In the third week of November, in the year 1895, a dense yellow
fog settled down upon London. From the Monday to the Thursday I
doubt whether it was ever possible from our windows in Baker
Street to see the loom of the opposite houses. The first day
Holmes had spent in cross-indexing his huge book of references.
The second and third had been patiently occupied upon a subject
which he had recently made his hobby–the music of the Middle
Ages. But when, for the fourth time, after pushing back our
chairs from breakfast we saw the greasy, heavy brown swirl still
drifting past us and condensing in oily drops upon the window-
panes, my comrade’s impatient and active nature could endure this
drab existence no longer. He paced restlessly about our sitting-
room in a fever of suppressed energy, biting his nails, tapping
the furniture, and chafing against inaction.

“Nothing of interest in the paper, Watson?” he said.

I was aware that by anything of interest, Holmes meant anything
of criminal interest. There was the news of a revolution, of a
possible war, and of an impending change of government; but these
did not come within the horizon of my companion. I could see
nothing recorded in the shape of crime which was not commonplace
and futile. Holmes groaned and resumed his restless meanderings.

“The London criminal is certainly a dull fellow,” said he in the
querulous voice of the sportsman whose game has failed him.
“Look out this window, Watson. See how the figures loom up, are
dimly seen, and then blend once more into the cloud-bank. The
thief or the murderer could roam London on such a day as the
tiger does the jungle, unseen until he pounces, and then evident
only to his victim.”

“There have,” said I, “been numerous petty thefts.”

Holmes snorted his contempt.

“This great and sombre stage is set for something more worthy
than that,” said he. “It is fortunate for this community that I
am not a criminal.”

“It is, indeed!” said I heartily.

“Suppose that I were Brooks or Woodhouse, or any of the fifty men
who have good reason for taking my life, how long could I survive
against my own pursuit? A summons, a bogus appointment, and all
would be over. It is well they don’t have days of fog in the
Latin countries–the countries of assassination. By Jove! here
comes something at last to break our dead monotony.”

It was the maid with a telegram. Holmes tore it open and burst
out laughing.

“Well, well! What next?” said he. “Brother Mycroft is coming
round.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Why not? It is as if you met a tram-car coming down a country
lane. Mycroft has his rails and he runs on them. His Pall Mall
lodgings, the Diogenes Club, Whitehall–that is his cycle. Once,
and only once, he has been here. What upheaval can possibly have
derailed him?”

“Does he not explain?”

Holmes handed me his brother’s telegram.

Must see you over Cadogen West. Coming at once.

Mycroft.

“Cadogen West? I have heard the name.”

“It recalls nothing to my mind. But that Mycroft should break
out in this erratic fashion! A planet might as well leave its
orbit. By the way, do you know what Mycroft is?”

I had some vague recollection of an explanation at the time of
the Adventure of the Greek Interpreter.

“You told me that he had some small office under the British
government.”

Holmes chuckled.

“I did not know you quite so well in those days. One has to be
discreet when one talks of high matters of state. You are right
in thinking that he under the British government. You would also
be right in a sense if you said that occasionally he IS the
British government.”

“My dear Holmes!”

“I thought I might surprise you. Mycroft draws four hundred and
fifty pounds a year, remains a subordinate, has no ambitions of
any kind, will receive neither honour nor title, but remains the
most indispensable man in the country.”

“But how?”

“Well, his position is unique. He has made it for himself.
There has never been anything like it before, nor will be again.
He has the tidiest and most orderly brain, with the greatest
capacity for storing facts, of any man living. The same great
powers which I have turned to the detection of crime he has used
for this particular business. The conclusions of every
department are passed to him, and he is the central exchange, the
clearinghouse, which makes out the balance. All other men are
specialists, but his specialism is omniscience. We will suppose
that a minister needs information as to a point which involves
the Navy, India, Canada and the bimetallic question; he could get
his separate advices from various departments upon each, but only
Mycroft can focus them all, and say offhand how each factor would
affect the other. They began by using him as a short-cut, a
convenience; now he has made himself an essential. In that great
brain of his everything is pigeon-holed and can be handed out in
an instant. Again and again his word has decided the national
policy. He lives in it. He thinks of nothing else save when, as
an intellectual exercise, he unbends if I call upon him and ask
him to advise me on one of my little problems. But Jupiter is
descending to-day. What on earth can it mean? Who is Cadogan
West, and what is he to Mycroft?”

“I have it,” I cried, and plunged among the litter of papers upon
the sofa. “Yes, yes, here he is, sure enough! Cadogen West was
the young man who was found dead on the Underground on Tuesday
morning.”

Holmes sat up at attention, his pipe halfway to his lips.

“This must be serious, Watson. A death which has caused my
brother to alter his habits can be no ordinary one. What in the
world can he have to do with it? The case was featureless as I
remember it. The young man had apparently fallen out of the
train and killed himself. He had not been robbed, and there was
no particular reason to suspect violence. Is that not so?”

“There has been an inquest,” said I, “and a good many fresh facts
have come out. Looked at more closely, I should certainly say
that it was a curious case.”

“Judging by its effect upon my brother, I should think it must be
a most extraordinary one.” He snuggled down in his armchair.
“Now, Watson, let us have the facts.”

“The man’s name was Arthur Cadogan West. He was twenty-seven
years of age, unmarried, and a clerk at Woolwich Arsenal.”

“Government employ. Behold the link with Brother Mycroft!”

“He left Woolwich suddenly on Monday night. Was last seen by his
fiancee, Miss Violet Westbury, whom he left abruptly in the fog
about 7:30 that evening. There was no quarrel between them and
she can give no motive for his action. The next thing heard of
him was when his dead body was discovered by a plate-layer named
Mason, just outside Aldgate Station on the Underground system in
London.”

“When?”

“The body was found at six on Tuesday morning. It was lying wide
of the metals upon the left hand of the track as one goes
eastward, at a point close to the station, where the line emerges
from the tunnel in which it runs. The head was badly crushed–an
injury which might well have been caused by a fall from the
train. The body could only have come on the line in that way.
Had it been carried down from any neighbouring street, it must
have passed the station barriers, where a collector is always
standing. This point seems absolutely certain.”

“Very good. The case is definite enough. The man, dead or
alive, either fell or was precipitated from a train. So much is
clear to me. Continue.”

“The trains which traverse the lines of rail beside which the
body was found are those which run from west to east, some being
purely Metropolitan, and some from Willesden and outlying
junctions. It can be stated for certain that this young man,
when he met his death, was travelling in this direction at some
late hour of the night, but at what point he entered the train it
is impossible to state.”

“His ticket, of course, would show that.”

“There was no ticket in his pockets.”

“No ticket! Dear me, Watson, this is really very singular.
According to my experience it is not possible to reach the
platform of a Metropolitan train without exhibiting one’s ticket.
Presumably, then, the young man had one. Was it taken from him
in order to conceal the station from which he came? It is
possible. Or did he drop it in the carriage? That is also
possible. But the point is of curious interest. I understand
that there was no sign of robbery?”

“Apparently not. There is a list here of his possessions. His
purse contained two pounds fifteen. He had also a check-book on
the Woolwich branch of the Capital and Counties Bank. Through
this his identity was established. There were also two dress-
circle tickets for the Woolwich Theatre, dated for that very
evening. Also a small packet of technical papers.”

Holmes gave an exclamation of satisfaction.

“There we have it at last, Watson! British government–Woolwich.
Arsenal–technical papers–Brother Mycroft, the chain is
complete. But here he comes, if I am not mistaken, to speak for
himself.”

A moment later the tall and portly form of Mycroft Holmes was
ushered into the room. Heavily built and massive, there was a
suggestion of uncouth physical inertia in the figure, but above
this unwieldy frame there was perched a head so masterful in its
brow, so alert in its steel-gray, deep-set eyes, so firm in its
lips, and so subtle in its play of expression, that after the
first glance one forgot the gross body and remembered only the
dominant mind.

At his heels came our old friend Lestrade, of Scotland Yard–thin
and austere. The gravity of both their faces foretold some
weighty quest. The detective shook hands without a word.
Mycroft Holmes struggled out of his overcoat and subsided into an
armchair.

“A most annoying business, Sherlock,” said he. “I extremely
dislike altering my habits, but the powers that be would take no
denial. In the present state of Siam it is most awkward that I
should be away from the office. But it is a real crisis. I have
never seen the Prime Minister so upset. As to the Admiralty–it
is buzzing like an overturned bee-hive. Have you read up the
case?”

“We have just done so. What were the technical papers?”

“Ah, there’s the point! Fortunately, it has not come out. The
press would be furious if it did. The papers which this wretched
youth had in his pocket were the plans of the Bruce-Partington
submarine.”

Mycroft Holmes spoke with a solemnity which showed his sense of
the importance of the subject. His brother and I sat expectant.

“Surely you have heard of it? I thought everyone had heard of
it.”

“Only as a name.”

“Its importance can hardly be exaggerated. It has been the most
jealously guarded of all government secrets. You may take it
from me that naval warfare becomes impossible withing the radius
of a Bruce-Partington’s operation. Two years ago a very large
sum was smuggled through the Estimates and was expended in
acquiring a monopoly of the invention. Every effort has been
made to keep the secret. The plans, which are exceedingly
intricate, comprising some thirty separate patents, each
essential to the working of the whole, are kept in an elaborate
safe in a confidential office adjoining the arsenal, with
burglar-proof doors and windows. Under no conceivable
circumstances were the plans to be taken from the office. If the
chief constructor of the Navy desired to consult them, even he
was forced to go to the Woolwich office for the purpose. And yet
here we find them in the pocket of a dead junior clerk in the
heart of London. From an official point of view it’s simply
awful.”

“But you have recovered them?”

“No, Sherlock, no! That’s the pinch. We have not. Ten papers
were taken from Woolwich. There were seven in the pocket of
Cadogan West. The three most essential are gone–stolen,
vanished. You must drop everything, Sherlock. Never mind your
usual petty puzzles of the police-court. It’s a vital
international problem that you have to solve. Why did Cadogan
West take the papers, where are the missing ones, how did he die,
how came his body where it was found, how can the evil be set
right? Find an answer to all these questions, and you will have
done good service for your country.”

“Why do you not solve it yourself, Mycroft? You can see as far
as I.”

“Possibly, Sherlock. But it is a question of getting details.
Give me your details, and from an armchair I will return you an
excellent expert opinion. But to run here and run there, to
cross-question railway guards, and lie on my face with a lens to
my eye–it is not my metier. No, you are the one man who can
clear the matter up. If you have a fancy to see your name in the
next honours list–”

My friend smiled and shook his head.

“I play the game for the game’s own sake,” said he. “But the
problem certainly presents some points of interest, and I shall
be very pleased to look into it. Some more facts, please.”

“I have jotted down the more essential ones upon this sheet of
paper, together with a few addresses which you will find of
service. The actual official guardian of the papers is the
famous government expert, Sir James Walter, whose decorations and
sub-titles fill two lines of a book of reference. He has grown
gray in the service, is a gentleman, a favoured guest in the most
exalted houses, and, above all, a man whose patriotism is beyond
suspicion. He is one of two who have a key of the safe. I may
add that the papers were undoubtedly in the office during working
hours on Monday, and that Sir James left for London about three
o’clock taking his key with him. He was at the house of Admiral
Sinclair at Barclay Square during the whole of the evening when
this incident occurred.”

“Has the fact been verified?”

“Yes; his brother, Colonel Valentine Walter, has testified to his
departure from Woolwich, and Admiral Sinclair to his arrival in
London; so Sir James is no longer a direct factor in the
problem.”

“Who was the other man with a key?”

“The senior clerk and draughtsman, Mr. Sidney Johnson. He is a
man of forty, married, with five children. He is a silent,
morose man, but he has, on the whole, an excellent record in the
public service. He is unpopular with his colleagues, but a hard
worker. According to his own account, corroborated only by the
word of his wife, he was at home the whole of Monday evening
after office hours, and his key has never left the watch-chain
upon which it hangs.”

“Tell us about Cadogan West.”

“He has been ten years in the service and has done good work. He
has the reputation of being hot-headed and imperious, but a
straight, honest man. We have nothing against him. He was next
Sidney Johnson in the office. His duties brought him into daily,
personal contact with the plans. No one else had the handling of
them.”

“Who locked up the plans that night?”

“Mr. Sidney Johnson, the senior clerk.”

“Well, it is surely perfectly clear who took them away. They are
actually found upon the person of this junior clerk, Cadogan
West. That seems final, does it not?”

“It does, Sherlock, and yet it leaves so much unexplained. In
the first place, why did he take them?”

“I presume they were of value?”

“He could have got several thousands for them very easily.”

“Can you suggest any possible motive for taking the papers to
London except to sell them?”

“No, I cannot.”

“Then we must take that as our working hypothesis. Young West
took the papers. Now this could only be done by having a false
key–”

“Several false keys. He had to open the building and the room.”

“He had, then, several false keys. He took the papers to London
to sell the secret, intending, no doubt, to have the plans
themselves back in the safe next morning before they were missed.
While in London on this treasonable mission he met his end.”

“How?”

“We will suppose that he was travelling back to Woolwich when he
was killed and thrown out of the compartment.”

“Aldgate, where the body was found, is considerably past the
station London Bridge, which would be his route to Woolwich.”

“Many circumstances could be imagined under which he would pass
London Bridge. There was someone in the carriage, for example,
with whom he was having an absorbing interview. This interview
led to a violent scene in which he lost his life. Possibly he
tried to leave the carriage, fell out on the line, and so met his
end. The other closed the door. There was a thick fog, and
nothing could be seen.”

“No better explanation can be given with our present knowledge;
and yet consider, Sherlock, how much you leave untouched. We
will suppose, for argument’s sake, that young Cadogan West HAD
determined to convey these papers to London. He would naturally
have made an appointment with the foreign agent and kept his
evening clear. Instead of that he took two tickets for the
theatre, escorted his fiancee halfway there, and then suddenly
disappeared.”

“A blind,” said Lestrade, who had sat listening with some
impatience to the conversation.

“A very singular one. That is objection No. 1. Objection No. 2:
We will suppose that he reaches London and sees the foreign
agent. He must bring back the papers before morning or the loss
will be discovered. He took away ten. Only seven were in his
pocket. What had become of the other three? He certainly would
not leave them of his own free will. Then, again, where is the
price of his treason? Once would have expected to find a large
sum of money in his pocket.”

“It seems to me perfectly clear,” said Lestrade. “I have no
doubt at all as to what occurred. He took the papers to sell
them. He saw the agent. They could not agree as to price. He
started home again, but the agent went with him. In the train
the agent murdered him, took the more essential papers, and threw
his body from the carriage. That would account for everything,
would it not?”

“Why had he no ticket?”

“The ticket would have shown which station was nearest the
agent’s house. Therefore he took it from the murdered man’s
pocket.”

“Good, Lestrade, very good,” said Holmes. “Your theory holds
together. But if this is true, then the case is at an end. On
the one hand, the traitor is dead. On the other, the plans of
the Bruce-Partington submarine are presumably already on the
Continent. What is there for us to do?”

“To act, Sherlock–to act!” cried Mycroft, springing to his feet.
“All my instincts are against this explanation. Use your powers!
Go to the scene of the crime! See the people concerned! Leave
no stone unturned! In all your career you have never had so
great a chance of serving your country.”

“Well, well!” said Holmes, shrugging his shoulders. “Come,
Watson! And you, Lestrade, could you favour us with your company
for an hour or two? We will begin our investigation by a visit
to Aldgate Station. Good-bye, Mycroft. I shall let you have a
report before evening, but I warn you in advance that you have
little to expect.”

An hour later Holmes, Lestrade and I stood upon the Underground
railroad at the point where it emerges from the tunnel
immediately before Aldgate Station. A courteous red-faced old
gentleman represented the railway company.

“This is where the young man’s body lay,” said he, indicating a
spot about three feet from the metals. “It could not have fallen
from above, for these, as you see, are all blank walls.
Therefore, it could only have come from a train, and that train,
so far as we can trace it, must have passed about midnight on
Monday.”

“Have the carriages been examined for any sign of violence?”

“There are no such signs, and no ticket has been found.”

“No record of a door being found open?”

“None.”

“We have had some fresh evidence this morning,” said Lestrade.
“A passenger who passed Aldgate in an ordinary Metropolitan train
about 11:40 on Monday night declares that he heard a heavy thud,
as of a body striking the line, just before the train reached the
station. There was dense fog, however, and nothing could be
seen. He made no report of it at the time. Why, whatever is the
matter with Mr. Holmes?”

My friend was standing with an expression of strained intensity
upon his face, staring at the railway metals where they curved
out of the tunnel. Aldgate is a junction, and there was a
network of points. On these his eager, questioning eyes were
fixed, and I saw on his keen, alert face that tightening of the
lips, that quiver of the nostrils, and concentration of the
heavy, tufted brows which I knew so well.

“Points,” he muttered; “the points.”

“What of it? What do you mean?”

“I suppose there are no great number of points on a system such
as this?”

“No; they are very few.”

“And a curve, too. Points, and a curve. By Jove! if it were
only so.”

“What is it, Mr. Holmes? Have you a clue?”

“An idea–an indication, no more. But the case certainly grows
in interest. Unique, perfectly unique, and yet why not? I do
not see any indications of bleeding on the line.”

“There were hardly any.”

“But I understand that there was a considerable wound.”

“The bone was crushed, but there was no great external injury.”

“And yet one would have expected some bleeding. Would it be
possible for me to inspect the train which contained the
passenger who heard the thud of a fall in the fog?”

“I fear not, Mr. Holmes. The train has been broken up before
now, and the carriages redistributed.”

“I can assure you, Mr. Holmes,” said Lestrade, “that every
carriage has been carefully examined. I saw to it myself.”

It was one of my friend’s most obvious weaknesses that he was
impatient with less alert intelligences than his own.

“Very likely,” said he, turning away. “As it happens, it was not
the carriages which I desired to examine. Watson, we have done
all we can here. We need not trouble you any further, Mr.
Lestrade. I think our investigations must now carry us to
Woolwich.”

At London Bridge, Holmes wrote a telegram to his brother, which
he handed to me before dispatching it. It ran thus:

See some light in the darkness, but it may possibly flicker out.
Meanwhile, please send by messenger, to await return at Baker
Street, a complete list of all foreign spies or international
agents known to be in England, with full address.

Sherlock.

“That should be helpful, Watson,” he remarked as we took our
seats in the Woolwich train. “We certainly owe Brother Mycroft a
debt for having introduced us to what promises to be a really
very remarkable case.”

His eager face still wore that expression of intense and high-
strung energy, which showed me that some novel and suggestive
circumstance had opened up a stimulating line of thought. See
the foxhound with hanging ears and drooping tail as it lolls
about the kennels, and compare it with the same hound as, with
gleaming eyes and straining muscles, it runs upon a breast-high
scent–such was the change in Holmes since the morning. He was a
different man from the limp and lounging figure in the mouse-
coloured dressing-gown who had prowled so restlessly only a few
hours before round the fog-girt room.

“There is material here. There is scope,” said he. “I am dull
indeed not to have understood its possibilities.”

“Even now they are dark to me.”

“The end is dark to me also, but I have hold of one idea which
may lead us far. The man met his death elsewhere, and his body
was on the ROOF of a carriage.”

“On the roof!”

“Remarkable, is it not? But consider the facts. Is it a
coincidence that it is found at the very point where the train
pitches and sways as it comes round on the points? Is not that
the place where an object upon the roof might be expected to fall
off? The points would affect no object inside the train. Either
the body fell from the roof, or a very curious coincidence has
occurred. But now consider the question of the blood. Of
course, there was no bleeding on the line if the body had bled
elsewhere. Each fact is suggestive in itself. Together they
have a cumulative force.”

“And the ticket, too!” I cried.

“Exactly. We could not explain the absence of a ticket. This
would explain it. Everything fits together.”

“But suppose it were so, we are still as far as ever from
unravelling the mystery of his death. Indeed, it becomes not
simpler but stranger.”

“Perhaps,” said Holmes, thoughtfully, “perhaps.” He relapsed
into a silent reverie, which lasted until the slow train drew up
at last in Woolwich Station. There he called a cab and drew
Mycroft’s paper from his pocket.

“We have quite a little round of afternoon calls to make,” said
he. “I think that Sir James Walter claims our first attention.”

The house of the famous official was a fine villa with green
lawns stretching down to the Thames. As we reached it the fog
was lifting, and a thin, watery sunshine was breaking through. A
butler answered our ring.

“Sir James, sir!” said he with solemn face. “Sir James died this
morning.”

“Good heavens!” cried Holmes in amazement. “How did he die?”

“Perhaps you would care to step in, sir, and see his brother,
Colonel Valentine?”

“Yes, we had best do so.”

We were ushered into a dim-lit drawing-room, where an instant
later we were joined by a very tall, handsome, light-beared man
of fifty, the younger brother of the dead scientist. His wild
eyes, stained cheeks, and unkempt hair all spoke of the sudden
blow which had fallen upon the household. He was hardly
articulate as he spoke of it.

“It was this horrible scandal,” said he. “My brother, Sir James,
was a man of very sensitive honour, and he could not survive such
an affair. It broke his heart. He was always so proud of the
efficiency of his department, and this was a crushing blow.”

“We had hoped that he might have given us some indications which
would have helped us to clear the matter up.”

“I assure you that it was all a mystery to him as it is to you
and to all of us. He had already put all his knowledge at the
disposal of the police. Naturally he had no doubt that Cadogan
West was guilty. But all the rest was inconceivable.”

“You cannot throw any new light upon the affair?”

“I know nothing myself save what I have read or heard. I have no
desire to be discourteous, but you can understand, Mr. Holmes,
that we are much disturbed at present, and I must ask you to
hasten this interview to an end.”

“This is indeed an unexpected development,” said my friend when
we had regained the cab. “I wonder if the death was natural, or
whether the poor old fellow killed himself! If the latter, may
it be taken as some sign of self-reproach for duty neglected? We
must leave that question to the future. Now we shall turn to the
Cadogan Wests.”

A small but well-kept house in the outskirts of the town
sheltered the bereaved mother. The old lady was too dazed with
grief to be of any use to us, but at her side was a white-faced
young lady, who introduced herself as Miss Violet Westbury, the
fiancee of the dead man, and the last to see him upon that fatal
night.

“I cannot explain it, Mr. Holmes,” she said. “I have not shut an
eye since the tragedy, thinking, thinking, thinking, night and
day, what the true meaning of it can be. Arthur was the most
single-minded, chivalrous, patriotic man upon earth. He would
have cut his right hand off before he would sell a State secret
confided to his keeping. It is absurd, impossible, preposterous
to anyone who knew him.”

“But the facts, Miss Westbury?”

“Yes, yes; I admit I cannot explain them.”

“Was he in any want of money?”

“No; his needs were very simple and his salary ample. He had
saved a few hundreds, and we were to marry at the New Year.”

“No signs of any mental excitement? Come, Miss Westbury, be
absolutely frank with us.”

The quick eye of my companion had noted some change in her
manner. She coloured and hesitated.

“Yes,” she said at last, “I had a feeling that there was
something on his mind.”

“For long?”

“Only for the last week or so. He was thoughtful and worried.
Once I pressed him about it. He admitted that there was
something, and that it was concerned with his official life. ‘It
is too serious for me to speak about, even to you,’ said he. I
could get nothing more.”

Holmes looked grave.

“Go on, Miss Westbury. Even if it seems to tell against him, go
on. We cannot say what it may lead to.”

“Indeed, I have nothing more to tell. Once or twice it seemed to
me that he was on the point of telling me something. He spoke
one evening of the importance of the secret, and I have some
recollection that he said that no doubt foreign spies would pay a
great deal to have it.”

My friend’s face grew graver still.

“Anything else?”

“He said that we were slack about such matters–that it would be
easy for a traitor to get the plans.”

“Was it only recently that he made such remarks?”

“Yes, quite recently.”

“Now tell us of that last evening.”

“We were to go to the theatre. The fog was so thick that a cab
was useless. We walked, and our way took us close to the office.
Suddenly he darted away into the fog.”

“Without a word?”

“He gave an exclamation; that was all. I waited but he never
returned. Then I walked home. Next morning, after the office
opened, they came to inquire. About twelve o’clock we heard the
terrible news. Oh, Mr. Holmes, if you could only, only save his
honour! It was so much to him.”

Holmes shook his head sadly.

“Come, Watson,” said he, “our ways lie elsewhere. Our next
station must be the office from which the papers were taken.

“It was black enough before against this young man, but our
inquiries make it blacker,” he remarked as the cab lumbered off.
“His coming marriage gives a motive for the crime. He naturally
wanted money. The idea was in his head, since he spoke about it.
He nearly made the girl an accomplice in the treason by telling
her his plans. It is all very bad.”

“But surely, Holmes, character goes for something? Then, again,
why should he leave the girl in the street and dart away to
commit a felony?”

“Exactly! There are certainly objections. But it is a
formidable case which they have to meet.”

Mr. Sidney Johnson, the senior clerk, met us at the office and
received us with that respect which my companion’s card always
commanded. He was a thin, gruff, bespectacled man of middle age,
his cheeks haggard, and his hands twitching from the nervous
strain to which he had been subjected.

“It is bad, Mr. Holmes, very bad! Have you heard of the death of
the chief?”

“We have just come from his house.”

“The place is disorganized. The chief dead, Cadogan West dead,
our papers stolen. And yet, when we closed our door on Monday
evening, we were as efficient an office as any in the government
service. Good God, it’s dreadful to think of! That West, of all
men, should have done such a thing!”

“You are sure of his guilt, then?”

“I can see no other way out of it. And yet I would have trusted
him as I trust myself.”

“At what hour was the office closed on Monday?”

“At five.”

“Did you close it?”

“I am always the last man out.”

“Where were the plans?”

“In that safe. I put them there myself.”

“Is there no watchman to the building?”

“There is, but he has other departments to look after as well.
He is an old soldier and a most trustworthy man. He saw nothing
that evening. Of course the fog was very thick.”

“Suppose that Cadogan West wished to make his way into the
building after hours; he would need three keys, would he not,
before he could reach the papers?”

“Yes, he would. The key of the outer door, the key of the
office, and the key of the safe.”

“Only Sir James Walter and you had those keys?”

“I had no keys of the doors–only of the safe.”

“Was Sir James a man who was orderly in his habits?”

“Yes, I think he was. I know that so far as those three keys are
concerned he kept them on the same ring. I have often seen them
there.”

“And that ring went with him to London?”

“He said so.”

“And your key never left your possession?”

“Never.”

“Then West, if he is the culprit, must have had a duplicate. And
yet none was found upon his body. One other point: if a clerk
in this office desired to sell the plans, would it not be simply
to copy the plans for himself than to take the originals, as was
actually done?”

“It would take considerable technical knowledge to copy the plans
in an effective way.”

“But I suppose either Sir James, or you, or West has that
technical knowledge?”

“No doubt we had, but I beg you won’t try to drag me into the
matter, Mr. Holmes. What is the use of our speculating in this
way when the original plans were actually found on West?”

“Well, it is certainly singular that he should run the risk of
taking originals if he could safely have taken copies, which
would have equally served his turn.”

“Singular, no doubt–and yet he did so.”

“Every inquiry in this case reveals something inexplicable. Now
there are three papers still missing. They are, as I understand,
the vital ones.”

“Yes, that is so.”

“Do you mean to say that anyone holding these three papers, and
without the seven others, could construct a Bruce-Partington
submarine?”

“I reported to that effect to the Admiralty. But to-day I have
been over the drawings again, and I am not so sure of it. The
double valves with the automatic self-adjusting slots are drawn
in one of the papers which have been returned. Until the
foreigners had invented that for themselves they could not make
the boat. Of course they might soon get over the difficulty.”

“But the three missing drawings are the most important?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“I think, with your permission, I will now take a stroll round
the premises. I do not recall any other question which I desired
to ask.”

He examined the lock of the safe, the door of the room, and
finally the iron shutters of the window. It was only when we
were on the lawn outside that his interest was strongly excited.
There was a laurel bush outside the window, and several of the
branches bore signs of having been twisted or snapped. He
examined them carefully with his lens, and then some dim and
vague marks upon the earth beneath. Finally he asked the chief
clerk to close the iron shutters, and he pointed out to me that
they hardly met in the centre, and that it would be possible for
anyone outside to see what was going on within the room.

“The indications are ruined by three days’ delay. They may mean
something or nothing. Well, Watson, I do not think that Woolwich
can help us further. It is a small crop which we have gathered.
Let us see if we can do better in London.”

Yet we added one more sheaf to our harvest before we left
Woolwich Station. The clerk in the ticket office was able to say
with confidence that he saw Cadogan West–whom he knew well by
sight–upon the Monday night, and that he went to London by the
8:15 to London Bridge. He was alone and took a single third-
class ticket. The clerk was struck at the time by his excited
and nervous manner. So shaky was he that he could hardly pick up
his change, and the clerk had helped him with it. A reference to
the timetable showed that the 8:15 was the first train which it
was possible for West to take after he had left the lady about
7:30.

“Let us reconstruct, Watson,” said Holmes after half an hour of
silence. “I am not aware that in all our joint researches we
have ever had a case which was more difficult to get at. Every
fresh advance which we make only reveals a fresh ridge beyond.
And yet we have surely made some appreciable progress.

“The effect of our inquiries at Woolwich has in the main been
against young Cadogan West; but the indications at the window
would lend themselves to a more favourable hypothesis. Let us
suppose, for example, that he had been approached by some foreign
agent. It might have been done under such pledges as would have
prevented him from speaking of it, and yet would have affected
his thoughts in the direction indicated by his remarks to his
fiancee. Very good. We will now suppose that as he went to the
theatre with the young lady he suddenly, in the fog, caught a
glimpse of this same agent going in the direction of the office.
He was an impetuous man, quick in his decisions. Everything gave
way to his duty. He followed the man, reached the window, saw
the abstraction of the documents, and pursued the thief. In this
way we get over the objection that no one would take originals
when he could make copies. This outsider had to take originals.
So far it holds together.”

“What is the next step?”

“Then we come into difficulties. One would imagine that under
such circumstances the first act of young Cadogan West would be
to seize the villain and raise the alarm. Why did he not do so?
Could it have been an official superior who took the papers?
That would explain West’s conduct. Or could the chief have given
West the slip in the fog, and West started at once to London to
head him off from his own rooms, presuming that he knew where the
rooms were? The call must have been very pressing, since he left
his girl standing in the fog and made no effort to communicate
with her. Our scent runs cold here, and there is a vast gap
between either hypothesis and the laying of West’s body, with
seven papers in his pocket, on the roof of a Metropolitan train.
My instinct now is to work form the other end. If Mycroft has
given us the list of addresses we may be able to pick our man and
follow two tracks instead of one.”

Surely enough, a note awaited us at Baker Street. A government
messenger had brought it post-haste. Holmes glanced at it and
threw it over to me.

There are numerous small fry, but few who would handle so big an
affair. The only men worth considering are Adolph Mayer, of 13
Great George Street, Westminster; Louis La Rothiere, of Campden
Mansions, Notting Hill; and Hugo Oberstein, 13 Caulfield Gardens,
Kensington. The latter was known to be in town on Monday and is
now reported as having left. Glad to hear you have seen some
light. The Cabinet awaits your final report with the utmost
anxiety. Urgent representations have arrived from the very
highest quarter. The whole force of the State is at your back if
you should need it.

Mycroft.

“I’m afraid,” said Holmes, smiling, “that all the queen’s horses
and all the queen’s men cannot avail in this matter.” He had
spread out his big map of London and leaned eagerly over it.
“Well, well,” said he presently with an exclamation of
satisfaction, “things are turning a little in our direction at
last. Why, Watson, I do honestly believe that we are going to
pull it off, after all.” He slapped me on the shoulder with a
sudden burst of hilarity. “I am going out now. It is only a
reconnaissance. I will do nothing serious without my trusted
comrade and biographer at my elbow. Do you stay here, and the
odds are that you will see me again in an hour or two. If time
hangs heavy get foolscap and a pen, and begin your narrative of
how we saved the State.”

