The Final Problem

It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the

last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by

which my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was distinguished. In an

incoherent and. as I deeply feel, an entirely inadequate fashion, I

have endeavoured to give some account of my strange experiences

in his company from the chance which first brought us together

at the period of the "Study in Scarlet," up to the time of his

interference in the matter of the "Naval Treaty" -- an interfer-

ence which had the unquestionable effect of preventing a serious

international complication. It was my intention to have stopped

there, and to have said nothing of that event which has created a

void in my life which the lapse of two years has done little to

fill. My hand has been forced, however, by the recent letters in

which Colonel James Moriarty defends the memory of his brother,

and I have no choice but to lay the facts before the public exactly

as they occurred. I alone know the absolute truth of the matter,

and I am satisfied that the time has come when no good purpose

is to be served by its suppression. As far as I know, there have

been only three accounts in the public press: that in the Journal

de Geneve on May 6th, 1891, the Reuter's dispatch in the

English papers on May 7th, and finally the recent letters to

which I have alluded. Of these the first and second were ex-

tremely condensed, while the last is, as I shall now show, an

absolute perversion of the facts. It lies with me to tell for the first

time what really took place between Professor Moriarty and Mr.

Sherlock Holmes.

It may be remembered that after my marriage, and my subse-

quent start in private practice, the very intimate relations which

had existed between Holmes and myself became to some extent

modified. He still came to me from time to time when he desired

a companion in his investigations, but these occasions grew more

and more seldom, until I find that in the year 1890 there were

only three cases of which I retain any record. During the winter

of that year and the early spring of 1891, I saw in the papers that

he had been engaged by the French government upon a matter of

supreme importance, and I received two notes from Holmes,

dated from Narbonne and from Nimes, from which I gathered

that his stay in France was likely to be a long one. It was with

some surprise, therefore, that I saw him walk into my consulting-

room upon the evening of April 24th. It struck me that he was

looking even paler and thinner than usual.

"Yes, I have been using myself up rather too freely," he

remarked, in answer to my look rather than to my words; "I

have been a little pressed of late. Have you any objection to my

closing your shutters?"

The only light in the room came from the lamp upon the table

at which I had been reading. Holmes edged his way round the

wall, and, flinging the shutters together, he bolted them securely.

"You are afraid of something?" I asked.

"Well, I am."

"Of what?"

"Of air-guns."

"My dear Holmes, what do you mean?"

"I think that you know me well enough. Watson. to under-

stand that I am by no means a nervous man. At the same time, it

is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger

when it is close upon you. Might I trouble you for a match?" He

drew in the smoke of his cigarette as if the soothing influence

was grateful to him.

"I must apologize for calling so late," said he, "and I must

further beg you to be so unconventional as to allow me to leave

your house presently by scrambling over your back garden wall."

"But what does it all mean?" I asked.

He held out his hand, and I saw in the light of the lamp that

two of his knuckles were burst and bleeding.

"It's not an airy nothing, you see," said he. smiling. "On the

contrary, it is solid enough for a man to break his hand over. Is

Mrs. Watson in?"

"She is away upon a visit."

"Indeed! You are alone?"

"Quite."

"Then it makes it the easier for me to propose that you should

come away with me for a week to the Continent."

"Where?"

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

There was something very strange in all this. It was not

Holmes's nature to take an aimless holiday, and something

about his pale, worn face told me that his nerves were at their

highest tension. He saw the question in my eyes, and, putting his

finger-tips together and his elbows upon his knees, he explained

the situation.

"You have probably never heard of Professor Moriarty?" said

he.

"Never."

"Ay, there's the genius and the wonder of the thing!" he

cried. "The man pervades London, and no one has heard of him.

That's what puts him on a pinnacle in the records of crime. I tell

you Watson, in all seriousness, that if I could beat that man, if I

could free society of him, I should feel that my own career had

reached its summit, and I should be prepared to turn to some

more placid line in life. Between ourselves, the recent cases in

which I have been of assistance to the royal family of Scandina-

via, and to the French republic, have left me in such a position

that I could continue to live in the quiet fashion which is most

congenial to me, and to concentrate my attention upon my

chemical researches. But I could not rest. Watson, I could not sit

quiet in my chair, if I thought that such a man as Professor

Moriarty were walking the streets of London unchallenged."

"What has he done, then?"

"His career has been an extraordinary one. He is a man of

good birth and excellent education. endowed by nature with a

phenomenal mathematical faculty. At the age of twenty-one he

wrote a treatise upon the binomial theorem, which has had a

European vogue. On the strength of it he won the mathematical

chair at one of our smaller universities, and had, to all appear-

ances, a most brilliant career before him. But the man had

hereditary tendencies of the most diabolical kind. A criminal

strain ran in his blood, which, instead of being modified, was

increased and rendered infinitely more dangerous by his extraor-

dinary mental powers. Dark rumours gathered round him in the

university town, and eventually he was compelled to resign his

chair and to come down to London, where he set up as an army

coach. So much is known to the world, but what I am telling you

now is what I have myself discovered.

"As you are aware, Watson, there is no one who knows the

higher criminal world of London so well as I do. For years past I

have continually been conscious of some power behind the male-

factor, some deep organizing power which forever stands in the

way of the law, and throws its shield over the wrong-doer. Again

and again in cases of the most varying sorts -- forgery cases,

robberies, murders -- I have felt the presence of this force, and I

have deduced its action in many of those undiscovered crimes in

which I have not been personally consulted. For years I have

endeavoured to break through the veil which shrouded it, and at

last the time came when l seized my thread and followed it, until

it led me. after a thousand cunning windings, to ex-Professor

Moriarty, of mathematical celebrity.

"He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of

half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great

city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a

brain of the first order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the

centre of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he

knows well every quiver of each of them. He does little himself.

He only plans. But his agents are numerous and splendidly

organized. Is there a crime to be done, a paper to be abstracted,

we will say, a house to be rifled, a man to be removed -- the

word is passed to the professor, the matter is organized and

carried out. The agent may be caught. In that case money is

found for his bail or his detence. But the central power which

uses the agent is never caught -- never so much as suspected.

This was the organization which I deduced, Watson, and which I

devoted my whole energy to exposing and breaking up.

"But the professor was fenced round with safeguards so cun-

ningly devised that, do what I would, it seemed impossible to get

evidence which would convict in a court of law. You know my

powers, my dear Watson, and yet at the end of three months I

was forced to confess that I had at last met an antagonist who

was my intellectual equal. My horror at his crimes was lost in

my admiration at his skill. But at last he made a trip -- only a

little, little trip but it was more than he could afford, when I

was so close upon him. I had my chance, and, starting from that

point, I have woven my net round him until now it is all ready to

close. In three days -- that is to say, on Monday next -- matters

will be ripe, and the professor, with all the principal members of

his gang, will be in the hands of the police. Then will come the

greatest criminal trial of the century, the clearing up of over forty

mysteries, and the rope for all of them; but if we move at all

prematurely, you understand, they may slip out of our hands

even at the last moment.

"Now, if I could have done this without the knowledge of

Professor Moriarty, all would have been well. But he was too

wily for that. He saw every step which I took to draw my toils

round him. Again and again he strove to break away, but I as

often headed him off. I tell you, my friend, that if a detailed

account of that silent contest could be written, it would take its

place as the most brilliant bit of thrust-and-parry work in the

history of detection. Never have I risen to such a height, and

never have I been so hard pressed by an opponent. He cut deep,

and yet I just undercut him. This morning the last steps were

taken, and three days only were wanted to complete the busi-

ness. I was sitting in my room thinking the matter over when the

door opened and Professor Moriarty stood before me.

"My nerves are fairly proof, Watson, but I must confess to a

start when I saw the very man who had been so much in my

thoughts standing there on my threshold. His appearance was

quite familiar to me. He is extremely tall and thin, his forehead

domes out in a white curve, and his two eyes are deeply sunken

in his head. He is clean-shaven, pale, and ascetic-looking, re-

taining something of the professor in his features. His shoulders

are rounded from much study, and his face protrudes forward

and is forever slowly oscillating from side to side in a curiously

reptilian fashion. He peered at me with great curiosity in his

puckered eyes.

" 'You have less frontal development than I should have

expected,' said he at last. 'It is a dangerous habit to finger

loaded firearms in the pocket of one's dressing-gown.'

"The fact is that upon his entrance I had instantly recognized

the extreme personal danger in which I lay. The only conceiv-

able escape for him lay in silencing my tongue. In an instant I

had slipped the revolver from the drawer into my pocket and was

covering him through the cloth. At his remark I drew the weapon

out and laid it cocked upon the table. He still smiled and

blinked, but there was something about his eyes which made me

feel very glad that I had it there.

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

" 'On the contrary,' I answered, 'I think it is fairly evident

that I do. Pray take a chair. I can spare you five minutes if you

have anything to say.'

" 'All that I have to say has already crossed your mind,' said

he.

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

" 'You stand fast?'

" 'Absolutely. '

"He clapped his hand into his pocket, and I raised the pistol

from the table. But he merely drew out a memorandum-book in

which he had scribbled some dates.

" 'You crossed my path on the fourth of January,' said he.

'On the twenty-third you incommoded me; by the middle of

February I was seriously inconvenienced by you; at the end of

March I was absolutely hampered in my plans; and now, at the

close of April, I find myself placed in such a position through

your continual persecution that I am in positive danger of losing

my liberty. The situation is becoming an impossible one.'

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

" 'You must drop it, Mr. Holmes,' said he, swaying his face

about. 'You really must, you know.'

" 'After Monday,' said I.

" 'Tut, tut!' said he. 'I am quite sure that a man of your

intelligence will see that there can be but one outcome to this

affair. It is necessary that you should withdraw. You have

worked things in such a fashion that we have only one resource

left. It has been an intellectual treat to me to see the way in

which you have grappled with this affair, and I say, unaffect-

edly, that it would be a grief to me to be forced to take any

extreme measure. You smile, sir, but I assure you that it really

would.

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

" 'This is not danger,' said he. 'It is inevitable destruction.

You stand in the way not merely of an individual but of a mighty

organization, the full extent of which you, with all your clever-

ness, have been unable to realize. You must stand clear, Mr.

Holmes, or be trodden under foot.'

" 'I am afraid,' said I, rising, 'that in the pleasure of this

conversation I am neglecting business of importance which awaits

me elsewhere.'

"He rose also and looked at me in silence, shaking his head

sadly.

" 'Well, well,' said he at last. 'It seems a pity, but I have

done what I could. I know every move of your game. You can

do nothing before Monday. It has been a duel between you and

me, Mr. Holmes. You hope to place me in the dock. I tell you

that I will never stand in the dock. You hope to beat me. I tell

you that you will never beat me. If you are clever enough to

bring destruction upon me, rest assured that I shall do as much to

you.'

" 'You have paid me several compliments, Mr. Moriarty,'

said I. 'Let me pay you one in return when I say that if I were

assured of the former eventuality I would, in the interests of the

public, cheerfully accept the latter.'

" 'I can promise you the one, but not the other,' he snarled,

and so turned his rounded back upon me and went peering and

blinking out of the room.

"That was my singular intervie with Professor Moriarty. I

confess that it left an unpleasant effect upon my mind. His soft,

precise fashion of speech leaves a conviction of sincerity which a

mere bully could not produce. Of course, you will say: 'Why not

take police precautions against him?' The reason is that I am

well convinced that it is from his agents the blow would fall. I

have the best of proofs that it would be so."

"You have already been assaulted?"

"My dear Watson, Professor Moriarty is not a man who lets

the grass grow under his feet. I went out about midday to

transact some business in Oxford Street. As I passed the corner

which leads from Bentinck Street on to the Welbeck Street

crossing a two-horse van furiously driven whizzed round and

was on me like a flash. I sprang for the foot-path and saved

myself by the fraction of a second. The van dashed round by

Marylebone Lane and was gone in an instant. I kept to the

pavement after that, Watson, but as I walked down Vere Street a

brick came down from the roof of one of the houses and was

shattered to fragments at my feet. I called the police and had the

place examined. There were slates and bricks piled up on the

roof preparatory to some repairs, and they would have me be-

lieve that the wind had toppled over one of these. Of course I

knew better, but I could prove nothing. I took a cab after that

and reached my brother's rooms in Pall Mall, where I spent the

day. Now I have come round to you, and on my way I was

attacked by a rough with a bludgeon. I knocked him down, and

the police have him in custody; but I can tell you with the most

absolute confidence that no possible connection will ever be

traced between the gentleman upon whose front teeth I have

barked my knuckles and the retiring mathematical coach, who is,

I daresay, working out problems upon a black-board ten miles

away. You will not wonder, Watson, that my first act on enter-

ing your rooms was to close your shutters, and that I have been

compelled to ask your permission to leave the house by some

less conspicuous exit than the front door."

I had often admired my friend's courage, but never more than

now, as he sat quietly checking off a series of incidents which

must have combined to make up a day of horror.

"You will spend the night here?" I said.

"No, my friend, you might find me a dangerous guest. I have

my plans laid, and all will be well. Matters have gone so far now

that they can move without my help as far as the arrest goes,

though my presence is necessary for a conviction. It is obvious,

therefore, that I cannot do better than get away for the few days

which remain before the police are at liberty to act. It would be a

great pleasure to me, therefore, if you could come on to the

Continent with me."

"The practice is quiet," said I, "and I have an accommodat-

ing neighbour. I should be glad to come."

"And to start to-morrow morning?"

"If necessary."

"Oh, yes, it is most necessary. Then these are your instruc-

tions, and I beg, my dear Watson, that you will obey them to the

letter, for you are now playing a double-handed game with me

against the cleverest rogue and the most powerful syndicate of

criminals in Europe. Now listen! You will dispatch whatever

luggage you intend to take by a trusty messenger unaddressed to

Victoria to-night. In the morning you will send for a hansom,

desiring your man to take neither the first nor the second which

may present itself. Into this hansom you will jump, and you will

drive to the Strand end of the Lowther Arcade, handing the

address to the cabman upon a slip of paper, with a request that

he will not throw it away. Have your fare ready, and the instant

that your cab stops, dash through the Arcade, timing yourself to

reach the other side at a quarter-past nine. You will find a small

brougham waiting close to the curb, driven by a fellow with a

heavy black cloak tipped at the collar with red. Into this you will

step, and you will reach Victoria in time for the Continental

express."

"Where shall I meet you?"

"At the station. The second first-class carriage from the front

will be reserved for us."

"The carriage is our rendezvous, then?"

"Yes."

It was in vain that I asked Holmes to remain for the evening.

It was evident to me that he thought he might bring trouble to the

roof he was under, and that that was the motive which impelled

him to go. With a few hurried words as to our plans for the

morrow he rose and came out with me into the garden, clamber-

ing over the wall which leads into Mortimer Street, and immedi-

ately whistling for a hansom, in which I heard him drive away.

In the morning I obeyed Holmes's injunctions to the letter. A

hansom was procured with such precautions as would prevent its

being one which was placed ready for us, and I drove immedi-

ately after breakfast to the Lowther Arcade, through which I

hurried at the top of my speed. A brougham was waiting with a

very massive driver wrapped in a dark cloak, who, the instant

that I had stepped in, whipped up the horse and rattled off to

Victoria Station. On my alighting there he turned the camage,

and dashed away again without so much as a look in my direction.

So far all had gone admirably. My luggage was waiting for

me, and I had no difficulty in finding the carriage which Holmes

had indicated, the less so as it was the only one in the train

which was marked "Engaged." My only source of anxiety now

was the non-appearance of Holmes. The station clock marked

only seven minutes from the time when we were due to start. In

vain I searched among the groups of travellers and leave-takers

for the lithe figure of my friend. There was no sign of him. I

spent a few minutes in assisting a venerable Italian priest, who

was endeavouring to make a porter understand, in his broken

English, that his luggage was to be booked through to Paris.

Then, having taken another look round, I returned to my car-

riage, where I found that the porter, in spite of the ticket, had

given me my decrepit Italian friend as a travelling companion. It

was useless for me to explain to him that his presence was an

intrusion, for my Italian was even more limited than his English,

so I shrugged my shoulders resignedly, and continued to look out

anxiously for my friend. A chill of fear had come over me, as I

thought that his absence might mean that some blow had fallen

during the night. Already the doors had all been shut and the

whistle blown, when --

"My dear Watson," said a voice, "you have not even conde-

scended to say good-morning."

I turned in uncontrollable astonishment. The aged ecclesiastic

had turned his face towards me. For an instant the wrinkles were

smoothed away, the nose drew away from the chin, the lower lip

ceased to protrude and the mouth to mumble, the dull eyes

regained their fire, the drooping figure expanded. The next the

whole frame collapsed again, and Holmes had gone as quickly as

he had come.

"Good heavens!" I cried, "how you startled me!"

"Every precaution is still necessary," he whispered. "I have

reason to think that they are hot upon our trail. Ah, there is

Moriarty himself."

The train had already begun to move as Holmes spoke. Glanc-

ing back, I saw a tall man pushing his way furiously through the

crowd, and waving his hand as if he desired to have the train

stopped. It was too late, however, for we were rapidly gathering

momentum, and an instant later had shot clear of the station.

"With all our precautions, you see that we have cut it rather

fine," said Holmes, laughing. He rose, and throwing off the

black cassock and hat which had formed his disguise, he packed

them away in a hand-bag.

"Have you seen the morning paper, Watson?"

"No."

"You haven't seen about Baker Street, then?"

"Baker Street?"

"They set fire to our rooms last night. No great harm was

done."

"Good heavens, Holmes. this is intolerable!"

"They must have lost my track completely after their

bludgeonman was arrested. Otherwise they could not have imag-

ined that I had returned to my rooms. They have evidently taken

the precaution of watching you, however, and that is what has

brought Moriarty to Victoria. You could not have made any slip

in coming?"

"I did exactly what you advised."

"Did you find your brougham?"

"Yes, it was waiting."

"Did you recognize your coachman?"

"No."

"It was my brother Mycroft. It is an advantage to get about in

such a case without taking a mercenary into your confidence.

But we must plan what we are to do about Moriarty now."

"As this is an express, and as the boat runs in connection with

it, I should think we have shaken him off very effectively."

"My dear Watson, you evidently did not realize my meaning

when I said that this man may be taken as being quite on the

same intellectual plane as myself. You do not imagine that if I

were the pursuer I should allow myself to be baffled by so slight

an obstacle. Why, then, should you think so meanly of him?"

"What will he do?"

"What I should do."

"What would you do, then?"

"Engage a special."

"But it must be late."

"By no means. This train stops at Canterbury; and there is

always at least a quarter of an hour's delay at the boat. He will

catch us there."

"One would think that we were the criminals. Let us have him

arrested on his arrival."

"It would be to ruin the work of three months. We should get

the big fish. but the smaller would dart right and left out of the

net. On Monday we should have them all. No, an arrest is

inadmissible."

"What then?"

"We shall get out at Canterbury."

"And then?"

"Well, then we must make a cross-country journey to

Newhaven, and so over to Dieppe. Moriarty will again do what I

should do. He will get on to Paris, mark down our luggage, and

wait for two days at the depot. In the meantime we shall treat

ourselves to a couple of carpet-bags, encourage the manufactures

of the countries through which we travel, and make our way at

our leisure into Switzerland, via Luxembourg and Basle."

At Canterbury, therefore, we alighted, only to find that we

should have to walt an hour before we could get a train to

Newhaven.

I was still looking rather ruefully after the rapidly disappearing

luggage-van which contained my wardrobe, when Holmes pulled

my sleeve and pointed up the line.

"Already, you see," said he.

Far away, from among the Kentish woods there rose a thin

spray of smoke. A minute later a carriage and engine could be

seen flying along the open curve which leads to the station. We

had hardly time to take our place behind a pile of luggage when

it passed with a rattle and a roar, beating a blast of hot air into

our faces.

"There he goes," said Holmes, as we watched the carriage

swing and rock over the points. "There are limits, you see, to

our friend's intelligetnce. It would have been a coup-de-maitre

had he deduced what I would deduce and acted accordingly."

"And what would he have done had he overtaken us?"

"There cannot be the least doubt that he would have made a

murderous attack upon me. It is, however, a game at which two

may play. The question now is whether we should take a prema-

ture lunch here, or run our chance of starving before we reach

the buffet at Newhaven."

We made our way to Brussels that night and spent two days

there, moving on upon the third day as far as Strasbourg. On the

Monday morning Holmes had telegraphed to the London police,

and in the evening we found a reply waiting for us at our hotel.

Holmes tore it open, and then with a bitter curse hurled it into

the grate.

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

"Moriarty?"

"They have secured the whole gang with the exception of

him. He has given them the slip. Of course, when I had left the

country there was no one to cope with him. But I did think that I

had put the game in their hands. I think that you had better return

to England, Watson."

"Why?"

"Because you will find me a dangerous companion now. This

man's occupation is gone. He is lost if he returns to London. If I

read his character right he will devote his whole energies to

revenging himself upon me. He said as much in our short

interview, and I fancy that he meant it. I should certainly recom-

mend you to return to your practice."

It was hardly an appeal to be successful with one who was an

old campaigner as well as an old friend. We sat in the Strasbourg

salle-a-manger arguing the question for half an hour, but the

same night we had resumed our journey and were well on our

way to Geneva.

For a charming week we wandered up the valley of the Rhone,

and then, branching off at Leuk, we made our way over the

Gemmi Pass, still deep in snow, and so, by way of Interlaken, to

Meiringen. It was a lovely trip, the dainty green of the spring

below, the virgin white of the winter above; but it was clear to

me that never for one instant did Holmes forget the shadow

which lay across him. In the homely Alpine villages or in the

lonely mountain passes, I could still tell by his quick glancing

eyes and his sharp scrutiny of every face that passed us, that he

was well convinced that, walk where we would, we could not

walk ourselves clear of the danger which was dogging our

footsteps

Once, i remember, as we passed over the Gemmi, and walked

along the border of the melancholy Daubensee, a large rock

which had been dislodged from the ridge upon our right clattered

down and roared into the lake behind us. In an instant Holmes

had raced up on to the ridge, and, standing upon a lofty pinna-

cle, craned his neck in every direction. It was in vain that our

guide assured him that a fall of stones was a common chance in

the springtime at that spot. He said nothing, but he smiled at me

with the air of a man who sees the fulfilment of that which he

had expected.

And yet for all his watchfulness he was never depressed. On

the contrary, I can never recollect having seen him in such

exuberant spirits. Again and again he recurred to the fact that if

he could be assured that society was freed from Professor Moriarty

he would cheerfully bring his own career to a conclusion.

"I think that I may go so far as to say, Watson, that I have not

lived wholly in vain," he remarked. "If my record were closed

to-night I could still survey it with equanimity. The air of

London is the sweeter for my presence. In over a thousand cases

I am not aware that I have ever used my powers upon the wrong

side. Of late I have been tempted to look into the problems

furnished by nature rather than those more superficial ones tor

which our artificial state of society is responsible. Your memoirs

will draw to an end, Watson, upon the day that I crown my

career by the capture or extinction of the most dangerous and

capable criminal in Europe."

I shall be brief, and yet exact, in the little which remains for

me to tell. It is not a subject on which I would willingly dwell,

and yet I am conscious that a duty devolves upon me to omit no

detail.

It was on the third of May that we reached the little village of

Meiringen, where we put up at the Englischer Hof. then kept by

Peter Steiler the elder. Our landlord was an intelligent man and

spoke excellent English, having served for three years as waiter

at the Grosvenor Hotel in London. At his advice, on the after-

noon of the fourth we set off together, with the intention of

crossing the hills and spending the night at the hamlet of Rosenlaui.

We had strict injunctions, however, on no account to pass the

falls of Reichenbach, which are about halfway up the hills,

without making a small detour to see them.

It is, indeed, a fearful place. The torrent, swollen by the

melting snow, plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the

spray rolls up like the smoke from a burning house. The shaft

into which the river hurls itself is an immense chasm, lined by

glistening coal-black rock, and narrowing into a creaming, boil-

ing pit of incalculable depth, which brims over and shoots the

stream onward over its jagged lip. The long sweep of green

water roaring forever down, and the thick flickering curtain of

spray hissing forever upward, turn a man giddy with their con-

stant whirl and clamour. We stood near the edge peering down at

the gleam of the breaking water far below us against the black

rocks, and listening to the half-human shout which came boom-

ing up with the spray out of the abyss.

