Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes shared by Danny Boice Continued

“Having got so far, my next step was, of course, to examine into the
details of the crime, and to see how far they would help us. I went up
to the house with the Inspector, and saw all that was to be seen. The
wound upon the dead man was, as I was able to determine with absolute
confidence, fired from a revolver at the distance of something over
four yards. There was no powder-blackening on the clothes. Evidently,
therefore, Alec Cunningham had lied when he said that the two men were
struggling when the shot was fired. Again, both father and son agreed
as to the place where the man escaped into the road. At that point,
however, as it happens, there is a broadish ditch, moist at the bottom.
As there were no indications of bootmarks about this ditch, I was
absolutely sure not only that the Cunninghams had again lied, but that
there had never been any unknown man upon the scene at all.

“And now I have to consider the motive of this singular crime. To get
at this, I endeavored first of all to solve the reason of the original
burglary at Mr. Acton's. I understood, from something which the Colonel
told us, that a lawsuit had been going on between you, Mr. Acton, and
the Cunninghams. Of course, it instantly occurred to me that they had
broken into your library with the intention of getting at some document
which might be of importance in the case.”

“Precisely so,” said Mr. Acton. “There can be no possible doubt as to
their intentions. I have the clearest claim upon half of their present
estate, and if they could have found a single paper--which, fortunately,
was in the strong-box of my solicitors--they would undoubtedly have
crippled our case.”

“There you are,” said Holmes, smiling. “It was a dangerous, reckless
attempt, in which I seem to trace the influence of young Alec. Having
found nothing they tried to divert suspicion by making it appear to be
an ordinary burglary, to which end they carried off whatever they could
lay their hands upon. That is all clear enough, but there was much that
was still obscure. What I wanted above all was to get the missing part
of that note. I was certain that Alec had torn it out of the dead man's
hand, and almost certain that he must have thrust it into the pocket of
his dressing-gown. Where else could he have put it? The only question
was whether it was still there. It was worth an effort to find out, and
for that object we all went up to the house.

“The Cunninghams joined us, as you doubtless remember, outside the
kitchen door. It was, of course, of the very first importance that they
should not be reminded of the existence of this paper, otherwise they
would naturally destroy it without delay. The Inspector was about to
tell them the importance which we attached to it when, by the luckiest
chance in the world, I tumbled down in a sort of fit and so changed the
conversation.

“Good heavens!” cried the Colonel, laughing, “do you mean to say all our
sympathy was wasted and your fit an imposture?”

“Speaking professionally, it was admirably done,” cried I, looking in
amazement at this man who was forever confounding me with some new phase
of his astuteness.

“It is an art which is often useful,” said he. “When I recovered I
managed, by a device which had perhaps some little merit of ingenuity,
to get old Cunningham to write the word 'twelve,' so that I might
compare it with the 'twelve' upon the paper.”

“Oh, what an ass I have been!” I exclaimed.

“I could see that you were commiserating me over my weakness,” said
Holmes, laughing. “I was sorry to cause you the sympathetic pain which
I know that you felt. We then went upstairs together, and having entered
the room and seen the dressing-gown hanging up behind the door, I
contrived, by upsetting a table, to engage their attention for the
moment, and slipped back to examine the pockets. I had hardly got the
paper, however--which was, as I had expected, in one of them--when the
two Cunninghams were on me, and would, I verily believe, have murdered
me then and there but for your prompt and friendly aid. As it is, I feel
that young man's grip on my throat now, and the father has twisted my
wrist round in the effort to get the paper out of my hand. They saw that
I must know all about it, you see, and the sudden change from absolute
security to complete despair made them perfectly desperate.

“I had a little talk with old Cunningham afterwards as to the motive of
the crime. He was tractable enough, though his son was a perfect demon,
ready to blow out his own or anybody else's brains if he could have got
to his revolver. When Cunningham saw that the case against him was so
strong he lost all heart and made a clean breast of everything. It seems
that William had secretly followed his two masters on the night when
they made their raid upon Mr. Acton's, and having thus got them into
his power, proceeded, under threats of exposure, to levy blackmail upon
them. Mr. Alec, however, was a dangerous man to play games of that
sort with. It was a stroke of positive genius on his part to see in the
burglary scare which was convulsing the country side an opportunity of
plausibly getting rid of the man whom he feared. William was decoyed up
and shot, and had they only got the whole of the note and paid a little
more attention to detail in the accessories, it is very possible that
suspicion might never have been aroused.”

“And the note?” I asked.

Sherlock Holmes placed the subjoined paper before us.

If you will only come round at quarter to twelve
to the east gate you will learn what
will very much surprise you and maybe [sic]
be of the greatest service to you and also
to Annie Morrison. But say nothing to anyone
upon the matter.


“It is very much the sort of thing that I expected,” said he. “Of
course, we do not yet know what the relations may have been between Alec
Cunningham, William Kirwan, and Annie Morrison. The results shows that
the trap was skillfully baited. I am sure that you cannot fail to be
delighted with the traces of heredity shown in the p's and in the tails
of the g's. The absence of the i-dots in the old man's writing is also
most characteristic. Watson, I think our quiet rest in the country has
been a distinct success, and I shall certainly return much invigorated
to Baker Street to-morrow.”




Adventure VII. The Crooked Man


One summer night, a few months after my marriage, I was seated by my own
hearth smoking a last pipe and nodding over a novel, for my day's work
had been an exhausting one. My wife had already gone upstairs, and the
sound of the locking of the hall door some time before told me that the
servants had also retired. I had risen from my seat and was knocking out
the ashes of my pipe when I suddenly heard the clang of the bell.

I looked at the clock. It was a quarter to twelve. This could not be
a visitor at so late an hour. A patient, evidently, and possibly an
all-night sitting. With a wry face I went out into the hall and opened
the door. To my astonishment it was Sherlock Holmes who stood upon my
step.

“Ah, Watson,” said he, “I hoped that I might not be too late to catch
you.”

“My dear fellow, pray come in.”

“You look surprised, and no wonder! Relieved, too, I fancy! Hum! You
still smoke the Arcadia mixture of your bachelor days then! There's no
mistaking that fluffy ash upon your coat. It's easy to tell that you
have been accustomed to wear a uniform, Watson. You'll never pass as
a pure-bred civilian as long as you keep that habit of carrying your
handkerchief in your sleeve. Could you put me up to-night?”

“With pleasure.”

“You told me that you had bachelor quarters for one, and I see that you
have no gentleman visitor at present. Your hat-stand proclaims as much.”

“I shall be delighted if you will stay.”

“Thank you. I'll fill the vacant peg then. Sorry to see that you've had
the British workman in the house. He's a token of evil. Not the drains,
I hope?”

“No, the gas.”

“Ah! He has left two nail-marks from his boot upon your linoleum
just where the light strikes it. No, thank you, I had some supper at
Waterloo, but I'll smoke a pipe with you with pleasure.”

I handed him my pouch, and he seated himself opposite to me and smoked
for some time in silence. I was well aware that nothing but business
of importance would have brought him to me at such an hour, so I waited
patiently until he should come round to it.

“I see that you are professionally rather busy just now,” said he,
glancing very keenly across at me.

“Yes, I've had a busy day,” I answered. “It may seem very foolish in
your eyes,” I added, “but really I don't know how you deduced it.”

Holmes chuckled to himself.

“I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson,” said he.
“When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one you
use a hansom. As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by
no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at present busy enough to
justify the hansom.”

“Excellent!” I cried.

“Elementary,” said he. “It is one of those instances where the reasoner
can produce an effect which seems remarkable to his neighbor, because
the latter has missed the one little point which is the basis of the
deduction. The same may be said, my dear fellow, for the effect of
some of these little sketches of yours, which is entirely meretricious,
depending as it does upon your retaining in your own hands some factors
in the problem which are never imparted to the reader. Now, at present
I am in the position of these same readers, for I hold in this hand
several threads of one of the strangest cases which ever perplexed a
man's brain, and yet I lack the one or two which are needful to complete
my theory. But I'll have them, Watson, I'll have them!” His eyes kindled
and a slight flush sprang into his thin cheeks. For an instant only.
When I glanced again his face had resumed that red-Indian composure
which had made so many regard him as a machine rather than a man.

“The problem presents features of interest,” said he. “I may even say
exceptional features of interest. I have already looked into the matter,
and have come, as I think, within sight of my solution. If you could
accompany me in that last step you might be of considerable service to
me.”

“I should be delighted.”

“Could you go as far as Aldershot to-morrow?”

“I have no doubt Jackson would take my practice.”

“Very good. I want to start by the 11.10 from Waterloo.”

“That would give me time.”

“Then, if you are not too sleepy, I will give you a sketch of what has
happened, and of what remains to be done.”

“I was sleepy before you came. I am quite wakeful now.”

“I will compress the story as far as may be done without omitting
anything vital to the case. It is conceivable that you may even have
read some account of the matter. It is the supposed murder of Colonel
Barclay, of the Royal Munsters, at Aldershot, which I am investigating.”

“I have heard nothing of it.”

“It has not excited much attention yet, except locally. The facts are
only two days old. Briefly they are these:

“The Royal Munsters is, as you know, one of the most famous Irish
regiments in the British army. It did wonders both in the Crimea and the
Mutiny, and has since that time distinguished itself upon every possible
occasion. It was commanded up to Monday night by James Barclay,
a gallant veteran, who started as a full private, was raised to
commissioned rank for his bravery at the time of the Mutiny, and so
lived to command the regiment in which he had once carried a musket.

“Colonel Barclay had married at the time when he was a sergeant, and
his wife, whose maiden name was Miss Nancy Devoy, was the daughter of a
former color-sergeant in the same corps. There was, therefore, as can
be imagined, some little social friction when the young couple (for
they were still young) found themselves in their new surroundings. They
appear, however, to have quickly adapted themselves, and Mrs. Barclay
has always, I understand, been as popular with the ladies of the
regiment as her husband was with his brother officers. I may add that
she was a woman of great beauty, and that even now, when she has been
married for upwards of thirty years, she is still of a striking and
queenly appearance.

“Colonel Barclay's family life appears to have been a uniformly happy
one. Major Murphy, to whom I owe most of my facts, assures me that he
has never heard of any misunderstanding between the pair. On the whole,
he thinks that Barclay's devotion to his wife was greater than his
wife's to Barclay. He was acutely uneasy if he were absent from her for
a day. She, on the other hand, though devoted and faithful, was less
obtrusively affectionate. But they were regarded in the regiment as
the very model of a middle-aged couple. There was absolutely nothing in
their mutual relations to prepare people for the tragedy which was to
follow.

“Colonel Barclay himself seems to have had some singular traits in his
character. He was a dashing, jovial old soldier in his usual mood,
but there were occasions on which he seemed to show himself capable
of considerable violence and vindictiveness. This side of his nature,
however, appears never to have been turned towards his wife. Another
fact, which had struck Major Murphy and three out of five of the other
officers with whom I conversed, was the singular sort of depression
which came upon him at times. As the major expressed it, the smile had
often been struck from his mouth, as if by some invisible hand, when he
has been joining the gayeties and chaff of the mess-table. For days on
end, when the mood was on him, he has been sunk in the deepest gloom.
This and a certain tinge of superstition were the only unusual traits
in his character which his brother officers had observed. The latter
peculiarity took the form of a dislike to being left alone, especially
after dark. This puerile feature in a nature which was conspicuously
manly had often given rise to comment and conjecture.

“The first battalion of the Royal Munsters (which is the old 117th) has
been stationed at Aldershot for some years. The married officers live
out of barracks, and the Colonel has during all this time occupied a
villa called Lachine, about half a mile from the north camp. The house
stands in its own grounds, but the west side of it is not more than
thirty yards from the high-road. A coachman and two maids form the
staff of servants. These with their master and mistress were the sole
occupants of Lachine, for the Barclays had no children, nor was it usual
for them to have resident visitors.

“Now for the events at Lachine between nine and ten on the evening of
last Monday.”

“Mrs. Barclay was, it appears, a member of the Roman Catholic Church,
and had interested herself very much in the establishment of the Guild
of St. George, which was formed in connection with the Watt Street
Chapel for the purpose of supplying the poor with cast-off clothing.
A meeting of the Guild had been held that evening at eight, and Mrs.
Barclay had hurried over her dinner in order to be present at it. When
leaving the house she was heard by the coachman to make some commonplace
remark to her husband, and to assure him that she would be back before
very long. She then called for Miss Morrison, a young lady who lives
in the next villa, and the two went off together to their meeting. It
lasted forty minutes, and at a quarter-past nine Mrs. Barclay returned
home, having left Miss Morrison at her door as she passed.

“There is a room which is used as a morning-room at Lachine. This faces
the road and opens by a large glass folding-door on to the lawn. The
lawn is thirty yards across, and is only divided from the highway by
a low wall with an iron rail above it. It was into this room that Mrs.
Barclay went upon her return. The blinds were not down, for the room was
seldom used in the evening, but Mrs. Barclay herself lit the lamp and
then rang the bell, asking Jane Stewart, the house-maid, to bring her
a cup of tea, which was quite contrary to her usual habits. The Colonel
had been sitting in the dining-room, but hearing that his wife had
returned he joined her in the morning-room. The coachman saw him cross
the hall and enter it. He was never seen again alive.

“The tea which had been ordered was brought up at the end of ten
minutes; but the maid, as she approached the door, was surprised to
hear the voices of her master and mistress in furious altercation. She
knocked without receiving any answer, and even turned the handle, but
only to find that the door was locked upon the inside. Naturally enough
she ran down to tell the cook, and the two women with the coachman came
up into the hall and listened to the dispute which was still raging.
They all agreed that only two voices were to be heard, those of Barclay
and of his wife. Barclay's remarks were subdued and abrupt, so that none
of them were audible to the listeners. The lady's, on the other hand,
were most bitter, and when she raised her voice could be plainly heard.
'You coward!' she repeated over and over again. 'What can be done now?
What can be done now? Give me back my life. I will never so much as
breathe the same air with you again! You coward! You coward!' Those were
scraps of her conversation, ending in a sudden dreadful cry in the man's
voice, with a crash, and a piercing scream from the woman. Convinced
that some tragedy had occurred, the coachman rushed to the door and
strove to force it, while scream after scream issued from within. He was
unable, however, to make his way in, and the maids were too distracted
with fear to be of any assistance to him. A sudden thought struck him,
however, and he ran through the hall door and round to the lawn upon
which the long French windows open. One side of the window was open,
which I understand was quite usual in the summer-time, and he passed
without difficulty into the room. His mistress had ceased to scream and
was stretched insensible upon a couch, while with his feet tilted over
the side of an arm-chair, and his head upon the ground near the corner
of the fender, was lying the unfortunate soldier stone dead in a pool of
his own blood.

“Naturally, the coachman's first thought, on finding that he could do
nothing for his master, was to open the door. But here an unexpected and
singular difficulty presented itself. The key was not in the inner side
of the door, nor could he find it anywhere in the room. He went out
again, therefore, through the window, and having obtained the help of
a policeman and of a medical man, he returned. The lady, against whom
naturally the strongest suspicion rested, was removed to her room, still
in a state of insensibility. The Colonel's body was then placed upon the
sofa, and a careful examination made of the scene of the tragedy.

“The injury from which the unfortunate veteran was suffering was found
to be a jagged cut some two inches long at the back part of his head,
which had evidently been caused by a violent blow from a blunt weapon.
Nor was it difficult to guess what that weapon may have been. Upon the
floor, close to the body, was lying a singular club of hard carved wood
with a bone handle. The Colonel possessed a varied collection of weapons
brought from the different countries in which he had fought, and it
is conjectured by the police that his club was among his trophies. The
servants deny having seen it before, but among the numerous curiosities
in the house it is possible that it may have been overlooked. Nothing
else of importance was discovered in the room by the police, save the
inexplicable fact that neither upon Mrs. Barclay's person nor upon that
of the victim nor in any part of the room was the missing key to
be found. The door had eventually to be opened by a locksmith from
Aldershot.

“That was the state of things, Watson, when upon the Tuesday morning I,
at the request of Major Murphy, went down to Aldershot to supplement
the efforts of the police. I think that you will acknowledge that the
problem was already one of interest, but my observations soon made me
realize that it was in truth much more extraordinary than would at first
sight appear.

“Before examining the room I cross-questioned the servants, but only
succeeded in eliciting the facts which I have already stated. One other
detail of interest was remembered by Jane Stewart, the housemaid. You
will remember that on hearing the sound of the quarrel she descended and
returned with the other servants. On that first occasion, when she was
alone, she says that the voices of her master and mistress were sunk
so low that she could hear hardly anything, and judged by their tones
rather than their words that they had fallen out. On my pressing her,
however, she remembered that she heard the word David uttered twice by
the lady. The point is of the utmost importance as guiding us towards
the reason of the sudden quarrel. The Colonel's name, you remember, was
James.

“There was one thing in the case which had made the deepest impression
both upon the servants and the police. This was the contortion of the
Colonel's face. It had set, according to their account, into the most
dreadful expression of fear and horror which a human countenance is
capable of assuming. More than one person fainted at the mere sight
of him, so terrible was the effect. It was quite certain that he had
foreseen his fate, and that it had caused him the utmost horror. This,
of course, fitted in well enough with the police theory, if the Colonel
could have seen his wife making a murderous attack upon him. Nor was
the fact of the wound being on the back of his head a fatal objection to
this, as he might have turned to avoid the blow. No information could
be got from the lady herself, who was temporarily insane from an acute
attack of brain-fever.

“From the police I learned that Miss Morrison, who you remember went out
that evening with Mrs. Barclay, denied having any knowledge of what it
was which had caused the ill-humor in which her companion had returned.

“Having gathered these facts, Watson, I smoked several pipes over them,
trying to separate those which were crucial from others which were
merely incidental. There could be no question that the most distinctive
and suggestive point in the case was the singular disappearance of the
door-key. A most careful search had failed to discover it in the room.
Therefore it must have been taken from it. But neither the Colonel
nor the Colonel's wife could have taken it. That was perfectly clear.
Therefore a third person must have entered the room. And that third
person could only have come in through the window. It seemed to me that
a careful examination of the room and the lawn might possibly reveal
some traces of this mysterious individual. You know my methods, Watson.
There was not one of them which I did not apply to the inquiry. And it
ended by my discovering traces, but very different ones from those which
I had expected. There had been a man in the room, and he had crossed
the lawn coming from the road. I was able to obtain five very clear
impressions of his foot-marks: one in the roadway itself, at the point
where he had climbed the low wall, two on the lawn, and two very faint
ones upon the stained boards near the window where he had entered.
He had apparently rushed across the lawn, for his toe-marks were much
deeper than his heels. But it was not the man who surprised me. It was
his companion.”

“His companion!”

Holmes pulled a large sheet of tissue-paper out of his pocket and
carefully unfolded it upon his knee.

“What do you make of that?” he asked.

The paper was covered with the tracings of the foot-marks of some small
animal. It had five well-marked foot-pads, an indication of long nails,
and the whole print might be nearly as large as a dessert-spoon.

“It's a dog,” said I.

“Did you ever hear of a dog running up a curtain? I found distinct
traces that this creature had done so.”

“A monkey, then?”

“But it is not the print of a monkey.”

“What can it be, then?”

“Neither dog nor cat nor monkey nor any creature that we are familiar
with. I have tried to reconstruct it from the measurements. Here are
four prints where the beast has been standing motionless. You see that
it is no less than fifteen inches from fore-foot to hind. Add to that
the length of neck and head, and you get a creature not much less than
two feet long--probably more if there is any tail. But now observe this
other measurement. The animal has been moving, and we have the length
of its stride. In each case it is only about three inches. You have an
indication, you see, of a long body with very short legs attached to it.
It has not been considerate enough to leave any of its hair behind it.
But its general shape must be what I have indicated, and it can run up a
curtain, and it is carnivorous.”

“How do you deduce that?”

“Because it ran up the curtain. A canary's cage was hanging in the
window, and its aim seems to have been to get at the bird.”

“Then what was the beast?”

“Ah, if I could give it a name it might go a long way towards solving
the case. On the whole, it was probably some creature of the weasel and
stoat tribe--and yet it is larger than any of these that I have seen.”

“But what had it to do with the crime?”

“That, also, is still obscure. But we have learned a good deal, you
perceive. We know that a man stood in the road looking at the quarrel
between the Barclays--the blinds were up and the room lighted. We know,
also, that he ran across the lawn, entered the room, accompanied by a
strange animal, and that he either struck the Colonel or, as is equally
possible, that the Colonel fell down from sheer fright at the sight of
him, and cut his head on the corner of the fender. Finally, we have the
curious fact that the intruder carried away the key with him when he
left.”

“Your discoveries seem to have left the business more obscure that it
was before,” said I.

“Quite so. They undoubtedly showed that the affair was much deeper than
was at first conjectured. I thought the matter over, and I came to
the conclusion that I must approach the case from another aspect. But
really, Watson, I am keeping you up, and I might just as well tell you
all this on our way to Aldershot to-morrow.”

“Thank you, you have gone rather too far to stop.”

“It is quite certain that when Mrs. Barclay left the house at half-past
seven she was on good terms with her husband. She was never, as I think
I have said, ostentatiously affectionate, but she was heard by the
coachman chatting with the Colonel in a friendly fashion. Now, it was
equally certain that, immediately on her return, she had gone to the
room in which she was least likely to see her husband, had flown to tea
as an agitated woman will, and finally, on his coming in to her, had
broken into violent recriminations. Therefore something had occurred
between seven-thirty and nine o'clock which had completely altered her
feelings towards him. But Miss Morrison had been with her during the
whole of that hour and a half. It was absolutely certain, therefore, in
spite of her denial, that she must know something of the matter.

“My first conjecture was, that possibly there had been some passages
between this young lady and the old soldier, which the former had now
confessed to the wife. That would account for the angry return, and
also for the girl's denial that anything had occurred. Nor would it be
entirely incompatible with most of the words overheard. But there was the
reference to David, and there was the known affection of the Colonel for
his wife, to weigh against it, to say nothing of the tragic intrusion
of this other man, which might, of course, be entirely disconnected with
what had gone before. It was not easy to pick one's steps, but, on the
whole, I was inclined to dismiss the idea that there had been anything
between the Colonel and Miss Morrison, but more than ever convinced that
the young lady held the clue as to what it was which had turned Mrs.
Barclay to hatred of her husband. I took the obvious course, therefore,
of calling upon Miss M., of explaining to her that I was perfectly
certain that she held the facts in her possession, and of assuring her
that her friend, Mrs. Barclay, might find herself in the dock upon a
capital charge unless the matter were cleared up.

“Miss Morrison is a little ethereal slip of a girl, with timid eyes
and blond hair, but I found her by no means wanting in shrewdness and
common-sense. She sat thinking for some time after I had spoken, and
then, turning to me with a brisk air of resolution, she broke into a
remarkable statement which I will condense for your benefit.

“'I promised my friend that I would say nothing of the matter, and a
promise is a promise,' said she; 'but if I can really help her when
so serious a charge is laid against her, and when her own mouth, poor
darling, is closed by illness, then I think I am absolved from my
promise. I will tell you exactly what happened upon Monday evening.