I felt some reflection of his elation in my own mind, for I knew
well that he would not depart so far from his usual austerity of
demeanour unless there was good cause for exultation. All the
long November evening I waited, filled with impatience for his
return. At last, shortly after nine o’clock, there arrived a
messenger with a note:

Am dining at Goldini’s Restaurant, Gloucester Road, Kensington.
Please come at once and join me there. Bring with you a jemmy, a
dark lantern, a chisel, and a revolver.

S.H.

It was a nice equipment for a respectable citizen to carry
through the dim, fog-draped streets. I stowed them all
discreetly away in my overcoat and drove straight to the address
given. There sat my friend at a little round table near the door
of the garish Italian restaurant.

“Have you had something to eat? Then join me in a coffee and
curacao. Try one of the proprietor’s cigars. They are less
poisonous than one would expect. Have you the tools?”

“They are here, in my overcoat.”

“Excellent. Let me give you a short sketch of what I have done,
with some indication of what we are about to do. Now it must be
evident to you, Watson, that this young man’s body was PLACED on
the roof of the train. That was clear from the instant that I
determined the fact that it was from the roof, and not from a
carriage, that he had fallen.”

“Could it not have been dropped from a bridge?”

“I should say it was impossible. If you examine the roofs you
will find that they are slightly rounded, and there is no railing
round them. Therefore, we can say for certain that young Cadogan
West was placed on it.”

“How could he be placed there?”

“That was the question which we had to answer. There is only one
possible way. You are aware that the Underground runs clear of
tunnels at some points in the West End. I had a vague memory
that as I have travelled by it I have occasionally seen windows
just above my head. Now, suppose that a train halted under such
a window, would there be any difficulty in laying a body upon the
roof?”

“It seems most improbable.”

“We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other
contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the truth. Here all other contingencies HAVE failed. When I
found that the leading international agent, who had just left
London, lived in a row of houses which abutted upon the
Underground, I was so pleased that you were a little astonished
at my sudden frivolity.”

“Oh, that was it, was it?”

“Yes, that was it. Mr. Hugo Oberstein, of 13 Caulfield Gardens,
had become my objective. I began my operations at Gloucester
Road Station, where a very helpful official walked with me along
the track and allowed me to satisfy myself not only that the
back-stair windows of Caulfield Gardens open on the line but the
even more essential fact that, owing to the intersection of one
of the larger railways, the Underground trains are frequently
held motionless for some minutes at that very spot.”

“Splendid, Holmes! You have got it!”

“So far–so far, Watson. We advance, but the goal is afar.
Well, having seen the back of Caulfield Gardens, I visited the
front and satisfied myself that the bird was indeed flown. It is
a considerable house, unfurnished, so far as I could judge, in
the upper rooms. Oberstein lived there with a single valet, who
was probably a confederate entirely in his confidence. We must
bear in mind that Oberstein has gone to the Continent to dispose
of his booty, but not with any idea of flight; for he had no
reason to fear a warrant, and the idea of an amateur domiciliary
visit would certainly never occur to him. Yet that is precisely
what we are about to make.”

“Could we not get a warrant and legalize it?”

“Hardly on the evidence.”

“What can we hope to do?”

“We cannot tell what correspondence may be there.”

“I don’t like it, Holmes.”

“My dear fellow, you shall keep watch in the street. I’ll do the
criminal part. It’s not a time to stick at trifles. Think of
Mycroft’s note, of the Admiralty, the Cabinet, the exalted person
who waits for news. We are bound to go.”

My answer was to rise from the table.

“You are right, Holmes. We are bound to go.”

He sprang up and shook me by the hand.

“I knew you would not shrink at the last,” said he, and for a
moment I saw something in his eyes which was nearer to tenderness
than I had ever seen. The next instant he was his masterful,
practical self once more.

“It is nearly half a mile, but there is no hurry. Let us walk,”
said he. “Don’t drop the instruments, I beg. Your arrest as a
suspicious character would be a most unfortunate complication.”

Caulfield Gardens was one of those lines of flat-faced pillared,
and porticoed houses which are so prominent a product of the
middle Victorian epoch in the West End of London. Next door
there appeared to be a children’s party, for the merry buzz of
young voices and the clatter of a piano resounded through the
night. The fog still hung about and screened us with its
friendly shade. Holmes had lit his lantern and flashed it upon
the massive door.

“This is a serious proposition,” said he. “It is certainly
bolted as well as locked. We would do better in the area. There
is an excellent archway down yonder in case a too zealous
policeman should intrude. Give me a hand, Watson, and I’ll do
the same for you.”

A minute later we were both in the area. Hardly had we reached
the dark shadows before the step of the policeman was heard in
the fog above. As its soft rhythm died away, Holmes set to work
upon the lower door. I saw him stoop and strain until with a
sharp crash it flew open. We sprang through into the dark
passage, closing the area door behind us. Holmes let the way up
the curving, uncarpeted stair. His little fan of yellow light
shone upon a low window.

“Here we are, Watson–this must be the one.” He threw it open,
and as he did so there was a low, harsh murmur, growing steadily
into a loud roar as a train dashed past us in the darkness.
Holmes swept his light along the window-sill. It was thickly
coated with soot from the passing engines, but the black surface
was blurred and rubbed in places.

“You can see where they rested the body. Halloa, Watson! what is
this? There can be no doubt that it is a blood mark.” He was
pointing to faint discolourations along the woodwork of the
window. “Here it is on the stone of the stair also. The
demonstration is complete. Let us stay here until a train
stops.”

We had not long to wait. The very next train roared from the
tunnel as before, but slowed in the open, and then, with a
creaking of brakes, pulled up immediately beneath us. It was not
four feet from the window-ledge to the roof of the carriages.
Holmes softly closed the window.

“So far we are justified,” said he. “What do you think of it,
Watson?”

“A masterpiece. You have never risen to a greater height.”

“I cannot agree with you there. From the moment that I conceived
the idea of the body being upon the roof, which surely was not a
very abstruse one, all the rest was inevitable. If it were not
for the grave interests involved the affair up to this point
would be insignificant. Our difficulties are still before us.
But perhaps we may find something here which may help us.”

We had ascended the kitchen stair and entered the suite of rooms
upon the first floor. One was a dining-room, severely furnished
and containing nothing of interest. A second was a bedroom,
which also drew blank. The remaining room appeared more
promising, and my companion settled down to a systematic
examination. It was littered with books and papers, and was
evidently used as a study. Swiftly and methodically Holmes
turned over the contents of drawer after drawer and cupboard
after cupboard, but no gleam of success came to brighten his
austere face. At the end of an hour he was no further than when
he started.

“The cunning dog has covered his tracks,” said he. “He has left
nothing to incriminate him. His dangerous correspondence has
been destroyed or removed. This is our last chance.”

It was a small tin cash-box which stood upon the writing-desk.
Holmes pried it open with his chisel. Several rolls of paper
were within, covered with figures and calculations, without any
note to show to what they referred. The recurring words, “water
pressure” and “pressure to the square inch” suggested some
possible relation to a submarine. Holmes tossed them all
impatiently aside. There only remained an envelope with some
small newspaper slips inside it. He shook them out on the table,
and at once I saw by his eager face that his hopes had been
raised.

“What’s this, Watson? Eh? What’s this? Record of a series of
messages in the advertisements of a paper. Daily Telegraph agony
column by the print and paper. Right-hand top corner of a page.
No dates–but messages arrange themselves. This must be the
first:

“Hoped to hear sooner. Terms agreed to. Write fully to address
given on card.

“Pierrot.

“Next comes:

“Too complex for description. Must have full report, Stuff
awaits you when goods delivered.

“Pierrot.

“Then comes:

“Matter presses. Must withdraw offer unless contract completed.
Make appointment by letter. Will confirm by advertisement.

“Pierrot.

“Finally:

“Monday night after nine. Two taps. Only ourselves. Do not be
so suspicious. Payment in hard cash when goods delivered.

“Pierrot.

“A fairly complete record, Watson! If we could only get at the
man at the other end!” He sat lost in thought, tapping his
fingers on the table. Finally he sprang to his feet.

“Well, perhaps it won’t be so difficult, after all. There is
nothing more to be done here, Watson. I think we might drive
round to the offices of the Daily Telegraph, and so bring a good
day’s work to a conclusion.”

Mycroft Holmes and Lestrade had come round by appointment after
breakfast next day and Sherlock Holmes had recounted to them our
proceedings of the day before. The professional shook his head
over our confessed burglary.

“We can’t do these things in the force, Mr. Holmes,” said he.
“No wonder you get results that are beyond us. But some of these
days you’ll go too far, and you’ll find yourself and your friend
in trouble.”

“For England, home and beauty–eh, Watson? Martyrs on the altar
of our country. But what do you think of it, Mycroft?”

“Excellent, Sherlock! Admirable! But what use will you make of
it?”

Holmes picked up the Daily Telegraph which lay upon the table.

“Have you seen Pierrot’s advertisement to-day?”

“What? Another one?”

“Yes, here it is:

“To-night. Same hour. Same place. Two taps. Most vitally
important. Your own safety at stake.

“Pierrot.

“By George!” cried Lestrade. “If he answers that we’ve got him!”

“That was my idea when I put it in. I think if you could both
make it convenient to come with us about eight o’clock to
Caulfield Gardens we might possibly get a little nearer to a
solution.”

One of the most remarkable characteristics of Sherlock Holmes was
his power of throwing his brain out of action and switching all
his thoughts on to lighter things whenever he had convinced
himself that he could no longer work to advantage. I remember
that during the whole of that memorable day he lost himself in a
monograph which he had undertaken upon the Polyphonic Motets of
Lassus. For my own part I had none of this power of detachment,
and the day, in consequence, appeared to be interminable. The
great national importance of the issue, the suspense in high
quarters, the direct nature of the experiment which we were
trying–all combined to work upon my nerve. It was a relief to
me when at last, after a light dinner, we set out upon our
expedition. Lestrade and Mycroft met us by appointment at the
outside of Gloucester Road Station. The area door of Oberstein’s
house had been left open the night before, and it was necessary
for me, as Mycroft Holmes absolutely and indignantly declined to
climb the railings, to pass in and open the hall door. By nine
o’clock we were all seated in the study, waiting patently for our
man.

An hour passed and yet another. When eleven struck, the measured
beat of the great church clock seemed to sound the dirge of our
hopes. Lestrade and Mycroft were fidgeting in their seats and
looking twice a minute at their watches. Holmes sat silent and
composed, his eyelids half shut, but every sense on the alert.
He raised his head with a sudden jerk.

“He is coming,” said he.

There had been a furtive step past the door. Now it returned.
We heard a shuffling sound outside, and then two sharp taps with
the knocker. Holmes rose, motioning us to remain seated. The gas
in the hall was a mere point of light. He opened the outer door,
and then as a dark figure slipped past him he closed and fastened
it. “This way!” we heard him say, and a moment later our man
stood before us. Holmes had followed him closely, and as the man
turned with a cry of surprise and alarm he caught him by the
collar and threw him back into the room. Before our prisoner had
recovered his balance the door was shut and Holmes standing with
his back against it. The man glared round him, staggered, and
fell senseless upon the floor. With the shock, his broad-brimmed
hat flew from his head, his cravat slipped sown from his lips,
and there were the long light beard and the soft, handsome
delicate features of Colonel Valentine Walter.

Holmes gave a whistle of surprise.

Posted under Arthur Conan Doyle

In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable
mental qualities of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I have
endeavoured, as far as possible, to select those which presented
the minimum of sensationalism, while offering a fair field for
his talents. It is, however, unfortunately impossible entirely
to separate the sensational from the criminal, and a chronicler
is left in the dilemma that he must either sacrifice details
which are essential to his statement and so give a false
impression of the problem, or he must use matter which chance,
and not choice, has provided him with. With this short preface I
shall turn to my notes of what proved to be a strange, though a
peculiarly terrible, chain of events.

It was a blazing hot day in August. Baker Street was like an
oven, and the glare of the sunlight upon the yellow brickwork of
the house across the road was painful to the eye. It was hard to
believe that these were the same walls which loomed so gloomily
through the fogs of winter. Our blinds were half-drawn, and
Holmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading and re-reading a letter
which he had received by the morning post. For myself, my term
of service in India had trained me to stand heat better than
cold, and a thermometer at ninety was no hardship. But the
morning paper was uninteresting. Parliament had risen.
Everybody was out of town, and I yearned for the glades of the
New Forest or the shingle of Southsea. A depleted bank account
had caused me to postpone my holiday, and as to my companion,
neither the country nor the sea presented the slightest
attraction to him. He loved to lie in the very center of five
millions of people, with his filaments stretching out and running
through them, responsive to every little rumour or suspicion of
unsolved crime. Appreciation of nature found no place among his
many gifts, and his only change was when he turned his mind from
the evil-doer of the town to track down his brother of the
country.

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

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

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

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

He laughed heartily at my perplexity.

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

“Oh, no!”

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

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

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

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

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

“No, I cannot.”

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

“You have followed me wonderfully!” I exclaimed.

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

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

“It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you. I should
not have intruded it upon your attention had you not shown some
incredulity the other day. But I have in my hands here a little
problem which may prove to be more difficult of solution than my
small essay I thought reading. Have you observed in the paper a
short paragraph referring to the remarkable contents of a packet
sent through the post to Miss Cushing, of Cross Street, Croydon?”

“No, I saw nothing.”

“Ah! then you must have overlooked it. Just toss it over to me.
Here it is, under the financial column. Perhaps you would be
good enough to read it aloud.”

I picked up the paper which he had thrown back to me and read the
paragraph indicated. It was headed, “A Gruesome Packet.”

“Miss Susan Cushing, living at Cross Street, Croydon, has been
made the victim of what must be regarded as a peculiarly
revolting practical joke unless some more sinister meaning should
prove to be attached to the incident. At two o’clock yesterday
afternoon a small packet, wrapped in brown paper, was handed in
by the postman. A cardboard box was inside, which was filled
with coarse salt. On emptying this, Miss Cushing was horrified to
find two human ears, apparently quite freshly severed. The box
had been sent by parcel post from Belfast upon the morning
before. There is no indication as to the sender, and the matter
is the more mysterious as Miss Cushing, who is a maiden lady of
fifty, has led a most retired life, and has so few acquaintances
or correspondents that it is a rare event for her to receive
anything through the post. Some years ago, however, when she
resided at Penge, she let apartments in her house to three young
medical students, whom she was obliged to get rid of on account
of their noisy and irregular habits. The police are of opinion
that this outrage may have been perpetrated upon Miss Cushing by
these youths, who owed her a grudge and who hoped to frighten her
by sending her these relics of the dissecting-rooms. Some
probability is lent to the theory by the fact that one of these
students came from the north of Ireland, and, to the best of Miss
Cushing’s belief, from Belfast. In the meantime, the matter is
being actively investigated, Mr. Lestrade, one of the very
smartest of our detective officers, being in charge of the case.”

“So much for the Daily Chronicle,” said Holmes as I finished
reading. “Now for our friend Lestrade. I had a note from him
this morning, in which he says:

“I think that this case is very much in your line. We have every
hope of clearing the matter up, but we find a little difficulty
in getting anything to work upon. We have, of course, wired to
the Belfast post-office, but a large number of parcels were
handed in upon that day, and they have no means of identifying
this particular one, or of remembering the sender. The box is a
half-pound box of honeydew tobacco and does not help us in any
way. The medical student theory still appears to me to be the
most feasible, but if you should have a few hours to spare I
should be very happy to see you out here. I shall be either at
the house or in the police-station all day.

“What say you, Watson? Can you rise superior to the heat and run
down to Croydon with me on the off chance of a case for your
annals?”

“I was longing for something to do.”

“You shall have it then. Ring for our boots and tell them to
order a cab. I’ll be back in a moment when I have changed my
dressing-gown and filled my cigar-case.”

A shower of rain fell while we were in the train, and the heat
was far less oppressive in Croydon than in town. Holmes had sent
on a wire, so that Lestrade, as wiry, as dapper, and as ferret-
like as ever, was waiting for us at the station. A walk of five
minutes took us to Cross Street, where Miss Cushing resided.

It was a very long street of two-story brick houses, neat and
prim, with whitened stone steps and little groups of aproned
women gossiping at the doors. Halfway down, Lestrade stopped and
tapped at a door, which was opened by a small servant girl. Miss
Cushing was sitting in the front room, into which we were
ushered. She was a placid-faced woman, with large, gentle eyes,
and grizzled hair curving down over her temples on each side. A
worked antimacassar lay upon her lap and a basket of coloured
silks stood upon a stool beside her.

“They are in the outhouse, those dreadful things,” said she as
Lestrade entered. “I wish that you would take them away
altogether.”

“So I shall, Miss Cushing. I only kept them here until my
friend, Mr. Holmes, should have seen them in your presence.”

“Why in my presence, sir?”

“In case he wished to ask any questions.”

“What is the use of asking me questions when I tell you I know
nothing whatever about it?”

“Quite so, madam,” said Holmes in his soothing way. “I have no
doubt that you have been annoyed more than enough already over
this business.”

“Indeed I have, sir. I am a quiet woman and live a retired life.
It is something new for me to see my name in the papers and to
find the police in my house. I won’t have those things I here,
Mr. Lestrade. If you wish to see them you must go to the
outhouse.”

It was a small shed in the narrow garden which ran behind the
house. Lestrade went in and brought out a yellow cardboard box,
with a piece of brown paper and some string. There was a bench
at the end of the path, and we all sat down while Homes examined
one by one, the articles which Lestrade had handed to him.

“The string is exceedingly interesting,” he remarked, holding it
up to the light and sniffing at it. “What do you make of this
string, Lestrade?”

“It has been tarred.”

“Precisely. It is a piece of tarred twine. You have also, no
doubt, remarked that Miss Cushing has cut the cord with a
scissors, as can be seen by the double fray on each side. This
is of importance.”

“I cannot see the importance,” said Lestrade.

“The importance lies in the fact that the knot is left intact,
and that this knot is of a peculiar character.”

“It is very neatly tied. I had already made a note of that
effect,” said Lestrade complacently.

“So much for the string, then,” said Holmes, smiling, “now for
the box wrapper. Brown paper, with a distinct smell of coffee.
What, did you not observe it? I think there can be no doubt of
it. Address printed in rather straggling characters: ‘Miss S.
Cushing, Cross Street, Croydon.’ Done with a broad-pointed pen,
probably a J, and with very inferior ink. The word ‘Croydon’ has
been originally spelled with an ‘i’, which has been changed to
‘y’. The parcel was directed, then, by a man–the printing is
distinctly masculine–of limited education and unacquainted with
the town of Croydon. So far, so good! The box is a yellow,
half-pound honeydew box, with nothing distinctive save two thumb
marks at the left bottom corner. It is filled with rough salt of
the quality used for preserving hides and other of the coarser
commercial purposes. And embedded in it are these very singular
enclosures.”

He took out the two ears as he spoke, and laying a board across
his knee he examined them minutely, while Lestrade and I, bending
forward on each side of him, glanced alternately at these
dreadful relics and at the thoughtful, eager face of our
companion. Finally he returned them to the box once more and sat
for a while in deep meditation.

“You have observed, of course,” said he at last, “that the ears
are not a pair.”

“Yes, I have noticed that. But if this were the practical joke
of some students from the dissecting-rooms, it would be as easy
for them to send two odd ears as a pair.”

“Precisely. But this is not a practical joke.”

“You are sure of it?”

“The presumption is strongly against it. Bodies in the
dissecting-rooms are injected with preservative fluid. These
ears bear no signs of this. They are fresh, too. They have been
cut off with a blunt instrument, which would hardly happen if a
student had done it. Again, carbolic or rectified spirits would
be the preservatives which would suggest themselves to the
medical mind, certainly not rough salt. I repeat that there is
no practical joke here, but that we are investigating a serious
crime.”

A vague thrill ran through me as I listened to my companion’s
words and saw the stern gravity which had hardened his features.
This brutal preliminary seemed to shadow forth some strange and
inexplicable horror in the background. Lestrade, however, shook
his head like a man who is only half convinced.

“There are objections to the joke theory, no doubt,” said he,
“but there are much stronger reasons against the other. We know
that this woman has led a most quiet and respectable life at
Penge and here for the last twenty years. She has hardly been
away from her home for a day during that time. Why on earth,
then, should any criminal send her the proofs of his guilt,
especially as, unless she is a most consummate actress, she
understands quite as little of the matter as we do?”

“That is the problem which we have to solve,” Holmes answered,
“and for my part I shall set about it by presuming that my
reasoning is correct, and that a double murder has been
committed. One of these ears is a woman’s, small, finely formed,
and pierced for an earring. The other is a man’s, sun-burned,
discoloured, and also pierced for an earring. These two people
are presumably dead, or we should have heard their story before
now. To-day is Friday. The packet was posted on Thursday
morning. The tragedy, then, occurred on Wednesday or Tuesday, or
earlier. If the two people were murdered, who but their murderer
would have sent this sign of his work to Miss Cushing? We may
take it that the sender of the packet is the man whom we want.
But he must have some strong reason for sending Miss Cushing this
packet. What reason then? It must have been to tell her that
the deed was done! or to pain her, perhaps. But in that case she
knows who it is. Does she know? I doubt it. If she knew, why
should she call the police in? She might have buried the ears,
and no one would have been the wiser. That is what she would have
done if she had wished to shield the criminal. But if she does
not wish to shield him she would give his name. There is a
tangle here which needs straightening to.” He had been talking
in a high, quick voice, staring blankly up over the garden fence,
but now he sprang briskly to his feet and walked towards the
house.

“I have a few questions to ask Miss Cushing,” said he.

“In that case I may leave you here,” said Lestrade, “for I have
another small business on hand. I think that I have nothing
further to learn from Miss Cushing. You will find me at the
police-station.”

“We shall look in on our way to the train,” answered Holmes. A
moment later he and I were back in the front room, where the
impassive lady was still quietly working away at her
antimacassar. She put it down on her lap as we entered and
looked at us with her frank, searching blue eyes.

“I am convinced, sir,” she said, “that this matter is a mistake,
and that the parcel was never meant for me at all. I have said
this several times to the gentlemen from Scotland Yard, but he
simply laughs at me. I have not an enemy in the world, as far as
I know, so why should anyone play me such a trick?”

“I am coming to be of the same opinion, Miss Cushing,” said
Holmes, taking a seat beside her. “I think that it is more than
probable–” He paused, and I was surprised, on glancing round to
see that he was staring with singular intentness at the lady’s
profile. Surprise and satisfaction were both for an instant to
be read upon his eager face, though when she glanced round to
find out the cause of his silence he had become as demure as
ever. I stared hard myself at her flat, grizzled hair, her trim
cap, her little gilt earrings, her placid features; but I could
see nothing which could account for my companion’s evident
excitement.

“There were one or two questions–”

“Oh, I am weary of questions!” cried Miss Cushing impatiently.

“You have two sisters, I believe.”

“How could you know that?”

“I observed the very instant that I entered the room that you
have a portrait group of three ladies upon the mantelpiece, one
of whom is undoubtedly yourself, while the others are so
exceedingly like you that there could be no doubt of the
relationship.”

“Yes, you are quite right. Those are my sisters, Sarah and
Mary.”

“And here at my elbow is another portrait, taken at Liverpool, of
your younger sister, in the company of a man who appears to be a
steward by his uniform. I observe that she was unmarried at the
time.”

“You are very quick at observing.”

“That is my trade.”

“Well, you are quite right. But she was married to Mr. Browner a
few days afterwards. He was on the South American line when that
was taken, but he was so fond of her that he couldn’t abide to
leave her for so long, and he got into the Liverpool and London
boats.”

“Ah, the Conqueror, perhaps?”

“No, the May Day, when last I heard. Jim came down here to see
me once. That was before he broke the pledge; but afterwards he
would always take drink when he was ashore, and a little drink
would send him stark, staring mad. Ah! it was a bad day that
ever he took a glass in his hand again. First he dropped me,
then he quarrelled with Sarah, and now that Mary has stopped
writing we don’t know how things are going with them.”

It was evident that Miss Cushing had come upon a subject on which
she felt very deeply. Like most people who lead a lonely life,
she was shy at first, but ended by becoming extremely
communicative. She told us many details about her brother-in-law
the steward, and then wandering off on the subject of her former
lodgers, the medical students, she gave us a long account of
their delinquencies, with their names and those of their
hospitals. Holmes listened attentively to everything, throwing
in a question from time to time.

“About your second sister, Sarah,” said he. “I wonder, since you
are both maiden ladies, that you do not keep house together.”

“Ah! you don’t know Sarah’s temper or you would wonder no more.
I tried it when I came to Croydon, and we kept on until about two
months ago, when we had to part. I don’t want to say a word
against my own sister, but she was always meddlesome and hard to
please, was Sarah.”

“You say that she quarrelled with your Liverpool relations.”

“Yes, and they were the best of friends at one time. Why, she
went up there to live in order to be near them. And now she has
no word hard enough for Jim Browner. The last six months that
she was here she would speak of nothing but his drinking and his
ways. He had caught her meddling, I suspect, and given her a bit
of his mind, and that was the start of it.”

“Thank you, Miss Cushing,” said Holmes, rising and bowing. “Your
sister Sarah lives, I think you said, at New Street, Wallington?
Good-bye, and I am very sorry that you should have been troubled
over a case with which, as you say, you have nothing whatever to
do.”

There was a cab passing as we came out, and Holmes hailed it.

“How far to Wallington?” he asked.

“Only about a mile, sir.”

“Very good. Jump in, Watson. We must strike while the iron is
hot. Simple as the case is, there have been one or two very
instructive details in connection with it. Just pull up at a
telegraph office as you pass, cabby.”

Holmes sent off a short wire and for the rest of the drive lay
back in the cab, with his hat tilted over his nose to keep the
sun from his face. Our drive pulled up at a house which was not
unlike the one which we had just quitted. My companion ordered
him to wait, and had his hand upon the knocker, when the door
opened and a grave young gentleman in black, with a very shiny
hat, appeared on the step.

“Is Miss Cushing at home?” asked Holmes.

“Miss Sarah Cushing is extremely ill,” said he. “She has been
suffering since yesterday from brain symptoms of great severity.
As her medical adviser, I cannot possibly take the responsibility
of allowing anyone to see her. I should recommend you to call
again in ten days.” He drew on his gloves, closed the door, and
marched off down the street.

“Well, if we can’t we can’t,” said Holmes, cheerfully.

“Perhaps she could not or would not have told you much.”

“I did not wish her to tell me anything. I only wanted to look
at her. However, I think that I have got all that I want. Drive
us to some decent hotel, cabby, where we may have some lunch, and
afterwards we shall drop down upon friend Lestrade at the police-
station.”

We had a pleasant little meal together, during which Holmes would
talk about nothing but violins, narrating with great exultation
how he had purchased his own Stradivarius, which was worth at
least five hundred guineas, at a Jew broker’s in Tottenham Court
Road for fifty-five shillings. This led him to Paganini, and we
sat for an hour over a bottle of claret while he told me anecdote
after anecdote of that extraordinary man. The afternoon was far
advanced and the hot glare had softened into a mellow glow before
we found ourselves at the police-station. Lestrade was waiting
for us at the door.

“A telegram for you, Mr. Holmes,” said he.

“Ha! It is the answer!” He tore it open, glanced his eyes over
it, and crumpled it into his pocket. “That’s all right,” said
he.

“Have you found out anything?”

“I have found out everything!”

“What!” Lestrade stared at him in amazement. “You are joking.”

“I was never more serious in my life. A shocking crime has been
committed, and I think I have now laid bare every detail of it.”

“And the criminal?”

Holmes scribbled a few words upon the back of one of his visiting
cards and threw it over to Lestrade.

“That is the name,” he said. “You cannot effect an arrest until
to-morrow night at the earliest. I should prefer that you do not
mention my name at all in connection with the case, as I choose
to be only associated with those crimes which present some
difficulty in their solution. Come on, Watson.” We strode off
together to the station, leaving Lestrade still staring with a
delighted face at the card which Holmes had thrown him.

“The case,” said Sherlock Holmes as we chatted over or cigars
that night in our rooms at Baker Street, “is one where, as in the
investigations which you have chronicled under the names of ‘A
Study in Scarlet’ and of ‘The Sign of Four,’ we have been
compelled to reason backward from effects to causes. I have
written to Lestrade asking him to supply us with the details
which are now wanting, and which he will only get after he had
secured his man. That he may be safely trusted to do, for
although he is absolutely devoid of reason, he is as tenacious as
a bulldog when he once understands what he has to do, and indeed,
it is just this tenacity which has brought him to the top at
Scotland Yard.”

“Your case is not complete, then?” I asked.

“It is fairly complete in essentials. We know who the author of
the revolting business is, although one of the victims still
escapes us. Of course, you have formed your own conclusions.”

“I presume that this Jim Browner, the steward of a Liverpool
boat, is the man whom you suspect?”

“Oh! it is more than a suspicion.”

“And yet I cannot see anything save very vague indications.”

“On the contrary, to my mind nothing could be more clear. Let me
run over the principal steps. We approached the case, you
remember, with an absolutely blank mind, which is always an
advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply there to
observe and to draw inferences from our observations. What did
we see first? A very placid and respectable lady, who seemed
quite innocent of any secret, and a portrait which showed me that
she had two younger sisters. It instantly flashed across my mind
that the box might have been meant for one of these. I set the
idea aside as one which could be disproved or confirmed at our
leisure. Then we went to the garden, as you remember, and we saw
the very singular contents of the little yellow box.

“The string was of the quality which is used by sail-makers
aboard ship, and at once a whiff of the sea was perceptible in
our investigation. When I observed that the knot was one which
is popular with sailors, that the parcel had been posted at a
port, and that the male ear was pierced for an earring which is
so much more common among sailors than landsmen, I was quite
certain that all the actors in the tragedy were to be found among
our seafaring classes.

“When I came to examine the address of the packet I observed that
it was to Miss S. Cushing. Now, the oldest sister would, of
course, be Miss Cushing, and although her initial was ‘S’ it
might belong to one of the others as well. In that case we
should have to commence our investigation from a fresh basis
altogether. I therefore went into the house with the intention
of clearing up this point. I was about to assure Miss Cushing
that I was convinced that a mistake had been made when you may
remember that I came suddenly to a stop. The fact was that I had
just seen something which filled me with surprise and at the same
time narrowed the field of our inquiry immensely.

“As a medical man, you are aware, Watson, that there is no part
of the body which varies so much as the human ear. Each ear is
as a rule quite distinctive and differs from all other ones. In
last year’s Anthropological Journal you will find two short
monographs from my pen upon the subject. I had, therefore,
examined the ears in the box with the eyes of an expert and had
carefully noted their anatomical peculiarities. Imagine my
surprise, then, when on looking at Miss Cushing I perceived that
her ear corresponded exactly with the female ear which I had just
inspected. The matter was entirely beyond coincidence. There
was the same shortening of the pinna, the same broad curve of the
upper lobe, the same convolution of the inner cartilage. In all
essentials it was the same ear.

“In the first place, her sister’s name was Sarah, and her address
had until recently been the same, so that it was quite obvious
how the mistake had occurred and for whom the packet was meant.
Then we heard of this steward, married to the third sister, and
learned that he had at one time been so intimate with Miss Sarah
that she had actually gone up to Liverpool to be near the
Browners, but a quarrel had afterwards divided them. This
quarrel had put a stop to all communications for some months, so
that if Browner had occasion to address a packet to Miss Sarah,
he would undoubtedly have done so to her old address.

“And now the matter had begun to straighten itself out
wonderfully. We had learned of the existence of this steward, an
impulsive man, of strong passions–you remember that he threw up
what must have been a very superior berth in order to be nearer
to his wife–subject, too, to occasional fits of hard drinking.
We had reason to believe that his wife had been murdered, and
that a man–presumably a seafaring man–had been murdered at the
same time. Jealousy, of course, at once suggests itself as the
motive for the crime. And why should these proofs of the deed be
sent to Miss Sarah Cushing? Probably because during her
residence in Liverpool she had some hand in bringing about the
events which led to the tragedy. You will observe that this line
of boats call at Belfast, Dublin, and Waterford; so that,
presuming that Browner had committed the deed and had embarked at
once upon his steamer, the May Day, Belfast would be the first
place at which he could post his terrible packet.

