Adventures of Sherlock Holmes / Illustrated

“It was only a joke at first,” groaned our visitor.“We never thought that she would have been so carried away.”

“Very likely not.However that may be, the young lady was very decidedly carried away, and having quite made up her mind that her step-father was in France, the suspicion of treachery never for an instant entered her mind.She was flattered by the gentleman’s attentions, and the effect was increased by the loudly expressed admiration of her mother.Then Mr. Angel began to call, for it was obvious that the matter should be pushed as far as it would go, if a real effect were to be produced.There were meetings, and an engagement, which would finally secure the girl’s affections from turning towards any one else.But the deception could not be kept up forever.These pretended journeys to France were rather cumbrous.The thing to do was clearly to bring the business to an end in such a dramatic manner that it would leave a permanent impression upon the young lady’s mind, and prevent her from looking upon any other suitor for some time to come.Hence those vows of fidelity exacted upon a Testament, and hence also the allusions to a possibility of something happening on the very morning of the wedding.James Windibank wished Miss Sutherland to be so bound to Hosmer Angel, and so uncertain as to his fate, that for ten years to come, at any rate, she would not listen to another man.As far as the church door he brought her, and then, as he could go no farther, he conveniently vanished away by the old trick of stepping in at one door of a four-wheeler, and out at the other.I think that that was the chain of events, Mr. Windibank!”

Our visitor had recovered something of his assurance while Holmes had been talking, and he rose from his chair now with a cold sneer upon his pale face.

“It may be so, or it may not, Mr. Holmes,” said he, “but if you are so very sharp you ought to be sharp enough to know that it is you who are breaking the law now, and not me.I have done nothing actionable from the first, but as long as you keep that door locked you lay yourself open to an action for assault and illegal constraint.”

“The law cannot, as you say, touch you,” said Holmes, unlocking and throwing open the door, “yet there never was a man who deserved punishment more.If the young lady has a brother or a friend, he ought to lay a whip across your shoulders.By Jove!”he continued, flushing up at the sight of the bitter sneer upon the man’s face, “it is not part of my duties to my client, but here’s a hunting crop handy, and I think I shall just treat myself to—” He took two swift steps to the whip, but before he could grasp it there was a wild clatter of steps upon the stairs, the heavy hall door banged, and from the window we could see Mr. James Windibank running at the top of his speed down the road.

“There’s a cold-blooded scoundrel!”said Holmes, laughing, as he threw himself down into his chair once more.“That fellow will rise from crime to crime until he does something very bad, and ends on a gallows.The case has, in some respects, been not entirely devoid of interest.”

“I cannot now entirely see all the steps of your reasoning,” I remarked.

“Well, of course it was obvious from the first that this Mr. Hosmer Angel must have some strong object for his curious conduct, and it was equally clear that the only man who really profited by the incident, as far as we could see, was the step-father.Then the fact that the two men were never together, but that the one always appeared when the other was away, was suggestive.So were the tinted spectacles and the curious voice, which both hinted at a disguise, as did the bushy whiskers.My suspicions were all confirmed by his peculiar action in type-writing his signature, which, of course, inferred that his handwriting was so familiar to her that she would recognize even the smallest sample of it. You see all these isolated facts, together with many minor ones, all pointed in the same direction.”

“And how did you verify them?”

“Having once spotted my man, it was easy to get corroboration. I knew the firm for which this man worked. Having taken the printed description, I eliminated everything from it which could be the result of a disguise—the whiskers, the glasses, the voice, and I sent it to the firm, with a request that they would inform me whether it answered to the description of any of their travellers. I had already noticed the peculiarities of the type-writer, and I wrote to the man himself at his business address, asking him if he would come here. As I expected, his reply was type-written, and revealed the same trivial but characteristic defects. The same post brought me a letter from Westhouse & Marbank, of Fenchurch Street, to say that the description tallied in every respect with that of their employé, James Windibank. Voila tout!”

“And Miss Sutherland?”

“If I tell her she will not believe me.You may remember the old Persian saying, ‘There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman.’There is as much sense in Hafiz as in Horace, and as much knowledge of the world.”

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Adventure IV
THE BOSCOMBE VALLEY MYSTERY

WE were seated at breakfast one morning, my wife and I, when the maid brought in a telegram.It was from Sherlock Holmes, and ran in this way:

“Have you a couple of days to spare?Have just been wired for from the West of England in connection with Boscombe Valley tragedy.Shall be glad if you will come with me.Air and scenery perfect.Leave Paddington by the 11.15.”

“What do you say, dear?”said my wife, looking across at me.“Will you go?”

“I really don’t know what to say.I have a fairly long list at present.”

“Oh, Anstruther would do your work for you.You have been looking a little pale lately.I think that the change would do you good, and you are always so interested in Mr. Sherlock Holmes’s cases.”

“I should be ungrateful if I were not, seeing what I gained through one of them,” I answered.“But if I am to go, I must pack at once, for I have only half an hour.”

My experience of camp life in Afghanistan had at least had the effect of making me a prompt and ready traveller.My wants were few and simple, so that in less than the time stated I was in a cab with my valise, rattling away to Paddington Station.Sherlock Holmes was pacing up and down the platform, his tall, gaunt figure made even gaunter and taller by his long gray travelling-cloak and close-fitting cloth cap.

“It is really very good of you to come, Watson,” said he. “It makes a considerable difference to me, having some one with me on whom I can thoroughly rely. Local aid is always either worthless or else biassed. If you will keep the two corner seats I shall get the tickets.”

We had the carriage to ourselves save for an immense litter of papers which Holmes had brought with him.Among these he rummaged and read, with intervals of note-taking and of meditation, until we were past Reading.Then he suddenly rolled them all into a gigantic ball, and tossed them up onto the rack.

“Have you heard anything of the case?”he asked.

“Not a word.I have not seen a paper for some days.”

“The London press has not had very full accounts.I have just been looking through all the recent papers in order to master the particulars.It seems, from what I gather, to be one of those simple cases which are so extremely difficult.”

“That sounds a little paradoxical.”

“But it is profoundly true.Singularity is almost invariably a clew.The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult is it to bring it home.In this case, however, they have established a very serious case against the son of the murdered man.”

“It is a murder, then?”

“Well, it is conjectured to be so.I shall take nothing for granted until I have the opportunity of looking personally into it.I will explain the state of things to you, as far as I have been able to understand it, in a very few words.

“Boscombe Valley is a country district not very far from Ross, in Herefordshire.The largest landed proprietor in that part is a Mr. John Turner, who made his money in Australia, and returned some years ago to the old country.One of the farms which he held, that of Hatherley, was let to Mr. Charles McCarthy, who was also an ex-Australian.The men had known each other in the colonies, so that it was not unnatural that when they came to settle down they should do so as near each other as possible. Turner was apparently the richer man, so McCarthy became his tenant, but still remained, it seems, upon terms of perfect equality, as they were frequently together. McCarthy had one son, a lad of eighteen, and Turner had an only daughter of the same age, but neither of them had wives living. They appear to have avoided the society of the neighboring English families, and to have led retired lives, though both the McCarthys were fond of sport, and were frequently seen at the race-meetings of the neighborhood. McCarthy kept two servants—a man and a girl. Turner had a considerable household, some half-dozen at the least. That is as much as I have been able to gather about the families. Now for the facts.

“On June 3, that is, on Monday last, McCarthy left his house at Hatherley about three in the afternoon, and walked down to the Boscombe Pool, which is a small lake formed by the spreading out of the stream which runs down the Boscombe Valley.He had been out with his serving-man in the morning at Ross, and he had told the man that he must hurry, as he had an appointment of importance to keep at three.From that appointment he never came back alive.

“From Hatherley Farm-house to the Boscombe Pool is a quarter of a mile, and two people saw him as he passed over this ground.One was an old woman, whose name is not mentioned, and the other was William Crowder, a game-keeper in the employ of Mr. Turner.Both these witnesses depose that Mr. McCarthy was walking alone.The game-keeper adds that within a few minutes of his seeing Mr. McCarthy pass he had seen his son, Mr. James McCarthy, going the same way with a gun under his arm.To the best of his belief, the father was actually in sight at the time, and the son was following him.He thought no more of the matter until he heard in the evening of the tragedy that had occurred.

“The two McCarthys were seen after the time when William Crowder, the game-keeper, lost sight of them.The Boscombe Pool is thickly-wooded round, with just a fringe of grass and of reeds round the edge. A girl of fourteen, Patience Moran, who is the daughter of the lodge-keeper of the Boscombe Valley estate, was in one of the woods picking flowers. She states that while she was there she saw, at the border of the wood and close by the lake, Mr. McCarthy and his son, and that they appeared to be having a violent quarrel. She heard Mr. McCarthy the elder using very strong language to his son, and she saw the latter raise up his hand as if to strike his father. She was so frightened by their violence that she ran away, and told her mother when she reached home that she had left the two McCarthys quarrelling near Boscombe Pool, and that she was afraid that they were going to fight. She had hardly said the words when young Mr. McCarthy came running up to the lodge to say that he had found his father dead in the wood, and to ask for the help of the lodge-keeper. He was much excited, without either his gun or his hat, and his right hand and sleeve were observed to be stained with fresh blood. On following him they found the dead body stretched out upon the grass beside the Pool. The head had been beaten in by repeated blows of some heavy and blunt weapon. The injuries were such as might very well have been inflicted by the butt-end of his son’s gun, which was found lying on the grass within a few paces of the body. Under these circumstances the young man was instantly arrested, and a verdict of ‘Wilful Murder’ having been returned at the inquest on Tuesday, he was on Wednesday brought before the magistrates at Ross, who have referred the case to the next assizes. Those are the main facts of the case as they came out before the coroner and at the police-court.”

“I could hardly imagine a more damning case,” I remarked.“If ever circumstantial evidence pointed to a criminal it does so here.”

“Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing,” answered Holmes, thoughtfully.“It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different. It must be confessed, however, that the case looks exceedingly grave against the young man, and it is very possible that he is indeed the culprit. There are several people in the neighborhood, however, and among them Miss Turner, the daughter of the neighboring land-owner, who believe in his innocence, and who have retained Lestrade, whom you may recollect in connection with the Study in Scarlet, to work out the case in his interest. Lestrade, being rather puzzled, has referred the case to me, and hence it is that two middle-aged gentlemen are flying westward at fifty miles an hour, instead of quietly digesting their breakfasts at home.”

“I am afraid,” said I, “that the facts are so obvious that you will find little credit to be gained out of this case.”

“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact,” he answered, laughing.“Besides, we may chance to hit upon some other obvious facts which may have been by no means obvious to Mr. Lestrade.You know me too well to think that I am boasting when I say that I shall either confirm or destroy his theory by means which he is quite incapable of employing, or even of understanding.To take the first example to hand, I very clearly perceive that in your bedroom the window is upon the right-hand side, and yet I question whether Mr. Lestrade would have noted even so self-evident a thing as that.”

“How on earth—”

“My dear fellow, I know you well.I know the military neatness which characterizes you.You shave every morning, and in this season you shave by the sunlight; but since your shaving is less and less complete as we get farther back on the left side, until it becomes positively slovenly as we get round the angle of the jaw, it is surely very clear that that side is less well illuminated than the other.I could not imagine a man of your habits looking at himself in an equal light, and being satisfied with such a result.I only quote this as a trivial example of observation and inference. Therein lies my métier, and it is just possible that it may be of some service in the investigation which lies before us.There are one or two minor points which were brought out in the inquest, and which are worth considering.”

“What are they?”

“It appears that his arrest did not take place at once, but after the return to Hatherley Farm. On the inspector of constabulary informing him that he was a prisoner, he remarked that he was not surprised to hear it, and that it was no more than his deserts. This observation of his had the natural effect of removing any traces of doubt which might have remained in the minds of the coroner’s jury.”

“It was a confession,” I ejaculated.

“No, for it was followed by a protestation of innocence.”

“Coming on the top of such a damning series of events, it was at least a most suspicious remark.”

“On the contrary,” said Holmes, “it is the brightest rift which I can at present see in the clouds.However innocent he might be, he could not be such an absolute imbecile as not to see that the circumstances were very black against him.Had he appeared surprised at his own arrest, or feigned indignation at it, I should have looked upon it as highly suspicious, because such surprise or anger would not be natural under the circumstances, and yet might appear to be the best policy to a scheming man.His frank acceptance of the situation marks him as either an innocent man, or else as a man of considerable self-restraint and firmness.As to his remark about his deserts, it was also not unnatural if you consider that he stood beside the dead body of his father, and that there is no doubt that he had that very day so far forgotten his filial duty as to bandy words with him, and even, according to the little girl whose evidence is so important, to raise his hand as if to strike him.The self-reproach and contrition which are displayed in his remark appear to me to be the signs of a healthy mind, rather than of a guilty one.”

I shook my head. “Many men have been hanged on far slighter evidence,” I remarked.

“So they have.And many men have been wrongfully hanged.”

“What is the young man’s own account of the matter?”

“It is, I am afraid, not very encouraging to his supporters, though there are one or two points in it which are suggestive.You will find it here, and may read it for yourself.”

He picked out from his bundle a copy of the local Herefordshire paper, and having turned down the sheet, he pointed out the paragraph in which the unfortunate young man had given his own statement of what had occurred.I settled myself down in the corner of the carriage, and read it very carefully.It ran in this way:

“Mr. James McCarthy, the only son of the deceased, was then called, and gave evidence as follows: ‘I had been away from home for three days at Bristol, and had only just returned upon the morning of last Monday, the 3rd.My father was absent from home at the time of my arrival, and I was informed by the maid that he had driven over to Ross with John Cobb, the groom.Shortly after my return I heard the wheels of his trap in the yard, and, looking out of my window, I saw him get out and walk rapidly out of the yard, though I was not aware in which direction he was going.I then took my gun, and strolled out in the direction of the Boscombe Pool, with the intention of visiting the rabbit-warren which is upon the other side.On my way I saw William Crowder, the game-keeper, as he had stated in his evidence; but he is mistaken in thinking that I was following my father.I had no idea that he was in front of me.When about a hundred yards from the Pool I heard a cry of “Cooee!”which was a usual signal between my father and myself.I then hurried forward, and found him standing by the Pool.He appeared to be much surprised at seeing me, and asked me rather roughly what I was doing there.A conversation ensued which led to high words, and almost to blows, for my father was a man of a very violent temper. Seeing that his passion was becoming ungovernable, I left him, and returned towards Hatherley Farm. I had not gone more than 150 yards, however, when I heard a hideous outcry behind me, which caused me to run back again. I found my father expiring upon the ground, with his head terribly injured. I dropped my gun, and held him in my arms, but he almost instantly expired. I knelt beside him for some minutes, and then made my way to Mr. Turner’s lodge-keeper, his house being the nearest, to ask for assistance. I saw no one near my father when I returned, and I have no idea how he came by his injuries. He was not a popular man, being somewhat cold and forbidding in his manners; but he had, as far as I know, no active enemies. I know nothing further of the matter.’

