Contents
PART I.
(Being a reprint from the reminiscences of JOHN H. WATSON,
M.D., late of the Army Medical Department.)
CHAPTER I. MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES.
IN the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of
the University of London and proceeded to Nutley to go through the course
prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was
duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon. The
regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the
second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps
had advanced through the passes and was already deep in the enemy’s country. I
followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as
myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my
regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties.
The campaign brought honors and promotion to many, but for
me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade
and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Meiland.
There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone
and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the
murderous Ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray,
my orderly, who threw me across a packhorse, and succeeded in bringing me
safely to the British lines.
Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which
I had undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the
base hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied and had already improved so far as to
be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little upon the verandah,
when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse of our Indian possessions.
For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and
became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board
determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England. I was
dispatched, accordingly, in the troopship “Orontes,” and landed a month later
Portsmouth jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from
a paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it.
I had neither kith nor kin in England and was therefore as
free as air—or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will
permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London,
that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are
irresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time at a private hotel in the
Strand, leading a comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending such money
as I had, considerably more freely than I ought. So, alarming did the state of
my finances become, that I soon realized that I must either leave the
metropolis and rusticate somewhere in the country, or that I must make a
complete alteration in my style of living. Choosing the latter alternative, I
began by making up my mind to leave the hotel, and to take up my quarters in
some less pretentious and less expensive domicile.
On the very day that I had come to this conclusion, I was standing
at the Criterion Bar, when someone tapped me on the shoulder, and turning around
I recognized young Stamford, who had been a dresser under me at Bart's. The
sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London is a pleasant thing
indeed to a lonely man. In old days Stamford had never been a crony of mine,
but now I hailed him with enthusiasm, and he, in his turn, appeared to be
delighted to see me. In the exuberance of my joy, I asked him to lunch with me
at the Hollyburn, and we started off together in a hansom.
“Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Watson?” he
asked in undisguised wonder, as we rattled through the crowded London streets.
“You are as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut.”
I gave him a short sketch of my adventures and had hardly
concluded it by the time that we reached our destination.
“Poor devil!” he said, commiserating, after he had listened
to my misfortunes. “What are you up to now?”
“Looking for lodgings.” I answered. “Trying to solve the
problem as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable
price.”
“That’s a strange thing,” remarked my companion; “you are
the second man to-day that has used that expression to me.”
“And who was the first?” I asked.
“A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at
the hospital. He was bemoaning himself this morning because he could not get
someone to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he had found, and which
were too much for his purse.”
“By Jove!” I cried, “if he really wants someone to share the
rooms and the expense, I am the very man for him. I should prefer having a partner
to being alone.”
Young Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wineglass.
“You don’t know Sherlock Holmes yet,” he said; “perhaps you would not care for
him as a constant companion.”
“Why, what is there against him?”
“Oh, I didn’t say there was anything against him. He is a
little queer in his ideas—an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as
I know he is a decent fellow enough.”
“A medical student, I suppose?” said I.
“No—I have no idea what he intends to go in for. I believe
he is well up in anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist; but, as far as I
know, he has never taken out any systematic medical classes. His studies are
very desultory and eccentric, but he has amassed a lot of out-of-the way
knowledge which would astonish his professors.”
“Did you never ask him what he was going in for?” I asked.
“No; he is not a man that it is easy to draw out, though he
can be communicative enough when the fancy seizes him.”
“I should like to meet him,” I said. “If I am to lodge with
anyone, I should prefer a man of studious and quiet habits. I am not strong
enough yet to stand much noise or excitement. I had enough of both in
Afghanistan to last me for the remainder of my natural existence. How could I
meet this friend of yours?”
“He is sure to be at the laboratory,” returned my companion.
“He either avoids the place for weeks, or else he works there from morning to
night. If you like, we shall drive round together after luncheon.”
“Certainly,” I answered, and the conversation drifted away
into other channels.
As we made our way to the hospital after leaving the Hollyburn,
Stamford gave me a few more about the gentleman whom I proposed to take as a fellow
lodger.
“You mustn’t blame me if you don’t get on with him,” he
said; “I know nothing more of him than I have learned from meeting him
occasionally in the laboratory. You proposed this arrangement, so you must not
hold me responsible.”
“If we don’t get on it will be easy to part company,” I
answered. “It seems to me, Stamford,” I added, looking hard at my companion,
“that you have some reason for washing your hands of the matter. Is this
fellow’s temper so formidable, or what is it? Don’t be mealy-mouthed about it.”
“It is not easy to express the inexpressible,” he answered
with a laugh. “Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes—it approaches to
cold-bloodedness. I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of the
latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand, but simply
out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea of the effects. To
do him justice, I think that he would take it himself with the same readiness.
He appears to have a passion for definite and exact knowledge.”
“Very right too.”
“Yes, but it may be pushed to excess. When it comes to
beating the subjects in the dissecting-rooms with a stick, it is certainly
taking rather a bizarre shape.”
“Beating the subjects!”
“Yes, to verify how far bruises may be produced after death.
I saw him at it with my own eyes.”
“And yet you say he is not a medical student?”
“No. Heaven knows what the objects of his studies are. But
here we are, and you must form your own impressions about him.” As he spoke, we
turned down a narrow lane and passed through a small side-door, which opened
into a wing of the great hospital. It was familiar ground to me, and I needed
no guiding as we ascended the bleak stone staircase and made our way down the
long corridor with its vista of whitewashed wall and dun-colored doors. Near
the further end a low arched passage branched away from it and led to the
chemical laboratory.
This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless
bottles. Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled with retorts,
test-tubes, and little Bunsen lamps, with their blue flickering flames. There
was only one student in the room, who was bending over a distant table absorbed
in his work. At the sound of our steps he glanced round and sprang to his feet
with a cry of pleasure. “I’ve found it! I’ve found it,” he shouted to my
companion, running towards us with a test-tube in his hand. “I have found a
re-agent which is precipitated by hemoglobin, and by nothing else.” Had he
discovered a gold mine; greater delight could not have shone upon his features.
“Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said Stamford,
introducing us.
“How are you?” he said cordially, gripping my hand with a
strength for which I should hardly have given him credit. “You have been in
Afghanistan, I perceive.”
“How on earth did you know that?” I asked in astonishment.
“Never mind,” said he, chuckling to himself. “The question
now is about hemoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of this discovery of
mine?”
“It is interesting, chemically, no doubt,” I answered, “but
practically——”
“Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery
for years. Don’t you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains.
Come over here now!” He seized me by the coat-sleeve in his eagerness and drew
me over to the table at which he had been working. “Let us have some fresh
blood,” he said, digging a long bodkin into his finger, and drawing off the
resulting drop of blood in a chemical pipette. “Now, I add this small quantity
of blood to a liter of water. You perceive that the resulting mixture has the
appearance of pure water. The proportion of blood cannot be more than one in a
million. I have no doubt, however, that we shall be able to obtain the
characteristic reaction.” As he spoke, he threw into the vessel a few white
crystals, and then added some drops of a transparent fluid. In an instant the
contents assumed a dull mahogany color, and a brownish dust was precipitated to
the bottom of the glass jar.
“Ha! ha!” he cried, clapping his hands, and looking as delighted
as a child with a new toy. “What do you think of that?”
“It seems to be a very delicate test,” I remarked.
“Beautiful! beautiful! The old Guaiacum test was very clumsy
and uncertain. So is the microscopic examination for blood corpuscles. The latter
is valueless if the stains are a few hours old. Now, this appears to act as
well whether the blood is old or new. Had this test been invented, there are
hundreds of men now walking the earth who would long ago have paid the penalty
of their crimes.”
“Indeed!” I murmured.
“Criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point.
A man is suspected of a crime month perhaps after it has been committed. His
linen or clothes are examined, and brownish stains discovered upon them. Are
they blood stains, or mud stains, or rust stains, or fruit stains, or what are
they? That is a question which has puzzled many an expert, and why? Because
there was no reliable test. Now we have the Sherlock Holmes’ test, and there
will no longer be any difficulty.”
His eyes glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over his
heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his imagination.
“You are to be congratulated,” I remarked, considerably
surprised at his enthusiasm.
“There was the case of Von Bischoff at Frankfort last year.
He would certainly have been hung had this test been in existence. Then there
was Mason of Bradford, and the notorious Muller, and Lefevre of Montpellier,
and Samson of New Orleans. I could name a score of cases in which it would have
been decisive.”
“You seem to be a walking calendar of crime,” said Stamford
with a laugh. “You might start a paper on those lines. Call it the ‘Police News
of the Past.’”
“Very interesting reading, it might be made, too,” remarked
Sherlock Holmes, sticking a small piece of plaster over the prick on his
finger. “I have to be careful,” he continued, turning to me with a smile, “for
I dabble with poisons a good deal.” He held out his hand as he spoke, and I
noticed that it was all mottled over with similar pieces of plaster and discolored
with strong acids.
“We came here on business,” said Stamford, sitting down on a
high three-legged stool, and pushing another one in my direction with his foot.
“My friend here wants to take diggings, and as you were complaining that you
could get no one to go halves with you, I thought that I had better bring you
together.”
Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his
rooms with me. “I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street,” he said, “which
would suit us down to the ground. You don’t mind the smell of strong tobacco, I
hope?”
“I always smoke ‘ship’s’ myself,” I answered.
“That’s good enough. I generally have chemicals about, and
occasionally do experiments. Would that annoy you?”
“By no means.”
“Let me see—what are my other shortcomings. I get in the
dumps at times, and don’t open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I
am sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I’ll soon be right. What have
you to confess now? It’s just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one
another before they begin to live together.”
I laughed at this cross-examination. “I keep a bull pup,” I
said, “and I object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all
sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices
when I’m well, but those are the principal ones at present.”
“Do you include violin-playing in your category of rows?” he
asked, anxiously.
“It depends on the player,” I answered. “A well-played
violin is a treat for the gods—a badly-played one——”
“Oh, that’s all right,” he cried, with a merry laugh. “I think
we may consider the thing as settled—that is, if the rooms are agreeable to
you.”
“When shall we see them?”
“Call for me here at noon to-morrow, and we’ll go together
and settle everything,” he answered.
“All right—noon exactly,” said I, shaking his hand.
We left him working among his chemicals, and we walked
together towards my hotel.
“By the way,” I asked suddenly, stopping and turning upon
Stamford, “how the deuce did he know that I had come from Afghanistan?”
My companion smiled an enigmatical smile. “That’s just his
little peculiarity,” he said. “A good many people have wanted to know how he
finds things out.”
“Oh! a mystery is it?” I cried, rubbing my hands. “This is
very piquant. I am much obliged to you for bringing us together. ‘The proper
study of mankind is man,’ you know.”
“You must study him, then,” Stamford said, as he bade me
good-bye. “You’ll find him a knotty problem, though. I’ll wager he learns more
about you than you about him. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” I answered, and strolled on to my hotel,
considerably interested in my new acquaintance.
CHAPTER II. THE SCIENCE OF DEDUCTION.
WE met next day as he had arranged, and inspected the rooms
at No. 221B, Baker Street, of which he had spoken at our meeting. They
consisted of a couple of comfortable bedrooms and a single large airy
sitting-room, cheerfully furnished, and illuminated by two broad windows. So
desirable in every way were the apartments, and so moderate did the terms seem
when divided between us, that the bargain was concluded upon the spot, and we
at once entered possession. That very evening, I moved my things round from the
hotel, and on the following morning Sherlock Holmes followed me with several
boxes and portmanteaus. For a day or two we were busily employed in unpacking
and laying out our property to the best advantage. That done, we gradually
began to settle down and to accommodate ourselves to our new surroundings.
Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. He
was quiet in his ways, and his habits were regular. It was rare for him to be
up after ten at night, and he had invariably breakfasted and gone out before I
rose in the morning. Sometimes he spent his day at the chemical laboratory,
sometimes in the dissecting-rooms, and occasionally in long walks, which appeared
to take him into the lowest portions of the City. Nothing could exceed his energy
when the working fit was upon him; but now and again a reaction would seize
him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting-room, hardly
uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night. On these occasions I
have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have
suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the
temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion.
As the weeks went by, my interest in him and my curiosity as
to his aims in life, gradually deepened and increased. His very person and
appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual observer. In
height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to
be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and piercing, save during those
intervals of torpor to which I have alluded; and his thin, hawk-like nose gave
his whole expression an air of alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the
prominence and squareness which mark the man of determination. His hands were
invariably blotted with ink and stained with chemicals, yet he was possessed of
extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I frequently had occasion to observe when I
watched him manipulating his fragile philosophical instruments.
The reader may set me down as a hopeless busybody, when I
confess how much this man stimulated my curiosity, and how often I endeavored
to break through the reticence which he showed on all that concerned himself.
Before pronouncing judgment, however, be it remembered, how objectless was my
life, and how little there was to engage my attention. My health forbade me
from venturing out unless the weather was exceptionally genial, and I had no
friends who would call upon me and break the monotony of my daily existence.
Under these circumstances, I eagerly hailed the little mystery which hung
around my companion and spent much of my time in endeavoring to unravel it.
He was not studying medicine. He had himself, in reply to a
question, confirmed Stamford’s opinion upon that point. Neither did he appear
to have pursued any course of reading which might fit him for a degree in
science or any other recognized portal which would give him an entrance into
the learned world. Yet his zeal for certain studies was remarkable, and within
eccentric limits his knowledge was so extraordinarily ample and minute that his
observations have fairly astounded me. Surely no man would work so hard or
attain such precise information unless he had some definite end in view.
Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning. No
man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for
doing so.
His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of
contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to
nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he
might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I
found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the
composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this
nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun
appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.
“You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression
of surprise. “Now that I do know it, I shall do my best to forget it.”
“To forget it!”
“You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain
originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such
furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he
comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded
out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty
in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as
to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which
may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all
in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has
elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time
when for every addition of knowledge, you forget something that you knew
before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts
elbowing out the useful ones.”
“But the Solar System!” I protested.
“What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently;
“you say that we go around the sun. If we went around the moon it would not
make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”
I was on the point of asking him what that work might be,
but something in his manner showed me that the question would be an unwelcome
one. I pondered over our short conversation, however, and endeavored to draw my
deductions from it. He said that he would acquire no knowledge which did not
bear upon his object. Therefore, all the knowledge which he possessed was such
as would be useful to him. I enumerated in my own mind all the various points
upon which he had shown me that he was exceptionally well-informed. I even took
a pencil and jotted them down. I could not help smiling at the document when I
had completed it. It ran in this way—
SHERLOCK HOLMES—his limits.
1. Knowledge of Literature.
—Nil.
2. Philosophy. —Nil.
3. Astronomy. —Nil.
4. Politics. —Feeble.
5. Botany. —Variable. Well up in belladonna,
opium, and poisons generally.
Knows nothing of practical gardening.
6. Geology. —Practical, but limited.
Tells briefly different soil
from each other. After walks has
shown me splashes upon his trousers,
and told me by their color and
consistence in what part of London
he had received them.
7. Chemistry. —Profound.
8. Anatomy. —Accurate, but
unsystematic.
9. Sensational Literature. —Immense. He appears
to know every detail of every horror
perpetrated in the
century.
10. Plays the violin
well.
11. Is an expert
singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
12. Has a good
practical knowledge of British law.
When I had got so far in my list, I threw it into the fire
in despair. “If I can only find what the fellow is driving at by reconciling
all these accomplishments, and discovering a calling which needs them all,” I
said to myself, “I may as well give up the attempt at once.”
I see that I have alluded above to his powers upon the
violin. These were very remarkable, but as eccentric as all his other
accomplishments. That he could play pieces, and difficult pieces, I knew well,
because at my request he has played me some of Mendelssohn’s Lieder, and other favorites.
When left to himself, however, he would seldom produce any music or attempt any
recognized air. Leaning back in his armchair of an evening, he would close his
eyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle which was thrown across his knee.
Sometimes the chords were sonorous and melancholy. Occasionally they were
fantastic and cheerful. Clearly, they reflected the thoughts which possessed
him, but whether the music aided those thoughts, or whether the playing was
simply the result of a whim or fancy was more than I could determine. I might
have rebelled against these exasperating solos had it not been that he usually
terminated them by playing in quick succession a whole series of my favorite
airs as a slight compensation for the trial upon my patience.
During the first week or so we had no callers, and I had
begun to think that my companion was as friendless a man as I was myself.
Presently, however, I found that he had many acquaintances, and those in the
most different classes of society. There was one little sallow rat-faced,
dark-eyed fellow who was introduced to me as Mr. Lestrade, and who came three
or four times in a single week. One morning a young girl called, fashionably
dressed, and stayed for half an hour or more. The same afternoon brought a
grey-headed, seedy visitor, looking like a Jew peddler, who appeared to me to
be much excited, and who was closely followed by a slip-shod elderly woman. On
another occasion an old white-haired gentleman had an interview with my
companion; and on another a railway porter in his velveteen uniform. When any
of these nondescript individuals appear, Sherlock Holmes used to beg for the
use of the sitting-room, and I would retire to my bedroom. He always apologized
to me for putting me to this inconvenience. “I have to use this room as a place
of business,” he said, “and these people are my clients.” Again, I had an
opportunity of asking him a point-blank question, and again my delicacy
prevented me from forcing another man to confide in me. I imagined at the time
that he had some strong reason for not alluding to it, but he soon dispelled
the idea by coming around to the subject of his own accord.
It was upon the 4th of March, as I have good reason to
remember, that I rose somewhat earlier than usual, and found that Sherlock
Holmes had not yet finished his breakfast. The landlady had become so
accustomed to my late habits that my place had not been laid nor my coffee
prepared. With the unreasonable petulance of mankind, I rang the bell and gave
a curt intimation that I was ready. Then I picked up a magazine from the table
and attempted to while away the time with it, while my companion munched silently
at his toast. One of the articles had a pencil mark at the heading, and I
naturally began to run my eye through it.
It's somewhat ambitious title was “The Book of Life,” and it
attempted to show how much an observant man might learn by an accurate and
systematic examination of all that came in his way. It struck me as being a
remarkable mixture of shrewdness and of absurdity. The reasoning was close and
intense, but the deductions appeared to me to be far-fetched and exaggerated.
The writer claimed by a momentary expression, a twitch of a muscle or a glance
of an eye, to fathom a man’s inmost thoughts. Deceit, according to him, was an
impossibility in the case of one trained to observation and analysis. His
conclusions were as infallible as so many propositions of Euclid. So, startling
would his results appear to the uninitiated that until they learned the
processes by which he had arrived at them they might well consider him as a
necromancer.
“From a drop of water,” said the writer, “a logician could infer
the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one
or the other. So, all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known
whenever we are shown a single link of it. Like all other arts, the Science of
Deduction and Analysis is one which can only be acquired by long and patient
study nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest
possible perfection in it. Before turning to those moral and mental aspects of
the matter which present the greatest difficulties, let the enquirer begin by
mastering more elementary problems. Let him, on meeting a fellow mortal, learn briefly
to distinguish the history of the man, and the trade or profession to which he
belongs. Puerile as such an exercise may seem, it sharpens the faculties of
observation, and teaches one where to look and what to look for. By a man’s
finger nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boot, by his trouser knees, by the
callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirt
cuffs—by each of these things a man’s calling is plainly revealed. That all
united should fail to enlighten the competent enquirer in any case is almost
inconceivable.”
“What ineffable twaddle!” I cried, slapping the magazine
down on the table, “I never read such rubbish in my life.”
“What is it?” asked Sherlock Holmes.
“Why, this article,” I said, pointing at it with my egg
spoon as I sat down to my breakfast. “I see that you have read it since you
have marked it. I don’t deny that it is smartly written. It irritates me
though. It is evidently the theory of some arm-chair lounger who evolves all
these neat little paradoxes in the seclusion of his own study. It is not
practical. I should like to see him clapped down in a third-class carriage on
the Underground and asked to give the trades of all his fellow-travelers. I
would lay a thousand to one against him.”
“You would lose your money,” Sherlock Holmes remarked
calmly. “As for the article I wrote it myself.”
“You!”
“Yes, I have a turn both for observation and for deduction.
The theories which I have expressed there, and which appear to you to be so
chimerical are really extremely practical—so practical that I depend upon them
for my bread and cheese.”
“And how?” I asked involuntarily.
“Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one
in the world. I’m a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is.
Here in London we have lots of Government detectives and lots of private ones.
When these fellows are at fault, they come to me, and I manage to put them on
the right scent. They lay all the evidence before me, and I am generally able,
by the help of my knowledge of the history of crime, to set them straight.
There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds, and if you have all the
details of a thousand at your finger ends, it is odd if you can’t unravel the
thousand and first. Lestrade is a well-known detective. He got himself into a
fog recently over a forgery case, and that was what brought him here.”
“And these other people?”
“They are mostly sent on by private inquiry agencies. They
are all people who are in trouble about something and want a little enlightening.
I listen to their story, they listen to my comments, and then I pocket my fee.”
“But do you mean to say,” I said, “that without leaving your
room you can unravel some knot which other men can make nothing of, although
they have seen every detail for themselves?”
“Quite so. I have a kind of intuition that way. Now and
again a case turns up which is a little more complex. Then I must bustle about
and see things with my own eyes. You see I have a lot of special knowledge
which I apply to the problem, and which facilitates matters wonderfully. Those
rules of deduction laid down in that article which aroused your scorn, are invaluable
to me in practical work. Observation with me is second nature. You appeared to
be surprised when I told you, on our first meeting, that you had come from
Afghanistan.”
“You were told, no doubt.”
“Nothing of the sort. I knew you came from Afghanistan. From
long habit the train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind, that I arrived
at the conclusion without being conscious of intermediate steps. There were
such steps, however. The train of reasoning ran, ‘Here is a gentleman of a
medical type, but with the air of a military man. Clearly an army doctor, then.
He has just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and that is not the natural
tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair. He has undergone hardship and
sickness, as his haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He
holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English
army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in
Afghanistan.’ The whole train of thought did not occupy a second. I then
remarked that you came from Afghanistan, and you were astonished.”
“It is simple enough as you explain it,” I said, smiling.
“You remind me of Edgar Allen Poe’s Duping. I had no idea that such individuals
did exist outside of stories.”
Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. “No doubt you think
that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Duping,” he observed. “Now, in
my opinion, Duping was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in
on his friends’ thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour’s
silence is very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt;
but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine.”
“Have you read Gaboriau’s works?” I asked. “Does Lecoq come
up to your idea of a detective?”
Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. “Lecoq was a miserable
bungler,” he said, in an angry voice; “he had only one thing to recommend him,
and that was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question was how
to identify an unknown prisoner. I could have done it in twenty-four hours.
Lecoq took six months or so. It might be made a text-book for detectives to teach
them what to avoid.”
I felt rather indignant at having two characters whom I had
admired treated in this cavalier style. I walked over to the window and stood
looking out into the busy street. “This fellow may be very clever,” I said to
myself, “but he is certainly very conceited.”
“There are no crimes and no criminals in these days,” he
said, querulously. “What is the use of having brains in our profession. I know
well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or has ever
lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the
detection of crime which I have done. And what is the result? There is no crime
to detect, or, at most, some bungling villainy with a motive so transparent
that even a Scotland Yard official can see through it.”
I was still annoyed at his bumptious style of conversation.
I thought it best to change the topic.
“I wonder what that fellow is looking for?” I asked,
pointing to a stalwart, plainly dressed individual who was walking slowly down
the other side of the street, looking anxiously at the numbers. He had a large
blue envelope in his hand and was evidently the bearer of a message.
“You mean the retired sergeant of Marines,” said Sherlock
Holmes.
“Brag and bounce!” thought I to myself. “He knows that I
cannot verify his guess.”
The thought had hardly passed through my mind when the man
whom we were watching caught sight of the number on our door and ran rapidly
across the roadway. We heard a loud knock, a deep voice below, and heavy steps
ascending the stair.
“For Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” he said, stepping into the room
and handing my friend the letter.