“A second solution was at this stage obviously possible, and
although I thought it exceedingly unlikely, I was determined to
elucidate it before going further. An unsuccessful lover might
have killed Mr. and Mrs. Browner, and the male ear might have
belonged to the husband. There were many grave objections to
this theory, but it was conceivable. I therefore sent off a
telegram to my friend Algar, of the Liverpool force, and asked
him to find out if Mrs. Browner were at home, and if Browner had
departed in the May Day. Then we went on to Wallington to visit
Miss Sarah.

“I was curious, in the first place, to see how far the family ear
had been reproduced in her. Then, of course, she might give us
very important information, but I was not sanguine that she
would. She must have heard of the business the day before, since
all Croydon was ringing with it, and she alone could have
understood for whom the packet was meant. If she had been
willing to help justice she would probably have communicated with
the police already. However, it was clearly our duty to see her,
so we went. We found that the news of the arrival of the packet–
for her illness dated from that time–had such an effect upon
her as to bring on brain fever. It was clearer than ever that
she understood its full significance, but equally clear that we
should have to wait some time for any assistance from her.

“However, we were really independent of her help. Our answers
were waiting for us at the police-station, where I had directed
Algar to send them. Nothing could be more conclusive. Mrs.
Browner’s house had been closed for more than three days, and the
neighbours were of opinion that she had gone south to see her
relatives. It had been ascertained at the shipping offices that
Browner had left aboard of the May Day, and I calculate that she
is due in the Thames tomorrow night. When he arrives he will be
met by the obtuse but resolute Lestrade, and I have no doubt that
we shall have all our details filled in.”

Sherlock Holmes was not disappointed in his expectations. Two
days later he received a bulky envelope, which contained a short
note from the detective, and a typewritten document, which
covered several pages of foolscap.

“Lestrade has got him all right,” said Holmes, glancing up at me.
“Perhaps it would interest you to hear what he says.

“My dear Mr. Holmes:

In accordance with the scheme which we had formed in order to
test our theories” ["the 'we' is rather fine, Watson, is it
not?"] “I went down to the Albert Dock yesterday at 6 p.m., and
boarded the S.S. May Day, belonging to the Liverpool, Dublin, and
London Steam Packet Company. On inquiry, I found that there was
a steward on board of the name of James Browner and that he had
acted during the voyage in such an extraordinary manner that the
captain had been compelled to relieve him of his duties. On
descending to his berth, I found him seated upon a chest with his
head sunk upon his hands, rocking himself to and fro. He is a
big, powerful chap, clean-shaven, and very swarthy–something
like Aldrige, who helped us in the bogus laundry affair. He
jumped up when he heard my business, and I had my whistle to my
lips to call a couple of river police, who were round the corner,
but he seemed to have no heart in him, and he held out his hands
quietly enough for the darbies. We brought him along to the
cells, and his box as well, for we thought there might be
something incriminating; but, bar a big sharp knife such as most
sailors have, we got nothing for our trouble. However, we find
that we shall want no more evidence, for on being brought before
the inspector at the station he asked leave to make a statement,
which was, of course, taken down, just as he made it, by our
shorthand man. We had three copies typewritten, one of which I
enclose. The affair proves, as I always thought it would, to be
an extremely simple one, but I am obliged to you for assisting me
in my investigation. With kind regards,

“Yours very truly,

“G. Lestrade.

“Hum! The investigation really was a very simple one,” remarked
Holmes, “but I don’t think it struck him in that light when he
first called us in. However, let us see what Jim Browner has to
say for himself. This is his statement as made before Inspector
Montgomery at the Shadwell Police Station, and it has the
advantage of being verbatim.”

“‘Have I anything to say? Yes, I have a deal to say. I have to
make a clean breast of it all. You can hang me, or you can leave
me alone. I don’t care a plug which you do. I tell you I’ve not
shut an eye in sleep since I did it, and I don’t believe I ever
will again until I get past all waking. Sometimes it’s his face,
but most generally it’s hers. I’m never without one or the other
before me. He looks frowning and black-like, but she has a kind
o’ surprise upon her face. Ay, the white lamb, she might well be
surprised when she read death on a face that had seldom looked
anything but love upon her before.

“‘But it was Sarah’s fault, and may the curse of a broken man put
a blight on her and set the blood rotting in her veins! It’s not
that I want to clear myself. I know that I went back to drink,
like the beast that I was. But she would have forgiven me; she
would have stuck as close to me a rope to a block if that woman
had never darkened our door. For Sarah Cushing loved me–that’s
the root of the business–she loved me until all her love turned
to poisonous hate when she knew that I thought more of my wife’s
footmark in the mud than I did of her whole body and soul.

“‘There were three sisters altogether. The old one was just a
good woman, the second was a devil, and the third was an angel.
Sarah was thirty-three, and Mary was twenty-nine when I married.
We were just as happy as the day was long when we set up house
together, and in all Liverpool there was no better woman than my
Mary. And then we asked Sarah up for a week, and the week grew
into a month, and one thing led to another, until she was just
one of ourselves.

“‘I was blue ribbon at that time, and we were putting a little
money by, and all was as bright as a new dollar. My God, whoever
would have thought that it could have come to this? Whoever would
have dreamed it?

“‘I used to be home for the week-ends very often, and sometimes
if the ship were held back for cargo I would have a whole week at
a time, and in this way I saw a deal of my sister-in-law, Sarah.
She was a fine tall woman, black and quick and fierce, with a
proud way of carrying her head, and a glint from her eye like a
spark from a flint. But when little Mary was there I had never a
thought of her, and that I swear as I hope for God’s mercy.

“‘It had seemed to me sometimes that she liked to be alone with
me, or to coax me out for a walk with her, but I had never
thought anything of that. But one evening my eyes were opened.
I had come up from the ship and found my wife out, but Sarah at
home. “Where’s Mary?” I asked. “Oh, she has gone to pay some
accounts.” I was impatient and paced up and down the room.
“Can’t you be happy for five minutes without Mary, Jim?” says
she. “It’s a bad compliment to me that you can’t be contented
with my society for so short a time.” “That’s all right, my
lass,” said I, putting out my hand towards her in a kindly way,
but she had it in both hers in an instant, and they burned as if
they were in a fever. I looked into her eyes and I read it all
there. There was no need for her to speak, nor for me either. I
frowned and drew my hand away. Then she stood by my side in
silence for a bit, and then put up her hand and patted me on the
shoulder. “Steady old Jim!” said she, and with a kind o’ mocking
laugh, she ran out of the room.

“‘Well, from that time Sarah hated me with her whole heart and
soul, and she is a woman who can hate, too. I was a fool to let
her go on biding with us–a besotted fool–but I never said a
word to Mary, for I knew it would grieve her. Things went on
much as before, but after a time I began to find that there was a
bit of a change in Mary herself. She had always been so trusting
and so innocent, but now she became queer and suspicious, wanting
to know where I had been and what I had been doing, and whom my
letters were from, and what I had in my pockets, and a thousand
such follies. Day by day she grew queerer and more irritable,
and we had ceaseless rows about nothing. I was fairly puzzled by
it all. Sarah avoided me now, but she and Mary were just
inseparable. I can see now how she was plotting and scheming and
poisoning my wife’s mind against me, but I was such a blind
beetle that I could not understand it at the time. Then I broke
my blue ribbon and began to drink again, but I think I should not
have done it if Mary had been the same as ever. She had some
reason to be disgusted with me now, and the gap between us began
to be wider and wider. And then this Alec Fairbairn chipped in,
and things became a thousand times blacker.

“‘It was to see Sarah that he came to my house first, but soon it
was to see us, for he was a man with winning ways, and he made
friends wherever he went. He was a dashing, swaggering chap,
smart and curled, who had seen half the world and could talk of
what he had seen. He was good company, I won’t deny it, and he
had wonderful polite ways with him for a sailor man, so that I
think there must have been a time when he knew more of the poop
than the forecastle. For a month he was in and out of my house,
and never once did it cross my mind that harm might come of his
soft, tricky ways. And then at last something made me suspect,
and from that day my peace was gone forever.

“‘It was only a little thing, too. I had come into the parlour
unexpected, and as I walked in at the door I saw a light of
welcome on my wife’s face. But as she saw who it was it faded
again, and she turned away with a look of disappointment. That
was enough for me. There was no one but Alec Fairbairn whose
step she could have mistaken for mine. If I could have seen him
then I should have killed him, for I have always been like a
madman when my temper gets loose. Mary saw the devil’s light in
my eyes, and she ran forward with her hands on my sleeve.
“Don’t, Jim, don’t!” says she. “Where’s Sarah?” I asked. “In
the kitchen,” says she. “Sarah,” says I as I went in, “this man
Fairbairn is never to darken my door again.” “Why not?” says
she. “Because I order it.” “Oh!” says she, “if my friends are
not good enough for this house, then I am not good enough for it
either.” “You can do what you like,” says I, “but if Fairbairn
shows his face here again I’ll send you one of his ears for a
keepsake.” She was frightened by my face, I think, for she never
answered a word, and the same evening she left my house.

“‘Well, I don’t know now whether it was pure devilry on the part
of this woman, or whether she thought that she could turn me
against my wife by encouraging her to misbehave. Anyway, she
took a house just two streets off and let lodgings to sailors.
Fairbairn used to stay there, and Mary would go round to have tea
with her sister and him. How often she went I don’t know, but I
followed her one day, and as I broke in at the door Fairbairn got
away over the back garden wall, like the cowardly skunk that he
was. I swore to my wife that I would kill her if I found her in
his company again, and I led her back with me, sobbing and
trembling, and as white as a piece of paper. There was no trace
of love between us any longer. I could see that she hated me and
feared me, and when the thought of it drove me to drink, then she
despised me as well.

“‘Well, Sarah found that she could not make a living in
Liverpool, so she went back, as I understand, to live with her
sister in Croydon, and things jogged on much the same as ever at
home. And then came this week and all the misery and ruin.

“‘It was in this way. We had gone on the May Day for a round
voyage of seven days, but a hogshead got loose and started one of
our plates, so that we had to put back into port for twelve
hours. I left the ship and came home, thinking what a surprise
it would be for my wife, and hoping that maybe she would be glad
to see me so soon. The thought was in my head as I turned into
my own street, and at that moment a cab passed me, and there she
was, sitting by the side of Fairbairn, the two chatting and
laughing, with never a thought for me as I stood watching them
from the footpath.

“‘I tell you, and I give you my word for it, that from that
moment I was not my own master, and it is all like a dim dream
when I look back on it. I had been drinking hard of late, and
the two things together fairly turned my brain. There’s
something throbbing in my head now, like a docker’s hammer, but
that morning I seemed to have all Niagara whizzing and buzzing in
my ears.

“‘Well, I took to my heels, and I ran after the cab. I had a
heavy oak stick in my hand, and I tell you I saw red from the
first; but as I ran I got cunning, too, and hung back a little to
see them without being seen. They pulled up soon at the railway
station. There was a good crowd round the booking-office, so I
got quite close to them without being seen. They took tickets
for New Brighton. So did I, but I got in three carriages behind
them. When we reached it they walked along the Parade, and I was
never more than a hundred yards from them. At last I saw them
hire a boat and start for a row, for it was a very hot day, and
they thought, no doubt, that it would be cooler on the water.

“‘It was just as if they had been given into my hands. There was
a bit of a haze, and you could not see more than a few hundred
yards. I hired a boat for myself, and I pulled after them. I
could see the blur of their craft, but they were going nearly as
fast as I, and they must have been a long mile from the shore
before I caught them up. The haze was like a curtain all round
us, and there were we three in the middle of it. My God, shall I
ever forget their faces when they saw who was in the boat that
was closing in upon them? She screamed out. He swore like a
madman and jabbed at me with an oar, for he must have seen death
in my eyes. I got past it and got one in with my stick that
crushed his head like an egg. I would have spared her, perhaps,
for all my madness, but she threw her arms round him, crying out
to him, and calling him “Alec.” I struck again, and she lay
stretched beside him. I was like a wild beast then that had
tasted blood. If Sarah had been there, by the Lord, she should
have joined them. I pulled out my knife, and–well, there! I’ve
said enough. It gave me a kind of savage joy when I thought how
Sarah would feel when she had such signs as these of what her
meddling had brought about. Then I tied the bodies into the
boat, stove a plank, and stood by until they had sunk. I knew
very well that the owner would think that they had lost their
bearings in the haze, and had drifted off out to sea. I cleaned
myself up, got back to land, and joined my ship without a soul
having a suspicion of what had passed. That night I made up the
packet for Sarah Cushing, and next day I sent it from Belfast.

“‘There you have the whole truth of it. You can hang me, or do
what you like with me, but you cannot punish me as I have been
punished already. I cannot shut my eyes but I see those two
faces staring at me–staring at me as they stared when my boat
broke through the haze. I killed them quick, but they are
killing me slow; and if I have another night of it I shall be
either mad or dead before morning. You won’t put me alone into a
cell, sir? For pity’s sake don’t, and may you be treated in your
day of agony as you treat me now.’

“What is the meaning of it, Watson?” said Holmes solemnly as he
laid down the paper. “What object is served by this circle of
misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else
our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what
end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which
human reason is as far from an answer as ever.”

In recording from time to time some of the curious experiences
and interesting recollections which I associate with my long and
intimate friendship with Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have continually
been faced by difficulties caused by his own aversion to
publicity. To his sombre and cynical spirit all popular applause
was always abhorrent, and nothing amused him more at the end of a
successful case than to hand over the actual exposure to some
orthodox official, and to listen with a mocking smile to the
general chorus of misplaced congratulation. It was indeed this
attitude upon the part of my friend and certainly not any lack of
interesting material which has caused me of late years to lay
very few of my records before the public. My participation in
some if his adventures was always a privilege which entailed
discretion and reticence upon me.

It was, then, with considerable surprise that I received a
telegram from Homes last Tuesday–he has never been known to
write where a telegram would serve–in the following terms:

Why not tell them of the Cornish horror–strangest case I have
handled.

I have no idea what backward sweep of memory had brought the
matter fresh to his mind, or what freak had caused him to desire
that I should recount it; but I hasten, before another cancelling
telegram may arrive, to hunt out the notes which give me the
exact details of the case and to lay the narrative before my
readers.

It was, then, in the spring of the year 1897 that Holmes’s iron
constitution showed some symptoms of giving way in the face of
constant hard work of a most exacting kind, aggravated, perhaps,
by occasional indiscretions of his own. In March of that year
Dr. Moore Agar, of Harley Street, whose dramatic introduction to
Holmes I may some day recount, gave positive injunctions that the
famous private agent lay aside all his cases and surrender
himself to complete rest if he wished to avert an absolute
breakdown. The state of his health was not a matter in which he
himself took the faintest interest, for his mental detachment was
absolute, but he was induced at last, on the threat of being
permanently disqualified from work, to give himself a complete
change of scene and air. Thus it was that in the early spring of
that year we found ourselves together in a small cottage near
Poldhu Bay, at the further extremity of the Cornish peninsula.

It was a singular spot, and one peculiarly well suited to the
grim humour of my patient. From the windows of our little
whitewashed house, which stood high upon a grassy headland, we
looked down upon the whole sinister semicircle of Mounts Bay,
that old death trap of sailing vessels, with its fringe of black
cliffs and surge-swept reefs on which innumerable seamen have met
their end. With a northerly breeze it lies placid and sheltered,
inviting the storm-tossed craft to tack into it for rest and
protection.

Then come the sudden swirl round of the wind, the blistering gale
from the south-west, the dragging anchor, the lee shore, and the
last battle in the creaming breakers. The wise mariner stands
far out from that evil place.

On the land side our surroundings were as sombre as on the sea.
It was a country of rolling moors, lonely and dun-colored, with
an occasional church tower to mark the site of some old-world
village. In every direction upon these moors there were traces
of some vanished race which had passed utterly away, and left as
it sole record strange monuments of stone, irregular mounds which
contained the burned ashes of the dead, and curious earthworks
which hinted at prehistoric strife. The glamour and mystery of
the place, with its sinister atmosphere of forgotten nations,
appealed to the imagination of my friend, and he spent much of
his time in long walks and solitary meditations upon the moor.
The ancient Cornish language had also arrested his attention, and
he had, I remember, conceived the idea that it was akin to the
Chaldean, and had been largely derived from the Phoenician
traders in tin. He had received a consignment of books upon
philology and was settling down to develop this thesis when
suddenly, to my sorrow and to his unfeigned delight, we found
ourselves, even in that land of dreams, plunged into a problem at
our very doors which was more intense, more engrossing, and
infinitely more mysterious than any of those which had driven us
from London. Our simple life and peaceful, healthy routine were
violently interrupted, and we were precipitated into the midst of
a series of events which caused the utmost excitement not only in
Cornwall but throughout the whole west of England. Many of my
readers may retain some recollection of what was called at the
time “The Cornish Horror,” though a most imperfect account of the
matter reached the London press. Now, after thirteen years, I
will give the true details of this inconceivable affair to the
public.

I have said that scattered towers marked the villages which
dotted this part of Cornwall. The nearest of these was the
hamlet of Tredannick Wollas, where the cottages of a couple of
hundred inhabitants clustered round an ancient, moss-grown
church. The vicar of the parish, Mr. Roundhay, was something of
an archaeologist, and as such Holmes had made his acquaintance.
He was a middle-aged man, portly and affable, with a considerable
fund of local lore. At his invitation we had taken tea at the
vicarage and had come to know, also, Mr. Mortimer Tregennis, an
independent gentleman, who increased the clergyman’s scanty
resources by taking rooms in his large, straggling house. The
vicar, being a bachelor, was glad to come to such an arrangement,
though he had little in common with his lodger, who was a thin,
dark, spectacled man, with a stoop which gave the impression of
actual, physical deformity. I remember that during our short
visit we found the vicar garrulous, but his lodger strangely
reticent, a sad-faced, introspective man, sitting with averted
eyes, brooding apparently upon his own affairs.

These were the two men who entered abruptly into our little
sitting-room on Tuesday, March the 16th, shortly after our
breakfast hour, as we were smoking together, preparatory to our
daily excursion upon the moors.

“Mr. Holmes,” said the vicar in an agitated voice, “the most
extraordinary and tragic affair has occurred during the night.
It is the most unheard-of business. We can only regard it as a
special Providence that you should chance to be here at the time,
for in all England you are the one man we need.”

I glared at the intrusive vicar with no very friendly eyes; but
Holmes took his pipe from his lips and sat up in his chair like
an old hound who hears the view-halloa. He waved his hand to the
sofa, and our palpitating visitor with his agitated companion sat
side by side upon it. Mr. Mortimer Tregennis was more self-
contained than the clergyman, but the twitching of his thin hands
and the brightness of his dark eyes showed that they shared a
common emotion.

“Shall I speak or you?” he asked of the vicar.

“Well, as you seem to have made the discovery, whatever it may
be, and the vicar to have had it second-hand, perhaps you had
better do the speaking,” said Holmes.

I glanced at the hastily clad clergyman, with the formally
dressed lodger seated beside him, and was amused at the surprise
which Holmes’s simple deduction had brought to their faces.

“Perhaps I had best say a few words first,” said the vicar, “and
then you can judge if you will listen to the details from Mr.
Tregennis, or whether we should not hasten at once to the scene
of this mysterious affair. I may explain, then, that our friend
here spent last evening in the company of his two brothers, Owen
and George, and of his sister Brenda, at their house of
Tredannick Wartha, which is near the old stone cross upon the
moor. He left them shortly after ten o’clock, playing cards
round the dining-room table, in excellent health and spirits.
This morning, being an early riser, he walked in that direction
before breakfast and was overtaken by the carriage of Dr.
Richards, who explained that he had just been sent for on a most
urgent call to Tredannick Wartha. Mr. Mortimer Tregennis
naturally went with him. When he arrived at Tredannick Wartha he
found an extraordinary state of things. His two brothers and his
sister were seated round the table exactly as he had left them,
the cards still spread in front of them and the candles burned
down to their sockets. The sister lay back stone-dead in her
chair, while the two brothers sat on each side of her laughing,
shouting, and singing, the senses stricken clean out of them.
All three of them, the dead woman and the two demented men,
retained upon their faces an expression of the utmost horror–a
convulsion of terror which was dreadful to look upon. There was
no sign of the presence of anyone in the house, except Mrs.
Porter, the old cook and housekeeper, who declared that she had
slept deeply and heard no sound during the night. Nothing had
been stolen or disarranged, and there is absolutely no
explanation of what the horror can be which has frightened a
woman to death and two strong men out of their senses. There is
the situation, Mr. Holmes, in a nutshell, and if you can help us
to clear it up you will have done a great work.”

I had hoped that in some way I could coax my companion back into
the quiet which had been the object of our journey; but one
glance at his intense face and contracted eyebrows told me how
vain was now the expectation. He sat for some little time in
silence, absorbed in the strange drama which had broken in upon
our peace.

“I will look into this matter,” he said at last. “On the face of
it, it would appear to be a case of a very exceptional nature.
Have you been there yourself, Mr. Roundhay?”

“No, Mr. Holmes. Mr. Tregennis brought back the account to the
vicarage, and I at once hurried over with him to consult you.”

“How far is it to the house where this singular tragedy
occurred?”

“About a mile inland.”

“Then we shall walk over together. But before we start I must
ask you a few questions, Mr. Mortimer Tregennis.”

The other had been silent all this time, but I had observed that
his more controlled excitement was even greater than the
obtrusive emotion of the clergyman. He sat with a pale, drawn
face, his anxious gaze fixed upon Holmes, and his thin hands
clasped convulsively together. His pale lips quivered as he
listened to the dreadful experience which had befallen his
family, and his dark eyes seemed to reflect something of the
horror of the scene.

“Ask what you like, Mr. Holmes,” said he eagerly. “It is a bad
thing to speak of, but I will answer you the truth.”

“Tell me about last night.”

“Well, Mr. Holmes, I supped there, as the vicar has said, and my
elder brother George proposed a game of whist afterwards. We sat
down about nine o’clock. It was a quarter-past ten when I moved
to go. I left them all round the table, as merry as could be.”

“Who let you out?”

“Mrs. Porter had gone to bed, so I let myself out. I shut the
hall door behind me. The window of the room in which they sat
was closed, but the blind was not drawn down. There was no
change in door or window this morning, or any reason to think
that any stranger had been to the house. Yet there they sat,
driven clean mad with terror, and Brenda lying dead of fright,
with her head hanging over the arm of the chair. I’ll never get
the sight of that room out of my mind so long as I live.”

“The facts, as you state them, are certainly most remarkable,”
said Holmes. “I take it that you have no theory yourself which
can in any way account for them?”

“It’s devilish, Mr. Holmes, devilish!” cried Mortimer Tregennis.
“It is not of this world. Something has come into that room
which has dashed the light of reason from their minds. What
human contrivance could do that?”

“I fear,” said Holmes, “that if the matter is beyond humanity it
is certainly beyond me. Yet we must exhaust all natural
explanations before we fall back upon such a theory as this. As
to yourself, Mr. Tregennis, I take it you were divided in some
way from your family, since they lived together and you had rooms
apart?”

“That is so, Mr. Holmes, though the matter is past and done with.
We were a family of tin-miners at Redruth, but we sold our
venture to a company, and so retired with enough to keep us. I
won’t deny that there was some feeling about the division of the
money and it stood between us for a time, but it was all forgiven
and forgotten, and we were the best of friends together.”

“Looking back at the evening which you spent together, does
anything stand out in your memory as throwing any possible light
upon the tragedy? Think carefully, Mr. Tregennis, for any clue
which can help me.”

“There is nothing at all, sir.”

“Your people were in their usual spirits?”

“Never better.”

“Were they nervous people? Did they ever show any apprehension
of coming danger?”

“Nothing of the kind.”

“You have nothing to add then, which could assist me?”

Mortimer Tregennis considered earnestly for a moment.

“There is one thing occurs to me,” said he at last. “As we sat
at the table my back was to the window, and my brother George, he
being my partner at cards, was facing it. I saw him once look
hard over my shoulder, so I turned round and looked also. The
blind was up and the window shut, but I could just make out the
bushes on the lawn, and it seemed to me for a moment that I saw
something moving among them. I couldn’t even say if it was man
or animal, but I just thought there was something there. When I
asked him what he was looking at, he told me that he had the same
feeling. That is all that I can say.”

“Did you not investigate?”

“No; the matter passed as unimportant.”

“You left them, then, without any premonition of evil?”

“None at all.”

“I am not clear how you came to hear the news so early this
morning.”

“I am an early riser and generally take a walk before breakfast.
This morning I had hardly started when the doctor in his carriage
overtook me. He told me that old Mrs. Porter had sent a boy down
with an urgent message. I sprang in beside him and we drove on.
When we got there we looked into that dreadful room. The candles
and the fire must have burned out hours before, and they had been
sitting there in the dark until dawn had broken. The doctor said
Brenda must have been dead at least six hours. There were no
signs of violence. She just lay across the arm of the chair with
that look on her face. George and Owen were singing snatches of
songs and gibbering like two great apes. Oh, it was awful to
see! I couldn’t stand it, and the doctor was as white as a
sheet. Indeed, he fell into a chair in a sort of faint, and we
nearly had him on our hands as well.”

“Remarkable–most remarkable!” said Holmes, rising and taking his
hat. “I think, perhaps, we had better go down to Tredannick
Wartha without further delay. I confess that I have seldom known
a case which at first sight presented a more singular problem.”

Our proceedings of that first morning did little to advance the
investigation. It was marked, however, at the outset by an
incident which left the most sinister impression upon my mind.
The approach to the spot at which the tragedy occurred is down a
narrow, winding, country lane. While we made our way along it we
heard the rattle of a carriage coming towards us and stood aside
to let it pass. As it drove by us I caught a glimpse through the
closed window of a horribly contorted, grinning face glaring out
at us. Those staring eyes and gnashing teeth flashed past us
like a dreadful vision.

“My brothers!” cried Mortimer Tregennis, white to his lips.
“They are taking them to Helston.”

We looked with horror after the black carriage, lumbering upon
its way. Then we turned our steps towards this ill-omened house
in which they had met their strange fate.

It was a large and bright dwelling, rather a villa than a
cottage, with a considerable garden which was already, in that
Cornish air, well filled with spring flowers. Towards this
garden the window of the sitting-room fronted, and from it,
according to Mortimer Tregennis, must have come that thing of
evil which had by sheer horror in a single instant blasted their
minds. Holmes walked slowly and thoughtfully among the flower-
plots and along the path before we entered the porch. So
absorbed was he in his thoughts, I remember, that he stumbled
over the watering-pot, upset its contents, and deluged both our
feet and the garden path. Inside the house we were met by the
elderly Cornish housekeeper, Mrs. Porter, who, with the aid of a
young girl, looked after the wants of the family. She readily
answered all Holmes’s questions. She had heard nothing in the
night. Her employers had all been in excellent spirits lately,
and she had never known them more cheerful and prosperous. She
had fainted with horror upon entering the room in the morning and
seeing that dreadful company round the table. She had, when she
recovered, thrown open the window to let the morning air in, and
had run down to the lane, whence she sent a farm-lad for the
doctor. The lady was on her bed upstairs if we cared to see her.
It took four strong men to get the brothers into the asylum
carriage. She would not herself stay in the house another day
and was starting that very afternoon to rejoin her family at St.
Ives.

We ascended the stairs and viewed the body. Miss Brenda
Tregennis had been a very beautiful girl, though now verging upon
middle age. Her dark, clear-cut face was handsome, even in
death, but there still lingered upon it something of that
convulsion of horror which had been her last human emotion. From
her bedroom we descended to the sitting-room, where this strange
tragedy had actually occurred. The charred ashes of the
overnight fire lay in the grate. On the table were the four
guttered and burned-out candles, with the cards scattered over
its surface. The chairs had been moved back against the walls,
but all else was as it had been the night before. Holmes paced
with light, swift steps about the room; he sat in the various
chairs, drawing them up and reconstructing their positions. He
tested how much of the garden was visible; he examined the floor,
the ceiling, and the fireplace; but never once did I see that
sudden brightening of his eyes and tightening of his lips which
would have told me that he saw some gleam of light in this utter
darkness.

“Why a fire?” he asked once. “Had they always a fire in this
small room on a spring evening?”

Mortimer Tregennis explained that the night was cold and damp.
For that reason, after his arrival, the fire was lit. “What are
you going to do now, Mr. Holmes?” he asked.

My friend smiled and laid his hand upon my arm. “I think,
Watson, that I shall resume that course of tobacco-poisoning
which you have so often and so justly condemned,” said he. “With
your permission, gentlemen, we will now return to our cottage,
for I am not aware that any new factor is likely to come to our
notice here. I will turn the facts over in my mid, Mr,
Tregennis, and should anything occur to me I will certainly
ommunicate with you and the vicar. In the meantime I wish you
both good-morning.”

It was not until long after we were back in Poldhu Cottage that
Holmes broke his complete and absorbed silence. He sat coiled in
his armchair, his haggard and ascetic face hardly visible amid
the blue swirl of his tobacco smoke, his black brows drawn down,
his forehead contracted, his eyes vacant and far away. Finally
he laid down his pipe and sprang to his feet.

“It won’t do, Watson!” said he with a laugh. “Let us walk along
the cliffs together and search for flint arrows. We are more
likely to find them than clues to this problem. To let the brain
work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It
racks itself to pieces. The sea air, sunshine, and patience,
Watson–all else will come.

“Now, let us calmly define our position, Watson,” he continued as
we skirted the cliffs together. “Let us get a firm grip of the
very little which we DO know, so that when fresh facts arise we
may be ready to fit them into their places. I take it, in the
first place, that neither of us is prepared to admit diabolical
intrusions into the affairs of men. Let us begin by ruling that
entirely out of our minds. Very good. There remain three
persons who have been grievously stricken by some conscious or
unconscious human agency. That is firm ground. Now, when did
this occur? Evidently, assuming his narrative to be true, it was
immediately after Mr. Mortimer Tregennis had left the room. That
is a very important point. The presumption is that it was within
a few minutes afterwards. The cards still lay upon the table.
It was already past their usual hour for bed. Yet they had not
changed their position or pushed back their chairs. I repeat,
then, that the occurrence was immediately after his departure,
and not later than eleven o’clock last night.

“Our next obvious step is to check, so far as we can, the
movements of Mortimer Tregennis after he left the room. In this
there is no difficulty, and they seem to be above suspicion.
Knowing my methods as you do, you were, of course, conscious of
the somewhat clumsy water-pot expedient by which I obtained a
clearer impress of his foot than might otherwise have been
possible. The wet, sandy path took it admirably. Last night was
also wet, you will remember, and it was not difficult–having
obtained a sample print–to pick out his track among others and
to follow his movements. He appears to have walked away swiftly
in the direction of the vicarage.

“If, then, Mortimer Tregennis disappeared from the scene, and yet
some outside person affected the card-players, how can we
reconstruct that person, and how was such an impression of horror
conveyed? Mrs. Porter may be eliminated. She is evidently
harmless. Is there any evidence that someone crept up to the
garden window and in some manner produced so terrific an effect
that he drove those who saw it out of their senses? The only
suggestion in this direction comes from Mortimer Tregennis
himself, who says that his brother spoke about some movement in
the garden. That is certainly remarkable, as the night was
rainy, cloudy, and dark. Anyone who had the design to alarm
these people would be compelled to place his very face against
the glass before he could be seen. There is a three-foot flower-
border outside this window, but no indication of a footmark. It
is difficult to imagine, then, how an outsider could have made so
terrible an impression upon the company, nor have we found any
possible motive for so strange and elaborate an attempt. You
perceive our difficulties, Watson?”

“They are only too clear,” I answered with conviction.

