The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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Title: Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Posting Date: July 31, 2008 [EBook #834]
Release Date: March, 1997

Language: English

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MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle




Adventure I. Silver Blaze


"I am afraid, Watson, that I shall have to go," said Holmes, as we sat
down together to our breakfast one morning.

"Go! Where to?"

"To Dartmoor; to King's Pyland."

I was not surprised. Indeed, my only wonder was that he had not already
been mixed up in this extraordinary case, which was the one topic of
conversation through the length and breadth of England. For a whole day
my companion had rambled about the room with his chin upon his chest and
his brows knitted, charging and recharging his pipe with the strongest
black tobacco, and absolutely deaf to any of my questions or remarks.
Fresh editions of every paper had been sent up by our news agent, only
to be glanced over and tossed down into a corner. Yet, silent as he was,
I knew perfectly well what it was over which he was brooding. There was
but one problem before the public which could challenge his powers of
analysis, and that was the singular disappearance of the favorite for
the Wessex Cup, and the tragic murder of its trainer. When, therefore,
he suddenly announced his intention of setting out for the scene of the
drama it was only what I had both expected and hoped for.

"I should be most happy to go down with you if I should not be in the
way," said I.

"My dear Watson, you would confer a great favor upon me by coming. And
I think that your time will not be misspent, for there are points about
the case which promise to make it an absolutely unique one. We have, I
think, just time to catch our train at Paddington, and I will go further
into the matter upon our journey. You would oblige me by bringing with
you your very excellent field-glass."

And so it happened that an hour or so later I found myself in the
corner of a first-class carriage flying along en route for Exeter, while
Sherlock Holmes, with his sharp, eager face framed in his ear-flapped
travelling-cap, dipped rapidly into the bundle of fresh papers which he
had procured at Paddington. We had left Reading far behind us before
he thrust the last one of them under the seat, and offered me his
cigar-case.

"We are going well," said he, looking out the window and glancing at his
watch. "Our rate at present is fifty-three and a half miles an hour."

"I have not observed the quarter-mile posts," said I.

"Nor have I. But the telegraph posts upon this line are sixty yards
apart, and the calculation is a simple one. I presume that you
have looked into this matter of the murder of John Straker and the
disappearance of Silver Blaze?"

"I have seen what the Telegraph and the Chronicle have to say."

"It is one of those cases where the art of the reasoner should be
used rather for the sifting of details than for the acquiring of fresh
evidence. The tragedy has been so uncommon, so complete and of such
personal importance to so many people, that we are suffering from a
plethora of surmise, conjecture, and hypothesis. The difficulty is to
detach the framework of fact--of absolute undeniable fact--from the
embellishments of theorists and reporters. Then, having established
ourselves upon this sound basis, it is our duty to see what inferences
may be drawn and what are the special points upon which the whole
mystery turns. On Tuesday evening I received telegrams from both Colonel
Ross, the owner of the horse, and from Inspector Gregory, who is looking
after the case, inviting my cooperation."

"Tuesday evening!" I exclaimed. "And this is Thursday morning. Why
didn't you go down yesterday?"

"Because I made a blunder, my dear Watson--which is, I am afraid, a more
common occurrence than any one would think who only knew me through your
memoirs. The fact is that I could not believe it possible that the most
remarkable horse in England could long remain concealed, especially in
so sparsely inhabited a place as the north of Dartmoor. From hour to
hour yesterday I expected to hear that he had been found, and that
his abductor was the murderer of John Straker. When, however, another
morning had come, and I found that beyond the arrest of young Fitzroy
Simpson nothing had been done, I felt that it was time for me to take
action. Yet in some ways I feel that yesterday has not been wasted."

"You have formed a theory, then?"

"At least I have got a grip of the essential facts of the case. I shall
enumerate them to you, for nothing clears up a case so much as stating
it to another person, and I can hardly expect your co-operation if I do
not show you the position from which we start."

I lay back against the cushions, puffing at my cigar, while Holmes,
leaning forward, with his long, thin forefinger checking off the points
upon the palm of his left hand, gave me a sketch of the events which had
led to our journey.

"Silver Blaze," said he, "is from the Somomy stock, and holds as
brilliant a record as his famous ancestor. He is now in his fifth year,
and has brought in turn each of the prizes of the turf to Colonel Ross,
his fortunate owner. Up to the time of the catastrophe he was the first
favorite for the Wessex Cup, the betting being three to one on him. He
has always, however, been a prime favorite with the racing public, and
has never yet disappointed them, so that even at those odds enormous
sums of money have been laid upon him. It is obvious, therefore, that
there were many people who had the strongest interest in preventing
Silver Blaze from being there at the fall of the flag next Tuesday.

"The fact was, of course, appreciated at King's Pyland, where the
Colonel's training-stable is situated. Every precaution was taken to
guard the favorite. The trainer, John Straker, is a retired jockey
who rode in Colonel Ross's colors before he became too heavy for the
weighing-chair. He has served the Colonel for five years as jockey and
for seven as trainer, and has always shown himself to be a zealous and
honest servant. Under him were three lads; for the establishment was a
small one, containing only four horses in all. One of these lads sat up
each night in the stable, while the others slept in the loft. All three
bore excellent characters. John Straker, who is a married man, lived
in a small villa about two hundred yards from the stables. He has no
children, keeps one maid-servant, and is comfortably off. The country
round is very lonely, but about half a mile to the north there is a
small cluster of villas which have been built by a Tavistock contractor
for the use of invalids and others who may wish to enjoy the pure
Dartmoor air. Tavistock itself lies two miles to the west, while
across the moor, also about two miles distant, is the larger training
establishment of Mapleton, which belongs to Lord Backwater, and is
managed by Silas Brown. In every other direction the moor is a complete
wilderness, inhabited only by a few roaming gypsies. Such was the
general situation last Monday night when the catastrophe occurred.

"On that evening the horses had been exercised and watered as usual, and
the stables were locked up at nine o'clock. Two of the lads walked up
to the trainer's house, where they had supper in the kitchen, while the
third, Ned Hunter, remained on guard. At a few minutes after nine
the maid, Edith Baxter, carried down to the stables his supper, which
consisted of a dish of curried mutton. She took no liquid, as there was
a water-tap in the stables, and it was the rule that the lad on duty
should drink nothing else. The maid carried a lantern with her, as it
was very dark and the path ran across the open moor.

"Edith Baxter was within thirty yards of the stables, when a man
appeared out of the darkness and called to her to stop. As he stepped
into the circle of yellow light thrown by the lantern she saw that he
was a person of gentlemanly bearing, dressed in a gray suit of tweeds,
with a cloth cap. He wore gaiters, and carried a heavy stick with a knob
to it. She was most impressed, however, by the extreme pallor of his
face and by the nervousness of his manner. His age, she thought, would
be rather over thirty than under it.

"'Can you tell me where I am?' he asked. 'I had almost made up my mind
to sleep on the moor, when I saw the light of your lantern.'

"'You are close to the King's Pyland training-stables,' said she.

"'Oh, indeed! What a stroke of luck!' he cried. 'I understand that a
stable-boy sleeps there alone every night. Perhaps that is his supper
which you are carrying to him. Now I am sure that you would not be too
proud to earn the price of a new dress, would you?' He took a piece of
white paper folded up out of his waistcoat pocket. 'See that the boy
has this to-night, and you shall have the prettiest frock that money can
buy.'

"She was frightened by the earnestness of his manner, and ran past him
to the window through which she was accustomed to hand the meals. It was
already opened, and Hunter was seated at the small table inside. She had
begun to tell him of what had happened, when the stranger came up again.

"'Good-evening,' said he, looking through the window. 'I wanted to have
a word with you.' The girl has sworn that as he spoke she noticed the
corner of the little paper packet protruding from his closed hand.

"'What business have you here?' asked the lad.

"'It's business that may put something into your pocket,' said the
other. 'You've two horses in for the Wessex Cup--Silver Blaze and
Bayard. Let me have the straight tip and you won't be a loser. Is it a
fact that at the weights Bayard could give the other a hundred yards in
five furlongs, and that the stable have put their money on him?'

"'So, you're one of those damned touts!' cried the lad. 'I'll show you
how we serve them in King's Pyland.' He sprang up and rushed across the
stable to unloose the dog. The girl fled away to the house, but as she
ran she looked back and saw that the stranger was leaning through the
window. A minute later, however, when Hunter rushed out with the hound
he was gone, and though he ran all round the buildings he failed to find
any trace of him."

"One moment," I asked. "Did the stable-boy, when he ran out with the
dog, leave the door unlocked behind him?"

"Excellent, Watson, excellent!" murmured my companion. "The importance
of the point struck me so forcibly that I sent a special wire to
Dartmoor yesterday to clear the matter up. The boy locked the door
before he left it. The window, I may add, was not large enough for a man
to get through.

"Hunter waited until his fellow-grooms had returned, when he sent a
message to the trainer and told him what had occurred. Straker was
excited at hearing the account, although he does not seem to have quite
realized its true significance. It left him, however, vaguely uneasy,
and Mrs. Straker, waking at one in the morning, found that he was
dressing. In reply to her inquiries, he said that he could not sleep on
account of his anxiety about the horses, and that he intended to walk
down to the stables to see that all was well. She begged him to remain
at home, as she could hear the rain pattering against the window, but in
spite of her entreaties he pulled on his large mackintosh and left the
house.

"Mrs. Straker awoke at seven in the morning, to find that her husband
had not yet returned. She dressed herself hastily, called the maid, and
set off for the stables. The door was open; inside, huddled together
upon a chair, Hunter was sunk in a state of absolute stupor, the
favorite's stall was empty, and there were no signs of his trainer.

"The two lads who slept in the chaff-cutting loft above the harness-room
were quickly aroused. They had heard nothing during the night, for they
are both sound sleepers. Hunter was obviously under the influence of
some powerful drug, and as no sense could be got out of him, he was left
to sleep it off while the two lads and the two women ran out in search
of the absentees. They still had hopes that the trainer had for some
reason taken out the horse for early exercise, but on ascending the
knoll near the house, from which all the neighboring moors were visible,
they not only could see no signs of the missing favorite, but they
perceived something which warned them that they were in the presence of
a tragedy.

"About a quarter of a mile from the stables John Straker's overcoat was
flapping from a furze-bush. Immediately beyond there was a bowl-shaped
depression in the moor, and at the bottom of this was found the dead
body of the unfortunate trainer. His head had been shattered by a savage
blow from some heavy weapon, and he was wounded on the thigh, where
there was a long, clean cut, inflicted evidently by some very sharp
instrument. It was clear, however, that Straker had defended himself
vigorously against his assailants, for in his right hand he held a small
knife, which was clotted with blood up to the handle, while in his left
he clasped a red and black silk cravat, which was recognized by the maid
as having been worn on the preceding evening by the stranger who had
visited the stables. Hunter, on recovering from his stupor, was also
quite positive as to the ownership of the cravat. He was equally certain
that the same stranger had, while standing at the window, drugged his
curried mutton, and so deprived the stables of their watchman. As to the
missing horse, there were abundant proofs in the mud which lay at the
bottom of the fatal hollow that he had been there at the time of the
struggle. But from that morning he has disappeared, and although a large
reward has been offered, and all the gypsies of Dartmoor are on the
alert, no news has come of him. Finally, an analysis has shown that
the remains of his supper left by the stable-lad contain an appreciable
quantity of powdered opium, while the people at the house partook of the
same dish on the same night without any ill effect.

"Those are the main facts of the case, stripped of all surmise, and
stated as baldly as possible. I shall now recapitulate what the police
have done in the matter.

"Inspector Gregory, to whom the case has been committed, is an extremely
competent officer. Were he but gifted with imagination he might rise to
great heights in his profession. On his arrival he promptly found and
arrested the man upon whom suspicion naturally rested. There was little
difficulty in finding him, for he inhabited one of those villas which I
have mentioned. His name, it appears, was Fitzroy Simpson. He was a man
of excellent birth and education, who had squandered a fortune upon the
turf, and who lived now by doing a little quiet and genteel book-making
in the sporting clubs of London. An examination of his betting-book
shows that bets to the amount of five thousand pounds had been
registered by him against the favorite. On being arrested he volunteered
that statement that he had come down to Dartmoor in the hope of
getting some information about the King's Pyland horses, and also about
Desborough, the second favorite, which was in charge of Silas Brown at
the Mapleton stables. He did not attempt to deny that he had acted as
described upon the evening before, but declared that he had no sinister
designs, and had simply wished to obtain first-hand information. When
confronted with his cravat, he turned very pale, and was utterly unable
to account for its presence in the hand of the murdered man. His wet
clothing showed that he had been out in the storm of the night before,
and his stick, which was a Penang-lawyer weighted with lead, was just
such a weapon as might, by repeated blows, have inflicted the terrible
injuries to which the trainer had succumbed. On the other hand, there
was no wound upon his person, while the state of Straker's knife would
show that one at least of his assailants must bear his mark upon him.
There you have it all in a nutshell, Watson, and if you can give me any
light I shall be infinitely obliged to you."

I had listened with the greatest interest to the statement which Holmes,
with characteristic clearness, had laid before me. Though most of the
facts were familiar to me, I had not sufficiently appreciated their
relative importance, nor their connection to each other.

"Is it not possible," I suggested, "that the incised wound upon Straker
may have been caused by his own knife in the convulsive struggles which
follow any brain injury?"

"It is more than possible; it is probable," said Holmes. "In that case
one of the main points in favor of the accused disappears."

"And yet," said I, "even now I fail to understand what the theory of the
police can be."

"I am afraid that whatever theory we state has very grave objections to
it," returned my companion. "The police imagine, I take it, that this
Fitzroy Simpson, having drugged the lad, and having in some way obtained
a duplicate key, opened the stable door and took out the horse, with
the intention, apparently, of kidnapping him altogether. His bridle is
missing, so that Simpson must have put this on. Then, having left the
door open behind him, he was leading the horse away over the moor, when
he was either met or overtaken by the trainer. A row naturally ensued.
Simpson beat out the trainer's brains with his heavy stick without
receiving any injury from the small knife which Straker used in
self-defence, and then the thief either led the horse on to some secret
hiding-place, or else it may have bolted during the struggle, and be
now wandering out on the moors. That is the case as it appears to
the police, and improbable as it is, all other explanations are more
improbable still. However, I shall very quickly test the matter when I
am once upon the spot, and until then I cannot really see how we can get
much further than our present position."

It was evening before we reached the little town of Tavistock, which
lies, like the boss of a shield, in the middle of the huge circle of
Dartmoor. Two gentlemen were awaiting us in the station--the one a tall,
fair man with lion-like hair and beard and curiously penetrating light
blue eyes; the other a small, alert person, very neat and dapper, in a
frock-coat and gaiters, with trim little side-whiskers and an eye-glass.
The latter was Colonel Ross, the well-known sportsman; the other,
Inspector Gregory, a man who was rapidly making his name in the English
detective service.

"I am delighted that you have come down, Mr. Holmes," said the Colonel.
"The Inspector here has done all that could possibly be suggested, but I
wish to leave no stone unturned in trying to avenge poor Straker and in
recovering my horse."

"Have there been any fresh developments?" asked Holmes.

"I am sorry to say that we have made very little progress," said the
Inspector. "We have an open carriage outside, and as you would no doubt
like to see the place before the light fails, we might talk it over as
we drive."

A minute later we were all seated in a comfortable landau, and were
rattling through the quaint old Devonshire city. Inspector Gregory was
full of his case, and poured out a stream of remarks, while Holmes threw
in an occasional question or interjection. Colonel Ross leaned back with
his arms folded and his hat tilted over his eyes, while I listened with
interest to the dialogue of the two detectives. Gregory was formulating
his theory, which was almost exactly what Holmes had foretold in the
train.

"The net is drawn pretty close round Fitzroy Simpson," he remarked, "and
I believe myself that he is our man. At the same time I recognize that
the evidence is purely circumstantial, and that some new development may
upset it."

"How about Straker's knife?"

"We have quite come to the conclusion that he wounded himself in his
fall."

"My friend Dr. Watson made that suggestion to me as we came down. If so,
it would tell against this man Simpson."

"Undoubtedly. He has neither a knife nor any sign of a wound. The
evidence against him is certainly very strong. He had a great interest
in the disappearance of the favorite. He lies under suspicion of having
poisoned the stable-boy, he was undoubtedly out in the storm, he was
armed with a heavy stick, and his cravat was found in the dead man's
hand. I really think we have enough to go before a jury."

Holmes shook his head. "A clever counsel would tear it all to rags,"
said he. "Why should he take the horse out of the stable? If he wished
to injure it why could he not do it there? Has a duplicate key been
found in his possession? What chemist sold him the powdered opium? Above
all, where could he, a stranger to the district, hide a horse, and such
a horse as this? What is his own explanation as to the paper which he
wished the maid to give to the stable-boy?"

"He says that it was a ten-pound note. One was found in his purse. But
your other difficulties are not so formidable as they seem. He is not
a stranger to the district. He has twice lodged at Tavistock in the
summer. The opium was probably brought from London. The key, having
served its purpose, would be hurled away. The horse may be at the bottom
of one of the pits or old mines upon the moor."

"What does he say about the cravat?"

"He acknowledges that it is his, and declares that he had lost it. But a
new element has been introduced into the case which may account for his
leading the horse from the stable."

Holmes pricked up his ears.

"We have found traces which show that a party of gypsies encamped on
Monday night within a mile of the spot where the murder took place. On
Tuesday they were gone. Now, presuming that there was some understanding
between Simpson and these gypsies, might he not have been leading the
horse to them when he was overtaken, and may they not have him now?"

"It is certainly possible."

"The moor is being scoured for these gypsies. I have also examined every
stable and out-house in Tavistock, and for a radius of ten miles."

"There is another training-stable quite close, I understand?"

"Yes, and that is a factor which we must certainly not neglect. As
Desborough, their horse, was second in the betting, they had an interest
in the disappearance of the favorite. Silas Brown, the trainer, is known
to have had large bets upon the event, and he was no friend to poor
Straker. We have, however, examined the stables, and there is nothing to
connect him with the affair."

"And nothing to connect this man Simpson with the interests of the
Mapleton stables?"

"Nothing at all."

Holmes leaned back in the carriage, and the conversation ceased. A few
minutes later our driver pulled up at a neat little red-brick villa with
overhanging eaves which stood by the road. Some distance off, across a
paddock, lay a long gray-tiled out-building. In every other direction
the low curves of the moor, bronze-colored from the fading ferns,
stretched away to the sky-line, broken only by the steeples of
Tavistock, and by a cluster of houses away to the westward which marked
the Mapleton stables. We all sprang out with the exception of Holmes,
who continued to lean back with his eyes fixed upon the sky in front of
him, entirely absorbed in his own thoughts. It was only when I touched
his arm that he roused himself with a violent start and stepped out of
the carriage.