Here was an opportunity of taking the conceit out of him. He
little thought of this when he made that random shot. “May I ask, my lad,” I
said, in the blandest voice, “what your trade may be?”
“Commissionaire, sir,” he said, gruffly. “Uniform away for
repairs.”
“And you were?” I asked, with a slightly malicious glance at
my companion.
“A sergeant, sir, Royal Marine Light Infantry, sir. No
answer? Right, sir.”
He clicked his heels together, raised his hand in a salute,
and was gone.
CHAPTER III. THE LAURISTON GARDEN MYSTERY
I CONFESS that I was considerably startled by this fresh
proof of the practical nature of my companion’s theories. My respect for his powers
of analysis increased wondrously. There remained some lurking suspicion in my
mind, however, that the whole thing was a pre-arranged episode, intended to
dazzle me, though what earthly object he could have in taking me in was past my
comprehension. When I looked at him, he had finished reading the note, and his
eyes had assumed the vacant, lack-luster expression which showed mental
abstraction.
“How in the world did you deduce that?” I asked.
“Deduce what?” said he, petulantly.
“Why, that he was a retired sergeant of Marines.”
“I have no time for trifles,” he answered, brusquely; then
with a smile, “Excuse my rudeness. You broke the thread of my thoughts; but
perhaps it is as well. So, you actually were not able to see that that man was
a sergeant of Marines?”
“No, indeed.”
“It was easier to know it than to explain why I knew it. If
you were asked to prove that two and two made four, you might find some
difficulty, and yet you are quite sure of the fact. Even across the street I
could see a great blue anchor tattooed on the back of the fellow’s hand. That
smacked of the sea. He had a military carriage, however, and regulation side
whiskers. There we have the marine. He was a man with some amount of
self-importance and a certain air of command. You must have observed the way in
which he held his head and swung his cane. A steady, respectable, middle-aged
man, too, on the face of him—all facts which led me to believe that he had been
a sergeant.”
“Wonderful!” I ejaculated.
“Commonplace,” said Holmes, though I thought from his
expression that he was pleased at my evident surprise and admiration. “I said
just now that there were no criminals. It appears that I am wrong—look at
this!” He threw me over the note which the commissionaire had brought.
“Why,” I cried, as I cast my eye over it, “this is
terrible!”
“It does seem to be a little out of the common,” he
remarked, calmly. “Would you mind reading it to me aloud?”
This is the letter which I read to him——
“MY DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES, —
“There has been a bad business during the night at 3,
Lauriston Gardens, off the Brixton Road. Our man on the beat saw a light there
about two in the morning, and as the house was an empty one, suspected that
something was amiss. He found the door open, and in the front room, which is
bare of furniture, discovered the body of a gentleman, well dressed, and having
cards in his pocket bearing the name of ‘Enoch J. Drubber, Cleveland, Ohio,
U.S.A.’ There had been no robbery, nor is there any evidence as to how the man
met his death. There are marks of blood in the room, but there is no wound upon
his person. We are at a loss as to how he came into the empty house; indeed,
the whole affair is a puzzler. If you can come around to the house any time
before twelve, you will find me there. I have left everything in status quo
until I hear from you. If you are unable to come, I shall give you fuller
details, and would esteem it a great kindness if you would favor me with your
opinion. Yours faithfully,
“TOBIAS GREGSON.”
“Gregson is the smartest of the Scotland Yarders,” my friend
remarked; “he and Lestrade are the pick of a bad lot. They are both quick and
energetic, but conventional—shockingly so. They have their knives into one
another, too. They are as jealous as a pair of professional beauties. There
will be some fun over this case if they are both put upon the scent.”
I was amazed at the calm way in which he rippled on. “Surely
there is not a moment to be lost,” I cried, “shall I go and order you a cab?”
“I’m not sure about whether I shall go. I am the most
incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather—that is, when the fit is
on me, for I can be spry enough at times.”
“Why, it is just such a chance as you have been longing
for.”
“My dear fellow, what does it matter to me. Supposing I unravel
the whole matter, you may be sure that Gregson, Lestrade, and Co. will pocket
all the credit. That comes of being an unofficial personage.”
“But he begs you to help him.”
“Yes. He knows that I am his superior and acknowledges it to
me; but he would cut his tongue out before he would own it to any third person.
However, we may as well go and have a look. I shall work it out on my own hook.
I may have a laugh at them if I have nothing else. Come on!”
He hustled on his overcoat and bustled about in a way that
showed that an energetic fit had superseded the apathetic one.
“Get your hat,” he said.
“You wish me to come?”
“Yes, if you have nothing better to do.” A minute later we
were both in a handsome, driving furiously for the Brixton Road.
It was a foggy, cloudy morning, and a dun-colored veil hung
over the house-tops, looking like the reflection of the mud-colored streets
beneath. My companion was in the best of spirits, and prattled away about
Cremona fiddles, and the difference between a Stradivarius and an Amati. As for
myself, I was silent, for the dull weather and the melancholy business upon
which we were engaged, depressed my spirits.
“You don’t seem to give much thought to the matter in hand,”
I said at last, interrupting Holmes’ musical disquisition.
“No data yet,” he answered. “It is a capital mistake to
theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.”
“You will have your data soon,” I remarked, pointing with my
finger; “this is the Brixton Road, and that is the house, if I am not very much
mistaken.”
“So it is. Stop, driver, stop!” We were still a hundred
yards or so from it, but he insisted upon our alighting, and we finished our
journey upon foot.
Number 3, Lauriston Gardens wore an ill-omened and minatory
look. It was one of four which stood back some little way from the street, two
being occupied and two empties. The latter looked out with three tiers of
vacant melancholy windows, which were blank and dreary, save that here and
there a “To Let” card had developed like a cataract upon the bleared panes. A
small garden sprinkled over with a scattered eruption of sickly plants
separated each of these houses from the street, and was traversed by a narrow
pathway, yellowish in color, and consisting apparently of a mixture of clay and
of gravel. The whole place was very sloppy from the rain which had fallen
through the night. The garden was bounded by a three-foot brick wall with a
fringe of wood rails upon the top, and against this wall was leaning a stalwart
police constable, surrounded by a small knot of loafers, who craned their necks
and strained their eyes in the vain hope of catching some glimpse of the
proceedings within.
I had imagined that Sherlock Holmes would at once have
hurried into the house and plunged into a study of the mystery. Nothing
appeared to be further from his intention. With an air of nonchalance which,
under the circumstances, seemed to me to border upon affectation, he lounged up
and down the pavement, and gazed vacantly at the ground, the sky, the opposite
houses and the line of railings. Having finished his scrutiny, he proceeded
slowly down the path, or rather down the fringe of grass which flanked the
path, keeping his eyes riveted upon the ground. Twice he stopped, and once I
saw him smile, and heard him utter an exclamation of satisfaction. There were
many marks of footsteps upon the wet clayey soil, but since the police had been
coming and going over it, I was unable to see how my companion could hope to
learn anything from it. Still I had had such extraordinary evidence of the
quickness of his perceptive faculties, that I had no doubt that he could see a
great deal which was hidden from me.
At the door of the house we were met by a tall, white-faced,
flaxen-haired man, with a notebook in his hand, who rushed forward and wrung my
companion’s hand with effusion. “It is indeed kind of you to come,” he said, “I
have had everything left untouched.”
“Except that!” my friend answered, pointing at the pathway.
“If a herd of buffaloes had passed along there could not be a greater mess. No
doubt, however, you had drawn your own conclusions, Gregson, before you
permitted this.”
“I have had so much to do inside the house,” the detective
said evasively. “My colleague, Mr. Lestrade, is here. I had relied upon him to
look after this.”
Holmes glanced at me and raised his eyebrows sardonically.
“With two such men as yourself and Lestrade upon the ground, there will not be
much for a third party to find out,” he said.
Gregson rubbed his hands in a self-satisfied way. “I think
we have done all that can be done,” he answered; “it’s a queer case though, and
I knew your taste for such things.”
“You did not come here in a cab?” asked Sherlock Holmes.
“No, sir.”
“Nor Lestrade?”
“No, sir.”
“Then let us go and look at the room.” With which
inconsequent remark he strode on into the house, followed by Gregson, whose
features expressed his astonishment.
A short passage, bare planked and dusty, led to the kitchen
and offices. Two doors opened out of it to the left and to the right. One of
these had obviously been closed for many weeks. The other belonged to the
dining-room, which was the apartment in which the mysterious affair had
occurred. Holmes walked in, and I followed him with that subdued feeling at my
heart which the presence of death inspires.
It was a large square room, looking all the larger from the
absence of all furniture. A vulgar flaring paper adorned the walls, but it was
blotched in places with mildew, and here and there great strips had become
detached and hung down, exposing the yellow plaster beneath. Opposite the door
was a showy fireplace, surmounted by a mantelpiece of imitation white marble.
On one corner of this was stuck the stump of a red wax candle. The solitary
window was so dirty that the light was hazy and uncertain, giving a dull grey
tinge to everything, which was intensified by the thick layer of dust which
coated the whole apartment.
All these details I observed afterwards. At present my attention
was centered upon the single grim motionless figure which lay stretched upon
the boards, with vacant sightless eyes staring up at the discolored ceiling. It
was that of a man about forty-three or forty-four years of age, middle-sized,
broad shouldered, with crisp curling black hair, and a short stubbly beard. He
was dressed in a heavy broadcloth frock coat and waistcoat, with light-colored
trousers, and immaculate collar and cuffs. A top hat, well brushed and trim,
was placed upon the floor beside him. His hands were clenched, and his arms
thrown abroad, while his lower limbs were interlocked as though his death
struggle had been a grievous one. On his rigid face there stood an expression
of horror, and as it seemed to me, of hatred, such as I have never seen upon
human features. This malignant and terrible contortion, combined with the low
forehead, blunt nose, and prognathous jaw gave the dead man a singularly simians
and ape-like appearance, which was increased by his writhing, unnatural
posture. I have seen death in many forms, but never has it appeared to me in a
more fearsome aspect than in that dark grimy apartment, which looked out upon
one of the main arteries of suburban London.
Lestrade, lean and ferret-like as ever, was standing by the
doorway, and greeted my companion and myself.
“This case will make a stir, sir,” he remarked. “It beats
anything I have seen, and I am no chicken.”
“There is no clue?” said Gregson.
“None at all,” chimed in Lestrade.
Sherlock Holmes approached the body, and, kneeling, examined
it intently. “You are sure that there is no wound?” he asked, pointing to
numerous gouts and splashes of blood which lay all round.
“Positive!” cried both detectives.
“Then, of course, this blood belongs to a second individual—
presumably the murderer, if murder has been committed. It reminds me of the
circumstances attendant on the death of Van Jansen, in Utrecht, in the year
‘34. Do you remember the case, Gregson?”
“No, sir.”
“Read it up—you really should. There is nothing new under
the sun. It has all been done before.”
As he spoke, his nimble fingers were flying here, there, and
everywhere, feeling, pressing, unbuttoning, examining, while his eyes wore the
same far-away expression which I have already remarked upon. So swiftly was the
examination made, that one would hardly have guessed the minuteness with which
it was conducted. Finally, he sniffed the dead man’s lips, and then glanced at
the soles of his patent leather boots.
“He has not been moved at all?” he asked.
“No more than was necessary for the purposes of our
examination.”
“You can take him to the mortuary now,” he said. “There is
nothing more to be learned.”
Gregson had a stretcher and four men at hand. At his call
they entered the room, and the stranger was lifted and carried out. As they
raised him, a ring tinkled down and rolled across the floor. Lestrade grabbed
it up and stared at it with mystified eyes.
“There’s been a woman here,” he cried. “It’s a woman’s
wedding-ring.”
He held it out, as he spoke, upon the palm of his hand. We
all gathered round him and gazed at it. There could be no doubt that that
circlet of plain gold had once adorned the finger of a bride.
“This complicates matters,” said Gregson. “Heaven knows,
they were complicated enough before.”
“You’re sure it doesn’t simplify them?” observed Holmes.
“There’s nothing to be learned by staring at it. What did you find in his
pockets?”
“We have it all here,” said Gregson, pointing to a litter of
objects upon one of the bottom steps of the stairs. “A gold watch, No. 97163,
by Barraud, of London. Gold Albert chain, very heavy and solid. Gold ring, with
masonic device. Gold pin—bull-dog’s head, with rubies as eyes. Russian leather
card-case, with cards of Enoch J. Drubber of Cleveland, corresponding with the
E. J. D. upon the linen. No purse but lose money to the extent of seven pounds
thirteen. Pocket edition of Boccaccio’s ‘Decameron,’ with name of Joseph Stanger
son upon the flyleaf. Two letters—one addressed to E. J. Drubber and one to
Joseph Stanger son.”
“At what address?”
“American Exchange, Strand—to be left till called for. They are
both from the Guion Steamship Company and refer to the sailing of their boats
from Liverpool. This unfortunate man was about to return to New York.”
“Have you made any inquiries as to this man, Stanger son?”
“I did it at once, sir,” said Gregson. “I have had
advertisements sent to all the newspapers, and one of my men has gone to the
American Exchange, but he has not returned yet.”
“Have you sent to Cleveland?”
“We telegraphed this morning.”
“How did you word your inquiries?”
“We simply detailed the circumstances and said that we
should be glad of any information which could help us.”
“You did not ask for particulars on any point which appeared
to you to be crucial?”
“I asked about Stanger son.”
“Nothing else? Is there no circumstance on which this whole
case appears to hinge? Will you not telegraph again?”
“I have said all I have to say,” said Gregson, in an
offended voice.
Sherlock Holmes chuckled to himself, and appeared to be
about to make some remark, when Lestrade, who had been in the front room while
we were holding this conversation in the hall, reappeared upon the scene,
rubbing his hands in a pompous and self-satisfied manner.
“Mr. Gregson,” he said, “I have just made a discovery of the
highest importance, and one which would have been overlooked had I not made a
careful examination of the walls.”
The little man’s eyes sparkled as he spoke, and he was
evidently in a state of suppressed exultation at having scored a point against
his colleague.
“Come here,” he said, bustling back into the room, the
atmosphere of which felt clearer since the removal of its ghastly inmate. “Now,
stand there!”
He struck a match on his boot and held it up against the
wall.
“Look at that!” he said, triumphantly.
I have remarked that the paper had fallen away in parts. In
this corner of the room a large piece had peeled off, leaving a yellow square
of coarse plastering. Across this bare space there was scrawled in blood-red
letters a single word—
RACHE.
“What do you think of that?” cried the detective, with the
air of a showman exhibiting his show. “This was overlooked because it was in
the darkest corner of the room, and no one thought of looking there. The
murderer has written it with his or her own blood. See this smear where it has
trickled down the wall! That disposes of the idea of suicide anyhow. Why was
that corner chosen to write it on? I will tell you. See that candle on the
mantelpiece. It was lit at the time, and if it was lit this corner would be the
brightest instead of the darkest portion of the wall.”
“And what does it mean now that you have found it?” asked
Gregson in a depreciatory voice.
“Mean? Why, it means that the writer was going to put the
female name Rachel but was disturbed before he or she had time to finish. You
mark my words, when this case comes to be cleared up you will find that a woman
named Rachel has something to do with it. It’s all very well for you to laugh,
Mr. Sherlock Holmes. You may be very smart and clever, but the old hound is the
best, when all is said and done.”
“I really beg your pardon!” said my companion, who had
ruffled the little man’s temper by bursting into an explosion of laughter. “You
certainly have the credit of being the first of us to find this out, and, as
you say, it bears every mark of having been written by the other participant in
last night’s mystery. I have not had time to examine this room yet, but with
your permission I shall do so now.”
As he spoke, he whipped a tape measure and a large round
magnifying glass from his pocket. With these two implements he trotted
noiselessly about the room, sometimes stopping, occasionally kneeling, and once
lying flat upon his face. So engrossed was he with his occupation that he appeared
to have forgotten our presence, for he chattered away to himself under his
breath the whole time, keeping up a running fire of exclamations, groans,
whistles, and little cries suggestive of encouragement and of hope. As I
watched him, I was irresistibly reminded of a pure-blooded well-trained
foxhound as it dashes backwards and forwards through the covert, whining in its
eagerness, until it comes across the lost scent. For twenty minutes or more he
continued his researches, measuring with the most exact care the distance between
marks which were entirely invisible to me, and occasionally applying his tape
to the walls in an equally incomprehensible manner. In one place he gathered up
very carefully a little pile of grey dust from the floor and packed it away in
an envelope. Finally, he examined with his glass the word upon the wall, going
over every letter of it with the most minute exactness. This done, he appeared
to be satisfied, for he replaced his tape and his glass in his pocket.
“They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking
pains,” he remarked with a smile. “It’s a very bad definition, but it does
apply to detective work.”
Gregson and Lestrade had watched the maneuvers of their
amateur companion with considerable curiosity and some contempt. They evidently
failed to appreciate the fact, which I had begun to realize, that Sherlock
Holmes’ smallest actions were all directed towards some definite and practical
end.
“What do you think of it, sir?” they both asked.
“It would be robbing you of the credit of the case if I was
to presume to help you,” remarked my friend. “You are doing so well now that it
would be a pity for anyone to interfere.” There was a world of sarcasm in his
voice as he spoke. “If you will let me know how your investigations go,” he
continued, “I shall be happy to give you any help I can. In the meantime, I
should like to speak to the constable who found the body. Can you give me his
name and address?”
Lestrade glanced at his notebook. “John Ranse,” he said. “He
is off duty now. You will find him at 46, Audley Court, Kenning ton Park Gate.”
Holmes took a note of the address.
“Come along, Doctor,” he said; “we shall go and look him up.
I’ll tell you one thing which may help you in the case,” he continued, turning
to the two detectives. “There has been murder done, and the murderer was a man.
He was more than six feet high, was in the prime of life, had small feet for
his height, wore coarse, square-toed boots and smoked a Trichinopoly cigar. He
came here with his victim in a four-wheeled cab, which was drawn by a horse
with three old shoes and one new one on his off foreleg. In all probability the
murderer had a florid face, and the fingernails of his right hand were
remarkably long. These are only a few indications, but they may assist you.”
Lestrade and Gregson glanced at each other with an
incredulous smile.
“If this man was murdered, how was it done?” asked the
former.
“Poison,” said Sherlock Holmes curtly, and strode off. “One
other thing, Lestrade,” he added, turning around at the door: “‘Rache,’ is the
German for ‘revenge;’ so don’t lose your time looking for Miss Rachel.”
With which Parthian shot he walked away, leaving the two
rivals open-mouthed behind him.
CHAPTER IV. WHAT JOHN RANCE HAD TO TELL.
IT was one o’clock when we left No. 3, Lauriston Gardens.
Sherlock Holmes led me to the nearest telegraph office, whence he dispatched a
long telegram. He then hailed a cab and ordered the driver to take us to the
address given us by Lestrade.
“There is nothing like firsthand evidence,” he remarked; “as
a matter of fact, my mind is entirely made up upon the case, but still we may
as well learn all that is to be learned.”
“You amaze me, Holmes,” said I. “Surely you are not as sure
as you pretend to be of all those particulars which you gave.”
“There’s no room for a mistake,” he answered. “The very
first thing which I observed on arriving there was that a cab had made two ruts
with its wheels close to the curb. Now, up to last night, we have had no rain
for a week, so that those wheels which left such a deep impression must have
been there during the night. There were the marks of the horse’s hoofs, too,
the outline of one of which was far more clearly cut than that of the other
three, showing that that was a new shoe. Since the cab was there after the rain
began, and was not there at any time during the morning—I have Gregson’s word
for that—it follows that it must have been there during the night, and,
therefore, that it brought those two individuals to the house.”
“That seems simple enough,” said I; “but how about the other
man’s height?”
“Why, the height of a man, in nine cases out of ten, can be
told from the length of his stride. It is a simple calculation enough, though
there is no use my boring you with figures. I had this fellow’s stride both on
the clay outside and on the dust within. Then I had a way of checking my
calculation. When a man writes on a wall, his instinct leads him to write about
the level of his own eyes. Now that writing was just over six feet from the ground.
It was child’s play.”
“And his age?” I asked.
“Well, if a man can stride four and a-half feet without the
smallest effort, he can’t be quite in the sere and yellow. That was the breadth
of a puddle on the garden walk which he had evidently walked across.
Patent-leather boots had gone around, and Square-toes had hopped over. There is
no mystery about it at all. I am simply applying to ordinary life a few of
those precepts of observation and deduction which I advocated in that article.
Is there anything else that puzzles you?”
“The fingernails and the Trichinopoly,” I suggested.
“The writing on the wall was done with a man’s forefinger
dipped in blood. My glass allowed me to observe that the plaster was slightly
scratched in doing it, which would not have been the case if the man’s nail had
been trimmed. I gathered up some scattered ash from the floor. It was dark in color
and flakey—such an ash as is only made by a Trichinopoly. I have made a special
study of cigar ashes—in fact, I have written a monograph upon the subject. I
flatter myself that I can distinguish briefly the ash of any known brand,
either of cigar or of tobacco. It is just in such details that the skilled
detective differs from the Gregson and Lestrade type.”
“And the florid face?” I asked.
“Ah, that was a more daring shot, though I have no doubt that
I was right. You must not ask me that at the present state of the affair.”
I passed my hand over my brow. “My head is in a whirl,” I
remarked; “the more one thinks of it the more mysterious it grows. How came
these two men—if there were two men—into an empty house? What has become of the
cabman who drove them? How could one man compel another to take poison? Where
did the blood come from? What was the object of the murderer, since robbery had
no part in it? How came the woman’s ring there? Above all, why should the
second man write up the German word RACHE before decamping? I confess that I
cannot see any possible way of reconciling all these facts.”
My companion smiled approvingly.
“You sum up the difficulties of the situation succinctly and
well,” he said. “There is much that is still obscure, though I have quite made
up my mind on the main facts. As to poor Lestrade’s discovery it was simply a
blind intended to put the police upon a wrong track, by suggesting Socialism
and secret societies. It was not done by a German. The A, if you noticed, was
printed somewhat after the German fashion. Now, a real German invariably prints
in the Latin character, so that we may safely say that this was not written by
one, but by a clumsy imitator who overdid his part. It was simply a ruse to
divert inquiry into a wrong channel. I’m not going to tell you much more of the
case, Doctor. You know a conjuror gets no credit when once he has explained his
trick, and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the
conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.”
“I shall never do that,” I answered; “you have brought
detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.”
My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the
earnest way in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as
sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her
beauty.
“I’ll tell you one other thing,” he said. “Patent leathers
and Square-toes came in the same cab, and they walked down the pathway together
as friendly as possible—arm-in-arm, in all probability. When they got inside,
they walked up and down the room—or rather, Patent-leathers stood still while
Square-toes walked up and down. I could read all that in the dust; and I could
read that as he walked, he grew more and more excited. That is shown by the
increased length of his strides. He was talking all the while, and working
himself up, no doubt, into a fury. Then the tragedy occurred. I’ve told you all
I know myself now, for the rest is mere surmise and conjecture. We have a good
working basis, however, on which to start. We must hurry up, for I want to go
to Halle’s concert to hear Norman Neruda this afternoon.”
This conversation had occurred while our cab had been
threading its way through a long succession of dingy streets and dreary
by-ways. In the dingiest and dreariest of them our driver suddenly came to a
stand. “That’s Audley Court in there,” he said, pointing to a narrow slit in
the line of dead-colored brick. “You’ll find me here when you come back.”
Audley Court was not an attractive locality. The narrow
passage led us into a quadrangle paved with flags and lined by sordid
dwellings. We picked our way among groups of dirty children, and through lines
of discolored linen, until we came to Number 46, the door of which was
decorated with a small slip of brass on which the name Ranse was engraved. On
enquiry we found that the constable was in bed, and we were shown into a little
front parlor to await his coming.
He appeared presently, looking a little irritable at being
disturbed in his slumbers. “I made my report at the office,” he said.
