white-faced young lady, who introduced herself as Miss Violet
Westbury, the fiancee of the dead man, and the last to see him upon that fatal
night.
"I cannot explain it, Mr. Holmes," she said. "I have not shut an eye since the
tragedy, thinking, thinking, thinking, night and day, what the true meaning of it
can be. Arthur was the most single-minded, chivalrous, patriotic man upon earth.
He would have cut his right hand off before he would sell a State secret confided
to his keeping. It is absurd, impossible, preposterous to anyone who knew him."
"But the facts, Miss Westbury?"
"Yes, yes I admit I cannot explain them."
 "Was he in any want of money?"
"No; his needs were very simple and his salary ample. He had saved a few
hundreds, and we were to marry at the New Year."
"No signs of any mental excitement? Come, Miss Westbury, be absolutely
frank with us."
The quick eye of my companion had noted some change in her manner. She
coloured and hesitated.
"Yes," she said at last, "I had a feeling that there was something on his mind."
"For long?"
"Only for the last week or so. He was thoughtful and worried. Once I pressed
him about it. He admitted that there was something, and that it was concerned
with his official life. 'It is too serious for me to speak about, even to you,' said
he. I could get nothing more."
Holmes looked grave.
"Go on, Miss Westbury. Even if it seems to tell against him, go on. We cannot
say what it may lead to."
"Indeed, I have nothing more to tell. Once or twice it seemed to me that he
was on the point of telling me something. He spoke one evening of the
importance of the secret, and I have some recollection that he said that no doubt
foreign spies would pay a great deal to have it."
My friend's face grew graver still.
"Anything else?"
"He said that we were slack about such matters — that it would be easy for a
traitor to get the plans."
"Was it only recently that he made such remarks?"
"Yes, quite recently."
"Now tell us of that last evening."
"We were to go to the theatre. The fog was so thick that a cab was useless. We
walked, and our way took us close to the office. Suddenly he darted away into
the fog."
"Without a word?"
"He gave an exclamation; that was all. I waited but he never returned. Then I
walked home. Next morning, after the office opened, they came to inquire.
About twelve o'clock we heard the terrible news. Oh, Mr. Holmes, if you could
only, only save his honour! It was so much to him."
Holmes shook his head sadly.
"Come, Watson," said he, "our ways lie elsewhere. Our next station must be
the office from which the papers were taken.
"It was black enough before against this young man, but our inquiries make it
blacker," he remarked as the cab lumbered off. "His coming marriage gives a
motive for the crime. He naturally wanted money. The idea was in his head,
since he spoke about it. He nearly made the girl an accomplice in the treason by
telling her his plans. It is all very bad."
"But surely, Holmes, character goes for something? Then, again, why should
he leave the girl in the street and dart away to commit a felony?"
"Exactly! There are certainly objections. But it is a formidable case which
they have to meet."
Mr. Sidney Johnson, the senior clerk, met us at the office and received us with
that respect which my companion's card always commanded. He was a thin,
gruff, bespectacled man of middle age, his cheeks haggard, and his hands
twitching from the nervous strain to which he had been subjected.
"It is bad, Mr. Holmes, very bad! Have you heard of the death of the chief?"
"We have just come from his house."
"The place is disorganized. The chief dead, Cadogan West dead, our papers
stolen. And yet, when we closed our door on Monday evening, we were as
efficient an office as any in the government service. Good God, it's dreadful to
think of! That West, of all men, should have done such a thing!"
"You are sure of his guilt, then?"
"I can see no other way out of it. And yet I would have trusted him as I trust
myself."
"At what hour was the office closed on Monday?"
"At five."
"Did you close it?"
"I am always the last man out."
"Where were the plans?"
"In that safe. I put them there myself."
"Is there no watchman to the building?"
"There is, but he has other departments to look after as well. He is an old
soldier and a most trustworthy man. He saw nothing that evening. Of course the
fog was very thick."
"Suppose that Cadogan West wished to make his way into the building after
hours; he would need three keys, would he not, before he could reach the
papers?"
"Yes, he would. The key of the outer door, the key of the office, and the key of
the safe."
"Only Sir James Walter and you had those keys?"
"I had no keys of the doors — only of the safe."
"Was Sir James a man who was orderly in his habits?"
 "Yes, I think he was. I know that so far as those three keys are concerned he
kept them on the same ring. I have often seen them there."
"And that ring went with him to London?"
"He said so."
"And your key never left your possession?"
"Never."
"Then West, if he is the culprit, must have had a duplicate. And yet none was
found upon his body. One other point: if a clerk in this office desired to sell the
plans, would it not be simpler to copy the plans for himself than to take the
originals, as was actually done?"
"It would take considerable technical knowledge to copy the plans in an
effective way."
"But I suppose either Sir James, or you, or West had that technical
knowledge?"
"No doubt we had, but I beg you won't try to drag me into the matter, Mr.
Holmes. What is the use of our speculating in this way when the original plans
were actually found on West?"
"Well, it is certainly singular that he should run the risk of taking originals if
he could safely have taken copies, which would have equally served his turn."
"Singular, no doubt — and yet he did so."
"Every inquiry in this case reveals something inexplicable. Now there are
three papers still missing. They are, as I understand, the vital ones."
"Yes, that is so."
"Do you mean to say that anyone holding these three papers and without the
seven others, could construct a Bruce-Partington submarine?"
"I reported to that effect to the Admiralty. But to-day I have been over the
drawings again, and I am not so sure of it. The double valves with the automatic
self-adjusting slots are drawn in one of the papers which have been returned.
Until the foreigners had invented that for themselves they could not make the
boat. Of course they might soon get over the difficulty."
"But the three missing drawings are the most important?"
"Undoubtedly."
"I think, with your permission, I will now take a stroll round the premises. I
do not recall any other question which I desired to ask."
He examined the lock of the safe, the door of the room, and finally the iron
shutters of the window. It was only when we were on the lawn outside that his
interest was strongly excited. There was a laurel bush outside the window, and
several of the branches bore signs of having been twisted or snapped. He
examined them carefully with his lens, and then some dim and vague marks
upon the earth beneath. Finally he asked the chief clerk to close the iron shutters,
and he pointed out to me that they hardly met in the centre, and that it would be
possible for anyone outside to see what was going on within the room.
"The indications are ruined by the three days' delay. They may mean
something or nothing. Well, Watson, I do not think that Woolwich can help us
further. It is a small crop which we have gathered. Let us see if we can do better
in London."
Yet we added one more sheaf to our harvest before we left Woolwich Station.
The clerk in the ticket office was able to say with confidence that he saw
Cadogan West — whom he knew well by sight — upon the Monday night, and
that he went to London by the 8:15 to London Bridge. He was alone and took a
single third-class ticket. The clerk was struck at the time by his excited and
nervous manner. So shaky was he that he could hardly pick up his change, and
the clerk had helped him with it. A reference to the timetable showed that the
8:15 was the first train which it was possible for West to take after he had left the
lady about 7:30.
"Let us reconstruct, Watson," said Holmes after half an hour of silence. "I am
not aware that in all our joint researches we have ever had a case which was
more difficult to get at. Every fresh advance which we make only reveals a fresh
ridge beyond. And yet we have surely made some appreciable progress.
"The effect of our inquiries at Woolwich has in the main been against young
Cadogan West; but the indications at the window would lend themselves to a
more favourable hypothesis. Let us suppose, for example, that he had been
approached by some foreign agent. It might have been done under such pledges
as would have prevented him from speaking of it, and yet would have affected
his thoughts in the direction indicated by his remarks to his fiancee. Very good.
We will now suppose that as he went to the theatre with the young lady he
suddenly, in the fog, caught a glimpse of this same agent going in the direction
of the office. He was an impetuous man, quick in his decisions. Everything gave
way to his duty. He followed the man, reached the window, saw the abstraction
of the documents, and pursued the thief. In this way we get over the objection
that no one would take originals when he could make copies. This outsider had
to take originals. So far it holds together."
"What is the next step?"
"Then we come into difficulties. One would imagine that under such
circumstances the first act of young Cadogan West would be to seize the villain
and raise the alarm. Why did he not do so? Could it have been an official
superior who took the papers? That would explain West's conduct. Or could the
chief have given West the slip in the fog, and West started at once to London to
head him off from his own rooms, presuming that he knew where the rooms
were? The call must have been very pressing, since he left his girl standing in the
fog and made no effort to communicate with her. Our scent runs cold here, and
there is a vast gap between either hypothesis and the laying of West's body, with
seven papers in his pocket, on the roof of a Metropolitan train. My instinct now
is to work from the other end. If Mycroft has given us the list of addresses we
may be able to pick our man and follow two tracks instead of one."
Surely enough, a note awaited us at Baker Street. A government messenger
had brought it post-haste. Holmes glanced at it and threw it over to me.
There are numerous small fry, but few who would handle
so big an affair. The only men worth considering are Adolph
Meyer, of 13 Great George Street, Westminster; Louis La
Rothiere, of Campden Mansions, Notting Hill; and Hugo
Oberstein, 13 Caulfield Gardens, Kensington. The latter
was known to be in town on Monday and is now reported as
having left. Glad to hear you have seen some light. The
Cabinet awaits your final report with the utmost anxiety.
Urgent representations have arrived from the very highest
quarter. The whole force of the State is at your back if you
should need it.
MYCROFT.
"I'm afraid," said Holmes, smiling, "that all the queen's horses and all the
queen's men cannot avail in this matter." He had spread out his big map of
London and leaned eagerly over it. "Well, well," said he presently with an
exclamation of satisfaction, "things are turning a little in our direction at last.
Why Watson, I do honestly believe that we are going to pull it off, after all." He
slapped me on the shoulder with a sudden burst of hilarity. "I am going out now.
It is only a reconnaissance. I will do nothing serious without my trusted comrade
and biographer at my elbow. Do you stay here, and the odds are that you will see
me again in an hour or two. If time hangs heavy get foolscap and a pen, and
begin your narrative of how we saved the State."
I felt some reflection of his elation in my own mind, for I knew well that he
would not depart so far from his usual austerity of demeanour unless there was
good cause for exultation. All the long November evening I waited, filled with
impatience for his return. At last, shortly after nine o'clock, there arrived a
messenger with a note:
Am dining at Goldini's Restaurant, Gloucester Road,
Kensington. Please come at once and join me there. Bring
with you a jemmy, a dark lantern, a chisel, and a revolver.
 S. H.
It was a nice equipment for a respectable citizen to carry through the dim, fog-
draped streets. I stowed them all discreetly away in my overcoat and drove
straight to the address given. There sat my friend at a little round table near the
door of the garish Italian restaurant.
"Have you had something to eat? Then join me in a coffee and curacao. Try
one of the proprietor's cigars. They are less poisonous than one would expect.
Have you the tools?"
"They are here, in my overcoat."
"Excellent. Let me give you a short sketch of what I have done, with some
indication of what we are about to do. Now it must be evident to you, Watson,
that this young man's body was placed on the roof of the train. That was clear
from the instant that I determined the fact that it was from the roof, and not from
a carriage, that he had fallen."
"Could it not have been dropped from a bridge?"
"I should say it was impossible. If you examine the roofs you will find that
they are slightly rounded, and there is no railing round them. Therefore, we can
say for certain that young Cadogan West was placed on it."
"How could he be placed there?"
"That was the question which we had to answer. There is only one possible
way. You are aware that the Underground runs clear of tunnels at some points in
the West End. I had a vague memory that as I have travelled by it I have
occasionally seen windows just above my head. Now, suppose that a train halted
under such a window, would there be any difficulty in laying a body upon the
roof?"
"It seems most improbable."
"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail,
whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Here all other
contingencies have failed. When I found that the leading international agent,
who had just left London, lived in a row of houses which abutted upon the
Underground, I was so pleased that you were a little astonished at my sudden
frivolity."
"Oh, that was it, was it?"
"Yes, that was it. Mr. Hugo Oberstein, of 13 Caulfield Gardens, had become
my objective. I began my operations at Gloucester Road Station, where a very
helpful official walked with me along the track and allowed me to satisfy myself
not only that the back-stair windows of Caulfield Gardens open on the line but
the even more essential fact that, owing to the intersection of one of the larger
railways, the Underground trains are frequently held motionless for some
minutes at that very spot."
"Splendid, Holmes! You have got it!"
"So far — so far, Watson. We advance, but the goal is afar. Well, having seen
the back of Caulfield Gardens, I visited the front and satisfied myself that the
bird was indeed flown. It is a considerable house, unfurnished, so far as I could
judge, in the upper rooms. Oberstein lived there with a single valet, who was
probably a confederate entirely in his confidence. We must bear in mind that
Oberstein has gone to the Continent to dispose of his booty, but not with any
idea of flight; for he had no reason to fear a warrant, and the idea of an amateur
domiciliary visit would certainly never occur to him. Yet that is precisely what
we are about to make."
"Could we not get a warrant and legalize it?"
"Hardly on the evidence."
"What can we hope to do?"
"We cannot tell what correspondence may be there."
"I don't like it, Holmes."
"My dear fellow, you shall keep watch in the street. I'll do the criminal part.
It's not a time to stick at trifles. Think of Mycroft's note, of the Admiralty, the
Cabinet, the exalted person who waits for news. We are bound to go."
My answer was to rise from the table.
"You are right, Holmes. We are bound to go."
He sprang up and shook me by the hand.
"I knew you would not shrink at the last," said he, and for a moment I saw
something in his eyes which was nearer to tenderness than I had ever seen. The
next instant he was his masterful, practical self once more.
"It is nearly half a mile, but there is no hurry. Let us walk," said he. "Don't
drop the instruments, I beg. Your arrest as a suspicious character would be a
most unfortunate complication."
Caulfield Gardens was one of those lines of flat-faced, pillared, and porticoed
houses which are so prominent a product of the middle Victorian epoch in the
West End of London. Next door there appeared to be a children's party, for the
merry buzz of young voices and the clatter of a piano resounded through the
night. The fog still hung about and screened us with its friendly shade. Holmes
had lit his lantern and flashed it upon the massive door.
"This is a serious proposition," said he. "It is certainly bolted as well as
locked. We would do better in the area. There is an excellent archway down
yonder in case a too zealous policeman should intrude. Give me a hand, Watson,
and I'll do the same for you."
A minute later we were both in the area. Hardly had we reached the dark
shadows before the step of the policeman was heard in the fog above. As its soft
rhythm died away, Holmes set to work upon the lower door. I saw him stoop and
strain until with a sharp crash it flew open. We sprang through into the dark
passage, closing the area door behind us. Holmes led the way up the curving,
uncarpeted stair. His little fan of yellow light shone upon a low window.
"Here we are, Watson — this must be the one." He threw it open, and as he
did so there was a low, harsh murmur, growing steadily into a loud roar as a train
dashed past us in the darkness. Holmes swept his light along the window-sill. It
was thickly coated with soot from the passing engines, but the black surface was
blurred and rubbed in places.
"You can see where they rested the body. Halloa, Watson! what is this? There
can be no doubt that it is a blood mark." He was pointing to faint discolourations
along the woodwork of the window. "Here it is on the stone of the stair also. The
demonstration is complete. Let us stay here until a train stops. "
We had not long to wait. The very next train roared from the tunnel as before,
but slowed in the open, and then, with a creaking of brakes, pulled up
immediately beneath us. It was not four feet from the window-ledge to the roof
of the carriages. Holmes softly closed the window.
"So far we are justified," said he. "What do you think of it, Watson?"
"A masterpiece. You have never risen to a greater height."
"I cannot agree with you there. From the moment that I conceived the idea of
the body being upon the roof, which surely was not a very abstruse one, all the
rest was inevitable. If it were not for the grave interests involved the affair up to
this point would be insignificant. Our difficulties are still before us. But perhaps
we may find something here which may help us."
We had ascended the kitchen stair and entered the suite of rooms upon the first
floor. One was a dining-room, severely furnished and containing nothing of
interest. A second was a bedroom, which also drew blank. The remaining room
appeared more promising, and my companion settled down to a systematic
examination. It was littered with books and papers, and was evidently used as a
study. Swiftly and methodically Holmes turned over the contents of drawer after
drawer and cupboard after cupboard, but no gleam of success came to brighten
his austere face. At the end of an hour he was no further than when he started.
"The cunning dog has covered his tracks," said he. "He has left nothing to
incriminate him. His dangerous correspondence has been destroyed or removed.
This is our last chance."
It was a small tin cash-box which stood upon the writing-desk. Holmes pried
it open with his chisel. Several rolls of paper were within, covered with figures
and calculations, without any note to show to what they referred. The recurring
words "water pressure" and "pressure to the square inch" suggested some
possible relation to a submarine. Holmes tossed them all impatiently aside.
There only remained an envelope with some small newspaper slips inside it. He
shook them out on the table, and at once I saw by his eager face that his hopes
had been raised.
"What's this, Watson? Eh? What's this? Record of a series of messages in the
advertisements of a paper. Daily Telegraph agony column by the print and paper.
Right-hand top corner of a page. No dates — but messages arrange themselves.
This must be the first:
"Hoped to hear sooner. Terms agreed to. Write fully to
address given on card.
PIERROT.
"Next comes:
"Too complex for description. Must have full report.
Stuff awaits you when goods delivered.
PIERROT.
"Then comes:
"Matter presses. Must withdraw offer unless contract
completed. Make appointment by letter. Will confirm by
advertisement.
PIERROT.
"Finally:
"Monday night after nine. Two taps. Only ourselves. Do
not be so suspicious. Payment in hard cash when goods
delivered.
PIERROT.
"A fairly complete record, Watson! If we could only get at the man at the other
end!" He sat lost in thought, tapping his fingers on the table. Finally he sprang to
his feet.
"Well, perhaps it won't be so difficult, after all. There is nothing more to be
done here, Watson. I think we might drive round to the offices of the Daily
Telegraph, and so bring a good day's work to a conclusion."
Mycroft Holmes and Lestrade had come round by appointment after breakfast
next day and Sherlock Holmes had recounted to them our proceedings of the day
before. The professional shook his head over our confessed burglary.
"We can't do these things in the force, Mr. Holmes," said he. "No wonder you
get results that are beyond us. But some of these days you'll go too far, and you'll
find yourself and your friend in trouble."
"For England, home and beauty — eh, Watson? Martyrs on the altar of our
country. But what do you think of it, Mycroft?"
"Excellent, Sherlock! Admirable! But what use will you make of it?"
Holmes picked up the Daily Telegroph which lay upon the table.
"Have you seen Pierrot's advertisement to-day?"
"What? Another one?"
"Yes, here it is:
"To-night. Same hour. Same place. Two taps. Most
vitally important. Your own safety at stake.
PIERROT.
"By George!" cried Lestrade. "If he answers that we've got him!"
"That was my idea when I put it in. I think if you could both make it
convenient to come with us about eight o'clock to Caulfield Gardens we might
possibly get a little nearer to a solution."
One of the most remarkable characteristics of Sherlock Holmes was his power
of throwing his brain out of action and switching all his thoughts on to lighter
things whenever he had convinced himself that he could no longer work to
advantage. I remember that during the whole of that memorable day he lost
himself in a monograph which he had undertaken upon the Polyphonic Motets of
Lassus. For my own part I had none of this power of detachment, and the day, in
consequence, appeared to be interminable. The great national importance of the
issue, the suspense in high quarters, the direct nature of the experiment which we
were trying — all combined to work upon my nerve. It was a relief to me when
at last, after a light dinner, we set out upon our expedition. Lestrade and Mycroft
met us by appointment at the outside of Gloucester Road Station. The area door
of Oberstein's house had been left open the night before, and it was necessary for
me, as Mycroft Holmes absolutely and indignantly declined to climb the railings,
to pass in and open the hall door. By nine o'clock we were all seated in the study,
waiting patiently for our man.
An hour passed and yet another. When eleven struck, the measured beat of the
great church clock seemed to sound the dirge of our hopes. Lestrade and Mycroft
were fidgeting in their seats and looking twice a minute at their watches. Holmes
sat silent and composed, his eyelids half shut, but every sense on the alert. He
raised his head with a sudden jerk.