"Excuse me," said he, turning to Colonel Ross, who had looked at him in
some surprise. "I was day-dreaming." There was a gleam in his eyes and a
suppressed excitement in his manner which convinced me, used as I was
to his ways, that his hand was upon a clue, though I could not imagine
where he had found it.

"Perhaps you would prefer at once to go on to the scene of the crime,
Mr. Holmes?" said Gregory.

"I think that I should prefer to stay here a little and go into one or
two questions of detail. Straker was brought back here, I presume?"

"Yes; he lies upstairs. The inquest is to-morrow."

"He has been in your service some years, Colonel Ross?"

"I have always found him an excellent servant."

"I presume that you made an inventory of what he had in his pockets at
the time of his death, Inspector?"

"I have the things themselves in the sitting-room, if you would care to
see them."

"I should be very glad." We all filed into the front room and sat round
the central table while the Inspector unlocked a square tin box and laid
a small heap of things before us. There was a box of vestas, two inches
of tallow candle, an A D P brier-root pipe, a pouch of seal-skin with
half an ounce of long-cut Cavendish, a silver watch with a gold chain,
five sovereigns in gold, an aluminum pencil-case, a few papers, and an
ivory-handled knife with a very delicate, inflexible blade marked Weiss
& Co., London.

"This is a very singular knife," said Holmes, lifting it up and
examining it minutely. "I presume, as I see blood-stains upon it, that
it is the one which was found in the dead man's grasp. Watson, this
knife is surely in your line?"

"It is what we call a cataract knife," said I.

"I thought so. A very delicate blade devised for very delicate work.
A strange thing for a man to carry with him upon a rough expedition,
especially as it would not shut in his pocket."

"The tip was guarded by a disk of cork which we found beside his body,"
said the Inspector. "His wife tells us that the knife had lain upon the
dressing-table, and that he had picked it up as he left the room. It was
a poor weapon, but perhaps the best that he could lay his hands on at
the moment."

"Very possible. How about these papers?"

"Three of them are receipted hay-dealers' accounts. One of them is a
letter of instructions from Colonel Ross. This other is a milliner's
account for thirty-seven pounds fifteen made out by Madame Lesurier,
of Bond Street, to William Derbyshire. Mrs. Straker tells us that
Derbyshire was a friend of her husband's and that occasionally his
letters were addressed here."

"Madam Derbyshire had somewhat expensive tastes," remarked Holmes,
glancing down the account. "Twenty-two guineas is rather heavy for a
single costume. However there appears to be nothing more to learn, and
we may now go down to the scene of the crime."

As we emerged from the sitting-room a woman, who had been waiting in
the passage, took a step forward and laid her hand upon the Inspector's
sleeve. Her face was haggard and thin and eager, stamped with the print
of a recent horror.

"Have you got them? Have you found them?" she panted.

"No, Mrs. Straker. But Mr. Holmes here has come from London to help us,
and we shall do all that is possible."

"Surely I met you in Plymouth at a garden-party some little time ago,
Mrs. Straker?" said Holmes.

"No, sir; you are mistaken."

"Dear me! Why, I could have sworn to it. You wore a costume of
dove-colored silk with ostrich-feather trimming."

"I never had such a dress, sir," answered the lady.

"Ah, that quite settles it," said Holmes. And with an apology he
followed the Inspector outside. A short walk across the moor took us to
the hollow in which the body had been found. At the brink of it was the
furze-bush upon which the coat had been hung.

"There was no wind that night, I understand," said Holmes.

"None; but very heavy rain."

"In that case the overcoat was not blown against the furze-bush, but
placed there."

"Yes, it was laid across the bush."

"You fill me with interest, I perceive that the ground has been trampled
up a good deal. No doubt many feet have been here since Monday night."

"A piece of matting has been laid here at the side, and we have all
stood upon that."

"Excellent."

"In this bag I have one of the boots which Straker wore, one of Fitzroy
Simpson's shoes, and a cast horseshoe of Silver Blaze."

"My dear Inspector, you surpass yourself!" Holmes took the bag, and,
descending into the hollow, he pushed the matting into a more central
position. Then stretching himself upon his face and leaning his chin
upon his hands, he made a careful study of the trampled mud in front of
him. "Hullo!" said he, suddenly. "What's this?" It was a wax vesta half
burned, which was so coated with mud that it looked at first like a
little chip of wood.

"I cannot think how I came to overlook it," said the Inspector, with an
expression of annoyance.

"It was invisible, buried in the mud. I only saw it because I was
looking for it."

"What! You expected to find it?"

"I thought it not unlikely."

He took the boots from the bag, and compared the impressions of each of
them with marks upon the ground. Then he clambered up to the rim of the
hollow, and crawled about among the ferns and bushes.

"I am afraid that there are no more tracks," said the Inspector. "I
have examined the ground very carefully for a hundred yards in each
direction."

"Indeed!" said Holmes, rising. "I should not have the impertinence to
do it again after what you say. But I should like to take a little walk
over the moor before it grows dark, that I may know my ground to-morrow,
and I think that I shall put this horseshoe into my pocket for luck."

Colonel Ross, who had shown some signs of impatience at my companion's
quiet and systematic method of work, glanced at his watch. "I wish you
would come back with me, Inspector," said he. "There are several points
on which I should like your advice, and especially as to whether we do
not owe it to the public to remove our horse's name from the entries for
the Cup."

"Certainly not," cried Holmes, with decision. "I should let the name
stand."

The Colonel bowed. "I am very glad to have had your opinion, sir," said
he. "You will find us at poor Straker's house when you have finished
your walk, and we can drive together into Tavistock."

He turned back with the Inspector, while Holmes and I walked slowly
across the moor. The sun was beginning to sink behind the stables of
Mapleton, and the long, sloping plain in front of us was tinged with
gold, deepening into rich, ruddy browns where the faded ferns and
brambles caught the evening light. But the glories of the landscape were
all wasted upon my companion, who was sunk in the deepest thought.

"It's this way, Watson," said he at last. "We may leave the question
of who killed John Straker for the instant, and confine ourselves to
finding out what has become of the horse. Now, supposing that he broke
away during or after the tragedy, where could he have gone to? The horse
is a very gregarious creature. If left to himself his instincts would
have been either to return to King's Pyland or go over to Mapleton. Why
should he run wild upon the moor? He would surely have been seen by now.
And why should gypsies kidnap him? These people always clear out when
they hear of trouble, for they do not wish to be pestered by the police.
They could not hope to sell such a horse. They would run a great risk
and gain nothing by taking him. Surely that is clear."

"Where is he, then?"

"I have already said that he must have gone to King's Pyland or to
Mapleton. He is not at King's Pyland. Therefore he is at Mapleton. Let
us take that as a working hypothesis and see what it leads us to. This
part of the moor, as the Inspector remarked, is very hard and dry. But
it falls away towards Mapleton, and you can see from here that there
is a long hollow over yonder, which must have been very wet on Monday
night. If our supposition is correct, then the horse must have crossed
that, and there is the point where we should look for his tracks."

We had been walking briskly during this conversation, and a few more
minutes brought us to the hollow in question. At Holmes' request I
walked down the bank to the right, and he to the left, but I had not
taken fifty paces before I heard him give a shout, and saw him waving
his hand to me. The track of a horse was plainly outlined in the soft
earth in front of him, and the shoe which he took from his pocket
exactly fitted the impression.

"See the value of imagination," said Holmes. "It is the one quality
which Gregory lacks. We imagined what might have happened, acted upon
the supposition, and find ourselves justified. Let us proceed."

We crossed the marshy bottom and passed over a quarter of a mile of dry,
hard turf. Again the ground sloped, and again we came on the tracks.
Then we lost them for half a mile, but only to pick them up once more
quite close to Mapleton. It was Holmes who saw them first, and he stood
pointing with a look of triumph upon his face. A man's track was visible
beside the horse's.

"The horse was alone before," I cried.

"Quite so. It was alone before. Hullo, what is this?"

The double track turned sharp off and took the direction of King's
Pyland. Holmes whistled, and we both followed along after it. His eyes
were on the trail, but I happened to look a little to one side, and
saw to my surprise the same tracks coming back again in the opposite
direction.

"One for you, Watson," said Holmes, when I pointed it out. "You have
saved us a long walk, which would have brought us back on our own
traces. Let us follow the return track."

We had not to go far. It ended at the paving of asphalt which led up
to the gates of the Mapleton stables. As we approached, a groom ran out
from them.

"We don't want any loiterers about here," said he.

"I only wished to ask a question," said Holmes, with his finger and
thumb in his waistcoat pocket. "Should I be too early to see your
master, Mr. Silas Brown, if I were to call at five o'clock to-morrow
morning?"

"Bless you, sir, if any one is about he will be, for he is always
the first stirring. But here he is, sir, to answer your questions for
himself. No, sir, no; it is as much as my place is worth to let him see
me touch your money. Afterwards, if you like."

As Sherlock Holmes replaced the half-crown which he had drawn from his
pocket, a fierce-looking elderly man strode out from the gate with a
hunting-crop swinging in his hand.

"What's this, Dawson!" he cried. "No gossiping! Go about your business!
And you, what the devil do you want here?"

"Ten minutes' talk with you, my good sir," said Holmes in the sweetest
of voices.

"I've no time to talk to every gadabout. We want no stranger here. Be
off, or you may find a dog at your heels."

Holmes leaned forward and whispered something in the trainer's ear. He
started violently and flushed to the temples.

"It's a lie!" he shouted, "an infernal lie!"

"Very good. Shall we argue about it here in public or talk it over in
your parlor?"

"Oh, come in if you wish to."

Holmes smiled. "I shall not keep you more than a few minutes, Watson,"
said he. "Now, Mr. Brown, I am quite at your disposal."

It was twenty minutes, and the reds had all faded into grays before
Holmes and the trainer reappeared. Never have I seen such a change as
had been brought about in Silas Brown in that short time. His face was
ashy pale, beads of perspiration shone upon his brow, and his hands
shook until the hunting-crop wagged like a branch in the wind. His
bullying, overbearing manner was all gone too, and he cringed along at
my companion's side like a dog with its master.

"Your instructions will be done. It shall all be done," said he.

"There must be no mistake," said Holmes, looking round at him. The other
winced as he read the menace in his eyes.

"Oh no, there shall be no mistake. It shall be there. Should I change it
first or not?"

Holmes thought a little and then burst out laughing. "No, don't," said
he; "I shall write to you about it. No tricks, now, or--"

"Oh, you can trust me, you can trust me!"

"Yes, I think I can. Well, you shall hear from me to-morrow." He turned
upon his heel, disregarding the trembling hand which the other held out
to him, and we set off for King's Pyland.

"A more perfect compound of the bully, coward, and sneak than Master
Silas Brown I have seldom met with," remarked Holmes as we trudged along
together.

"He has the horse, then?"

"He tried to bluster out of it, but I described to him so exactly what
his actions had been upon that morning that he is convinced that I was
watching him. Of course you observed the peculiarly square toes in the
impressions, and that his own boots exactly corresponded to them.
Again, of course no subordinate would have dared to do such a thing.
I described to him how, when according to his custom he was the first
down, he perceived a strange horse wandering over the moor. How he went
out to it, and his astonishment at recognizing, from the white forehead
which has given the favorite its name, that chance had put in his power
the only horse which could beat the one upon which he had put his money.
Then I described how his first impulse had been to lead him back to
King's Pyland, and how the devil had shown him how he could hide the
horse until the race was over, and how he had led it back and concealed
it at Mapleton. When I told him every detail he gave it up and thought
only of saving his own skin."

"But his stables had been searched?"

"Oh, an old horse-faker like him has many a dodge."

"But are you not afraid to leave the horse in his power now, since he
has every interest in injuring it?"

"My dear fellow, he will guard it as the apple of his eye. He knows that
his only hope of mercy is to produce it safe."

"Colonel Ross did not impress me as a man who would be likely to show
much mercy in any case."

"The matter does not rest with Colonel Ross. I follow my own methods,
and tell as much or as little as I choose. That is the advantage of
being unofficial. I don't know whether you observed it, Watson, but the
Colonel's manner has been just a trifle cavalier to me. I am inclined
now to have a little amusement at his expense. Say nothing to him about
the horse."

"Certainly not without your permission."

"And of course this is all quite a minor point compared to the question
of who killed John Straker."

"And you will devote yourself to that?"

"On the contrary, we both go back to London by the night train."

I was thunderstruck by my friend's words. We had only been a few hours
in Devonshire, and that he should give up an investigation which he had
begun so brilliantly was quite incomprehensible to me. Not a word more
could I draw from him until we were back at the trainer's house. The
Colonel and the Inspector were awaiting us in the parlor.

"My friend and I return to town by the night-express," said Holmes. "We
have had a charming little breath of your beautiful Dartmoor air."

The Inspector opened his eyes, and the Colonel's lip curled in a sneer.

"So you despair of arresting the murderer of poor Straker," said he.

Holmes shrugged his shoulders. "There are certainly grave difficulties
in the way," said he. "I have every hope, however, that your horse
will start upon Tuesday, and I beg that you will have your jockey in
readiness. Might I ask for a photograph of Mr. John Straker?"

The Inspector took one from an envelope and handed it to him.

"My dear Gregory, you anticipate all my wants. If I might ask you to
wait here for an instant, I have a question which I should like to put
to the maid."

"I must say that I am rather disappointed in our London consultant,"
said Colonel Ross, bluntly, as my friend left the room. "I do not see
that we are any further than when he came."

"At least you have his assurance that your horse will run," said I.

"Yes, I have his assurance," said the Colonel, with a shrug of his
shoulders. "I should prefer to have the horse."

I was about to make some reply in defence of my friend when he entered
the room again.

"Now, gentlemen," said he, "I am quite ready for Tavistock."

As we stepped into the carriage one of the stable-lads held the door
open for us. A sudden idea seemed to occur to Holmes, for he leaned
forward and touched the lad upon the sleeve.

"You have a few sheep in the paddock," he said. "Who attends to them?"

"I do, sir."

"Have you noticed anything amiss with them of late?"

"Well, sir, not of much account; but three of them have gone lame, sir."

I could see that Holmes was extremely pleased, for he chuckled and
rubbed his hands together.

"A long shot, Watson; a very long shot," said he, pinching my arm.
"Gregory, let me recommend to your attention this singular epidemic
among the sheep. Drive on, coachman!"

Colonel Ross still wore an expression which showed the poor opinion
which he had formed of my companion's ability, but I saw by the
Inspector's face that his attention had been keenly aroused.

"You consider that to be important?" he asked.

"Exceedingly so."

"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"

"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

"The dog did nothing in the night-time."

"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.


Four days later Holmes and I were again in the train, bound for
Winchester to see the race for the Wessex Cup. Colonel Ross met us by
appointment outside the station, and we drove in his drag to the course
beyond the town. His face was grave, and his manner was cold in the
extreme.

"I have seen nothing of my horse," said he.

"I suppose that you would know him when you saw him?" asked Holmes.

The Colonel was very angry. "I have been on the turf for twenty years,
and never was asked such a question as that before," said he. "A
child would know Silver Blaze, with his white forehead and his mottled
off-foreleg."

"How is the betting?"

"Well, that is the curious part of it. You could have got fifteen to one
yesterday, but the price has become shorter and shorter, until you can
hardly get three to one now."

"Hum!" said Holmes. "Somebody knows something, that is clear."

As the drag drew up in the enclosure near the grand stand I glanced at
the card to see the entries.

Wessex Plate [it ran] 50 sovs each h ft with 1000 sovs added for four
and five year olds. Second, L300. Third, L200. New course (one mile and
five furlongs). Mr. Heath Newton's The Negro. Red cap. Cinnamon jacket.
Colonel Wardlaw's Pugilist. Pink cap. Blue and black jacket. Lord
Backwater's Desborough. Yellow cap and sleeves. Colonel Ross's Silver
Blaze. Black cap. Red jacket. Duke of Balmoral's Iris. Yellow and black
stripes. Lord Singleford's Rasper. Purple cap. Black sleeves.

"We scratched our other one, and put all hopes on your word," said the
Colonel. "Why, what is that? Silver Blaze favorite?"

"Five to four against Silver Blaze!" roared the ring. "Five to four
against Silver Blaze! Five to fifteen against Desborough! Five to four
on the field!"

"There are the numbers up," I cried. "They are all six there."

"All six there? Then my horse is running," cried the Colonel in great
agitation. "But I don't see him. My colors have not passed."

"Only five have passed. This must be he."

As I spoke a powerful bay horse swept out from the weighing enclosure
and cantered past us, bearing on its back the well-known black and red
of the Colonel.

"That's not my horse," cried the owner. "That beast has not a white hair
upon its body. What is this that you have done, Mr. Holmes?"

"Well, well, let us see how he gets on," said my friend, imperturbably.
For a few minutes he gazed through my field-glass. "Capital! An
excellent start!" he cried suddenly. "There they are, coming round the
curve!"

From our drag we had a superb view as they came up the straight. The six
horses were so close together that a carpet could have covered them,
but half way up the yellow of the Mapleton stable showed to the front.
Before they reached us, however, Desborough's bolt was shot, and the
Colonel's horse, coming away with a rush, passed the post a good six
lengths before its rival, the Duke of Balmoral's Iris making a bad
third.

"It's my race, anyhow," gasped the Colonel, passing his hand over his
eyes. "I confess that I can make neither head nor tail of it. Don't you
think that you have kept up your mystery long enough, Mr. Holmes?"

"Certainly, Colonel, you shall know everything. Let us all go round and
have a look at the horse together. Here he is," he continued, as we made
our way into the weighing enclosure, where only owners and their friends
find admittance. "You have only to wash his face and his leg in spirits
of wine, and you will find that he is the same old Silver Blaze as
ever."

"You take my breath away!"

"I found him in the hands of a faker, and took the liberty of running
him just as he was sent over."

"My dear sir, you have done wonders. The horse looks very fit and well.
It never went better in its life. I owe you a thousand apologies
for having doubted your ability. You have done me a great service by
recovering my horse. You would do me a greater still if you could lay
your hands on the murderer of John Straker."

"I have done so," said Holmes quietly.

The Colonel and I stared at him in amazement. "You have got him! Where
is he, then?"

"He is here."

"Here! Where?"

"In my company at the present moment."

The Colonel flushed angrily. "I quite recognize that I am under
obligations to you, Mr. Holmes," said he, "but I must regard what you
have just said as either a very bad joke or an insult."