“The Coroner: Did your father make any statement to you before he died?

“Witness: He mumbled a few words, but I could only catch some allusion to a rat.

“The Coroner: What did you understand by that?

“Witness: It conveyed no meaning to me.I thought that he was delirious.

“The Coroner: What was the point upon which you and your father had this final quarrel?

“Witness: I should prefer not to answer.

“The Coroner: I am afraid that I must press it.

“Witness: It is really impossible for me to tell you.I can assure you that it has nothing to do with the sad tragedy which followed.

“The Coroner: That is for the court to decide.I need not point out to you that your refusal to answer will prejudice your case considerably in any future proceedings which may arise.

“Witness: I must still refuse.

“The Coroner: I understand that the cry of ‘Cooee’ was a common signal between you and your father?

“Witness: It was.

“The Coroner: How was it, then, that he uttered it before he saw you, and before he even knew that you had returned from Bristol?

“Witness (with considerable confusion): I do not know.

“A Juryman: Did you see nothing which aroused your suspicions when you returned on hearing the cry, and found your father fatally injured?

“Witness: Nothing definite.

“The Coroner: What do you mean?

“Witness: I was so disturbed and excited as I rushed out into the open, that I could think of nothing except of my father.Yet I have a vague impression that as I ran forward something lay upon the ground to the left of me.It seemed to me to be something gray in color, a coat of some sort, or a plaid perhaps.When I rose from my father I looked round for it, but it was gone.

“‘Do you mean that it disappeared before you went for help?’

“‘Yes, it was gone.’

“‘You cannot say what it was?’

“‘No, I had a feeling something was there.’

“‘How far from the body?’

“‘A dozen yards or so.’

“‘And how far from the edge of the wood?’

“‘About the same.’

“‘Then if it was removed it was while you were within a dozen yards of it?’

“‘Yes, but with my back towards it.’

“This concluded the examination of the witness.”

“I see,” said I, as I glanced down the column, “that the coroner in his concluding remarks was rather severe upon young McCarthy.He calls attention, and with reason, to the discrepancy about his father having signalled to him before seeing him, also to his refusal to give details of his conversation with his father, and his singular account of his father’s dying words. They are all, as he remarks, very much against the son.”

Holmes laughed softly to himself, and stretched himself out upon the cushioned seat. “Both you and the coroner have been at some pains,” said he, “to single out the very strongest points in the young man’s favor. Don’t you see that you alternately give him credit for having too much imagination and too little. Too little, if he could not invent a cause of quarrel which would give him the sympathy of the jury; too much, if he evolved from his own inner consciousness anything so outré as a dying reference to a rat, and the incident of the vanishing cloth. No, sir, I shall approach this case from the point of view that what this young man says is true, and we shall see whither that hypothesis will lead us. And now here is my pocket Petrarch, and not another word shall I say of this case until we are on the scene of action. We lunch at Swindon, and I see that we shall be there in twenty minutes.”

It was nearly four o’clock when we at last, after passing through the beautiful Stroud Valley, and over the broad gleaming Severn, found ourselves at the pretty little country-town of Ross.A lean, ferret-like man, furtive and sly-looking, was waiting for us upon the platform.In spite of the light brown dustcoat and leather-leggings which he wore in deference to his rustic surroundings, I had no difficulty in recognizing Lestrade, of Scotland Yard.With him we drove to the Hereford Arms, where a room had already been engaged for us.

“I have ordered a carriage,” said Lestrade, as we sat over a cup of tea.“I knew your energetic nature, and that you would not be happy until you had been on the scene of the crime.”

“It was very nice and complimentary of you,” Holmes answered.“It is entirely a question of barometric pressure.”

Lestrade looked startled.“I do not quite follow,” he said.

“How is the glass? Twenty-nine, I see. No wind, and not a cloud in the sky. I have a caseful of cigarettes here which need smoking, and the sofa is very much superior to the usual country hotel abomination. I do not think that it is probable that I shall use the carriage to-night.”

Lestrade laughed indulgently.“You have, no doubt, already formed your conclusions from the newspapers,” he said.“The case is as plain as a pikestaff, and the more one goes into it the plainer it becomes.Still, of course, one can’t refuse a lady, and such a very positive one, too.She had heard of you, and would have your opinion, though I repeatedly told her that there was nothing which you could do which I had not already done.Why, bless my soul!here is her carriage at the door.”

He had hardly spoken before there rushed into the room one of the most lovely young women that I have ever seen in my life.Her violet eyes shining, her lips parted, a pink flush upon her cheeks, all thought of her natural reserve lost in her overpowering excitement and concern.

“Oh, Mr. Sherlock Holmes!”she cried, glancing from one to the other of us, and finally, with a woman’s quick intuition, fastening upon my companion, “I am so glad that you have come.I have driven down to tell you so.I know that James didn’t do it.I know it, and I want you to start upon your work knowing it, too.Never let yourself doubt upon that point.We have known each other since we were little children, and I know his faults as no one else does; but he is too tender-hearted to hurt a fly.Such a charge is absurd to any one who really knows him.”

“I hope we may clear him, Miss Turner,” said Sherlock Holmes.“You may rely upon my doing all that I can.”

“But you have read the evidence.You have formed some conclusion?Do you not see some loophole, some flaw?Do you not yourself think that he is innocent?”

“I think that it is very probable.”

“There, now!”she cried, throwing back her head, and looking defiantly at Lestrade. “You hear! He gives me hopes.”

Lestrade shrugged his shoulders.“I am afraid that my colleague has been a little quick in forming his conclusions,” he said.

“But he is right.Oh!I know that he is right.James never did it.And about his quarrel with his father, I am sure that the reason why he would not speak about it to the coroner was because I was concerned in it.”

“In what way?”asked Holmes.

“It is no time for me to hide anything. James and his father had many disagreements about me. Mr. McCarthy was very anxious that there should be a marriage between us. James and I have always loved each other as brother and sister; but of course he is young, and has seen very little of life yet, and—and—well, he naturally did not wish to do anything like that yet.So there were quarrels, and this, I am sure, was one of them.”

“And your father?”asked Holmes.“Was he in favor of such a union?”

“No, he was averse to it also.No one but Mr. McCarthy was in favor of it.”A quick blush passed over her fresh young face as Holmes shot one of his keen, questioning glances at her.

“Thank you for this information,” said he.“May I see your father if I call to-morrow?”

“I am afraid the doctor won’t allow it.”

“The doctor?”

“Yes, have you not heard?Poor father has never been strong for years back, but this has broken him down completely.He has taken to his bed, and Dr. Willows says that he is a wreck, and that his nervous system is shattered.Mr. McCarthy was the only man alive who had known dad in the old days in Victoria.”

“Ha!In Victoria!That is important.”

“Yes, at the mines.”

“Quite so; at the gold-mines, where, as I understand, Mr. Turner made his money.”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Thank you, Miss Turner.You have been of material assistance to me.”

“You will tell me if you have any news to-morrow.No doubt you will go to the prison to see James.Oh, if you do, Mr. Holmes, do tell him that I know him to be innocent.”

“I will, Miss Turner.”

“I must go home now, for dad is very ill, and he misses me so if I leave him.Good-bye, and God help you in your undertaking.”She hurried from the room as impulsively as she had entered, and we heard the wheels of her carriage rattle off down the street.

“I am ashamed of you, Holmes,” said Lestrade, with dignity, after a few minutes’ silence.“Why should you raise up hopes which you are bound to disappoint?I am not over-tender of heart, but I call it cruel.”

“I think that I see my way to clearing James McCarthy,” said Holmes.“Have you an order to see him in prison?”

“Yes, but only for you and me.”

“Then I shall reconsider my resolution about going out.We have still time to take a train to Hereford and see him to-night?”

“Ample.”

“Then let us do so.Watson, I fear that you will find it very slow, but I shall only be away a couple of hours.”

I walked down to the station with them, and then wandered through the streets of the little town, finally returning to the hotel, where I lay upon the sofa and tried to interest myself in a yellow-backed novel.The puny plot of the story was so thin, however, when compared to the deep mystery through which we were groping, and I found my attention wander so continually from the fiction to the fact, that I at last flung it across the room, and gave myself up entirely to a consideration of the events of the day.Supposing that this unhappy young man’s story was absolutely true, then what hellish thing, what absolutely unforeseen and extraordinary calamity could have occurred between the time when he parted from his father, and the moment when, drawn back by his screams, he rushed into the glade? It was something terrible and deadly. What could it be? Might not the nature of the injuries reveal something to my medical instincts? I rang the bell, and called for the weekly county paper, which contained a verbatim account of the inquest. In the surgeon’s deposition it was stated that the posterior third of the left parietal bone and the left half of the occipital bone had been shattered by a heavy blow from a blunt weapon. I marked the spot upon my own head. Clearly such a blow must have been struck from behind. That was to some extent in favor of the accused, as when seen quarrelling he was face to face with his father. Still, it did not go for very much, for the older man might have turned his back before the blow fell. Still, it might be worth while to call Holmes’s attention to it. Then there was the peculiar dying reference to a rat. What could that mean? It could not be delirium. A man dying from a sudden blow does not commonly become delirious. No, it was more likely to be an attempt to explain how he met his fate. But what could it indicate? I cudgelled my brains to find some possible explanation. And then the incident of the gray cloth, seen by young McCarthy. If that were true, the murderer must have dropped some part of his dress, presumably his overcoat, in his flight, and must have had the hardihood to return and to carry it away at the instant when the son was kneeling with his back turned not a dozen paces off. What a tissue of mysteries and improbabilities the whole thing was! I did not wonder at Lestrade’s opinion, and yet I had so much faith in Sherlock Holmes’s insight that I could not lose hope as long as every fresh fact seemed to strengthen his conviction of young McCarthy’s innocence.

It was late before Sherlock Holmes returned.He came back alone, for Lestrade was staying in lodgings in the town.

“The glass still keeps very high,” he remarked, as he sat down. “It is of importance that it should not rain before we are able to go over the ground. On the other hand, a man should be at his very best and keenest for such nice work as that, and I did not wish to do it when fagged by a long journey. I have seen young McCarthy.”

“And what did you learn from him?”

“Nothing.”

“Could he throw no light?”

“None at all.I was inclined to think at one time that he knew who had done it, and was screening him or her, but I am convinced now that he is as puzzled as every one else.He is not a very quick-witted youth, though comely to look at, and, I should think, sound at heart.”

“I cannot admire his taste,” I remarked, “if it is indeed a fact that he was averse to a marriage with so charming a young lady as this Miss Turner.”

“Ah, thereby hangs a rather painful tale.This fellow is madly, insanely in love with her, but some two years ago, when he was only a lad, and before he really knew her, for she had been away five years at a boarding-school, what does the idiot do but get into the clutches of a barmaid in Bristol, and marry her at a registry office?No one knows a word of the matter, but you can imagine how maddening it must be to him to be upbraided for not doing what he would give his very eyes to do, but what he knows to be absolutely impossible.It was sheer frenzy of this sort which made him throw his hands up into the air when his father, at their last interview, was goading him on to propose to Miss Turner.On the other hand, he had no means of supporting himself, and his father, who was by all accounts a very hard man, would have thrown him over utterly had he known the truth.It was with his barmaid wife that he had spent the last three days in Bristol, and his father did not know where he was.Mark that point.It is of importance.Good has come out of evil, however, for the barmaid, finding from the papers that he is in serious trouble, and likely to be hanged, has thrown him over utterly, and has written to him to say that she has a husband already in the Bermuda Dockyard, so that there is really no tie between them. I think that that bit of news has consoled young McCarthy for all that he has suffered.”

“But if he is innocent, who has done it?”

“Ah!who?I would call your attention very particularly to two points.One is that the murdered man had an appointment with some one at the Pool, and that the some one could not have been his son, for his son was away, and he did not know when he would return.The second is that the murdered man was heard to cry ‘Cooee!’before he knew that his son had returned.Those are the crucial points upon which the case depends.And now let us talk about George Meredith, if you please, and we shall leave all minor matters until to-morrow.”

There was no rain, as Holmes had foretold, and the morning broke bright and cloudless.At nine o’clock Lestrade called for us with the carriage, and we set off for Hatherley Farm and the Boscombe Pool.

“There is serious news this morning,” Lestrade observed.“It is said that Mr. Turner, of the Hall, is so ill that his life is despaired of.”

“An elderly man, I presume?”said Holmes.

“About sixty; but his constitution has been shattered by his life abroad, and he has been in failing health for some time.This business has had a very bad effect upon him.He was an old friend of McCarthy’s, and, I may add, a great benefactor to him, for I have learned that he gave him Hatherley Farm rent free.”

“Indeed!That is interesting,” said Holmes.

“Oh yes!In a hundred other ways he has helped him.Everybody about here speaks of his kindness to him.”

“Really!Does it not strike you as a little singular that this McCarthy, who appears to have had little of his own, and to have been under such obligations to Turner, should still talk of marrying his son to Turner’s daughter, who is, presumably, heiress to the estate, and that in such a very cocksure manner, as if it were merely a case of a proposal and all else would follow? It is the more strange, since we know that Turner himself was averse to the idea. The daughter told us as much. Do you not deduce something from that?”

“We have got to the deductions and the inferences,” said Lestrade, winking at me.“I find it hard enough to tackle facts, Holmes, without flying away after theories and fancies.”

“You are right,” said Holmes, demurely; “you do find it very hard to tackle the facts.”

“Anyhow, I have grasped one fact which you seem to find it difficult to get hold of,” replied Lestrade, with some warmth.

