The Sign of Four:
By A. Conan Doyle
Author of 'Micah Clarke,' 'The firm of Girdlestone,' 'The Captain of the polestar,' etc. etc.
London
Spencer Blackett
Milton House, 35, St Bride Street, E.C.
1890
[All rights reserved]
Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece, and his
hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he
adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his
eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist, all dotted and scarred with
innumerable puncture-marks. Finally, he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny
piston, and sank back into the
Three times a day for many months I had witnessed this performance, but custom had not reconciled my mind to it. On the contrary, from day to day I had become more irritable at the sight, and my conscience swelled nightly within me at the thought that I had lacked the courage to protest. Again and again I had registered a vow that I should deliver my soul upon the subject; but there was that in the cool, nonchalant air of my companion which made him the last man with whom one would care to take anything approaching to a liberty. His great powers, his masterly manner, and the experience which I had had of his many extraordinary qualities, all made me diffident and backward in crossing him.
Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the Beaune which I had taken with my lunch,
'Which is it to-day,' I asked, 'morphine or cocaine?'
He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had opened.
'It is cocaine,' he said, 'a seven-per-cent. solution. Would you care to try it?'
'No, indeed,' I answered brusquely. 'My constitution has not got over the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon it.'
He smiled at my vehemence. 'Perhaps you are right, Watson,' he said. 'I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment.'
'But consider!' I said earnestly. 'Count the cost! Your brain may, as you say, be
He did not seem offended. On the contrary, he put his finger-tips together, and leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair, like one who has a relish for conversation.
'My mind,' he said, 'rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most
abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I
can dispense then with
'The only unofficial detective?' I said, raising my eyebrows.
'The only unofficial consulting detective,' he answered. 'I am the last and highest court of appeal in detection. When, Gregson, or Lestrade, or Athelney Jones are out of their depths—which, by the way, is their normal state—the matter is laid before me. I examine the data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist's opinion. I claim no credit in such cases. My name figures in no newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar powers, is my highest reward. But you have yourself had some experience of my methods of work in the Jefferson Hope case.'
'Yes, indeed,' said I cordially. 'I was never so struck by anything in my life. I even embodied it in a small brochure, with the somewhat fantastic title of "A Study in Scarlet."'
He shook his head sadly.
'I glanced over it,' said he. 'Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a lovestory or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.'
'But the romance was there,' I remonstrated. 'I could not tamper with the facts.'
'Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of proportion should be observed
in treating them. The only point in the case which deserved mention was the
I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should be devoted to his own special doings. More than once during the years that I had lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that a small vanity underlay my companion's quiet and didactic manner. I made no remark, however, but sat nursing my wounded leg. I had had a Jezail bullet through it some time before, and, though it did not prevent me from walking, it ached wearily at every change of the weather.
'My practice has extended recently to the Continent,' said Holmes, after awhile, filling up
his old briar-root pipe. 'I was consulted
He tossed over, as he spoke, a crumpled sheet of foreign notepaper. I glanced my eyes down it, catching a profusion of notes of admiration, with stray 'magnifiques,' 'coup-de-maîtres,' and 'tours-de-force,' all testifying to the ardent admiration of the Frenchman.
'He speaks as a pupil to his master,' said I.
'Oh, he rates my assistance too highly,' said Sherlock Holmes lightly. 'He has considerable gifts himself. He possesses two out of the three qualities necessary for the ideal detective. He has the power of observation and that of deduction. He is only wanting in knowledge, and that may come in time. He is now translating my small works into French.'
'Your works?'
'Oh, didn't you know?' he cried, laughing. 'Yes, I have been guilty of several monographs.
They are all upon technical subjects. Here, for example, is one "Upon the Distinction between
the Ashes of the Various Tobaccos." In it I enumerate a hundred and forty forms of cigar,
cigarette, and pipe tobacco, with coloured plates illustrating the difference in the ash. It is
a point which is
'You have an extraordinary genius for minutiæ,' I remarked.
'I appreciate their importance. Here is my monograph upon the tracing of footsteps, with some
remarks upon the uses of plaster of Paris as a preserver of impresses. Here, too, is a curious
little work upon the influènce of a trade upon the form of the hand, with lithotypes of the
hands of slaters, sailors, cork-cutters, compositors, weavers, and diamond-polishers. That is a
matter of great
'Not at all,' I answered earnestly. 'It is of the greatest interest to me, especially since I have had the opportunity of observing your practical application of it. But you spoke just now of observation and deduction. Surely the one to some extent implies the other.'
'Why, hardly,' he answered, leaning back luxuriously in his armchair, and sending up thick blue wreaths from his pipe. 'For example, observation shows me that you have been to the Wigmore Street Post-Office this morning, but deduction lets me know that when there you despatched a telegram.'
'Right!' said I. 'Right on both points! But I confess that I don't see how you arrived at it.
It was a sudden impulse upon
'It is simplicity itself,' he remarked, chuckling at my surprise—'so absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous; and yet it may serve to define the limits of observation and of deduction. Observation tells me that you have a little reddish mould adhering to your instep. Just opposite the Wigmore Street Office they have taken up the pavement and thrown up some earth, which lies in such a way that it is difficult to avoid treading in it in entering. The earth is of this peculiar reddish tint which is found, as far as I know, nowhere else in the neighbourhood. So much is observation. The rest is deduction.'
'How, then, did you deduce the telegram?'
'Why, of course I knew that you had not written a letter, since I sat opposite to you
'In this case it certainly is so,' I replied, after a little thought. 'The thing, however, is, as you say, of the simplest. Would you think me impertinent if I were to put your theories to a more severe test?'
'On the contrary,' he answered; 'it would prevent me from taking a second dose of cocaine. I should be delighted to look into any problem which you might submit to me.'
'I have heard you say that it is difficult for a man to have any object in daily use without
leaving the impress of his individuality upon it in such a way that a trained observer might
read it. Now, I have here a watch which has recently come into my possession. Would you
I handed him over the watch with some slight feeling of amusement in my heart, for the test was, as I thought, an impossible one, and I intended it as a lesson against the somewhat dogmatic tone which he occasionally assumed. He balanced the watch in his hand, gazed hard at the dial, opened the back, and examined the works, first with his naked eyes and then with a powerful convex lens. I could hardly keep from smiling at his crestfallen face when he finally snapped the case to and handed it back.
'There are hardly any data,' he remarked. 'The watch has been recently cleaned, which robs me of my most suggestive facts.'
'You are right,' I answered. 'It was cleaned before being sent to me.'
In my heart I accused my companion of putting forward a most lame and impotent
'Though unsatisfactory, my research has not been entirely barren,' he observed, staring up at the ceiling with dreamy, lacklustre eyes. 'Subject to your correction, I should judge that the watch belonged to your elder brother, who inherited it from your father.'
'That you gather, no doubt, from the H. W. upon the back?'
'Quite so. The W. suggests your own name. The date of the watch is nearly fifty years back, and the initials are as old as the watch: so it was made for the last generation. Jewellery usually descends to the eldest son, and he is most likely to have the same name as the father. Your father has, if I remember right, been dead many years. It has, therefore, been in the hands of your eldest brother.'
'Right, so far,' said I. 'Anything else?'
'He was a man of untidy habits—very untidy and careless. He was left with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for some time in poverty with occasional short intervals of prosperity, and finally, taking to drink, he died. That is all I can gather.'
I sprang from my chair and limped impatiently about the room with considerable bitterness in my heart.
'This is unworthy of you, Holmes,' I said. 'I could not have believed that you would have descended to this. You have made inquiries into the history of my unhappy brother, and you now pretend to deduce this knowledge in some fanciful way. You cannot expect me to believe that you have read all this from his old watch! It is unkind, and, to speak plainly, has a touch of charlatanism in it.'
'My dear doctor,' said he kindly, 'pray accept my apologies. Viewing the matter as an abstract problem, I had forgotten how personal and painful a thing it might be to you. I assure you, however, that I never even knew that you had a brother until you handed me the watch.'
'Then how in the name of all that is wonderful did you get these facts? They are absolutely correct in every particular.'
'Ah, that is good luck. I could only say what was the balance of probability. I did not at all expect to be so accurate.'
'But it was not mere guess-work?'
'No, no: I never guess. It is a shocking habit—destructive to the logical faculty. What seems
strange to you is only so because you do not follow my train of thought or observe the small
facts upon which large inferences may depend. For example, I began by stating that your
I nodded, to show that I followed his reasoning.
'It is very customary for pawnbrokers in England, when they take a watch, to scratch the
number of the ticket with a pin-point upon the inside of the case. It is more handy than a
label, as there is no risk of the number being lost or transposed. There are no less than four
such numbers visible
'It is as clear as daylight,' I answered. 'I regret the injustice which I did you. I should have had more faith in your marvellous faculty. May I ask whether you have any professional inquiry on foot at present?'
'None. Hence the cocaine. I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there
I had opened my mouth to reply to this tirade, when, with a crisp knock, our landlady entered, bearing a card upon the brass salver.
'A young lady for you, sir,' she said, addressing my companion.
'Miss Mary Morstan,' he read. 'Hum! I have no recollection of the name. Ask the young lady to step up, Mrs. Hudson. Don't go, doctor. I should prefer that you remain.'
Miss Morstan entered the room with a firm step and an outward composure of manner.
She was a blonde young lady, small, dainty, well gloved, and dressed in the most perfect taste.
There was, however, a plainness and simplicity about her costume which bore with it a
suggestion of limited means. The dress was a sombre grayish beige, untrimmed and unbraided, and
she wore a small turban of the same dull hue, relieved only by a suspicion of white feather in
the side. Her face had neither regularity of feature nor beauty of complexion, but her
expression was sweet and amiable, and her
'I have come to you, Mr. Holmes,' she said, 'because you once enabled my employer, Mrs. Cecil Forrester, to unravel a little domestic complication. She was much impressed by your kindness and skill.'
'Mrs. Cecil Forrester,' he repeated thoughtfully. 'I believe that I was of some slight service to her. The case, however, as I remember it, was a very simple one.'
'She did not think so. But at least you cannot say the same of mine. I can hardly
Holmes rubbed his hands, and his eyes glistened. He leaned forward in his chair with an expression of extraordinary concentration upon his clear-cut, hawk-like features.
'State your case,' said he, in brisk, business tones.
I felt that my position was an embarrassing one.
'You will, I am sure, excuse me,' I said, rising from my chair.
To my surprise, the young lady held up her gloved hand to detain me.
'If your friend,' she said, 'would be good enough to stop, he might be of inestimable service to me.'
I relapsed into my chair.