Holmes took a half-sovereign from his pocket and played with
it pensively. “We thought that we should like to hear it all from your own
lips,” he said.
“I shall be most happy to tell you anything I can,” the
constable answered with his eyes upon the little golden disk.
“Just let us hear it all in your own way as it occurred.”
Ranse sat down on the horsehair sofa, and knitted his brows
as though determined not to omit anything in his narrative.
“I’ll tell it ye from the beginning,” he said. “My time is
from ten at night to six in the morning. At eleven there was a fight at the
‘White Hart’; but bar that all was quiet enough on the beat. At one o’clock it
began to rain, and I met Harry Marcher—him who has the Holland Grove beat—and
we stood together at the corner of Henrietta Street a-talking’. Presently—maybe
about two or a little after—I thought I would look round and see that all was
right down the Brixton Road. It was precious dirty and lonely. Not a soul did I
meet all the way down, though a cab or two went past me. I was a strolling’
down, thinking’ between us how uncommon handy a four of gin hot would be, when
suddenly the glint of a light caught my eye in the window of that same house.
Now, I knew that the two houses in Lauriston Gardens was empty on account of
him that owns them who won’t have the drains seen to, though the very last
tenant what lived in one of them died o’ typhoid fever. I was knocked all in a
heap therefore at seeing a light in the window, and I suspected as something
was wrong. When I got to the door——”
“You stopped, and then walked back to the garden gate,” my
companion interrupted. “What did you do that for?”
Ranse gave a violent jump and stared at Sherlock Holmes with
the utmost amazement upon his features.
“Why, that’s true, sir,” he said; “though how you come to
know it, Heaven only knows. Ye see, when I got up to the door it was so still
and so lonesome, that I thought I’d be none the worse for someone with me. I aren't
afeared of anything on this side o’ the grave; but I thought that maybe it was
him that died o’ the typhoid inspecting the drains what killed him. The thought
gave me a kind o’ turn, and I walked back to the gate to see if I could see Marcher's
lantern, but there wasn’t no sign of him nor of anyone else.”
“There was no one in the street?”
“Not a living’ soul, sir, nor as much as a dog. Then I
pulled myself together and went back and pushed the door open. All was quiet
inside, so I went into the room where the light was a-burning’. There was a
candle flickering’ on the mantelpiece—a red wax one—and by its light I saw——”
“Yes, I know all that you saw. You walked round the room several
times, and you knelt down by the body, and then you walked through and tried
the kitchen door, and then——”
John Ranse sprang to his feet with a frightened face and
suspicion in his eyes. “Where was you hid to see all that?” he cried. “It seems
to me that you know a deal more than you should.”
Holmes laughed and threw his card across the table to the
constable. “Don’t get arresting me for the murder,” he said. “I am one of the
hounds and not the wolf; Mr. Gregson or Mr. Lestrade will answer for that. Go
on, though. What did you do next?”
Ranse resumed his seat, without however losing his mystified
expression. “I went back to the gate and sounded my whistle. That brought Marcher
and two more to the spot.”
“Was the street empty then?”
“Well, it was, as far as anybody that could be of any good
goes.”
“What do you mean?”
The constable’s features broadened into a grin. “I’ve seen
many a drunk chap in my time,” he said, “but never anyone so crying’ drunk as
that cove. He was at the gate when I came out, a-leaning’ up again the
railings, and a-singing’ at the pitch o’ his lungs about Columbine’s
New-fangled Banner, or some such stuff. He couldn’t stand, far less help.”
“What sort of a man was he?” asked Sherlock Holmes.
John Ranse appeared to be somewhat irritated at this
digression. “He was an uncommon drunk sort o’ man,” he said. “He’d ha’ found himself
in the station if we hadn’t been so taking up.”
“His face—his dress—didn’t you notice them?” Holmes broke in
impatiently.
“I should think I did notice them, seeing that I had to prop
him up—me and Marcher between us. He was a long chap, with a red face, the
lower part muffled round——”
“That will do,” cried Holmes. “What became of him?”
“We’d enough to do without looking’ after him,” the
policeman said, in an aggrieved voice. “I’ll wager he found his way home all
right.”
“How was he dressed?”
“A brown overcoat.”
“Had he a whip in his hand?”
“A whip—no.”
“He must have left it behind,” muttered my companion. “You
didn’t happen to see or hear a cab after that?”
“No.”
“There’s a half-sovereign for you,” my companion said,
standing up and taking his hat. “I am afraid, Ranse, that you will never rise
in the force. That head of yours should be for use as well as ornament. You
might have gained your sergeant’s stripes last night. The man whom you held in
your hands is the man who holds the clue of this mystery, and whom we are
seeking. There is no use of arguing about it now; I tell you that it is so.
Come along, Doctor.”
We started off for the cab together, leaving our informant
incredulous, but obviously uncomfortable.
“The blundering fool,” Holmes said, bitterly, as we drove
back to our lodgings. “Just to think of his having such an incomparable bit of
good luck, and not taking advantage of it.”
“I am rather in the dark still. It is true that the
description of this man tallies with your idea of the second party in this
mystery. But why should he come back to the house after leaving it? That is not
the way of criminals.”
“The ring, man, the ring: that was what he came back for. If
we have no other way of catching him, we can always bait our line with the
ring. I shall have him, Doctor—I’ll lay you two to one that I have him. I must
thank you for it all. I might not have gone but for you, and so have missed the
finest study I ever came across: a study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn’t we use a
little art jargon. There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colorless
skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every
inch of it. And now for lunch, and then for Norman Neruda. Her attack and her
bowing are splendid. What’s that little thing of Chopin’s she plays so
magnificently: Tran-la-la-lira-lira-lay.”
Leaning back in the cab, this amateur bloodhound caroled
away like a lark while I meditated upon the many-sidedness of the human mind.
CHAPTER V. OUR ADVERTISEMENT BRINGS A VISITOR.
OUR morning’s exertions had been too much for my weak
health, and I was tired out in the afternoon. After Holmes’ departure for the
concert, I lay down upon the sofa and endeavored to get a couple of hours’ sleeps.
It was a useless attempt. My mind had been too much excited by all that had occurred,
and the strangest fancies and surmises crowded into it. Every time that I
closed my eyes I saw before me the distorted baboon-like countenance of the
murdered man. So sinister was the impression which that face had produced upon
me that I found it difficult to feel anything but gratitude for him who had
removed its owner from the world. If ever human features bespoke vice of the
most malignant type, they were certainly those of Enoch J. Drubber, of
Cleveland. Still I recognized that justice must be done, and that the depravity
of the victim was no condonement in the eyes of the law.
The more I thought of it the more extraordinary did my
companion’s hypothesis, that the man had been poisoned, appear. I remembered
how he had sniffed his lips and had no doubt that he had detected something
which had given rise to the idea. Then, again, if not poison, what had caused
the man’s death, since there was neither wound nor marks of strangulation? But,
on the other hand, whose blood was that which lay so thickly upon the floor?
There were no signs of a struggle, nor had the victim any weapon with which he
might have wounded an antagonist. If all these questions were unsolved, I felt
that sleep would be no easy matter, either for Holmes or myself. His quiet
self-confident manner convinced me that he had already formed a theory which
explained all the facts, though what it was I could not for an instant
conjecture.
He was very late in returning—so late, that I knew that the
concert could not have detained him all the time. Dinner was on the table
before he appeared.
“It was magnificent,” he said, as he took his seat. “Do you
remember what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing
and appreciating it existed among humans long before the power of speech was
arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are
vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its
childhood.”
“That’s rather a broad idea,” I remarked.
“One’s ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to
interpret Nature,” he answered. “What’s the matter? You’re not looking quite
yourself. This Brixton Road affair has upset you.”
“To tell the truth, it has,” I said. “I ought to be more
case-hardened after my Afghan experiences. I saw my own comrades hacked to
pieces at Meiland without losing my nerve.”
“I can understand. There is a mystery about this which stimulates
the imagination; where there is no imagination there is no horror. Have you
seen the evening paper?”
“No.”
“It gives a fairly good account of the affair. It does not
mention the fact that when the man was raised up, a woman’s wedding ring fell
upon the floor. It is just as well it does not.”
“Why?”
“Look at this advertisement,” he answered. “I had one sent
to every paper this morning immediately after the affair.”
He threw the paper across to me and I glanced at the place
indicated. It was the first announcement in the “Found” column. “In Brixton
Road, this morning,” it ran, “a plain gold wedding ring, found in the roadway
between the ‘White Hart’ Tavern and Holland Grove. Apply Dr. Watson, 221B,
Baker Street, between eight and nine this evening.”
“Excuse my using your name,” he said. “If I used my own some
of these dunderheads would recognize it and want to meddle in the affair.”
“That is all right,” I answered. “But supposing anyone
applies, I have no ring.”
“Oh yes, you have,” said he, handing me one. “This will do
very well. It is almost a facsimile.”
“And who do you expect will answer this advertisement.”
“Why, the man in the brown coat—our florid friend with the
square toes. If he does not come himself, he will send an accomplice.”
“Would he not consider it as too dangerous?”
“Not at all. If my view of the case is correct, and I have
every reason to believe that it is, this man would rather risk anything than
lose the ring. According to my notion he dropped it while stooping over Drubber's
body and did not miss it at the time. After leaving the house he discovered his
loss and hurried back, but found the police already in possession, owing to his
own folly in leaving the candle burning. He had to pretend to be drunk in order
to allay the suspicions which might have been aroused by his appearance at the
gate. Now put yourself in that man’s place. On thinking the matter over, it
must have occurred to him that it was possible that he had lost the ring in the
road after leaving the house. What would he do, then? He would eagerly look out
for the evening papers in the hope of seeing it among the articles found. His
eye, of course, would light upon this. He would be overjoyed. Why should he
fear a trap? There would be no reason in his eyes why the finding of the ring
should relate to the murder. He would come. He will come. You shall see him within
an hour?”
“And then?” I asked.
“Oh, you can leave me to deal with him then. Have you any
arms?”
“I have my old service revolver and a few cartridges.”
“You had better clean it and load it. He will be a desperate
man, and though I shall take him unawares, it is as well to be ready for
anything.”
I went to my bedroom and followed his advice. When I
returned with the pistol the table had been cleared, and Holmes was engaged in
his favorite occupation of scraping upon his violin.
“The plot thickens,” he said, as I entered; “I have just had
an answer to my American telegram. My view of the case is the correct one.”
“And that is?” I asked eagerly.
“My fiddle would be the better for new strings,” he
remarked. “Put your pistol in your pocket. When the fellow comes speak to him
in an ordinary way. Leave the rest to me. Don’t frighten him by looking at him
too hard.”
“It is eight o’clock now,” I said, glancing at my watch.
“Yes. He will probably be here in a few minutes. Open the
door slightly. That will do. Now put the key on the inside. Thank you! This is
a queer old book I picked up at a stall yesterday— ‘De Jure inter Genets’—published
in Latin at Liege in the Lowlands, in 1642. Charles’ head was still firm on his
shoulders when this little brown-backed volume was struck off.”
“Who is the printer?”
“Philippe de Cory, whoever he may have been. On the flyleaf,
in very faded ink, is written ‘Ex libris Glioma Whyte.’ I wonder who William
Whyte was. Some pragmatical seventeenth century lawyer, I suppose. His writing
has a legal twist about it. Here comes our man, I think.”
As he spoke there was a sharp ring at the bell. Sherlock
Holmes rose softly and moved his chair in the direction of the door. We heard
the servant pass along the hall, and the sharp click of the latch as she opened
it.
“Does Dr. Watson live here?” asked a clear but rather harsh
voice. We could not hear the servant’s reply, but the door closed, and someone
began to ascend the stairs. The footfall was an uncertain and shuffling one. A
look of surprise passed over the face of my companion as he listened to it. It
came slowly along the passage, and there was a feeble tap at the door.
“Come in,” I cried.
At my summons, instead of the man of violence whom we
expected, a very old and wrinkled woman hobbled into the apartment. She
appeared to be dazzled by the sudden blaze of light, and after dropping a
curtsey, she stood blinking at us with her bleared eyes and fumbling in her
pocket with nervous, shaky fingers. I glanced at my companion, and his face had
assumed such a disconsolate expression that it was all I could do to keep my
countenance.
The old crone drew out an evening paper and pointed at our
advertisement. “It’s this as has brought me, good gentlemen,” she said,
dropping another curtsey; “a gold wedding ring in the Brixton Road. It belongs
to my girl Sally, as was married only this time twelvemonth, which her husband
is steward aboard a Union boat, and what he’d say if he come ‘home and found
her without her ring is more than I can think, he being short enough at the best
o’ times, but more especially when he has the drink. If it please you, she went
to the circus last night along with——”
“Is that her ring?” I asked.
“The Lord be thanked!” cried the old woman; “Sally will be a
glad woman this night. That’s the ring.”
“And what may your address be?” I inquired, taking up a
pencil.
“13, Duncan Street, Houndsditch. A weary way from here.”
“The Brixton Road does not lie between any circus and
Houndsditch,” said Sherlock Holmes sharply.
The old woman faced round and looked keenly at him from her
little red-rimmed eyes. “The gentleman asked me for my address,” she said.
“Sally lives in lodgings at 3, Mayfield Place, Peckham.”
“And your name is——?”
“My name is Sawyer—hero's is Dennis, which Tom Dennis
married her—and a smart, clean lad, too, as long as he’s at sea, and no steward
in the company more thought of; but when on shore, what with the women and what
with liquor shops——”
“Here is your ring, Mrs. Sawyer,” I interrupted, in obedience
to a sign from my companion; “it clearly belongs to your daughter, and I am
glad to be able to restore it to the rightful owner.”
With many mumbled blessings and protestations of gratitude
the old crone packed it away in her pocket and shuffled off down the stairs.
Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet the moment that she was gone and rushed into
his room. He returned in a few seconds enveloped in an ulster and a cravat.
“I’ll follow her,” he said, hurriedly; “she must be an accomplice, and will lead
me to him. Wait up for me.” The hall door had hardly slammed behind our visitor
before Holmes had descended the stair. Looking through the window I could see
her walking feebly along the other side, while her pursuer dogged her some
little distance behind. “Either his whole theory is incorrect,” I thought to
myself, “or else he will be led now to the heart of the mystery.” There was no
need for him to ask me to wait up for him, for I felt that sleep was impossible
until I heard the result of his adventure.
It was close upon nine when he set out. I had no idea how
long he might be, but I sat stolidly puffing at my pipe and skipping over the
pages of Henri Merger's “Vie de Boehme.” Ten o’clock passed, and I heard the
footsteps of the maid as they pattered off to bed. Eleven, and the statelier
tread of the landlady passed my door, bound for the same destination. It was
close upon twelve before I heard the sharp sound of his latch key. The instant
he entered I saw by his face that he had not been successful. Amusement and
chagrin seemed to be struggling for the mastery, until the former suddenly
carried the day, and he burst into a hearty laugh.
“I wouldn’t have the Scotland Yarders know it for the world,”
he cried, dropping into his chair; “I have chaffed them so much that they would
never have let me hear the end of it. I can afford to laugh, because I know
that I will be even with them in the long run.”
“What is it then?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t mind telling a story against myself. That
creature had gone a little way when she began to limp and show every sign of
being foot sore. Presently she came to a halt and hailed a four-wheeler which
was passing. I managed to be close to her so as to hear the address, but I need
not have been so anxious, for she sang it out loud enough to be heard at the
other side of the street, ‘Drive to 13, Duncan Street, Houndsditch,’ she cried.
This begins to look genuine, I thought, and having seen her safely inside, I
perched myself behind. That’s an art which every detective should be an expert
at. Well, away we rattled, and never drew rein until we reached the street in
question. I hopped off before we came to the door, and strolled down the street
in an easy, lounging way. I saw the cab pull up. The driver jumped down, and I saw
him open the door and stand expectantly. Nothing came out though. When I
reached him, he was groping about frantically in the empty cab, and giving vent
to the finest assorted collection of oaths that ever I listened to. There was
no sign or trace of his passenger, and I fear it will be some time before he
gets his fare. On inquiring at Number 13 we found that the house belonged to a
respectable paperhanger, named Keswick, and that no one of the name either of
Sawyer or Dennis had ever been heard of there.”
“You don’t mean to say,” I cried, in amazement, “that that
tottering, feeble old woman was able to get out of the cab while it was in
motion, without either you or the driver seeing her?”
“Old woman be damned!” said Sherlock Holmes, sharply. “We
were the old women to be so taken in. It must have been a young man, and an
active one, too, besides being an incomparable actor. The get-up was
inimitable. He saw that he was followed, no doubt, and used this means of
giving me the slip. It shows that the man we are after is not as lonely as I
imagined he was but has friends who are ready to risk something for him. Now,
Doctor, you are looking done-up. Take my advice and turn in.”
I was certainly feeling very weary, so I obeyed his
injunction. I left Holmes seated in front of the smoldering fire, and long into
the watches of the night I heard the low, melancholy wailings of his violin,
and knew that he was still pondering over the strange problem which he had set himself
to unravel.
CHAPTER VI. TOBIAS GREGSON SHOWS WHAT HE CAN DO.
THE papers next day were full of the “Brixton Mystery,” as
they termed it. Each had a long account of the affair, and some had leaders
upon it in addition. There was some information in them which was new to me. I
still retain in my scrap-book numerous clippings and extracts bearing upon the
case. Here is a condensation of a few of them: —
The Daily Telegraph remarked that in the history of crime
there had seldom been a tragedy which presented stranger features. The German
name of the victim, the absence of all other motive, and the sinister
inscription on the wall, all pointed to its perpetration by political refugees
and revolutionists. The Socialists had many branches in America, and the
deceased had, no doubt, infringed their unwritten laws, and been tracked down
by them. After alluding airily to the Vehm Ericht, aqua Tofino, Carbonari, the
Marchioness de Brin Villiers, the Darwinian theory, the principles of Malthus,
and the Ratcliff Highway murders, the article concluded by admonishing the
Government and advocating a closer watch over foreigners in England.
The Standard commented upon the fact that lawless outrages
of the sort usually occurred under a Liberal Administration. They arose from
the unsettling of the minds of the masses, and the consequent weakening of all
authority. The deceased was an American gentleman who had been residing for
some weeks in the Metropolis. He had stayed at the boarding-house of Madame
Charpentier, in Torque Terrace, Camber well. He was accompanied in his travels
by his private secretary, Mr. Joseph Stanger son. The two bade adieu to their
landlady upon Tuesday, the 4th inst., and departed to Euston Station with the
avowed intention of catching the Liverpool express. They were afterwards seen
together upon the platform. Nothing more is known of them until Mr. Drubber's
body was, as recorded, discovered in an empty house in the Brixton Road, many
miles from Euston. How he came there, or how he met his fate, are questions
which are still involved in mystery. Nothing is known of the whereabouts of Stanger
son. We are glad to learn that Mr. Lestrade and Mr. Gregson, of Scotland Yard,
are both engaged upon the case, and it is confidently anticipated that these well-known
officers will speedily throw light upon the matter.
The Daily News observed that there was no doubt as to the
crime being a political one. The despotism and hatred of Liberalism which
animated the Continental Governments had had the effect of driving to our
shores several men who might have made excellent citizens were they not soured
by the recollection of all that they had undergone. Among these men there was a
stringent code of honor, any infringement of which was punished by death. Every
effort should be made to find the secretary, Stanger son, and to ascertain some
particulars of the habits of the deceased. A great step had been gained by the
discovery of the address of the house at which he had boarded—a result which
was entirely due to the acuteness and energy of Mr. Gregson of Scotland Yard.
Sherlock Holmes and I read these notices over together at
breakfast, and they appeared to afford him considerable amusement.
“I told you that, whatever happened, Lestrade and Gregson
would be sure to score.”
“That depends on how it turns out.”
“Oh, bless you, it doesn’t matter in the least. If the man
is caught, it will be on account of their exertions; if he escapes, it will be despite
their exertions. It’s heads I win and tails you lose. Whatever they do, they
will have followers. ‘Un sot trouve
toujours un plus sot qui l’admire.’”
“What on earth is this?” I cried, for at this moment there
came the pattering of many steps in the hall and on the stairs, accompanied by
audible expressions of disgust upon the part of our landlady.
“It’s the Baker Street division of the detective police
force,” said my companion, gravely; and as he spoke there rushed into the room
half a dozen of the dirtiest and most ragged street Arabs that ever I clapped
eyes on.
“‘Tension!” cried Holmes, in a sharp tone, and the six dirty
little scoundrels stood in a line like so many disreputable statuettes. “In
future you shall send up Wiggins alone to report, and the rest of you must wait
in the street. Have you found it, Wiggins?”
“No, sir, we hadn't,” said one of the youths.
“I hardly expected you would. You must keep on until you do.
Here are your wages.” He handed each of them a shilling.
“Now, off you go, and come back with a better report next
time.”
He waved his hand, and they scampered away downstairs like
so many rats, and we heard their shrill voices next moment in the street.
“There’s more work to be got out of one of those little beggars
than out of a dozen of the force,” Holmes remarked. “The mere sight of an
official-looking person seals men’s lips. These youngsters, however, go
everywhere and hear everything. They are as sharp as needles, too; all they
want is organization.”
“Is it on this Brixton case that you are employing them?” I
asked.
“Yes; there is a point which I wish to ascertain. It is
merely a matter of time. Hullo! we are going to hear some news now with a
vengeance! Here is Gregson coming down the road with beatitude written upon
every feature of his face. Bound for us, I know. Yes, he is stopping. There he
is!”
There was a violent peal at the bell, and in a few seconds
the fair-haired detective came up the stairs, three steps at a time, and burst
into our sitting-room.
“My dear fellow,” he cried, wringing Holmes’ unresponsive
hand, “congratulate me! I have made the whole thing as clear as day.”
A shade of anxiety seemed to me to cross my companion’s
expressive face.
“Do you mean that you are on the right track?” he asked.
“The right track! Why, sir, we have the man under lock and
key.”
“And his name is?”
“Arthur Charpentier, sub-lieutenant in Her Majesty’s navy,”
cried Gregson, pompously, rubbing his fat hands and inflating his chest.
Sherlock Holmes gave a sigh of relief and relaxed into a
smile.
“Take a seat, and try one of these cigars,” he said. “We are
anxious to know how you managed it. Will you have some whiskey and water?”
“I don’t mind if I do,” the detective answered. “The
tremendous exertions which I have gone through during the last day or two have
worn me out. Not so much bodily exertion, you understand, as the strain upon
the mind. You will appreciate that, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, for we are both
brain-workers.”
“You do me too much honor,” said Holmes, gravely. “Let us
hear how you arrived at this most gratifying result.”
The detective seated himself in the armchair and puffed
complacently at his cigar. Then suddenly he slapped his thigh in a paroxysm of
amusement.
“The fun of it is,” he cried, “that that fool Lestrade, who
thinks himself so smart, has gone off upon the wrong track altogether. He is after
the secretary Stanger son, who had no more to do with the crime than the babe
unborn. I have no doubt that he has caught him by this time.”
The idea tickled Gregson so much that he laughed until he
choked.
“And how did you get your clue?”
“Ah, I’ll tell you all about it. Of course, Doctor Watson,
this is strictly between us. The first difficulty which we had to contend with
was the finding of this American’s antecedents. Some people would have waited
until their advertisements were answered, or until parties came forward and
volunteered information. That is not Tobias Gregson’s way of going to work. You
remember the hat beside the dead man?”
“Yes,” said Holmes; “by John Underwood and Sons, 129, Camber
well Road.”
Gregson looked quite crest fallen.
“I had no idea that you noticed that,” he said. “Have you
been there?”
“No.”
“Ha!” cried Gregson, in a relieved voice; “you should never
neglect a chance, however small it may seem.”
“To a great mind, nothing is little,” remarked Holmes,
sententiously.