“And that is—”

“That McCarthy, senior, met his death from McCarthy, junior, and that all theories to the contrary are the merest moonshine.”

“Well, moonshine is a brighter thing than fog,” said Holmes, laughing.“But I am very much mistaken if this is not Hatherley Farm upon the left.”

“Yes, that is it.”It was a wide-spread, comfortable-looking building, two-storied, slate roofed, with great yellow blotches of lichen upon the gray walls.The drawn blinds and the smokeless chimneys, however, gave it a stricken look, as though the weight of this horror still lay heavy upon it.We called at the door, when the maid, at Holmes’s request, showed us the boots which her master wore at the time of his death, and also a pair of the son’s, though not the pair which he had then had.Having measured these very carefully from seven or eight different points, Holmes desired to be led to the court-yard, from which we all followed the winding track which led to Boscombe Pool.

Sherlock Holmes was transformed when he was hot upon such a scent as this. Men who had only known the quiet thinker and logician of Baker Street would have failed to recognize him. His face flushed and darkened. His brows were drawn into two hard, black lines, while his eyes shone out from beneath them with a steely glitter. His face was bent downward, his shoulders bowed, his lips compressed, and the veins stood out like whip-cord in his long, sinewy neck. His nostrils seemed to dilate with a purely animal lust for the chase, and his mind was so absolutely concentrated upon the matter before him, that a question or remark fell unheeded upon his ears, or, at the most, only provoked a quick, impatient snarl in reply. Swiftly and silently he made his way along the track which ran through the meadows, and so by way of the woods to the Boscombe Pool. It was damp, marshy ground, as is all that district, and there were marks of many feet, both upon the path and amid the short grass which bounded it on either side. Sometimes Holmes would hurry on, sometimes stop dead, and once he made quite a little détour into the meadow. Lestrade and I walked behind him, the detective indifferent and contemptuous, while I watched my friend with the interest which sprang from the conviction that every one of his actions was directed towards a definite end.

The Boscombe Pool, which is a little reed-girt sheet of water some fifty yards across, is situated at the boundary between the Hatherley Farm and the private park of the wealthy Mr. Turner.Above the woods which lined it upon the farther side we could see the red, jutting pinnacles which marked the site of the rich land-owner’s dwelling.On the Hatherley side of the Pool the woods grew very thick, and there was a narrow belt of sodden grass twenty paces across between the edge of the trees and the reeds which lined the lake.Lestrade showed us the exact spot at which the body had been found, and, indeed, so moist was the ground, that I could plainly see the traces which had been left by the fall of the stricken man.To Holmes, as I could see by his eager face and peering eyes, very many other things were to be read upon the trampled grass.He ran round, like a dog who is picking up a scent, and then turned upon my companion.

“What did you go into the Pool for?” he asked.

“I fished about with a rake.I thought there might be some weapon or other trace.But how on earth—”

“Oh, tut, tut!I have no time!That left foot of yours with its inward twist is all over the place.A mole could trace it, and there it vanishes among the reeds.Oh, how simple it would all have been had I been here before they came like a herd of buffalo, and wallowed all over it.Here is where the party with the lodge-keeper came, and they have covered all tracks for six or eight feet round the body.But here are three separate tracks of the same feet.”He drew out a lens, and lay down upon his waterproof to have a better view, talking all the time rather to himself than to us.“These are young McCarthy’s feet.Twice he was walking, and once he ran swiftly so that the soles are deeply marked, and the heels hardly visible.That bears out his story.He ran when he saw his father on the ground.Then here are the father’s feet as he paced up and down.What is this, then?It is the butt-end of the gun as the son stood listening.And this?Ha, ha!What have we here?Tiptoes!tiptoes!Square, too, quite unusual boots!They come, they go, they come again—of course that was for the cloak.Now where did they come from?”He ran up and down, sometimes losing, sometimes finding the track until we were well within the edge of the wood, and under the shadow of a great beech, the largest tree in the neighborhood.Holmes traced his way to the farther side of this, and lay down once more upon his face with a little cry of satisfaction.For a long time he remained there, turning over the leaves and dried sticks, gathering up what seemed to me to be dust into an envelope, and examining with his lens not only the ground, but even the bark of the tree as far as he could reach.A jagged stone was lying among the moss, and this also he carefully examined and retained.Then he followed a pathway through the wood until he came to the high-road, where all traces were lost.

“It has been a case of considerable interest,” he remarked, returning to his natural manner. “I fancy that this gray house on the right must be the lodge. I think that I will go in and have a word with Moran, and perhaps write a little note. Having done that, we may drive back to our luncheon. You may walk to the cab, and I shall be with you presently.”

It was about ten minutes before we regained our cab, and drove back into Ross, Holmes still carrying with him the stone which he had picked up in the wood.

“This may interest you, Lestrade,” he remarked, holding it out.“The murder was done with it.”

“I see no marks.”

“There are none.”

“How do you know, then?”

“The grass was growing under it.It had only lain there a few days.There was no sign of a place whence it had been taken.It corresponds with the injuries.There is no sign of any other weapon.”

“And the murderer?”

“Is a tall man, left-handed, limps with the right leg, wears thick-soled shooting-boots and a gray cloak, smokes Indian cigars, uses a cigar-holder, and carries a blunt penknife in his pocket.There are several other indications, but these may be enough to aid us in our search.”

Lestrade laughed.“I am afraid that I am still a sceptic,” he said.“Theories are all very well, but we have to deal with a hard-headed British jury.”

“Nous verrons,” answered Holmes, calmly.“You work your own method, and I shall work mine.I shall be busy this afternoon, and shall probably return to London by the evening train.”

“And leave your case unfinished?”

“No, finished.”

“But the mystery?”

“It is solved.”

“Who was the criminal, then?”

“The gentleman I describe.”

“But who is he?”

“Surely it would not be difficult to find out.This is not such a populous neighborhood.”

Lestrade shrugged his shoulders.“I am a practical man,” he said, “and I really cannot undertake to go about the country looking for a left-handed gentleman with a game-leg.I should become the laughing-stock of Scotland Yard.”

“All right,” said Holmes, quietly.“I have given you the chance.Here are your lodgings.Good-bye.I shall drop you a line before I leave.”

Having left Lestrade at his rooms, we drove to our hotel, where we found lunch upon the table.Holmes was silent and buried in thought with a pained expression upon his face, as one who finds himself in a perplexing position.

“Look here, Watson,” he said, when the cloth was cleared; “just sit down in this chair and let me preach to you for a little.I don’t quite know what to do, and I should value your advice.Light a cigar, and let me expound.”

“Pray do so.”

“Well, now, in considering this case there are two points about young McCarthy’s narrative which struck us both instantly, although they impressed me in his favor and you against him.One was the fact that his father should, according to his account, cry ‘Cooee!’before seeing him.The other was his singular dying reference to a rat.He mumbled several words, you understand, but that was all that caught the son’s ear.Now from this double point our research must commence, and we will begin it by presuming that what the lad says is absolutely true.”

“What of this ‘Cooee!’then?”

“Well, obviously it could not have been meant for the son.The son, as far as he knew, was in Bristol.It was mere chance that he was within ear-shot.The ‘Cooee!’was meant to attract the attention of whoever it was that he had the appointment with.But ‘Cooee’ is a distinctly Australian cry, and one which is used between Australians.There is a strong presumption that the person whom McCarthy expected to meet him at Boscombe Pool was some one who had been in Australia.”

“What of the rat, then?”

Sherlock Holmes took a folded paper from his pocket and flattened it out on the table.“This is a map of the Colony of Victoria,” he said.“I wired to Bristol for it last night.”He put his hand over part of the map.“What do you read?”he asked.

“ARAT,” I read.

“And now?”He raised his hand.

“BALLARAT.”

“Quite so.That was the word the man uttered, and of which his son only caught the last two syllables.He was trying to utter the name of his murderer.So-and-so, of Ballarat.”

“It is wonderful!”I exclaimed.

“It is obvious.And now, you see, I had narrowed the field down considerably.The possession of a gray garment was a third point which, granting the son’s statement to be correct, was a certainty.We have come now out of mere vagueness to the definite conception of an Australian from Ballarat with a gray cloak.”

“Certainly.”

“And one who was at home in the district, for the Pool can only be approached by the farm or by the estate, where strangers could hardly wander.”

“Quite so.”

“Then comes our expedition of to-day.By an examination of the ground I gained the trifling details which I gave to that imbecile Lestrade, as to the personality of the criminal.”

“But how did you gain them?”

“You know my method.It is founded upon the observance of trifles.”

“His height I know that you might roughly judge from the length of his stride.His boots, too, might be told from their traces.”

“Yes, they were peculiar boots.”

“But his lameness?”

“The impression of his right foot was always less distinct than his left.He put less weight upon it.Why?Because he limped—he was lame.”

“But his left-handedness.”

“You were yourself struck by the nature of the injury as recorded by the surgeon at the inquest.The blow was struck from immediately behind, and yet was upon the left side.Now, how can that be unless it were by a left-handed man?He had stood behind that tree during the interview between the father and son.He had even smoked there.I found the ash of a cigar, which my special knowledge of tobacco ashes enabled me to pronounce as an Indian cigar.I have, as you know, devoted some attention to this, and written a little monograph on the ashes of 140 different varieties of pipe, cigar, and cigarette tobacco.Having found the ash, I then looked round and discovered the stump among the moss where he had tossed it.It was an Indian cigar, of the variety which are rolled in Rotterdam.”

“And the cigar-holder?”

“I could see that the end had not been in his mouth.Therefore he used a holder.The tip had been cut off, not bitten off, but the cut was not a clean one, so I deduced a blunt pen-knife.”

“Holmes,” I said, “you have drawn a net round this man from which he cannot escape, and you have saved an innocent human life as truly as if you had cut the cord which was hanging him.I see the direction in which all this points.The culprit is—”

“Mr. John Turner,” cried the hotel waiter, opening the door of our sitting-room, and ushering in a visitor.

The man who entered was a strange and impressive figure.His slow, limping step and bowed shoulders gave the appearance of decrepitude, and yet his hard, deep-lined, craggy features, and his enormous limbs showed that he was possessed of unusual strength of body and of character. His tangled beard, grizzled hair, and outstanding, drooping eyebrows combined to give an air of dignity and power to his appearance, but his face was of an ashen white, while his lips and the corners of his nostrils were tinged with a shade of blue. It was clear to me at a glance that he was in the grip of some deadly and chronic disease.

“Pray sit down on the sofa,” said Holmes, gently.“You had my note?”

“Yes, the lodge-keeper brought it up.You said that you wished to see me here to avoid scandal.”

“I thought people would talk if I went to the Hall.”

“And why did you wish to see me?”He looked across at my companion with despair in his weary eyes, as though his question was already answered.

“Yes,” said Holmes, answering the look rather than the words.“It is so.I know all about McCarthy.”

The old man sank his face in his hands.“God help me!”he cried.“But I would not have let the young man come to harm.I give you my word that I would have spoken out if it went against him at the Assizes.”

“I am glad to hear you say so,” said Holmes, gravely.

“I would have spoken now had it not been for my dear girl.It would break her heart—it will break her heart when she hears that I am arrested.”

“It may not come to that,” said Holmes.

“What!”

“I am no official agent.I understand that it was your daughter who required my presence here, and I am acting in her interests.Young McCarthy must be got off, however.”

“I am a dying man,” said old Turner.“I have had diabetes for years.My doctor says it is a question whether I shall live a month.Yet I would rather die under my own roof than in a jail.”

Holmes rose and sat down at the table with his pen in his hand and a bundle of paper before him.“Just tell us the truth,” he said. “I shall jot down the facts. You will sign it, and Watson here can witness it. Then I could produce your confession at the last extremity to save young McCarthy. I promise you that I shall not use it unless it is absolutely needed.”

“It’s as well,” said the old man; “it’s a question whether I shall live to the Assizes, so it matters little to me, but I should wish to spare Alice the shock.And now I will make the thing clear to you; it has been a long time in the acting, but will not take me long to tell.

“You didn’t know this dead man, McCarthy.He was a devil incarnate.I tell you that.God keep you out of the clutches of such a man as he.His grip has been upon me these twenty years, and he has blasted my life.I’ll tell you first how I came to be in his power.

“It was in the early sixties at the diggings.I was a young chap then, hot-blooded and reckless, ready to turn my hand at anything; I got among bad companions, took to drink, had no luck with my claim, took to the bush, and in a word became what you would call over here a highway robber.There were six of us, and we had a wild, free life of it, sticking up a station from time to time, or stopping the wagons on the road to the diggings.Black Jack of Ballarat was the name I went under, and our party is still remembered in the colony as the Ballarat Gang.

“One day a gold convoy came down from Ballarat to Melbourne, and we lay in wait for it and attacked it.There were six troopers and six of us, so it was a close thing, but we emptied four of their saddles at the first volley.Three of our boys were killed, however, before we got the swag.I put my pistol to the head of the wagon-driver, who was this very man McCarthy.I wish to the Lord that I had shot him then, but I spared him, though I saw his wicked little eyes fixed on my face, as though to remember every feature.We got away with the gold, became wealthy men, and made our way over to England without being suspected.There I parted from my old pals, and determined to settle down to a quiet and respectable life. I bought this estate, which chanced to be in the market, and I set myself to do a little good with my money, to make up for the way in which I had earned it. I married, too, and though my wife died young, she left me my dear little Alice. Even when she was just a baby her wee hand seemed to lead me down the right path as nothing else had ever done. In a word, I turned over a new leaf, and did my best to make up for the past. All was going well when McCarthy laid his grip upon me.

“I had gone up to town about an investment, and I met him in Regent Street with hardly a coat to his back or a boot to his foot.

“‘Here we are, Jack,’ says he, touching me on the arm; ‘we’ll be as good as a family to you.There’s two of us, me and my son, and you can have the keeping of us.If you don’t—it’s a fine, law-abiding country is England, and there’s always a policeman within hail.’

“Well, down they came to the West country, there was no shaking them off, and there they have lived rent free on my best land ever since.There was no rest for me, no peace, no forgetfulness; turn where I would, there was his cunning, grinning face at my elbow.It grew worse as Alice grew up, for he soon saw I was more afraid of her knowing my past than of the police.Whatever he wanted he must have, and whatever it was I gave him without question, land, money, houses, until at last he asked a thing which I could not give.He asked for Alice.