“And yet, with a little more material, we may prove that they are
not insurmountable,” said Holmes. “I fancy that among your
extensive archives, Watson, you may find some which were nearly
as obscure. Meanwhile, we shall put the case aside until more
accurate data are available, and devote the rest of our morning
to the pursuit of neolithic man.”

I may have commented upon my friend’s power of mental detachment,
but never have I wondered at it more than upon that spring
morning in Cornwall when for two hours he discoursed upon celts,
arrowheads, and shards, as lightly as if no sinister mystery were
waiting for his solution. It was not until we had returned in
the afternoon to our cottage that we found a visitor awaiting us,
who soon brought our minds back to the matter in hand. Neither
of us needed to be told who that visitor was. The huge body, the
craggy and deeply seamed face with the fierce eyes and hawk-like
nose, the grizzled hair which nearly brushed our cottage ceiling,
the beard–golden at the fringes and white near the lips, save
for the nicotine stain from his perpetual cigar–all these were
as well known in London as in Africa, and could only be
associated with the tremendous personality of Dr. Leon Sterndale,
the great lion-hunter and explorer.

We had heard of his presence in the district and had once or
twice caught sight of his tall figure upon the moorland paths.
He made no advances to us, however, nor would we have dreamed of
doing so to him, as it was well known that it was his love of
seclusion which caused him to spend the greater part of the
intervals between his journeys in a small bungalow buried in the
lonely wood of Beauchamp Arriance. Here, amid his books and his
maps, he lived an absolutely lonely life, attending to his own
simple wants and paying little apparent heed to the affairs of
his neighbours. It was a surprise to me, therefore, to hear him
asking Holmes in an eager voice whether he had made any advance
in his reconstruction of this mysterious episode. “The county
police are utterly at fault,” said he, “but perhaps your wider
experience has suggested some conceivable explanation. My only
claim to being taken into your confidence is that during my many
residences here I have come to know this family of Tregennis very
well–indeed, upon my Cornish mother’s side I could call them
cousins–and their strange fate has naturally been a great shock
to me. I may tell you that I had got as far as Plymouth upon my
way to Africa, but the news reached me this morning, and I came
straight back again to help in the inquiry.”

Holmes raised his eyebrows.

“Did you lose your boat through it?”

“I will take the next.”

“Dear me! that is friendship indeed.”

“I tell you they were relatives.”

“Quite so–cousins of your mother. Was your baggage aboard the
ship?”

“Some of it, but the main part at the hotel.”

“I see. But surely this event could not have found its way into
the Plymouth morning papers.”

“No, sir; I had a telegram.”

“Might I ask from whom?”

A shadow passed over the gaunt face of the explorer.

“You are very inquisitive, Mr. Holmes.”

“It is my business.”

With an effort Dr. Sterndale recovered his ruffled composure.

“I have no objection to telling you,” he said. “It was Mr.
Roundhay, the vicar, who sent me the telegram which recalled me.”

“Thank you,” said Holmes. “I may say in answer to your original
question that I have not cleared my mind entirely on the subject
of this case, but that I have every hope of reaching some
conclusion. It would be premature to say more.”

“Perhaps you would not mind telling me if your suspicions point
in any particular direction?”

“No, I can hardly answer that.”

“Then I have wasted my time and need not prolong my visit.” The
famous doctor strode out of our cottage in considerable ill-
humour, and within five minutes Holmes had followed him. I saw
him no more until the evening, when he returned with a slow step
and haggard face which assured me that he had made no great
progress with his investigation. He glanced at a telegram which
awaited him and threw it into the grate.

“From the Plymouth hotel, Watson,” he said. “I learned the name
of it from the vicar, and I wired to make certain that Dr. Leon
Sterndale’s account was true. It appears that he did indeed
spend last night there, and that he has actually allowed some of
his baggage to go on to Africa, while he returned to be present
at this investigation. What do you make of that, Watson?”

“He is deeply interested.”

“Deeply interested–yes. There is a thread here which we had not
yet grasped and which might lead us through the tangle. Cheer
up, Watson, for I am very sure that our material has not yet all
come to hand. When it does we may soon leave our difficulties
behind us.”

Little did I think how soon the words of Holmes would be
realized, or how strange and sinister would be that new
development which opened up an entirely fresh line of
investigation. I was shaving at my window in the morning when I
heard the rattle of hoofs and, looking up, saw a dog-cart coming
at a gallop down the road. It pulled up at our door, and our
friend, the vicar, sprang from it and rushed up our garden path.
Holmes was already dressed, and we hastened down to meet him.

Our visitor was so excited that he could hardly articulate, but
at last in gasps and bursts his tragic story came out of him.

“We are devil-ridden, Mr. Holmes! My poor parish is devil-
ridden!” he cried. “Satan himself is loose in it! We are given
over into his hands!” He danced about in his agitation, a
ludicrous object if it were not for his ashy face and startled
eyes. Finally he shot out his terrible news.

“Mr. Mortimer Tregennis died during the night, and with exactly
the same symptoms as the rest of his family.”

Holmes sprang to his feet, all energy in an instant.

“Can you fit us both into your dog-cart?”

“Yes, I can.”

“Then, Watson, we will postpone our breakfast. Mr. Roundhay, we
are entirely at your disposal. Hurry–hurry, before things get
disarranged.”

The lodger occupied two rooms at the vicarage, which were in an
angle by themselves, the one above the other. Below was a large
sitting-room; above, his bedroom. They looked out upon a croquet
lawn which came up to the windows. We had arrived before the
doctor or the police, so that everything was absolutely
undisturbed. Let me describe exactly the scene as we saw it upon
that misty March morning. It has left an impression which can
never be effaced from my mind.

The atmosphere of the room was of a horrible and depressing
stuffiness. The servant had first entered had thrown up the
window, or it would have been even more intolerable. This might
partly be due to the fact that a lamp stood flaring and smoking
on the centre table. Beside it sat the dead man, leaning back in
his chair, his thin beard projecting, his spectacles pushed up
on to his forehead, and his lean dark face turned towards the
window and twisted into the same distortion of terror which had
marked the features of his dead sister. His limbs were convulsed
and his fingers contorted as though he had died in a very
paroxysm of fear. He was fully clothed, though there were signs
that his dressing had been done in a hurry. We had already
learned that his bed had been slept in, and that the tragic end
had come to him in the early morning.

One realized the red-hot energy which underlay Holmes’s
phlegmatic exterior when one saw the sudden change which came
over him from the moment that he entered the fatal apartment. In
an instant he was tense and alert, his eyes shining, his face
set, his limbs quivering with eager activity. He was out on the
lawn, in through the window, round the room, and up into the
bedroom, for all the world like a dashing foxhound drawing a
cover. In the bedroom he made a rapid cast around and ended by
throwing open the window, which appeared to give him some fresh
cause for excitement, for he leaned out of it with loud
ejaculations of interest and delight. Then he rushed down the
stair, out through the open window, threw himself upon his face
on the lawn, sprang up and into the room once more, all with the
energy of the hunter who is at the very heels of his quarry. The
lamp, which was an ordinary standard, he examined with minute
care, making certain measurements upon its bowl. He carefully
scrutinized with his lens the talc shield which covered the top
of the chimney and scraped off some ashes which adhered to its
upper surface, putting some of them into an envelope, which he
placed in his pocketbook. Finally, just as the doctor and the
official police put in an appearance, he beckoned to the vicar
and we all three went out upon the lawn.

“I am glad to say that my investigation has not been entirely
barren,” he remarked. “I cannot remain to discuss the matter
with the police, but I should be exceedingly obliged, Mr.
Roundhay, if you would give the inspector my compliments and
direct his attention to the bedroom window and to the sitting-
room lamp. Each is suggestive, and together they are almost
conclusive. If the police would desire further information I
shall be happy to see any of them at the cottage. And now,
Watson, I think that, perhaps, we shall be better employed
elsewhere.”

It may be that the police resented the intrusion of an amateur,
or that they imagined themselves to be upon some hopeful line of
investigation; but it is certain that we heard nothing from them
for the next two days. During this time Holmes spent some of his
time smoking and dreaming in the cottage; but a greater portion
in country walks which he undertook alone, returning after many
hours without remark as to where he had been. One experiment
served to show me the line of his investigation. He had bought a
lamp which was the duplicate of the one which had burned in the
room of Mortimer Tregennis on the morning of the tragedy. This
he filled with the same oil as that used at the vicarage, and he
carefully timed the period which it would take to be exhausted.
Another experiment which he made was of a more unpleasant nature,
and one which I am not likely ever to forget.

“You will remember, Watson,” he remarked one afternoon, “that
there is a single common point of resemblance in the varying
reports which have reached us. This concerns the effect of the
atmosphere of the room in each case upon those who had first
entered it. You will recollect that Mortimer Tregennis, in
describing the episode of his last visit to his brother’s house,
remarked that the doctor on entering the room fell into a chair?
You had forgotten? Well I can answer for it that it was so.
Now, you will remember also that Mrs. Porter, the housekeeper,
told us that she herself fainted upon entering the room and had
afterwards opened the window. In the second case–that of
Mortimer Tregennis himself–you cannot have forgotten the
horrible stuffiness of the room when we arrived, though the
servant had thrown open the window. That servant, I found upon
inquiry, was so ill that she had gone to her bed. You will
admit, Watson, that these facts are very suggestive. In each
case there is evidence of a poisonous atmosphere. In each case,
also, there is combustion going on in the room–in the one case a
fire, in the other a lamp. The fire was needed, but the lamp was
lit–as a comparison of the oil consumed will show–long after it
was broad daylight. Why? Surely because there is some
connection between three things–the burning, the stuffy
atmosphere, and, finally, the madness or death of those
unfortunate people. That is clear, is it not?”

“It would appear so.”

“At least we may accept it as a working hypothesis. We will
suppose, then, that something was burned in each case which
produced an atmosphere causing strange toxic effects. Very good.
In the first instance–that of the Tregennis family–this
substance was placed in the fire. Now the window was shut, but
the fire would naturally carry fumes to some extent up the
chimney. Hence one would expect the effects of the poison to be
less than in the second case, where there was less escape for the
vapour. The result seems to indicate that it was so, since in
the first case only the woman, who had presumably the more
sensitive organism, was killed, the others exhibiting that
temporary or permanent lunacy which is evidently the first effect
of the drug. In the second case the result was complete. The
facts, therefore, seem to bear out the theory of a poison which
worked by combustion.

“With this train of reasoning in my head I naturally looked about
in Mortimer Tregennis’s room to find some remains of this
substance. The obvious place to look was the talc shelf or
smoke-guard of the lamp. There, sure enough, I perceived a number
of flaky ashes, and round the edges a fringe of brownish powder,
which had not yet been consumed. Half of this I took, as you
saw, and I placed it in an envelope.”

“Why half, Holmes?”

“It is not for me, my dear Watson, to stand in the way of the
official police force. I leave them all the evidence which I
found. The poison still remained upon the talc had they the wit
to find it. Now, Watson, we will light our lamp; we will,
however, take the precaution to open our window to avoid the
premature decease of two deserving members of society, and you
will seat yourself near that open window in an armchair unless,
like a sensible man, you determine to have nothing to do with the
affair. Oh, you will see it out, will you? I thought I knew my
Watson. This chair I will place opposite yours, so that we may
be the same distance from the poison and face to face. The door
we will leave ajar. Each is now in a position to watch the other
and to bring the experiment to an end should the symptoms seem
alarming. Is that all clear? Well, then, I take our powder–or
what remains of it–from the envelope, and I lay it above the
burning lamp. So! Now, Watson, let us sit down and await
developments.”

They were not long in coming. I had hardly settled in my chair
before I was conscious of a thick, musky odour, subtle and
nauseous. At the very first whiff of it my brain and my
imagination were beyond all control. A thick, black cloud
swirled before my eyes, and my mind told me that in this cloud,
unseen as yet, but about to spring out upon my appalled senses,
lurked all that was vaguely horrible, all that was monstrous and
inconceivably wicked in the universe. Vague shapes swirled and
swam amid the dark cloud-bank, each a menace and a warning of
something coming, the advent of some unspeakable dweller upon the
threshold, whose very shadow would blast my soul. A freezing
horror took possession of me. I felt that my hair was rising,
that my eyes were protruding, that my mouth was opened, and my
tongue like leather. The turmoil within my brain was such that
something must surely snap. I tried to scream and was vaguely
aware of some hoarse croak which was my own voice, but distant
and detached from myself At the same moment, in some effort of
escape, I broke through that cloud of despair and had a glimpse
of Holmes’s face, white, rigid, and drawn with horror–the very
look which I had seen upon the features of the dead. It was that
vision which gave me an instant of sanity and of strength. I
dashed from my chair, threw my arms round Holmes, and together we
lurched through the door, and an instant afterwards had thrown
ourselves down upon the grass plot and were lying side by side,
conscious only of the glorious sunshine which was bursting its
way through the hellish cloud of terror which had girt us in.
Slowly it rose from our souls like the mists from a landscape
until peace and reason had returned, and we were sitting upon the
grass, wiping our clammy foreheads, and looking with apprehension
at each other to mark the last traces of that terrific experience
which we had undergone.

“Upon my word, Watson!” said Holmes at last with an unsteady
voice, “I owe you both my thanks and an apology. It was an
unjustifiable experiment even for one’s self, and doubly so for a
friend. I am really very sorry.”

“You know,” I answered with some emotion, for I have never seen
so much of Holmes’s heart before, “that it is my greatest joy and
privilege to help you.”

He relapsed at once into the half-humorous, half-cynical vein
which was his habitual attitude to those about him. “It would be
superfluous to drive us mad, my dear Watson,” said he. “A candid
observer would certainly declare that we were so already before
we embarked upon so wild an experiment. I confess that I never
imagined that the effect could be so sudden and so severe.” He
dashed into the cottage, and, reappearing with the burning lamp
held at full arm’s length, he threw it among a bank of brambles.
“We must give the room a little time to clear. I take it,
Watson, that you have no longer a shadow of a doubt as to how
these tragedies were produced?”

“None whatever.”

“But the cause remains as obscure as before. Come into the
arbour here and let us discuss it together. That villainous
stuff seems still to linger round my throat. I think we must
admit that all the evidence points to this man, Mortimer
Tregennis, having been the criminal in the first tragedy, though
he was the victim in the second one. We must remember, in the
first place, that there is some story of a family quarrel,
followed by a reconciliation. How bitter that quarrel may have
been, or how hollow the reconciliation we cannot tell. When I
think of Mortimer Tregennis, with the foxy face and the small
shrewd, beady eyes behind the spectacles, he is not a man whom I
should judge to be of a particularly forgiving disposition.
Well, in the next place, you will remember that this idea of
someone moving in the garden, which took our attention for a
moment from the real cause of the tragedy, emanated from him. He
had a motive in misleading us. Finally, if he did not throw the
substance into the fire at the moment of leaving the room, who
did do so? The affair happened immediately after his departure.
Had anyone else come in, the family would certainly have risen
from the table. Besides, in peaceful Cornwall, visitors did not
arrive after ten o’clock at night. We may take it, then, that
all the evidence points to Mortimer Tregennis as the culprit.”

“Then his own death was suicide!”

“Well, Watson, it is on the face of it a not impossible
supposition. The man who had the guilt upon his soul of having
brought such a fate upon his own family might well be driven by
remorse to inflict it upon himself. There are, however, some
cogent reasons against it. Fortunately, there is one man in
England who knows all about it, and I have made arrangements by
which we shall hear the facts this afternoon from his own lips.
Ah! he is a little before his time. Perhaps you would kindly
step this way, Dr. Leon Sterndale. We have been conducing a
chemical experiment indoors which has left our little room hardly
fit for the reception of so distinguished a visitor.”

I had heard the click of the garden gate, and now the majestic
figure of the great African explorer appeared upon the path. He
turned in some surprise towards the rustic arbour in which we
sat.

“You sent for me, Mr. Holmes. I had your note about an hour ago,
and I have come, though I really do not know why I should obey
your summons.”

“Perhaps we can clear the point up before we separate,” said
Holmes. “Meanwhile, I am much obliged to you for your courteous
acquiescence. You will excuse this informal reception in the
open air, but my friend Watson and I have nearly furnished an
additional chapter to what the papers call the Cornish Horror,
and we prefer a clear atmosphere for the present. Perhaps, since
the matters which we have to discuss will affect you personally
in a very intimate fashion, it is as well that we should talk
where there can be no eavesdropping.”

The explorer took his cigar from his lips and gazed sternly at my
companion.

“I am at a loss to know, sir,” he said, “what you can have to
speak about which affects me personally in a very intimate
fashion.”

“The killing of Mortimer Tregennis,” said Holmes.

For a moment I wished that I were armed. Sterndale’s fierce face
turned to a dusky red, his eyes glared, and the knotted,
passionate veins started out in his forehead, while he sprang
forward with clenched hands towards my companion. Then he
stopped, and with a violent effort he resumed a cold, rigid
calmness, which was, perhaps, more suggestive of danger than his
hot-headed outburst.

“I have lived so long among savages and beyond the law,” said he,
“that I have got into the way of being a law to myself. You
would do well, Mr. Holmes, not to forget it, for I have no desire
to do you an injury.”

“Nor have I any desire to do you an injury, Dr. Sterndale.
Surely the clearest proof of it is that, knowing what I know, I
have sent for you and not for the police.”

Sterndale sat down with a gasp, overawed for, perhaps, the first
time in his adventurous life. There was a calm assurance of
power in Holmes’s manner which could not be withstood. Our
visitor stammered for a moment, his great hands opening and
shutting in his agitation.

“What do you mean?” he asked at last. “If this is bluff upon
your part, Mr. Holmes, you have chosen a bad man for your
experiment. Let us have no more beating about the bush. What DO
you mean?”

“I will tell you,” said Holmes, “and the reason why I tell you is
that I hope frankness may beget frankness. What my next step may
be will depend entirely upon the nature of your own defence.”

“My defence?”

“Yes, sir.”

“My defence against what?”

“Against the charge of killing Mortimer Tregennis.”

Sterndale mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. “Upon my
word, you are getting on,” said he. “Do all your successes
depend upon this prodigious power of bluff?”

“The bluff,” said Holmes sternly, “is upon your side, Dr. Leon
Sterndale, and not upon mine. As a proof I will tell you some of
the facts upon which my conclusions are based. Of your return
from Plymouth, allowing much of your property to go on to Africa,
I will say nothing save that it first informed me that you were
one of the factors which had to be taken into account in
reconstructing this drama–”

“I came back–”

“I have heard your reasons and regard them as unconvincing and
inadequate. We will pass that. You came down here to ask me
whom I suspected. I refused to answer you. You then went to the
vicarage, waited outside it for some time, and finally returned
to your cottage.”

“How do you know that?”

“I followed you.”

“I saw no one.”

“That is what you may expect to see when I follow you. You spent
a restless night at your cottage, and you formed certain plans,
which in the early morning you proceeded to put into execution.
Leaving your door just as day was breaking, you filled your
pocket with some reddish gravel that was lying heaped beside your
gate.”

Sterndale gave a violent start and looked at Holmes in amazement.

“You then walked swiftly for the mile which separated you from
the vicarage. You were wearing, I may remark, the same pair of
ribbed tennis shoes which are at the present moment upon your
feet. At the vicarage you passed through the orchard and the
side hedge, coming out under the window of the lodger Tregennis.
It was now daylight, but the household was not yet stirring. You
drew some of the gravel from your pocket, and you threw it up at
the window above you.”

Sterndale sprang to his feet.

“I believe that you are the devil himself!” he cried.

Holmes smiled at the compliment. “It took two, or possibly
three, handfuls before the lodger came to the window. You
beckoned him to come down. He dressed hurriedly and descended to
his sitting-room. You entered by the window. There was an
interview–a short one–during which you walked up and down the
room. Then you passed out and closed the window, standing on the
lawn outside smoking a cigar and watching what occurred.
Finally, after the death of Tregennis, you withdrew as you had
come. Now, Dr. Sterndale, how do you justify such conduct, and
what were the motives for your actions? If you prevaricate or
trifle with me, I give you my assurance that the matter will pass
out of my hands forever.”

Our visitor’s face had turned ashen gray as he listened to the
words of his accuser. Now he sat for some time in thought with
his face sunk in his hands. Then with a sudden impulsive gesture
he plucked a photograph from his breast-pocket and threw it on
the rustic table before us.

“That is why I have done it,” said he.

It showed the bust and face of a very beautiful woman. Holmes
stooped over it.

“Brenda Tregennis,” said he.

“Yes, Brenda Tregennis,” repeated our visitor. “For years I have
loved her. For years she has loved me. There is the secret of
that Cornish seclusion which people have marvelled at. It has
brought me close to the one thing on earth that was dear to me.
I could not marry her, for I have a wife who has left me for
years and yet whom, by the deplorable laws of England, I could
not divorce. For years Brenda waited. For years I waited. And
this is what we have waited for.” A terrible sob shook his great
frame, and he clutched his throat under his brindled beard. Then
with an effort he mastered himself and spoke on:

“The vicar knew. He was in our confidence. He would tell you
that she was an angel upon earth. That was why he telegraphed to
me and I returned. What was my baggage or Africa to me when I
learned that such a fate had come upon my darling? There you
have the missing clue to my action, Mr. Holmes.”

“Proceed,” said my friend.

Dr. Sterndale drew from his pocket a paper packet and laid it
upon the table. On the outside was written “Radix pedis diaboli”
with a red poison label beneath it. He pushed it towards me. “I
understand that you are a doctor, sir. Have you ever heard of
this preparation?”

“Devil’s-foot root! No, I have never heard of it.”

“It is no reflection upon your professional knowledge,” said he,
“for I believe that, save for one sample in a laboratory at Buda,
there is no other specimen in Europe. It has not yet found its
way either into the pharmacopoeia or into the literature of
toxicology. The root is shaped like a foot, half human, half
goatlike; hence the fanciful name given by a botanical
missionary. It is used as an ordeal poison by the medicine-men
in certain districts of West Africa and is kept as a secret among
them. This particular specimen I obtained under very
extraordinary circumstances in the Ubangi country.” He opened
the paper as he spoke and disclosed a heap of reddish-brown,
snuff-like powder.

“Well, sir?” asked Holmes sternly.

“I am about to tell you, Mr. Holmes, all that actually occurred,
for you already know so much that it is clearly to my interest
that you should know all. I have already explained the
relationship in which I stood to the Tregennis family. For the
sake of the sister I was friendly with the brothers. There was a
family quarrel about money which estranged this man Mortimer, but
it was supposed to be made up, and I afterwards met him as I did
the others. He was a sly, subtle, scheming man, and several
things arose which gave me a suspicion of him, but I had no cause
for any positive quarrel.

“One day, only a couple of weeks ago, he came down to my cottage
and I showed him some of my African curiosities. Among other
things I exhibited this powder, and I told him of its strange
properties, how it stimulates those brain centres which control
the emotion of fear, and how either madness or death is the fate
of the unhappy native who is subjected to the ordeal by the
priest of his tribe. I told him also how powerless European
science would be to detect it. How he took it I cannot say, for
I never left the room, but there is no doubt that it was then,
while I was opening cabinets and stooping to boxes, that he
managed to abstract some of the devil’s-foot root. I well
remember how he plied me with questions as to the amount and the
time that was needed for its effect, but I little dreamed that he
could have a personal reason for asking.

“I thought no more of the matter until the vicar’s telegram
reached me at Plymouth. This villain had thought that I would be
at sea before the news could reach me, and that I should be lost
for years in Africa. But I returned at once. Of course, I could
not listen to the details without feeling assured that my poison
had been used. I came round to see you on the chance that some
other explanation had suggested itself to you. But there could
be none. I was convinced that Mortimer Tregennis was the
murderer; that for the sake of money, and with the idea, perhaps,
that if the other members of his family were all insane he would
be the sole guardian of their joint property, he had used the
devil’s-foot powder upon them, driven two of them out of their
senses, and killed his sister Brenda, the one human being whom I
have ever loved or who has ever loved me. There was his crime;
what was to be his punishment?

“Should I appeal to the law? Where were my proofs? I knew that
the facts were true, but could I help to make a jury of
countrymen believe so fantastic a story? I might or I might not.
But I could not afford to fail. My soul cried out for revenge.
I have said to you once before, Mr. Holmes, that I have spent
much of my life outside the law, and that I have come at last to
be a law to myself. So it was even now. I determined that the
fate which he had given to others should be shared by himself.
Either that or I would do justice upon him with my own hand. In
all England there can be no man who sets less value upon his own
life than I do at the present moment.

“Now I have told you all. You have yourself supplied the rest.
I did, as you say, after a restless night, set off early from my
cottage. I foresaw the difficulty of arousing him, so I gathered
some gravel from the pile which you have mentioned, and I used it
to throw up to his window. He came down and admitted me through
the window of the sitting-room. I laid his offence before him.
I told him that I had come both as judge and executioner. The
wretch sank into a chair, paralyzed at the sight of my revolver.
I lit the lamp, put the powder above it, and stood outside the
window, ready to carry out my threat to shoot him should he try
to leave the room. In five minutes he died. My God! how he
died! But my heart was flint, for he endured nothing which my
innocent darling had not felt before him. There is my story, Mr.
Holmes. Perhaps, if you loved a woman, you would have done as
much yourself. At any rate, I am in your hands. You can take
what steps you like. As I have already said, there is no man
living who can fear death less than I do.”

Holmes sat for some little time in silence.

“What were your plans?” he asked at last.

“I had intended to bury myself in central Africa. My work there
is but half finished.”

“Go and do the other half,” said Holmes. “I, at least, am not
prepared to prevent you.”

Dr. Sterndale raised his giant figure, bowed gravely, and walked
from the arbour. Holmes lit his pipe and handed me his pouch.

“Some fumes which are not poisonous would be a welcome change,”
said he. “I think you must agree, Watson, that it is not a case
in which we are called upon to interfere. Our investigation has
been independent, and our action shall be so also. You would not
denounce the man?”

“Certainly not,” I answered.

“I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I
loved had met such an end, I might act even as our lawless lion-
hunter has done. Who knows? Well, Watson, I will not offend
your intelligence by explaining what is obvious. The gravel upon
the window-sill was, of course, the starting-point of my
research. It was unlike anything in the vicarage garden. Only
when my attention had been drawn to Dr. Sterndale and his cottage
did I find its counterpart. The lamp shining in broad daylight
and the remains of powder upon the shield were successive links
in a fairly obvious chain. And now, my dear Watson, I think we
may dismiss the matter from our mind and go back with a clear
conscience to the study of those Chaldean roots which are surely
to be traced in the Cornish branch of the great Celtic speech.”

Mrs. Hudson, the landlady of Sherlock Holmes, was a long-
suffering woman. Not only was her first-floor flat invaded at
all hours by throngs of singular and often undesirable characters
but her remarkable lodger showed an eccentricity and irregularity
in his life which must have sorely tried her patience. His
incredible untidiness, his addiction to music at strange hours,
his occasional revolver practice within doors, his weird and
often malodorous scientific experiments, and the atmosphere of
violence and danger which hung around him made him the very worst
tenant in London. On the other hand, his payments were princely.
I have no doubt that the house might have been purchased at the
price which Holmes paid for his rooms during the years that I was
with him.

The landlady stood in the deepest awe of him and never dared to
interfere with him, however outrageous his proceedings might
seem. She was fond of him, too, for he had a remarkable
gentleness and courtesy in his dealings with women. He disliked
and distrusted the sex, but he was always a chivalrous opponent.
Knowing how genuine was her regard for him, I listened earnestly
to her story when she came to my rooms in the second year of my
married life and told me of the sad condition to which my poor
friend was reduced.

“He’s dying, Dr. Watson,” said she. “For three days he has been
sinking, and I doubt if he will last the day. He would not let
me get a doctor. This morning when I saw his bones sticking out
of his face and his great bright eyes looking at me I could stand
no more of it. ‘With your leave or without it, Mr. Holmes, I am
going for a doctor this very hour,’ said I. ‘Let it be Watson,
then,’ said he. I wouldn’t waste an hour in coming to him, sir,
or you may not see him alive.”

I was horrified for I had heard nothing of his illness. I need
not say that I rushed for my coat and my hat. As we drove back I
asked for the details.

“There is little I can tell you, sir. He has been working at a
case down at Rotherhithe, in an alley near the river, and he has
brought this illness back with him. He took to his bed on
Wednesday afternoon and has never moved since. For these three
days neither food nor drink has passed his lips.”

“Good God! Why did you not call in a doctor?”

“He wouldn’t have it, sir. You know how masterful he is. I
didn’t dare to disobey him. But he’s not long for this world, as
you’ll see for yourself the moment that you set eyes on him.”

He was indeed a deplorable spectacle. In the dim light of a
foggy November day the sick room was a gloomy spot, but it was
that gaunt, wasted face staring at me from the bed which sent a
chill to my heart. His eyes had the brightness of fever, there
was a hectic flush upon either cheek, and dark crusts clung to
his lips; the thin hands upon the coverlet twitched incessantly,
his voice was croaking and spasmodic. He lay listlessly as I
entered the room, but the sight of me brought a gleam of
recognition to his eyes.

“Well, Watson, we seem to have fallen upon evil days,” said he in
a feeble voice, but with something of his old carelessness of
manner.

“My dear fellow!” I cried, approaching him.

“Stand back! Stand right back!” said he with the sharp
imperiousness which I had associated only with moments of crisis.
“If you approach me, Watson, I shall order you out of the house.”

“But why?”

“Because it is my desire. Is that not enough?”

Yes, Mrs. Hudson was right. He was more masterful than ever. It
was pitiful, however, to see his exhaustion.

“I only wished to help,” I explained.

“Exactly! You will help best by doing what you are told.”

“Certainly, Holmes.”

He relaxed the austerity of his manner.

“You are not angry?” he asked, gasping for breath.

Poor devil, how could I be angry when I saw him lying in such a
plight before me?

“It’s for your own sake, Watson,” he croaked.

“For MY sake?”

“I know what is the matter with me. It is a coolie disease from
Sumatra–a thing that the Dutch know more about than we, though
they have made little of it up to date. One thing only is
certain. It is infallibly deadly, and it is horribly
contagious.”

He spoke now with a feverish energy, the long hands twitching and
jerking as he motioned me away.

“Contagious by touch, Watson–that’s it, by touch. Keep your
distance and all is well.”

“Good heavens, Holmes! Do you suppose that such a consideration
weighs with me of an instant? It would not affect me in the case
of a stranger. Do you imagine it would prevent me from doing my
duty to so old a friend?”

Again I advanced, but he repulsed me with a look of furious
anger.

“If you will stand there I will talk. If you do not you must
leave the room.”

I have so deep a respect for the extraordinary qualities of
Holmes that I have always deferred to his wishes, even when I
least understood them. But now all my professional instincts
were aroused. Let him be my master elsewhere, I at least was his
in a sick room.

“Holmes,” said I, “you are not yourself. A sick man is but a
child, and so I will treat you. Whether you like it or not, I
will examine your symptoms and treat you for them.”

He looked at me with venomous eyes.

“If I am to have a doctor whether I will or not, let me at least
have someone in whom I have confidence,” said he.

“Then you have none in me?”

“In your friendship, certainly. But facts are facts, Watson,
and, after all, you are only a general practitioner with very
limited experience and mediocre qualifications. It is painful to
have to say these things, but you leave me no choice.”

I was bitterly hurt.

“Such a remark is unworthy of you, Holmes. It shows me very
clearly the state of your own nerves. But if you have no
confidence in me I would not intrude my services. Let me bring
Sir Jasper Meek or Penrose Fisher, or any of the best men in
London. But someone you MUST have, and that is final. If you
think that I am going to stand here and see you die without
either helping you myself or bringing anyone else to help you,
then you have mistaken your man.”

“You mean well, Watson,” said the sick man with something between
a sob and a groan. “Shall I demonstrate your own ignorance?
What do you know, pray, of Tapanuli fever? What do you know of
the black Formosa corruption?”

“I have never heard of either.”