'Briefly,' she continued, 'the facts are these. My father was an officer in an Indian
regiment,
She put her hand to her throat, and a choking sob cut short the sentence.
'The date?' asked Holmes, opening his note-book.
'He disappeared upon the 3rd of December, 1878—nearly ten years ago.'
'His luggage?'
'Remained at the hotel. There was nothing in it to suggest a clue—some clothes, some books, and a considerable number of curiosities from the Andaman Islands. He had been one of the officers in charge of the convict-guard there.'
'Had he any friends in town?'
'Only one that we know of—Major
'A singular case,' remarked Holmes.
'I have not yet described to you the most singular part. About six years ago—to be exact, upon the 4th of May, 1882—an advertisement appeared in the
She opened a flat box as she spoke, and showed me six of the finest pearls that I had ever seen.
'Your statement is most interesting,' said Sherlock Holmes. 'Has anything else occurred to you?'
'Yes, and no later than to-day. That is why I have come to you. This morning I received this letter, which you will perhaps read for yourself.'
'Thank you,' said Holmes. 'The envelope too, please. Post-mark, London, S.W.
'That is exactly what I want to ask you.'
'Then we shall most certainly go—you and I and—yes, why Dr. Watson is the very man. Your correspondent says two friends. He and I have worked together before.'
'But would he come?' she asked, with something appealing in her voice and expression.
'I shall be proud and happy,' said I, fervently, 'if I can be of any service.'
'You are both very kind,' she answered. 'I have led a retired life, and have no friends whom I could appeal to. If I am here at six it will do, I suppose?'
'You must not be later,' said Holmes. 'There is one other point, however. Is this handwriting the same as that upon the pearlbox addresses?'
'I have them here,' she answered, producing half a dozen pieces of paper.
'You are certainly a model client. You have the correct intuition. Let us see, now.' He
spread out the papers upon the table, and gave little darting glances from one to the other.
'They are disguised hands, except the letter,' he said presently; 'but there can be no question
as to the authorship. See how the irrepressible Greek e will break out, and see the
twirl of the final s . They are
'Nothing could be more unlike.'
'I expected to hear you say so. We shall look out for you, then, at six. Pray allow me to
keep the papers. I may look into the matter before then. It is only half-past three.
'
Standing at the window, I watched her walking briskly down the street, until the gray turban and white feather were but a speck in the sombre crowd.
'What a very attractive woman!' I exclaimed, turning to my companion.
He had lit his pipe again, and was leaning
'You really are an automaton—a calculating machine,' I cried. 'There is something positively inhuman in you at times.'
He smiled gently.
'It is of the first importance,' he said, 'not to allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities. A client is to me a mere unit, a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellant man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.'
'In this case, however—'
'I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule. Have you ever had occasion to
study character in handwriting?
'It is legible and regular,' I answered. 'A man of business habits and some force of character.'
Holmes shook his head.
'Look at his long letters,' he said. 'They hardly rise above the common herd. That d might be an a , and that l an e . Men of character always differentiate their long letters, however illegibly they may write. There is vacillation in his k's and self-esteem in his capitals. I am going out now. I have some few references to make. Let me recommend this book—one of the most remarkable ever penned. It is Winwood Reade's "
I sat in the window with the volume in my hand, but my thoughts were far from the daring
speculations of the writer. My mind ran upon our late visitor—her smiles, the
It was half-past five before Holmes returned. He was bright, eager, and in excellent spirits, a mood which in his case alternated with fits of the blackest depression.
'There is no great mystery in this matter,' he said, taking the cup of tea which I had poured out for him; 'the facts appear to admit of only one explanation.'
'What! you have solved it already?'
'Well, that would be too much to say. I have discovered a suggestive fact, that is all. It
is, however,
'I may be very obtuse, Holmes, but I fail to see what this suggests.'
'No? You surprise me. Look at it in this way, then. Captain Morstan disappears. The only
person in London whom he could have visited is Major Sholto. Major Sholto denies having heard
that he was in London. Four years later Sholto dies.
'But what a strange compensation! And how strangely made! Why, too, should he write a letter now, rather than six years ago? Again, the letter speaks of giving her justice. What justice can she have? It is too much to suppose that her father is still alive. There is no other injustice in her case that you know of.'
'There are difficulties; there are certainly difficulties,' said Sherlock Holmes pensively; 'but our expedition of to-night will solve them all. Ah, here is a four-wheeler, and Miss Morstan is inside. Are you all ready? Then we had better go down, for it is a little past the hour.'
I picked up my hat and my heaviest stick, but I observed that Holmes took his revolver from his drawer and slipped it into his pocket. It was clear that he thought that our night's work might be a serious one.
Miss Morstan was muffled in a dark cloak, and her sensitive face was composed, but pale. She must have been more than woman if she did not feel some uneasiness at the strange enterprise upon which we were embarking, yet her self-control was perfect, and she readily answered the few additional questions which Sherlock Holmes put to her.
'Major Sholto was a very particular friend of papa's,' she said. 'His letters were full of allusions to the Major. He and papa were in command of the troops at the Andaman Islands, so they were thrown a great deal together. By the way, a curious paper was found in papa's desk which no one could understand. I don't suppose that it is of the slightest importance, but I thought you might care to see it, so I brought it with me. It is here.'
Holmes unfolded the paper carefully and
'It is paper of native Indian manufacture,' he remarked. 'It has at some time been pinned to a board. The diagram upon it appears to be a plan of part of a large building with numerous halls, corridors, and passages. At one point is a small cross done in red ink, and above it is "3.37 from left," in faded pencil-writing. In the lefthand corner is a curious hieroglyphic like four crosses in a line with their arms touching. Beside it is written, in very rough and coarse characters, "The sign of the four— Jonathan Small, Mahomet Singh, Abdullah Khan, Dost Akbar." No, I confess that I do not see how this bears upon the matter. Yet it is evidently a document of importance. It has been kept carefully in a pocket-book; for the one side is as clean as the other.'
'It was in his pocket-book that we found it.'
'Preserve it carefully, then, Miss Morstan, for it may prove to be of use to us. I begin to suspect that this matter may turn out to be much deeper and more subtle than I at first supposed. I must reconsider my ideas.'
He leaned back in the cab, and I could see by his drawn brow and his vacant eye that he was thinking intently. Miss Morstan and I chatted in an undertone about our present expedition and its possible outcome, but our companion maintained his impenetrable reserve until the end of our journey.
It was a September evening, and not yet seven o'clock, but the day had been a dreary one, and
a dense drizzly fog lay low upon the great city. Mud-coloured clouds drooped sadly over the
muddy streets. Down the Strand the lamps were but misty splotches of
At the Lyceum Theatre the crowds were already thick at the side-entrances. In front a continuous stream of hansoms and four-wheelers were rattling up, discharging their cargoes of shirt-fronted men and be-shawled, be-diamonded women. We had hardly reached the third pillar, which was our rendezvous, before a small, dark, brisk man in the dress of a coachman accosted us.
'Are you the parties who come with Miss Morstan?' he asked.
'I am Miss Morstan, and these two gentlemen are my friends,' said she.
He bent a pair of wonderfully penetrating and questioning eyes upon us.
'You will excuse me, miss,' he said, with a certain dogged manner, 'but I was to ask you to give me your word that neither of your companions is a police-officer.'
'I give you my word on that,' she answered.
He gave a shrill whistle, on which a street arab led across a four-wheeler and opened the door. The man who had addressed us mounted to the box, while we took our places inside. We had hardly done so before the driver whipped up his horse, and we plunged away at a furious pace through the foggy streets.
The situation was a curious one. We were driving to an unknown place, on an unknown errand.
Yet our invitation was either a complete hoax—which was an inconceivable hypothesis—or else we
had good reason to think that important issues might hang upon our journey. Miss Morstan's
demeanour was as resolute and collected as ever. I endeavoured to cheer and amuse her by
reminiscences of my adventures in Afghanistan; but, to tell the truth, I was myself so excited
at our situation, and so curious as to
'Rochester Row,' said he. 'Now Vincent Square. Now we come out on the Vauxhall Bridge Road. We are making for the Surrey side, apparently. Yes, I thought so. Now we are on the bridge. You can catch glimpses of the river.'
We did indeed get a fleeting view of a stretch of the Thames, with the lamps shining upon the broad, silent water; but our cab dashed on, and was soon involved in a labyrinth of streets upon the other side.
'Wordsworth Road,' said my companion. 'Priory Road. Lark Hall Lane. Stockwell Place. Robert Street. Cold Harbour Lane. Our quest does not appear to take us to very fashionable regions.'
We had indeed reached a questionable and forbidding neighbourhood. Long lines of dull brick
houses were only relieved by the coarse glare and tawdry brilliancy of public-houses at the
corner. Then came rows of two-storied villas, each with a fronting of miniature garden, and
then again interminable lines of new, staring brick buildings—the monster tentacles which the
giant city was throwing out into the country. At last the cab drew up at the third house in
'The Sahib awaits you,' said he, and even as he spoke there came a high, piping voice from some inner room.
'Show them in to me, khitmutgar,' it cried. 'Show them straight in to me.'
We followed the Indian down a sordid and common passage, ill-lit and worse
furnished, until he came to a door upon the right, which he threw open. A blaze of yellow light
streamed out upon us, and in the centre of the glare there stood a small man with a very high
head, a bristle of red hair all round the fringe of it, and a bald, shining scalp which shot
out from among it like a mountain-peak from fir-trees. He writhed his hands together as he
stood, and his features were in a perpetual jerk—now smiling, now scowling, but never for an
instant in repose. Nature had given him a pendulous lip, and a too
'Your servant, Miss Morstan,' he kept repeating, in a thin, high voice. 'Your servant, gentlemen. Pray step into my little sanctum. A small place, miss, but furnished to my own liking. An oasis of art in the howling desert of South London.'
We were all astonished by the appearance of the apartment into which he invited us. In that
sorry house it looked as out of place as a diamond of the first water in a setting of brass.
The richest and glossiest of curtains and tapestries draped the walls, looped back here and
there to expose some richly-mounted painting or Oriental vase. The carpet was
'Mr. Thaddeus Sholto,' said the little man, still jerking and smiling. 'That is my name. You are Miss Morstan, of course. And these gentlemen—'
'This is Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and this Dr. Watson.'
'A doctor, eh?' cried he, much excited. 'Have you your stethoscope? Might I ask you—would you
have the kindness? I have grave doubts as to my mitral valve, if you would be so very good. The
aortic I may
I listened to his heart, as requested, but was unable to find anything amiss, save, indeed, that he was in an ecstasy of fear, for he shivered from head to foot.
'It appears to be normal,' I said. 'You have no cause for uneasiness.'