“His son, you see, had grown up, and so had my girl, and as I was known to be in weak health, it seemed a fine stroke to him that his lad should step into the whole property.But there I was firm.I would not have his cursed stock mixed with mine; not that I had any dislike to the lad, but his blood was in him, and that was enough.I stood firm.McCarthy threatened.I braved him to do his worst.We were to meet at the Pool midway between our houses to talk it over.

“When I went down there I found him talking with his son, so I smoked a cigar, and waited behind a tree until he should be alone. But as I listened to his talk all that was black and bitter in me seemed to come uppermost. He was urging his son to marry my daughter with as little regard for what she might think as if she were a slut from off the streets. It drove me mad to think that I and all that I held most dear should be in the power of such a man as this. Could I not snap the bond? I was already a dying and a desperate man. Though clear of mind and fairly strong of limb, I knew that my own fate was sealed. But my memory and my girl! Both could be saved, if I could but silence that foul tongue. I did it, Mr. Holmes. I would do it again. Deeply as I have sinned, I have led a life of martyrdom to atone for it. But that my girl should be entangled in the same meshes which held me was more than I could suffer. I struck him down with no more compunction than if he had been some foul and venomous beast. His cry brought back his son; but I had gained the cover of the wood, though I was forced to go back to fetch the cloak which I had dropped in my flight. That is the true story, gentlemen, of all that occurred.”

“Well, it is not for me to judge you,” said Holmes, as the old man signed the statement which had been drawn out.“I pray that we may never be exposed to such a temptation.”

“I pray not, sir.And what do you intend to do?”

“In view of your health, nothing.You are yourself aware that you will soon have to answer for your deed at a higher court than the Assizes.I will keep your confession, and, if McCarthy is condemned, I shall be forced to use it.If not, it shall never be seen by mortal eye; and your secret, whether you be alive or dead, shall be safe with us.”

“Farewell, then,” said the old man, solemnly.“Your own death-beds, when they come, will be the easier for the thought of the peace which you have given to mine.”Tottering and shaking in all his giant frame, he stumbled slowly from the room.

“God help us!” said Holmes, after a long silence. “Why does fate play such tricks with poor, helpless worms? I never hear of such a case as this that I do not think of Baxter’s words, and say, ‘There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes.’ ”

James McCarthy was acquitted at the Assizes, on the strength of a number of objections which had been drawn out by Holmes, and submitted to the defending counsel.Old Turner lived for seven months after our interview, but he is now dead; and there is every prospect that the son and daughter may come to live happily together, in ignorance of the black cloud which rests upon their past.

It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales had set in with exceptional violence.All day the wind had screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in the heart of great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life, and to recognize the presence of those great elemental forces which shriek at mankind through the bars of his civilization, like untamed beasts in a cage.As evening drew in, the storm grew higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed like a child in the chimney.Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the fireplace cross-indexing his records of crime, while I at the other was deep in one of Clark Russell’s fine sea-stories, until the howl of the gale from without seemed to blend with the text, and the splash of the rain to lengthen out into the long swash of the sea waves.My wife was on a visit to her mother’s, and for a few days I was a dweller once more in my old quarters at Baker Street.

“Why,” said I, glancing up at my companion, “that was surely the bell.Who could come to-night?Some friend of yours, perhaps?”

“Except yourself I have none,” he answered.“I do not encourage visitors.”

“A client, then?”

“If so, it is a serious case.Nothing less would bring a man out on such a day and at such an hour.But I take it that it is more likely to be some crony of the landlady’s.”

Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there came a step in the passage and a tapping at the door. He stretched out his long arm to turn the lamp away from himself and towards the vacant chair upon which a new-comer must sit. “Come in!” said he.

The man who entered was young, some two-and-twenty at the outside, well-groomed and trimly clad, with something of refinement and delicacy in his bearing.The steaming umbrella which he held in his hand, and his long shining waterproof told of the fierce weather through which he had come.He looked about him anxiously in the glare of the lamp, and I could see that his face was pale and his eyes heavy, like those of a man who is weighed down with some great anxiety.

“I owe you an apology,” he said, raising his golden pince-nez to his eyes. “I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have brought some traces of the storm and rain into your snug chamber.”

“Give me your coat and umbrella,” said Holmes.“They may rest here on the hook, and will be dry presently.You have come up from the south-west, I see.”

“Yes, from Horsham.”

“That clay and chalk mixture which I see upon your toe-caps is quite distinctive.”

“I have come for advice.”

“That is easily got.”

“And help.”

“That is not always so easy.”

“I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes.I heard from Major Prendergast how you saved him in the Tankerville Club Scandal.”

“Ah, of course.He was wrongfully accused of cheating at cards.”

“He said that you could solve anything.”

“He said too much.”

“That you are never beaten.”

“I have been beaten four times—three times by men, and once by a woman.”

“But what is that compared with the number of your successes?”

“It is true that I have been generally successful.”

“Then you may be so with me.”

“I beg that you will draw your chair up to the fire, and favor me with some details as to your case.”

“It is no ordinary one.”

“None of those which come to me are.I am the last court of appeal.”

“And yet I question, sir, whether, in all your experience, you have ever listened to a more mysterious and inexplicable chain of events than those which have happened in my own family.”

“You fill me with interest,” said Holmes.“Pray give us the essential facts from the commencement, and I can afterwards question you as to those details which seem to me to be most important.”

The young man pulled his chair up, and pushed his wet feet out towards the blaze.

“My name,” said he, “is John Openshaw, but my own affairs have, as far as I can understand it, little to do with this awful business.It is an hereditary matter; so in order to give you an idea of the facts, I must go back to the commencement of the affair.

“You must know that my grandfather had two sons—my uncle Elias and my father Joseph.My father had a small factory at Coventry, which he enlarged at the time of the invention of bicycling.He was the patentee of the Openshaw unbreakable tire, and his business met with such success that he was able to sell it, and to retire upon a handsome competence.

“My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young man, and became a planter in Florida, where he was reported to have done very well.At the time of the war he fought in Jackson’s army, and afterwards under Hood, where he rose to be a colonel.When Lee laid down his arms my uncle returned to his plantation, where he remained for three or four years. About 1869 or 1870 he came back to Europe, and took a small estate in Sussex, near Horsham. He had made a very considerable fortune in the States, and his reason for leaving them was his aversion to the negroes, and his dislike of the Republican policy in extending the franchise to them. He was a singular man, fierce and quick-tempered, very foul-mouthed when he was angry, and of a most retiring disposition. During all the years that he lived at Horsham I doubt if ever he set foot in the town. He had a garden and two or three fields round his house, and there he would take his exercise, though very often for weeks on end he would never leave his room. He drank a great deal of brandy, and smoked very heavily, but he would see no society, and did not want any friends, not even his own brother.

“He didn’t mind me, in fact, he took a fancy to me, for at the time when he saw me first I was a youngster of twelve or so.This would be in the year 1878, after he had been eight or nine years in England.He begged my father to let me live with him, and he was very kind to me in his way.When he was sober he used to be fond of playing backgammon and draughts with me, and he would make me his representative both with the servants and with the tradespeople, so that by the time that I was sixteen I was quite master of the house.I kept all the keys, and could go where I liked and do what I liked, so long as I did not disturb him in his privacy.There was one singular exception, however, for he had a single room, a lumber-room up among the attics, which was invariably locked, and which he would never permit either me or anyone else to enter.With a boy’s curiosity I have peeped through the key-hole, but I was never able to see more than such a collection of old trunks and bundles as would be expected in such a room.

“One day—it was in March, 1883—a letter with a foreign stamp lay upon the table in front of the Colonel’s plate.It was not a common thing for him to receive letters, for his bills were all paid in ready money, and he had no friends of any sort. ‘From India!’ said he, as he took it up, ‘Pondicherry postmark! What can this be?’ Opening it hurriedly, out there jumped five little dried orange pips, which pattered down upon his plate. I began to laugh at this, but the laugh was struck from my lips at the sight of his face. His lip had fallen, his eyes were protruding, his skin the color of putty, and he glared at the envelope which he still held in his trembling hand. ‘K. K. K.!’ he shrieked, and then, ‘My God, my God, my sins have overtaken me!’

“‘What is it, uncle?’I cried.

“‘Death,’ said he, and rising from the table he retired to his room, leaving me palpitating with horror.I took up the envelope, and saw scrawled in red ink upon the inner flap, just above the gum, the letter K three times repeated.There was nothing else save the five dried pips.What could be the reason of his overpowering terror?I left the breakfast-table, and as I ascended the stair I met him coming down with an old rusty key, which must have belonged to the attic, in one hand, and a small brass box, like a cash-box, in the other.

“‘They may do what they like, but I’ll checkmate them still,’ said he, with an oath.‘Tell Mary that I shall want a fire in my room to-day, and send down to Fordham, the Horsham lawyer.’

“I did as he ordered, and when the lawyer arrived I was asked to step up to the room.The fire was burning brightly, and in the grate there was a mass of black, fluffy ashes, as of burned paper, while the brass box stood open and empty beside it.As I glanced at the box I noticed, with a start, that upon the lid were printed the treble K which I had read in the morning upon the envelope.

“‘I wish you, John,’ said my uncle, ‘to witness my will.I leave my estate, with all its advantages and all its disadvantages to my brother, your father, whence it will, no doubt, descend to you.If you can enjoy it in peace, well and good!If you find you cannot, take my advice, my boy, and leave it to your deadliest enemy. I am sorry to give you such a two-edged thing, but I can’t say what turn things are going to take. Kindly sign the paper where Mr. Fordham shows you.’

“I signed the paper as directed, and the lawyer took it away with him.The singular incident made, as you may think, the deepest impression upon me, and I pondered over it, and turned it every way in my mind without being able to make anything of it.Yet I could not shake off the vague feeling of dread which it left behind though the sensation grew less keen as the weeks passed, and nothing happened to disturb the usual routine of our lives.I could see a change in my uncle, however.He drank more than ever, and he was less inclined for any sort of society.Most of his time he would spend in his room, with the door locked upon the inside, but sometimes he would emerge in a sort of drunken frenzy, and would burst out of the house and tear about the garden with a revolver in his hand, screaming out that he was afraid of no man, and that he was not to be cooped up, like a sheep in a pen, by man or devil.When these hot fits were over, however, he would rush tumultuously in at the door, and lock and bar it behind him, like a man who can brazen it out no longer against the terror which lies at the roots of his soul.At such times I have seen his face, even on a cold day, glisten with moisture, as though it were new raised from a basin.

“Well, to come to an end of the matter, Mr. Holmes, and not to abuse your patience, there came a night when he made one of those drunken sallies from which he never came back.We found him, when we went to search for him, face downward in a little green-scummed pool, which lay at the foot of the garden.There was no sign of any violence, and the water was but two feet deep, so that the jury, having regard to his known eccentricity, brought in a verdict of suicide.But I, who knew how he winced from the very thought of death, had much ado to persuade myself that he had gone out of his way to meet it.The matter passed, however, and my father entered into possession of the estate, and of some £14,000, which lay to his credit at the bank.”

“One moment,” Holmes interposed.“Your statement is, I foresee, one of the most remarkable to which I have ever listened.Let me have the date of the reception by your uncle of the letter, and the date of his supposed suicide.”

“The latter arrived on March 10, 1883.His death was seven weeks later, upon the night of May 2d.”

“Thank you.Pray proceed.”

“When my father took over the Horsham property, he, at my request, made a careful examination of the attic, which had been always locked up.We found the brass box there, although its contents had been destroyed.On the inside of the cover was a paper label, with the initials of K.K.K.repeated upon it, and ‘Letters, memoranda, receipts, and a register’ written beneath.These, we presume, indicated the nature of the papers which had been destroyed by Colonel Openshaw.For the rest, there was nothing of much importance in the attic, save a great many scattered papers and note-books bearing upon my uncle’s life in America.Some of them were of the war time, and showed that he had done his duty well, and had borne the repute of a brave soldier.Others were of a date during the reconstruction of the Southern States, and were mostly concerned with politics, for he had evidently taken a strong part in opposing the carpet-bag politicians who had been sent down from the North.

“Well, it was the beginning of ’84 when my father came to live at Horsham, and all went as well as possible with us until the January of ’85.On the fourth day after the new year I heard my father give a sharp cry of surprise as we sat together at the breakfast-table.There he was, sitting with a newly-opened envelope in one hand and five dried orange pips in the outstretched palm of the other one.He had always laughed at what he called my cock-and-a-bull story about the Colonel, but he looked very scared and puzzled now that the same thing had come upon himself.

“‘Why, what on earth does this mean, John?’ he stammered.

“My heart had turned to lead.‘It is K.K.K.,’ said I.

“He looked inside the envelope.‘So it is,’ he cried.‘Here are the very letters.But what is this written above them?’

“‘Put the papers on the sundial,’ I read, peeping over his shoulder.

“‘What papers?What sundial?’he asked.

“‘The sundial in the garden.There is no other,’ said I; ‘but the papers must be those that are destroyed.’

“‘Pooh!’said he, gripping hard at his courage.‘We are in a civilized land here, and we can’t have tomfoolery of this kind.Where does the thing come from?’

“‘From Dundee,’ I answered, glancing at the post-mark.

“‘Some preposterous practical joke,’ said he.‘What have I to do with sundials and papers?I shall take no notice of such nonsense.’

“‘I should certainly speak to the police,’ I said.

“‘And be laughed at for my pains.Nothing of the sort.’

“‘Then let me do so?’

“‘No, I forbid you.I won’t have a fuss made about such nonsense.’

“It was in vain to argue with him, for he was a very obstinate man.I went about, however, with a heart which was full of forebodings.