“There are many problems of disease, many strange pathological
possibilities, in the East, Watson.” He paused after each
sentence to collect his failing strength. “I have learned so
much during some recent researches which have a medico-criminal
aspect. It was in the course of them that I contracted this
complaint. You can do nothing.”

“Possibly not. But I happen to know that Dr. Ainstree, the
greatest living authority upon tropical disease, is now in
London. All remonstrance is useless, Holmes, I am going this
instant to fetch him.” I turned resolutely to the door.

Never have I had such a shock! In an instant, with a tiger-
spring, the dying man had intercepted me. I heard the sharp snap
of a twisted key. The next moment he had staggered back to his
bed, exhausted and panting after his one tremendous outflame of
energy.

“You won’t take the key from be by force, Watson, I’ve got you,
my friend. Here you are, and here you will stay until I will
otherwise. But I’ll humour you.” (All this in little gasps,
with terrible struggles for breath between.) “You’ve only my own
good at heart. Of course I know that very well. You shall have
your way, but give me time to get my strength. Not now, Watson,
not now. It’s four o’clock. At six you can go.”

“This is insanity, Holmes.”

“Only two hours, Watson. I promise you will go at six. Are you
content to wait?”

“I seem to have no choice.”

“None in the world, Watson. Thank you, I need no help in
arranging the clothes. You will please keep your distance. Now,
Watson, there is one other condition that I would make. You will
seek help, not from the man you mention, but from the one that I
choose.”

“By all means.”

“The first three sensible words that you have uttered since you
entered this room, Watson. You will find some books over there.
I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it
pours electricity into a non-conductor? At six, Watson, we
resume our conversation.”

But it was destined to be resumed long before that hour, and in
circumstances which gave me a shock hardly second to that caused
by his spring to the door. I had stood for some minutes looking
at the silent figure in the bed. His face was almost covered by
the clothes and he appeared to be asleep. Then, unable to settle
down to reading, I walked slowly round the room, examining the
pictures of celebrated criminals with which every wall was
adorned. Finally, in my aimless perambulation, I came to the
mantelpiece. A litter of pipes, tobacco-pouches, syringes,
penknives, revolver-cartridges, and other debris was scattered
over it. In the midst of these was a small black and white ivory
box with a sliding lid. It was a neat little thing, and I had
stretched out my hand to examine it more closely when

It was a dreadful cry that he gave–a yell which might have been
heard down the street. My skin went cold and my hair bristled at
that horrible scream. As I turned I caught a glimpse of a
convulsed face and frantic eyes. I stood paralyzed, with the
little box in my hand.

“Put it down! Down, this instant, Watson–this instant, I say!”
His head sank back upon the pillow and he gave a deep sigh of
relief as I replaced the box upon the mantelpiece. “I hate to
have my things touched, Watson. You know that I hate it. You
fidget me beyond endurance. You, a doctor–you are enough to
drive a patient into an asylum. Sit down, man, and let me have
my rest!”

The incident left a most unpleasant impression upon my mind. The
violent and causeless excitement, followed by this brutality of
speech, so far removed from his usual suavity, showed me how deep
was the disorganization of his mind. Of all ruins, that of a
noble mind is the most deplorable. I sat in silent dejection
until the stipulated time had passed. He seemed to have been
watching the clock as well as I, for it was hardly six before he
began to talk with the same feverish animation as before.

“Now, Watson,” said he. “Have you any change in your pocket?”

“Yes.”

“Any silver?”

“A good deal.”

“How many half-crowns?”

“I have five.”

“Ah, too few! Too few! How very unfortunate, Watson! However,
such as they are you can put them in your watchpocket. And all
the rest of your money in your left trouser pocket. Thank you.
It will balance you so much better like that.”

This was raving insanity. He shuddered, and again made a sound
between a cough and a sob.

“You will now light the gas, Watson, but you will be very careful
that not for one instant shall it be more than half on. I
implore you to be careful, Watson. Thank you, that is excellent.
No, you need not draw the blind. Now you will have the kindness
to place some letters and papers upon this table within my reach.
Thank you. Now some of that litter from the mantelpiece.
Excellent, Watson! There is a sugar-tongs there. Kindly raise
that small ivory box with its assistance. Place it here among
the papers. Good! You can now go and fetch Mr. Culverton Smith,
of 13 Lower Burke Street.”

To tell the truth, my desire to fetch a doctor had somewhat
weakened, for poor Holmes was so obviously delirious that it
seemed dangerous to leave him. However, he was as eager now to
consult the person named as he had been obstinate in refusing.

“I never heard the name,” said I.

“Possibly not, my good Watson. It may surprise you to know that
the man upon earth who is best versed in this disease is not a
medical man, but a planter. Mr. Culverton Smith is a well-known
resident of Sumatra, now visiting London. An outbreak of the
disease upon his plantation, which was distant from medical aid,
caused him to study it himself, with some rather far-reaching
consequences. He is a very methodical person, and I did not
desire you to start before six, because I was well aware that you
would not find him in his study. If you could persuade him to
come here and give us the benefit of his unique experience of
this disease, the investigation of which has been his dearest
hobby, I cannot doubt that he could help me.”

I gave Holmes’s remarks as a consecutive whole and will not
attempt to indicate how they were interrupted by gaspings for
breath and those clutchings of his hands which indicated the pain
from which he was suffering. His appearance had changed for the
worse during the few hours that I had been with him. Those
hectic spots were more pronounced, the eyes shone more brightly
out of darker hollows, and a cold sweat glimmered upon his brow.
He still retained, however, the jaunty gallantry of his speech.
To the last gasp he would always be the master.

“You will tell him exactly how you have left me,” said he. “You
will convey the very impression which is in your own mind–a
dying man–a dying and delirious man. Indeed, I cannot think why
the whole bed of the ocean is not one solid mass of oysters, so
prolific the creatures seem. Ah, I am wondering! Strange how
the brain controls the brain! What was I saying, Watson?”

“My directions for Mr. Culverton Smith.”

“Ah, yes, I remember. My life depends upon it. Plead with him,
Watson. There is no good feeling between us. His nephew,
Watson–I had suspicions of foul play and I allowed him to see
it. The boy died horribly. He has a grudge against me. You
will soften him, Watson. Beg him, pray him, get him here by any
means. He can save me–only he!”

“I will bring him in a cab, if I have to carry him down to it.”

“You will do nothing of the sort. You will persuade him to come.
And then you will return in front of him. Make any excuse so as
not to come with him. Don’t forget, Watson. You won’t fail me.
You never did fail me. No doubt there are natural enemies which
limit the increase of the creatures. You and I, Watson, we have
done our part. Shall the world, then, be overrun by oysters?
No, no; horrible! You’ll convey all that is in your mind.”

I left him full of the image of this magnificent intellect
babbling like a foolish child. He had handed me the key, and
with a happy thought I took it with me lest he should lock
himself in. Mrs. Hudson was waiting, trembling and weeping, in
the passage. Behind me as I passed from the flat I heard
Holmes’s high, thin voice in some delirious chant. Below, as I
stood whistling for a cab, a man came on me through the fog.

“How is Mr. Holmes, sir?” he asked.

It was an old acquaintance, Inspector Morton, of Scotland Yard,
dressed in unofficial tweeds.

“He is very ill,” I answered.

He looked at me in a most singular fashion. Had it not been too
fiendish, I could have imagined that the gleam of the fanlight
showed exultation in his face.

“I heard some rumour of it,” said he.

The cab had driven up, and I left him.

Lower Burke Street proved to be a line of fine houses lying in
the vague borderland between Notting Hill and Kensington. The
particular one at which my cabman pulled up had an air of smug
and demure respectability in its old-fashioned iron railings, its
massive folding-door, and its shining brasswork. All was in
keeping with a solemn butler who appeared framed in the pink
radiance of a tinted electrical light behind him.

“Yes, Mr. Culverton Smith is in. Dr. Watson! Very good, sir, I
will take up your card.”

My humble name and title did not appear to impress Mr. Culverton
Smith. Through the half-open door I heard a high, petulant,
penetrating voice.

“Who is this person? What does he want? Dear me, Staples, how
often have I said that I am not to be disturbed in my hours of
study?”

There came a gentle flow of soothing explanation from the butler.

“Well, I won’t see him, Staples. I can’t have my work
interrupted like this. I am not at home. Say so. Tell him to
come in the morning if he really must see me.”

Again the gentle murmur.

“Well, well, give him that message. He can come in the morning,
or he can stay away. My work must not be hindered.”

I thought of Holmes tossing upon his bed of sickness and counting
the minutes, perhaps, until I could bring help to him. It was
not a time to stand upon ceremony. His life depended upon my
promptness. Before the apologetic butler had delivered his
message I had pushed past him and was in the room.

With a shrill cry of anger a man rose from a reclining chair
beside the fire. I saw a great yellow face, coarse-grained and
greasy, with heavy, double-chin, and two sullen, menacing gray
eyes which glared at me from under tufted and sandy brows. A
high bald head had a small velvet smoking-cap poised coquettishly
upon one side of its pink curve. The skull was of enormous
capacity, and yet as I looked down I saw to my amazement that the
figure of the man was small and frail, twisted in the shoulders
and back like one who has suffered from rickets in his childhood.

“What’s this?” he cried in a high, screaming voice. “What is the
meaning of this intrusion? Didn’t I send you word that I would
see you to-morrow morning?”

“I am sorry,” said I, “but the matter cannot be delayed. Mr.
Sherlock Holmes–”

The mention of my friend’s name had an extraordinary effect upon
the little man. The look of anger passed in an instant from his
face. His features became tense and alert.

“Have you come from Holmes?” he asked.

“I have just left him.”

“What about Holmes? How is he?”

“He is desperately ill. That is why I have come.”

The man motioned me to a chair, and turned to resume his own. As
he did so I caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror over the
mantelpiece. I could have sworn that it was set in a malicious
and abominable smile. Yet I persuaded myself that it must have
been some nervous contraction which I had surprised, for he
turned to me an instant later with genuine concern upon his
features.

“I am sorry to hear this,” said he. “I only know Mr. Holmes
through some business dealings which we have had, but I have
every respect for his talents and his character. He is an
amateur of crime, as I am of disease. For him the villain, for
me the microbe. There are my prisons,” he continued, pointing to
a row of bottles and jars which stood upon a side table. “Among
those gelatine cultivations some of the very worst offenders in
the world are now doing time.”

“It was on account of your special knowledge that Mr. Holmes
desired to see you. He has a high opinion of you and thought
that you were the one man in London who could help him.”

The little man started, and the jaunty smoking-cap slid to the
floor.

“Why?” he asked. “Why should Mr. Homes think that I could help
him in his trouble?”

“Because of your knowledge of Eastern diseases.”

“But why should he think that this disease which he has
contracted is Eastern?”

“Because, in some professional inquiry, he has been working among
Chinese sailors down in the docks.”

Mr. Culverton Smith smiled pleasantly and picked up his smoking-
cap.

“Oh, that’s it–is it?” said he. “I trust the matter is not so
grave as you suppose. How long has he been ill?”

“About three days.”

“Is he delirious?”

“Occasionally.”

“Tut, tut! This sounds serious. It would be inhuman not to
answer his call. I very much resent any interruption to my work,
Dr. Watson, but this case is certainly exceptional. I will come
with you at once.”

I remembered Holmes’s injunction.

“I have another appointment,” said I.

“Very good. I will go alone. I have a note of Mr. Holmes’s
address. You can rely upon my being there within half an hour at
most.”

It was with a sinking heart that I reentered Holmes’s bedroom.
For all that I knew the worst might have happened in my absence.
To my enormous relief, he had improved greatly in the interval.
His appearance was as ghastly as ever, but all trace of delirium
had left him and he spoke in a feeble voice, it is true, but with
even more than his usual crispness and lucidity.

“Well, did you see him, Watson?”

“Yes; he is coming.”

“Admirable, Watson! Admirable! You are the best of messengers.”

“He wished to return with me.”

“That would never do, Watson. That would be obviously
impossible. Did he ask what ailed me?”

“I told him about the Chinese in the East End.”

“Exactly! Well, Watson, you have done all that a good friend
could. You can now disappear from the scene.”

“I must wait and hear his opinion, Holmes.”

“Of course you must. But I have reasons to suppose that this
opinion would be very much more frank and valuable if he imagines
that we are alone. There is just room behind the head of my bed,
Watson.”

“My dear Holmes!”

“I fear there is no alternative, Watson. The room does not lend
itself to concealment, which is as well, as it is the less likely
to arouse suspicion. But just there, Watson, I fancy that it
could be done.” Suddenly he sat up with a rigid intentness upon
his haggard face. “There are the wheels, Watson. Quick, man, if
you love me! And don’t budge, whatever happens–whatever
happens, do you hear? Don’t speak! Don’t move! Just listen
with all your ears.” Then in an instant his sudden access of
strength departed, and his masterful, purposeful talk droned away
into the low, vague murmurings of a semi-delirious man.

>From the hiding-place into which I had been so swiftly hustled I
heard the footfalls upon the stair, with the opening and the
closing of the bedroom door. Then, to my surprise, there came a
long silence, broken only by the heavy breathings and gaspings of
the sick man. I could imagine that our visitor was standing by
the bedside and looking down at the sufferer. At last that
strange hush was broken.

“Holmes!” he cried. “Holmes!” in the insistent tone of one who
awakens a sleeper. “Can’t you hear me, Holmes?” There was a
rustling, as if he had shaken the sick man roughly by the
shoulder.

“Is that you, Mr. Smith?” Holmes whispered. “I hardly dared
hope that you would come.”

The other laughed.

“I should imagine not,” he said. “And yet, you see, I am here.
Coals of fire, Holmes–coals of fire!”

“It is very good of you–very noble of you. I appreciate your
special knowledge.”

Our visitor sniggered.

“You do. You are, fortunately, the only man in London who does.
Do you know what is the matter with you?”

“The same,” said Holmes.

“Ah! You recognize the symptoms?”

“Only too well.”

“Well, I shouldn’t be surprised, Holmes. I shouldn’t be
surprised if it WERE the same. A bad lookout for you if it is.
Poor Victor was a dead man on the fourth day–a strong, hearty
young fellow. It was certainly, as you said, very surprising
that he should have contracted and out-of-the-way Asiatic disease
in the heart of London–a disease, too, of which I had made such
a very special study. Singular coincidence, Holmes. Very smart
of you to notice it, but rather uncharitable to suggest that it
was cause and effect.”

“I knew that you did it.”

“Oh, you did, did you? Well, you couldn’t prove it, anyhow. But
what do you think of yourself spreading reports about me like
that, and then crawling to me for help the moment you are in
trouble? What sort of a game is that–eh?”

I heard the rasping, laboured breathing of the sick man. “Give
me the water!” he gasped.

“You’re precious near your end, my friend, but I don’t want you
to go till I have had a word with you. That’s why I give you
water. There, don’t slop it about! That’s right. Can you
understand what I say?”

Holmes groaned.

“Do what you can for me. Let bygones be bygones,” he whispered.
“I’ll put the words out of my head–I swear I will. Only cure
me, and I’ll forget it.”

“Forget what?”

“Well, about Victor Savage’s death. You as good as admitted just
now that you had done it. I’ll forget it.”

“You can forget it or remember it, just as you like. I don’t see
you in the witnessbox. Quite another shaped box, my good Holmes,
I assure you. It matters nothing to me that you should know how
my nephew died. It’s not him we are talking about. It’s you.”

“Yes, yes.”

“The fellow who came for me–I’ve forgotten his name–said that
you contracted it down in the East End among the sailors.”

“I could only account for it so.”

“You are proud of your brains, Holmes, are you not? Think
yourself smart, don’t you? You came across someone who was
smarter this time. Now cast your mind back, Holmes. Can you
think of no other way you could have got this thing?”

“I can’t think. My mind is gone. For heaven’s sake help me!”

“Yes, I will help you. I’ll help you to understand just where
you are and how you got there. I’d like you to know before you
die.”

“Give me something to ease my pain.”

“Painful, is it? Yes, the coolies used to do some squealing
towards the end. Takes you as cramp, I fancy.”

“Yes, yes; it is cramp.”

“Well, you can hear what I say, anyhow. Listen now! Can you
remember any unusual incident in your life just about the time
your symptoms began?”

“No, no; nothing.”

“Think again.”

“I’m too ill to think.”

“Well, then, I’ll help you. Did anything come by post?”

“By post?”

“A box by chance?”

“I’m fainting–I’m gone!”

“Listen, Holmes!” There was a sound as if he was shaking the
dying man, and it was all that I could do to hold myself quiet in
my hiding-place. “You must hear me. You SHALL hear me. Do you
remember a box–an ivory box? It came on Wednesday. You opened
it–do you remember?”

“Yes, yes, I opened it. There was a sharp spring inside it.
Some joke–”

“It was no joke, as you will find to your cost. You fool, you
would have it and you have got it. Who asked you to cross my
path? If you had left me alone I would not have hurt you.”

“I remember,” Holmes gasped. “The spring! It drew blood. This
box–this on the table.”

“The very one, by George! And it may as well leave the room in
my pocket. There goes your last shred of evidence. But you have
the truth now, Holmes, and you can die with the knowledge that I
killed you. You knew too much of the fate of Victor Savage, so I
have sent you to share it. You are very near your end, Holmes.
I will sit here and I will watch you die.”

Holmes’s voice had sunk to an almost inaudible whisper.

“What is that?” said Smith. “Turn up the gas? Ah, the shadows
begin to fall, do they? Yes, I will turn it up, that I may see
you the better.” He crossed the room and the light suddenly
brightened. “Is there any other little service that I can do
you, my friend?”

“A match and a cigarette.”

I nearly called out in my joy and my amazement. He was speaking
in his natural voice–a little weak, perhaps, but the very voice
I knew. There was a long pause, and I felt that Culverton Smith
was standing in silent amazement looking down at his companion.

“What’s the meaning of this?” I heard him say at last in a dry,
rasping tone.

“The best way of successfully acting a part is to be it,” said
Holmes. “I give you my word that for three days I have tasted
neither food nor drink until you were good enough to pour me out
that glass of water. But it is the tobacco which I find most
irksome. Ah, here ARE some cigarettes.” I heard the striking of
a match. “That is very much better. Halloa! halloa! Do I hear
the step of a friend?”

There were footfalls outside, the door opened, and Inspector
Morton appeared.

“All is in order and this is your man,” said Holmes.

The officer gave the usual cautions.

“I arrest you on the charge of the murder of one Victor Savage,”
he concluded.

“And you might add of the attempted murder of one Sherlock
Holmes,” remarked my friend with a chuckle. “To save an invalid
trouble, Inspector, Mr. Culverton Smith was good enough to give
our signal by turning up the gas. By the way, the prisoner has a
small box in the right-hand pocket of his coat which it would be
as well to remove. Thank you. I would handle it gingerly if I
were you. Put it down here. It may play its part in the trial.”

There was a sudden rush and a scuffle, followed by the clash of
iron and a cry of pain.

“You’ll only get yourself hurt,” said the inspector. “Stand
still, will you?” There was the click of the closing handcuffs.

“A nice trap!” cried the high, snarling voice. “It will bring
YOU into the dock, Holmes, not me. He asked me to come here to
cure him. I was sorry for him and I came. Now he will pretend,
no doubt, that I have said anything which he may invent which
will corroborate his insane suspicions. You can lie as you like,
Holmes. My word is always as good as yours.”

“Good heavens!” cried Holmes. “I had totally forgotten him. My
dear Watson, I owe you a thousand apologies. To think that I
should have overlooked you! I need not introduce you to Mr.
Culverton Smith, since I understand that you met somewhat earlier
in the evening. Have you the cab below? I will follow you when I
am dressed, for I may be of some use at the station.

“I never needed it more,” said Holmes as he refreshed himself
with a glass of claret and some biscuits in the intervals of his
toilet. “However, as you know, my habits are irregular, and such
a feat means less to me than to most men. It was very essential
that I should impress Mrs. Hudson with the reality of my
condition, since she was to convey it to you, and you in turn to
him. You won’t be offended, Watson? You will realize that among
your many talents dissimulation finds no place, and that if you
had shared my secret you would never have been able to impress
Smith with the urgent necessity of his presence, which was the
vital point of the whole scheme. Knowing his vindictive nature,
I was perfectly certain that he would come to look upon his
handiwork.”

“But your appearance, Holmes–your ghastly face?”

“Three days of absolute fast does not improve one’s beauty,
Watson. For the rest, there is nothing which a sponge may not
cure. With vaseline upon one’s forehead, belladonna in one’s
eyes, rouge over the cheek-bones, and crusts of beeswax round
one’s lips, a very satisfying effect can be produced.
Malingering is a subject upon which I have sometimes thought of
writing a monograph. A little occasional talk about half-crowns,
oysters, or any other extraneous subject produces a pleasing
effect of delirium.”

“But why would you not let me near you, since there was in truth
no infection?”

“Can you ask, my dear Watson? Do you imagine that I have no
respect for your medical talents? Could I fancy that your astute
judgment would pass a dying man who, however weak, had no rise of
pulse or temperature? At four yards, I could deceive you. If I
failed to do so, who would bring my Smith within my grasp? No,
Watson, I would not touch that box. You can just see if you look
at it sideways where the sharp spring like a viper’s tooth
emerges as you open it. I dare say it was by some such device
that poor Savage, who stood between this monster and a reversion,
was done to death. My correspondence, however, is, as you know,
a varied one, and I am somewhat upon my guard against any
packages which reach me. It was clear to me, however, that by
pretending that he had really succeeded in his design I might
surprise a confession. That pretence I have carried out with the
thoroughness of the true artist. Thank you, Watson, you must
help me on with my coat. When we have finished at the police-
station I think that something nutritious at Simpson’s would not
be out of place.”

“Well, Mrs. Warren, I cannot see that you have any particular
cause for uneasiness, nor do I understand why I, whose time is of
some value, should interfere in the matter. I really have other
things to engage me.” So spoke Sherlock Holmes and turned back
to the great scrapbook in which he was arranging and indexing
some of his recent material.

But the landlady had the pertinacity and also the cunning of her
sex. She held her ground firmly.

“You arranged an affair for a lodger of mine last year,” she
said–”Mr. Fairdale Hobbs.”

“Ah, yes–a simple matter.”

“But he would never cease talking of it–your kindness, sir, and
the way in which you brought light into the darkness. I
remembered his words when I was in doubt and darkness myself. I
know you could if you only would.”

Holmes was accessible upon the side of flattery, and also, to do
him justice, upon the side of kindliness. The two forces made
him lay down his gum-brush with a sigh of resignation and push
back his chair.

“Well, well, Mrs. Warren, let us hear about it, then. You don’t
object to tobacco, I take it? Thank you, Watson–the matches!
You are uneasy, as I understand, because your new lodger remains
in his rooms and you cannot see him. Why, bless you, Mrs.
Warren, if I were your lodger you often would not see me for
weeks on end.”

“No doubt, sir; but this is different. It frightens me, Mr.
Holmes. I can’t sleep for fright. To hear his quick step moving
here and moving there from early morning to late at night, and
yet never to catch so much as a glimpse of him–it’s more than I
can stand. My husband is as nervous over it as I am, but he is
out at his work all day, while I get no rest from it. What is he
hiding for? What has he done? Except for the girl, I am all
alone in the house with him, and it’s more than my nerves can
stand.”

Holmes leaned forward and laid his long, thin fingers upon the
woman’s shoulder. He had an almost hypnotic power of soothing
when he wished. The scared look faded from her eyes, and her
agitated features smoothed into their usual commonplace. She sat
down in the chair which he had indicated.

“If I take it up I must understand every detail,” said he. “Take
time to consider. The smallest point may be the most essential.
You say that the man came ten days ago and paid you for a
fortnight’s board and lodging?”

“He asked my terms, sir. I said fifty shillings a week. There
is a small sitting-room and bedroom, and all complete, at the top
of the house.”

“Well?”

“He said, ‘I’ll pay you five pounds a week if I can have it on my
own terms.’ I’m a poor woman, sir, and Mr. Warren earns little,
and the money meant much to me. He took out a ten-pound note,
and he held it out to me then and there. ‘You can have the same
every fortnight for a long time to come if you keep the terms,’
he said. ‘If not, I’ll have no more to do with you.’

“What were the terms?”

“Well, sir, they were that he was to have a key of the house.
That was all right. Lodgers often have them. Also, that he was
to be left entirely to himself and never, upon any excuse, to be
disturbed.”

“Nothing wonderful in that, surely?”

“Not in reason, sir. But this is out of all reason. He has been
there for ten days, and neither Mr. Warren, nor I, nor the girl
has once set eyes upon him. We can hear that quick step of his
pacing up and down, up and down, night, morning, and noon; but
except on that first night he had never once gone out of the
house.”

“Oh, he went out the first night, did he?”

“Yes, sir, and returned very late–after we were all in bed. He
told me after he had taken the rooms that he would do so and
asked me not to bar the door. I heard him come up the stair
after midnight.”

“But his meals?”

“It was his particular direction that we should always, when he
rang, leave his meal upon a chair, outside his door. Then he
rings again when he has finished, and we take it down from the
same chair. If he wants anything else he prints it on a slip of
paper and leaves it.”

“Prints it?”

“Yes, sir; prints it in pencil. Just the word, nothing more.
Here’s the one I brought to show you–soap. Here’s another–
match. This is one he left the first morning–daily gazette. I
leave that paper with his breakfast every morning.”

“Dear me, Watson,” said Homes, staring with great curiosity at
the slips of foolscap which the landlady had handed to him, “this
is certainly a little unusual. Seclusion I can understand; but
why print? Printing is a clumsy process. Why not write? What
would it suggest, Watson?”

“That he desired to conceal his handwriting.”

“But why? What can it matter to him that his landlady should
have a word of his writing? Still, it may be as you say. Then,
again, why such laconic messages?”

“I cannot imagine.”

“It opens a pleasing field for intelligent speculation. The words
are written with a broad-pointed, violet-tinted pencil of a not
unusual pattern. You will observe that the paper is torn away at
the side here after the printing was done, so that the ’s’ of
’soap’ is partly gone. Suggestive, Watson, is it not?”

“Of caution?”

“Exactly. There was evidently some mark, some thumbprint,
something which might give a clue to the person’s identity. Now.
Mrs. Warren, you say that the man was of middle size, dark, and
bearded. What age would he be?”

“Youngish, sir–not over thirty.”

“Well, can you give me no further indications?”

“He spoke good English, sir, and yet I thought he was a foreigner
by his accent.”

“And he was well dressed?”

“Very smartly dressed, sir–quite the gentleman. Dark clothes–
nothing you would note.”

“He gave no name?”

“No, sir.”

“And has had no letters or callers?”

“None.”

“But surely you or the girl enter his room of a morning?”

“No, sir; he looks after himself entirely.”

“Dear me! that is certainly remarkable. What about his luggage?”

“He had one big brown bag with him–nothing else.”

“Well, we don’t seem to have much material to help us. Do you
say nothing has come out of that room–absolutely nothing?”

The landlady drew an envelope from her bag; from it she shook out
two burnt matches and a cigarette-end upon the table.

“They were on his tray this morning. I brought them because I
had heard that you can read great things out of small ones.”

Holmes shrugged his shoulders.

“There is nothing here,” said he. “The matches have, of course,
been used to light cigarettes. That is obvious from the
shortness of the burnt end. Half the match is consumed in
lighting a pipe or cigar. But, dear me! this cigarette stub is
certainly remarkable. The gentleman was bearded and moustached,
you say?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t understand that. I should say that only a clean-shaven
man could have smoked this. Why, Watson, even your modest
moustache would have been singed.”

“A holder?” I suggested.

“No, no; the end is matted. I suppose there could not be two
people in your rooms, Mrs. Warren?”

“No, sir. He eats so little that I often wonder it can keep life
in one.”

“Well, I think we must wait for a little more material. After
all, you have nothing to complain of. You have received your
rent, and he is not a troublesome lodger, though he is certainly
an unusual one. He pays you well, and if he chooses to lie
concealed it is no direct business of yours. We have no excuse
for an intrusion upon his privacy until we have some reason to
think that there is a guilty reason for it. I’ve taken up the
matter, and I won’t lose sight of it. Report to me if anything
fresh occurs, and rely upon my assistance if it should be needed.

“There are certainly some points of interest in this case,
Watson,” he remarked when the landlady had left us. “It may, of
course, be trivial–individual eccentricity; or it may be very
much deeper than appears on the surface. The first thing that
strike one is the obvious possibility that the person now in the
rooms may be entirely different from the one who engaged them.”

“Why should you think so?”

“Well, apart form this cigarette-end, was it not suggestive that
the only time the lodger went out was immediately after his
taking the rooms? He came back–or someone came back–when all
witnesses were out of the way. We have no proof that the person
who came back was the person who went out. Then, again, the man
who took the rooms spoke English well. This other, however,
prints ‘match’ when it should have been ‘matches.’ I can imagine
that the word was taken out of a dictionary, which would give the
noun but not the plural. The laconic style may be to conceal the
absence of knowledge of English. Yes, Watson, there are good
reasons to suspect that there has been a substitution of
lodgers.”

“But for what possible end?”

“Ah! there lies our problem. There is one rather obvious line of
investigation.” He took down the great book in which, day by
day, he filed the agony columns of the various London journals.
“Dear me!” said he, turning over the pages, “what a chorus of
groans, cries, and bleatings! What a rag-bag of singular
happenings! But surely the most valuable hunting-ground that
ever was given to a student of the unusual! This person is alone
and cannot be approached by letter without a breach of that
absolute secrecy which is desired. How is any news or any
message to reach him from without? Obviously by advertisement
through a newspaper. There seems no other way, and fortunately
we need concern ourselves with the one paper only. Here are the
Daily Gazette extracts of the last fortnight. ‘Lady with a black
boa at Prince’s Skating Club’–that we may pass. ‘Surely Jimmy
will not break his mother’s heart’–that appears to be
irrelevant. ‘If the lady who fainted on Brixton bus’–she does
not interest me. ‘Every day my heart longs–’ Bleat, Watson–
unmitigated bleat! Ah, this is a little more possible. Listen
to this: ‘Be patient. Will find some sure means of
communications. Meanwhile, this column. G.’ That is two days
after Mrs. Warren’s lodger arrived. It sounds plausible, does it
not? The mysterious one could understand English, even if he
could not print it. Let us see if we can pick up the trace
again. Yes, here we are–three days later. ‘Am making
successful arrangements. Patience and prudence. The clouds will
pass. G.’ Nothing for a week after that. Then comes something
much more definite: ‘The path is clearing. If I find chance
signal message remember code agreed–One A, two B, and so on.
You will hear soon. G.’ That was in yesterday’s paper, and
there is nothing in to-day’s. It’s all very appropriate to Mrs.
Warren’s lodger. If we wait a little, Watson, I don’t doubt that
the affair will grow more intelligible.”

So it proved; for in the morning I found my friend standing on
the hearthrug with his back to the fire and a smile of complete
satisfaction upon his face.

“How’s this, Watson?” he cried, picking up the paper from the
table. “‘High red house with white stone facings. Third floor.
Second window left. After dusk. G.’ That is definite enough.
I think after breakfast we must make a little reconnaissance of
Mrs. Warren’s neighbourhood. Ah, Mrs. Warren! what news do you
bring us this morning?”

Our client had suddenly burst into the room with an explosive
energy which told of some new and momentous development.

“It’s a police matter, Mr. Holmes!” she cried. “I’ll have no
more of it! He shall pack out of there with his baggage. I
would have gone straight up and told him so, only I thought it
was but fair to you to take your opinion first. But I’m at the
end of my patience, and when it comes to knocking my old man
about–”

“Knocking Mr. Warren about?”

“Using him roughly, anyway.”

“But who used him roughly?”

