Забытый мастер

Забытый мастер
Его последний поклон
Артур Конан Дойл

Предисловие.
Друзья мистера Шерлока Холмса будут рады узнать, что он
все еще жив и здоров, хотя и несколько искалечен случайными приступами
ревматизма. Он уже много лет живет на небольшой ферме в Даунсе,
в пяти милях от Истборна, где его время делится между
философией и сельским хозяйством. В этот период отдыха он отказался
от самых княжеских предложений взяться за различные дела, решив, что его отставка будет постоянной. Однако приближение германской войны
побудило его предоставить в распоряжение правительства свое замечательное сочетание интеллектуальной и практической деятельности.
исторические результаты, которые изложены в _His Last Bow_. Несколько предыдущих опытов, которые долгое время лежали в моем портфолио, были
добавлены в _His Last Bow_, чтобы завершить объём.
*
Джон Х. Уотсон, доктор медицинских наук

Содержание
 Приключение Вистерия Лодж
Приключение Брюса-Партингтона Планы
Приключение Ноги Дьявола
Приключение Красного круга
Исчезновение леди Фрэнсис Карфакс
Приключение умирающего детектива
Его последний поклон: Война Служба Шерлока Холмса
***

Приключение Глициний Лодж

Необычный опыт мистера Джона Скотта Эклза.
Тигр из Сан-Педро


1. Необычный опыт мистера Джона Скотта Экклза

В моей записной книжке записано, что день был холодный и
ветреный конец марта 1892 года. Холмс получил телеграмму,
пока мы сидели за обедом, и нацарапал ответ. Он
ничего не сказал, но дело осталось в его мыслях, потому что
потом он стоял перед огнем с задумчивым лицом, курил
трубку и время от времени бросал взгляды на послание. Внезапно он
повернулся ко мне с озорным блеском в глазах.

- Полагаю, Уотсон, мы должны смотреть на вас как на литератора, -- сказал
он. — Как вы понимаете слово «гротеск»?
— Странно — замечательно, — предположил я.
Он покачал головой в ответ на мое определение.
- Наверняка есть нечто большее, -- сказал он. «некий скрытый
намек на трагическое и ужасное. Если вы вернетесь
к некоторым из тех повествований, которыми вы огорчили
многострадальную публику, вы поймете, как часто гротеск перерастал
в преступление. Подумайте об этом маленьком романе с
рыжеволосыми мужчинами. Вначале это было достаточно гротескно, но все же
закончилось отчаянной попыткой ограбления. Или, опять-таки, было самое
абсурдное дело с пятью апельсиновыми зернышками, которое привело прямо к
убийственному заговору. Это слово меня насторожило».
— Он у вас есть? Я спросил.
Он прочитал телеграмму вслух.
«Только что пережил самый невероятный и гротескный опыт. Могу я проконсультироваться с вами?

«Скотт Экклс, «Почтовое отделение, Чаринг-Кросс».
"Мужчина или женщина?" Я спросил. — О, чувак, конечно.
Ни одна женщина никогда не отправит платную ответную телеграмму.
Она бы пришла.
— Ты увидишь его?
«Мой дорогой Ватсон, вы знаете, как мне было скучно с тех пор, как мы заперли
полковника Каррутерса. Мой разум подобен гоночному двигателю, разрывающемуся на
части, потому что он не связан с работой, для которой он был
создан. Жизнь обыденна, бумаги бесплодны; дерзость и
романтика, кажется, навсегда ушли из криминального мира. Можете ли вы
тогда спросить меня, готов ли я рассмотреть любую новую проблему, какой бы
тривиальной она ни оказалась? Но вот, если я не ошибаюсь, наш клиент.
На лестнице послышались размеренные шаги, и через минуту в комнату ввели толстого,
высокого, седоусого и торжественно-приличного человека.
Его жизненная история была написана в его тяжелых чертах и напыщенной манере.
От гетров до очков в золотой оправе он был консерватором, церковником, хорошим гражданином, ортодоксальным и конвенциональным до
последней степени. Но какое-то удивительное переживание нарушило его природное
спокойствие и оставило свои следы в его взлохмаченных волосах, в его раскрасневшихся, злых
щеках, в его взволнованной манере. Он моментально погрузился в свои дела.

- У меня был весьма странный и неприятный опыт, мистер Холмс, -
сказал он. «Ни разу в жизни я не попадал в такую ситуацию. Это
в высшей степени неприлично — в высшей степени возмутительно.
Я должен настаивать на каком-то объяснении.
Он надулся и запыхтел от гнева.
— Присядьте, мистер Скотт Экклс, — успокаивающе сказал Холмс.
— Могу я прежде всего спросить, зачем вы вообще пришли ко мне?

— Что ж, сэр, похоже, это не касалось полиции, и тем не менее, когда вы узнали факты, вы должны признать, что я
не мог оставить его там, где он был. Частные сыщики — это класс, к
которому я совершенно не питаю симпатии, но тем не менее, услышав ваше имя…
— Совершенно верно. Но, во-вторых, почему вы не пришли сразу?
Холмс взглянул на часы.
— Сейчас четверть второго, — сказал он. «Ваша телеграмма была отправлена
около часа. Но никто не может взглянуть на ваш туалет и одежду без
видя, что ваше беспокойство началось с момента вашего пробуждения».
Наш клиент пригладил свои нечесаные волосы и ощупал небритый подбородок.

— Вы правы, мистер Холмс. Я никогда не думал о моем туалете. Я был
только рад выбраться из такого дома. Но я бегал вокруг,
наводя справки, прежде чем пришел к вам. Вы знаете, я пошел к агентам по дому,
они сказали, что арендная плата мистера Гарсии полностью оплачена и
что в Вистерия Лодж все в порядке.

- Ну, ну, сэр, - сказал Холмс, смеясь. «Вы похожи на моего друга, доктора
Ватсона, у которого есть дурная привычка рассказывать свои истории не в конце, а в конце.
Пожалуйста, соберитесь с мыслями и сообщите мне в надлежащей последовательности,
каковы именно те события, которые отправили вас нечёсаным и
нечесаным, в парадных сапогах и жилете, застегнутом набекрень, в поисках
совета и помощи.
Наш клиент печально посмотрел на свою нетрадиционную внешность.

— Я уверен, что это должно выглядеть очень плохо, мистер Холмс, и я не знаю, чтобы за
всю мою жизнь когда-либо случалось подобное. Но я расскажу
вам все странное дело, и когда я это сделаю, вы, я
уверен, согласитесь, что этого было достаточно, чтобы извинить меня.

Но его рассказ был пресечен в зародыше. Снаружи царила суматоха,
и миссис Хадсон открыла дверь, чтобы впустить двух крепких и
официальных лиц, один из которых был хорошо известен нам как
инспектор Грегсон из Скотленд-Ярда, энергичный, галантный и, в пределах
его возможностей, способный офицер. Он пожал руку Холмсу и
представил своего товарища как инспектора Бейнса из полиции Суррея.

— Мы вместе охотимся, мистер Холмс, и наш след лежит в этом
направлении. Он обратил свои бульдожьи глаза на нашего гостя. — Вы мистер
Джон Скотт Экклс из Пофам-Хауса, Ли? -"Я." — Мы следили за вами почти все утро.
— Вы, несомненно, выследили его по телеграмме, — сказал Холмс.
— Совершенно верно, мистер Холмс. Мы почуяли запах в
почтовом отделении Чаринг-Кросс и пришли сюда.
«Но почему ты следишь за мной? Что ты хочешь?"
«Мы требуем заявления, мистер Скотт Экклс, относительно событий, которые привели
к смерти прошлой ночью мистера Алоизиуса Гарсии из Вистерия Лодж, недалеко от Эшера».

Наш клиент сидел с вытаращенными глазами, и каждый оттенок цвета
исчез с его изумленного лица. -"Мёртвый? Ты сказал, что он мёртв?
— Да, сэр, он мертв. -"Но как? Несчастный случай?"
«Убийство, если оно когда-либо было на земле».
"Боже! Это ужасно! Вы не имеете в виду... вы не имеете в виду, что меня
подозревают? — В кармане убитого было найдено ваше письмо, и по
нему мы знаем, что вы собирались прошлой ночью пройти у его дома.
"Так я и сделал." — О, ты это сделал?
Вышла официальная записная книжка.
— Подожди немного, Грегсон, — сказал Шерлок Холмс.
— Всё, что вам нужно, — это прямое заявление, не так ли?

— И мой долг — предупредить мистера Скотта Эклза, что это может быть использовано против
него. -"Мистер. Экклс собирался рассказать нам об этом, когда вы вошли в комнату.
Думаю, Ватсон, бренди с содовой не повредит ему. А теперь, сэр, я
предлагаю вам не обращать внимания на это дополнение к вашей аудитории и
продолжить свой рассказ в точности так, как вы бы это сделали, если бы
вас никогда не прерывали. Наш посетитель залпом выпил коньяк, и лицо его снова покраснело .
С сомнением взглянув в тетрадь инспектора, он тотчас же погрузился в свое необыкновенное заявление.