“'We were returning from the Watt Street Mission about a quarter to nine
o'clock. On our way we had to pass through Hudson Street, which is
a very quiet thoroughfare. There is only one lamp in it, upon the
left-hand side, and as we approached this lamp I saw a man coming
towards us with his back very bent, and something like a box slung over
one of his shoulders. He appeared to be deformed, for he carried his
head low and walked with his knees bent. We were passing him when he
raised his face to look at us in the circle of light thrown by the lamp,
and as he did so he stopped and screamed out in a dreadful voice, “My
God, it's Nancy!” Mrs. Barclay turned as white as death, and would have
fallen down had the dreadful-looking creature not caught hold of her. I
was going to call for the police, but she, to my surprise, spoke quite
civilly to the fellow.

“'“I thought you had been dead this thirty years, Henry,” said she, in a
shaking voice.

“'“So I have,” said he, and it was awful to hear the tones that he said
it in. He had a very dark, fearsome face, and a gleam in his eyes that
comes back to me in my dreams. His hair and whiskers were shot with
gray, and his face was all crinkled and puckered like a withered apple.

“'“Just walk on a little way, dear,” said Mrs. Barclay; “I want to have
a word with this man. There is nothing to be afraid of.” She tried to
speak boldly, but she was still deadly pale and could hardly get her
words out for the trembling of her lips.

“'I did as she asked me, and they talked together for a few minutes.
Then she came down the street with her eyes blazing, and I saw the
crippled wretch standing by the lamp-post and shaking his clenched fists
in the air as if he were mad with rage. She never said a word until we
were at the door here, when she took me by the hand and begged me to
tell no one what had happened.

“'“It's an old acquaintance of mine who has come down in the world,”
said she. When I promised her I would say nothing she kissed me, and I
have never seen her since. I have told you now the whole truth, and if
I withheld it from the police it is because I did not realize then the
danger in which my dear friend stood. I know that it can only be to her
advantage that everything should be known.'

“There was her statement, Watson, and to me, as you can imagine, it was
like a light on a dark night. Everything which had been disconnected
before began at once to assume its true place, and I had a shadowy
presentiment of the whole sequence of events. My next step obviously was
to find the man who had produced such a remarkable impression upon Mrs.
Barclay. If he were still in Aldershot it should not be a very difficult
matter. There are not such a very great number of civilians, and a
deformed man was sure to have attracted attention. I spent a day in the
search, and by evening--this very evening, Watson--I had run him down.
The man's name is Henry Wood, and he lives in lodgings in this same
street in which the ladies met him. He has only been five days in the
place. In the character of a registration-agent I had a most interesting
gossip with his landlady. The man is by trade a conjurer and performer,
going round the canteens after nightfall, and giving a little
entertainment at each. He carries some creature about with him in that
box; about which the landlady seemed to be in considerable trepidation,
for she had never seen an animal like it. He uses it in some of his
tricks according to her account. So much the woman was able to tell me,
and also that it was a wonder the man lived, seeing how twisted he was,
and that he spoke in a strange tongue sometimes, and that for the last
two nights she had heard him groaning and weeping in his bedroom. He
was all right, as far as money went, but in his deposit he had given her
what looked like a bad florin. She showed it to me, Watson, and it was
an Indian rupee.

“So now, my dear fellow, you see exactly how we stand and why it is I
want you. It is perfectly plain that after the ladies parted from this
man he followed them at a distance, that he saw the quarrel between
husband and wife through the window, that he rushed in, and that
the creature which he carried in his box got loose. That is all very
certain. But he is the only person in this world who can tell us exactly
what happened in that room.”

“And you intend to ask him?”

“Most certainly--but in the presence of a witness.”

“And I am the witness?”

“If you will be so good. If he can clear the matter up, well and good.
If he refuses, we have no alternative but to apply for a warrant.”

“But how do you know he'll be there when we return?”

“You may be sure that I took some precautions. I have one of my Baker
Street boys mounting guard over him who would stick to him like a burr,
go where he might. We shall find him in Hudson Street to-morrow, Watson,
and meanwhile I should be the criminal myself if I kept you out of bed
any longer.”

It was midday when we found ourselves at the scene of the tragedy, and,
under my companion's guidance, we made our way at once to Hudson Street.
In spite of his capacity for concealing his emotions, I could easily see
that Holmes was in a state of suppressed excitement, while I was myself
tingling with that half-sporting, half-intellectual pleasure which
I invariably experienced when I associated myself with him in his
investigations.

“This is the street,” said he, as we turned into a short thoroughfare
lined with plain two-storied brick houses. “Ah, here is Simpson to
report.”

“He's in all right, Mr. Holmes,” cried a small street Arab, running up
to us.

“Good, Simpson!” said Holmes, patting him on the head. “Come along,
Watson. This is the house.” He sent in his card with a message that he
had come on important business, and a moment later we were face to face
with the man whom we had come to see. In spite of the warm weather he
was crouching over a fire, and the little room was like an oven. The
man sat all twisted and huddled in his chair in a way which gave an
indescribable impression of deformity; but the face which he turned
towards us, though worn and swarthy, must at some time have been
remarkable for its beauty. He looked suspiciously at us now out of
yellow-shot, bilious eyes, and, without speaking or rising, he waved
towards two chairs.

“Mr. Henry Wood, late of India, I believe,” said Holmes, affably. “I've
come over this little matter of Colonel Barclay's death.”

“What should I know about that?”

“That's what I want to ascertain. You know, I suppose, that unless the
matter is cleared up, Mrs. Barclay, who is an old friend of yours, will
in all probability be tried for murder.”

The man gave a violent start.

“I don't know who you are,” he cried, “nor how you come to know what you
do know, but will you swear that this is true that you tell me?”

“Why, they are only waiting for her to come to her senses to arrest
her.”

“My God! Are you in the police yourself?”

“No.”

“What business is it of yours, then?”

“It's every man's business to see justice done.”

“You can take my word that she is innocent.”

“Then you are guilty.”

“No, I am not.”

“Who killed Colonel James Barclay, then?”

“It was a just providence that killed him. But, mind you this, that if
I had knocked his brains out, as it was in my heart to do, he would have
had no more than his due from my hands. If his own guilty conscience had
not struck him down it is likely enough that I might have had his blood
upon my soul. You want me to tell the story. Well, I don't know why I
shouldn't, for there's no cause for me to be ashamed of it.

“It was in this way, sir. You see me now with my back like a camel and
my ribs all awry, but there was a time when Corporal Henry Wood was the
smartest man in the 117th foot. We were in India then, in cantonments,
at a place we'll call Bhurtee. Barclay, who died the other day, was
sergeant in the same company as myself, and the belle of the regiment,
ay, and the finest girl that ever had the breath of life between her
lips, was Nancy Devoy, the daughter of the color-sergeant. There were
two men that loved her, and one that she loved, and you'll smile when
you look at this poor thing huddled before the fire, and hear me say
that it was for my good looks that she loved me.

“Well, though I had her heart, her father was set upon her marrying
Barclay. I was a harum-scarum, reckless lad, and he had had an
education, and was already marked for the sword-belt. But the girl held
true to me, and it seemed that I would have had her when the Mutiny
broke out, and all hell was loose in the country.

“We were shut up in Bhurtee, the regiment of us with half a battery of
artillery, a company of Sikhs, and a lot of civilians and women-folk.
There were ten thousand rebels round us, and they were as keen as a set
of terriers round a rat-cage. About the second week of it our water gave
out, and it was a question whether we could communicate with General
Neill's column, which was moving up country. It was our only chance, for
we could not hope to fight our way out with all the women and children,
so I volunteered to go out and to warn General Neill of our danger. My
offer was accepted, and I talked it over with Sergeant Barclay, who was
supposed to know the ground better than any other man, and who drew up
a route by which I might get through the rebel lines. At ten o'clock the
same night I started off upon my journey. There were a thousand lives to
save, but it was of only one that I was thinking when I dropped over the
wall that night.

“My way ran down a dried-up watercourse, which we hoped would screen
me from the enemy's sentries; but as I crept round the corner of it
I walked right into six of them, who were crouching down in the dark
waiting for me. In an instant I was stunned with a blow and bound hand
and foot. But the real blow was to my heart and not to my head, for as
I came to and listened to as much as I could understand of their talk,
I heard enough to tell me that my comrade, the very man who had arranged
the way that I was to take, had betrayed me by means of a native servant
into the hands of the enemy.

“Well, there's no need for me to dwell on that part of it. You know now
what James Barclay was capable of. Bhurtee was relieved by Neill next
day, but the rebels took me away with them in their retreat, and it was
many a long year before ever I saw a white face again. I was tortured
and tried to get away, and was captured and tortured again. You can see
for yourselves the state in which I was left. Some of them that fled
into Nepaul took me with them, and then afterwards I was up past
Darjeeling. The hill-folk up there murdered the rebels who had me, and
I became their slave for a time until I escaped; but instead of going
south I had to go north, until I found myself among the Afghans. There
I wandered about for many a year, and at last came back to the Punjab,
where I lived mostly among the natives and picked up a living by the
conjuring tricks that I had learned. What use was it for me, a wretched
cripple, to go back to England or to make myself known to my old
comrades? Even my wish for revenge would not make me do that. I had
rather that Nancy and my old pals should think of Harry Wood as having
died with a straight back, than see him living and crawling with a stick
like a chimpanzee. They never doubted that I was dead, and I meant that
they never should. I heard that Barclay had married Nancy, and that he
was rising rapidly in the regiment, but even that did not make me speak.

“But when one gets old one has a longing for home. For years I've been
dreaming of the bright green fields and the hedges of England. At last I
determined to see them before I died. I saved enough to bring me across,
and then I came here where the soldiers are, for I know their ways and
how to amuse them and so earn enough to keep me.”

“Your narrative is most interesting,” said Sherlock Holmes. “I have
already heard of your meeting with Mrs. Barclay, and your mutual
recognition. You then, as I understand, followed her home and saw
through the window an altercation between her husband and her, in which
she doubtless cast his conduct to you in his teeth. Your own feelings
overcame you, and you ran across the lawn and broke in upon them.”

“I did, sir, and at the sight of me he looked as I have never seen a man
look before, and over he went with his head on the fender. But he was
dead before he fell. I read death on his face as plain as I can read
that text over the fire. The bare sight of me was like a bullet through
his guilty heart.”

“And then?”

“Then Nancy fainted, and I caught up the key of the door from her hand,
intending to unlock it and get help. But as I was doing it it seemed to
me better to leave it alone and get away, for the thing might look black
against me, and any way my secret would be out if I were taken. In my
haste I thrust the key into my pocket, and dropped my stick while I was
chasing Teddy, who had run up the curtain. When I got him into his box,
from which he had slipped, I was off as fast as I could run.”

“Who's Teddy?” asked Holmes.

The man leaned over and pulled up the front of a kind of hutch in
the corner. In an instant out there slipped a beautiful reddish-brown
creature, thin and lithe, with the legs of a stoat, a long, thin nose,
and a pair of the finest red eyes that ever I saw in an animal's head.

“It's a mongoose,” I cried.

“Well, some call them that, and some call them ichneumon,” said the
man. “Snake-catcher is what I call them, and Teddy is amazing quick on
cobras. I have one here without the fangs, and Teddy catches it every
night to please the folk in the canteen.

“Any other point, sir?”

“Well, we may have to apply to you again if Mrs. Barclay should prove to
be in serious trouble.”

“In that case, of course, I'd come forward.”

“But if not, there is no object in raking up this scandal against a
dead man, foully as he has acted. You have at least the satisfaction
of knowing that for thirty years of his life his conscience bitterly
reproached him for this wicked deed. Ah, there goes Major Murphy on the
other side of the street. Good-by, Wood. I want to learn if anything has
happened since yesterday.”

We were in time to overtake the major before he reached the corner.

“Ah, Holmes,” he said: “I suppose you have heard that all this fuss has
come to nothing?”

“What then?”

“The inquest is just over. The medical evidence showed conclusively
that death was due to apoplexy. You see it was quite a simple case after
all.”

“Oh, remarkably superficial,” said Holmes, smiling. “Come, Watson, I
don't think we shall be wanted in Aldershot any more.”

“There's one thing,” said I, as we walked down to the station. “If the
husband's name was James, and the other was Henry, what was this talk
about David?”

“That one word, my dear Watson, should have told me the whole story had
I been the ideal reasoner which you are so fond of depicting. It was
evidently a term of reproach.”

“Of reproach?”

“Yes; David strayed a little occasionally, you know, and on one occasion
in the same direction as Sergeant James Barclay. You remember the small
affair of Uriah and Bathsheba? My biblical knowledge is a trifle rusty,
I fear, but you will find the story in the first or second of Samuel.”




Adventure VIII. The Resident Patient


In glancing over the somewhat incoherent series of Memoirs with which I
have endeavored to illustrate a few of the mental peculiarities of my
friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have been struck by the difficulty which I
have experienced in picking out examples which shall in every way answer
my purpose. For in those cases in which Holmes has performed some tour
de force of analytical reasoning, and has demonstrated the value of his
peculiar methods of investigation, the facts themselves have often been
so slight or so commonplace that I could not feel justified in laying
them before the public. On the other hand, it has frequently happened
that he has been concerned in some research where the facts have been of
the most remarkable and dramatic character, but where the share which he
has himself taken in determining their causes has been less pronounced
than I, as his biographer, could wish. The small matter which I have
chronicled under the heading of “A Study in Scarlet,” and that other
later one connected with the loss of the Gloria Scott, may serve as
examples of this Scylla and Charybdis which are forever threatening the
historian. It may be that in the business of which I am now about to
write the part which my friend played is not sufficiently accentuated;
and yet the whole train of circumstances is so remarkable that I cannot
bring myself to omit it entirely from this series.

It had been a close, rainy day in October. Our blinds were half-drawn,
and Holmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading and re-reading a letter
which he had received by the morning post. For myself, my term of
service in India had trained me to stand heat better than cold, and
a thermometer of 90 was no hardship. But the paper was uninteresting.
Parliament had risen. Everybody was out of town, and I yearned for the
glades of the New Forest or the shingle of Southsea. A depleted bank
account had caused me to postpone my holiday, and as to my companion,
neither the country nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to
him. He loved to lie in the very centre of five millions of people, with
his filaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to
every little rumor or suspicion of unsolved crime. Appreciation of
Nature found no place among his many gifts, and his only change was
when he turned his mind from the evil-doer of the town to track down his
brother of the country.

Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation, I had tossed
aside the barren paper, and leaning back in my chair, I fell into a
brown study. Suddenly my companion's voice broke in upon my thoughts.

“You are right, Watson,” said he. “It does seem a very preposterous way
of settling a dispute.”

“Most preposterous!” I exclaimed, and then, suddenly realizing how
he had echoed the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in my chair and
stared at him in blank amazement.

“What is this, Holmes?” I cried. “This is beyond anything which I could
have imagined.”

He laughed heartily at my perplexity.

“You remember,” said he, “that some little time ago, when I read you the
passage in one of Poe's sketches, in which a close reasoner follows the
unspoken thought of his companion, you were inclined to treat the
matter as a mere tour de force of the author. On my remarking that I
was constantly in the habit of doing the same thing you expressed
incredulity.”

“Oh, no!”

“Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainly with your
eyebrows. So when I saw you throw down your paper and enter upon a train
of thought, I was very happy to have the opportunity of reading it
off, and eventually of breaking into it, as a proof that I had been in
rapport with you.”

But I was still far from satisfied. “In the example which you read to
me,” said I, “the reasoner drew his conclusions from the actions of the
man whom he observed. If I remember right, he stumbled over a heap
of stones, looked up at the stars, and so on. But I have been seated
quietly in my chair, and what clues can I have given you?”

“You do yourself an injustice. The features are given to man as the
means by which he shall express his emotions, and yours are faithful
servants.”

“Do you mean to say that you read my train of thoughts from my
features?”

“Your features, and especially your eyes. Perhaps you cannot yourself
recall how your reverie commenced?”

“No, I cannot.”

“Then I will tell you. After throwing down your paper, which was the
action which drew my attention to you, you sat for half a minute with
a vacant expression. Then your eyes fixed themselves upon your
newly-framed picture of General Gordon, and I saw by the alteration in
your face that a train of thought had been started. But it did not lead
very far. Your eyes turned across to the unframed portrait of Henry Ward
Beecher which stands upon the top of your books. You then glanced up at
the wall, and of course your meaning was obvious. You were thinking
that if the portrait were framed it would just cover that bare space and
correspond with Gordon's picture over there.”

“You have followed me wonderfully!” I exclaimed.

“So far I could hardly have gone astray. But now your thoughts went
back to Beecher, and you looked hard across as if you were studying
the character in his features. Then your eyes ceased to pucker, but
you continued to look across, and your face was thoughtful. You were
recalling the incidents of Beecher's career. I was well aware that you
could not do this without thinking of the mission which he undertook
on behalf of the North at the time of the Civil War, for I remember
you expressing your passionate indignation at the way in which he was
received by the more turbulent of our people. You felt so strongly about
it that I knew you could not think of Beecher without thinking of that
also. When a moment later I saw your eyes wander away from the picture,
I suspected that your mind had now turned to the Civil War, and when
I observed that your lips set, your eyes sparkled, and your hands
clinched, I was positive that you were indeed thinking of the gallantry
which was shown by both sides in that desperate struggle. But then,
again, your face grew sadder; you shook your head. You were dwelling
upon the sadness and horror and useless waste of life. Your hand stole
towards your own old wound, and a smile quivered on your lips,
which showed me that the ridiculous side of this method of settling
international questions had forced itself upon your mind. At this point
I agreed with you that it was preposterous, and was glad to find that
all my deductions had been correct.”

“Absolutely!” said I. “And now that you have explained it, I confess
that I am as amazed as before.”

“It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you. I should not
have intruded it upon your attention had you not shown some incredulity
the other day. But the evening has brought a breeze with it. What do you
say to a ramble through London?”

I was weary of our little sitting-room and gladly acquiesced. For
three hours we strolled about together, watching the ever-changing
kaleidoscope of life as it ebbs and flows through Fleet Street and the
Strand. His characteristic talk, with its keen observance of detail
and subtle power of inference held me amused and enthralled. It was ten
o'clock before we reached Baker Street again. A brougham was waiting at
our door.

“Hum! A doctor's--general practitioner, I perceive,” said Holmes. “Not
been long in practice, but has had a good deal to do. Come to consult
us, I fancy! Lucky we came back!”

I was sufficiently conversant with Holmes's methods to be able to follow
his reasoning, and to see that the nature and state of the various
medical instruments in the wicker basket which hung in the lamplight
inside the brougham had given him the data for his swift deduction.
The light in our window above showed that this late visit was indeed
intended for us. With some curiosity as to what could have sent a
brother medico to us at such an hour, I followed Holmes into our
sanctum.

A pale, taper-faced man with sandy whiskers rose up from a chair by the
fire as we entered. His age may not have been more than three or four
and thirty, but his haggard expression and unhealthy hue told of a life
which has sapped his strength and robbed him of his youth. His manner
was nervous and shy, like that of a sensitive gentleman, and the thin
white hand which he laid on the mantelpiece as he rose was that of an
artist rather than of a surgeon. His dress was quiet and sombre--a black
frock-coat, dark trousers, and a touch of color about his necktie.

“Good-evening, doctor,” said Holmes, cheerily. “I am glad to see that
you have only been waiting a very few minutes.”

“You spoke to my coachman, then?”

“No, it was the candle on the side-table that told me. Pray resume your
seat and let me know how I can serve you.”

“My name is Doctor Percy Trevelyan,” said our visitor, “and I live at
403 Brook Street.”

“Are you not the author of a monograph upon obscure nervous lesions?” I
asked.

His pale cheeks flushed with pleasure at hearing that his work was known
to me.

“I so seldom hear of the work that I thought it was quite dead,” said
he. “My publishers gave me a most discouraging account of its sale. You
are yourself, I presume, a medical man?”

“A retired army surgeon.”

“My own hobby has always been nervous disease. I should wish to make it
an absolute specialty, but, of course, a man must take what he can get
at first. This, however, is beside the question, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,
and I quite appreciate how valuable your time is. The fact is that a
very singular train of events has occurred recently at my house in Brook
Street, and to-night they came to such a head that I felt it was quite
impossible for me to wait another hour before asking for your advice and
assistance.”

Sherlock Holmes sat down and lit his pipe. “You are very welcome
to both,” said he. “Pray let me have a detailed account of what the
circumstances are which have disturbed you.”

“One or two of them are so trivial,” said Dr. Trevelyan, “that really
I am almost ashamed to mention them. But the matter is so inexplicable,
and the recent turn which it has taken is so elaborate, that I shall
lay it all before you, and you shall judge what is essential and what is
not.

“I am compelled, to begin with, to say something of my own college
career. I am a London University man, you know, and I am sure that you
will not think that I am unduly singing my own praises if I say that my
student career was considered by my professors to be a very promising
one. After I had graduated I continued to devote myself to research,
occupying a minor position in King's College Hospital, and I was
fortunate enough to excite considerable interest by my research into the
pathology of catalepsy, and finally to win the Bruce Pinkerton prize and
medal by the monograph on nervous lesions to which your friend has
just alluded. I should not go too far if I were to say that there was a
general impression at that time that a distinguished career lay before
me.

“But the one great stumbling-block lay in my want of capital. As you
will readily understand, a specialist who aims high is compelled to
start in one of a dozen streets in the Cavendish Square quarter, all
of which entail enormous rents and furnishing expenses. Besides this
preliminary outlay, he must be prepared to keep himself for some years,
and to hire a presentable carriage and horse. To do this was quite
beyond my power, and I could only hope that by economy I might in ten
years' time save enough to enable me to put up my plate. Suddenly,
however, an unexpected incident opened up quite a new prospect to me.

“This was a visit from a gentleman of the name of Blessington, who was a
complete stranger to me. He came up to my room one morning, and plunged
into business in an instant.

“'You are the same Percy Trevelyan who has had so distinguished a career
and won a great prize lately?' said he.

“I bowed.

“'Answer me frankly,' he continued, 'for you will find it to your
interest to do so. You have all the cleverness which makes a successful
man. Have you the tact?'

“I could not help smiling at the abruptness of the question.

“'I trust that I have my share,' I said.

“'Any bad habits? Not drawn towards drink, eh?'

“'Really, sir!' I cried.

“'Quite right! That's all right! But I was bound to ask. With all these
qualities, why are you not in practice?'

“I shrugged my shoulders.

“'Come, come!' said he, in his bustling way. 'It's the old story. More
in your brains than in your pocket, eh? What would you say if I were to
start you in Brook Street?'

“I stared at him in astonishment.

“'Oh, it's for my sake, not for yours,' he cried. 'I'll be perfectly
frank with you, and if it suits you it will suit me very well. I have a
few thousands to invest, d'ye see, and I think I'll sink them in you.'

“'But why?' I gasped.

“'Well, it's just like any other speculation, and safer than most.'

“'What am I to do, then?'

“'I'll tell you. I'll take the house, furnish it, pay the maids, and run
the whole place. All you have to do is just to wear out your chair in
the consulting-room. I'll let you have pocket-money and everything. Then
you hand over to me three quarters of what you earn, and you keep the
other quarter for yourself.'