The path has been cut halfway round the fall to afford a

complete view, but it ends abruptly, and the traveller has to

return as he came. We had turned to do so, when we saw a

Swiss lad come running along it with a letter in his hand. It bore

the mark of the hotel which we had just left and was addressed to

me by the landlord. It appeared that within a very few minutes of

our leaving, an English lady had arrived who was in the last

stage of consumption. She had wintered at Davos Platz and was

journeying now to join her friends at Lucerne, when a sudden

hemorrhage had overtaken her. It was thought that she could

hardly live a few hours, but it would be a great consolation to

her to see an English doctor, and, if I would only return, etc.

The good Steiler assured me in a postscript that he would himself

look upon my compliance as a very great favour, since the lady

absolutely refused to see a Swiss physician, and he could not but

feel that he was incurring a great responsibility.

The appeal was one which could not be ignored. It was

impossible to refuse the request of a fellow-countrywoman dying

in a strange land. Yet I had my scruples about leaving Holmes. It

was finally agreed, however, that he should retain the young

Swiss messenger with him as guide and companion while I

returned to Meiringen. My friend would stay some little time at

the fall, he said, and would then walk slowly over the hill to

Rosenlaui, where I was to rejoin him in the evening. As I turned

away I saw Holmes, with his back against a rock and his arms

folded, gazing down at the rush of the waters. It was the last that

I was ever destined to see of him in this world.

When I was near the bottom of the descent I looked back. It

was impossible, from that position, to see the fall, but I could

see the curving path which winds over the shoulder of the hills

and leads to it. Along this a man was, I remember, walking very

rapidly.

I could see his black figure clearly outlined against the green

behind him. I noted him, and the energy with which he walked,

but he passed from my mind again as I hurried on upon my

errand.

It may have been a little over an hour before I reached

Meiringen. Old Steiler was standing at the porch of his hotel.

"Well," said I, as I came hurrying up, "I trust that she is no

worse?"

A look of surprise passed over his face, and at the first quiver

of his eyebrows my heart turned to lead in my breast.

"You did not write this?" I said, pulling the letter from my

pocket. "There is no sick Englishwoman in the hotel?"

"Certainly not!" he cried. "But it has the hotel mark upon it!

Ha, it must have been written by that tall Englishman who came

in after you had gone. He said --"

But I waited for none of the landlord's explanation. In a tingle

of fear I was already running down the village street, and making

for the path which I had so lately descended. It had taken me an

hour to come down. For all my efforts two more had passed

betore I found myself at the fall of Reichenbach once more.

There was Holmes's Alpine-stock still leaning against the rock

by which I had left him. But there was no sign of him, and it

was in vain that I shouted. My only answer was my own voice

reverberating in a rolling echo from the cliffs around me.

It was the sight of that Alpine-stock which turned me cold and

sick. He had not gone to Rosenlaui, then. He had remained on

that three-foot path, with sheer wall on one side and sheer drop

on the other, until his enemy had overtaken him. The young

Swiss had gone too. He had probably been in the pay of Moriarty

and had left the two men together. And then what had happened?

Who was to tell us what had happened then?

I stood for a minute or two to collect myself, for I was dazed

with the horror of the thing. Then I began to think of Holmes's

own methods and to try to practise them in reading this tragedy.

It was, alas, only too easy to do. During our conversation we

had not gone to the end of the path, and the Alpine-stock marked

the place where we had stood. The blackish soil is kept forever

soft by the incessant drift of spray, and a bird would leave its

tread upon it. Two lines of footmarks were clearly marked along

the farther end of the path, both leading away from me. There

were none returning. A few yards from the end the soil was all

ploughed up into a patch of mud, and the brambles and ferns

which fringed the chasm were torn and bedraggled. I lay upon

my face and peered over with the spray spouting up all around

me. It had darkened since I left, and now I could only see here

and there the glistening of moisture upon the black walls, and far

away down at the end of the shaft the gleam of the broken water.

I shouted; but only that same half-human cry of the fall was

borne back to my ears.

But it was destined that I should, after all, have a last word of

greeting from my friend and comrade. I have said that his

Alpine-stock had been left leaning against a rock which jutted on

to the path. From the top of this bowlder the gleam of something

bright caught my eye, and raising my hand I found that it came

from the silver cigarette-case which he used to carry. As I took it

up a small square of paper upon which it had lain fluttered down

on to the ground. Unfolding it, I found that it consisted of three

pages torn from his notebook and addressed to me. It was

characteristic of the man that the direction was as precise. and

the writing as firm and clear, as though it had been written in his

study.

 

MY DEAR WATSON [it said]:

I write these few lines through the courtesy of Mr.

Moriarty, who awaits my convenience for the final discus-

sion of those questions which lie between us. He has been

giving me a sketch of the methods by which he avoided the

English police and kept himself informed of our move-

ments. They certainly confirm the very high opinion which

I had formed of his abilities. I am pleased to think that I

shall be able to free society from any further effects of his

presence, though I fear that it is at a cost which will give

pain to my friends, and especially, my dear Watson, to you.

I have already explained to you, however, that my career

had in any case reached its crisis, and that no possible

conclusion to it could be more congenial to me than this.

Indeed, if I may make a full confession to you, I was quite

convinced that the letter from Meiringen was a hoax, and I

allowed you to depart on that errand under the persuasion

that some development of this sort would follow. Tell In-

spector Patterson that the papers which he needs to convict

the gang are in pigeonhole M., done up in a blue envelope

and inscribed "Moriarty." I made every disposition of my

property before leaving England and handed it to my brother

Mycroft. Pray give my greetings to Mrs. Watson, and

believe me to be, my dear fellow

Very sincerely yours,

SHERLOCK HOLMES.

 

A few words may suffice to tell the little that remains. An

examination by experts leaves little doubt that a personal contest

between the two men ended, as it could hardly fail to end in such

a situation, in their reeling over, locked in each other's arms.

Any attempt at recovering the bodies was absolutely hopeless,

and there, deep down in that dreadful cauldron of swirling water

and seething foam, will lie for all time the most dangerous

criminal and the foremost champion of the law of their genera-

tion. The Swiss youth was never found again, and there can be

no doubt that he was one of the numerous agents whom Moriarty

kept in his employ. As to the gang, it will be within the memory

of the public how completely the evidence which Holmes had

accumulated exposed their organization, and how heavily the

hand of the dead man weighed upon them. Of their terrible chief

few details came out during the proceedings, and if I have now

been compelled to make a clear statement of his career, it is due

to those injudicious champions who have endeavoured to clear

his memory by attacks upon him whom I shall ever regard as the

best and the wisest man whom I have ever known.

 

===============================

The Five Orange Pips

 

When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock

Holmes cases between the years '82 and '90, I am faced by so

many which present strange and interesting features that it is no

easy matter to know which to choose and which to leave. Some,

however, have already gained publicity through the papers, and

others have not offered a field for those peculiar qualities which

my friend possessed in so high a degree, and which it is the

object of these papers to illustrate. Some, too, have baffled his

analytical skill, and would be, as narratives, beginnings without

an ending, while others have been but partially cleared up, and

have their explanations founded rather upon conjecture and sur-

mise than on that absolute logical proof which was so dear to

him. There is, however, one of these last which was so remark-

able in its details and so startling in its results that I am tempted

to give some account of it in spite of the fact that there are points

in connection with it which never have been, and probably never

will be, entirely cleared up.

The year '87 furnished us with a long series of cases of

greater or less interest, of which I retain the records. Among my

headings under this one twelve months I find an account of the

adventure of the Paradol Chamber, of the Amateur Mendicant

Society, who held a luxurious club in the lower vault of a

furniture warehouse, of the facts connected with the loss of the

British bark Sophy Anderson, of the singular adventures of the

Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa, and finally of the Camberwell

poisoning case. In the latter, as may be remembered, Sherlock

Holmes was able, by winding up the dead man's watch, to prove

that it had been wound up two hours before, and that therefore

the deceased had gone to bed within that time -- a deduction

which was of the greatest importance in clearing up the case. All

these I may sketch out at some future date, but none of them

present such singular features as the strange train of circum-

stances which I have now taken up my pen to describe.

It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial

gales had set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had

screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that

even here in the heart of great, hand-made London we were

forced to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life

and to recognize the presence of those great elemental forces

which shriek at mankind through the bars of his civilization, like

untamed beasts in a cage. As evening drew in, the storm grew

higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed like a child in

the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the

fireplace cross-indexing his records of crime, while I at the other

was deep in one of Clark Russell's fine sea-stories until the howl

of the gale from without seemed to blend with the text, and the

splash of the rain to lengthen out into the long swash of the sea

waves. My wife was on a visit to her mother's, and for a few

days I was a dweller once more in my old quarters at Baker

Street.

"Why," said I, glancing up at my companion, "that was

surely the bell. Who could come to-night? Some friend of yours,

perhaps?"

"Except yourself I have none," he answered. "I do not

encourage visitors."

"A client, then?"

"If so, it is a serious case. Nothing less would bring a man

out on such a day and at such an hour. But I take it that it is

more likely to be some crony of the landlady's."

Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for

there came a step in the passage and a tapping at the door. He

stretched out his long arm to turn the lamp away from himself

and towards the vacant chair upon which a newcomer must sit.

"Come in!" said he.

The man who entered was young, some two-and-twenty at the

outside, well-groomed and trimly clad, with something of refine-

ment and delicacy in his bearing. The streaming umbrella which

he held in his hand, and his long shining waterproof told of the

fierce weather through which he had come. He looked about him

anxiously in the glare of the lamp, and I could see that his face

was pale and his eyes heavy, like those of a man who is weighed

down with some great anxiety.

"l owe you an apology," he said, raising his golden pince-nez

to his eyes. "I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have

brought some traces of the storm and rain into your snug chamber."

"Give me your coat and umbrella," said Holmes. "They may

rest here on the hook and will be dry presently. You have come

up from the south-west, I see."

"Yes, from Horsham."

"That clay and chalk mixture which I see upon your toe caps

is quite distinctive."

"I have come for advice."

"That is easily got."

"And help."

"That is not always so easy."

"I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes. I heard from Major

Prendergast how you saved him in the Tankerville Club scandal."

"Ah, of course. He was wrongfully accused of cheating at

cards."

"He said that you could solve anything."

"He said too much."

"That you are never beaten."

"I have been beaten four times - three times by men, and

once by a woman."

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

"It is true that I have been generally successful."

"Then you may be so with me."

"I beg that you will draw your chair up to the fire and favour

me with some details as to your case."

"It is no ordinary one."

"None of those which come to me are. I am the last court of

appeal."

"And yet I question, sir, whether, in all your experience, you

have ever listened to a more mysterious and inexplicable chain of

events than those which have happened in my own family."

"You fill me with interest," said Holmes. "Pray give us the

essential facts from the commencement, and I can afterwards

question you as to those details which seem to me to be most

important."

The young man pulled his chair up and pushed his wet feet out

towards the blaze.

"My name," said he, "is John Openshaw, but my own affairs

have, as far as I can understand, little to do with this awful

business. It is a hereditary matter; so in order to give you an idea

of the facts, I must go back to the commencement of the affair.

"You must know that my grandfather had two sons -- my

uncle Elias and my father Joseph. My father had a small factory

at Coventry, which he enlarged at the time of the invention of

bicycling. He was a patentee of the Openshaw unbreakable tire,

and his business met with such success that he was able to sell it

and to retire upon a handsome competence.

"My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young

man and became a planter in Florida, where he was reported to

have done very well. At the time of the war he fought in

Jackson's army, and afterwards under Hood, where he rose to be

a colonel. When Lee laid down his arms my uncle returned to his

plantation, where he remained for three or four years. About

1869 or 1870 he came back to Europe and took a small estate in

Sussex, near Horsham. He had made a very considerable fortune

in the States, and his reason for leaving them was his aversion to

the negroes, and his dislike of the Republican policy in extend-

ing the franchise to them. He was a singular man, fierce and

quick-tempered, very foul-mouthed when he was angry, and of a

most retiring disposition. During all the years that he lived at

Horsham, I doubt if ever he set foot in the town. He had a

garden and two or three fields round his house, and there he

would take his exercise, though very often for weeks on end he

would never leave his room. He drank a great deal of brandy and

smoked very heavily, but he would see no society and did not

want any friends, not even his own brother.

"He didn't mind me; in fact, he took a fancy to me, for at the

time when he saw me first I was a youngster of twelve or so.

This would be in the year 1878, after he had been eight or nine

years in England. He begged my father to let me live with him

and he was very kind to me in his way. When he was sober he

used to be fond of playing backgammon and draughts with me,

and he would make me his representative both with the servants

and with the tradespeople, so that by the time that I was sixteen I

was quite master of the house. I kept all the keys and could go

where I liked and do what I liked, so long as I did not disturb

him in his privacy. There was one singular exception, however,

for he had a single room, a lumber-room up among the attics,

which was invariably locked, and which he would never permit

either me or anyone else to enter. With a boy's curiosity I have

peeped through the keyhole, but I was never able to see more

than such a collection of old trunks and bundles as would be

expected in such a room.

"One day -- it was in March, 1883 -- a letter with a foreign

stamp lay upon the table in front of the colonel's plate. It was

not a common thing for him to receive letters, for his bills were

all paid in ready money, and he had no friends of any sort. 'From

India!' said he as he took it up, 'Pondicherry postmark! What

can this be?' Opening it hurriedly, out there jumped five little

dried orange pips, which pattered down upon his plate. I began

to laugh at this, but the laugh was struck from my lips at the

sight of his face. His lip had fallen, his eyes were protruding, his

skin the colour of putty, and he glared at the envelope which he

still held in his trembling hand, 'K. K. K.!' he shrieked, and

then, 'My God, my God, my sins have overtaken me!'

" 'What is it, uncle?' I cried.

" 'Death,' said he, and rising from the table he retired to his

room, leaving me palpitating with horror. I took up the envelope

and saw scrawled in red ink upon the inner flap, just above the

gum, the letter K three times repeated. There was nothing else

save the five dried pips. What could be the reason of his over-

powering terror? I left the breakfast-table, and as I ascended the

stair I met him coming down with an old rusty key, which must

have belonged to the attic, in one hand, and a small brass box,

like a cashbox, in the other.

" 'They may do what they like, but I'll checkmate them still,'

said he with an oath. 'Tell Mary that I shall want a fire in my

room to-day, and send down to Fordham, the Horsham lawyer.'

"I did as he ordered, and when the lawyer arrived I was asked

to step up to the room. The fire was burning brightly, and in the

grate there was a mass of black, fluffy ashes, as of burned paper,

while the brass box stood open and empty beside it. As I glanced

at the box I noticed, with a start, that upon the lid was printed

the treble K which I had read in the morning upon the envelope.

" 'I wish you, John,' said my uncle, 'to witness my will. I

leave my estate, with all its advantages and all its disadvantages,

to my brother, your father, whence it will, no doubt, descend to

you. If you can enjoy it in peace, well and good! If you find you

cannot, take my advice, my boy, and leave it to your deadliest

enemy. I am sorry to give you such a two-edged thing, but I

can't say what turn things are going to take. Kindly sign the

paper where Mr. Fordham shows you.'

"I signed the paper as directed, and the lawyer took it away

with him. The singular incident made, as you may think, the

deepest impression upon me, and I pondered over it and turned it

every way in my mind without being able to make anything of it.

Yet I could not shake off the vague feeling of dread which it left

behind, though the sensation grew less keen as the weeks passed

and nothing happened to disturb the usual routine of our lives. I

could see a change in my uncle, however. He drank more than

ever, and he was less inclined for any sort of society. Most of his

time he would spend in his room, with the door locked upon the

inside, but sometimes he would emerge in a sort of drunken

frenzy and would burst out of the house and tear about the

garden with a revolver in his hand, screaming out that he was

afraid of no man, and that he was not to be cooped up, like a

sheep in a pen, by man or devil. When these hot fits were over

however, he would rush tumultuously in at the door and lock and

bar it behind him, like a man who can brazen it out no longer

against the terror which lies at the roots of his soul. At such

times I have seen his face, even on a cold day, glisten with

moisture, as though it were new raised from a basin.

"Well, to come to an end of the matter, Mr. Holmes, and not

to abuse your patience, there came a night when he made one of

those drunken sallies from which he never came back. We found

him, when we went to search for him, face downward in a little

green-scummed pool, which lay at the foot of the garden. There

was no sign of any violence, and the water was but two feet

deep, so that the jury, having regard to his known eccentricity,

brought in a verdict of 'suicide.' But I, who knew how he

winced from the very thought of death, had much ado to persuade

myself that he had gone out of his way to meet it. The matter

passed, however, and my father entered into possession of the

estate, and of some 14,000 pounds, which lay to his credit at the

bank."

"One moment," Holmes interposed, "your statement is, I

foresee, one of the most remarkable to which I have ever lis-

tened. Let me have the date of the reception by your uncle of the

letter, and the date of his supposed suicide."

"The letter arrived on March 10, 1883. His death was seven

weeks later, upon the night of May 2d."

"Thank you. Pray proceed."

"When my father took over the Horsham property, he, at my

request, made a careful examination of the attic, which had been

always locked up. We found the brass box there, although its

contents had been destroyed. On the inside of the cover was a

paper label, with the initials of K. K. K. repeated upon it, and

'Letters, memoranda, receipts, and a register' written beneath.

These, we presume, indicated the nature of the papers which had

been destroyed by Colonel Openshaw. For the rest, there was

nothing of much importance in the attic save a great many

scattered papers and note-books bearing upon my uncle's life in

America. Some of them were of the war time and showed that he

had done his duty well and had borne the repute of a brave

soldier. Others were of a date during the reconstruction of the

Southern states, and were mostly concerned with politics, for he

had evidently taken a strong part in opposing the carpet-bag

politicians who had been sent down from the North.

"Well, it was the beginning of '84 when my father came to

live at Horsham, and all went as well as possible with us until

the January of '85. On the fourth day after the new year I heard

my father give a sharp cry of surprise as we sat together at the

breakfast-table. There he was, sitting with a newly opened enve-

lope in one hand and five dried orange pips in the outstretched

palm of the other one. He had always laughed at what he called

my cock-and-bull story about the colonel, but he looked very

scared and puzzled now that the same thing had come upon

himself.

" 'Why, what on earth does this mean, John?' he stammered.

"My heart had turned to lead. 'It is K. K. K.,' said I.

"He looked inside the envelope. 'So it is,' he cried. 'Here are

the very letters. But what is this written above them?'

" 'Put the papers on the sundial,' I read, peeping over his

shoulder.

" 'What papers? What sundial?' he asked.

" 'The sundial in the garden. There is no other,' said I; 'but

the papers must be those that are destroyed.'

" 'Pooh!' said he, gripping hard at his courage. 'We are in a

civilized land here, and we can't have tomfoolery of this kind.

Where does the thing come from?'

" 'From Dundee,' I answered, glancing at the postmark.

" 'Some preposterous practical joke,' said he. 'What have I to

do with sundials and papers? I shall take no notice of such

nonsense.'

" 'I should certainly speak to the police,' I said.

" 'And be laughed at for my pains. Nothing of the sort.'

" 'Then let me do so?'

" 'No, I forbid you. I won't have a fuss made about such

nonsense.'

"It was in vain to argue with him, for he was a very obstinate

man. I went about, however, with a heart which was full of

forebodings.

"On the third day after the coming of the letter my father went

from home to visit an old friend of his, Major Freebody, who is

in command of one of the forts upon Portsdown Hill. I was glad

that he should go, for it seemed to me that he was farther from

danger when he was away from home. In that, however, I was in

error. Upon the second day of his absence I received a telegram

from the major, imploring me to come at once. My father had

fallen over one of the deep chalk-pits which abound in the

neighbourhood, and was lying senseless, with a shattered skull. I

hurried to him, but he passed away without having ever recov-

ered his consciousness. He had, as it appears, been returning

from Fareham in the twilight, and as the country was unknown

to him, and the chalk-pit unfenced, the jury had no hesitation in

bringing in a verdict of 'death from accidental causes.' Carefully

as I examined every fact connected with his death, I was unable

to find anything which could suggest the idea of murder. There

were no signs of violence, no footmarks, no robbery, no record

of strangers having been seen upon the roads. And yet I need not

tell you that my mind was far from at ease, and that I was

well-nigh certain that some foul plot had been woven round him.

"In this sinister way I came into my inheritance. You will ask

me why I did not dispose of it? I answer, because I was well

convinced that our troubles were in some way dependent upon an

incident in my uncle's life, and that the danger would be as

pressing in one house as in another.

"It was in January, '85, that my poor father met his end, and

two years and eight months have elapsed since then. During that

time I have lived happily at Horsham, and I had begun to hope

that this curse had passed way from the family, and that it had

ended with the last generation. I had begun to take comfort too

soon, however; yesterday morning the blow fell in the very

shape in which it had come upon my father."

The young man took from his waistcoat a crumpled envelope,

and turning to the table he shook out upon it five little dried

orange pips.

"This is the envelope," he continued. "The postmark is

London -- eastern division. Within are the very words which

were upon my father's last message: 'K. K. K.'; and then 'Put

the papers on the sundial.' "

"What have you done?'' asked Holmes.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"To tell the truth" -- he sank his face into his thin, white

hands -- "I have felt helpless. I have felt like one of those poor

rabbits when the snake is writhing towards it. I seem to be in the

grasp of some resistless, inexorable evil, which no foresight and

no precautions can guard against."

"Tut! tut!" cried Sherlock Holmes. "You must act, man, or

you are lost. Nothing but energy can save you. This is no time

for despair."

"I have seen the police."

"Ah!"

"But they listened to my story with a smile. I am convinced

that the inspector has formed the opinion that the letters are all

practical jokes, and that the deaths of my relations were really

accidents, as the jury stated, and were not to be connected with

the warnings."

Holmes shook his clenched hands in the air. "Incredible

imbecility!" he cried.

"They have, however, allowed me a policeman, who may re-

main in the house with me."

"Has he come with you to-night?"

"No. His orders were to stay in the house."

Again Holmes raved in the air.

"Why did you come to me," he cried, "and, above all, why

did you not come at once?"

"I did not know. It was only to-day that I spoke to Major

Prendergast about my troubles and was advised by him to come

to you."

"It is really two days since you had the letter. We should have

acted before this. You have no further evidence, I suppose, than

that which you have placed before us -- no suggestive detail

which might help us?"

"There is one thing," said John Openshaw. He rummaged in

his coat pocket, and, drawing out a piece of discoloured, blue-

tinted paper, he laid it out upon the table. "I have some remem-

brance," said he, "that on the day when my uncle burned the

papers I observed that the small, unburned margins which lay

amid the ashes were of this particular colour. I found this single

sheet upon the floor of his room, and I am inclined to think that

it may be one of the papers which has, perhaps, fluttered out

from among the others, and in that way has escaped destruction.

Beyond the mention of pips, I do not see that it helps us much. I

think myself that it is a page from some private diary. The

writing is undoubtedly my uncle's."

Holmes moved the lamp, and we both bent over the sheet of

paper, which showed by its ragged edge that it had indeed been

torn from a book. It was headed, "March, 1869," and beneath

were the following enigmatical notices:

 

4th. Hudson came. Same old platform.

 

7th. Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and John Swain,

of St. Augustine.

9th. McCauley cleared.

1Oth. John Swain cleared.

12th. Visited Paramore. All well.

 

"Thank you!" said Holmes, folding up the paper and return-

ing it to our visitor. "And now you must on no account lose

another instant. We cannot spare time even to discuss what you

have told me. You must get home instantly and act."

"What shall I do?"

"There is but one thing to do. It must be done at once. You

must put this piece of paper which you have shown us into the

brass box which you have described. You must also put in a note

to say that all the other papers were burned by your uncle, and

that this is the only one which remains. You must assert that in

such words as will carry conviction with them. Having done

this, you must at once put the box out upon the sundial, as

directed. Do you understand?"

"Entirely."