«Я холостяк, — сказал он, — и, будучи человеком общительным, у меня много
друзей. Среди них семья бывшего пивовара Мелвилла, живущего в особняке Абермарл в Кенсингтоне. Именно за его
столом я встретил несколько недель назад молодого человека по имени Гарсия. Насколько я понял, он был
испанского происхождения и каким-то образом связан с
посольством. Он прекрасно говорил по-английски, имел приятные манеры и был самым
красивым мужчиной, которого я когда-либо видел в своей жизни.

«В каком-то смысле мы подружились, этот молодой человек и я.
Он, казалось, привязался ко мне с самого начала, и через два дня после
нашей встречи он приехал ко мне в Ли. Одно повлекло за собой другое, и все
закончилось тем, что он пригласил меня провести несколько дней в его доме, Вистерия
Лодж, между Эшером и Оксшоттом. Вчера вечером я отправился в Эшер, чтобы
выполнить это обязательство.

«Он описал мне свой дом еще до того, как я пошел туда. Он жил
с верным слугой, своим земляком, который заботился обо всех
его нуждах. Этот парень говорил по-английски и вел за
него домашнее хозяйство. Еще, по его словам, был замечательный повар, полукровка, которую он
подцепил во время своих путешествий и которая могла приготовить превосходный обед. Я
помню, как он заметил, какой странный дом находится в самом
сердце Суррея, и я согласился с ним, хотя дом оказался гораздо более
странным, чем я думал.

«Я подъехал к месту — примерно в двух милях к югу от Эшера. Дом
был приличных размеров, стоял в стороне от дороги, с извилистой
дорожкой, обрамленной высокими вечнозелеными кустами. Это было старое
полуразрушенное здание, находившееся в ужасном состоянии. Когда двуколка затормозила
на заросшей травой дорожке перед потрескавшейся и обветренной дверью, я усомнился в благоразумии своего визита к человеку
, которого так мало знал. Однако он сам открыл дверь и приветствовал меня с большой демонстрацией сердечности. Меня передали слуге
, меланхоличному смуглому человеку, который с моей сумкой
в руке вел меня в спальню. Все место было удручающим. Наш обед
был _t;te-;-t;te_, и хотя мой хозяин изо всех сил старался развлечь меня,
мысли его, казалось, постоянно блуждали, и говорил он так невнятно и
дико, что я едва мог его понять. Он то и дело барабанил
пальцами по столу, грыз ногти и подавал другие признаки нервного
нетерпения. Сам обед был ни хорошо сервирован, ни хорошо приготовлен,
и мрачное присутствие молчаливого слуги не способствовало
нашему оживлению. Могу заверить вас, что много раз в течение вечера мне
хотелось придумать какой-нибудь предлог, который вернул бы меня к Ли.

— Мне вспоминается одна вещь, которая может иметь отношение к
делу, которое вы, джентльмены, расследуете. Я ничего не думал об
этом в то время. Ближе к концу обеда слуга вручил записку
. Я заметил, что после того, как мой хозяин прочитал ее, он стал еще более
рассеянным и странным, чем прежде. Он отказался от всякого притворства в
разговоре и сидел, куря бесконечные папиросы, погруженный в свои
мысли, но ничего не говоря о содержании. Около одиннадцати я был
рад лечь спать. Некоторое время спустя Гарсия заглянул в мою дверь — в комнате
в это время было темно — и спросил, звонил ли я. Я сказал, что нет.
Он извинился за то, что побеспокоил меня так поздно, сказав, что уже
почти час дня. Я вырубился после этого и крепко спал всю ночь.

«А теперь я перехожу к удивительной части моего рассказа. Когда я проснулся, было уже
совсем светло. Я взглянул на часы, время было почти девять. Я
специально просил, чтобы меня вызвали в восемь, и очень удивился
такой забывчивости. Я вскочил и позвал слугу.
Ответа не последовало. Я звонил снова и снова, с тем же результатом.
Тогда я пришел к выводу, что звонок вышел из строя. Я закутался
в одежду и в чрезвычайно дурном настроении поспешил вниз, чтобы
заказать горячей воды. Можете себе представить мое удивление, когда я обнаружил, что
там никого нет. — крикнул я в зале. Ответа не было.
Потом я бегал из комнаты в комнату. Все опустели. Мой хозяин накануне ночью показал мне,
где находится его спальня, и я постучал в дверь. Нет ответа. Я повернул ручку и вошел. Комната была пуста, и
на кровати никогда не спали. Он ушел с остальными. Иноземный
хозяин, иноземный лакей, иноземный повар — все исчезло в ночи! На этом мой визит в Вистерия Лодж закончился.

Шерлок Холмс потирал руки и посмеивался, добавляя этот странный случай в свою коллекцию странных эпизодов.
- Ваш опыт, насколько мне известно, совершенно уникален, -- сказал он. — Могу
я спросить, сэр, что вы тогда делали?
«Я был в ярости. Моей первой мыслью было, что я стал жертвой какой-то
абсурдной розыгрыша. Я собрал вещи, хлопнул дверью за
собой и отправился в Эшер с сумкой в руке. Я зашел к Аллан
Бразерс, главному земельному агенту в деревне, и узнал, что именно
у этой фирмы была арендована вилла. Мне пришло в голову, что
вся эта процедура вряд ли может быть направлена на то, чтобы одурачить меня, и что главная цель должна состоять в том, чтобы избавиться от арендной платы. Сейчас конец марта, так что четверть дня уже близко. Но эта теория не сработала.
Агент был благодарен мне за мое предупреждение, но сказал мне, что арендная плата
уплачена вперед. Затем я отправился в город и зашел в
испанское посольство. Этот человек был там неизвестен. После этого я пошел к
Мелвиллу, у которого я впервые встретил Гарсию, но обнаружил, что он
действительно знает о нем гораздо меньше, чем я. В конце концов, когда я получил ваш
ответ на мою телеграмму, я вышел к вам, так как я понял, что вы человек
, который дает советы в трудных случаях. Но теперь, мистер инспектор,
из того, что вы сказали, когда вошли в комнату, я понял, что вы можете
продолжать рассказ и что произошла какая-то трагедия. Уверяю
вас, что каждое сказанное мной слово — правда, и что, кроме того, что
я вам сказал, я абсолютно ничего не знаю о судьбе этого человека.
Мое единственное желание — всячески помогать закону».

— Я уверен в этом, мистер Скотт Экклс, я уверен в этом, —
очень любезным тоном сказал инспектор Грегсон.
«Я должен сказать, что всё, что вы сказали, очень близко согласуется с фактами, как они стали
известны нам. Например, была та записка, которая пришла
во время обеда. Вы случайно не видели, что из этого вышло?

"Да, я сделал. Гарсия свернул его и бросил в огонь.
— Что вы на это скажете, мистер Бейнс?
Деревенский сыщик был толстый, одутловатый, румяный человек, лицо которого
спасали от грубости только два необычайно ярких глаза, почти
спрятанных за тяжелыми складками щек и бровей. С медленной улыбкой он
вытащил из кармана сложенный и выцветший клочок бумаги.

— Это была собачья решетка, мистер Холмс, и он ее перегнал. Я выбрал это
несгоревшим с обратной стороны. Холмс одобрительно улыбнулся.
— Вы, должно быть, очень внимательно осмотрели дом, чтобы найти хоть одну
бумажку. — Да, мистер Холмс. Это мой путь. Прочитать, мистер Грегсон?
Лондонец кивнул. -«Записка написана на обычной кремовой бумаге без водяных знаков.
Это четверть листа. Бумага отрезается двумя ножницами с
короткими лезвиями. Она была сложена втрое и запечатана
пурпурным воском, наскоро надета и придавлена каким-то плоским овальным
предметом. Оно адресовано мистеру Гарсии, Wisteria Lodge. В нем говорится:
«Наши собственные цвета, зеленый и белый. Зеленый открыт, белый закрыт. Парадная лестница,
первый коридор, седьмой справа, зеленое сукно. Удачи. Д.