Sherlock Holmes laughed. "I assure you that I have not associated
you with the crime, Colonel," said he. "The real murderer is standing
immediately behind you." He stepped past and laid his hand upon the
glossy neck of the thoroughbred.

"The horse!" cried both the Colonel and myself.

"Yes, the horse. And it may lessen his guilt if I say that it was
done in self-defence, and that John Straker was a man who was entirely
unworthy of your confidence. But there goes the bell, and as I stand
to win a little on this next race, I shall defer a lengthy explanation
until a more fitting time."



We had the corner of a Pullman car to ourselves that evening as we
whirled back to London, and I fancy that the journey was a short one
to Colonel Ross as well as to myself, as we listened to our
companion's narrative of the events which had occurred at the Dartmoor
training-stables upon the Monday night, and the means by which he had
unravelled them.

"I confess," said he, "that any theories which I had formed from
the newspaper reports were entirely erroneous. And yet there were
indications there, had they not been overlaid by other details which
concealed their true import. I went to Devonshire with the conviction
that Fitzroy Simpson was the true culprit, although, of course, I saw
that the evidence against him was by no means complete. It was while I
was in the carriage, just as we reached the trainer's house, that the
immense significance of the curried mutton occurred to me. You may
remember that I was distrait, and remained sitting after you had all
alighted. I was marvelling in my own mind how I could possibly have
overlooked so obvious a clue."

"I confess," said the Colonel, "that even now I cannot see how it helps
us."

"It was the first link in my chain of reasoning. Powdered opium is by no
means tasteless. The flavor is not disagreeable, but it is perceptible.
Were it mixed with any ordinary dish the eater would undoubtedly detect
it, and would probably eat no more. A curry was exactly the medium
which would disguise this taste. By no possible supposition could
this stranger, Fitzroy Simpson, have caused curry to be served in
the trainer's family that night, and it is surely too monstrous a
coincidence to suppose that he happened to come along with powdered
opium upon the very night when a dish happened to be served which would
disguise the flavor. That is unthinkable. Therefore Simpson becomes
eliminated from the case, and our attention centers upon Straker and
his wife, the only two people who could have chosen curried mutton for
supper that night. The opium was added after the dish was set aside
for the stable-boy, for the others had the same for supper with no ill
effects. Which of them, then, had access to that dish without the maid
seeing them?

"Before deciding that question I had grasped the significance of the
silence of the dog, for one true inference invariably suggests others.
The Simpson incident had shown me that a dog was kept in the stables,
and yet, though some one had been in and had fetched out a horse, he
had not barked enough to arouse the two lads in the loft. Obviously the
midnight visitor was some one whom the dog knew well.

"I was already convinced, or almost convinced, that John Straker went
down to the stables in the dead of the night and took out Silver Blaze.
For what purpose? For a dishonest one, obviously, or why should he drug
his own stable-boy? And yet I was at a loss to know why. There have been
cases before now where trainers have made sure of great sums of money
by laying against their own horses, through agents, and then preventing
them from winning by fraud. Sometimes it is a pulling jockey. Sometimes
it is some surer and subtler means. What was it here? I hoped that the
contents of his pockets might help me to form a conclusion.

"And they did so. You cannot have forgotten the singular knife which was
found in the dead man's hand, a knife which certainly no sane man would
choose for a weapon. It was, as Dr. Watson told us, a form of knife
which is used for the most delicate operations known in surgery. And it
was to be used for a delicate operation that night. You must know, with
your wide experience of turf matters, Colonel Ross, that it is possible
to make a slight nick upon the tendons of a horse's ham, and to do it
subcutaneously, so as to leave absolutely no trace. A horse so treated
would develop a slight lameness, which would be put down to a strain in
exercise or a touch of rheumatism, but never to foul play."

"Villain! Scoundrel!" cried the Colonel.

"We have here the explanation of why John Straker wished to take the
horse out on to the moor. So spirited a creature would have certainly
roused the soundest of sleepers when it felt the prick of the knife. It
was absolutely necessary to do it in the open air."

"I have been blind!" cried the Colonel. "Of course that was why he
needed the candle, and struck the match."

"Undoubtedly. But in examining his belongings I was fortunate enough to
discover not only the method of the crime, but even its motives. As a
man of the world, Colonel, you know that men do not carry other people's
bills about in their pockets. We have most of us quite enough to do to
settle our own. I at once concluded that Straker was leading a double
life, and keeping a second establishment. The nature of the bill showed
that there was a lady in the case, and one who had expensive tastes.
Liberal as you are with your servants, one can hardly expect that they
can buy twenty-guinea walking dresses for their ladies. I questioned
Mrs. Straker as to the dress without her knowing it, and having
satisfied myself that it had never reached her, I made a note of the
milliner's address, and felt that by calling there with Straker's
photograph I could easily dispose of the mythical Derbyshire.

"From that time on all was plain. Straker had led out the horse to a
hollow where his light would be invisible. Simpson in his flight had
dropped his cravat, and Straker had picked it up--with some idea,
perhaps, that he might use it in securing the horse's leg. Once in the
hollow, he had got behind the horse and had struck a light; but the
creature frightened at the sudden glare, and with the strange instinct
of animals feeling that some mischief was intended, had lashed out, and
the steel shoe had struck Straker full on the forehead. He had already,
in spite of the rain, taken off his overcoat in order to do his delicate
task, and so, as he fell, his knife gashed his thigh. Do I make it
clear?"

"Wonderful!" cried the Colonel. "Wonderful! You might have been there!"

"My final shot was, I confess a very long one. It struck me that so
astute a man as Straker would not undertake this delicate tendon-nicking
without a little practice. What could he practice on? My eyes fell upon
the sheep, and I asked a question which, rather to my surprise, showed
that my surmise was correct.

"When I returned to London I called upon the milliner, who had
recognized Straker as an excellent customer of the name of Derbyshire,
who had a very dashing wife, with a strong partiality for expensive
dresses. I have no doubt that this woman had plunged him over head and
ears in debt, and so led him into this miserable plot."

"You have explained all but one thing," cried the Colonel. "Where was
the horse?"

"Ah, it bolted, and was cared for by one of your neighbors. We must have
an amnesty in that direction, I think. This is Clapham Junction, if I am
not mistaken, and we shall be in Victoria in less than ten minutes. If
you care to smoke a cigar in our rooms, Colonel, I shall be happy to
give you any other details which might interest you."




Adventure II. The Yellow Face


[In publishing these short sketches based upon the numerous cases in
which my companion's singular gifts have made us the listeners to, and
eventually the actors in, some strange drama, it is only natural that I
should dwell rather upon his successes than upon his failures. And this
not so much for the sake of his reputation--for, indeed, it was when
he was at his wits' end that his energy and his versatility were most
admirable--but because where he failed it happened too often that no one
else succeeded, and that the tale was left forever without a conclusion.
Now and again, however, it chanced that even when he erred, the truth
was still discovered. I have noted of some half-dozen cases of the
kind; the Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual and that which I am about to
recount are the two which present the strongest features of interest.]

Sherlock Holmes was a man who seldom took exercise for exercise's sake.
Few men were capable of greater muscular effort, and he was undoubtedly
one of the finest boxers of his weight that I have ever seen; but he
looked upon aimless bodily exertion as a waste of energy, and he seldom
bestirred himself save when there was some professional object to be
served. Then he was absolutely untiring and indefatigable. That he
should have kept himself in training under such circumstances is
remarkable, but his diet was usually of the sparest, and his habits
were simple to the verge of austerity. Save for the occasional use of
cocaine, he had no vices, and he only turned to the drug as a protest
against the monotony of existence when cases were scanty and the papers
uninteresting.

One day in early spring he had so far relaxed as to go for a walk with
me in the Park, where the first faint shoots of green were breaking out
upon the elms, and the sticky spear-heads of the chestnuts were just
beginning to burst into their five-fold leaves. For two hours we rambled
about together, in silence for the most part, as befits two men who know
each other intimately. It was nearly five before we were back in Baker
Street once more.

"Beg pardon, sir," said our page-boy, as he opened the door. "There's
been a gentleman here asking for you, sir."

Holmes glanced reproachfully at me. "So much for afternoon walks!" said
he. "Has this gentleman gone, then?"

"Yes, sir."

"Didn't you ask him in?"

"Yes, sir; he came in."

"How long did he wait?"

"Half an hour, sir. He was a very restless gentleman, sir, a-walkin'
and a-stampin' all the time he was here. I was waitin' outside the door,
sir, and I could hear him. At last he outs into the passage, and he
cries, 'Is that man never goin' to come?' Those were his very words,
sir. 'You'll only need to wait a little longer,' says I. 'Then I'll wait
in the open air, for I feel half choked,' says he. 'I'll be back before
long.' And with that he ups and he outs, and all I could say wouldn't
hold him back."

"Well, well, you did your best," said Holmes, as we walked into our
room. "It's very annoying, though, Watson. I was badly in need of
a case, and this looks, from the man's impatience, as if it were of
importance. Hullo! That's not your pipe on the table. He must have
left his behind him. A nice old brier with a good long stem of what the
tobacconists call amber. I wonder how many real amber mouthpieces there
are in London? Some people think that a fly in it is a sign. Well, he
must have been disturbed in his mind to leave a pipe behind him which he
evidently values highly."

"How do you know that he values it highly?" I asked.

"Well, I should put the original cost of the pipe at seven and sixpence.
Now it has, you see, been twice mended, once in the wooden stem and once
in the amber. Each of these mends, done, as you observe, with silver
bands, must have cost more than the pipe did originally. The man must
value the pipe highly when he prefers to patch it up rather than buy a
new one with the same money."

"Anything else?" I asked, for Holmes was turning the pipe about in his
hand, and staring at it in his peculiar pensive way.

He held it up and tapped on it with his long, thin fore-finger, as a
professor might who was lecturing on a bone.

"Pipes are occasionally of extraordinary interest," said he. "Nothing
has more individuality, save perhaps watches and bootlaces. The
indications here, however, are neither very marked nor very important.
The owner is obviously a muscular man, left-handed, with an excellent
set of teeth, careless in his habits, and with no need to practise
economy."

My friend threw out the information in a very offhand way, but I saw
that he cocked his eye at me to see if I had followed his reasoning.

"You think a man must be well-to-do if he smokes a seven-shilling pipe,"
said I.

"This is Grosvenor mixture at eightpence an ounce," Holmes answered,
knocking a little out on his palm. "As he might get an excellent smoke
for half the price, he has no need to practise economy."

"And the other points?"

"He has been in the habit of lighting his pipe at lamps and gas-jets.
You can see that it is quite charred all down one side. Of course a
match could not have done that. Why should a man hold a match to the
side of his pipe? But you cannot light it at a lamp without getting the
bowl charred. And it is all on the right side of the pipe. From that I
gather that he is a left-handed man. You hold your own pipe to the lamp,
and see how naturally you, being right-handed, hold the left side to the
flame. You might do it once the other way, but not as a constancy. This
has always been held so. Then he has bitten through his amber. It takes
a muscular, energetic fellow, and one with a good set of teeth, to do
that. But if I am not mistaken I hear him upon the stair, so we shall
have something more interesting than his pipe to study."

An instant later our door opened, and a tall young man entered the room.
He was well but quietly dressed in a dark-gray suit, and carried a brown
wide-awake in his hand. I should have put him at about thirty, though he
was really some years older.

"I beg your pardon," said he, with some embarrassment; "I suppose I
should have knocked. Yes, of course I should have knocked. The fact
is that I am a little upset, and you must put it all down to that." He
passed his hand over his forehead like a man who is half dazed, and then
fell rather than sat down upon a chair.

"I can see that you have not slept for a night or two," said Holmes,
in his easy, genial way. "That tries a man's nerves more than work, and
more even than pleasure. May I ask how I can help you?"

"I wanted your advice, sir. I don't know what to do and my whole life
seems to have gone to pieces."

"You wish to employ me as a consulting detective?"

"Not that only. I want your opinion as a judicious man--as a man of the
world. I want to know what I ought to do next. I hope to God you'll be
able to tell me."

He spoke in little, sharp, jerky outbursts, and it seemed to me that to
speak at all was very painful to him, and that his will all through was
overriding his inclinations.

"It's a very delicate thing," said he. "One does not like to speak of
one's domestic affairs to strangers. It seems dreadful to discuss the
conduct of one's wife with two men whom I have never seen before. It's
horrible to have to do it. But I've got to the end of my tether, and I
must have advice."

"My dear Mr. Grant Munro--" began Holmes.

Our visitor sprang from his chair. "What!" he cried, "you know my name?"

"If you wish to preserve your incognito," said Holmes, smiling, "I would
suggest that you cease to write your name upon the lining of your
hat, or else that you turn the crown towards the person whom you are
addressing. I was about to say that my friend and I have listened to a
good many strange secrets in this room, and that we have had the good
fortune to bring peace to many troubled souls. I trust that we may do as
much for you. Might I beg you, as time may prove to be of importance, to
furnish me with the facts of your case without further delay?"

Our visitor again passed his hand over his forehead, as if he found it
bitterly hard. From every gesture and expression I could see that he was
a reserved, self-contained man, with a dash of pride in his nature, more
likely to hide his wounds than to expose them. Then suddenly, with a
fierce gesture of his closed hand, like one who throws reserve to the
winds, he began.

"The facts are these, Mr. Holmes," said he. "I am a married man, and
have been so for three years. During that time my wife and I have loved
each other as fondly and lived as happily as any two that ever were
joined. We have not had a difference, not one, in thought or word or
deed. And now, since last Monday, there has suddenly sprung up a barrier
between us, and I find that there is something in her life and in her
thought of which I know as little as if she were the woman who brushes
by me in the street. We are estranged, and I want to know why.

"Now there is one thing that I want to impress upon you before I go
any further, Mr. Holmes. Effie loves me. Don't let there be any mistake
about that. She loves me with her whole heart and soul, and never more
than now. I know it. I feel it. I don't want to argue about that. A man
can tell easily enough when a woman loves him. But there's this secret
between us, and we can never be the same until it is cleared."

"Kindly let me have the facts, Mr. Munro," said Holmes, with some
impatience.

"I'll tell you what I know about Effie's history. She was a widow when
I met her first, though quite young--only twenty-five. Her name then was
Mrs. Hebron. She went out to America when she was young, and lived in
the town of Atlanta, where she married this Hebron, who was a lawyer
with a good practice. They had one child, but the yellow fever broke out
badly in the place, and both husband and child died of it. I have seen
his death certificate. This sickened her of America, and she came back
to live with a maiden aunt at Pinner, in Middlesex. I may mention that
her husband had left her comfortably off, and that she had a capital of
about four thousand five hundred pounds, which had been so well invested
by him that it returned an average of seven per cent. She had only been
six months at Pinner when I met her; we fell in love with each other,
and we married a few weeks afterwards.

"I am a hop merchant myself, and as I have an income of seven or
eight hundred, we found ourselves comfortably off, and took a nice
eighty-pound-a-year villa at Norbury. Our little place was very
countrified, considering that it is so close to town. We had an inn and
two houses a little above us, and a single cottage at the other side of
the field which faces us, and except those there were no houses until
you got half way to the station. My business took me into town at
certain seasons, but in summer I had less to do, and then in our country
home my wife and I were just as happy as could be wished. I tell you
that there never was a shadow between us until this accursed affair
began.

"There's one thing I ought to tell you before I go further. When we
married, my wife made over all her property to me--rather against my
will, for I saw how awkward it would be if my business affairs went
wrong. However, she would have it so, and it was done. Well, about six
weeks ago she came to me.

"'Jack,' said she, 'when you took my money you said that if ever I
wanted any I was to ask you for it.'

"'Certainly,' said I. 'It's all your own.'

"'Well,' said she, 'I want a hundred pounds.'

"I was a bit staggered at this, for I had imagined it was simply a new
dress or something of the kind that she was after.

"'What on earth for?' I asked.

"'Oh,' said she, in her playful way, 'you said that you were only my
banker, and bankers never ask questions, you know.'

"'If you really mean it, of course you shall have the money,' said I.

"'Oh, yes, I really mean it.'

"'And you won't tell me what you want it for?'

"'Some day, perhaps, but not just at present, Jack.'

"So I had to be content with that, though it was the first time that
there had ever been any secret between us. I gave her a check, and I
never thought any more of the matter. It may have nothing to do with
what came afterwards, but I thought it only right to mention it.

"Well, I told you just now that there is a cottage not far from our
house. There is just a field between us, but to reach it you have to
go along the road and then turn down a lane. Just beyond it is a nice
little grove of Scotch firs, and I used to be very fond of strolling
down there, for trees are always a neighborly kind of things. The
cottage had been standing empty this eight months, and it was a pity,
for it was a pretty two-storied place, with an old-fashioned porch and
honeysuckle about it. I have stood many a time and thought what a neat
little homestead it would make.

"Well, last Monday evening I was taking a stroll down that way, when
I met an empty van coming up the lane, and saw a pile of carpets and
things lying about on the grass-plot beside the porch. It was clear that
the cottage had at last been let. I walked past it, and wondered what
sort of folk they were who had come to live so near us. And as I looked
I suddenly became aware that a face was watching me out of one of the
upper windows.

"I don't know what there was about that face, Mr. Holmes, but it seemed
to send a chill right down my back. I was some little way off, so that
I could not make out the features, but there was something unnatural and
inhuman about the face. That was the impression that I had, and I moved
quickly forwards to get a nearer view of the person who was watching
me. But as I did so the face suddenly disappeared, so suddenly that it
seemed to have been plucked away into the darkness of the room. I stood
for five minutes thinking the business over, and trying to analyze my
impressions. I could not tell if the face were that of a man or a
woman. It had been too far from me for that. But its color was what had
impressed me most. It was of a livid chalky white, and with something
set and rigid about it which was shockingly unnatural. So disturbed
was I that I determined to see a little more of the new inmates of
the cottage. I approached and knocked at the door, which was instantly
opened by a tall, gaunt woman with a harsh, forbidding face.

"'What may you be wantin'?' she asked, in a Northern accent.

"'I am your neighbor over yonder,' said I, nodding towards my house. 'I
see that you have only just moved in, so I thought that if I could be of
any help to you in any--'

"'Ay, we'll just ask ye when we want ye,' said she, and shut the door
in my face. Annoyed at the churlish rebuff, I turned my back and walked
home. All evening, though I tried to think of other things, my mind
would still turn to the apparition at the window and the rudeness of the
woman. I determined to say nothing about the former to my wife, for
she is a nervous, highly strung woman, and I had no wish that she would
share the unpleasant impression which had been produced upon myself. I
remarked to her, however, before I fell asleep, that the cottage was now
occupied, to which she returned no reply.