“Well, I went to Underwood, and asked him if he had sold a
hat of that size and description. He looked over his books and came on it at
once. He had sent the hat to a Mr. Drubber, residing at Charpentier’s Boarding
Establishment, Torque Terrace. Thus, I got at his address.”
“Smart—very smart!” murmured Sherlock Holmes.
“I next called upon Madame Charpentier,” continued the
detective. “I found her very pale and distressed. Her daughter was in the room,
too—an uncommonly fine girl she is, too; she was looking red about the eyes and
her lips trembled as I spoke to her. That didn’t escape my notice. I began to
smell a rat. You know the feeling, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, when you come upon the
right scent—a kind of thrill in your nerves. ‘Have you heard of the mysterious
death of your late boarder Mr. Enoch J. Drubber, of Cleveland?’ I asked.
“The mother nodded. She didn’t seem able to get out a word.
The daughter burst into tears. I felt more than ever that these people knew
something of the matter.
“‘At what o’clock did Mr. Drubber leave your house for the
train?’ I asked.
“‘At eight o’clock,’ she said, gulping in her throat to keep
down her agitation. ‘His secretary, Mr. Stanger son, said that there were two
trains—one at 9.15 and one at 11. He was to catch the first.
“‘And was that the last which you saw of him?’
“A terrible change came over the woman’s face as I asked the
question. Her features turned perfectly livid. It was some seconds before she
could get out the single word ‘Yes’—and when it did come it was in a husky
unnatural tone.
“There was silence for a moment, and then the daughter spoke
in a calm clear voice.
“‘No good can ever come of falsehood, mother,’ she said.
‘Let us be frank with this gentleman. We did see Mr. Drubber again.’
“‘God forgive you!’ cried Madame Charpentier, throwing up
her hands and sinking back in her chair. ‘You have murdered your brother.’
“‘Arthur would rather that we spoke the truth,’ the girl
answered firmly.
“‘You had best tell me all about it now,’ I said. ‘Half-confidences
are worse than none. Besides, you do not know how much we know of it.’
“‘On your head be it, Alice!’ cried her mother; and then,
turning to me, ‘I will tell you all, sir. Do not imagine that my agitation on
behalf of my son arises from any fear lest he should have had a hand in this
terrible affair. He is utterly innocent of it. My dread is, however, that in
your eyes and in the eyes of others he may appear to be compromised. That
however is surely impossible. His high character, his profession, his
antecedents would all forbid it.’
“‘Your best way is to make a clean breast of the facts,’ I
answered. ‘Depend upon it, if your son is innocent, he will be none the worse.’
“‘Perhaps, Alice, you had better leave us together,’ she
said, and her daughter withdrew. ‘Now, sir,’ she continued, ‘I had no intention
of telling you all this, but since my poor daughter has disclosed it, I have no
alternative. Having once decided to speak, I will tell you all without omitting
any particular.’
“‘It is your wisest course,’ said I.
“‘Mr. Drubber has been with us nearly three weeks. He and
his secretary, Mr. Stanger son, had been travelling on the Continent. I noticed
a “Copenhagen” label upon each of their trunks, showing that that had been
their last stopping place. Stanger son was a quiet reserved man, but his
employer, I am sorry to say, was far otherwise. He was coarse in his habits and
brutish in his ways. The very night of his arrival he became very much the
worse for drink, and, indeed, after twelve o’clock in the day he could hardly
ever be said to be sober. His manners towards the maidservants were
disgustingly free and familiar. Worst of all, he speedily assumed the same
attitude towards my daughter, Alice, and spoke to her more than once in a way
which, fortunately, she is too innocent to understand. On one occasion he
actually seized her in his arms and embraced her—an outrage which caused his
own secretary to reproach him for his unmanly conduct.’
“‘But why did you stand all this,’ I asked. ‘I suppose that you
can get rid of your boarders when you wish.’
“Mrs. Charpentier blushed at my pertinent question. ‘Would
to God that I had given him notice on the very day that he came,’ she said.
‘But it was a sore temptation. They were paying a pound a day each—fourteen
pounds a week, and this is the slack season. I am a widow, and my boy in the
Navy has cost me much. I grudged to lose the money. I acted for the best. This
last was too much, however, and I gave him notice to leave on account of it.
That was the reason of his going.’
“‘Well?’
“‘My heart grew light when I saw him drive away. My son is
on leave just now, but I did not tell him anything of all this, for his temper
is violent, and he is passionately fond of his sister. When I closed the door
behind them a load seemed to be lifted from my mind. Alas, in less than an hour
there was a ring at the bell, and I learned that Mr. Drubber had returned. He
was much excited, and evidently the worse for drink. He forced his way into the
room, where I was sitting with my daughter, and made some incoherent remark
about having missed his train. He then turned to Alice, and before my very
face, proposed to her that she should fly with him. “You are of age,” he said,
“and there is no law to stop you. I have money enough and to spare. Never mind
the old girl here but come along with me now straight away. You shall live like
a princess.” Poor Alice was so frightened that she shrunk away from him, but he
caught her by the wrist and endeavored to draw her towards the door. I screamed,
and at that moment my son Arthur came into the room. What happened then I do
not know? I heard oaths and the confused sounds of a scuffle. I was too
terrified to raise my head. When I did look up, I saw Arthur standing in the
doorway laughing, with a stick in his hand. “I don’t think that fine fellow
will trouble us again,” he said. “I will just go after him and see what he does
with himself.” With those words he took his hat and started off down the
street. The next morning, we heard of Mr. Drubber's mysterious death.’
“This statement came from Mrs. Charpentier’s lips with many
gasps and pauses. At times she spoke so low that I could hardly catch the
words. I made shorthand notes of all that she said, however, so that there
should be no possibility of a mistake.”
“It’s quite exciting,” said Sherlock Holmes, with a yawn.
“What happened next?”
“When Mrs. Charpentier paused,” the detective continued, “I
saw that the whole case hung upon one point. Fixing her with my eye in a way
which I always found effective with women, I asked her at what hour her son
returned.
“‘I do not know,’ she answered.
“‘Not know?’
“‘No; he has a latch-key, and he let himself in.’
“‘After you went to bed?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘When did you go to bed?’
“‘About eleven.’
“‘So, your son was gone at least two hours?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘Possibly four or five?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘What was he doing during that time?’
“‘I do not know,’ she answered, turning white to her very
lips.
“Of course, after that there was nothing more to be done. I
found out where Lieutenant Charpentier was, took two officers with me, and
arrested him. When I touched him on the shoulder and warned him to come quietly
with us, he answered us as bold as brass, ‘I suppose you are arresting me for
being concerned in the death of that scoundrel Drubber,’ he said. We had said
nothing to him about it, so that his alluding to it had a most suspicious
aspect.”
“Very,” said Holmes.
“He still carried the heavy stick which the mother described
him as having with him when he followed Drubber. It was a stout oak cudgel.”
“What is your theory, then?”
“Well, my theory is that he followed Drubber as far as the
Brixton Road. When there, a fresh altercation arose between them, in the course
of which Drubber received a blow from the stick, in the pit of the stomach,
perhaps, which killed him without leaving any mark. The night was so wet that
no one was about, so Charpentier dragged the body of his victim into the empty
house. As to the candle, and the blood, and the writing on the wall, and the ring,
they may all be so many tricks to throw the police on to the wrong scent.”
“Well done!” said Holmes in an encouraging voice. “Really,
Gregson, you are getting along. We shall make something of you yet.”
“I flatter myself that I have managed it rather neatly,” the
detective answered proudly. “The young man volunteered a statement, in which he
said that after following Drubber some time, the latter perceived him, and took
a cab in order to get away from him. On his way home he met an old shipmate and
took a long walk with him. On being asked where this old shipmate lived, he was
unable to give any satisfactory reply. I think the whole case fits together
uncommonly well. What amuses me is to think of Lestrade, who had started off
upon the wrong scent. I am afraid he won’t make much of Why, by Jove, here’s the
very man himself!”
It was indeed Lestrade, who had ascended the stairs while we
were talking, and who now entered the room. The assurance and jauntiness which
generally marked his demeanor and dress were, however, wanting. His face was
disturbed and troubled, while his clothes were disarranged and untidy. He had
evidently come with the intention of consulting with Sherlock Holmes, for on
perceiving his colleague he appeared to be embarrassed and put out. He stood in
the center of the room, fumbling nervously with his hat and uncertain what to
do. “This is a most extraordinary case,” he said at last— “a most
incomprehensible affair.”
“Ah, you find it so, Mr. Lestrade!” cried Gregson,
triumphantly. “I thought you would come to that conclusion. Have you managed to
find the Secretary, Mr. Joseph Stanger son?”
“The Secretary, Mr. Joseph Stanger son,” said Lestrade
gravely, “was murdered at Halliday’s Private Hotel about six o’clock this
morning.”
CHAPTER VII. LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS.
THE intelligence with which Lestrade greeted us was so
momentous and so unexpected, that we were all three fairly dumfoundered.
Gregson sprang out of his chair and upset the remainder of his whiskey and
water. I stared in silence at Sherlock Holmes, whose lips were compressed, and
his brows drawn down over his eyes.
“Stanger son too!” he muttered. “The plot thickens.”
“It was quite thick enough before,” grumbled Lestrade,
taking a chair. “I seem to have dropped into a sort of council of war.”
“Are you—are you sure of this piece of intelligence?”
stammered Gregson.
“I have just come from his room,” said Lestrade. “I was the
first to discover what had occurred.”
“We have been hearing Gregson’s view of the matter,” Holmes observed.
“Would you mind letting us know what you have seen and done?”
“I have no objection,” Lestrade answered, seating himself.
“I freely confess that I believed Stanger son was concerned in the death of Drubber.
This fresh development has shown me that I was completely mistaken. Full of the
one idea, I set myself to find out what had become of the Secretary. They had
been seen together at Euston Station about half-past eight on the evening of
the third. At two in the morning Drubber had been found in the Brixton Road.
The question which confronted me was to find out how Stanger son had been
employed between 8.30 and the time of the crime, and what had become of him
afterwards. I telegraphed to Liverpool, giving a description of the man, and
warning them to keep a watch upon the American boats. I then set to work calling
upon all the hotels and lodging-houses in the vicinity of Euston. You see, I
argued that if Drubber and his companion had become separated, the natural
course for the latter would be to put up somewhere in the vicinity for the
night, and then to hang about the station again next morning.”
“They would be likely to agree on some meeting-place
beforehand,” remarked Holmes.
“So, it proved. I spent the whole of yesterday evening in
making enquiries entirely without avail. This morning I began very early, and at
eight o’clock I reached Halliday’s Private Hotel, in Little George Street. On
my enquiry as to whether a Mr. Stanger son was living there, they at once
answered me in the affirmative.
“‘No doubt you are the gentleman whom he was expecting,’
they said. ‘He has been waiting for a gentleman for two days.’
“‘Where is he now?’ I asked.
“‘He is upstairs in bed. He wished to be called at nine.’
“‘I will go up and see him at once,’ I said.
“It seemed to me that my sudden appearance might shake his
nerves and lead him to say something unguarded. The Boots volunteered to show
me the room: it was on the second floor, and there was a small corridor leading
up to it. The Boots pointed out the door to me and was about to go downstairs
again when I saw something that made me feel sickish, despite my twenty years’
experience. From under the door there curled a little red ribbon of blood,
which had meandered across the passage and formed a little pool along the
skirting at the other side. I gave a cry, which brought the Boots back. He
nearly fainted when he saw it. The door was locked on the inside, but we put
our shoulders to it, and knocked it in. The window of the room was open, and beside
the window, all huddled up, lay the body of a man in his nightdress. He was quite
dead, and had been for some time, for his limbs were rigid and cold. When we
turned him over, the Boots recognized him at once as being the same gentleman
who had engaged the room under the name of Joseph Stanger son. The cause of
death was a deep stab in the left side, which must have penetrated the heart.
And now comes the strangest part of the affair. What do you suppose was above
the murdered man?”
I felt a creeping of the flesh, and a presentiment of coming
horror, even before Sherlock Holmes answered.
“The word RACHE, written in letters of blood,” he said.
“That was it,” said Lestrade, in an awe-struck voice; and we
were all silent for a while.
There was something so methodical and so incomprehensible
about the deeds of this unknown assassin, that it imparted a fresh ghastliness
to his crimes. My nerves, which were steady enough on the field of battle
tingled as I thought of it.
“The man was seen,” continued Lestrade. “A milk boy, passing
on his way to the dairy, happened to walk down the lane which leads from the
mews at the back of the hotel. He noticed that a ladder, which usually lay
there, was raised against one of the windows of the second floor, which was wide
open. After passing, he looked back and saw a man descend the ladder. He came
down so quietly and openly that the boy imagined him to be some carpenter or
joiner at work in the hotel. He took no notice of him, beyond thinking in his
own mind that it was early for him to be at work. He has an impression that the
man was tall, had a reddish face, and was dressed in a long, brownish coat. He
must have stayed in the room some little time after the murder, for we found
blood-stained water in the basin, where he had washed his hands, and marks on
the sheets where he had deliberately wiped his knife.”
I glanced at Holmes on hearing the description of the
murderer, which tallied so exactly with his own. There was, however, no trace
of exultation or satisfaction upon his face.
“Did you find nothing in the room which could furnish a clue
to the murderer?” he asked.
“Nothing. Stanger son had Drubber's purse in his pocket, but
it seems that this was usual, as he did all the paying. There was eighty odd pounds
in it, but nothing had been taken. Whatever the motives of these extraordinary
crimes, robbery is certainly not one of them. There were no papers or memoranda
in the murdered man’s pocket, except a single telegram, dated from Cleveland
about a month ago, and containing the words, ‘J. H. is in Europe.’ There was no
name appended to this message.”
“And there was nothing else?” Holmes asked.
“Nothing of any importance. The man’s novel, with which he
had read himself to sleep was lying upon the bed, and his pipe was on a chair
beside him. There was a glass of water on the table, and on the window-sill a small
chip ointment box containing a couple of pills.”
Sherlock Holmes sprang from his chair with an exclamation of
delight.
“The last link,” he cried, exultantly. “My case is
complete.”
The two detectives stared at him in amazement.
“I have now in my hands,” my companion said, confidently,
“all the threads which have formed such a tangle. There are, of course, details
to be filled in, but I am as certain of all the main facts, from the time that Drubber
parted from Stanger son at the station, up to the discovery of the body of the
latter, as if I had seen them with my own eyes. I will give you a proof of my
knowledge. Could you lay your hand upon those pills?”
“I have them,” said Lestrade, producing a small white box;
“I took them and the purse and the telegram, intending to have them put in a
place of safety at the Police Station. It was the merest chance my taking these
pills, for I am bound to say that I do not attach any importance to them.”
“Give them here,” said Holmes. “Now, Doctor,” turning to me,
“are those ordinary pills?”
They certainly were not. They were of a pearly grey color,
small, round, and almost transparent against the light. “From their lightness
and transparency, I should imagine that they are soluble in water,” I remarked.
“Precisely so,” answered Holmes. “Now would you mind going
down and fetching that poor little devil of a terrier which has been bad so
long, and which the landlady wanted you to put out of its pain yesterday.”
I went downstairs and carried the dog upstairs in my arms. It’s
labored breathing and glazing eye showed that it was not far from its end.
Indeed, its snow-white muzzle proclaimed that it had already exceeded the usual
term of canine existence. I placed it upon a cushion on the rug.
“I will now cut one of these pills in two,” said Holmes, and
drawing his penknife he suited the action to the word. “One half we return into
the box for future purposes. The other half I will place in this wine glass, in
which is a teaspoonful of water. You perceive that our friend, the Doctor, is
right, and that it readily dissolves.”
“This may be very interesting,” said Lestrade, in the
injured tone of one who suspects that he is being laughed at, “I cannot see,
however, what it has to do with the death of Mr. Joseph Stanger son.”
“Patience, my friend, patience! You will find in time that
it has everything to do with it. I shall now add a little milk to make the
mixture palatable, and on presenting it to the dog we find that he laps it up
readily enough.”
As he spoke, he turned the contents of the wine glass into a
saucer and placed it in front of the terrier, who speedily licked it dry.
Sherlock Holmes’ earnest demeanor had so far convinced us that we all sat in
silence, watching the animal intently, and expecting some startling effect. None
such appeared, however. The dog continued to lie stretched upon the cushion,
breathing in a labored way, but apparently neither the better nor the worse for
its draught.
Holmes had taken out his watch, and as minute followed
minute without result, an expression of the utmost chagrin and disappointment
appeared upon his features. He gnawed his lip, drummed his fingers upon the
table, and showed every other symptom of acute impatience. So great was his
emotion, that I felt sincerely sorry for him, while the two detectives smiled
derisively, by no means displeased at this check which he had met.
“It can’t be a coincidence,” he cried, at last springing
from his chair and pacing wildly up and down the room; “it is impossible that
it should be a mere coincidence. The very pills which I suspected in the case
of Drubber are found after the death of Stanger son. And yet they are inert.
What can it mean? Surely my whole chain of reasoning cannot have been false. It
is impossible! And yet this wretched dog is none the worse. Ah, I have it! I
have it!” With a perfect shriek of delight, he rushed to the box, cut the other
pill in two, dissolved it, added milk, and presented it to the terrier. The
unfortunate creature’s tongue seemed hardly to have been moistened in it before
it gave a convulsive shiver in every limb and lay as rigid and lifeless as if
it had been struck by lightning.
Sherlock Holmes drew a long breath and wiped the
perspiration from his forehead. “I should have more faith,” he said; “I ought
to know by this time that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of
deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other
interpretation. Of the two pills in that box one was of the deadliest poison,
and the other was entirely harmless. I ought to have known that before ever I
saw the box at all.”
This last statement appeared to me to be so startling, that
I could hardly believe that he was in his sober senses. There was the dead dog,
however, to prove that his conjecture had been correct. It seemed to me that
the mists in my own mind were gradually clearing away, and I began to have a
dim, vague perception of the truth.
“All this seems strange to you,” continued Holmes, “because
you failed at the beginning of the inquiry to grasp the importance of the
single real clue which was presented to you. I had the good fortune to seize
upon that, and everything which has occurred since then has served to confirm
my original supposition, and, indeed, was the logical sequence of it. Hence
things which have perplexed you and made the case more obscure, have served to
enlighten me and to strengthen my conclusions. It is a mistake to confound
strangeness with mystery. The most commonplace crime is often the most
mysterious because it presents no new or special features from which deductions
may be drawn. This murder would have been infinitely more difficult to unravel
had the body of the victim been simply found lying in the roadway without any
of those outré and sensational accompaniments which have rendered it
remarkable. These strange details, far from making the case more difficult,
have really had the effect of making it less so.”
Mr. Gregson, who had listened to this address with
considerable impatience, could contain himself no longer. “Look here, Mr. Sherlock
Holmes,” he said, “we are all ready to acknowledge that you are a smart man,
and that you have your own methods of working. We want something more than mere
theory and preaching now, though. It is a case of taking the man. I have made
my case out, and it seems I was wrong. Young Charpentier could not have been
engaged in this second affair. Lestrade went after his man, Stanger son, and it
appears that he was wrong too. You have thrown out hints here, and hints there,
and seem to know more than we do, but the time has come when we feel that we
have a right to ask you straight how much you do know of the business. Can you
name the man who did it?”
“I cannot help feeling that Gregson is right, sir,” remarked
Lestrade. “We have both tried, and we have both failed. You have remarked more
than once since I have been in the room that you had all the evidence which you
require. Surely you will not withhold it any longer.”
“Any delay in arresting the assassin,” I observed, “might
give him time to perpetrate some fresh atrocity.”
Thus, pressed by us all, Holmes showed signs of
irresolution. He continued to walk up and down the room with his head sunk on
his chest and his brows drawn down, as was his habit when lost in thought.
“There will be no more murders,” he said at last, stopping
abruptly and facing us. “You can put that consideration out of the question.
You have asked me if I know the name of the assassin. I do. The mere knowing of
his name is a small thing, however, compared with the power of laying our hands
upon him. This I expect very shortly to do. I have good hopes of managing it
through my own arrangements; but it is a thing which needs delicate handling,
for we have a shrewd and desperate man to deal with, who is supported, as I
have had occasion to prove, by another who is as clever as himself. As long as
this man has no idea that anyone can have a clue there is some chance of
securing him; but if he had the slightest suspicion, he would change his name,
and vanish in an instant among the four million inhabitants of this great city.
Without meaning to hurt either of your feelings, I am bound to say that I
consider these men to be more than a match for the official force, and that is
why I have not asked your assistance. If I fail I shall, of course, incur all
the blame due to this omission; but that I am prepared for. At present I am
ready to promise that the instant that I can communicate with you without
endangering my own combinations, I shall do so.”
Gregson and Lestrade seemed to be far from satisfied by this
assurance, or by the depreciating allusion to the detective police. The former
had flushed up to the roots of his flaxen hair, while the other’s beady eyes
glistened with curiosity and resentment. Neither of them had time to speak,
however, before there was a tap at the door, and the spokesman of the street
Arabs, young Wiggins, introduced his insignificant and unsavory person.
“Please, sir,” he said, touching his forelock, “I have the
cab downstairs.”
“Good boy,” said Holmes, blandly. “Why don’t you introduce
this pattern at Scotland Yard?” he continued, taking a pair of steel handcuffs
from a drawer. “See how beautifully the spring works. They fasten in an
instant.”
“The old pattern is good enough,” remarked Lestrade, “if we
can only find the man to put them on.”
“Very good, very good,” said Holmes, smiling. “The cabman
may as well help me with my boxes. Just ask him to step up, Wiggins.”
I was surprised to find my companion speaking as though he
were about to set out on a journey, since he had not said anything to me about
it. There was a small portmanteau in the room, and this he pulled out and began
to strap. He was busily engaged at it when the cabman entered the room.
“Just give me a help with this buckle, cabman,” he said,
kneeling over his task, and never turning his head.
The fellow came forward with a somewhat sullen, defiant air,
and put down his hands to assist. At that instant there was a sharp click, the
jangling of metal, and Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet again.
“Gentlemen,” he cried, with flashing eyes, “let me introduce
you to Mr. Jefferson Hope, the murderer of Enoch Drubber and of Joseph Stanger
son.”
The whole thing occurred in a moment—so quickly that I had
no time to realize it. I have a vivid recollection of that instant, of Holmes’
triumphant expression and the ring of his voice, of the cabman’s dazed, savage
face, as he glared at the glittering handcuffs, which had appeared as if by
magic upon his wrists. For a second or two we might have been a group of
statues. Then, with an inarticulate roar of fury, the prisoner wrenched himself
free from Holmes’s grasp, and hurled himself through the window. Woodwork and
glass gave way before him; but before he got quite through, Gregson, Lestrade,
and Holmes sprang upon him like so many staghounds. He was dragged back into
the room, and then commenced a terrific conflict. So powerful and so fierce was
he, that the four of us were shaken off again and again. He appeared to have
the convulsive strength of a man in an epileptic fit. His face and hands were
terribly mangled by his passage through the glass, but loss of blood had no
effect in diminishing his resistance. It was not until Lestrade succeeded in
getting his hand inside his neckcloth and half-strangling him that we made him realize
that his struggles were of no avail; and even then we felt no security until we
had pinioned his feet as well as his hands. That done, we rose to our feet
breathless and panting.
“We have his cab,” said Sherlock Holmes. “It will serve to
take him to Scotland Yard. And now, gentlemen,” he continued, with a pleasant
smile, “we have reached the end of our little mystery. You are very welcome to
put any questions that you like to me now, and there is no danger that I will
refuse to answer them.”
CHAPTER I. ON THE GREAT ALKALI PLAIN.
IN the central portion of the great North American Continent
there lies an arid and repulsive desert, which for many a long year served as a
barrier against the advance of civilization. From the Sierra Nevada to
Nebraska, and from the Yellowstone River in the north to the Colorado upon the
south, is a region of desolation and silence. Nor is Nature always in one mood
throughout this grim district. It comprises snow-capped and lofty mountains,
and dark and gloomy valleys. There are swift-flowing rivers which dash through
jagged canons; and there are enormous plains, which in winter are white with
snow, and in summer are grey with the saline alkali dust. They all preserve,
however, the common characteristics of barrenness, inhospitality, and misery.