"Do not think of revenge, or anything of the sort, at present. I

think that we may gain that by means of the law; but we have

our web to weave, while theirs is already woven. The first

consideration is to remove the pressing danger which threatens

you. The second is to clear up the mystery and to punish the

guilty parties."

"I thank you," said the young man, rising and pulling on his

overcoat. "You have given me fresh life and hope. I shall

certainly do as you advise."

"Do not lose an instant. And, above all, take care of yourself

in the meanwhile, for I do not think that there can be a doubt that

you are threatened by a very real and imminent danger. How do

you go back?

"By train from Waterloo."

"It is not yet nine. The streets will be crowded, so l trust that

you may be in safety. And yet you cannot guard yourself too

closely."

"I am armed."

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

"I shall see you at Horsham, then?"

"No, your secret lies in London. It is there that I shall seek

it."

"Then I shall call upon you in a day, or in two days, with

news as to the box and the papers. I shall take your advice in

every particular." He shook hands with us and took his leave.

Outside the wind still screamed and the rain splashed and pat-

tered against the windows. This strange, wild story seemed to

have come to us from amid the mad elements -- blown in upon us

like a sheet of sea-weed in a gale -- and now to have been

reabsorbed by them once more.

Sherlock Holmes sat for some time in silence, with his head

sunk forward and his eyes bent upon the red glow of the fire.

Then he lit his pipe, and leaning back in his chair he watched the

blue smoke-rings as they chased each other up to the ceiling.

"I think, Watson," he remarked at last, "that of all our cases

we have had none more fantastic than this."

"Save, perhaps, the Sign of Four."

"Well, yes. Save, perhaps, that. And yet this John Openshaw

seems to me to be walking amid even greater perils than did the

Sholtos."

"But have you," I asked, "formed any definite conception as

to what these perils are?"

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

"Then what are they? Who is this K. K. K., and why does he

pursue this unhappy family?"

Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes and placed his elbows upon

the arms of his chair, with his finger-tips together. "The ideal

reasoner," he remarked, "would, when he had once been shown

a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the

chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which

would follow from it. As Cuvier could correctly describe a

whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the

observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of

incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones,

both before and after. We have not yet grasped the results which

the reason alone can attain to. Problems may be solved in the

study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by

the aid of their senses. To carry the art, however, to its highest

pitch, it is necessary that the reasoner should be able to utilize all

the facts which have come to his knowledge; and this in itself

implies, as you will readily see, a possession of all knowledge,

which, even in these days of free education and encyclopaedias,

is a somewhat rare accomplishment. It is not so impossible,

however, that a man should possess all knowledge which is

likely to be useful to him in his work, and this I have endeav-

oured in my case to do. If I remember rightly, you on one

occasion, in the early days of our friendship, defined my limits

in a very precise fashion."

"Yes," I answered, laughing. "It was a singular document.

Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I

remember. Botany variable, geology profound as regards the

mud-stains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry

eccentric, anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime

records unique, violin-player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and

self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco. Those, I think, were the

main points of my analysis."

Holmes grinned at the last item. "Well," he said, "I say

now, as I said then, that a man should keep his little brain-attic

stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest

he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can

get it if he wants it. Now, for such a case as the one which has

been submitted to us to-night, we need certainly to muster all our

resources. Kindly hand me down the letter K of the American

Encyclopaedia which stands upon the shelf beside you. Thank

you. Now let us consider the situation and see what may be

deduced from it. In the first place, we may start with a strong

presumption that Colonel Openshaw had some very strong rea-

son for leaving America. Men at his time of life do not change

all their habits and exchange willingly the charming climate of

Florida for the lonely life of an English provincial town. His

extreme love of solitude in England suggests the idea that he was

in fear of someone or something, so we may assume as a

working hypothesis that it was fear of someone or something

which drove him from America. As to what it was he feared, we

can only deduce that by considering the formidable letters which

were received by himself and his successors. Did you remark the

postmarks of those letters?"

"The first was from Pondicherry, the second from Dundee,

and the third from London."

"From East London. What do you deduce from that?"

"They are all seaports. That the writer was on board of a

ship."

"Excellent. We have already a clue. There can be no doubt

that the probability -- the strong probability -- is that the writer

was on board of a ship. And now let us consider another point.

In the case of Pondicherry, seven weeks elapsed between the

threat and its fulfillment, in Dundee it was only some three or

four days. Does that suggest anything?"

"A greater distance to travel."

"But the letter had also a greater distance to come."

"Then I do not see the point."

"There is at least a presumption that the vessel in which the

man or men are is a sailing-ship. It looks as if they always seni

their singular warning or token before them when starting upon

their mission. You see how quickly the deed followed the sign

when it came from Dundee. If they had come from Pondicherry

in a steamer they would have arrived almost as soon as their

letter. But, as a matter of fact, seven weeks elapsed. I think that

those seven weeks represented the difference between the mail-

boat which brought the letter and the sailing vessel which brought

the writer."

"It is possible."

"More than that. It is probable. And now you see the deadly

urgency of this new case, and why I urged young Openshaw to

caution. The blow has always fallen at the end of the time which

it would take the senders to travel the distance. But this one

comes from London, and therefore we cannot count upon delay."

"Good God!" I cried. "What can it mean, this relentless

persecution?"

"The papers which Openshaw carried are obviously of vital

importance to the person or persons in the sailing-ship. I think

that it is quite clear that there must be more than one of them. A

single man could not have carried out two deaths in such a way

as to deceive a coroner's jury. There must have been several in

it, and they must have been men of resource and determination.

Their papers they mean to have, be the holder of them who it

may. In this way you see K. K. K. ceases to be the initials of an

individual and becomes the badge of a society."

"But of what society?"

"Have you never --" said Sherlock Holmes, bending forward

and sinking his voice --"have you never heard of the Ku Klux

Klan?"

"I never have."

Holmes turned over the leaves of the book upon his knee.

"Here it is," said he presently:

 

"Ku Klux Klan. A name derived from the fanciful resem-

blance to the sound produced by cocking a rifle. This

terrible secret society was formed by some ex-Confederate

soldiers in the Southern states after the Civil War, and it

rapidly formed local branches in different parts of the

country, notably in Tennessee, Louisiana, the Carolinas,

Georgia, and Florida. Its power was used for political

purposes, principally for the terrorizing of the negro vot-

ers and the murdering and driving from the country of

those who were opposed to its views. Its outrages were

usually preceded by a warning sent to the marked man in

some fantastic but generally recognized shape -- a sprig of

oak-leaves in some parts, melon seeds or orange pips in

others. On receiving this the victim might either openly

abjure his former ways, or might fly from the country. If

he braved the matter out, death would unfailingly come

upon him, and usually in some strange and unforeseen

manner. So perfect was the organization of the society,

and so systematic its methods, that there is hardly a case

upon record where any man succeeded in braving it with

impunity, or in which any of its outrages were traced

home to the perpetrators. For some years the organization

flourished in spite of the efforts of the United States

government and of the better classes of the community in

the South. Eventually, in the year 1869, the movement

rather suddenly collapsed, although there have been spo-

radic outbreaks of the same sort since that date.

 

"You will observe," said Holmes, laying down the volume,

"that the sudden breaking up of the society was coincident with

the disappearance of Openshaw from America with their papers.

It may well have been cause and effect. It is no wonder that he

and his family have some of the more implacable spirits upon

their track. You can understand that this register and diary may

implicate some of the first men in the South, and that there may

be many who will not sleep easy at night until it is recovered."

"Then the page we have seen --"

"Is such as we might expect. It ran, if I remember right, 'sent

the pips to A, B, and C' -- that is, sent the society's warning to

them. Then there are successive entries that A and B cleared, or

left the country, and finally that C was visited, with, I fear, a

sinister result for C. Well, I think, Doctor, that we may let some

light into this dark place, and I believe that the only chance

young Openshaw has in the meantime is to do what I have told

him. There is nothing more to be said or to be done to-night, so

hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for half an hour

the miserable weather and the still more miserable ways of our

fellowmen."

 

It had cleared in the morning, and the sun was shining with a

subdued brightness through the dim veil which hangs over the

great city. Sherlock Holmes was already at breakfast when I

came down.

"You will excuse me for not waiting for you," said he; "I

have, I foresee, a very busy day before me in looking into this

case of young Openshaw's."

"What steps will you take?" I asked.

"It will very much depend upon the results of my first inquir-

ies. I may have to go down to Horsham, after all."

"You will not go there first?"

"No, I shall commence with the City. Just ring the bell and

the maid will bring up your coffee."

As I waited, I lifted the unopened newspaper from the table

and glanced my eye over it. It rested upon a heading which sent

a chill to my heart.

"Holmes," I cried, "you are too late."

"Ah!" said he, laying down his cup, "I feared as much. How

was it done?" He spoke calmly, but I could see that he was

deeply moved.

"My eye caught the name of Openshaw, and the heading

'Tragedy Near Waterloo Bridge.' Here is the account:

 

"Between nine and ten last night Police-Constable Cook,

of the H Division, on duty near Waterloo Bridge, heard a

cry for help and a splash in the water. The night, however,

was extremely dark and stormy, so that, in spite of the help

of several passers-by, it was quite impossible to effect a

rescue. The alarm, however, was given, and, by the aid of

the water-police, the body was eventually recovered. It

proved to be that of a young gentleman whose name, as it

appears from an envelope which was found in his pocket,

was John Openshaw, and whose residence is near Horsham.

It is conjectured that he may have been hurrying down to

catch the last train from Waterloo Station, and that in his

haste and the extreme darkness he missed his path and

walked over the edge of one of the small landing-places for

river steamboats. The body exhibited no traces of violence,

and there can be no doubt that the deceased had been the

victim of an unfortunate accident, which should have the

effect of calling the attention of the authorities to the condi-

tion of the riverside landing-stages."

 

We sat in silence for some minutes, Holmes more depressed

and shaken than I had ever seen him.

"That hurts my pride, Watson," he said at last. "It is a petty

feeling, no doubt, but it hurts my pride. It becomes a personal

matter with me now, and, if God sends me health, I shall set my

hand upon this gang. That he should come to me for help, and

that I should send him away to his death --!" He sprang from his

chair and paced about the room in uncontrollable agitation, with

a flush upon his sallow cheeks and a nervous clasping and

unclasping of his long thin hands.

"They must be cunning devils," he exclaimed at last. "How

could they have decoyed him down there? The Embankment is

not on the direct line to the station. The bridge, no doubt, was

too crowded, even on such a night, for their purpose. Well,

Watson, we shall see who will win in the long run. I am going

out now!"

"To the police?"

"No; I shall be my own police. When I have spun the web

they may take the flies, but not before."

All day I was engaged in my professional work, and it was

late in the evening before I returned to Baker Street. Sherlock

Holmes had not come back yet. It was nearly ten o'clock before

he entered, looking pale and worn. He walked up to the side-

board, and tearing a piece from the loaf he devoured it vora-

ciously, washing it down with a long draught of water.

"You are hungry," I remarked.

"Starving. It had escaped my memory. I have had nothing

since breakfast."

"Nothing?"

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

"And how have you succeeded?"

"Well."

"You have a clue?"

"I have them in the hollow of my hand. Young Openshaw

shall not long remain unavenged. Why, Watson, let us put their

own devilish trade-mark upon them. It is well thought of!"

"What do you mean?"

He took an orange from the cupboard, and tearing it to pieces

he squeezed out the pips upon the table. Of these he took five

and thrust them into an envelope. On the inside of the flap he

wrote "S. H. for J. 0." Then he sealed it and addressed it to

"Captain James Calhoun, Bark Lone Star, Savannah, Georgia."

"That will await him when he enters port," said he, chuck-

ling. "It may give him a sleepless night. He will find it as sure a

precursor of his fate as Openshaw did before him."

"And who is this Captain Calhoun?"

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

"How did you trace it, then?"

He took a large sheet of paper from his pocket, all covered

with dates and names.

"I have spent the whole day," said he, "over Lloyd's regis-

ters and files of the old papers, following the future career of

every vessel which touched at Pondicherry in January and Febru-

ary in '83. There were thirty-six ships of fair tonnage which

were reported there during those months. Of these, one, the Lone

Star, instantly attracted my attention, since, although it was

reported as having cleared from London, the name is that which

is given to one of the states of the Union."

"Texas, I think."

"I was not and am not sure which; but I knew that the ship

must have an American origin."

"What then?"

"I searched the Dundee records, and when I found that the

bark Lone Star was there in January, '85, my suspicion became a

certainty. I then inquired as to the vessels which lay at present in

the port of London."

"Yes?"

"The Lone Star had arrived here last week. I went down to

the Albert Dock and found that she had been taken down the

river by the early tide this morning, homeward bound to Savan-

nah. I wired to Gravesend and learned that she had passed some

time ago, and as the wind is easterly I have no doubt that she is

now past the Goodwins and not very far from the Isle of Wight."

"What will you do, then?"

"Oh, I have my hand upon him. He and the two mates, are

as I learn, the only native-born Americans in the ship. The others

are Finns and Germans. I know, also, that they were all three

away from the ship last night. I had it from the stevedore who

has been loading their cargo. By the time that their sailing-ship

reaches Savannah the mail-boat will have carried this letter, and

the cable will have informed the police of Savannah that these

three gentlemen are badly wanted here upon a charge of murder."

There is ever a flaw, however, in the best laid of human plans,

and the murderers of John Openshaw were never to receive the

orange pips which would show them that another, as cunning

and as resolute as themselves, was upon their track. Very long

and very severe were the equinoctial gales that year. We waited

long for news of the Lone Star of Savannah, but none ever

reached us. We did at last hear that somewhere far out in the

Atlantic a shattered stern-post of the boat was seen swinging in

the trough of a wave, with the letters "L. S." carved upon it,

and that is all which we shall ever know of the fate of the Lone

Star.

 

===============================

The "Gloria Scott"

 

"I have some papers here," said my friend Sherlock Holmes as

we sat one winter's night on either side of the fire, "which I

really think, Watson, that it would be worth your while to glance

over. These are the documents in the extraordinary case of the

Gloria Scott, and this is the message which struck Justice of the

Peace Trevor dead with horror when he read it."

He had picked from a drawer a little tarnished cylinder, and.

undoing the tape, he handed me a short note scrawled upon a

half-sheet of slate-gray paper.

 

The supply of game for London is going steadily up {it

ran]. Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to

receive all orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your

hen-pheasant's life.

 

As I glanced up from reading this enigmatical message, I saw

Holmes chuckling at the expression upon my face.

"You look a little bewildered," said he.

"I cannot see how such a message as this could inspire horror.

It seems to me to be rather grotesque than otherwise."

"Very likely. Yet the fact remains that the reader, who was a

fine, robust old man, was knocked clean down by it as if it had

been the butt end of a pistol."

"You arouse my curiosity," said I. "But why did you say

just now that there were very particular reasons why I should

study this case?"

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

I had often endeavoured to elicit from my companion what

had first turned his mind in the direction of criminal research,

but had never caught him before in a communicative humour.

Now he sat forward in his armchair and spread out the docu-

ments upon his knees. Then he lit his pipe and sat for some time

smoking and turning them over.

"You never heard me talk of Victor Trevor?" he asked. "He

was the only friend I made during the two years I was at college.

I was never a very sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond

of moping in my rooms and working out my own little methods

of thought, so that I never mixed much with the men of my year.

Bar fencing and boxing I had few athletic tastes, and then my

line of study was quite distinct from that of the other fellows, so

that we had no points of contact at all. Trevor was the only man

I knew, and that only through the accident of his bull terrier

freezing on to my ankle one morning as I went down to chapel.

"It was a prosaic way of forming a friendship, but it was

effective. I was laid by the heels for ten days, and Trevor used to

come in to inquire after me. At first it was only a minute's chat

but soon his visits lengthened, and before the end of the term we

were close friends. He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of

spirits and energy, the very opposite to me in most respects, but

we had some subjects in common, and it was a bond of union

when I found that he was as friendless as I. Finally he invited me

down to his father's place at Donnithorpe, in Norfolk, and I

accepted his hospitality for a month of the long vacation.

"Old Trevor was evidently a man of some wealth and consid-

eration, a J. P., and a landed proprietor. Donnithorpe is a little

hamlet just to the north of Langmere, in the country of the

Broads. The house was an old-fashioned, widespread, oak-beamed

brick building, with a fine lime-lined avenue leading up to it.

There was excellent wild-duck shooting in the fens, remarkably

good fishing, a small but select library, taken over, as I under-

stood, from a former occupant, and a tolerable cook, so that he

would be a fastidious man who could not put in a pleasant month

there.

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

"There had been a daughter, I heard, but she had died of

diphtheria while on a visit to Birmingham. The father interested

me extremely. He was a man of little culture, but with a consid-

erable amount of rude strength, both physically and mentally. He

knew hardly any books, but he had travelled far, had seen much

of the world, and had remembered all that he had learned. In

person he was a thick-set, burly man with a shock of grizzled

hair, a brown, weather-beaten face, and blue eyes which were

keen to the verge of fierceness. Yet he had a reputation for

kindness and charity on the countryside, and was noted for the

leniency of his sentences from the bench.

"One evening, shortly after my arrival, we were sitting over a

glass of port after dinner, when young Trevor began to talk about

those habits of observation and inference which I had already

formed into a system, although I had not yet appreciated the part

which they were to play in my life. The old man evidently

thought that his son was exaggerating in his description of one or

two trivial feats which I had performed.

" 'Come, now, Mr. Holmes,' said he, laughing good-

humouredly. 'I'm an excellent subject, if you can deduce any-

thing from me.'

" 'I fear there is not very much,' I answered. 'I might suggest

that you have gone about in fear of some personal attack within

the last twelvemonth.'

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

surprlse.

" 'Well, that's true enough,' said he. 'You know, Victor,'

turning to his son, 'when we broke up that poaching gang they

swore to knife us, and Sir Edward Holly has actually been

attacked. I've always been on my guard since then, though I

have no idea how you know it.'

" 'You have a very handsome stick,' I answered. 'By the

inscription I observed that you had not had it more than a year.

But you have taken some pains to bore the head of it and pour

melted lead into the hole so as to make it a formidable weapon. I

argued that you would not take such precautions unless you had

some danger to fear.'

" 'Anything else?' he asked, smiling.

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

" 'Right again. How did you know it? Is my nose knocked a

little out of the straight?'

" 'No,' said I. 'It is your ears. They have the peculiar flatten-

ing and thickening which marks the boxing man.'

" 'Anything else?'

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

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

" 'You have been in New Zealand.'

" 'Right again.'

" 'You have visited Japan.'

" 'Quite true.'

" 'And you have been most intimately associated with some-

one whose initials were J. A., and whom you afterwards were

eager to entirely forget.'

"Mr. Trevor stood slowly up, fixed his large blue eyes upon

me with a strange wild stare, and then pitched forward, with his

face among the nutshells which strewed the cloth, in a dead

faint.

"You can imagine, Watson, how shocked both his son and I

were. His attack did not last long, however,- for when we undid

his collar and sprinkled the water from one of the finger-glasses

over his face, he gave a gasp or two and sat up.

" 'Ah, boys,' said he, forcing a smile, 'I hope I haven't

frightened you. Strong as I look, there is a weak place in my

heart, and it does not take much to knock me over. I don't know

how you manage this, Mr. Holmes, but it seems to me that all

the detectives of fact and of fancy would be children in your

hands. That's your line of life, sir, and you may take the word of

a man who has seen something of the world.'

"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of

my ability with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe

me, Watson, the very first thing which ever made me feel that a

profession might be made out of what had up to that time been

the merest hobby. At the moment, however, I was too much

concerned at the sudden illness of my host to think of anything

else.

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

" 'Well, you certainly touched upon rather a tender point.

Might I ask how you know, and how much you know?' He

spoke now in a half-jesting fashion, but a look of terror still

lurked at the back of his eyes.

" 'It is simplicity itself,' said I. 'When you bared your arm to

draw that fish into the boat I saw that J. A. had been tattooed in

the bend of the elbow. The letters were still legible, but it was

perfectly clear from their blurred appearance, and from the stain-

ing of the skin round them, that efforts had been made to

obliterate them. It was obvious, then, that those initials had once

been very familiar to you, and that you had afterwards wished to

forget them.'

" 'What an eye you have!' he cried with a sigh of relief. 'It is

just as you say. But we won't talk of it. Of all ghosts the ghosts

of our old loves are the worst. Come into the billiard-room and

have a quiet cigar.'

 

"From that day, amid all his cordiality, there was always a

touch of suspicion in Mr. Trevor's manner towards me. Even his

son remarked it. 'You've given the governor such a turn,' said

he, 'that he'll never be sure again of what you know and what

you don't know.' He did not mean to show it, I am sure, but it

was so strongly in his mind that it peeped out at every action. At

last I became so convinced that I was causing him uneasiness

that I drew my visit to a close. On the very day, however, before

I left, an incident occurred which proved in the sequel to be of

importance.

"We were sitting out upon the lawn on garden chairs, the

three of us, basking in the sun and admiring the view across the

Broads, when a maid came out to say that there was a man at the

door who wanted to see Mr. Trevor.

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

" 'He would not give any.'

" 'What does he want, then?'

" 'He says that you know him, and that he only wants a

moment's conversation.'

" 'Show him round here.' An instant afterwards there ap-

peared a little wizened fellow with a cringing manner and a

shambling style of walking. He wore an open jacket, with a

splotch of tar on the sleeve, a red-and-black check shirt, dunga-

ree trousers, and heavy boots badly worn. His face was thin and

brown and crafty, with a perpetual smile upon it, which showed

an irregular line of yellow teeth, and his crinkled hands were half

closed in a way that is distinctive of sailors. As he came slouch-

ing across the lawn I heard Mr. Trevor make a sort of hiccoughing

noise in his throat, and, jumping out of his chair, he ran into the

house. He was back in a moment, and I smelt a strong reek of

brandy as he passed me.

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

"The sailor stood looking at him with puckered eyes, and with

the same loose-lipped smile upon his face.

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

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

tone of surprise.

" 'Hudson it is, sir,' said the seaman. 'Why, it's thirty year

and more since I saw you last. Here you are in your house, and

me still picking my salt meat out of the harness cask.'

" 'Tut, you will find that I have not forgotten old times,'

cried Mr. Trevor, and, walking towards the sailor, he said

something in a low voice. 'Go into the kitchen,' he continued

out loud, 'and you will get food and drink. I have no doubt that I

shall find you a situation.'

" 'Thank you, sir,' said the seaman, touching his forelock.

'I'm just off a two-yearer in an eight-knot tramp, short-handed at

that, and I wants a rest. I thought I'd get it either with Mr.

Beddoes or with you.'

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

" 'Bless you, sir, I know where all my old friends are,' said

the fellow with a sinister smile, and he slouched off after the

maid to the kitchen. Mr. Trevor mumbled something to us about

having been shipmate with the man when he was going back to

the diggings, and then, leaving us on the lawn, he went indoors.

An hour later, when we entered the house, we found him stretched

dead drunk upon the dining-room sofa. The whole incident left a

most ugly impression upon my mind, and I was not sorry next

day to leave Donnithorpe behind me, for I felt that my presence

must be a source of embarrassment to my friend.

"All this occurred during the first month of the long vacation.

I went up to my London rooms, where I spent seven weeks

working out a few experiments in organic chemistry. One day,

however, when the autumn was far advanced and the vacation

drawing to a close, I received a telegram from my friend implor-

ing me to return to Donnithorpe, and saying that he was in great

need of my advice and assistance. Of course I dropped every-

thing and set out for the North once more.

"He met me with the dog-cart at the station, and I saw at a

glance that the last two months had been very trying ones for

him. He had grown thin and careworn, and had lost the loud,

cheery manner for which he had been remarkable.

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

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

" 'Apoplexy. Nervous shock. He's been on the verge all day.

I doubt if we shall find him alive.'

"I was, as you may think, Watson, horrified at this unex-

pected news.

" 'What has caused it?' I asked.

" 'Ah, that is the point. Jump in and we can talk it over while

we drive. You remember that fellow who came upon the evening

before you left us?'

" 'Perfectly.'

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

day?'

" 'I have no idea.'

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

"I stared at him in astonishment.