"I am usually an extremely sound sleeper. It has been a standing jest
in the family that nothing could ever wake me during the night. And yet
somehow on that particular night, whether it may have been the slight
excitement produced by my little adventure or not I know not, but
I slept much more lightly than usual. Half in my dreams I was dimly
conscious that something was going on in the room, and gradually became
aware that my wife had dressed herself and was slipping on her mantle
and her bonnet. My lips were parted to murmur out some sleepy words of
surprise or remonstrance at this untimely preparation, when suddenly my
half-opened eyes fell upon her face, illuminated by the candle-light,
and astonishment held me dumb. She wore an expression such as I had
never seen before--such as I should have thought her incapable of
assuming. She was deadly pale and breathing fast, glancing furtively
towards the bed as she fastened her mantle, to see if she had disturbed
me. Then, thinking that I was still asleep, she slipped noiselessly from
the room, and an instant later I heard a sharp creaking which could only
come from the hinges of the front door. I sat up in bed and rapped my
knuckles against the rail to make certain that I was truly awake. Then
I took my watch from under the pillow. It was three in the morning. What
on this earth could my wife be doing out on the country road at three in
the morning?

"I had sat for about twenty minutes turning the thing over in my mind
and trying to find some possible explanation. The more I thought, the
more extraordinary and inexplicable did it appear. I was still puzzling
over it when I heard the door gently close again, and her footsteps
coming up the stairs.

"'Where in the world have you been, Effie?' I asked as she entered.

"She gave a violent start and a kind of gasping cry when I spoke, and
that cry and start troubled me more than all the rest, for there was
something indescribably guilty about them. My wife had always been
a woman of a frank, open nature, and it gave me a chill to see her
slinking into her own room, and crying out and wincing when her own
husband spoke to her.

"'You awake, Jack!' she cried, with a nervous laugh. 'Why, I thought
that nothing could awake you.'

"'Where have you been?' I asked, more sternly.

"'I don't wonder that you are surprised,' said she, and I could see that
her fingers were trembling as she undid the fastenings of her mantle.
'Why, I never remember having done such a thing in my life before. The
fact is that I felt as though I were choking, and had a perfect longing
for a breath of fresh air. I really think that I should have fainted if
I had not gone out. I stood at the door for a few minutes, and now I am
quite myself again.'

"All the time that she was telling me this story she never once looked
in my direction, and her voice was quite unlike her usual tones. It
was evident to me that she was saying what was false. I said nothing
in reply, but turned my face to the wall, sick at heart, with my mind
filled with a thousand venomous doubts and suspicions. What was it that
my wife was concealing from me? Where had she been during that strange
expedition? I felt that I should have no peace until I knew, and yet I
shrank from asking her again after once she had told me what was false.
All the rest of the night I tossed and tumbled, framing theory after
theory, each more unlikely than the last.

"I should have gone to the City that day, but I was too disturbed in my
mind to be able to pay attention to business matters. My wife seemed
to be as upset as myself, and I could see from the little questioning
glances which she kept shooting at me that she understood that I
disbelieved her statement, and that she was at her wits' end what to do.
We hardly exchanged a word during breakfast, and immediately afterwards
I went out for a walk, that I might think the matter out in the fresh
morning air.

"I went as far as the Crystal Palace, spent an hour in the grounds, and
was back in Norbury by one o'clock. It happened that my way took me past
the cottage, and I stopped for an instant to look at the windows, and to
see if I could catch a glimpse of the strange face which had looked
out at me on the day before. As I stood there, imagine my surprise, Mr.
Holmes, when the door suddenly opened and my wife walked out.

"I was struck dumb with astonishment at the sight of her; but my
emotions were nothing to those which showed themselves upon her face
when our eyes met. She seemed for an instant to wish to shrink back
inside the house again; and then, seeing how useless all concealment
must be, she came forward, with a very white face and frightened eyes
which belied the smile upon her lips.

"'Ah, Jack,' she said, 'I have just been in to see if I can be of any
assistance to our new neighbors. Why do you look at me like that, Jack?
You are not angry with me?'

"'So,' said I, 'this is where you went during the night.'

"'What do you mean?' she cried.

"'You came here. I am sure of it. Who are these people, that you should
visit them at such an hour?'

"'I have not been here before.'

"'How can you tell me what you know is false?' I cried. 'Your very voice
changes as you speak. When have I ever had a secret from you? I shall
enter that cottage, and I shall probe the matter to the bottom.'

"'No, no, Jack, for God's sake!' she gasped, in uncontrollable emotion.
Then, as I approached the door, she seized my sleeve and pulled me back
with convulsive strength.

"'I implore you not to do this, Jack,' she cried. 'I swear that I will
tell you everything some day, but nothing but misery can come of it if
you enter that cottage.' Then, as I tried to shake her off, she clung to
me in a frenzy of entreaty.

"'Trust me, Jack!' she cried. 'Trust me only this once. You will never
have cause to regret it. You know that I would not have a secret from
you if it were not for your own sake. Our whole lives are at stake in
this. If you come home with me, all will be well. If you force your way
into that cottage, all is over between us.'

"There was such earnestness, such despair, in her manner that her words
arrested me, and I stood irresolute before the door.

"'I will trust you on one condition, and on one condition only,' said I
at last. 'It is that this mystery comes to an end from now. You are
at liberty to preserve your secret, but you must promise me that there
shall be no more nightly visits, no more doings which are kept from my
knowledge. I am willing to forget those which are passed if you will
promise that there shall be no more in the future.'

"'I was sure that you would trust me,' she cried, with a great sigh of
relief. 'It shall be just as you wish. Come away--oh, come away up to
the house.'

"Still pulling at my sleeve, she led me away from the cottage. As we
went I glanced back, and there was that yellow livid face watching us
out of the upper window. What link could there be between that creature
and my wife? Or how could the coarse, rough woman whom I had seen the
day before be connected with her? It was a strange puzzle, and yet I
knew that my mind could never know ease again until I had solved it.

"For two days after this I stayed at home, and my wife appeared to abide
loyally by our engagement, for, as far as I know, she never stirred out
of the house. On the third day, however, I had ample evidence that
her solemn promise was not enough to hold her back from this secret
influence which drew her away from her husband and her duty.

"I had gone into town on that day, but I returned by the 2.40 instead of
the 3.36, which is my usual train. As I entered the house the maid ran
into the hall with a startled face.

"'Where is your mistress?' I asked.

"'I think that she has gone out for a walk,' she answered.

"My mind was instantly filled with suspicion. I rushed upstairs to make
sure that she was not in the house. As I did so I happened to glance out
of one of the upper windows, and saw the maid with whom I had just been
speaking running across the field in the direction of the cottage. Then
of course I saw exactly what it all meant. My wife had gone over there,
and had asked the servant to call her if I should return. Tingling with
anger, I rushed down and hurried across, determined to end the matter
once and forever. I saw my wife and the maid hurrying back along the
lane, but I did not stop to speak with them. In the cottage lay the
secret which was casting a shadow over my life. I vowed that, come what
might, it should be a secret no longer. I did not even knock when I
reached it, but turned the handle and rushed into the passage.

"It was all still and quiet upon the ground floor. In the kitchen a
kettle was singing on the fire, and a large black cat lay coiled up in
the basket; but there was no sign of the woman whom I had seen before.
I ran into the other room, but it was equally deserted. Then I rushed up
the stairs, only to find two other rooms empty and deserted at the top.
There was no one at all in the whole house. The furniture and pictures
were of the most common and vulgar description, save in the one chamber
at the window of which I had seen the strange face. That was comfortable
and elegant, and all my suspicions rose into a fierce bitter flame when
I saw that on the mantelpiece stood a copy of a full-length photograph
of my wife, which had been taken at my request only three months ago.

"I stayed long enough to make certain that the house was absolutely
empty. Then I left it, feeling a weight at my heart such as I had never
had before. My wife came out into the hall as I entered my house; but I
was too hurt and angry to speak with her, and pushing past her, I made
my way into my study. She followed me, however, before I could close the
door.

"'I am sorry that I broke my promise, Jack,' said she; 'but if you knew
all the circumstances I am sure that you would forgive me.'

"'Tell me everything, then,' said I.

"'I cannot, Jack, I cannot,' she cried.

"'Until you tell me who it is that has been living in that cottage, and
who it is to whom you have given that photograph, there can never be any
confidence between us,' said I, and breaking away from her, I left the
house. That was yesterday, Mr. Holmes, and I have not seen her since,
nor do I know anything more about this strange business. It is the first
shadow that has come between us, and it has so shaken me that I do not
know what I should do for the best. Suddenly this morning it occurred to
me that you were the man to advise me, so I have hurried to you now, and
I place myself unreservedly in your hands. If there is any point which I
have not made clear, pray question me about it. But, above all, tell me
quickly what I am to do, for this misery is more than I can bear."

Holmes and I had listened with the utmost interest to this extraordinary
statement, which had been delivered in the jerky, broken fashion of a
man who is under the influence of extreme emotions. My companion sat
silent for some time, with his chin upon his hand, lost in thought.

"Tell me," said he at last, "could you swear that this was a man's face
which you saw at the window?"

"Each time that I saw it I was some distance away from it, so that it is
impossible for me to say."

"You appear, however, to have been disagreeably impressed by it."

"It seemed to be of an unnatural color, and to have a strange rigidity
about the features. When I approached, it vanished with a jerk."

"How long is it since your wife asked you for a hundred pounds?"

"Nearly two months."

"Have you ever seen a photograph of her first husband?"

"No; there was a great fire at Atlanta very shortly after his death, and
all her papers were destroyed."

"And yet she had a certificate of death. You say that you saw it."

"Yes; she got a duplicate after the fire."

"Did you ever meet any one who knew her in America?"

"No."

"Did she ever talk of revisiting the place?"

"No."

"Or get letters from it?"

"No."

"Thank you. I should like to think over the matter a little now. If the
cottage is now permanently deserted we may have some difficulty. If, on
the other hand, as I fancy is more likely, the inmates were warned of
your coming, and left before you entered yesterday, then they may be
back now, and we should clear it all up easily. Let me advise you, then,
to return to Norbury, and to examine the windows of the cottage again.
If you have reason to believe that it is inhabited, do not force your
way in, but send a wire to my friend and me. We shall be with you within
an hour of receiving it, and we shall then very soon get to the bottom
of the business."

"And if it is still empty?"

"In that case I shall come out to-morrow and talk it over with you.
Good-by; and, above all, do not fret until you know that you really have
a cause for it."

"I am afraid that this is a bad business, Watson," said my companion, as
he returned after accompanying Mr. Grant Munro to the door. "What do you
make of it?"

"It had an ugly sound," I answered.

"Yes. There's blackmail in it, or I am much mistaken."

"And who is the blackmailer?"

"Well, it must be the creature who lives in the only comfortable room
in the place, and has her photograph above his fireplace. Upon my word,
Watson, there is something very attractive about that livid face at the
window, and I would not have missed the case for worlds."

"You have a theory?"

"Yes, a provisional one. But I shall be surprised if it does not turn
out to be correct. This woman's first husband is in that cottage."

"Why do you think so?"

"How else can we explain her frenzied anxiety that her second one should
not enter it? The facts, as I read them, are something like this:
This woman was married in America. Her husband developed some hateful
qualities; or shall we say that he contracted some loathsome disease,
and became a leper or an imbecile? She flies from him at last, returns
to England, changes her name, and starts her life, as she thinks,
afresh. She has been married three years, and believes that her position
is quite secure, having shown her husband the death certificate of
some man whose name she has assumed, when suddenly her whereabouts
is discovered by her first husband; or, we may suppose, by some
unscrupulous woman who has attached herself to the invalid. They write
to the wife, and threaten to come and expose her. She asks for a hundred
pounds, and endeavors to buy them off. They come in spite of it, and
when the husband mentions casually to the wife that there are new-comers
in the cottage, she knows in some way that they are her pursuers. She
waits until her husband is asleep, and then she rushes down to endeavor
to persuade them to leave her in peace. Having no success, she goes
again next morning, and her husband meets her, as he has told us, as
she comes out. She promises him then not to go there again, but two days
afterwards the hope of getting rid of those dreadful neighbors was too
strong for her, and she made another attempt, taking down with her the
photograph which had probably been demanded from her. In the midst of
this interview the maid rushed in to say that the master had come home,
on which the wife, knowing that he would come straight down to the
cottage, hurried the inmates out at the back door, into the grove of
fir-trees, probably, which was mentioned as standing near. In this way
he found the place deserted. I shall be very much surprised, however, if
it is still so when he reconnoitres it this evening. What do you think
of my theory?"

"It is all surmise."

"But at least it covers all the facts. When new facts come to our
knowledge which cannot be covered by it, it will be time enough to
reconsider it. We can do nothing more until we have a message from our
friend at Norbury."

But we had not a very long time to wait for that. It came just as we had
finished our tea. "The cottage is still tenanted," it said. "Have seen
the face again at the window. Will meet the seven o'clock train, and
will take no steps until you arrive."


He was waiting on the platform when we stepped out, and we could see in
the light of the station lamps that he was very pale, and quivering with
agitation.

"They are still there, Mr. Holmes," said he, laying his hand hard upon
my friend's sleeve. "I saw lights in the cottage as I came down. We
shall settle it now once and for all."

"What is your plan, then?" asked Holmes, as he walked down the dark
tree-lined road.

"I am going to force my way in and see for myself who is in the house. I
wish you both to be there as witnesses."

"You are quite determined to do this, in spite of your wife's warning
that it is better that you should not solve the mystery?"

"Yes, I am determined."

"Well, I think that you are in the right. Any truth is better than
indefinite doubt. We had better go up at once. Of course, legally, we
are putting ourselves hopelessly in the wrong; but I think that it is
worth it."

It was a very dark night, and a thin rain began to fall as we turned
from the high road into a narrow lane, deeply rutted, with hedges on
either side. Mr. Grant Munro pushed impatiently forward, however, and we
stumbled after him as best we could.

"There are the lights of my house," he murmured, pointing to a glimmer
among the trees. "And here is the cottage which I am going to enter."

We turned a corner in the lane as he spoke, and there was the building
close beside us. A yellow bar falling across the black foreground showed
that the door was not quite closed, and one window in the upper story
was brightly illuminated. As we looked, we saw a dark blur moving across
the blind.

"There is that creature!" cried Grant Munro. "You can see for yourselves
that some one is there. Now follow me, and we shall soon know all."

We approached the door; but suddenly a woman appeared out of the shadow
and stood in the golden track of the lamp-light. I could not see her
face in the darkness, but her arms were thrown out in an attitude of
entreaty.

"For God's sake, don't Jack!" she cried. "I had a presentiment that you
would come this evening. Think better of it, dear! Trust me again, and
you will never have cause to regret it."

"I have trusted you too long, Effie," he cried, sternly. "Leave go of
me! I must pass you. My friends and I are going to settle this matter
once and forever!" He pushed her to one side, and we followed closely
after him. As he threw the door open an old woman ran out in front of
him and tried to bar his passage, but he thrust her back, and an instant
afterwards we were all upon the stairs. Grant Munro rushed into the
lighted room at the top, and we entered at his heels.

It was a cosey, well-furnished apartment, with two candles burning upon
the table and two upon the mantelpiece. In the corner, stooping over a
desk, there sat what appeared to be a little girl. Her face was turned
away as we entered, but we could see that she was dressed in a red
frock, and that she had long white gloves on. As she whisked round
to us, I gave a cry of surprise and horror. The face which she turned
towards us was of the strangest livid tint, and the features were
absolutely devoid of any expression. An instant later the mystery was
explained. Holmes, with a laugh, passed his hand behind the child's
ear, a mask peeled off from her countenance, and there was a little coal
black negress, with all her white teeth flashing in amusement at our
amazed faces. I burst out laughing, out of sympathy with her merriment;
but Grant Munro stood staring, with his hand clutching his throat.

"My God!" he cried. "What can be the meaning of this?"

"I will tell you the meaning of it," cried the lady, sweeping into
the room with a proud, set face. "You have forced me, against my own
judgment, to tell you, and now we must both make the best of it. My
husband died at Atlanta. My child survived."

"Your child?"

She drew a large silver locket from her bosom. "You have never seen this
open."

"I understood that it did not open."

She touched a spring, and the front hinged back. There was a portrait
within of a man strikingly handsome and intelligent-looking, but bearing
unmistakable signs upon his features of his African descent.

"That is John Hebron, of Atlanta," said the lady, "and a nobler man
never walked the earth. I cut myself off from my race in order to wed
him, but never once while he lived did I for an instant regret it. It
was our misfortune that our only child took after his people rather than
mine. It is often so in such matches, and little Lucy is darker far than
ever her father was. But dark or fair, she is my own dear little girlie,
and her mother's pet." The little creature ran across at the words and
nestled up against the lady's dress. "When I left her in America," she
continued, "it was only because her health was weak, and the change
might have done her harm. She was given to the care of a faithful Scotch
woman who had once been our servant. Never for an instant did I dream
of disowning her as my child. But when chance threw you in my way, Jack,
and I learned to love you, I feared to tell you about my child. God
forgive me, I feared that I should lose you, and I had not the courage
to tell you. I had to choose between you, and in my weakness I turned
away from my own little girl. For three years I have kept her existence
a secret from you, but I heard from the nurse, and I knew that all was
well with her. At last, however, there came an overwhelming desire to
see the child once more. I struggled against it, but in vain. Though I
knew the danger, I determined to have the child over, if it were but
for a few weeks. I sent a hundred pounds to the nurse, and I gave her
instructions about this cottage, so that she might come as a neighbor,
without my appearing to be in any way connected with her. I pushed my
precautions so far as to order her to keep the child in the house during
the daytime, and to cover up her little face and hands so that even
those who might see her at the window should not gossip about there
being a black child in the neighborhood. If I had been less cautious
I might have been more wise, but I was half crazy with fear that you
should learn the truth.

"It was you who told me first that the cottage was occupied. I should
have waited for the morning, but I could not sleep for excitement, and
so at last I slipped out, knowing how difficult it is to awake you. But
you saw me go, and that was the beginning of my troubles. Next day you
had my secret at your mercy, but you nobly refrained from pursuing your
advantage. Three days later, however, the nurse and child only just
escaped from the back door as you rushed in at the front one. And now
to-night you at last know all, and I ask you what is to become of us, my
child and me?" She clasped her hands and waited for an answer.

It was a long ten minutes before Grant Munro broke the silence, and
when his answer came it was one of which I love to think. He lifted
the little child, kissed her, and then, still carrying her, he held his
other hand out to his wife and turned towards the door.

"We can talk it over more comfortably at home," said he. "I am not a
very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you have
given me credit for being."