'You will excuse my anxiety, Miss Morstan,' he remarked airily. 'I am a great sufferer, and I have long had suspicions as to that valve. I am delighted to hear that they are unwarranted. Had your father, Miss Morstan, refrained from throwing a strain upon his heart, he might have been alive now.'
I could have struck the man across the face, so hot was I at this callous and off-hand reference to so delicate a matter. Miss Morstan sat down, and her face grew white to the lips.
'I knew in my heart that he was dead,' said she.
'I can give you every information,' said he; 'and, what is more, I can do you justice; and I will, too, whatever Brother Bartholomew may say. I am so glad to have your friends here, not only as an escort to you, but also as witnesses to what I am about to do and say. The three of us can show a bold front to Brother Bartholomew. But let us have no outsiders—no police or officials. We can settle everything satisfactorily among ourselves, without any interference. Nothing would annoy Brother bartholomew more than any publicity.'
He sat down upon a low settee, and blinked at us inquiringly with his weak, watery blue eyes.
'For my part,' said Holmes, 'whatever you may choose to say will go no further.'
I nodded to show my agreement.
'That is well! That is well!' said he. 'May I offer you a glass of Chianti, Miss Morstan? Or of Tokay? I keep no other wines. Shall I open a flask? No? Well, then, I trust that you have no objection to tobacco-smoke, to the balsamic odour of the Eastern tobacco. I am a little nervous, and I find my hookah an invaluable sedative.'
He applied a taper to the great bowl, and the smoke bubbled merrily through the rosewater. We sat all three in a semicircle, with our heads advanced and our chins upon our hands, while the strange, jerky little fellow, with his high, shining head, puffed uneasily in the centre.
'When I first determined to make this communication to you,' said he, 'I might have given you
my address; but I feared that you might disregard my request and bring unpleasant people with
you. I took the liberty, therefore, of making an appointment
'You will excuse me, Mr. Sholto,' said Miss Morstan, 'but I am here at your
'At the best it must take some time, he answered; 'for we shall certainly have to go to Norwood and see Brother Bartholomew. We shall all go and try if we can get the better of Brother Bartholomew. He is very angry with me for taking the course which has seemed right to me. I had quite high words with him last night. You cannot imagine what a terrible fellow he is when he is angry.'
'If we are to go to Norwood, it would perhaps be as well to start at once,' I ventured to remark.
He laughed until his ears were quite red.
'That would hardly do,' he cried. 'I don't know what he would say if I brought you in that
sudden way. No, I must prepare you
'My father was, as you may have guessed, Major John Sholto, once of the Indian army. He retired some eleven years ago, and came to live at Pondicherry Lodge in Upper Norwood. He had prospered in India, and brought back with him a considerable sum of money, a large collection of valuable curiosities, and a staff of native servants. With these advantages he bought himself a house, and lived in great luxury. My twinbrother Bartholomew and I were the only children.
'I very well remember the sensation which was caused by the disappearance of Captain Morstan.
We read the details in the papers,
'We did know, however that some mystery, some positive danger, overhung our father. He was
very fearful of going out alone, and he always employed two prize-fighters to act as porters at
Pondicherry Lodge. Williams, who drove you to-night, was one of them. He was once light-weight
champion of England. Our father would never tell us what it was he feared, but he had a most
marked aversion to men with wooden legs. On one occasion he actually fired his revolver at a
wooden-legged man, who proved to be a harmless tradesman canvassing for orders.
'Early in 1882 my father received a letter from India which was a great shock to him. He nearly fainted at the breakfast-table when he opened it, and from that day he sickened to his death. What was in the letter we could never discover, but I could see as he held it that it was short and written in a scrawling hand. He had suffered for years from an enlarged spleen, but he now became rapidly worse, and towards the end of April we were informed that he was beyond all hope, and that he wished to make a last communication to us.
'When we entered his room he was propped up with pillows and breathing heavily. He besought
us to lock the door and to come upon either side of the bed. Then,
'"I have only one thing," he said, "which weighs upon my mind at this supreme moment. It is
my treatment of poor Morstan's orphan. The cursed greed which has been my besetting sin through
life has withheld from her the treasure, half at least of which should have been hers. And yet
I have made no use of it myself, so blind and foolish a thing is avarice. The mere feeling of
possession has been so dear to me that I could not bear to share it with another. See that
chaplet tipped with pearls beside the quinine-bottle. Even that I could not bear to part with,
although I had got it out with the design of sending it to her. You, my sons, will give her a
fair share of the Agra treasure. But send her nothing—not even
'"I will tell you how Morstan died," he continued. "He had suffered for years from a weak
heart, but he concealed it from every one. I alone knew it. When in India, he and I, through a
remarkable chain of circumstances, came into possession of a considerable treasure. I brought
it over to England, and on the night of Morstan's arrival he came straight over here to claim
his share. He walked over from the station, and was admitted by my faithful old Lal Chowdar,
who is now dead. Morstan and I had a difference of opinion as to the division of the treasure,
and we came to heated words. Morstan had sprung out of his chair in a paroxysm of anger, when
he suddenly pressed his hand to his side, his face turned a dusky hue, and he fell backwards,
cutting his head
'"For a long time I sat half distracted, wondering what I should do. My first impulse was, of course, to call for assistance; but I could not but recognise that there was every chance that I would be accused of his murder. His death at the moment of a quarrel, and the gash in his head, would be black against me. Again, an official inquiry could not be made without bringing out some facts about the treasure, which I was particularly anxious to keep secret. He had told me that no soul upon earth knew where he had gone. There seemed to be no necessity why any soul ever should know.
'"I was still pondering over the matter, when, looking up, I saw my servant, Lal Chowdar, in
the doorway. He stole in and bolted the door behind him. 'Do not fear,
'At this instant a horrible change came over his expression; his eyes stared wildly, his jaw dropped, and he yelled, in a voice which I can never forget, "Keep him out! For Christ's sake keep him out!" We both stared round at the window behind us upon which his gaze was fixed. A face was looking in at us out of the darkness. We could see the whitening of the nose where it was pressed against the glass. It was a bearded, hairy face, with wild cruel eyes and an expression of concentrated malevolence. My brother and I rushed towards the window, but the man was gone. When we returned to my father his head had dropped and his pulse had ceased to beat.
'We searched the garden that night, but found no sign of the intruder, save that just under
the window a single footmark was
The little man stopped to relight his hookah and puffed thoughtfully for a few
'My brother and I,' said he, 'were, as you
'It was a kindly thought,' said our companion earnestly; 'it was extremely good of you.'
The little man waved his hand deprecatingly.
'We were your trustees,' he said; 'that was the view which I took of it, though brother
Bartholomew could not altogether see it in that light. We had plenty of money ourselves. I
desired no more. Besides, it would have been such bad taste to have treated a young lady in so
scurvy a fashion. "Le mauvais goût mène au crime." The French have a very neat way of putting
these things. Our difference of opinion on this subject went so far that I thought it best to
set up rooms for myself; so I left Pondicherry Lodge, taking the old khitmutgar and Williams
with me. Yesterday, however, I learn that an event of extreme importance has occurred. The
treasure has been discovered. I instantly
Mr. Thaddeus Sholto ceased, and sat twitching on his luxurious settee. We all remained silent, with our thoughts upon the new development which the mysterious business had taken. Holmes was the first to spring to his feet.
'You have done well, sir, from first to last,' said he. 'It is possible that we may be able to make you some small return by throwing some light upon that which is still dark to you. But, as Miss Morstan remarked just now, it is late, and we had best put the matter through without delay.'
Our new acquaintance very deliberately coiled up the tube of his hookah, and produced from
behind a curtain a very long
'My health is somewhat fragile,' he remarked, as he led the way down the passage. 'I am compelled to be a valetudinarian.'
Our cab was awaiting us outside, and our programme was evidently prearranged, for the driver started off at once at a rapid pace. Thaddeus Sholto talked incessantly, in a voice which rose high above the rattle of the wheels.
'Bartholomew is a clever fellow,' said he. 'How do you think he found out where the treasure
was? He had come to the conclusion that it was somewhere indoors: so he worked out all the
cubic space of the
At the mention of this gigantic sum we all stared at one another open-eyed. Miss Morstan,
could we secure her rights, would change from a needy governess to the richest heiress in
England. Surely it was the place of a loyal friend to rejoice at such news; yet I am ashamed to
say that selfishness took me by the soul, and that my heart turned as heavy as lead within me.
I stammered out some few halting words of congratulation, and then sat downcast, with my head
drooped, deaf to the babble of our new acquaintance. He was clearly a confirmed hypochondriac,
and I was dreamily conscious that he was pouring forth interminable trains of symptoms, and
imploring information as to the composition and action of innumerable quack nostrums, some of
which he bore about in a leather case in his pocket. I trust that he may not remember any of
the answers which I gave him that night.
'This, Miss Morstan, is Pondicherry Lodge,' said Mr. Thaddeus Sholto, as he handed her out.
It was nearly eleven o'clock when we reached this final stage of our night's adventures. We had left the damp fog of the great city behind us, and the night was fairly fine. A warm wind blew from the westward, and heavy clouds moved slowly across the sky, with half a moon peeping occasionally through the rifts. It was clearenough to see for some distance, but Thaddeus Sholto took down one of the sidelamps from the carriage to give us a better light upon our way.
Pondicherry Lodge stood in its own grounds, and was girt round with a very high
'Who is there?' cried a gruff voice from within.
'It is I, McMurdo. You surely know my knock by this time.'
There was a grumbling sound and a clanking and jarring of keys. The door swung heavily back, and a short, deepchested man stood in the opening, with the yellow light of the lantern shining upon his protruded face and twinkling, distrustful eyes.
'That you, Mr. Thaddeus? But who are the others? I had no orders about them from the master.'
'No, McMurdo? You surprise me! I told my brother last night that I should bring some friends.'
'He hain't been out o' his room to-day, Mr. Thaddeus, and I have no orders. You know very well that I must stick to regulations. I can let you in, but your friends they must just stop where they are.'
This was an unexpected obstacle. Thaddeus Sholto looked about him in a perplexed and helpless manner.
'This is too bad of you, McMurdo!' he said. 'If I guarantee them, that is enough for you. There is the young lady, too. She cannot wait on the public road at this hour.'
'Very sorry, Mr. Thaddeus,' said the porter inexorably. 'Folk may be friends o' yours, and yet no friends o' the master's. He pays me well to do my duty, and my duty I'll do. I don't know none o' your friends.'