“On the third day after the coming of the letter my father went from home to visit an old friend of his, Major Freebody, who is in command of one of the forts upon Portsdown Hill.I was glad that he should go, for it seemed to me that he was farther from danger when he was away from home.In that, however, I was in error.Upon the second day of his absence I received a telegram from the Major, imploring me to come at once.My father had fallen over one of the deep chalk-pits which abound in the neighborhood, and was lying senseless, with a shattered skull.I hurried to him, but he passed away without having ever recovered his consciousness. He had, as it appears, been returning from Fareham in the twilight, and as the country was unknown to him, and the chalk-pit unfenced, the jury had no hesitation in bringing in a verdict of ‘Death from accidental causes.’ Carefully as I examined every fact connected with his death, I was unable to find anything which could suggest the idea of murder. There were no signs of violence, no footmarks, no robbery, no record of strangers having been seen upon the roads. And yet I need not tell you that my mind was far from at ease, and that I was wellnigh certain that some foul plot had been woven round him.

“In this sinister way I came into my inheritance.You will ask me why I did not dispose of it?I answer, because I was well convinced that our troubles were in some way dependent upon an incident in my uncle’s life, and that the danger would be as pressing in one house as in another.

“It was in January, ’85, that my poor father met his end, and two years and eight months have elapsed since then.During that time I have lived happily at Horsham, and I had begun to hope that this curse had passed away from the family, and that it had ended with the last generation.I had begun to take comfort too soon, however; yesterday morning the blow fell in the very shape in which it had come upon my father.”

The young man took from his waistcoat a crumpled envelope, and, turning to the table, he shook out upon it five little dried orange pips.

“This is the envelope,” he continued.“The post-mark is London—eastern division.Within are the very words which were upon my father’s last message: ‘K.K.K.’; and then ‘Put the papers on the sundial.’”

“What have you done?”asked Holmes.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“To tell the truth”—he sank his face into his thin, white hands—“I have felt helpless. I have felt like one of those poor rabbits when the snake is writhing towards it. I seem to be in the grasp of some resistless, inexorable evil, which no foresight and no precautions can guard against.”

“Tut!tut!”cried Sherlock Holmes.“You must act, man, or you are lost.Nothing but energy can save you.This is no time for despair.”

“I have seen the police.”

“Ah!”

“But they listened to my story with a smile.I am convinced that the inspector has formed the opinion that the letters are all practical jokes, and that the deaths of my relations were really accidents, as the jury stated, and were not to be connected with the warnings.”

Holmes shook his clenched hands in the air.“Incredible imbecility!”he cried.

“They have, however, allowed me a policeman, who may remain in the house with me.”

“Has he come with you to-night?”

“No.His orders were to stay in the house.”

Again Holmes raved in the air.

“Why did you come to me?”he said; “and, above all, why did you not come at once?”

“I did not know.It was only to-day that I spoke to Major Prendergast about my troubles, and was advised by him to come to you.”

“It is really two days since you had the letter.We should have acted before this.You have no further evidence, I suppose, than that which you have placed before us—no suggestive detail which might help us?”

“There is one thing,” said John Openshaw.He rummaged in his coat pocket, and drawing out a piece of discolored, blue-tinted paper, he laid it out upon the table.“I have some remembrance,” said he, “that on the day when my uncle burned the papers I observed that the small, unburned margins which lay amid the ashes were of this particular color. I found this single sheet upon the floor of his room, and I am inclined to think that it may be one of the papers which has, perhaps, fluttered out from among the others, and in that way have escaped destruction. Beyond the mention of pips, I do not see that it helps us much. I think myself that it is a page from some private diary. The writing is undoubtedly my uncle’s.”

Holmes moved the lamp, and we both bent over the sheet of paper, which showed by its ragged edge that it had indeed been torn from a book.It was headed, “March, 1869,” and beneath were the following enigmatical notices:

“4th.Hudson came.Same old platform.

“7th.Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and John Swain, of St.Augustine.

“9th.McCauley cleared.

“10th.John Swain cleared.

“12th.Visited Paramore.All well.”

“Thank you!”said Holmes, folding up the paper, and returning it to our visitor.“And now you must on no account lose another instant.We cannot spare time even to discuss what you have told me.You must get home instantly and act.”

“What shall I do?”

“There is but one thing to do.It must be done at once.You must put this piece of paper which you have shown us into the brass box which you have described.You must also put in a note to say that all the other papers were burned by your uncle, and that this is the only one which remains.You must assert that in such words as will carry conviction with them.Having done this, you must at once put the box out upon the sundial, as directed.Do you understand?”

“Entirely.”

“Do not think of revenge, or anything of the sort, at present.I think that we may gain that by means of the law; but we have our web to weave, while theirs is already woven.The first consideration is to remove the pressing danger which threatens you. The second is to clear up the mystery and to punish the guilty parties.”

“I thank you,” said the young man, rising, and pulling on his overcoat.“You have given me fresh life and hope.I shall certainly do as you advise.”

“Do not lose an instant.And, above all, take care of yourself in the meanwhile, for I do not think that there can be a doubt that you are threatened by a very real and imminent danger.How do you go back?”

“By train from Waterloo.”

“It is not yet nine.The streets will be crowded, so I trust that you may be in safety.And yet you cannot guard yourself too closely.”

“I am armed.”

“That is well.To-morrow I shall set to work upon your case.”

“I shall see you at Horsham, then?”

“No, your secret lies in London.It is there that I shall seek it.”

“Then I shall call upon you in a day, or in two days, with news as to the box and the papers.I shall take your advice in every particular.”He shook hands with us, and took his leave.Outside the wind still screamed, and the rain splashed and pattered against the windows.This strange, wild story seemed to have come to us from amid the mad elements—blown in upon us like a sheet of sea-weed in a gale—and now to have been reabsorbed by them once more.

Sherlock Holmes sat for some time in silence, with his head sunk forward and his eyes bent upon the red glow of the fire.Then he lit his pipe, and leaning back in his chair he watched the blue smoke-rings as they chased each other up to the ceiling.

“I think, Watson,” he remarked at last, “that of all our cases we have had none more fantastic than this.”

“Save, perhaps, the Sign of Four.”

“Well, yes.Save, perhaps, that.And yet this John Openshaw seems to me to be walking amid even greater perils than did the Sholtos.”

“But have you,” I asked, “formed any definite conception as to what these perils are?”

“There can be no question as to their nature,” he answered.

“Then what are they?Who is this K.K.K., and why does he pursue this unhappy family?”

Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes and placed his elbows upon the arms of his chair, with his finger-tips together.“The ideal reasoner,” he remarked, “would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it, but also all the results which would follow from it.As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents, should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after.We have not yet grasped the results which the reason alone can attain to.Problems may be solved in the study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the aid of their senses.To carry the art, however, to its highest pitch, it is necessary that the reasoner should be able to utilize all the facts which have come to his knowledge; and this in itself implies, as you will readily see, a possession of all knowledge, which, even in these days of free education and encyclopædias, is a somewhat rare accomplishment.It is not so impossible, however, that a man should possess all knowledge which is likely to be useful to him in his work, and this I have endeavored in my case to do.If I remember rightly, you on one occasion, in the early days of our friendship, defined my limits in a very precise fashion.”

“Yes,” I answered, laughing.“It was a singular document.Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I remember.Botany variable, geology profound as regards the mud-stains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry eccentric, anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime records unique, violin-player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco. Those, I think, were the main points of my analysis.”

Holmes grinned at the last item.“Well,” he said, “I say now, as I said then, that a man should keep his little brain-attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.Now, for such a case as the one which has been submitted to us to-night, we need certainly to muster all our resources.Kindly hand me down the letter K of the American Encyclopædia which stands upon the shelf beside you.Thank you.Now let us consider the situation, and see what may be deduced from it.In the first place, we may start with a strong presumption that Colonel Openshaw had some very strong reason for leaving America.Men at his time of life do not change all their habits, and exchange willingly the charming climate of Florida for the lonely life of an English provincial town.His extreme love of solitude in England suggests the idea that he was in fear of some one or something, so we may assume as a working hypothesis that it was fear of some one or something which drove him from America.As to what it was he feared, we can only deduce that by considering the formidable letters which were received by himself and his successors.Did you remark the post-marks of those letters?”

“The first was from Pondicherry, the second from Dundee, and the third from London.”

“From East London.What do you deduce from that?”

“They are all seaports.That the writer was on board of a ship.”

“Excellent.We have already a clew.There can be no doubt that the probability—the strong probability—is that the writer was on board of a ship.And now let us consider another point.In the case of Pondicherry, seven weeks elapsed between the threat and its fulfilment, in Dundee it was only some three or four days.Does that suggest anything?”

“A greater distance to travel.”

“But the letter had also a greater distance to come.”

“Then I do not see the point.”

“There is at least a presumption that the vessel in which the man or men are is a sailing-ship.It looks as if they always sent their singular warning or token before them when starting upon their mission.You see how quickly the deed followed the sign when it came from Dundee.If they had come from Pondicherry in a steamer they would have arrived almost as soon as their letter.But as a matter of fact seven weeks elapsed.I think that those seven weeks represented the difference between the mail-boat which brought the letter, and the sailing-vessel which brought the writer.”

“It is possible.”

“More than that.It is probable.And now you see the deadly urgency of this new case, and why I urged young Openshaw to caution.The blow has always fallen at the end of the time which it would take the senders to travel the distance.But this one comes from London, and therefore we cannot count upon delay.”

“Good God!”I cried; “what can it mean, this relentless persecution?”

“The papers which Openshaw carried are obviously of vital importance to the person or persons in the sailing-ship.I think that it is quite clear that there must be more than one of them.A single man could not have carried out two deaths in such a way as to deceive a coroner’s jury.There must have been several in it, and they must have been men of resource and determination.Their papers they mean to have, be the holder of them who it may.In this way you see K.K.K.ceases to be the initials of an individual, and becomes the badge of a society.”

“But of what society?”

“Have you never—” said Sherlock Holmes, bending forward and sinking his voice—“have you never heard of the Ku Klux Klan?”

“I never have.”

Holmes turned over the leaves of the book upon his knee.“Here it is,” said he, presently, “‘Ku Klux Klan.A name derived from the fanciful resemblance to the sound produced by cocking a rifle.This terrible secret society was formed by some ex-Confederate soldiers in the Southern States after the Civil War, and it rapidly formed local branches in different parts of the country, notably in Tennessee, Louisiana, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida.Its power was used for political purposes, principally for the terrorizing of the negro voters, and the murdering and driving from the country of those who were opposed to its views.Its outrages were usually preceded by a warning sent to the marked man in some fantastic but generally recognized shape—a sprig of oak-leaves in some parts, melon seeds or orange pips in others.On receiving this the victim might either openly abjure his former ways, or might fly from the country.If he braved the matter out, death would unfailingly come upon him, and usually in some strange and unforeseen manner.So perfect was the organization of the society, and so systematic its methods, that there is hardly a case upon record where any man succeeded in braving it with impunity, or in which any of its outrages were traced home to the perpetrators.For some years the organization flourished, in spite of the efforts of the United States Government and of the better classes of the community in the South.Eventually, in the year 1869, the movement rather suddenly collapsed, although there have been sporadic outbreaks of the same sort since that date.’

“You will observe,” said Holmes, laying down the volume, “that the sudden breaking up of the society was coincident with the disappearance of Openshaw from America with their papers.It may well have been cause and effect.It is no wonder that he and his family have some of the more implacable spirits upon their track.You can understand that this register and diary may implicate some of the first men in the South, and that there may be many who will not sleep easy at night until it is recovered.”

“Then the page we have seen—”

“Is such as we might expect.It ran, if I remember right, ‘sent the pips to A, B, and C,’—that is, sent the society’s warning to them.Then there are successive entries that A and B cleared, or left the country, and finally that C was visited, with, I fear, a sinister result for C.Well, I think, Doctor, that we may let some light into this dark place, and I believe that the only chance young Openshaw has in the mean time is to do what I have told him.There is nothing more to be said or to be done to-night, so hand me over my violin, and let us try to forget for half an hour the miserable weather and the still more miserable ways of our fellow-men.”

---

It had cleared in the morning, and the sun was shining with a subdued brightness through the dim veil which hangs over the great city.Sherlock Holmes was already at breakfast when I came down.

“You will excuse me for not waiting for you,” said he; “I have, I foresee, a very busy day before me in looking into this case of young Openshaw’s.”

“What steps will you take?”I asked.

“It will very much depend upon the results of my first inquiries.I may have to go down to Horsham, after all.”

“You will not go there first?”

“No, I shall commence with the city.Just ring the bell, and the maid will bring up your coffee.”

As I waited, I lifted the unopened newspaper from the table and glanced my eye over it.It rested upon a heading which sent a chill to my heart.

“Holmes,” I cried, “you are too late.”

“Ah!”said he, laying down his cup, “I feared as much.How was it done?”He spoke calmly, but I could see that he was deeply moved.

“My eye caught the name of Openshaw, and the heading, ‘Tragedy near Waterloo Bridge.’ Here is the account: ‘Between nine and ten last night Police-constable Cook, of the H Division, on duty near Waterloo Bridge, heard a cry for help and a splash in the water. The night, however, was extremely dark and stormy, so that, in spite of the help of several passers-by, it was quite impossible to effect a rescue. The alarm, however, was given, and, by the aid of the water-police, the body was eventually recovered. It proved to be that of a young gentleman whose name, as it appears from an envelope which was found in his pocket, was John Openshaw, and whose residence is near Horsham. It is conjectured that he may have been hurrying down to catch the last train from Waterloo Station, and that in his haste and the extreme darkness he missed his path and walked over the edge of one of the small landing-places for river steamboats. The body exhibited no traces of violence, and there can be no doubt that the deceased had been the victim of an unfortunate accident, which should have the effect of calling the attention of the authorities to the condition of the river-side landing-stages.’ ”

We sat in silence for some minutes, Holmes more depressed and shaken than I had ever seen him.

“That hurts my pride, Watson,” he said, at last.“It is a petty feeling, no doubt, but it hurts my pride.It becomes a personal matter with me now, and, if God sends me health, I shall set my hand upon this gang.That he should come to me for help, and that I should send him away to his death—!”He sprang from his chair and paced about the room in uncontrollable agitation, with a flush upon his sallow cheeks, and a nervous clasping and unclasping of his long, thin hands.

“They must be cunning devils,” he exclaimed, at last.“How could they have decoyed him down there?The Embankment is not on the direct line to the station.The bridge, no doubt, was too crowded, even on such a night, for their purpose. Well, Watson, we shall see who will win in the long run. I am going out now!”