«Это женский почерк, сделанный остроконечным пером, но адрес
написан либо другим пером, либо кем-то другим.
Как видите, он толще и смелее.
— Очень примечательная записка, — сказал Холмс, просматривая ее. — Должен
похвалить вас, мистер Бейнс, за внимание к деталям при его
изучении. Можно было бы, пожалуй, добавить несколько пустяковых моментов. Овальное
уплотнение, несомненно, представляет собой простое звено-рукав — что еще есть такой
формы? Ножницы были изогнутыми маникюрными ножницами.
Какими бы короткими ни были эти два фрагмента, вы можете отчетливо увидеть одну и ту же небольшую кривую в каждом из них».
Сельский детектив усмехнулся.
«Я думал, что выжал из него все соки, но вижу, что их
немного больше», — сказал он. «Я должен сказать, что ничего не понимаю в записке,
кроме того, что что-то было под рукой и что женщина, как обычно, была на дне».
Во время этого разговора мистер Скотт Экклс ерзал на своем месте.
— Я рад, что вы нашли записку, поскольку она подтверждает мою историю, — сказал
он. — Но прошу заметить, что я еще не слышал, что случилось с мистером Гарсия и что сталось с его домочадцами.

- Что касается Гарсии, -- сказал Грегсон,- на него легко ответить.
Сегодня утром его нашли мертвым на Оксшот Коммон, почти в миле от его дома.
Его голова была разбита в кашицу сильными ударами мешка с песком или какого-то подобного
предмета, который скорее раздавил, чем ранил. Это уединённый угол, и в пределах четверти мили от этого места нет ни одного дома.
Очевидно, сначала его ударили сзади, но нападавший продолжал бить его еще долго после того, как он умер. Это был самый яростный
штурм. Ни следов, ни следов преступников».
— Ограбили? — Нет, попытки ограбления не было.
- Это очень больно - очень больно и ужасно, --
ворчливым голосом сказал мистер Скотт Эклз, -- но мне действительно необыкновенно тяжело. Я не имел
никакого отношения к тому, что мой хозяин отправился в ночную прогулку и
встретил такой печальный конец. Как я могу быть замешан в деле?

— Очень просто, сэр, — ответил инспектор Бейнс. «Единственным документом, найденным
в кармане покойного, было ваше письмо, в котором говорилось, что вы
будете с ним в ночь его смерти. Именно на конверте
этого письма мы узнали имя и адрес покойного. Это было после
девяти утра, когда мы добрались до его дома и не нашли ни вас, ни
кого-либо еще внутри него. Я телеграфировал мистеру Грегсону, чтобы он связался с вами в Лондоне,
пока я буду осматривать Вистерия-лодж. Потом я приехал в город, присоединился к мистеру
Грегсону, и вот мы здесь.

- Я думаю, теперь, -- сказал Грегсон, вставая, -- нам лучше всего придать этому делу
официальную форму. Вы пройдете с нами в участок, мистер
Скотт Экклс, и дайте нам письменное заявление.
«Конечно, я приду сейчас же. Но я рассчитываю на ваши услуги, мистер
Холмс. Я желаю, чтобы вы не жалели средств и не жалели усилий, чтобы докопаться до истины».
Мой друг обратился к сельскому инспектору.
— Я полагаю, вы не возражаете против моего сотрудничества с вами, мистер Бейнс?
— Большая честь, сэр, я уверен.
— Вы, кажется, были очень расторопны и деловиты во всем, что делали.
Могу ли я спросить, есть ли какая-нибудь подсказка относительно точного часа,
когда этот человек встретил свою смерть?
«Он был там с часу дня. Примерно в то время шел дождь,
и его смерть определенно наступила до дождя».
— Но это совершенно невозможно, мистер Бейнс, — воскликнул наш клиент. «Его
голос неповторим. Могу поклясться, что именно он обратился
ко мне в мою спальню в тот самый час».
— Замечательно, но ни в коем случае не невозможно, — сказал Холмс, улыбаясь.
— У тебя есть подсказка? — спросил Грегсон.
«На первый взгляд, это дело не очень сложное, хотя оно,
безусловно, содержит некоторые новые и интересные особенности. Необходимо дальнейшее
знание фактов, прежде чем я осмелюсь высказать окончательное
и определенное мнение. Кстати, мистер Бейнс, не нашли ли вы
при осмотре дома чего-нибудь примечательного, кроме этой записки?
Детектив как-то странно посмотрел на моего друга.
«Были, — сказал он, — одна или две весьма замечательные вещи. Может быть,
когда я закончу в полицейском участке, вы соблаговолите выйти
и высказать мне свое мнение о них.
— Я полностью к вашим услугам, — сказал Шерлок Холмс, звоня в
колокольчик. — Вы проводите этих джентльменов, миссис Хадсон, и будьте любезны отправить
мальчика с этой телеграммой. Он должен заплатить пять шиллингов в ответ.

Мы посидели некоторое время в тишине после того, как наши посетители ушли. Холмс
сильно курил, нахмурив брови над зоркими глазами, и
вытянув голову вперед в нетерпеливой манере, характерной для этого человека.

«Ну, Ватсон, — спросил он, внезапно повернувшись ко мне, — что вы
об этом думаете?» -«Я ничего не могу понять из этой мистификации Скотта Эклза».
— Но преступление? — Что ж, учитывая исчезновение товарищей этого человека, я должен
сказать, что они каким-то образом были причастны к убийству и скрылись
от правосудия. -«Это, безусловно, возможная точка зрения. На первый взгляд, однако, вы должны признать, что очень странно, что два его слуги были
в заговоре против него и напали на него в ту ночь, когда у него был гость.
Каждую вторую ночь на неделе они держали его одного в своей власти.
— Тогда почему они летели?
«Совершенно так. Почему они летели? Есть большой факт. Еще одним важным фактом является
замечательный опыт нашего клиента, Скотта Эклза. Итак, мой дорогой
Ватсон, неужели человеческая изобретательность не может дать объяснение,
которое охватило бы оба этих важных факта? Если бы это было такое,
 также допускало бы таинственную ноту с ее очень любопытной фразеологией, почему, тогда ее стоило бы принять как временную
гипотезу. Если все свежие факты, которые станут известны нам, впишутся
в схему, тогда наша гипотеза может постепенно стать решением».
— Но какова наша гипотеза?
Холмс откинулся на спинку стула с полузакрытыми глазами.
«Вы должны признать, мой дорогой Ватсон, что идея шутки невозможна.
Как показал сиквел, назревали серьёзные события, и уговоры
Скотта Эклза в Вистерия Лодж имели к ним какое-то отношение».
— Но какая возможная связь?
«Давайте рассмотрим это по ссылке. На первый взгляд,
в этой странной и внезапной дружбе между молодым
испанцем и Скоттом Эклзом есть что-то неестественное. Именно первый форсировал темп. Он
посетил Экклза на другом конце Лондона в тот же день после того, как
впервые встретил его, и поддерживал с ним тесную связь, пока не привел его
к Эшеру. Так чего же он хотел от Эклза? Что мог
дать Экклз? Я не вижу обаяния в этом человеке. Он не особенно
умен — вряд ли человек будет близок сообразительному латиноамериканцу.
Почему же тогда он был выбран из всех других людей, которых встречал Гарсия,
как особенно подходящий для его цели? Есть ли у него какое-нибудь выдающееся
качество? Я говорю, что у него есть. Он типичный пример традиционной британской
респектабельности и самый лучший свидетель, чтобы произвести впечатление на другого
британца. Вы сами видели, как ни одному из инспекторов не пришло в голову подвергнуть
сомнению его заявление, каким бы необычным оно ни было.
— Но что он должен был увидеть?
«Ничего, как вышло, но все пошло по-другому. Вот как я прочитал это дело.
— Понятно, он мог доказать алиби.
«Именно так, мой дорогой Ватсон; он мог бы доказать алиби. Мы
предположим, ради аргумента, что дом Глицинии-Лоджа является
сообщником по какому-то замыслу. Попытка, какой бы она ни была, состоит в том, чтобы
оторваться, скажем, до часу дня. Вполне возможно, что благодаря некоторому манипулированию часами
Скотта Экклза уложили спать раньше, чем он думал, но в любом случае вполне вероятно, что, когда Гарсия
изо всех сил старался сказать ему, что это было одно, на самом деле это было не так. больше
двенадцати. Если бы Гарсия мог сделать все, что от него требовалось, и вернуться к
указанному часу, у него, очевидно, был бы весомый ответ на любое обвинение.
Вот этот безупречный англичанин, готовый поклясться в любом суде, что обвиняемый все время находился в доме. Это была страховка
от худшего». — Да, да, я это вижу. А как насчет исчезновения остальных?
«Я еще не располагаю всеми фактами, но не думаю, что есть какие-то
непреодолимые трудности. Тем не менее, это ошибка спорить перед вашими данными. Вы обнаружите, что незаметно перекручиваете их, чтобы они соответствовали вашим теориям. — А сообщение?

«Как оно бежало? «Наши собственные цвета, зеленый и белый». Звучит как
гонки. «Зеленый открыт, белый закрыт». Это явно сигнал. «Главная
лестница, первый коридор, седьмой справа, зеленое сукно». Это
задание. В основе всего этого может оказаться ревнивый муж. Это
был явно опасный квест. Она бы не сказала «спасибо», если бы
это было не так. «Д» — это должно быть ориентиром.