" 'Yes, it was the devil himself. We have not had a peaceful

hour since -- not one. The governor has never held up his head

from that evening, and now the life has been crushed out of him

and his heart broken, all through this accursed Hudson.'

" 'What power had he, then?'

" 'Ah, that is what I would give so much to know. The

kindly, charitable good old governor -- how could he have fallen

into the clutches of such a ruffian! But I am so glad that you

have come, Holmes. I trust very much to your judgment and

discretion, and I know that you will advise me for the best.'

"We were dashing along the smooth white country road, with

the long stretch of the Broads in front of us glimmering in the

red light of the setting sun. From a grove upon our left I could

already see the high chimneys and the flagstaff which marked the

squire's dwelling.

" 'My father made the fellow gardener,'- said my companion,

'and then, as that did not satisfy him, he was promoted to be

butler. The house seemed to be at his mercy, and he wandered

about and did what he chose in it. The maids complained of his

drunken habits and his vile language. The dad raised their wages

all round to recompense them for the annoyance. The fellow

would take the boat and my father's best gun and treat himself to

little shooting trips. And all this with such a sneering, leering,

insolent face that I would have knocked him down twenty times

over if he had been a man of my own age. I tell you, Holmes, I

have had to keep a tight hold upon myself all this time and now

I am asking myself whether, if I had let myself go a littie more, I

might not have been a wiser man.

" 'Well, matters went from bad to worse with us, and this

animal Hudson became more and more intrusive, until at last, on

his making some insolent reply to my father in my presence one

day, I took him by the shoulders and turned him out of the room.

He slunk away with a livid face and two venomous eyes which

uttered more threats than his tongue could do. I don't know what

passed between the poor dad and him after that, but the dad

came to me next day and asked me whether I would mind

apologizing to Hudson. I refused, as you can imagine, and asked

my father how he could allow such a wretch to take such

liberties with himself and his household.

" ' "Ah, my boy," said he, "it is all very well to talk, but

you don't know how I am placed. But you shall know, Victor.

I'll see that you shall know, come what may. You wouldn't

believe harm of your poor old father, would you, lad?" He was

very much moved and shut himself up in the study all day,

where I could see through the window that he was writing

busily.

" 'That evening there came what seemed to me to be a grand

release, for Hudson told us that he was going to leave us. He

walked into the dining-room as we sat after dinner and an-

nounced his intention in the thick voice of a half-drunken man.

" ' "I've had enough of Norfolk," said he. "I'll run down to

Mr. Beddoes in Hampshire. He'll be as glad to see me as you

were, I daresay."

" ' "You're not going away in an unkind spirit, Hudson, I

hope," said my father with a tameness which made my blood

boil.

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

my direction.

" ' "Victor, you will acknowledge that you have used this

worthy fellow rather roughly," said the dad, turning to me.

" ' "On the contrary, I think that we have both shown

extraordinary patience towards him," I answered.

" ' "Oh, you do, do you?" he snarled. "Very good, mate.

We'll see about that!"

" 'He slouched out of the room and half an hour afterwards

left the house, leaving my father in a state of pitiable nervous-

ness. Night after night I heard him pacing his room, and it was

just as he was recovering his confidence that the blow did at last

fall.'

" 'And how?' I asked eagerly.

" 'In a most extraordinary fashion. A letter arrived for my

father yesterday evening, bearing the Fordingham postmark. My

father read it, clapped both his hands to his head, and began

running round the room in little circles like a man who has been

driven out of his senses. When I at last drew him down on to the

sofa, his mouth and eyelids were all puckered on one side, and I

saw that he had a stroke. Dr. Fordham came over at once. We

put him to bed, but the paralysis has spread, he has shown no

sign of returning consciousness, and I think that we shall hardly

find him alive.'

" 'You horrify me, Trevor!' I cried. 'What then could have

been in this letter to cause so dreadful a result?'

" 'Nothing. There lies the inexplicable part of it. The message

was absurd and trivial. Ah, my God, it is as I feared!'

"As he spoke we came round the curve of the avenue and saw

in the fading light that every blind in the house had been drawn

down. As we dashed up to the door, my friend's face convulsed

with grief, a gentleman in black emerged from it.

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

" 'Almost immediately after you left.'

" 'Did he recover consciousness?'

" 'For an instant before the end.'

" 'Any message for me?'

" 'Only that the papers were in the back drawer of the Japa-

nese cabinet.'

"My friend ascended with the doctor to the chamber of death

while I remained in the study, turning the whole matter over and

over in my head, and feeling as sombre as ever I had done in my

life. What was the past of this Trevor, pugilist, traveller, and

gold-digger, and how had he placed himself in the power of this

acid-faced seaman? Why, too, should he faint at an allusion to

the half-effaced initials upon his arm and die of fright when he

had a letter from Fordingham? Then I remembered that Fordingham

was in Hampshire, and that this Mr. Beddoes, whom the seaman

had gone to visit and presumably to blackmail, had also been

mentioned as living in Hampshire. The letter, then, might either

come from Hudson, the seaman, saying that he had betrayed the

guilty secret which appeared to exist, or it might come from

Beddoes, warning an old confederate that such a betrayal was

imminent. So far it seemed clear enough. But then how could

this letter be trivial and grotesque, as described by the son? He

must have misread it. If so, it must have been one of those

ingenious secret codes which mean one thing while they seem to

mean another. I must see this letter. If there was a hidden

meaning in it, I was confident that I could pluck it forth. For an

hour I sat pondering over it in the gloom, until at last a weeping

maid brought in a lamp, and close at her heels came my friend

Trevor, pale but composed, with these very papers which lie

upon my knee held in his grasp. He sat down opposite to me,

drew the lamp to the edge of the table, and handed me a short

note scribbled, as you see, upon a single sheet of gray paper.

'The supply of game for London is going steadily up,' it ran.

'Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive

all orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen-pheasant's

life. '

"I daresay my face looked as bewildered as yours did just

now when first I read this message. Then I reread it very

carefully. It was evidently as I had thought, and some secret

meaning must lie buried in this strange combination of words. Or

could it be that there was a prearranged significance to such

phrases as 'fly-paper' and 'hen-pheasant'? Such a meaning would

be arbitrary and could not be deduced in any way. And yet I was

loath to believe that this was the case, and the presence of the

word Hudson seemed to show that the subject of the message

was as I had guessed, and that it was from Beddoes rather than

the sailor. I tried it backward, but the combination 'life pheas-

ant's hen' was not encouraging. Then I tried alternate words, but

neither 'the of for' nor 'supply game London' promised to throw

any light upon it.

"And then in an instant the key of the riddle was in my hands,

and I saw that every third word, beginning with the first, would

give a message which might well drive old Trevor to despair.

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

companion:

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

"Victor Trevor sank his face into his shaking hands. 'It must

be that, I suppose,' said he. 'This is worse than death, for it

means disgrace as well. But what is the meaning of these "head-

keepers" and "hen-pheasants"?'

" 'It means nothing to the message, but it might mean a good

deal to us if we had no other means of discovering the sender.

You see that he has begun by writing "The . . . game . . . is,"

and so on. Afterwards he had, to fulfil the prearranged cipher, to

fill in any two words in each space. He would naturally use the

first words which came to his mind, and if there were so many

which referred to sport among them, you may be tolerably sure

that he is either an ardent shot or interested in breeding. Do you

know anything of this Beddoes?'

" 'Why, now that you mention it,' said he, 'I remember that

my poor father used to have an invitation from him to shoot over

his preserves every autumn.'

" 'Then it is undoubtedly from him that the note comes,' said

I. 'It only remains for us to find out what this secret was which

the sailor Hudson seems to have held over the heads of these two

wealthy and respected men.'

" 'Alas, Holmes, I fear that it is one of sin and shame!' cried

my friend. 'But from you I shall have no secrets. Here is the

statement which was drawn up by my father when he knew that

the danger from Hudson had become imminent. I found it in the

Japanese cabinet, as he told the doctor. Take it and read it to me,

for I have neither the strength nor the courage to do it myself.'

"These are the very papers, Watson, which he handed to me,

and I will read them to you, as I read them in the old study that

night to him. They are endorsed outside, as you see, 'Some

particulars of the voyage of the bark Gloria Scott, from her

leaving Falmouth on the 8th October, 1855, to her destruction in

N. Lat. 15 degrees 20'. W. Long. 25 degrees 14', on Nov. 6th.' It is

in the form of a letter, and runs in this way.

" 'My dear. dear son. now that approaching disgrace begins

to darken the closing years of my life, I can write with all truth

and honesty that it is not the terror of the law, it is not the loss of

my position in the county, nor is it my fall in the eyes of all who

have known me, which cuts me to the heart; but it is the thought

that you should come to blush for me -- you who love me and

who have seldom, I hope, had reason to do other than respect

me. But if the blow falls which is forever hanging over me, then

I should wish you to read this, that you may know straight from

me how far I have been to blame. On the other hand, if all

should go well (which may kind God Almighty grant!), then, if

by any chance this paper should be still undestroyed and should

fall into your hands, I conjure you, by all you hold sacred, by

the memory of your dear mother, and by the love which has been

between us, to hurl it into the fire and to never give one thought

to it again.

" 'If then your eye goes on to read this line, I know that I shall

already have been exposed and dragged from my home, or, as is

more likely, for you know that my heart is weak, be lying with

my tongue sealed forever in death. In either case the time for

suppression is past, and every word which I tell you is the naked

truth, and this I swear as I hope for mercy.

" 'My name, dear lad, is not Trevor. I was James Armitage in

my younger days, and you can understand now the shock that it

was to me a few weeks ago when your college friend addressed

me in words which seemed to imply that he had surprised my

secret. As Armitage it was that I entered a London banking-

house, and as Armitage I was convicted of breaking my coun-

try's laws, and was sentenced to transportation. Do not think

very harshly of me, laddie. It was a debt of honour, so called,

which I had to pay, and I used money which was not my own to

do it, in the certainty that I could replace it before there could be

any possibility of its being missed. But the most dreadful ill-luck

pursued me. The money which I had reckoned upon never came

to hand, and a premature examination of accounts exposed my

deficit. The case might have been dealt leniently with, but the

laws were more harshly administered thirty years ago than now,

and on my twenty-third birthday I found myself chained as a

felon with thirty-seven other convicts in the 'tween-decks of the

bark Cloria Scott, bound for Australia.

" 'It was the year '55, when the Crimean War was at its

height, and the old convict ships had been largely used as

transports in the Black Sea. The government was compelled,

therefore, to use smaller and less suitable vessels for sending out

their prisoners. The Gloria Scott had been in the Chinese tea-

trade, but she was an old-fashioned, heavy-bowed, broad-beamed

craft, and the new clippers had cut her out. She was a five-

hundred-ton boat; and besides her thirty-eight jail-birds, she

carried twenty-six of a crew, eighteen soldiers, a captain, three

mates, a doctor, a chaplain, and four warders. Nearly a hundred

souls were in her, all told, when we set sail from Faltnouth.

" 'The partitions between the cells of the convicts instead of

being of thick oak, as is usual in convict-ships, were quite thin

and frail. The man next to me, upon the aft side, was one whom

I had particularly noticed when we were led down the quay. He

was a young man with a clear, hairless face, a long, thin nose,

and rather nut-cracker jaws. He carried his head very jauntily in

the air, had a swaggering style of walking, and was above all

else, remarkable for his extraordinary height. I don't think any of

our heads would have come up to his shoulder, and I am sure

that he could not have measured less than six and a half feet. It

was strange among so many sad and weary faces to see one

which was full of energy and resolution. The sight of it was to

me like a fire in a snowstorm. I was glad, then, to find that he

was my neighbour, and gladder still when, in the dead of the

night, I heard a whisper close to my ear and found that he had

managed to cut an opening in the board which separated us.

" ' "Hullo, chummy!" said he, "what's your name, and

what are you here for?"

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

" ' "I'm Jack Prendergast," said he, "and by God! you'll

learn to bless my name before you've done with me."

" 'I remembered hearing of his case, for it was one which had

made an immense sensation throughout the country some time

before my own arrest. He was a man of good family and of great

ability, but of incurably vicious habits, who had by an ingenious

system of fraud obtained huge sums of money from the leading

London merchants.

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

" ' "Very well', indeed."

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

" ' "What was that, then?"

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

" ' "So it was said."

" ' "But none was recovered, eh?"

" ' "No. "

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

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

" ' "Right between my finger and thumb," he cried. "By

God! I've got mare pounds to my name than you've hairs on

your head. And if you've money, my son, and know how to

handle it and spread it, you can do anything. Now, you don't

think it likely that a man who could do anything is going to wear

his breeches out sitting in the stinking hold of a rat-gutted

beetle-ridden, mouldy old coffin of a Chin China coaster. No,

sir, such a man will look after himself and will look after his

chums. You may lay to that! You hold on to him, and you may

kiss the Book that he'll haul you through."

" 'That was his style of talk, and at first I thought it meant

nothing; but after a while, when he had tested me and sworn me

in with all possible solemnity, he let me understand that there

really was a plot to gain command of the vessel. A dozen of the

prisoners had hatched it before they came aboard, Prendergast

was the leader, and his money was the motive power.

" ' "I'd a partner," said he, "a rare good man, as true as a

stock to a barrel. He's got the dibbs, he has, and where do you

think he is at this moment? Why, he's the chaplain of this

ship -- the chaplain, no less! He came aboard with a black coat,

and his papers right, and money enough in his box to buy the

thing right up from keel to main-truck. The crew are his, body

and soul. He could buy 'em at so much a gross with a cash

discount, and he did it before ever they signed on. He's got two

of the warders and Mereer, the second mate, and he'd get the

captain himself, if he thought him worth it."

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

" ' "What do you think?" said he. "We'll make the coats of

some of these soldiers redder than ever the tailor did."

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

" ' "And so shall we be, my boy. There's a brace of pistols

for every mother's son of us; and if we can't carry this ship, with

the crew at our back, it's time we were all sent to a young

misses' boarding-school. You speak to your mate upon the left

to-night, and see if he is to be trusted."

" 'I did so and found my other neighbour to be a young fellow in

much the same position as myself, whose crime had been forg-

ery. His name was Evans, but he afterwards changed it, like

myself, and he is now a rich and prosperous man in the south of

England. He was ready enough to join the conspiracy, as the

only means of saving ourselves, and before we had crossed the

bay there were only two of the prisoners who were not in the

secret. One of these was of weak mind, and we did not dare to

trust him, and the other was suffering from jaundice and could not

be of any use to us.

" 'From the beginning there was really nothing to prevent us

from taking possession of the ship. The crew were a set of

ruffians, specially picked for the job. The sham chaplain came

into our cells to exhort us, carrying a black bag, supposed to be

full of tracts, and so often did he come that by the third day we

had each stowed away at the foot of our beds a file, a brace of

pistols, a pound of powder, and twenty slugs. Two of the

warders were agents of Prendergast, and the second mate was his

right-hand man. The captain, the two mates, two warders, Lieu-

tenant Martin, his eighteen soldiers, and the doctor were all that

we had against us. Yet, safe as it was, we determihed to neglect

no precaution, and to make our attack suddenly by night. It

came, however, more quickly than we expected, and in this way.

" 'One evening, about the third week after our start, the

doctor had come down to see one of the prisoners who was ill,

and putting his hand down on the bottom of his bunk, he felt the

outline of the pistols. If he had been silent he might have blown

the whole thing, but he was a nervous little chap, so he gave a

cry of surprise and turned so pale that the man knew what was up

in an instant and seized him. He was gagged before he could

give the alarm and tied down upon the bed. He had unlocked the

door that led to the deck, and we were through it in a rush.

The two sentries were shot down, and so was a corporal who

came running to see what was the matter. There were two more

soldiers at the door of the stateroom, and their muskets seemed

not to be loaded, for they never fired upon us, and they were

shot whi!e trying to fix their bayonets. Then we rushed on into

the captain's cabin, but as we pushed open the door there was an

explosion from within, and there he lay with his brains smeared

over the chart of the Atlantic which was pinned upon the table,

while the chaplain stood with a smoking pistol in his hand at his

elbow. The two mates had both been seized by the crew, and the

whole business seemed to be settled.

" 'The stateroom was next the cabin, and we flocked in there

and flopped down on the settees, all speaking together, for we

were just mad with the feeling that we were free once more.

There were lockers all round, and Wilson, the sham chaplain,

knocked one of them in, and pulled out a dozen of brown sherry.

We cracked off the necks of the bottles, poured the stuff out into

tumblers, and were just tossing them off when in an instant

without warning there came the roar of muskets in our ears, and

the saloon was so full of smoke that we could not see across the

table. When it cleared again the place was a shambles. Wilson

and eight others were wriggling on the top of each other on the

floor, and the blood and the brown sherry on that table turn me

sick now when I think of it. We were so cowed by the sight that

I think we should have given the job up if it had not been for

Prendergast. He bellowed like a bull and rushed for the door

with all that were left alive at his heels. Out we ran, and there on

the poop were the lieutenant and ten of his men. The swing

skylights above the saloon table had been a bit open, and they

had fired on us through the slit. We got on them before they

could load, and they stood to it like men; but we had the upper

hand of them, and in five minutes it was all over. My God! was

there ever a slaughter-house like that ship! Prendergast was like a

raging devil, and he picked the soldiers up as if they had been

children and threw them overboard alive or dead. There was one

sergeant that was horribly wounded and yet kept on swimming

for a surprising time until someone in mercy blew out his brains.

When the fighting was over there was no one left of our enemies

except just the warders, the mates, and the doctor.

" 'lt was over them that the great quarrel arose. There were

many of us who were glad enough to win back our freedom, and

yet who had no wish to have murder on our souls. It was one

thing to knock the soldiers over with their muskets in their

hands, and it was another to stand by while men were being

killed in cold blood. Eight of us, five convicts and three sailors,

said that we would not see it done. But there was no moving

Prendergast and those who were with him. Our only chance of

safety lay in making a clean job of it, salid he, and he would not

leave a tongue with power to wag in a witness-box. It nearly

came to our sharing the fate of the prisoners, but at last he said

that if we wished we might take a boat and go. We jumped at the

offer, for we were already sick of these blood-thirsty doings, and

we saw that there would be worse beforo it was done. We were

given a suit of sailor togs each, a barrel of water, two casks, one

of junk and one of biscuits, and a compass. Prendergast threw us

over a chart, told us that we were shiprecked mariners whose

ship had foundered in Lat. 15 degrees and Long. 25 degrees west,

and then cut the painter and let us go.

" 'And now I come to the most surprising part of my story,

my dear son. The seamen had hauled the fore-yard aback during

the rising, but now as we left them they brought it square again,

and as there was a light wind from the north and east the bark

began to draw slowly away from us. Our boat lay, rising and

falling, upon the long, smooth rollers, and Evans and I, who

were the most educated of the party, were sitting in the sheets

working out our position and planning what coast we should

make for. It was a nice question, for the Cape Verdes were about

five hundred miles to the north of us, and the African coast about

seven hundred to the east. On the whole, as the wind was

coming round to the north, we thought hat Sierra Leone might

be best and turned our head in that direction, the bark being at

that time nearly hull down on our starboard quarter. Suddenly as

we looked at her we saw a dense black cloud of smoke shoot up

from her, which hung like a monstrous tree upon the sky-line. A

few seconds later a roar like thunder burst upon our ears, and as

the smoke thinned away there was no sign left of the Gloria

Scott. In an instant we swept the boat's head round again and

pulled with all our strength for the place where the haze still

trailing over the water marked the scene of this catastrophe.

" 'It was a long hour before we reached it, and at first we

feared that we had come too late to save anyone. A splintered

boat and a number of crates and fragments of spars rising and

falling on the waves showed us where the vessel had foundered;

but there was no sign of life, and we had turned away in despair,

when we heard a cry for help and saw at some distance a piece

of wreckage with a man lying stretchetl across it. When we

pulled him aboard the boat he proved to be a young seaman of

the name of Hudson, who was so burned and exhausted that he

could give us no account of what had happened until the follow-

ing morning.

" 'It seemed that after we had left, Prendergast and his gang

had proceeded to put to death the five remaining prisoners. The

two warders had been shot and thrown overboard, and so also

had the third mate. Prendergast then descended into the 'tween-

decks and with his own hands cut the throat of the unfortunate

surgeon. There only remained the first mate, who was a bold and

active man. When he saw the convict approaching him with the

bloody knife in his hand he kicked off his bonds, which he had

somehow contrived to loosen, and rushing down the deck he

plunged into the after-hold. A dozen convicts, who descended

with their pistols in search of him, found him with a match-box

in his hand seated beside an open powder-barrel, which was one

of the hundred carried on board, and swearing that he would

blow all hands up if he were in any way molested. An instant

later the explosion occurred, though Hudson thought it was

caused by the misdirected bullet of one of the convicts rather

than the mate's match. Be the cause what it may, it was the

end of the Gloria Scott and of the rabble who held command of

her.

" 'Such, in a few words, my dear boy, is the history of this

terrible business in which I was involved. Next day we were

picked up by the brig Hotspur, bound for Australia, whose

captain found no difficulty in believing that we were the survi-

vors of a passenger ship which had foundered. The transport ship

Gloria Scott was set down by the Admiralty as being lost at sea,

and no word has ever leaked out as to her true fate. After an

excellent voyage the Hotspur landed us at Sydney, where Evans

and I changed our names and made our way to the diggings,

where, among the crowds who were gathered from all nations,

we had no difficulty in losing our former identities. The rest I

need not relate. We prospered, we travelled, we came back as

rich colonials to England, and we bought country estates. For

more than twenty years we have led peaceful and useful lives,

and we hoped that our past was forever buried. Imagine, then,

my feelings when in the seaman who came to us I recognized

instantly the man who had been picked off the wreck. He had

tracked us down somehow and had set himself to live upon our

fears. You will understand now how it was that I strove to keep

the peace with him, and you will in some measure sympathize

with me in the fears which fill me, now that he has gone from

me to his other victim with threats upon his tongue.'

 

"Underneath is written in a hand so shaky as to be hardly

legible, 'Beddoes writes in cipher to say H. has told all. Sweet

Lord, have mercy on our souls!'

"That was the narrative which I read that night to young

Trevor, and I think, Watson, that under the circumstances it was

a dramatic one. The good fellow was heart-broken at it, and

went out to the Terai tea planting, where I hear that he is doing

well. As to the sailor and Beddoes, neither of them was ever

heard of again after that day on which the letter of warning was

written. They both disappeared utterly and completely. No com-

plaint had been lodged with the police, so that Beddoes had

mistaken a threat for a deed. Hudson had been seen lurking

about, and it was believed by the police that he had done away

with Beddoes and had fled. For myself I believe that the truth

was exactly the opposite. I think that it is most probable that

Beddoes, pushed to desperation and believing himself to have

been already betrayed, had revenged himself upon Hudson, and

had fled from the country with as much money as he could lay

his hands on. Those are the facts of the case, Doctor, and if they

are of any use to your collection, I am sure that they are very

heartily at your service."

 

==============================

The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez

 

When I look at the three massive manuscript volumes which

contain our work for the year 1894, I confess that it is very

difficult for me, out of such a wealth of material, to select the

cases which are most interesting in themselves, and at the same

time most conducive to a display of those peculiar powers for

which my friend was famous. As I turn over the pages, I see my

notes upon the repulsive story of the red leech and the terrible

death of Crosby, the banker. Here also I find an account of the

Addleton tragedy, and the singular contents of the ancient British

barrow. The famous Smith-Mortimer succession case comes also

within this period, and so does the tracking and arrest of Huret,

the Boulevard assassin -- an exploit which won for Holmes an

autograph letter of thanks from the French President and the

Order of the Legion of Honour. Each of these would furnish a

narrative, but on the whole I am of opinion that none of them

unites so many singular points of interest as the episode of

Yoxley Old Place, which includes not only the lamentable death

of young Willoughby Smith, but also those subsequent develop-

ments which threw so curious a light upon the causes of the

crime.