“This was the strange proposal, Mr. Holmes, with which the man
Blessington approached me. I won't weary you with the account of how
we bargained and negotiated. It ended in my moving into the house next
Lady-day, and starting in practice on very much the same conditions as
he had suggested. He came himself to live with me in the character of a
resident patient. His heart was weak, it appears, and he needed constant
medical supervision. He turned the two best rooms of the first floor
into a sitting-room and bedroom for himself. He was a man of singular
habits, shunning company and very seldom going out. His life was
irregular, but in one respect he was regularity itself. Every evening,
at the same hour, he walked into the consulting-room, examined the
books, put down five and three-pence for every guinea that I had earned,
and carried the rest off to the strong-box in his own room.

“I may say with confidence that he never had occasion to regret his
speculation. From the first it was a success. A few good cases and the
reputation which I had won in the hospital brought me rapidly to the
front, and during the last few years I have made him a rich man.

“So much, Mr. Holmes, for my past history and my relations with Mr.
Blessington. It only remains for me now to tell you what has occurred to
bring me here to-night.

“Some weeks ago Mr. Blessington came down to me in, as it seemed to me,
a state of considerable agitation. He spoke of some burglary which, he
said, had been committed in the West End, and he appeared, I remember,
to be quite unnecessarily excited about it, declaring that a day should
not pass before we should add stronger bolts to our windows and doors.
For a week he continued to be in a peculiar state of restlessness,
peering continually out of the windows, and ceasing to take the short
walk which had usually been the prelude to his dinner. From his manner
it struck me that he was in mortal dread of something or somebody, but
when I questioned him upon the point he became so offensive that I was
compelled to drop the subject. Gradually, as time passed, his fears
appeared to die away, and he had renewed his former habits, when a fresh
event reduced him to the pitiable state of prostration in which he now
lies.

“What happened was this. Two days ago I received the letter which I now
read to you. Neither address nor date is attached to it.

“'A Russian nobleman who is now resident in England,' it runs, 'would
be glad to avail himself of the professional assistance of Dr. Percy
Trevelyan. He has been for some years a victim to cataleptic attacks, on
which, as is well known, Dr. Trevelyan is an authority. He proposes to
call at about quarter past six to-morrow evening, if Dr. Trevelyan will
make it convenient to be at home.'

“This letter interested me deeply, because the chief difficulty in the
study of catalepsy is the rareness of the disease. You may believe,
then, that I was in my consulting-room when, at the appointed hour, the
page showed in the patient.

“He was an elderly man, thin, demure, and commonplace--by no means the
conception one forms of a Russian nobleman. I was much more struck by
the appearance of his companion. This was a tall young man, surprisingly
handsome, with a dark, fierce face, and the limbs and chest of a
Hercules. He had his hand under the other's arm as they entered, and
helped him to a chair with a tenderness which one would hardly have
expected from his appearance.

“'You will excuse my coming in, doctor,' said he to me, speaking English
with a slight lisp. 'This is my father, and his health is a matter of
the most overwhelming importance to me.'

“I was touched by this filial anxiety. 'You would, perhaps, care to
remain during the consultation?' said I.

“'Not for the world,' he cried with a gesture of horror. 'It is more
painful to me than I can express. If I were to see my father in one of
these dreadful seizures I am convinced that I should never survive
it. My own nervous system is an exceptionally sensitive one. With your
permission, I will remain in the waiting-room while you go into my
father's case.'

“To this, of course, I assented, and the young man withdrew. The patient
and I then plunged into a discussion of his case, of which I took
exhaustive notes. He was not remarkable for intelligence, and his
answers were frequently obscure, which I attributed to his limited
acquaintance with our language. Suddenly, however, as I sat writing,
he ceased to give any answer at all to my inquiries, and on my turning
towards him I was shocked to see that he was sitting bolt upright in his
chair, staring at me with a perfectly blank and rigid face. He was again
in the grip of his mysterious malady.

“My first feeling, as I have just said, was one of pity and horror.
My second, I fear, was rather one of professional satisfaction. I made
notes of my patient's pulse and temperature, tested the rigidity of his
muscles, and examined his reflexes. There was nothing markedly abnormal
in any of these conditions, which harmonized with my former experiences.
I had obtained good results in such cases by the inhalation of nitrite
of amyl, and the present seemed an admirable opportunity of testing
its virtues. The bottle was downstairs in my laboratory, so leaving my
patient seated in his chair, I ran down to get it. There was some little
delay in finding it--five minutes, let us say--and then I returned.
Imagine my amazement to find the room empty and the patient gone.

“Of course, my first act was to run into the waiting-room. The son had
gone also. The hall door had been closed, but not shut. My page who
admits patients is a new boy and by no means quick. He waits downstairs,
and runs up to show patients out when I ring the consulting-room bell.
He had heard nothing, and the affair remained a complete mystery. Mr.
Blessington came in from his walk shortly afterwards, but I did not say
anything to him upon the subject, for, to tell the truth, I have got in
the way of late of holding as little communication with him as possible.

“Well, I never thought that I should see anything more of the Russian
and his son, so you can imagine my amazement when, at the very same hour
this evening, they both came marching into my consulting-room, just as
they had done before.

“'I feel that I owe you a great many apologies for my abrupt departure
yesterday, doctor,' said my patient.

“'I confess that I was very much surprised at it,' said I.

“'Well, the fact is,' he remarked, 'that when I recover from these
attacks my mind is always very clouded as to all that has gone before. I
woke up in a strange room, as it seemed to me, and made my way out into
the street in a sort of dazed way when you were absent.'

“'And I,' said the son, 'seeing my father pass the door of the
waiting-room, naturally thought that the consultation had come to an
end. It was not until we had reached home that I began to realize the
true state of affairs.'

“'Well,' said I, laughing, 'there is no harm done except that you
puzzled me terribly; so if you, sir, would kindly step into the
waiting-room I shall be happy to continue our consultation which was
brought to so abrupt an ending.'

“'For half an hour or so I discussed that old gentleman's symptoms with
him, and then, having prescribed for him, I saw him go off upon the arm
of his son.

“I have told you that Mr. Blessington generally chose this hour of the
day for his exercise. He came in shortly afterwards and passed upstairs.
An instant later I heard him running down, and he burst into my
consulting-room like a man who is mad with panic.

“'Who has been in my room?' he cried.

“'No one,' said I.

“'It's a lie! He yelled. 'Come up and look!'

“I passed over the grossness of his language, as he seemed half out of
his mind with fear. When I went upstairs with him he pointed to several
footprints upon the light carpet.

“'D'you mean to say those are mine?' he cried.

“They were certainly very much larger than any which he could have made,
and were evidently quite fresh. It rained hard this afternoon, as you
know, and my patients were the only people who called. It must have been
the case, then, that the man in the waiting-room had, for some unknown
reason, while I was busy with the other, ascended to the room of my
resident patient. Nothing had been touched or taken, but there were the
footprints to prove that the intrusion was an undoubted fact.

“Mr. Blessington seemed more excited over the matter than I should have
thought possible, though of course it was enough to disturb anybody's
peace of mind. He actually sat crying in an arm-chair, and I could
hardly get him to speak coherently. It was his suggestion that I should
come round to you, and of course I at once saw the propriety of it,
for certainly the incident is a very singular one, though he appears to
completely overrate its importance. If you would only come back with me
in my brougham, you would at least be able to soothe him, though I
can hardly hope that you will be able to explain this remarkable
occurrence.”

Sherlock Holmes had listened to this long narrative with an intentness
which showed me that his interest was keenly aroused. His face was as
impassive as ever, but his lids had drooped more heavily over his eyes,
and his smoke had curled up more thickly from his pipe to emphasize each
curious episode in the doctor's tale. As our visitor concluded, Holmes
sprang up without a word, handed me my hat, picked his own from the
table, and followed Dr. Trevelyan to the door. Within a quarter of an
hour we had been dropped at the door of the physician's residence
in Brook Street, one of those sombre, flat-faced houses which one
associates with a West-End practice. A small page admitted us, and we
began at once to ascend the broad, well-carpeted stair.

But a singular interruption brought us to a standstill. The light at
the top was suddenly whisked out, and from the darkness came a reedy,
quivering voice.

“I have a pistol,” it cried. “I give you my word that I'll fire if you
come any nearer.”

“This really grows outrageous, Mr. Blessington,” cried Dr. Trevelyan.

“Oh, then it is you, doctor,” said the voice, with a great heave of
relief. “But those other gentlemen, are they what they pretend to be?”

We were conscious of a long scrutiny out of the darkness.

“Yes, yes, it's all right,” said the voice at last. “You can come up,
and I am sorry if my precautions have annoyed you.”

He relit the stair gas as he spoke, and we saw before us a
singular-looking man, whose appearance, as well as his voice, testified
to his jangled nerves. He was very fat, but had apparently at some time
been much fatter, so that the skin hung about his face in loose pouches,
like the cheeks of a blood-hound. He was of a sickly color, and his
thin, sandy hair seemed to bristle up with the intensity of his emotion.
In his hand he held a pistol, but he thrust it into his pocket as we
advanced.

“Good-evening, Mr. Holmes,” said he. “I am sure I am very much obliged
to you for coming round. No one ever needed your advice more than I do.
I suppose that Dr. Trevelyan has told you of this most unwarrantable
intrusion into my rooms.”

“Quite so,” said Holmes. “Who are these two men Mr. Blessington, and why
do they wish to molest you?”

“Well, well,” said the resident patient, in a nervous fashion, “of
course it is hard to say that. You can hardly expect me to answer that,
Mr. Holmes.”

“Do you mean that you don't know?”

“Come in here, if you please. Just have the kindness to step in here.”

He led the way into his bedroom, which was large and comfortably
furnished.

“You see that,” said he, pointing to a big black box at the end of his
bed. “I have never been a very rich man, Mr. Holmes--never made but
one investment in my life, as Dr. Trevelyan would tell you. But I don't
believe in bankers. I would never trust a banker, Mr. Holmes. Between
ourselves, what little I have is in that box, so you can understand what
it means to me when unknown people force themselves into my rooms.”

Holmes looked at Blessington in his questioning way and shook his head.

“I cannot possibly advise you if you try to deceive me,” said he.

“But I have told you everything.”

Holmes turned on his heel with a gesture of disgust. “Good-night, Dr.
Trevelyan,” said he.

“And no advice for me?” cried Blessington, in a breaking voice.

“My advice to you, sir, is to speak the truth.”

A minute later we were in the street and walking for home. We had
crossed Oxford Street and were half way down Harley Street before I
could get a word from my companion.

“Sorry to bring you out on such a fool's errand, Watson,” he said at
last. “It is an interesting case, too, at the bottom of it.”

“I can make little of it,” I confessed.

“Well, it is quite evident that there are two men--more, perhaps, but
at least two--who are determined for some reason to get at this fellow
Blessington. I have no doubt in my mind that both on the first and on
the second occasion that young man penetrated to Blessington's room,
while his confederate, by an ingenious device, kept the doctor from
interfering.”

“And the catalepsy?”

“A fraudulent imitation, Watson, though I should hardly dare to hint as
much to our specialist. It is a very easy complaint to imitate. I have
done it myself.”

“And then?”

“By the purest chance Blessington was out on each occasion. Their reason
for choosing so unusual an hour for a consultation was obviously to
insure that there should be no other patient in the waiting-room. It
just happened, however, that this hour coincided with Blessington's
constitutional, which seems to show that they were not very well
acquainted with his daily routine. Of course, if they had been merely
after plunder they would at least have made some attempt to search for
it. Besides, I can read in a man's eye when it is his own skin that he
is frightened for. It is inconceivable that this fellow could have made
two such vindictive enemies as these appear to be without knowing of it.
I hold it, therefore, to be certain that he does know who these men are,
and that for reasons of his own he suppresses it. It is just possible
that to-morrow may find him in a more communicative mood.”

“Is there not one alternative,” I suggested, “grotesquely improbable,
no doubt, but still just conceivable? Might the whole story of the
cataleptic Russian and his son be a concoction of Dr. Trevelyan's, who
has, for his own purposes, been in Blessington's rooms?”

I saw in the gaslight that Holmes wore an amused smile at this brilliant
departure of mine.

“My dear fellow,” said he, “it was one of the first solutions which
occurred to me, but I was soon able to corroborate the doctor's tale.
This young man has left prints upon the stair-carpet which made it quite
superfluous for me to ask to see those which he had made in the room.
When I tell you that his shoes were square-toed instead of being pointed
like Blessington's, and were quite an inch and a third longer than the
doctor's, you will acknowledge that there can be no doubt as to his
individuality. But we may sleep on it now, for I shall be surprised if
we do not hear something further from Brook Street in the morning.”


Sherlock Holmes's prophecy was soon fulfilled, and in a dramatic
fashion. At half-past seven next morning, in the first glimmer of
daylight, I found him standing by my bedside in his dressing-gown.

“There's a brougham waiting for us, Watson,” said he.

“What's the matter, then?”

“The Brook Street business.”

“Any fresh news?”

“Tragic, but ambiguous,” said he, pulling up the blind. “Look at this--a
sheet from a note-book, with 'For God's sake come at once--P. T.,'
scrawled upon it in pencil. Our friend, the doctor, was hard put to
it when he wrote this. Come along, my dear fellow, for it's an urgent
call.”

In a quarter of an hour or so we were back at the physician's house. He
came running out to meet us with a face of horror.

“Oh, such a business!” he cried, with his hands to his temples.

“What then?”

“Blessington has committed suicide!”

Holmes whistled.

“Yes, he hanged himself during the night.”

We had entered, and the doctor had preceded us into what was evidently
his waiting-room.

“I really hardly know what I am doing,” he cried. “The police are
already upstairs. It has shaken me most dreadfully.”

“When did you find it out?”

“He has a cup of tea taken in to him early every morning. When the maid
entered, about seven, there the unfortunate fellow was hanging in the
middle of the room. He had tied his cord to the hook on which the heavy
lamp used to hang, and he had jumped off from the top of the very box
that he showed us yesterday.”

Holmes stood for a moment in deep thought.

“With your permission,” said he at last, “I should like to go upstairs
and look into the matter.”

We both ascended, followed by the doctor.

It was a dreadful sight which met us as we entered the bedroom door. I
have spoken of the impression of flabbiness which this man Blessington
conveyed. As he dangled from the hook it was exaggerated and intensified
until he was scarce human in his appearance. The neck was drawn out
like a plucked chicken's, making the rest of him seem the more obese and
unnatural by the contrast. He was clad only in his long night-dress, and
his swollen ankles and ungainly feet protruded starkly from beneath it.
Beside him stood a smart-looking police-inspector, who was taking notes
in a pocket-book.

“Ah, Mr. Holmes,” said he, heartily, as my friend entered, “I am
delighted to see you.”

“Good-morning, Lanner,” answered Holmes; “you won't think me an
intruder, I am sure. Have you heard of the events which led up to this
affair?”

“Yes, I heard something of them.”

“Have you formed any opinion?”

“As far as I can see, the man has been driven out of his senses by
fright. The bed has been well slept in, you see. There's his impression
deep enough. It's about five in the morning, you know, that suicides are
most common. That would be about his time for hanging himself. It seems
to have been a very deliberate affair.”

“I should say that he has been dead about three hours, judging by the
rigidity of the muscles,” said I.

“Noticed anything peculiar about the room?” asked Holmes.

“Found a screw-driver and some screws on the wash-hand stand. Seems to
have smoked heavily during the night, too. Here are four cigar-ends that
I picked out of the fireplace.”

“Hum!” said Holmes, “have you got his cigar-holder?”

“No, I have seen none.”

“His cigar-case, then?”

“Yes, it was in his coat-pocket.”

Holmes opened it and smelled the single cigar which it contained.

“Oh, this is an Havana, and these others are cigars of the peculiar sort
which are imported by the Dutch from their East Indian colonies. They
are usually wrapped in straw, you know, and are thinner for their length
than any other brand.” He picked up the four ends and examined them with
his pocket-lens.

“Two of these have been smoked from a holder and two without,” said he.
“Two have been cut by a not very sharp knife, and two have had the ends
bitten off by a set of excellent teeth. This is no suicide, Mr. Lanner.
It is a very deeply planned and cold-blooded murder.”

“Impossible!” cried the inspector.

“And why?”

“Why should any one murder a man in so clumsy a fashion as by hanging
him?”

“That is what we have to find out.”

“How could they get in?”

“Through the front door.”

“It was barred in the morning.”

“Then it was barred after them.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw their traces. Excuse me a moment, and I may be able to give you
some further information about it.”

He went over to the door, and turning the lock he examined it in his
methodical way. Then he took out the key, which was on the inside, and
inspected that also. The bed, the carpet, the chairs the mantelpiece,
the dead body, and the rope were each in turn examined, until at last he
professed himself satisfied, and with my aid and that of the inspector
cut down the wretched object and laid it reverently under a sheet.

“How about this rope?” he asked.

“It is cut off this,” said Dr. Trevelyan, drawing a large coil from
under the bed. “He was morbidly nervous of fire, and always kept this
beside him, so that he might escape by the window in case the stairs
were burning.”

“That must have saved them trouble,” said Holmes, thoughtfully. “Yes,
the actual facts are very plain, and I shall be surprised if by the
afternoon I cannot give you the reasons for them as well. I will take
this photograph of Blessington, which I see upon the mantelpiece, as it
may help me in my inquiries.”

“But you have told us nothing!” cried the doctor.

“Oh, there can be no doubt as to the sequence of events,” said Holmes.
“There were three of them in it: the young man, the old man, and a
third, to whose identity I have no clue. The first two, I need hardly
remark, are the same who masqueraded as the Russian count and his son,
so we can give a very full description of them. They were admitted by
a confederate inside the house. If I might offer you a word of advice,
Inspector, it would be to arrest the page, who, as I understand, has
only recently come into your service, Doctor.”

“The young imp cannot be found,” said Dr. Trevelyan; “the maid and the
cook have just been searching for him.”

Holmes shrugged his shoulders.

“He has played a not unimportant part in this drama,” said he. “The
three men having ascended the stairs, which they did on tiptoe, the
elder man first, the younger man second, and the unknown man in the
rear--”

“My dear Holmes!” I ejaculated.

“Oh, there could be no question as to the superimposing of the
footmarks. I had the advantage of learning which was which last night.
They ascended, then, to Mr. Blessington's room, the door of which they
found to be locked. With the help of a wire, however, they forced round
the key. Even without the lens you will perceive, by the scratches on
this ward, where the pressure was applied.

“On entering the room their first proceeding must have been to gag Mr.
Blessington. He may have been asleep, or he may have been so paralyzed
with terror as to have been unable to cry out. These walls are thick,
and it is conceivable that his shriek, if he had time to utter one, was
unheard.

“Having secured him, it is evident to me that a consultation of some
sort was held. Probably it was something in the nature of a judicial
proceeding. It must have lasted for some time, for it was then that
these cigars were smoked. The older man sat in that wicker chair; it
was he who used the cigar-holder. The younger man sat over yonder; he
knocked his ash off against the chest of drawers. The third fellow paced
up and down. Blessington, I think, sat upright in the bed, but of that I
cannot be absolutely certain.

“Well, it ended by their taking Blessington and hanging him. The matter
was so prearranged that it is my belief that they brought with them
some sort of block or pulley which might serve as a gallows. That
screw-driver and those screws were, as I conceive, for fixing it up.
Seeing the hook, however they naturally saved themselves the trouble.
Having finished their work they made off, and the door was barred behind
them by their confederate.”

We had all listened with the deepest interest to this sketch of the
night's doings, which Holmes had deduced from signs so subtle and minute
that, even when he had pointed them out to us, we could scarcely follow
him in his reasoning. The inspector hurried away on the instant to make
inquiries about the page, while Holmes and I returned to Baker Street
for breakfast.

“I'll be back by three,” said he, when we had finished our meal. “Both
the inspector and the doctor will meet me here at that hour, and I hope
by that time to have cleared up any little obscurity which the case may
still present.”


Our visitors arrived at the appointed time, but it was a quarter to
four before my friend put in an appearance. From his expression as he
entered, however, I could see that all had gone well with him.

“Any news, Inspector?”

“We have got the boy, sir.”

“Excellent, and I have got the men.”

“You have got them!” we cried, all three.

“Well, at least I have got their identity. This so-called Blessington
is, as I expected, well known at headquarters, and so are his
assailants. Their names are Biddle, Hayward, and Moffat.”

“The Worthingdon bank gang,” cried the inspector.

“Precisely,” said Holmes.

“Then Blessington must have been Sutton.”

“Exactly,” said Holmes.

“Why, that makes it as clear as crystal,” said the inspector.

But Trevelyan and I looked at each other in bewilderment.

“You must surely remember the great Worthingdon bank business,” said
Holmes. “Five men were in it--these four and a fifth called Cartwright.
Tobin, the care-taker, was murdered, and the thieves got away with seven
thousand pounds. This was in 1875. They were all five arrested, but the
evidence against them was by no means conclusive. This Blessington or
Sutton, who was the worst of the gang, turned informer. On his evidence
Cartwright was hanged and the other three got fifteen years apiece. When
they got out the other day, which was some years before their full term,
they set themselves, as you perceive, to hunt down the traitor and to
avenge the death of their comrade upon him. Twice they tried to get at
him and failed; a third time, you see, it came off. Is there anything
further which I can explain, Dr. Trevelyan?”

“I think you have made it all remarkably clear,” said the doctor. “No
doubt the day on which he was perturbed was the day when he had seen of
their release in the newspapers.”

“Quite so. His talk about a burglary was the merest blind.”

“But why could he not tell you this?”

“Well, my dear sir, knowing the vindictive character of his old
associates, he was trying to hide his own identity from everybody as
long as he could. His secret was a shameful one, and he could not bring
himself to divulge it. However, wretch as he was, he was still living
under the shield of British law, and I have no doubt, Inspector, that
you will see that, though that shield may fail to guard, the sword of
justice is still there to avenge.”


Such were the singular circumstances in connection with the Resident
Patient and the Brook Street Doctor. From that night nothing has
been seen of the three murderers by the police, and it is surmised
at Scotland Yard that they were among the passengers of the ill-fated
steamer Norah Creina, which was lost some years ago with all hands
upon the Portuguese coast, some leagues to the north of Oporto. The
proceedings against the page broke down for want of evidence, and the
Brook Street Mystery, as it was called, has never until now been fully
dealt with in any public print.




Adventure IX. The Greek Interpreter


During my long and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Sherlock Holmes I had
never heard him refer to his relations, and hardly ever to his own early
life. This reticence upon his part had increased the somewhat inhuman
effect which he produced upon me, until sometimes I found myself
regarding him as an isolated phenomenon, a brain without a heart, as
deficient in human sympathy as he was pre-eminent in intelligence. His
aversion to women and his disinclination to form new friendships were
both typical of his unemotional character, but not more so than his
complete suppression of every reference to his own people. I had come to
believe that he was an orphan with no relatives living, but one day, to
my very great surprise, he began to talk to me about his brother.

It was after tea on a summer evening, and the conversation, which had
roamed in a desultory, spasmodic fashion from golf clubs to the causes
of the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic, came round at last
to the question of atavism and hereditary aptitudes. The point under
discussion was, how far any singular gift in an individual was due to
his ancestry and how far to his own early training.

“In your own case,” said I, “from all that you have told me, it seems
obvious that your faculty of observation and your peculiar facility for
deduction are due to your own systematic training.”

“To some extent,” he answered, thoughtfully. “My ancestors were country
squires, who appear to have led much the same life as is natural to
their class. But, none the less, my turn that way is in my veins, and
may have come with my grandmother, who was the sister of Vernet, the
French artist. Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms.”