"He is coming," said he.
There had been a furtive step past the door. Now it returned. We heard a
shuffling sound outside, and then two sharp taps with the knocker. Holmes rose,
motioning to us to remain seated. The gas in the hall was a mere point of light.
He opened the outer door, and then as a dark figure slipped past him he closed
and fastened it. "This way!" we heard him say, and a moment later our man
stood before us. Holmes had followed him closely, and as the man turned with a
cry of surprise and alarm he caught him by the collar and threw him back into
the room. Before our prisoner had recovered his balance the door was shut and
Holmes standing with his back against it. The man glared round him, staggered,
and fell senseless upon the floor. With the shock, his broad-brimmed hat flew
from his head, his cravat slipped down from his lips, and there were the long
light beard and the soft, handsome delicate features of Colonel Valentine Walter.
Holmes gave a whistle of surprise.
"You can write me down an ass this time, Watson," said he. "This was not the
bird that I was looking for."
"Who is he?" asked Mycroft eagerly.
"The younger brother of the late Sir James Walter, the head of the Submarine
Department. Yes, yes; I see the fall of the cards. He is coming to. I think that you
had best leave his examination to me."
We had carried the prostrate body to the sofa. Now our prisoner sat up, looked
round him with a horror-stricken face, and passed his hand over his forehead,
like one who cannot believe his own senses.
"What is this?" he asked. "I came here to visit Mr. Oberstein."
"Everything is known, Colonel Walter," said Holmes. "How an English
gentleman could behave in such a manner is beyond my comprehension. But
your whole correspondence and relations with Oberstein are within our
knowledge. So also are the circumstances connected with the death of young
Cadogan West. Let me advise you to gain at least the small credit for repentance
and confession, since there are still some details which we can only learn from
your lips."
The man groaned and sank his face in his hands. We waited, but he was silent.
"I can assure you," said Holmes, "that every essential is already known. We
know that you were pressed for money; that you took an impress of the keys
which your brother held; and that you entered into a correspondence with
Oberstein, who answered your letters through the advertisement columns of the
Daily Telegraph. We are aware that you went down to the office in the fog on
Monday night, but that you were seen and followed by young Cadogan West,
who had probably some previous reason to suspect you. He saw your theft, but
could not give the alarm, as it was just possible that you were taking the papers
to your brother in London. Leaving all his private concerns, like the good citizen
that he was, he followed you closely in the fog and kept at your heels until you
reached this very house. There he intervened, and then it was, Colonel Walter,
that to treason you added the more terrible crime of murder."
"I did not! I did not! Before God I swear that I did not!" cried our wretched
prisoner.
"Tell us, then, how Cadogan West met his end before you laid him upon the
roof of a railway carriage."
"I will. I swear to you that I will. I did the rest. I confess it. It was just as you
say. A Stock Exchange debt had to be paid. I needed the money badly. Oberstein
offered me five thousand. It was to save myself from ruin. But as to murder, I am
as innocent as you."
"What happened, then?"
"He had his suspicions before, and he followed me as you describe. I never
knew it until I was at the very door. It was thick fog, and one could not see three
yards. I had given two taps and Oberstein had come to the door. The young man
rushed up and demanded to know what we were about to do with the papers.
Oberstein had a short life-preserver. He always carried it with him. As West
forced his way after us into the house Oberstein struck him on the head. The
blow was a fatal one. He was dead within five minutes. There he lay in the hall,
and we were at our wit's end what to do. Then Oberstein had this idea about the
trains which halted under his back window. But first he examined the papers
which I had brought. He said that three of them were essential, and that he must
keep them. 'You cannot keep them,' said I. 'There will be a dreadful row at
Woolwich if they are not returned.' 'I must keep them,' said he, 'for they are so
technical that it is impossible in the time to make copies.' 'Then they must all go
back together tonight,' said I. He thought for a little, and then he cried out that he
had it. 'Three I will keep,' said he. 'The others we will stuff into the pocket of this
young man. When he is found the whole business will assuredly be put to his
account. I could see no other way out of it, so we did as he suggested. We waited
half an hour at the window before a train stopped. It was so thick that nothing
could be seen, and we had no difficulty in lowering West's body on to the train.
That was the end of the matter so far as I was concerned."
"And your brother?"
"He said nothing, but he had caught me once with his keys, and I think that he
suspected. I read in his eyes that he suspected. As you know, he never held up
his head again."
There was silence in the room. It was broken by Mycroft Holmes.
"Can you not make reparation? It would ease your conscience, and possibly
your punishment."
"What reparation can I make?"
"Where is Oberstein with the papers?"
"I do not know."
"Did he give you no address?"
 "He said that letters to the Hotel du Louvre, Paris, would eventually reach
him."
"Then reparation is still within your power," said Sherlock Holmes.
"I will do anything I can. I owe this fellow no particular good-will. He has
been my ruin and my downfall."
"Here are paper and pen. Sit at this desk and write to my dictation. Direct the
envelope to the address given. That is right. Now the letter:
"DEAR SIR:
"With regard to our transaction, you will no doubt have
observed by now that one essential detail is missing. I have
a tracing which will make it complete. This has involved
me in extra trouble, however, and I must ask you for a
further advance of five hundred pounds. I will not trust it to
the post, nor will I take anything but gold or notes. I would
come to you abroad, but it would excite remark if I left the
country at present. Therefore I shall expect to meet you in
the smoking-room of the Charing Cross Hotel at noon on
Saturday. Remember that only English notes, or gold, will
be taken.
That will do very well. I shall be very much surprised if it does not fetch our
man."
And it did! It is a matter of history — that secret history of a nation which is
often so much more intimate and interesting than its public chronicles — that
Oberstein, eager to complete the coup of his lifetime, came to the lure and was
safely engulfed for fifteen years in a British prison. In his trunk were found the
invaluable Bruce-Partington plans, which he had put up for auction in all the
naval centres of Europe.
Colonel Walter died in prison towards the end of the second year of his
sentence. As to Holmes, he returned refreshed to his monograph upon the
Polyphonic Motets of Lassus, which has since been printed for private
circulation, and is said by experts to be the last word upon the subject. Some
weeks afterwards I learned incidentally that my friend spent a day at Windsor,
whence he returned with a remarkably fine emerald tie-pin. When I asked him if
he had bought it, he answered that it was a present from a certain gracious lady
in whose interests he had once been fortunate enough to carry out a small
commission. He said no more, but I fancy that I could guess at that lady's august
name, and I have little doubt that the emerald pin will forever recall to my
friend's memory the adventure of the Bruce-Partington plans.
Chapter 5
The Adventure of the Dying Detective
Mrs. Hudson, the landlady of Sherlock Holmes, was a longsuffering woman. Not
only was her first-floor flat invaded at all hours by throngs of singular and often
undesirable characters but her remarkable lodger showed an eccentricity and
irregularity in his life which must have sorely tried her patience. His incredible
untidiness, his addiction to music at strange hours, his occasional revolver
practice within doors, his weird and often malodorous scientific experiments,
and the atmosphere of violence and danger which hung around him made him
the very worst tenant in London. On the other hand, his payments were princely.
I have no doubt that the house might have been purchased at the price which
Holmes paid for his rooms during the years that I was with him.
The landlady stood in the deepest awe of him and never dared to interfere with
him, however outrageous his proceedings might seem. She was fond of him, too,
for he had a remarkable gentleness and courtesy in his dealings with women. He
disliked and distrusted the sex, but he was always a chivalrous opponent.
Knowing how genuine was her regard for him, I listened earnestly to her story
when she came to my rooms in the second year of my married life and told me
of the sad condition to which my poor friend was reduced.
"He's dying, Dr. Watson," said she. "For three days he has been sinking, and I
doubt if he will last the day. He would not let me get a doctor. This morning
when I saw his bones sticking out of his face and his great bright eyes looking at
me I could stand no more of it. 'With your leave or without it, Mr. Holmes, I am
going for a doctor this very hour,' said I. 'Let it be Watson, then,' said he. I
wouldn't waste an hour in coming to him, sir, or you may not see him alive."
I was horrified for I had heard nothing of his illness. I need not say that I
rushed for my coat and my hat. As we drove back I asked for the details.
"There is little I can tell you, sir. He has been working at a case down at
Rotherhithe, in an alley near the river, and he has brought this illness back with
him. He took to his bed on Wednesday afternoon and has never moved since. For
these three days neither food nor drink has passed his lips."
"Good God! Why did you not call in a doctor?"
 "He wouldn't have it, sir. You know how masterful he is. I didn't dare to
disobey him. But he's not long for this world, as you'll see for yourself the
moment that you set eyes on him."
He was indeed a deplorable spectacle. In the dim light of a foggy November
day the sick room was a gloomy spot, but it was that gaunt, wasted face staring
at me from the bed which sent a chill to my heart. His eyes had the brightness of
fever, there was a hectic flush upon either cheek, and dark crusts clung to his
lips; the thin hands upon the coverlet twitched incessantly, his voice was
croaking and spasmodic. He lay listlessly as I entered the room, but the sight of
me brought a gleam of recognition to his eyes.
"Well, Watson, we seem to have fallen upon evil days," said he in a feeble
voice, but with something of his old carelessness of manner.
"My dear fellow!" I cried, approaching him.
"Stand back! Stand right back!" said he with the sharp imperiousness which I
had associated only with moments of crisis. "If you approach me, Watson, I shall
order you out of the house."
"But why?"
"Because it is my desire. Is that not enough?"
Yes, Mrs. Hudson was right. He was more masterful than ever. It was pitiful,
however, to see his exhaustion.
"I only wished to help," I explained.
"Exactly! You will help best by doing what you are told."
"Certainly, Holmes."
He relaxed the austerity of his manner.
"You are not angry?" he asked, gasping for breath.
Poor devil, how could I be angry when I saw him lying in such a plight before
me?
"It's for your own sake, Watson," he croaked.
"For my sake?"
"I know what is the matter with me. It is a coolie disease from Sumatra — a
thing that the Dutch know more about than we, though they have made little of it
up to date. One thing only is certain. It is infallibly deadly, and it is horribly
contagious."
He spoke now with a feverish energy, the long hands twitching and jerking as
he motioned me away.
"Contagious by touch, Watson — that's it, by touch. Keep your distance and
all is well."
"Good heavens, Holmes! Do you suppose that such a consideration weighs
with me for an instant? It would not affect me in the case of a stranger. Do you
imagine it would prevent me from doing my duty to so old a friend?"
Again I advanced, but he repulsed me with a look of furious anger.
"If you will stand there I will talk. If you do not you must leave the room."
I have so deep a respect for the extraordinary qualities of Holmes that I have
always deferred to his wishes, even when I least understood them. But now all
my professional instincts were aroused. Let him be my master elsewhere, I at
least was his in a sick room.
"Holmes," said I, "you are not yourself. A sick man is but a child, and so I will
treat you. Whether you like it or not, I will examine your symptoms and treat
you for them."
He looked at me with venomous eyes.
"If I am to have a doctor whether I will or not, let me at least have someone in
whom I have confidence," said he.
"Then you have none in me?"
"In your friendship, certainly. But facts are facts, Watson, and, after all, you
are only a general practitioner with very limited experience and mediocre
qualifications. It is painful to have to say these things, but you leave me no
choice."
I was bitterly hurt.
"Such a remark is unworthy of you, Holmes. It shows me very clearly the
state of your own nerves. But if you have no confidence in me I would not
intrude my services. Let me bring Sir Jasper Meek or Penrose Fisher, or any of
the best men in London. But someone you must have, and that is final. If you
think that I am going to stand here and see you die without either helping you
myself or bringing anyone else to help you, then you have mistaken your man."
"You mean well, Watson," said the sick man with something between a sob
and a groan. "Shall I demonstrate your own ignorance? What do you know, pray,
of Tapanuli fever? What do you know of the black Formosa corruption?"
"I have never heard of either."
"There are many problems of disease, many strange pathological possibilities,
in the East, Watson." He paused after each sentence to collect his failing
strength. "I have learned so much during some recent researches which have a
medico-criminal aspect. It was in the course of them that I contracted this
complaint. You can do nothing."
"Possibly not. But I happen to know that Dr. Ainstree, the greatest living
authority upon tropical disease, is now in London. All remonstrance is useless,
Holmes, I am going this instant to fetch him." I turned resolutely to the door.
Never have I had such a shock! In an instant, with a tigerspring, the dying
man had intercepted me. I heard the sharp snap of a twisted key. The next
moment he had staggered back to his bed, exhausted and panting after his one
tremendous outflame of energy.
"You won't take the key from me by force, Watson. I've got you, my friend.
Here you are, and here you will stay until I will otherwise. But I'll humour you."
(All this in little gasps, with terrible struggles for breath between.) "You've only
my own good at heart. Of course I know that very well. You shall have your
way, but give me time to get my strength. Not now, Watson, not now. It's four
o'clock. At six you can go."
"This is insanity, Holmes."
"Only two hours, Watson. I promise you will go at six. Are you content to
wait?"
"I seem to have no choice."
"None in the world, Watson. Thank you, I need no help in arranging the
clothes. You will please keep your distance. Now, Watson, there is one other
condition that I would make. You will seek help, not from the man you mention,
but from the one that I choose."
"By all means."
"The first three sensible words that you have uttered since you entered this
room, Watson. You will find some books over there. I am somewhat exhausted; I
wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor? At
six, Watson, we resume our conversation."
But it was destined to be resumed long before that hour, and in circumstances
which gave me a shock hardly second to that caused by his spring to the door. I
had stood for some minutes looking at the silent figure in the bed. His face was
almost covered by the clothes and he appeared to be asleep. Then, unable to
settle down to reading, I walked slowly round the room, examining the pictures
of celebrated criminals with which every wall was adorned. Finally, in my
aimless perambulation, I came to the mantelpiece. A litter of pipes, tobacco-
pouches, syringes, penknives, revolver-cartridges, and other debris was scattered
over it. In the midst of these was a small black and white ivory box with a
sliding lid. It was a neat little thing, and I had stretched out my hand to examine
it more closely when — It was a dreadful cry that he gave — a yell which might
have been heard down the street. My skin went cold and my hair bristled at that
horrible scream. As I turned I caught a glimpse of a convulsed face and frantic
eyes. I stood paralyzed, with the little box in my hand.
"Put it down! Down, this instant, Watson — this instant, I say!" His head sank
back upon the pillow and he gave a deep sigh of relief as I replaced the box upon
the mantelpiece. "I hate to have my things touched, Watson. You know that I
hate it. You fidget me beyond endurance. You, a doctor — you are enough to
drive a patient into an asylum. Sit down, man, and let me have my rest!"
The incident left a most unpleasant impression upon my mind. The violent
and causeless excitement, followed by this brutality of speech, so far removed
from his usual suavity, showed me how deep was the disorganization of his
mind. Of all ruins, that of a noble mind is the most deplorable. I sat in silent
dejection until the stipulated time had passed. He seemed to have been watching
the clock as well as I, for it was hardly six before he began to talk with the same
feverish animation as before.
"Now, Watson," said he. "Have you any change in your pocket?"
"Yes."
"Any silver?"
"A good deal."
"How many half-crowns?"
"I have five."
"Ah, too few! Too few! How very unfortunate, Watson! However, such as
they are you can put them in your watchpocket. And all the rest of your money
in your left trouserpocket. Thank you. It will balance you so much better like
that."
This was raving insanity. He shuddered, and again made a sound between a
cough and a sob.
"You will now light the gas, Watson, but you will be very careful that not for
one instant shall it be more than half on. I implore you to be careful, Watson.
Thank you, that is excellent. No, you need not draw the blind. Now you will
have the kindness to place some letters and papers upon this table within my
reach. Thank you. Now some of that litter from the mantelpiece. Excellent,
Watson! There is a sugar-tongs there. Kindly raise that small ivory box with its
assistance. Place it here among the papers. Good! You can now go and fetch Mr.
Culverton Smith, of 13 Lower Burke Street."
To tell the truth, my desire to fetch a doctor had somewhat weakened, for poor
Holmes was so obviously delirious that it seemed dangerous to leave him.
However, he was as eager now to consult the person named as he had been
obstinate in refusing.
"I never heard the name," said I.
"Possibly not, my good Watson. It may surprise you to know that the man
upon earth who is best versed in this disease is not a medical man, but a planter.
Mr. Culverton Smith is a wellknown resident of Sumatra, now visiting London.
An outbreak of the disease upon his plantation, which was distant from medical
aid, caused him to study it himself, with some rather far-reaching consequences.
He is a very methodical person, and I did not desire you to start before six,
because I was well aware that you would not find him in his study. If you could
persuade him to come here and give us the benefit of his unique experience of
this disease, the investigation of which has been his dearest hobby, I cannot
doubt that he could help me."
I give Holmes's remarks as a consecutive whole and will not attempt to
indicate how they were interrupted by gaspings for breath and those clutchings
of his hands which indicated the pain from which he was suffering. His
appearance had changed for the worse during the few hours that I had been with
him. Those hectic spots were more pronounced, the eyes shone more brightly out
of darker hollows, and a cold sweat glimmered upon his brow. He still retained,
however, the jaunty gallantry of his speech. To the last gasp he would always be
the master.
"You will tell him exactly how you have left me," said he. "You will convey
the very impression which is in your own mind — a dying man — a dying and
delirious man. Indeed, I cannot think why the whole bed of the ocean is not one
solid mass of oysters, so prolific the creatures seem. Ah, I am wandering!
Strange how the brain controls the brain! What was I saying, Watson?"
"My directions for Mr. Culverton Smith."
"Ah, yes, I remember. My life depends upon it. Plead with him, Watson. There
is no good feeling between us. His nephew, Watson — I had suspicions of foul
play and I allowed him to see it. The boy died horribly. He has a grudge against
me. You will soften him, Watson. Beg him, pray him, get him here by any
means. He can save me — only he!"
"I will bring him in a cab, if I have to carry him down to it."
"You will do nothing of the sort. You will persuade him to come. And then
you will return in front of him. Make any excuse so as not to come with him.
Don't forget, Watson. You won't fail me. You never did fail me. No doubt there
are natural enemies which limit the increase of the creatures. You and I, Watson,
we have done our part. Shall the world, then, be overrun by oysters? No, no;
horrible! You'll convey all that is in your mind."
I left him full of the image of this magnificent intellect babbling like a foolish
child. He had handed me the key, and with a happy thought I took it with me lest
he should lock himself in. Mrs. Hudson was waiting, trembling and weeping, in
the passage. Behind me as I passed from the flat I heard Holmes's high, thin
voice in some delirious chant. Below, as I stood whistling for a cab, a man came
on me through the fog.
"How is Mr. Holmes, sir?" he asked.
It was an old acquaintance, Inspector Morton, of Scotland Yard, dressed in
unofficial tweeds.
 "He is very ill," I answered.
He looked at me in a most singular fashion. Had it not been too fiendish, I
could have imagined that the gleam of the fanlight showed exultation in his face.
"I heard some rumour of it," said he.
The cab had driven up, and I left him.
Lower Burke Street proved to be a line of fine houses lying in the vague
borderland between Notting Hill and Kensington. The particular one at which
my cabman pulled up had an air of smug and demure respectability in its old-
fashioned iron railings, its massive folding-door, and its shining brasswork. All
was in keeping with a solemn butler who appeared framed in the pink radiance
of a tinted electric light behind him.
"Yes, Mr. Culverton Smith is in. Dr. Watson! Very good, sir, I will take up
your card."
My humble name and title did not appear to impress Mr. Culverton Smith.
Through the half-open door I heard a high, petulant, penetrating voice.
"Who is this person? What does he want? Dear me, Staples, how often have I
said that I am not to be disturbed in my hours of study?"
There came a gentle flow of soothing explanation from the butler.
"Well, I won't see him, Staples. I can't have my work interrupted like this. I
am not at home. Say so. Tell him to come in the morning if he really must see
me."
Again the gentle murmur.
"Well, well, give him that message. He can come in the morning, or he can
stay away. My work must not be hindered."