It was a wild, tempestuous night, towards the close of Novem-

ber. Holmes and I sat together in silence all the evening, he

engaged with a powerful lens deciphering the remains of the

original inscription upon a palimpsest, I deep in a recent treatise

upon surgery. Outside the wind howled down Baker Street,

while the rain beat fiercely against the windows. It was strange

there, in the very depths of the town, with ten miles of man's

handiwork on every side of us, to feel the iron grip of Nature,

and to be conscious that to the huge elemental forces all London

was no more than the molehills that dot the fields. I walked to

the window, and looked out on the deserted street. The occa-

sional lamps gleamed on the expanse of muddy road and shining

pavement. A single cab was splashing its way from the Oxford

Street end.

"Well, Watson, it's as well we have not to turn out to-night,"

said Holmes, laying aside his lens and rolling up the palimpsest.

"I've done enough for one sitting. It is trying work for the eyes.

So far as I can make out, it is nothing more exciting than an

Abbey's accounts dating from the second half of the fifteenth

century. Halloa! halloa! halloa! What's this?"

Amid the droning of the wind there had come the stamping of

a horse's hoofs, and the long grind of a wheel as it rasped

against the curb. The cab which I had seen had pulled up at our

door.

"What can he want?" I ejaculated, as a man stepped out of it.

"Want? He wants us. And we, my poor Watson, want over-

coats and cravats and goloshes, and every aid that man ever

invented to fight the weather. Wait a bit, though! There's the cab

off again! There's hope yet. He'd have kept it if he had wanted

us to come. Run down, my dear fellow, and open the door, for

all virtuous folk have been long in bed."

When the light of the hall lamp fell upon our midnight visitor,

I had no difficulty in recognizing him. It was young Stanley

Hopkins, a promising detective, in whose career Holmes had

several times shown a very practical interest.

"Is he in?" he asked, eagerly.

"Come up, my dear sir," said Holmes's voice from above. "I

hope you have no designs upon us on such a night as this."

The detective mounted the stairs, and our lamp gleamed upon

his shining waterproof. I helped him out of it, while Holmes

knocked a blaze out of the logs in the grate.

"Now, my dear Hopkins, draw up and warm your toes," said

he. "Here's a cigar, and the doctor has a prescription containing

hot water and a lemon, which is good medicine on a night like

this. It must be something important which has brought you out

in such a gale."

"It is indeed, Mr. Holmes. I've had a bustling afternoon, I

promise you. Did you see anything of the Yoxley case in the

latest editions?"

"I've seen nothing later than the fifteenth century to-day."

"Well, it was only a paragraph, and all wrong at that, so you

have not missed anything. I haven't let the grass grow under my

feet. It's down in Kent, seven miles from Chatham and three

from the railway line. I was wired for at 3:15, reached Yoxley

Old Place at 5, conducted my investigation, was back at Charing

Cross by the last train, and straight to you by cab."

"Which means, I suppose, that you are not quite clear about

your case?"

"lt means that I can make neither head nor tail of it. So far as

I can see, it is just as tangled a business as ever I handled, and

yet at first it seemed so simple that one couldn't go wrong.

There's no motive, Mr. Holmes. That's what bothers me -- I

can't put my hand on a motive. Here's a man dead -- there's no

denying that -- but, so far as I can see, no reason on earth why

anyone should wish him harm."

Holmes lit his cigar and leaned back in his chair.

"Let us hear about it," said he.

"I've got my facts pretty clear," said Stanley Hopkins. "All I

want now is to know what they all mean. The story, so far as I

can make it out, is like this. Some years ago this country house,

Yoxley Old Place, was taken by an elderly man, who gave the

name of Professor Coram. He was an invalid, keeping his bed

half the time, and the other half hobbling round the house with a

stick or being pushed about the grounds by the gardener in a

Bath chair. He was well liked by the few neighbours who ealled

upon him, and he has the reputation down there of being a very

learned man. His household used to consist of an elderly house-

keeper, Mrs. Marker, and of a maid, Susan Tarlton. These have

both been with him since his arrival, and they seem to be women

of excellent character. The professor is writing a learned book,

and he found it necessary, about a year ago, to engage a secre-

tary. The first two that he tried were not successes, but the third,

Mr. Willoughby Smith, a very young man straight from the

university, seems to have been just what his employer wanted.

His work consisted in writing all the morning to the professor's

dictation, and he usually spent the evening in hunting up refer-

ences and passages which bore upon the next day's work. This

Willoughby Smith has nothing against him, either as a boy at

Uppingham or as a young man at Cambridge. I have seen his

testimonials, and from the first he was a decent, quiet, hard-

working fellow, with no weak spot in him at all. And yet this is

the lad who has met his death this morning in the professor's

study under circumstances which can point only to murder."

The wind howled and screamed at the windows. Holmes and

I drew closer to the fire, while the young inspector slowly and

point by point developed his singular narrative.

"If you were to search all England," said he, "I don't

suppose you could find a household more self-contained or freer

from outside influences. Whole weeks would pass, and not one

of them go past the garden gate. The professor was buried in his

work and existed for nothing else. Young Smith knew nobody in

the neighbourhood, and lived very much as his employer did.

The two women had nothing to take them from the house.

Mortimer, the gardener, who wheels the Bath chair, is an army

pensioner -- an old Crimean man of excellent character. He does

not live in the house, but in a three-roomed cottage at the other

end of the garden. Those are the only people that you would find

within the grounds of Yoxley Old Place. At the same time, the

gate of the garden is a hundred yards from the main London to

Chatham road. It opens with a latch, and there is nothing to

prevent anyone from walking in.

"Now I will give you the evidence of Susan Tarlton, who is

the only person who can say anything positive about the matter.

It was in the forenoon, between eleven and twelve. She was

engaged at the moment in hanging some curtains in the upstairs

front bedroom. Professor Coram was still in bed, for when the

weather is bad he seldom rises before midday. The housekeeper

was busied with some work in the back of the house. Wil-

loughby Smith had been in his bedroom, which he uses as a

sitting-room, but the maid heard him at that moment pass along

the passage and descend to the study immediately below her. She

did not see him, but she says that she could not be mistaken in

his quick, firm tread. She did not hear the study door close, but a

minute or so later there was a dreadful cry in the room below. It

was a wild, hoarse scream, so strange and unnatural that it might

have come either from a man or a woman. At the same instant

there was a heavy thud, which shook the old house, and then all

was silence. The maid stood petrified for a moment, and then,

recovering her courage, she ran downstairs. The study door was

shut and she opened it. Inside, young Mr. Willoughby Smith

was stretched upon the floor. At first she could see no injury, but

as she tried to raise him she saw that blood was pouring from the

underside of his neck. It was pierced by a very small but very

deep wound, which had divided the carotid artery. The instru-

ment with which the injury had been inflicted lay upon the carpet

beside him. It was one of those small sealing-wax knives to be

found on old-fashioned writing-tables, with an ivory handle and

a stiff blade. It was part of the fittings of the professor's own

desk.

"At first the maid thought that young Smith was already dead,

but on pouring some water from the carafe over his forehead he

opened his eyes for an instant. 'The professor,' he murmured -- 'it

was she.' The maid is prepared to swear that those were the

exact words. He tried desperately to say something else,

and he held his right hand up in the air. Then he fell back

dead.

"In the meantime the housekeeper had also arrived upon the

scene, but she was just too late to catch the young man's dying

words. Leaving Susan with the body, she hurried to the profes-

sor's room. He was sitting up in bed horribly agitated, for he had

heard enough to convince him that something terrible had oc-

curred. Mrs. Marker is prepared to swear that the professor was

still in his night-clothes, and indeed it was impossible for him to

dress without the help of Mortimer, whose orders were to come

at twelve o'clock. The professor declares that he heard the

distant cry, but that he knows nothing more. He can give no

explanation of the young man's last words, 'The professor -- it

was she,' but imagines that they were the outcome of delirium.

He believes that Willoughby Smith had not an enemy in the

world, and can give no reason for the crime. His first action was

to send Mortimer, the gardener, for the local police. A little later

the chief constable sent for me. Nothing was moved before I got

there, and strict orders were given that no one should walk upon

the paths leading to the house. It was a splendid chance of

putting your theories into practice, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. There

was really nothing wanting."

"Except Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said my companion, with a

somewhat bitter smile. "Well, let us hear about it. What sort of

job did you make of it?"

"I must ask you first, Mr. Holmes, to glance at this rough

plan, which will give you a general idea of the position of the

professor's study and the various points of the case. It will help

you in following my investigation."

He unfolded the rough chart, which I here reproduce, and he

laid it across Holmes's knee. I rose and, standing behind

Holmes, studied it over his shoulder.

"It is very rough, of course, and it only deals with the points

which seem to me to be essential. All the rest you will see later

for yourself. Now, first of all, presuming that the assassin entered

the house, how did he or she come in? Undoubtedly by the

garden path and the back door, from which there is direct access

to the study. Any other way would have been exceedingly

complicated. The escape must have also been made along that

line, for of the two other exits from the room one was blocked

by Susan as she ran downstairs and the other leads straight to the

professor's bedroom. I therefore directed my attention at once to

the garden path, which was saturated with recent rain, and would

certainly show any footmarks.

"My examination showed me that I was dealing with a cautious

and expert criminal. No footmarks were to be found on the path.

There could be no question, however, that someone had passed

along the grass border which lines the path, and that he had done

so in order to avoid leaving a track. I could not find anything in

the nature of a distinct impression, but the grass was trodden

down, and someone had undoubtedly passed. It could only have

been the murderer, since neither the gardener nor anyone else

had been there that morning, and the rain had only begun during

the night."

"One moment," said Holmes. "Where does this path lead

to?"

"To the road."

"How long is it?"

"A hundred yards or so."

"At the point where the path passes through the gate, you

could surely pick up the tracks?"

"Unfortunately, the path was tiled at that point."

"Well, on the road itself?"

"No, it was all trodden into mire."

"Tut-tut! Well, then, these tracks upon the grass, were they

coming or going?"

"It was impossible to say. There was never any outline."

"A large foot or a small?"

"You could not distinguish."

Holmes gave an ejaculation of impatience.

"It has been pouring rain and blowing a hurricane ever since,"

said he. "It will be harder to read now than that palimpsest.

Well, well. it can't be helped. What did you do. Hopkins, after

you had made certain that you had made certain of nothing?"

"I think I made certain of a good deal, Mr. Holmes. I knew

that someone had entered the house cautiously from without. I

next examined the corridor. It is lined with cocoanut matting and

had taken no impression of any kind. This brought me into the

study itself. It is a scantily furnished room. The main article is a

large writing-table with a fixed bureau. This bureau consists of a

double column of drawers, with a central small cupboard be-

tween them. The drawers were open, the cupboard locked. The

drawers, it seems, were always open, and nothing of value was

kept in them. There were some papers of importance in the

cupboard, but there were no signs that this had been tampered

with, and the professor assures me that nothing was missing. It is

certain that no robbery has been committed.

"I come now to the body of the young man. It was found near

the bureau, and just to the left of it, as marked upon that chart.

The stab was on the right side of the neck and from behind

forward, so that it is almost impossible tbat it could have been

self-inflicted."

"Unless he fell upon the knife," said Holmes.

"Exactly. The idea crossed my mind. But we found the knife

some feet away from the body, so that seems impossible. Then,

of course, there are the man's own dying words. And, finally,

there was this very important piece of evidence which was found

clasped in the dead man's right hand."

From his pocket Stanley Hopkins drew a small paper packet.

He unfolded it and disclosed a golden pince-nez, with two

broken ends of black silk cord dangling from the end of it.

"Willoughby Smith had excellent sight," he added. "There can

be no question that this was snatched from the face or the person

of the assassin."

Sherlock Holmes took the glasses into his hand, and examined

them with the utmost attention and interest. He held them on his

nose, endeavoured to read through them, went to the window

and stared up the street with them, looked at them most minutely

in the full light of the lamp, and finally, with a chuckle, seated

himself at the table and wrote a few lines upon a sheet of paper,

which he tossed across to Stanley Hopkins.

"That's the best I can do for you," said he. "It may prove to

be of some use."

The astonished detective read the note aloud. It ran as follows:

 

"Wanted. a woman of good address. attired like a lady.

She has a remarkably thick nose, with eyes which are set

close upon either side of it. She has a puckered forehead, a

peering expression, and probably rounded shoulders. There

are indications that she has had recourse to an optician at

least twice during the last few months. As her glasses are of

remarkable strength, and as opticians are not very numer-

ous, there should be no difficulty in tracing her."

 

Holmes smiled at the astonishment of Hopkins, which must

have been reflected upon my features.

"Surely my deductions are simplicity itself," said he. "It

would be difficult to name any articles which afford a finer field

for inference than a pair of glasses, especially so remarkable a

pair as these. That they belong to a woman I infer from their

delicacy, and also, of course, from the last words of the dying

man. As to her being a person of refinement and well dressed

they are, as you perceive, handsomely mounted in solid gold,

and it is inconceivable that anyone who wore such glasses could

be slatternly in other respects. You will find that the clips are too

wide for your nose, showing that the lady's nose was very broad

at the base. This sort of nose is usually a short and coarse one,

but there is a sufficient number of exceptions to prevent me from

being dogmatic or from insisting upon this point in my descrip-

tion. My own face is a narrow one, and yet I find that I cannot

get my eyes into the centre, nor near the centre, of these glasses.

Therefore, the lady's eyes are set very near to the sides of the

nose. You will perceive, Watson, that the glasses are concave

and of unusual strength. A lady whose vision has been so

extremely contracted all her life is sure to have the physical

characteristics of such vision, which are seen in the forehead, the

eyelids, and the shoulders."

"Yes," I said, "I can follow each of your arguments. I

confess, however, that I am unable to understand how you arrive

at the double visit to the optician."

Holmes took the glasses in his hand.

"You will perceive," he said, "that the clips are lined with

tiny bands of cork to soften the pressure upon the nose. One of

these is discoloured and worn to some slight extent, but the other

is new. Evidently one has fallen off and been replaced. I should

judge that the older of them has not been there more than a few

months. They exactly correspond, so I gather that the lady went

back to the same establishment for the second."

"By George, it's marvellous!" cried Hopkins. in an ecstasy of

admiration. "To think that I had all that evidence in my hand

and never knew it! I had intended, however, to go the round of

the London opticians."

"Of course you would. Meanwhile, have you anything more

to tell us about the case?"

"Nothing, Mr. Holmes. I think that you know as much as I do

now -- probably more. We have had inquiries made as to any

stranger seen on the country roads or at the railway station. We

have heard of none. What beats me is the utter want of all object

in the crime. Not a ghost of a motive can anyone suggest."

"Ah! there I am not in a position to help you. But I suppose

you want us to come out to-morrow?"

"If it is not asking too much, Mr. Holmes. There's a train

from Charing Cross to Chatham at six in the morning, and we

should be at Yoxley Old Place between eight and nine."

"Then we shall take it. Your case has certainly some features

of great interest, and I shall be delighted to look into it. Well,

it's nearly one, and we had best get a few hours' sleep. I daresay

you can manage all right on the sofa in front of the fire. I'll light

my spirit lamp, and give you a cup of coffee before we start."

The gale had blown itself out next day, but it was a bitter

morning when we started upon our journey. We saw the cold

winter sun rise over the dreary marshes of the Thames and the

long, sullen reaches of the river, which I shall ever associate

with our pursuit of the Andaman Islander in the earlier days of

our career. After a long and weary journey, we alighted at a

small station some miles from Chatham. While a horse was

being put into a trap at the local inn, we snatched a hurried

breakfast, and so we were all ready for business when we at last

arrived at Yoxley Old Place. A constable met us at the garden

gate.

"Well, Wilson, any news?"

"No, sir -- nothing."

"No reports of any stranger seen?"

"No, sir. Down at the station they are certain that no stranger

either came or went yesterday."

"Have you had inquiries made at inns and lodgings?"

"Yes, sir: there is no one that we cannot account for."

"Well, it's only a reasonable walk to Chatham. Anyone might

stay there or take a train without being observed. This is the

garden path of which I spoke, Mr. Holmes. I'll pledge my word

there was no mark on it yesterday."

"On which side were the marks on the grass?"

"This side, sir. This narrow margin of grass between the path

and the flowerbed. I can't see the traces now, but they were clear

to me then."

"Yes, yes: someone has passed along," said Holmes, stoop-

ing over the grass border. "Our lady must have picked her steps

carefully, must she not, since on the one side she would leave a

track on the path, and on the other an even clearer one on the

soft bed?"

"Yes, sir, she must have been a cool hand."

I saw an intent look pass over Holmes's face.

"You say that she must have come back this way?"

"Yes, sir, there is no other."

"On this strip of grass?"

"Certainly, Mr. Holmes."

"Hum! It was a very remarkable performance -- very remark-

able. Well, I think we have exhausted the path. Let us go

farther. This garden door is usually kept open, I suppose? Then

this visitor had nothing to do but to walk in. The idea of murder

was not in her mind, or she would have provided herself with

some sort of weapon, instead of having to pick this knife off the

writing-table. She advanced along this corridor, leaving no traces

upon the cocoanut matting. Then she found herself in this study.

How long was she there? We have no means of judging."

"Not more than a few minutes, sir. I forgot to tell you that

Mrs. Marker, the housekeeper, had been in there tidying not

very long before -- about a quarter of an hour, she says."

"Well, that gives us a limit. Our lady enters this room, and

what does she do? She goes over to the writing-table. What for?

Not for anything in the drawers. If there had been anything

worth her taking, it would surely have been locked up. No, it

was for something in that wooden bureau. Halloa! what is that

scratch upon the face of it? Just hold a match, Watson. Why did

you not tell me of this, Hopkins?"

The mark which he was examining began upon the brasswork

on the righthand side of the keyhole, and extended for about four

inches, where it had scratched the varnish from the surface.

"I noticed it, Mr. Holmes, but you'll always find scratches

round a keyhole."

"This is recent, quite recent. See how the brass shines where

it is cut. An old scratch would be the same colour as the surface.

Look at it through my lens. There's the varnish, too, like earth

on each side of a furrow. Is Mrs. Marker there?"

A sad-faced, elderly woman came into the room.

"Did you dust this bureau yesterday morning?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you notice this scratch?"

"No, sir, I did not."

"I am sure you did not, for a duster would have swept away

these shreds of varnish. Who has the key of this bureau?"

"The professor keeps it on his watch-chain."

"Is it a simple key?"

"No, sir, it is a Chubb's key."

"Very good. Mrs. Marker, you can go. Now we are making a

little progress. Our lady enters the room, advances to the bureau,

and either opens it or tries to do so. While she is thus engaged,

young Willoughby Smith enters the room. In her hurry to with-

draw the key, she makes this scratch upon the door. He seizes

her, and she, snatching up the nearest object, which happens to

be this knife, strikes at him in order to make him let go his hold.

The blow is a fatal one. He falls and she escapes, either with or

without the object for which she has come. Is Susan, the maid,

there? Could anyone have got away through that door after the

time that you heard the cry, Susan?"

"No, sir, it is impossible. Before I got down the stair, I'd

have seen anyone in the passage. Besides, the door never opened,

or I would have heard it."

"That settles this exit. Then no doubt the lady-went out the

way she came. I understand that this other passage leads only to

the professor's room. There is no exit that way?"

"No, sir."

"We shall go down it and make the acquaintance of the

professor. Halloa, Hopkins! this is very important, very impor-

tant indeed. The professor's corridor is also lined with cocoanut

matting."

"Well, sir, what of that?"

"Don't you see any bearing upon the case? Well, well. I don't

insist upon it. No doubt I am wrong. And yet it seems to me to

be suggestive. Come with me and introduce me."

We passed down the passage, which was of the same length as

that which led to the garden. At the end was a short flight of

steps ending in a door. Our guide knocked, and then ushered us

into the professor's bedroom.

It was a very large chamber, lined with innumerable volumes,

which had overflowed from the shelves and lay in piles in the

corners, or were stacked all round at the base of the cases. The

bed was in the centre of the room, and in it, propped up with

pillows, was the owner of the house. I have seldom seen a more

remarkable-looking person. It was a gaunt, aquiline face which

was turned towards us, with piercing dark eyes, which lurked in

deep hollows under overhung and tufted brows. His hair and

beard were white, save that the latter was curiously stained with

yellow around his mouth. A cigarette glowed amid the tangle of

white hair, and the air of the room was fetid with stale tobacco

smoke. As he held out his hand to Holmes, I perceived that it

was also stained with yellow nicotine.

"A smoker, Mr. Holmes?" said he, speaking in well-chosen

English, with a curious little mincing accent. "Pray take a

cigarette. And you, sir? I can recommend them, for I have them

especially prepared by lonides, of Alexandria. He sends me a

thousand at a time, and I grieve to say that I have to arrange for

a fresh suprly every fortnight. Bad, sir, very bad, but an old

man has few pleasures. Tobacco and my work -- that is all that is

left to me."

Holmes had lit a cigarette and was shooting little darting

glances all over the room.

"Tobacco and my work, but now only tobacco," the old man

exclaimed. "Alas! what a fatal interruption! Who could have

foreseen such a terrible catastrophe? So estimable a young man!

I assure you that, after a few months' training, he was an

admirable assistant. What do you think of the matter, Mr.

Holmes?"

"I have not yet made up my mind."

"I shall indeed be indebted to you if you can throw a light

where all is so dark to us. To a poor bookworm and invalid like

myself such a blow is paralyzing. I seem to have lost the faculty

of thought. But you are a man of action -- you are a man of

affairs. It is part of the everyday routine of your life. You can

preserve your balance in every emergency. We are fortunate,

indeed, in having you at our side."

Holmes was pacing up and down one side of the room whilst

the old professor was talking. I observed that he was smoking

with extraordinary rapidity. It was evident that he shared our

host's liking for the fresh Alexandrian cigarettes.

"Yes, sir, it is a crushing blow," said the old man. "That is

my magnum opus -- the pile of papers on the side table yonder. It

is my analysis of the documents found in the Coptic monasteries

of Syria and Egypt, a work which will cut deep at the very

foundation of revealed religion. With my enfeebled health I do

not know whether I shall ever be able to complete it, now that

my assistant has been taken from me. Dear me! Mr. Holmes,

why, you are even a quicker smoker than I am myself."

Holmes smiled.

"I am a connoisseur," said he, taking another cigarette from

the box -- his fourth -- and lighting it from the stub of that which

he had finished. "I will not trouble you with any lengthy cross-

examination, Professor Coram, since I gather that you were in

bed at the time of the crime, and could know nothing about it. I

would only ask this: What do you imagine that this poor fellow

meant by his last words: 'The professor -- it was she'?"

The professor shook his head.

"Susan is a country girl," said he, "and you know the

incredible stupidity of that class. I fancy that the poor fellow

murmured some incoherent, delirious words, and that she twisted

them into this meaningless message."

"I see. You have no explanation yourself of the tragedy?"

"Possibly an accident, possibly -- I only breathe it among

ourselves -- a suicide. Young men have their hidden troubles --

some affair of the heart, perhaps, which we have never known.

It is a more probable supposition than murder."

"But the eyeglasses?"

"Ah! I am only a student -- a man of dreams. I cannot explain

the practical things of life. But still, we are aware, my friend,

that love-gages may take strange shapes. By all means take

another cigarette. It is a pleasure to see anyone appreciate them

so. A fan, a glove, glasses -- who knows what article may be

carried as a token or treasured when a man puts an end to his

life? This gentleman speaks of footsteps in the grass, but, after

all, it is easy to be mistaken on such a point. As to the knife, it

might well be thrown far from the unfortunate man as he fell. It

is possible that I speak as a child, but to me it seems that

Willoughby Smith has met his fate by his own hand."

Holmes seemed struck by the theory thus put forward, and hc

continued to walk up and down for some time, lost in thought

and consuming cigarette after cigarette.

"Tell me, Professor Coram," he said. at last, "what is in that

cupboard in the bureau?"

"Nothing that would help a thief. Family papers, letters from

my poor wife, diplomas of universities which have done me

honour. Here is the key. You can look for yourself."

Holmes picked up the key, and looked at it for an instant, then

he handed it back.

"No, I hardly think that it would help me," said he. "I

should prefer to go quietly down to your garden, and turn the

whole matter over in my head. There is something to be said for

the theory of suicide which you have put forward. We must

apologize for having intruded upon you, Professor Coram, and I

promise that we won't disturb you until after lunch. At two

o'clock we will come again, and report to you anything which

may have happened in the interval."