Holmes and I followed them down the lane, and my friend plucked at my
sleeve as we came out.

"I think," said he, "that we shall be of more use in London than in
Norbury."

Not another word did he say of the case until late that night, when he
was turning away, with his lighted candle, for his bedroom.

"Watson," said he, "if it should ever strike you that I am getting a
little over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case
than it deserves, kindly whisper 'Norbury' in my ear, and I shall be
infinitely obliged to you."




Adventure III. The Stock-Broker's Clerk


Shortly after my marriage I had bought a connection in the Paddington
district. Old Mr. Farquhar, from whom I purchased it, had at one time an
excellent general practice; but his age, and an affliction of the nature
of St. Vitus's dance from which he suffered, had very much thinned it.
The public not unnaturally goes on the principle that he who would heal
others must himself be whole, and looks askance at the curative powers
of the man whose own case is beyond the reach of his drugs. Thus as my
predecessor weakened his practice declined, until when I purchased
it from him it had sunk from twelve hundred to little more than three
hundred a year. I had confidence, however, in my own youth and energy,
and was convinced that in a very few years the concern would be as
flourishing as ever.

For three months after taking over the practice I was kept very closely
at work, and saw little of my friend Sherlock Holmes, for I was too busy
to visit Baker Street, and he seldom went anywhere himself save upon
professional business. I was surprised, therefore, when, one morning in
June, as I sat reading the British Medical Journal after breakfast, I
heard a ring at the bell, followed by the high, somewhat strident tones
of my old companion's voice.

"Ah, my dear Watson," said he, striding into the room, "I am very
delighted to see you! I trust that Mrs. Watson has entirely recovered
from all the little excitements connected with our adventure of the Sign
of Four."

"Thank you, we are both very well," said I, shaking him warmly by the
hand.

"And I hope, also," he continued, sitting down in the rocking-chair,
"that the cares of medical practice have not entirely obliterated the
interest which you used to take in our little deductive problems."

"On the contrary," I answered, "it was only last night that I was
looking over my old notes, and classifying some of our past results."

"I trust that you don't consider your collection closed."

"Not at all. I should wish nothing better than to have some more of such
experiences."

"To-day, for example?"

"Yes, to-day, if you like."

"And as far off as Birmingham?"

"Certainly, if you wish it."

"And the practice?"

"I do my neighbor's when he goes. He is always ready to work off the
debt."

"Ha! Nothing could be better," said Holmes, leaning back in his chair
and looking keenly at me from under his half closed lids. "I perceive
that you have been unwell lately. Summer colds are always a little
trying."

"I was confined to the house by a severe chill for three days last week.
I thought, however, that I had cast off every trace of it."

"So you have. You look remarkably robust."

"How, then, did you know of it?"

"My dear fellow, you know my methods."

"You deduced it, then?"

"Certainly."

"And from what?"

"From your slippers."

I glanced down at the new patent leathers which I was wearing. "How on
earth--" I began, but Holmes answered my question before it was asked.

"Your slippers are new," he said. "You could not have had them more than
a few weeks. The soles which you are at this moment presenting to me are
slightly scorched. For a moment I thought they might have got wet and
been burned in the drying. But near the instep there is a small circular
wafer of paper with the shopman's hieroglyphics upon it. Damp would of
course have removed this. You had, then, been sitting with your feet
outstretched to the fire, which a man would hardly do even in so wet a
June as this if he were in his full health."

Like all Holmes's reasoning the thing seemed simplicity itself when it
was once explained. He read the thought upon my features, and his smile
had a tinge of bitterness.

"I am afraid that I rather give myself away when I explain," said he.
"Results without causes are much more impressive. You are ready to come
to Birmingham, then?"

"Certainly. What is the case?"

"You shall hear it all in the train. My client is outside in a
four-wheeler. Can you come at once?"

"In an instant." I scribbled a note to my neighbor, rushed upstairs to
explain the matter to my wife, and joined Holmes upon the door-step.

"Your neighbor is a doctor," said he, nodding at the brass plate.

"Yes; he bought a practice as I did."

"An old-established one?"

"Just the same as mine. Both have been ever since the houses were
built."

"Ah! Then you got hold of the best of the two."

"I think I did. But how do you know?"

"By the steps, my boy. Yours are worn three inches deeper than his. But
this gentleman in the cab is my client, Mr. Hall Pycroft. Allow me to
introduce you to him. Whip your horse up, cabby, for we have only just
time to catch our train."

The man whom I found myself facing was a well built, fresh-complexioned
young fellow, with a frank, honest face and a slight, crisp, yellow
mustache. He wore a very shiny top hat and a neat suit of sober black,
which made him look what he was--a smart young City man, of the class
who have been labeled cockneys, but who give us our crack volunteer
regiments, and who turn out more fine athletes and sportsmen than any
body of men in these islands. His round, ruddy face was naturally full
of cheeriness, but the corners of his mouth seemed to me to be pulled
down in a half-comical distress. It was not, however, until we were
all in a first-class carriage and well started upon our journey to
Birmingham that I was able to learn what the trouble was which had
driven him to Sherlock Holmes.

"We have a clear run here of seventy minutes," Holmes remarked. "I
want you, Mr. Hall Pycroft, to tell my friend your very interesting
experience exactly as you have told it to me, or with more detail if
possible. It will be of use to me to hear the succession of events
again. It is a case, Watson, which may prove to have something in it, or
may prove to have nothing, but which, at least, presents those unusual
and outré features which are as dear to you as they are to me. Now, Mr.
Pycroft, I shall not interrupt you again."

Our young companion looked at me with a twinkle in his eye.

"The worst of the story is," said he, "that I show myself up as such a
confounded fool. Of course it may work out all right, and I don't see
that I could have done otherwise; but if I have lost my crib and get
nothing in exchange I shall feel what a soft Johnnie I have been. I'm
not very good at telling a story, Dr. Watson, but it is like this with
me:

"I used to have a billet at Coxon & Woodhouse's, of Draper's Gardens,
but they were let in early in the spring through the Venezuelan loan,
as no doubt you remember, and came a nasty cropper. I had been with them
five years, and old Coxon gave me a ripping good testimonial when
the smash came, but of course we clerks were all turned adrift, the
twenty-seven of us. I tried here and tried there, but there were lots of
other chaps on the same lay as myself, and it was a perfect frost for a
long time. I had been taking three pounds a week at Coxon's, and I had
saved about seventy of them, but I soon worked my way through that and
out at the other end. I was fairly at the end of my tether at last,
and could hardly find the stamps to answer the advertisements or the
envelopes to stick them to. I had worn out my boots paddling up office
stairs, and I seemed just as far from getting a billet as ever.

"At last I saw a vacancy at Mawson & Williams's, the great stock-broking
firm in Lombard Street. I dare say E. C. Is not much in your line, but
I can tell you that this is about the richest house in London.
The advertisement was to be answered by letter only. I sent in my
testimonial and application, but without the least hope of getting it.
Back came an answer by return, saying that if I would appear next Monday
I might take over my new duties at once, provided that my appearance was
satisfactory. No one knows how these things are worked. Some people say
that the manager just plunges his hand into the heap and takes the first
that comes. Anyhow it was my innings that time, and I don't ever wish to
feel better pleased. The screw was a pound a week rise, and the duties
just about the same as at Coxon's.

"And now I come to the queer part of the business. I was in diggings out
Hampstead way, 17 Potter's Terrace. Well, I was sitting doing a smoke
that very evening after I had been promised the appointment, when up
came my landlady with a card which had 'Arthur Pinner, Financial Agent,'
printed upon it. I had never heard the name before and could not imagine
what he wanted with me; but, of course, I asked her to show him up. In
he walked, a middle-sized, dark-haired, dark-eyed, black-bearded man,
with a touch of the Sheeny about his nose. He had a brisk kind of way
with him and spoke sharply, like a man who knew the value of time."

"'Mr. Hall Pycroft, I believe?'" said he.

"'Yes, sir,' I answered, pushing a chair towards him.

"'Lately engaged at Coxon & Woodhouse's?'

"'Yes, sir.'

"'And now on the staff of Mawson's.'

"'Quite so.'

"'Well,' said he, 'the fact is that I have heard some really
extraordinary stories about your financial ability. You remember Parker,
who used to be Coxon's manager? He can never say enough about it.'

"Of course I was pleased to hear this. I had always been pretty sharp in
the office, but I had never dreamed that I was talked about in the City
in this fashion.

"'You have a good memory?' said he.

"'Pretty fair,' I answered, modestly.

"'Have you kept in touch with the market while you have been out of
work?' he asked.

"'Yes. I read the stock exchange list every morning.'

"'Now that shows real application!' he cried. 'That is the way to
prosper! You won't mind my testing you, will you? Let me see. How are
Ayrshires?'

"'A hundred and six and a quarter to a hundred and five and
seven-eighths.'

"'And New Zealand consolidated?'

"'A hundred and four.

"'And British Broken Hills?'

"'Seven to seven-and-six.'

"'Wonderful!' he cried, with his hands up. 'This quite fits in with all
that I had heard. My boy, my boy, you are very much too good to be a
clerk at Mawson's!'

"This outburst rather astonished me, as you can think. 'Well,' said I,
'other people don't think quite so much of me as you seem to do, Mr.
Pinner. I had a hard enough fight to get this berth, and I am very glad
to have it.'

"'Pooh, man; you should soar above it. You are not in your true sphere.
Now, I'll tell you how it stands with me. What I have to offer is little
enough when measured by your ability, but when compared with Mawson's,
it's light to dark. Let me see. When do you go to Mawson's?'

"'On Monday.'

"'Ha, ha! I think I would risk a little sporting flutter that you don't
go there at all.'

"'Not go to Mawson's?'

"'No, sir. By that day you will be the business manager of the
Franco-Midland Hardware Company, Limited, with a hundred and thirty-four
branches in the towns and villages of France, not counting one in
Brussels and one in San Remo.'

"This took my breath away. 'I never heard of it,' said I.

"'Very likely not. It has been kept very quiet, for the capital was all
privately subscribed, and it's too good a thing to let the public
into. My brother, Harry Pinner, is promoter, and joins the board after
allotment as managing director. He knew I was in the swim down here, and
asked me to pick up a good man cheap. A young, pushing man with plenty
of snap about him. Parker spoke of you, and that brought me here
to-night. We can only offer you a beggarly five hundred to start with.'

"'Five hundred a year!' I shouted.

"'Only that at the beginning; but you are to have an overriding
commission of one per cent on all business done by your agents, and you
may take my word for it that this will come to more than your salary.'

"'But I know nothing about hardware.'

"'Tut, my boy; you know about figures.'

"My head buzzed, and I could hardly sit still in my chair. But suddenly
a little chill of doubt came upon me.

"'I must be frank with you,' said I. 'Mawson only gives me two hundred,
but Mawson is safe. Now, really, I know so little about your company
that--'

"'Ah, smart, smart!' he cried, in a kind of ecstasy of delight. 'You
are the very man for us. You are not to be talked over, and quite right,
too. Now, here's a note for a hundred pounds, and if you think that we
can do business you may just slip it into your pocket as an advance upon
your salary.'

"'That is very handsome,' said I. 'When should I take over my new
duties?'

"'Be in Birmingham to-morrow at one,' said he. 'I have a note in my
pocket here which you will take to my brother. You will find him at
126b Corporation Street, where the temporary offices of the company
are situated. Of course he must confirm your engagement, but between
ourselves it will be all right.'

"'Really, I hardly know how to express my gratitude, Mr. Pinner,' said
I.

"'Not at all, my boy. You have only got your deserts. There are one or
two small things--mere formalities--which I must arrange with you.
You have a bit of paper beside you there. Kindly write upon it "I am
perfectly willing to act as business manager to the Franco-Midland
Hardware Company, Limited, at a minimum salary of L500."'

"I did as he asked, and he put the paper in his pocket.

"'There is one other detail,' said he. 'What do you intend to do about
Mawson's?'

"I had forgotten all about Mawson's in my joy. 'I'll write and resign,'
said I.

"'Precisely what I don't want you to do. I had a row over you with
Mawson's manager. I had gone up to ask him about you, and he was very
offensive; accused me of coaxing you away from the service of the firm,
and that sort of thing. At last I fairly lost my temper. "If you want
good men you should pay them a good price," said I.'

"'He would rather have our small price than your big one,' said he.

"'I'll lay you a fiver,' said I, 'that when he has my offer you'll never
so much as hear from him again.'

"'Done!' said he. 'We picked him out of the gutter, and he won't leave
us so easily.' Those were his very words."

"'The impudent scoundrel!' I cried. 'I've never so much as seen him in
my life. Why should I consider him in any way? I shall certainly not
write if you would rather I didn't.'

"'Good! That's a promise,' said he, rising from his chair. 'Well, I'm
delighted to have got so good a man for my brother. Here's your advance
of a hundred pounds, and here is the letter. Make a note of the address,
126b Corporation Street, and remember that one o'clock to-morrow is
your appointment. Good-night; and may you have all the fortune that you
deserve!'

"That's just about all that passed between us, as near as I can
remember. You can imagine, Dr. Watson, how pleased I was at such an
extraordinary bit of good fortune. I sat up half the night hugging
myself over it, and next day I was off to Birmingham in a train that
would take me in plenty time for my appointment. I took my things to
a hotel in New Street, and then I made my way to the address which had
been given me.

"It was a quarter of an hour before my time, but I thought that would
make no difference. 126b was a passage between two large shops, which
led to a winding stone stair, from which there were many flats, let as
offices to companies or professional men. The names of the occupants
were painted at the bottom on the wall, but there was no such name as
the Franco-Midland Hardware Company, Limited. I stood for a few minutes
with my heart in my boots, wondering whether the whole thing was an
elaborate hoax or not, when up came a man and addressed me. He was very
like the chap I had seen the night before, the same figure and voice,
but he was clean shaven and his hair was lighter.

"'Are you Mr. Hall Pycroft?' he asked.

"'Yes,' said I.

"'Oh! I was expecting you, but you are a trifle before your time. I had
a note from my brother this morning in which he sang your praises very
loudly.'

"'I was just looking for the offices when you came.

"'We have not got our name up yet, for we only secured these temporary
premises last week. Come up with me, and we will talk the matter over.'

"I followed him to the top of a very lofty stair, and there, right under
the slates, were a couple of empty, dusty little rooms, uncarpeted and
uncurtained, into which he led me. I had thought of a great office with
shining tables and rows of clerks, such as I was used to, and I dare say
I stared rather straight at the two deal chairs and one little table,
which, with a ledger and a waste paper basket, made up the whole
furniture.

"'Don't be disheartened, Mr. Pycroft,' said my new acquaintance, seeing
the length of my face. 'Rome was not built in a day, and we have lots of
money at our backs, though we don't cut much dash yet in offices. Pray
sit down, and let me have your letter.'

"I gave it to him, and he read it over very carefully.

"'You seem to have made a vast impression upon my brother Arthur,' said
he; 'and I know that he is a pretty shrewd judge. He swears by London,
you know; and I by Birmingham; but this time I shall follow his advice.
Pray consider yourself definitely engaged."

"'What are my duties?' I asked.

"'You will eventually manage the great depot in Paris, which will pour
a flood of English crockery into the shops of a hundred and thirty-four
agents in France. The purchase will be completed in a week, and
meanwhile you will remain in Birmingham and make yourself useful.'

"'How?'

"For answer, he took a big red book out of a drawer.

"'This is a directory of Paris,' said he, 'with the trades after the
names of the people. I want you to take it home with you, and to mark
off all the hardware sellers, with their addresses. It would be of the
greatest use to me to have them.'

"'Surely there are classified lists?' I suggested.

"'Not reliable ones. Their system is different from ours. Stick at it,
and let me have the lists by Monday, at twelve. Good-day, Mr. Pycroft.
If you continue to show zeal and intelligence you will find the company
a good master.'

"I went back to the hotel with the big book under my arm, and with very
conflicting feelings in my breast. On the one hand, I was definitely
engaged and had a hundred pounds in my pocket; on the other, the look
of the offices, the absence of name on the wall, and other of the points
which would strike a business man had left a bad impression as to the
position of my employers. However, come what might, I had my money, so I
settled down to my task. All Sunday I was kept hard at work, and yet by
Monday I had only got as far as H. I went round to my employer, found
him in the same dismantled kind of room, and was told to keep at
it until Wednesday, and then come again. On Wednesday it was still
unfinished, so I hammered away until Friday--that is, yesterday. Then I
brought it round to Mr. Harry Pinner.

"'Thank you very much,' said he; 'I fear that I underrated the
difficulty of the task. This list will be of very material assistance to
me.'

"'It took some time,' said I.

"'And now,' said he, 'I want you to make a list of the furniture shops,
for they all sell crockery.'

"'Very good.'

"'And you can come up to-morrow evening, at seven, and let me know how
you are getting on. Don't overwork yourself. A couple of hours at Day's
Music Hall in the evening would do you no harm after your labors.' He
laughed as he spoke, and I saw with a thrill that his second tooth upon
the left-hand side had been very badly stuffed with gold."


Sherlock Holmes rubbed his hands with delight, and I stared with
astonishment at our client.

"You may well look surprised, Dr. Watson; but it is this way," said he:
"When I was speaking to the other chap in London, at the time that he
laughed at my not going to Mawson's, I happened to notice that his tooth
was stuffed in this very identical fashion. The glint of the gold in
each case caught my eye, you see. When I put that with the voice and
figure being the same, and only those things altered which might be
changed by a razor or a wig, I could not doubt that it was the same man.
Of course you expect two brothers to be alike, but not that they should
have the same tooth stuffed in the same way. He bowed me out, and I
found myself in the street, hardly knowing whether I was on my head or
my heels. Back I went to my hotel, put my head in a basin of cold water,
and tried to think it out. Why had he sent me from London to Birmingham?
Why had he got there before me? And why had he written a letter from
himself to himself? It was altogether too much for me, and I could make
no sense of it. And then suddenly it struck me that what was dark to me
might be very light to Mr. Sherlock Holmes. I had just time to get up to
town by the night train to see him this morning, and to bring you both
back with me to Birmingham."

There was a pause after the stock-broker's clerk had concluded his
surprising experience. Then Sherlock Holmes cocked his eye at me,
leaning back on the cushions with a pleased and yet critical face, like
a connoisseur who has just taken his first sip of a comet vintage.

"Rather fine, Watson, is it not?" said he. "There are points in it which
please me. I think that you will agree with me that an interview with
Mr. Arthur Harry Pinner in the temporary offices of the Franco-Midland
Hardware Company, Limited, would be a rather interesting experience for
both of us."