'Oh yes, you do, McMurdo,' cried Sherlock Holmes genially. 'I don't think you can have
forgotten me. Don't you remember the amateur who fought three
'Not Mr. Sherlock Holmes!' roared the prize-fighter. 'God's truth! how could I have mistook you? If instead o' standin' there so quiet you had just stepped up and given me that cross-hit of yours under the jaw, I'd ha' known you without a question. Ah, you're one that has wasted your gifts, you have! You might have aimed high, if you had joined the fancy.'
'You see, Watson, if all else fails me, I have still one of the scientific professions open to me,' said Holmes, laughing. 'Our friend won't keep us out in the cold now, I am sure.'
'In you come, sir, in you come—you and your friends,' he answered. 'Very sorry, Mr. Thaddeus, but orders are very strict. Had to be certain of your friends before I let them in.'
Inside, a gravel path wound through desolate grounds to a huge clump of a house, square and prosaic, all plunged in shadow save where a moonbeam struck one corner and glimmered in a garret window. The vast size of the building, with its gloom and its deathly silence, struck a chill to the heart. Even Thaddeus Sholto seemed ill at ease, and the lantern quivered and rattled in his hand.
'I cannot understand it,' he said. 'There must be some mistake. I distinctly told Bartholomew that we should be here, and yet there is no light in his window. I do not know what to make of it.'
'Does he always guard the premises in this way?' asked Holmes.
'Yes; he has followed my father's custom. He was the favourite son, you know, and I sometimes
think that my father may have told him more than he ever told me. That
'None,' said Holmes. 'But I see the glint of a light in that little window beside the door.'
'Ah, that is the housekeeper's room. That is where old Mrs. Bernstone sits. She can tell us all about it. But perhaps you would not mind waiting here for a minute or two, for if we all go in together, and she has had no word of our coming, she may be alarmed. But, hush! what is that?'
He held up the lantern, and his hand shook until the circles of light flickered and wavered
all round us. Miss Morstan seized my wrist, and we all stood, with thumping hearts, straining
our ears. From the great black house there sounded through the silent night the saddest and
most pitiful of sounds—
'It is Mrs. Bernstone,' said Sholto. 'She is the only woman in the house. Wait here. I shall be back in a moment.'
He hurried for the door, and knocked in his peculiar way. We could see a tall old woman admit him, and sway with pleasure at the very sight of him.
'Oh, Mr. Thaddeus, sir, I am so glad you have come! I am so glad you have come, Mr. Thaddeus, sir!'
We heard her reiterated rejoicings until the door was closed and her voice died away into a muffled monotone.
Our guide had left us the lantern. Holmes swung it slowly round, and peered keenly at the
house, and at the great rubbish-heaps which cumbered the grounds. Miss Morstan and I stood
together, and her hand was in mine. A wondrous subtle thing is love, for
'What a strange place!' she said, looking round.
'It looks as though all the moles in England had been let loose in it. I have seen something of the sort on the side of a hill near Ballarat, where the prospectors had been at work.'
'And from the same cause,' said Holmes.
At that moment the door of the house burst open, and Thaddeus Sholto came running out, with his hands thrown forward and terror in his eyes.
'There is something amiss with Bartholomew!' he cried. 'I am frightened! My nerves cannot stand it.'
He was, indeed, half blubbering with fear, and his twitching, feeble face peeping out from the great Astrakhan collar had the helpless, appealing expression of a terrified child.
'Come into the house,' said Holmes, in his crisp, firm way.
'Yes, do!' pleaded Thaddeus Sholto. 'I really do not feel equal to giving directions.'
We all followed him into the housekeeper's
'God bless your sweet, calm face!' she cried, with an hysterical sob. 'It does me good to see you. Oh, but I have been sorely tried this day!'
Our companion patted her thin, work-worn hand, and murmured some few words of kindly, womanly comfort which brought the colour back into the other's bloodless cheeks.
'Master has locked himself in, and will not answer me,' she explained. 'All day I have waited
to hear from him, for he often likes to be alone; but an hour ago I feared that something was
amiss, so I went up and peeped through the keyhole. You must go up, Mr. Thaddeus—you must go up
and look
Sherlock Holmes took the lamp and led the way, for Thaddeus Sholto's teeth were chattering in his head. So shaken was he that I had to pass my hand under his arm as we went up the stairs, for his knees were trembling under him. Twice as we ascended Holmes whipped his lens out of his pocket and carefully examined marks which appeared to me to be mere shapeless smudges of dust upon the cocoanut-matting which served as a stair-carpet. He walked slowly from step to step, holding the lamp low, and shooting keen glances to right and left. Miss Morstan had remained behind with the frightened housekeeper.
The third flight of stairs ended in a straight passage of some length, with a great picture
'There is something devilish in this, Watson,' said he, more moved than I had ever before seen him. 'What do you make of it?'
I stooped to the hole, and recoiled in
'This is terrible!' I said to Holmes. 'What is to be done?'
'The door must come down,' he answered,
It creaked and groaned, but did not yield. Together we flung ourselves upon it once more, and this time it gave way with a sudden snap, and we found ourselves within Bartholomew Sholto's chamber.
It appeared to have been fitted up as a chemical laboratory. A double line of glass-stoppered
bottles was drawn up upon the wall opposite the door, and the table was littered over with
Bunsen burners, test-tubes, and retorts. In the corners stood carboys of acid in wicker
baskets. One of these appeared to leak or to have been broken, for a stream of dark-coloured
liquid had trickled out from it, and the air was heavy with a peculiarly pungent, tar-like
odour. A set of steps stood at one side of the room, in the midst of a litter of lath and
plaster, and above them there was an opening in the ceiling large
By the table, in a wooden arm-chair, the master of the house was seated all in a heap, with his head sunk upon his left shoulder, and that ghastly, inscrutable smile upon his face. He was stiff and cold, and had clearly been dead many hours. It seemed to me that not only his features, but all his limbs, were twisted and turned in the most fantastic fashion. By his hand upon the table there lay a peculiar instrument—a brown, closegrained stick, with a stone head like a hammer, rudely lashed on with coarse twine. Beside it was a torn sheet of note-paper with some words scrawled upon it. Holmes glanced at it, and then handed it to me.
'You see,' he said, with a significant raising of the eyebrows.
In the light of the lantern I read, with a thrill of horror, 'The sign of the four.'
'In God's name, what does it all mean?' I asked.
'It means murder,' said he, stooping over the dead man. 'Ah! I expected it. Look here!'
He pointed to what looked like a long dark thorn stuck in the skin just above the ear.
'It looks like a thorn,' said I.
'It is a thorn. You may pick it out. But be careful, for it is poisoned.'
I took it up between my finger and thumb. It came away from the skin so readily that hardly any mark was left behind. One tiny speck of blood showed where the puncture had been.
'This is all an insoluble mystery to me,' said I. 'It grows darker instead of clearer.'
'On the contrary,' he answered, 'it clears
We had almost forgotten our companion's presence since we entered the chamber. He was still standing in the doorway, the very picture of terror, wringing his hands and moaning to himself. Suddenly, however, he broke out into a sharp, querulous cry.
'The treasure is gone!' he said. 'They have robbed him of the treasure! There is the hole through which we lowered it. I helped him to do it! I was the last person who saw him! I left him here last night, and I heard him lock the door as I came down-stairs.'
'What time was that?'
'It was ten o'clock. And now he is dead, and the police will be called in, and I shall be
suspected of having had a hand in it. Oh yes, I am sure I shall. But you don't think so,
gentlemen? Surely you don't think that
He jerked his arms and stamped his feet in a kind of convulsive frenzy.
'You have no reason for fear, Mr. Sholto,' said Holmes kindly, putting his hand upon his shoulder; 'take my advice, and drive down to the station to report the matter to the police. Offer to assist them in every way. We shall wait here until your return.'
The little man obeyed in a half-stupefied fashion, and we heard him stumbling down the stairs in the dark.
'Now, Watson,' said Holmes, rubbing his hands, 'we have half an hour to ourselves. Let us make good use of it. My case is, as I have told you, almost complete; but we must not err on the side of over-confidence. Simple as the case seems now, there may be something deeper underlying it.'
'Simple!' I ejaculated.
'Surely,' said he, with something of the air of a clinical professor expounding to his class.
'Just sit in the corner there, that your footprints may not complicate matters. Now to work! In
the first place, how did these folk
I looked at the round, well-defined muddy discs.
'That is not a footmark,' said I.
'It is something much more valuable to us. It is the impression of a wooden stump. You see
here on the sill is the boot-mark, a heavy
'It is the wooden-legged man.'
'Quite so. But there has been someone else—a very able and efficient ally. Could you scale that wall, doctor?'
I looked out of the open window. The moon still shone brightly on that angle of the house. We were a good sixty feet from the ground, and, look where I would, I could see no foothold, nor as much as a crevice in the brickwork.
'It is absolutely impossible,' I answered.
'Without aid it is so. But suppose you had a friend up here who lowered you this good stout
rope which I see in the corner, securing one end of it to this great hook in the wall. Then, I
think, if you were an active man, you might swarm up, wooden leg and all. You would depart, of
course, in the same fashion, and your ally would draw up
'This is all very well,' said I; 'but the thing becomes more unintelligible than ever. How about this mysterious ally? How came he into the room?'
'Yes, the ally!' repeated Holmes pensively. 'There are features of interest about this ally.
He lifts the case from the regions of the commonplace. I fancy that this ally breaks fresh
ground in the annals of crime in this
'How came he, then?' I reiterated. 'The door is locked; the window is inaccessible. Was it through the chimney?'
'The grate is much too small,' he answered. 'I had already considered that possibility.'
'How, then?' I persisted.
'You will not apply my precept,' he said, shaking his head. 'How often have I said to you
that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains,
'He came through the hole in the roof!' I cried.
'Of course he did. He must have done so. If you will have the kindness to hold the lamp for me, we shall now extend our researches to the room above—the secret room in which the treasure was found.'
He mounted the steps, and, seizing a rafter with either hand, he swung himself up into the garret. Then, lying on his face, he reached down for the lamp, and held it while I followed him.
The chamber in which we found ourselves was about ten feet one way and six the other. The floor was formed by the rafters, with thin lath-and-plaster between, so that in walking one had to step from beam to beam. The roof ran up to an apex, and was evidently the inner shell of the true roof of the house. There was no furniture of any sort, and the accumulated dust of years lay thick upon the floor.
'Here you are, you see,' said Sherlock
He held down the lamp to the floor, and as he did so I saw for the second time that night a startled, surprised look come over his face. For myself, as I followed his gaze, my skin was cold under my clothes. The floor was covered thickly with the prints of a naked foot—clear, well-defined, perfectly formed, but scarce half the size of those of an ordinary man.'
'Holmes,' I said, in a whisper, 'a child has done this horrid thing.'