Holmes was curiously distrait, and we walked up and down

the garden path for some time in silence.

"Have you a clue?" I asked, at last.

"It depends upon those cigarettes that I smoked," said he. "It

is possible that I am utterly mistaken. The cigarettes will show

me."

"My dear Holmes," I exclaimed, "how on earth --"

"Well, well, you may see for yourself. If not, there's no harm

done. Of course, we always have the optician clue to fall back

upon, but I take a short cut when I can get it. Ah, here is the

good Mrs. Marker! Let us enjoy five minutes of instructive

conversation with her."

I may have remarked before that Holmes had, when he liked,

a peculiarly ingratiating way with women, and that he very

readily established terms of confidence with them. In half the

time which he had named, he had captured the housekeeper's

goodwill and was chatting with her as if he had known her for

years.

"Yes, Mr. Holmes, it is as you say, sir. He does smoke

something terrible. All day and sometimes all night, sir. I've

seen that room of a morning -- well, sir, you'd have thought it

was a London fog. Poor young Mr. Smith, he was a smoker

also, but not as bad as the professor. His health -- well, I don't

know that it's better nor worse for the smoking."

"Ah!" said Holmes, "but it kills the appetite."

"Well, I don't know about that, sir."

"I suppose the professor eats hardly anything?"

"Well, he is variable. I'll say that for him."

"I'll wager he took no breakfast this morning, and won't face

his lunch after all the cigarettes I saw him consume."

"Well, you're out there, sir, as it happens, for he ate a

remarkable big breakfast this morning. I don't know when I've

known him make a better one, and he's ordered a good dish of

cutlets for his lunch. I'm surprised myself, for since I came into

that room yesterday and saw young Mr. Smith lying there on the

floor, I couldn't bear to look at food. Well, it takes all sorts to

make a world, and the professor hasn't let it take his appetite

away."

We loitered the morning away in the garden. Stanley Hopkins

had gone down to the village to look into some rumours of a

strange woman who had been seen by some children on the

Chatham Road the previous morning. As to my friend, all his

usual energy seemed to have deserted him. I had never known

him handle a case in such a half-hearted fashion. Even the news

brought back by Hopkins that he had found the children, and that

they had undoubtedly seen a woman exactly corresponding with

Holmes's description, and wearing either spectacles or eyeglasses,

failed to rouse any sign of keen interest. He was more attentive

when Susan, who waited upon us at lunch, volunteered the

information that she believed Mr. Smith had been out for a walk

yesterday morning, and that he had only returned half an hour

before the tragedy occurred. I could not myself see the bearing

of this incident, but I clearly perceived that Holmes was weaving

it into the general scheme which he had formed in his brain.

Suddenly he sprang from his chair and glanced at his watch.

"Two o'clock, gentlemen." said he. "We must go up and have

it out with our friend, the professor."

The old man had just finished his lunch, and certainly his

empty dish bore evidence to the good appetite with which his

housekeeper had credited him. He was, indeed, a weird figure as

he turned his white mane and his glowing eyes towards us. The

eternal cigarette smouldered in his mouth. He had been dressed

and was seated in an armchair by the fire.

"Well, Mr. Holmes, have you solved this mystery yet?" He

shoved the large tin of cigarettes which stood on a table beside

him towards my companion. Holmes stretched out his hand at

the same moment, and between them they tipped the box over

the edge. For a minute or two we were all on our knees retriev-

ing stray cigarettes from impossible places. When we rose again,

I observed Holmes's eyes were shining and his cheeks tinged

with colour. Only at a crisis have I seen those battle-signals

flying .

"Yes," said he, "I have solved it."

Stanley Hopkins and I stared in amazement. Something like a

sneer quivered over the gaunt features of the old professor.

"Indeed! In the garden?"

"No, here."

"Here! When?"

"This instant."

"You are surely joking, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. You compel

me to tell you that this is too serious a matter to be treated in

such a fashion."

"I have forged and tested every link of my chain, Professor

Coram, and I am sure that it is sound. What your motives are, or

what exact part you play in this strange business, I am not yet

able to say. In a few minutes I shall probably hear it from your

own lips. Meanwhile I will reconstruct what is past for your

benefit, so that you may know the information which I still

require.

"A lady yesterday entered your study. She came with the

intention of possessing herself of certain documents which were

in your bureau. She had a key of her own. I have had an

opportunity of examining yours, and I do not find that slight

discolouration which the scratch made upon the varnish would

have produced. You were not an accessory, therefore, and she

came, so far as I can read the evidence, without your knowledge

to rob you."

The professor blew a cloud from his lips. "This is most

interesting and instructive," said he. "Have you no more to

add? Surely, having traced this lady so far, you can also say

what has become of her."

"I will endeavour to do so. In the first place she was seized

by your secretary, and stabbed him in order to escape. This

catastrophe I am inclined to regard as an unhappy accident, for I

am convinced that the lady had no intention of inflicting so

grievous an injury. An assassin does not come unarmed. Horri-

fied by what she had done, she rushed wildly away from the

scene of the tragedy. Unfortunately for her, she had lost her

glasses in the scuffle, and as she was extremely shortsighted she

was really helpless without them. She ran down a corridor,

which she imagined to be that by which she had come -- both

were lined with cocoanut matting -- and it was only when it was

too late that she understood that she had taken the wrong pas-

sage, and that her retreat was cut off behind her. What was she

to do? She could not go back. She could not remain where she

was. She must go on. She went on. She mounted a stair, pushed

open a door, and found herself in your room."

The old man sat with his mouth open, staring wildly at

Holmes. Amazement and fear were stamped upon his expressive

features. Now, with an effort, he shrugged his shoulders and

burst into insincere laughter.

"All very fine, Mr. Holmes," said he. "But there is one little

flaw in your splendid theory. I was myself in my room, and I

never left it during the day."

"I am aware of that, Professor Coram."

"And you mean to say that I could lie upon that bed and not

be aware that a woman had entered my room?"

"I never said so. You were aware of it. You spoke with her.

You recognized her. You aided her to escape."

Again the professor burst into high-keyed laughter. He had

risen to his feet, and his eyes glowed like embers.

"You are mad!" he cried. "You are talking insanely. I helped

her to escape? Where is she now?"

"She is there," said Holmes, and he pointed to a high book-

case in the corner of the room.

I saw the old man throw up his arms, a terrible convulsion

passed over his grim face, and he fell back in his chair. At the

same instant the bookcase at which Holmes pointed swung round

upon a hinge, and a woman rushed out into the room. "You are

right!" she cried, in a strange foreign voice. "You are right! I

am here."

She was brown with the dust and draped with the cobwebs

which had come from the walls of her hiding-place. Her face,

too, was streaked with grime, and at the best she could never

have been handsome, for she had the exact physical characteris-

tics which Holmes had divined, with, in addition, a long and

obstinate chin. What with her natural blindness, and what with

the change from dark to light, she stood as one dazed, blinking

about her to see where and who we were. And yet, in spite of all

these disadvantages, there was a certain nobility in the woman's

bearing -- a gallantry in the defiant chin and in the upraised head,

which compelled something of respect and admiration.

Stanley Hopkins had laid his hand upon her arm and claimed

her as his prisoner, but she waved him aside gently, and yet with

an over-mastering dignity which compelled obedience. The old

man lay back in his chair with a twitching face, and stared at her

with brooding eyes.

"Yes, sir, I am your prisoner," she said. "From where I

stood I could hear everything, and I know that you have learned

the truth. I confess it all. It was I who killed the young man. But

you are right -- you who say it was an accident. I did not even

know that it was a knife which I held in my hand, for in my

despair I snatched anything from the table and struck at him to

make him let me go. It is the truth that I tell."

"Madam," said Holmes, "I am sure that it is the truth. I fear

that you are far from well."

She had turned a dreadful colour, the more ghastly under the

dark dust-streaks upon her face. She seated herself on the side of

the bed; then she resumed.

"I have only a little time here," she said, "but I would have

you to know the whole truth. I am this man's wife. He is not an

Englishman. He is a Russian. His name I will not tell."

For the first time the old man stirred. "God bless you, Anna!"

he cried. "God bless you!"

She cast a look of the deepest disdain in his direction. "Why

should you cling so hard to that wretched life of yours, Sergius?"

said she. "It has done harm to many and good to none -- not

even to yourself. However, it is not for me to cause the frail

thread to be snapped before God's time. I have enough already

upon my soul since I crossed the threshold of this cursed house.

But I must speak or I shall be too late.

"I have said, gentlemen, that I am this man's wife. He was

fifty and I a foolish girl of twenty when we married. It was in a

city of Russia, a university -- I will not name the place."

"God bless you, Anna!" murmured the old man again.

"We were reformers -- revolutionists -- Nihilists, you under-

stand. He and I and many more. Then there came a time of

trouble, a police officer was killed, many were arrested, evi-

dence was wanted, and in order to save his own life and to earn a

great reward, my husband betrayed his own wife and his com-

panions. Yes, we were all arrested upon his confession. Some of

us found our way to the gallows, and some to Siberia. I was

among these last, but my term was not for life. My husband

came to England with his ill-gotten gains and has lived in quiet

ever since, knowing well that if the Brotherhood knew where he

was not a week would pass before justice would be done."

The old man reached out a trembling hand and helped himself

to a cigarette. "I am in your hands, Anna," said he. "You were

always good to me."

"I have not yet told you the height of his villainy," said she.

"Among our comrades of the Order, there was one who was the

friend of my heart. He was noble, unselfish, loving -- all that my

husband was not. He hated violence. We were all guilty -- if that

is guilt -- but he was not. He wrote forever dissuading us from

such a course. These letters would have saved him. So would my

diary, in which, from day to day, I had entered both my feelings

towards him and the view which each of us had taken. My

husband found and kept both diary and letters. He hid them, and

he tried hard to swear away the young man's life. In this he

failed, but Alexis was sent a convict to Siberia, where now, at

this moment, he works in a salt mine. Think of that, you villain,

you villain! -- now, now, at this very moment, Alexis, a man

whose name you are not worthy to speak, works and lives like a

slave, and yet I have your life in my hands, and I let you go."

"You were always a noble woman, Anna," said the old man,

puffing at his cigarette.

She had risen, but she fell back again with a little cry of pain.

"I must finish," she said. "When my term was over I set

myself to get the diary and letters which, if sent to the Russian

government, would procure my friend's release. I knew that my

husband had come to England. After months of searching I dis-

covered where he was. I knew that he still had the diary, for

when I was in Siberia I had a letter from him once, reproaching

me and quoting some passages from its pages. Yet I was sure

that, with his revengeful nature, he would never give it to me of

his own free-will. I must get it for myself. With this object I

engaged an agent from a private detective firm, who entered my

husband's house as a secretary -- it was your second secretary

Sergius, the one who left you so hurriedly. He found that papers

were kept in the cupboard, and he got an impression of the key.

He would not go farther. He furnished me with a plan of the

house, and he told me that in the forenoon the study was always

empty, as the secretary was employed up here. So at last I took

my courage in both hands, and I came down to get the papers for

myself. I succeeded; but at what a cost!

"I had just taken the papers and was locking the cupboard,

when the young man seized me. I had seen him already that

morning. He had met me on the road, and I had asked him to tell

me where Professor Coram lived, not knowing that he was in his

employ.

"Exactly! Exactly!" said Holmes. "The secretary came back,

and told his employer of the woman he had met. Then, in his last

breath, he tried to send a message that it was she -- the she whom

he had just discussed with him."

"You must let me speak," said the woman, in an imperative

voice, and her face contracted as if in pain. "When he had fallen

I rushed from the room, chose the wrong door, and found myself

in my husband's room. He spoke of giving me up. I showed him

that if he did so, his life was in my hands. If he gave me to the

law, I could give him to the Brotherhood. It was not that I

wished to live for my own sake, but it was that I desired to

accomplish my purpose. He knew that I would do what I said --

that his own fate was involved in mine. For that reason, and for

no other, he shielded me. He thrust me into that dark hiding-

place -- a relic of old days, known only to himself. He took his

meals in his own room, and so was able to give me part of his

food. It was agreed that when the police left the house I should

slip away by night and come back no more. But in some way

you have read our plans." She tore from the bosom of her dress

a small packet. "These are my last words," said she; "here is

the packet which will save Alexis. I confide it to your honour

and to your love of justice. Take it! You will deliver it at the

Russian Embassy. Now, I have done my duty, and --"

"Stop her!" cried Holmes. He had bounded across the room

and had wrenched a small phial from her hand.

"Too late!" she said, sinking back on the bed. "Too late! I

took the poison before I left my hiding-place. My head swims! I

am going! I charge you, sir, to remember the packet."

 

"A simple case, and yet, in some ways, an instructive one,"

Holmes remarked, as we travelled back to town. "It hinged from

the outset upon the pince-nez. But for the fortunate chance of the

dying man having seized these, I am not sure that we could ever

have reached our solution. It was clear to me, from the strength

of the glasses, that the wearer must have been very blind and

helpless when deprived of them. When you asked me to believe

that she walked along a narrow strip of grass without once

making a false step, I remarked, as you may remember, that it

was a noteworthy performance. In my mind I set it down as an

impossible performance, save in the unlikely case that she had a

second pair of glasses. I was forced, therefore, to consider

seriously the hypothesis that she had remained within the house.

On perceiving the similarity of the two corridors. it became clear

that she might very easily have made such a mistake, and, in that

case, it was evident that she must have entered the professor's

room. I was keenly on the alert, therefore, for whatever would

bear out this supposition, and I examined the room narrowly for

anything in the shape of a hiding-place. The carpet seemed

continuous and firmly nailed, so I dismissed the idea of a

trap-door. There might well be a recess behind the books. As

you are aware, such devices are common in old libraries. I ob-

served that books were piled on the floor at all other points, but

that one bookcase was left clear. This, then, might be the door. I

could see no marks to guide me, but the carpet was of a dun

colour, which lends itself very well to examination. I therefore

smoked a great number of those excellent cigarettes, and I

dropped the ash all over the space in front of the suspected

bookcase. It was a simple trick, but exceedingly effective. I then

went downstairs, and I ascertained, in your presence, Watson,

without your perceiving the drift of my remarks, that Professor

Coram's consumption of food had increased -- as one would

expect when he is supplying a second person. We then ascended

to the room again, when, by upsetting the cigarette-box, I ob-

tained a very excellent view of the floor, and was able to see

quite clearly, from the traces upon the cigarette ash, that the

prisoner had in our absence come out from her retreat. Well

Hopkins, here we are at Charing Cross, and I congratulate you

on having brought your case to a successful conclusion. You are

going to headquarters, no doubt. I think, Watson, you and I will

drive together to the Russian Embassy."

 

==========================

The Greek Interpreter

 

During my long and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Sherlock

Holmes I had never heard him refer to his re}ations, and hardly

ever to his own early life. This reticence upon his part had

increased the somewhat inhuman effect which he produced upon

me, until sometimes I found myself regarding him as an isolated

phenomenon, a brain without a heart, as deficient in human

sympathy as he was preeminent in intelligence. His aversion to

women and his disinclination to form new friendships were both

typical of his unemotional character, but not more so than his

complete suppression of every reference to his own people. I had

come to believe that he was an orphan with no relatives living;

but one day. to my very great surprise, he began to talk to me

about his brother.

It was after tea on a summer evening, and the conversation,

which had roamed in a desultory, spasmodic fashion from golf

clubs to the causes of the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic,

came round at last to the question of atavism and hereditary

aptitudes. The point under discussion was, how far any singular

gift in an individual was due to his ancestry and how far to his

own early training.

"In your own case," said I, "from all that you have told me,

it seems obvious that your faculty of observation and your

peculiar facility for deduction are due to your own systematic

training."

"To some extent," he answered thoughtfully. "My ancestors

were country squires, who appear to have led much the same life

as is natural to their class. But, none the less, my turn that way

is in my veins, and may have come with my grandmother, who

was the sister of Vernet, the French artist. Art in the blood is

liable to take the strangest forms."

"But how do you know that it is hereditary?"

"Because my brother Mycroft possesses it in a larger degree

than I do."

This was news to me indeed. If there were another man with

such singular powers in England, how was it that neither police

nor public had heard of him? I put the question, with a hint that

it was my companion's modesty which made him acknowledge

his brother as his superior. Holmes laughed at my suggestion.

"My dear Watson," said he, "I cannot agree with those who

rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things

should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's

self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own

powers. When I say, therefore, that Mycroft has better powers of

observation than I, you may take it that I am speaking the exact

and literal truth."

"Is he your junior?"

"Seven years my senior."

"How comes it that he is unknown?''

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

"Where, then?"

"Well, in the Diogenes Club, for example."

I had never heard of the institution, and my face must have

proclaimed as much, for Sherlock Homes pulled out his watch.

"The Diogenes Club is the queerest club in London, and

Mycroft one of the queerest men. He's always there from quarter

to five to twenty to eight. It's six now, so if you care for a stroll

this beautiful evening I shall be very happy to introduce you to

two curiosities."

Five minutes later we were in the street, walking towards

Regent's Circus.

"You wonder," said my companion, "why it is that Mycroft

does not use his powers for detective work. He is incapable of

it."

"But I thought you said --"

"I said that he was my superior in observation and deduction.

If the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an

armchair, my brother would be the greatest criminal agent that

ever lived. But he has no ambition and no energy. He will not

even go out of his way to verify his own solutions, and would

rather be considered wrong than take the trouble to prove himself

right. Again and again I have taken a problem to him, and have

received an explanation which has afterwards proved to be the

correct one. And yet he was absolutely incapable of working out

the practical points which must be gone into before a case could

be laid before a judge or jury."

"It is not his profession, then?"

"By no means. What is to me a means of livelihood is to him

the merest hobby of a dilettante. He has an extraordinary faculty

for figures, and audits the books in some of the government

departments. Mycroft lodges in Pall Mall, and he walks round

the corner into Whitehall every morning and back every evening.

From year's end to year's end he takes no other exercise, and is

seen nowhere else, except only in the Diogenes Club, which is

just opposite his rooms."

"I cannot recall the name."

"Very likely not. There are many men in London, you know,

who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish

for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to

comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the conve-

nience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now

contains the most unsociable and unclubable men in town. No

member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one.

Save in the Stranger's Room, no talking is, under any circum-

stances, allowed. and three offences, if brought to the notice of

the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion. My brother

was one of the founders, and I have myself found it a very

soothing atmosphere."

We had reached Pall Mall as we talked, and were walking

down it from the St. James's end. Sherlock Holmes stopped at a

door some little distance from the Carlton, and, cautioning me

not to speak, he led the way into the hall. Through the glass

panelling I caught a glimpse of a large and luxurious room, in

which a considerable number of men were sitting about and

reading papers, each in his own little nook. Holmes showed me

into a small chamber which looked out into Pall Mall, and then,

leaving me for a minute, he came back with a companion whom

I knew could only be his brother.

Mycroft Holmes was a much larger and stouter man than Sher-

lock. His body was absolutely corpulent, but his face, though

massive, had preserved something of the sharpness of expression

which was so remarkable in that of his brother. His eyes, which

were of a peculiarly light, watery gray, seemed to always retain

that far-away, introspective look which I had only observed in

Sherlock's when he was exerting his full powers.

"I am glad to meet you, sir," said he, putting out a broad, fat

hand like the flipper of a seal. "I hear of Sherlock everywhere

since you became his chronicler. By the way, Sherlock, I ex-

pected to see you round last week to consult me over that Manor

House case. I thought you might be a little out of your depth."

"No, I solved it," said my friend, smiling.

"It was Adams, of course."

"Yes, it was Adams."

"I was sure of it from the first." The two sat down together in

the bow-window of the club. "To anyone who wishes to study

mankind this is the spot," said Mycroft. "Look at the magnifi-

cent types! Look at these two men who are coming towards us,

for example."

"The billiard-marker and the other?"

"Precisely. What do you make of the other?"

The two men had stopped opposite the window. Some chalk

marks over the waistcoat pocket were the only signs of billiards

which I could see in one of them. The other was a very small,

dark fellow, with his hat pushed back and several packages

under his arm.

"An old soldier, I perceive," said Sherlock.

"And very recently discharged," remarked the brother.

"Served in India, I see."

"And a non-commissioned officer."

"Royal Artillery, I fancy,'' said Sherlock.

"And a widower."

"But with a child."

"Children, my dear boy, children."

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

"Surely." answered Holmes, "it is not hard to say that a man

with that bearing. expression of authority, and sun-baked skin. is

a soldier, is more than a private, and is not long from India."

"That he has not left the service long is shown by his still

wearing his ammunition boots, as they are called," observed

Mycroft.

"He had not the cavalry stride, yet he wore his hat on one

side, as is shown by the lighter skin on that side of his brow. His

weight is against his being a sapper. He is in the artillery."

"Then, of course, his complete mourning shows that he has

lost someone very dear. The fact that he is doing his own

shopping looks as though it were his wife. He has been buying

things for children, you perceive. There is a rattle, which shows

that one of them is very young. The wife probably died in

childbed. The fact that he has a picture-book under his arm

shows that there is another child to be thought of."

I began to understand what my friend meant when he said that

his brother possessed even keener faculties than he did himself.

He glanced across at me and smiled. Mycroft took snuff from a

tortoise-shell box and brushed away the wandering grains from

his coat front with a large, red silk handkerchief.

"By the way, Sherlock," said he, "I have had something

quite after your own heart -- a most singular problem -- submltted

to my judgment. I really had not the energy to follow it up save

in a very incomplete fashion, but it gave me a basis for some

pleasing speculations. If you would care to hear the facts --"

"My dear Mycroft, I should be delighted."

The brother scribbled a note upon a leaf of his pocket-book,

and, ringing the bell, he handed it to the waiter.

"I have asked Mr. Melas to step across," said he. "He lodges

on the floor above me, and I have some slight acquaintance with

him, which led him to come to me in his perplexity. Mr. Melas

is a Greek by extraction, as I understand, and he is a remarkable

linguist. He earns his living partly as interpreter in the law courts

and partly by acting as guide to any wealthy Orientals who may

visit the Northumberland Avenue hotels. I think I will leave him

to tell his very remarkable experience in his own fashion."

A few minutes later we were joined by a short, stout man

whose olive face and coal black hair proclaimed his Southern

origin, though his speech was that of an educated Englishman.

He shook hands eagerly with Sherlock Holmes, and his dark

eyes sparkled with pleasure when he understood that the special-

ist was anxious to hear his story.

"I do not believe that the police credit me -- on my word, I do

not," said he in a wailing voice. "Just because they have never

heard of it before, they think that such a thing cannot be. But I

know that I shall never be easy in my mind until I know what

has become of my poor man with the sticking-plaster upon his

face."

"I am all attention," said Sherlock Holmes.

"This is Wednesday evening," said Mr. Melas. "Well, then,

it was Monday night -- only two days ago, you understand -- that

all this happened. I am an interpreter, as perhaps my neighbour

there has told you. I interpret all languages -- or nearly all -- but

as I am a Greek by birth and with a Grecian name, it is with that

particular tongue that I am principally associated. For many

years I have been the chief Greek interpreter in London, and my

name is very well known in the hotels.

"It happens not unfrequently that I am sent for at strange

hours by foreigners who get into difficulties, or by travellers who

arrive late and wish my services. I was not surprised, therefore,

on Monday night when a Mr. Latimer, a very fashionably

dressed young man, came up to my rooms and asked me to

accompany him in a cab which was waiting at the door. A Greek

friend had come to see him upon business, he said, and as he

could speak nothing but his own tongue, the services of an

interpreter were indispensable. He gave me to understand that his

house was some little distance off, in Kensington, and he seemed

to be in a great hurry, bustling me rapidly into the cab when we

had descended to the street.

"I say into the cab, but I soon became doubtful as to whether

tt was not a carriage in which I found myself. It was certainly

more roomy than the ordinary four-wheeled disgrace to London,

and the fittings, though frayed, were of rich quality. Mr. Latimer

seated himself opposite to me and we started off through Charing

Cross and up the Shaftesbury Avenue. We had come out upon

Oxford Street and I had ventured some remark as to this being a

roundabout way to Kensington, when my words were arrested by

the extraordinary conduct of my companion.