"But how can we do it?" I asked.

"Oh, easily enough," said Hall Pycroft, cheerily. "You are two friends
of mine who are in want of a billet, and what could be more natural than
that I should bring you both round to the managing director?"

"Quite so, of course," said Holmes. "I should like to have a look at
the gentleman, and see if I can make anything of his little game.
What qualities have you, my friend, which would make your services
so valuable? or is it possible that--" He began biting his nails and
staring blankly out of the window, and we hardly drew another word from
him until we were in New Street.

At seven o'clock that evening we were walking, the three of us, down
Corporation Street to the company's offices.

"It is no use our being at all before our time," said our client. "He
only comes there to see me, apparently, for the place is deserted up to
the very hour he names."

"That is suggestive," remarked Holmes.

"By Jove, I told you so!" cried the clerk. "That's he walking ahead of
us there."

He pointed to a smallish, dark, well-dressed man who was bustling along
the other side of the road. As we watched him he looked across at a boy
who was bawling out the latest edition of the evening paper, and running
over among the cabs and busses, he bought one from him. Then, clutching
it in his hand, he vanished through a door-way.

"There he goes!" cried Hall Pycroft. "These are the company's offices
into which he has gone. Come with me, and I'll fix it up as easily as
possible."

Following his lead, we ascended five stories, until we found ourselves
outside a half-opened door, at which our client tapped. A voice within
bade us enter, and we entered a bare, unfurnished room such as Hall
Pycroft had described. At the single table sat the man whom we had seen
in the street, with his evening paper spread out in front of him, and as
he looked up at us it seemed to me that I had never looked upon a face
which bore such marks of grief, and of something beyond grief--of a
horror such as comes to few men in a lifetime. His brow glistened with
perspiration, his cheeks were of the dull, dead white of a fish's belly,
and his eyes were wild and staring. He looked at his clerk as though he
failed to recognize him, and I could see by the astonishment depicted
upon our conductor's face that this was by no means the usual appearance
of his employer.

"You look ill, Mr. Pinner!" he exclaimed.

"Yes, I am not very well," answered the other, making obvious efforts
to pull himself together, and licking his dry lips before he spoke. "Who
are these gentlemen whom you have brought with you?"

"One is Mr. Harris, of Bermondsey, and the other is Mr. Price, of this
town," said our clerk, glibly. "They are friends of mine and gentlemen
of experience, but they have been out of a place for some little time,
and they hoped that perhaps you might find an opening for them in the
company's employment."

"Very possibly! Very possibly!" cried Mr. Pinner with a ghastly smile.
"Yes, I have no doubt that we shall be able to do something for you.
What is your particular line, Mr. Harris?"

"I am an accountant," said Holmes.

"Ah yes, we shall want something of the sort. And you, Mr. Price?"

"A clerk," said I.

"I have every hope that the company may accommodate you. I will let you
know about it as soon as we come to any conclusion. And now I beg that
you will go. For God's sake leave me to myself!"

These last words were shot out of him, as though the constraint which
he was evidently setting upon himself had suddenly and utterly burst
asunder. Holmes and I glanced at each other, and Hall Pycroft took a
step towards the table.

"You forget, Mr. Pinner, that I am here by appointment to receive some
directions from you," said he.

"Certainly, Mr. Pycroft, certainly," the other resumed in a calmer tone.
"You may wait here a moment; and there is no reason why your friends
should not wait with you. I will be entirely at your service in three
minutes, if I might trespass upon your patience so far." He rose with a
very courteous air, and, bowing to us, he passed out through a door at
the farther end of the room, which he closed behind him.

"What now?" whispered Holmes. "Is he giving us the slip?"

"Impossible," answered Pycroft.

"Why so?"

"That door leads into an inner room."

"There is no exit?"

"None."

"Is it furnished?"

"It was empty yesterday."

"Then what on earth can he be doing? There is something which I don't
understand in this manner. If ever a man was three parts mad with
terror, that man's name is Pinner. What can have put the shivers on
him?"

"He suspects that we are detectives," I suggested.

"That's it," cried Pycroft.

Holmes shook his head. "He did not turn pale. He was pale when we
entered the room," said he. "It is just possible that--"

His words were interrupted by a sharp rat-tat from the direction of the
inner door.

"What the deuce is he knocking at his own door for?" cried the clerk.

Again and much louder came the rat-tat-tat. We all gazed expectantly at
the closed door. Glancing at Holmes, I saw his face turn rigid, and he
leaned forward in intense excitement. Then suddenly came a low guggling,
gargling sound, and a brisk drumming upon woodwork. Holmes sprang
frantically across the room and pushed at the door. It was fastened on
the inner side. Following his example, we threw ourselves upon it with
all our weight. One hinge snapped, then the other, and down came the
door with a crash. Rushing over it, we found ourselves in the inner
room. It was empty.

But it was only for a moment that we were at fault. At one corner, the
corner nearest the room which we had left, there was a second door.
Holmes sprang to it and pulled it open. A coat and waistcoat were lying
on the floor, and from a hook behind the door, with his own braces
round his neck, was hanging the managing director of the Franco-Midland
Hardware Company. His knees were drawn up, his head hung at a dreadful
angle to his body, and the clatter of his heels against the door made
the noise which had broken in upon our conversation. In an instant I
had caught him round the waist, and held him up while Holmes and Pycroft
untied the elastic bands which had disappeared between the livid creases
of skin. Then we carried him into the other room, where he lay with
a clay-colored face, puffing his purple lips in and out with every
breath--a dreadful wreck of all that he had been but five minutes
before.

"What do you think of him, Watson?" asked Holmes.

I stooped over him and examined him. His pulse was feeble and
intermittent, but his breathing grew longer, and there was a little
shivering of his eyelids, which showed a thin white slit of ball
beneath.

"It has been touch and go with him," said I, "but he'll live now. Just
open that window, and hand me the water carafe." I undid his collar,
poured the cold water over his face, and raised and sank his arms until
he drew a long, natural breath. "It's only a question of time now," said
I, as I turned away from him.

Holmes stood by the table, with his hands deep in his trouser's pockets
and his chin upon his breast.

"I suppose we ought to call the police in now," said he. "And yet I
confess that I'd like to give them a complete case when they come."

"It's a blessed mystery to me," cried Pycroft, scratching his head.
"Whatever they wanted to bring me all the way up here for, and then--"

"Pooh! All that is clear enough," said Holmes impatiently. "It is this
last sudden move."

"You understand the rest, then?"

"I think that it is fairly obvious. What do you say, Watson?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I must confess that I am out of my depths,"
said I.

"Oh surely if you consider the events at first they can only point to
one conclusion."

"What do you make of them?"

"Well, the whole thing hinges upon two points. The first is the making
of Pycroft write a declaration by which he entered the service of this
preposterous company. Do you not see how very suggestive that is?"

"I am afraid I miss the point."

"Well, why did they want him to do it? Not as a business matter, for
these arrangements are usually verbal, and there was no earthly business
reason why this should be an exception. Don't you see, my young friend,
that they were very anxious to obtain a specimen of your handwriting,
and had no other way of doing it?"

"And why?"

"Quite so. Why? When we answer that we have made some progress with our
little problem. Why? There can be only one adequate reason. Some one
wanted to learn to imitate your writing, and had to procure a specimen
of it first. And now if we pass on to the second point we find that each
throws light upon the other. That point is the request made by Pinner
that you should not resign your place, but should leave the manager of
this important business in the full expectation that a Mr. Hall Pycroft,
whom he had never seen, was about to enter the office upon the Monday
morning."

"My God!" cried our client, "what a blind beetle I have been!"

"Now you see the point about the handwriting. Suppose that some one
turned up in your place who wrote a completely different hand from that
in which you had applied for the vacancy, of course the game would have
been up. But in the interval the rogue had learned to imitate you,
and his position was therefore secure, as I presume that nobody in the
office had ever set eyes upon you."

"Not a soul," groaned Hall Pycroft.

"Very good. Of course it was of the utmost importance to prevent you
from thinking better of it, and also to keep you from coming into
contact with any one who might tell you that your double was at work
in Mawson's office. Therefore they gave you a handsome advance on your
salary, and ran you off to the Midlands, where they gave you enough work
to do to prevent your going to London, where you might have burst their
little game up. That is all plain enough."

"But why should this man pretend to be his own brother?"

"Well, that is pretty clear also. There are evidently only two of them
in it. The other is impersonating you at the office. This one acted
as your engager, and then found that he could not find you an employer
without admitting a third person into his plot. That he was most
unwilling to do. He changed his appearance as far as he could, and
trusted that the likeness, which you could not fail to observe, would be
put down to a family resemblance. But for the happy chance of the gold
stuffing, your suspicions would probably never have been aroused."

Hall Pycroft shook his clinched hands in the air. "Good Lord!" he cried,
"while I have been fooled in this way, what has this other Hall Pycroft
been doing at Mawson's? What should we do, Mr. Holmes? Tell me what to
do."

"We must wire to Mawson's."

"They shut at twelve on Saturdays."

"Never mind. There may be some door-keeper or attendant--"

"Ah yes, they keep a permanent guard there on account of the value of
the securities that they hold. I remember hearing it talked of in the
City."

"Very good; we shall wire to him, and see if all is well, and if a clerk
of your name is working there. That is clear enough; but what is not so
clear is why at sight of us one of the rogues should instantly walk out
of the room and hang himself."

"The paper!" croaked a voice behind us. The man was sitting up, blanched
and ghastly, with returning reason in his eyes, and hands which rubbed
nervously at the broad red band which still encircled his throat.

"The paper! Of course!" yelled Holmes, in a paroxysm of excitement.
"Idiot that I was! I thought so much of our visit that the paper never
entered my head for an instant. To be sure, the secret must be there."
He flattened it out upon the table, and a cry of triumph burst from his
lips. "Look at this, Watson," he cried. "It is a London paper, an early
edition of the Evening Standard. Here is what we want. Look at the
headlines: 'Crime in the City. Murder at Mawson & Williams's. Gigantic
attempted Robbery. Capture of the Criminal.' Here, Watson, we are all
equally anxious to hear it, so kindly read it aloud to us."

It appeared from its position in the paper to have been the one event of
importance in town, and the account of it ran in this way:

"A desperate attempt at robbery, culminating in the death of one man and
the capture of the criminal, occurred this afternoon in the City. For
some time back Mawson & Williams, the famous financial house, have been
the guardians of securities which amount in the aggregate to a sum of
considerably over a million sterling. So conscious was the manager of
the responsibility which devolved upon him in consequence of the great
interests at stake that safes of the very latest construction have
been employed, and an armed watchman has been left day and night in the
building. It appears that last week a new clerk named Hall Pycroft was
engaged by the firm. This person appears to have been none other that
Beddington, the famous forger and cracksman, who, with his brother, had
only recently emerged from a five years' spell of penal servitude. By
some means, which are not yet clear, he succeeded in winning, under a
false name, this official position in the office, which he utilized in
order to obtain moulding of various locks, and a thorough knowledge of
the position of the strong room and the safes.

"It is customary at Mawson's for the clerks to leave at midday on
Saturday. Sergeant Tuson, of the City Police, was somewhat surprised,
therefore to see a gentleman with a carpet bag come down the steps at
twenty minutes past one. His suspicions being aroused, the sergeant
followed the man, and with the aid of Constable Pollock succeeded, after
a most desperate resistance, in arresting him. It was at once clear
that a daring and gigantic robbery had been committed. Nearly a hundred
thousand pounds' worth of American railway bonds, with a large amount
of scrip in mines and other companies, was discovered in the bag. On
examining the premises the body of the unfortunate watchman was found
doubled up and thrust into the largest of the safes, where it would not
have been discovered until Monday morning had it not been for the prompt
action of Sergeant Tuson. The man's skull had been shattered by a
blow from a poker delivered from behind. There could be no doubt
that Beddington had obtained entrance by pretending that he had left
something behind him, and having murdered the watchman, rapidly rifled
the large safe, and then made off with his booty. His brother, who
usually works with him, has not appeared in this job as far as can
at present be ascertained, although the police are making energetic
inquiries as to his whereabouts."

"Well, we may save the police some little trouble in that direction,"
said Holmes, glancing at the haggard figure huddled up by the window.
"Human nature is a strange mixture, Watson. You see that even a villain
and murderer can inspire such affection that his brother turns to
suicide when he learns that his neck is forfeited. However, we have
no choice as to our action. The doctor and I will remain on guard, Mr.
Pycroft, if you will have the kindness to step out for the police."




Adventure IV. The "_Gloria Scott_"


"I have some papers here," said my friend Sherlock Holmes, as we sat
one winter's night on either side of the fire, "which I really think,
Watson, that it would be worth your while to glance over. These are the
documents in the extraordinary case of the Gloria Scott, and this is the
message which struck Justice of the Peace Trevor dead with horror when
he read it."

He had picked from a drawer a little tarnished cylinder, and, undoing
the tape, he handed me a short note scrawled upon a half-sheet of
slate-gray paper.

"The supply of game for London is going steadily up," it ran.
"Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orders
for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen-pheasant's life."

As I glanced up from reading this enigmatical message, I saw Holmes
chuckling at the expression upon my face.

"You look a little bewildered," said he.

"I cannot see how such a message as this could inspire horror. It seems
to me to be rather grotesque than otherwise."

"Very likely. Yet the fact remains that the reader, who was a fine,
robust old man, was knocked clean down by it as if it had been the butt
end of a pistol."

"You arouse my curiosity," said I. "But why did you say just now that
there were very particular reasons why I should study this case?"

"Because it was the first in which I was ever engaged."

I had often endeavored to elicit from my companion what had first turned
his mind in the direction of criminal research, but had never caught him
before in a communicative humor. Now he sat forward in this arm-chair
and spread out the documents upon his knees. Then he lit his pipe and
sat for some time smoking and turning them over.

"You never heard me talk of Victor Trevor?" he asked. "He was the only
friend I made during the two years I was at college. I was never a very
sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond of moping in my rooms and
working out my own little methods of thought, so that I never mixed
much with the men of my year. Bar fencing and boxing I had few athletic
tastes, and then my line of study was quite distinct from that of the
other fellows, so that we had no points of contact at all. Trevor was
the only man I knew, and that only through the accident of his bull
terrier freezing on to my ankle one morning as I went down to chapel.

"It was a prosaic way of forming a friendship, but it was effective.
I was laid by the heels for ten days, but Trevor used to come in to
inquire after me. At first it was only a minute's chat, but soon his
visits lengthened, and before the end of the term we were close friends.
He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of spirits and energy,
the very opposite to me in most respects, but we had some subjects
in common, and it was a bond of union when I found that he was as
friendless as I. Finally, he invited me down to his father's place at
Donnithorpe, in Norfolk, and I accepted his hospitality for a month of
the long vacation.

"Old Trevor was evidently a man of some wealth and consideration, a
J.P., and a landed proprietor. Donnithorpe is a little hamlet just to
the north of Langmere, in the country of the Broads. The house was
an old-fashioned, wide-spread, oak-beamed brick building, with a fine
lime-lined avenue leading up to it. There was excellent wild-duck
shooting in the fens, remarkably good fishing, a small but select
library, taken over, as I understood, from a former occupant, and a
tolerable cook, so that he would be a fastidious man who could not put
in a pleasant month there.

"Trevor senior was a widower, and my friend his only son.

"There had been a daughter, I heard, but she had died of diphtheria
while on a visit to Birmingham. The father interested me extremely.
He was a man of little culture, but with a considerable amount of rude
strength, both physically and mentally. He knew hardly any books, but
he had traveled far, had seen much of the world. And had remembered
all that he had learned. In person he was a thick-set, burly man with
a shock of grizzled hair, a brown, weather-beaten face, and blue eyes
which were keen to the verge of fierceness. Yet he had a reputation for
kindness and charity on the country-side, and was noted for the leniency
of his sentences from the bench.

"One evening, shortly after my arrival, we were sitting over a glass of
port after dinner, when young Trevor began to talk about those habits
of observation and inference which I had already formed into a system,
although I had not yet appreciated the part which they were to play in
my life. The old man evidently thought that his son was exaggerating in
his description of one or two trivial feats which I had performed.

"'Come, now, Mr. Holmes,' said he, laughing good-humoredly. 'I'm an
excellent subject, if you can deduce anything from me.'

"'I fear there is not very much,' I answered; 'I might suggest that
you have gone about in fear of some personal attack within the last
twelvemonth.'

"The laugh faded from his lips, and he stared at me in great surprise.

"'Well, that's true enough,' said he. 'You know, Victor,' turning to his
son, 'when we broke up that poaching gang they swore to knife us, and
Sir Edward Holly has actually been attacked. I've always been on my
guard since then, though I have no idea how you know it.'

"'You have a very handsome stick,' I answered. 'By the inscription I
observed that you had not had it more than a year. But you have taken
some pains to bore the head of it and pour melted lead into the hole so
as to make it a formidable weapon. I argued that you would not take such
precautions unless you had some danger to fear.'

"'Anything else?' he asked, smiling.

"'You have boxed a good deal in your youth.'

"'Right again. How did you know it? Is my nose knocked a little out of
the straight?'

"'No,' said I. 'It is your ears. They have the peculiar flattening and
thickening which marks the boxing man.'

"'Anything else?'

"'You have done a good deal of digging by your callosities.'

"'Made all my money at the gold fields.'

"'You have been in New Zealand.'

"'Right again.'

"'You have visited Japan.'

"'Quite true.'

"'And you have been most intimately associated with some one whose
initials were J. A., and whom you afterwards were eager to entirely
forget.'

"Mr. Trevor stood slowly up, fixed his large blue eyes upon me with a
strange wild stare, and then pitched forward, with his face among the
nutshells which strewed the cloth, in a dead faint.

"You can imagine, Watson, how shocked both his son and I were. His
attack did not last long, however, for when we undid his collar, and
sprinkled the water from one of the finger-glasses over his face, he
gave a gasp or two and sat up.

"'Ah, boys,' said he, forcing a smile, 'I hope I haven't frightened you.
Strong as I look, there is a weak place in my heart, and it does not
take much to knock me over. I don't know how you manage this, Mr.
Holmes, but it seems to me that all the detectives of fact and of fancy
would be children in your hands. That's your line of life, sir, and you
may take the word of a man who has seen something of the world.'

"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability
with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the very
first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be made
out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby. At the moment,
however, I was too much concerned at the sudden illness of my host to
think of anything else.

"'I hope that I have said nothing to pain you?' said I.

"'Well, you certainly touched upon rather a tender point. Might I ask
how you know, and how much you know?' He spoke now in a half-jesting
fashion, but a look of terror still lurked at the back of his eyes.