I thought of Holmes tossing upon his bed of sickness and counting the
minutes, perhaps, until I could bring help to him. It was not a time to stand upon
ceremony. His life depended upon my promptness. Before the apologetic butler
had delivered his message I had pushed past him and was in the room.
With a shrill cry of anger a man rose from a reclining chair beside the fire. I
saw a great yellow face, coarse-grained and greasy, with heavy, double-chin, and
two sullen, menacing gray eyes which glared at me from under tufted and sandy
brows. A high bald head had a small velvet smoking-cap poised coquettishly
upon one side of its pink curve. The skull was of enormous capacity, and yet as I
looked down I saw to my amazement that the figure of the man was small and
frail, twisted in the shoulders and back like one who has suffered from rickets in
his childhood.
"What's this?" he cried in a high, screaming voice. "What is the meaning of
this intrusion? Didn't I send you word that I would see you to-morrow morning?"
"I am sorry," said I, "but the matter cannot be delayed. Mr. Sherlock Holmes
—"
The mention of my friend's name had an extraordinary effect upon the little
man. The look of anger passed in an instant from his face. His features became
tense and alert.
"Have you come from Holmes?" he asked.
"I have just left him."
"What about Holmes? How is he?"
"He is desperately ill. That is why I have come."
The man motioned me to a chair, and turned to resume his own. As he did so I
caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror over the mantelpiece. I could have
sworn that it was set in a malicious and abominable smile. Yet I persuaded
myself that it must have been some nervous contraction which I had surprised,
for he turned to me an instant later with genuine concern upon his features.
"I am sorry to hear this," said he. "I only know Mr. Holmes through some
business dealings which we have had, but I have every respect for his talents and
his character. He is an amateur of crime, as I am of disease. For him the villain,
for me the microbe. There are my prisons," he continued, pointing to a row of
bottles and jars which stood upon a side table. "Among those gelatine
cultivations some of the very worst offenders in the world are now doing time."
"It was on account of your special knowledge that Mr. Holmes desired to see
you. He has a high opinion of you and thought that you were the one man in
London who could help him."
The little man started, and the jaunty smoking-cap slid to the floor.
"Why?" he asked. "Why should Mr. Holmes think that I could help him in his
trouble?"
"Because of your knowledge of Eastern diseases."
"But why should he think that this disease which he has contracted is
Eastern?"
"Because, in some professional inquiry, he has been working among Chinese
sailors down in the docks."
Mr. Culverton Smith smiled pleasantly and picked up his smoking-cap.
"Oh, that's it — is it?" said he. "I trust the matter is not so grave as you
suppose. How long has he been ill?"
"About three days."
"Is he delirious?"
"Occasionally."
"Tut, tut! This sounds serious. It would be inhuman not to answer his call. I
very much resent any interruption to my work, Dr. Watson, but this case is
certainly exceptional. I will come with you at once."
 I remembered Holmes's injunction.
"I have another appointment," said I.
"Very good. I will go alone. I have a note of Mr. Holmes's address. You can
rely upon my being there within half an hour at most."
It was with a sinking heart that I reentered Holmes's bedroom. For all that I
knew the worst might have happened in my absence. To my enormous relief, he
had improved greatly in the interval. His appearance was as ghastly as ever, but
all trace of delirium had left him and he spoke in a feeble voice, it is true, but
with even more than his usual crispness and lucidity.
"Well, did you see him, Watson?"
"Yes; he is coming."
"Admirable, Watson! Admirable! You are the best of messengers."
"He wished to return with me."
"That would never do, Watson. That would be obviously impossible. Did he
ask what ailed me?"
"I told him about the Chinese in the East End."
"Exactly! Well, Watson, you have done all that a good friend could. You can
now disappear from the scene."
"I must wait and hear his opinion, Holmes."
"Of course you must. But I have reasons to suppose that this opinion would be
very much more frank and valuable if he imagines that we are alone. There is
just room behind the head of my bed, Watson."
"My dear Holmes!"
"I fear there is no alternative, Watson. The room does not lend itself to
concealment, which is as well, as it is the less likely to arouse suspicion. But just
there, Watson, I fancy that it could be done." Suddenly he sat up with a rigid
intentness upon his haggard face. "There are the wheels, Watson. Quick, man, if
you love me! And don't budge, whatever happens — whatever happens, do you
hear? Don't speak! Don't move! Just listen with all your ears." Then in an instant
his sudden access of strength departed, and his masterful, purposeful talk droned
away into the low, vague murmurings of a semi-dellrious man.
From the hiding-place into which I had been so swiftly hustled I heard the
footfalls upon the stair, with the opening and the closing of the bedroom door.
Then, to my surprise, there came a long silence, broken only by the heavy
breathings and gaspings of the sick man. I could imagine that our visitor was
standing by the bedside and looking down at the sufferer. At last that strange
hush was broken.
"Holmes!" he cried. "Holmes!" in the insistent tone of one who awakens a
sleeper. "Can't you hear me, Holmes?" There was a rustling, as if he had shaken
the sick man roughly by the shoulder.
"Is that you, Mr. Smith?" Holmes whispered. "I hardly dared hope that you
would come."
The other laughed.
"I should imagine not," he said. "And yet, you see, I am here. Coals of fire,
Holmes — coals of fire!"
"It is very good of you — very noble of you. I appreciate your special
knowledge."
Our visitor sniggered.
"You do. You are, fortunately, the only man in London who does. Do you
know what is the matter with you?"
"The same," said Holmes.
"Ah! You recognize the symptoms?"
"Only too well."
"Well, I shouldn't be surprised, Holmes. I shouldn't be surprised if it were the
same. A bad lookout for you if it is. Poor Victor was a dead man on the fourth
day — a strong, hearty young fellow. It was certainly, as you said, very
surprising that he should have contracted an out-of-the-way Asiatic disease in
the heart of London — a disease, too, of which I had made such a very special
study. Singular coincidence, Holmes. Very smart of you to notice it, but rather
uncharitable to suggest that it was cause and effect."
"I knew that you did it."
"Oh, you did, did you? Well, you couldn't prove it, anyhow. But what do you
think of yourself spreading reports about me like that, and then crawling to me
for help the moment you are in trouble? What sort of a game is that — eh?"
I heard the rasping, laboured breathing of the sick man. "Give me the water!"
he gasped.
"You're precious near your end, my friend, but I don't want you to go till I
have had a word with you. That's why I give you water. There, don't slop it
about! That's right. Can you understand what I say?"
Holmes groaned.
"Do what you can for me. Let bygones be bygones," he whispered. "I'll put the
words out of my head — I swear I will. Only cure me, and I'll forget it."
"Forget what?"
"Well, about Victor Savage's death. You as good as admitted just now that you
had done it. I'll forget it."
"You can forget it or remember it, just as you like. I don't see you in the
witness-box. Quite another shaped box, my good Holmes, I assure you. It
matters nothing to me that you should know how my nephew died. It's not him
we are talking about. It's you."
"Yes, yes."
"The fellow who came for me — I've forgotten his name — said that you
contracted it down in the East End among the sailors."
"I could only account for it so."
"You are proud of your brains, Holmes, are you not? Think yourself smart,
don't you? You came across someone who was smarter this time. Now cast your
mind back, Holmes. Can you think of no other way you could have got this
thing?"
"I can't think. My mind is gone. For heaven's sake help me! "
"Yes, I will help you. I'll help you to understand just where you are and how
you got there. I'd like you to know before you die."
"Give me something to ease my pain."
"Painful, is it? Yes, the coolies used to do some squealing towards the end.
Takes you as cramp, I fancy."
"Yes, yes; it is cramp."
"Well, you can hear what I say, anyhow. Listen now! Can you remember any
unusual incident in your life just about the time your symptoms began?"
"No, no; nothing."
"Think again."
"I'm too ill to think."
"Well, then, I'll help you. Did anything come by post?"
"By post?"
"A box by chance?"
"I'm fainting — I'm gone!"
"Listen, Holmes!" There was a sound as if he was shaking the dying man, and
it was all that I could do to hold myself quiet in my hiding-place. "You must hear
me. You shall hear me. Do you remember a box — an ivory box? It came on
Wednesday. You opened it — do you remember?"
"Yes, yes, I opened it. There was a sharp spring inside it. Some joke —"
"It was no joke, as you will find to your cost. You fool, you would have it and
you have got it. Who asked you to cross my path? If you had left me alone I
would not have hurt you."
"I remember," Holmes gasped. "The spring! It drew blood. This box — this on
the table."
"The very one, by George! And it may as well leave the room in my pocket.
There goes your last shred of evidence. But you have the truth now, Holmes, and
you can die with the knowledge that I killed you. You knew too much of the fate
of Victor Savage, so I have sent you to share it. You are very near your end,
Holmes. I will sit here and I will watch you die."
Holmes's voice had sunk to an almost inaudible whisper.
"What is that?" said Smith. "Turn up the gas? Ah, the shadows begin to fall,
do they? Yes, I will turn it up, that I may see you the better." He crossed the
room and the light suddenly brightened. "Is there any other little service that I
can do you, my friend?"
"A match and a cigarette."
I nearly called out in my joy and my amazement. He was speaking in his
natural voice — a little weak, perhaps, but the very voice I knew. There was a
long pause, and I felt that Culverton Smith was standing in silent amazement
looking down at his companion.
"What's the meaning of this?" I heard him say at last in a dry, rasping tone.
"The best way of successfully acting a part is to be it," said Holmes. "I give
you my word that for three days I have tasted neither food nor drink until you
were good enough to pour me out that glass of water. But it is the tobacco which
I find most irksome. Ah, here are some cigarettes." I heard the striking of a
match. "That is very much better. Halloa! halloa! Do I hear the step of a friend?"
There were footfalls outside, the door opened, and Inspector Morton appeared.
"All is in order and this is your man," said Holmes.
The officer gave the usual cautions.
"I arrest you on the charge of the murder of one Victor Savage," he concluded.
"And you might add of the attempted murder of one Sherlock Holmes,"
remarked my friend with a chuckle. "To save an invalid trouble, Inspector, Mr.
Culverton Smith was good enough to give our signal by turning up the gas. By
the way, the prisoner has a small box in the right-hand pocket of his coat which it
would be as well to remove. Thank you. I would handle it gingerly if I were you.
Put it down here. It may play its part in the trial."
There was a sudden rush and a scuffle, followed by the clash of iron and a cry
of pain.
"You'll only get yourself hurt," said the inspector. "Stand still, will you?"
There was the click of the closing handcuffs.
"A nice trap!" cried the high, snarling voice. "It will bring you into the dock,
Holmes, not me. He asked me to come here to cure him. I was sorry for him and
I came. Now he will pretend, no doubt, that I have said anything which he may
invent which will corroborate his insane suspicions. You can lie as you like,
Holmes. My word is always as good as yours."
"Good heavens!" cried Holmes. "I had totally forgotten him. My dear Watson,
I owe you a thousand apologies. To think that I should have overlooked you! I
need not introduce you to Mr. Culverton Smith, since I understand that you met
somewhat earlier in the evening. Have you the cab below? I will follow you
when I am dressed, for I may be of some use at the station.
"I never needed it more," said Holmes as he refreshed himself with a glass of
claret and some biscuits in the intervals of his toilet. "However, as you know, my
habits are irregular, and such a feat means less to me than to most men. It was
very essential that I should impress Mrs. Hudson with the reality of my
condition, since she was to convey it to you, and you in turn to him. You won't
be offended, Watson? You will realize that among your many talents
dissimulation finds no place, and that if you had shared my secret you would
never have been able to impress Smith with the urgent necessity of his presence,
which was the vital point of the whole scheme. Knowing his vindictive nature, I
was perfectly certain that he would come to look upon his handiwork."
"But your appearance, Holmes — your ghastly face?"
"Three days of absolute fast does not improve one's beauty, Watson. For the
rest, there is nothing which a sponge may not cure. With vaseline upon one's
forehead, belladonna in one's eyes, rouge over the cheek-bones, and crusts of
beeswax round one's lips, a very satisfying effect can be produced. Malingering
is a subject upon which I have sometimes thought of writing a monograph. A
little occasional talk about half-crowns, oysters-, or any other extraneous subject
produces a pleasing effect of delirium."
"But why would you not let me near you, since there was in truth no
infection?"
"Can you ask, my dear Watson? Do you imagine that I have no respect for
your medical talents? Could I fancy that your astute judgment would pass a
dying man who, however weak, had no rise of pulse or temperature? At four
yards, I could deceive you. If I failed to do so, who would bring my Smith
within my grasp? No, Watson, I would not touch that box. You can just see if
you look at it sideways where the sharp spring like a viper's tooth emerges as
you open it. I dare say it was by some such device that poor Savage, who stood
between this monster and a reversion, was done to death. My correspondence,
however, is, as you know, a varied one, and I am somewhat upon my guard
against any packages which reach me. It was clear to me, however, that by
pretending that he had really succeeded in his design I might surprise a
confession. That pretence I have carried out with the thoroughness of the true
artist. Thank you, Watson, you must help me on with my coat. When we have
finished at the police-station I think that something nutritious at Simpson's
would not be out of place."
Chapter 6
The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax
"But why Turkish?" asked Mr. Sherlock Holmes, gazing fixedly at my boots. I
was reclining in a cane-backed chair at the moment, and my protruded feet had
attracted his ever-active attention.
"English," I answered in some surprise. "I got them at Latimer's, in Oxford
Street."
Holmes smiled with an expression of weary patience.
"The bath!" he said; "the bath! Why the relaxing and expensive Turkish rather
than the invigorating home-made article?"
"Because for the last few days I have been feeling rheumatic and old. A
Turkish bath is what we call an alterative in medicine—a fresh starting-point, a
cleanser of the system.
"By the way, Holmes," I added, "I have no doubt the connection between my
boots and a Turkish bath is a perfectly self-evident one to a logical mind, and yet
I should be obliged to you if you would indicate it."
"The train of reasoning is not very obscure, Watson," said Holmes with a
mischievous twinkle. "It belongs to the same elementary class of deduction
which I should illustrate if I were to ask you who shared your cab in your drive
this morning."
"I don't admit that a fresh illustration is an explanation," said I with some
asperity.
"Bravo, Watson! A very dignified and logical remonstrance. Let me see, what
were the points? Take the last one first—the cab. You observe that you have
some splashes on the left sleeve and shoulder of your coat. Had you sat in the
centre of a hansom you would probably have had no splashes, and if you had
they would certainly have been symmetrical. Therefore it is clear that you sat at
the side. Therefore it is equally clear that you had a companion."
"That is very evident."
"Absurdly commonplace, is it not?"
"But the boots and the bath?"
"Equally childish. You are in the habit of doing up your boots in a certain way.
I see them on this occasion fastened with an elaborate double bow, which is not
your usual method of tying them. You have, therefore, had them off. Who has
tied them? A bootmaker—or the boy at the bath. It is unlikely that it is the
bootmaker, since your boots are nearly new. Well, what remains? The bath.
Absurd, is it not? But, for all that, the Turkish bath has served a purpose."
"What is that?"
"You say that you have had it because you need a change. Let me suggest that
you take one. How would Lausanne do, my dear Watson—first-class tickets and
all expenses paid on a princely scale?"
"Splendid! But why?"
Holmes leaned back in his armchair and took his notebook from his pocket.
"One of the most dangerous classes in the world," said he, "is the drifting and
friendless woman. She is the most harmless and often the most useful of mortals,
but she is the inevitable inciter of crime in others. She is helpless. She is
migratory. She has sufficient means to take her from country to country and from
hotel to hotel. She is lost, as often as not, in a maze of obscure pensions and
boardinghouses. She is a stray chicken in a world of foxes. When she is gobbled
up she is hardly missed. I much fear that some evil has come to the Lady Frances
Carfax."
I was relieved at this sudden descent from the general to the particular.
Holmes consulted his notes.
"Lady Frances," he continued, "is the sole survivor of the direct family of the
late Earl of Rufton. The estates went, as you may remember, in the male line.
She was left with limited means, but with some very remarkable old Spanish
jewellery of silver and curiously cut diamonds to which she was fondly attached
—too attached, for she refused to leave them with her banker and always carried
them about with her. A rather pathetic figure, the Lady Frances, a beautiful
woman, still in fresh middle age, and yet, by a strange change, the last derelict of
what only twenty years ago was a goodly fleet."
"What has happened to her, then?"
"Ah, what has happened to the Lady Frances? Is she alive or dead? There is
our problem. She is a lady of precise habits, and for four years it has been her
invariable custom to write every second week to Miss Dobney, her old
governess, who has long retired and lives in Camberwell. It is this Miss Dobney
who has consulted me. Nearly five weeks have passed without a word. The last
letter was from the Hotel National at Lausanne. Lady Frances seems to have left
there and given no address. The family are anxious, and as they are exceedingly
wealthy no sum will be spared if we can clear the matter up."
"Is Miss Dobney the only source of information? Surely she had other
correspondents?"
"There is one correspondent who is a sure draw, Watson. That is the bank.
Single ladies must live, and their passbooks are compressed diaries. She banks at
Silvester's. I have glanced over her account. The last check but one paid her bill
at Lausanne, but it was a large one and probably left her with cash in hand. Only
one check has been drawn since."
"To whom, and where?"
"To Miss Marie Devine. There is nothing to show where the check was drawn.
It was cashed at the Credit Lyonnais at Montpellier less than three weeks ago.
The sum was fifty pounds."
"And who is Miss Marie Devine?"
"That also I have been able to discover. Miss Marie Devine was the maid of
Lady Frances Carfax. Why she should have paid her this check we have not yet
determined. I have no doubt, however, that your researches will soon clear the
matter up."
"MY researches!"
"Hence the health-giving expedition to Lausanne. You know that I cannot
possibly leave London while old Abrahams is in such mortal terror of his life.
Besides, on general principles it is best that I should not leave the country.
Scotland Yard feels lonely without me, and it causes an unhealthy excitement
among the criminal classes. Go, then, my dear Watson, and if my humble
counsel can ever be valued at so extravagant a rate as two pence a word, it waits
your disposal night and day at the end of the Continental wire."
Two days later found me at the Hotel National at Lausanne, where I received
every courtesy at the hands of M. Moser, the well-known manager. Lady
Frances, as he informed me, had stayed there for several weeks. She had been
much liked by all who met her. Her age was not more than forty. She was still
handsome and bore every sign of having in her youth been a very lovely woman.
M. Moser knew nothing of any valuable jewellery, but it had been remarked by
the servants that the heavy trunk in the lady's bedroom was always scrupulously
locked. Marie Devine, the maid, was as popular as her mistress. She was actually
engaged to one of the head waiters in the hotel, and there was no difficulty in
getting her address. It was 11 Rue de Trajan, Montpellier. All this I jotted down
and felt that Holmes himself could not have been more adroit in collecting his
facts.
Only one corner still remained in the shadow. No light which I possessed
could clear up the cause for the lady's sudden departure. She was very happy at
Lausanne. There was every reason to believe that she intended to remain for the
season in her luxurious rooms overlooking the lake. And yet she had left at a
single day's notice, which involved her in the useless payment of a week's rent.
Only Jules Vibart, the lover of the maid, had any suggestion to offer. He
connected the sudden departure with the visit to the hotel a day or two before of
a tall, dark, bearded man. "Un sauvage—un veritable sauvage!" cried Jules
Vibart. The man had rooms somewhere in the town. He had been seen talking
earnestly to Madame on the promenade by the lake. Then he had called. She had
refused to see him. He was English, but of his name there was no record.
Madame had left the place immediately afterwards. Jules Vibart, and, what was
of more importance, Jules Vibart's sweetheart, thought that this call and the
departure were cause and effect. Only one thing Jules would not discuss. That
was the reason why Marie had left her mistress. Of that he could or would say
nothing. If I wished to know, I must go to Montpellier and ask her.