He had recovered his self-possession in an instant.
'I was staggered for the moment,' he said,
'What is your theory, then, as to those footmarks?' I asked eagerly, when we had regained the lower room once more.
'My dear Watson, try a little analysis yourself,' said he, with a touch of impatience. 'You know my methods. Apply them, and it will be instructive to compare results.'
'I cannot conceive anything which will cover the facts,' I answered.
'It will be clear enough to you soon,' he said, in an off-hand way. 'I think that there is nothing else of importance here, but I will look.'
He whipped out his lens and a tape measure, and hurried about the room on his knees,
measuring, comparing, examining, with his long thin nose only a few inches
'We are certainly in luck,' said he. 'We ought to have very little trouble now. Number One has had the misfortune to tread in the creosote. You can see the outline of the edge of his small foot here at the side of this evil-smelling mess. The carboy has been cracked, you see, and the stuff has leaked out.'
'What then?' I asked.
'Why, we have got him, that's all,' said
Heavy steps and the clamour of loud voices were audible from below, and the hall door shut with a loud crash.
'Before they come,' said Holmes, 'just put your hand here on this poor fellow's arm, and here on his leg. What do you feel?'
'The muscles are as hard as a board,' I answered.
'Quite so. They are in a state of extreme contraction, far exceeding the usual
'Death from some powerful vegetable alkaloid,' I answered, 'some strychnine-like substance which would produce tetanus.'
'That was the idea which occurred to me the instant I saw the drawn muscles of the face. On getting into the room I at once looked for the means by which the poison had entered the system. As you saw, I discovered a thorn which had been driven or shot with no great force into the scalp. You observe that the part struck was that which would be turned towards the hole in the ceiling if the man were erect in his chair. Now examine this thorn.'
I took it up gingerly and held it in the light of the lantern. It was long, sharp, and black,
with a glazed look near the point as though some gummy substance had dried
'Is that an English thorn?' he asked.
'No, it certainly is not.'
'With all these data you should be able to draw some just inference. But here are the regulars: so the auxiliary forces may beat a retreat.'
As he spoke, the steps which had been coming nearer sounded loudly on the passage, and a very stout, portly man in a gray suit strode heavily into the room. He was red-faced, burly, and plethoric, with a pair of very small twinkling eyes which looked keenly out from between swollen and puffy pouches. He was closely followed by an inspector in uniform, and by the still palpitating Thaddeus Sholto.
'Here's a business!' he cried, in a muffled, husky voice. 'Here's a pretty business! But who
are all these? Why,
'I think you must recollect me, Mr. Athelney Jones,' said Holmes quietly.
'Why, of course I do!' he wheezed. 'It's Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the theorist. Remember you! I'll never forget how you lectured us all on causes and inferences and effects in the Bishopgate jewel case. It's true you set us on the right track; but you'll own now that it was more by good luck than good guidance.'
'It was a piece of very simple reasoning.'
'Oh, come, now, come! Never be ashamed to own up. But what is all this? Bad business! Bad business! Stern facts here—no room for theories. How lucky that I happened to be out at Norwood over another case! I was at the station when the message arrived. What d'you think the man died of?'
'Oh, this is hardly a case for me to theorize over,' said Holmes dryly.
'No, no. Still, we can't deny that you hit the nail on the head sometimes. Dear me! Door locked, I understand. Jewels worth half a million missing. How was the window?'
'Fastened; but there are steps on the sill.'
'Well, well, if it was fastened the steps could have nothing to do with the matter. That's common-sense. Man might have died in a fit; but then the jewels are missing. Ha! I have a theory. These flashes come upon me at times.—Just step outside, sergeant, and you, Mr. Sholto. Your friend can remain.—What do you think of this, Holmes? Sholto was, on his own confession, with his brother last night. The brother died in a fit, on which Sholto walked off with the treasure? How's that?'
'On which the dead man very considerately
'Hum! There's a flaw there. Let us apply commonsense to the matter. This Thaddeus Sholto
'You are not quite in possession of the facts yet,' said Holmes. 'This splinter of wood,
which I have every reason to believe to be poisoned, was in the man's scalp where you still see
the mark; this card, inscribed as you see it, was on the table, and beside
'Confirms it in every respect,' said the fat detective, pompously. 'House is full of Indian curiosities. Thaddeus brought this up, and if this splinter be poisonous, Thaddeus may as well have made murderous use of it as any other man. The card is some hocuspocus —a blind, as like as not. The only question is, how did he depart? Ah, of course, here is a hole in the roof.'
With great activity, considering his bulk, he sprang up the steps and squeezed through into the garret, and immediately afterwards we heard his exulting voice proclaiming that he had found the trap-door.'
'He can find something,' remarked Holmes, shrugging his shoulders; 'he has occasional
glimmerings of reason.
'You see!' said Athelney Jones, reappearing down the steps again; 'facts are better than theories, after all. My view of the case is confirmed. There is a trap-door communicating with the roof, and it is partly open.'
'It was I who opened it.'
'Oh, indeed! You did notice it, then?' He seemed a little crestfallen at the discovery. 'Well, whoever noticed it, it shows how our gentleman got away. Inspector!'
'Yes, sir,' from the passage.
'Ask Mr. Sholto to step this way.— Mr. Sholto, it is my duty to inform you that anything which you may say will be used against you. I arrest you in the Queen's name as being concerned in the death of your brother.'
'There, now! Didn't I tell you!' cried the poor little man, throwing out his hands, and looking from one to the other of us.
'Don't trouble yourself about it, Mr. Sholto,' said Holmes; 'I think that I can engage to clear you of the charge.'
'Don't promise too much, Mr. Theorist, don't promise too much!' snapped the detective. 'You may find it a harder matter than you think.'
'Not only will I clear him, Mr. Jones, but I will make you a free present of the name and
description of one of the two people who were in this room last night. His name, I have every
reason to believe, is Jonathan Small. He is a poorly-educated man, small, active, with his
right leg off, and wearing a wooden stump which is worn away upon the inner side. His left boot
has a coarse, square-toed sole, with an iron band round the heel. He is a middle-aged man, much
sunburned, and has been a convict. These few indications may be of some assistance to you,
coupled with the fact that there is a good deal
'Ah! the other man?' asked Athelney Jones in a sneering voice, but impressed none the less, as I could easily see, by the precision of the other's manner.
'Is a rather curious person,' said Sherlock Holmes, turning upon his heel. 'I hope before very long to be able to introduce you to the pair of them. A word with you, Watson.'
He led me out to the head of the stair.
'This unexpected occurrence,' he said, 'has caused us rather to lose sight of the original purpose of our journey.'
'I have just been thinking so,' I answered; 'it is not right that Miss Morstan should remain in this stricken house.'
'No. You must escort her home. She lives with Mrs. Cecil Forrester, in Lower Camberwell, so
it is not very far. I will wait
'By no means. I don't think I could rest until I know more of this fantastic business. I have seen something of the rough side of life, but I give you my word that this quick succession of strange surprises to-night has shaken my nerve completely. I should like, however, to see the matter through with you, now that I have got so far.'
'Your presence will be of great service to me,' he answered. 'We shall work the case out
independently, and leave this fellow Jones to exult over any mare's-nest which he may choose to
construct. When you have dropped Miss Morstan, I wish you to go on to No. 3, Pinchin Lane, down
near the water's edge at Lambeth. The third house on the right hand side is a bird-stuffer's;
Sherman is the name. You will see a weasel holding a young rabbit in the window. Knock old
Sherman
'A dog, I suppose.'
'Yes, a queer mongrel, with a most amazing power of scent. I would rather have Toby's help than that of the whole detective force of London.'
'I shall bring him then,' said I. 'It is one now. I ought to be back before three, if I can get a fresh horse.'
'And I,' said Holmes, 'shall see what I can learn from Mrs. Bernstone, and from the Indian
servant, who, Mr. Thaddeus tells me, sleeps in the next garret. Then I shall study the great
Jones's methods and listen to his not too delicate sarcasms. "
The police had brought a cab with them, and in this I escorted Miss Morstan back to
her home. After the angelic fashion of women, she had borne trouble with a calm face as long as
there was someone weaker than herself to support, and I had found her bright and placid by the
side of the frightened housekeeper. In the cab, however, she first turned faint, and then burst
into a passion of weeping—so sorely had she been tried by the adventures of the night. She has
told me since that she thought me cold and distant upon that journey. She little guessed the
struggle within my breast, or the effort of self-restraint
It was nearly two o'clock when we reached Mrs. Cecil Forester's. The servants had retired
hours ago, but Mrs. Forrester had been so interested by the strange message which Miss Morstan
had received that she had sat up in the hope of her return. She opened the door herself, a
middle-aged, graceful woman, and it gave me joy to see how tenderly her arm stole round the
other's waist, and how motherly was the voice in which she greeted her. She was clearly no mere
paid dependant, but an honoured friend. I was introduced, and Mrs. Forrester earnestly begged
me to step in and to tell her our adventures. I explained, however, the importance of my
errand, and promised faithfully to call and report any progress which we might make with the
case. As we drove away I stole a glance back, and I still seem to see that little group on the
step—the two graceful, clinging figures, the half-opened
And the more I thought of what had happened, the wilder and darker it grew. I reviewed the
whole extraordinary sequence of events as I rattled on through the silent, gaslit streets.
There was the original problem: that at least was pretty clear now. The death of Captain
Morstan, the sending of the pearls, the advertisement, the letter—we had had light upon all
those events. They had only led us, however, to a deeper and far more tragic mystery. The
Indian treasure, the curious plan found among Morstan's baggage, the strange scene at Major
Sholto's death, the rediscovery of the treasure immediately followed by the murder of the
discoverer,
Pinchin Lane was a row of shabby, two-storied brick houses in the lower quarter of Lambeth. I had to knock for some time at No. 3 before I could make any impression. At last, however, there was the glint of a candle behind the blind, and a face looked out at the upper window.
'Go on, you drunken vagabone,' said the face. 'If you kick up any more row, I'll open the kennels and let out forty-three dogs upon you.'
'If you'll let one out, it's just what I have come for,' said I.
'Go on!' yelled the voice. 'So help me gracious, I have a wiper in this bag, an I'll drop it on your 'ead if you don't hook it!'
'But I want a dog,' I cried.
'I won't be argued with!' shouted Mr. Sherman. 'Now stand clear; for when I say "three," down goes the wiper.'
'Mr. Sherlock Holmes—' I began; but the words had a most magical effect, for the window instantly slammed down, and within a minute the door was unbarred and open. Mr. Sherman was a lanky, lean old man, with stooping shoulders, a stringy neck, and blue-tinted glasses.