"He began by drawing a most formidable-looking bludgeon

loaded with lead from his pocket, and switching it backward and

forward several times, as if to test its weight and strength. Then

he placed it without a word upon the seat beside him. Having

done this, he drew up the windows on each side, and I found to

my astonishment that they were covered with paper so as to

prevent my seeing through them.

" 'I am sorry to cut off your view, Mr. Melas,' said he. 'The

fact is that I have no intention that you should see what the place

is to which we are driving. It might possibly be inconvenient to

me if you could find your way there again.'

"As you can imagine, I was utterly taken aback by such an

address. My companion was a powerful, broad-shouldered young

fellow, and, apart from the weapon, I should not have had the

slightest chance in a struggle with him.

" 'This is very extraordinary conduct, Mr. Latimer,' I stam-

mered. 'You must be aware that what you are doing is quite

illegal. '

" 'It is somewhat of a liberty, no doubt,' said he, 'but we'll

make it up to you. I must warn you, however, Mr. Melas, that if

at any time to-night you attempt to raise an alarm or do anything

which is against my interest, you will find it a very serious thing.

I beg you to remember that no one knows where you are, and

that, whether you are in this carriage or in my house, you are

equally in my power.'

"His words were quiet, but he had a rasping way of saying

them, which was very menacing. I sat in silence wondering what

on earth could be his reason for kidnapping me in this extraordi-

nary fashion. Whatever it might be, it was perfectly clear that

there was no possible use in my resisting, and that I could only

wait to see what might befall.

"For nearly two hours we drove without my having the least

clue as to where we were going. Sometimes the rattle of the

stones told of a paved causeway, and at others our smooth, silent

course suggested asphalt; but, save by this variation in sound,

there was nothing at all which could in the remotest way help me

to form a guess as to where we were. The paper over each

window was impenetrable to light, and a blue curtain was drawn

across the glasswork in front. It was a quarter-past seven when

we left Pall Mall, and my watch showed me that it was ten

minutes to nine when we at last came to a standstill. My com-

panion let down the window, and I caught a glimpse of a low,

arched doorway with a lamp burning above it. As I was hurried

from the carriage it swung open, and I found myself inside the

house, with a vague impression of a lawn and trees on each side

of me as I entered. Whether these were private grounds, how-

ever, or bona-fide country was more than I could possibly ven-

ture to say.

"There was a coloured gas-lamp inside which was turned so

low that I could see little save that the hall was of some size and

hung with pictures. In the dim light I could make out that the

person who had opened the door was a small, mean-looking,

middle-aged man with rounded shoulders. As he turned towards

us the glint of the light showed me that he was wearing glasses.

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

" 'Yes.'

" 'Well done, well done! No ill-will, Mr. Melas, I hope, but

we could not get on without you. If you deal fair with us you'll

not regret it, but if you try any tricks, God help you!' He spoke

in a nervous, jerky fashion, and with little giggling laughs in

between, but somehow he impressed me with fear more than the

other.

" 'What do you want with me?' I asked.

" 'Only to ask a few questions of a Greek gentleman who is

visiting us, and to let us have the answers. But say no more than

you are told to say, or --' here came the nervous giggle again --

'you had better never have been born.'

"As he spoke he opened a door and showed the way into a

room which appeared to be very richly furnished, but again the

only light was afforded by a single lamp half-turned down. The

chamber was certainly large, and the way in which my feet sank

into the carpet as I stepped across it told me of its richness. I

caught glimpses of velvet chairs, a high white marble mantel-

piece, and what seemed to be a suit of Japanese armour at one

side of it. There was a chair just under the lamp, and the elderly

man motioned that I should sit in it. The younger had left us, but

he suddenly returned through another door, leading with him a

gentleman clad in some sort of loose dressing-gown who moved

slowly towards us. As he came into the circle of dim light which

enabled me to see him more clearly I was thrilled with horror at

his appearance. He was deadly pale and terribly emaciated, with

the protruding, brilliant eyes of a man whose spirit was greater

than his strength. But what shocked me more than any signs of

physical weakness was that his face was grotesquely criss-crossed

with sticking-plaster, and that one large pad of it was fastened

over his mouth.

" 'Have you the slate, Harold?' cried the older man, as this

strange being fell rather than sat down into a chair. 'Are his

hands loose? Now, then, give him the pencil. You are to ask the

questions, Mr. Melas, and he will write the answers. Ask him

first of all whether he is prepared to sign the papers?"

"The man's eyes flashed fire.

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

" 'On no conditions?' I asked at the bidding of our tyrant.

" 'Only if I see her married in my presence by a Greek priest

whom I know.'

"The man giggled in his venomous way.

" 'You know what awaits you, then?'

" 'I care nothing for myself.'

"These are samples of the questions and answers which made

up our strange half-spoken, half-written conversation. Again and

again I had to ask him whether he would give in and sign the

documents. Again and again I had the same indignant reply. But

soon a happy thought came to me. I took to adding on little

sentences of my own to each question, innocent ones at first, to

test whether either of our companions knew anything of the

matter, and then, as I found that they showed no sign I played a

more dangerous game. Our conversation ran something like this:

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

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

" 'Your fate will be on your own head. How long have you

been here?'

" 'Let it be so. Three weeks.'

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

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

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

" 'I will never sign. I do not know.'

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

" 'Let me hear her say so. Kratides.'

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

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

"Another five minutes, Mr. Holmes, and I should have wormed

out the whole story under their very noses. My very next ques-

tion might have cleared the matter up, but at that instant the door

opened and a woman stepped into the room. I could not see her

clearly enough to know more than that she was tall and graceful,

with black hair, and clad in some sort of loose white gown.

" 'Harold,' said she, speaking English with a broken accent.

'I could not stay away longer. It is so lonely up there with

only -- Oh, my God, it is Paul!'

"These last words were in Greek, and at the same instant the

man with a convulsive effort tore the plaster from his lips, and

screaming out 'Sophy! Sophy!' rushed into the woman's arms.

Their embrace was but for an instant, however, for the younger

man seized the woman and pushed her out of the room, while the

elder easily overpowered his emaciated victim and dragged him

away through the other door. For a moment I was left alone in

the room, and I sprang to my feet with some vague idea that I

might in some way get a clue to what this house was in which I

found myself. Fortunately, however, I took no steps, for looking

up I saw that the older man was standing in the doorway, with

his eyes fixed upon me.

" 'That will do, Mr. Melas,' said he. 'You perceive that we

have taken you into our confidence over some very private

business. We should not have troubled you, only that our friend

who speaks Greek and who began these negotiations has been

forced to return to the East. It was quite necessary for us to find

someone to take his place, and we were fortunate in hearing of

your powers.'

"I bowed.

" 'There are five sovereigns here,' said he, walking up to me,

'which will, I hope, be a sufficient fee. But remember,' he

added, tapping me lightly on the chest and giggling, 'if you

speak to a human soul about this -- one human soul, mind -- well,

may God have mercy upon your soul!'

"I cannot tell you the loathing and horror with which this

insignificant-looking man inspired me. I could see him better

now as the lamp-light shone upon him. His features were peaky

and sallow, and his little pointed beard was thready and ill-

nourished. He pushed his face forward as he spoke and his lips

and eyelids were continually twitching like a man with St.

Vitus's dance. I could not help thinking that his strange, catchy

little laugh was also a symptom of some nervous malady. The

terror of his face lay in his eyes, however, steel gray, and

glistening coldly with a malignant, inexorable cruelty in their

depths.

" 'We shall know if you speak of this,' said he. 'We have our

own means of information. Now you will find the carriage

waiting, and my friend will see you on your way.'

"I was hurried through the hall and into the vehicle, again

obtaining that momentary glimpse of trees and a garden. Mr.

Latimer followed closely at my heels and took his place opposite

to me without a word. In silence we again drove for an intermi-

nable distance with the windows raised, until at last, just after

midnight, the carriage pulled up.

" 'You will get down here, Mr. Melas,' said my companion.

'I am sorry to leave you so far from your house, but there is no

alternative. Any attempt upon your part to follow the carriage

can only end in injury to yourself.'

"He opened the door as he spoke. and I had hardly time to

spring out when the coachman lashed the horse and the carriage

rattled away. I looked around me in astonishment. I was on some

sort of a heathy common mottled over with dark clumps of

furze-bushes. Far away stretched a line of houses, with a light

here and there in the upper windows. On the other side I saw the

red signal-lamps of a railway.

"The carriage which had brought me was already out of sight.

I stood gazing round and wondering where on earth I might be,

when I saw someone coming towards me in the darkness. As he

came up to me I made out that he was a railway porter.

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

" 'Wandsworth Common,' said he.

" 'Can I get a train into town?'

" 'If you walk on a mile or so to Clapham Junction,' said he,

'you'll just be in time for the last to Victoria.'

"So that was the end of my adventure, Mr. Holmes. I do not

know where I was, nor whom I spoke with, nor anything save

what I have told you. But I know that there is foul play going

on, and I want to help that unhappy man if I can. I told the

whole story to Mr. Mycroft Holmes next morning, and subse-

quently to the police."

We all sat in silence for some little time after listening to this

extraordinary narrative. Then Sherlock looked across at his brother.

"Any steps?" he asked.

Mycroft picked up the Daily News, which was lying on the

side-table.

 

"Anybody supplying any information as to the where-

abouts of a Greek gentleman named Paul Kratides, from

Athens, who is unable to speak English, will be rewarded.

A similar reward paid to anyone giving information about a

Greek lady whose first name is Sophy. X 2473.

 

"That was in all the dailies. No answer."

"How about the Greek legation?"

"I have inquired. They know nothing."

"A wire to the head of the Athens police, then?"

"Sherlock has all the energy of the family," said Mycroft,

turning to me. "Well, you take the case up by all means and let

me know if you do any good."

"Certainly," answered my friend, rising from his chair. "I'll

let you know, and Mr. Melas also. In the meantime, Mr. Melas,

I should certainly be on my guard if I were you, for of course

they must know through these advertisements that you have

betrayed them."

As we walked home together, Holmes stopped at a telegraph

office and sent off several wires.

"You see, Watson," he remarked, "our evening has been by

no means wasted. Some of my most interesting cases have come

to me in this way through Mycroft. The problem which we have

just listened to, although it can admit of but one explanation, has

still some distinguishing features."

"You have hopes of solving it?"

"Well, knowing as much as we do, it will be singular indeed

if we fail to discover the rest. You must yourself have formed

some theory which will explain the facts to which we have

listened."

"In a vague way, yes."

"What was your idea, then?"

"It seemed to me to be obvious that this Greek girl had been

carried off by the young Englishman named Harold Latimer."

"Carried off from where?"

"Athens, perhaps."

Sherlock Holmes shook his head. "This young man could not

talk a word of Greek. The lady could talk English fairly well.

Inference -- that she had been in England some little time, but he

had not been in Greece."

"Well, then, we will presume that she had once come on a

visit to England, and that this Harold had persuaded her to fly

with him."

"That is more probable."

"Then the brother -- for that, I fancy, must be the relationship --

comes over from Greece to interfere. He imprudently puts him-

self into the power of the young man and his older associate.

They seize him and use violence towards him in order to make

him sign some papers to make over the girl's fortune of which

he may be trustee -- to them. This he refuses to do. In order to

negotiate with him they have to get an interpreter, and they pitch

upon this Mr. Melas, having used some other one before. The

girl is not told of the arrival of her brother and finds it out by the

merest accident."

"Excellent, Watson!" cried Holmes. "I really fancy that you

are not far from the truth. You see that we hold all the cards, and

we have only to fear some sudden act of violence on their part. If

they give us time we must have them."

"But how can we find where this house lies?"

"Well, if our conjecture is correct and the girl's name is or

was Sophy Kratides, we should have no difficulty in tracing her.

That must be our main hope, for the brother is, of coursc, a

complete stranger. It is clear that some time has elapsed since

this Harold established these relations with the girl -- some weeks

at any rate -- since the brother in Greece has had time to hear of it

and come across. If they have been living in the same place

during this time, it is probable that we shall have some answer to

Mycroft's advertisement."

We had reached our house in Baker Street while we had been

talking. Holmes ascended the stair first, and as he opened the

door of our room he gave a start of surprise. Looking over his

shoulder, I was equally astonished. His brother Mycroft was

sitting smoking in the armchair.

"Come in, Sherlock! Come in, sir," said he blandly, smiling

at our surprised faces. "You don't expect such energy from me

do you, Sherlock? But somehow this case attracts me."

"How did you get here?"

"I passed you in a hansom."

"There has been some new development?"

"I had an answer to my advertisement."

"Ah!"

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

"And to what effect?"

Mycroft Holmes took out a sheet of paper.

"Here it is," said he, "written with a J pen on royal cream

paper by a middle-aged man with a weak constitution.

 

"Sir [he saysl:

"In answer to your advertisement of to-day's date, I beg

to inform you that I know the young lady in question very

well. If you should care to call upon me I could give you

some particulars as to her painful history. She is living at

present at The Myrtles, Beckenham.

"Yours faithfully,

"J. DAVENPORT.

 

"He writes from Lower Brixton," said Mycroft Holmes. "Do

you not think that we might drive to him now, Sherlock, and

learn these particulars?"

"My dear Mycroft, the brother's life is more valuable than the

sister's story. I think we should call at Scotland Yard for Inspec-

tor Gregson and go straight out to Beckenham. We know that a

man is being done to death, and every hour may be vital."

"Better pick up Mr. Melas on our way," I suggested. "We

may need an interpreter."

"Excellent," said Sherlock Holmes. "Send the boy for a

four-wheeler, and we shall be off at once." He opened the

table-drawer as he spoke, and I noticed that he slipped his

revolver into his pocket. "Yes," said he in answer to my glance,

"I should say, from what we have heard, that we are dealing

with a particularly dangerous gang."

It was almost dark before we found ourselves in Pall Mall, at

the rooms of Mr. Melas. A gentleman had just called for him,

and he was gone.

"Can you tell me where?" asked Mycroft Holmes.

"I don't know, sir," answered the woman who had opened

the door; "I only know that he drove away with the gentleman in

a carriage."

"Did the gentleman give a name?"

"No, sir."

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

"Oh, no, sir. He was a little gentleman, with glasses, thin in

the face, but very pleasant in his ways, for he was laughing all

the time that he was talking."

"Come along!" cried Sherlock Holmes abruptly. "This grows

serious," he observed as we drove to Scotland Yard. "These

men have got hold of Melas again. He is a man of no physical

courage, as they are well aware from their experience the other

night.This villain was able to terrorize him the instant that he

got into his presence. No doubt they want his professional

services, but, having used him, they may be inclined to punish

him for what they will regard as his treachery."

Our hope was that, by taking train, we might get to Beckenham

as soon as or sooner than the carriage. On reaching Scotland

Yard, however, it was more than an hour before we could get

Inspector Gregson and comply with the legal formalities which

would enable us to enter the house. It was a quarter to ten before

we reached London Bridge, and half past before the four of us

alighted on the Beckenham platform. A drive of half a mile

brought us to The Myrtles -- a large, dark house standing back

from the road in its own grounds. Here we dismissed our cab and

made our way up the drive togeter.

"The windows are all dark," remarked the inspector. "The

house seems deserted."

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

"Why do you say so?"

"A carriage heavily loaded with luggage has passed out dur-

ing the last hour."

The inspector laughed. "I saw the wheel-tracks in the light of

the gate-lamp, but where does the luggage come in?"

"You may have observed the same wheel-tracks going the

other way. But the outward-bound ones were very much

deeper -- so much so that we can say for a certainty that there

was a very considerable weiyht on the carriage."

"You get a trifle beyond me there," said the inspector, shrug-

ging his shoulders. "It will not be an easy door to force, but we

will try if we cannot make someone hear us."

He hammered loudly at the knocker and pulled at the bell, but

without any success. Holmes had slipped away, but he came

back in a few minutes.

"I have a window open," said he.

"It is a mercy that you are on the side of the force, and not

against it, Mr. Holmes," remarked the inspector as he noted the

clever way in which my friend had forced back the catch.

"Well, I think that under the circumstances we may enter with-

out an invitation."

One after the other we made our way into a large apartment,

which was evidently that in which Mr. Melas had found himself.

The inspector had lit his lantern, and by its light we could see the

two doors, the curtain, the lamp, and the suit of Japanese mail as

he had described them. On the table lay two glasses, an empty

brandy-bottle, and the remains of a meal.

"What is that?" asked Holmes suddenly.

We all stood still and listened. A low moaning sound was

coming from somewhere over our heads. Holmes rushed to the

door and out into the hall. The dismal noise came from upstairs.

He dashed up, the inspector and I at his heels. while his brother

Mycroft followed as quickly as his great bulk would permit.

Three doors faced us upon the second floor, and it was from

the central of these that the sinister sounds were issuing, sinking

sometimes into a dull mumble and rising again into a shrill

whine. It was locked, but the key had been left on the outside.

Holmes flung open the door and rushed in, but he was out again

in an instant, with his hand to his throat.

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

Peering in, we could see that the only light in the room came

from a dull blue flame which flickered from a small brass tripod

in the centre. It threw a livid unnatural circle upon the floor,

while in the shadows beyond we saw the vague loom of two

fiyures which crouched against the wall. From thc open door

there reeked a horrible poisonous exhalation which set us gasp-

ing and coughing. Holmes rushed to the top of the stairs to draw

in the fresh air, and then, dashing into the room, he threw up the

window and hurled the brazen tripod out into the garden.

"We can enter in a minute," he gasped, darting out again.

"Where is a candle? I doubt if we could strike a match in that

atmosphere. Hold the light at the door and we shall get them out,

Mycroft, now!"

With a rush we got to the poisoned men and dragged them out

into the well-lit hall. Both of them were blue-lipped and insensi-

ble, with swollen, congested faces and protruding eyes. Indeed,

so distorted were their features that, save for his black beard and

stout figure, we might have failed to recognize in one of them

the Greek interpreter who had parted from us only a few hours

before at the Diogenes Club. His hands and feet were securely

strapped together, and he bore over one eye the marks of a

violent blow. The other, who was secured in a similar fashion

was a tall man in the last stage of emaciation, with several strips

of sticking-plaster arranged in a grotesque pattern over his face.

He had ceased to moan as we laid him down, and a glance

showed me that for him at least our aid had come too late. Mr.

Melas, however, still lived, and in less than an hour, with the

aid of ammonia and brandy, I had the satisfaction of seeing him

open his eyes, and of knowing that my hand had drawn him back

from that dark valley in which all paths meet.

It was a simple story which he had to tell, and one which did

but confirm our own deductions. His visitor, on entering his

rooms, had drawn a life-preserver from his sleeve, and had so

impressed him with the fear of instant and inevitable death that

he had kidnapped him for the second time. Indeed, it was almost

mesmeric, the effect which this giggling ruffian had produced

upon the unfortunate linguist, for he could not speak of him save

with trembling hands and a blanched cheek. He had been taken

swiftly to Beckenham, and had acted as interpreter in a second

interview, even more dramatic than the first, in which the two

Englishmen had menaced their prisoner with instant death if he

did not comply with their demands. Finally, finding him proof

against every threat, they had hurled him back into his prison

and after reproaching Melas with his treachery, which appeared

from the newspaper advertisement, they had stunned him with a

blow from a stick, and he remembered nothing more until he

found us bending over him.

And this was the singular case of the Grecian Interpreter, the

explanation of which is still involved in some mystery. We were

able to find out, by communicating with the gentleman who had

answered the advertisement, that the unfortunate young lady

came of a wealthy Grecian family, and that she had been on a

visit to some friends in England. While there she had met a

young man named Harold Latimer, who had acquired an ascen-

dency over her and had eventually persuaded her to fly with him.

Her friends, shocked at the event, had contented themselves with

informing her brother at Athens, and had then washed their

hands of the matter. The brother, on his arrival in England, had

imprudently placed himself in the power of Latimer and of his

associate, whose name was Wilson Kemp -- a man of the foulest

antecedents. These two, finding that through his ignorance of the

language he was helpless in their hands, had kept him a prisoner,

and had endeavoured by cruelty and starvation to make him sign

away his own and his sister's property. They had kept him in the

house without the girl's knowledge, and the plaster over the

face had been for the purpose of making recognition difficult in

case she should ever catch a glimpse of him. Her feminine

perceptions, however, had instantly seen through the disguise

when, on the occasion of the interpreter's visit, she had seen him

for the first time. The poor girl, however, was herself a prisoner,

for there was no one about the house except the man who acted

as coachman, and his wife, both of whom were tools of the

conspirators. Finding that their secret was out, and that their

prisoner was not to be coerced, the two villains with the girl had

fled away at a few hours' notice from the furnished house which

they had hired, having first, as they thought, taken vengeance

both upon the man who had defied and the one who had betrayed

them.

Months afterwards a curious newspaper cutting reached us

from Buda-Pesth. It told how two Englishmen who had been

travelling with a woman had met with a tragic end. They had

each been stabbed, it seems, and the Hungarian police were of

opinion that they had quarrelled and had inflicted mortal injuries

upon each other. Holmes, however, is, I fancy, of a different

way of thinking, and he holds to this day that, if one could

find the Grecian girl, one might learn how the wrongs of herself

and her brother came to be avenged.

 

================================

His Last Bow

 

An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes

 

It was nine o'clock at night upon the second of August -- the most terrible

August in the history of the world. One might have thought already that

God's curse hung heavy over a degenerate world, for there was an awesome

hush and a feeling of vague expectancy in the sultry and stagnant air. The

sun had long set, but one blood-red gash like an open wound lay low in the

distant west. Above, the stars were shining brightly, and below, the lights of

the shipping glimmered in the bay. The two famous Germans stood beside

the stone parapet of the garden walk, with the long, low, heavily gabled

house behind them, and they looked down upon the broad sweep of the

beach at the foot of the great chalk cliff on which Von Bork, like some

wandering eagle, had perched himself four years before. They stood with

their heads close together, talking in low, confidential tones. From below the

two glowing ends of their cigars might have been the smouldering eyes of

some malignant fiend looking down in the darkness.

A remarkable man this Von Bork -- a man who could hardly be matched

among all the devoted agents of the Kaiser. It was his talents which had

first recommended him for the English mission, the most important mission

of all, but since he had taken it over those talents had become more and

more manifest to the half-dozen people in the world who were really in

touch with the truth. One of these was his present companion, Baron Von

Herling, the chief secretary of the legation, whose huge lOO-horse-power

Benz car was blocking the country lane as it waited to waft its owner back

to London.

"So far as I can judge the trend of events, you will probably be back in

Berlin within the week," the secretary was saying. "When you get there, my

dear Von Bork, I think you will be surprised at the welcome you will receive.

I happen to know what is thought in the highest quarters of your work in this

country." He was a huge man, the secretary, deep, broad, and tall, with a

slow, heavy fashion of speech which had been his main asset in his political

career.

Von Bork laughed.

"They are not very hard to deceive," he remarked. "A more docile, simple

folk could not be imagined."

"I don't know about that," said the other thoughtfully. "They have strange

limits and one must learn to observe them. It is that surface simplicity of

theirs which makes a trap for the stranger. One's first impression is that

they are entirely soft. Then one comes suddenly upon something very hard,

and you know that you have reached the limit and must adapt yourself to

the fact. They have, for example, their insular conventions which simply

must be observed."

"Meaning, 'good form' and that sort of thing?" Von Bork sighed as one who

had suffered much.

"Meaning British prejudice in all its queer manifestations. As an example I

may quote one of my own worst blunders -- I can afford to talk of my

blunders, for you know my work well enough to be aware of my successes.

It was on my first arrival. I was invited to a week-end gathering at the

country house of a cabinet minister. The conversation was amazingly

indiscreet."

Von Bork nodded. "I've been there," said he dryly.

"Exactly. Well, I naturally sent a resume of the information to Berlin.

Unfortunately our good chancellor is a little heavy-handed in these matters,

and he transmitted a remark which showed that he was aware of what had

been said. This, of course, took the trail straight up to me. You've no idea

the harm that it did me. There was nothing soft about our British hosts on

that occasion, I can assure you. I was two years living it down. Now you, with

this sporting pose of yours --"

"No, no, don't call it a pose. A pose is an artificial thing. This is quite

natural. I am a born sportsman. I enjoy it."