There are no inhabitants of this land of despair. A band of
Pawnees or of Blackfeet may occasionally traverse it in order to reach other
hunting-grounds, but the hardiest of the braves are glad to lose sight of those
awesome plains, and to find themselves once more upon their prairies. The coyote
skulks among the scrub, the buzzard flaps heavily through the air, and the
clumsy grizzly bear lumbers through the dark ravines and picks up such
sustenance as it can amongst the rocks. These are the sole dwellers in the wilderness.
In the whole world there can be no more dreary view than
that from the northern slope of the Sierra Blanco. As far as the eye can reach
stretches the great flat plain-land, all dusted over with patches of alkali,
and intersected by clumps of the dwarfish chaparral bushes. On the extreme
verge of the horizon lie a long chain of mountain peaks, with their rugged
summits flecked with snow. In this great stretch of country there is no sign of
life, nor of anything appertaining to life. There is no bird in the steel-blue
heaven, no movement upon the dull, grey earth—above all, there is absolute
silence. Listen as one may, there is no shadow of a sound in all that mighty
wilderness; nothing but silence—complete and heart-subduing silence.
It has been said there is nothing appertaining to life upon
the broad plain. That is hardly true. Looking down from the Sierra Blanco, one
sees a pathway traced out across the desert, which winds away and is lost in
the extreme distance. It is rutted with wheels and trodden down by the feet of many
adventurers. Here and there are scattered white objects which glisten in the sun
and stand out against the dull deposit of alkali. Approach, and examine them! They
are bones: some large and coarse, others smaller and more delicate. The former has
belonged to oxen, and the latter to men. For fifteen hundred miles one may
trace this ghastly caravan route by these scattered remains of those who had
fallen by the wayside.
Looking down on this very scene, there stood upon the fourth
of May, eighteen hundred and forty-seven, a solitary traveler. His appearance
was such that he might have been the very genius or demon of the region. An
observer would have found it difficult to say whether he was nearer to forty or
to sixty. His face was lean and haggard, and the brown parchment-like skin was
drawn tightly over the projecting bones; his long, brown hair and beard were
all flecked and dashed with white; his eyes were sunken in his head, and burned
with an unnatural luster; while the hand which grasped his rifle was hardly
more fleshy than that of a skeleton. As he stood, he leaned upon his weapon for
support, and yet his tall figure and the massive framework of his bones suggested
a wiry and vigorous constitution. His gaunt face, however, and his clothes,
which hung so baggily over his shriveled limbs, proclaimed what it was that
gave him that senile and decrepit appearance. The man was dying—dying from
hunger and from thirst.
He had toiled painfully down the ravine, and on to this
little elevation, in the vain hope of seeing some signs of water. Now the great
salt plain stretched before his eyes, and the distant belt of savage mountains,
without a sign anywhere of plant or tree, which might indicate the presence of
moisture. In all that broad landscape there was no gleam of hope. North, and
east, and west he looked with wild questioning eyes, and then he realized that
his wanderings had come to an end, and that there, on that barren crag, he was
about to die. “Why not here, as well as in a feather bed, twenty years hence,”
he muttered, as he seated himself in the shelter of a boulder.
Before sitting down, he had deposited upon the ground his
useless rifle, and a large bundle tied up in a grey shawl, which he had carried
slung over his right shoulder. It appeared to be somewhat too heavy for his
strength, for in lowering it, it came down on the ground with some little
violence. Instantly there broke from the grey parcel a little moaning cry, and
from it there protruded a small, scared face, with very bright brown eyes, and
two little speckled, dimpled fists.
“You’ve hurt me!” said a childish voice reproachfully.
“Have I thought,” the man answered penitently, “I didn’t go for
to do it.” As he spoke, he unwrapped the grey shawl and extricated a pretty little
girl of about five years of age, whose dainty shoes and smart pink frock with
its little linen apron all bespoke a mother’s care. The child was pale and wan,
but her healthy arms and legs showed that she had suffered less than her
companion.
“How is it now?” he answered anxiously, for she was still
rubbing the tows golden curls which covered the back of her head.
“Kiss it and make it well,” she said, with perfect gravity,
shoving the injured part up to him. “That’s what mother used to do. Where’s
mother?”
“Mother’s gone. I guess you’ll see her before long.”
“Gone, eh!” said the little girl. “Funny, she didn’t say
good-bye; she ‘most always did if she was just going’ over to Auntie’s for tea,
and now she’s been away three days. Say, it’s awful dry, aren't it? Isn't there
no water, nor nothing to eat?”
“No, there aren't nothing, dearie. You’ll just need to be
patient awhile, and then you’ll be all right. Put your head up again me like
that, and then you’ll feel bullied. It isn't easy to talk when your lips are
like leather, but I guess I’d best let you know how the cards lie. What’s that
you’ve got?”
“Pretty things! fine things!” cried the little girl
enthusiastically, holding up two glittering fragments of mica. “When we go back
to home, I’ll give them to brother Bob.”
“You’ll see prettier things than them soon,” said the man
confidently. “You just wait a bit. I was going to tell you though—you remember
when we left the river?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Well, we reckoned we’d strike another river soon, dye see.
But there was something’ wrong; compasses, or map, or something’, and it didn’t
turn up. Water ran out. Just except a little drop for the likes of you
and—and——”
“And you couldn’t wash yourself,” interrupted his companion
gravely, staring up at his grimy visage.
“No, nor drink. And Mr. Bender, he was the first to go, and
then Indian Pete, and then Mrs. McGregor, and then Johnny Hones, and then,
dearie, your mother.”
“Then mother’s a deader too,” cried the little girl dropping
her face in her pinafore and sobbing bitterly.
“Yes, they all went except you and me. Then I thought there
was some chance of water in this direction, so I heaved you over my shoulder
and we tramped it together. It doesn’t seem as though we’ve improved matters.
There’s an almighty small chance for us now!”
“Do you mean that we are going to die too?” asked the child,
checking her sobs, and raising her tear-stained face.
“I guess that’s about the size of it.”
“Why didn’t you say so before?” she said, laughing
gleefully. “You gave me such a fright. Why, of course, now if we die, we’ll be
with mother again?”
“Yes, you will, dearie.”
“And you too. I’ll tell her how awful good you’ve been. I’ll
bet she meets us at the door of Heaven with a big pitcher of water, and a lot
of buckwheat cakes, hot, and toasted on both sides, like Bob and me was fond
of. How long will it be first?”
“I don’t know—not very long.” The man’s eyes were fixed upon
the northern horizon. In the blue vault of the heaven there had appeared three
little specks which increased in size every moment, so rapidly did they
approach. They speedily resolved themselves into three large brown birds, which
circled over the heads of the two wanderers, and then settled upon some rocks
which overlooked them. They were buzzards, the vultures of the west, who's
coming is the forerunner of death.
“Cocks and hens,” cried the little girl gleefully, pointing
at their ill-omened forms, and clapping her hands to make them rise. “Say, did
God make this country?”
“In course He did,” said her companion, rather startled by
this unexpected question.
“He made the country down in Illinois, and He made the
Missouri,” the little girl continued. “I guess somebody else made the country
in these parts. It’s not nearly so well done. They forgot the water and the
trees.”
“What would ye think of offering up prayer?” the man asked
diffidently.
“It isn't night yet,” she answered.
“It doesn’t matter. It isn't quite regular, but He won’t
mind that, you bet. You say over them ones that you used to say every night in
the wagon when we were on the Plains.”
“Why don’t you say some yourself?” the child asked, with
wondering eyes.
“I disremember them,” he answered. “I hadn't said none since
I was half the height o’ that gun. I guess it’s never too late. You say them
out, and I’ll stand by and come in on the choruses.”
“Then you’ll need to kneel down, and me too,” she said,
laying the shawl out for that purpose. “You’ve got to put your hands up like
this. It makes you feel kind o’ good.”
It was a strange sight had there been anything but the
buzzards to see it. Side by side on the narrow shawl knelt the two wanderers,
the little prattling child and the reckless, hardened adventurer. Her chubby
face, and his haggard, angular visage were both turned up to the cloudless
heaven in heartfelt entreaty to that dread being with whom they were face to
face, while the two voices—the one thin and clear, the other deep and
harsh—united in the entreaty for mercy and forgiveness. The prayer finished,
they resumed their seat in the shadow of the boulder until the child fell
asleep, nestling upon the broad breast of her protector. He watched over her
slumber for some time, but Nature proved to be too strong for him. For three
days and three nights he had allowed himself neither rest nor repose. Slowly
the eyelids drooped over the tired eyes, and the head sunk lower and lower upon
the breast, until the man’s grizzled beard was mixed with the gold tresses of
his companion, and both slept the same deep and dreamless slumber.
Had the wanderer remained awake for another half hour a
strange sight would have met his eyes. Far away on the extreme verge of the
alkali plain there rose up a little spray of dust, very slight at first, and
hardly to be distinguished from the mists of the distance, but gradually
growing higher and broader until it formed a solid, well-defined cloud. This
cloud continued to increase in size until it became evident that it could only
be raised by a great multitude of moving creatures. In more fertile spots the observer
would have conclude that one of those great herds of bison's which graze upon
the prairie land was approaching him. This was obviously impossible in these
arid wilds. As the whirl of dust drew nearer to the solitary bluff upon which
the two castaways were reposing, the canvas-covered tilts of wagons and the
figures of armed horsemen began to show up through the haze, and the apparition
revealed itself as being a great caravan upon its journey for the West. But
what a caravan! When the head of it had reached the base of the mountains, the
rear was not yet visible on the horizon. Right across the enormous plain
stretched the straggling array, wagons and carts, men on horseback, and men on
foot. Innumerable women who staggered along under burdens, and children who
toddled beside the wagons or peeped out from under the white coverings. This
was evidently no ordinary party of immigrants, but rather some nomad people who
had been compelled from stress of circumstances to seek themselves a new
country. There rose through the clear air a confused clattering and rumbling
from this great mass of humanity, with the creaking of wheels and the neighing
of horses. Loud as it was, it was not enough to rouse the two tired wayfarers
above them.
At the head of the column there rode a score or more of
grave iron faced men, clad in somber homespun garments and armed with rifles.
On reaching the base of the bluff they halted and held a short council among
themselves.
“The wells are to the right, my brothers,” said one, a
hard-lipped, clean-shaven man with grizzly hair.
“To the right of the Sierra Blanco—so we shall reach the Rio
Grande,” said another.
“Fear not for water,” cried a third. “He who could draw it
from the rocks will not now abandon His own chosen people.”
“Amen! Amen!” responded the whole party.
They were about to resume their journey when one of the
youngest and keenest-eyed uttered an exclamation and pointed up at the rugged
crag above them. From its summit there fluttered a little wisp of pink, showing
up hard and bright against the grey rocks behind. At the sight there was a
general reining up of horses and unslinging of guns, while fresh horsemen came
galloping up to reinforce the vanguard. The word ‘Redskins’ was on every lip.
“There can’t be any number of Injuns here,” said the elderly
man who appeared to be in command. “We have passed the Pawnees, and there are
no other tribes until we cross the great mountains.”
“Shall I go forward and see, Brother Stanger son,” asked one
of the bands.
“And I,” “and I,” cried a dozen voices.
“Leave your horses below and we will await you here,” the
Elder answered. In a moment the young fellows had dismounted, fastened their
horses, and were ascending the precipitous slope which led up to the object
which had excited their curiosity. They advanced rapidly and noiselessly, with
the confidence and dexterity of practiced scouts. The watchers from the plain
below could see them flit from rock to rock until their figures stood out against
the skyline. The young man who had first given the alarm was leading them.
Suddenly his followers saw him throw up his hands, as though overcome with
astonishment, and on joining him they were affected in the same way by the
sight which met their eyes.
On the little plateau which crowned the barren hill there
stood a single giant boulder, and against this boulder there lay a tall man,
long-bearded and hard-featured, but of an excessive thinness. His placid face
and regular breathing showed that he was fast asleep. Beside him lay a little
child, with her round white arms encircling his brown sinewy neck, and her golden-haired
head resting upon the breast of his velveteen tunic. Her rosy lips were parted,
showing the regular line of snow-white teeth within, and a playful smile played
over her infantile features. Her plump little white legs terminating in white
socks and neat shoes with shining buckles, offered a strange contrast to the long-shriveled
members of her companion. On the ledge of rock above this strange couple there
stood three solemn buzzards, who, at the sight of the newcomers uttered raucous
screams of disappointment and flapped sullenly away.
The cries of the foul birds awoke the two sleepers who
stared about them in bewilderment. The man staggered to his feet and looked
down upon the plain which had been so desolate when sleep had overtaken him,
and which was now traversed by this enormous body of men and of beasts. His
face assumed an expression of incredulity as he gazed, and he passed his boney hand
over his eyes. “This is what they call delirium, I guess,” he muttered. The
child stood beside him, holding on to the skirt of his coat, and said nothing
but looked all round her with the wondering questioning gaze of childhood.
The rescuing party were speedily able to convince the two
castaways that their appearance was no delusion. One of them seized the little
girl, and hoisted her upon his shoulder, while two others supported her gaunt
companion, and assisted him towards the wagons.
“My name is John Ferrier,” the wanderer explained; “me and
that little un are all that’s left o’ twenty-one people. The rest is all dead
o’ thirst and hunger away down in the south.”
“Is she your child?” asked someone.
“I guess she is now,” the other cried, defiantly; “she’s
mine ‘because I saved her. No man will take her from me. She’s Lucy Ferrier
from this day on. Who are you, though?” he continued, glancing with curiosity
at his stalwart, sunburned rescuers; “there seems to be a powerful lot of ye.”
“Nigh upon ten thousand,” said one of the young men; “we are
the persecuted children of God—the chosen of the Angel Moroni.”
“I never heard tell on him,” said the wanderer. “He appears
to have chosen a fair crowd of ye.”
“Do not jest at that which is sacred,” said the other
sternly. “We are of those who believe in those sacred writings, drawn in
Egyptian letters on plates of beaten gold, which were handed unto the holy
Joseph Smith at Palmyra. We have come from Nauvoo, in the State of Illinois,
where we had founded our temple. We have come to seek a refuge from the violent
man and from the godless, even though it be the heart of the desert.”
The name of Nauvoo evidently recalled recollections to John
Ferrier. “I see,” he said, “you are the Mormons.”
“We are the Mormons,” answered his companions with one
voice.
“And where are you going?”
“We do not know. The hand of God is leading us under the
person of our Prophet. You must come before him. He shall say what is to be done
with you.”
They had reached the base of the hill by this time and were
surrounded by crowds of the pilgrims—pale-faced meek-looking women, strong
laughing children, and anxious earnest-eyed men. Many were the cries of
astonishment and of commiseration which arose from them when they perceived the
youth of one of the strangers and the destitution of the other. Their escort
did not halt, however, but pushed on, followed by a great crowd of Mormons,
until they reached a wagon, which was conspicuous for its great size and for
the gaudiness and smartness of its appearance. Six horses were yoked to it,
whereas the others were furnished with two, or, at most, four a-piece. Beside
the driver there sat a man who could not have been more than thirty years of
age, but whose massive head and resolute expression marked him as a leader. He
was reading a brown-backed volume, but as the crowd approached, he laid it
aside, and listened attentively to an account of the episode. Then he turned to
the two castaways.
“If we take you with us,” he said, in solemn words, “it can
only be as believers in our own creed. We shall have no wolves in our fold.
Better far that your bones should bleach in this wilderness than that you
should prove to be that little speck of decay which in time corrupts the whole
fruit. Will you come with us on these terms?”
“Guess I’ll come with you on any terms,” said Ferrier, with
such emphasis that the grave Elders could not restrain a smile. The leader
alone retained his stern, impressive expression.
“Take him, Brother Stanger son,” he said, “give him food and
drink, and the child likewise. Let it be your task also to teach him our holy
creed. We have delayed long enough. Forward! On, on to Zion!”
“On, on to Zion!” cried the crowd of Mormons, and the words
rippled down the long caravan, passing from mouth to mouth until they died away
in a dull murmur in the far distance. With a cracking of whips and a creaking
of wheels the great wagons got into motion, and soon the whole caravan was
winding along once more. The Elder to whose care the two waifs had been
committed, led them to his wagon, where a meal was already awaiting them.
“You shall remain here,” he said. “In a few days you will
have recovered from your fatigues. In the meantime, remember that now and forever
you are of our religion. Brigham Young has said it, and he has spoken with the
voice of Joseph Smith, which is the voice of God.”
CHAPTER II. THE FLOWER OF UTAH.
THIS is not the place to commemorate the trials and
privations endured by the immigrant Mormons before they came to their final haven.
From the shores of the Mississippi to the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains
they had struggled on with a constancy almost unparalleled in history. The
savage man, and the savage beast, hunger, thirst, fatigue, and disease—every
impediment which Nature could place in the way, had all been overcome with
Anglo-Saxon tenacity. Yet the long journey and the accumulated terrors had
shaken the hearts of the stoutest among them. There was not one who did not
sink upon his knees in heartfelt prayer when they saw the broad valley of Utah
bathed in the sunlight beneath them, and learned from the lips of their leader
that this was the promised land, and that these virgin acres were to be theirs
for evermore.
Young speedily proved himself to be a skillful administrator
as well as a resolute chief. Maps were drawn and charts prepared, in which the
future city was sketched out. All around farms were apportioned and allotted in
proportion to the standing of everyone. The tradesman was put to his trade and
the artisan to his calling. In the town streets and squares sprang up, as if by
magic. In the country there was draining and hedging, planting and clearing,
until the next summer saw the whole country golden with the wheat crop.
Everything prospered in the strange settlement. Above all, the great temple
which they had erected in the center of the city grew ever taller and larger.
From the first blush of dawn until the closing of the twilight, the clatter of
the hammer and the rasp of the saw was never absent from the monument which the
immigrants erected to Him who had led them safe through many dangers.
The two castaways, John Ferrier and the little girl who had
shared his fortunes and had been adopted as his daughter, accompanied the
Mormons to the end of their great pilgrimage. Little Lucy Ferrier was borne
along pleasantly enough in Elder Stanger son's wagon, a retreat which she
shared with the Mormon’s three wives and with his son, a headstrong forward boy
of twelve. Having rallied, with the elasticity of childhood, from the shock
caused by her mother’s death, she soon became a pet with the women, and
reconciled herself to this new life in her moving canvas-covered home. In the meantime,
Ferrier having recovered from his privations, distinguished himself as a useful
guide and an indefatigable hunter. So rapidly did he gain the esteem of his new
companions, that when they reached the end of their wanderings, it was
unanimously agreed that he should be provided with as large and as fertile a
tract of land as any of the settlers, with the exception of Young himself, and
of Stanger son, Kimball, Johnston, and Drubber, who were the four principal
Elders.
On the farm thus acquired John Ferrier built himself a
substantial log-house, which received so many additions in succeeding years
that it grew into a roomy villa. He was a man of a practical turn of mind, keen
in his dealings and skillful with his hands. His iron constitution enabled him
to work morning and evening at improving and tilling his lands. Hence it came
about that his farm and all that belonged to him prospered exceedingly. In three
years, he was better off than his neighbors, in six he was well-to-do, in nine
he was rich, and in twelve there were not half a dozen men in the whole of Salt
Lake City who could compare with him. From the great inland sea to the distant Wasatch
Mountains there was no name better known than that of John Ferrier.
There was one way and only one in which he offended the
susceptibilities of his co-religionists. No argument or persuasion could ever
induce him to set up a female establishment after the manner of his companions.
He never gave reasons for this persistent refusal but contented himself by
resolutely and inflexibly adhering to his determination. There were some who
accused him of Luke warmness in his adopted religion, and others who put it
down to greed of wealth and reluctance to incur expense. Others, again, spoke
of some early love affair, and of a fair-haired girl who had pinned away on the
shores of the Atlantic. Whatever the reason, Ferrier remained strictly
celibate. In every other respect he conformed to the religion of the young settlement
and gained the name of being an orthodox and straight-walking man.
Lucy Ferrier grew up within the log-house and assisted her
adopted father in all his undertakings. The keen air of the mountains and the
balsamic odor of the pine trees took the place of nurse and mother to the young
girl. As year succeeded to year, she grew taller and stronger, her cheek more Rudy,
and her step more elastic. Many a wayfarer upon the high road which ran by
Ferrier’s farm felt long-forgotten thoughts revive in their mind as they
watched her lithe girlish figure tripping through the wheat fields, or met her
mounted upon her father’s mustang, and managing it with all the ease and grace
of a true child of the West. So, the bud blossomed into a flower, and the year
which saw her father the richest of the farmers left her as fair a specimen of
American girlhood as could be found in the whole Pacific slope.
It was not the father, however, who first discovered that
the child had developed into the woman. It seldom is in such cases. That
mysterious change is too subtle and too gradual to be measured by dates. Least
of all does the maiden herself know it until the tone of a voice or the touch
of a hand sets her heart thrilling within her, and she learns, with a mixture
of pride and of fear, that a new and a larger nature has awoken within her.
There are few who cannot recall that day and remember the one little incident
which heralded the dawn of a new life. In the case of Lucy Ferrier, the
occasion was serious enough in itself, apart from its future influence on her
destiny and that of many besides.
It was a warm June morning, and the Latter-Day Saints were
as busy as the bees whose hive they have chosen for their emblem. In the fields
and in the streets rose the same hum of human industry. Down the dusty high
roads defiled long streams of heavily laden mules, all heading to the west, for
the gold fever had broken out in California, and the Overland Route lay through
the City of the Elect. There, too, were droves of sheep and bullocks coming in
from the outlying pasture lands, and trains of tired immigrants, men and horses
equally weary of their interminable journey. Through all this motley
assemblage, threading her way with the skill of an accomplished rider, there
galloped Lucy Ferrier, her fair face flushed with the exercise and her long
chestnut hair floating out behind her. She had a commission from her father in
the City and was dashing in as she had done many a time before, with all the
fearlessness of youth, thinking only of her task and how it was to be
performed. The travel-stained adventurers gazed after her in astonishment, and
even the unemotional Indians, journeying in with their peltries, relaxed their
accustomed stoicism as they marveled at the beauty of the pale-faced maiden.
She had reached the outskirts of the city when she found the
road blocked by a great drove of cattle, driven by a half-dozen wild-looking
herdsmen from the plains. In her impatience she endeavored to pass this
obstacle by pushing her horse into what appeared to be a gap. Scarcely had she
got fairly into it, however, before the beasts closed in behind her, and she
found herself completely imbedded in the moving stream of fierce-eyed,
long-horned bullocks. Accustomed as she was to deal with cattle, she was not
alarmed at her situation, but took advantage of every opportunity to urge her
horse on in the hopes of pushing her way through the cavalcade. Unfortunately,
the horns of one of the creatures, either by accident or design, came in
violent contact with the flank of the mustang, and excited it to madness. In an
instant it reared up upon its hind legs with a snort of rage and pranced and
tossed in a way that would have unseated any but a most skillful rider. The
situation was full of peril. Every plunge of the excited horse brought it
against the horns again and goaded it to fresh madness. It was all that the
girl could do to keep herself in the saddle, yet a slip would mean a terrible
death under the hoofs of the unwieldy and terrified animals. Unaccustomed to
sudden emergencies, her head began to swim, and her grip upon the bridle to
relax. Choked by the rising cloud of dust and by the steam from the struggling
creatures, she might have abandoned her efforts in despair, but for a kindly
voice at her elbow which assured her of assistance. At the same moment a sinewy
brown hand caught the frightened horse by the curb, and forcing a way through the
drove, soon brought her to the outskirts.
“You’re not hurt, I hope, miss,” said her preserver,
respectfully.
She looked up at his dark, fierce face, and laughed saucily.