“To the police?”

“No; I shall be my own police.When I have spun the web they may take the flies, but not before.”

All day I was engaged in my professional work, and it was late in the evening before I returned to Baker Street.Sherlock Holmes had not come back yet.It was nearly ten o’clock before he entered, looking pale and worn.He walked up to the sideboard, and, tearing a piece from the loaf, he devoured it voraciously, washing it down with a long draught of water.

“You are hungry,” I remarked.

“Starving.It had escaped my memory.I have had nothing since breakfast.”

“Nothing?”

“Not a bite.I had no time to think of it.”

“And how have you succeeded?”

“Well.”

“You have a clew?”

“I have them in the hollow of my hand.Young Openshaw shall not long remain unavenged.Why, Watson, let us put their own devilish trade-mark upon them.It is well thought of!”

“What do you mean?”

He took an orange from the cupboard, and, tearing it to pieces, he squeezed out the pips upon the table. Of these he took five, and thrust them into an envelope. On the inside of the flap he wrote “S. H. for J. O.” Then he sealed it and addressed it to “Captain James Calhoun, Bark Lone Star, Savannah, Georgia.”

“That will await him when he enters port,” said he, chuckling.“It may give him a sleepless night.He will find it as sure a precursor of his fate as Openshaw did before him.”

“And who is this Captain Calhoun?”

“The leader of the gang.I shall have the others, but he first.”

“How did you trace it, then?”

He took a large sheet of paper from his pocket, all covered with dates and names.

“I have spent the whole day,” said he, “over Lloyd’s registers and the files of the old papers, following the future career of every vessel which touched at Pondicherry in January and February in ’83. There were thirty-six ships of fair tonnage which were reported there during those months. Of these, one, the Lone Star, instantly attracted my attention, since, although it was reported as having cleared from London, the name is that which is given to one of the States of the Union.”

“Texas, I think.”

“I was not and am not sure which; but I knew that the ship must have an American origin.”

“What then?”

“I searched the Dundee records, and when I found that the bark Lone Star was there in January, ’85, my suspicion became a certainty. I then inquired as to the vessels which lay at present in the port of London.”

“Yes?”

“The Lone Star had arrived here last week. I went down to the Albert Dock, and found that she had been taken down the river by the early tide this morning, homeward bound to Savannah. I wired to Gravesend, and learned that she had passed some time ago; and as the wind is easterly, I have no doubt that she is now past the Goodwins, and not very far from the Isle of Wight.”

“What will you do, then?”

“Oh, I have my hand upon him.He and the two mates, are, as I learn, the only native-born Americans in the ship.The others are Finns and Germans.I know, also, that they were all three away from the ship last night.I had it from the stevedore who has been loading their cargo.By the time that their sailing-ship reaches Savannah the mail-boat will have carried this letter, and the cable will have informed the police of Savannah that these three gentlemen are badly wanted here upon a charge of murder.”

There is ever a flaw, however, in the best laid of human plans, and the murderers of John Openshaw were never to receive the orange pips which would show them that another, as cunning and as resolute as themselves, was upon their track. Very long and very severe were the equinoctial gales that year. We waited long for news of the Lone Star of Savannah, but none ever reached us. We did at last hear that somewhere far out in the Atlantic a shattered stern-post of a boat was seen swinging in the trough of a wave, with the letters “L. S.” carved upon it, and that is all which we shall ever know of the fate of the Lone Star

“A patient!”said she.“You’ll have to go out.”

I groaned, for I was newly come back from a weary day.

We heard the door open, a few hurried words, and then quick steps upon the linoleum.Our own door flew open, and a lady, clad in some dark-colored stuff, with a black veil, entered the room.

“You will excuse my calling so late,” she began, and then, suddenly losing her self-control, she ran forward, threw her arms about my wife’s neck, and sobbed upon her shoulder. “Oh, I’m in such trouble!” she cried; “I do so want a little help.”

“Why,” said my wife, pulling up her veil, “it is Kate Whitney.How you startled me, Kate!I had not an idea who you were when you came in.”

“I didn’t know what to do, so I came straight to you.”That was always the way.Folk who were in grief came to my wife like birds to a light-house.

“It was very sweet of you to come.Now, you must have some wine and water, and sit here comfortably and tell us all about it.Or should you rather that I sent James off to bed?”

“Oh, no, no!I want the Doctor’s advice and help, too.It’s about Isa.He has not been home for two days.I am so frightened about him!”

It was not the first time that she had spoken to us of her husband’s trouble, to me as a doctor, to my wife as an old friend and school companion.We soothed and comforted her by such words as we could find.Did she know where her husband was?Was it possible that we could bring him back to her?

It seemed that it was.She had the surest information that of late he had, when the fit was on him, made use of an opium den in the farthest east of the city.Hitherto his orgies had always been confined to one day, and he had come back, twitching and shattered, in the evening.But now the spell had been upon him eight-and-forty hours, and he lay there, doubtless among the dregs of the docks, breathing in the poison or sleeping off the effects.There he was to be found, she was sure of it, at the “Bar of Gold,” in Upper Swandam Lane.But what was she to do?How could she, a young and timid woman, make her way into such a place, and pluck her husband out from among the ruffians who surrounded him?

There was the case, and of course there was but one way out of it.Might I not escort her to this place?And then, as a second thought, why should she come at all? I was Isa Whitney’s medical adviser, and as such I had influence over him. I could manage it better if I were alone. I promised her on my word that I would send him home in a cab within two hours if he were indeed at the address which she had given me. And so in ten minutes I had left my arm-chair and cheery sitting-room behind me, and was speeding eastward in a hansom on a strange errand, as it seemed to me at the time, though the future only could show how strange it was to be.

But there was no great difficulty in the first stage of my adventure.Upper Swandam Lane is a vile alley lurking behind the high wharves which line the north side of the river to the east of London Bridge.Between a slop-shop and a gin-shop, approached by a steep flight of steps leading down to a black gap like the mouth of a cave, I found the den of which I was in search.Ordering my cab to wait, I passed down the steps, worn hollow in the centre by the ceaseless tread of drunken feet, and by the light of a flickering oil-lamp above the door I found the latch, and made my way into a long, low room, thick and heavy with the brown opium smoke, and terraced with wooden berths, like the forecastle of an emigrant ship.

Through the gloom one could dimly catch a glimpse of bodies lying in strange fantastic poses, bowed shoulders, bent knees, heads thrown back and chins pointing upward, with here and there a dark, lack-lustre eye turned upon the new-comer.Out of the black shadows there glimmered little red circles of light, now bright, now faint, as the burning poison waxed or waned in the bowls of the metal pipes.The most lay silent, but some muttered to themselves, and others talked together in a strange, low, monotonous voice, their conversation coming in gushes, and then suddenly tailing off into silence, each mumbling out his own thoughts, and paying little heed to the words of his neighbor.At the farther end was a small brazier of burning charcoal, beside which on a three-legged wooden stool there sat a tall, thin old man, with his jaw resting upon his two fists, and his elbows upon his knees, staring into the fire.

As I entered, a sallow Malay attendant had hurried up with a pipe for me and a supply of the drug, beckoning me to an empty berth.

“Thank you.I have not come to stay,” said I.“There is a friend of mine here, Mr. Isa Whitney, and I wish to speak with him.”

There was a movement and an exclamation from my right, and, peering through the gloom, I saw Whitney, pale, haggard, and unkempt, staring out at me.

“My God!It’s Watson,” said he.He was in a pitiable state of reaction, with every nerve in a twitter.“I say, Watson, what o’clock is it?”

“Nearly eleven.”

“Of what day?”

“Of Friday, June 19th.”

“Good heavens!I thought it was Wednesday.It is Wednesday.What d’you want to frighten a chap for?”He sank his face onto his arms, and began to sob in a high treble key.

“I tell you that it is Friday, man.Your wife has been waiting this two days for you.You should be ashamed of yourself!”

“So I am.But you’ve got mixed, Watson, for I have only been here a few hours, three pipes, four pipes—I forget how many.But I’ll go home with you.I wouldn’t frighten Kate—poor little Kate.Give me your hand!Have you a cab?”

“Yes, I have one waiting.”

“Then I shall go in it.But I must owe something.Find what I owe, Watson.I am all off color.I can do nothing for myself.”

I walked down the narrow passage between the double row of sleepers, holding my breath to keep out the vile, stupefying fumes of the drug, and looking about for the manager.As I passed the tall man who sat by the brazier I felt a sudden pluck at my skirt, and a low voice whispered, “Walk past me, and then look back at me.” The words fell quite distinctly upon my ear. I glanced down. They could only have come from the old man at my side, and yet he sat now as absorbed as ever, very thin, very wrinkled, bent with age, an opium pipe dangling down from between his knees, as though it had dropped in sheer lassitude from his fingers. I took two steps forward and looked back. It took all my self-control to prevent me from breaking out into a cry of astonishment. He had turned his back so that none could see him but I. His form had filled out, his wrinkles were gone, the dull eyes had regained their fire, and there, sitting by the fire, and grinning at my surprise, was none other than Sherlock Holmes. He made a slight motion to me to approach him, and instantly, as he turned his face half round to the company once more, subsided into a doddering, loose-lipped senility.

“Holmes!”I whispered, “what on earth are you doing in this den?”

“As low as you can,” he answered; “I have excellent ears.If you would have the great kindness to get rid of that sottish friend of yours I should be exceedingly glad to have a little talk with you.”

“I have a cab outside.”

“Then pray send him home in it.You may safely trust him, for he appears to be too limp to get into any mischief.I should recommend you also to send a note by the cabman to your wife to say that you have thrown in your lot with me.If you will wait outside, I shall be with you in five minutes.”

It was difficult to refuse any of Sherlock Holmes’s requests, for they were always so exceedingly definite, and put forward with such a quiet air of mastery.I felt, however, that when Whitney was once confined in the cab my mission was practically accomplished, and for the rest, I could not wish anything better than to be associated with my friend in one of those singular adventures which were the normal condition of his existence.In a few minutes I had written my note, paid Whitney’s bill, led him out to the cab, and seen him driven through the darkness. In a very short time a decrepit figure had emerged from the opium den, and I was walking down the street with Sherlock Holmes. For two streets he shuffled along with a bent back and an uncertain foot. Then, glancing quickly round, he straightened himself out and burst into a hearty fit of laughter.

“I suppose, Watson,” said he, “that you imagine that I have added opium-smoking to cocaine injections, and all the other little weaknesses on which you have favored me with your medical views.”

“I was certainly surprised to find you there.”

“But not more so than I to find you.”

“I came to find a friend.”

“And I to find an enemy.”

“An enemy?”

“Yes; one of my natural enemies, or, shall I say, my natural prey.Briefly, Watson, I am in the midst of a very remarkable inquiry, and I have hoped to find a clew in the incoherent ramblings of these sots, as I have done before now.Had I been recognized in that den my life would not have been worth an hour’s purchase; for I have used it before now for my own purposes, and the rascally Lascar who runs it has sworn to have vengeance upon me.There is a trap-door at the back of that building, near the corner of Paul’s Wharf, which could tell some strange tales of what has passed through it upon the moonless nights.”

“What!You do not mean bodies?”

“Aye, bodies, Watson.We should be rich men if we had £1000 for every poor devil who has been done to death in that den.It is the vilest murder-trap on the whole river-side, and I fear that Neville St.Clair has entered it never to leave it more.But our trap should be here.”He put his two forefingers between his teeth and whistled shrilly—a signal which was answered by a similar whistle from the distance, followed shortly by the rattle of wheels and the clink of horses’ hoofs.

“Now, Watson,” said Holmes, as a tall dog-cart dashed up through the gloom, throwing out two golden tunnels of yellow light from its side lanterns. “You’ll come with me, won’t you?”

“If I can be of use.”

“Oh, a trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so.My room at ‘The Cedars’ is a double-bedded one.”

“‘The Cedars?’”

“Yes; that is Mr. St.Clair’s house.I am staying there while I conduct the inquiry.”

“Where is it, then?”

“Near Lee, in Kent.We have a seven-mile drive before us.”

“But I am all in the dark.”

“Of course you are.You’ll know all about it presently.Jump up here.All right, John; we shall not need you.Here’s half a crown.Look out for me to-morrow, about eleven.Give her her head.So long, then!”

He flicked the horse with his whip, and we dashed away through the endless succession of sombre and deserted streets, which widened gradually, until we were flying across a broad balustraded bridge, with the murky river flowing sluggishly beneath us.Beyond lay another dull wilderness of bricks and mortar, its silence broken only by the heavy, regular footfall of the policeman, or the songs and shouts of some belated party of revellers.A dull wrack was drifting slowly across the sky, and a star or two twinkled dimly here and there through the rifts of the clouds.Holmes drove in silence, with his head sunk upon his breast, and the air of a man who is lost in thought, while I sat beside him, curious to learn what this new quest might be which seemed to tax his powers so sorely, and yet afraid to break in upon the current of his thoughts.We had driven several miles, and were beginning to get to the fringe of the belt of suburban villas, when he shook himself, shrugged his shoulders, and lit up his pipe with the air of a man who has satisfied himself that he is acting for the best.

“You have a grand gift of silence, Watson,” said he.“It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.’Pon my word, it is a great thing for me to have some one to talk to, for my own thoughts are not over pleasant.I was wondering what I should say to this dear little woman to-night when she meets me at the door.”

“You forget that I know nothing about it.”

“I shall just have time to tell you the facts of the case before we get to Lee.It seems absurdly simple, and yet, somehow, I can get nothing to go upon.There’s plenty of thread, no doubt, but I can’t get the end of it into my hand.Now, I’ll state the case clearly and concisely to you, Watson, and maybe you can see a spark where all is dark to me.”

“Proceed, then.”

“Some years ago—to be definite, in May, 1884—there came to Lee a gentleman, Neville St.Clair by name, who appeared to have plenty of money.He took a large villa, laid out the grounds very nicely, and lived generally in good style.By degrees he made friends in the neighborhood, and in 1887 he married the daughter of a local brewer, by whom he now has two children.He had no occupation, but was interested in several companies, and went into town as a rule in the morning, returning by the 5.14 from Cannon Street every night.Mr. St.Clair is now thirty-seven years of age, is a man of temperate habits, a good husband, a very affectionate father, and a man who is popular with all who know him.I may add that his whole debts at the present moment, as far as we have been able to ascertain, amount to £88 10s., while he has £220 standing to his credit in the Capital and Counties Bank.There is no reason, therefore, to think that money troubles have been weighing upon his mind.