«Этот мужчина был испанцем. Я полагаю, что «Д» означает Долорес,
распространенное женское имя в Испании».

— Хорошо, Ватсон, очень хорошо, но совершенно неприемлемо. Испанец написал бы
испанцу на испанском языке. Автор этой заметки, безусловно, англичанин.
Что ж, нам остается только запастись терпением, пока этот превосходный
инспектор не вернется за нами. А пока мы можем благодарить нашу счастливую судьбу, которая
избавила нас на несколько коротких часов от невыносимой усталости праздности».

Ответ на телеграмму Холмса пришел до того, как вернулся наш офицер из Суррея.
Холмс прочитал его и уже собирался положить в свою записную книжку,
когда мельком увидел мое выжидающее лицо. Он бросил его со смехом.
«Мы движемся в возвышенных кругах, — сказал он.
В телеграмме был список имен и адресов: лорд Харрингби, Дингл; сэр Джордж Фоллиотт, Оксшотт Тауэрс; г-н
Хайнс Хайнс, JP, Purdley Place; г-н Джеймс Бейкер Уильямс, Фортон Олд
Холл; мистер Хендерсон, Высокий Гейбл; Преподобный Джошуа Стоун, Нижний Уолслинг.

«Это очень очевидный способ ограничить наше поле деятельности», — сказал
Холмс. «Несомненно, Бейнс с его методичным умом уже принял
какой-то подобный план». — Я не совсем понимаю.
— Что ж, мой дорогой друг, мы уже пришли к заключению, что
сообщение, полученное Гарсией за обедом, было свиданием или
назначением. Теперь, если очевидное прочтение этого правильно, и чтобы
сохранить свидание, нужно подняться по парадной лестнице и искать седьмую
дверь в коридоре, совершенно ясно, что дом очень
большой. Столь же очевидно и то, что этот дом не может быть дальше, чем в
миле или двух от Оксшота, поскольку Гарсия шел в этом направлении
и надеялся, согласно моему прочтению фактов, вернуться в Вистерия
Лодж вовремя, чтобы воспользоваться алиби. , который будет действовать только
до часу дня. Так как число больших домов вблизи Оксшотта должно
быть ограничено, я применил очевидный метод, отправив агентов,
упомянутых Скоттом Эклзом, и получив их список. Вот они в этой телеграмме,
и другой конец нашего запутанного мотка должен лежать среди них».
Было почти шесть часов, когда мы оказались в симпатичной
суррейской деревушке Эшер с инспектором Бейнсом в качестве нашего компаньона.

Холмс и я взяли вещи на ночь и нашли удобное
помещение в «Быке». Наконец мы отправились в сопровождении сыщика
в гости к Вистерия Лодж. Это был холодный, темный мартовский
вечер, с пронизывающим ветром и мелким дождем, хлеставшим в лицо, —
подходящая обстановка для дикой равнины, по которой проходила наша дорога, и
трагической цели, к которой она нас привела.
***

His Last Bow
by Arthur Conan Doyle

Preface


The friends of Mr. Sherlock Holmes will be glad to learn that he is
still alive and well, though somewhat crippled by occasional attacks of
rheumatism. He has, for many years, lived in a small farm upon the
Downs five miles from Eastbourne, where his time is divided between
philosophy and agriculture. During this period of rest he has refused
the most princely offers to take up various cases, having determined
that his retirement was a permanent one. The approach of the German war
caused him, however, to lay his remarkable combination of intellectual
and practical activity at the disposal of the Government, with
historical results which are recounted in _His Last Bow_. Several
previous experiences which have lain long in my portfolio have been
added to _His Last Bow_ so as to complete the volume.

John H. Watson, M.D.




Contents

 The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
 The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
 The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot
 The Adventure of the Red Circle
 The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax
 The Adventure of the Dying Detective
 His Last Bow: The War Service of Sherlock Holmes
The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
 The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles
 The Tiger of San Pedro

 1. The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles

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

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

“Strange—remarkable,” I suggested.

He shook his head at my definition.

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

“Have you it there?” I asked.

He read the telegram aloud.

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

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


“Man or woman?” I asked.

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

“Will you see him?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Holmes glanced at his watch.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I am.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Dead? Did you say he was dead?”

“Yes, sir, he is dead.”

“But how? An accident?”

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

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

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

“So I did.”

“Oh, you did, did you?”

Out came the official notebook.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Holmes smiled his appreciation.

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

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

The Londoner nodded.

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

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

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

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

The country detective chuckled.

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

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

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

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

“Robbed?”

“No, there was no attempt at robbery.”

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

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

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

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

My friend turned to the country inspector.

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

“Highly honoured, sir, I am sure.”

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

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

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

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

“You have a clue?” asked Gregson.

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

The detective looked at my friend in a singular way.

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

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

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

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

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

“But the crime?”

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

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

“Then why did they fly?”

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

“But what is our hypothesis?”

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

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

“But what possible connection?”

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

“But what was he to witness?”

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

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

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

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

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

“And the message?”

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

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

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

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

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

The telegram was a list of names and addresses:

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

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

“I don’t quite understand.”

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

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

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




2. The Tiger of San Pedro


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That what had come again?”

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

“What was at the window, and when?”

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

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

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

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

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

“What became of him?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Very interesting—very interesting, indeed!” said Holmes, peering at
this sinister relic. “Anything more?”

In silence Baynes led the way to the sink and held forward his candle.
The limbs and body of some large, white bird, torn savagely to pieces
with the feathers still on, were littered all over it. Holmes pointed
to the wattles on the severed head.

“A white cock,” said he. “Most interesting! It is really a very curious
case.”

But Mr. Baynes had kept his most sinister exhibit to the last. From
under the sink he drew a zinc pail which contained a quantity of blood.
Then from the table he took a platter heaped with small pieces of
charred bone.

“Something has been killed and something has been burned. We raked all
these out of the fire. We had a doctor in this morning. He says that
they are not human.”

Holmes smiled and rubbed his hands.

“I must congratulate you, Inspector, on handling so distinctive and
instructive a case. Your powers, if I may say so without offence, seem
superior to your opportunities.”

Inspector Baynes’s small eyes twinkled with pleasure.

“You’re right, Mr. Holmes. We stagnate in the provinces. A case of this
sort gives a man a chance, and I hope that I shall take it. What do you
make of these bones?”

“A lamb, I should say, or a kid.”

“And the white cock?”

“Curious, Mr. Baynes, very curious. I should say almost unique.”

“Yes, sir, there must have been some very strange people with some very
strange ways in this house. One of them is dead. Did his companions
follow him and kill him? If they did we should have them, for every
port is watched. But my own views are different. Yes, sir, my own views
are very different.”

“You have a theory then?”

“And I’ll work it myself, Mr. Holmes. It’s only due to my own credit to
do so. Your name is made, but I have still to make mine. I should be
glad to be able to say afterwards that I had solved it without your
help.”

Holmes laughed good-humouredly.

“Well, well, Inspector,” said he. “Do you follow your path and I will
follow mine. My results are always very much at your service if you
care to apply to me for them. I think that I have seen all that I wish
in this house, and that my time may be more profitably employed
elsewhere. _Au revoir_ and good luck!”

I could tell by numerous subtle signs, which might have been lost upon
anyone but myself, that Holmes was on a hot scent. As impassive as ever
to the casual observer, there were none the less a subdued eagerness
and suggestion of tension in his brightened eyes and brisker manner
which assured me that the game was afoot. After his habit he said
nothing, and after mine I asked no questions. Sufficient for me to
share the sport and lend my humble help to the capture without
distracting that intent brain with needless interruption. All would
come round to me in due time.

I waited, therefore—but to my ever-deepening disappointment I waited in
vain. Day succeeded day, and my friend took no step forward. One
morning he spent in town, and I learned from a casual reference that he
had visited the British Museum. Save for this one excursion, he spent
his days in long and often solitary walks, or in chatting with a number
of village gossips whose acquaintance he had cultivated.

“I’m sure, Watson, a week in the country will be invaluable to you,” he
remarked. “It is very pleasant to see the first green shoots upon the
hedges and the catkins on the hazels once again. With a spud, a tin
box, and an elementary book on botany, there are instructive days to be
spent.” He prowled about with this equipment himself, but it was a poor
show of plants which he would bring back of an evening.

Occasionally in our rambles we came across Inspector Baynes. His fat,
red face wreathed itself in smiles and his small eyes glittered as he
greeted my companion. He said little about the case, but from that
little we gathered that he also was not dissatisfied at the course of
events. I must admit, however, that I was somewhat surprised when, some
five days after the crime, I opened my morning paper to find in large
letters:

    THE OXSHOTT MYSTERY
    A SOLUTION
    ARREST OF SUPPOSED ASSASSIN

Holmes sprang in his chair as if he had been stung when I read the
headlines.