“I’m awful frightened,” she said, naively; “whoever would have thought that Poncho
would have been so scared by a lot of cows?”
“Thank God you kept your seat,” the other said earnestly. He
was a tall, savage-looking young fellow, mounted on a powerful roan horse, and
clad in the rough dress of a hunter, with a long rifle slung over his shoulders.
“I guess you are the daughter of John Ferrier,” he remarked, “I saw you ride
down from his house. When you see him, ask him if he remembers the Jefferson
Hopes of St. Louis. If he’s the same Ferrier, my father and he were pretty
thick.”
“Hadn’t you better come and ask yourself?” she asked,
demurely.
The young fellow seemed pleased at the suggestion, and his
dark eyes sparkled with pleasure. “I’ll do so,” he said, “we’ve been in the
mountains for two months, and are not over and above in visiting condition. He
must take us as he finds us.”
“He has a good deal to thank you for, and so have I,” she
answered, “he’s awful fond of me. If those cows had jumped on me, he’d have
never got over it.”
“Neither would I,” said her companion.
“You! Well, I don’t see that it would make much matter to
you, anyhow. You aren't even a friend of ours.”
The young hunter’s dark face grew so gloomy over this remark
that Lucy Ferrier laughed aloud.
“There, I didn’t mean that,” she said; “of course, you are a
friend now. You must come and see us. Now I must push along, or father won’t
trust me with his business anymore. Good-bye!”
“Good-bye,” he answered, raising his broad sombrero, and
bending over her little hand. She wheeled her mustang round, gave it a cut with
her riding-whip, and darted away down the broad road in a rolling cloud of
dust.
Young Jefferson Hope rode on with his companions, gloomy and
taciturn. He and they had been among the Nevada Mountains prospecting for silver
and were returning to Salt Lake City in the hope of raising capital enough to work
some lodes which they had discovered. He had been as keen as any of them upon
the business until this sudden incident had drawn his thoughts into another
channel. The sight of the fair young girl, as frank and wholesome as the Sierra
breezes, had stirred his volcanic, untamed heart to its very depths. When she
had vanished from his sight, he realized that a crisis had come in his life,
and that neither silver speculations nor any other questions could ever be of
such importance to him as this new and all-absorbing one. The love which had
sprung up in his heart was not the sudden, changeable fancy of a boy, but
rather the wild, fierce passion of a man of strong will and imperious temper.
He had been accustomed to succeeding in all that he undertook. He swore in his
heart that he would not fail in this if human effort and human perseverance
could render him successful.
He called on John Ferrier that night, and many times again,
until his face was a familiar one at the farmhouse. John cooped up in the
valley, and absorbed in his work, had had little chance of learning the news of
the outside world during the last twelve years. All this Jefferson Hope was
able to tell him, and in a style, which interested Lucy as well as her father.
He had been a pioneer in California and could narrate many a strange tale of
fortunes made, and fortunes lost in those wild, halcyon days. He had been a
scout too, and a trapper, a silver explorer, and a ranchman. Wherever stirring
adventures were to be had, Jefferson Hope had been there in search of them. He
soon became a favorite with the old farmer, who spoke eloquently of his
virtues. On such occasions, Lucy was silent, but her blushing cheek and her
bright, happy eyes, showed only too clearly that her young heart was no longer
her own. Her honest father may not have observed these symptoms, but they were
assuredly not thrown away upon the man who had won her affections.
It was a summer evening when he came galloping down the road
and pulled up at the gate. She was at the doorway and came down to meet him. He
threw the bridle over the fence and strode up the pathway.
“I am off, Lucy,” he said, taking her two hands in his, and
gazing tenderly down into her face; “I won’t ask you to come with me now, but
will you be ready to come when I am here again?”
“And when will that be?” she asked, blushing and laughing.
“A couple of months at the outside. I will come and claim
you then, my darling. There’s no one who can stand between us.”
“And how about father?” she asked.
“He has given his consent, provided we get these mines
working all right. I have no fear on that head.”
“Oh, well; of course, if you and father have arranged it
all, there’s no more to be said,” she whispered, with her cheek against his broad
breast.
“Thank God!” he said, hoarsely, stooping and kissing her.
“It is settled, then. The longer I stay, the harder it will be to go. They are
waiting for me at the canon. Good-bye, my own darling—good-bye. In two months,
you shall see me.”
He tore himself from her as he spoke, and, flinging himself
upon his horse, galloped furiously away, never even looking round, as though
afraid that his resolution might fail him if he took one glance at what he was
leaving. She stood at the gate, gazing after him until he vanished from her
sight. Then she walked back into the house, the happiest girl in all Utah.
CHAPTER III. JOHN FERRIER TALKS WITH THE PROPHET.
THREE weeks had passed since Jefferson Hope and his comrades
had departed from Salt Lake City. John Ferrier’s heart was sore within him when
he thought of the young man’s return, and of the impending loss of his adopted
child. Yet her bright and happy face reconciled him to the arrangement more
than any argument could have done. He had always determined, deep down in his
resolute heart, that nothing would ever induce him to allow his daughter to wed
a Mormon. Such a marriage he regarded as no marriage at all, but as a shame and
a disgrace. Whatever he might think of the Mormon doctrines, upon that one point
he was inflexible. He had to seal his mouth on the subject, however, for to
express an unorthodox opinion was a dangerous matter in those days in the Land
of the Saints.
Yes, a dangerous matter—so dangerous that even the saintliest
dared only whisper their religious opinions with bated breath, lest something
which fell from their lips might be misconstrued and bring down a swift
retribution upon them. The victims of persecution had now turned persecutors on
their own account, and persecutors of the most terrible description. Not the
Inquisition of Seville, nor the German Vehm-Gerecht, nor the Secret Societies
of Italy, were ever able to put a more formidable machinery in motion than that
which cast a cloud over the State of Utah.
Its invisibility, and the mystery, which was attached to it,
made this organization doubly terrible. It appeared to be omniscient and
omnipotent, and yet was neither seen nor heard. The man who held out against
the Church vanished away, and none knew whither he had gone or what had
befallen him. His wife and his children awaited him at home, but no father ever
returned to tell them how he had fared at the hands of his secret judges. A
rash word or a hasty act was followed by annihilation, and yet none knew what
the nature might be of this terrible power which was suspended over them. No
wonder that men went about in fear and trembling, and that even in the heart of
the wilderness they dared not whisper the doubts which oppressed them.
At first this vague and terrible power was exercised only
upon the recalcitrant who, having embraced the Mormon faith, wished afterwards
to pervert or to abandon it. Soon, however, it took a wider range. The supply
of adult women was running short, and polygamy without a female population on
which to draw was a barren doctrine indeed. Strange rumors began to be bandied
about—rumors of murdered immigrants and rifled camps in regions where Indians
had never been seen. Fresh women appeared in the harems of the Elders—women who
pined and wept and bore upon their faces the traces of an unextinguishable
horror. Belated wanderers upon the mountains spoke of gangs of armed men,
masked, stealthy, and noiseless, who flitted by them in the darkness. These
tales and rumors took substance and shape, and were corroborated and
re-corroborated, until they resolved themselves into a definite name. To this
day, in the lonely ranches of the West, the name of the Danite Band, or the
Avenging Angels, is a sinister and an ill-omened one.
Fuller knowledge of the organization which produced such
terrible results served to increase rather than to lessen the horror which it
inspired in the minds of men. None knew who belonged to this ruthless society.
The names of the participators in the deeds of blood and violence done under the
name of religion were kept profoundly secret. The very friend to whom you
communicated your misgivings as to the Prophet and his mission, might be one of
those who would come forth at night with fire and sword to exact a terrible
reparation. Hence every man feared his neighbor, and none spoke of the things
which were nearest his heart.
One fine morning, John Ferrier was about to set out to his wheat
fields, when he heard the click of the latch, and, looking through the window,
saw a stout, sandy-haired, middle-aged man coming up the pathway. His heart
leapt to his mouth, for this was none other than the great Brigham Young
himself. Full of trepidation—for he knew that such a visit boded him little
good—Ferrier ran to the door to greet the Mormon chief. The latter, however,
received his salutations coldly, and followed him with a stern face into the
sitting-room.
“Brother Ferrier,” he said, taking a seat, and eyeing the
farmer keenly from under his light-colored eyelashes, “the true believers have
been good friends to you. We picked you up when you were starving in the
desert, we shared our food with you, led you safe to the Chosen Valley, gave
you a goodly share of land, and allowed you to wax rich under our protection.
Is not this so?”
“It is so,” answered John Ferrier.
“In return for all this we asked but one condition: that
was, that you should embrace the true faith, and conform in every way to its
usages. This you promised to do, and this, if common report says truly, you
have neglected.”
“And how have I neglected it?” asked Ferrier, throwing out
his hands in expostulation. “Have I not given to the common fund? Have I not
attended at the Temple? Have I not——?”
“Where are your wives?” asked Young, looking round him.
“Call them in, that I may greet them.”
“It is true that I have not married,” Ferrier answered. “But
women were few, and there were many who had better claims than I. I was not a
lonely man: I had my daughter to attend to my wants.”
“It is of that daughter that I would speak to you,” said the
leader of the Mormons. “She has grown to be the flower of Utah and has found favor
in the eyes of many who are high in the land.”
John Ferrier groaned internally.
“There are stories of her which I would fain
disbelieve—stories that she is sealed to some Gentile. This must be the gossip
of idle tongues. What is the thirteenth rule in the code of the sainted Joseph
Smith? ‘Let every maiden of the true faith marry one of the elects; for if she
wed a Gentile, she commits a grievous sin.’ This being so, it is impossible
that you, who profess the holy creed, should suffer your daughter to violate
it.”
John Ferrier made no answer, but he played nervously with
his riding-whip.
“Upon this one point your whole faith shall be tested—so it
has been decided in the Sacred Council of Four. The girl is young, and we would
not have her wed grey hairs, neither would we deprive her of all choice. We
Elders have many heifers, but our children must also be provided. Stanger son
has a son, and Drubber has a son, and either of them would gladly welcome your
daughter to their house. Let her choose between them. They are young and rich,
and of the true faith. What say you to that?”
Ferrier remained silent for some little time with his brows
knitted.
“You will give us time,” he said at last. “My daughter is
very young—she is scarce of an age to marry.”
“She shall have a month to choose,” said Young, rising from
his seat. “At the end of that time she shall give her answer.”
He was passing through the door, when he turned, with
flushed face and flashing eyes. “It were better for you, John Ferrier,” he
thundered, “that you and she were now lying blanched skeletons upon the Sierra
Blanco, than that you should put your weak wills against the orders of the Holy
Four!”
With a threatening gesture of his hand, he turned from the
door, and Ferrier heard his heavy step scrunching along the shingly path.
He was still sitting with his elbows upon his knees,
considering how he should broach the matter to his daughter when a soft hand
was laid upon his, and looking up, he saw her standing beside him. One glance
at her pale, frightened face showed him that she had heard what had passed.
“I could not help it,” she said, in answer to his look. “His
voice rang through the house. Oh, father, father, what shall we do?”
“Don’t you scare yourself,” he answered, drawing her to him,
and passing his broad, rough hand caressingly over her chestnut hair. “We’ll
fix it up somehow or another. You don’t find your fancy kind o’ lessening for
this chap, do you?”
A sob and a squeeze of his hand was her only answer.
“No; of course not. I shouldn’t care to hear you say you
did. He’s a likely lad, and he’s a Christian, which is more than these folks
here, despite’ all their praying and preaching. There’s a party starting for Nevada
to-morrow, and I’ll manage to send him a message letting him know the hole we
are in. If I know anything o’ that young man, he’ll be back here with a speed
that would whip electro-telegraphs.”
Lucy laughed through her tears at her father’s description.
“When he comes, he will advise us for the best. But it is
for you that I am frightened, dear. One hears—one hears such dreadful stories
about those who oppose the Prophet: something terrible always happens to them.”
“But we haven’t opposed him yet,” her father answered. “It
will be time to look out for squalls when we do. We have a clear month before
us; at the end of that, I guess we had best shin out of Utah.”
“Leave Utah!”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“But the farm?”
“We will raise as much as we can in money, and let the rest
go. To tell the truth, Lucy, it isn’t the first time I have thought of doing
it. I don’t care about knuckling under to any man, as these folks do to their
darned prophet. I’m a free-born American, and it’s all new to me. Guess I’m too
old to learn. If he comes browsing about this farm, he might chance to run up
against a charge of buckshot travelling in the opposite direction.”
“But they won’t let us leave,” his daughter objected.
“Wait till Jefferson comes, and we’ll soon manage that. In
the meantime, don’t you fret yourself, my dearie, and don’t get your eyes
swelled up, else he’ll be walking into me when he sees you. There’s nothing to
be afeared about, and there’s no danger at all.”
John Ferrier uttered these consoling remarks in a very
confident tone, but she could not help observing that he paid unusual care to
the fastening of the doors that night, and that he carefully cleaned and loaded
the rusty old shotgun which hung upon the wall of his bedroom.
CHAPTER IV. A FLIGHT FOR LIFE.
ON the morning which followed his interview with the Mormon
Prophet, John Ferrier went into Salt Lake City, and having found his
acquaintance, who was bound for the Nevada Mountains, he entrusted him with his
message to Jefferson Hope. In it he told the young man of the imminent danger
which threatened them, and how necessary it was that he should return. Having
done thus he felt easier in his mind and returned home with a lighter heart.
As he approached his farm, he was surprised to see a horse hitched
to each of the posts of the gate. Still more surprised was he on entering to
find two young men in possession of his sitting-room. One, with a long pale
face, was leaning back in the rocking-chair, with his feet cocked up upon the
stove. The other, a bull-necked youth with coarse bloated features, was
standing in front of the window with his hands in his pocket, whistling a
popular hymn. Both nodded to Ferrier as he entered, and the one in the
rocking-chair commenced the conversation.
“Maybe you don’t know us,” he said. “This here is the son of
Elder Drubber, and I’m Joseph Stanger son, who travelled with you in the desert
when the Lord stretched out His hand and gathered you into the true fold.”
“As He will all the nations in His own good time,” said the
other in a nasal voice; “He grinded slowly but exceeding small.”
John Ferrier bowed coldly. He had guessed who his visitors
were.
“We have come,” continued Stanger son, “at the advice of our
fathers to solicit the hand of your daughter for whichever of us may seem good
to you and to her. As I have but four wives and Brother Drubber here has seven,
it appears to me that my claim is the stronger one.”
“Nay, nay, Brother Stanger son,” cried the other; “the
question is not how many wives we have, but how many we can keep. My father has
now given over his mills to me, and I am the richer man.”
“But my prospects are better,” said the other, warmly. “When
the Lord removes my father, I shall have his tanning yard and his leather
factory. Then I am your elder and am higher in the Church.”
“It will be for the maiden to decide,” rejoined young Drubber,
smirking at his own reflection in the glass. “We will leave it all to her
decision.”
During this dialogue, John Ferrier had stood fuming in the
doorway, hardly able to keep his riding-whip from the backs of his two
visitors.
“Look here,” he said at last, striding up to them, “when my
daughter summons you, you can come, but until then I don’t want to see your
faces again.”
The two young Mormons stared at him in amazement. In their
eyes this competition between them for the maiden’s hand was the highest of honors
both to her and her father.
“There are two ways out of the room,” cried Ferrier; “there
is the door, and there is the window. Which do you care to use?”
His brown face looked so savage, and his gaunt hands so
threatening, that his visitors sprang to their feet and beat a hurried retreat.
The old farmer followed them to the door.
“Let me know when you have settled which it is to be,” he
said, sardonically.
“You shall smart for this!” Stanger son cried, white with
rage. “You have defied the Prophet and the Council of Four. You shall rue it to
the end of your days.”
“The hand of the Lord shall be heavy upon you,” cried young Drubber;
“He will arise and smite you!”
“Then I’ll start the smiting,” exclaimed Ferrier furiously,
and would have rushed upstairs for his gun had not Lucy seized him by the arm
and restrained him. Before he could escape from her, the clatter of horses’
hoofs told him that they were beyond his reach.
“The young canting rascals!” he exclaimed, wiping the
perspiration from his forehead; “I would sooner see you in your grave, my girl,
than the wife of either of them.”
“And so, should I, father,” she answered, with spirit; “but
Jefferson will soon be here.”
“Yes. It will not be long before he comes. The sooner the
better, for we do not know what their next move may be.”
It was, indeed, high time that someone capable of giving
advice and help should come to the aid of the sturdy old farmer and his adopted
daughter. In the whole history of the settlement there had never been such a
case of rank disobedience to the authority of the Elders. If minor errors were
punished so sternly, what would be the fate of this arch rebel. Ferrier knew
that his wealth and position would be of no avail to him. Others as well known
and as rich as himself had been spirited away before now, and their goods given
over to the Church. He was a brave man, but he trembled at the vague, shadowy
terrors which hung over him. Any known danger he could face with a firm lip,
but this suspense was unnerving. He concealed his fears from his daughter,
however, and affected to make light of the whole matter, though she, with the
keen eye of love, saw plainly that he was ill at ease.
He expected that he would receive some message or
remonstrance from Young as to his conduct, and he was not mistaken, though it
came in an unlooked-for manner. Upon rising next morning, he found, to his
surprise, a small square of paper pinned on to the coverlet of his bed just
over his chest. On it was printed, in bold straggling letters: —
“Twenty-nine days are given you for amendment, and then——”
The dash was more fear-inspiring than any threat could have
been. How this warning came into his room puzzled John Ferrier sorely, for his
servants slept in an outhouse, and the doors and windows had all been secured.
He crumpled the paper up and said nothing to his daughter, but the incident
struck a chill into his heart. The twenty-nine days were evidently the balance
of the month which Young had promised. What strength or courage could avail
against an enemy armed with such mysterious powers? The hand which fastened
that pin might have struck him to the heart, and he could never have known who
had slain him.
Still more shaken was he next morning. They had sat down to
their breakfast when Lucy with a cry of surprise pointed upwards. In the center
of the ceiling was scrawled, with a burned stick apparently, the number 28. To
his daughter it was unintelligible, and he did not enlighten her. That night he
sat up with his gun and kept watch and ward. He saw and he heard nothing, and
yet in the morning a great 27 had been painted upon the outside of his door.
Thus, day followed day; and as sure as morning came, he
found that his unseen enemies had kept their register and had marked up in some
conspicuous position how many days were still left to him out of the month of
grace. Sometimes the fatal numbers appeared upon the walls, sometimes upon the
floors, occasionally they were on small placards stuck upon the garden gate or
the railings. With all his vigilance John Ferrier could not discover whence
these daily warnings proceeded. A horror which was almost superstitious came
upon him at the sight of them. He became haggard and restless, and his eyes had
the troubled look of some hunted creature. He had but one hope in life now, and
that was for the arrival of the young hunter from Nevada.
Twenty had changed to fifteen and fifteen to ten, but there
was no news of the absentee. One by one the numbers dwindled down, and still
there came no sign of him. Whenever a horseman clattered down the road, or a
driver shouted at his team, the old farmer hurried to the gate thinking that
help had arrived at last. At last, when he saw five give way to four and that
again to three, he lost heart, and abandoned all hope of escape. Single-handed,
and with his limited knowledge of the mountains which surrounded the
settlement, he knew that he was powerless. The more-frequented roads were
strictly watched and guarded, and none could pass along them without an order
from the Council. Turn which way he would, there appeared to be no avoiding the
blow which hung over him. Yet the old man never wavered in his resolution to
part with life itself before he consented to what he regarded as his daughter’s
dishonor.
He was sitting alone one evening pondering deeply over his troubles
and searching vainly for some way out of them. That morning had shown the
figure 2 upon the wall of his house, and the next day would be the last of the
allotted time. What was to happen then? All manner of vague and terrible
fancies filled his imagination. And his daughter—what was to become of her
after he was gone? Was there no escape from the invisible network which was
drawn all round them? He sank his head upon the table and sobbed at the thought
of his own impotence.
What was that? In the silence he heard a gentle scratching
sound—low, but very distinct in the quiet of the night. It came from the door
of the house. Ferrier crept into the hall and listened intently. There was a
pause for a few moments, and then the low insidious sound was repeated. Someone
was evidently tapping very gently upon one of the panels of the door. Was it
some midnight assassin who had come to carry out the murderous orders of the
secret tribunal? Or was it some agent who was marking up that the last day of
grace had arrived. John Ferrier felt that instant death would be better than
the suspense which shook his nerves and chilled his heart. Springing forward he
drew the bolt and threw the door open.
Outside all was calm and quiet. The night was fine, and the
stars were twinkling brightly overhead. The little front garden lay before the
farmer’s eyes bounded by the fence and gate, but neither there nor on the road
was any human being to be seen. With a sigh of relief, Ferrier looked to right
and to left, until happening to glance straight down at his own feet he saw to
his astonishment a man lying flat upon his face upon the ground, with arms and
legs all sprawl.
So unnerved was he at the sight that he leaned up against
the wall with his hand to his throat to stifle his inclination to call out. His
first thought was that the prostrate figure was that of some wounded or dying
man, but as he watched it, he saw it writhe along the ground and into the hall
with the rapidity and noiselessness of a serpent. Once within the house the man
sprang to his feet, closed the door, and revealed to the astonished farmer the
fierce face and resolute expression of Jefferson Hope.
“Good God!” gasped John Ferrier. “How you scared me!
Whatever made you come in like that.”
“Give me food,” the other said, hoarsely. “I have had no
time for bite or sup for eight-and-forty hours.” He flung himself upon the cold
meat and bread which were still lying upon the table from his host’s supper and
devoured it voraciously. “Does Lucy bear up well?” he asked, when he had satisfied
his hunger.
“Yes. She does not know the danger,” her father answered.
“That is well. The house is watched on every side. That is
why I crawled my way up to it. They may be darned sharp, but they’re not quite
sharp enough to catch a Washoe hunter.”
John Ferrier felt a different man now that he realized that
he had a devoted ally. He seized the young man’s leathery hand and wrung it
cordially. “You’re a man to be proud of,” he said. “There are not many who
would come to share our danger and our troubles.”
“You’ve hit it there, pared,” the young hunter answered. “I
have a respect for you, but if you were alone in this business I’d think twice
before I put my head into such a hornet’s nest. It’s Lucy that brings me here,
and before harm comes on her I guess there will be one less o’ the Hope family
in Utah.”
“What are we to do?”
“To-morrow is your last day, and unless you act to-night you
are lost. I have a mule and two horses waiting in the Eagle Ravine. How much
money have you?”
“Two thousand dollars in gold, and five in notes.”
“That will do. I have as much more to add to it. We must
push for Carson City through the mountains. You had best wake Lucy. It is as
well that the servants do not sleep in the house.”
While Ferrier was absent, preparing his daughter for the
approaching journey, Jefferson Hope packed all the eatables that he could find
into a small parcel, and filled a stoneware jar with water, for he knew by
experience that the mountain wells were few and far between. He had hardly completed
his arrangements before the farmer returned with his daughter all dressed and ready
for a start. The greeting between the lovers was warm, but brief, for minutes
were precious, and there was much to be done.
“We must make our start at once,” said Jefferson Hope,
speaking in a low but resolute voice, like one who realizes the greatness of
the peril, but has steeled his heart to meet it. “The front and back entrances
are watched, but with caution we may get away through the side window and
across the fields. Once on the road we are only two miles from the Ravine where
the horses are waiting. By daybreak we should be half-way through the mountains.”
“What if we are stopped,” asked Ferrier.
Hope slapped the revolver butt which protruded from the
front of his tunic. “If they are too many for us, we shall take two or three of
them with us,” he said with a sinister smile.
The lights inside the house had all been extinguished, and
from the darkened window Ferrier peered over the fields which had been his own,
and which he was now about to abandon forever. He had long nerved himself to
the sacrifice, however, and the thought of the honor and happiness of his
daughter outweighed any regret at his ruined fortunes. All looked so peaceful
and happy, the rustling trees and the broad silent stretch of grain-land, that
it was difficult to realize that the spirit of murder lurked through it all.