“But how do you know that it is hereditary?”

“Because my brother Mycroft possesses it in a larger degree than I do.”

This was news to me indeed. If there were another man with such singular
powers in England, how was it that neither police nor public had heard
of him? I put the question, with a hint that it was my companion's
modesty which made him acknowledge his brother as his superior. Holmes
laughed at my suggestion.

“My dear Watson,” said he, “I cannot agree with those who rank modesty
among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as
they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from
truth as to exaggerate one's own powers. When I say, therefore, that
Mycroft has better powers of observation than I, you may take it that I
am speaking the exact and literal truth.”

“Is he your junior?”

“Seven years my senior.”

“How comes it that he is unknown?”

“Oh, he is very well known in his own circle.”

“Where, then?”

“Well, in the Diogenes Club, for example.”

I had never heard of the institution, and my face must have proclaimed
as much, for Sherlock Holmes pulled out his watch.

“The Diogenes Club is the queerest club in London, and Mycroft one of
the queerest men. He's always there from quarter to five to twenty to
eight. It's six now, so if you care for a stroll this beautiful evening
I shall be very happy to introduce you to two curiosities.”

Five minutes later we were in the street, walking towards Regent's
Circus.

“You wonder,” said my companion, “why it is that Mycroft does not use
his powers for detective work. He is incapable of it.”

“But I thought you said--”

“I said that he was my superior in observation and deduction. If the
art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an arm-chair, my
brother would be the greatest criminal agent that ever lived. But he has
no ambition and no energy. He will not even go out of his way to verify
his own solutions, and would rather be considered wrong than take the
trouble to prove himself right. Again and again I have taken a problem
to him, and have received an explanation which has afterwards proved to
be the correct one. And yet he was absolutely incapable of working out
the practical points which must be gone into before a case could be laid
before a judge or jury.”

“It is not his profession, then?”

“By no means. What is to me a means of livelihood is to him the merest
hobby of a dilettante. He has an extraordinary faculty for figures, and
audits the books in some of the government departments. Mycroft lodges
in Pall Mall, and he walks round the corner into Whitehall every morning
and back every evening. From year's end to year's end he takes no other
exercise, and is seen nowhere else, except only in the Diogenes Club,
which is just opposite his rooms.”

“I cannot recall the name.”

“Very likely not. There are many men in London, you know, who, some from
shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their
fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest
periodicals. It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club
was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubable men
in town. No member is permitted to take the least notice of any
other one. Save in the Stranger's Room, no talking is, under any
circumstances, allowed, and three offences, if brought to the notice of
the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion. My brother was one
of the founders, and I have myself found it a very soothing atmosphere.”

We had reached Pall Mall as we talked, and were walking down it from the
St. James's end. Sherlock Holmes stopped at a door some little distance
from the Carlton, and, cautioning me not to speak, he led the way into
the hall. Through the glass paneling I caught a glimpse of a large and
luxurious room, in which a considerable number of men were sitting about
and reading papers, each in his own little nook. Holmes showed me into a
small chamber which looked out into Pall Mall, and then, leaving me for
a minute, he came back with a companion whom I knew could only be his
brother.

Mycroft Holmes was a much larger and stouter man than Sherlock. His body
was absolutely corpulent, but his face, though massive, had preserved
something of the sharpness of expression which was so remarkable in that
of his brother. His eyes, which were of a peculiarly light, watery gray,
seemed to always retain that far-away, introspective look which I had
only observed in Sherlock's when he was exerting his full powers.

“I am glad to meet you, sir,” said he, putting out a broad, fat hand
like the flipper of a seal. “I hear of Sherlock everywhere since you
became his chronicler. By the way, Sherlock, I expected to see you round
last week, to consult me over that Manor House case. I thought you might
be a little out of your depth.”

“No, I solved it,” said my friend, smiling.

“It was Adams, of course.”

“Yes, it was Adams.”

“I was sure of it from the first.” The two sat down together in the
bow-window of the club. “To any one who wishes to study mankind this is
the spot,” said Mycroft. “Look at the magnificent types! Look at these
two men who are coming towards us, for example.”

“The billiard-marker and the other?”

“Precisely. What do you make of the other?”

The two men had stopped opposite the window. Some chalk marks over the
waistcoat pocket were the only signs of billiards which I could see
in one of them. The other was a very small, dark fellow, with his hat
pushed back and several packages under his arm.

“An old soldier, I perceive,” said Sherlock.

“And very recently discharged,” remarked the brother.

“Served in India, I see.”

“And a non-commissioned officer.”

“Royal Artillery, I fancy,” said Sherlock.

“And a widower.”

“But with a child.”

“Children, my dear boy, children.”

“Come,” said I, laughing, “this is a little too much.”

“Surely,” answered Holmes, “it is not hard to say that a man with that
bearing, expression of authority, and sunbaked skin, is a soldier, is
more than a private, and is not long from India.”

“That he has not left the service long is shown by his still wearing his
ammunition boots, as they are called,” observed Mycroft.

“He had not the cavalry stride, yet he wore his hat on one side, as
is shown by the lighter skin of that side of his brow. His weight is
against his being a sapper. He is in the artillery.”

“Then, of course, his complete mourning shows that he has lost some one
very dear. The fact that he is doing his own shopping looks as though
it were his wife. He has been buying things for children, you perceive.
There is a rattle, which shows that one of them is very young. The wife
probably died in childbed. The fact that he has a picture-book under his
arm shows that there is another child to be thought of.”

I began to understand what my friend meant when he said that his brother
possessed even keener faculties that he did himself. He glanced across
at me and smiled. Mycroft took snuff from a tortoise-shell box, and
brushed away the wandering grains from his coat front with a large, red
silk handkerchief.

“By the way, Sherlock,” said he, “I have had something quite after your
own heart--a most singular problem--submitted to my judgment. I really
had not the energy to follow it up save in a very incomplete fashion,
but it gave me a basis for some pleasing speculation. If you would care
to hear the facts--”

“My dear Mycroft, I should be delighted.”

The brother scribbled a note upon a leaf of his pocket-book, and,
ringing the bell, he handed it to the waiter.

“I have asked Mr. Melas to step across,” said he. “He lodges on the
floor above me, and I have some slight acquaintance with him, which led
him to come to me in his perplexity. Mr. Melas is a Greek by extraction,
as I understand, and he is a remarkable linguist. He earns his living
partly as interpreter in the law courts and partly by acting as guide to
any wealthy Orientals who may visit the Northumberland Avenue hotels. I
think I will leave him to tell his very remarkable experience in his own
fashion.”

A few minutes later we were joined by a short, stout man whose olive
face and coal-black hair proclaimed his Southern origin, though his
speech was that of an educated Englishman. He shook hands eagerly
with Sherlock Holmes, and his dark eyes sparkled with pleasure when he
understood that the specialist was anxious to hear his story.

“I do not believe that the police credit me--on my word, I do not,” said
he in a wailing voice. “Just because they have never heard of it before,
they think that such a thing cannot be. But I know that I shall never
be easy in my mind until I know what has become of my poor man with the
sticking-plaster upon his face.”

“I am all attention,” said Sherlock Holmes.

“This is Wednesday evening,” said Mr. Melas. “Well then, it was Monday
night--only two days ago, you understand--that all this happened. I am
an interpreter, as perhaps my neighbor there has told you. I interpret
all languages--or nearly all--but as I am a Greek by birth and with a
Grecian name, it is with that particular tongue that I am principally
associated. For many years I have been the chief Greek interpreter in
London, and my name is very well known in the hotels.

“It happens not unfrequently that I am sent for at strange hours by
foreigners who get into difficulties, or by travelers who arrive late
and wish my services. I was not surprised, therefore, on Monday night
when a Mr. Latimer, a very fashionably dressed young man, came up to my
rooms and asked me to accompany him in a cab which was waiting at the
door. A Greek friend had come to see him upon business, he said, and
as he could speak nothing but his own tongue, the services of an
interpreter were indispensable. He gave me to understand that his house
was some little distance off, in Kensington, and he seemed to be in a
great hurry, bustling me rapidly into the cab when we had descended to
the street.

“I say into the cab, but I soon became doubtful as to whether it was not
a carriage in which I found myself. It was certainly more roomy than
the ordinary four-wheeled disgrace to London, and the fittings, though
frayed, were of rich quality. Mr. Latimer seated himself opposite to me
and we started off through Charing Cross and up the Shaftesbury Avenue.
We had come out upon Oxford Street and I had ventured some remark as to
this being a roundabout way to Kensington, when my words were arrested
by the extraordinary conduct of my companion.

“He began by drawing a most formidable-looking bludgeon loaded with lead
from his pocket, and switching it backward and forward several times,
as if to test its weight and strength. Then he placed it without a word
upon the seat beside him. Having done this, he drew up the windows on
each side, and I found to my astonishment that they were covered with
paper so as to prevent my seeing through them.

“'I am sorry to cut off your view, Mr. Melas,' said he. 'The fact is
that I have no intention that you should see what the place is to which
we are driving. It might possibly be inconvenient to me if you could
find your way there again.'

“As you can imagine, I was utterly taken aback by such an address. My
companion was a powerful, broad-shouldered young fellow, and, apart from
the weapon, I should not have had the slightest chance in a struggle
with him.

“'This is very extraordinary conduct, Mr. Latimer,' I stammered. 'You
must be aware that what you are doing is quite illegal.'

“'It is somewhat of a liberty, no doubt,' said he, 'but we'll make it
up to you. I must warn you, however, Mr. Melas, that if at any time
to-night you attempt to raise an alarm or do anything which is against
my interests, you will find it a very serious thing. I beg you to
remember that no one knows where you are, and that, whether you are in
this carriage or in my house, you are equally in my power.'

“His words were quiet, but he had a rasping way of saying them which
was very menacing. I sat in silence wondering what on earth could be
his reason for kidnapping me in this extraordinary fashion. Whatever it
might be, it was perfectly clear that there was no possible use in my
resisting, and that I could only wait to see what might befall.

“For nearly two hours we drove without my having the least clue as to
where we were going. Sometimes the rattle of the stones told of a paved
causeway, and at others our smooth, silent course suggested asphalt;
but, save by this variation in sound, there was nothing at all which
could in the remotest way help me to form a guess as to where we were.
The paper over each window was impenetrable to light, and a blue curtain
was drawn across the glass work in front. It was a quarter-past seven
when we left Pall Mall, and my watch showed me that it was ten minutes
to nine when we at last came to a standstill. My companion let down
the window, and I caught a glimpse of a low, arched doorway with a lamp
burning above it. As I was hurried from the carriage it swung open, and
I found myself inside the house, with a vague impression of a lawn
and trees on each side of me as I entered. Whether these were private
grounds, however, or bona-fide country was more than I could possibly
venture to say.

“There was a colored gas-lamp inside which was turned so low that I
could see little save that the hall was of some size and hung with
pictures. In the dim light I could make out that the person who had
opened the door was a small, mean-looking, middle-aged man with rounded
shoulders. As he turned towards us the glint of the light showed me that
he was wearing glasses.

“'Is this Mr. Melas, Harold?' said he.

“'Yes.'

“'Well done, well done! No ill-will, Mr. Melas, I hope, but we could not
get on without you. If you deal fair with us you'll not regret it,
but if you try any tricks, God help you!' He spoke in a nervous, jerky
fashion, and with little giggling laughs in between, but somehow he
impressed me with fear more than the other.

“'What do you want with me?' I asked.

“'Only to ask a few questions of a Greek gentleman who is visiting us,
and to let us have the answers. But say no more than you are told to
say, or--' here came the nervous giggle again--'you had better never
have been born.'

“As he spoke he opened a door and showed the way into a room which
appeared to be very richly furnished, but again the only light was
afforded by a single lamp half-turned down. The chamber was certainly
large, and the way in which my feet sank into the carpet as I stepped
across it told me of its richness. I caught glimpses of velvet chairs, a
high white marble mantel-piece, and what seemed to be a suit of Japanese
armor at one side of it. There was a chair just under the lamp, and the
elderly man motioned that I should sit in it. The younger had left
us, but he suddenly returned through another door, leading with him
a gentleman clad in some sort of loose dressing-gown who moved slowly
towards us. As he came into the circle of dim light which enables me to
see him more clearly I was thrilled with horror at his appearance. He
was deadly pale and terribly emaciated, with the protruding, brilliant
eyes of a man whose spirit was greater than his strength. But what
shocked me more than any signs of physical weakness was that his face
was grotesquely criss-crossed with sticking-plaster, and that one large
pad of it was fastened over his mouth.

“'Have you the slate, Harold?' cried the older man, as this strange
being fell rather than sat down into a chair. 'Are his hands loose? Now,
then, give him the pencil. You are to ask the questions, Mr. Melas, and
he will write the answers. Ask him first of all whether he is prepared
to sign the papers?'

“The man's eyes flashed fire.

“'Never!' he wrote in Greek upon the slate.

“'On no condition?' I asked, at the bidding of our tyrant.

“'Only if I see her married in my presence by a Greek priest whom I
know.'

“The man giggled in his venomous way.

“'You know what awaits you, then?'

“'I care nothing for myself.'

“These are samples of the questions and answers which made up our
strange half-spoken, half-written conversation. Again and again I had to
ask him whether he would give in and sign the documents. Again and again
I had the same indignant reply. But soon a happy thought came to me. I
took to adding on little sentences of my own to each question, innocent
ones at first, to test whether either of our companions knew anything
of the matter, and then, as I found that they showed no signs I played a
more dangerous game. Our conversation ran something like this:

“'You can do no good by this obstinacy. Who are you?'

“'I care not. I am a stranger in London.'

“'Your fate will be upon your own head. How long have you been here?'

“'Let it be so. Three weeks.'

“'The property can never be yours. What ails you?'

“'It shall not go to villains. They are starving me.'

“'You shall go free if you sign. What house is this?'

“'I will never sign. I do not know.'

“'You are not doing her any service. What is your name?'

“'Let me hear her say so. Kratides.'

“'You shall see her if you sign. Where are you from?'

“'Then I shall never see her. Athens.'

“Another five minutes, Mr. Holmes, and I should have wormed out the
whole story under their very noses. My very next question might have
cleared the matter up, but at that instant the door opened and a woman
stepped into the room. I could not see her clearly enough to know more
than that she was tall and graceful, with black hair, and clad in some
sort of loose white gown.

“'Harold,' said she, speaking English with a broken accent. 'I could not
stay away longer. It is so lonely up there with only--Oh, my God, it is
Paul!'

“These last words were in Greek, and at the same instant the man with
a convulsive effort tore the plaster from his lips, and screaming out
'Sophy! Sophy!' rushed into the woman's arms. Their embrace was but for
an instant, however, for the younger man seized the woman and pushed
her out of the room, while the elder easily overpowered his emaciated
victim, and dragged him away through the other door. For a moment I was
left alone in the room, and I sprang to my feet with some vague idea
that I might in some way get a clue to what this house was in which I
found myself. Fortunately, however, I took no steps, for looking up I
saw that the older man was standing in the door-way with his eyes fixed
upon me.

“'That will do, Mr. Melas,' said he. 'You perceive that we have taken
you into our confidence over some very private business. We should not
have troubled you, only that our friend who speaks Greek and who began
these negotiations has been forced to return to the East. It was
quite necessary for us to find some one to take his place, and we were
fortunate in hearing of your powers.'

“I bowed.

“'There are five sovereigns here,' said he, walking up to me, 'which
will, I hope, be a sufficient fee. But remember,' he added, tapping me
lightly on the chest and giggling, 'if you speak to a human soul about
this--one human soul, mind--well, may God have mercy upon your soul!”

“I cannot tell you the loathing and horror with which this
insignificant-looking man inspired me. I could see him better now as the
lamp-light shone upon him. His features were peaky and sallow, and his
little pointed beard was thready and ill-nourished. He pushed his face
forward as he spoke and his lips and eyelids were continually twitching
like a man with St. Vitus's dance. I could not help thinking that his
strange, catchy little laugh was also a symptom of some nervous malady.
The terror of his face lay in his eyes, however, steel gray, and
glistening coldly with a malignant, inexorable cruelty in their depths.

“'We shall know if you speak of this,' said he. 'We have our own means
of information. Now you will find the carriage waiting, and my friend
will see you on your way.'

“I was hurried through the hall and into the vehicle, again obtaining
that momentary glimpse of trees and a garden. Mr. Latimer followed
closely at my heels, and took his place opposite to me without a word.
In silence we again drove for an interminable distance with the windows
raised, until at last, just after midnight, the carriage pulled up.

“'You will get down here, Mr. Melas,' said my companion. 'I am sorry
to leave you so far from your house, but there is no alternative. Any
attempt upon your part to follow the carriage can only end in injury to
yourself.'

“He opened the door as he spoke, and I had hardly time to spring out
when the coachman lashed the horse and the carriage rattled away. I
looked around me in astonishment. I was on some sort of a heathy common
mottled over with dark clumps of furze-bushes. Far away stretched a
line of houses, with a light here and there in the upper windows. On the
other side I saw the red signal-lamps of a railway.

“The carriage which had brought me was already out of sight. I stood
gazing round and wondering where on earth I might be, when I saw some
one coming towards me in the darkness. As he came up to me I made out
that he was a railway porter.

“'Can you tell me what place this is?' I asked.

“'Wandsworth Common,' said he.

“'Can I get a train into town?'

“'If you walk on a mile or so to Clapham Junction,' said he, 'you'll
just be in time for the last to Victoria.'

“So that was the end of my adventure, Mr. Holmes. I do not know where I
was, nor whom I spoke with, nor anything save what I have told you. But
I know that there is foul play going on, and I want to help that unhappy
man if I can. I told the whole story to Mr. Mycroft Holmes next morning,
and subsequently to the police.”

We all sat in silence for some little time after listening to this
extraordinary narrative. Then Sherlock looked across at his brother.

“Any steps?” he asked.

Mycroft picked up the Daily News, which was lying on the side-table.

“'Anybody supplying any information to the whereabouts of a Greek
gentleman named Paul Kratides, from Athens, who is unable to speak
English, will be rewarded. A similar reward paid to any one giving
information about a Greek lady whose first name is Sophy. X 2473.' That
was in all the dailies. No answer.”

“How about the Greek Legation?”

“I have inquired. They know nothing.”

“A wire to the head of the Athens police, then?”

“Sherlock has all the energy of the family,” said Mycroft, turning to
me. “Well, you take the case up by all means, and let me know if you do
any good.”

“Certainly,” answered my friend, rising from his chair. “I'll let you
know, and Mr. Melas also. In the meantime, Mr. Melas, I should certainly
be on my guard, if I were you, for of course they must know through
these advertisements that you have betrayed them.”

As we walked home together, Holmes stopped at a telegraph office and
sent off several wires.

“You see, Watson,” he remarked, “our evening has been by no means
wasted. Some of my most interesting cases have come to me in this way
through Mycroft. The problem which we have just listened to, although
it can admit of but one explanation, has still some distinguishing
features.”

“You have hopes of solving it?”

“Well, knowing as much as we do, it will be singular indeed if we fail
to discover the rest. You must yourself have formed some theory which
will explain the facts to which we have listened.”

“In a vague way, yes.”

“What was your idea, then?”

“It seemed to me to be obvious that this Greek girl had been carried off
by the young Englishman named Harold Latimer.”

“Carried off from where?”

“Athens, perhaps.”

Sherlock Holmes shook his head. “This young man could not talk a word of
Greek. The lady could talk English fairly well. Inference--that she had
been in England some little time, but he had not been in Greece.”

“Well, then, we will presume that she had come on a visit to England,
and that this Harold had persuaded her to fly with him.”

“That is more probable.”

“Then the brother--for that, I fancy, must be the relationship--comes
over from Greece to interfere. He imprudently puts himself into the
power of the young man and his older associate. They seize him and use
violence towards him in order to make him sign some papers to make over
the girl's fortune--of which he may be trustee--to them. This he refuses
to do. In order to negotiate with him they have to get an interpreter,
and they pitch upon this Mr. Melas, having used some other one before.
The girl is not told of the arrival of her brother, and finds it out by
the merest accident.”

“Excellent, Watson!” cried Holmes. “I really fancy that you are not far
from the truth. You see that we hold all the cards, and we have only to
fear some sudden act of violence on their part. If they give us time we
must have them.”

“But how can we find where this house lies?”

“Well, if our conjecture is correct and the girl's name is or was Sophy
Kratides, we should have no difficulty in tracing her. That must be our
main hope, for the brother is, of course, a complete stranger. It is
clear that some time has elapsed since this Harold established these
relations with the girl--some weeks, at any rate--since the brother in
Greece has had time to hear of it and come across. If they have been
living in the same place during this time, it is probable that we shall
have some answer to Mycroft's advertisement.”

We had reached our house in Baker Street while we had been talking.
Holmes ascended the stair first, and as he opened the door of our room
he gave a start of surprise. Looking over his shoulder, I was equally
astonished. His brother Mycroft was sitting smoking in the arm-chair.

“Come in, Sherlock! Come in, sir,” said he blandly, smiling at our
surprised faces. “You don't expect such energy from me, do you,
Sherlock? But somehow this case attracts me.”

“How did you get here?”

“I passed you in a hansom.”

“There has been some new development?”

“I had an answer to my advertisement.”

“Ah!”

“Yes, it came within a few minutes of your leaving.”

“And to what effect?”

Mycroft Holmes took out a sheet of paper.

“Here it is,” said he, “written with a J pen on royal cream paper by a
middle-aged man with a weak constitution. 'Sir,' he says, 'in answer to
your advertisement of to-day's date, I beg to inform you that I know the
young lady in question very well. If you should care to call upon me I
could give you some particulars as to her painful history. She is living
at present at The Myrtles, Beckenham. Yours faithfully, J. Davenport.'

“He writes from Lower Brixton,” said Mycroft Holmes. “Do you not think
that we might drive to him now, Sherlock, and learn these particulars?”

“My dear Mycroft, the brother's life is more valuable than the sister's
story. I think we should call at Scotland Yard for Inspector Gregson,
and go straight out to Beckenham. We know that a man is being done to
death, and every hour may be vital.”

“Better pick up Mr. Melas on our way,” I suggested. “We may need an
interpreter.”

“Excellent,” said Sherlock Holmes. “Send the boy for a four-wheeler, and
we shall be off at once.” He opened the table-drawer as he spoke, and I
noticed that he slipped his revolver into his pocket. “Yes,” said he, in
answer to my glance; “I should say from what we have heard, that we are
dealing with a particularly dangerous gang.”

It was almost dark before we found ourselves in Pall Mall, at the rooms
of Mr. Melas. A gentleman had just called for him, and he was gone.

“Can you tell me where?” asked Mycroft Holmes.

“I don't know, sir,” answered the woman who had opened the door; “I only
know that he drove away with the gentleman in a carriage.”

“Did the gentleman give a name?”

“No, sir.”

“He wasn't a tall, handsome, dark young man?”

“Oh, no, sir. He was a little gentleman, with glasses, thin in the face,
but very pleasant in his ways, for he was laughing all the time that he
was talking.”

“Come along!” cried Sherlock Holmes, abruptly. “This grows serious,”
he observed, as we drove to Scotland Yard. “These men have got hold of
Melas again. He is a man of no physical courage, as they are well
aware from their experience the other night. This villain was able to
terrorize him the instant that he got into his presence. No doubt
they want his professional services, but, having used him, they may be
inclined to punish him for what they will regard as his treachery.”