'A friend of Mr. Sherlock is always welcome,' said he. 'Step in, sir. Keep clear of the
badger, for he bites. Ah, naughty, naughty! would you take a nip at the gentleman?' This to a
stoat which thrust its wicked head and red eyes between the bars
'He wanted a dog of yours.'
'Ah! that would be Toby.'
'Yes, Toby was the name.'
'Toby lives at No. 7 on the left here.'
He moved slowly forward with his candle among the queer animal family which he had gathered
round him. In the uncertain, shadowy light I could see dimly that there were glancing,
glimmering eyes peeping down at us from every cranny and corner. Even the rafters above our
heads were lined by solemn fowls, who lazily shifted their weight
Toby proved to be an ugly, long-haired, lop-eared creature, half spaniel and half lurcher, brown and white in colour, with a very clumsy, waddling gait. It accepted, after some hesitation, a lump of sugar which the old naturalist handed to me, and, having thus sealed an alliance, it followed me to the cab, and made no difficulties about accompanying me. It had just struck three on the Palace clock when I found myself back once more at Pondicherry Lodge. The ex-prize-fighter McMurdo had, I found, been arrested as an accessory, and both he and Mr. Sholto had been marched off to the station. Two constables guarded the narrow gate, but they allowed me to pass with the dog on my mentioning the detective's name.
Holmes was standing on the doorstep, with his hands in his pockets, smoking his pipe.
'Ah, you have him there!' said he. 'Good dog, then! Athelney Jones has gone. We have had an immense display of energy since you left. He has arrested not only friend Thaddeus, but the gatekeeper, the housekeeper, and the Indian servant. We have the place to ourselves, but for a sergeant upstairs. Leave the dog here, and come up.'
We tied Toby to the hall table, and reascended the stairs. The room was as we had left it, save that a sheet had been draped over the central figure. A weary-looking police-sergeant reclined in the corner.
'Lend me your bull's-eye, sergeant,' said my companion. 'Now tie this bit of card round my
neck, so as to hang it in front of me. Thank you. Now I must kick off my boots and stockings.
Just you carry them down with you, Watson. I am going to do a little climbing. And dip my
handkerchief
We clambered up through the hole. Holmes turned his light once more upon the footsteps in the dust.
'I wish you particularly to notice these footmarks,' he said. 'Do you observe anything noteworthy about them?'
'They belong,' I said, 'to a child or a small woman.'
'Apart from their size, though. Is there nothing else?'
'They appear to be much as other footmarks.'
'Not at all. Look here! This is the print of a right foot in the dust. Now I make one with my naked foot beside it. What is the chief difference?'
'Your toes are all cramped together. The other print has each toe distinctly divided.'
'Quite so. That is the point. Bear that
I did as he directed, and was instantly conscious of a strong tarry smell.
'That is where he put his foot in getting out. If
By the time that I got out into the grounds Sherlock Holmes was on the roof, and I could see him like an enormous glow-worm crawling very slowly along the ridge. I lost sight of him behind a stack of chimneys, but he presently reappeared, and then vanished once more upon the opposite side. When I made my way round there I found him seated at one of the corner eaves.
'That you, Watson?' he cried.
'Yes.'
'This is the place. What is that black thing down there?'
'A water-barrel.'
'Top on it?'
'Yes.'
'No sign of a ladder?'
'No.'
'Confound the fellow! It's a most breakneck place. I ought to be able to come down where he could climb up. The water-pipe feels pretty firm. Here goes, anyhow.'
There was a scuffling of feet, and the lantern began to come steadily down the side of the wall. Then with a light spring he came on to the barrel, and from there to the earth.
'It was easy to follow him,' he said, drawing on his stockings and boots. 'Tiles were
loosened the whole way along, and in his
The object which he held up to me was a small pocket or pouch woven out of coloured grasses and with a few tawdry beads strung round it. In shape and size it was not unlike a cigarette-case. Inside were half a dozen spines of dark wood, sharp at one end and rounded at the other, like that which had struck Bartholomew Sholto.
'They are hellish things,' said he. 'Look out that you don't prick yourself. I'm delighted to have them, for the chances are that they are all he has. There is the less fear of you or me finding one in our skin before long. I would sooner face a Martini bullet, myself. Are you game for a six-mile trudge, Watson?'
'Certainly,' I answered.
'Your leg will stand it?'
'Oh yes.'
'Here you are, doggy! Good old Toby! Smell it, Toby, smell it!' he pushed the creosote
handkerchief under the dog's nose, while the creature stood with its fluffy legs separated, and
with a most comical cock to its head, like a connoisseur sniffing the
The east had been gradually whitening, and we could now see some distance in the cold gray
light. The square, massive house, with its black, empty windows and high, bare walls, towered
up, sad and forlorn, behind us. Our course led right across the grounds,
On reaching the boundary wall Toby ran along, whining eagerly, underneath its shadow, and stopped finally in a corner screened by a young beech. Where the two walls joined, several bricks had been loosened, and the crevices left were worn down and rounded upon the lower side, as though they had frequently been used as a ladder. Holmes clambered up, and, taking the dog from me, he dropped it over upon the other side.
'There's the print of wooden-leg's hand,' he remarked, as I mounted up beside him. 'You see
the slight smudge of blood upon the white plaster. What a lucky thing it is
I confess that I had my doubts myself when I reflected upon the great traffic which had passed along the London road in the interval. My fears were soon appeased, however. Toby never hesitated or swerved, but waddled on in his peculiar rolling fashion. Clearly, the pungent smell of the creasote rose high above all other contending scents.
'Do not imagine,' said Holmes, 'that I depend for my success in this case upon the mere
chance of one of these fellows having put his foot in the chemical. I have knowledge now which
would enable me to trace them in many different ways. This, however, is the readiest, and,
since fortune has put it into our hands, I should be culpable if I neglected it. It has,
however, prevented the case from becoming the pretty little
'There is credit, and to spare,' said I. 'I assure you, Holmes, that I marvel at the means by which you obtain your results in this case, even more than I did in the Jefferson Hope murder. The thing seems to me to be deeper and more inexplicable. How, for example, could you describe with such confidence the wooden-legged man?'
'Pshaw, my dear boy! it was simplicity itself. I don't wish to be theatrical. It is all
patent and above-board. Two officers who are in command of a convict-guard learn an important
secret as to buried treasure. A map is drawn for them by an Englishman named Jonathan Small.
You remember that we saw the name upon the chart in Captain Morstan's possession. He had signed
it in
'But this is mere speculation,' said I.
'It is more than that. It is the only hypothesis which covers the facts. Let us see how it
fits in with the sequel. Major Sholto remains at peace for some years, happy in the possession
of his treasure. Then he receives a letter from India which
'A letter to say that the men whom he had wronged had been set free.'
'Or had escaped. That is much more likely, for he would have known what their term of imprisonment was. It would not have been a surprise to him. What does he do then? He guards himself against a wooden-legged man—a white man, mark you, for he mistakes a white tradesman for him, and actually fires a pistol at him. Now, only one white man's name is on the chart. The others are Hindoos or Mohammedans. There is no other white man. Therefore we may say with confidence that the wooden-legged man is identical with Jonathan Small. Does the reasoning strike you as being faulty?'
'No: it is clear and concise.'
'Well, now, let us put ourselves in the
'Very clearly.'
'Now, what could Jonathan Small do? He could only continue to keep a secret watch upon the
efforts made to find the treasure. Possibly he leaves England and only comes back at intervals.
Then comes
'But it was the associate, and not Jonathan, who committed the crime.'
'Quite so. And rather to Jonathan's disgust, to judge by the way he stamped about when he got
into the room. He bore no grudge against Bartholomew Sholto, and would have preferred if he
could have been simply bound and gagged. He did not wish to put his head in a halter. There was
no help for it, however: the savage instincts of
'The associate?'
'Ah, well, there is no great mystery in that. But you will know all about it soon enough. How
sweet the morning air is! See how that one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some
gigantic flamingo.
'Fairly so. I worked back to him through Carlyle.'
'That was like following the brook to the parent lake. He makes one curious but profound remark. It is that the chief proof of man's real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness. It argues, you see, a power of comparison and of appreciation which is in itself a proof of nobility. There is much food for thought in Richter. You have not a pistol, have you?'
'I have my stick.'
'It is just possible that we may need
He took out his revolver as he spoke, and, having loaded two of the chambers, he put it back into the right-hand pocket of his jacket.
We had during this time been following the guidance of Toby down the half-rural villa-lined
roads which lead to the metropolis. Now, however, we were beginning to come among continuous
streets, where labourers and dockmen were already astir, and slatternly women were taking down
shutters and brushing door-steps. At the square-topped corner public-houses business was just
beginning, and rough-looking men were emerging, rubbing their sleeves across their beards after
their morning wet. Strange dogs sauntered up and stared wonderingly at us as we passed, but our
inimitable Toby
We had traversed Streatham, Brixton, Camberwell, and now found ourselves in Kennington Lane,
having borne away through the side streets to the east of the Oval. The men whom we pursued
seemed to have taken a curiously zigzag road, with the idea probably of escaping observation.
They had never kept to the main road if a parallel side-street would serve their turn. At the
foot of Kennington Lane they had edged away to the left through Bond Street and Miles Street.
Where the latter street turns into Knight's Place, Toby ceased to advance, but began to run
backwards and forwards with one ear cocked and the other drooping, the very picture of canine
indecision. Then he waddled round in circles,
'What the deuce is the matter with the dog?' growled Holmes. 'They surely would not take a cab, or go off in a balloon.'
'Perhaps they stood here for some time,' I suggested.
'Ah! it's all right. He's off again,' said my companion, in a tone of relief.
He was indeed off, for after sniffing round again he suddenly made up his mind, and darted away with an energy and determination such as he had not yet shown. The scent appeared to be much hotter than before, for he had not even to put his nose on the ground, but tugged at his leash and tried to break into a run. I could see by the gleam in Holmes's eyes that he thought we were nearing the end of our journey.
Our course now ran down Nine Elms until we came to Broderick and Nelson's large
Sherlock Holmes and I looked blankly at each other, and then burst simultaneously into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
' What now?' I asked. 'Toby has lost his character for infallibility.'
'He acted according to his lights,' said Holmes, lifting him down from the barrel and walking him out of the timber-yard. 'If you consider how much creosote is carted about London in one day, it is no great wonder that our trail should have been crossed. It is much used now, especially for the seasoning of wood. Poor Toby is not to blame.'
'We must get on the main scent again, I suppose.'
'Yes. And, fortunately, we have no
There was no difficulty about this. On leading Toby to the place where he had committed his fault, he cast about in a wide circle and finally dashed off in a fresh direction.