Yet the white face and set expression of the young hunter showed that in his
approach to the house he had seen enough to satisfy him upon that head.
Ferrier carried the bag of gold and notes, Jefferson Hope
had the scanty provisions and water, while Lucy had a small bundle containing a
few of her more valued possessions. Opening the window very slowly and
carefully, they waited until a dark cloud had somewhat obscured the night, and
then one by one passed through into the little garden. With bated breath and
crouching figures, they stumbled across it, and gained the shelter of the
hedge, which they skirted until they came to the gap which opened into the
cornfields. They had just reached this point when the young man seized his two
companions and dragged them down into the shadow, where they lay silent and
trembling.
It was as well that his prairie training had given Jefferson
Hope the ears of a lynx. He and his friends had hardly crouched down before the
melancholy hooting of a mountain owl was heard within a few yards of them,
which was immediately answered by another hoot at a small distance. At the same
moment a vague shadowy figure emerged from the gap for which they had been
making, and uttered the plaintive signal cry again, on which a second man
appeared out of the obscurity.
“To-morrow at midnight,” said the first who appeared to be
in authority. “When the Whip-poor-Will calls three times.”
“It is well,” returned the other. “Shall I tell Brother Drubber?”
“Pass it on to him, and from him to the others. Nine to
seven!”
“Seven to five!” repeated the other, and the two figures
flitted away in different directions. Their concluding words had evidently been
some form of sign and countersign. The instant that their footsteps had died
away in the distance, Jefferson Hope sprang to his feet, and helping his
companions through the gap, led the way across the fields at the top of his
speed, supporting and half-carrying the girl when her strength appeared to fail
her.
“Hurry on! hurry on!” he gasped from time to time. “We are
through the line of sentinels. Everything depends on speed. Hurry on!”
Once on the high road they made rapid progress. Only once
did they meet anyone, and then they managed to slip into a field, and so avoid
recognition. Before reaching the town, the hunter branched away into a rugged
and narrow footpath which led to the mountains. Two dark jagged peaks loomed
above them through the darkness, and the defile which led between them was the
Eagle Canon in which the horses were awaiting them. With unerring instinct
Jefferson Hope picked his way among the great boulders and along the bed of a
dried-up watercourse, until he came to the retired corner, screened with rocks,
where the faithful animals had been picketed. The girl was placed upon the
mule, and old Ferrier upon one of the horses, with his moneybag, while
Jefferson Hope led the other along the precipitous and dangerous path.
It was a bewildering route for anyone who was not accustomed
to face Nature in her wildest moods. On the one side a great crag towered up a
thousand feet or more, black, stern, and menacing, with long basaltic columns
upon its rugged surface like the ribs of some petrified monster. On the other hand,
a wild chaos of boulders and debris made all advance impossible. Between the
two ran the irregular track, so narrow in places that they had to travel in
Indian file, and so rough that only practiced riders could have traversed it at
all. Yet despite all dangers and difficulties, the hearts of the fugitives were
light within them, for every step increased the distance between them and the
terrible despotism from which they were flying.
They soon had a proof, however, that they were still within
the jurisdiction of the Saints. They had reached the very wildest and most
desolate portion of the pass when the girl gave a startled cry and pointed
upwards. On a rock which overlooked the track, showing out dark and plain
against the sky, there stood a solitary sentinel. He saw them as soon as they
perceived him, and his military challenge of “Who goes there?” rang through the
silent ravine.
“Travelers for Nevada,” said Jefferson Hope, with his hand
upon the rifle which hung by his saddle.
They could see the lonely watcher fingering his gun and
peering down at them as if dissatisfied at their reply.
“By whose permission?” he asked.
“The Holy Four,” answered Ferrier. His Mormon experiences
had taught him that that was the highest authority to which he could refer.
“Nine from seven,” cried the sentinel.
“Seven from five,” returned Jefferson Hope promptly, remembering
the countersign which he had heard in the garden.
“Pass, and the Lord go with you,” said the voice from above.
Beyond his post the path broadened out, and the horses were able to break into
a trot. Looking back, they could see the solitary watcher leaning upon his gun
and knew that they had passed the outlying post of the chosen people, and that
freedom lay before them.
CHAPTER V. THE AVENGING ANGELS.
ALL night their course lay through intricate defiles and
over irregular and rock-strewn paths. More than once they lost their way, but
Hope’s intimate knowledge of the mountains enabled them to regain the track
once more. When morning broke, a scene of marvelous though savage beauty lay
before them. In every direction the great snow-capped peaks hemmed them in,
peeping over each other’s shoulders to the far horizon. So steep were the rocky
banks on either side of them, that the larch and the pine seemed to be
suspended over their heads, and to need only a gust of wind to come hurtling
down upon them. Nor was the fear entirely an illusion, for the barren valley
was thickly strewn with trees and boulders which had fallen in a similar
manner. Even as they passed, a great rock came thundering down with a hoarse
rattle which woke the echoes in the silent gorges and startled the weary horses
into a gallop.
As the sun rose slowly above the eastern horizon, the caps
of the great mountains lit up one after the other, like lamps at a festival,
until they were all ruddy and glowing. The magnificent spectacle cheered the
hearts of the three fugitives and gave them fresh energy. At a wild torrent
which swept out of a ravine they called a halt and watered their horses, while
they partook of a hasty breakfast. Lucy and her father would fain have rested
longer, but Jefferson Hope was inexorable. “They will be upon our track by this
time,” he said. “Everything depends upon our speed. Once safe in Carson we may
rest for the remainder of our lives.”
During the whole of that day they struggled on through the
defiles, and by evening they calculated that they were more than thirty miles
from their enemies. At night-time they chose the base of a beetling crag, where
the rocks offered some protection from the chill wind, and there huddled
together for warmth, they enjoyed a few hours’ sleep. Before daybreak, however,
they were up and, on their way, once more. They had seen no signs of any
pursuers, and Jefferson Hope began to think that they were out of the reach of
the terrible organization whose enmity they had incurred. He little knew how
far that iron grasp could reach, or how soon it was to close upon them and
crush them.
About the middle of the second day of their flight their
scanty store of provisions began to run out. This gave the hunter little
uneasiness, however, for there was game to be had among the mountains, and he
had frequently before had to depend upon his rifle for the needs of life.
Choosing a sheltered nook, he piled together a few dried branches and made a
blazing fire, at which his companions might warm themselves, for they were now
nearly five thousand feet above the sea level, and the air was bitter and keen.
Having tethered the horses, and bade Lucy adieu, he threw his gun over his
shoulder, and set out in search of whatever chance might throw in his way.
Looking back, he saw the old man and the young girl crouching over the blazing
fire, while the three animals stood motionless in the background. Then the
intervening rocks hid them from his view.
He walked for a couple of miles through one ravine after another
without success, though from the marks upon the bark of the trees, and other
indications, he judged that there were numerous bears in the vicinity. At last,
after two- or three-hours’ fruitless search, he was thinking of turning back in
despair, when casting his eyes upwards he saw a sight which sent a thrill of
pleasure through his heart. On the edge of a jutting pinnacle, three or four
hundred feet above him, there stood a creature somewhat resembling a sheep in appearance
but armed with a pair of gigantic horns. The big-horn—for so it is called—was
acting, probably, as a guardian over a flock which were invisible to the
hunter; but fortunately, it was heading in the opposite direction, and had not
perceived him. Lying on his face, he rested his rifle upon a rock, and took a
long and steady aim before drawing the trigger. The animal sprang into the air,
tottered for a moment upon the edge of the precipice, and then came crashing
down into the valley beneath.
The creature was too unwieldy to lift, so the hunter
contented himself with cutting away one haunch and part of the flank. With this
trophy over his shoulder, he hastened to retrace his steps, for the evening was
already drawing in. He had hardly started, however, before he realized the
difficulty which faced him. In his eagerness he had wandered far past the
ravines which were known to him, and it was no easy matter to pick out the path
which he had taken. The valley in which he found himself divided and
sub-divided into many gorges, which were so like each other that it was
impossible to distinguish one from the other. He followed one for a mile or
more until he came to a mountain torrent which he was sure that he had never
seen before. Convinced that he had taken the wrong turn, he tried another, but
with the same result. Night was coming on rapidly, and it was almost dark
before he at last found himself in a defile which was familiar to him. Even
then it was no easy matter to keep to the right track, for the moon had not yet
risen, and the high cliffs on either side made the obscurity more profound.
Weighed down with his burden, and weary from his exertions, he stumbled along,
keeping up his heart by the reflection that every step brought him nearer to
Lucy, and that he carried with him enough to ensure them food for the remainder
of their journey.
He had now come to the mouth of the very defile in which he
had left them. Even in the darkness he could recognize the outline of the
cliffs which bounded it. They must, he reflected, be awaiting him anxiously,
for he had been absent nearly five hours. In the gladness of his heart he put
his hands to his mouth and made the glen re-echo to a loud halloo as a signal
that he was coming. He paused and listened for an answer. None came save his
own cry, which clattered up the dreary silent ravines, and was borne back to
his ears in countless repetitions. Again, he shouted, even louder than before,
and again no whisper came back from the friends whom he had left such a short
time ago. A vague, nameless dread came over him, and he hurried onwards
frantically, dropping the precious food in his agitation.
When he turned the corner, he came full in sight of the spot
where the fire had been lit. There was still a glowing pile of wood ashes
there, but it had evidently not been tended since his departure. The same dead
silence still reigned all round. With his fears all changed to convictions, he
hurried on. There was no living creature near the remains of the fire: animals,
man, maiden, all were gone. It was only too clear that some sudden and terrible
disaster had occurred during his absence—a disaster which had embraced them
all, and yet had left no traces behind it.
Bewildered and stunned by this blow, Jefferson Hope felt his
head spin round, and had to lean upon his rifle to save himself from falling.
He was essentially a man of action, however, and speedily recovered from his
temporary impotence. Seizing a half-consumed piece of wood from the smoldering
fire, he blew it into a flame, and proceeded with its help to examine the
little camp. The ground was all stamped down by the feet of horses, showing
that a large party of mounted men had overtaken the fugitives, and the
direction of their tracks proved that they had afterwards turned back to Salt
Lake City. Had they carried back both of his companions with them? Jefferson
Hope had almost persuaded himself that they must have done so, when his eye
fell upon an object which made every nerve of his body tingle within him. A
little way on one side of the camp was a low-lying heap of reddish soil, which
had assuredly not been there before. There was no mistaking it for anything but
a newly dug grave. As the young hunter approached it, he perceived that a stick
had been planted on it, with a sheet of paper stuck in the cleft fork of it.
The inscription upon the paper was brief, but to the point:
JOHN FERRIER,
FORMERLY OF SALT LAKE CITY,
Died August 4th, 1860.
The sturdy old man, whom he had left so short a time before,
was gone, then, and this was all his epitaph. Jefferson Hope looked wildly
round to see if there was a second grave, but there was no sign of one. Lucy
had been carried back by their terrible pursuers to fulfil her original
destiny, by becoming one of the harems of the Elder’s son. As the young fellow
realized the certainty of her fate, and his own powerlessness to prevent it, he
wished that he, too, was lying with the old farmer in his last silent
resting-place.
Again, however, his active spirit shook off the lethargy
which springs from despair. If there was nothing else left to him, he could at
least devote his life to revenge. With indomitable patience and perseverance,
Jefferson Hope possessed also a power of sustained vindictiveness, which he may
have learned from the Indians amongst whom he had lived. As he stood by the
desolate fire, he felt that the only one thing which could assuage his grief
would be thorough and complete retribution, brought by his own hand upon his
enemies. His strong will and untiring energy should, he determined, be devoted
to that one end. With a grim, white face, he retraced his steps to where he had
dropped the food, and having stirred up the smoldering fire, he cooked enough
to last him for a few days. This he made up into a bundle, and, tired as he
was, he set himself to walk back through the mountains upon the track of the
avenging angels.
For five days he toiled footsore and weary through the
defiles which he had already traversed on horseback. At night he flung himself down
among the rocks and snatched a few hours of sleep; but before daybreak he was
always well on his way. On the sixth day, he reached the Eagle Canon, from
which they had commenced their ill-fated flight. Thence he could look down upon
the home of the saints. Worn and exhausted, he leaned upon his rifle and shook
his gaunt hand fiercely at the silent widespread city beneath him. As he looked
at it, he observed that there were flags in some of the principal streets, and
other signs of festivity. He was still speculating as to what this might mean
when he heard the clatter of horse’s hoofs, and saw a mounted man riding
towards him. As he approached, he recognized him as a Mormon named Cowper, to
whom he had rendered services at different times. He therefore accosted him
when he got up to him, with the object of finding out what Lucy Ferrier’s fate
had been.
“I am Jefferson Hope,” he said. “You remember me.”
The Mormon looked at him with undisguised
astonishment—indeed, it was difficult to recognize in this tattered, unkempt
wanderer, with ghastly white face and fierce, wild eyes, the spruce young
hunter of former days. Having, however, at last, satisfied himself as to his
identity, the man’s surprise changed to consternation.
“You are mad to come here,” he cried. “It is as much as my
own life is worth to be seen talking with you. There is a warrant against you
from the Holy Four for assisting the Ferries away.”
“I don’t fear them, or their warrant,” Hope said, earnestly.
“You must know something of this matter, Cowper. I conjure you by everything
you hold dear to answer a few questions. We have always been friends. For God’s
sake, don’t refuse to answer me.”
“What is it?” the Mormon asked uneasily. “Be quick. The very
rocks have ears and the trees eyes.”
“What has become of Lucy Ferrier?”
“She was married yesterday to young Drubber. Hold up, man,
hold up, you have no life left in you.”
“Don’t mind me,” said Hope faintly. He was white to the very
lips and had sunk down on the stone against which he had been leaning.
“Married, you say?”
“Married yesterday—that’s what those flags are for on the
Endowment House. There were some words between young Drubber and young Stanger
son as to which was to have her. They’d both been in the party that followed
them, and Stanger son had shot her father, which seemed to give him the best
claim; but when they argued it out in council, Drubber's party was the
stronger, so the Prophet gave her over to him. No one won’t have her very long
though, for I saw death in her face yesterday. She is more like a ghost than a
woman. Are you off, then?”
“Yes, I am off,” said Jefferson Hope, who had risen from his
seat. His face might have been chiseled out of marble, so hard and set was its
expression, while its eyes glowed with a baleful light.
“Where are you going?”
“Never mind,” he answered; and, slinging his weapon over his
shoulder, strode off down the gorge and so away into the heart of the mountains
to the haunts of the wild beasts. Amongst them all there was none so fierce and
so dangerous as himself.
The prediction of the Mormon was only too well fulfilled.
Whether it was the terrible death of her father or the effects of the hateful
marriage into which she had been forced, poor Lucy never held up her head
again, but pined away and died within a month. Her sottish husband, who had
married her principally for the sake of John Ferrier’s property, did not affect
any great grief at his bereavement; but his other wives mourned over her, and
sat up with her the night before the burial, as is the Mormon custom. They were
grouped round the bier in the early hours of the morning, when, to their
inexpressible fear and astonishment, the door was flung open, and a
savage-looking, weather-beaten man in tattered garments strode into the room.
Without a glance or a word to the cowering women, he walked up to the white
silent figure which had once contained the pure soul of Lucy Ferrier. Stooping
over her, he pressed his lips reverently to her cold forehead, and then,
snatching up her hand, he took the wedding-ring from her finger. “She shall not
be buried in that,” he cried with a fierce snarl, and before an alarm could be
raised sprang down the stairs and was gone. So strange and so brief was the
episode, that the watchers might have found it hard to believe it themselves or
persuade other people of it, had it not been for the undeniable fact that the
circlet of gold which marked her as having been a bride had disappeared.
For some months Jefferson Hope lingered among the mountains,
leading a strange wildlife, and nursing in his heart the fierce desire for
vengeance which possessed him. Tales were told in the City of the weird figure
which was seen prowling about the suburbs, and which haunted the lonely
mountain gorges. Once a bullet whistled through Stanger son's window and
flattened itself upon the wall within a foot of him. On another occasion, as Drubber
passed under a cliff a great boulder crashed down on him, and he only escaped a
terrible death by throwing himself upon his face. The two young Mormons were
not long in discovering the reason of these attempts upon their lives and led
repeated expeditions into the mountains in the hope of capturing or killing
their enemy, but always without success. Then they adopted the precaution of
never going out alone or after nightfall, and of having their houses guarded.
After a time, they were able to relax these measures, for nothing was either
heard or seen of their opponent, and they hoped that time had cooled his
vindictiveness.
Far from doing so, it had, if anything, augmented it. The
hunter’s mind was of a hard, unyielding nature, and the predominant idea of
revenge had taken such complete possession of it that there was no room for any
other emotion. He was, however, above all things practical. He soon realized
that even his iron constitution could not stand the incessant strain which he
was putting upon it. Exposure and want of wholesome food were wearing him out.
If he died like a dog among the mountains, what was to become of his revenge
then? And yet such a death was sure to overtake him if he persisted. He felt
that that was to play his enemy’s game, so he reluctantly returned to the old
Nevada mines, there to recruit his health and to amass money enough to allow
him to pursue his object without privation.
His intention had been to be absent a year at the most, but
a combination of unforeseen circumstances prevented his leaving the mines for
nearly five. At the end of that time, however, his memory of his wrongs and his
craving for revenge were quite as keen as on that memorable night when he had
stood by John Ferrier’s grave. Disguised, and under an assumed name, he
returned to Salt Lake City, careless what became of his own life, if he
obtained what he knew to be justice. There he found evil tidings awaiting him.
There had been a schism among the Chosen People a few months before, some of
the younger members of the Church having rebelled against the authority of the
Elders, and the result had been the secession of a certain number of the
malcontents, who had left Utah and become Gentiles. Among these had been Drubber
and Stanger son; and no one knew whither they had gone. Rumor reported that Drubber
had managed to convert a large part of his property into money, and that he had
departed a wealthy man, while his companion, Stanger son, was comparatively
poor. There was no clue at all, however, as to their whereabouts.
Many a man, however vindictive, would have abandoned all
thought of revenge in the face of such a difficulty, but Jefferson Hope never
faltered for a moment. With the small competence he possessed, eked out by such
employment as he could pick up, he travelled from town to town through the
United States in quest of his enemies. Year passed into year, his black hair
turned grizzled, but still he wandered on, a human bloodhound, with his mind
wholly set upon the one object upon which he had devoted his life. At last his
perseverance was rewarded. It was but a glance of a face in a window, but that
one glance told him that Cleveland in Ohio possessed the men whom he was in
pursuit of. He returned to his miserable lodgings with his plan of vengeance
all arranged. It chanced, however, that Drubber, looking from his window, had
recognized the vagrant in the street, and had read murder in his eyes. He hurried
before a justice of the peace, accompanied by Stanger son, who had become his
private secretary, and represented to him that they were in danger of their
lives from the jealousy and hatred of an old rival. That evening Jefferson Hope
was taken into custody, and not being able to find sureties, was detained for
some weeks. When at last he was liberated, it was only to find that Drubber's
house was deserted, and that he and his secretary had departed for Europe.
Again, the avenger had been foiled, and again his
concentrated hatred urged him to continue the pursuit. Funds were wanting,
however, and for some time he had to return to work, saving every dollar for
his approaching journey. At last, having collected enough to keep life in him,
he departed for Europe, and tracked his enemies from city to city, working his
way in any menial capacity, but never overtaking the fugitives. When he reached
St. Petersburg, they had departed for Paris; and when he followed them there,
he learned that they had just set off for Copenhagen. At the Danish capital he
was again a few days late, for they had journeyed on to London, where he at
last succeeded in running them to earth. As to what occurred there, we cannot
do better than quote the old hunter’s own account, as duly recorded in Dr.
Watson’s Journal, to which we are already under such obligations.
CHAPTER VI. A CONTINUATION OF THE REMINISCENCES OF
JOHN WATSON, M.D.
OUR prisoner’s furious resistance did not apparently
indicate any ferocity in his disposition towards ourselves, for on finding
himself powerless, he smiled in an affable manner, and expressed his hopes that
he had not hurt any of us in the scuffle. “I guess you’re going to take me to
the police-station,” he remarked to Sherlock Holmes. “My cabs at the door. If
you’ll lose my legs, I’ll walk down to it. I’m not so light to lift as I used
to be.”
Gregson and Lestrade exchanged glances as if they thought
this proposition rather a bold one; but Holmes at once took the prisoner at his
word and loosened the towel which we had bound round his ankles. He rose and
stretched his legs, as though to assure himself that they were free once more.
I remember that I thought to myself, as I eyed him, that I had seldom seen a
more powerfully built man; and his dark sunburned face bore an expression of
determination and energy which was as formidable as his personal strength.
“If there’s a vacant place for a chief of the police, I
reckon you are the man for it,” he said, gazing with undisguised admiration at
my fellow-lodger. “The way you kept on my trail was a caution.”
“You had better come with me,” said Holmes to the two detectives.
“I can drive you,” said Lestrade.
“Good! and Gregson can come inside with me. You too, Doctor,
you have taken an interest in the case and may as well stick to us.”
I assented gladly, and we all descended together. Our
prisoner made no attempt at escape but stepped calmly into the cab which had
been his, and we followed him. Lestrade mounted the box, whipped up the horse,
and brought us in a very short time to our destination. We were ushered into a
small chamber where a police Inspector noted down our prisoner’s name and the
names of the men with whose murder he had been charged. The official was a
white-faced unemotional man, who went through his duties in a dull mechanical
way. “The prisoner will be put before the magistrates in the course of the
week,” he said; “in the meantime, Mr. Jefferson Hope, have you anything that
you wish to say? I must warn you that your words will be taken down and may be
used against you.”
“I’ve got a good deal to say,” our prisoner said slowly. “I
want to tell you gentlemen all about it.”
“Hadn’t you better reserve that for your trial?” asked the
Inspector.
“I may never be tried,” he answered. “You needn’t look
startled. It isn’t suicide I am thinking of. Are you a Doctor?” He turned his
fierce dark eyes upon me as he asked this last question.
“Yes; I am,” I answered.
“Then put your hand here,” he said, with a smile, motioning
with his manacled wrists towards his chest.
I did so; and became at once conscious of an extraordinary
throbbing and commotion which was going on inside. The walls of his chest
seemed to thrill and quiver as a frail building would do inside when some
powerful engine was at work. In the silence of the room I could hear a dull
humming and buzzing noise which proceeded from the same source.
“Why,” I cried, “you have an aortic aneurism!”
“That’s what they call it,” he said, placidly. “I went to a
Doctor last week about it, and he told me that it is bound to burst before many
days passed. It has been getting worse for years. I got it from over-exposure
and under-feeding among the Salt Lake Mountains. I’ve done my work now, and I
don’t care how soon I go, but I should like to leave some account of the business
behind me. I don’t want to be remembered as a common cut-throat.”
The Inspector and the two detectives had a hurried
discussion as to the advisability of allowing him to tell his story.
“Do you consider, Doctor, that there is immediate danger?”
the former asked,
“Most certainly there is,” I answered.
“In that case it is clearly our duty, in the interests of
justice, to take his statement,” said the Inspector. “You are at liberty, sir,
to give your account, which I again warn you will be taken down.”
“I’ll sit down, with your leave,” the prisoner said, suiting
the action to the word. “This aneurism of mine makes me easily tired, and the
tussle we had half an hour ago has not mended matters. I’m on the brink of the
grave, and I am not likely to lie to you. Every word I say is the absolute
truth, and how you use it is a matter of no consequence to me.”
With these words, Jefferson Hope leaned back in his chair
and began the following remarkable statement. He spoke in a calm and methodical
manner, as though the events which he narrated were commonplace enough. I can
vouch for the accuracy of the subjoined account, for I have had access to
Lestrade’s note-book, in which the prisoner’s words were taken down exactly as
they were uttered.
