His last bow : $b Some later reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes

The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge

The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles

The Tiger of San Pedro

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 recognise 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 led 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, grey-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 I 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 led 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 _tête-à-tête_, 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 apologised 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 object 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.”

“I 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 brows 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 particularly

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 inadmissible. 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 message 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 gave 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, an 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

_débris_ 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-humouredly.

“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 prisoner 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, deep-set, brooding eyes that he was perfectly aware

of my true business. He is a man of fifty, strong, active, with

iron-grey 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 they 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 as a

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 grey 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 called 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, José. 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, terrorised 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

realise 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 minimised the incident

before me, had really recognised 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.”

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

this window, Watson. See how the figures loom up, are dimly seen, and

then blend once more into the cloud-bank. 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 clearinghouse, 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

fiancée, 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 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 is also 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-grey, 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

métier. 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 grey 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 imperious, but a straight,

honest man. We have nothing against him. He was next 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 up the plans 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

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 having 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 fiancée 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; they 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 fiancée 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 disorganised. 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 has 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 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 fiancée. 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 Mayer, of 13, Great

George Street, Westminster; Louis La Rothière, 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 curaçao.

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 legalise 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 discolorations 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 Telegraph_ 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 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 wits’ 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 to-night,’

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 Hôtel 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.

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 of 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 semi-circle 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-coloured, 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 Phœnician 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 archæologist, 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 anything

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 that 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 realised, 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 who 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 realised 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 scrutinised 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 conducting

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 grey 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

pharmacopœia 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, paralysed

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.”

The Adventure of the Red Circle

PART I

“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 ten-pound 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 had 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 the

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 Homes, 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

burnt 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 clean-shaven 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 on 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 communications. 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 his

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 box-room. 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 grey 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 lodging-house, 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.”

PART II

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 this 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 clean-shaven,

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 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 them 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 for 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 this 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 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, gentleman, 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.”

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 Hôtel

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 Crédit 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 Hôtel 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 the 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 bellow 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 rogues 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 organisation 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 grey 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 recognised 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

separate 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 you 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 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.”

“I _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 worn-out 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 Workhouse 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 recognise 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 grey 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.”

The Adventure of the Dying Detective

Mrs. Hudson, the landlady of Sherlock Holmes, was a long-suffering

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 of 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 tiger-spring, 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

_débris_ 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 paralysed, 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

disorganisation 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 trouser pocket. 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 well-known 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 gave 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

electrical 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 grey 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-delirious 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 recognise 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 witnessbox. 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 realise 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.”

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 in 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 résumé 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-in-hand 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 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 mediæval

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 pigeon-hole 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 Zepplin

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

self-absorption 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

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 sounds

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 grey 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 half-smoked, 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 can-opener. 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 double-radiating 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

goldarned 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

bug-house 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. 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. Good-night. These

papers,” he continued as the old lady vanished, “are not of very great

importance, 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 to-morrow 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 realise 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 favorite 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 detail 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 realise 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 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 realise, 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 realise 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.”