“Last Monday Mr. Neville St.Clair went into town rather earlier than usual, remarking before he started that he had two important commissions to perform, and that he would bring his little boy home a box of bricks. Now, by the merest chance, his wife received a telegram upon this same Monday, very shortly after his departure, to the effect that a small parcel of considerable value which she had been expecting was waiting for her at the offices of the Aberdeen Shipping Company. Now, if you are well up in your London, you will know that the offices of the company is in Fresno Street, which branches out of Upper Swandam Lane, where you found me to-night. Mrs. St. Clair had her lunch, started for the city, did some shopping, proceeded to the company’s office, got her packet, and found herself at exactly 4.35 walking through Swandam Lane on her way back to the station. Have you followed me so far?”

“It is very clear.”

“If you remember, Monday was an exceedingly hot day, and Mrs. St.Clair walked slowly, glancing about in the hope of seeing a cab, as she did not like the neighborhood in which she found herself.While she was walking in this way down Swandam Lane, she suddenly heard an ejaculation or cry, and was struck cold to see her husband looking down at her, and, as it seemed to her, beckoning to her from a second-floor window.The window was open, and she distinctly saw his face, which she describes as being terribly agitated.He waved his hands frantically to her, and then vanished from the window so suddenly that it seemed to her that he had been plucked back by some irresistible force from behind.One singular point which struck her quick feminine eye was that, although he wore some dark coat, such as he had started to town in, he had on neither collar nor necktie.

“Convinced that something was amiss with him, she rushed down the steps—for the house was none other than the opium den in which you found me to-night—and, running through the front room, she attempted to ascend the stairs which led to the first floor.At the foot of the stairs, however, she met this Lascar scoundrel of whom I have spoken, who thrust her back, and, aided by a Dane, who acts as assistant there, pushed her out into the street. Filled with the most maddening doubts and fears, she rushed down the lane, and, by rare good-fortune, met, in Fresno Street, a number of constables with an inspector, all on their way to their beat. The inspector and two men accompanied her back, and, in spite of the continued resistance of the proprietor, they made their way to the room in which Mr. St. Clair had last been seen. There was no sign of him there. In fact, in the whole of that floor there was no one to be found, save a crippled wretch of hideous aspect, who, it seems, made his home there. Both he and the Lascar stoutly swore that no one else had been in the front room during the afternoon. So determined was their denial that the inspector was staggered, and had almost come to believe that Mrs. St. Clair had been deluded, when, with a cry, she sprang at a small deal box which lay upon the table, and tore the lid from it. Out there fell a cascade of children’s bricks. It was the toy which he had promised to bring home.

“This discovery, and the evident confusion which the cripple showed, made the inspector realize that the matter was serious.The rooms were carefully examined, and results all pointed to an abominable crime.The front room was plainly furnished as a sitting-room, and led into a small bedroom, which looked out upon the back of one of the wharves.Between the wharf and the bedroom window is a narrow strip, which is dry at low tide, but is covered at high tide with at least four and a half feet of water.The bedroom window was a broad one, and opened from below.On examination traces of blood were to be seen upon the window-sill, and several scattered drops were visible upon the wooden floor of the bedroom.Thrust away behind a curtain in the front room were all the clothes of Mr. Neville St.Clair, with the exception of his coat.His boots, his socks, his hat, and his watch—all were there.There were no signs of violence upon any of these garments, and there were no other traces of Mr. Neville St.Clair.Out of the window he must apparently have gone, for no other exit could be discovered, and the ominous blood-stains upon the sill gave little promise that he could save himself by swimming, for the tide was at its very highest at the moment of the tragedy.

“And now as to the villains who seemed to be immediately implicated in the matter.The Lascar was known to be a man of the vilest antecedents, but as, by Mrs. St.Clair’s story, he was known to have been at the foot of the stair within a very few seconds of her husband’s appearance at the window, he could hardly have been more than an accessory to the crime.His defense was one of absolute ignorance, and he protested that he had no knowledge as to the doings of Hugh Boone, his lodger, and that he could not account in any way for the presence of the missing gentleman’s clothes.

“So much for the Lascar manager.Now for the sinister cripple who lives upon the second floor of the opium den, and who was certainly the last human being whose eyes rested upon Neville St.Clair.His name is Hugh Boone, and his hideous face is one which is familiar to every man who goes much to the city.He is a professional beggar, though, in order to avoid the police regulations, he pretends to a small trade in wax vestas.Some little distance down Threadneedle Street, upon the left-hand side, there is, as you may have remarked, a small angle in the wall.Here it is that this creature takes his daily seat, cross-legged, with his tiny stock of matches on his lap, and, as he is a piteous spectacle, a small rain of charity descends into the greasy leather cap which lies upon the pavement beside him.I have watched the fellow more than once, before ever I thought of making his professional acquaintance, and I have been surprised at the harvest which he has reaped in a short time.His appearance, you see, is so remarkable that no one can pass him without observing him.A shock of orange hair, a pale face disfigured by a horrible scar, which, by its contraction, has turned up the outer edge of his upper lip, a bull-dog chin, and a pair of very penetrating dark eyes, which present a singular contrast to the color of his hair, all mark him out from amid the common crowd of mendicants, and so, too, does his wit, for he is ever ready with a reply to any piece of chaff which may be thrown at him by the passers-by. This is the man whom we now learn to have been the lodger at the opium den, and to have been the last man to see the gentleman of whom we are in quest.”

“But a cripple!”said I.“What could he have done single-handed against a man in the prime of life?”

“He is a cripple in the sense that he walks with a limp; but in other respects he appears to be a powerful and well-nurtured man.Surely your medical experience would tell you, Watson, that weakness in one limb is often compensated for by exceptional strength in the others.”

“Pray continue your narrative.”

“Mrs. St.Clair had fainted at the sight of the blood upon the window, and she was escorted home in a cab by the police, as her presence could be of no help to them in their investigations.Inspector Barton, who had charge of the case, made a very careful examination of the premises, but without finding anything which threw any light upon the matter.One mistake had been made in not arresting Boone instantly, as he was allowed some few minutes during which he might have communicated with his friend the Lascar, but this fault was soon remedied, and he was seized and searched, without anything being found which could incriminate him.There were, it is true, some blood-stains upon his right shirt-sleeve, but he pointed to his ring-finger, which had been cut near the nail, and explained that the bleeding came from there, adding that he had been to the window not long before, and that the stains which had been observed there came doubtless from the same source.He denied strenuously having ever seen Mr. Neville St.Clair, and swore that the presence of the clothes in his room was as much a mystery to him as to the police.As to Mrs. St.Clair’s assertion that she had actually seen her husband at the window, he declared that she must have been either mad or dreaming. He was removed, loudly protesting, to the police-station, while the inspector remained upon the premises in the hope that the ebbing tide might afford some fresh clew.

“And it did, though they hardly found upon the mud-bank what they had feared to find.It was Neville St.Clair’s coat, and not Neville St.Clair, which lay uncovered as the tide receded.And what do you think they found in the pockets?”

“I cannot imagine.”

“No, I don’t think you would guess.Every pocket stuffed with pennies and half-pennies—421 pennies and 270 half-pennies.It was no wonder that it had not been swept away by the tide.But a human body is a different matter.There is a fierce eddy between the wharf and the house.It seemed likely enough that the weighted coat had remained when the stripped body had been sucked away into the river.”

“But I understand that all the other clothes were found in the room.Would the body be dressed in a coat alone?”

“No, sir, but the facts might be met speciously enough.Suppose that this man Boone had thrust Neville St.Clair through the window, there is no human eye which could have seen the deed.What would he do then?It would of course instantly strike him that he must get rid of the tell-tale garments.He would seize the coat, then, and be in the act of throwing it out, when it would occur to him that it would swim and not sink.He has little time, for he has heard the scuffle down-stairs when the wife tried to force her way up, and perhaps he has already heard from his Lascar confederate that the police are hurrying up the street.There is not an instant to be lost.He rushes to some secret horde, where he has accumulated the fruits of his beggary, and he stuffs all the coins upon which he can lay his hands into the pockets to make sure of the coat’s sinking.He throws it out, and would have done the same with the other garments had not he heard the rush of steps below, and only just had time to close the window when the police appeared.”

“It certainly sounds feasible.”

“Well, we will take it as a working hypothesis for want of a better. Boone, as I have told you, was arrested and taken to the station, but it could not be shown that there had ever before been anything against him. He had for years been known as a professional beggar, but his life appeared to have been a very quiet and innocent one. There the matter stands at present, and the questions which have to be solved—what Neville St. Clair was doing in the opium den, what happened to him when there, where is he now, and what Hugh Boone had to do with his disappearance—are all as far from a solution as ever. I confess that I cannot recall any case within my experience which looked at the first glance so simple, and yet which presented such difficulties.”

While Sherlock Holmes had been detailing this singular series of events, we had been whirling through the outskirts of the great town until the last straggling houses had been left behind, and we rattled along with a country hedge upon either side of us.Just as he finished, however, we drove through two scattered villages, where a few lights still glimmered in the windows.

“We are on the outskirts of Lee,” said my companion.“We have touched on three English counties in our short drive, starting in Middlesex, passing over an angle of Surrey, and ending in Kent.See that light among the trees?That is ‘The Cedars,’ and beside that lamp sits a woman whose anxious ears have already, I have little doubt, caught the clink of our horse’s feet.”

“But why are you not conducting the case from Baker Street?”I asked.

“Because there are many inquiries which must be made out here.Mrs. St.Clair has most kindly put two rooms at my disposal, and you may rest assured that she will have nothing but a welcome for my friend and colleague.I hate to meet her, Watson, when I have no news of her husband.Here we are.Whoa, there, whoa!”

We had pulled up in front of a large villa which stood within its own grounds. A stable-boy had run out to the horse’s head, and, springing down, I followed Holmes up the small, winding gravel-drive which led to the house. As we approached, the door flew open, and a little blonde woman stood in the opening, clad in some sort of light mousseline de soie, with a touch of fluffy pink chiffon at her neck and wrists. She stood with her figure outlined against the flood of light, one hand upon the door, one half-raised in her eagerness, her body slightly bent, her head and face protruded, with eager eyes and parted lips, a standing question.

“Well?”she cried, “well?”And then, seeing that there were two of us, she gave a cry of hope which sank into a groan as she saw that my companion shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.

“No good news?”

“None.”

“No bad?”

“No.”

“Thank God for that.But come in.You must be weary, for you have had a long day.”

“This is my friend, Dr. Watson.He has been of most vital use to me in several of my cases, and a lucky chance has made it possible for me to bring him out and associate him with this investigation.”

“I am delighted to see you,” said she, pressing my hand warmly.“You will, I am sure, forgive anything that may be wanting in our arrangements, when you consider the blow which has come so suddenly upon us.”

“My dear madam,” said I, “I am an old campaigner, and if I were not, I can very well see that no apology is needed.If I can be of any assistance, either to you or to my friend here, I shall be indeed happy.”

“Now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said the lady, as we entered a well-lit dining-room, upon the table of which a cold supper had been laid out, “I should very much like to ask you one or two plain questions, to which I beg that you will give a plain answer.”

“Certainly, madam.”

“Do not trouble about my feelings.I am not hysterical, nor given to fainting.I simply wish to hear your real, real opinion.”

“Upon what point?”

“In your heart of hearts do you think that Neville is alive?”

Sherlock Holmes seemed to be embarrassed by the question.“Frankly, now!”she repeated, standing upon the rug and looking keenly down at him as he leaned back in a basket-chair.

“Frankly, then, madam, I do not.”

“You think that he is dead?”

“I do.”

“Murdered?”

“I don’t say that.Perhaps.”

“And on what day did he meet his death?”

“On Monday.”

“Then perhaps, Mr. Holmes, you will be good enough to explain how it is that I have received a letter from him to-day.”

Sherlock Holmes sprang out of his chair as if he had been galvanized.

“What!”he roared.

“Yes, to-day.”She stood smiling, holding up a little slip of paper in the air.

“May I see it?”

“Certainly.”

He snatched it from her in his eagerness, and smoothing it out upon the table, he drew over the lamp, and examined it intently.I had left my chair, and was gazing at it over his shoulder.The envelope was a very coarse one, and was stamped with the Gravesend post-mark, and with the date of that very day, or rather of the day before, for it was considerably after midnight.

“Coarse writing,” murmured Holmes. “Surely this is not your husband’s writing, madam.”

“No, but the enclosure is.”

“I perceive also that whoever addressed the envelope had to go and inquire as to the address.”

“How can you tell that?”

“The name, you see, is in perfectly black ink, which has dried itself.The rest is of the grayish color, which shows that blotting-paper has been used.If it had been written straight off, and then blotted, none would be of a deep black shade.This man has written the name, and there has then been a pause before he wrote the address, which can only mean that he was not familiar with it.It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles.Let us now see the letter.Ha!there has been an enclosure here!”

“Yes, there was a ring.His signet-ring.”

“And you are sure that this is your husband’s hand?”

“One of his hands.”

“One?”

“His hand when he wrote hurriedly.It is very unlike his usual writing, and yet I know it well.”

“‘Dearest do not be frightened.All will come well.There is a huge error which it may take some little time to rectify.Wait in patience.—Neville.’Written in pencil upon the fly-leaf of a book, octavo size, no water-mark.Hum!Posted to-day in Gravesend by a man with a dirty thumb.Ha!And the flap has been gummed, if I am not very much in error, by a person who had been chewing tobacco.And you have no doubt that it is your husband’s hand, madam?”

“None.Neville wrote those words.”

“And they were posted to-day at Gravesend.Well, Mrs. St.Clair, the clouds lighten, though I should not venture to say that the danger is over.”

“But he must be alive, Mr. Holmes.”

“Unless this is a clever forgery to put us on the wrong scent. The ring, after all, proves nothing. It may have been taken from him.”

“No, no; it is, it is, it is his very own writing!”

“Very well.It may, however, have been written on Monday, and only posted to-day.”