Our hope was that, by taking train, we might get to Beckenham as soon
or sooner than the carriage. On reaching Scotland Yard, however, it was
more than an hour before we could get Inspector Gregson and comply with
the legal formalities which would enable us to enter the house. It was a
quarter to ten before we reached London Bridge, and half past before the
four of us alighted on the Beckenham platform. A drive of half a mile
brought us to The Myrtles--a large, dark house standing back from the
road in its own grounds. Here we dismissed our cab, and made our way up
the drive together.

“The windows are all dark,” remarked the inspector. “The house seems
deserted.”

“Our birds are flown and the nest empty,” said Holmes.

“Why do you say so?”

“A carriage heavily loaded with luggage has passed out during the last
hour.”

The inspector laughed. “I saw the wheel-tracks in the light of the
gate-lamp, but where does the luggage come in?”

“You may have observed the same wheel-tracks going the other way. But
the outward-bound ones were very much deeper--so much so that we can
say for a certainty that there was a very considerable weight on the
carriage.”

“You get a trifle beyond me there,” said the inspector, shrugging his
shoulder. “It will not be an easy door to force, but we will try if we
cannot make some one hear us.”

He hammered loudly at the knocker and pulled at the bell, but without
any success. Holmes had slipped away, but he came back in a few minutes.

“I have a window open,” said he.

“It is a mercy that you are on the side of the force, and not against
it, Mr. Holmes,” remarked the inspector, as he noted the clever way in
which my friend had forced back the catch. “Well, I think that under the
circumstances we may enter without an invitation.”

One after the other we made our way into a large apartment, which was
evidently that in which Mr. Melas had found himself. The inspector
had lit his lantern, and by its light we could see the two doors, the
curtain, the lamp, and the suit of Japanese mail as he had described
them. On the table lay two glasses, and empty brandy-bottle, and the
remains of a meal.

“What is that?” asked Holmes, suddenly.

We all stood still and listened. A low moaning sound was coming from
somewhere over our heads. Holmes rushed to the door and out into the
hall. The dismal noise came from upstairs. He dashed up, the inspector
and I at his heels, while his brother Mycroft followed as quickly as his
great bulk would permit.

Three doors faced up upon the second floor, and it was from the central
of these that the sinister sounds were issuing, sinking sometimes into a
dull mumble and rising again into a shrill whine. It was locked, but the
key had been left on the outside. Holmes flung open the door and rushed
in, but he was out again in an instant, with his hand to his throat.

“It's charcoal,” he cried. “Give it time. It will clear.”

Peering in, we could see that the only light in the room came from a
dull blue flame which flickered from a small brass tripod in the centre.
It threw a livid, unnatural circle upon the floor, while in the shadows
beyond we saw the vague loom of two figures which crouched against the
wall. From the open door there reeked a horrible poisonous exhalation
which set us gasping and coughing. Holmes rushed to the top of the
stairs to draw in the fresh air, and then, dashing into the room, he
threw up the window and hurled the brazen tripod out into the garden.

“We can enter in a minute,” he gasped, darting out again. “Where is a
candle? I doubt if we could strike a match in that atmosphere. Hold the
light at the door and we shall get them out, Mycroft, now!”

With a rush we got to the poisoned men and dragged them out into the
well-lit hall. Both of them were blue-lipped and insensible, with
swollen, congested faces and protruding eyes. Indeed, so distorted were
their features that, save for his black beard and stout figure, we might
have failed to recognize in one of them the Greek interpreter who had
parted from us only a few hours before at the Diogenes Club. His hands
and feet were securely strapped together, and he bore over one eye
the marks of a violent blow. The other, who was secured in a similar
fashion, was a tall man in the last stage of emaciation, with several
strips of sticking-plaster arranged in a grotesque pattern over his
face. He had ceased to moan as we laid him down, and a glance showed
me that for him at least our aid had come too late. Mr. Melas, however,
still lived, and in less than an hour, with the aid of ammonia and
brandy I had the satisfaction of seeing him open his eyes, and of
knowing that my hand had drawn him back from that dark valley in which
all paths meet.

It was a simple story which he had to tell, and one which did but
confirm our own deductions. His visitor, on entering his rooms, had
drawn a life-preserver from his sleeve, and had so impressed him with
the fear of instant and inevitable death that he had kidnapped him for
the second time. Indeed, it was almost mesmeric, the effect which this
giggling ruffian had produced upon the unfortunate linguist, for he
could not speak of him save with trembling hands and a blanched cheek.
He had been taken swiftly to Beckenham, and had acted as interpreter in
a second interview, even more dramatic than the first, in which the two
Englishmen had menaced their prisoner with instant death if he did not
comply with their demands. Finally, finding him proof against every
threat, they had hurled him back into his prison, and after
reproaching Melas with his treachery, which appeared from the newspaper
advertisement, they had stunned him with a blow from a stick, and he
remembered nothing more until he found us bending over him.

And this was the singular case of the Grecian Interpreter, the
explanation of which is still involved in some mystery. We were able
to find out, by communicating with the gentleman who had answered the
advertisement, that the unfortunate young lady came of a wealthy Grecian
family, and that she had been on a visit to some friends in England.
While there she had met a young man named Harold Latimer, who had
acquired an ascendancy over her and had eventually persuaded her to fly
with him. Her friends, shocked at the event, had contented themselves
with informing her brother at Athens, and had then washed their hands
of the matter. The brother, on his arrival in England, had imprudently
placed himself in the power of Latimer and of his associate, whose name
was Wilson Kemp--a man of the foulest antecedents. These two, finding
that through his ignorance of the language he was helpless in their
hands, had kept him a prisoner, and had endeavored by cruelty and
starvation to make him sign away his own and his sister's property. They
had kept him in the house without the girl's knowledge, and the plaster
over the face had been for the purpose of making recognition difficult
in case she should ever catch a glimpse of him. Her feminine perception,
however, had instantly seen through the disguise when, on the occasion
of the interpreter's visit, she had seen him for the first time. The
poor girl, however, was herself a prisoner, for there was no one about
the house except the man who acted as coachman, and his wife, both of
whom were tools of the conspirators. Finding that their secret was out,
and that their prisoner was not to be coerced, the two villains with the
girl had fled away at a few hours' notice from the furnished house which
they had hired, having first, as they thought, taken vengeance both upon
the man who had defied and the one who had betrayed them.

Months afterwards a curious newspaper cutting reached us from
Buda-Pesth. It told how two Englishmen who had been traveling with a
woman had met with a tragic end. They had each been stabbed, it seems,
and the Hungarian police were of opinion that they had quarreled and had
inflicted mortal injuries upon each other. Holmes, however, is, I fancy,
of a different way of thinking, and holds to this day that, if one could
find the Grecian girl, one might learn how the wrongs of herself and her
brother came to be avenged.




Adventure X. The Naval Treaty


The July which immediately succeeded my marriage was made memorable
by three cases of interest, in which I had the privilege of being
associated with Sherlock Holmes and of studying his methods. I find them
recorded in my notes under the headings of “The Adventure of the Second
Stain,” “The Adventure of the Naval Treaty,” and “The Adventure of the
Tired Captain.” The first of these, however, deals with interest of such
importance and implicates so many of the first families in the kingdom
that for many years it will be impossible to make it public. No case,
however, in which Holmes was engaged has ever illustrated the value
of his analytical methods so clearly or has impressed those who were
associated with him so deeply. I still retain an almost verbatim report
of the interview in which he demonstrated the true facts of the case
to Monsieur Dubugue of the Paris police, and Fritz von Waldbaum, the
well-known specialist of Dantzig, both of whom had wasted their energies
upon what proved to be side-issues. The new century will have come,
however, before the story can be safely told. Meanwhile I pass on to
the second on my list, which promised also at one time to be of national
importance, and was marked by several incidents which give it a quite
unique character.

During my school-days I had been intimately associated with a lad named
Percy Phelps, who was of much the same age as myself, though he was two
classes ahead of me. He was a very brilliant boy, and carried away every
prize which the school had to offer, finished his exploits by winning
a scholarship which sent him on to continue his triumphant career at
Cambridge. He was, I remember, extremely well connected, and even when
we were all little boys together we knew that his mother's brother
was Lord Holdhurst, the great conservative politician. This gaudy
relationship did him little good at school. On the contrary, it seemed
rather a piquant thing to us to chevy him about the playground and hit
him over the shins with a wicket. But it was another thing when he
came out into the world. I heard vaguely that his abilities and the
influences which he commanded had won him a good position at the Foreign
Office, and then he passed completely out of my mind until the following
letter recalled his existence:


Briarbrae, Woking. My dear Watson,--I have no doubt that you can
remember “Tadpole” Phelps, who was in the fifth form when you were in
the third. It is possible even that you may have heard that through my
uncle's influence I obtained a good appointment at the Foreign Office,
and that I was in a situation of trust and honor until a horrible
misfortune came suddenly to blast my career.

There is no use writing of the details of that dreadful event. In the
event of your acceding to my request it is probable that I shall have
to narrate them to you. I have only just recovered from nine weeks of
brain-fever, and am still exceedingly weak. Do you think that you could
bring your friend Mr. Holmes down to see me? I should like to have his
opinion of the case, though the authorities assure me that nothing more
can be done. Do try to bring him down, and as soon as possible. Every
minute seems an hour while I live in this state of horrible suspense.
Assure him that if I have not asked his advice sooner it was not because
I did not appreciate his talents, but because I have been off my head
ever since the blow fell. Now I am clear again, though I dare not think
of it too much for fear of a relapse. I am still so weak that I have to
write, as you see, by dictating. Do try to bring him.

Your old school-fellow,

Percy Phelps.


There was something that touched me as I read this letter, something
pitiable in the reiterated appeals to bring Holmes. So moved was I
that even had it been a difficult matter I should have tried it, but
of course I knew well that Holmes loved his art, so that he was ever
as ready to bring his aid as his client could be to receive it. My wife
agreed with me that not a moment should be lost in laying the matter
before him, and so within an hour of breakfast-time I found myself back
once more in the old rooms in Baker Street.

Holmes was seated at his side-table clad in his dressing-gown, and
working hard over a chemical investigation. A large curved retort
was boiling furiously in the bluish flame of a Bunsen burner, and the
distilled drops were condensing into a two-litre measure. My friend
hardly glanced up as I entered, and I, seeing that his investigation
must be of importance, seated myself in an arm-chair and waited. He
dipped into this bottle or that, drawing out a few drops of each with
his glass pipette, and finally brought a test-tube containing a solution
over to the table. In his right hand he held a slip of litmus-paper.

“You come at a crisis, Watson,” said he. “If this paper remains blue,
all is well. If it turns red, it means a man's life.” He dipped it into
the test-tube and it flushed at once into a dull, dirty crimson. “Hum!
I thought as much!” he cried. “I will be at your service in an instant,
Watson. You will find tobacco in the Persian slipper.” He turned to his
desk and scribbled off several telegrams, which were handed over to the
page-boy. Then he threw himself down into the chair opposite, and drew
up his knees until his fingers clasped round his long, thin shins.

“A very commonplace little murder,” said he. “You've got something
better, I fancy. You are the stormy petrel of crime, Watson. What is
it?”

I handed him the letter, which he read with the most concentrated
attention.

“It does not tell us very much, does it?” he remarked, as he handed it
back to me.

“Hardly anything.”

“And yet the writing is of interest.”

“But the writing is not his own.”

“Precisely. It is a woman's.”

“A man's surely,” I cried.

“No, a woman's, and a woman of rare character. You see, at the
commencement of an investigation it is something to know that your
client is in close contact with some one who, for good or evil, has an
exceptional nature. My interest is already awakened in the case. If you
are ready we will start at once for Woking, and see this diplomatist who
is in such evil case, and the lady to whom he dictates his letters.”

We were fortunate enough to catch an early train at Waterloo, and in
a little under an hour we found ourselves among the fir-woods and
the heather of Woking. Briarbrae proved to be a large detached house
standing in extensive grounds within a few minutes' walk of the station.
On sending in our cards we were shown into an elegantly appointed
drawing-room, where we were joined in a few minutes by a rather stout
man who received us with much hospitality. His age may have been nearer
forty than thirty, but his cheeks were so ruddy and his eyes so merry
that he still conveyed the impression of a plump and mischievous boy.

“I am so glad that you have come,” said he, shaking our hands with
effusion. “Percy has been inquiring for you all morning. Ah, poor old
chap, he clings to any straw! His father and his mother asked me to see
you, for the mere mention of the subject is very painful to them.”

“We have had no details yet,” observed Holmes. “I perceive that you are
not yourself a member of the family.”

Our acquaintance looked surprised, and then, glancing down, he began to
laugh.

“Of course you saw the J H monogram on my locket,” said he. “For a
moment I thought you had done something clever. Joseph Harrison is my
name, and as Percy is to marry my sister Annie I shall at least be a
relation by marriage. You will find my sister in his room, for she has
nursed him hand-and-foot this two months back. Perhaps we'd better go in
at once, for I know how impatient he is.”

The chamber in which we were shown was on the same floor as the
drawing-room. It was furnished partly as a sitting and partly as a
bedroom, with flowers arranged daintily in every nook and corner. A
young man, very pale and worn, was lying upon a sofa near the open
window, through which came the rich scent of the garden and the balmy
summer air. A woman was sitting beside him, who rose as we entered.

“Shall I leave, Percy?” she asked.

He clutched her hand to detain her. “How are you, Watson?” said he,
cordially. “I should never have known you under that moustache, and I
dare say you would not be prepared to swear to me. This I presume is
your celebrated friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”

I introduced him in a few words, and we both sat down. The stout young
man had left us, but his sister still remained with her hand in that of
the invalid. She was a striking-looking woman, a little short and
thick for symmetry, but with a beautiful olive complexion, large, dark,
Italian eyes, and a wealth of deep black hair. Her rich tints made the
white face of her companion the more worn and haggard by the contrast.

“I won't waste your time,” said he, raising himself upon the sofa.
“I'll plunge into the matter without further preamble. I was a happy
and successful man, Mr. Holmes, and on the eve of being married, when a
sudden and dreadful misfortune wrecked all my prospects in life.

“I was, as Watson may have told you, in the Foreign Office, and
through the influences of my uncle, Lord Holdhurst, I rose rapidly to
a responsible position. When my uncle became foreign minister in this
administration he gave me several missions of trust, and as I always
brought them to a successful conclusion, he came at last to have the
utmost confidence in my ability and tact.

“Nearly ten weeks ago--to be more accurate, on the 23d of May--he called
me into his private room, and, after complimenting me on the good work
which I had done, he informed me that he had a new commission of trust
for me to execute.

“'This,' said he, taking a gray roll of paper from his bureau, 'is the
original of that secret treaty between England and Italy of which, I
regret to say, some rumors have already got into the public press. It is
of enormous importance that nothing further should leak out. The French
or the Russian embassy would pay an immense sum to learn the contents
of these papers. They should not leave my bureau were it not that it
is absolutely necessary to have them copied. You have a desk in your
office?”

“'Yes, sir.'

“'Then take the treaty and lock it up there. I shall give directions
that you may remain behind when the others go, so that you may copy
it at your leisure without fear of being overlooked. When you have
finished, relock both the original and the draft in the desk, and hand
them over to me personally to-morrow morning.'

“I took the papers and--”

“Excuse me an instant,” said Holmes. “Were you alone during this
conversation?”

“Absolutely.”

“In a large room?”

“Thirty feet each way.”

“In the centre?”

“Yes, about it.”

“And speaking low?”

“My uncle's voice is always remarkably low. I hardly spoke at all.”

“Thank you,” said Holmes, shutting his eyes; “pray go on.”

“I did exactly what he indicated, and waited until the other clerks had
departed. One of them in my room, Charles Gorot, had some arrears
of work to make up, so I left him there and went out to dine. When I
returned he was gone. I was anxious to hurry my work, for I knew that
Joseph--the Mr. Harrison whom you saw just now--was in town, and that he
would travel down to Woking by the eleven-o'clock train, and I wanted if
possible to catch it.

“When I came to examine the treaty I saw at once that it was of such
importance that my uncle had been guilty of no exaggeration in what
he had said. Without going into details, I may say that it defined the
position of Great Britain towards the Triple Alliance, and fore-shadowed
the policy which this country would pursue in the event of the
French fleet gaining a complete ascendancy over that of Italy in the
Mediterranean. The questions treated in it were purely naval. At the end
were the signatures of the high dignitaries who had signed it. I glanced
my eyes over it, and then settled down to my task of copying.

“It was a long document, written in the French language, and containing
twenty-six separate articles. I copied as quickly as I could, but at
nine o'clock I had only done nine articles, and it seemed hopeless for
me to attempt to catch my train. I was feeling drowsy and stupid, partly
from my dinner and also from the effects of a long day's work. A cup of
coffee would clear my brain. A commissionnaire remains all night in a
little lodge at the foot of the stairs, and is in the habit of making
coffee at his spirit-lamp for any of the officials who may be working
over time. I rang the bell, therefore, to summon him.

“To my surprise, it was a woman who answered the summons, a large,
coarse-faced, elderly woman, in an apron. She explained that she was the
commissionnaire's wife, who did the charing, and I gave her the order
for the coffee.

“I wrote two more articles and then, feeling more drowsy than ever, I
rose and walked up and down the room to stretch my legs. My coffee had
not yet come, and I wondered what the cause of the delay could be.
Opening the door, I started down the corridor to find out. There was a
straight passage, dimly lighted, which led from the room in which I
had been working, and was the only exit from it. It ended in a curving
staircase, with the commissionnaire's lodge in the passage at the
bottom. Half way down this staircase is a small landing, with another
passage running into it at right angles. This second one leads by means
of a second small stair to a side door, used by servants, and also as
a short cut by clerks when coming from Charles Street. Here is a rough
chart of the place.”

“Thank you. I think that I quite follow you,” said Sherlock Holmes.

“It is of the utmost importance that you should notice this point.
I went down the stairs and into the hall, where I found the
commissionnaire fast asleep in his box, with the kettle boiling
furiously upon the spirit-lamp. I took off the kettle and blew out the
lamp, for the water was spurting over the floor. Then I put out my hand
and was about to shake the man, who was still sleeping soundly, when a
bell over his head rang loudly, and he woke with a start.

“'Mr. Phelps, sir!' said he, looking at me in bewilderment.

“'I came down to see if my coffee was ready.'

“'I was boiling the kettle when I fell asleep, sir.' He looked at me and
then up at the still quivering bell with an ever-growing astonishment
upon his face.

“'If you was here, sir, then who rang the bell?' he asked.

“'The bell!' I cried. 'What bell is it?'

“'It's the bell of the room you were working in.'

“A cold hand seemed to close round my heart. Some one, then, was in that
room where my precious treaty lay upon the table. I ran frantically up
the stair and along the passage. There was no one in the corridors, Mr.
Holmes. There was no one in the room. All was exactly as I left it, save
only that the papers which had been committed to my care had been taken
from the desk on which they lay. The copy was there, and the original
was gone.”

Holmes sat up in his chair and rubbed his hands. I could see that the
problem was entirely to his heart. “Pray, what did you do then?” he
murmured.

“I recognized in an instant that the thief must have come up the stairs
from the side door. Of course I must have met him if he had come the
other way.”

“You were satisfied that he could not have been concealed in the room
all the time, or in the corridor which you have just described as dimly
lighted?”

“It is absolutely impossible. A rat could not conceal himself either in
the room or the corridor. There is no cover at all.”

“Thank you. Pray proceed.”

“The commissionnaire, seeing by my pale face that something was to be
feared, had followed me upstairs. Now we both rushed along the corridor
and down the steep steps which led to Charles Street. The door at the
bottom was closed, but unlocked. We flung it open and rushed out. I can
distinctly remember that as we did so there came three chimes from a
neighboring clock. It was quarter to ten.”

“That is of enormous importance,” said Holmes, making a note upon his
shirt-cuff.

“The night was very dark, and a thin, warm rain was falling. There was
no one in Charles Street, but a great traffic was going on, as usual, in
Whitehall, at the extremity. We rushed along the pavement, bare-headed
as we were, and at the far corner we found a policeman standing.

“'A robbery has been committed,' I gasped. 'A document of immense value
has been stolen from the Foreign Office. Has any one passed this way?'

“'I have been standing here for a quarter of an hour, sir,' said he;
'only one person has passed during that time--a woman, tall and elderly,
with a Paisley shawl.'

“'Ah, that is only my wife,' cried the commissionnaire; 'has no one else
passed?'

“'No one.'

“'Then it must be the other way that the thief took,' cried the fellow,
tugging at my sleeve.

“'But I was not satisfied, and the attempts which he made to draw me
away increased my suspicions.

“'Which way did the woman go?' I cried.

“'I don't know, sir. I noticed her pass, but I had no special reason for
watching her. She seemed to be in a hurry.'

“'How long ago was it?'

“'Oh, not very many minutes.'

“'Within the last five?'

“'Well, it could not be more than five.'

“'You're only wasting your time, sir, and every minute now is of
importance,' cried the commissionnaire; 'take my word for it that my old
woman has nothing to do with it, and come down to the other end of the
street. Well, if you won't, I will.' And with that he rushed off in the
other direction.

“But I was after him in an instant and caught him by the sleeve.

“'Where do you live?' said I.

“'16 Ivy Lane, Brixton,' he answered. 'But don't let yourself be drawn
away upon a false scent, Mr. Phelps. Come to the other end of the street
and let us see if we can hear of anything.'

“Nothing was to be lost by following his advice. With the policeman we
both hurried down, but only to find the street full of traffic, many
people coming and going, but all only too eager to get to a place of
safety upon so wet a night. There was no lounger who could tell us who
had passed.

“Then we returned to the office, and searched the stairs and the passage
without result. The corridor which led to the room was laid down with
a kind of creamy linoleum which shows an impression very easily. We
examined it very carefully, but found no outline of any footmark.”

“Had it been raining all evening?”

“Since about seven.”

“How is it, then, that the woman who came into the room about nine left
no traces with her muddy boots?”

“I am glad you raised the point. It occurred to me at the time.
The charwomen are in the habit of taking off their boots at the
commissionnaire's office, and putting on list slippers.”

“That is very clear. There were no marks, then, though the night was a
wet one? The chain of events is certainly one of extraordinary interest.
What did you do next?

“We examined the room also. There is no possibility of a secret door,
and the windows are quite thirty feet from the ground. Both of them
were fastened on the inside. The carpet prevents any possibility of a
trap-door, and the ceiling is of the ordinary whitewashed kind. I will
pledge my life that whoever stole my papers could only have come through
the door.”

“How about the fireplace?”

“They use none. There is a stove. The bell-rope hangs from the wire just
to the right of my desk. Whoever rang it must have come right up to the
desk to do it. But why should any criminal wish to ring the bell? It is
a most insoluble mystery.”

“Certainly the incident was unusual. What were your next steps? You
examined the room, I presume, to see if the intruder had left any
traces--any cigar-end or dropped glove or hairpin or other trifle?”

“There was nothing of the sort.”

“No smell?”

“Well, we never thought of that.”

“Ah, a scent of tobacco would have been worth a great deal to us in such
an investigation.”