'We must take care that he does not now bring us to the place where the creosote-barrel came from,' I observed.
'I had thought of that. But you notice that he keeps on the pavement, whereas the barrel passed down the roadway. No, we are on the true scent now.'
It tended down towards the river-side, running through Belmont Place and Prince's Street. At
the end of Broad Street it ran right down to the water's edge, where there
'We are out of luck,' said Holmes. 'They have taken to a boat here.'
Several small punts and skiffs were lying about in the water and on the edge of the wharf. We took Toby round to each in turn, but, though he sniffed earnestly, he made no sign.
Close to the rude landing-stage was a small brick house, with a wooden placard slung out through the second window. 'Mordecai Smith' was printed across it in large letters, and, underneath, 'Boats to hire by the hour or day.' A second inscription above the door informed us that a steam launch was kept—a statement which was confirmed by a great pile of coke upon the jetty. Sherlock Holmes looked slowly round, and his face assumed an ominous expression.
'This looks bad,' said he. 'These fellows are sharper than I expected. They seem to have covered their tracks. There has, I fear, been preconcerted management here.'
He was approaching the door of the house, when it opened, and a little curly-headed lad of six came running out, followed by a stoutish, red-faced woman with a large sponge in her hand.
'You come back and be washed, Jack,' she shouted. 'Come back, you young imp; for if your father comes home and finds you like that, he'll let us hear of it.'
'Dear little chap!' said Holmes strategically. 'What a rosy-cheeked young rascal! Now, Jack, is there anything you would like?'
The youth pondered for a moment.
'I'd like a shillin',' said he.
'Nothing you would like better?'
'I'd like two shillin' better,' the prodigy answered, after some thought.
'Here you are, then! Catch!—A fine child, Mrs. Smith!'
'Lor' bless you, sir, he is that, and forward. He gets a'most too much for me to manage, 'specially when my man is away days at a time.'
'Away, is he?' said Holmes, in a disappointed voice. 'I am sorry for that, for I wanted to speak to Mr. Smith.'
'He's been away since yesterday mornin', sir, and, truth to tell, I am beginnin' to feel frightened about him. But if it was about a boat, sir, maybe I could serve as well.'
'I wanted to hire his steam launch.'
'Why, bless you, sir, it is in the steam launch that he has gone. That's what puzzles me; for
I know there ain't more coals in her than would take her to about Woolwich and back. If he'd
been away in the barge I'd ha' thought nothin'; for many a time a job has taken him as far as
Gravesend,
'He might have bought some at a wharf down the river.'
'He might, sir, but it weren't his way. Many a time I've heard him call out at the prices they charge for a few odd bags. Besides, I don't like that wooden-legged man, wi' his ugly face and outlandish talk. What did he want always knockin' about here for?'
'A wooden-legged man?' said Holmes, with bland surprise.
'Yes, sir, a brown, monkey-faced chap that's called more'n once for my old man. It was him that roused him up yesternight, and, what's more, my man knew he was comin', for he had steam up in the launch. I tell you straight, sir, I don't feel easy in my mind about it.'
'But, my dear Mrs. Smith,' said Holmes,
'His voice, sir. I knew his voice, which is kind o' thick and foggy. He tapped at the winder—about three it would be. "Show a leg, matey," says he: "time to turn out guard." My old man woke up Jim—that's my eldest—and away they went, without so much as a word to me. I could hear the wooden leg clackin' on the stones.'
'And was this wooden-legged man alone?'
'Couldn't say, I am sure, sir. I didn't hear no one else.'
'I am sorry, Mrs. Smith, for I wanted a steam launch, and I have heard good reports of the— Let me see, what is her name?'
'The Aurora , sir.'
'Ah! She's not that old green launch with a yellow line, very broad in the beam?'
'No, indeed. She's as trim a little thing as any on the river. She's been fresh painted, black with two red streaks.'
'Thanks. I hope that you will hear soon from Mr. Smith. I am going down the river, and if I should see anything of the Aurora I shall let him know that you are uneasy. A black funnel, you say?'
'No, sir. Black with a white band.'
'Ah, of course. It was the sides which were black. Good-morning, Mrs. Smith. There is a boatman here with a wherry, Watson. We shall take it and cross the river.
'The main thing with people of that sort,' said Holmes, as we sat in the sheets of the
wherry, 'is never to let them think that their information can be of the slightest importance
to you. If you do, they will instantly shut up like an oyster. If you listen to them
'Our course now seems pretty clear,' said I.
'What would you do, then?'
'I would engage a launch and go down the river on the track of the Aurora .'
'My dear fellow, it would be a colossal task. She may have touched at any wharf on either side of the stream between here and Greenwich. Below the bridge there is a perfect labyrinth of landing-places for miles. It would take you days and days to exhaust them, if you set about it alone.'
'Employ the police, then.'
'No. I shall probably call Athelney Jones in at the last moment. He is not a bad fellow, and I should not like to do anything which would injure him professionally. But I have a fancy for working it out myself, now that we have gone so far.'
'Could we advertise, then, asking for information from wharfingers?'
'Worse and worse! Our men would know that the chase was hot at their heels, and they would be off out of the country As it is, they are likely enough to leave, but as long as they think they are perfectly safe they will be in no hurry. Jones's energy will be of use to us there, for his view of the case is sure to push itself into the daily press, and the runaways will think that everyone is off on the wrong scent.'
'What are we to do, then?' I asked, as we landed near Millbank Penitentiary.
'Take this hansom, drive home, have some breakfast, and get an hour's sleep. It is quite on the cards that we may be afoot to-night again. Stop at a telegraph office, cabby! We will keep Toby, for he may be of use to us yet.'
We pulled up at the Great Peter Street
'Whom do you think that is to?' he asked, as we resumed our journey.
'I am sure I don't know.'
'You remember the Baker Street division of the detective police force whom I employed in the Jefferson Hope case?'
'Well,' said I, laughing.
'This is just the case where they might be invaluable. If they fail, I have other resources; but I shall try them first. That wire was to my dirty little lieutenant, Wiggins, and I expect that he and his gang will be with us before we have finished our breakfast.'
It was between eight and nine o'clock now, and I was conscious of a strong reaction after the
successive excitements of the night. I was limp and weary, befogged in mind and fatigued in
body. I had not the professional enthusiasm which carried my companion on,
A bath at Baker Street and a complete change freshened me up wonderfully. When I came down to our room I found the breakfast laid and Holmes pouring out the coffee.
'Here it is,' said he, laughing and pointing
I took the paper from him and read the short notice, which was headed 'Mysterious Business at Upper Norwood.'
'About twelve o'clock last night,' said the
'Isn't it gorgeous!' said Holmes, grinning over his coffee cup. 'What do you think of it?'
'I think that we have had a close shave ourselves of being arrested for the crime.'
'So do I. I wouldn't answer for our safety now, if he should happen to have another of his attacks of energy.'
At this moment there was a loud ring at the bell, and I could hear Mrs. Hudson, our landlady, raising her voice in a wail of expostulation and dismay.
'By heavens, Holmes,' I said, half rising, 'I believe that they are really after us.'
'No, it's not quite so bad as that. It is the unofficial force—the Baker Street irregulars.'
As he spoke, there came a swift pattering of naked feet upon the stairs, a clatter of high voices, and in rushed a dozen dirty and ragged little street Arabs. There was some show of discipline among them, despite their tumultuous entry, for they instantly drew up in line and stood facing us with expectant faces. One of their number, taller and older than the others, stood forward with an air of lounging superiority which was very funny in such a disreputable little scarecrow.
'Got your message, sir,' said he, 'and brought 'em on sharp. Three bob and a tanner for tickets.'
'Here you are,' said Holmes, producing some silver. 'In future they can report to you, Wiggins, and you to me. I cannot have the house invaded in this way. However, it is just as well that you should all hear the instructions. I want to find the whereabouts of a steam launch called the Aurora , owner Mordecai Smith, black with two red streaks, funnel black with a white band. She is down the river somewhere. I want one boy to be at Mordecai Smith's landing-stage opposite Millbank to say if the boat comes back. You must divide it out among yourselves, and do both banks thoroughly. Let me know the moment you have news. Is that all clear?'
'Yes, guv'nor,' said Wiggins.
'The old scale of pay, and a guinea to the
He handed them a shilling each, and away they buzzed down the stairs, and I saw them a moment later streaming down the street.
'If the launch is above water they will find her,' said Holmes, as he rose from the table and lit his pipe. 'They can go everywhere, see everything, overhear everyone. I expect to hear before evening that they have spotted her. In the meanwhile, we can do nothing but await results. We cannot pick up the broken trail until we find either the Aurora or Mr. Mordecai Smith.'
'Toby could eat these scraps, I dare say. Are you going to bed, Holmes?'
'No: I am not tired. I have a curious constitution. I never remember feeling tired by work,
though idleness exhausts me completely. I am going to smoke and to think over this queer
business to which my fair
'That other man again!'
'I have no wish to make a mystery of him to you, anyway. But you must have formed your own opinion. Now, do consider the data. Diminutive footmarks, toes never fettered by boots, naked feet, stone-headed wooden mace, great agility, small poisoned darts. What do you make of all this?'
'A savage!' I exclaimed. 'Perhaps one of those Indians who were the associates of Jonathan Small.'
'Hardly that,' said he. 'When first I saw signs of strange weapons, I was inclined to think
so; but the remarkable character of the footmarks caused me to reconsider my views. Some of the
inhabitants of the Indian Peninsula
'South American,' I hazarded.
He stretched his hand up, and took down a bulky volume from the shelf.
'This is the first volume of a gazetteer which is now being published. It may be looked upon
as the very latest authority. What have we here? "Andaman Islands, situated 340 miles to the
north of Sumatra, in the Bay of Bengal." Hum! hum! What's all this? Moist climate, coral reefs,
sharks, Port Blair, convict barracks, Rutland Island, cottonwoods— Ah, here we are! "The
'But how came he to have so singular a companion?'
'Ah, that is more than I can tell. Since, however, we had already determined that Small had come from the Andamans, it is not so very wonderful that this islander should be with him. No doubt we shall know all about it in time. Look here, Watson; you look regularly done. Lie down there on the sofa, and see if I can put you to sleep.'
He took up his violin from the corner, and as I stretched myself out he began to play some low, dreamy, melodious air—his own, no doubt, for he had a remarkable gift for improvisation. I have a vague remembrance of his gaunt limbs, his earnest face, and the rise and fall of his bow. Then I seemed to be floated peacefully away upon a soft sea of sound, until I found myself in dreamland, with the sweet face of Mary Morstan looking down upon me.