So ended the first chapter of my inquiry. The second was devoted to the place
which Lady Frances Carfax had sought when she left Lausanne. Concerning this
there had been some secrecy, which confirmed the idea that she had gone with
the intention of throwing someone off her track. Otherwise why should not her
luggage have been openly labelled for Baden? Both she and it reached the
Rhenish spa by some circuitous route. This much I gathered from the manager of
Cook's local office. So to Baden I went, after dispatching to Holmes an account
of all my proceedings and receiving in reply a telegram of half-humorous
commendation.
At Baden the track was not difficult to follow. Lady Frances had stayed at the
Englischer Hof for a fortnight. While there she had made the acquaintance of a
Dr. Shlessinger and his wife, a missionary from South America. Like most
lonely ladies, Lady Frances found her comfort and occupation in religion. Dr.
Shlessinger's remarkable personality, his whole hearted devotion, and the fact
that he was recovering from a disease contracted in the exercise of his apostolic
duties affected her deeply. She had helped Mrs. Shlessinger in the nursing of the
convalescent saint. He spent his day, as the manager described it to me, upon a
lounge-chair on the veranda, with an attendant lady upon either side of him. He
was preparing a map of the Holy Land, with special reference to the kingdom of
the Midianites, upon which he was writing a monograph. Finally, having
improved much in health, he and his wife had returned to London, and Lady
Frances had started thither in their company. This was just three weeks before,
and the manager had heard nothing since. As to the maid, Marie, she had gone
off some days beforehand in floods of tears, after informing the other maids that
she was leaving service forever. Dr. Shlessinger had paid the bill of the whole
party before his departure.
"By the way," said the landlord in conclusion, "you are not the only friend of
Lady Frances Carfax who is inquiring after her just now. Only a week or so ago
we had a man here upon the same errand."
"Did he give a name?" I asked.
"None; but he was an Englishman, though of an unusual type."
"A savage?" said I, linking my facts after the fashion of my illustrious friend.
"Exactly. That describes him very well. He is a bulky, bearded, sunburned
fellow, who looks as if he would be more at home in a farmers' inn than in a
fashionable hotel. A hard, fierce man, I should think, and one whom I should be
sorry to offend."
Already the mystery began to define itself, as figures grow clearer with the
lifting of a fog. Here was this good and pious lady pursued from place to place
by a sinister and unrelenting figure. She feared him, or she would not have fled
from Lausanne. He had still followed. Sooner or later he would overtake her.
Had he already overtaken her? Was THAT the secret of her continued silence?
Could the good people who were her companions not screen her from his
violence or his blackmail? What horrible purpose, what deep design, lay behind
this long pursuit? There was the problem which I had to solve.
To Holmes I wrote showing how rapidly and surely I had got down to the
roots of the matter. In reply I had a telegram asking for a description of Dr.
Shlessinger's left ear. Holmes's ideas of humour are strange and occasionally
offensive, so I took no notice of his ill-timed jest—indeed, I had already reached
Montpellier in my pursuit of the maid, Marie, before his message came.
I had no difficulty in finding the ex-servant and in learning all that she could
tell me. She was a devoted creature, who had only left her mistress because she
was sure that she was in good hands, and because her own approaching marriage
made a separation inevitable in any case. Her mistress had, as she confessed with
distress, shown some irritability of temper towards her during their stay in
Baden, and had even questioned her once as if she had suspicions of her honesty,
and this had made the parting easier than it would otherwise have been. Lady
Frances had given her fifty pounds as a wedding-present. Like me, Marie viewed
with deep distrust the stranger who had driven her mistress from Lausanne. With
her own eyes she had seen him seize the lady's wrist with great violence on the
public promenade by the lake. He was a fierce and terrible man. She believed
that it was out of dread of him that Lady Frances had accepted the escort of the
Shlessingers to London. She had never spoken to Marie about it, but many little
signs had convinced the maid that her mistress lived in a state of continual
nervous apprehension. So far she had got in her narrative, when suddenly she
sprang from her chair and her face was convulsed with surprise and fear. "See!"
she cried. "The miscreant follows still! There is the very man of whom I speak."
 Through the open sitting-room window I saw a huge, swarthy man with a
bristling black beard walking slowly down the centre of the street and staring
eagerly at he numbers of the houses. It was clear that, like myself, he was on the
track of the maid. Acting upon the impulse of the moment, I rushed out and
accosted him.
"You are an Englishman," I said.
"What if I am?" he asked with a most villainous scowl.
"May I ask what your name is?"
"No, you may not," said he with decision.
The situation was awkward, but the most direct way is often the best.
"Where is the Lady Frances Carfax?" I asked.
He stared at me with amazement.
"What have you done with her? Why have you pursued her? I insist upon an
answer!" said I.
The fellow gave a below of anger and sprang upon me like a tiger. I have held
my own in many a struggle, but the man had a grip of iron and the fury of a
fiend. His hand was on my throat and my senses were nearly gone before an
unshaven French ouvrier in a blue blouse darted out from a cabaret opposite,
with a cudgel in his hand, and struck my assailant a sharp crack over the
forearm, which made him leave go his hold. He stood for an instant fuming with
rage and uncertain whether he should not renew his attack. Then, with a snarl of
anger, he left me and entered the cottage from which I had just come. I turned to
thank my preserver, who stood beside me in the roadway.
"Well, Watson," said he, "a very pretty hash you have made of it! I rather think
you had better come back with me to London by the night express."
An hour afterwards, Sherlock Holmes, in his usual garb and style, was seated
in my private room at the hotel. His explanation of his sudden and opportune
appearance was simplicity itself, for, finding that he could get away from
London, he determined to head me off at the next obvious point of my travels. In
the disguise of a workingman he had sat in the cabaret waiting for my
appearance.
"And a singularly consistent investigation you have made, my dear Watson,"
said he. "I cannot at the moment recall any possible blunder which you have
omitted. The total effect of your proceeding has been to give the alarm
everywhere and yet to discover nothing."
"Perhaps you would have done no better," I answered bitterly.
"There is no 'perhaps' about it. I HAVE done better. Here is the Hon. Philip
Green, who is a fellow-lodger with you in this hotel, and we may find him the
starting-point for a more successful investigation."
 A card had come up on a salver, and it was followed by the same bearded
ruffian who had attacked me in the street. He started when he saw me.
"What is this, Mr. Holmes?" he asked. "I had your note and I have come. But
what has this man to do with the matter?"
"This is my old friend and associate, Dr. Watson, who is helping us in this
affair."
The stranger held out a huge, sunburned hand, with a few words of apology.
"I hope I didn't harm you. When you accused me of hurting her I lost my grip
of myself. Indeed, I'm not responsible in these days. My nerves are like live
wires. But this situation is beyond me. What I want to know, in the first place,
Mr. Holmes, is, how in the world you came to hear of my existence at all."
"I am in touch with Miss Dobney, Lady Frances's governess."
"Old Susan Dobney with the mob cap! I remember her well."
"And she remembers you. It was in the days before—before you found it
better to go to South Africa."
"Ah, I see you know my whole story. I need hide nothing from you. I swear to
you, Mr. Holmes, that there never was in this world a man who loved a woman
with a more wholehearted love than I had for Frances. I was a wild youngster, I
know—not worse than others of my class. But her mind was pure as snow. She
could not bear a shadow of coarseness. So, when she came to hear of things that
I had done, she would have no more to say to me. And yet she loved me—that is
the wonder of it!—loved me well enough to remain single all her sainted days
just for my sake alone. When the years had passed and I had made my money at
Barberton I thought perhaps I could seek her out and soften her. I had heard that
she was still unmarried, I found her at Lausanne and tried all I knew. She
weakened, I think, but her will was strong, and when next I called she had left
the town. I traced her to Baden, and then after a time heard that her maid was
here. I'm a rough fellow, fresh from a rough life, and when Dr. Watson spoke to
me as he did I lost hold of myself for a moment. But for God's sake tell me what
has become of the Lady Frances."
"That is for us to find out," said Sherlock Holmes with peculiar gravity. "What
is your London address, Mr. Green?"
"The Langham Hotel will find me."
"Then may I recommend that you return there and be on hand in case I should
want you? I have no desire to encourage false hopes, but you may rest assured
that all that can be done will be done for the safety of Lady Frances. I can say no
more for the instant. I will leave you this card so that you may be able to keep in
touch with us. Now, Watson, if you will pack your bag I will cable to Mrs.
Hudson to make one of her best efforts for two hungry travellers at 7:30 to-
morrow."
A telegram was awaiting us when we reached our Baker Street rooms, which
Holmes read with an exclamation of interest and threw across to me. "Jagged or
torn," was the message, and the place of origin, Baden.
"What is this?" I asked.
"It is everything," Holmes answered. "You may remember my seemingly
irrelevant question as to this clerical gentleman's left ear. You did not answer it."
"I had left Baden and could not inquire."
"Exactly. For this reason I sent a duplicate to the manager of the Englischer
Hof, whose answer lies here."
"What does it show?"
"It shows, my dear Watson, that we are dealing with an exceptionally astute
and dangerous man. The Rev. Dr. Shlessinger, missionary from South America,
is none other than Holy Peters, one of the most unscrupulous rascals that
Australia has ever evolved—and for a young country it has turned out some very
finished types. His particular specialty is the beguiling of lonely ladies by
playing upon their religious feelings, and his so-called wife, an Englishwoman
named Fraser, is a worthy helpmate. The nature of his tactics suggested his
identity to me, and this physical peculiarity—he was badly bitten in a saloon-
fight at Adelaide in '89—confirmed my suspicion. This poor lady is in the hands
of a most infernal couple, who will stick at nothing, Watson. That she is already
dead is a very likely supposition. If not, she is undoubtedly in some sort of
confinement and unable to write to Miss Dobney or her other friends. It is
always possible that she never reached London, or that she has passed through it,
but the former is improbable, as, with their system of registration, it is not easy
for foreigners to play tricks with the Continental police; and the latter is also
unlikely, as these rouges could not hope to find any other place where it would
be as easy to keep a person under restraint. All my instincts tell me that she is in
London, but as we have at present no possible means of telling where, we can
only take the obvious steps, eat our dinner, and possess our souls in patience.
Later in the evening I will stroll down and have a word with friend Lestrade at
Scotland Yard."
But neither the official police nor Holmes's own small but very efficient
organization sufficed to clear away the mystery. Amid the crowded millions of
London the three persons we sought were as completely obliterated as if they
had never lived. Advertisements were tried, and failed. Clues were followed, and
led to nothing. Every criminal resort which Shlessinger might frequent was
drawn in vain. His old associates were watched, but they kept clear of him. And
then suddenly, after a week of helpless suspense there came a flash of light. A
silver-and-brilliant pendant of old Spanish design had been pawned at
Bovington's, in Westminster Road. The pawner was a large, clean-shaven man of
clerical appearance. His name and address were demonstrably false. The ear had
escaped notice, but the description was surely that of Shlessinger.
Three times had our bearded friend from the Langham called for news—the
third time within an hour of this fresh development. His clothes were getting
looser on his great body. He seemed to be wilting away in his anxiety. "If you
will only give me something to do!" was his constant wail. At last Holmes could
oblige him.
"He has begun to pawn the jewels. We should get him now."
"But does this mean that any harm has befallen the Lady Frances?"
Holmes shook his head very gravely.
"Supposing that they have held her prisoner up to now, it is clear that they
cannot let her loose without their own destruction. We must prepare for the
worst."
"What can I do?"
"These people do not know you by sight?"
"No."
"It is possible that he will go to some other pawnbroker in the future. in that
case, we must begin again. On the other hand, he has had a fair price and no
questions asked, so if he is in need of ready-money he will probably come back
to Bovington's. I will give you a note to them, and they will let you wait in the
shop. If the fellow comes you will follow him home. But no indiscretion, and,
above all, no violence. I put you on your honour that you will take no step
without my knowledge and consent."
For two days the Hon. Philip Green (he was, I may mention, the son of the
famous admiral of that name who commanded the Sea of Azof fleet in the
Crimean War) brought us no news. On the evening of the third he rushed into
our sitting-room, pale, trembling, with every muscle of his powerful frame
quivering with excitement.
"We have him! We have him!" he cried.
He was incoherent in his agitation. Holmes soothed him with a few words and
thrust him into an armchair.
"Come, now, give us the order of events," said he.
"She came only an hour ago. It was the wife, this time, but the pendant she
brought was the fellow of the other. She is a tall, pale woman, with ferret eyes."
"That is the lady," said Holmes.
"She left the office and I followed her. She walked up the Kennington Road,
and I kept behind her. Presently she went into a shop. Mr. Holmes, it was an
undertaker's."
My companion started. "Well?" he asked in that vibrant voice which told of
the fiery soul behind the cold gray face.
"She was talking to the woman behind the counter. I entered as well. 'It is late,'
I heard her say, or words to that effect. The woman was excusing herself. 'It
should be there before now,' she answered. 'It took longer, being out of the
ordinary.' They both stopped and looked at me, so I asked some questions and
then left the shop."
"You did excellently well. What happened next?"
"The woman came out, but I had hid myself in a doorway. Her suspicions had
been aroused, I think, for she looked round her. Then she called a cab and got in.
I was lucky enough to get another and so to follow her. She got down at last at
No. 36, Poultney Square, Brixton. I drove past, left my cab at the corner of the
square, and watched the house."
"Did you see anyone?"
"The windows were all in darkness save one on the lower floor. The blind was
down, and I could not see in. I was standing there, wondering what I should do
next, when a covered van drove up with two men in it. They descended, took
something out of the van, and carried it up the steps to the hall door. Mr. Holmes,
it was a coffin."
"Ah!"
"For an instant I was on the point of rushing in. The door had been opened to
admit the men and their burden. It was the woman who had opened it. But as I
stood there she caught a glimpse of me, and I think that she recognized me. I saw
her start, and she hastily closed the door. I remembered my promise to you, and
here I am."
"You have done excellent work," said Holmes, scribbling a few words upon a
half-sheet of paper. "We can do nothing legal without a warrant, and you can
serve the cause best by taking this note down to the authorities and getting one.
There may be some difficulty, but I should think that the sale of the jewellery
should be sufficient. Lestrade will see to all details."
"But they may murder her in the meanwhile. What could the coffin mean, and
for whom could it be but for her?"
"We will do all that can be done, Mr. Green. Not a moment will be lost. Leave
it in our hands. Now Watson," he added as our client hurried away, "he will set
the regular forces on the move. We are, as usual, the irregulars, and we must take
our own line of action. The situation strikes me as so desperate that the most
extreme measures are justified. Not a moment is to be lost in getting to Poultney
Square.
 "Let us try to reconstruct the situation," said he as we drove swiftly past the
Houses of Parliament and over Westminster Bridge. "These villains have coaxed
this unhappy lady to London, after first alienating her from her faithful maid. If
she has written any letters they have been intercepted. Through some
confederate they have engaged a furnished house. Once inside it, they have made
her a prisoner, and they have become possessed of the valuable jewellery which
has been their object from the first. Already they have begun to sell part of it,
which seems safe enough to them, since they have no reason to think that anyone
is interested in the lady's fate. When she is released she will, of course, denounce
them. Therefore, she must not be released. But they cannot keep her under lock
and key forever. So murder is their only solution."
"That seems very clear."
"Now we will take another line of reasoning. When you follow two deparate
chains of thought, Watson, you will find some point of intersection which should
approximate to the truth. We will start now, not from the lady but from the coffin
and argue backward. That incident proves, I fear, beyond all doubt that the lady
is dead. It points also to an orthodox burial with proper accompaniment of
medical certificate and official sanction. Had the lady been obviously murdered,
they would have buried her in a hole in the back garden. But here all is open and
regular. What does this mean? Surely that they have done her to death in some
way which has deceived the doctor and simulated a natural end—poisoning,
perhaps. And yet how strange that they should ever let a doctor approach her
unless he were a confederate, which is hardly a credible proposition."
"Could they have forged a medical certificate?"
"Dangerous, Watson, very dangerous. No, I hardly see them doing that. Pull
up, cabby! This is evidently the undertaker's, for we have just passed the
pawnbroker's. Would go in, Watson? Your appearance inspires confidence. Ask
what hour the Poultney Square funeral takes place to-morrow."
The woman in the shop answered me without hesitation that it was to be at
eight o'clock in the morning. "You see, Watson, no mystery; everything above-
board! In some way the legal forms have undoubtedly been complied with, and
they think that they have little to fear. Well, there's nothing for it now but a direct
frontal attack. Are you armed?"
"My stick!"
"Well, well, we shall be strong enough. 'Thrice is he armed who hath his
quarrel just.' We simply can't afford to wait for the police or to keep within the
four corners of the law. You can drive off, cabby. Now, Watson, we'll just take
our luck together, as we have occasionally in the past."
He had rung loudly at the door of a great dark house in the centre of Poultney
Square. It was opened immediately, and the figure of a tall woman was outlined
against the dim-lit hall.
"Well, what do you want?" she asked sharply, peering at us through the
darkness.
"I want to speak to Dr. Shlessinger," said Holmes.
"There is no such person here," she answered, and tried to close the door, but
Holmes had jammed it with his foot.
"Well, I want to see the man who lives here, whatever he may call himself,"
said Holmes firmly.
She hesitated. Then she threw open the door. "Well, come in!" said she. "My
husband is not afraid to face any man in the world." She closed the door behind
us and showed us into a sitting-room on the right side of the hall, turning up the
gas as she left us. "Mr. Peters will be with you in an instant," she said.
Her words were literally true, for we had hardly time to look around the dusty
and moth-eaten apartment in which we found ourselves before the door opened
and a big, clean-shaven bald-headed man stepped lightly into the room. He had a
large red face, with pendulous cheeks, and a general air of superficial
benevolence which was marred by a cruel, vicious mouth.
"There is surely some mistake here, gentlemen," he said in an unctuous, make-
everything-easy voice. "I fancy that you have been misdirected. Possibly if you
tried farther down the street—"
"That will do; we have no time to waste," said my companion firmly. "You are
Henry Peters, of Adelaide, late the Rev. Dr. Shlessinger, of Baden and South
America. I am as sure of that as that my own name is Sherlock Holmes."
Peters, as I will now call him, started and stared hard at his formidable
pursuer. "I guess your name does not frighten me, Mr. Holmes," said he coolly.
"When a man's conscience is easy you can't rattle him. What is your business in
my house?"
"I want to know what you have done with the Lady Frances Carfax, whom
you brought away with you from Baden."
"I'd be very glad if you could tell me where that lady may be," Peters
answered coolly. "I've a bill against her for a nearly a hundred pounds, and
nothing to show for it but a couple of trumpery pendants that the dealer would
hardly look at. She attached herself to Mrs. Peters and me at Baden—it is a fact
that I was using another name at the time—and she stuck on to us until we came
to London. I paid her bill and her ticket. Once in London, she gave us the slip,
and, as I say, left these out-of-date jewels to pay her bills. You find her, Mr.
Holmes, and I'm your debtor."
In MEAN to find her," said Sherlock Holmes. "I'm going through this house
till I do find her."
"Where is your warrant?"
Holmes half drew a revolver from his pocket. "This will have to serve till a
better one comes."
"Why, you're a common burglar."
"So you might describe me," said Holmes cheerfully. "My companion is also a
dangerous ruffian. And together we are going through your house."
Our opponent opened the door.
"Fetch a policeman, Annie!" said he. There was a whisk of feminine skirts
down the passage, and the hall door was opened and shut.
"Our time is limited, Watson," said Holmes. "If you try to stop us, Peters, you
will most certainly get hurt. Where is that coffin which was brought into your
house?"
"What do you want with the coffin? It is in use. There is a body in it."
"I must see the body."
"Never with my consent."
"Then without it." With a quick movement Holmes pushed the fellow to one
side and passed into the hall. A door half opened stood immediately before us.
We entered. It was the dining-room. On the table, under a half-lit chandelier, the
coffin was lying. Holmes turned up the gas and raised the lid. Deep down in the
recesses of the coffin lay an emaciated figure. The glare from the lights above
beat down upon an aged and withered face. By no possible process of cruelty,
starvation, or disease could this wornout wreck be the still beautiful Lady
Frances. Holmes's face showed his amazement, and also his relief.