“By Jove!” he cried. “You don’t mean that Baynes has got him?”

“Apparently,” said I as I read the following report:

“Great excitement was caused in Esher and the neighbouring district
when it was learned late last night that an arrest had been effected in
connection with the Oxshott murder. It will be remembered that Mr.
Garcia, of Wisteria Lodge, was found dead on Oxshott Common, his body
showing signs of extreme violence, and that on the same night his
servant and his cook fled, which appeared to show their participation
in the crime. It was suggested, but never proved, that the deceased
gentleman may have had valuables in the house, and that their
abstraction was the motive of the crime. Every effort was made by
Inspector Baynes, who has the case in hand, to ascertain the hiding
place of the fugitives, and he had good reason to believe that they had
not gone far but were lurking in some retreat which had been already
prepared. It was certain from the first, however, that they would
eventually be detected, as the cook, from the evidence of one or two
tradespeople who have caught a glimpse of him through the window, was a
man of most remarkable appearance—being a huge and hideous mulatto,
with yellowish features of a pronounced negroid type. This man has been
seen since the crime, for he was detected and pursued by Constable
Walters on the same evening, when he had the audacity to revisit
Wisteria Lodge. Inspector Baynes, considering that such a visit must
have some purpose in view and was likely, therefore, to be repeated,
abandoned the house but left an ambuscade in the shrubbery. The man
walked into the trap and was captured last night after a struggle in
which Constable Downing was badly bitten by the savage. We understand
that when the prisoner is brought before the magistrates a remand will
be applied for by the police, and that great developments are hoped
from his capture.”


“Really we must see Baynes at once,” cried Holmes, picking up his hat.
“We will just catch him before he starts.” We hurried down the village
street and found, as we had expected, that the inspector was just
leaving his lodgings.

“You’ve seen the paper, Mr. Holmes?” he asked, holding one out to us.

“Yes, Baynes, I’ve seen it. Pray don’t think it a liberty if I give you
a word of friendly warning.”

“Of warning, Mr. Holmes?”

“I have looked into this case with some care, and I am not convinced
that you are on the right lines. I don’t want you to commit yourself
too far unless you are sure.”

“You’re very kind, Mr. Holmes.”

“I assure you I speak for your good.”

It seemed to me that something like a wink quivered for an instant over
one of Mr. Baynes’s tiny eyes.

“We agreed to work on our own lines, Mr. Holmes. That’s what I am
doing.”

“Oh, very good,” said Holmes. “Don’t blame me.”

“No, sir; I believe you mean well by me. But we all have our own
systems, Mr. Holmes. You have yours, and maybe I have mine.”

“Let us say no more about it.”

“You’re welcome always to my news. This fellow is a perfect savage, as
strong as a cart-horse and as fierce as the devil. He chewed Downing’s
thumb nearly off before they could master him. He hardly speaks a word
of English, and we can get nothing out of him but grunts.”

“And you think you have evidence that he murdered his late master?”

“I didn’t say so, Mr. Holmes; I didn’t say so. We all have our little
ways. You try yours and I will try mine. That’s the agreement.”

Holmes shrugged his shoulders as we walked away together. “I can’t make
the man out. He seems to be riding for a fall. Well, as he says, we
must each try our own way and see what comes of it. But there’s
something in Inspector Baynes which I can’t quite understand.”

“Just sit down in that chair, Watson,” said Sherlock Holmes when we had
returned to our apartment at the Bull. “I want to put you in touch with
the situation, as I may need your help to-night. Let me show you the
evolution of this case so far as I have been able to follow it. Simple
as it has been in its leading features, it has none the less presented
surprising difficulties in the way of an arrest. There are gaps in that
direction which we have still to fill.

“We will go back to the note which was handed in to Garcia upon the
evening of his death. We may put aside this idea of Baynes’s that
Garcia’s servants were concerned in the matter. The proof of this lies
in the fact that it was _he_ who had arranged for the presence of Scott
Eccles, which could only have been done for the purpose of an alibi. It
was Garcia, then, who had an enterprise, and apparently a criminal
enterprise, in hand that night in the course of which he met his death.
I say ‘criminal’ because only a man with a criminal enterprise desires
to establish an alibi. Who, then, is most likely to have taken his
life? Surely the person against whom the criminal enterprise was
directed. So far it seems to me that we are on safe ground.

“We can now see a reason for the disappearance of Garcia’s household.
They were _all_ confederates in the same unknown crime. If it came off
when Garcia returned, any possible suspicion would be warded off by the
Englishman’s evidence, and all would be well. But the attempt was a
dangerous one, and if Garcia did _not_ return by a certain hour it was
probable that his own life had been sacrificed. It had been arranged,
therefore, that in such a case his two subordinates were to make for
some prearranged spot where they could escape investigation and be in a
position afterwards to renew their attempt. That would fully explain
the facts, would it not?”

The whole inexplicable tangle seemed to straighten out before me. I
wondered, as I always did, how it had not been obvious to me before.

“But why should one servant return?”

“We can imagine that in the confusion of flight something precious,
something which he could not bear to part with, had been left behind.
That would explain his persistence, would it not?”

“Well, what is the next step?”

“The next step is the note received by Garcia at the dinner. It
indicates a confederate at the other end. Now, where was the other end?
I have already shown you that it could only lie in some large house,
and that the number of large houses is limited. My first days in this
village were devoted to a series of walks in which in the intervals of
my botanical researches I made a reconnaissance of all the large houses
and an examination of the family history of the occupants. One house,
and only one, riveted my attention. It is the famous old Jacobean
grange of High Gable, one mile on the farther side of Oxshott, and less
than half a mile from the scene of the tragedy. The other mansions
belonged to prosaic and respectable people who live far aloof from
romance. But Mr. Henderson, of High Gable, was by all accounts a
curious man to whom curious adventures might befall. I concentrated my
attention, therefore, upon him and his household.

“A singular set of people, Watson—the man himself the most singular of
them all. I managed to see him on a plausible pretext, but I seemed to
read in his dark, deepset, brooding eyes that he was perfectly aware of
my true business. He is a man of fifty, strong, active, with iron-grey
hair, great bunched black eyebrows, the step of a deer and the air of
an emperor—a fierce, masterful man, with a red-hot spirit behind his
parchment face. He is either a foreigner or has lived long in the
tropics, for he is yellow and sapless, but tough as whipcord. His
friend and secretary, Mr. Lucas, is undoubtedly a foreigner, chocolate
brown, wily, suave, and catlike, with a poisonous gentleness of speech.
You see, Watson, we have come already upon two sets of foreigners—one
at Wisteria Lodge and one at High Gable—so our gaps are beginning to
close.

“These two men, close and confidential friends, are the centre of the
household; but there is one other person who for our immediate purpose
may be even more important. Henderson has two children—girls of eleven
and thirteen. Their governess is a Miss Burnet, an Englishwoman of
forty or thereabouts. There is also one confidential manservant. This
little group forms the real family, for they travel about together, and
Henderson is a great traveller, always on the move. It is only within
the last weeks that he has returned, after a year’s absence, to High
Gable. I may add that he is enormously rich, and whatever his whims may
be he can very easily satisfy them. For the rest, his house is full of
butlers, footmen, maidservants, and the usual overfed, underworked
staff of a large English country house.

“So much I learned partly from village gossip and partly from my own
observation. There are no better instruments than discharged servants
with a grievance, and I was lucky enough to find one. I call it luck,
but it would not have come my way had I not been looking out for it. As
Baynes remarks, we all have our systems. It was my system which enabled
me to find John Warner, late gardener of High Gable, sacked in a moment
of temper by his imperious employer. He in turn had friends among the
indoor servants who unite in their fear and dislike of their master. So
I had my key to the secrets of the establishment.

“Curious people, Watson! I don’t pretend to understand it all yet, but
very curious people anyway. It’s a double-winged house, and the
servants live on one side, the family on the other. There’s no link
between the two save for Henderson’s own servant, who serves the
family’s meals. Everything is carried to a certain door, which forms
the one connection. Governess and children hardly go out at all, except
into the garden. Henderson never by any chance walks alone. His dark
secretary is like his shadow. The gossip among the servants is that
their master is terribly afraid of something. ‘Sold his soul to the
devil in exchange for money,’ says Warner, ‘and expects his creditor to
come up and claim his own.’ Where they came from, or who they are,
nobody has an idea. They are very violent. Twice Henderson has lashed
at folk with his dog-whip, and only his long purse and heavy
compensation have kept him out of the courts.