"'It is simplicity itself,' said I. 'When you bared your arm to draw
that fish into the boat I saw that J. A. Had been tattooed in the bend
of the elbow. The letters were still legible, but it was perfectly clear
from their blurred appearance, and from the staining of the skin round
them, that efforts had been made to obliterate them. It was obvious,
then, that those initials had once been very familiar to you, and that
you had afterwards wished to forget them.'

"What an eye you have!" he cried, with a sigh of relief. 'It is just as
you say. But we won't talk of it. Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old
lovers are the worst. Come into the billiard-room and have a quiet
cigar.'


"From that day, amid all his cordiality, there was always a touch of
suspicion in Mr. Trevor's manner towards me. Even his son remarked it.
'You've given the governor such a turn,' said he, 'that he'll never be
sure again of what you know and what you don't know.' He did not mean
to show it, I am sure, but it was so strongly in his mind that it peeped
out at every action. At last I became so convinced that I was causing
him uneasiness that I drew my visit to a close. On the very day,
however, before I left, and incident occurred which proved in the sequel
to be of importance.

"We were sitting out upon the lawn on garden chairs, the three of us,
basking in the sun and admiring the view across the Broads, when a maid
came out to say that there was a man at the door who wanted to see Mr.
Trevor.

"'What is his name?' asked my host.

"'He would not give any.'

"'What does he want, then?'

"'He says that you know him, and that he only wants a moment's
conversation.'

"'Show him round here.' An instant afterwards there appeared a little
wizened fellow with a cringing manner and a shambling style of
walking. He wore an open jacket, with a splotch of tar on the sleeve,
a red-and-black check shirt, dungaree trousers, and heavy boots badly
worn. His face was thin and brown and crafty, with a perpetual smile
upon it, which showed an irregular line of yellow teeth, and his
crinkled hands were half closed in a way that is distinctive of sailors.
As he came slouching across the lawn I heard Mr. Trevor make a sort of
hiccoughing noise in his throat, and jumping out of his chair, he ran
into the house. He was back in a moment, and I smelt a strong reek of
brandy as he passed me.

"'Well, my man,' said he. 'What can I do for you?'

"The sailor stood looking at him with puckered eyes, and with the same
loose-lipped smile upon his face.

"'You don't know me?' he asked.

"'Why, dear me, it is surely Hudson,' said Mr. Trevor in a tone of
surprise.

"'Hudson it is, sir,' said the seaman. 'Why, it's thirty year and more
since I saw you last. Here you are in your house, and me still picking
my salt meat out of the harness cask.'

"'Tut, you will find that I have not forgotten old times,' cried Mr.
Trevor, and, walking towards the sailor, he said something in a low
voice. 'Go into the kitchen,' he continued out loud, 'and you will get
food and drink. I have no doubt that I shall find you a situation.'

"'Thank you, sir,' said the seaman, touching his fore-lock. 'I'm just
off a two-yearer in an eight-knot tramp, short-handed at that, and I
wants a rest. I thought I'd get it either with Mr. Beddoes or with you.'

"'Ah!' cried Trevor. 'You know where Mr. Beddoes is?'

"'Bless you, sir, I know where all my old friends are,' said the
fellow with a sinister smile, and he slouched off after the maid to the
kitchen. Mr. Trevor mumbled something to us about having been shipmate
with the man when he was going back to the diggings, and then, leaving
us on the lawn, he went indoors. An hour later, when we entered the
house, we found him stretched dead drunk upon the dining-room sofa. The
whole incident left a most ugly impression upon my mind, and I was
not sorry next day to leave Donnithorpe behind me, for I felt that my
presence must be a source of embarrassment to my friend.

"All this occurred during the first month of the long vacation. I went
up to my London rooms, where I spent seven weeks working out a few
experiments in organic chemistry. One day, however, when the autumn was
far advanced and the vacation drawing to a close, I received a telegram
from my friend imploring me to return to Donnithorpe, and saying that
he was in great need of my advice and assistance. Of course I dropped
everything and set out for the North once more.

"He met me with the dog-cart at the station, and I saw at a glance that
the last two months had been very trying ones for him. He had grown thin
and careworn, and had lost the loud, cheery manner for which he had been
remarkable.

"'The governor is dying,' were the first words he said.

"'Impossible!' I cried. 'What is the matter?'

"'Apoplexy. Nervous shock, He's been on the verge all day. I doubt if we
shall find him alive.'

"I was, as you may think, Watson, horrified at this unexpected news.

"'What has caused it?' I asked.

"'Ah, that is the point. Jump in and we can talk it over while we drive.
You remember that fellow who came upon the evening before you left us?'

"'Perfectly.'

"'Do you know who it was that we let into the house that day?'

"'I have no idea.'

"'It was the devil, Holmes,' he cried.

"I stared at him in astonishment.

"'Yes, it was the devil himself. We have not had a peaceful hour
since--not one. The governor has never held up his head from that
evening, and now the life has been crushed out of him and his heart
broken, all through this accursed Hudson.'

"'What power had he, then?'

"'Ah, that is what I would give so much to know. The kindly, charitable,
good old governor--how could he have fallen into the clutches of such a
ruffian! But I am so glad that you have come, Holmes. I trust very much
to your judgment and discretion, and I know that you will advise me for
the best.'

"We were dashing along the smooth white country road, with the long
stretch of the Broads in front of us glimmering in the red light of the
setting sun. From a grove upon our left I could already see the high
chimneys and the flag-staff which marked the squire's dwelling.

"'My father made the fellow gardener,' said my companion, 'and then, as
that did not satisfy him, he was promoted to be butler. The house seemed
to be at his mercy, and he wandered about and did what he chose in it.
The maids complained of his drunken habits and his vile language. The
dad raised their wages all round to recompense them for the annoyance.
The fellow would take the boat and my father's best gun and treat
himself to little shooting trips. And all this with such a sneering,
leering, insolent face that I would have knocked him down twenty times
over if he had been a man of my own age. I tell you, Holmes, I have
had to keep a tight hold upon myself all this time; and now I am asking
myself whether, if I had let myself go a little more, I might not have
been a wiser man.

"'Well, matters went from bad to worse with us, and this animal Hudson
became more and more intrusive, until at last, on making some insolent
reply to my father in my presence one day, I took him by the shoulders
and turned him out of the room. He slunk away with a livid face and two
venomous eyes which uttered more threats than his tongue could do. I
don't know what passed between the poor dad and him after that, but the
dad came to me next day and asked me whether I would mind apologizing to
Hudson. I refused, as you can imagine, and asked my father how he
could allow such a wretch to take such liberties with himself and his
household.

"'"Ah, my boy," said he, "it is all very well to talk, but you don't
know how I am placed. But you shall know, Victor. I'll see that you
shall know, come what may. You wouldn't believe harm of your poor old
father, would you, lad?" He was very much moved, and shut himself up
in the study all day, where I could see through the window that he was
writing busily.

"'That evening there came what seemed to me to be a grand release,
for Hudson told us that he was going to leave us. He walked into the
dining-room as we sat after dinner, and announced his intention in the
thick voice of a half-drunken man.

"'"I've had enough of Norfolk," said he. "I'll run down to Mr. Beddoes
in Hampshire. He'll be as glad to see me as you were, I dare say."

"'"You're not going away in an unkind spirit, Hudson, I hope," said my
father, with a tameness which made my blood boil.

"'"I've not had my 'pology," said he sulkily, glancing in my direction.

"'"Victor, you will acknowledge that you have used this worthy fellow
rather roughly," said the dad, turning to me.

"'"On the contrary, I think that we have both shown extraordinary
patience towards him," I answered.

"'"Oh, you do, do you?" he snarls. "Very good, mate. We'll see about
that!"

"'He slouched out of the room, and half an hour afterwards left the
house, leaving my father in a state of pitiable nervousness. Night after
night I heard him pacing his room, and it was just as he was recovering
his confidence that the blow did at last fall.'

"'And how?' I asked eagerly.

"'In a most extraordinary fashion. A letter arrived for my father
yesterday evening, bearing the Fordingbridge post-mark. My father read
it, clapped both his hands to his head, and began running round the room
in little circles like a man who has been driven out of his senses. When
I at last drew him down on to the sofa, his mouth and eyelids were all
puckered on one side, and I saw that he had a stroke. Dr. Fordham came
over at once. We put him to bed; but the paralysis has spread, he has
shown no sign of returning consciousness, and I think that we shall
hardly find him alive.'

"'You horrify me, Trevor!' I cried. 'What then could have been in this
letter to cause so dreadful a result?'

"'Nothing. There lies the inexplicable part of it. The message was
absurd and trivial. Ah, my God, it is as I feared!'

"As he spoke we came round the curve of the avenue, and saw in the
fading light that every blind in the house had been drawn down. As
we dashed up to the door, my friend's face convulsed with grief, a
gentleman in black emerged from it.

"'When did it happen, doctor?' asked Trevor.

"'Almost immediately after you left.'

"'Did he recover consciousness?'

"'For an instant before the end.'

"'Any message for me.'

"'Only that the papers were in the back drawer of the Japanese cabinet.'

"My friend ascended with the doctor to the chamber of death, while I
remained in the study, turning the whole matter over and over in my
head, and feeling as sombre as ever I had done in my life. What was the
past of this Trevor, pugilist, traveler, and gold-digger, and how had he
placed himself in the power of this acid-faced seaman? Why, too, should
he faint at an allusion to the half-effaced initials upon his arm, and
die of fright when he had a letter from Fordingham? Then I remembered
that Fordingham was in Hampshire, and that this Mr. Beddoes, whom the
seaman had gone to visit and presumably to blackmail, had also been
mentioned as living in Hampshire. The letter, then, might either come
from Hudson, the seaman, saying that he had betrayed the guilty secret
which appeared to exist, or it might come from Beddoes, warning an old
confederate that such a betrayal was imminent. So far it seemed clear
enough. But then how could this letter be trivial and grotesque, as
describe by the son? He must have misread it. If so, it must have been
one of those ingenious secret codes which mean one thing while they seem
to mean another. I must see this letter. If there were a hidden meaning
in it, I was confident that I could pluck it forth. For an hour I sat
pondering over it in the gloom, until at last a weeping maid brought in
a lamp, and close at her heels came my friend Trevor, pale but composed,
with these very papers which lie upon my knee held in his grasp. He sat
down opposite to me, drew the lamp to the edge of the table, and handed
me a short note scribbled, as you see, upon a single sheet of gray
paper. 'The supply of game for London is going steadily up,' it ran.
'Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orders
for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen-pheasant's life.'

"I dare say my face looked as bewildered as yours did just now when
first I read this message. Then I reread it very carefully. It was
evidently as I had thought, and some secret meaning must lie buried
in this strange combination of words. Or could it be that there was
a prearranged significance to such phrases as 'fly-paper' and
'hen-pheasant'? Such a meaning would be arbitrary and could not be
deduced in any way. And yet I was loath to believe that this was the
case, and the presence of the word Hudson seemed to show that the
subject of the message was as I had guessed, and that it was from
Beddoes rather than the sailor. I tried it backwards, but the
combination 'life pheasant's hen' was not encouraging. Then I tried
alternate words, but neither 'the of for' nor 'supply game London'
promised to throw any light upon it.

"And then in an instant the key of the riddle was in my hands, and I saw
that every third word, beginning with the first, would give a message
which might well drive old Trevor to despair.

"It was short and terse, the warning, as I now read it to my companion:

"'The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your life.'

"Victor Trevor sank his face into his shaking hands. 'It must be that,
I suppose,' said he. "This is worse than death, for it means disgrace
as well. But what is the meaning of these "head-keepers" and
"hen-pheasants"?'

"'It means nothing to the message, but it might mean a good deal to us
if we had no other means of discovering the sender. You see that he has
begun by writing "The...game...is," and so on. Afterwards he had, to
fulfill the prearranged cipher, to fill in any two words in each space.
He would naturally use the first words which came to his mind, and
if there were so many which referred to sport among them, you may
be tolerably sure that he is either an ardent shot or interested in
breeding. Do you know anything of this Beddoes?'

"'Why, now that you mention it,' said he, 'I remember that my poor
father used to have an invitation from him to shoot over his preserves
every autumn.'

"'Then it is undoubtedly from him that the note comes,' said I. 'It only
remains for us to find out what this secret was which the sailor Hudson
seems to have held over the heads of these two wealthy and respected
men.'

"'Alas, Holmes, I fear that it is one of sin and shame!' cried my
friend. 'But from you I shall have no secrets. Here is the statement
which was drawn up by my father when he knew that the danger from Hudson
had become imminent. I found it in the Japanese cabinet, as he told the
doctor. Take it and read it to me, for I have neither the strength nor
the courage to do it myself.'

"These are the very papers, Watson, which he handed to me, and I will
read them to you, as I read them in the old study that night to him.
They are endorsed outside, as you see, 'Some particulars of the voyage
of the bark _Gloria Scott_, from her leaving Falmouth on the 8th
October, 1855, to her destruction in N. Lat. 15 degrees 20', W. Long.
25 degrees 14' on Nov. 6th.' It is in the form of a letter, and runs in
this way:

"'My dear, dear son, now that approaching disgrace begins to darken the
closing years of my life, I can write with all truth and honesty that it
is not the terror of the law, it is not the loss of my position in the
county, nor is it my fall in the eyes of all who have known me, which
cuts me to the heart; but it is the thought that you should come to
blush for me--you who love me and who have seldom, I hope, had reason to
do other than respect me. But if the blow falls which is forever hanging
over me, then I should wish you to read this, that you may know straight
from me how far I have been to blame. On the other hand, if all should
go well (which may kind God Almighty grant!), then if by any chance this
paper should be still undestroyed and should fall into your hands, I
conjure you, by all you hold sacred, by the memory of your dear mother,
and by the love which had been between us, to hurl it into the fire and
to never give one thought to it again.

"'If then your eye goes on to read this line, I know that I shall
already have been exposed and dragged from my home, or as is more
likely, for you know that my heart is weak, by lying with my tongue
sealed forever in death. In either case the time for suppression is
past, and every word which I tell you is the naked truth, and this I
swear as I hope for mercy.

"'My name, dear lad, is not Trevor. I was James Armitage in my younger
days, and you can understand now the shock that it was to me a few weeks
ago when your college friend addressed me in words which seemed to imply
that he had surprised my secret. As Armitage it was that I entered a
London banking-house, and as Armitage I was convicted of breaking my
country's laws, and was sentenced to transportation. Do not think very
harshly of me, laddie. It was a debt of honor, so called, which I had
to pay, and I used money which was not my own to do it, in the certainty
that I could replace it before there could be any possibility of its
being missed. But the most dreadful ill-luck pursued me. The money which
I had reckoned upon never came to hand, and a premature examination of
accounts exposed my deficit. The case might have been dealt leniently
with, but the laws were more harshly administered thirty years ago than
now, and on my twenty-third birthday I found myself chained as a felon
with thirty-seven other convicts in 'tween-decks of the bark _Gloria
Scott_, bound for Australia.

"'It was the year '55 when the Crimean war was at its height, and the
old convict ships had been largely used as transports in the Black
Sea. The government was compelled, therefore, to use smaller and less
suitable vessels for sending out their prisoners. The Gloria Scott
had been in the Chinese tea-trade, but she was an old-fashioned,
heavy-bowed, broad-beamed craft, and the new clippers had cut her
out. She was a five-hundred-ton boat; and besides her thirty-eight
jail-birds, she carried twenty-six of a crew, eighteen soldiers, a
captain, three mates, a doctor, a chaplain, and four warders. Nearly a
hundred souls were in her, all told, when we set sail from Falmouth.

"'The partitions between the cells of the convicts, instead of being of
thick oak, as is usual in convict-ships, were quite thin and frail.
The man next to me, upon the aft side, was one whom I had particularly
noticed when we were led down the quay. He was a young man with a
clear, hairless face, a long, thin nose, and rather nut-cracker jaws.
He carried his head very jauntily in the air, had a swaggering style
of walking, and was, above all else, remarkable for his extraordinary
height. I don't think any of our heads would have come up to his
shoulder, and I am sure that he could not have measured less than six
and a half feet. It was strange among so many sad and weary faces to see
one which was full of energy and resolution. The sight of it was to me
like a fire in a snow-storm. I was glad, then, to find that he was my
neighbor, and gladder still when, in the dead of the night, I heard a
whisper close to my ear, and found that he had managed to cut an opening
in the board which separated us.

"'"Hullo, chummy!" said he, "what's your name, and what are you here
for?"

"'I answered him, and asked in turn who I was talking with.

"'"I'm Jack Prendergast," said he, "and by God! You'll learn to bless my
name before you've done with me."

"'I remembered hearing of his case, for it was one which had made an
immense sensation throughout the country some time before my own arrest.
He was a man of good family and of great ability, but of incurably
vicious habits, who had by an ingenious system of fraud obtained huge
sums of money from the leading London merchants.

"'"Ha, ha! You remember my case!" said he proudly.

"'"Very well, indeed."

"'"Then maybe you remember something queer about it?"

"'"What was that, then?"

"'"I'd had nearly a quarter of a million, hadn't I?"

"'"So it was said."

"'"But none was recovered, eh?"

"'"No."

"'"Well, where d'ye suppose the balance is?" he asked.

"'"I have no idea," said I.

"'"Right between my finger and thumb," he cried. "By God! I've got more
pounds to my name than you've hairs on your head. And if you've money,
my son, and know how to handle it and spread it, you can do anything.
Now, you don't think it likely that a man who could do anything is going
to wear his breeches out sitting in the stinking hold of a rat-gutted,
beetle-ridden, mouldy old coffin of a Chin China coaster. No, sir, such
a man will look after himself and will look after his chums. You may lay
to that! You hold on to him, and you may kiss the book that he'll haul
you through."

"'That was his style of talk, and at first I thought it meant nothing;
but after a while, when he had tested me and sworn me in with all
possible solemnity, he let me understand that there really was a plot
to gain command of the vessel. A dozen of the prisoners had hatched it
before they came aboard, Prendergast was the leader, and his money was
the motive power.

"'"I'd a partner," said he, "a rare good man, as true as a stock to a
barrel. He's got the dibbs, he has, and where do you think he is at this
moment? Why, he's the chaplain of this ship--the chaplain, no less! He
came aboard with a black coat, and his papers right, and money enough in
his box to buy the thing right up from keel to main-truck. The crew
are his, body and soul. He could buy 'em at so much a gross with a cash
discount, and he did it before ever they signed on. He's got two of the
warders and Mereer, the second mate, and he'd get the captain himself,
if he thought him worth it."

"'"What are we to do, then?" I asked.

"'"What do you think?" said he. "We'll make the coats of some of these
soldiers redder than ever the tailor did."