“Ah! that’s what we want to know! It was this morning, sir. Mr.
Warren is a timekeeper at Morton and Waylight’s, in Tottenham
Court Road. He has to be out of the house before seven. Well,
this morning he had not gone ten paces down the road when two men
came up behind him, threw a coat over his head, and bundled him
into a cab that was beside the curb. They drove him an hour,
and then opened the door and shot him out. He lay in the roadway
so shaken in his wits that he never saw what became of the cab.
When he picked himself up he found he was on Hampstead Heath; so
he took a bus home, and there he lies now on his sofa, while I
came straight round to tell you what had happened.”

“Most interesting,” said Holmes. “Did he observe the appearance
of these men–did he hear them talk?”

“No; he is clean dazed. He just knows that he was lifted up as
if by magic and dropped as if by magic. Two a least were in it,
and maybe three.”

“And you connect this attack with your lodger?”

“Well, we’ve lived there fifteen years and no such happenings
ever came before. I’ve had enough of him. Money’s not
everything. I’ll have him out of my house before the day is
done.”

“Wait a bit, Mrs. Warren. Do nothing rash. I begin to think that
this affair may be very much more important than appeared at
first sight. It is clear now that some danger is threatening
your lodger. It is equally clear that his enemies, lying in wait
for him near your door, mistook your husband for him in the foggy
morning light. On discovering their mistake they released him.
What they would have done had it not been a mistake, we can only
conjecture.”

“Well, what am I to do, Mr. Holmes?”

“I have a great fancy to see this lodger of yours, Mrs. Warren.”

“I don’t see how that is to be managed, unless you break in the
door. I always hear him unlock it as I go down the stair after I
leave the tray.”

“He has to take the tray in. Surely we could conceal ourselves
and see him do it.”

The landlady thought for a moment.

“Well, sir, there’s the box-room opposite. I could arrange a
looking-glass, maybe, and if you were behind the door–”

“Excellent!” said Holmes. “When does he lunch?”

“About one, sir.”

“Then Dr. Watson and I will come round in time. For the present,
Mrs. Warren, good-bye.”

At half-past twelve we found ourselves upon the steps of Mrs.
Warren’s house–a high, thin, yellow-brick edifice in Great Orme
Street, a narrow thoroughfare at the northeast side of the
British Museum. Standing as it does near the corner of the
street, it commands a view down Howe Street, with its ore
pretentious houses. Holmes pointed with a chuckle to one of
these, a row of residential flats, which projected so that they
could not fail to catch the eye.

“See, Watson!” said he. “‘High red house with stone facings.’
There is the signal station all right. We know the place, and we
know the code; so surely our task should be simple. There’s a
‘to let’ card in that window. It is evidently an empty flat to
which the confederate has access. Well, Mrs. Warren, what now?”

“I have it all ready for you. If you will both come up and leave
your boots below on the landing, I’ll put you there now.”

It was an excellent hiding-plate which she had arranged. The
mirror was so placed that, seated in the dark, we could very
plainly see the door opposite. We had hardly settled down in it,
and Mrs. Warren left us, when a distant tinkle announced that our
mysterious neighbour had rung. Presently the landlady appeared
with the tray, laid it down upon a chair beside the closed door,
and then, treading heavily, departed. Crouching together in the
angle of the door, we kept our eyes fixed upon the mirror.
Suddenly, as the landlady’s footsteps died away, there was the
creak of a turning key, the handle revolved, and two thin hands
darted out and lifted the tray form the chair. An instant later
it was hurriedly replaced, and I caught a glimpse of a dark,
beautiful, horrified face glaring at the narrow opening of the
box-room. Then the door crashed to, the key turned once more,
and all was silence. Holmes twitched my sleeve, and together we
stole down the stair.

“I will call again in the evening,” said he to the expectant
landlady. “I think, Watson, we can discuss this business better
in our own quarters.”

“My surmise, as you saw, proved to be correct,” said he, speaking
from the depths of his easy-chair. “There has been a
substitution of lodgers. What I did not foresee is that we
should find a woman, and no ordinary woman, Watson.”

“She saw us.”

“Well, she saw something to alarm her. That is certain. The
general sequence of events is pretty clear, is it not? A couple
seek refuge in London from a very terrible and instant danger.
The measure of that danger is the rigour of their precautions.
The man, who has some work which he must do, desires to leave the
woman in absolute safety while he does it. It is not an easy
problem, but he solved it in an original fashion, and so
effectively that her presence was not even known to the landlady
who supplies her with food. The printed messages, as is now
evident, were to prevent her sex being discovered by her writing.
The man cannot come near the woman, or he will guide their
enemies to her. Since he cannot communicate with her direct, he
has recourse to the agony column of a paper. So far all is
clear.”

“But what is at the root of it?”

“Ah, yes, Watson–severely practical, as usual! What is at the
root of it all? Mrs. Warren’s whimsical problem enlarges
somewhat and assumes a more sinister aspect as we proceed. This
much we can say: that it is no ordinary love escapade. You saw
the woman’s face at the sign of danger. We have heard, too, of
the attack upon the landlord, which was undoubtedly meant for the
lodger. These alarms, and the desperate need for secrecy, argue
that the matter is one of life or death. The attack upon Mr.
Warren further shows that the enemy, whoever they are, are
themselves not aware of the substitution of the female lodger for
the male. It is very curious and complex, Watson.”

“Why should you go further in it? What have you to gain from
it?”

“What, indeed? It is art for art’s sake, Watson. I suppose when
you doctored you found yourself studying cases without thought of
a fee?”

“For my education, Holmes.”

“Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with
the greatest for the last. This is an instructive case. There
is neither money nor credit in it, and yet one would wish to tidy
it up. When dusk comes we should find ourselves one stage
advanced in our investigation.”

When we returned to Mrs. Warren’s rooms, the gloom of a London
winter evening had thickened into one gray curtain, a dead
monotone of colour, broken only by the sharp yellow squares of
the windows and the blurred haloes of the gas-lamps. As we
peered from the darkened sitting-room of the lodging-house, one
more dim light glimmered high up through the obscurity.

“Someone is moving in that room,” said Holmes in a whisper, his
gaunt and eager face thrust forward to the window-pane. “Yes, I
can see his shadow. There he is again! He has a candle in his
hand. Now he is peering across. He wants to be sure that she is
on the lookout. Now he begins to flash. Take the message also,
Watson, that we may check each other. A single flash–that is A,
surely. Now, then. How many did you make it? Twenty. Do did
In. That should mean T. AT–that’s intelligible enough.
Another T. Surely this is the beginning of a second word. Now,
then–TENTA. Dead stop. That can’t be all, Watson? ATTENTA
gives no sense. Nor is it any better as three words AT, TEN, TA,
unless T. A. are a person’s initials. There it goes again!
What’s that? ATTE–why, it is the same message over again.
Curious, Watson, very curious. Now he is off once more! AT–why
he is repeating it for the third time. ATTENTA three times! How
often will he repeat it? No, that seems to be the finish. He
has withdrawn form the window. What do you make of it, Watson?”

“A cipher message, Holmes.”

My companion gave a sudden chuckle of comprehension. “And not a
very obscure cipher, Watson,” said he. “Why, of course, it is
Italian! The A means that it is addressed to a woman. ‘Beware!
Beware! Beware!’ How’s that, Watson?

“I believe you have hit it.”

“Not a doubt of it. It is a very urgent message, thrice repeated
to make it more so. But beware of what? Wait a bit, he is
coming to the window once more.”

Again we saw the dim silhouette of a crouching man and the whisk
of the small flame across the window as the signals were renewed.
They came mor rapidly than before–so rapid that it was hard to
follow them.

“PERICOLO–pericolo–eh, what’s that, Watson? ‘Danger,’ isn’t
it? Yes, by Jove, it’s a danger signal. There he goes again!
PERI. Halloa, what on earth–”

The light had suddenly gone out, the glimmering square of window
had disappeared, and the third floor formed a dark band round the
lofty building, with its tiers of shining casements. That last
warning cry had been suddenly cut short. How, and by whom? The
same thought occurred on the instant to us both. Holmes sprang
up from where he crouched by the window.

“This is serious, Watson,” he cried. “There is some devilry
going forward! Why should such a message stop in such a way? I
should put Scotland Yard in touch with this business–and yet, it
is too pressing for us to leave.”

“Shall I go for the police?”

“We must define the situation a little more clearly. It may bear
some more innocent interpretation. Come, Watson, let us go
across ourselves and see what we can make of it.”

Two

As we walked rapidly down Howe Street I glanced back at the
building which we had left. There, dimly outlined at the top
window, I could see the shadow of a head, a woman’s head, gazing
tensely, rigidly, out into the night, waiting with breathless
suspense for the renewal of that interrupted message. At the
doorway of the Howe Street flats a man, muffled in a cravat and
greatcoat, was leaning against the railing. He started as the
hall-light fell upon our faces.

“Holmes!” he cried.

“Why, Gregson!” said my companion as he shook hands with the
Scotland Yard detective. “Journeys end with lovers’ meetings.
What brings you here?”

“The same reasons that bring you, I expect,” said Gregson. “How
you got on to it I can’t imagine.”

“Different threads, but leading up to the same tangle. I’ve been
taking the signals.”

“Signals?”

“Yes, from that window. They broke off in the middle. We came
over to see the reason. But since it is safe in your hands I see
no object in continuing this business.”

“Wait a bit!” cried Gregson eagerly. “I’ll do you this justice,
Mr. Holmes, that I was never in a case yet that I didn’t feel
stronger for having you on my side. There’s only the one exit to
these flats, so we have him safe.”

“Who is he?”

“Well, well, we score over you for once, Mr. Holmes. You must
give us best this time.” He struck his stick sharply upon the
ground, on which a cabman, his whip in his hand, sauntered over
from a four-wheeler which stood on the far side of the street.
“May I introduce you to Mr. Sherlock Holmes?” he said to the
cabman. “This is Mr. Leverton, of Pinkerton’s American Agency.”

“The hero of the Long Island cave mystery?” said Holmes. “Sir, I
am pleased to meet you.”

The American, a quiet, businesslike young man, with a clean-
shaven, hatchet face, flushed up at the words of commendation.
“I am on the trail of my life now, Mr. Holmes,” said he. “If I
can get Gorgiano–”

“What! Gorgiano of the Red Circle?”

“Oh, he has a European fame, has he? Well, we’ve learned all
about him in America. We KNOW he is at the bottom of fifty
murders, and yet we have nothing positive we can take him on. I
tracked him over from New York, and I’ve been close to him for a
week in London, waiting some excuse to get my hand on his collar.
Mr. Gregson and I ran him to ground in that big tenement house,
and there’s only one door, so he can’t slip us. There’s three
folk come out since he went in, but I’ll swear he wasn’t one of
them.”

“Mr. Holmes talks of signals,” said Gregson. “I expect, as
usual, he knows a good deal that we don’t.”

In a few clear words Holmes explained the situation as it had
appeared to us. The American struck his hands together with
vexation.

“He’s on to us!” he cried.

“Why do you think so?”

“Well, it figures out that way, does it not? Here he is, sending
out messages to an accomplice–there are several of his gang in
London. Then suddenly, just as by your own account he was
telling them that there was danger, he broke short off. What
could it mean except that from the window he had suddenly either
caught sight of us in the street, or in some way come to
understand how close the danger was, and that he must act right
away if he was to avoid it? What do you suggest, Mr. Holmes?”

“That we go up at once and see for ourselves.”

“But we have no warrant for his arrest.”

“He is in unoccupied premises under suspicious circumstances,”
said Gregson. “That is good enough for the moment. When we have
him by the heels we can see if New York can’t help us to keep
him. I’ll take the responsibility of arresting him now.”

Our official detectives may blunder in the matter of
intelligence, but never in that of courage. Gregson climbed the
stair to arrest this desperate murderer with the same absolutely
quiet and businesslike bearing with which he would have ascended
the official staircase of Scotland Yard. The Pinkerton man had
tried to push past him, but Gregson had firmly elbowed him back.
London dangers were the privilege of the London force.

The door of the left-hand flat upon the third landing was
standing ajar. Gregson pushed it open. Within all was absolute
silence and darkness. I struck a match and lit the detective’s
lantern. As I did so, and as the flicker steadied into a flame,
we all gave a gasp of surprise. On the deal boards of the
carpetless floor there was outlined a fresh track of blood. The
red steps pointed towards us and led away from an inner room, the
door of which was closed. Gregson flung it open and held his
light full blaze in front of him, while we all peered eagerly
over his shoulders.

In the middle of the floor of the empty room was huddled the
figure of an enormous man, his clean-shaven, swarthy face
grotesquely horrible in its contortion and his head encircled by
a ghastly crimson halo of blood, lying in a broad wet circle upon
the white woodwork. His knees were drawn up, his hands thrown
out in agony, and from the centre of his broad, brown, upturned
throat there projected the white haft of a knife driven blade-
deep into his body. Giant as he was, the man must have gone down
like a pole-axed ox before that terrific blow. Beside his right
hand a most formidable horn-handled, two-edged dagger lay upon
the floor, and near it a black kid glove.

“By George! it’s Black Gorgiano himself!” cried the American
detective. “Someone has got ahead of us this time.”

“Here is the candle in the window, Mr. Holmes,” said Gregson.
“Why, whatever are you doing?”

Holmes had stepped across, had lit the candle, and was passing it
backward and forward across the window-panes. Then he peered
into the darkness, blew the candle out, and threw it on the
floor.

“I rather think that will be helpful,” said he. He came over and
stood in deep thought while the two professionals were examining
the body. “You say that three people came out form the flat while
you were waiting downstairs,” said he at last. “Did you observe
them closely?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Was there a fellow about thirty, black-bearded, dark, of middle
size?”

“Yes; he was the last to pass me.”

“That is your man, I fancy. I can give you his description, and
we have a very excellent outline of his footmark. That should be
enough for you.”

“Not much, Mr. Holmes, among the millions of London.”

“Perhaps not. That is why I thought it best to summon this lady
to your aid.”

We all turned round at the words. There, framed in the doorway,
was a tall and beautiful woman–the mysterious lodger of
Bloomsbury. Slowly she advanced, her face pale and drawn with a
frightful apprehension, her eyes fixed and staring, her terrified
gaze riveted upon the dark figure on the floor.

“You have killed him!” she muttered. “Oh, Dio mio, you have
killed him!” Then I heard a sudden sharp intake of her breath,
and she sprang into the air with a cry of joy. Round and round
the room she danced, her hands clapping, her dark eyes gleaming
with delighted wonder, and a thousand pretty Italian exclamations
pouring from her lips. It was terrible and amazing to see such a
woman so convulsed with joy at such a sight. Suddenly she
stopped and gazed at us all with a questioning stare.

“But you! You are police, are you not? You have killed Giuseppe
Gorgiano. Is it not so?”

“We are police, madam.”

She looked round into the shadows of the room.

“But where, then, is Gennaro?” she asked. “He is my husband,
Gennaro Lucca. I am Emilia Lucca, and we are both from New York.
Where is Gennaro? He called me this moment from this window, and
I ran with all my speed.”

“It was I who called,” said Holmes.

“You! How could you call?”

“Your cipher was not difficult, madam. Your presence here was
desirable. I knew that I had only to flash ‘Vieni’ and you would
surely come.”

The beautiful Italian looked with awe at my companion.

“I do not understand how you know these things,” she said.
“Giuseppe Gorgiano–how did he–” She paused, and then suddenly
her face lit up with pride and delight. “Now I see it! My
Gennaro! My splendid, beautiful Gennaro, who has guarded me safe
from all harm, he did it, with his own strong hand he killed the
monster! Oh, Gennaro, how wonderful you are! What woman could
every be worthy of such a man?”

“Well, Mrs. Lucca,” said the prosaic Gregson, laying his hand
upon the lady’s sleeve with as little sentiment as if she were a
Notting Hill hooligan, “I am not very clear yet who you are or
what you are; but you’ve said enough to make it very clear that
we shall want you at the Yard.”

“One moment, Gregson,” said Holmes. “I rather fancy that this
lady may be as anxious to give us information as we can be to get
it. You understand, madam, that your husband will be arrested
and tried for the death of the man who lies before us? What you
say may be used in evidence. But if you think that he has acted
from motives which are not criminal, and which he would wish to
have known, then you cannot serve him better than by telling us
the whole story.”

“Now that Gorgiano is dead we fear nothing,” said the lady. “He
was a devil and a monster, and there can be no judge in the world
who would punish my husband for having killed him.”

“In that case,” said Holmes, “my suggestion is that we lock this
door, leave things as we found them, go with this lady to her
room, and form our opinion after we have heard what it is that
she has to say to us.”

Half an hour later we were seated, all four, in the small
sitting-room of Signora Lucca, listening to her remarkable
narrative of those sinister events, the ending of which we had
chanced to witness. She spoke in rapid and fluent but very
unconventional English, which, for the sake of clearness, I will
make grammatical.

“I was born in Posilippo, near Naples,” said she, “and was the
daughter of Augusto Barelli, who was the chief lawyer and once
the deputy of that part. Gennaro was in my father’s employment,
and I came to love him, as any woman must. He had neither money
nor position–nothing but his beauty and strength and energy–so
my father forbade the match. We fled together, were married at
Bari, and sold my jewels to gain the money which would take us to
America. This was four years ago, and we have been in New York
ever since.

“Fortune was very good to us at first. Gennaro was able to do a
service to an Italian gentleman–he saved him from some ruffians
in the place called the Bowery, and so made a powerful friend.
His name was Tito Castalotte, and he was the senior partner of
the great firm of Castalotte and Zamba, who are the chief fruit
importers of New York. Signor Zamba is an invalid, and our new
friend Castalotte has all power within the firm, which employs
more than three hundred men. He took my husband into his
employment, made him head of a department, and showed his good-
will towards him in every way. Signor Castalotte was a bachelor,
and I believe that he felt as if Gennaro was his son, and both my
husband and I loved him as if he were our father. We had taken
and furnished a little house in Brooklyn, and our whole future
seemed assured when that black cloud appeared which was soon to
overspread our sky.

“One night, when Gennaro returned from his work, he brought a
fellow-countryman back with him. His name was Gorgiano, and he
had come also from Posilippo. He was a huge man, as you can
testify, for you have looked upon his corpse. Not only was his
body that of a giant but everything about him was grotesque,
gigantic, and terrifying. His voice was like thunder in our
little house. There was scarce room for the whirl of his great
arms as he talked. His thoughts, his emotions, his passions, all
were exaggerated and monstrous. He talked, or rather roared,
with such energy that others could but sit and listen, cowed with
the mighty stream of words. His eyes blazed at you and held you
at his mercy. He was a terrible and wonderful man. I thank God
that he is dead!

“He came again and again. Yet I was aware that Gennaro was no
more happy than I was in his presence. My poor husband would sit
pale and listless, listening to the endless raving upon politics
and upon social questions which made up or visitor’s
conversation. Gennaro said nothing, but I, who knew him so well,
could read in his face some emotion which I had never seen there
before. At first I thought that it was dislike. And then,
gradually, I understood that it was more than dislike. It was
fear–a deep, secret, shrinking fear. That night–the night that
I read his terror–I put my arms round him and I implored him by
his love for me and by all that he held dear to hold nothing from
me, and to tell me why this huge man overshadowed him so.

“He told me, and my own heart grew cold as ice as I listened. My
poor Gennaro, in his wild and fiery days, when all the world
seemed against him and his mind was driven half mad by the
injustices of life, had joined a Neapolitan society, the Red
Circle, which was allied to the old Carbonari. The oaths and
secrets of this brotherhood were frightful, but once within its
rule no escape was possible. When we had fled to America Gennaro
thought that he had cast it all off forever. What was his horror
one evening to meet in the streets the very man who had initiated
him in Naples, the giant Gorgiano, a man who had earned the name
of ‘Death’ in the south of Italy, for he was red to the elbow in
murder! He had come to New York to avoid the Italian police, and
he had already planted a branch of this dreadful society in his
new home. All this Gennaro told me and showed me a summons which
he had received that very day, a Red Circle drawn upon the head
of it telling him that a lodge would be held upon a certain date,
and that his presence at it was required and ordered.

“That was bad enough, but worse was to come. I had noticed for
some time that when Gorgiano came to us, as he constantly did, in
the evening, he spoke much to me; and even when his words were to
my husband those terrible, glaring, wild-beast eyes of his were
always turned upon me. One night his secret came out. I had
awakened what he called ‘love’ within him–the love of a brute–a
savage. Gennaro had not yet returned when he came. He pushed
his way in, seized me in his mighty arms, hugged me in his bear’s
embrace, covered me with kisses, and implored me to come away
with him. I was struggling and screaming when Gennaro entered
and attacked him. He struck Gennaro senseless and fled from the
house which he was never more to enter. It was a deadly enemy
that we made that night.

“A few days later came the meeting. Gennaro returned from it
with a face which told me that something dreadful had occurred.
It was worse than we could have imagined possible. The funds of
the society were raised by blackmailing rich Italians and
threatening them with violence should they refuse the money. It
seems that Castalotte, our dear friend and benefactor, had been
approached. He had refused to yield to threats, and he had
handed the notices to the police. It was resolved now that such
an example should be made of them as would prevent any other
victim from rebelling. At the meeting it was arranged that he and
his house should be blown up with dynamite. There was a drawing
of lots as to who should carry out the deed. Gennaro saw our
enemy’s cruel face smiling at him as he dipped his hand in the
bag. No doubt it had been prearranged in some fashion, for it was
the fatal disc with the Red Circle upon it, the mandate for
murder, which lay upon his palm. He was to kill his best friend,
or he was to expose himself and me to the vengeance of his
comrades. It was part of their fiendish system to punish those
whom they feared or hated by injuring not only their own persons
but those whom they loved, and it was the knowledge of this which
hung as a terror over my poor Gennaro’s head and drove him nearly
crazy with apprehension.

“All that night we sat together, our arms round each other, each
strengthening each for the troubles that lay before us. The very
next evening had been fixed for the attempt. By midday my
husband and I were on our way to London, but not before he had
given our benefactor full warning of this danger, and had also
left such information for the police as would safeguard his life
for the future.

“The rest, gentlemen, you know for yourselves. We were sure that
our enemies would be behind us like our own shadows. Gorgiano
had his private reasons for vengeance, but in any case we knew
how ruthless, cunning, and untiring he could be. Both Italy and
America are full of stories of his dreadful powers. If ever they
were exerted it would be now. My darling made use of the few
clear days which our start had given us in arranging for a refuge
for me in such a fashion that no possible danger could reach me.
For his own part, he wished to be free that he might communicate
both with the American and with the Italian police. I do not
myself know where he lived, or how. All that I learned was
through the columns of a newspaper. But once as I looked through
my window, I saw two Italians watching the house, and I
understood that in some way Gorgiano had found our retreat.
Finally Gennaro told me, through the paper, that he would signal
to me from a certain window, but when the signals came they were
nothing but warnings, which were suddenly interrupted. It is
very clear to me now that he knew Gorgiano to be close upon him,
and that, thank God! he was ready for him when he came. And now,
gentleman, I would ask you whether we have anything to fear from
the law, or whether any judge upon earth would condemn my Gennaro
for what he has done?”

“Well, Mr. Gregson,” said the American, looking across at the
official, “I don’t know what your British point of view may be,
but I guess that in New York this lady’s husband will receive a
pretty general vote of thanks.”

“She will have to come with me and see the chief,” Gregson
answered. “If what she says is corroborated, I do not think she
or her husband has much to fear. But what I can’t make head or
tail of, Mr. Holmes, is how on earth YOU got yourself mixed up in
the matter.”

“Education, Gregson, education. Still seeking knowledge at the
old university. Well, Watson, you have one more specimen of the
tragic and grotesque to add to your collection. By the way, it
is not eight o’clock, and a Wagner night at Covent Garden! If we
hurry, we might be in time for the second act.”

1. The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles

I find it recorded in my notebook that it was a bleak and windy
day towards the end of March in the year 1892. Holmes had
received a telegram while we sat at our lunch, and he had
scribbled a reply. He made no remark, but the matter remained in
his thoughts, for he stood in front of the fire afterwards with a
thoughtful face, smoking his pipe, and casting an occasional
glance at the message. Suddenly he turned upon me with a
mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

“I suppose, Watson, we must look upon you as a man of letters,”
said he. “How do you define the word ‘grotesque’?”

“Strange–remarkable,” I suggested.

He shook his head at my definition.

“There is surely something more than that,” said he; “some
underlying suggestion of the tragic and the terrible. If you
cast your mind back to some of those narratives with which you
have afflicted a long-suffering public, you will recognize how
often the grotesque has deepened into the criminal. Think of
that little affair of the red-headed men. That was grotesque
enough in the outset, and yet it ended in a desperate attempt at
robbery. Or, again, there was that most grotesque affair of the
five orange pips, which let straight to a murderous conspiracy.
The word puts me on the alert.”

“Have you it there?” I asked.

He read the telegram aloud.

“Have just had most incredible and grotesque experience. May I
consult you?

“Scott Eccles,
“Post Office, Charing Cross.”

“Man or woman?” I asked.

“Oh, man, of course. No woman would ever send a reply-paid
telegram. She would have come.”

“Will you see him?”

“My dear Watson, you know how bored I have been since we locked
up Colonel Carruthers. My mind is like a racing engine, tearing
itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for
which it was built. Life is commonplace, the papers are sterile;
audacity and romance seem to have passed forever from the
criminal world. Can you ask me, then, whether I am ready to look
into any new problem, however trivial it may prove? But here,
unless I am mistaken, is our client.”

A measured step was heard upon the stairs, and a moment later a
stout, tall, gray-whiskered and solemnly respectable person was
ushered into the room. His life history was written in his heavy
features and pompous manner. From his spats to his gold-rimmed
spectacles he was a Conservative, a churchman, a good citizen,
orthodox and conventional to the last degree. But some amazing
experience had disturbed his native composure and left its traces
in his bristling hair, his flushed, angry cheeks, and his
flurried, excited manner. He plunged instantly into his business.

“I have had a most singular and unpleasant experience, Mr.
Holmes,” said he. “Never in my life have I been placed in such a
situation. It is most improper–most outrageous. I must insist
upon some explanation.” He swelled and puffed in his anger.

“Pray sit down, Mr. Scott Eccles,” said Holmes in a soothing
voice. “May I ask, in the first place, why you came to me at
all?”

“Well, sir, it did not appear to be a matter which concerned the
police, and yet, when you have heard the facts, you must admit
that I could not leave it where it was. Private detectives are a
class with whom I have absolutely no sympathy, but none the less,
having heard your name–”

“Quite so. But, in the second place, why did you not come at
once?”

Holmes glanced at his watch.

“It is a quarter-past two,” he said. “Your telegram was
dispatched about one. But no one can glance at your toilet and
attire without seeing that your disturbance dates from the moment
of your waking.”

Our client smoothed down his unbrushed hair and felt his unshaven
chin.

“You are right, Mr. Holmes. I never gave a thought to my toilet.
I was only too glad to get out of such a house. But I have been
running round making inquiries before I came to you. I went to
the house agents, you know, and they said that Mr. Garcia’s rent
was paid up all right and that everything was in order at
Wisteria Lodge.”

“Come, come, sir,” said Holmes, laughing. “You are like my
friend, Dr. Watson, who has a bad habit of telling his stories
wrong end foremost. Please arrange your thoughts and let me
know, in their due sequence, exactly what those events are which
have sent you out unbrushed and unkempt, with dress boots and
waistcoat buttoned awry, in search of advice and assistance.”

Our client looked down with a rueful face at his own
unconventional appearance.

“I’m sure it must look very bad, Mr. Holmes, and I am not aware
that in my whole life such a thing has ever happened before. But
will tell you the whole queer business, and when I have done so
you will admit, I am sure, that there has been enough to excuse
me.”

But his narrative was nipped in the bud. There was a bustle
outside, and Mrs. Hudson opened the door to usher in two robust
and official-looking individuals, one of whom was well known to
us as Inspector Gregson of Scotland Yard, an energetic, gallant,
and, within his limitations, a capable officer. He shook hands
with Holmes and introduced his comrade as Inspector Baynes, of
the Surrey Constabulary.

“We are hunting together, Mr. Holmes, and our trail lay in this
direction.” He turned his bulldog eyes upon our visitor. “Are
you Mr. John Scott Eccles, of Popham House, Lee?”

“I am.”

“We have been following you about all the morning.”

“You traced him through the telegram, no doubt,” said Holmes.

“Exactly, Mr. Holmes. We picked up the scent at Charing Cross
Post-Office and came on here.”

“But why do you follow me? What do you want?”

“We wish a statement, Mr. Scott Eccles, as to the events which
let up to the death last night of Mr. Aloysius Garcia, of
Wisteria Lodge, near Esher.”

Our client had sat up with staring eyes and every tinge of colour
struck from his astonished face.

“Dead? Did you say he was dead?”

“Yes, sir, he is dead.”

“But how? An accident?”

“Murder, if ever there was one upon earth.”

“Good God! This is awful! You don’t mean–you don’t mean that I
am suspected?”

“A letter of yours was found in the dead man’s pocket, and we
know by it that you had planned to pass last night at his house.”

“So I did.”

“Oh, you did, did you?”

Out came the official notebook.

“Wait a bit, Gregson,” said Sherlock Holmes. “All you desire is
a plain statement, is it not?”

“And it is my duty to warn Mr. Scott Eccles that it may be used
against him.”

“Mr. Eccles was going to tell us about it when you entered the
room. I think, Watson, a brandy and soda would do him no harm.
Now, sir, I suggest that you take no notice of this addition to
your audience, and that you proceed with your narrative exactly
as you would have done had you never been interrupted.”

Our visitor had gulped off the brandy and the colour had returned
to his face. With a dubious glance at the inspector’s notebook,
he plunged at once into his extraordinary statement.

“I am a bachelor,” said he, “and being of a sociable turn I
cultivate a large number of friends. Among these are the family
of a retired brewer called Melville, living at Abermarle Mansion,
Kensington. It was at his table that I met some weeks ago a
young fellow named Garcia. He was, I understood, of Spanish
descent and connected in some way with the embassy. He spoke
perfect English, was pleasing in his manners, and as good-looking
a man as ever I saw in my life.

“In some way we struck up quite a friendship, this young fellow
and I. He seemed to take a fancy to me from the first, and
within two days of our meeting he came to see me at Lee. One
thing led to another, and it ended in his inviting me out to
spend a few days at his house, Wisteria Lodge, between Esher and
Oxshott. Yesterday evening I went to Esher to fulfil this
engagement.

“He had described his household to me before I went there. He
lived with a faithful servant, a countryman of his own, who
looked after all his needs. This fellow could speak English and
did his housekeeping for him. Then there was a wonderful cook,
he said, a half-breed whom he had picked up in his travels, who
could serve an excellent dinner. I remember that he remarked
what a queer household it was to find in the heart of Surrey, and
that I agreed with him, though it has proved a good deal queerer
than I thought.

“I drove to the place–about two miles on the south side of
Esher. The house was a fair-sized one, standing back from the
road, with a curving drive which was banked with high evergreen
shrubs. It was an old, tumbledown building in a crazy state of
disrepair. When the trap pulled up on the grass-grown drive in
front of the blotched and weather-stained door, I had doubts as
to my wisdom in visiting a man whom I knew so slightly. He
opened the door himself, however, and greeted me with a great
show of cordiality. I was handed over to the manservant, a
melancholy, swarthy individual, who led the way, my bag in his
hand, to my bedroom. The whole place was depressing. Our dinner
was tete-a-tete, and though my host did his best to be
entertaining, his thoughts seemed to continually wander, and he
talked so vaguely and wildly that I could hardly understand him.
He continually drummed his fingers on the table, gnawed his
nails, and gave other signs of nervous impatience. The dinner
itself was neither well served nor well cooked, and the gloomy
presence of the taciturn servant did not help to enliven us. I
can assure you that many times in the course of the evening I
wished that I could invent some excuse which would take me back
to Lee.

“One thing comes back to my memory which may have a bearing upon
the business that you two gentlemen are investigating. I thought
nothing of it at the time. Near the end of dinner a note was
handed in by the servant. I noticed that after my host had read
it he seemed even more distrait and strange than before. He gave
up all pretence at conversation and sat, smoking endless
cigarettes, lost in his own thoughts, but he made no remark as to
the contents. About eleven I was glad to go to bed. Some time
later Garcia looked in at my door–the room was dark at the time-
-and asked me if I had rung. I said that I had not. He
apologized for having disturbed me so late, saying that it was
nearly one o’clock. I dropped off after this and slept soundly
all night.