"Well, that makes it the more effective. You yacht against them, you hunt

with them, you play polo, you match them in every game, your four-in-

hand takes the prize at Olympia. I have even heard that you go the length

of boxing with the young officers. What is the result? Nobody takes you

seriously. You are a 'good old sport,' 'quite a decent fellow for a German,'

a hard-drinking, night-club, knock-about-town, devil-may-care young fellow.

And all the time this quiet country house of yours is the centre of half the

mischief in England, and the sporting squire the most astute secret-service

man in Europe. Genius, my dear Von Bork?enius!"

"You flatter me, Baron. But certainly I may claim that my four years in this

country have not been unproductive. I've never shown you my little store.

Would you mind stepping in for a moment?"

The door of the study opened straight on to the terrace. Von Bork pushed it

back, and, leading the way, he clicked the switch of the electric light. He

then closed the door behind the bulky form which followed him and carefully

adjusted the heavy curtain over the latticed window. Only when all these

precautions had been taken and tested did he turn his sunburned aquiline

face to his guest.

"Some of my papers have gone," said he. "When my wife and the household

left yesterday for Flushing they took the less important with them. I must, of

course, claim the protection of the embassy for the others."

"Your name has already been filed as one of the personal suite. There will

be no difficulties for you or your baggage. Of course, it is just possible

that we may not have to go. England may leave France to her fate. We are sure

that there is no binding treaty between them."

"And Belgium?"

"Yes, and Belgium, too."

Von Bork shook his head. "I don't see how that could be. There is a definite

treaty there. She could never recover from such a humiliation."

"She would at least have peace for the moment."

"But her honour?"

"Tut, my dear sir, we live in a utilitarian age. Honour is a mediaeval

conception. Besides England is not ready. It is an inconceivable thing, but

even our special war tax of fifty million, which one would think made our

purpose as clear as if we had advertised it on the front page of the Times,

has not roused these people from their slumbers. Here and there one hears a

question. It is my business to find an answer. Here and there also there is an

irritation. It is my business to soothe it. But I can assure you that so far

as the essentials go -- the storage of munitions, the preparation for

submarine attack, the arrangements for making high explosives -- nothing is

prepared. How, then, can England come in, especially when we have stirred

her up such a devil's brew of Irish civil war, window-breaking Furies, and God

knows what to keep her thoughts at home."

"She must think of her future."

"Ah, that is another matter. I fancy that in the future we have our own very

definite plans about England, and that your information will be very vital to

us. It is to-day or to-morrow with Mr. John Bull. If he prefers to-day we are

perfectly ready. If it is to-morrow we shall be more ready still. I should

think they would be wiser to fight with allies than without them, but that is

their own affair. This week is their week of destiny. But you were speaking

of your papers." He sat in the armchair with the light shining upon his broad

bald head, while he puffed sedately at his cigar.

The large oak-panelled, book-lined room had a curtain hung in the further

corner. When this was drawn it disclosed a large, brass-bound safe. Von Bork

detached a small key from his watch chain, and after some considerable

manipulation of the lock he swung open the heavy door.

"Look!" said he, standing clear, with a wave of his hand.

The light shone vividly into the opened safe, and the secretary of the

embassy gazed with an absorbed interest at the rows of stuffed pigeon-holes

with which it was furnished. Each pigeonhole had its label, and his eyes as he

glanced along them read a long series of such titles as "Fords," "Harbour-

defences," "Aeroplanes," "Ireland," "Egypt," "Portsmouth forts," "The

Channel," "Rosythe," and a score of others. Each compartment was bristling

with papers and plans.

"Colossal!" said the secretary. Putting down his cigar he softly clapped

his fat hands.

"And all in four years, Baron. Not such a bad show for the hard-drinking,

hard-riding country squire. But the gem of my collection is coming and there

is the setting all ready for it." He pointed to a space over which "Naval

Signals" was printed.

"But you have a good dossier there already."

"Out of date and waste paper. The Admiralty in some way got the alarm

and every code has been changed. It was a blow, Baron -- the worst setback in

my whole campaign. But thanks to my check-book and the good Altamont all will

be well to-night."

The Baron looked at his watch and gave a guttural exclamation of

disappointment.

"Well, I really can wait no longer. You can imagine that things are moving

at present in Carlton Terrace and that we have all to be at our posts. I

had hoped to be able to bring news of your great coup. Did Altamont

name no hour?"

Von Bork pushed over a telegram.

 

Will come without fail to-night and bring new sparking plugs.

ALTAMONT.

 

"Sparking plugs, eh?"

"You see he poses as a motor expert and I keep a full garage. In our

code everything likely to come up is named after some spare part. If he

talks of a radiator it is a battleship, of an oil pump a cruiser, and so on.

Sparking plugs are naval signals."

"From Portsmouth at midday," said the secretary, examining the

superscription. "By the way, what do you give him?"

"Five hundred pounds for this particular job. Of course he has a salary as

well."

"The greedy rogue. They are useful, these traitors, but I grudge them

their blood money."

"I grudge Altamont nothing. He is a wonderful worker. If I pay him well,

at least he delivers the goods, to use his own phrase. Besides he is not a

traitor. I assure you that our most pan-Germanic Junker is a sucking

dove in his feelings towards England as compared with a real bitter Irish-

American."

"Oh, an Irish-American?"

"If you heard him talk you would not doubt it. Sometimes I assure you I

can hardly understand him. He seems to have declared war on the King's

English as well as on the English king. Must you really go? He may be

here any moment."

"No. I'm sorry, but I have already overstayed my time. We shall expect

you early to-morrow, and when you get that signal book through the

little door on the Duke of York's steps you can put a triumphant finis to

your record in England. What! Tokay!"

He indicated a heavily sealed dust-covered bottle which stood with two high

glasses upon a salver.

"May I offer you a glass before your journey?"

"No, thanks. But it looks like revelry."

"Altamont has a nice taste in wines, and he took a fancy to my Tokay. He is

a touchy fellow and needs humouring in small things. I have to study him, I

assure you." They had strolled out on to the terrace again, and along it to

the further end where at a touch from the Baron's chauffeur the great car

shivered and chuckled. "Those are the lights of Harwich, I suppose," said the

secretary, pulling on his dust coat. "How still and peaceful it all seems.

There may be other lights within the week, and the English coast a less

tranquil place! The heavens, too, may not be quite so peaceful if all that

the good Zeppelin promises us comes true. By the way, who is that?"

Only one window showed a light behind them; in it there stood a lamp, and

beside it, seated at a table, was a dear old ruddy-faced woman in a country

cap. She was bending over her knitting and stopping occasionally to stroke a

large black cat upon a stool beside her.

"That is Martha, the only servant I have left."

The secretary chuckled.

"She might almost personify Britannia," said he, "with her complete self-

absorption and general air of comfortable somnolence. Well, au revoir, Von

Bork!" With a final wave of his hand he sprang into the car, and a moment

later the two golden cones from the headlights shot forward through the

darkness. The secretary lay back in the cushions of the luxurious limousine,

with his thoughts so full of the impending European tragedy that he hardly

observed that as his car swung round the village street it nearly passed over

a little Ford coming in the opposite direction.

Von Bork walked slowly back to the study when the last gleams of the motor

lamps had faded into the distance. As he passed he observed that his old

housekeeper had put out her lamp and retired. It was a new experience to

him, the silence and darkness of his widespread house, for his family and

household had been a large one. It was a relief to him, however, to think that

they were all in safety and that, but for that one old woman who had

lingered in the kitchen, he had the whole place to himself. There was a good

deal of tidying up to do inside his study and he set himself to do it until

his keen, handsome face was flushed with the heat of the burning papers. A

leather valise stood beside his table, and into this he began to pack very

neatly and systematically the precious contents of his safe. He had hardly

got started with the work, however, when his quick ears caught the sound of a

distant car. Instantly he gave an exclamation of satisfaction, strapped up

the valise, shut the safe, locked it, and hurried out on to the terrace. He

was just in time to see the lights of a small car come to a halt at the gate.

A passenger sprang out of it and advanced swiftly towards him, while the

chauffeur, a heavily built, elderly man with a gray moustache, settled down

like one who resigns himself to a long vigil.

"Well?" asked Von Bork eagerly, running forward to meet his visitor.

For answer the man waved a small brown-paper parcel triumphantly above

his head.

"You can give me the glad hand to-night, mister," he cried. "I'm bringing

home the bacon at last."

"The signals?"

"Same as I said in my cable. Every last one of them, semaphore, lamp code,

Marconi -- a copy, mind you, not the original. That was too dangerous. But

it's the real goods, and you can lay to that." He slapped the German upon the

shoulder with a rough familiarity from which the other winced.

"Come in," he said. "I'm all alone in the house. I was only waiting for

this. Of course a copy is better than the original. If an original were

missing they would change the whole thing. You think it's all safe about the

copy?"

The Irish-American had entered the study and stretched his long limbs from

the armchair. He was a tall, gaunt man of sixty, with clear-cut features and a

small goatee beard which gave him a general resemblance to the caricatures

of Uncle Sam. A halfsmoked, sodden cigar hung from the corner of his mouth,

and as he sat down he struck a match and relit it. "Making ready for a

move?" he remarked as he looked round him. "Say, mister," he added, as his

eyes fell upon the safe from which the curtain was now removed, "you don't

tell me you keep your papers in that?"

"Why not?"

"Gosh, in a wide-open contraption like that! And they reckon you to be

some spy. Why, a Yankee crook would be into that with a can-

opener. If I'd known that any letter of mine was goin' to lie loose in a thing

like that I'd have been a mug to write to you at all."

"It would puzzle any crook to force that safe," Von Bork answered. "You

won't cut that metal with any tool."

"But the lock?"

"No, it's a double combination lock. You know what that is?"

"Search me," said the American.

"Well, you need a word as well as a set of figures before you can get the

lock to work." He rose and showed a doubleradiating disc round the keyhole.

"This outer one is for the letters, thel inner one for the figures."

"Well, well, that's fine."

"So it's not quite as simple as you thought. It was four years ago that I

had it made, and what do you think I chose for the word and figures?"

"It's beyond me."

"Well, I chose August for the word, and 1914 for the figures, and here we

are."

The American's face showed his surprise and admiration.

"My, but that was smart! You had it down to a fine thing."

"Yes, a few of us even then could have guessed the date. Here it is, and I'm

shutting down to-morrow morning. "

"Well, I guess you'll have to fix me up also. I'm not staying in this gol-

darned country all on my lonesome. In a week or less, from what I see, John

Bull will be on his hind legs and fair ramping. I'd rather watch him from

over the water."

"But you're an American citizen?"

"Well, so was Jack James an American citizen, but he's doing time in

Portland all the same. It cuts no ice with a British copper to tell him

you're an American citizen. 'It's British law and order over here,' says he.

By the way, mister, talking of Jack James, it seems to me you don't do much

to cover your men."

"What do you mean?" Von Bork asked sharply.

"Well, you are their employer, ain't you? It's up to you to see that they

don't fall down. But they do fall down, and when did you ever pick them up?

There's James --"

"It was James's own fault. You know that yourself. He was too self-willed

for the job."

"James was a bonehead -- I give you that. Then there was Hollis. "

"The man was mad."

"Well, he went a bit woozy towards the end. It's enough to make a man

bughouse when he has to play a part from morning to night with a hundred

guys all ready to set the coppers wise to him. But now there is Steiner --"

Von Bork started violently, and his ruddy face turned a shade paler.

"What about Steiner?"

"Well, they've got him, that's all. They raided his store last night, and

he and his papers are all in Portsmouth jail. You'll go off and he, poor

devil, will have to stand the racket, and lucky if he gets off with his life.

That's why I want to get over the water as soon as you do."

Von Bork was a strong, self-contained man, but it was easy to see that the

news had shaken him.

"How could they have got on to Steiner?" he muttered. "That's the worst blow

yet."

"Well, you nearly had a worse one, for I believe they are not far off me."

"You don't mean that!"

"Sure thing. My landlady down Fratton way had some inquiries, and when I

heard of it I guessed it was time for me to hustle. But what I want to know,

mister, is how the coppers know these things? Steiner is the fifth man you've

lost since I signed on with you, and I know the name of the sixth if I don't

get a move on. How do you explain it, and ain't you ashamed to see your men

go down like this?"

Von Bork flushed crimson.

"How dare you speak in such a way!"

"If I didn't dare things, mister, I wouldn't be in your service. But I'll

tell you straight what is in my mind. I've heard that with you German

politicians when an agent has done his work you are not sorry to see him put

away."

Von Bork sprang to his feet.

"Do you dare to suggest that I have given away my own agents!"

"I don't stand for that, mister, but there's a stool pigeon or a cross

somewhere, and it's up to you to find out where it is. Anyhow I am taking no

more chances. It's me for little Holland, and the sooner the better."

Von Bork had mastered his anger.

"We have been allies too long to quarrel now at the very hour of victory,"

he said. "You've done splendid work and taken risks, and I can't forget it. By

all means go to Holland, and you can get a boat from Rotterdam to New York.

No other line will be safe a week from now. I'll take that book and pack it

with the rest."

The American held the small parcel in his hand, but made no motion to give

it up.

"What about the dough?" he asked.

"The what?"

"The boodle. The reward. The 500 pounds. The gunner turned damned nasty at

the last, and I had to square him with an extra hundred dollars or it would

have been nitsky for you and me. 'Nothin' doin'!' says he, and he meant it,

too, but the last hundred did it. It's cost me two hundred pound from first

to last, so it isn't likely I'd give it up without gettin' my wad. "

Von Bork smiled with some bitterness. "You don't seem to have a very high

opinion of my honour," said he, "you want the money before you give up the

book."

"Well, mister, it is a business proposition."

"All right. Have your way." He sat down at the table and scribbled a check,

which he tore from the book, but he refrained from handing it to his

companion. "After all, since we are to be on such terms, Mr. Altamont," said

he, "I don't see why I should trust you any more than you trust me. Do you

understand?" he added, looking back over his shoulder at the American.

"There's the check upon the table. I claim the right to examine that parcel

before you pick the money up."

The American passed it over without a word. Von Bork undid a winding of

string and two wrappers of paper. Then he sat gazing for a moment in silent

amazement at a small blue book which lay before him. Across the cover was

printed in golden letters Practical Handbook of Bee Culture. Only for one

instant did the master spy glare at this strangely irrelevant inscription. The

next he was gripped at the back of his neck by a grasp of iron, and a

chloroformed sponge was held in front of his writhing face.

"Another glass, Watson!" said Mr. Sherlock Holmes as he extended the bottle

of Imperial Tokay.

The thickset chauffeur, who had seated himself by the table pushed

forward his glass with some eagerness.

"It is a good wine, Holmes."

"A remarkable wine, Watson. Our friend upon the sofa has assured me

that it is from Franz Josef's special cellar at the Schoenbrunn Palace.

Might I trouble you to open the window for chloroform vapour does not

help the palate."

The safe was ajar, and Holmes standing in front of it was removing

dossier after dossier, swiftly examining each, and then packing it neatly

in Von Bork's valise. The German lay upon the sofa sleeping stertorously

with a strap round his upper arms and another round his legs.

"We need not hurry ourselves, Watson. We are safe from interruption.

Would you mind touching the bell? There is no one in the house except

old Martha, who has played her part to admiration. I got her the situation

here when first I took the matter up. Ah, Martha, you will be glad to hear

that all is well."

The pleasant old lady had appeared in the doorway. She curtseyed with a

smile to Mr. Holmes, but glanced with some apprehension at the figure

upon the sofa.

"It is all right, Martha. He has not been hurt at all."

"I am glad of that, Mr. Holmes. According to his lights he has been a kind

master. He wanted me to go with his wife to Germany yesterday, but

that would hardly have suited your plans, would it, sir?"

"No, indeed, Martha. So long as you were here I was easy in my mind. We

waited some time for your signal to-night."

"It was the secretary, sir."

"I know. His car passed ours."

"I thought he would never go. I knew that it would not suit your plans,

sir, to find him here."

"No, indeed. Well, it only meant that we waited half an hour or so until I

saw your lamp go out and knew that the coast was clear. You can report

to me to-morrow in London, Martha, at Claridge's Hotel."

"Very good, sir."

"I suppose you have everything ready to leave."

"Yes, sir. He posted seven letters to-day. I have the addresses as usual."

"Very good, Martha. I will look into them to-morrow. Good-

night. These papers," he continued as the old lady vanished, "are not of

very great imponance, for, of course, the information which they represent

has been sent off long ago to the German government. These are the

originals which could not safely be got out of the country."

"Then they are of no use."

"I should not go so far as to say that, Watson. They will at least show our

people what is known and what is not. I may say that a good many of

these papers have come tbrough me, and I need not add are thoroughly

untrustworthy. It would brighten my declining years to see a German

cruiser navigating the Solent according to the mine-field plans which I

have furnished. But you, Watson" -- he stopped his work and took his old

friend by the shoulders -- "I've hardly seen you in the light yet. How have

the years used you? You look the same blithe boy as ever. "

"I feel twenty years younger, Holmes. I have seldom felt so happy as when

I got your wire asking me to meet you at Harwich with the car. But you,

Holmes -- you have changed very little -- save for that horrible goatee."

"These are the sacrifices one makes for one's country, Watson," said

Holmes, pulling at his little tuft. "To-morrow it will be but a dreadful

memory. With my hair cut and a few other superficial changes I shall no

doubt reappear at Claridge's tomorrow as I was before this American

stunt -- I beg your pardon, Watson, my well of English seems to be

permanently defiled -- before this American job came my way."

"But you have retired, Holmes. We heard of you as living the life of a

hermit among your bees and your books in a small farm upon the South

Downs."

"Exactly, Watson. Here is the fruit of my leisured ease, the magnum opus of

my latter years!" He picked up the volume from the table and read out the

whole title, Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations

upon the Segregation of the Queen. "Alone I did it. Behold the fruit of

pensive nights and laborious days when I watched the little working gangs

as once I watched the criminal world of London."

"But how did you get to work again?"

"Ah, I have often marvelled at it myself. The Foreign Minister alone I could

have withstood, but when the Premier also deigned to visit my humble

roof! The fact is, Watson, that this gentleman upon the sofa was a bit too

good for our people. He was in a class by himself. Things were going wrong,

and no one could understand why they were going wrong. Agents were suspected

or even caught, but there was evidence of some strong and secret central

force. It was absolutely necessary to expose it. Strong pressure was brought

upon me to look into the matter. It has cost me two years, Watson, but they

have not been devoid of excitement. When I say that I started my pilgrimage

at Chicago, graduated in an Irish secret society at Buffalo, gave serious

trouble to the constabulary at Skibbareen, and so eventually caught the eye

of a subordinate agent of Von Bork, who recommended me as a likely man, you

will realize that the matter was complex. Since then I have been honoured by

his confidence, which has not prevented most of his plans going subtly wrong

and five of his best agents being in prison. I watched them, Watson, and I

picked them as they ripened. Well, sir, I hope that you are none the worse!"

The last remark was addressed to Von Bork himself, who after much

gasping and blinking had lain quietly listening to Holmes's statement. He

broke out now into a furious stream of German invective, his face convulsed

with passion. Holmes continued his swift investigation of documents while

his prisoner cursed and swore.

"Though unmusical, German is the most expressive of all languages," he

observed when Von Bork had stopped from pure exhaustion. "Hullo! Hullo!"

he added as he looked hard at the corner of a tracing before putting it in the

box. "This should put another bird in the cage. I had no idea that the

paymaster was such a rascal, though I have long had an eye upon him.

Mister Von Bork, you have a great deal to answer for."

The prisoner had raised himself with some difficulty upon the sofa and was

staring with a strange mixture of amazement and hatred at his captor.

I shall get level with you, Altamont," he said, speaking with slow

deliberation. "If it takes me all my life I shall get level with you!"

"The old sweet song," said Holmes. "How often have I heard it in days gone

by. It was a favourite ditty of the late lamented Professor Moriarty. Colonel

Sebastian Moran has also been known to warble it. And yet I live and keep

bees upon the South Downs."

"Curse you, you double traitor!" cried the German, straining against his

bonds and glaring murder from his furious eyes.

"No, no, it is not so bad as that," said Holmes, smiling. "As my speech

surely shows you, Mr. Altamont af Chicago had no existence in fact. I used

him and he is gone."

"Then who are you?"

"It is really immaterial who I am, but since the matter seems to interest

you, Mr. Von Bork, I may say that this is not my first acquaintance with the

members of your family. I have done a good deal of business in Germany in

the past and my name is probably familiar to you."

"I would wish to know it," said the Prussian grimly.

"It was I who brought about the separation between Irene Adler and the late

King of Bohemia when yorur cousin Heinrich was the Imperial Envoy. It was I

also who saved from murder, by the Nihilist Klopman, Count Von und Zu

Grafenstein, who was your mother's elder brother. It was I --"

Von Bork sat up in amazement.

"There is only one man," he cried.

"Exactly," said Holmes.

Von Bork groaned and sank back on the sofa. "And most of that information

came through you," he cried. "What is it worth? What have I done? It is my

ruin forever!"

"It is certainly a little untrustworthy," said Holmes. "It will require some

checking and you have little time to check it. Your admiral may find the new

guns rather larger than he expects, and the cruisers perhaps a trifle faster."

Von Bork clutched at his own throat in despair.

"There are a good many other points of defail which will, no doubt, come to

light in good time. But youl have one quality which is very rare in a German,

Mr. Von Bork: you are a sportsman and you will bear me no ill-will when you

realize that you, who have outwitted so many other people, have at last been

outwitted yourself. After all, you have done vour best for your country, and I

have done my best for mine, and what could be more natural? Besides," he

added, not unkindly, as he laid his hand upon the shoulder of the prostrate

man, "it is better than to fall before some more ignoble foe. These papers are

now ready. Watson. If you will help me with our prisoner, I think that we

may get started for London at once."

It was no easy task to move Von Bork, for he was a strong and a desperate

man. Finally, holding either arm, the two friends walked him very slowly down

the garden walk which he had trod with such proud confidence when he

received the congratulations of the famous diplomatist only a few hours

before. After a short, final struggle he was hoisted, still bound hand and

foot, into the spare seat of the little car. His precious valise was wedged

in beside him.

"I trust that you are as comfortable as circumstances permit," said Holmes

when the final arrangements were made. "Should I be guilty of a liberty if I

lit a cigar and placed it between your lips?"

But all amenities were wasted upon the angry German.

"I suppose you realize, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said he, "that if your

government bears you out in this treatment it becomes an act of war."

"What about your government and all this treatment?" said Holmes, tapping

the valise.

"You are a private individual. You have no warrant for my arrest. The whole

proceeding is absolutely illegal and outrageous."

"Absolutely," said Holmes.

"Kidnapping a German subject."

"And stealing his private papers."

"Well, you realize your position, you and your accomplice here. If I were to

shout for help as we pass through the village --"

"My dear sir, if you did anything so foolish you would probably enlarge the

two limited titles of our village inns by giving us 'The Dangling Prussian'

as a signpost. The Englishman is a patient creature, but at present his

temper is a little inflamed, and it would be as well not to try him too far.

No, Mr. Von Bork, you will go with us in a quiet, sensible fashion to

Scotland Yard, whence you can send for your friend, Baron Von Herling, and

see if even now you may not fill that place which he has reserved for you in

the ambassadorial suite. As to you, Watson, you are joining us with your old

service, as I understand, so London won't be out of your way. Stand with me

here upon the terrace, for it may be the last quiet talk that we shall ever

have."

The two friends chatted in intimate converse for a few minutes, recalling

once again the days of the past, while their prisoner vainly wriggled to undo

the bonds that held him. As they turned to the car Holmes pointed back to the

moonlit sea and shook a thoughtful head.

"There's an east wind coming, Watson."

"l think not, Holmes. It is very warm."

"Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There's an

east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It

will be cold and bitter, Watson and a good many of us may wither before its

blast. But it's God's own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger

land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared. Start her up,

Watson, for it's time that we were on our way. I have a check for five

hundred pounds which should be cashed early, for the drawer is quite

capable of stopping it if he can."