"'"But they are armed," said I.

"'"And so shall we be, my boy. There's a brace of pistols for every
mother's son of us, and if we can't carry this ship, with the crew at
our back, it's time we were all sent to a young misses' boarding-school.
You speak to your mate upon the left to-night, and see if he is to be
trusted."

"'I did so, and found my other neighbor to be a young fellow in much
the same position as myself, whose crime had been forgery. His name was
Evans, but he afterwards changed it, like myself, and he is now a rich
and prosperous man in the south of England. He was ready enough to join
the conspiracy, as the only means of saving ourselves, and before we had
crossed the Bay there were only two of the prisoners who were not in the
secret. One of these was of weak mind, and we did not dare to trust him,
and the other was suffering from jaundice, and could not be of any use
to us.

"'From the beginning there was really nothing to prevent us from taking
possession of the ship. The crew were a set of ruffians, specially
picked for the job. The sham chaplain came into our cells to exhort us,
carrying a black bag, supposed to be full of tracts, and so often did
he come that by the third day we had each stowed away at the foot of our
beds a file, a brace of pistols, a pound of powder, and twenty slugs.
Two of the warders were agents of Prendergast, and the second mate was
his right-hand man. The captain, the two mates, two warders Lieutenant
Martin, his eighteen soldiers, and the doctor were all that we had
against us. Yet, safe as it was, we determined to neglect no precaution,
and to make our attack suddenly by night. It came, however, more quickly
than we expected, and in this way.

"'One evening, about the third week after our start, the doctor had come
down to see one of the prisoners who was ill, and putting his hand down
on the bottom of his bunk he felt the outline of the pistols. If he had
been silent he might have blown the whole thing, but he was a nervous
little chap, so he gave a cry of surprise and turned so pale that the
man knew what was up in an instant and seized him. He was gagged before
he could give the alarm, and tied down upon the bed. He had unlocked
the door that led to the deck, and we were through it in a rush. The two
sentries were shot down, and so was a corporal who came running to see
what was the matter. There were two more soldiers at the door of the
state-room, and their muskets seemed not to be loaded, for they never
fired upon us, and they were shot while trying to fix their bayonets.
Then we rushed on into the captain's cabin, but as we pushed open the
door there was an explosion from within, and there he lay with his
brains smeared over the chart of the Atlantic which was pinned upon the
table, while the chaplain stood with a smoking pistol in his hand at
his elbow. The two mates had both been seized by the crew, and the whole
business seemed to be settled.

"'The state-room was next the cabin, and we flocked in there and flopped
down on the settees, all speaking together, for we were just mad with
the feeling that we were free once more. There were lockers all round,
and Wilson, the sham chaplain, knocked one of them in, and pulled out a
dozen of brown sherry. We cracked off the necks of the bottles, poured
the stuff out into tumblers, and were just tossing them off, when in an
instant without warning there came the roar of muskets in our ears, and
the saloon was so full of smoke that we could not see across the table.
When it cleared again the place was a shambles. Wilson and eight others
were wriggling on the top of each other on the floor, and the blood and
the brown sherry on that table turn me sick now when I think of it. We
were so cowed by the sight that I think we should have given the job up
if it had not been for Prendergast. He bellowed like a bull and rushed
for the door with all that were left alive at his heels. Out we ran,
and there on the poop were the lieutenant and ten of his men. The swing
skylights above the saloon table had been a bit open, and they had fired
on us through the slit. We got on them before they could load, and they
stood to it like men; but we had the upper hand of them, and in five
minutes it was all over. My God! Was there ever a slaughter-house
like that ship! Prendergast was like a raging devil, and he picked the
soldiers up as if they had been children and threw them overboard alive
or dead. There was one sergeant that was horribly wounded and yet kept
on swimming for a surprising time, until some one in mercy blew out his
brains. When the fighting was over there was no one left of our enemies
except just the warders the mates, and the doctor.

"'It was over them that the great quarrel arose. There were many of us
who were glad enough to win back our freedom, and yet who had no wish
to have murder on our souls. It was one thing to knock the soldiers over
with their muskets in their hands, and it was another to stand by while
men were being killed in cold blood. Eight of us, five convicts and
three sailors, said that we would not see it done. But there was no
moving Prendergast and those who were with him. Our only chance of
safety lay in making a clean job of it, said he, and he would not leave
a tongue with power to wag in a witness-box. It nearly came to our
sharing the fate of the prisoners, but at last he said that if we wished
we might take a boat and go. We jumped at the offer, for we were already
sick of these bloodthirsty doings, and we saw that there would be worse
before it was done. We were given a suit of sailor togs each, a barrel
of water, two casks, one of junk and one of biscuits, and a compass.
Prendergast threw us over a chart, told us that we were shipwrecked
mariners whose ship had foundered in Lat. 15 degrees and Long 25 degrees
west, and then cut the painter and let us go.

"'And now I come to the most surprising part of my story, my dear son.
The seamen had hauled the fore-yard aback during the rising, but now as
we left them they brought it square again, and as there was a light wind
from the north and east the bark began to draw slowly away from us. Our
boat lay, rising and falling, upon the long, smooth rollers, and Evans
and I, who were the most educated of the party, were sitting in the
sheets working out our position and planning what coast we should make
for. It was a nice question, for the Cape de Verdes were about five
hundred miles to the north of us, and the African coast about seven
hundred to the east. On the whole, as the wind was coming round to the
north, we thought that Sierra Leone might be best, and turned our head
in that direction, the bark being at that time nearly hull down on our
starboard quarter. Suddenly as we looked at her we saw a dense black
cloud of smoke shoot up from her, which hung like a monstrous tree upon
the sky line. A few seconds later a roar like thunder burst upon our
ears, and as the smoke thinned away there was no sign left of the
_Gloria Scott_. In an instant we swept the boat's head round again and
pulled with all our strength for the place where the haze still trailing
over the water marked the scene of this catastrophe.

"'It was a long hour before we reached it, and at first we feared that
we had come too late to save any one. A splintered boat and a number of
crates and fragments of spars rising and falling on the waves showed us
where the vessel had foundered; but there was no sign of life, and we
had turned away in despair when we heard a cry for help, and saw at some
distance a piece of wreckage with a man lying stretched across it. When
we pulled him aboard the boat he proved to be a young seaman of the
name of Hudson, who was so burned and exhausted that he could give us no
account of what had happened until the following morning.

"'It seemed that after we had left, Prendergast and his gang had
proceeded to put to death the five remaining prisoners. The two warders
had been shot and thrown overboard, and so also had the third mate.
Prendergast then descended into the 'tween-decks and with his own hands
cut the throat of the unfortunate surgeon. There only remained the first
mate, who was a bold and active man. When he saw the convict approaching
him with the bloody knife in his hand he kicked off his bonds, which he
had somehow contrived to loosen, and rushing down the deck he plunged
into the after-hold. A dozen convicts, who descended with their pistols
in search of him, found him with a match-box in his hand seated beside
an open powder-barrel, which was one of a hundred carried on board, and
swearing that he would blow all hands up if he were in any way molested.
An instant later the explosion occurred, though Hudson thought it was
caused by the misdirected bullet of one of the convicts rather than the
mate's match. Be the cause what it may, it was the end of the _Gloria
Scott_ and of the rabble who held command of her.

"'Such, in a few words, my dear boy, is the history of this terrible
business in which I was involved. Next day we were picked up by the brig
_Hotspur_, bound for Australia, whose captain found no difficulty in
believing that we were the survivors of a passenger ship which had
foundered. The transport ship Gloria Scott was set down by the Admiralty
as being lost at sea, and no word has ever leaked out as to her true
fate. After an excellent voyage the _Hotspur_ landed us at Sydney, where
Evans and I changed our names and made our way to the diggings,
where, among the crowds who were gathered from all nations, we had no
difficulty in losing our former identities. The rest I need not relate.
We prospered, we traveled, we came back as rich colonials to England,
and we bought country estates. For more than twenty years we have
led peaceful and useful lives, and we hoped that our past was forever
buried. Imagine, then, my feelings when in the seaman who came to us I
recognized instantly the man who had been picked off the wreck. He had
tracked us down somehow, and had set himself to live upon our fears. You
will understand now how it was that I strove to keep the peace with him,
and you will in some measure sympathize with me in the fears which fill
me, now that he has gone from me to his other victim with threats upon
his tongue.'

"Underneath is written in a hand so shaky as to be hardly legible,
'Beddoes writes in cipher to say H. Has told all. Sweet Lord, have mercy
on our souls!'

"That was the narrative which I read that night to young Trevor, and I
think, Watson, that under the circumstances it was a dramatic one.
The good fellow was heart-broken at it, and went out to the Terai tea
planting, where I hear that he is doing well. As to the sailor and
Beddoes, neither of them was ever heard of again after that day on which
the letter of warning was written. They both disappeared utterly and
completely. No complaint had been lodged with the police, so that
Beddoes had mistaken a threat for a deed. Hudson had been seen lurking
about, and it was believed by the police that he had done away with
Beddoes and had fled. For myself I believe that the truth was exactly
the opposite. I think that it is most probable that Beddoes, pushed to
desperation and believing himself to have been already betrayed, had
revenged himself upon Hudson, and had fled from the country with as much
money as he could lay his hands on. Those are the facts of the case,
Doctor, and if they are of any use to your collection, I am sure that
they are very heartily at your service."




Adventure V. The Musgrave Ritual


An anomaly which often struck me in the character of my friend Sherlock
Holmes was that, although in his methods of thought he was the neatest
and most methodical of mankind, and although also he affected a certain
quiet primness of dress, he was none the less in his personal habits one
of the most untidy men that ever drove a fellow-lodger to distraction.
Not that I am in the least conventional in that respect myself. The
rough-and-tumble work in Afghanistan, coming on the top of a natural
Bohemianism of disposition, has made me rather more lax than befits a
medical man. But with me there is a limit, and when I find a man who
keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of
a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a
jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin
to give myself virtuous airs. I have always held, too, that pistol
practice should be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Holmes, in
one of his queer humors, would sit in an arm-chair with his hair-trigger
and a hundred Boxer cartridges, and proceed to adorn the opposite
wall with a patriotic V. R. done in bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that
neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved by
it.

Our chambers were always full of chemicals and of criminal relics which
had a way of wandering into unlikely positions, and of turning up in
the butter-dish or in even less desirable places. But his papers were
my great crux. He had a horror of destroying documents, especially those
which were connected with his past cases, and yet it was only once in
every year or two that he would muster energy to docket and arrange
them; for, as I have mentioned somewhere in these incoherent memoirs,
the outbursts of passionate energy when he performed the remarkable
feats with which his name is associated were followed by reactions of
lethargy during which he would lie about with his violin and his books,
hardly moving save from the sofa to the table. Thus month after month
his papers accumulated, until every corner of the room was stacked with
bundles of manuscript which were on no account to be burned, and which
could not be put away save by their owner. One winter's night, as we
sat together by the fire, I ventured to suggest to him that, as he had
finished pasting extracts into his common-place book, he might employ
the next two hours in making our room a little more habitable. He could
not deny the justice of my request, so with a rather rueful face he went
off to his bedroom, from which he returned presently pulling a large tin
box behind him. This he placed in the middle of the floor and, squatting
down upon a stool in front of it, he threw back the lid. I could see
that it was already a third full of bundles of paper tied up with red
tape into separate packages.

"There are cases enough here, Watson," said he, looking at me with
mischievous eyes. "I think that if you knew all that I had in this box
you would ask me to pull some out instead of putting others in."

"These are the records of your early work, then?" I asked. "I have often
wished that I had notes of those cases."

"Yes, my boy, these were all done prematurely before my biographer
had come to glorify me." He lifted bundle after bundle in a tender,
caressing sort of way. "They are not all successes, Watson," said he.
"But there are some pretty little problems among them. Here's the record
of the Tarleton murders, and the case of Vamberry, the wine merchant,
and the adventure of the old Russian woman, and the singular affair
of the aluminium crutch, as well as a full account of Ricoletti of the
club-foot, and his abominable wife. And here--ah, now, this really is
something a little recherché."

He dived his arm down to the bottom of the chest, and brought up a small
wooden box with a sliding lid, such as children's toys are kept in. From
within he produced a crumpled piece of paper, and old-fashioned brass
key, a peg of wood with a ball of string attached to it, and three rusty
old disks of metal.

"Well, my boy, what do you make of this lot?" he asked, smiling at my
expression.

"It is a curious collection."

"Very curious, and the story that hangs round it will strike you as
being more curious still."

"These relics have a history then?"

"So much so that they are history."

"What do you mean by that?"

Sherlock Holmes picked them up one by one, and laid them along the edge
of the table. Then he reseated himself in his chair and looked them over
with a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.

"These," said he, "are all that I have left to remind me of the
adventure of the Musgrave Ritual."

I had heard him mention the case more than once, though I had never been
able to gather the details. "I should be so glad," said I, "if you would
give me an account of it."

"And leave the litter as it is?" he cried, mischievously. "Your tidiness
won't bear much strain after all, Watson. But I should be glad that you
should add this case to your annals, for there are points in it which
make it quite unique in the criminal records of this or, I believe,
of any other country. A collection of my trifling achievements would
certainly be incomplete which contained no account of this very singular
business.

"You may remember how the affair of the _Gloria Scott_, and my
conversation with the unhappy man whose fate I told you of, first turned
my attention in the direction of the profession which has become my
life's work. You see me now when my name has become known far and
wide, and when I am generally recognized both by the public and by the
official force as being a final court of appeal in doubtful cases.
Even when you knew me first, at the time of the affair which you have
commemorated in 'A Study in Scarlet,' I had already established a
considerable, though not a very lucrative, connection. You can hardly
realize, then, how difficult I found it at first, and how long I had to
wait before I succeeded in making any headway.

"When I first came up to London I had rooms in Montague Street, just
round the corner from the British Museum, and there I waited, filling in
my too abundant leisure time by studying all those branches of science
which might make me more efficient. Now and again cases came in my way,
principally through the introduction of old fellow-students, for during
my last years at the University there was a good deal of talk there
about myself and my methods. The third of these cases was that of the
Musgrave Ritual, and it is to the interest which was aroused by that
singular chain of events, and the large issues which proved to be at
stake, that I trace my first stride towards the position which I now
hold.

"Reginald Musgrave had been in the same college as myself, and I had
some slight acquaintance with him. He was not generally popular among
the undergraduates, though it always seemed to me that what was set down
as pride was really an attempt to cover extreme natural diffidence.
In appearance he was a man of exceedingly aristocratic type, thin,
high-nosed, and large-eyed, with languid and yet courtly manners. He was
indeed a scion of one of the very oldest families in the kingdom,
though his branch was a cadet one which had separated from the northern
Musgraves some time in the sixteenth century, and had established itself
in western Sussex, where the Manor House of Hurlstone is perhaps the
oldest inhabited building in the county. Something of his birth place
seemed to cling to the man, and I never looked at his pale, keen face
or the poise of his head without associating him with gray archways and
mullioned windows and all the venerable wreckage of a feudal keep. Once
or twice we drifted into talk, and I can remember that more than once he
expressed a keen interest in my methods of observation and inference.

"For four years I had seen nothing of him until one morning he walked
into my room in Montague Street. He had changed little, was dressed like
a young man of fashion--he was always a bit of a dandy--and preserved
the same quiet, suave manner which had formerly distinguished him.

"'How has all gone with you Musgrave?' I asked, after we had cordially
shaken hands.

"'You probably heard of my poor father's death,' said he; 'he was
carried off about two years ago. Since then I have of course had the
Hurlstone estates to manage, and as I am member for my district as well,
my life has been a busy one. But I understand, Holmes, that you are
turning to practical ends those powers with which you used to amaze us?'

"'Yes,' said I, 'I have taken to living by my wits.'

"'I am delighted to hear it, for your advice at present would be
exceedingly valuable to me. We have had some very strange doings at
Hurlstone, and the police have been able to throw no light upon the
matter. It is really the most extraordinary and inexplicable business.'

"You can imagine with what eagerness I listened to him, Watson, for
the very chance for which I had been panting during all those months
of inaction seemed to have come within my reach. In my inmost heart I
believed that I could succeed where others failed, and now I had the
opportunity to test myself.

"'Pray, let me have the details,' I cried.

"Reginald Musgrave sat down opposite to me, and lit the cigarette which
I had pushed towards him.

"'You must know,' said he, 'that though I am a bachelor, I have to keep
up a considerable staff of servants at Hurlstone, for it is a rambling
old place, and takes a good deal of looking after. I preserve, too, and
in the pheasant months I usually have a house-party, so that it would
not do to be short-handed. Altogether there are eight maids, the cook,
the butler, two footmen, and a boy. The garden and the stables of course
have a separate staff.

"'Of these servants the one who had been longest in our service was
Brunton the butler. He was a young school-master out of place when he
was first taken up by my father, but he was a man of great energy and
character, and he soon became quite invaluable in the household. He was
a well-grown, handsome man, with a splendid forehead, and though he has
been with us for twenty years he cannot be more than forty now. With
his personal advantages and his extraordinary gifts--for he can speak
several languages and play nearly every musical instrument--it is
wonderful that he should have been satisfied so long in such a position,
but I suppose that he was comfortable, and lacked energy to make any
change. The butler of Hurlstone is always a thing that is remembered by
all who visit us.

"'But this paragon has one fault. He is a bit of a Don Juan, and you can
imagine that for a man like him it is not a very difficult part to play
in a quiet country district. When he was married it was all right, but
since he has been a widower we have had no end of trouble with him. A
few months ago we were in hopes that he was about to settle down again
for he became engaged to Rachel Howells, our second house-maid; but he
has thrown her over since then and taken up with Janet Tregellis, the
daughter of the head game-keeper. Rachel--who is a very good girl, but
of an excitable Welsh temperament--had a sharp touch of brain-fever,
and goes about the house now--or did until yesterday--like a black-eyed
shadow of her former self. That was our first drama at Hurlstone; but a
second one came to drive it from our minds, and it was prefaced by the
disgrace and dismissal of butler Brunton.

"'This was how it came about. I have said that the man was intelligent,
and this very intelligence has caused his ruin, for it seems to have
led to an insatiable curiosity about things which did not in the least
concern him. I had no idea of the lengths to which this would carry him,
until the merest accident opened my eyes to it.

"'I have said that the house is a rambling one. One day last week--on
Thursday night, to be more exact--I found that I could not sleep,
having foolishly taken a cup of strong café noir after my dinner. After
struggling against it until two in the morning, I felt that it was quite
hopeless, so I rose and lit the candle with the intention of continuing
a novel which I was reading. The book, h