“It don’t much matter to you why I hated these men,” he
said; “it’s enough that they were guilty of the death of two human beings—a
father and a daughter—and that they had, therefore, forfeited their own lives.
After the lapse of time that has passed since their crime, it was impossible
for me to secure a conviction against them in any court. I knew of their guilt
though, and I determined that I should be judge, jury, and executioner all
rolled into one. You’d have done the same, if you have any manhood in you, if
you had been in my place.
“That girl that I spoke of was to have married me twenty
years ago. She was forced into marrying that same Drubber and broke her heart
over it. I took the marriage ring from her dead finger, and I vowed that his
dying eyes should rest upon that very ring, and that his last thoughts should
be of the crime for which he was punished. I have carried it about with me and
have followed him and his accomplice over two continents until I caught them.
They thought to tire me out, but they could not do it. If I die to-morrow, as
is likely enough, I die knowing that my work in this world is done, and well
done. They have perished, and by my hand. There is nothing left for me to hope
for, or to desire.
“They were rich, and I was poor, so that it was no easy
matter for me to follow them. When I got to London my pocket was about empty,
and I found that I must turn my hand to something for my living. Driving and
riding are as natural to me as walking, so I applied at a cab owner's office,
and soon got employment. I was to bring a certain sum a week to the owner, and
whatever was over that I might keep for myself. There was seldom much over, but
I managed to scrape along somehow. The hardest job was to learn my way about,
for I reckon that of all the mazes that ever were contrived, this city is the
most confusing. I had a map beside me though, and when once I had spotted the
principal hotels and stations, I got on well.
“It was some time before I found out where my two gentlemen
were living; but I inquired and inquired until at last I dropped across them.
They were at a boarding-house at Camber well, over on the other side of the
river. When once I found them out, I knew that I had them at my mercy. I had
grown my beard, and there was no chance of their recognizing me. I would do
them and follow them until I saw my opportunity. I was determined that they
should not escape me again.
“They were very near doing it for all that. Go where they
would about London, I was always at their heels. Sometimes I followed them on
my cab, and sometimes on foot, but the former was the best, for then they could
not get away from me. It was only early in the morning or late at night that I
could earn anything, so that I began to get behind hand with my employer. I did
not mind that, however, if I could lay my hand upon the men I wanted.
“They were very cunning, though. They must have thought that
there was some chance of their being followed, for they would never go out
alone, and never after nightfall. For two weeks I drove behind them every day,
and never once saw them separate. Drubber himself was drunk half the time, but Stanger
son was not to be caught napping. I watched them late and early, but never saw
the ghost of a chance; but I was not discouraged, for something told me that
the hour had almost come. My only fear was that this thing in my chest might
burst a little too soon and leave my work undone.
“At last, one evening I was driving up and down Torque
Terrace, as the street was called in which they boarded, when I saw a cab drive
up to their door. Presently some luggage was brought out, and after a time Drubber
and Stanger son followed it and drove off. I whipped up my horse and kept
within sight of them, feeling very ill at ease, for I feared that they were
going to shift their quarters. At Euston Station they got out, and I left a boy
to hold my horse, and followed them on to the platform. I heard them ask for
the Liverpool train, and the guard answer that one had just gone and there
would not be another for some hours. Stanger son seemed to be put out at that,
but Drubber was rather pleased than otherwise. I got so close to them in the
bustle that I could hear every word that passed between them. Drubber said that
he had a little business of his own to do, and that if the other would wait for
him he would soon rejoin him. His companion remonstrated with him and reminded
him that they had resolved to stick together. Drubber answered that the matter
was a delicate one, and that he must go alone. I could not catch what Stanger
son said to that, but the other burst out swearing, and reminded him that he
was nothing more than his paid servant, and that he must not presume to dictate
to him. On that the Secretary gave it up as a bad job, and simply bargained
with him that if he missed the last train he should rejoin him at Halliday’s
Private Hotel; to which Drubber answered that he would be back on the platform
before eleven, and made his way out of the station.
“The moment for which I had waited so long had at last come.
I had my enemies within my power. Together they could protect each other, but
singly they were at my mercy. I did not act, however, with undue precipitation.
My plans were already formed. There is no satisfaction in vengeance unless the
offender has time to realize who it is that strikes him, and why retribution
has come upon him. I had my plans arranged by which I should have the
opportunity of making the man who had wronged me understand that his old sin
had found him out. It chanced that some days before a gentleman who had been
engaged in looking over some houses in the Brixton Road had dropped the key of
one of them in my carriage. It was claimed that same evening and returned; but
in the interval I had taken a molding of it, and had a duplicate constructed.
By means of this I had access to at least one spot in this great city where I
could rely upon being free from interruption. How to get Drubber to that house
was the difficult problem which I had now to solve.
“He walked down the road and went into one or two liquor shops,
staying for nearly half-an-hour in the last of them. When he came out, he
staggered in his walk, and was evidently well on. There was a hansom just in
front of me, and he hailed it. I followed it so close that the nose of my horse
was within a yard of his driver the whole way. We rattled across Waterloo
Bridge and through miles of streets, until, to my astonishment, we found ourselves
back in the Terrace in which he had boarded. I could not imagine what his
intention was in returning there; but I went on and pulled up my cab a hundred
yards or so from the house. He entered it, and his hansom drove away. Give me a
glass of water, if you please. My mouth gets dry with the talking.”
I handed him the glass, and he drank it down.
“That’s better,” he said. “Well, I waited for a quarter of
an hour, or more, when suddenly there came a noise like people struggling
inside the house. Next moment the door was flung open and two men appeared, one
of whom was Drubber, and the other was a young chap whom I had never seen
before. This fellow had Drubber by the collar, and when they came to the head
of the steps, he gave him a shove and a kick which sent him half across the
road. ‘You hound,’ he cried, shaking his stick at him; ‘I’ll teach you to insult
an honest girl!’ He was so hot that I think he would have thrashed Drubber with
his cudgel, only that the cur staggered away down the road as fast as his legs
would carry him. He ran as far as the corner, and then, seeing my cab, he
hailed me and jumped in. ‘Drive me to Halliday’s Private Hotel,’ said he.
“When I had him fairly inside my cab, my heart jumped so
with joy that I feared lest at this last moment my aneurism might go wrong. I
drove along slowly, weighing in my own mind what it was best to do. I might
take him right out into the country, and there in some deserted lane have my
last interview with him. I had almost decided upon this, when he solved the
problem for me. The craze for drink had seized him again, and he ordered me to
pull up outside a gin palace. He went in, leaving word that I should wait for
him. There he remained until closing time, and when he came out, he was so far
gone that I knew the game was in my own hands.
“Don’t imagine that I intended to kill him in cold blood. It
would only have been rigid justice if I had done so, but I could not bring
myself to do it. I had long determined that he should have a show for his life
if he chose to take advantage of it. Among the many billets which I have filled
in America during my wandering life, I was once janitor and sweeper out of the
laboratory at York College. One day the professor was lecturing on poisons, and
he showed his students some alkaloid, as he called it, which he had extracted
from some South American arrow poison, and which was so powerful that the least
grain meant instant death. I spotted the bottle in which this preparation was
kept, and when they were all gone, I helped myself to a little of it. I was a good
dispenser, so I worked this alkaloid into small, soluble pills, and each pill I
put in a box with a similar pill made without the poison. I determined at the
time that when I had my chance, my gentlemen should each have a draw out of one
of these boxes, while I ate the pill that remained. It would be quite as
deadly, and a good deal less noisy than firing across a handkerchief. From that
day I had always my pill boxes about with me, and the time had now come when I
was to use them.
“It was nearer one than twelve, and a wild, bleak night,
blowing hard and raining in torrents. Dismal as it was outside, I was glad
within—so glad that I could have shouted out from pure exultation. If any of
you gentlemen have ever pined for a thing, and longed for it during twenty long
years, and then suddenly found it within your reach, you would understand my
feelings. I lit a cigar, and puffed at it to steady my nerves, but my hands
were trembling, and my temples throbbing with excitement. As I drove, I could
see old John Ferrier and sweet Lucy looking at me out of the darkness and
smiling at me, just as plain as I see you all in this room. All the way they
were ahead of me, one on each side of the horse until I pulled up at the house
in the Brixton Road.
“There was not a soul to be seen, nor a sound to be heard,
except the dripping of the rain. When I looked in at the window, I found Drubber
all huddled together in a drunken sleep. I shook him by the arm, ‘It’s time to
get out,’ I said.
“‘All right, cabby,’ said he.
“I suppose he thought we had come to the hotel that he had
mentioned, for he got out without another word, and followed me down the
garden. I had to walk beside him to keep him steady, for he was still a little
top-heavy. When we came to the door, I opened it, and led him into the front
room. I give you my word that all the way, the father and the daughter were
walking in front of us.
“‘It’s infernally dark,’ said he, stamping about.
“‘We’ll soon have a light,’ I said, striking a match and
putting it to a wax candle which I had brought with me. ‘Now, Enoch Drubber,’ I
continued, turning to him, and holding the light to my own face, ‘who am I?’
“He gazed at me with bleared, drunken eyes for a moment, and
then I saw a horror spring up in them, and convulse his whole features, which
showed me that he knew me. He staggered back with a livid face, and I saw the
perspiration break out upon his brow, while his teeth chattered in his head. At
the sight, I leaned my back against the door and laughed loud and long. I had
always known that vengeance would be sweet, but I had never hoped for the
contentment of soul which now possessed me.
“‘You dog!’ I said; ‘I have hunted you from Salt Lake City
to St. Petersburg, and you have always escaped me. Now, at last your wanderings
have come to an end, for either you or I shall never see to-morrow’s sun rise.’
He shrunk still further away as I spoke, and I could see on his face that he
thought I was mad. So, I was for the time. The pulses in my temples beat like sledgehammers,
and I believe I would have had a fit of some sort if the blood had not gushed
from my nose and relieved me.
“‘What do you think of Lucy Ferrier now?’ I cried, locking
the door, and shaking the key in his face. ‘Punishment has been slow in coming,
but it has overtaken you at last.’ I saw his coward lips tremble as I spoke. He
would have begged for his life, but he knew well that it was useless.
“‘Would you murder me?’ he stammered.
“‘There is no murder,’ I answered. ‘Who talks of murdering a
mad dog? What mercy had you upon my poor darling, when you dragged her from her
slaughtered father, and bore her away to your accursed and shameless harem.’
“‘It was not I who killed her father,’ he cried.
“‘But it was you who broke her innocent heart,’ I shrieked,
thrusting the box before him. ‘Let the high God judge between us. Choose and
eat. There is death in one and life in the other. I shall take what you leave.
Let us see if there is justice upon the earth, or if we are ruled by chance.’
“He cowered away with wild cries and prayers for mercy, but
I drew my knife and held it to his throat until he had obeyed me. Then I
swallowed the other, and we stood facing one another in silence for a minute or
more, waiting to see which was to live and which was to die. Shall I ever
forget the look which came over his face when the first warning pangs told him
that the poison was in his system? I laughed as I saw it and held Lucy’s
marriage ring in front of his eyes. It was but for a moment, for the action of
the alkaloid is rapid. A spasm of pain contorted his features; he threw his
hands out in front of him, staggered, and then, with a hoarse cry, fell heavily
upon the floor. I turned him over with my foot and placed my hand upon his
heart. There was no movement. He was dead!
“The blood had been streaming from my nose, but I had taken
no notice of it. I don’t know what it was that put it into my head to write
upon the wall with it. Perhaps it was some mischievous idea of setting the
police upon a wrong track, for I felt light-hearted and cheerful. I remembered
a German being found in New York with RACHE written up above him, and it was
argued at the time in the newspapers that the secret societies must have done
it. I guessed that what puzzled the New Yorkers would puzzle the Londoners, so
I dipped my finger in my own blood and printed it on a convenient place on the wall.
Then I walked down to my cab and found that there was nobody about, and that
the night was still very wild. I had driven some distance when I put my hand
into the pocket in which I usually kept Lucy’s ring, and found that it was not
there. I was thunderstruck at this, for it was the only memento that I had of
her. Thinking that I might have dropped it when I stooped over Drubber's body,
I drove back, and leaving my cab in a side street, I went boldly up to the
house—for I was ready to dare anything rather than lose the ring. When I arrived
there, I walked right into the arms of a police-officer who was coming out, and
only managed to disarm his suspicions by pretending to be hopelessly drunk.
“That was how Enoch Drubber came to his end. All I had to do
then was to do as much for Stanger son, and so pay off John Ferrier’s debt. I
knew that he was staying at Halliday’s Private Hotel, and I hung about all day,
but he never came out. fancy that he suspected something when Drubber failed to
appear. He was cunning, was Stanger son, and always on his guard. If he thought,
he could keep me off by staying indoors he was very much mistaken. I soon found
out which was the window of his bedroom, and early next morning I took
advantage of some ladders which were lying in the lane behind the hotel, and so
made my way into his room in the grey of the dawn. I woke him up and told him
that the hour had come when he was to answer for the life he had taken so long
before. I described Drubber's death to him, and I gave him the same choice of
the poisoned pills. Instead of grasping at the chance of safety which that
offered him, he sprang from his bed and flew at my throat. In self-defense I
stabbed him to the heart. It would have been the same in any case, for
Providence would never have allowed his guilty hand to pick out anything but
the poison.
“I have little more to say, and it’s as well, for I am about
done up. I went on cabbing it for a day or so, intending to keep at it until I
could save enough to take me back to America. I was standing in the yard when a
ragged youngster asked if there was a cabby there called Jefferson Hope, and
said that his cab was wanted by a gentleman at 221B, Baker Street. I went around,
suspecting no harm, and the next thing I knew, this young man here had the bracelets
on my wrists, and as neatly snaked as ever I saw in my life. That’s the whole
of my story, gentlemen. You may consider me to be a murderer; but I hold that I
am just as much an officer of justice as you are.”
So, thrilling had the man’s narrative been, and his manner
was so impressive that we had sat silent and absorbed. Even the professional
detectives, blasé as they were in every detail of crime, appeared to be keenly
interested in the man’s story. When he finished, we sat for some minutes in a stillness
which was only broken by the scratching of Lestrade’s pencil as he gave the
finishing touches to his shorthand account.
“There is only one point on which I should like a little
more information,” Sherlock Holmes said at last. “Who was your accomplice who
came for the ring which I advertised?”
The prisoner winked at my friend jocosely. “I can tell my
own secrets,” he said, “but I don’t get other people into trouble. I saw your
advertisement, and I thought it might be a plant, or it might be the ring which
I wanted. My friend volunteered to go and see. I think you’ll own he did it
smartly.”
“Not a doubt of that,” said Holmes heartily.
“Now, gentlemen,” the Inspector remarked gravely, “the forms
of the law must be complied with. On Thursday the prisoner will be brought
before the magistrates, and your attendance will be required. Until then I will
be responsible for him.” He rang the bell as he spoke, and Jefferson Hope was
led off by a couple of warders, while my friend and I made our way out of the
Station and took a cab back to Baker Street.
CHAPTER VII. THE CONCLUSION.
WE had all been warned to appear before the magistrates upon
the Thursday; but when the Thursday came there was no occasion for our
testimony. A higher Judge had taken the matter in hand, and Jefferson Hope had
been summoned before a tribunal where strict justice would be meted out to him.
On the very night after his capture the aneurism burst, and he was found in the
morning stretched upon the floor of the cell, with a placid smile upon his
face, as though he had been able in his dying moments to look back upon a
useful life, and on work well done.
“Gregson and Lestrade will be wild about his death,” Holmes
remarked, as we chatted it over next evening. “Where will their grand
advertisement be now?”
“I don’t see that they had very much to do with his
capture,” I answered.
“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence,”
returned my companion, bitterly. “The question is, what can you make people
believe that you have done. Never mind,” he continued, more brightly, after a
pause. “I would not have missed the investigation for anything. There has been
no better case within my recollection. Simple as it was, there were several
most instructive points about it.”
“Simple!” I ejaculated.
“Well, really, it can hardly be described as otherwise,”
said Sherlock Holmes, smiling at my surprise. “The proof of its intrinsic
simplicity is that without any help save a few very ordinary deductions I was
able to lay my hand upon the criminal within three days.”
“That is true,” said I.
“I have already explained to you that what is out of the
common is usually a guide rather than a hindrance. In solving a problem of this
sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. That is a very useful
accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practice it much. In the
every-day affairs of life it is more useful to reason forwards, and so the
other comes to be neglected. There are fifty who can reason synthetically for
one who can reason analytically.”
“I confess,” said I, “that I do not quite follow you.”
“I hardly expected that you would. Let me see if I can make
it clearer. Most people, if you describe a train of events to them, will tell
you what the result would be. They can put those events together in their minds
and argue from them that something will come to pass. There are few people,
however, who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own
inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result. This power
is what I mean when I talk of reasoning backwards, or analytically.”
“I understand,” said I.
“Now this was a case in which you were given the result and
had to find everything else for yourself. Now let me endeavor to show you the
different steps in my reasoning. To begin at the beginning. I approached the
house, as you know, on foot, and with my mind entirely free from all
impressions. I naturally began by examining the roadway, and there, as I have
already explained to you, I saw clearly the marks of a cab, which, I
ascertained by inquiry, must have been there during the night. I satisfied
myself that it was a cab and not a private carriage by the narrow gauge of the
wheels. The ordinary London growler is considerably less wide than a gentleman’s
brougham.
“This was the first point gained. I then walked slowly down
the garden path, which happened to be composed of a clay soil, peculiarly
suitable for taking impressions. No doubt it appeared to you to be a mere
trampled line of slush, but to my trained eyes every mark upon its surface had
a meaning. There is no branch of detective science which is so important and so
much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps. Happily, I have always laid
great stress upon it, and much practice has made it second nature to me. I saw
the heavy footmarks of the constables, but I saw also the track of the two men
who had first passed through the garden. It was easy to tell that they had been
before the others, because in places their marks had been entirely obliterated
by the others coming upon the top of them. In this way my second link was
formed, which told me that the nocturnal visitors were two in number, one remarkable
for his height (as I calculated from the length of his stride), and the other
fashionably dressed, to judge from the small and elegant impression left by his
boots.
“On entering the house this last inference was confirmed. My
well-booted man lay before me. The tall one, then, had done the murder, if
murder there was. There was no wound upon the dead man’s person, but the
agitated expression upon his face assured me that he had foreseen his fate
before it came upon him. Men who die from heart disease, or any sudden natural
cause, never by any chance exhibit agitation upon their features. Having
sniffed the dead man’s lips I detected a slightly sour smell, and I concluded
that he had had poison forced upon him. Again, I argued that it had been forced
upon him from the hatred and fear expressed upon his face. By the method of
exclusion, I had arrived at this result, for no other hypothesis would meet the
facts. Do not imagine that it was a very unheard-of idea. The forcible
administration of poison is by no means a new thing in criminal annals. The
cases of Dolski in Odessa, and of Lecturer in Montpellier, will occur at once
to any toxicologist.
“And now came the great question as to the reason why.
Robbery had not been the object of the murder, for nothing was taken. Was its
politics, then, or was it a woman? That was the question which confronted me. I
was inclined from the first to the latter supposition. Political assassins are
only too glad to do their work and to fly. This murder had, on the contrary,
been done most deliberately, and the perpetrator had left his tracks all over
the room, showing that he had been there all the time. It must have been a
private wrong, and not a political one, which called for such a methodical
revenge. When the inscription was discovered upon the wall, I was more inclined
than ever to my opinion. The thing was too evidently a blind. When the ring was
found, however, it settled the question. Clearly the murderer had used it to
remind his victim of some dead or absent woman. It was at this point that I
asked Gregson whether he had enquired in his telegram to Cleveland as to any point
in Mr. Drubber's former career. He answered, you remember, in the negative.
“I then proceeded to make a careful examination of the room,
which confirmed me in my opinion as to the murderer’s height and furnished me
with the additional details as to the Trichinopoly cigar and the length of his
nails. I had already concluded, since there were no signs of a struggle, that
the blood which covered the floor had burst from the murderer’s nose in his
excitement. I could perceive that the track of blood coincided with the track
of his feet. It is seldom that any man, unless he is very full-blooded, breaks
out in this way through emotion, so I hazarded the opinion that the criminal
was probably a robust and ruddy-faced man. Events proved that I had judged
correctly.
“Having left the house, I proceeded to do what Gregson had
neglected. I telegraphed to the head of the police at Cleveland, limiting my
enquiry to the circumstances connected with the marriage of Enoch Drubber. The
answer was conclusive. It told me that Drubber had already applied for the
protection of the law against an old rival in love, named Jefferson Hope, and
that this same Hope was at present in Europe. I knew now that I held the clue
to the mystery in my hand, and all that remained was to secure the murderer.
“I had already determined in my own mind that the man who
had walked into the house with Drubber, was none other than the man who had
driven the cab. The marks in the road showed me that the horse had wandered on
in a way which would have been impossible had there been anyone in charge of
it. Where, then, could the driver be, unless he were inside the house? Again,
it is absurd to suppose that any sane man would carry out a deliberate crime
under the very eyes, as it were, of a third person, who was sure to betray him.
Lastly, supposing one man wished to dog another through London, what better means
could he adopt than to turn cabdriver. All these considerations led me to the
irresistible conclusion that Jefferson Hope was to be found among the jerseys
of the Metropolis.
“If he had been one there was no reason to believe that he
had ceased to be. On the contrary, from his point of view, any sudden change
would be likely to draw attention to himself. He would, probably, for a time at
least, continue to perform his duties. There was no reason to suppose that he
was going under an assumed name. Why should he change his name in a country
where no one knew his original one? I therefore organized my Street Arab
detective corps and sent them systematically to every cab proprietor in London
until they ferreted out the man that I wanted. How well they succeeded, and how
quickly I took advantage of it, are still fresh in your recollection. The
murder of Stanger son was an incident which was entirely unexpected, but which
could hardly in any case have been prevented. Through it, as you know, I came
into possession of the pills, the existence of which I had already surmised.
You see the whole thing is a chain of logical sequences without a break or
flaw.”
“It is wonderful!” I cried. “Your merits should be publicly
recognized. You should publish an account of the case. If you won’t, I will for
you.”
“You may do what you like, Doctor,” he answered. “See here!”
he continued, handing a paper over to me, “look at this!”
It was the Echo for the day, and the paragraph to which he
pointed was devoted to the case in question.
“The public,” it said, “have lost a sensational treat
through the sudden death of the man Hope, who was suspected of the murder of
Mr. Enoch Drubber and of Mr. Joseph Stanger son. The details of the case will
probably be never known now, though we are informed upon good authority that
the crime was the result of an old standing and romantic feud, in which love
and Mormonism bore a part. It seems that both the victims belonged, in their
younger days, to the Latter-Day Saints, and Hope, the deceased prisoner, hails
also from Salt Lake City. If the case has had no other effect, it, at least,
brings out in the most striking manner the efficiency of our detective police
force, and will serve as a lesson to all foreigners that they will do wisely to
settle their feuds at home, and not to carry them on to British soil. It is an
open secret that the credit of this smart capture belongs entirely to the
well-known Scotland Yard officials, Messrs. Lestrade and Gregson. The man was
apprehended, it appears, in the rooms of a certain Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who has
himself, as an amateur, shown some talent in the detective line, and who, with
such instructors, may hope in time to attain to some degree of their skill. It
is expected that a testimonial of some sort will be presented to the two
officers as a fitting recognition of their services.”
“Didn’t I tell you so when we started?” cried Sherlock Holmes
with a laugh. “That’s the result of all our Study in Scarlet: to get them a
testimonial!”
“Never mind,” I answered, “I have all the facts in my
journal, and the public shall know them. In the meantime, you must make
yourself contented by the consciousness of success, like the Roman miser—
“‘Populos me sibilat, at mimi palud
Ipse domi simul ac nummos
contemplor in arca.’”
A STUDY IN SCARLET By A. Conan Doyle
Reviewed by bsm
on
February 19, 2020
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