"Thank God!" he muttered. "It's someone else."
"Ah, you've blundered badly for once, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said Peters,
who had followed us into the room.
"Who is the dead woman?"
"Well, if you really must know, she is an old nurse of my wife's, Rose Spender
by name, whom we found in the Brixton Workhouse Infirmary. We brought her
round here, called in Dr. Horsom, of 13 Firbank Villas—mind you take the
address, Mr. Holmes—and had her carefully tended, as Christian folk should. On
the third day she died—certificate says senile decay—but that's only the doctor's
opinion, and of course you know better. We ordered her funeral to be carried out
by Stimson and Co., of the Kennington Road, who will bury her at eight o'clock
to-morrow morning. Can you pick any hole in that, Mr. Holmes? You've made a
silly blunder, and you may as well own up to it. I'd give something for a
photograph of your gaping, staring face when you pulled aside that lid expecting
to see the Lady Frances Carfax and only found a poor old woman of ninety."
 Holmes's expression was as impassive as ever under the jeers of his
antagonist, but his clenched hands betrayed his acute annoyance.
"I am going through your house," said he.
"Are you, though!" cried Peters as a woman's voice and heavy steps sounded
in the passage. "We'll soon see about that. This way, officers, if you please.
These men have forced their way into my house, and I cannot get rid of them.
Help me to put them out."
A sergeant and a constable stood in the doorway. Holmes drew his card from
his case.
"This is my name and address. This is my friend, Dr. Watson."
"Bless you, sir, we know you very well," said the sergeant, "but you can't stay
here without a warrant."
"Of course not. I quite understand that."
"Arrest him!" cried Peters.
"We know where to lay our hands on this gentleman if he is wanted," said the
sergeant majestically, "but you'll have to go, Mr. Holmes."
"Yes, Watson, we shall have to go."
A minute later we were in the street once more. Holmes was as cool as ever,
but I was hot with anger and humiliation. The sergeant had followed us.
"Sorry, Mr. Holmes, but that's the law."
"Exactly, Sergeant, you could not do otherwise."
"I expect there was good reason for your presence there. If there is anything I
can do—"
"It's a missing lady, Sergeant, and we think she is in that house. I expect a
warrant presently."
"Then I'll keep my eye on the parties, Mr. Holmes. If anything comes along, I
will surely let you know."
It was only nine o'clock, and we were off full cry upon the trail at once. First
we drove to Brixton Workhoused Infirmary, where we found that it was indeed
the truth that a charitable couple had called some days before, that they had
claimed an imbecile old woman as a former servant, and that they had obtained
permission to take her away with them. No surprise was expressed at the news
that she had since died.
The doctor was our next goal. He had been called in, had found the woman
dying of pure senility, had actually seen her pass away, and had signed the
certificate in due form. "I assure you that everything was perfectly normal and
there was no room for foul play in the matter," said he. Nothing in the house had
struck him as suspicious save that for people of their class it was remarkable that
they should have no servant. So far and no further went the doctor.
 Finally we found our way to Scotland Yard. There had been difficulties of
procedure in regard to the warrant. Some delay was inevitable. The magistrate's
signature might not be obtained until next morning. If Holmes would call about
nine he could go down with Lestrade and see it acted upon. So ended the day,
save that near midnight our friend, the sergeant, called to say that he had seen
flickering lights here and there in the windows of the great dark house, but that
no one had left it and none had entered. We could but pray for patience and wait
for the morrow.
Sherlock Holmes was too irritable for conversation and too restless for sleep. I
left him smoking hard, with his heavy, dark brows knotted together, and his long,
nervous fingers tapping upon the arms of his chair, as he turned over in his mind
every possible solution of the mystery. Several times in the course of the night I
heard him prowling about the house. Finally, just after I had been called in the
morning, he rushed into my room. He was in his dressing-gown, but his pale,
hollow-eyed face told me that his night had been a sleepless one.
"What time was the funeral? Eight, was it not?" he asked eagerly. "Well, it is
7:20 now. Good heavens, Watson, what has become of any brains that God has
given me? Quick, man, quick! It's life or death—a hundred chances on death to
one on life. I'll never forgive myself, never, if we are too late!"
Five minutes had not passed before we were flying in a hansom down Baker
Street. But even so it was twenty-five to eight as we passed Big Ben, and eight
struck as we tore down the Brixton Road. But others were late as well as we. Ten
minutes after the hour the hearse was still standing at the door of the house, and
even as our foaming horse came to a halt the coffin, supported by three men,
appeared on the threshold. Holmes darted forward and barred their way.
"Take it back!" he cried, laying his hand on the breast of the foremost. "Take it
back this instant!"
"What the devil do you mean? Once again I ask you, where is your warrant?"
shouted the furious Peters, his big red face glaring over the farther end of the
coffin.
"The warrant is on its way. The coffin shall remain in the house until it
comes."
The authority in Holmes's voice had its effect upon the bearers. Peters had
suddenly vanished into the house, and they obeyed these new orders. "Quick,
Watson, quick! Here is a screw-driver!" he shouted as the coffin was replaced
upon the table. "Here's one for you, my man! A sovereign if the lid comes off in
a minute! Ask no questions—work away! That's good! Another! And another!
Now pull all together! It's giving! It's giving! Ah, that does it at last."
With a united effort we tore off the coffin-lid. As we did so there came from
the inside a stupefying and overpowering smell of chloroform. A body lay
within, its head all wreathed in cotton-wool, which had been soaked in the
narcotic. Holmes plucked it off and disclosed the statuesque face of a handsome
and spiritual woman of middle age. In an instant he had passed his arm round the
figure and raised her to a sitting position.
"Is she gone, Watson? Is there a spark left? Surely we are not too late!"
For half an hour it seemed that we were. What with actual suffocation, and
what with the poisonous fumes of the chloroform, the Lady Frances seemed to
have passed the last point of recall. And then, at last, with artificial respiration,
with injected ether, and with every device that science could suggest, some
flutter of life, some quiver of the eyelids, some dimming of a mirror, spoke of
the slowly returning life. A cab had driven up, and Holmes, parting the blind,
looked out at it. "Here is Lestrade with his warrant," said he. "He will find that
his birds have flown. And here," he added as a heavy step hurried along the
passage, "is someone who has a better right to nurse this lady than we have.
Good morning, Mr. Green; I think that the sooner we can move the Lady Frances
the better. Meanwhile, the funeral may proceed, and the poor old woman who
still lies in that coffin may go to her last resting-place alone."
"Should you care to add the case to your annals, my dear Watson," said
Holmes that evening, "it can only be as an example of that temporary eclipse to
which even the best-balanced mind may be exposed. Such slips are common to
all mortals, and the greatest is he who can recognize and repair them. To this
modified credit I may, perhaps, make some claim. My night was haunted by the
thought that somewhere a clue, a strange sentence, a curious observation, had
come under my notice and had been too easily dismissed. Then, suddenly, in the
gray of the morning, the words came back to me. It was the remark of the
undertaker's wife, as reported by Philip Green. She had said, 'It should be there
before now. It took longer, being out of the ordinary.' It was the coffin of which
she spoke. It had been out of the ordinary. That could only mean that it had been
made to some special measurement. But why? Why? Then in an instant I
remembered the deep sides, and the little wasted figure at the bottom. Why so
large a coffin for so small a body? To leave room for another body. Both would
be buried under the one certificate. It had all been so clear, if only my own sight
had not been dimmed. At eight the Lady Frances would be buried. Our one
chance was to stop the coffin before it left the house.
"It was a desperate chance that we might find her alive, but it WAS a chance,
as the result showed. These people had never, to my knowledge, done a murder.
They might shrink from actual violence at the last. They could bury her with no
sign of how she met her end, and even if she were exhumed there was a chance
for them. I hoped that such considerations might prevail with them. You can
reconstruct the scene well enough. You saw the horrible den upstairs, where the
poor lady had been kept so long. They rushed in and overpowered her with their
chloroform, carried her down, poured more into the coffin to insure against her
waking, and then screwed down the lid. A clever device, Watson. It is new to me
in the annals of crime. If our ex-missionary friends escape the clutches of
Lestrade, I shall expect to hear of some brilliant incidents in their future career."
Chapter 7
The Adventure of the Devil's Foot
In recording from time to time some of the curious experiences and interesting
recollections which I associate with my long and intimate friendship with Mr.
Sherlock Holmes, I have continually been faced by difficulties caused by his
own aversion to publicity. To his sombre and cynical spirit all popular applause
was always abhorrent, and nothing amused him more at the end of a successful
case than to hand over the actual exposure to some orthodox official, and to
listen with a mocking smile to the general chorus of misplaced congratulation. It
was indeed this attitude upon the part of my friend and certainly not any lack of
interesting material which has caused me of late years to lay very few of my
records before the public. My participation in some if his adventures was always
a privilege which entailed discretion and reticence upon me.
It was, then, with considerable surprise that I received a telegram from
Holmes last Tuesday—he has never been known to write where a telegram
would serve—in the following terms:
Why not tell them of the Cornish horror—strangest case I have handled.
I have no idea what backward sweep of memory had brought the matter fresh
to his mind, or what freak had caused him to desire that I should recount it; but I
hasten, before another cancelling telegram may arrive, to hunt out the notes
which give me the exact details of the case and to lay the narrative before my
readers.
It was, then, in the spring of the year 1897 that Holmes's iron constitution
showed some symptoms of giving way in the face of constant hard work of a
most exacting kind, aggravated, perhaps, by occasional indiscretions of his own.
In March of that year Dr. Moore Agar, of Harley Street, whose dramatic
introduction to Holmes I may some day recount, gave positive injunctions that
the famous private agent lay aside all his cases and surrender himself to
complete rest if he wished to avert an absolute breakdown. The state of his
health was not a matter in which he himself took the faintest interest, for his
mental detachment was absolute, but he was induced at last, on the threat of
being permanently disqualified from work, to give himself a complete change of
scene and air. Thus it was that in the early spring of that year we found ourselves
together in a small cottage near Poldhu Bay, at the further extremity of the
Cornish peninsula.
It was a singular spot, and one peculiarly well suited to the grim humour of
my patient. From the windows of our little whitewashed house, which stood high
upon a grassy headland, we looked down upon the whole sinister semicircle of
Mounts Bay, that old death trap of sailing vessels, with its fringe of black cliffs
and surge-swept reefs on which innumerable seamen have met their end. With a
northerly breeze it lies placid and sheltered, inviting the storm-tossed craft to
tack into it for rest and protection.
Then come the sudden swirl round of the wind, the blistering gale from the
south-west, the dragging anchor, the lee shore, and the last battle in the creaming
breakers. The wise mariner stands far out from that evil place.
On the land side our surroundings were as sombre as on the sea. It was a
country of rolling moors, lonely and dun-colored, with an occasional church
tower to mark the site of some old-world village. In every direction upon these
moors there were traces of some vanished race which had passed utterly away,
and left as its sole record strange monuments of stone, irregular mounds which
contained the burned ashes of the dead, and curious earthworks which hinted at
prehistoric strife. The glamour and mystery of the place, with its sinister
atmosphere of forgotten nations, appealed to the imagination of my friend, and
he spent much of his time in long walks and solitary meditations upon the moor.
The ancient Cornish language had also arrested his attention, and he had, I
remember, conceived the idea that it was akin to the Chaldean, and had been
largely derived from the Phoenician traders in tin. He had received a
consignment of books upon philology and was settling down to develop this
thesis when suddenly, to my sorrow and to his unfeigned delight, we found
ourselves, even in that land of dreams, plunged into a problem at our very doors
which was more intense, more engrossing, and infinitely more mysterious than
any of those which had driven us from London. Our simple life and peaceful,
healthy routine were violently interrupted, and we were precipitated into the
midst of a series of events which caused the utmost excitement not only in
Cornwall but throughout the whole west of England. Many of my readers may
retain some recollection of what was called at the time "The Cornish Horror,"
though a most imperfect account of the matter reached the London press. Now,
after thirteen years, I will give the true details of this inconceivable affair to the
public.
I have said that scattered towers marked the villages which dotted this part of
Cornwall. The nearest of these was the hamlet of Tredannick Wollas, where the
cottages of a couple of hundred inhabitants clustered round an ancient, moss-
grown church. The vicar of the parish, Mr. Roundhay, was something of an
archaeologist, and as such Holmes had made his acquaintance. He was a middle-
aged man, portly and affable, with a considerable fund of local lore. At his
invitation we had taken tea at the vicarage and had come to know, also, Mr.
Mortimer Tregennis, an independent gentleman, who increased the clergyman's
scanty resources by taking rooms in his large, straggling house. The vicar, being
a bachelor, was glad to come to such an arrangement, though he had little in
common with his lodger, who was a thin, dark, spectacled man, with a stoop
which gave the impression of actual, physical deformity. I remember that during
our short visit we found the vicar garrulous, but his lodger strangely reticent, a
sad-faced, introspective man, sitting with averted eyes, brooding apparently
upon his own affairs.
These were the two men who entered abruptly into our little sitting-room on
Tuesday, March the 16th, shortly after our breakfast hour, as we were smoking
together, preparatory to our daily excursion upon the moors.
"Mr. Holmes," said the vicar in an agitated voice, "the most extraordinary and
tragic affair has occurred during the night. It is the most unheard-of business. We
can only regard it as a special Providence that you should chance to be here at
the time, for in all England you are the one man we need."
I glared at the intrusive vicar with no very friendly eyes; but Holmes took his
pipe from his lips and sat up in his chair like an old hound who hears the view-
halloa. He waved his hand to the sofa, and our palpitating visitor with his
agitated companion sat side by side upon it. Mr. Mortimer Tregennis was more
self-contained than the clergyman, but the twitching of his thin hands and the
brightness of his dark eyes showed that they shared a common emotion.
"Shall I speak or you?" he asked of the vicar.
"Well, as you seem to have made the discovery, whatever it may be, and the
vicar to have had it second-hand, perhaps you had better do the speaking," said
Holmes.
I glanced at the hastily clad clergyman, with the formally dressed lodger
seated beside him, and was amused at the surprise which Holmes's simple
deduction had brought to their faces.
"Perhaps I had best say a few words first," said the vicar, "and then you can
judge if you will listen to the details from Mr. Tregennis, or whether we should
not hasten at once to the scene of this mysterious affair. I may explain, then, that
our friend here spent last evening in the company of his two brothers, Owen and
George, and of his sister Brenda, at their house of Tredannick Wartha, which is
near the old stone cross upon the moor. He left them shortly after ten o'clock,
playing cards round the dining-room table, in excellent health and spirits. This
morning, being an early riser, he walked in that direction before breakfast and
was overtaken by the carriage of Dr. Richards, who explained that he had just
been sent for on a most urgent call to Tredannick Wartha. Mr. Mortimer
Tregennis naturally went with him. When he arrived at Tredannick Wartha he
found an extraordinary state of things. His two brothers and his sister were
seated round the table exactly as he had left them, the cards still spread in front
of them and the candles burned down to their sockets. The sister lay back stone-
dead in her chair, while the two brothers sat on each side of her laughing,
shouting, and singing, the senses stricken clean out of them. All three of them,
the dead woman and the two demented men, retained upon their faces an
expression of the utmost horror—a convulsion of terror which was dreadful to
look upon. There was no sign of the presence of anyone in the house, except
Mrs. Porter, the old cook and housekeeper, who declared that she had slept
deeply and heard no sound during the night. Nothing had been stolen or
disarranged, and there is absolutely no explanation of what the horror can be
which has frightened a woman to death and two strong men out of their senses.
There is the situation, Mr. Holmes, in a nutshell, and if you can help us to clear it
up you will have done a great work."
I had hoped that in some way I could coax my companion back into the quiet
which had been the object of our journey; but one glance at his intense face and
contracted eyebrows told me how vain was now the expectation. He sat for some
little time in silence, absorbed in the strange drama which had broken in upon
our peace.
"I will look into this matter," he said at last. "On the face of it, it would appear
to be a case of a very exceptional nature. Have you been there yourself, Mr.
Roundhay?"
"No, Mr. Holmes. Mr. Tregennis brought back the account to the vicarage, and
I at once hurried over with him to consult you."
"How far is it to the house where this singular tragedy occurred?"
"About a mile inland."
"Then we shall walk over together. But before we start I must ask you a few
questions, Mr. Mortimer Tregennis."
The other had been silent all this time, but I had observed that his more
controlled excitement was even greater than the obtrusive emotion of the
clergyman. He sat with a pale, drawn face, his anxious gaze fixed upon Holmes,
and his thin hands clasped convulsively together. His pale lips quivered as he
listened to the dreadful experience which had befallen his family, and his dark
eyes seemed to reflect something of the horror of the scene.
 "Ask what you like, Mr. Holmes," said he eagerly. "It is a bad thing to speak
of, but I will answer you the truth."
"Tell me about last night."
"Well, Mr. Holmes, I supped there, as the vicar has said, and my elder brother
George proposed a game of whist afterwards. We sat down about nine o'clock. It
was a quarter-past ten when I moved to go. I left them all round the table, as
merry as could be."
"Who let you out?"
"Mrs. Porter had gone to bed, so I let myself out. I shut the hall door behind
me. The window of the room in which they sat was closed, but the blind was not
drawn down. There was no change in door or window this morning, or any
reason to think that any stranger had been to the house. Yet there they sat, driven
clean mad with terror, and Brenda lying dead of fright, with her head hanging
over the arm of the chair. I'll never get the sight of that room out of my mind so
long as I live."
"The facts, as you state them, are certainly most remarkable," said Holmes. "I
take it that you have no theory yourself which can in any way account for
them?"
"It's devilish, Mr. Holmes, devilish!" cried Mortimer Tregennis. "It is not of
this world. Something has come into that room which has dashed the light of
reason from their minds. What human contrivance could do that?"
"I fear," said Holmes, "that if the matter is beyond humanity it is certainly
beyond me. Yet we must exhaust all natural explanations before we fall back
upon such a theory as this. As to yourself, Mr. Tregennis, I take it you were
divided in some way from your family, since they lived together and you had
rooms apart?"
"That is so, Mr. Holmes, though the matter is past and done with. We were a
family of tin-miners at Redruth, but we sold our venture to a company, and so
retired with enough to keep us. I won't deny that there was some feeling about
the division of the money and it stood between us for a time, but it was all
forgiven and forgotten, and we were the best of friends together."
"Looking back at the evening which you spent together, does aything stand
out in your memory as throwing any possible light upon the tragedy? Think
carefully, Mr. Tregennis, for any clue which can help me."
"There is nothing at all, sir."
"Your people were in their usual spirits?"
"Never better."
"Were they nervous people? Did they ever show any apprehension of coming
danger?"
 "Nothing of the kind."
"You have nothing to add then, which could assist me?"
Mortimer Tregennis considered earnestly for a moment.
"There is one thing occurs to me," said he at last. "As we sat at the table my
back was to the window, and my brother George, he being my partner at cards,
was facing it. I saw him once look hard over my shoulder, so I turned round and
looked also. The blind was up and the window shut, but I could just make out the
bushes on the lawn, and it seemed to me for a moment that I saw something
moving among them. I couldn't even say if it was man or animal, but I just
thought there was something there. When I asked him what he was looking at, he
told me that he had the same feeling. That is all that I can say."
"Did you not investigate?"
"No; the matter passed as unimportant."
"You left them, then, without any premonition of evil?"
"None at all."
"I am not clear how you came to hear the news so early this morning."
"I am an early riser and generally take a walk before breakfast. This morning I
had hardly started when the doctor in his carriage overtook me. He told me that
old Mrs. Porter had sent a boy down with an urgent message. I sprang in beside
him and we drove on. When we got there we looked into that dreadful room. The
candles and the fire must have burned out hours before, and they had been sitting
there in the dark until dawn had broken. The doctor said Brenda must have been
dead at least six hours. There were no signs of violence. She just lay across the
arm of the chair with that look on her face. George and Owen were singing
snatches of songs and gibbering like two great apes. Oh, it was awful to see! I
couldn't stand it, and the doctor was as white as a sheet. Indeed, he fell into a
chair in a sort of faint, and we nearly had him on our hands as well."