“Well, now, Watson, let us judge the situation by this new information.
We may take it that the letter came out of this strange household and
was an invitation to Garcia to carry out some attempt which had already
been planned. Who wrote the note? It was someone within the citadel,
and it was a woman. Who then but Miss Burnet, the governess? All our
reasoning seems to point that way. At any rate, we may take it as a
hypothesis and see what consequences it would entail. I may add that
Miss Burnet’s age and character make it certain that my first idea that
there might be a love interest in our story is out of the question.

“If she wrote the note she was presumably the friend and confederate of
Garcia. What, then, might she be expected to do if she heard of his
death? If he met it in some nefarious enterprise her lips might be
sealed. Still, in her heart, she must retain bitterness and hatred
against those who had killed him and would presumably help so far as
she could to have revenge upon them. Could we see her, then and try to
use her? That was my first thought. But now we come to a sinister fact.
Miss Burnet has not been seen by any human eye since the night of the
murder. From that evening she has utterly vanished. Is she alive? Has
she perhaps met her end on the same night as the friend whom she had
summoned? Or is she merely a prisoner? There is the point which we
still have to decide.

“You will appreciate the difficulty of the situation, Watson. There is
nothing upon which we can apply for a warrant. Our whole scheme might
seem fantastic if laid before a magistrate. The woman’s disappearance
counts for nothing, since in that extraordinary household any member of
it might be invisible for a week. And yet she may at the present moment
be in danger of her life. All I can do is to watch the house and leave
my agent, Warner, on guard at the gates. We can’t let such a situation
continue. If the law can do nothing we must take the risk ourselves.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I know which is her room. It is accessible from the top of an
outhouse. My suggestion is that you and I go to-night and see if we can
strike at the very heart of the mystery.”

It was not, I must confess, a very alluring prospect. The old house
with its atmosphere of murder, the singular and formidable inhabitants,
the unknown dangers of the approach, and the fact that we were putting
ourselves legally in a false position all combined to damp my ardour.
But there was something in the ice-cold reasoning of Holmes which made
it impossible to shrink from any adventure which he might recommend.
One knew that thus, and only thus, could a solution be found. I clasped
his hand in silence, and the die was cast.

But it was not destined that our investigation should have so
adventurous an ending. It was about five o’clock, and the shadows of
the March evening were beginning to fall, when an excited rustic rushed
into our room.

“They’ve gone, Mr. Holmes. They went by the last train. The lady broke
away, and I’ve got her in a cab downstairs.”

“Excellent, Warner!” cried Holmes, springing to his feet. “Watson, the
gaps are closing rapidly.”

In the cab was a woman, half-collapsed from nervous exhaustion. She
bore upon her aquiline and emaciated face the traces of some recent
tragedy. Her head hung listlessly upon her breast, but as she raised it
and turned her dull eyes upon us I saw that her pupils were dark dots
in the centre of the broad grey iris. She was drugged with opium.

“I watched at the gate, same as you advised, Mr. Holmes,” said our
emissary, the discharged gardener. “When the carriage came out I
followed it to the station. She was like one walking in her sleep, but
when they tried to get her into the train she came to life and
struggled. They pushed her into the carriage. She fought her way out
again. I took her part, got her into a cab, and here we are. I shan’t
forget the face at the carriage window as I led her away. I’d have a
short life if he had his way—the black-eyed, scowling, yellow devil.”

We carried her upstairs, laid her on the sofa, and a couple of cups of
the strongest coffee soon cleared her brain from the mists of the drug.
Baynes had been summoned by Holmes, and the situation rapidly explained
to him.

“Why, sir, you’ve got me the very evidence I want,” said the inspector
warmly, shaking my friend by the hand. “I was on the same scent as you
from the first.”

“What! You were after Henderson?”

“Why, Mr. Holmes, when you were crawling in the shrubbery at High Gable
I was up one of the trees in the plantation and saw you down below. It
was just who would get his evidence first.”

“Then why did you arrest the mulatto?”

Baynes chuckled.

“I was sure Henderson, as he calls himself, felt that he was suspected,
and that he would lie low and make no move so long as he thought he was
in any danger. I arrested the wrong man to make him believe that our
eyes were off him. I knew he would be likely to clear off then and give
us a chance of getting at Miss Burnet.”

Holmes laid his hand upon the inspector’s shoulder.

“You will rise high in your profession. You have instinct and
intuition,” said he.

Baynes flushed with pleasure.

“I’ve had a plain-clothes man waiting at the station all the week.
Wherever the High Gable folk go he will keep them in sight. But he must
have been hard put to it when Miss Burnet broke away. However, your man
picked her up, and it all ends well. We can’t arrest without her
evidence, that is clear, so the sooner we get a statement the better.”

“Every minute she gets stronger,” said Holmes, glancing at the
governess. “But tell me, Baynes, who is this man Henderson?”

“Henderson,” the inspector answered, “is Don Murillo, once called the
Tiger of San Pedro.”

The Tiger of San Pedro! The whole history of the man came back to me in
a flash. He had made his name as the most lewd and bloodthirsty tyrant
that had ever governed any country with a pretence to civilization.
Strong, fearless, and energetic, he had sufficient virtue to enable him
to impose his odious vices upon a cowering people for ten or twelve
years. His name was a terror through all Central America. At the end of
that time there was a universal rising against him. But he was as
cunning as he was cruel, and at the first whisper of coming trouble he
had secretly conveyed his treasures aboard a ship which was manned by
devoted adherents. It was an empty palace which was stormed by the
insurgents next day. The dictator, his two children, his secretary, and
his wealth had all escaped them. From that moment he had vanished from
the world, and his identity had been a frequent subject for comment in
the European press.

“Yes, sir, Don Murillo, the Tiger of San Pedro,” said Baynes. “If you
look it up you will find that the San Pedro colours are green and
white, same as in the note, Mr. Holmes. Henderson he called himself,
but I traced him back, Paris and Rome and Madrid to Barcelona, where
his ship came in in ’86. They’ve been looking for him all the time for
their revenge, but it is only now that they have begun to find him
out.”

“They discovered him a year ago,” said Miss Burnet, who had sat up and
was now intently following the conversation. “Once already his life has
been attempted, but some evil spirit shielded him. Now, again, it is
the noble, chivalrous Garcia who has fallen, while the monster goes
safe. But another will come, and yet another, until some day justice
will be done; that is as certain as the rise of to-morrow’s sun.” Her
thin hands clenched, and her worn face blanched with the passion of her
hatred.

“But how come you into this matter, Miss Burnet?” asked Holmes. “How
can an English lady join in such a murderous affair?”

“I join in it because there is no other way in the world by which
justice can be gained. What does the law of England care for the rivers
of blood shed years ago in San Pedro, or for the shipload of treasure
which this man has stolen? To you they are like crimes committed in
some other planet. But _we_ know. We have learned the truth in sorrow
and in suffering. To us there is no fiend in hell like Juan Murillo,
and no peace in life while his victims still cry for vengeance.”

“No doubt,” said Holmes, “he was as you say. I have heard that he was
atrocious. But how are you affected?”

“I will tell you it all. This villain’s policy was to murder, on one
pretext or another, every man who showed such promise that he might in
time come to be a dangerous rival. My husband—yes, my real name is
Signora Victor Durando—was the San Pedro minister in London. He met me
and married me there. A nobler man never lived upon earth. Unhappily,
Murillo heard of his excellence, recalled him on some pretext, and had
him shot. With a premonition of his fate he had refused to take me with
him. His estates were confiscated, and I was left with a pittance and a
broken heart.

“Then came the downfall of the tyrant. He escaped as you have just
described. But the many whose lives he had ruined, whose nearest and
dearest had suffered torture and death at his hands, would not let the
matter rest. They banded themselves into a society which should never
be dissolved until the work was done. It was my part after we had
discovered in the transformed Henderson the fallen despot, to attach
myself to his household and keep the others in touch with his
movements. This I was able to do by securing the position of governess
in his family. He little knew that the woman who faced him at every
meal was the woman whose husband he had hurried at an hour’s notice
into eternity. I smiled on him, did my duty to his children, and bided
my time. An attempt was made in Paris and failed. We zig-zagged swiftly
here and there over Europe to throw off the pursuers and finally
returned to this house, which he had taken upon his first arrival in
England.

“But here also the ministers of justice were waiting. Knowing that he
would return there, Garcia, who is the son of the former highest
dignitary in San Pedro, was waiting with two trusty companions of
humble station, all three fired with the same reasons for revenge. He
could do little during the day, for Murillo took every precaution and
never went out save with his satellite Lucas, or Lopez as he was known
in the days of his greatness. At night, however, he slept alone, and
the avenger might find him. On a certain evening, which had been
prearranged, I sent my friend final instructions, for the man was
forever on the alert and continually changed his room. I was to see
that the doors were open and the signal of a green or white light in a
window which faced the drive was to give notice if all was safe or if
the attempt had better be postponed.