“And now I come to the amazing part of my tale. When I woke it
was broad daylight. I glanced at my watch, and the time was
nearly nine. I had particularly asked to be called at eight, so
I was very much astonished at this forgetfulness. I sprang up
and rang for the servant. There was no response. I rang again
and again, with the same result. Then I came to the conclusion
that the bell was out of order. I huddled on my clothes and
hurried downstairs in an exceedingly bad temper to order some hot
water. You can imagine my surprise when I found that there was
no one there. I shouted in the hall. There was no answer. Then
I ran from room to room. All were deserted. My host had shown me
which was his bedroom the night before, so I knocked at the door.
No reply. I turned the handle and walked in. The room was
empty, and the bed had never been slept in. He had gone with the
rest. The foreign host, the foreign footman, the foreign cook,
all had vanished in the night! That was the end of my visit to
Wisteria Lodge.”

Sherlock Holmes was rubbing his hands and chuckling as he added
this bizarre incident to his collection of strange episodes.

“Your experience is, so far as I know, perfectly unique,” said
he. “May I ask, sir, what you did then?”

“I was furious. My first idea was that I had been the victim of
some absurd practical joke. I packed my things, banged the hall
door behind me, and set off for Esher, with my bag in my hand. I
called at Allan Brothers’, the chief land agents in the village,
and found that it was from this firm that the villa had been
rented. It struck me that the whole proceeding could hardly be
for the purpose of making a fool of me, and that the main objet
must be to get out of the rent. It is late in March, so quarter-
day is at hand. But this theory would not work. The agent was
obliged to me for my warning, but told me that the rent had been
paid in advance. Then I made my way to town and called at the
Spanish embassy. The man was unknown there. After this I went
to see Melville, at whose house I had first met Garcia, but I
found that he really knew rather less about him than I did.
Finally when I got your reply to my wire I came out to you, since
I gather that you are a person who gives advice in difficult
cases. But now, Mr. Inspector, I understand, from what you said
when you entered the room, that you can carry the story on, and
that some tragedy had occurred. I can assure you that every word
I have said is the truth, and that, outside of what I have told
you, I know absolutely nothing about the fate of this man. My
only desire is to help the law in every possible way.”

“I am sure of it, Mr. Scott Eccles–I am sure of it,” said
Inspector Gregson in a very amiable tone. “I am bound to say
that everything which you have said agrees very closely with the
facts as they have come to our notice. For example, there was
that note which arrived during dinner. Did you chance to observe
what became of it?”

“Yes, I did. Garcia rolled it up and threw it into the fire.”

“What do you say to that, Mr. Baynes?”

The country detective was a stout, puffy, red man, whose face was
only redeemed from grossness by two extraordinarily bright eyes,
almost hidden behind the heavy creases of cheek and brow. With a
slow smile he drew a folded and discoloured scrap of paper from
his pocket.

“It was a dog-grate, Mr. Holmes, and he overpitched it. I picked
this out unburned from the back of it.”

Holmes smiled his appreciation.

“You must have examined the house very carefully to find a single
pellet of paper.”

“I did, Mr. Holmes. It’s my way. Shall I read it, Mr. Gregson?”

The Londoner nodded.

“The note is written upon ordinary cream-laid paper without
watermark. It is a quarter-sheet. The paper is cut off in two
snips with a short-bladed scissors. It has been folded over
three times and sealed with purple wax, put on hurriedly and
pressed down with some flat oval object. It is addressed to Mr.
Garcia, Wisteria Lodge. It says:

“Our own colours, green and white. Green open, white shut. Main
stair, first corridor, seventh right, green baize. Godspeed. D.

“It is a woman’s writing, done with a sharp-pointed pen, but the
address is either done with another pen or by someone else. It
is thicker and bolder, as you see.”

“A very remarkable note,” said Holmes, glancing it over. “I must
compliment you, Mr. Baynes, upon your attention to detail in your
examination of it. A few trifling points might perhaps be added.
The oval seal is undoubtedly a plain sleeve-link–what else is of
such a shape? The scissors were bent nail scissors. Short as
the two snips are, you can distinctly see the same slight curve
in each.”

The country detective chuckled.

“I thought I had squeezed all the juice out of it, but I see
there was a little over,” he said. “I’m bound to say that I make
nothing of the note except that there was something on hand, and
that a woman, as usual was at the bottom of it.”

Mr. Scott Eccles had fidgeted in his seat during this
conversation.

“I am glad you found the note, since it corroborates my story,”
said he. “But I beg to point out that I have not yet heard what
has happened to Mr. Garcia, nor what has become of his
household.”

“As to Garcia,” said Gregson, “that is easily answered. He was
found dead this morning upon Oxshott Common, nearly a mile from
his home. His head had been smashed to pulp by heavy blows of a
sandbag or some such instrument, which had crushed rather than
wounded. It is a lonely corner, and there is no house within a
quarter of a mile of the spot. He had apparently been struck
down first from behind, but his assailant had gone on beating him
long after he was dead. It was a most furious assault. There
are no footsteps nor any clue to the criminals.”

“Robbed?”

“No, there was no attempt at robbery.”

“This is very painful–very painful and terrible,” said Mr. Scott
Eccles in a querulous voice, “but it is really uncommonly hard on
me. I had nothing to do with my host going off upon a nocturnal
excursion and meeting so sad an end. How do I come to be mixed
up with the case?”

“Very simply, sir,” Inspector Baynes answered. “The only
document found in the pocket of the deceased was a letter from
you saying that you would be with him on the night of his death.
It was the envelope of this letter which gave us the dead man’s
name and address. It was after nine this morning when we reached
his house and found neither you nor anyone else inside it. I
wired to Mr. Gregson to run you down in London while I examined
Wisteria Lodge. Then I came into town, joined Mr. Gregson, and
here we are.”

“I think now,” said Gregson, rising, “we had best put this matter
into an official shape. You will come round with us to the
station, Mr. Scott Eccles, and let us have your statement in
writing.”

“Certainly, I will come at once. But I retain your services, Mr.
Holmes. I desire you to spare no expense and no pains to get at
the truth.”

My friend turned to the country inspector.

“I suppose that you have no objection to my collaborating with
you, Mr. Baynes?”

“Highly honoured, sir, I am sure.”

“You appear to have been very prompt and businesslike in all that
you have done. Was there any clue, may I ask, as to the exact
hour that the man met his death?”

“He had been there since one o’clock. There was rain about that
time, and his death had certainly been before the rain.”

“But that is perfectly impossible, Mr. Baynes,” cried our client.
“His voice is unmistakable. I could swear to it that it was he
who addressed me in my bedroom at that very hour.”

“Remarkable, but by no means impossible,” said Holmes, smiling.

“You have a clue?” asked Gregson.

“On the face of it the case is not a very complex one, though it
certainly presents some novel and interesting features. A
further knowledge of facts is necessary before I would venture to
give a final and definite opinion. By the way, Mr. Baynes, did
you find anything remarkable besides this note in your
examination of the house?”

The detective looked at my friend in a singular way.

“There were,” said he, “one or two very remarkable things.
Perhaps when I have finished at the police-station you would care
to come out and give me your opinion of them.”

In am entirely at your service,” said Sherlock Holmes, ringing
the bell. “You will show these gentlemen out, Mrs. Hudson, and
kindly send the boy with this telegram. He is to pay a five-
shilling reply.”

We sat for some time in silence after our visitors had left.
Holmes smoked hard, with his browns drawn down over his keen
eyes, and his head thrust forward in the eager way characteristic
of the man.

“Well, Watson,” he asked, turning suddenly upon me, “what do you
make of it?”

“I can make nothing of this mystification of Scott Eccles.”

“But the crime?”

“Well, taken with the disappearance of the man’s companions, I
should say that they were in some way concerned in the murder and
had fled from justice.”

“That is certainly a possible point of view. On the face of it
you must admit, however, that it is very strange that his two
servants should have been in a conspiracy against him and should
have attacked him on the one night when he had a guest. They had
him alone at their mercy every other night in the week.”

“Then why did they fly?”

“Quite so. Why did they fly? There is a big fact. Another big
fact is the remarkable experience of our client, Scott Eccles.
Now, my dear Watson, is it beyond the limits of human ingenuity
to furnish an explanation which would cover both of these big
facts? If it were one which would also admit of the mysterious
note with its very curious phraseology, why, then it would be
worth accepting as a temporary hypothesis. If the fresh facts
which come to our knowledge all fit themselves into the scheme,
then our hypothesis may gradually become a solution.”

“But what is our hypothesis?”

Holmes leaned back in his chair with half-closed eyes.

“You must admit, my dear Watson, that the idea of a joke is
impossible. There were grave events afoot, as the sequel showed,
and the coaxing of Scott Eccles to Wisteria Lodge had some
connection with them.”

“But what possible connection?”

“Let us take it link by link. There is, on the face of it,
something unnatural about this strange and sudden friendship
between the young Spaniard and Scott Eccles. It was the former
who forced the pace. He called upon Eccles at the other end of
London on the very day after he first met him, and he kept in
close touch with him until he got him down to Esher. Now, what
did he want with Eccles? What could Eccles supply? I see no
charm in the man. He is not particulary intelligent–not a man
likely to be congenial to a quick-witted Latin. Why, then, was he
picked out from all the other people whom Garcia met as
particularly suited to his purpose? Has he any one outstanding
quality? I say that he has. He is the very type of conventional
British respectability, and the very man as a witness to impress
another Briton. You saw yourself how neither of the inspectors
dreamed of questioning his statement, extraordinary as it was.”

“But what was he to witness?”

“Nothing, as things turned out, but everything had they gone
another way. That is how I read the matter.”

“I see, he might have proved an alibi.”

“Exactly, my dear Watson; he might have proved an alibi. We will
suppose, for argument’s sake, that the household of Wisteria
Lodge are confederates in some design. The attempt, whatever it
may be, is to come off, we will say, before one o’clock. By some
juggling of the clocks it is quite possible that they may have
got Scott Eccles to bed earlier than he thought, but in any case
it is likely that when Garcia went out of his way to tell him
that it was one it was really not more than twelve. If Garcia
could do whatever he had to do and be back by the hour mentioned
he had evidently a powerful reply to any accusation. Here was
this irreproachable Englishman ready to swear in any court of law
that the accused was in the house all the time. It was an
insurance against the worst.”

“Yes, yes, I see that. But how about the disappearance of the
others?”

“I have not all my facts yet, but I do not think there are any
insuperable difficulties. Still, it is an error to argue in
front of your data. You find yourself insensibly twisting them
round to fit your theories.”

“And the message?”

“How did it run? ‘Our own colours, green and white.’ Sounds
like racing. ‘Green open, white shut.’ That is clearly a
signal. ‘Main stair, first corridor, seventh right, green
baize.’ This is an assignation. We may find a jealous husband
at the bottom of it all. It was clearly a dangerous quest. She
would not have said ‘Godspeed’ had it not been so. ‘D’–that
should be a guide.”

“The man was a Spaniard. I suggest that ‘D’ stands for Dolores,
a common female name in Spain.”

“Good, Watson, very good–but quite inadmissable. A Spaniard
would write to a Spaniard in Spanish. The writer of this note is
certainly English. Well, we can only possess our soul in
patience until this excellent inspector come back for us.
Meanwhile we can thank our lucky fate which has rescued us for a
few short hours from the insufferable fatigues of idleness.”

An answer had arrived to Holmes’s telegram before our Surrey
officer had returned. Holmes read it and was about to place it
in his notebook when he caught a glimpse of my expectant face. He
tossed it across with a laugh.

“We are moving in exalted circles,” said he.

The telegram was a list of names and addresses:

Lord Harringby, The Dingle; Sir George Ffolliott, Oxshott Towers;
Mr. Hynes Hynes, J.P., Purdley Place; Mr. James Baker Williams,
Forton Old Hall; Mr. Henderson, High Gable; Rev. Joshua Stone,
Nether Walsling.

“This is a very obvious way of limiting our field of operations,”
said Holmes. “No doubt Baynes, with his methodical mind, has
already adopted some similar plan.”

“I don’t quite understand.”

“Well, my dear fellow, we have already arrived at the conclusion
that the massage received by Garcia at dinner was an appointment
or an assignation. Now, if the obvious reading of it is correct,
and in order to keep the tryst one has to ascend a main stair and
seek the seventh door in a corridor, it is perfectly clear that
the house is a very large one. It is equally certain that this
house cannot be more than a mile or two from Oxshott, since
Garcia was walking in that direction and hoped, according to my
reading of the facts, to be back in Wisteria Lodge in time to
avail himself of an alibi, which would only be valid up to one
o’clock. As the number of large houses close to Oxshott must be
limited, I adopted the obvious method of sending to the agents
mentioned by Scott Eccles and obtaining a list of them. Here
they are in this telegram, and the other end of our tangled skein
must lie among them.”

It was nearly six o’clock before we found ourselves in the pretty
Surrey village of Esher, with Inspector Baynes as our companion.

Holmes and I had taken things for the night, and found
comfortable quarters at the Bull. Finally we set out in the
company of the detective on our visit to Wisteria Lodge. It was
a cold, dark March evening, with a sharp wind and a fine rain
beating upon our faces, a fit setting for the wild common over
which our road passed and the tragic goal to which it led us.

2. The Tiger of San Pedro

A cold and melancholy walk of a couple of miles brought us to a
high wooden gate, which opened into a gloomy avenue of chestnuts.
The curved and shadowed drive led us to a low, dark house, pitch-
black against a slate-coloured sky. From the front window upon
the left of the door there peeped a glimmer of a feeble light.

“There’s a constable in possession,” said Baynes. “I’ll knock at
the window.” He stepped across the grass plot and tapped with
his hand on the pane. Through the fogged glass I dimly saw a man
spring up from a chair beside the fire, and heard a sharp cry
from within the room. An instant later a white-faced, hard-
breathing policeman had opened the door, the candle wavering in
his trembling hand.

“What’s the matter, Walters?” asked Baynes sharply.

The man mopped his forehead with his handkerchief and agave a
long sigh of relief.

“I am glad you have come, sir. It has been a long evening, and I
don’t think my nerve is as good as it was.”

“Your nerve, Walters? I should not have thought you had a nerve
in your body.”

“Well, sir, it’s this lonely, silent house and the queer thing in
the kitchen. Then when you tapped at the window I thought it had
come again.”

“That what had come again?”

“The devil, sir, for all I know. It was at the window.”

“What was at the window, and when?”

“It was just about two hours ago. The light was just fading. I
was sitting reading in the chair. I don’t know what made me look
up, but there was a face looking in at me through the lower pane.
Lord, sir, what a face it was! I’ll see it in my dreams.”

“Tut, tut, Walters. This is not talk for a police-constable.”

“I know, sir, I know; but it shook me, sir, and there’s no use to
deny it. It wasn’t black, sir, nor was it white, nor any colour
that I know but a kind of queer shade like clay with a splash of
milk in it. Then there was the size of it–it was twice yours,
sir. And the look of it–the great staring goggle eyes, and the
line of white teeth like a hungry beast. I tell you, sir, I
couldn’t move a finger, nor get my breath, till it whisked away
and was gone. Out I ran and through the shrubbery, but thank God
there was no one there.”

“If I didn’t know you were a good man, Walters, I should put a
black mark against you for this. If it were the devil himself a
constable on duty should never thank God that he could not lay
his hands upon him. I suppose the whole thing is not a vision
and a touch of nerves?”

“That, at least, is very easily settled,” said Holmes, lighting
his little pocket lantern. “Yes,” he reported, after a short
examination of the grass bed, “a number twelve shoe, I should
say. If he was all on the same scale as his foot he must
certainly have been a giant.”

“What became of him?”

“He seems to have broken through the shrubbery and made for the
road.”

“Well,” said the inspector with a grave and thoughtful face,
“whoever he may have been, and whatever he may have wanted, he’s
gone for the present, and we have more immediate things to attend
to. Now, Mr. Holmes, with your permission, I will show you round
the house.”

The various bedrooms and sitting-rooms had yielded nothing to a
careful search. Apparently the tenants had brought little or
nothing with them, and all the furniture down to the smallest
details had been taken over with the house. A good deal of
clothing with the stamp of Marx and Co., High Holborn, had been
left behind. Telegraphic inquiries had been already made which
showed that Marx knew nothing of his customer save that he was a
good payer. Odds and ends, some pipes, a few novels, two of them
in Spanish, and old-fashioned pinfire revolver, and a guitar were
among the personal property.

“Nothing in all this,” said Baynes, stalking, candle in hand,
from room to room. “But now, Mr. Holmes, I invite your attention
to the kitchen.”

It was a gloomy, high-ceilinged room at the back of the house,
with a straw litter in one corner, which served apparently as a
bed for the cook. The table was piled with half-eaten dishes and
dirty plates, the debris of last night’s dinner.

“Look at this,” said Baynes. “What do you make of it?”

He held up his candle before an extraordinary object which stood
at the back of the dresser. It was so wrinkled and shrunken and
withered that it was difficult to say what it might have been.
One could but say that it was black and leathery and that it bore
some resemblance to a dwarfish, human figure. At first, as I
examined it, I thought that it was a mummified negro baby, and
then it seemed a very twisted and ancient monkey. Finally I was
left in doubt as to whether it was animal or human. A double
band of white shells were strung round the centre of it.

“Very interesting–very interesting, indeed!” said Holmes,
peering at this sinister relic. “Anything more?”

In silence Baynes led the way to the sink and held forward his
candle. The limbs and body of some large, white bird, torn
savagely to pieces with the feathers still on, were littered all
over it. Holmes pointed to the wattles on the severed head.

“A white cock,” said he. “Most interesting! It is really a very
curious case.”

But Mr. Baynes had kept his most sinister exhibit to the last.
>From under the sink he drew a zinc pail which contained a
quantity of blood. Then from the table he took a platter heaped
with small pieces of charred bone.

“Something has been killed and something has been burned. We
raked all these out of the fire. We had a doctor in this
morning. He says that they are not human.”

Holmes smiled and rubbed his hands.

“I must congratulate you, Inspector, on handling so distinctive
and instructive a case. Your powers, if I may say so without
offence, seem superior to your opportunities.”

Inspector Baynes’s small eyes twinkled with pleasure.

“You’re right, Mr. Holmes. We stagnate in the provinces. A case
of this sort gives a man a chance, and I hope that I shall take
it. What do you make of these bones?”

“A lamb, I should say, or a kid.”

“And the white cock?”

“Curious, Mr. Baynes, very curious. I should say almost unique.”

“Yes, sir, there must have been some very strange people with
some very strange ways in this house. One of them is dead. Did
his companions follow him and kill him? If they did we should
have them, for every port is watched. But my own views are
different. Yes, sir, my own views are very different.”

“You have a theory then?”

“And I’ll work it myself, Mr. Holmes. It’s only due to my own
credit to do so. Your name is made, but I have still to make
mine. I should be glad to be able to say afterwards that I had
solved it without your help.”

Holmes laughed good-humoredly.

“Well, well, Inspector,” said he. “Do you follow your path and I
will follow mine. My results are always very much at your
service if you care to apply to me for them. I think that I have
seen all that I wish in this house, and that my time may be more
profitably employed elsewhere. Au revoir and good luck!”

I could tell by numerous subtle signs, which might have been lost
upon anyone but myself, that Holmes was on a hot scent. As
impassive as ever to the casual observer, there were none the
less a subdued eagerness and suggestion of tension in his
brightened eyes and brisker manner which assured me that the game
was afoot. After his habit he said nothing, and after mine I
asked no questions. Sufficient for me to share the sport and
lend my humble help to the capture without distracting that
intent brain with needless interruption. All would come round to
me in due time.

I waited, therefore–but to my ever-deepening disappointment I
waited in vain. Day succeeded day, and my friend took no step
forward. One morning he spent in town, and I learned from a
casual reference that he had visited the British Museum. Save
for this one excursion, he spent his days in long and often
solitary walks, or in chatting with a number of village gossips
whose acquaintance he had cultivated.

“I’m sure, Watson, a week in the country will be invaluable to
you,” he remarked. “It is very pleasant to see the first green
shoots upon the hedges and the catkins on the hazels once again.
With a spud, a tin box, and an elementary book on botany, there
are instructive days to be spent.” He prowled about with this
equipment himself, but it was a poor show of plants which he
would bring back of an evening.

Occasionally in our rambles we came across Inspector Baynes. His
fat, red face wreathed itself in smiles and his small eyes
glittered as he greeted my companion. He said little about the
case, but from that little we gathered that he also was not
dissatisfied at the course of events. I must admit, however,
that I was somewhat surprised when, some five days after the
crime, I opened my morning paper to find in large letters:

THE OXSHOTT MYSTERY
A SOLUTION
ARREST OF SUPPOSED ASSASSIN

Holmes sprang in his chair as if he had been stung when I read
the headlines.

“By Jove!” he cried. “You don’t mean that Baynes has got him?”

“Apparently,” said I as I read the following report:

“Great excitement was caused in Esher and the neighbouring
district when it was learned late last night that an arrest had
been effected in connection with the Oxshott murder. It will be
remembered that Mr. Garcia, of Wisteria Lodge, was found dead on
Oxshott Common, his body showing signs of extreme violence, and
that on the same night his servant and his cook fled, which
appeared to show their participation in the crime. It was
suggested, but never proved, that the deceased gentleman may have
had valuables in the house, and that their abstraction was the
motive of the crime. Every effort was made by Inspector Baynes,
who has the case in hand, to ascertain the hiding place of the
fugitives, and he had good reason to believe that they had not
gone far but were lurking in some retreat which had been already
prepared. It was certain from the first, however, that they
would eventually be detected, as the cook, from the evidence of
one or two tradespeople who have caught a glimpse of him through
the window, was a man of most remarkable appearance–being a huge
and hideous mulatto, with yellowish features of a pronounced
negroid type. This man has been seen since the crime, for he was
detected and pursued by Constable Walters on the same evening,
when he had the audacity to revisit Wisteria Lodge. Inspector
Baynes, considering that such a visit must have some purpose in
view and was likely, therefore, to be repeated, abandoned the
house but left an ambuscade in the shrubbery. The man walked
into the trap and was captured last night after a struggle in
which Constable Downing was badly bitten by the savage. We
understand that when the prison is brought before the magistrates
a remand will be applied for by the police, and that great
developments are hoped from his capture.”

“Really we must see Baynes at once,” cried Holmes, picking up his
hat. “We will just catch him before he starts.” We hurried down
the village street and found, as we had expected, that the
inspector was just leaving his lodgings.

“You’ve seen the paper, Mr. Holmes?” he asked, holding one out to
us.

“Yes, Baynes, I’ve seen it. Pray don’t think it a liberty if I
give you a word of friendly warning.”

“Of warning, Mr. Holmes?”

“I have looked into this case with some care, and I am not
convinced that you are on the right lines. I don’t want you to
commit yourself too far unless you are sure.”

“You’re very kind, Mr. Holmes.”

“I assure you I speak for your good.”

It seemed to me that something like a wink quivered for an
instant over one of Mr. Baynes’s tiny eyes.

“We agreed to work on our own lines, Mr. Holmes. That’s what I
am doing.”

“Oh, very good,” said Holmes. “Don’t blame me.”

“No, sir; I believe you mean well by me. But we all have our own
systems, Mr. Holmes. You have yours, and maybe I have mine.”

“Let us say no more about it.”

“You’re welcome always to my news. This fellow is a perfect
savage, as strong as a cart-horse and as fierce as the devil. He
chewed Downing’s thumb nearly off before they could master him.
He hardly speaks a word of English, and we can get nothing out of
him but grunts.”

“And you think you have evidence that he murdered his late
master?”

“I didn’t say so, Mr. Holmes; I didn’t say so. We all have our
little ways. You try yours and I will try mine. That’s the
agreement.”

Holmes shrugged his shoulders as we walked away together. “I
can’t make the man out. He seems to be riding for a fall. Well,
as he says, we must each try our own way and see what comes of
it. But there’s something in Inspector Baynes which I can’t
quite understand.”

“Just sit down in that chair, Watson,” said Sherlock Holmes when
we had returned to our apartment at the Bull. “I want to put you
in touch with the situation, as I may need your help to-night.
Let me show you the evolution of this case so far as I have been
able to follow it. Simple as it has been in its leading
features, it has none the less presented surprising difficulties
in the way of an arrest. There are gaps in that direction which
we have still to fill.

“We will go back to the note which was handed in to Garcia upon
the evening of his death. We may put aside this idea of Baynes’s
that Garcia’s servants were concerned in the matter. The proof
of this lies in the fact that it was he who had arranged for the
presence of Scott Eccles, which could only have been done for the
purpose of an alibi. It was Garcia, then, who had an enterprise,
and apparently a criminal enterprise, in hand that night in the
course of which he met his death. I say ‘criminal’ because only
a man with a criminal enterprise desires to establish an alibi.
Who, then, is most likely to have taken his life? Surely the
person against whom the criminal enterprise was directed. So far
it seems to me that we are on safe ground.

“We can now see a reason for the disappearance of Garcia’s
household. They were all confederates in the same unknown crime.
If it came off when Garcia returned, any possible suspicion would
be warded off by the Englishman’s evidence, and all would be
well. But the attempt was a dangerous one, and if Garcia did not
return by a certain hour it was probable that his own life had
been sacrificed. It had been arranged, therefore, that in such a
case his two subordinates were to make for some prearranged spot
where they could escape investigation and be in a position
afterwards to renew their attempt. That would fully explain the
facts, would it not?”

The whole inexplicable tangle seemed to straighten out before me.
I wondered, as I always did, how it had not been obvious to me
before.

“But why should one servant return?”

“We can imagine that in the confusion of flight something
precious, something which he could not bear to part with, had
been left behind. That would explain his persistence, would it
not?”

“Well, what is the next step?”

“The next step is the note received by Garcia at the dinner. It
indicates a confederate at the other end. Now, where was the
other end? I have already shown you that it could only lie in
some large house, and that the number of large houses is limited.
My first days in this village were devoted to a series of walks
in which in the intervals of my botanical researches I made a
reconnaissance of all the large houses and an examination of the
family history of the occupants. One house, and only one,
riveted my attention. It is the famous old Jacobean grange of
High Gable, one mile on the farther side of Oxshott, and less
than half a mile from the scene of the tragedy. The other
mansions belonged to prosaic and respectable people who live far
aloof from romance. But Mr. Henderson, of High Gable, was by all
accounts a curious man to whom curious adventures might befall.
I concentrated my attention, therefore, upon him and his
household.

“A singular set of people, Watson–the man himself the most
singular of them all. I managed to see him on a plausible
pretext, but I seemed to read in his dark, deepset, brooding eyes
that he was perfectly aware of my true business. He is a man of
fifty, strong, active, with iron-gray hair, great bunched black
eyebrows, the step of a deer and the air of an emperor–a fierce,
masterful man, with a red-hot spirit behind his parchment face.
He is either a foreigner or has lived long in the tropics, for he
is yellow and sapless, but tough as whipcord. His friend and
secretary, Mr. Lucas, is undoubtedly a foreigner, chocolate
brown, wily, suave, and catlike, with a poisonous gentleness of
speech. You see, Watson, we have come already upon two sets of
foreigners–one at Wisteria Lodge and one at High Gable–so our
gaps are beginning to close.

“These two men, close and confidential friends, are the centre of
the household; but there is one other person who for our
immediate purpose may be even more important. Henderson has two
children–girls of eleven and thirteen. Their governess is a
Miss Burnet, an Englishwoman of forty or thereabouts. There is
also one confidential manservant. This little group forms the
real family, for their travel about together, and Henderson is a
great traveller, always on the move. It is only within the last
weeks that he has returned, after a year’s absence, to High
Gable. I may add that he is enormously rich, and whatever his
whims may be he can very easily satisfy them. For the rest, his
house is full of butlers, footmen, maidservants, and the usual
overfed, underworked staff of a large English country house.

“So much I learned partly from village gossip and partly from my
own observation. There are no better instruments than discharged
servants with a grievance, and I was lucky enough to find one. I
call it luck, but it would not have come my way had I not been
looking out for it. As Baynes remarks, we all have our systems.
It was my system which enabled me to find John Warner, late
gardener of High Gable, sacked in a moment of temper by his
imperious employer. He in turn had friends among the indoor
servants who unite in their fear and dislike of their master. So
I had my key to the secrets of the establishment.

“Curious people, Watson! I don’t pretend to understand it all
yet, but very curious people anyway. It’s a double-winged house,
and the servants live on one side, the family on the other.
There’s no link between the two save for Henderson’s own servant,
who serves the family’s meals. Everything is carried to a
certain door, which forms the one connection. Governess and
children hardly go out at all, except into the garden. Henderson
never by any chance walks alone. His dark secretary is like his
shadow. The gossip among the servants is that their master is
terribly afraid of something. ‘Sold his soul to the devil in
exchange for money,’ says Warner, ‘and expects his creditor to
come up and claim his own.’ Where they came from, or who they
are, nobody has an idea. They are very violent. Twice Henderson
has lashed at folk with his dog-whip, and only his long purse and
heavy compensation have kept him out of the courts.

“Well, now, Watson, let us judge the situation by this new
information. We may take it that the letter came out of this
strange household and was an invitation to Garcia to carry out
some attempt which had already been planned. Who wrote the note?
It was someone within the citadel, and it was a woman. Who then
but Miss Burnet, the governess? All our reasoning seems to point
that way. At any rate, we may take it asa hypothesis and see
what consequences it would entail. I may add that Miss Burnet’s
age and character make it certain that my first idea that there
might be a love interest in our story is out of the question.

“If she wrote the note she was presumably the friend and
confederate of Garcia. What, then, might she be expected to do
if she heard of his death? If he met it in some nefarious
enterprise her lips might be sealed. Still, in her heart, she
must retain bitterness and hatred against those who had killed
him and would presumably help so far as she could to have revenge
upon them. Could we see her, then and try to use her? That was
my first thought. But now we come to a sinister fact. Miss
Burnet has not been seen by any human eye since the night of the
murder. From that evening she has utterly vanished. Is she
alive? Has she perhaps met her end on the same night as the
friend whom she had summoned? Or is she merely a prisoner?
There is the point which we still have to decide.

“You will appreciate the difficulty of the situation, Watson.
There is nothing upon which we can apply for a warrant. Our
whole scheme might seem fantastic if laid before a magistrate.
The woman’s disappearance counts for nothing, since in that
extraordinary household any member of it might be invisible for a
week. And yet she may at the present moment be in danger of her
life. All I can do is to watch the house and leave my agent,
Warner, on guard at the gates. We can’t let such a situation
continue. If the law can do nothing we must take the risk
ourselves.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I know which is her room. It is accessible from the top of an
outhouse. My suggestion is that you and I go to-night and see if
we can strike at the very heart of the mystery.”

It was not, I must confess, a very alluring prospect. The old
house with its atmosphere of murder, the singular and formidable
inhabitants, the unknown dangers of the approach, and the fact
that we were putting ourselves legally in a false position all
combined to damp my ardour. But there was something in the ice-
cold reasoning of Holmes which made it impossible to shrink from
any adventure which he might recommend. One knew that thus, and
only thus, could a solution be found. I clasped his hand in
silence, and the die was cast.

But it was not destined that our investigation should have so
adventurous an ending. It was about five o’clock, and the
shadows of the March evening were beginning to fall, when an
excited rustic rushed into our room.

“They’ve gone, Mr. Holmes. They went by the last train. The
lady broke away, and I’ve got her in a cab downstairs.”

“Excellent, Warner!” cried Holmes, springing to his feet.
“Watson, the gaps are closing rapidly.”

In the cab was a woman, half-collapsed from nervous exhaustion.
She bore upon her aquiline and emaciated face the traces of some
recent tragedy. Her head hung listlessly upon her breast, but as
she raised it and turned her dull eyes upon us I saw that her
pupils were dark dots in the centre of the broad gray iris. She
was drugged with opium.