"Remarkable—most remarkable!" said Holmes, rising and taking his hat. "I
think, perhaps, we had better go down to Tredannick Wartha without further
delay. I confess that I have seldom known a case which at first sight presented a
more singular problem."
Our proceedings of that first morning did little to advance the investigation. It
was marked, however, at the outset by an incident which left the most sinister
impression upon my mind. The approach to the spot at which the tragedy
occurred is down a narrow, winding, country lane. While we made our way
along it we heard the rattle of a carriage coming towards us and stood aside to let
it pass. As it drove by us I caught a glimpse through the closed window of a
horribly contorted, grinning face glaring out at us. Those staring eyes and
gnashing teeth flashed past us like a dreadful vision.
 "My brothers!" cried Mortimer Tregennis, white to his lips. "They are taking
them to Helston."
We looked with horror after the black carriage, lumbering upon its way. Then
we turned our steps towards this ill-omened house in which they had met their
strange fate.
It was a large and bright dwelling, rather a villa than a cottage, with a
considerable garden which was already, in that Cornish air, well filled with
spring flowers. Towards this garden the window of the sitting-room fronted, and
from it, according to Mortimer Tregennis, must have come that thing of evil
which had by sheer horror in a single instant blasted their minds. Holmes walked
slowly and thoughtfully among the flower-plots and along the path before we
entered the porch. So absorbed was he in his thoughts, I remember, that he
stumbled over the watering-pot, upset its contents, and deluged both our feet and
the garden path. Inside the house we were met by the elderly Cornish
housekeeper, Mrs. Porter, who, with the aid of a young girl, looked after the
wants of the family. She readily answered all Holmes's questions. She had heard
nothing in the night. Her employers had all been in excellent spirits lately, and
she had never known them more cheerful and prosperous. She had fainted with
horror upon entering the room in the morning and seeing that dreadful company
round the table. She had, when she recovered, thrown open the window to let the
morning air in, and had run down to the lane, whence she sent a farm-lad for the
doctor. The lady was on her bed upstairs if we cared to see her. It took four
strong men to get the brothers into the asylum carriage. She would not herself
stay in the house another day and was starting that very afternoon to rejoin her
family at St. Ives.
We ascended the stairs and viewed the body. Miss Brenda Tregennis had been
a very beautiful girl, though now verging upon middle age. Her dark, clear-cut
face was handsome, even in death, but there still lingered upon it something of
that convulsion of horror which had been her last human emotion. From her
bedroom we descended to the sitting-room, where this strange tragedy had
actually occurred. The charred ashes of the overnight fire lay in the grate. On the
table were the four guttered and burned-out candles, with the cards scattered
over its surface. The chairs had been moved back against the walls, but all else
was as it had been the night before. Holmes paced with light, swift steps about
the room; he sat in the various chairs, drawing them up and reconstructing their
positions. He tested how much of the garden was visible; he examined the floor,
the ceiling, and the fireplace; but never once did I see that sudden brightening of
his eyes and tightening of his lips which would have told me that he saw some
gleam of light in this utter darkness.
 "Why a fire?" he asked once. "Had they always a fire in this small room on a
spring evening?"
Mortimer Tregennis explained that the night was cold and damp. For that
reason, after his arrival, the fire was lit. "What are you going to do now, Mr.
Holmes?" he asked.
My friend smiled and laid his hand upon my arm. "I think, Watson, that I shall
resume that course of tobacco-poisoning which you have so often and so justly
condemned," said he. "With your permission, gentlemen, we will now return to
our cottage, for I am not aware that any new factor is likely to come to our notice
here. I will turn the facts over in my mind, Mr, Tregennis, and should anything
occur to me I will certainly communicate with you and the vicar. In the
meantime I wish you both good-morning."
It was not until long after we were back in Poldhu Cottage that Holmes broke
his complete and absorbed silence. He sat coiled in his armchair, his haggard and
ascetic face hardly visible amid the blue swirl of his tobacco smoke, his black
brows drawn down, his forehead contracted, his eyes vacant and far away.
Finally he laid down his pipe and sprang to his feet.
"It won't do, Watson!" said he with a laugh. "Let us walk along the cliffs
together and search for flint arrows. We are more likely to find them than clues
to this problem. To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an
engine. It racks itself to pieces. The sea air, sunshine, and patience, Watson—all
else will come.
"Now, let us calmly define our position, Watson," he continued as we skirted
the cliffs together. "Let us get a firm grip of the very little which we DO know,
so that when fresh facts arise we may be ready to fit them into their places. I take
it, in the first place, that neither of us is prepared to admit diabolical intrusions
into the affairs of men. Let us begin by ruling that entirely out of our minds.
Very good. There remain three persons who have been grievously stricken by
some conscious or unconscious human agency. That is firm ground. Now, when
did this occur? Evidently, assuming his narrative to be true, it was immediately
after Mr. Mortimer Tregennis had left the room. That is a very important point.
The presumption is that it was within a few minutes afterwards. The cards still
lay upon the table. It was already past their usual hour for bed. Yet they had not
changed their position or pushed back their chairs. I repeat, then, that the
occurrence was immediately after his departure, and not later than eleven o'clock
last night.
"Our next obvious step is to check, so far as we can, the movements of
Mortimer Tregennis after he left the room. In this there is no difficulty, and they
seem to be above suspicion. Knowing my methods as you do, you were, of
course, conscious of the somewhat clumsy water-pot expedient by which I
obtained a clearer impress of his foot than might otherwise have been possible.
The wet, sandy path took it admirably. Last night was also wet, you will
remember, and it was not difficult—having obtained a sample print—to pick out
his track among others and to follow his movements. He appears to have walked
away swiftly in the direction of the vicarage.
"If, then, Mortimer Tregennis disappeared from the scene, and yet some
outside person affected the card-players, how can we reconstruct that person, and
how was such an impression of horror conveyed? Mrs. Porter may be eliminated.
She is evidently harmless. Is there any evidence that someone crept up to the
garden window and in some manner produced so terrific an effect that he drove
those who saw it out of their senses? The only suggestion in this direction comes
from Mortimer Tregennis himself, who says that his brother spoke about some
movement in the garden. That is certainly remarkable, as the night was rainy,
cloudy, and dark. Anyone who had the design to alarm these people would be
compelled to place his very face against the glass before he could be seen. There
is a three-foot flower-border outside this window, but no indication of a
footmark. It is difficult to imagine, then, how an outsider could have made so
terrible an impression upon the company, nor have we found any possible
motive for so strange and elaborate an attempt. You perceive our difficulties,
Watson?"
"They are only too clear," I answered with conviction.
"And yet, with a little more material, we may prove that they are not
insurmountable," said Holmes. "I fancy that among your extensive archives,
Watson, you may find some which were nearly as obscure. Meanwhile, we shall
put the case aside until more accurate data are available, and devote the rest of
our morning to the pursuit of neolithic man."
I may have commented upon my friend's power of mental detachment, but
never have I wondered at it more than upon that spring morning in Cornwall
when for two hours he discoursed upon celts, arrowheads, and shards, as lightly
as if no sinister mystery were waiting for his solution. It was not until we had
returned in the afternoon to our cottage that we found a visitor awaiting us, who
soon brought our minds back to the matter in hand. Neither of us needed to be
told who that visitor was. The huge body, the craggy and deeply seamed face
with the fierce eyes and hawk-like nose, the grizzled hair which nearly brushed
our cottage ceiling, the beard—golden at the fringes and white near the lips, save
for the nicotine stain from his perpetual cigar—all these were as well known in
London as in Africa, and could only be associated with the tremendous
personality of Dr. Leon Sterndale, the great lion-hunter and explorer.
 We had heard of his presence in the district and had once or twice caught sight
of his tall figure upon the moorland paths. He made no advances to us, however,
nor would we have dreamed of doing so to him, as it was well known that it was
his love of seclusion which caused him to spend the greater part of the intervals
between his journeys in a small bungalow buried in the lonely wood of
Beauchamp Arriance. Here, amid his books and his maps, he lived an absolutely
lonely life, attending to his own simple wants and paying little apparent heed to
the affairs of his neighbours. It was a surprise to me, therefore, to hear him
asking Holmes in an eager voice whether he had made any advance in his
reconstruction of this mysterious episode. "The county police are utterly at
fault," said he, "but perhaps your wider experience has suggested some
conceivable explanation. My only claim to being taken into your confidence is
that during my many residences here I have come to know this family of
Tregennis very well—indeed, upon my Cornish mother's side I could call them
cousins—and their strange fate has naturally been a great shock to me. I may tell
you that I had got as far as Plymouth upon my way to Africa, but the news
reached me this morning, and I came straight back again to help in the inquiry."
Holmes raised his eyebrows.
"Did you lose your boat through it?"
"I will take the next."
"Dear me! that is friendship indeed."
"I tell you they were relatives."
"Quite so—cousins of your mother. Was your baggage aboard the ship?"
"Some of it, but the main part at the hotel."
"I see. But surely this event could not have found its way into the Plymouth
morning papers."
"No, sir; I had a telegram."
"Might I ask from whom?"
A shadow passed over the gaunt face of the explorer.
"You are very inquisitive, Mr. Holmes."
"It is my business."
With an effort Dr. Sterndale recovered his ruffled composure.
"I have no objection to telling you," he said. "It was Mr. Roundhay, the vicar,
who sent me the telegram which recalled me."
"Thank you," said Holmes. "I may say in answer to your original question that
I have not cleared my mind entirely on the subject of this case, but that I have
every hope of reaching some conclusion. It would be premature to say more."
"Perhaps you would not mind telling me if your suspicions point in any
particular direction?"
 "No, I can hardly answer that."
"Then I have wasted my time and need not prolong my visit." The famous
doctor strode out of our cottage in considerable ill-humour, and within five
minutes Holmes had followed him. I saw him no more until the evening, when
he returned with a slow step and haggard face which assured me that he had
made no great progress with his investigation. He glanced at a telegram which
awaited him and threw it into the grate.
"From the Plymouth hotel, Watson," he said. "I learned the name of it from the
vicar, and I wired to make certain that Dr. Leon Sterndale's account was true. It
appears that he did indeed spend last night there, and that he has actually
allowed some of his baggage to go on to Africa, while he returned to be present
at this investigation. What do you make of that, Watson?"
"He is deeply interested."
"Deeply interested—yes. There is a thread here which we had not yet grasped
and which might lead us through the tangle. Cheer up, Watson, for I am very
sure that our material has not yet all come to hand. When it does we may soon
leave our difficulties behind us."
Little did I think how soon the words of Holmes would be realized, or how
strange and sinister would be that new development which opened up an entirely
fresh line of investigation. I was shaving at my window in the morning when I
heard the rattle of hoofs and, looking up, saw a dog-cart coming at a gallop
down the road. It pulled up at our door, and our friend, the vicar, sprang from it
and rushed up our garden path. Holmes was already dressed, and we hastened
down to meet him.
Our visitor was so excited that he could hardly articulate, but at last in gasps
and bursts his tragic story came out of him.
"We are devil-ridden, Mr. Holmes! My poor parish is devil-ridden!" he cried.
"Satan himself is loose in it! We are given over into his hands!" He danced about
in his agitation, a ludicrous object if it were not for his ashy face and startled
eyes. Finally he shot out his terrible news.
"Mr. Mortimer Tregennis died during the night, and with exactly the same
symptoms as the rest of his family."
Holmes sprang to his feet, all energy in an instant.
"Can you fit us both into your dog-cart?"
"Yes, I can."
"Then, Watson, we will postpone our breakfast. Mr. Roundhay, we are entirely
at your disposal. Hurry—hurry, before things get disarranged."
The lodger occupied two rooms at the vicarage, which were in an angle by
themselves, the one above the other. Below was a large sitting-room; above, his
bedroom. They looked out upon a croquet lawn which came up to the windows.
We had arrived before the doctor or the police, so that everything was absolutely
undisturbed. Let me describe exactly the scene as we saw it upon that misty
March morning. It has left an impression which can never be effaced from my
mind.
The atmosphere of the room was of a horrible and depressing stuffiness. The
servant had first entered had thrown up the window, or it would have been even
more intolerable. This might partly be due to the fact that a lamp stood flaring
and smoking on the centre table. Beside it sat the dead man, leaning back in his
chair, his thin beard projecting, his spectacles pushed up on to his forehead, and
his lean dark face turned towards the window and twisted into the same
distortion of terror which had marked the features of his dead sister. His limbs
were convulsed and his fingers contorted as though he had died in a very
paroxysm of fear. He was fully clothed, though there were signs that his dressing
had been done in a hurry. We had already learned that his bed had been slept in,
and that the tragic end had come to him in the early morning.
One realized the red-hot energy which underlay Holmes's phlegmatic exterior
when one saw the sudden change which came over him from the moment that he
entered the fatal apartment. In an instant he was tense and alert, his eyes shining,
his face set, his limbs quivering with eager activity. He was out on the lawn, in
through the window, round the room, and up into the bedroom, for all the world
like a dashing foxhound drawing a cover. In the bedroom he made a rapid cast
around and ended by throwing open the window, which appeared to give him
some fresh cause for excitement, for he leaned out of it with loud ejaculations of
interest and delight. Then he rushed down the stair, out through the open
window, threw himself upon his face on the lawn, sprang up and into the room
once more, all with the energy of the hunter who is at the very heels of his
quarry. The lamp, which was an ordinary standard, he examined with minute
care, making certain measurements upon its bowl. He carefully scrutinized with
his lens the talc shield which covered the top of the chimney and scraped off
some ashes which adhered to its upper surface, putting some of them into an
envelope, which he placed in his pocketbook. Finally, just as the doctor and the
official police put in an appearance, he beckoned to the vicar and we all three
went out upon the lawn.
"I am glad to say that my investigation has not been entirely barren," he
remarked. "I cannot remain to discuss the matter with the police, but I should be
exceedingly obliged, Mr. Roundhay, if you would give the inspector my
compliments and direct his attention to the bedroom window and to the sitting-
room lamp. Each is suggestive, and together they are almost conclusive. If the
police would desire further information I shall be happy to see any of them at the
cottage. And now, Watson, I think that, perhaps, we shall be better employed
elsewhere."
It may be that the police resented the intrusion of an amateur, or that they
imagined themselves to be upon some hopeful line of investigation; but it is
certain that we heard nothing from them for the next two days. During this time
Holmes spent some of his time smoking and dreaming in the cottage; but a
greater portion in country walks which he undertook alone, returning after many
hours without remark as to where he had been. One experiment served to show
me the line of his investigation. He had bought a lamp which was the duplicate
of the one which had burned in the room of Mortimer Tregennis on the morning
of the tragedy. This he filled with the same oil as that used at the vicarage, and
he carefully timed the period which it would take to be exhausted. Another
experiment which he made was of a more unpleasant nature, and one which I am
not likely ever to forget.
"You will remember, Watson," he remarked one afternoon, "that there is a
single common point of resemblance in the varying reports which have reached
us. This concerns the effect of the atmosphere of the room in each case upon
those who had first entered it. You will recollect that Mortimer Tregennis, in
describing the episode of his last visit to his brother's house, remarked that the
doctor on entering the room fell into a chair? You had forgotten? Well I can
answer for it that it was so. Now, you will remember also that Mrs. Porter, the
housekeeper, told us that she herself fainted upon entering the room and had
afterwards opened the window. In the second case—that of Mortimer Tregennis
himself—you cannot have forgotten the horrible stuffiness of the room when we
arrived, though the servant had thrown open the window. That servant, I found
upon inquiry, was so ill that she had gone to her bed. You will admit, Watson,
that these facts are very suggestive. In each case there is evidence of a poisonous
atmosphere. In each case, also, there is combustion going on in the room—in the
one case a fire, in the other a lamp. The fire was needed, but the lamp was lit—
as a comparison of the oil consumed will show—long after it was broad
daylight. Why? Surely because there is some connection between three things—
the burning, the stuffy atmosphere, and, finally, the madness or death of those
unfortunate people. That is clear, is it not?"
"It would appear so."
"At least we may accept it as a working hypothesis. We will suppose, then,
that something was burned in each case which produced an atmosphere causing
strange toxic effects. Very good. In the first instance—that of the Tregennis
family—this substance was placed in the fire. Now the window was shut, but the
fire would naturally carry fumes to some extent up the chimney. Hence one
would expect the effects of the poison to be less than in the second case, where
there was less escape for the vapour. The result seems to indicate that it was so,
since in the first case only the woman, who had presumably the more sensitive
organism, was killed, the others exhibiting that temporary or permanent lunacy
which is evidently the first effect of the drug. In the second case the result was
complete. The facts, therefore, seem to bear out the theory of a poison which
worked by combustion.
"With this train of reasoning in my head I naturally looked about in Mortimer
Tregennis's room to find some remains of this substance. The obvious place to
look was the talc shelf or smoke-guard of the lamp. There, sure enough, I
perceived a number of flaky ashes, and round the edges a fringe of brownish
powder, which had not yet been consumed. Half of this I took, as you saw, and I
placed it in an envelope."
"Why half, Holmes?"
"It is not for me, my dear Watson, to stand in the way of the official police
force. I leave them all the evidence which I found. The poison still remained
upon the talc had they the wit to find it. Now, Watson, we will light our lamp; we
will, however, take the precaution to open our window to avoid the premature
decease of two deserving members of society, and you will seat yourself near
that open window in an armchair unless, like a sensible man, you determine to
have nothing to do with the affair. Oh, you will see it out, will you? I thought I
knew my Watson. This chair I will place opposite yours, so that we may be the
same distance from the poison and face to face. The door we will leave ajar.
Each is now in a position to watch the other and to bring the experiment to an
end should the symptoms seem alarming. Is that all clear? Well, then, I take our
powder—or what remains of it—from the envelope, and I lay it above the
burning lamp. So! Now, Watson, let us sit down and await developments."
They were not long in coming. I had hardly settled in my chair before I was
conscious of a thick, musky odour, subtle and nauseous. At the very first whiff
of it my brain and my imagination were beyond all control. A thick, black cloud
swirled before my eyes, and my mind told me that in this cloud, unseen as yet,
but about to spring out upon my appalled senses, lurked all that was vaguely
horrible, all that was monstrous and inconceivably wicked in the universe. Vague
shapes swirled and swam amid the dark cloud-bank, each a menace and a
warning of something coming, the advent of some unspeakable dweller upon the
threshold, whose very shadow would blast my soul. A freezing horror took
possession of me. I felt that my hair was rising, that my eyes were protruding,
that my mouth was opened, and my tongue like leather. The turmoil within my
brain was such that something must surely snap. I tried to scream and was
vaguely aware of some hoarse croak which was my own voice, but distant and
detached from myself. At the same moment, in some effort of escape, I broke
through that cloud of despair and had a glimpse of Holmes's face, white, rigid,
and drawn with horror—the very look which I had seen upon the features of the
dead. It was that vision which gave me an instant of sanity and of strength. I
dashed from my chair, threw my arms round Holmes, and together we lurched
through the door, and an instant afterwards had thrown ourselves down upon the
grass plot and were lying side by side, conscious only of the glorious sunshine
which was bursting its way through the hellish cloud of terror which had girt us
in. Slowly it rose from our souls like the mists from a landscape until peace and
reason had returned, and we were sitting upon the grass, wiping our clammy
foreheads, and looking with apprehension at each other to mark the last traces of
that terrific experience which we had undergone.
"Upon my word, Watson!" said Holmes at last with an unsteady voice, "I owe
you both my thanks and an apology. It was an unjustifiable experiment even for
one's self, and doubly so for a friend. I am really very sorry."
"You know," I answered with some emotion, for I have never seen so much of
Holmes's heart before, "that it is my greatest joy and privilege to help you."