“But everything went wrong with us. In some way I had excited the
suspicion of Lopez, the secretary. He crept up behind me and sprang
upon me just as I had finished the note. He and his master dragged me
to my room and held judgment upon me as a convicted traitress. Then and
there they would have plunged their knives into me could they have seen
how to escape the consequences of the deed. Finally, after much debate,
they concluded that my murder was too dangerous. But they determined to
get rid forever of Garcia. They had gagged me, and Murillo twisted my
arm round until I gave him the address. I swear that he might have
twisted it off had I understood what it would mean to Garcia. Lopez
addressed the note which I had written, sealed it with his sleeve-link,
and sent it by the hand of the servant, Jos;. How they murdered him I
do not know, save that it was Murillo’s hand who struck him down, for
Lopez had remained to guard me. I believe he must have waited among the
gorse bushes through which the path winds and struck him down as he
passed. At first they were of a mind to let him enter the house and to
kill him as a detected burglar; but they argued that if they were mixed
up in an inquiry their own identity would at once be publicly disclosed
and they would be open to further attacks. With the death of Garcia,
the pursuit might cease, since such a death might frighten others from
the task.

“All would now have been well for them had it not been for my knowledge
of what they had done. I have no doubt that there were times when my
life hung in the balance. I was confined to my room, terrorised by the
most horrible threats, cruelly ill-used to break my spirit—see this
stab on my shoulder and the bruises from end to end of my arms—and a
gag was thrust into my mouth on the one occasion when I tried to call
from the window. For five days this cruel imprisonment continued, with
hardly enough food to hold body and soul together. This afternoon a
good lunch was brought me, but the moment after I took it I knew that I
had been drugged. In a sort of dream I remember being half-led,
half-carried to the carriage; in the same state I was conveyed to the
train. Only then, when the wheels were almost moving, did I suddenly
realise that my liberty lay in my own hands. I sprang out, they tried
to drag me back, and had it not been for the help of this good man, who
led me to the cab, I should never had broken away. Now, thank God, I am
beyond their power forever.”

We had all listened intently to this remarkable statement. It was
Holmes who broke the silence.

“Our difficulties are not over,” he remarked, shaking his head. “Our
police work ends, but our legal work begins.”

“Exactly,” said I. “A plausible lawyer could make it out as an act of
self-defence. There may be a hundred crimes in the background, but it
is only on this one that they can be tried.”

“Come, come,” said Baynes cheerily, “I think better of the law than
that. Self-defence is one thing. To entice a man in cold blood with the
object of murdering him is another, whatever danger you may fear from
him. No, no, we shall all be justified when we see the tenants of High
Gable at the next Guildford Assizes.”

It is a matter of history, however, that a little time was still to
elapse before the Tiger of San Pedro should meet with his deserts. Wily
and bold, he and his companion threw their pursuer off their track by
entering a lodging-house in Edmonton Street and leaving by the
back-gate into Curzon Square. From that day they were seen no more in
England. Some six months afterwards the Marquess of Montalva and Signor
Rulli, his secretary, were both murdered in their rooms at the Hotel
Escurial at Madrid. The crime was ascribed to Nihilism, and the
murderers were never arrested. Inspector Baynes visited us at Baker
Street with a printed description of the dark face of the secretary,
and of the masterful features, the magnetic black eyes, and the tufted
brows of his master. We could not doubt that justice, if belated, had
come at last.

“A chaotic case, my dear Watson,” said Holmes over an evening pipe. “It
will not be possible for you to present in that compact form which is
dear to your heart. It covers two continents, concerns two groups of
mysterious persons, and is further complicated by the highly
respectable presence of our friend, Scott Eccles, whose inclusion shows
me that the deceased Garcia had a scheming mind and a well-developed
instinct of self-preservation. It is remarkable only for the fact that
amid a perfect jungle of possibilities we, with our worthy
collaborator, the inspector, have kept our close hold on the essentials
and so been guided along the crooked and winding path. Is there any
point which is not quite clear to you?”

“The object of the mulatto cook’s return?”

“I think that the strange creature in the kitchen may account for it.
The man was a primitive savage from the backwoods of San Pedro, and
this was his fetish. When his companion and he had fled to some
prearranged retreat—already occupied, no doubt by a confederate—the
companion had persuaded him to leave so compromising an article of
furniture. But the mulatto’s heart was with it, and he was driven back
to it next day, when, on reconnoitering through the window, he found
policeman Walters in possession. He waited three days longer, and then
his piety or his superstition drove him to try once more. Inspector
Baynes, who, with his usual astuteness, had minimised the incident
before me, had really recognised its importance and had left a trap
into which the creature walked. Any other point, Watson?”

“The torn bird, the pail of blood, the charred bones, all the mystery
of that weird kitchen?”

Holmes smiled as he turned up an entry in his note-book.

“I spent a morning in the British Museum reading up on that and other
points. Here is a quotation from Eckermann’s _Voodooism and the Negroid
Religions:_

“‘The true voodoo-worshipper attempts nothing of importance without
certain sacrifices which are intended to propitiate his unclean gods.
In extreme cases these rites take the form of human sacrifices followed
by cannibalism. The more usual victims are a white cock, which is
plucked in pieces alive, or a black goat, whose throat is cut and body
burned.’


“So you see our savage friend was very orthodox in his ritual. It is
grotesque, Watson,” Holmes added, as he slowly fastened his notebook,
“but, as I have had occasion to remark, there is but one step from the
grotesque to the horrible.”




The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans


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

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

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

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

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

Holmes snorted his contempt.

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

“It is, indeed!” said I heartily.

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

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

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

“Why not?” I asked.

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

“Does he not explain?”

Holmes handed me his brother’s telegram.


 “Must see you over Cadogan West. Coming at once.” MYCROFT.

“Cadogan West? I have heard the name.”

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

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

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

Holmes chuckled.

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

“My dear Holmes!”

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

“But how?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“When?”

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

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

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

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

“There was no ticket in his pockets.”

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

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

Holmes gave an exclamation of satisfaction.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Only as a name.”

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

“But you have recovered them?”

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

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

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

My friend smiled and shook his head.

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

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

“Has the fact been verified?”

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

“Who was the other man with a key?”

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

“Tell us about Cadogan West.”

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

“Who locked up the plans that night?”

“Mr. Sidney Johnson, the senior clerk.”

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

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

“I presume they were of value?”

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

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

“No, I cannot.”

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

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

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

“How?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why had he no ticket?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No record of a door being found open?”

“None.”

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

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

“Points,” he muttered; “the points.”

“What of it? What do you mean?”

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

“No; they are very few.”

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

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

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

“There were hardly any.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

“Even now they are dark to me.”

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

“On the roof!”

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

“And the ticket, too!” I cried.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, we had best do so.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But the facts, Miss Westbury?”

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

“Was he in any want of money?”

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

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

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

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

“For long?”

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

Holmes looked grave.

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

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

My friend’s face grew graver still.

“Anything else?”

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

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

“Yes, quite recently.”

“Now tell us of that last evening.”

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

“Without a word?”

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

Holmes shook his head sadly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We have just come from his house.”

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

“You are sure of his guilt, then?”

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

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

“At five.”

“Did you close it?”

“I am always the last man out.”

“Where were the plans?”

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

“Is there no watchman to the building?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And that ring went with him to London?”

“He said so.”

“And your key never left your possession?”

“Never.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, that is so.”

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

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

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

“Undoubtedly.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What is the next step?”

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

“They are here, in my overcoat.”

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

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

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

“How could he be placed there?”

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

“It seems most improbable.”

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

“Oh, that was it, was it?”

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

“Splendid, Holmes! You have got it!”

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

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

“Hardly on the evidence.”

“What can we hope to do?”

“We cannot tell what correspondence may be there.”

“I don’t like it, Holmes.”

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

My answer was to rise from the table.

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

He sprang up and shook me by the hand.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


“Next comes:

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


“Then comes:

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


“Finally:

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

Holmes picked up the _Daily Telegraph_ which lay upon the table.

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

“What? Another one?”

“Yes, here it is:

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


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

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

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

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

“He is coming,” said he.

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

Holmes gave a whistle of surprise.

“You can write me down an ass this time, Watson,” said he. “This was
not the bird that I was looking for.”

“Who is he?” asked Mycroft eagerly.

“The younger brother of the late Sir James Walter, the head of the
Submarine Department. Yes, yes; I see the fall of the cards. He is
coming to. I think that you had best leave his examination to me.”

We had carried the prostrate body to the sofa. Now our prisoner sat up,
looked round him with a horror-stricken face, and passed his hand over
his forehead, like one who cannot believe his own senses.

“What is this?” he asked. “I came here to visit Mr. Oberstein.”