“I watched at the gate, same as you advised, Mr. Holmes,” said
our emissary, the discharged gardener. “When the carriage came
out I followed it to the station. She was like one walking in
her sleep, but when they tried to get her into the train she came
to life and struggled. They pushed her into the carriage. She
fought her way out again. I took her part, got her into a cab,
and here we are. I shan’t forget the face at the carriage window
as I led her away. I’d have a short life if he had his way–the
black-eyed, scowling, yellow devil.”

We carried her upstairs, laid her on the sofa, and a couple of
cups of the strongest coffee soon cleared her brain from the
mists of the drug. Baynes had been summoned by Holmes, and the
situation rapidly explained to him.

“Why, sir, you’ve got me the very evidence I want,” said the
inspector warmly, shaking my friend by the hand. “I was on the
same scent as you from the first.”

“What! You were after Henderson?”

“Why, Mr. Holmes, when you were crawling in the shrubbery at High
Gable I was up one of the trees in the plantation and saw you
down below. It was just who would get his evidence first.”

“Then why did you arrest the mulatto?”

Baynes chuckled.

“I was sure Henderson, as he calls himself, felt that he was
suspected, and that he would lie low and make no move so long as
he thought he was in any danger. I arrested the wrong man to
make him believe that our eyes were off him. I knew he would be
likely to clear off then and give us a chance of getting at Miss
Burnet.”

Holmes laid his hand upon the inspector’s shoulder.

“You will rise high in your profession. You have instinct and
intuition,” said he.

Baynes flushed with pleasure.

“I’ve had a plain-clothes man waiting at the station all the
week. Wherever the High Gable folk go he will keep them in
sight. But he must have been hard put to it when Miss Burnet
broke away. However, your man picked her up, and it all ends
well. We can’t arrest without her evidence, that is clear, so
the sooner we get a statement the better.”

“Every minute she gets stronger,” said Holmes, glancing at the
governess. “But tell me, Baynes, who is this man Henderson?”

“Henderson,” the inspector answered, “is Don Murillo, once call
the Tiger of San Pedro.”

The Tiger of San Pedro! The whole history of the man came back
to me in a flash. He had made his name as the most lewd and
bloodthirsty tyrant that had ever governed any country with a
pretence to civilization. Strong, fearless, and energetic, he
had sufficient virtue to enable him to impose his odious vices
upon a cowering people for ten or twelve years. His name was a
terror through all Central America. At the end of that time
there was a universal rising against him. But he was as cunning
as he was cruel, and at the first whisper of coming trouble he
had secretly conveyed his treasures aboard a ship which was
manned by devoted adherents. It was an empty palace which was
stormed by the insurgents next day. The dictator, his two
children, his secretary, and his wealth had all escaped them.
>From that moment he had vanished from the world, and his identity
had been a frequent subject for comment in the European press.

“Yes, sir, Don Murillo, the Tiger of San Pedro,” said Baynes.
“If you look it up you will find that the San Pedro colours are
green and white, same as in the note, Mr. Holmes. Henderson he
called himself, but I traced him back, Paris and Rome and Madrid
to Barcelona, where his ship came in in ‘86. They’ve been
looking for him all the time for their revenge, but it is only
now that they have begun to find him out.”

“They discovered him a year ago,” said Miss Burnet, who had sat
up and was now intently following the conversation. “Once
already his life has been attempted, but some evil spirit
shielded him. Now, again, it is the noble, chivalrous Garcia who
has fallen, while the monster goes safe. But another will come,
and yet another, until some day justice will be done; that is as
certain as the rise of to-morrow’s sun.” Her thin hands
clenched, and her worn face blanched with the passion of her
hatred.

“But how come you into this matter, Miss Burnet?” asked Holmes.
“How can an English lady join in such a murderous affair?”

“I join in it because there is no other way in the world by which
justice can be gained. What does the law of England care for the
rivers of blood shed years ago in San Pedro, or for the shipload
of treasure which this man has stolen? To you they are like
crimes committed in some other planet. But we know. We have
learned the truth in sorrow and in suffering. To us there is no
fiend in hell like Juan Murillo, and no peace in life while his
victims still cry for vengeance.”

“No doubt,” said Holmes, “he was as you say. I have heard that he
was atrocious. But how are you affected?”

“I will tell you it all. This villain’s policy was to murder, on
one pretext or another, every man who showed such p

An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes

It was nine o’clock at night upon the second of August–the most
terrible August in the history of the world. One might have
thought already that God’s curse hung heavy over a degenerate
world, for there was an awesome hush and a feeling of vague
expectancy in the sultry and stagnant air. The sun had long set,
but one blood-red gash like an open wound lay low in the distant
west. Above, the stars were shining brightly, and below, the
lights of the shipping glimmered in the bay. The two famous
Germans stood beside the stone parapet of the garden walk, with
the long, low, heavily gabled house behind them, and they looked
down upon the broad sweep of the beach at the foot of the great
chalk cliff in which Von Bork, like some wandering eagle, had
perched himself four years before. They stood with their heads
close together, talking in low, confidential tones. From below
the two glowing ends of their cigars might have been the
smouldering eyes of some malignant fiend looking down in the
darkness.

A remarkable man this Von Bork–a man who could hardly be matched
among all the devoted agents of the Kaiser. It was his talents
which had first recommended him for the English mission, the most
important mission of all, but since he had taken it over those
talents had become more and more manifest to the half-dozen
people in the world who were really in touch with the truth. One
of these was his present companion, Baron Von Herling, the chief
secretary of the legation, whose huge 100-horse-power Benz car
was blocking the country lane as it waited to waft its owner back
to London.

“So far as I can judge the trend of events, you will probably be
back in Berlin within the week,” the secretary was saying. “When
you get there, my dear Von Bork, I think you will be surprised at
the welcome you will receive. I happen to know what is thought
in the highest quarters of your work in this country.” He was a
huge man, the secretary, deep, broad, and tall, with a slow,
heavy fashion of speech which had been his main asset in his
political career.

Von Bork laughed.

“They are not very hard to deceive,” he remarked. “A more
docile, simple folk could not be imagined.”

“I don’t know about that,” said the other thoughtfully. “They
have strange limits and one must learn to observe them. It is
that surface simplicity of theirs which makes a trap for the
stranger. One’s first impression is that they are entirely soft.
Then one comes suddenly upon something very hard, and you know
that you have reached the limit and must adapt yourself to the
fact. They have, for example, their insular conventions which
simply must be observed.”

“Meaning ‘good form’ and that sort of thing?” Von Bork sighed as
one who had suffered much.

“Meaning British prejudice in all its queer manifestations. As
an example I may quote one of my own worst blunders–I can afford
to talk of my blunders, for you know my work well enough to be
aware of my successes. It was on my first arrival. I was
invited to a week-end gathering at the country house of a cabinet
minister. The conversation was amazingly indiscreet.”

Von Bork nodded. “I’ve been there,” said he dryly.

“Exactly. Well, I naturally sent a resume of the information to
Berlin. Unfortunately our good chancellor is a little heavy-
handed in these matters, and he transmitted a remark which showed
that he was aware of what had been said. This, of course, took
the trail straight up to me. You’ve no idea the harm that it did
me. There was nothing soft about our British hosts on that
occasion, I can assure you. I was two years living it down. Now
you, with this sporting pose of yours–”

“No, no, don’t call it a pose. A pose is an artificial thing.
This is quite natural. I am a born sportsman. I enjoy it.”

“Well, that makes it the more effective. You yacht against them,
you hunt with them, you play polo, you match them in every game,
your four-in-hand takes the prize at Olympia. I have even heard
that you go the length of boxing with the young officers. What
is the result? Nobody takes you seriously. You are a ‘good old
sport’ ‘quite a decent fellow for a German,’ a hard-drinking,
night-club, knock-about-town, devil-may-care young fellow. And
all the time this quiet country house of yours is the centre of
half the mischief in England, and the sporting squire the most
astute secret-service man in Europe. Genius, my dear Von Bork–
genius!”

“You flatter me, Baron. But certainly I may claim my four years
in this country have not been unproductive. I’ve never shown you
my little store. Would you mind stepping in for a moment?”

The door of the study opened straight on to the terrace. Von
Bork pushed it back, and, leading the way, he clicked the switch
of the electric light. He then closed the door behind the bulky
form which followed him and carefully adjusted the heavy curtain
over the latticed window. Only when all these precautions had
been taken and tested did he turn his sunburned aquiline face to
his guest.

“Some of my papers have gone,” said he. “When my wife and the
household left yesterday for Flushing they took the less
important with them. I must, of course, claim the protection of
the embassy for the others.”

“Your name has already been files as one of the personal suite.
There will be no difficulties for you or your baggage. Of
course, it is just possible that we may not have to go. England
may leave France to her fate. We are sure that there is no
binding treaty between them.”

“And Belgium?”

“Yes, and Belgium, too.”

Von Bork shook his head. “I don’t see how that could be. There
is a definite treaty there. She could never recover from such a
humiliation.”

“She would at least have peace for the moment.”

“But her honor?”

“Tut, my dear sir, we live in a utilitarian age. Honour is a
mediaeval conception. Besides England is not ready. It is an
inconceivable thing, but even our special war tax of fifty
million, which one would think made our purpose as clear as if we
had advertised it on the front page of the Times, has not roused
these people from their slumbers. Here and there one hears a
question. It is my business to find an answer. Here and there
also there is an irritation. It is my business to soothe it.
But I can assure you that so far as the essentials go–the
storage of munitions, the preparation for submarine attack, the
arrangements for making high explosives–nothing is prepared.
How, then, can England come in, especially when we have stirred
he up such a devil’s brew of Irish civil war, window-breaking
Furies, and God knows what to keep her thoughts at home.”

“She must think of her future.”

“Ah, that is another matter. I fancy that in the future we have
our own very definite plans about England, and that your
information will be very vital to us. It is to-day or to-morrow
with Mr. John Bull. If he prefers to-day we are perfectly ready.
If it is to-morrow we shall be more ready still. I should think
they would be wiser to fight with allies than without them, but
that is their own affair. This week is their week of destiny.
But you were speaking of your papers.” He sat in the armchair
with the light shining upon his broad bald head, while he puffed
sedately at his cigar.

The large oak-panelled, book-lined room had a curtain hung in the
future corner. When this was drawn it disclosed a large, brass-
bound safe. Von Bork detached a small key from his watch chain,
and after some considerable manipulation of the lock he swung
open the heavy door.

“Look!” said he, standing clear, with a wave of his hand.

The light shone vividly into the opened safe, and the secretary
of the embassy gazed with an absorbed interest at the rows of
stuffed pigeon-holes with which it was furnished. Each pigeon-
hole had its label, and his eyes as he glanced along them read a
long series of such titles as “Fords,” “Harbour-defences,”
“Aeroplanes,” “Ireland,”, “Egypt,” “Portsmouth forts,” “The
Channel,” “Rosythe,” and a score of others. Each compartment was
bristling with papers and plans.

“Colossal!” said the secretary. Putting down his cigar he softly
clapped his fat hands.

“And all in four years, Baron. Not such a bad show for the hard-
drinking, hard-riding country squire. But the gem of my
collection is coming and there is the setting all ready for it.”
He pointed to a space over which “Naval Signals” was printed.

“But you have a good dossier there already.”

“Out of date and waste paper. The Admiralty in some way got the
alarm and every code has been changed. It was a blow, Baron–the
worst setback in my whole campaign. But thanks to my check-book
and the good Altamont all will be well to-night.”

The Baron looked at his watch and gave a guttural exclamation of
disappointment.

“Well, I really can wait no longer. You can imagine that things
are moving at present in Carlton Terrace and that we have all to
be at our posts. I had hoped to be able to bring news of your
great coup. Did Altamont name no hour?”

Von Bork pushed over a telegram.

Will come without fail to-night and bring new sparking plugs.

Altamont.

“Sparking plugs, eh?”

“You see he poses as a motor expert and I keep a full garage. In
our code everything likely to come up is named after some spare
part. If he talks of a radiator it is a battleship, of an oil
pump a cruiser, and so on. Sparking plugs are naval signals.”

“From Portsmouth at midday,” said the secretary, examining the
superscription. “By the way, what do you give him?”

“Five hundred pounds for this particular job. Of course he has a
salary as well.”

“The greedy rouge. They are useful, these traitors, but I grudge
them their blood money.”

“I grudge Altamont nothing. He is a wonderful worker. If I pay
him well, at least he delivers the goods, to use his own phrase.
Besides he is not a traitor. I assure you that our most pan-
Germanic Junker is a sucking dove in his feelings towards England
as compared with a real bitter Irish-American.”

“Oh, an Irish-American?”

“If you heard him talk you would not doubt it. Sometimes I
assure you I can hardly understand him. He seems to have
declared war on the King’s English as well as on the English
king. Must you really go? He may be here any moment.”

“No. I’m sorry, but I have already overstayed my time. We shall
expect you early to-morrow, and when you get that signal book
through the little door on the Duke of York’s steps you can put a
triumphant finis to your record in England. What! Tokay!” He
indicated a heavily sealed dust-covered bottle which stood with
two high glasses upon a salver.

“May I offer you a glass before your journey?”

“No, thanks. But it looks like revelry.”

“Altamont has a nice taste in wines, and he took a fancy to my
Tokay. He is a touchy fellow and needs humouring in small
things. I have to study him, I assure you.” They had strolled
out on to the terrace again, and along it to the further end
where at a touch from the Baron’s chauffeur the great car
shivered and chuckled. “Those are the lights of Harwich, I
suppose,” said the secretary, pulling on his dust coat. “How
still and peaceful it all seems. There may be other lights
within the week, and the English coast a less tranquil place!
The heavens, too, may not be quite so peaceful if all that the
good Zepplin promises us comes true. By the way, who is that?”

Only one window showed a light behind them; in it there stood a
lamp, and beside it, seated at a table, was a dear old ruddy-
faced woman in a country cap. She was bending over her knitting
and stopping occasionally to stroke a large black cat upon a
stool beside her.

“That is Martha, the only servant I have left.”

The secretary chuckled.

“She might almost personify Britannia,” said he, “with her
complete self-absorption and general air of comfortable
somnolence. Well, au revoir, Von Bork!” With a final wave of
his hand he sprang into the car, and a moment later the two
golden cones from the headlights shot through the darkness. The
secretary lay back in the cushions of the luxurious limousine,
with his thoughts so full of the impending European tragedy that
he hardly observed that as his car swung round the village street
it nearly passed over a little Ford coming in the opposite
direction.

Von Bork walked slowly back to the study when the last gleams of
the motor lamps had faded into the distance. As he passed he
observed that his old housekeeper had put out her lamp and
retired. It was a new experience to him, the silence and
darkness of his widespread house, for his family and household
had been a large one. It was a relief to him, however, to think
that they were all in safety and that, but for that one old woman
who had lingered in the kitchen, he had the whole place to
himself. There was a good deal of tidying up to do inside his
study and he set himself to do it until his keen, handsome face
was flushed with the heat of the burning papers. A leather
valise stood beside his table, and into this he began to pack
very neatly and systematically the precious contents of his safe.
He had hardly got started with the work, however, when his quick
ears caught the sounds of a distant car. Instantly he gave an
exclamation of satisfaction, strapped up the valise, shut the
safe, locked it, and hurried out on to the terrace. He was just
in time to see the lights of a small car come to a halt at the
gate. A passenger sprang out of it and advanced swiftly towards
him, while the chauffeur, a heavily built, elderly man with a
gray moustache, settled down like one who resigns himself to a
long vigil.

“Well?” asked Von Bork eagerly, running forward to meet his
visitor.

For answer the man waved a small brown-paper parcel triumphantly
above his head.

“You can give me the glad hand to-night, mister,” he cried. “I’m
bringing home the bacon at last.”

“The signals?”

“Same as I said in my cable. Every last one of them, semaphore,
lamp code, Marconi–a copy, mind you, not the original. That was
too dangerous. But it’s the real goods, and you can lay to
that.” He slapped the German upon the shoulder with a rough
familiarity from which the other winced.

“Come in,” he said. “I’m all alone in the house. I was only
waiting for this. Of course a copy is better than the original.
If an original were missing they would change the whole thing.
You think it’s all safe about the copy?”

The Irish-American had entered the study and stretched his long
limbs from the armchair. He was a tall, gaunt man of sixty, with
clear-cut features and a small goatee beard which gave him a
general resemblance to the caricatures of Uncle Sam. A half-
smoked, sodden cigar hung from the corner of his mouth, and as he
sat down he struck a match and relit it. “Making ready for a
move?” he remarked as he looked round him. “Say, mister,” he
added, as his eyes fell upon the safe from which the curtain was
now removed, “you don’t tell me you keep your papers in that?”

“Why not?”

“Gosh, in a wide-open contraption like that! And they reckon you
to be some spy. Why, a Yankee crook would be into that with a
can-opener. If I’d known that any letter of mine was goin’ to
lie loose in a thing like that I’d have been a mug to write to
you at all.”

“It would puzzle any crook to force that safe,” Von Bork
answered. “You won’t cut that metal with any tool.”

“But the lock?”

“No, it’s a double combination lock. You know what that is?”

“Search me,” said the American.

“Well, you need a word as well as a set of figures before you can
get the lock to work.” He rose and showed a double-radiating
disc round the keyhole. “This outer one is for the letters, the
inner one for the figures.”

“Well, well, that’s fine.”

“So it’s nit quite as simple as you thought. It was four years
ago that I had it made, and what do you think I chose for the
word and figures?”

“It’s beyond me.”

“Well, I chose August for the word, and 1914 for the figures, and
here we are.”

The American’s face showed his surprise and admiration.

“My, but that was smart! You had it down to a fine thing.”

“Yes, a few of us even then could have guessed the date. Here it
is , and I’m shutting down to-morrow morning.”

“Well, I guess you’ll have to fix me up also. I’m not staying is
this gol-darned country all on my lonesome. In a week or less,
from what I see, John Bull will be on his hind legs and fair
ramping. I’d rather watch him from over the water.”

“But you’re an American citizen?”

“Well, so was Jack James an American citizen, but he’s doing time
in Portland all the same. It cuts no ice with a British copper
to tell him you’re an American citizen. ‘It’s British law and
order over here,’ says he. By the way, mister, talking of Jack
James, it seems to me you don’t do much to cover your men.”

“What do you mean?” Von Bork asked sharply.

“Well, you are their employer, ain’t you? It’s up to you to see
that they don’t fall down. But they do fall down, and when did
you ever pick them up? There’s James–”

“It was James’s own fault. You know that yourself. He was too
self-willed for the job.”

“James was a bonehead–I give you that. Then there was Hollis.”

“The man was mad.”

“Well, he went a bit woozy towards the end. It’s enough to make
a man bug-house when he has to play a part from morning to night
with a hundred guys all ready to set the coppers wise to him.
But now there is Steiner–”

Von Bork started violently, and his ruddy face turned a shade
paler.

“What about Steiner?”

“Well, they’ve got him, that’s all. They raided his store last
night, and he and his papers are all in Portsmouth jail. You’ll
go off and he, poor devil, will have to stand the racket, and
lucky if he gets off with his life. That’s why I want to get
over the water as soon as you do.”

Von Bork was a strong, self-contained man, but it was easy to see
that the news had shaken him.

“How could they have got on to Steiner?” he muttered. “That’s
the worst blow yet.”

“Well, you nearly had a worse one, for I believe they are not far
off me.”

“You don’t mean that!”

“Sure thing. My landlady down Fratton way had some inquiries,
and when I heard of it I guessed it was time for me to hustle.
But what I want to know, mister, is how the coppers know these
things? Steiner is the fifth man you’ve lost since I signed on
with you, and I know the name of the sixth if I don’t get a move
on. How do you explain it, and ain’t you ashamed to see your men
go down like this?”

Von Bork flushed crimson.

“How dare you speak in such a way!”

“If I didn’t dare things, mister, I wouldn’t be in your service.
But I’ll tell you straight what is in my mind. I’ve heard that
with you German politicians when an agent has done his work you
are not sorry to see him put away.”

Von Bork sprang to his feet.

“Do you dare to suggest that I have given away my own agents!”

“I don’t stand for that, mister, but there’s a stool pigeon or a
cross somewhere, and it’s up to you to find out where it is.
Anyhow I am taking no more chances. It’s me for little Holland,
and the sooner the better.”

Von Bork had mastered his anger.

“We have been allies too long to quarrel now at the very hour of
victory,” he said. “You’ve done splendid work and taken risks,
and I can’t forget it. By all means go to Holland, and you can
get a boat from Rotterdam to New York. No other line will be
safe a week from now. I’ll take that book and pack it with the
rest.”

The American held the small parcel in his hand, but made no
motion to give it up.

“What about the dough?” he asked.

“The what?”

“The boodle. The reward. The 500 pounds. The gunner turned
damned nasty at the last, and I had to square him with an extra
hundred dollars or it would have been nitsky for you and me.
‘Nothin’ doin’!’ says he, and he meant it, too, but the last
hundred did it. It’s cost me two hundred pound from first to
last, so it isn’t likely I’d give it up without gettin’ my wad.”

Von Bork smiled with some bitterness. “You don’t seem to have a
very high opinion of my honour,” said he, “you want the money
before you give up the book.”

“Well, mister, it is a business proposition.”

“All right. Have your way.” He sat down at the table and
scribbled a check, which he tore from the book, but he refrained
from handing it to his companion. “After all, since we are to be
on such terms, Mr. Altamont,” said he, “I don’t see why I should
trust you any more than you trust me. Do you understand?” he
added, looking back over his shoulder at the American. “There’s
the check upon the table. I claim the right to examine that
parcel before you pick the money up.”

The American passed it over without a word. Von Bork undid a
winding of string and two wrappers of paper. Then he sat dazing
for a moment in silent amazement at a small blue book which lay
before him. Across the cover was printed in golden letters
Practical Handbook of Bee Culture. Only for one instant did the
master spy glare at this strangely irrelevant inscription. The
next he was gripped at the back of his neck by a grasp of iron,
and a chloroformed sponge was held in front of his writhing face.

“Another glass, Watson!” said Mr. Sherlock Holmes as he extended
the bottle of Imperial Tokay.

The thickset chauffeur, who had seated himself by the table,
pushed forward his glass with some eagerness.

“It is a good wine, Holmes.”

“A remarkable wine, Watson. Our friend upon the sofa has assured
me that it is from Franz Josef’s special cellar at the
Schoenbrunn Palace. Might I trouble you to open the window, for
chloroform vapour does not help the palate.”

The safe was ajar, and Holmes standing in front of it was
removing dossier after dossier, swiftly examining each, and then
packing it neatly in Von Bork’s valise. The German lay upon the
sofa sleeping stertorously with a strap round his upper arms and
another round his legs.

“We need not hurry ourselves, Watson. We are safe from
interruption. Would you mind touching the bell? There is no one
in the house except old Martha, who has played her part to
admiration. I got her the situation here when first I took the
matter up. Ah, Martha, you will be glad to hear that all is
well.”

The pleasant old lady had appeared in the doorway. She curtseyed
with a smile to Mr. Holmes, but glanced with some apprehension at
the figure upon the sofa.

“It is all right, Martha. He has not been hurt at all.”

“I am glad of that, Mr. Holmes. According to his lights he has
been a kind master. He wanted me to go with his wife to Germany
yesterday, but that would hardly have suited your plans, would
it, sir?”

“No, indeed, Martha. So long as you were here I was easy in my
mind. We waited some time for your signal to-night.”

“It was the secretary, sir.”

“I know. His car passed ours.”

“I thought he would never go. I knew that it would not suit your
plans, sir, to find him here.”

“No, indeed. Well, it only meant that we waited half an hour or
so until I saw your lamp go out and knew that the coast was
clear. You can report to me to-morrow in London, Martha, at
Claridge’s Hotel.”

“Very good, sir.”

“I suppose you have everything ready to leave.”

“Yes, sir. He posted seven letters to-day. I have the addresses
as usual.”

“Very good, Martha. I will look into them to-morrow. Good-
night. These papers,” he continued as the old lady vanished,
“are not of very great importance, for, of course, the
information which they represent has been sent off long ago to
the German government. These are the originals which cold not
safely be got out of the country.”

“Then they are of no use.”

“I should not go so far as to say that, Watson. They will at
least show our people what is known and what is not. I may say
that a good many of these papers have come through me, and I need
not add are thoroughly untrustworthy. It would brighten my
declining years to see a German cruiser navigating the Solent
according to the mine-field plans which I have furnished. But
you, Watson”–he stopped his work and took his old friend by the
shoulders–”I’ve hardly seen you in the light yet. How have the
years used you? You look the same blithe boy as ever.”

“I feel twenty years younger, Holmes. I have seldom felt so
happy as when I got your wire asking me to meet you at Harwich
with the car. But you, Holmes–you have changed very little–
save for that horrible goatee.”

“These are the sacrifices one makes for one’s country, Watson,”
said Holmes, pulling at his little tuft. “To-morrow it will be
but a dreadful memory. With my hair cut and a few other
superficial changes I shall no doubt reappear at Claridge’s to-
morrow as I was before this American stunt–I beg your pardon,
Watson, my well of English seems to be permanently defiled–
before this American job came my way.”

“But you have retired, Holmes. We heard of you as living the
life of a hermit among your bees and your books in a small farm
upon the South Downs.”

“Exactly, Watson. Here is the fruit of my leisured ease, the
magnum opus of my latter years!” He picked up the volume from
the table and read out the whole title, Practical Handbook of Bee
Culture, with Some Observations upon the Segregation of the
Queen. “Alone I did it. Behold the fruit of pensive nights and
laborious days when I watched the little working gangs as once I
watched the criminal world of London.”

“But how did you get to work again?”

“Ah, I have often marvelled at it myself. The Foreign Minister
alone I could have withstood, but when the Premier also deigned
to visit my humble roof–! The fact is, Watson, that this
gentleman upon the sofa was a bit too good for our people. He
was in a class by himself. Things were going wrong, and no one
could understand why they were going wrong. Agents were
suspected or even caught, but there was evidence of some strong
and secret central force. It was absolutely necessary to expose
it. Strong pressure was brought upon me to look into the matter.
It has cost me two years, Watson, but they have not been devoid
of excitement. When I say that I started my pilgrimage at
Chicago, graduated in an Irish secret society at Buffalo, gave
serious trouble to the constabulary at Skibbareen, and so
eventually caught the eye of a subordinate agent of Von Bork, who
recommended me as a likely man, you will realize that the matter
was complex. Since then I have been honoured by his confidence,
which has not prevented most of his plans going subtly wrong and
five of his best agents being in prison. I watched them, Watson,
and I picked them as they ripened. Well, sir, I hope that you
are none the worse!”

The last remark was addressed to Von Bork himself, who after much
gasping and blinking had lain quietly listening to Holmes’s
statement. He broke out now into a furious stream of German
invective, his face convulsed with passion. Holmes continued his
swift investigation of documents while his prisoner cursed and
swore.

“Though unmusical, German is the most expressive of all
languages,” he observed when Von Bork had stopped from pure
exhaustion. “Hullo! Hullo!” he added as he looked hard at the
corner of a tracing before putting it in the box. “This should
put another bird in the cage. I had no idea that the paymaster
was such a rascal, though I have long had an eye upon him.
Mister Von Bork, you have a great deal to answer for.”

The prisoner had raised himself with some difficulty upon the
sofa and was staring with a strange mixture of amazement and
hatred at his captor.

“I shall get level with you, Altamont,” he said, speaking with
slow deliberation. “If it takes me all my life I shall get level
with you!”

“The old sweet song,” said Holmes. “How often have I heard it in
days gone by. It was a favorite ditty of the late lamented
Professor Moriarty. Colonel Sebastian Moran has also been known
to warble it. And yet I live and keep bees upon the South
Downs.”

“Curse you, you double traitor!” cried the German, straining
against his bonds and glaring murder from his furious eyes.

“No, no, it is not so bad as that,” said Holmes, smiling. “As my
speech surely shows you, Mr. Altamont of Chicago had no existence
in fact. I used him and he is gone.”

“Then who are you?”

“It is really immaterial who I am, but since the matter seems to
interest you, Mr. Von Bork, I may say that this is not my first
acquaintance with the members of your family. I have done a good
deal of business in Germany in the past and my name is probably
familiar to you.”

“I would wish to know it,” said the Prussian grimly.

“It was I who brought about the separation between Irene Adler
and the late King of Bohemia when your cousin Heinrich was the
Imperial Envoy. It was I also who saved from murder, by the
Nihilist Klopman, Count Von und Zu Grafenstein, who was your
mother’s elder brother. It was I–”

Von Bork sat up in amazement.

“There is only one man,” he cried.

“Exactly,” said Holmes.

Von Bork groaned and sank back on the sofa. “And most of that
information came through you,” he cried. “What is it worth?
What have I done? It is my ruin forever!”

“It is certainly a little untrustworthy,” said Holmes. “It will
require some checking and you have little time to check it. Your
admiral may find the new guns rather larger than he expects, and
the cruisers perhaps a trifle faster.”

Von Bork clutched at his own throat in despair.

“There are a good many other points of detail which will, no
doubt, come to light in good time. But you have one quality
which is very rare in a German, Mr. Von Bork: you are a
sportsman and you will bear me no ill-will when you realize that
you, who have outwitted so many other people, have at last been
outwitted yourself. After all, you have done your best for your
country, and I have done my best for mine, and what could be more
natural? Besides,” he added, not unkindly, as he laid his hand
upon the shoulder of the prostrate man, “it is better than to
fall before some ignoble foe. These papers are now ready,
Watson. If you will help me with our prisoner, I think that we
may get started for London at once.”

It was no easy task to move Von Bork, for he was a strong and a
desperate man. Finally, holding either arm, the two friends
walked him very slowly down the garden walk which he had trod
with such proud confidence when he received the congratulations
of the famous diplomatist only a few hours before. After a
short, final struggle he was hoisted, still bound hand and foot,
into the spare seat of the little car. His precious valise was
wedged in beside him.

“I trust that you are as comfortable as circumstances permit,”
said Holmes when the final arrangements were made. “Should I be
guilty of a liberty if I lit a cigar and placed it between your
lips?”

But all amenities were wasted upon the angry German.

“I suppose you realize, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said he, “that if
your government bears you out in this treatment it becomes an act
of war.”

“What about your government and all this treatment?” said Holmes,
tapping the valise.

“You are a private individual. You have no warrant for my
arrest. The whole proceeding is absolutely illegal and
outrageous.”

“Absolutely,” said Holmes.

“Kidnapping a German subject.”

“And stealing his private papers.”

“Well, you realize your position, you and your accomplice here.
If I were to shout for help as we pass through the village–”

“My dear sir, if you did anything so foolish you would probably
enlarge the two limited titles of our village inns by giving us
‘The Dangling Prussian’ as a signpost. The Englishman is a
patient creature, but at present his temper is a little inflamed,
and it would be as well not to try him too far. No, Mr. Von
Bork, you will go with us in a quiet, sensible fashion to
Scotland Yard, whence you can send for your friend, Baron Von
Herling, and see if even now you may not fill that place which he
has reserved for you in the ambassadorial suite. As to you,
Watson, you are joining us with your old service, as I
understand, so London won’t be out of your way. Stand with me
here upon the terrace, for it may be the last quiet talk that we
shall ever have.”

The two friends chatted in intimate converse for a few minutes,
recalling once again the days of the past, while their prisoner
vainly wriggled to undo the bonds that held him. As they turned
to the car Holmes pointed back to the moonlit sea and shook a
thoughtful head.

“There’s an east wind coming, Watson.”

“I think not, Holmes. It is very warm.”

“Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age.
There’s an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never
blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a
good many of us may wither before its blast. But it’s God’s own
wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie
in the sunshine when the storm has cleared. Start her up,
Watson, for it’s time that we were on our way. I have a check
for five hundred pounds which should be cashed early, for the
drawer is quite capable of stopping it if he can.”