“I never smoke myself, so I think I should have observed it if there had
been any smell of tobacco. There was absolutely no clue of any kind. The
only tangible fact was that the commissionnaire's wife--Mrs. Tangey was
the name--had hurried out of the place. He could give no explanation
save that it was about the time when the woman always went home. The
policeman and I agreed that our best plan would be to seize the woman
before she could get rid of the papers, presuming that she had them.

“The alarm had reached Scotland Yard by this time, and Mr. Forbes, the
detective, came round at once and took up the case with a great deal of
energy. We hired a hansom, and in half an hour we were at the address
which had been given to us. A young woman opened the door, who proved to
be Mrs. Tangey's eldest daughter. Her mother had not come back yet, and
we were shown into the front room to wait.

“About ten minutes later a knock came at the door, and here we made the
one serious mistake for which I blame myself. Instead of opening the
door ourselves, we allowed the girl to do so. We heard her say, 'Mother,
there are two men in the house waiting to see you,' and an instant
afterwards we heard the patter of feet rushing down the passage. Forbes
flung open the door, and we both ran into the back room or kitchen, but
the woman had got there before us. She stared at us with defiant
eyes, and then, suddenly recognizing me, an expression of absolute
astonishment came over her face.

“'Why, if it isn't Mr. Phelps, of the office!' she cried.

“'Come, come, who did you think we were when you ran away from us?'
asked my companion.

“'I thought you were the brokers,' said she, 'we have had some trouble
with a tradesman.'

“'That's not quite good enough,' answered Forbes. 'We have reason to
believe that you have taken a paper of importance from the Foreign
Office, and that you ran in here to dispose of it. You must come back
with us to Scotland Yard to be searched.'

“It was in vain that she protested and resisted. A four-wheeler was
brought, and we all three drove back in it. We had first made an
examination of the kitchen, and especially of the kitchen fire, to see
whether she might have made away with the papers during the instant that
she was alone. There were no signs, however, of any ashes or scraps.
When we reached Scotland Yard she was handed over at once to the female
searcher. I waited in an agony of suspense until she came back with her
report. There were no signs of the papers.

“Then for the first time the horror of my situation came in its full
force. Hitherto I had been acting, and action had numbed thought. I had
been so confident of regaining the treaty at once that I had not dared
to think of what would be the consequence if I failed to do so. But
now there was nothing more to be done, and I had leisure to realize
my position. It was horrible. Watson there would tell you that I was a
nervous, sensitive boy at school. It is my nature. I thought of my uncle
and of his colleagues in the Cabinet, of the shame which I had brought
upon him, upon myself, upon every one connected with me. What though I
was the victim of an extraordinary accident? No allowance is made
for accidents where diplomatic interests are at stake. I was ruined,
shamefully, hopelessly ruined. I don't know what I did. I fancy I must
have made a scene. I have a dim recollection of a group of officials who
crowded round me, endeavoring to soothe me. One of them drove down with
me to Waterloo, and saw me into the Woking train. I believe that he
would have come all the way had it not been that Dr. Ferrier, who lives
near me, was going down by that very train. The doctor most kindly took
charge of me, and it was well he did so, for I had a fit in the station,
and before we reached home I was practically a raving maniac.

“You can imagine the state of things here when they were roused from
their beds by the doctor's ringing and found me in this condition. Poor
Annie here and my mother were broken-hearted. Dr. Ferrier had just heard
enough from the detective at the station to be able to give an idea of
what had happened, and his story did not mend matters. It was evident to
all that I was in for a long illness, so Joseph was bundled out of this
cheery bedroom, and it was turned into a sick-room for me. Here I have
lain, Mr. Holmes, for over nine weeks, unconscious, and raving with
brain-fever. If it had not been for Miss Harrison here and for the
doctor's care I should not be speaking to you now. She has nursed me by
day and a hired nurse has looked after me by night, for in my mad fits
I was capable of anything. Slowly my reason has cleared, but it is only
during the last three days that my memory has quite returned. Sometimes
I wish that it never had. The first thing that I did was to wire to
Mr. Forbes, who had the case in hand. He came out, and assures me that,
though everything has been done, no trace of a clue has been discovered.
The commissionnaire and his wife have been examined in every way without
any light being thrown upon the matter. The suspicions of the police
then rested upon young Gorot, who, as you may remember, stayed over time
in the office that night. His remaining behind and his French name were
really the only two points which could suggest suspicion; but, as a
matter of fact, I did not begin work until he had gone, and his people
are of Huguenot extraction, but as English in sympathy and tradition as
you and I are. Nothing was found to implicate him in any way, and there
the matter dropped. I turn to you, Mr. Holmes, as absolutely my last
hope. If you fail me, then my honor as well as my position are forever
forfeited.”

The invalid sank back upon his cushions, tired out by this long recital,
while his nurse poured him out a glass of some stimulating medicine.
Holmes sat silently, with his head thrown back and his eyes closed, in
an attitude which might seem listless to a stranger, but which I knew
betokened the most intense self-absorption.

“You statement has been so explicit,” said he at last, “that you have
really left me very few questions to ask. There is one of the very
utmost importance, however. Did you tell any one that you had this
special task to perform?”

“No one.”

“Not Miss Harrison here, for example?”

“No. I had not been back to Woking between getting the order and
executing the commission.”

“And none of your people had by chance been to see you?”

“None.”

“Did any of them know their way about in the office?”

“Oh, yes, all of them had been shown over it.”

“Still, of course, if you said nothing to any one about the treaty these
inquiries are irrelevant.”

“I said nothing.”

“Do you know anything of the commissionnaire?”

“Nothing except that he is an old soldier.”

“What regiment?”

“Oh, I have heard--Coldstream Guards.”

“Thank you. I have no doubt I can get details from Forbes. The
authorities are excellent at amassing facts, though they do not always
use them to advantage. What a lovely thing a rose is!”

He walked past the couch to the open window, and held up the drooping
stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and
green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before
seen him show any keen interest in natural objects.

“There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,”
said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. “It can be built
up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the
goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other
things, our powers our desires, our food, are all really necessary for
our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its
smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it.
It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have
much to hope from the flowers.”

Percy Phelps and his nurse looked at Holmes during this demonstration
with surprise and a good deal of disappointment written upon their
faces. He had fallen into a reverie, with the moss-rose between his
fingers. It had lasted some minutes before the young lady broke in upon
it.

“Do you see any prospect of solving this mystery, Mr. Holmes?” she
asked, with a touch of asperity in her voice.

“Oh, the mystery!” he answered, coming back with a start to the
realities of life. “Well, it would be absurd to deny that the case is
a very abstruse and complicated one, but I can promise you that I will
look into the matter and let you know any points which may strike me.”

“Do you see any clue?”

“You have furnished me with seven, but, of course, I must test them
before I can pronounce upon their value.”

“You suspect some one?”

“I suspect myself.”

“What!”

“Of coming to conclusions too rapidly.”

“Then go to London and test your conclusions.”

“Your advice is very excellent, Miss Harrison,” said Holmes, rising. “I
think, Watson, we cannot do better. Do not allow yourself to indulge in
false hopes, Mr. Phelps. The affair is a very tangled one.”

“I shall be in a fever until I see you again,” cried the diplomatist.

“Well, I'll come out by the same train to-morrow, though it's more than
likely that my report will be a negative one.”

“God bless you for promising to come,” cried our client. “It gives me
fresh life to know that something is being done. By the way, I have had
a letter from Lord Holdhurst.”

“Ha! What did he say?”

“He was cold, but not harsh. I dare say my severe illness prevented
him from being that. He repeated that the matter was of the utmost
importance, and added that no steps would be taken about my future--by
which he means, of course, my dismissal--until my health was restored
and I had an opportunity of repairing my misfortune.”

“Well, that was reasonable and considerate,” said Holmes. “Come, Watson,
for we have a good day's work before us in town.”

Mr. Joseph Harrison drove us down to the station, and we were soon
whirling up in a Portsmouth train. Holmes was sunk in profound thought,
and hardly opened his mouth until we had passed Clapham Junction.

“It's a very cheery thing to come into London by any of these lines
which run high, and allow you to look down upon the houses like this.”

I thought he was joking, for the view was sordid enough, but he soon
explained himself.

“Look at those big, isolated clumps of building rising up above the
slates, like brick islands in a lead-colored sea.”

“The board-schools.”

“Light-houses, my boy! Beacons of the future! Capsules with hundreds of
bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wise, better
England of the future. I suppose that man Phelps does not drink?”

“I should not think so.”

“Nor should I, but we are bound to take every possibility into account.
The poor devil has certainly got himself into very deep water, and it's
a question whether we shall ever be able to get him ashore. What did you
think of Miss Harrison?”

“A girl of strong character.”

“Yes, but she is a good sort, or I am mistaken. She and her brother are
the only children of an iron-master somewhere up Northumberland way. He
got engaged to her when traveling last winter, and she came down to
be introduced to his people, with her brother as escort. Then came
the smash, and she stayed on to nurse her lover, while brother Joseph,
finding himself pretty snug, stayed on too. I've been making a few
independent inquiries, you see. But to-day must be a day of inquiries.”

“My practice--” I began.

“Oh, if you find your own cases more interesting than mine--” said
Holmes, with some asperity.

“I was going to say that my practice could get along very well for a day
or two, since it is the slackest time in the year.”

“Excellent,” said he, recovering his good-humor. “Then we'll look into
this matter together. I think that we should begin by seeing Forbes.
He can probably tell us all the details we want until we know from what
side the case is to be approached.”

“You said you had a clue?”

“Well, we have several, but we can only test their value by further
inquiry. The most difficult crime to track is the one which is
purposeless. Now this is not purposeless. Who is it who profits by it?
There is the French ambassador, there is the Russian, there is whoever
might sell it to either of these, and there is Lord Holdhurst.”

“Lord Holdhurst!”

“Well, it is just conceivable that a statesman might find himself in
a position where he was not sorry to have such a document accidentally
destroyed.”

“Not a statesman with the honorable record of Lord Holdhurst?”

“It is a possibility and we cannot afford to disregard it. We shall see
the noble lord to-day and find out if he can tell us anything. Meanwhile
I have already set inquiries on foot.”

“Already?”

“Yes, I sent wires from Woking station to every evening paper in London.
This advertisement will appear in each of them.”

He handed over a sheet torn from a note-book. On it was scribbled in
pencil: “L10 reward. The number of the cab which dropped a fare at or
about the door of the Foreign Office in Charles Street at quarter to ten
in the evening of May 23d. Apply 221 B, Baker Street.”

“You are confident that the thief came in a cab?”

“If not, there is no harm done. But if Mr. Phelps is correct in stating
that there is no hiding-place either in the room or the corridors, then
the person must have come from outside. If he came from outside on so
wet a night, and yet left no trace of damp upon the linoleum, which
was examined within a few minutes of his passing, then it is exceeding
probable that he came in a cab. Yes, I think that we may safely deduce a
cab.”

“It sounds plausible.”

“That is one of the clues of which I spoke. It may lead us to something.
And then, of course, there is the bell--which is the most distinctive
feature of the case. Why should the bell ring? Was it the thief who did
it out of bravado? Or was it some one who was with the thief who did it
in order to prevent the crime? Or was it an accident? Or was it--?” He
sank back into the state of intense and silent thought from which he
had emerged; but it seemed to me, accustomed as I was to his every mood,
that some new possibility had dawned suddenly upon him.

It was twenty past three when we reached our terminus, and after a hasty
luncheon at the buffet we pushed on at once to Scotland Yard. Holmes
had already wired to Forbes, and we found him waiting to receive us--a
small, foxy man with a sharp but by no means amiable expression. He
was decidedly frigid in his manner to us, especially when he heard the
errand upon which we had come.

“I've heard of your methods before now, Mr. Holmes,” said he, tartly.
“You are ready enough to use all the information that the police can lay
at your disposal, and then you try to finish the case yourself and bring
discredit on them.”

“On the contrary,” said Holmes, “out of my last fifty-three cases my
name has only appeared in four, and the police have had all the credit
in forty-nine. I don't blame you for not knowing this, for you are young
and inexperienced, but if you wish to get on in your new duties you will
work with me and not against me.”

“I'd be very glad of a hint or two,” said the detective, changing his
manner. “I've certainly had no credit from the case so far.”

“What steps have you taken?”

“Tangey, the commissionnaire, has been shadowed. He left the Guards with
a good character and we can find nothing against him. His wife is a bad
lot, though. I fancy she knows more about this than appears.”

“Have you shadowed her?”

“We have set one of our women on to her. Mrs. Tangey drinks, and our
woman has been with her twice when she was well on, but she could get
nothing out of her.”

“I understand that they have had brokers in the house?”

“Yes, but they were paid off.”

“Where did the money come from?”

“That was all right. His pension was due. They have not shown any sign
of being in funds.”

“What explanation did she give of having answered the bell when Mr.
Phelps rang for the coffee?”

“She said that her husband was very tired and she wished to relieve him.”

“Well, certainly that would agree with his being found a little later
asleep in his chair. There is nothing against them then but the woman's
character. Did you ask her why she hurried away that night? Her haste
attracted the attention of the police constable.”

“She was later than usual and wanted to get home.”

“Did you point out to her that you and Mr. Phelps, who started at least
twenty minutes after her, got home before her?”

“She explains that by the difference between a 'bus and a hansom.”

“Did she make it clear why, on reaching her house, she ran into the back
kitchen?”

“Because she had the money there with which to pay off the brokers.”

“She has at least an answer for everything. Did you ask her whether in
leaving she met any one or saw any one loitering about Charles Street?”

“She saw no one but the constable.”

“Well, you seem to have cross-examined her pretty thoroughly. What else
have you done?”

“The clerk Gorot has been shadowed all these nine weeks, but without
result. We can show nothing against him.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, we have nothing else to go upon--no evidence of any kind.”

“Have you formed a theory about how that bell rang?”

“Well, I must confess that it beats me. It was a cool hand, whoever it
was, to go and give the alarm like that.”

“Yes, it was a queer thing to do. Many thanks to you for what you have
told me. If I can put the man into your hands you shall hear from me.
Come along, Watson.”

“Where are we going to now?” I asked, as we left the office.

“We are now going to interview Lord Holdhurst, the cabinet minister and
future premier of England.”

We were fortunate in finding that Lord Holdhurst was still in his
chambers in Downing Street, and on Holmes sending in his card we were
instantly shown up. The statesman received us with that old-fashioned
courtesy for which he is remarkable, and seated us on the two luxuriant
lounges on either side of the fireplace. Standing on the rug between us,
with his slight, tall figure, his sharp features, thoughtful face, and
curling hair prematurely tinged with gray, he seemed to represent that
not too common type, a nobleman who is in truth noble.

“Your name is very familiar to me, Mr. Holmes,” said he, smiling. “And,
of course, I cannot pretend to be ignorant of the object of your visit.
There has only been one occurrence in these offices which could call for
your attention. In whose interest are you acting, may I ask?”

“In that of Mr. Percy Phelps,” answered Holmes.

“Ah, my unfortunate nephew! You can understand that our kinship makes
it the more impossible for me to screen him in any way. I fear that the
incident must have a very prejudicial effect upon his career.”

“But if the document is found?”

“Ah, that, of course, would be different.”

“I had one or two questions which I wished to ask you, Lord Holdhurst.”

“I shall be happy to give you any information in my power.”

“Was it in this room that you gave your instructions as to the copying
of the document?”

“It was.”

“Then you could hardly have been overheard?”

“It is out of the question.”

“Did you ever mention to any one that it was your intention to give any
one the treaty to be copied?”

“Never.”

“You are certain of that?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, since you never said so, and Mr. Phelps never said so, and nobody
else knew anything of the matter, then the thief's presence in the room
was purely accidental. He saw his chance and he took it.”

The statesman smiled. “You take me out of my province there,” said he.

Holmes considered for a moment. “There is another very important
point which I wish to discuss with you,” said he. “You feared, as I
understand, that very grave results might follow from the details of
this treaty becoming known.”

A shadow passed over the expressive face of the statesman. “Very grave
results indeed.”

“And have they occurred?”

“Not yet.”

“If the treaty had reached, let us say, the French or Russian Foreign
Office, you would expect to hear of it?”

“I should,” said Lord Holdhurst, with a wry face.

“Since nearly ten weeks have elapsed, then, and nothing has been heard,
it is not unfair to suppose that for some reason the treaty has not
reached them.”

Lord Holdhurst shrugged his shoulders.

“We can hardly suppose, Mr. Holmes, that the thief took the treaty in
order to frame it and hang it up.”

“Perhaps he is waiting for a better price.”

“If he waits a little longer he will get no price at all. The treaty
will cease to be secret in a few months.”

“That is most important,” said Holmes. “Of course, it is a possible
supposition that the thief has had a sudden illness--”

“An attack of brain-fever, for example?” asked the statesman, flashing a
swift glance at him.

“I did not say so,” said Holmes, imperturbably. “And now, Lord
Holdhurst, we have already taken up too much of your valuable time, and
we shall wish you good-day.”

“Every success to your investigation, be the criminal who it may,”
answered the nobleman, as he bowed us out the door.

“He's a fine fellow,” said Holmes, as we came out into Whitehall. “But
he has a struggle to keep up his position. He is far from rich and has
many calls. You noticed, of course, that his boots had been resoled.
Now, Watson, I won't detain you from your legitimate work any longer.
I shall do nothing more to-day, unless I have an answer to my cab
advertisement. But I should be extremely obliged to you if you would
come down with me to Woking to-morrow, by the same train which we took
yesterday.”


I met him accordingly next morning and we traveled down to Woking
together. He had had no answer to his advertisement, he said, and no
fresh light had been thrown upon the case. He had, when he so willed
it, the utter immobility of countenance of a red Indian, and I could
not gather from his appearance whether he was satisfied or not with
the position of the case. His conversation, I remember, was about the
Bertillon system of measurements, and he expressed his enthusiastic
admiration of the French savant.

We found our client still under the charge of his devoted nurse, but
looking considerably better than before. He rose from the sofa and
greeted us without difficulty when we entered.

“Any news?” he asked, eagerly.

“My report, as I expected, is a negative one,” said Holmes. “I have seen
Forbes, and I have seen your uncle, and I have set one or two trains of
inquiry upon foot which may lead to something.”

“You have not lost heart, then?”

“By no means.”

“God bless you for saying that!” cried Miss Harrison. “If we keep our
courage and our patience the truth must come out.”

“We have more to tell you than you have for us,” said Phelps, reseating
himself upon the couch.

“I hoped you might have something.”

“Yes, we have had an adventure during the night, and one which might
have proved to be a serious one.” His expression grew very grave as he
spoke, and a look of something akin to fear sprang up in his eyes. “Do
you know,” said he, “that I begin to believe that I am the unconscious
centre of some monstrous conspiracy, and that my life is aimed at as
well as my honor?”

“Ah!” cried Holmes.

“It sounds incredible, for I have not, as far as I know, an enemy in
the world. Yet from last night's experience I can come to no other
conclusion.”

“Pray let me hear it.”

“You must know that last night was the very first night that I have ever
slept without a nurse in the room. I was so much better that I thought
I could dispense with one. I had a night-light burning, however. Well,
about two in the morning I had sunk into a light sleep when I was
suddenly aroused by a slight noise. It was like the sound which a mouse
makes when it is gnawing a plank, and I lay listening to it for some
time under the impression that it must come from that cause. Then it
grew louder, and suddenly there came from the window a sharp metallic
snick. I sat up in amazement. There could be no doubt what the sounds
were now. The first ones had been caused by some one forcing an
instrument through the slit between the sashes, and the second by the
catch being pressed back.

“There was a pause then for about ten minutes, as if the person were
waiting to see whether the noise had awakened me. Then I heard a gentle
creaking as the window was very slowly opened. I could stand it no
longer, for my nerves are not what they used to be. I sprang out of bed
and flung open the shutters. A man was crouching at the window. I could
see little of him, for he was gone like a flash. He was wrapped in some
sort of cloak which came across the lower part of his face. One thing
only I am sure of, and that is that he had some weapon in his hand. It
looked to me like a long knife. I distinctly saw the gleam of it as he
turned to run.”

“This is most interesting,” said Holmes. “Pray what did you do then?”

“I should have followed him through the open window if I had been
stronger. As it was, I rang the bell and roused the house. It took me
some little time, for the bell rings in the kitchen and the servants all
sleep upstairs. I shouted, however, and that brought Joseph down, and he
roused the others. Joseph and the groom found marks on the bed outside
the window, but the weather has been so dry lately that they found it
hopeless to follow the trail across the grass. There's a place, however,
on the wooden fence which skirts the road which shows signs, they tell
me, as if some one had got over, and had snapped the top of the rail in
doing so. I have said nothing to the local police yet, for I thought I
had best have your opinion first.”

This tale of our client's appeared to have an extraordinary effect upon
Sherlock Holmes. He rose from his chair and paced about the room in
uncontrollable excitement.

“Misfortunes never come single,” said Phelps, smiling, though it was
evident that his adventure had somewhat shaken him.

“You have certainly had your share,” said Holmes. “Do you think you
could walk round the house with me?”

“Oh, yes, I should like a little sunshine. Joseph will come, too.”

“And I also,” said Miss Harrison.

“I am afraid not,” said Holmes, shaking his head. “I think I must ask
you to remain sitting exactly where you are.”

The young lady resumed her seat with an air of displeasure. Her brother,
however, had joined us and we set off all four together. We passed round
the lawn to the outside of the young diplomatist's window. There were,
as he had said, marks upon the bed, but they were hopelessly blurred and
vague. Holmes stopped over them for an instant, and then rose shrugging
his shoulders.

“I don't think any one could make much of this,” said he. “Let us go
round the house and see why this particular room was chosen by the
burglar. I should have thought those larger windows of the drawing-room
and dining-room would have had more attractions for him.”

“They are more visible from the road,” suggested Mr. Joseph Harrison.

“Ah, yes, of course. There is a door here which he might have attempted.
What is it for?”

“It is the side entrance for trades-people. Of course it is locked at
night.”

“Have you ever had an alarm like this before?”

“Never,” said our client.

“Do you keep plate in the house, or anything to attract burglars?”

“Nothing of value.”

Holmes strolled round the house with his hands in his pockets and a
negligent air which was unusual with him.

“By the way,” said he to Joseph Harrison, “you found some place, I
understand, where the fellow scaled the fence. Let us have a look at
that!”

The plump young man led us to a spot where the top of one of the wooden
rails had been cracked. A small fragment of the wood was hanging down.
Holmes pulled it off and examined it critically.

“Do you think that was done last night? It looks rather old, does it
not?”

“Well, possibly so.”

“There are no marks of any one jumping down upon the other side. No, I
fancy we shall get no help here. Let us go back to the bedroom and talk
the matter over.”

Percy Phelps was walking very slowly, leaning upon the arm of his future
brother-in-law. Holmes walked swiftly across the lawn, and we were at
the open window of the bedroom long before the others came up.

“Miss Harrison,” said Holmes, speaking with the utmost intensity of
manner, “you must stay where you are all day. Let nothing prevent you
from staying where you are all day. It is of the utmost importance.”

“Certainly, if you wish it, Mr. Holmes,” said the girl in astonishment.

“When you go to bed lock the door of this room on the outside and keep
the key. Promise to do this.”

“But Percy?”

“He will come to London with us.”

“And am I to remain here?”

“It is for his sake. You can serve him. Quick! Promise!”

She gave a quick nod of assent just as the other two came up.

“Why do you sit moping there, Annie?” cried her brother. “Come out into
the sunshine!”