He relapsed at once into the half-humorous, half-cynical vein which was his
habitual attitude to those about him. "It would be superfluous to drive us mad,
my dear Watson," said he. "A candid observer would certainly declare that we
were so already before we embarked upon so wild an experiment. I confess that I
never imagined that the effect could be so sudden and so severe." He dashed into
the cottage, and, reappearing with the burning lamp held at full arm's length, he
threw it among a bank of brambles. "We must give the room a little time to clear.
I take it, Watson, that you have no longer a shadow of a doubt as to how these
tragedies were produced?"
"None whatever."
"But the cause remains as obscure as before. Come into the arbour here and let
us discuss it together. That villainous stuff seems still to linger round my throat. I
think we must admit that all the evidence points to this man, Mortimer
Tregennis, having been the criminal in the first tragedy, though he was the victim
in the second one. We must remember, in the first place, that there is some story
of a family quarrel, followed by a reconciliation. How bitter that quarrel may
have been, or how hollow the reconciliation we cannot tell. When I think of
Mortimer Tregennis, with the foxy face and the small shrewd, beady eyes behind
the spectacles, he is not a man whom I should judge to be of a particularly
forgiving disposition. Well, in the next place, you will remember that this idea of
someone moving in the garden, which took our attention for a moment from the
real cause of the tragedy, emanated from him. He had a motive in misleading us.
Finally, if he did not throw the substance into the fire at the moment of leaving
the room, who did do so? The affair happened immediately after his departure.
Had anyone else come in, the family would certainly have risen from the table.
Besides, in peaceful Cornwall, visitors did not arrive after ten o'clock at night.
We may take it, then, that all the evidence points to Mortimer Tregennis as the
culprit."
"Then his own death was suicide!"
"Well, Watson, it is on the face of it a not impossible supposition. The man
who had the guilt upon his soul of having brought such a fate upon his own
family might well be driven by remorse to inflict it upon himself. There are,
however, some cogent reasons against it. Fortunately, there is one man in
England who knows all about it, and I have made arrangements by which we
shall hear the facts this afternoon from his own lips. Ah! he is a little before his
time. Perhaps you would kindly step this way, Dr. Leon Sterndale. We have been
conducing a chemical experiment indoors which has left our little room hardly
fit for the reception of so distinguished a visitor."
I had heard the click of the garden gate, and now the majestic figure of the
great African explorer appeared upon the path. He turned in some surprise
towards the rustic arbour in which we sat.
"You sent for me, Mr. Holmes. I had your note about an hour ago, and I have
come, though I really do not know why I should obey your summons."
"Perhaps we can clear the point up before we separate," said Holmes.
"Meanwhile, I am much obliged to you for your courteous acquiescence. You
will excuse this informal reception in the open air, but my friend Watson and I
have nearly furnished an additional chapter to what the papers call the Cornish
Horror, and we prefer a clear atmosphere for the present. Perhaps, since the
matters which we have to discuss will affect you personally in a very intimate
fashion, it is as well that we should talk where there can be no eavesdropping."
The explorer took his cigar from his lips and gazed sternly at my companion.
"I am at a loss to know, sir," he said, "what you can have to speak about which
affects me personally in a very intimate fashion."
"The killing of Mortimer Tregennis," said Holmes.
For a moment I wished that I were armed. Sterndale's fierce face turned to a
dusky red, his eyes glared, and the knotted, passionate veins started out in his
forehead, while he sprang forward with clenched hands towards my companion.
Then he stopped, and with a violent effort he resumed a cold, rigid calmness,
which was, perhaps, more suggestive of danger than his hot-headed outburst.
 "I have lived so long among savages and beyond the law," said he, "that I have
got into the way of being a law to myself. You would do well, Mr. Holmes, not
to forget it, for I have no desire to do you an injury."
"Nor have I any desire to do you an injury, Dr. Sterndale. Surely the clearest
proof of it is that, knowing what I know, I have sent for you and not for the
police."
Sterndale sat down with a gasp, overawed for, perhaps, the first time in his
adventurous life. There was a calm assurance of power in Holmes's manner
which could not be withstood. Our visitor stammered for a moment, his great
hands opening and shutting in his agitation.
"What do you mean?" he asked at last. "If this is bluff upon your part, Mr.
Holmes, you have chosen a bad man for your experiment. Let us have no more
beating about the bush. What DO you mean?"
"I will tell you," said Holmes, "and the reason why I tell you is that I hope
frankness may beget frankness. What my next step may be will depend entirely
upon the nature of your own defence."
"My defence?"
"Yes, sir."
"My defence against what?"
"Against the charge of killing Mortimer Tregennis."
Sterndale mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. "Upon my word, you
are getting on," said he. "Do all your successes depend upon this prodigious
power of bluff?"
"The bluff," said Holmes sternly, "is upon your side, Dr. Leon Sterndale, and
not upon mine. As a proof I will tell you some of the facts upon which my
conclusions are based. Of your return from Plymouth, allowing much of your
property to go on to Africa, I will say nothing save that it first informed me that
you were one of the factors which had to be taken into account in reconstructing
this drama—"
"I came back—"
"I have heard your reasons and regard them as unconvincing and inadequate.
We will pass that. You came down here to ask me whom I suspected. I refused to
answer you. You then went to the vicarage, waited outside it for some time, and
finally returned to your cottage."
"How do you know that?"
"I followed you."
"I saw no one."
"That is what you may expect to see when I follow you. You spent a restless
night at your cottage, and you formed certain plans, which in the early morning
you proceeded to put into execution. Leaving your door just as day was
breaking, you filled your pocket with some reddish gravel that was lying heaped
beside your gate."
Sterndale gave a violent start and looked at Holmes in amazement.
"You then walked swiftly for the mile which separated you from the vicarage.
You were wearing, I may remark, the same pair of ribbed tennis shoes which are
at the present moment upon your feet. At the vicarage you passed through the
orchard and the side hedge, coming out under the window of the lodger
Tregennis. It was now daylight, but the household was not yet stirring. You drew
some of the gravel from your pocket, and you threw it up at the window above
you."
Sterndale sprang to his feet.
"I believe that you are the devil himself!" he cried.
Holmes smiled at the compliment. "It took two, or possibly three, handfuls
before the lodger came to the window. You beckoned him to come down. He
dressed hurriedly and descended to his sitting-room. You entered by the window.
There was an interview—a short one—during which you walked up and down
the room. Then you passed out and closed the window, standing on the lawn
outside smoking a cigar and watching what occurred. Finally, after the death of
Tregennis, you withdrew as you had come. Now, Dr. Sterndale, how do you
justify such conduct, and what were the motives for your actions? If you
prevaricate or trifle with me, I give you my assurance that the matter will pass
out of my hands forever."
Our visitor's face had turned ashen gray as he listened to the words of his
accuser. Now he sat for some time in thought with his face sunk in his hands.
Then with a sudden impulsive gesture he plucked a photograph from his breast-
pocket and threw it on the rustic table before us.
"That is why I have done it," said he.
It showed the bust and face of a very beautiful woman. Holmes stooped over
it.
"Brenda Tregennis," said he.
"Yes, Brenda Tregennis," repeated our visitor. "For years I have loved her. For
years she has loved me. There is the secret of that Cornish seclusion which
people have marvelled at. It has brought me close to the one thing on earth that
was dear to me. I could not marry her, for I have a wife who has left me for years
and yet whom, by the deplorable laws of England, I could not divorce. For years
Brenda waited. For years I waited. And this is what we have waited for." A
terrible sob shook his great frame, and he clutched his throat under his brindled
beard. Then with an effort he mastered himself and spoke on:
 "The vicar knew. He was in our confidence. He would tell you that she was an
angel upon earth. That was why he telegraphed to me and I returned. What was
my baggage or Africa to me when I learned that such a fate had come upon my
darling? There you have the missing clue to my action, Mr. Holmes."
"Proceed," said my friend.
Dr. Sterndale drew from his pocket a paper packet and laid it upon the table.
On the outside was written "Radix pedis diaboli" with a red poison label beneath
it. He pushed it towards me. "I understand that you are a doctor, sir. Have you
ever heard of this preparation?"
"Devil's-foot root! No, I have never heard of it."
"It is no reflection upon your professional knowledge," said he, "for I believe
that, save for one sample in a laboratory at Buda, there is no other specimen in
Europe. It has not yet found its way either into the pharmacopoeia or into the
literature of toxicology. The root is shaped like a foot, half human, half goatlike;
hence the fanciful name given by a botanical missionary. It is used as an ordeal
poison by the medicine-men in certain districts of West Africa and is kept as a
secret among them. This particular specimen I obtained under very extraordinary
circumstances in the Ubangi country." He opened the paper as he spoke and
disclosed a heap of reddish-brown, snuff-like powder.
"Well, sir?" asked Holmes sternly.
"I am about to tell you, Mr. Holmes, all that actually occurred, for you already
know so much that it is clearly to my interest that you should know all. I have
already explained the relationship in which I stood to the Tregennis family. For
the sake of the sister I was friendly with the brothers. There was a family quarrel
about money which estranged this man Mortimer, but it was supposed to be
made up, and I afterwards met him as I did the others. He was a sly, subtle,
scheming man, and several things arose which gave me a suspicion of him, but I
had no cause for any positive quarrel.
"One day, only a couple of weeks ago, he came down to my cottage and I
showed him some of my African curiosities. Among other things I exhibited this
powder, and I told him of its strange properties, how it stimulates those brain
centres which control the emotion of fear, and how either madness or death is the
fate of the unhappy native who is subjected to the ordeal by the priest of his
tribe. I told him also how powerless European science would be to detect it. How
he took it I cannot say, for I never left the room, but there is no doubt that it was
then, while I was opening cabinets and stooping to boxes, that he managed to
abstract some of the devil's-foot root. I well remember how he plied me with
questions as to the amount and the time that was needed for its effect, but I little
dreamed that he could have a personal reason for asking.
 "I thought no more of the matter until the vicar's telegram reached me at
Plymouth. This villain had thought that I would be at sea before the news could
reach me, and that I should be lost for years in Africa. But I returned at once. Of
course, I could not listen to the details without feeling assured that my poison
had been used. I came round to see you on the chance that some other
explanation had suggested itself to you. But there could be none. I was
convinced that Mortimer Tregennis was the murderer; that for the sake of
money, and with the idea, perhaps, that if the other members of his family were
all insane he would be the sole guardian of their joint property, he had used the
devil's-foot powder upon them, driven two of them out of their senses, and killed
his sister Brenda, the one human being whom I have ever loved or who has ever
loved me. There was his crime; what was to be his punishment?
"Should I appeal to the law? Where were my proofs? I knew that the facts
were true, but could I help to make a jury of countrymen believe so fantastic a
story? I might or I might not. But I could not afford to fail. My soul cried out for
revenge. I have said to you once before, Mr. Holmes, that I have spent much of
my life outside the law, and that I have come at last to be a law to myself. So it
was even now. I determined that the fate which he had given to others should be
shared by himself. Either that or I would do justice upon him with my own hand.
In all England there can be no man who sets less value upon his own life than I
do at the present moment.
"Now I have told you all. You have yourself supplied the rest. I did, as you
say, after a restless night, set off early from my cottage. I foresaw the difficulty
of arousing him, so I gathered some gravel from the pile which you have
mentioned, and I used it to throw up to his window. He came down and admitted
me through the window of the sitting-room. I laid his offence before him. I told
him that I had come both as judge and executioner. The wretch sank into a chair,
paralyzed at the sight of my revolver. I lit the lamp, put the powder above it, and
stood outside the window, ready to carry out my threat to shoot him should he
try to leave the room. In five minutes he died. My God! how he died! But my
heart was flint, for he endured nothing which my innocent darling had not felt
before him. There is my story, Mr. Holmes. Perhaps, if you loved a woman, you
would have done as much yourself. At any rate, I am in your hands. You can
take what steps you like. As I have already said, there is no man living who can
fear death less than I do."
Holmes sat for some little time in silence.
"What were your plans?" he asked at last.
"I had intended to bury myself in central Africa. My work there is but half
finished."
 "Go and do the other half," said Holmes. "I, at least, am not prepared to
prevent you."
Dr. Sterndale raised his giant figure, bowed gravely, and walked from the
arbour. Holmes lit his pipe and handed me his pouch.
"Some fumes which are not poisonous would be a welcome change," said he.
"I think you must agree, Watson, that it is not a case in which we are called upon
to interfere. Our investigation has been independent, and our action shall be so
also. You would not denounce the man?"
"Certainly not," I answered.
"I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I loved had met
such an end, I might act even as our lawless lion-hunter has done. Who knows?
Well, Watson, I will not offend your intelligence by explaining what is obvious.
The gravel upon the window-sill was, of course, the starting-point of my
research. It was unlike anything in the vicarage garden. Only when my attention
had been drawn to Dr. Sterndale and his cottage did I find its counterpart. The
lamp shining in broad daylight and the remains of powder upon the shield were
successive links in a fairly obvious chain. And now, my dear Watson, I think we
may dismiss the matter from our mind and go back with a clear conscience to the
study of those Chaldean roots which are surely to be traced in the Cornish
branch of the great Celtic speech."
Chapter 8
His Last Bow - The War Service of Sherlock Holmes
It was nine o'clock at night upon the second of August — the most terrible
August in the history of the world. One might have thought already that God's
curse hung heavy over a degenerate world, for there was an awesome hush and a
feeling of vague expectancy in the sultry and stagnant air. The sun had long set,
but one blood-red gash like an open wound lay low in the distant west. Above,
the stars were shining brightly, and below, the lights of the shipping glimmered
in the bay. The two famous Germans stood beside the stone parapet of the garden
walk, with the long, low, heavily gabled house behind them, and they looked
down upon the broad sweep of the beach at the foot of the great chalk cliff on
which Von Bork, like some wandering eagle, had perched himself four years
before. They stood with their heads close together, talking in low, confidential
tones. From below the two glowing ends of their cigars might have been the
smouldering eyes of some malignant fiend looking down in the darkness.
A remarkable man this Von Bork — a man who could hardly be matched
among all the devoted agents of the Kaiser. It was his talents which had first
recommended him for the English mission, the most important mission of all,
but since he had taken it over those talents had become more and more manifest
to the half-dozen people in the world who were really in touch with the truth.
One of these was his present companion, Baron Von Herling, the chief secretary
of the legation, whose huge 100-horse-power Benz car was blocking the country
lane as it waited to waft its owner back to London.
"So far as I can judge the trend of events, you will probably be back in Berlin
within the week," the secretary was saying. "When you get there, my dear Von
Bork, I think you will be surprised at the welcome you will receive. I happen to
know what is thought in the highest quarters of your work in this country." He
was a huge man, the secretary, deep, broad, and tall, with a slow, heavy fashion
of speech which had been his main asset in his political career.
Von Bork laughed.
"They are not very hard to deceive," he remarked. "A more docile, simple folk
could not be imagined."
 "I don't know about that," said the other thoughtfully. "They have strange
limits and one must learn to observe them. It is that surface simplicity of theirs
which makes a trap for the stranger. One's first impression is that they are
entirely soft. Then one comes suddenly upon something very hard, and you
know that you have reached the limit and must adapt yourself to the fact. They
have, for example, their insular conventions which simply must be observed."
"Meaning, 'good form' and that sort of thing?" Von Bork sighed as one who
had suffered much.
"Meaning British prejudice in all its queer manifestations. As an example I
may quote one of my own worst blunders — I can afford to talk of my blunders,
for you know my work well enough to be aware of my successes. It was on my
first arrival. I was invited to a week-end gathering at the country house of a
cabinet minister. The conversation was amazingly indiscreet."
Von Bork nodded. "I've been there," said he dryly.
"Exactly. Well, I naturally sent a resume of the information to Berlin.
Unfortunately our good chancellor is a little heavy-handed in these matters, and
he transmitted a remark which showed that he was aware of what had been said.
This, of course, took the trail straight up to me. You've no idea the harm that it
did me. There was nothing soft about our British hosts on that occasion, I can
assure you. I was two years living it down. Now you, with this sporting pose of
yours —"
"No, no, don't call it a pose. A pose is an artificial thing. This is quite natural. I
am a born sportsman. I enjoy it."
"Well, that makes it the more effective. You yacht against them, you hunt with
them, you play polo, you match them in every game, your four-inhand takes the
prize at Olympia. I have even heard that you go the length of boxing with the
young officers. What is the result? Nobody takes you seriously. You are a 'good
old sport,' 'quite a decent fellow for a German,' a hard-drinking, night-club,
knock-about-town, devil-may-care young fellow. And all the time this quiet
country house of yours is the centre of half the mischief in England, and the
sporting squire the most astute secret-service man in Europe. Genius, my dear
Von Bork— genius!"
"You flatter me, Baron. But certainly I may claim that my four years in this
country have not been unproductive. I've never shown you my little store. Would
you mind stepping in for a moment?"
The door of the study opened straight on to the terrace. Von Bork pushed it
back, and, leading the way, he clicked the switch of the electric light. He then
closed the door behind the bulky form which followed him and carefully
adjusted the heavy curtain over the latticed window. Only when all these
precautions had been taken and tested did he turn his sunburned aquiline face to
his guest.
"Some of my papers have gone," said he. "When my wife and the household
left yesterday for Flushing they took the less important with them. I must, of
course, claim the protection of the embassy for the others."
"Your name has already been filed as one of the personal suite. There will be
no difficulties for you or your baggage. Of course, it is just possible that we may
not have to go. England may leave France to her fate. We are sure that there is no
binding treaty between them."
"And Belgium?"
"Yes, and Belgium, too."
Von Bork shook his head. "I don't see how that could be. There is a definite
treaty there. She could never recover from such a humiliation."
"She would at least have peace for the moment."
"But her honour?"
"Tut, my dear sir, we live in a utilitarian age. Honour is a mediaeval
conception. Besides England is not ready. It is an inconceivable thing, but even
our special war tax of fifty million, which one would think made our purpose as
clear as if we had advertised it on the front page of the Times, has not roused
these people from their slumbers. Here and there one hears a question. It is my
business to find an answer. Here and there also there is an irritation. It is my
business to soothe it. But I can assure you that so far as the essentials go — the
storage of munitions, the preparation for submarine attack, the arrangements for
making high explosives — nothing is prepared. How, then, can England come in,
especially when we have stirred her up such a devil's brew of Irish civil war,
window-breaking Furies, and God knows what to keep her thoughts at home."
"She must think of her future."
"Ah, that is another matter. I fancy that in the future we have our own very
definite plans about England, and that your information will be very vital to us.
It is to-day or to-morrow with Mr. John Bull. If he prefers to-day we are
perfectly ready. If it is to-morrow we shall be more ready still. I should think
they would be wiser to fight with allies than without them, but that is their own
affair. This week is their week of destiny. But you were speaking of your
papers." He sat in the armchair with the light shining upon his broad bald head,
while he puffed sedately at his cigar.
The large oak-panelled, book-lined room had a curtain hung in the further
corner. When this was drawn it disclosed a large, brass-bound safe. Von Bork
detached a small key from his watch chain, and after some considerable
manipulation of the lock he swung open the heavy door.
 "Look!" said he, standing clear, with a wave of his hand.
The light shone vividly into the opened safe, and the secretary of the embassy
gazed with an absorbed interest at the rows of stuffed pigeon-holes with which it
was furnished. Each pigeonhole had its label, and his eyes as he glanced along
them read a long series of such titles as "Fords," "Harbour defences,"
"Aeroplanes," "Ireland," "Egypt," "Portsmouth forts," "The Channel,"
"Rosythe," and a score of others. Each compartment was bristling with papers
and plans.
"Colossal!" said the secretary. Putting down his cigar he softly clapped his fat
hands.
"And all in four years, Baron. Not such a bad show for the hard-drinking,
hard-riding country squire. But the gem of my collection is coming and there is
the setting all ready for it." He pointed to a space over which "Naval Signals"
was printed.
"But you have a good dossier there already."
"Out of date and waste paper. The Admiralty in some way got the alarm and
every code has been changed. It was a blow, Baron — the worst setback in my
whole campaign. But thanks to my check-book and the good Altamont all will
be well to-night."
The Baron looked at his watch and gave a guttural exclamation of
disappointment.