“That is possible.”

“If so, much may have happened between.”

“Oh, you must not discourage me, Mr. Holmes.I know that all is well with him.There is so keen a sympathy between us that I should know if evil came upon him.On the very day that I saw him last he cut himself in the bedroom, and yet I in the dining-room rushed up-stairs instantly with the utmost certainty that something had happened.Do you think that I would respond to such a trifle, and yet be ignorant of his death?”

“I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner.And in this letter you certainly have a very strong piece of evidence to corroborate your view.But if your husband is alive, and able to write letters, why should he remain away from you?”

“I cannot imagine.It is unthinkable.”

“And on Monday he made no remarks before leaving you?”

“No.”

“And you were surprised to see him in Swandam Lane?”

“Very much so.”

“Was the window open?”

“Yes.”

“Then he might have called to you?”

“He might.”

“He only, as I understand, gave an inarticulate cry?”

“Yes.”

“A call for help, you thought?”

“Yes.He waved his hands.”

“But it might have been a cry of surprise.Astonishment at the unexpected sight of you might cause him to throw up his hands?”

“It is possible.”

“And you thought he was pulled back?”

“He disappeared so suddenly.”

“He might have leaped back.You did not see any one else in the room?”

“No, but this horrible man confessed to having been there, and the Lascar was at the foot of the stairs.”

“Quite so.Your husband, as far as you could see, had his ordinary clothes on?”

“But without his collar or tie.I distinctly saw his bare throat.”

“Had he ever spoken of Swandam Lane?”

“Never.”

“Had he ever showed any signs of having taken opium?”

“Never.”

“Thank you, Mrs. St.Clair.Those are the principal points about which I wished to be absolutely clear.We shall now have a little supper and then retire, for we may have a very busy day to-morrow.”

A large and comfortable double-bedded room had been placed at our disposal, and I was quickly between the sheets, for I was weary after my night of adventure.Sherlock Holmes was a man, however, who, when he had an unsolved problem upon his mind, would go for days, and even for a week, without rest, turning it over, rearranging his facts, looking at it from every point of view, until he had either fathomed it, or convinced himself that his data were insufficient.It was soon evident to me that he was now preparing for an all-night sitting.He took off his coat and waistcoat, put on a large blue dressing-gown, and then wandered about the room collecting pillows from his bed and cushions from the sofa and arm-chairs.With these he constructed a sort of Eastern divan, upon which he perched himself cross-legged, with an ounce of shag tobacco and a box of matches laid out in front of him. In the dim light of the lamp I saw him sitting there, an old briar pipe between his lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the corner of the ceiling, the blue smoke curling up from him, silent, motionless, with the light shining upon his strong-set aquiline features. So he sat as I dropped off to sleep, and so he sat when a sudden ejaculation caused me to wake up, and I found the summer sun shining into the apartment. The pipe was still between his lips, the smoke still curled upward, and the room was full of a dense tobacco haze, but nothing remained of the heap of shag which I had seen upon the previous night.

“Awake, Watson?”he asked.

“Yes.”

“Game for a morning drive?”

“Certainly.”

“Then dress.No one is stirring yet, but I know where the stable-boy sleeps, and we shall soon have the trap out.”He chuckled to himself as he spoke, his eyes twinkled, and he seemed a different man to the sombre thinker of the previous night.

As I dressed I glanced at my watch.It was no wonder that no one was stirring.It was twenty-five minutes past four.I had hardly finished when Holmes returned with the news that the boy was putting in the horse.

“I want to test a little theory of mine,” said he, pulling on his boots.“I think, Watson, that you are now standing in the presence of one of the most absolute fools in Europe.I deserve to be kicked from here to Charing Cross.But I think I have the key of the affair now.”

“And where is it?”I asked, smiling.

“In the bath-room,” he answered.“Oh yes, I am not joking,” he continued, seeing my look of incredulity.“I have just been there, and I have taken it out, and I have got it in this Gladstone bag.Come on, my boy, and we shall see whether it will not fit the lock.”

We made our way down-stairs as quietly as possible, and out into the bright morning sunshine. In the road stood our horse and trap, with the half-clad stable-boy waiting at the head. We both sprang in, and away we dashed down the London Road. A few country carts were stirring, bearing in vegetables to the metropolis, but the lines of villas on either side were as silent and lifeless as some city in a dream.

“It has been in some points a singular case,” said Holmes, flicking the horse on into a gallop.“I confess that I have been as blind as a mole, but it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all.”

In town the earliest risers were just beginning to look sleepily from their windows as we drove through the streets of the Surrey side.Passing down the Waterloo Bridge Road we crossed over the river, and dashing up Wellington Street wheeled sharply to the right, and found ourselves in Bow Street.Sherlock Holmes was well known to the Force, and the two constables at the door saluted him.One of them held the horse’s head while the other led us in.

“Who is on duty?”asked Holmes.

“Inspector Bradstreet, sir.”

“Ah, Bradstreet, how are you?”A tall, stout official had come down the stone-flagged passage, in a peaked cap and frogged jacket.“I wish to have a quiet word with you, Bradstreet.”

“Certainly, Mr. Holmes.Step into my room here.”

It was a small, office-like room, with a huge ledger upon the table, and a telephone projecting from the wall.The inspector sat down at his desk.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Holmes?”

“I called about that beggarman, Boone—the one who was charged with being concerned in the disappearance of Mr. Neville St.Clair, of Lee.”

“Yes.He was brought up and remanded for further inquiries.”

“So I heard.You have him here?”

“In the cells.”

“Is he quiet?”

“Oh, he gives no trouble.But he is a dirty scoundrel.”

“Dirty?”

“Yes, it is all we can do to make him wash his hands, and his face is as black as a tinker’s.Well, when once his case has been settled, he will have a regular prison bath; and I think, if you saw him, you would agree with me that he needed it.”

“I should like to see him very much.”

“Would you?That is easily done.Come this way.You can leave your bag.”

“No, I think that I’ll take it.”

“Very good.Come this way, if you please.”He led us down a passage, opened a barred door, passed down a winding stair, and brought us to a whitewashed corridor with a line of doors on each side.

“The third on the right is his,” said the inspector.“Here it is!”He quietly shot back a panel in the upper part of the door and glanced through.

“He is asleep,” said he.“You can see him very well.”

We both put our eyes to the grating.The prisoner lay with his face towards us, in a very deep sleep, breathing slowly and heavily.He was a middle-sized man, coarsely clad as became his calling, with a colored shirt protruding through the rent in his tattered coat.He was, as the inspector had said, extremely dirty, but the grime which covered his face could not conceal its repulsive ugliness.A broad wheal from an old scar ran right across it from eye to chin, and by its contraction had turned up one side of the upper lip, so that three teeth were exposed in a perpetual snarl.A shock of very bright red hair grew low over his eyes and forehead.

“He’s a beauty, isn’t he?”said the inspector.

“He certainly needs a wash,” remarked Holmes.“I had an idea that he might, and I took the liberty of bringing the tools with me.”He opened the Gladstone bag as he spoke, and took out, to my astonishment, a very large bath-sponge.

“He! he! You are a funny one,” chuckled the inspector.

“Now, if you will have the great goodness to open that door very quietly, we will soon make him cut a much more respectable figure.”

“Well, I don’t know why not,” said the inspector. “He doesn’t look a credit to the Bow Street cells, does he?” He slipped his key into the lock, and we all very quietly entered the cell. The sleeper half turned, and then settled down once more into a deep slumber. Holmes stooped to the water-jug, moistened his sponge, and then rubbed it twice vigorously across and down the prisoner’s face.

“Let me introduce you,” he shouted, “to Mr. Neville St.Clair, of Lee, in the county of Kent.”

Never in my life have I seen such a sight.The man’s face peeled off under the sponge like the bark from a tree.Gone was the coarse brown tint!Gone, too, was the horrid scar which had seamed it across, and the twisted lip which had given the repulsive sneer to the face!A twitch brought away the tangled red hair, and there, sitting up in his bed, was a pale, sad-faced, refined-looking man, black-haired and smooth-skinned, rubbing his eyes, and staring about him with sleepy bewilderment.Then suddenly realizing the exposure, he broke into a scream, and threw himself down with his face to the pillow.

“Great heavens!”cried the inspector, “it is, indeed, the missing man.I know him from the photograph.”

The prisoner turned with the reckless air of a man who abandons himself to his destiny.“Be it so,” said he.“And pray, what am I charged with?”

“With making away with Mr. Neville St.—— Oh, come, you can’t be charged with that, unless they make a case of attempted suicide of it,” said the inspector, with a grin.“Well, I have been twenty-seven years in the force, but this really takes the cake.”

“If I am Mr. Neville St.Clair, then it is obvious that no crime has been committed, and that, therefore, I am illegally detained.”

“No crime, but a very great error has been committed,” said Holmes.“You would have done better to have trusted your wife.”

“It was not the wife, it was the children,” groaned the prisoner.“God help me, I would not have them ashamed of their father.My God!What an exposure!What can I do?”

Sherlock Holmes sat down beside him on the couch and patted him kindly on the shoulder.

“If you leave it to a court of law to clear the matter up,” said he, “of course you can hardly avoid publicity.On the other hand, if you convince the police authorities that there is no possible case against you, I do not know that there is any reason that the details should find their way into the papers.Inspector Bradstreet would, I am sure, make notes upon anything which you might tell us, and submit it to the proper authorities.The case would then never go into court at all.”

“God bless you!”cried the prisoner, passionately.“I would have endured imprisonment, aye, even execution, rather than have left my miserable secret as a family blot to my children.

“You are the first who have ever heard my story.My father was a school-master in Chesterfield, where I received an excellent education.I travelled in my youth, took to the stage, and finally became a reporter on an evening paper in London.One day my editor wished to have a series of articles upon begging in the metropolis, and I volunteered to supply them.There was the point from which all my adventures started.It was only by trying begging as an amateur that I could get the facts upon which to base my articles.When an actor I had, of course, learned all the secrets of making up, and had been famous in the greenroom for my skill.I took advantage now of my attainments.I painted my face, and to make myself as pitiable as possible I made a good scar and fixed one side of my lip in a twist by the aid of a small slip of flesh-colored plaster. Then with a red head of hair, and an appropriate dress, I took my station in the busiest part of the city, ostensibly as a match-seller, but really as a beggar. For seven hours I plied my trade, and when I returned home in the evening I found, to my surprise, that I had received no less than 26s. 4d.

“I wrote my articles, and thought little more of the matter until, some time later, I backed a bill for a friend, and had a writ served upon me for £25.I was at my wits’ end where to get the money, but a sudden idea came to me.I begged a fortnight’s grace from the creditor, asked for a holiday from my employers, and spent the time in begging in the city under my disguise.In ten days I had the money, and had paid the debt.

“Well, you can imagine how hard it was to settle down to arduous work at £2 a week, when I knew that I could earn as much in a day by smearing my face with a little paint, laying my cap on the ground, and sitting still.It was a long fight between my pride and the money, but the dollars won at last, and I threw up reporting, and sat day after day in the corner which I had first chosen, inspiring pity by my ghastly face, and filling my pockets with coppers.Only one man knew my secret.He was the keeper of a low den in which I used to lodge in Swandam Lane, where I could every morning emerge as a squalid beggar, and in the evenings transform myself into a well-dressed man about town.This fellow, a Lascar, was well paid by me for his rooms, so that I knew that my secret was safe in his possession.

“Well, very soon I found that I was saving considerable sums of money.I do not mean that any beggar in the streets of London could earn £700 a year—which is less than my average takings—but I had exceptional advantages in my power of making up, and also in a facility of repartee, which improved by practice, and made me quite a recognized character in the city.All day a stream of pennies, varied by silver, poured in upon me, and it was a very bad day in which I failed to take £2.

“As I grew richer I grew more ambitious, took a house in the country, and eventually married, without any one having a suspicion as to my real occupation.My dear wife knew that I had business in the city.She little knew what.

“Last Monday I had finished for the day, and was dressing in my room above the opium den, when I looked out of my window, and saw, to my horror and astonishment, that my wife was standing in the street, with her eyes fixed full upon me.I gave a cry of surprise, threw up my arms to cover my face, and, rushing to my confidant, the Lascar, entreated him to prevent any one from coming up to me.I heard her voice down-stairs, but I knew that she could not ascend.Swiftly I threw off my clothes, pulled on those of a beggar, and put on my pigments and wig.Even a wife’s eyes could not pierce so complete a disguise.But then it occurred to me that there might be a search in the room, and that the clothes might betray me.I threw open the window, reopening by my violence a small cut which I had inflicted upon myself in the bedroom that morning.Then I seized my coat, which was weighted by the coppers which I had just transferred to it from the leather bag in which I carried my takings.I hurled it out of the window, and it disappeared into the Thames.The other clothes would have followed, but at that moment there was a rush of constables up the stair, and a few minutes after I found, rather, I confess, to my relief, that instead of being identified as Mr. Neville St.Clair, I was arrested as his murderer.

“I do not know that there is anything else for me to explain.I was determined to preserve my disguise as long as possible, and hence my preference for a dirty face.Knowing that my wife would be terribly anxious, I slipped off my ring, and confided it to the Lascar at a moment when no constable was watching me, together with a hurried scrawl, telling her that she had no cause to fear.”

“That note only reached her yesterday,” said Holmes.

“Good God!What a week she must have spent!”

“The police have watched this Lascar,” said Inspector Bradstreet, “and I can quite understand that he might find it difficult to post a letter unobserved.Probably he handed it to some sailor customer of his, who forgot all about it for some days.”

“That was it,” said Holmes, nodding approvingly; “I have no doubt of it.But have you never been prosecuted for begging?”

“Many times; but what was a fine to me?”

“It must stop here, however,” said Bradstreet.“If the police are to hush this thing up, there must be no more of Hugh Boone.”

“I have sworn it by the most solemn oaths which a man can take.”

“In that case I think that it is probable that no further steps may be taken.But if you are found again, then all must come out.I am sure, Mr. Holmes, that we are very much indebted to you for having cleared the matter up.I wish I knew how you reach your results.”

“I reached this one,” said my friend, “by sitting upon five pillows and consuming an ounce of shag.I think, Watson, that if we drive to Baker Street we shall just be in time for breakfast.”