“No, thank you, Joseph. I have a slight headache and this room is
deliciously cool and soothing.”

“What do you propose now, Mr. Holmes?” asked our client.

“Well, in investigating this minor affair we must not lose sight of our
main inquiry. It would be a very great help to me if you would come up
to London with us.”

“At once?”

“Well, as soon as you conveniently can. Say in an hour.”

“I feel quite strong enough, if I can really be of any help.”

“The greatest possible.”

“Perhaps you would like me to stay there to-night?”

“I was just going to propose it.”

“Then, if my friend of the night comes to revisit me, he will find the
bird flown. We are all in your hands, Mr. Holmes, and you must tell us
exactly what you would like done. Perhaps you would prefer that Joseph
came with us so as to look after me?”

“Oh, no; my friend Watson is a medical man, you know, and he'll look
after you. We'll have our lunch here, if you will permit us, and then we
shall all three set off for town together.”

It was arranged as he suggested, though Miss Harrison excused herself
from leaving the bedroom, in accordance with Holmes's suggestion. What
the object of my friend's manoeuvres was I could not conceive, unless it
were to keep the lady away from Phelps, who, rejoiced by his
returning health and by the prospect of action, lunched with us in the
dining-room. Holmes had a still more startling surprise for us, however,
for, after accompanying us down to the station and seeing us into
our carriage, he calmly announced that he had no intention of leaving
Woking.

“There are one or two small points which I should desire to clear up
before I go,” said he. “Your absence, Mr. Phelps, will in some ways
rather assist me. Watson, when you reach London you would oblige me by
driving at once to Baker Street with our friend here, and remaining
with him until I see you again. It is fortunate that you are old
school-fellows, as you must have much to talk over. Mr. Phelps can
have the spare bedroom to-night, and I will be with you in time for
breakfast, for there is a train which will take me into Waterloo at
eight.”

“But how about our investigation in London?” asked Phelps, ruefully.

“We can do that to-morrow. I think that just at present I can be of more
immediate use here.”

“You might tell them at Briarbrae that I hope to be back to-morrow
night,” cried Phelps, as we began to move from the platform.

“I hardly expect to go back to Briarbrae,” answered Holmes, and waved
his hand to us cheerily as we shot out from the station.

Phelps and I talked it over on our journey, but neither of us could
devise a satisfactory reason for this new development.

“I suppose he wants to find out some clue as to the burglary last night,
if a burglar it was. For myself, I don't believe it was an ordinary
thief.”

“What is your own idea, then?”

“Upon my word, you may put it down to my weak nerves or not, but I
believe there is some deep political intrigue going on around me, and
that for some reason that passes my understanding my life is aimed at
by the conspirators. It sounds high-flown and absurd, but consider the
facts! Why should a thief try to break in at a bedroom window, where
there could be no hope of any plunder, and why should he come with a
long knife in his hand?”

“You are sure it was not a house-breaker's jimmy?”

“Oh, no, it was a knife. I saw the flash of the blade quite distinctly.”

“But why on earth should you be pursued with such animosity?”

“Ah, that is the question.”

“Well, if Holmes takes the same view, that would account for his action,
would it not? Presuming that your theory is correct, if he can lay his
hands upon the man who threatened you last night he will have gone a
long way towards finding who took the naval treaty. It is absurd to
suppose that you have two enemies, one of whom robs you, while the other
threatens your life.”

“But Holmes said that he was not going to Briarbrae.”

“I have known him for some time,” said I, “but I never knew him do
anything yet without a very good reason,” and with that our conversation
drifted off on to other topics.

But it was a weary day for me. Phelps was still weak after his long
illness, and his misfortune made him querulous and nervous. In vain
I endeavored to interest him in Afghanistan, in India, in social
questions, in anything which might take his mind out of the groove.
He would always come back to his lost treaty, wondering, guessing,
speculating, as to what Holmes was doing, what steps Lord Holdhurst was
taking, what news we should have in the morning. As the evening wore on
his excitement became quite painful.

“You have implicit faith in Holmes?” he asked.

“I have seen him do some remarkable things.”

“But he never brought light into anything quite so dark as this?”

“Oh, yes; I have known him solve questions which presented fewer clues
than yours.”

“But not where such large interests are at stake?”

“I don't know that. To my certain knowledge he has acted on behalf of
three of the reigning houses of Europe in very vital matters.”

“But you know him well, Watson. He is such an inscrutable fellow that I
never quite know what to make of him. Do you think he is hopeful? Do you
think he expects to make a success of it?”

“He has said nothing.”

“That is a bad sign.”

“On the contrary, I have noticed that when he is off the trail he
generally says so. It is when he is on a scent and is not quite
absolutely sure yet that it is the right one that he is most taciturn.
Now, my dear fellow, we can't help matters by making ourselves nervous
about them, so let me implore you to go to bed and so be fresh for
whatever may await us to-morrow.”

I was able at last to persuade my companion to take my advice, though I
knew from his excited manner that there was not much hope of sleep for
him. Indeed, his mood was infectious, for I lay tossing half the night
myself, brooding over this strange problem, and inventing a hundred
theories, each of which was more impossible than the last. Why had
Holmes remained at Woking? Why had he asked Miss Harrison to remain
in the sick-room all day? Why had he been so careful not to inform the
people at Briarbrae that he intended to remain near them? I cudgelled
my brains until I fell asleep in the endeavor to find some explanation
which would cover all these facts.

It was seven o'clock when I awoke, and I set off at once for Phelps's
room, to find him haggard and spent after a sleepless night. His first
question was whether Holmes had arrived yet.

“He'll be here when he promised,” said I, “and not an instant sooner or
later.”

And my words were true, for shortly after eight a hansom dashed up to
the door and our friend got out of it. Standing in the window we saw
that his left hand was swathed in a bandage and that his face was very
grim and pale. He entered the house, but it was some little time before
he came upstairs.

“He looks like a beaten man,” cried Phelps.

I was forced to confess that he was right. “After all,” said I, “the
clue of the matter lies probably here in town.”

Phelps gave a groan.

“I don't know how it is,” said he, “but I had hoped for so much from his
return. But surely his hand was not tied up like that yesterday. What
can be the matter?”

“You are not wounded, Holmes?” I asked, as my friend entered the room.

“Tut, it is only a scratch through my own clumsiness,” he answered,
nodding his good-mornings to us. “This case of yours, Mr. Phelps, is
certainly one of the darkest which I have ever investigated.”

“I feared that you would find it beyond you.”

“It has been a most remarkable experience.”

“That bandage tells of adventures,” said I. “Won't you tell us what has
happened?”

“After breakfast, my dear Watson. Remember that I have breathed thirty
miles of Surrey air this morning. I suppose that there has been no
answer from my cabman advertisement? Well, well, we cannot expect to
score every time.”

The table was all laid, and just as I was about to ring Mrs. Hudson
entered with the tea and coffee. A few minutes later she brought in
three covers, and we all drew up to the table, Holmes ravenous, I
curious, and Phelps in the gloomiest state of depression.

“Mrs. Hudson has risen to the occasion,” said Holmes, uncovering a dish
of curried chicken. “Her cuisine is a little limited, but she has
as good an idea of breakfast as a Scotch-woman. What have you here,
Watson?”

“Ham and eggs,” I answered.

“Good! What are you going to take, Mr. Phelps--curried fowl or eggs, or
will you help yourself?”

“Thank you. I can eat nothing,” said Phelps.

“Oh, come! Try the dish before you.”

“Thank you, I would really rather not.”

“Well, then,” said Holmes, with a mischievous twinkle, “I suppose that
you have no objection to helping me?”

Phelps raised the cover, and as he did so he uttered a scream, and sat
there staring with a face as white as the plate upon which he looked.
Across the centre of it was lying a little cylinder of blue-gray paper.
He caught it up, devoured it with his eyes, and then danced madly about
the room, pressing it to his bosom and shrieking out in his delight.
Then he fell back into an arm-chair so limp and exhausted with his own
emotions that we had to pour brandy down his throat to keep him from
fainting.

“There! there!” said Holmes, soothing, patting him upon the shoulder.
“It was too bad to spring it on you like this, but Watson here will tell
you that I never can resist a touch of the dramatic.”

Phelps seized his hand and kissed it. “God bless you!” he cried. “You
have saved my honor.”

“Well, my own was at stake, you know,” said Holmes. “I assure you it is
just as hateful to me to fail in a case as it can be to you to blunder
over a commission.”

Phelps thrust away the precious document into the innermost pocket of
his coat.

“I have not the heart to interrupt your breakfast any further, and yet I
am dying to know how you got it and where it was.”

Sherlock Holmes swallowed a cup of coffee, and turned his attention to
the ham and eggs. Then he rose, lit his pipe, and settled himself down
into his chair.

“I'll tell you what I did first, and how I came to do it afterwards,”
said he. “After leaving you at the station I went for a charming walk
through some admirable Surrey scenery to a pretty little village called
Ripley, where I had my tea at an inn, and took the precaution of filling
my flask and of putting a paper of sandwiches in my pocket. There I
remained until evening, when I set off for Woking again, and found
myself in the high-road outside Briarbrae just after sunset.

“Well, I waited until the road was clear--it is never a very frequented
one at any time, I fancy--and then I clambered over the fence into the
grounds.”

“Surely the gate was open!” ejaculated Phelps.

“Yes, but I have a peculiar taste in these matters. I chose the place
where the three fir-trees stand, and behind their screen I got over
without the least chance of any one in the house being able to see me.
I crouched down among the bushes on the other side, and crawled from one
to the other--witness the disreputable state of my trouser knees--until
I had reached the clump of rhododendrons just opposite to your bedroom
window. There I squatted down and awaited developments.

“The blind was not down in your room, and I could see Miss Harrison
sitting there reading by the table. It was quarter-past ten when she
closed her book, fastened the shutters, and retired.

“I heard her shut the door, and felt quite sure that she had turned the
key in the lock.”

“The key!” ejaculated Phelps.

“Yes; I had given Miss Harrison instructions to lock the door on the
outside and take the key with her when she went to bed. She carried out
every one of my injunctions to the letter, and certainly without her
cooperation you would not have that paper in your coat-pocket. She
departed then and the lights went out, and I was left squatting in the
rhododendron-bush.

“The night was fine, but still it was a very weary vigil. Of course it
has the sort of excitement about it that the sportsman feels when he
lies beside the water-course and waits for the big game. It was very
long, though--almost as long, Watson, as when you and I waited in that
deadly room when we looked into the little problem of the Speckled Band.
There was a church-clock down at Woking which struck the quarters, and I
thought more than once that it had stopped. At last however about two
in the morning, I suddenly heard the gentle sound of a bolt being pushed
back and the creaking of a key. A moment later the servants' door was
opened, and Mr. Joseph Harrison stepped out into the moonlight.”

“Joseph!” ejaculated Phelps.

“He was bare-headed, but he had a black coat thrown over his shoulder so
that he could conceal his face in an instant if there were any alarm. He
walked on tiptoe under the shadow of the wall, and when he reached the
window he worked a long-bladed knife through the sash and pushed back
the catch. Then he flung open the window, and putting his knife through
the crack in the shutters, he thrust the bar up and swung them open.

“From where I lay I had a perfect view of the inside of the room and of
every one of his movements. He lit the two candles which stood upon the
mantelpiece, and then he proceeded to turn back the corner of the carpet
in the neighborhood of the door. Presently he stopped and picked out a
square piece of board, such as is usually left to enable plumbers to get
at the joints of the gas-pipes. This one covered, as a matter of
fact, the T joint which gives off the pipe which supplies the kitchen
underneath. Out of this hiding-place he drew that little cylinder
of paper, pushed down the board, rearranged the carpet, blew out the
candles, and walked straight into my arms as I stood waiting for him
outside the window.

“Well, he has rather more viciousness than I gave him credit for, has
Master Joseph. He flew at me with his knife, and I had to grasp him
twice, and got a cut over the knuckles, before I had the upper hand of
him. He looked murder out of the only eye he could see with when we had
finished, but he listened to reason and gave up the papers. Having
got them I let my man go, but I wired full particulars to Forbes this
morning. If he is quick enough to catch his bird, well and good. But
if, as I shrewdly suspect, he finds the nest empty before he gets there,
why, all the better for the government. I fancy that Lord Holdhurst for
one, and Mr. Percy Phelps for another, would very much rather that the
affair never got as far as a police-court.

“My God!” gasped our client. “Do you tell me that during these long ten
weeks of agony the stolen papers were within the very room with me all
the time?”

“So it was.”

“And Joseph! Joseph a villain and a thief!”

“Hum! I am afraid Joseph's character is a rather deeper and more
dangerous one than one might judge from his appearance. From what I
have heard from him this morning, I gather that he has lost heavily in
dabbling with stocks, and that he is ready to do anything on earth to
better his fortunes. Being an absolutely selfish man, when a chance
presented itself he did not allow either his sister's happiness or your
reputation to hold his hand.”

Percy Phelps sank back in his chair. “My head whirls,” said he. “Your
words have dazed me.”

“The principal difficulty in your case,” remarked Holmes, in his
didactic fashion, “lay in the fact of there being too much evidence.
What was vital was overlaid and hidden by what was irrelevant. Of all
the facts which were presented to us we had to pick just those which we
deemed to be essential, and then piece them together in their order, so
as to reconstruct this very remarkable chain of events. I had already
begun to suspect Joseph, from the fact that you had intended to travel
home with him that night, and that therefore it was a likely enough
thing that he should call for you, knowing the Foreign Office well, upon
his way. When I heard that some one had been so anxious to get into the
bedroom, in which no one but Joseph could have concealed anything--you
told us in your narrative how you had turned Joseph out when you arrived
with the doctor--my suspicions all changed to certainties, especially as
the attempt was made on the first night upon which the nurse was absent,
showing that the intruder was well acquainted with the ways of the
house.”

“How blind I have been!”

“The facts of the case, as far as I have worked them out, are these:
this Joseph Harrison entered the office through the Charles Street door,
and knowing his way he walked straight into your room the instant after
you left it. Finding no one there he promptly rang the bell, and at
the instant that he did so his eyes caught the paper upon the table.
A glance showed him that chance had put in his way a State document of
immense value, and in an instant he had thrust it into his pocket and
was gone. A few minutes elapsed, as you remember, before the sleepy
commissionnaire drew your attention to the bell, and those were just
enough to give the thief time to make his escape.

“He made his way to Woking by the first train, and having examined his
booty and assured himself that it really was of immense value, he
had concealed it in what he thought was a very safe place, with the
intention of taking it out again in a day or two, and carrying it to the
French embassy, or wherever he thought that a long price was to be
had. Then came your sudden return. He, without a moment's warning, was
bundled out of his room, and from that time onward there were always at
least two of you there to prevent him from regaining his treasure. The
situation to him must have been a maddening one. But at last he thought
he saw his chance. He tried to steal in, but was baffled by your
wakefulness. You remember that you did not take your usual draught that
night.”

“I remember.”

“I fancy that he had taken steps to make that draught efficacious,
and that he quite relied upon your being unconscious. Of course, I
understood that he would repeat the attempt whenever it could be done
with safety. Your leaving the room gave him the chance he wanted. I kept
Miss Harrison in it all day so that he might not anticipate us. Then,
having given him the idea that the coast was clear, I kept guard as
I have described. I already knew that the papers were probably in the
room, but I had no desire to rip up all the planking and skirting in
search of them. I let him take them, therefore, from the hiding-place,
and so saved myself an infinity of trouble. Is there any other point
which I can make clear?”

“Why did he try the window on the first occasion,” I asked, “when he
might have entered by the door?”

“In reaching the door he would have to pass seven bedrooms. On the other
hand, he could get out on to the lawn with ease. Anything else?”

“You do not think,” asked Phelps, “that he had any murderous intention?
The knife was only meant as a tool.”

“It may be so,” answered Holmes, shrugging his shoulders. “I can only
say for certain that Mr. Joseph Harrison is a gentleman to whose mercy I
should be extremely unwilling to trust.”




Adventure XI. The Final Problem


It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the last
words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend
Mr. Sherlock Holmes was distinguished. In an incoherent and, as I deeply
feel, an entirely inadequate fashion, I have endeavored to give some
account of my strange experiences in his company from the chance which
first brought us together at the period of the “Study in Scarlet,” up
to the time of his interference in the matter of the “Naval Treaty”--an
interference which had the unquestionable effect of preventing a serious
international complication. It was my intention to have stopped there,
and to have said nothing of that event which has created a void in my
life which the lapse of two years has done little to fill. My hand
has been forced, however, by the recent letters in which Colonel James
Moriarty defends the memory of his brother, and I have no choice but to
lay the facts before the public exactly as they occurred. I alone know
the absolute truth of the matter, and I am satisfied that the time has
come when no good purpose is to be served by its suppression. As far as
I know, there have been only three accounts in the public press: that
in the Journal de Geneve on May 6th, 1891, the Reuter's despatch in the
English papers on May 7th, and finally the recent letter to which I have
alluded. Of these the first and second were extremely condensed, while
the last is, as I shall now show, an absolute perversion of the facts.
It lies with me to tell for the first time what really took place
between Professor Moriarty and Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

It may be remembered that after my marriage, and my subsequent start in
private practice, the very intimate relations which had existed between
Holmes and myself became to some extent modified. He still came to me
from time to time when he desired a companion in his investigation, but
these occasions grew more and more seldom, until I find that in the year
1890 there were only three cases of which I retain any record. During
the winter of that year and the early spring of 1891, I saw in the
papers that he had been engaged by the French government upon a matter
of supreme importance, and I received two notes from Holmes, dated from
Narbonne and from Nimes, from which I gathered that his stay in France
was likely to be a long one. It was with some surprise, therefore, that
I saw him walk into my consulting-room upon the evening of April 24th.
It struck me that he was looking even paler and thinner than usual.

“Yes, I have been using myself up rather too freely,” he remarked, in
answer to my look rather than to my words; “I have been a little pressed
of late. Have you any objection to my closing your shutters?”

The only light in the room came from the lamp upon the table at which I
had been reading. Holmes edged his way round the wall and flinging the
shutters together, he bolted them securely.

“You are afraid of something?” I asked.

“Well, I am.”

“Of what?”

“Of air-guns.”

“My dear Holmes, what do you mean?”

“I think that you know me well enough, Watson, to understand that I am
by no means a nervous man. At the same time, it is stupidity rather than
courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you. Might
I trouble you for a match?” He drew in the smoke of his cigarette as if
the soothing influence was grateful to him.

“I must apologize for calling so late,” said he, “and I must further beg
you to be so unconventional as to allow me to leave your house presently
by scrambling over your back garden wall.”

“But what does it all mean?” I asked.

He held out his hand, and I saw in the light of the lamp that two of his
knuckles were burst and bleeding.

“It is not an airy nothing, you see,” said he, smiling. “On the
contrary, it is solid enough for a man to break his hand over. Is Mrs.
Watson in?”

“She is away upon a visit.”

“Indeed! You are alone?”

“Quite.”

“Then it makes it the easier for me to propose that you should come away
with me for a week to the Continent.”

“Where?”

“Oh, anywhere. It's all the same to me.”

There was something very strange in all this. It was not Holmes's nature
to take an aimless holiday, and something about his pale, worn face told
me that his nerves were at their highest tension. He saw the question in
my eyes, and, putting his finger-tips together and his elbows upon his
knees, he explained the situation.

“You have probably never heard of Professor Moriarty?” said he.

“Never.”

“Aye, there's the genius and the wonder of the thing!” he cried. “The
man pervades London, and no one has heard of him. That's what puts
him on a pinnacle in the records of crime. I tell you, Watson, in all
seriousness, that if I could beat that man, if I could free society
of him, I should feel that my own career had reached its summit, and
I should be prepared to turn to some more placid line in life. Between
ourselves, the recent cases in which I have been of assistance to the
royal family of Scandinavia, and to the French republic, have left me in
such a position that I could continue to live in the quiet fashion
which is most congenial to me, and to concentrate my attention upon my
chemical researches. But I could not rest, Watson, I could not sit quiet
in my chair, if I thought that such a man as Professor Moriarty were
walking the streets of London unchallenged.”

“What has he done, then?”

“His career has been an extraordinary one. He is a man of good birth and
excellent education, endowed by nature with a phenomenal mathematical
faculty. At the age of twenty-one he wrote a treatise upon the Binomial
Theorem, which has had a European vogue. On the strength of it he won
the Mathematical Chair at one of our smaller universities, and had, to
all appearances, a most brilliant career before him. But the man had
hereditary tendencies of the most diabolical kind. A criminal strain
ran in his blood, which, instead of being modified, was increased and
rendered infinitely more dangerous by his extraordinary mental powers.
Dark rumors gathered round him in the university town, and eventually he
was compelled to resign his chair and to come down to London, where he
set up as an army coach. So much is known to the world, but what I am
telling you now is what I have myself discovered.

“As you are aware, Watson, there is no one who knows the higher criminal
world of London so well as I do. For years past I have continually been
conscious of some power behind the malefactor, some deep organizing
power which forever stands in the way of the law, and throws its shield
over the wrong-doer. Again and again in cases of the most varying
sorts--forgery cases, robberies, murders--I have felt the presence of
this force, and I have deduced its action in many of those undiscovered
crimes in which I have not been personally consulted. For years I have
endeavored to break through the veil which shrouded it, and at last
the time came when I seized my thread and followed it, until it led
me, after a thousand cunning windings, to ex-Professor Moriarty of
mathematical celebrity.

“He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that
is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a
genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first
order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the center of its web, but
that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of
each of them. He does little himself. He only plans. But his agents are
numerous and splendidly organized. Is there a crime to be done, a
paper to be abstracted, we will say, a house to be rifled, a man to be
removed--the word is passed to the Professor, the matter is organized
and carried out. The agent may be caught. In that case money is found
for his bail or his defence. But the central power which uses the agent
is never caught--never so much as suspected. This was the organization
which I deduced, Watson, and which I devoted my whole energy to exposing
and breaking up.

“But the Professor was fenced round with safeguards so cunningly devised
that, do what I would, it seemed impossible to get evidence which would
convict in a court of law. You know my powers, my dear Watson, and yet
at the end of three months I was forced to confess that I had at last
met an antagonist who was my intellectual equal. My horror at his crimes
was lost in my admiration at his skill. But at last he made a trip--only
a little, little trip--but it was more than he could afford when I was
so close upon him. I had my chance, and, starting from that point, I
have woven my net round him until now it is all ready to close. In three
days--that is to say, on Monday next--matters will be ripe, and the
Professor, with all the principal members of his gang, will be in the
hands of the police. Then will come the greatest criminal trial of the
century, the clearing up of over forty mysteries, and the rope for all
of them; but if we move at all prematurely, you understand, they may
slip out of our hands even at the last moment.

“Now, if I could have done this without the knowledge of Professor
Moriarty, all would have been well. But he was too wily for that. He saw
every step which I took to draw my toils round him. Again and again
he strove to break away, but I as often headed him off. I tell you,
my friend, that if a detailed account of that silent contest could
be written, it would take its place as the most brilliant bit of
thrust-and-parry work in the history of detection. Never have I risen to
such a height, and never have I been so hard pressed by an opponent. He
cut deep, and yet I just undercut him. This morning the last steps were
taken, and three days only were wanted to complete the business. I was
sitting in my room thinking the matter over, when the door opened and
Professor Moriarty stood before me.