"Well, I really can wait no longer. You can imagine that things are moving at
present in Carlton Terrace and that we have all to be at our posts. I had hoped to
be able to bring news of your great coup. Did Altamont name no hour?"
Von Bork pushed over a telegram.
Will come without fail to-night and bring new sparking plugs.
ALTAMONT.
"Sparking plugs, eh?"
"You see he poses as a motor expert and I keep a full garage. In our code
everything likely to come up is named after some spare part. If he talks of a
radiator it is a battleship, of an oil pump a cruiser, and so on. Sparking plugs are
naval signals."
"From Portsmouth at midday," said the secretary, examining the
superscription. "By the way, what do you give him?"
"Five hundred pounds for this particular job. Of course he has a salary as
well."
"The greedy rogue. They are useful, these traitors, but I grudge them their
blood money."
"I grudge Altamont nothing. He is a wonderful worker. If I pay him well, at
least he delivers the goods, to use his own phrase. Besides he is not a traitor. I
assure you that our most pan-Germanic Junker is a sucking dove in his feelings
towards England as compared with a real bitter Irish-American."
"Oh, an Irish-American?"
"If you heard him talk you would not doubt it. Sometimes I assure you I can
hardly understand him. He seems to have declared war on the King's English as
well as on the English king. Must you really go? He may be here any moment."
"No. I'm sorry, but I have already overstayed my time. We shall expect you
early to-morrow, and when you get that signal book through the little door on the
Duke of York's steps you can put a triumphant finis to your record in England.
What! Tokay!"
He indicated a heavily sealed dust-covered bottle which stood with two high
glasses upon a salver.
"May I offer you a glass before your journey?"
"No, thanks. But it looks like revelry."
"Altamont has a nice taste in wines, and he took a fancy to my Tokay. He is a
touchy fellow and needs humouring in small things. I have to study him, I assure
you." They had strolled out on to the terrace again, and along it to the further end
where at a touch from the Baron's chauffeur the great car shivered and chuckled.
"Those are the lights of Harwich, I suppose," said the secretary, pulling on his
dust coat. "How still and peaceful it all seems. There may be other lights within
the week, and the English coast a less tranquil place! The heavens, too, may not
be quite so peaceful if all that the good Zeppelin promises us comes true. By the
way, who is that?"
Only one window showed a light behind them; in it there stood a lamp, and
beside it, seated at a table, was a dear old ruddy-faced woman in a country cap.
She was bending over her knitting and stopping occasionally to stroke a large
black cat upon a stool beside her.
"That is Martha, the only servant I have left."
The secretary chuckled.
"She might almost personify Britannia," said he, "with her complete
selfabsorption and general air of comfortable somnolence. Well, au revoir, Von
Bork!" With a final wave of his hand he sprang into the car, and a moment later
the two golden cones from the headlights shot forward through the darkness. The
secretary lay back in the cushions of the luxurious limousine, with his thoughts
so full of the impending European tragedy that he hardly observed that as his car
swung round the village street it nearly passed over a little Ford coming in the
opposite direction.
Von Bork walked slowly back to the study when the last gleams of the motor
lamps had faded into the distance. As he passed he observed that his old
housekeeper had put out her lamp and retired. It was a new experience to him,
the silence and darkness of his widespread house, for his family and household
had been a large one. It was a relief to him, however, to think that they were all
in safety and that, but for that one old woman who had lingered in the kitchen,
he had the whole place to himself. There was a good deal of tidying up to do
inside his study and he set himself to do it until his keen, handsome face was
flushed with the heat of the burning papers. A leather valise stood beside his
table, and into this he began to pack very neatly and systematically the precious
contents of his safe. He had hardly got started with the work, however, when his
quick ears caught the sound of a distant car. Instantly he gave an exclamation of
satisfaction, strapped up the valise, shut the safe, locked it, and hurried out on to
the terrace. He was just in time to see the lights of a small car come to a halt at
the gate. A passenger sprang out of it and advanced swiftly towards him, while
the chauffeur, a heavily built, elderly man with a gray moustache, settled down
like one who resigns himself to a long vigil.
"Well?" asked Von Bork eagerly, running forward to meet his visitor.
For answer the man waved a small brown-paper parcel triumphantly above his
head.
"You can give me the glad hand to-night, mister," he cried. "I'm bringing
home the bacon at last."
"The signals?"
"Same as I said in my cable. Every last one of them, semaphore, lamp code,
Marconi — a copy, mind you, not the original. That was too dangerous. But it's
the real goods, and you can lay to that." He slapped the German upon the
shoulder with a rough familiarity from which the other winced.
"Come in," he said. "I'm all alone in the house. I was only waiting for this. Of
course a copy is better than the original. If an original were missing they would
change the whole thing. You think it's all safe about the copy?"
The Irish-American had entered the study and stretched his long limbs from
the armchair. He was a tall, gaunt man of sixty, with clear-cut features and a
small goatee beard which gave him a general resemblance to the caricatures of
Uncle Sam. A halfsmoked, sodden cigar hung from the corner of his mouth, and
as he sat down he struck a match and relit it. "Making ready for a move?" he
remarked as he looked round him. "Say, mister," he added, as his eyes fell upon
the safe from which the curtain was now removed, "you don't tell me you keep
your papers in that?"
"Why not?"
"Gosh, in a wide-open contraption like that! And they reckon you to be some
spy. Why, a Yankee crook would be into that with a canopener. If I'd known that
any letter of mine was goin' to lie loose in a thing like that I'd have been a mug
to write to you at all."
"It would puzzle any crook to force that safe," Von Bork answered. "You
won't cut that metal with any tool."
"But the lock?"
"No, it's a double combination lock. You know what that is?"
"Search me," said the American.
"Well, you need a word as well as a set of figures before you can get the lock
to work." He rose and showed a doubleradiating disc round the keyhole. "This
outer one is for the letters, the inner one for the figures."
"Well, well, that's fine."
"So it's not quite as simple as you thought. It was four years ago that I had it
made, and what do you think I chose for the word and figures?"
"It's beyond me."
"Well, I chose August for the word, and 1914 for the figures, and here we
are."
The American's face showed his surprise and admiration.
"My, but that was smart! You had it down to a fine thing."
"Yes, a few of us even then could have guessed the date. Here it is, and I'm
shutting down to-morrow morning. "
"Well, I guess you'll have to fix me up also. I'm not staying in this gol- darned
country all on my lonesome. In a week or less, from what I see, John Bull will be
on his hind legs and fair ramping. I'd rather watch him from over the water."
"But you're an American citizen?"
"Well, so was Jack James an American citizen, but he's doing time in Portland
all the same. It cuts no ice with a British copper to tell him you're an American
citizen. 'It's British law and order over here,' says he. By the way, mister, talking
of Jack James, it seems to me you don't do much to cover your men."
"What do you mean?" Von Bork asked sharply.
"Well, you are their employer, ain't you? It's up to you to see that they don't
fall down. But they do fall down, and when did you ever pick them up? There's
James —"
"It was James's own fault. You know that yourself. He was too self-willed for
the job."
"James was a bonehead — I give you that. Then there was Hollis. "
"The man was mad."
"Well, he went a bit woozy towards the end. It's enough to make a man
bughouse when he has to play a part from morning to night with a hundred guys
all ready to set the coppers wise to him. But now there is Steiner —"
Von Bork started violently, and his ruddy face turned a shade paler.
"What about Steiner?"
"Well, they've got him, that's all. They raided his store last night, and he and
his papers are all in Portsmouth jail. You'll go off and he, poor devil, will have to
stand the racket, and lucky if he gets off with his life. That's why I want to get
over the water as soon as you do."
Von Bork was a strong, self-contained man, but it was easy to see that the
news had shaken him.
"How could they have got on to Steiner?" he muttered. "That's the worst blow
yet."
"Well, you nearly had a worse one, for I believe they are not far off me."
"You don't mean that!"
"Sure thing. My landlady down Fratton way had some inquiries, and when I
heard of it I guessed it was time for me to hustle. But what I want to know,
mister, is how the coppers know these things? Steiner is the fifth man you've lost
since I signed on with you, and I know the name of the sixth if I don't get a move
on. How do you explain it, and ain't you ashamed to see your men go down like
this?"
Von Bork flushed crimson.
"How dare you speak in such a way!"
"If I didn't dare things, mister, I wouldn't be in your service. But I'll tell you
straight what is in my mind. I've heard that with you German politicians when an
agent has done his work you are not sorry to see him put away."
Von Bork sprang to his feet.
"Do you dare to suggest that I have given away my own agents!"
"I don't stand for that, mister, but there's a stool pigeon or a cross somewhere,
and it's up to you to find out where it is. Anyhow I am taking no more chances.
It's me for little Holland, and the sooner the better."
Von Bork had mastered his anger.
"We have been allies too long to quarrel now at the very hour of victory," he
said. "You've done splendid work and taken risks, and I can't forget it. By all
means go to Holland, and you can get a boat from Rotterdam to New York. No
other line will be safe a week from now. I'll take that book and pack it with the
rest."
The American held the small parcel in his hand, but made no motion to give it
up.
"What about the dough?" he asked.
"The what?"
 "The boodle. The reward. The 500 pounds. The gunner turned damned nasty
at the last, and I had to square him with an extra hundred dollars or it would have
been nitsky for you and me. 'Nothin' doin'!' says he, and he meant it, too, but the
last hundred did it. It's cost me two hundred pound from first to last, so it isn't
likely I'd give it up without gettin' my wad. "
Von Bork smiled with some bitterness. "You don't seem to have a very high
opinion of my honour," said he, "you want the money before you give up the
book."
"Well, mister, it is a business proposition."
"All right. Have your way." He sat down at the table and scribbled a check,
which he tore from the book, but he refrained from handing it to his companion.
"After all, since we are to be on such terms, Mr. Altamont," said he, "I don't see
why I should trust you any more than you trust me. Do you understand?" he
added, looking back over his shoulder at the American. "There's the check upon
the table. I claim the right to examine that parcel before you pick the money up."
The American passed it over without a word. Von Bork undid a winding of
string and two wrappers of paper. Then he sat gazing for a moment in silent
amazement at a small blue book which lay before him. Across the cover was
printed in golden letters Practical Handbook of Bee Culture. Only for one instant
did the master spy glare at this strangely irrelevant inscription. The next he was
gripped at the back of his neck by a grasp of iron, and a chloroformed sponge
was held in front of his writhing face.
"Another glass, Watson!" said Mr. Sherlock Holmes as he extended the bottle
of Imperial Tokay.
The thickset chauffeur, who had seated himself by the table pushed forward
his glass with some eagerness.
"It is a good wine, Holmes."
"A remarkable wine, Watson. Our friend upon the sofa has assured me that it
is from Franz Josef's special cellar at the Schoenbrunn Palace. Might I trouble
you to open the window for chloroform vapour does not help the palate."
The safe was ajar, and Holmes standing in front of it was removing dossier
after dossier, swiftly examining each, and then packing it neatly in Von Bork's
valise. The German lay upon the sofa sleeping stertorously with a strap round his
upper arms and another round his legs. "We need not hurry ourselves, Watson.
We are safe from interruption. Would you mind touching the bell? There is no
one in the house except old Martha, who has played her part to admiration. I got
her the situation here when first I took the matter up. Ah, Martha, you will be
glad to hear that all is well."
The pleasant old lady had appeared in the doorway. She curtseyed with a
smile to Mr. Holmes, but glanced with some apprehension at the figure upon the
sofa.
"It is all right, Martha. He has not been hurt at all."
"I am glad of that, Mr. Holmes. According to his lights he has been a kind
master. He wanted me to go with his wife to Germany yesterday, but that would
hardly have suited your plans, would it, sir?"
"No, indeed, Martha. So long as you were here I was easy in my mind. We
waited some time for your signal to-night."
"It was the secretary, sir."
"I know. His car passed ours."
"I thought he would never go. I knew that it would not suit your plans, sir, to
find him here."
"No, indeed. Well, it only meant that we waited half an hour or so until I saw
your lamp go out and knew that the coast was clear. You can report to me to-
morrow in London, Martha, at Claridge's Hotel."
"Very good, sir."
"I suppose you have everything ready to leave."
"Yes, sir. He posted seven letters to-day. I have the addresses as usual."
"Very good, Martha. I will look into them to-morrow. Goodnight. These
papers," he continued as the old lady vanished, "are not of very great imponance,
for, of course, the information which they represent has been sent off long ago to
the German government. These are the originals which could not safely be got
out of the country."
"Then they are of no use."
"I should not go so far as to say that, Watson. They will at least show our
people what is known and what is not. I may say that a good many of these
papers have come through me, and I need not add are thoroughly untrustworthy.
It would brighten my declining years to see a German cruiser navigating the
Solent according to the mine-field plans which I have furnished. But you,
Watson" — he stopped his work and took his old friend by the shoulders — "I've
hardly seen you in the light yet. How have the years used you? You look the
same blithe boy as ever. "
"I feel twenty years younger, Holmes. I have seldom felt so happy as when I
got your wire asking me to meet you at Harwich with the car. But you, Holmes
— you have changed very little — save for that horrible goatee."
"These are the sacrifices one makes for one's country, Watson," said Holmes,
pulling at his little tuft. "To-morrow it will be but a dreadful memory. With my
hair cut and a few other superficial changes I shall no doubt reappear at
Claridge's tomorrow as I was before this American stunt — I beg your pardon,
Watson, my well of English seems to be permanently defiled — before this
American job came my way."
"But you have retired, Holmes. We heard of you as living the life of a hermit
among your bees and your books in a small farm upon the South Downs."
"Exactly, Watson. Here is the fruit of my leisured ease, the magnum opus of
my latter years!" He picked up the volume from the table and read out the whole
title, Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations upon the
Segregation of the Queen. "Alone I did it. Behold the fruit of pensive nights and
laborious days when I watched the little working gangs as once I watched the
criminal world of London."
"But how did you get to work again?"
"Ah, I have often marvelled at it myself. The Foreign Minister alone I could
have withstood, but when the Premier also deigned to visit my humble roof! The
fact is, Watson, that this gentleman upon the sofa was a bit too good for our
people. He was in a class by himself. Things were going wrong, and no one
could understand why they were going wrong. Agents were suspected or even
caught, but there was evidence of some strong and secret central force. It was
absolutely necessary to expose it. Strong pressure was brought upon me to look
into the matter. It has cost me two years, Watson, but they have not been devoid
of excitement. When I say that I started my pilgrimage at Chicago, graduated in
an Irish secret society at Buffalo, gave serious trouble to the constabulary at
Skibbareen, and so eventually caught the eye of a subordinate agent of Von
Bork, who recommended me as a likely man, you will realize that the matter was
complex. Since then I have been honoured by his confidence, which has not
prevented most of his plans going subtly wrong and five of his best agents being
in prison. I watched them, Watson, and I picked them as they ripened. Well, sir, I
hope that you are none the worse!"
The last remark was addressed to Von Bork himself, who after much gasping
and blinking had lain quietly listening to Holmes's statement. He broke out now
into a furious stream of German invective, his face convulsed with passion.
Holmes continued his swift investigation of documents while his prisoner cursed
and swore.
"Though unmusical, German is the most expressive of all languages," he
observed when Von Bork had stopped from pure exhaustion. "Hullo! Hullo!" he
added as he looked hard at the corner of a tracing before putting it in the box.
"This should put another bird in the cage. I had no idea that the paymaster was
such a rascal, though I have long had an eye upon him. Mister Von Bork, you
have a great deal to answer for."
The prisoner had raised himself with some difficulty upon the sofa and was
staring with a strange mixture of amazement and hatred at his captor. I shall get
level with you, Altamont," he said, speaking with slow deliberation. "If it takes
me all my life I shall get level with you!"
"The old sweet song," said Holmes. "How often have I heard it in days gone
by. It was a favourite ditty of the late lamented Professor Moriarty. Colonel
Sebastian Moran has also been known to warble it. And yet I live and keep bees
upon the South Downs."
"Curse you, you double traitor!" cried the German, straining against his bonds
and glaring murder from his furious eyes.
"No, no, it is not so bad as that," said Holmes, smiling. "As my speech surely
shows you, Mr. Altamont of Chicago had no existence in fact. I used him and he
is gone."
"Then who are you?"
"It is really immaterial who I am, but since the matter seems to interest you,
Mr. Von Bork, I may say that this is not my first acquaintance with the members
of your family. I have done a good deal of business in Germany in the past and
my name is probably familiar to you."
"I would wish to know it," said the Prussian grimly.
"It was I who brought about the separation between Irene Adler and the late
King of Bohemia when your cousin Heinrich was the Imperial Envoy. It was I
also who saved from murder, by the Nihilist Klopman, Count Von und Zu
Grafenstein, who was your mother's elder brother. It was I —"
Von Bork sat up in amazement.
"There is only one man," he cried.
"Exactly," said Holmes.
Von Bork groaned and sank back on the sofa. "And most of that information
came through you," he cried. "What is it worth? What have I done? It is my ruin
forever!"
"It is certainly a little untrustworthy," said Holmes. "It will require some
checking and you have little time to check it. Your admiral may find the new
guns rather larger than he expects, and the cruisers perhaps a trifle faster."
Von Bork clutched at his own throat in despair.
"There are a good many other points of defail which will, no doubt, come to
light in good time. But you have one quality which is very rare in a German, Mr.
Von Bork: you are a sportsman and you will bear me no ill-will when you realize
that you, who have outwitted so many other people, have at last been outwitted
yourself. After all, you have done your best for your country, and I have done
my best for mine, and what could be more natural? Besides," he added, not
unkindly, as he laid his hand upon the shoulder of the prostrate man, "it is better
than to fall before some more ignoble foe. These papers are now ready. Watson.
If you will help me with our prisoner, I think that we may get started for London
at once."
It was no easy task to move Von Bork, for he was a strong and a desperate
man. Finally, holding either arm, the two friends walked him very slowly down
the garden walk which he had trod with such proud confidence when he received
the congratulations of the famous diplomatist only a few hours before. After a
short, final struggle he was hoisted, still bound hand and foot, into the spare seat
of the little car. His precious valise was wedged in beside him.
"I trust that you are as comfortable as circumstances permit," said Holmes
when the final arrangements were made. "Should I be guilty of a liberty if I lit a
cigar and placed it between your lips?"
But all amenities were wasted upon the angry German.
"I suppose you realize, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said he, "that if your
government bears you out in this treatment it becomes an act of war."
"What about your government and all this treatment?" said Holmes, tapping
the valise.
"You are a private individual. You have no warrant for my arrest. The whole
proceeding is absolutely illegal and outrageous."
"Absolutely," said Holmes.
"Kidnapping a German subject."
"And stealing his private papers."
"Well, you realize your position, you and your accomplice here. If I were to
shout for help as we pass through the village —"
"My dear sir, if you did anything so foolish you would probably enlarge the
two limited titles of our village inns by giving us 'The Dangling Prussian' as a
signpost. The Englishman is a patient creature, but at present his temper is a little
inflamed, and it would be as well not to try him too far. No, Mr. Von Bork, you
will go with us in a quiet, sensible fashion to Scotland Yard, whence you can
send for your friend, Baron Von Herling, and see if even now you may not fill
that place which he has reserved for you in the ambassadorial suite. As to you,
Watson, you are joining us with your old service, as I understand, so London
won't be out of your way. Stand with me here upon the terrace, for it may be the
last quiet talk that we shall ever have."
The two friends chatted in intimate converse for a few minutes, recalling once
again the days of the past, while their prisoner vainly wriggled to undo the bonds
that held him. As they turned to the car Holmes pointed back to the moonlit sea
and shook a thoughtful head.
"There's an east wind coming, Watson."
 "I think not, Holmes. It is very warm."
"Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There's an
east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will
be cold and bitter, Watson and a good many of us may wither before its blast.
But it's God's own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie
in the sunshine when the storm has cleared. Start her up, Watson, for it's time
that we were on our way. I have a check for five hundred pounds which should
be cashed early, for the drawer is quite capable of stopping it if he can."
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