“Everything is known, Colonel Walter,” said Holmes. “How an English
gentleman could behave in such a manner is beyond my comprehension. But
your whole correspondence and relations with Oberstein are within our
knowledge. So also are the circumstances connected with the death of
young Cadogan West. Let me advise you to gain at least the small credit
for repentance and confession, since there are still some details which
we can only learn from your lips.”

The man groaned and sank his face in his hands. We waited, but he was
silent.

“I can assure you,” said Holmes, “that every essential is already
known. We know that you were pressed for money; that you took an
impress of the keys which your brother held; and that you entered into
a correspondence with Oberstein, who answered your letters through the
advertisement columns of the _Daily Telegraph_. We are aware that you
went down to the office in the fog on Monday night, but that you were
seen and followed by young Cadogan West, who had probably some previous
reason to suspect you. He saw your theft, but could not give the alarm,
as it was just possible that you were taking the papers to your brother
in London. Leaving all his private concerns, like the good citizen that
he was, he followed you closely in the fog and kept at your heels until
you reached this very house. There he intervened, and then it was,
Colonel Walter, that to treason you added the more terrible crime of
murder.”

“I did not! I did not! Before God I swear that I did not!” cried our
wretched prisoner.

“Tell us, then, how Cadogan West met his end before you laid him upon
the roof of a railway carriage.”

“I will. I swear to you that I will. I did the rest. I confess it. It
was just as you say. A Stock Exchange debt had to be paid. I needed the
money badly. Oberstein offered me five thousand. It was to save myself
from ruin. But as to murder, I am as innocent as you.”

“What happened, then?”

“He had his suspicions before, and he followed me as you describe. I
never knew it until I was at the very door. It was thick fog, and one
could not see three yards. I had given two taps and Oberstein had come
to the door. The young man rushed up and demanded to know what we were
about to do with the papers. Oberstein had a short life-preserver. He
always carried it with him. As West forced his way after us into the
house Oberstein struck him on the head. The blow was a fatal one. He
was dead within five minutes. There he lay in the hall, and we were at
our wits’ end what to do. Then Oberstein had this idea about the trains
which halted under his back window. But first he examined the papers
which I had brought. He said that three of them were essential, and
that he must keep them. ‘You cannot keep them,’ said I. ‘There will be
a dreadful row at Woolwich if they are not returned.’ ‘I must keep
them,’ said he, ‘for they are so technical that it is impossible in the
time to make copies.’ ‘Then they must all go back together to-night,’
said I. He thought for a little, and then he cried out that he had it.
‘Three I will keep,’ said he. ‘The others we will stuff into the pocket
of this young man. When he is found the whole business will assuredly
be put to his account.’ I could see no other way out of it, so we did
as he suggested. We waited half an hour at the window before a train
stopped. It was so thick that nothing could be seen, and we had no
difficulty in lowering West’s body on to the train. That was the end of
the matter so far as I was concerned.”

“And your brother?”

“He said nothing, but he had caught me once with his keys, and I think
that he suspected. I read in his eyes that he suspected. As you know,
he never held up his head again.”

There was silence in the room. It was broken by Mycroft Holmes.

“Can you not make reparation? It would ease your conscience, and
possibly your punishment.”

“What reparation can I make?”

“Where is Oberstein with the papers?”

“I do not know.”

“Did he give you no address?”

“He said that letters to the H;tel du Louvre, Paris, would eventually
reach him.”

“Then reparation is still within your power,” said Sherlock Holmes.

“I will do anything I can. I owe this fellow no particular good-will.
He has been my ruin and my downfall.”

“Here are paper and pen. Sit at this desk and write to my dictation.
Direct the envelope to the address given. That is right. Now the
letter:

“Dear Sir:

“With regard to our transaction, you will no doubt have observed by now
that one essential detail is missing. I have a tracing which will make
it complete. This has involved me in extra trouble, however, and I must
ask you for a further advance of five hundred pounds. I will not trust
it to the post, nor will I take anything but gold or notes. I would
come to you abroad, but it would excite remark if I left the country at
present. Therefore I shall expect to meet you in the smoking-room of
the Charing Cross Hotel at noon on Saturday. Remember that only English
notes, or gold, will be taken.


“That will do very well. I shall be very much surprised if it does not
fetch our man.”

And it did! It is a matter of history—that secret history of a nation
which is often so much more intimate and interesting than its public
chronicles—that Oberstein, eager to complete the coup of his lifetime,
came to the lure and was safely engulfed for fifteen years in a British
prison. In his trunk were found the invaluable Bruce-Partington plans,
which he had put up for auction in all the naval centres of Europe.

Colonel Walter died in prison towards the end of the second year of his
sentence. As to Holmes, he returned refreshed to his monograph upon the
Polyphonic Motets of Lassus, which has since been printed for private
circulation, and is said by experts to be the last word upon the
subject. Some weeks afterwards I learned incidentally that my friend
spent a day at Windsor, whence he returned with a remarkably fine
emerald tie-pin. When I asked him if he had bought it, he answered that
it was a present from a certain gracious lady in whose interests he had
once been fortunate enough to carry out a small commission. He said no
more; but I fancy that I could guess at that lady’s august name, and I
have little doubt that the emerald pin will forever recall to my
friend’s memory the adventure of the Bruce-Partington plans.




The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot


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

It was, then, with considerable surprise that I received a telegram
from Holmes last Tuesday—he has never been known to write where a
telegram would serve—in the following terms: “Why not tell them of the
Cornish horror—strangest case I have handled.” I have no idea what
backward sweep of memory had brought the matter fresh to his mind, or
what freak had caused him to desire that I should recount it; but I
hasten, before another cancelling telegram may arrive, to hunt out the
notes which give me the exact details of the case and to lay the
narrative before my readers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“About a mile inland.”

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

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

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

“Tell me about last night.”

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

“Who let you out?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“There is nothing at all, sir.”

“Your people were in their usual spirits?”

“Never better.”

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

“Nothing of the kind.”

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

Mortimer Tregennis considered earnestly for a moment.

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

“Did you not investigate?”

“No; the matter passed as unimportant.”

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

“None at all.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Holmes raised his eyebrows.

“Did you lose your boat through it?”

“I will take the next.”

“Dear me! that is friendship indeed.”

“I tell you they were relatives.”

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

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

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

“No, sir; I had a telegram.”

“Might I ask from whom?”

A shadow passed over the gaunt face of the explorer.

“You are very inquisitive, Mr. Holmes.”

“It is my business.”

With an effort Dr. Sterndale recovered his ruffled composure.

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

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

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

“No, I can hardly answer that.”

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

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

“He is deeply interested.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, I can.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It would appear so.”

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

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

“Why half, Holmes?”

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

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

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

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

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

“None whatever.”

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

“Then his own death was suicide!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The killing of Mortimer Tregennis,” said Holmes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“My defence?”

“Yes, sir.”

“My defence against what?”

“Against the charge of killing Mortimer Tregennis.”

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

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

“I came back—”

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

“How do you know that?”

“I followed you.”

“I saw no one.”

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

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

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

Sterndale sprang to his feet.

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

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

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

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

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

“Brenda Tregennis,” said he.

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

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

“Proceed,” said my friend.

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

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

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

“Well, sir?” asked Holmes sternly.

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

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

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

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

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

Holmes sat for some little time in silence.

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

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

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

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

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

“Certainly not,” I answered.

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




The Adventure of the Red Circle


 PART I

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

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

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

“Ah, yes—a simple matter.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Well?”

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

“What were the terms?”

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

“Nothing wonderful in that, surely?”

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

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

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

“But his meals?”

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

“Prints it?”

“Yes, sir; prints it in pencil. Just the word, nothing more. Here’s the
one I brought to show you—SOAP. Here’s another—MATCH. This is one he
left the first morning—DAILY GAZETTE. I leave that paper with his
breakfast every morning.”

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

“That he desired to conceal his handwriting.”

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

“I cannot imagine.”

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

“Of caution?”

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

“Youngish, sir—not over thirty.”

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

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

“And he was well dressed?”

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

“He gave no name?”

“No, sir.”

“And has had no letters or callers?”

“None.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Holmes shrugged his shoulders.

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

“Yes, sir.”

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

“A holder?” I suggested.

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

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

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

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

“Why should you think so?”

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

“But for what possible end?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Knocking Mr. Warren about?”

“Using him roughly, anyway.”

“But who used him roughly?”

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

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

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

“And you connect this attack with your lodger?”

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

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

“Well, what am I to do, Mr. Holmes?”

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

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

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

The landlady thought for a moment.

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

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

“About one, sir.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“She saw us.”

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

“But what is at the root of it?”

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

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

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

“For my education, Holmes.”

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

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

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

“A cipher message, Holmes.”

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

“I believe you have hit it.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Shall I go for the police?”

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