“My nerves are fairly proof, Watson, but I must confess to a start when
I saw the very man who had been so much in my thoughts standing there on
my threshhold. His appearance was quite familiar to me. He is extremely
tall and thin, his forehead domes out in a white curve, and his two
eyes are deeply sunken in his head. He is clean-shaven, pale, and
ascetic-looking, retaining something of the professor in his features.
His shoulders are rounded from much study, and his face protrudes
forward, and is forever slowly oscillating from side to side in a
curiously reptilian fashion. He peered at me with great curiosity in his
puckered eyes.

“'You have less frontal development than I should have expected,' said
he, at last. 'It is a dangerous habit to finger loaded firearms in the
pocket of one's dressing-gown.'

“The fact is that upon his entrance I had instantly recognized the
extreme personal danger in which I lay. The only conceivable escape for
him lay in silencing my tongue. In an instant I had slipped the revolver
from the drawer into my pocket, and was covering him through the cloth.
At his remark I drew the weapon out and laid it cocked upon the table.
He still smiled and blinked, but there was something about his eyes
which made me feel very glad that I had it there.

“'You evidently don't know me,' said he.

“'On the contrary,' I answered, 'I think it is fairly evident that I do.
Pray take a chair. I can spare you five minutes if you have anything to
say.'

“'All that I have to say has already crossed your mind,' said he.

“'Then possibly my answer has crossed yours,' I replied.

“'You stand fast?'

“'Absolutely.'

“He clapped his hand into his pocket, and I raised the pistol from
the table. But he merely drew out a memorandum-book in which he had
scribbled some dates.

“'You crossed my path on the 4th of January,' said he. 'On the 23d you
incommoded me; by the middle of February I was seriously inconvenienced
by you; at the end of March I was absolutely hampered in my plans; and
now, at the close of April, I find myself placed in such a position
through your continual persecution that I am in positive danger of
losing my liberty. The situation is becoming an impossible one.'

“'Have you any suggestion to make?' I asked.

“'You must drop it, Mr. Holmes,' said he, swaying his face about. 'You
really must, you know.'

“'After Monday,' said I.

“'Tut, tut,' said he. 'I am quite sure that a man of your intelligence
will see that there can be but one outcome to this affair. It is
necessary that you should withdraw. You have worked things in such a
fashion that we have only one resource left. It has been an intellectual
treat to me to see the way in which you have grappled with this affair,
and I say, unaffectedly, that it would be a grief to me to be forced
to take any extreme measure. You smile, sir, but I assure you that it
really would.'

“'Danger is part of my trade,' I remarked.

“'That is not danger,' said he. 'It is inevitable destruction. You stand
in the way not merely of an individual, but of a mighty organization,
the full extent of which you, with all your cleverness, have been unable
to realize. You must stand clear, Mr. Holmes, or be trodden under foot.'

“'I am afraid,' said I, rising, 'that in the pleasure of this
conversation I am neglecting business of importance which awaits me
elsewhere.'

“He rose also and looked at me in silence, shaking his head sadly.

“'Well, well,' said he, at last. 'It seems a pity, but I have done
what I could. I know every move of your game. You can do nothing before
Monday. It has been a duel between you and me, Mr. Holmes. You hope to
place me in the dock. I tell you that I will never stand in the dock.
You hope to beat me. I tell you that you will never beat me. If you are
clever enough to bring destruction upon me, rest assured that I shall do
as much to you.'

“'You have paid me several compliments, Mr. Moriarty,' said I. 'Let me
pay you one in return when I say that if I were assured of the former
eventuality I would, in the interests of the public, cheerfully accept
the latter.'

“'I can promise you the one, but not the other,' he snarled, and so
turned his rounded back upon me, and went peering and blinking out of
the room.

“That was my singular interview with Professor Moriarty. I confess that
it left an unpleasant effect upon my mind. His soft, precise fashion
of speech leaves a conviction of sincerity which a mere bully could
not produce. Of course, you will say: 'Why not take police precautions
against him?' the reason is that I am well convinced that it is from his
agents the blow will fall. I have the best proofs that it would be so.”

“You have already been assaulted?”

“My dear Watson, Professor Moriarty is not a man who lets the grass grow
under his feet. I went out about mid-day to transact some business in
Oxford Street. As I passed the corner which leads from Bentinck Street
on to the Welbeck Street crossing a two-horse van furiously driven
whizzed round and was on me like a flash. I sprang for the foot-path
and saved myself by the fraction of a second. The van dashed round by
Marylebone Lane and was gone in an instant. I kept to the pavement after
that, Watson, but as I walked down Vere Street a brick came down from
the roof of one of the houses, and was shattered to fragments at my
feet. I called the police and had the place examined. There were slates
and bricks piled up on the roof preparatory to some repairs, and they
would have me believe that the wind had toppled over one of these. Of
course I knew better, but I could prove nothing. I took a cab after that
and reached my brother's rooms in Pall Mall, where I spent the day. Now
I have come round to you, and on my way I was attacked by a rough with a
bludgeon. I knocked him down, and the police have him in custody; but
I can tell you with the most absolute confidence that no possible
connection will ever be traced between the gentleman upon whose front
teeth I have barked my knuckles and the retiring mathematical coach, who
is, I dare say, working out problems upon a black-board ten miles away.
You will not wonder, Watson, that my first act on entering your rooms
was to close your shutters, and that I have been compelled to ask your
permission to leave the house by some less conspicuous exit than the
front door.”

I had often admired my friend's courage, but never more than now, as he
sat quietly checking off a series of incidents which must have combined
to make up a day of horror.

“You will spend the night here?” I said.

“No, my friend, you might find me a dangerous guest. I have my plans
laid, and all will be well. Matters have gone so far now that they can
move without my help as far as the arrest goes, though my presence is
necessary for a conviction. It is obvious, therefore, that I cannot do
better than get away for the few days which remain before the police are
at liberty to act. It would be a great pleasure to me, therefore, if you
could come on to the Continent with me.”

“The practice is quiet,” said I, “and I have an accommodating neighbor.
I should be glad to come.”

“And to start to-morrow morning?”

“If necessary.”

“Oh yes, it is most necessary. Then these are your instructions, and I
beg, my dear Watson, that you will obey them to the letter, for you are
now playing a double-handed game with me against the cleverest rogue and
the most powerful syndicate of criminals in Europe. Now listen! You
will dispatch whatever luggage you intend to take by a trusty messenger
unaddressed to Victoria to-night. In the morning you will send for a
hansom, desiring your man to take neither the first nor the second which
may present itself. Into this hansom you will jump, and you will drive
to the Strand end of the Lowther Arcade, handing the address to the
cabman upon a slip of paper, with a request that he will not throw it
away. Have your fare ready, and the instant that your cab stops,
dash through the Arcade, timing yourself to reach the other side at a
quarter-past nine. You will find a small brougham waiting close to the
curb, driven by a fellow with a heavy black cloak tipped at the collar
with red. Into this you will step, and you will reach Victoria in time
for the Continental express.”

“Where shall I meet you?”

“At the station. The second first-class carriage from the front will be
reserved for us.”

“The carriage is our rendezvous, then?”

“Yes.”

It was in vain that I asked Holmes to remain for the evening. It was
evident to me that he thought he might bring trouble to the roof he was
under, and that that was the motive which impelled him to go. With a few
hurried words as to our plans for the morrow he rose and came out with
me into the garden, clambering over the wall which leads into Mortimer
Street, and immediately whistling for a hansom, in which I heard him
drive away.

In the morning I obeyed Holmes's injunctions to the letter. A hansom was
procured with such precaution as would prevent its being one which was
placed ready for us, and I drove immediately after breakfast to the
Lowther Arcade, through which I hurried at the top of my speed. A
brougham was waiting with a very massive driver wrapped in a dark cloak,
who, the instant that I had stepped in, whipped up the horse and rattled
off to Victoria Station. On my alighting there he turned the carriage,
and dashed away again without so much as a look in my direction.

So far all had gone admirably. My luggage was waiting for me, and I had
no difficulty in finding the carriage which Holmes had indicated, the
less so as it was the only one in the train which was marked “Engaged.”
My only source of anxiety now was the non-appearance of Holmes. The
station clock marked only seven minutes from the time when we were
due to start. In vain I searched among the groups of travellers and
leave-takers for the lithe figure of my friend. There was no sign of
him. I spent a few minutes in assisting a venerable Italian priest, who
was endeavoring to make a porter understand, in his broken English,
that his luggage was to be booked through to Paris. Then, having taken
another look round, I returned to my carriage, where I found that the
porter, in spite of the ticket, had given me my decrepit Italian friend
as a traveling companion. It was useless for me to explain to him that
his presence was an intrusion, for my Italian was even more limited than
his English, so I shrugged my shoulders resignedly, and continued to
look out anxiously for my friend. A chill of fear had come over me, as I
thought that his absence might mean that some blow had fallen during the
night. Already the doors had all been shut and the whistle blown, when--

“My dear Watson,” said a voice, “you have not even condescended to say
good-morning.”

I turned in uncontrollable astonishment. The aged ecclesiastic had
turned his face towards me. For an instant the wrinkles were smoothed
away, the nose drew away from the chin, the lower lip ceased to protrude
and the mouth to mumble, the dull eyes regained their fire, the drooping
figure expanded. The next the whole frame collapsed again, and Holmes
had gone as quickly as he had come.

“Good heavens!” I cried; “how you startled me!”

“Every precaution is still necessary,” he whispered. “I have reason to
think that they are hot upon our trail. Ah, there is Moriarty himself.”

The train had already begun to move as Holmes spoke. Glancing back, I
saw a tall man pushing his way furiously through the crowd, and waving
his hand as if he desired to have the train stopped. It was too late,
however, for we were rapidly gathering momentum, and an instant later
had shot clear of the station.

“With all our precautions, you see that we have cut it rather fine,”
said Holmes, laughing. He rose, and throwing off the black cassock and
hat which had formed his disguise, he packed them away in a hand-bag.

“Have you seen the morning paper, Watson?”

“No.”

“You haven't' seen about Baker Street, then?”

“Baker Street?”

“They set fire to our rooms last night. No great harm was done.”

“Good heavens, Holmes! this is intolerable.”

“They must have lost my track completely after their bludgeon-man was
arrested. Otherwise they could not have imagined that I had returned
to my rooms. They have evidently taken the precaution of watching you,
however, and that is what has brought Moriarty to Victoria. You could
not have made any slip in coming?”

“I did exactly what you advised.”

“Did you find your brougham?”

“Yes, it was waiting.”

“Did you recognize your coachman?”

“No.”

“It was my brother Mycroft. It is an advantage to get about in such a
case without taking a mercenary into your confidence. But we must plan
what we are to do about Moriarty now.”

“As this is an express, and as the boat runs in connection with it, I
should think we have shaken him off very effectively.”

“My dear Watson, you evidently did not realize my meaning when I said
that this man may be taken as being quite on the same intellectual plane
as myself. You do not imagine that if I were the pursuer I should allow
myself to be baffled by so slight an obstacle. Why, then, should you
think so meanly of him?”

“What will he do?”

“What I should do?”

“What would you do, then?”

“Engage a special.”

“But it must be late.”

“By no means. This train stops at Canterbury; and there is always at
least a quarter of an hour's delay at the boat. He will catch us there.”

“One would think that we were the criminals. Let us have him arrested on
his arrival.”

“It would be to ruin the work of three months. We should get the big
fish, but the smaller would dart right and left out of the net. On
Monday we should have them all. No, an arrest is inadmissible.”

“What then?”

“We shall get out at Canterbury.”

“And then?”

“Well, then we must make a cross-country journey to Newhaven, and so
over to Dieppe. Moriarty will again do what I should do. He will get on
to Paris, mark down our luggage, and wait for two days at the depot.
In the meantime we shall treat ourselves to a couple of carpet-bags,
encourage the manufactures of the countries through which we travel, and
make our way at our leisure into Switzerland, via Luxembourg and Basle.”

At Canterbury, therefore, we alighted, only to find that we should have
to wait an hour before we could get a train to Newhaven.

I was still looking rather ruefully after the rapidly disappearing
luggage-van which contained my wardrobe, when Holmes pulled my sleeve
and pointed up the line.

“Already, you see,” said he.

Far away, from among the Kentish woods there rose a thin spray of smoke.
A minute later a carriage and engine could be seen flying along the open
curve which leads to the station. We had hardly time to take our place
behind a pile of luggage when it passed with a rattle and a roar,
beating a blast of hot air into our faces.

“There he goes,” said Holmes, as we watched the carriage swing and
rock over the points. “There are limits, you see, to our friend's
intelligence. It would have been a coup-de-maitre had he deduced what I
would deduce and acted accordingly.”

“And what would he have done had he overtaken us?”

“There cannot be the least doubt that he would have made a murderous
attack upon me. It is, however, a game at which two may play. The
question now is whether we should take a premature lunch here, or run
our chance of starving before we reach the buffet at Newhaven.”


We made our way to Brussels that night and spent two days there, moving
on upon the third day as far as Strasburg. On the Monday morning Holmes
had telegraphed to the London police, and in the evening we found a
reply waiting for us at our hotel. Holmes tore it open, and then with a
bitter curse hurled it into the grate.

“I might have known it!” he groaned. “He has escaped!”

“Moriarty?”

“They have secured the whole gang with the exception of him. He has
given them the slip. Of course, when I had left the country there was no
one to cope with him. But I did think that I had put the game in their
hands. I think that you had better return to England, Watson.”

“Why?”

“Because you will find me a dangerous companion now. This man's
occupation is gone. He is lost if he returns to London. If I read his
character right he will devote his whole energies to revenging himself
upon me. He said as much in our short interview, and I fancy that he
meant it. I should certainly recommend you to return to your practice.”

It was hardly an appeal to be successful with one who was an
old campaigner as well as an old friend. We sat in the Strasburg
salle-à-manger arguing the question for half an hour, but the same night
we had resumed our journey and were well on our way to Geneva.

For a charming week we wandered up the Valley of the Rhone, and then,
branching off at Leuk, we made our way over the Gemmi Pass, still deep
in snow, and so, by way of Interlaken, to Meiringen. It was a lovely
trip, the dainty green of the spring below, the virgin white of the
winter above; but it was clear to me that never for one instant did
Holmes forget the shadow which lay across him. In the homely Alpine
villages or in the lonely mountain passes, I could tell by his quick
glancing eyes and his sharp scrutiny of every face that passed us,
that he was well convinced that, walk where we would, we could not walk
ourselves clear of the danger which was dogging our footsteps.

Once, I remember, as we passed over the Gemmi, and walked along
the border of the melancholy Daubensee, a large rock which had been
dislodged from the ridge upon our right clattered down and roared into
the lake behind us. In an instant Holmes had raced up on to the ridge,
and, standing upon a lofty pinnacle, craned his neck in every direction.
It was in vain that our guide assured him that a fall of stones was a
common chance in the spring-time at that spot. He said nothing, but
he smiled at me with the air of a man who sees the fulfillment of that
which he had expected.

And yet for all his watchfulness he was never depressed. On the
contrary, I can never recollect having seen him in such exuberant
spirits. Again and again he recurred to the fact that if he could
be assured that society was freed from Professor Moriarty he would
cheerfully bring his own career to a conclusion.

“I think that I may go so far as to say, Watson, that I have not lived
wholly in vain,” he remarked. “If my record were closed to-night I could
still survey it with equanimity. The air of London is the sweeter for my
presence. In over a thousand cases I am not aware that I have ever used
my powers upon the wrong side. Of late I have been tempted to look into
the problems furnished by nature rather than those more superficial ones
for which our artificial state of society is responsible. Your memoirs
will draw to an end, Watson, upon the day that I crown my career by
the capture or extinction of the most dangerous and capable criminal in
Europe.”

I shall be brief, and yet exact, in the little which remains for me to
tell. It is not a subject on which I would willingly dwell, and yet I am
conscious that a duty devolves upon me to omit no detail.

It was on the 3d of May that we reached the little village of Meiringen,
where we put up at the Englischer Hof, then kept by Peter Steiler the
elder. Our landlord was an intelligent man, and spoke excellent English,
having served for three years as waiter at the Grosvenor Hotel in
London. At his advice, on the afternoon of the 4th we set off together,
with the intention of crossing the hills and spending the night at the
hamlet of Rosenlaui. We had strict injunctions, however, on no account
to pass the falls of Reichenbach, which are about half-way up the hill,
without making a small detour to see them.

It is indeed, a fearful place. The torrent, swollen by the melting snow,
plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rolls up like the
smoke from a burning house. The shaft into which the river hurls itself
is an immense chasm, lined by glistening coal-black rock, and narrowing
into a creaming, boiling pit of incalculable depth, which brims over and
shoots the stream onward over its jagged lip. The long sweep of green
water roaring forever down, and the thick flickering curtain of spray
hissing forever upward, turn a man giddy with their constant whirl and
clamor. We stood near the edge peering down at the gleam of the breaking
water far below us against the black rocks, and listening to the
half-human shout which came booming up with the spray out of the abyss.

The path has been cut half-way round the fall to afford a complete view,
but it ends abruptly, and the traveler has to return as he came. We had
turned to do so, when we saw a Swiss lad come running along it with
a letter in his hand. It bore the mark of the hotel which we had just
left, and was addressed to me by the landlord. It appeared that within a
very few minutes of our leaving, an English lady had arrived who was in
the last stage of consumption. She had wintered at Davos Platz, and was
journeying now to join her friends at Lucerne, when a sudden hemorrhage
had overtaken her. It was thought that she could hardly live a few
hours, but it would be a great consolation to her to see an English
doctor, and, if I would only return, etc. The good Steiler assured me
in a postscript that he would himself look upon my compliance as a very
great favor, since the lady absolutely refused to see a Swiss physician,
and he could not but feel that he was incurring a great responsibility.

The appeal was one which could not be ignored. It was impossible to
refuse the request of a fellow-countrywoman dying in a strange land. Yet
I had my scruples about leaving Holmes. It was finally agreed, however,
that he should retain the young Swiss messenger with him as guide and
companion while I returned to Meiringen. My friend would stay some
little time at the fall, he said, and would then walk slowly over the
hill to Rosenlaui, where I was to rejoin him in the evening. As I turned
away I saw Holmes, with his back against a rock and his arms folded,
gazing down at the rush of the waters. It was the last that I was ever
destined to see of him in this world.

When I was near the bottom of the descent I looked back. It was
impossible, from that position, to see the fall, but I could see the
curving path which winds over the shoulder of the hill and leads to it.
Along this a man was, I remember, walking very rapidly.

I could see his black figure clearly outlined against the green behind
him. I noted him, and the energy with which he walked but he passed from
my mind again as I hurried on upon my errand.

It may have been a little over an hour before I reached Meiringen. Old
Steiler was standing at the porch of his hotel.

“Well,” said I, as I came hurrying up, “I trust that she is no worse?”

A look of surprise passed over his face, and at the first quiver of his
eyebrows my heart turned to lead in my breast.

“You did not write this?” I said, pulling the letter from my pocket.
“There is no sick Englishwoman in the hotel?”

“Certainly not!” he cried. “But it has the hotel mark upon it! Ha, it
must have been written by that tall Englishman who came in after you had
gone. He said--”

But I waited for none of the landlord's explanations. In a tingle of
fear I was already running down the village street, and making for the
path which I had so lately descended. It had taken me an hour to come
down. For all my efforts two more had passed before I found myself at
the fall of Reichenbach once more. There was Holmes's Alpine-stock still
leaning against the rock by which I had left him. But there was no sign
of him, and it was in vain that I shouted. My only answer was my own
voice reverberating in a rolling echo from the cliffs around me.

It was the sight of that Alpine-stock which turned me cold and sick.
He had not gone to Rosenlaui, then. He had remained on that three-foot
path, with sheer wall on one side and sheer drop on the other, until his
enemy had overtaken him. The young Swiss had gone too. He had probably
been in the pay of Moriarty, and had left the two men together. And then
what had happened? Who was to tell us what had happened then?

I stood for a minute or two to collect myself, for I was dazed with the
horror of the thing. Then I began to think of Holmes's own methods and
to try to practise them in reading this tragedy. It was, alas, only too
easy to do. During our conversation we had not gone to the end of the
path, and the Alpine-stock marked the place where we had stood. The
blackish soil is kept forever soft by the incessant drift of spray,
and a bird would leave its tread upon it. Two lines of footmarks were
clearly marked along the farther end of the path, both leading away from
me. There were none returning. A few yards from the end the soil was
all ploughed up into a patch of mud, and the branches and ferns which
fringed the chasm were torn and bedraggled. I lay upon my face and
peered over with the spray spouting up all around me. It had darkened
since I left, and now I could only see here and there the glistening of
moisture upon the black walls, and far away down at the end of the shaft
the gleam of the broken water. I shouted; but only the same half-human
cry of the fall was borne back to my ears.

But it was destined that I should after all have a last word of greeting
from my friend and comrade. I have said that his Alpine-stock had been
left leaning against a rock which jutted on to the path. From the top of
this bowlder the gleam of something bright caught my eye, and, raising
my hand, I found that it came from the silver cigarette-case which he
used to carry. As I took it up a small square of paper upon which it
had lain fluttered down on to the ground. Unfolding it, I found that it
consisted of three pages torn from his note-book and addressed to me. It
was characteristic of the man that the direction was a precise, and the
writing as firm and clear, as though it had been written in his study.

My dear Watson [it said], I write these few lines through the courtesy
of Mr. Moriarty, who awaits my convenience for the final discussion of
those questions which lie between us. He has been giving me a sketch
of the methods by which he avoided the English police and kept himself
informed of our movements. They certainly confirm the very high opinion
which I had formed of his abilities. I am pleased to think that I shall
be able to free society from any further effects of his presence, though
I fear that it is at a cost which will give pain to my friends, and
especially, my dear Watson, to you. I have already explained to you,
however, that my career had in any case reached its crisis, and that
no possible conclusion to it could be more congenial to me than this.
Indeed, if I may make a full confession to you, I was quite convinced
that the letter from Meiringen was a hoax, and I allowed you to depart
on that errand under the persuasion that some development of this sort
would follow. Tell Inspector Patterson that the papers which he needs
to convict the gang are in pigeonhole M., done up in a blue envelope
and inscribed “Moriarty.” I made every disposition of my property before
leaving England, and handed it to my brother Mycroft. Pray give my
greetings to Mrs. Watson, and believe me to be, my dear fellow,

Very sincerely yours,

Sherlock Holmes


A few words may suffice to tell the little that remains. An examination
by experts leaves little doubt that a personal contest between the two
men ended, as it could hardly fail to end in such a situation, in their
reeling over, locked in each other's arms. Any attempt at recovering the
bodies was absolutely hopeless, and there, deep down in that dreadful
caldron of swirling water and seething foam, will lie for all time the
most dangerous criminal and the foremost champion of the law of their
generation. The Swiss youth was never found again, and there can be no
doubt that he was one of the numerous agents whom Moriarty kept in his
employ. As to the gang, it will be within the memory of the public
how completely the evidence which Holmes had accumulated exposed their
organization, and how heavily the hand of the dead man weighed
upon them. Of their terrible chief few details came out during the
proceedings, and if I have now been compelled to make a clear statement
of his career it is due to those injudicious champions who have
endeavored to clear his memory by attacks upon him whom I shall ever
regard as the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known.

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