It was late in the afternoon before I woke, strengthened and refreshed. Sherlock Holmes still sat exactly as I had left him, save that he had laid aside his violin and was deep in a book. He looked across at me as I stirred, and I noticed that his face was dark and troubled.
'You have slept soundly,' he said. 'I feared that our talk would wake you.'
'I heard nothing,' I answered. 'Have you had fresh news, then?'
'Unfortunately, no. I confess that I am surprised and disappointed. I expected something
definite by this time. Wiggins has
'Can I do anything? I am perfectly fresh now, and quite ready for another night's outing.'
'No; we can do nothing. We can only wait. If we go ourselves, the message might come in our absence, and delay be caused. You can do what you will, but I must remain on guard.'
'Then I shall run over to Camberwell and call upon Mrs. Cecil Forrester. She asked me to, yesterday.'
'On Mrs. Cecil Forrester?' asked Holmes, with the twinkle of a smile in his eyes.
'Well, of course on Miss Morstan too. They were anxious to hear what happened.'
'I would not tell them too much,' said
I did not pause to argue over this atrocious sentiment.
'I shall be back in an hour or two,' I remarked.
'All right! Good luck! But, I say, if you are crossing the river you may as well return Toby, for I don't think it is at all likely that we shall have any use for him now.'
I took our mongrel accordingly, and left him, together with a half-sovereign, at the old
naturalist's in Pinchin Lane. At Camberwell I found Miss Morstan a little weary after her
night's adventures, but very eager to hear the news. Mrs. Forrester, too, was full of
curiosity. I told them all that we had done, suppressing, however, the more dreadful parts of
the tragedy. Thus, although I spoke of Mr. Sholto's death, I
'It is a romance!' cried Mrs. Forrester. 'An injured lady, half a million in treasure, a black cannibal, and a wooden-legged ruffian. They take the place of the conventional dragon or wicked earl.'
'And two knight-errants to the rescue,' added Miss Morstan, with a bright glance at me.
'Why, Mary, your fortune depends upon the issue of this search. I don't think that you are nearly excited enough. Just imagine what it must be to be so rich, and to have the world at your feet!'
It sent a little thrill of joy to my heart to notice that she showed no sign of elation at
the prospect. On the contrary, she gave a toss of her proud head, as though the
'It is for Mr. Thaddeus Sholto that I am anxious,' she said. 'Nothing else is of any consequence; but I think that he has behaved most kindly and honourably throughout. It is our duty to clear him of this dreadful and unfounded charge.'
It was evening before I left Camberwell, and quite dark by the time I reached home. My companion's book and pipe lay by his chair, but he had disappeared. I looked about in the hope of seeing a note, but there was none.
'I suppose that Mr. Sherlock Holmes has gone out,' I said to Mrs. Hudson as she came up to lower the blinds.
'No, sir. He has gone to his room, sir. Do you know, sir,' sinking her voice into an impressive whisper, 'I am afraid for his health?'
'Why so, Mrs. Hudson?'
'Well, he's that strange, sir. After you was gone he walked and he walked, up and down, and up and down, until I was weary of the sound of his footstep. Then I heard him talking to himself and muttering, and every time the bell rang out he came on the stair-head, with "What is that, Mrs. Hudson?" And now he has slammed off to his room, but I can hear him walking away the same as ever. I hope he's not going to be ill, sir. I ventured to say something to him about cooling medicine, but he turned on me, sir, with such a look that I don't know how ever I got out of the room.'
'I don't think that you have any cause to be uneasy, Mrs. Hudson,' I answered. 'I have seen him like this before. He has some small matter upon his mind which makes him restless.'
I tried to speak lightly to our worthy
At breakfast-time he looked worn and haggard, with a little fleck of feverish colour upon either cheek.
'You are knocking yourself up, old man,' I remarked. 'I heard you marching about in the night.'
'No, I could not sleep,' he answered. 'This infernal problem is consuming me. It is too much
to be baulked by so petty an obstacle, when all else had been overcome. I know the men, the
launch, everything; and yet I can get no news. I have set other agencies at work, and used
every means at my disposal. The whole river has been searched on either side, but there is no
news, nor has Mrs. Smith heard of her
'Or that Mrs. Smith has put us on a wrong scent.'
'No, I think that may be dismissed. I had inquiries made, and there is a launch of that description.'
'Could it have gone up the river?'
'I have considered that possibility too, and there is a search-party who will work up as far as Richmond. If no news comes to-day, I shall start off myself to-morrow, and go for the men rather than the boat. But surely, surely, we shall hear something.'
We did not, however. Not a word came to us either from Wiggins or from the other agencies.
There were articles in most of the papers upon the Norwood tragedy. They all appeared to be
rather hostile to the unfortunate Thaddeus Sholto. No fresh
In the early dawn I woke with a start, and was surprised to find him standing by my bedside, clad in a rude sailor dress with a pea-jacket, and a coarse red scarf round his neck.
'I am off down the river, Watson,' said he. 'I have been turning it over in my mind, and I can see only one way out of it. It is worth trying, at all events.'
'Surely I can come with you, then?' said I.
'No; you can be much more useful if you will remain here as my representative. I am loath to go, for it is quite on the cards that some message may come during the day, though Wiggins was despondent about it last night. I want you to open all notes and telegrams, and to act on your own judgment if any news should come. Can I rely upon you?'
'Most certainly.'
'I am afraid that you will not be able to wire to me, for I can hardly tell yet where I may find myself. If I am in luck, however, I may not be gone so very long. I shall have news of some sort or other before I get back.'
I had heard nothing of him by breakfast time. On opening the
'That is satisfactory so far as it goes,' thought I. 'Friend Sholto is safe, at any
I tossed the paper down upon the table, but at that moment my eye caught an advertisement in the agony column. It ran in this way:
' .—Whereas Mordecai Smith, boatman, and his son Jim, left Smith's Wharf at or about three o'clock last Tuesday morning in the steam launch Aurora , black with two red stripes, funnel black with a white band, the sum of five pounds will be paid to anyone who can give information to Mrs. Smith, at Smith's Wharf, or at 221b , Baker Street, as to the whereabouts of the said Mordecai Smith and the launch Aurora .'
This was clearly Holmes's doing. The Baker Street address was enough to prove that. It struck
me as rather ingenious, because it might be read by the fugitives
It was a long day. Every time that a knock came to the door, or a sharp step passed in the
street, I imagined that it was either Holmes returning or an answer to his advertisement. I
tried to read, but my thoughts would wander off to our strange quest and to the ill-assorted
and villainous pair whom we were pursuing. Could there be, I wondered, some radical flaw in my
companion's reasoning? Might he not be suffering from some huge self-deception? Was it not
possible that his nimble and speculative mind had built up this wild theory upon faulty
premises? I had never known him to be wrong, and yet the keenest reasoner may occasionally be
deceived. He was likely, I thought, to fall into error through the over-refinement of his
logic—his preference
At three o'clock in the afternoon there was a loud peal at the bell, an authoritative voice
in the hall, and, to my surprise, no less a person than Mr. Athelney Jones was shown up to me.
Very different was he, however, from the brusque and masterful professor of common sense who
had taken over the case so confidently at Upper Norwood. His expression was downcast,
'Good-day, sir; good-day,' said he. 'Mr. Sherlock Holmes is out, I understand.'
'Yes, and I cannot be sure when he will be back. But perhaps you would care to wait. Take that chair and try one of these cigars.'
'Thank you; I don't mind if I do,' said he, mopping his face with a red bandanna handkerchief.
'And a whisky and soda?'
'Well, half a glass. It is very hot for the time of year; and I have had a good deal to worry and try me. You know my theory about this Norwood case?'
'I remember that you expressed one.'
'Well, I have been obliged to reconsider it. I had my net drawn tightly round Mr. Sholto,
sir, when pop he went through a hole in the middle of it. He was able to
'We all need help sometimes,' said I.
'Your friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes is a wonderful man, sir,' said he, in a husky and
confidential voice. 'He's a man who is not to be beat. I have known that young man go into a
good many cases, but I never saw the case yet that he could not throw a light upon. He is
irregular in his methods, and a little quick perhaps in jumping at theories, but, on the whole,
I think he would have made a most promising officer, and I don't care who knows it. I have had
a wire from him this morning, by which I understand
He took the telegram out of his pocket, and handed it to me. It was dated from Poplar at twelve o'clock. 'Go to Baker Street at once,' it said. 'If I have not returned, wait for me. I am close on the track of the Sholto gang. You can come with us to-night if you want to be in at the finish.'
'This sounds well. He has evidently picked up the scent again,' said I.
'Ah, then he has been at fault too,' exclaimed Jones, with evident satisfaction. 'Even the best of us are thrown off sometimes. Of course this may prove to be a false alarm; but it is my duty as an officer of the law to allow no chance to slip. But there is someone at the door. Perhaps this is he.'
A heavy step was heard ascending the stair, with a great wheezing and rattling as from a man
who was sorely put to it for
'What is it, my man?' I asked.
He looked about him in the slow methodical fashion of old age.
'Is Mr. Sherlock Holmes here?' said he.
'No; but I am acting for him. You can tell me any message you have for him.'
'It was to him himself I was to tell it,' said he.
'But I tell you that I am acting for him. Was it about Mordecai Smith's boat?'
'Yes. I knows well where it is. An' I knows where the men he is after are. An' I knows where the treasure is. I knows all about it.'
'Then tell me, and I shall let him know.'
'It was to him I was to tell it,' he repeated, with the petulant obstinacy of a very old man.
'Well, you must wait for him.'
'No, no; I ain't goin' to lose a whole day to please no one. If Mr. Holmes ain't here, then Mr. Holmes must find it all out for himself. I don't care about the look of either of you, and I won't tell a word.'
He shuffled towards the door, but Athelney Jones got in front of him.
'Wait a bit, my friend,' said he. 'You have important information, and you must not walk off. We shall keep you, whether you like or not, until our friend returns.'
The old man made a little run towards the door, but, as Athelney Jones put his broad back up against it, he recognised the uselessness of resistance.
'Pretty sort o' treatment this!' he cried, stamping his stick. 'I come here to see a gentleman, and you two, who I never saw in my life, seize me and treat me in this fashion!'
'You will be none the worse,' I said. 'We shall recompense you for the loss of your time. Sit over here on the sofa, and you will not have long to wait.'
He came across sullenly enough, and seated himself with his face resting on his hands. Jones
and I resumed our cigars and
'I think that you might offer me a cigar too,' he said.
We both started in our chairs. There was Holmes sitting close to us with an air of quiet amusement.
'Holmes!' I exclaimed. 'You here! But where is the old man?'
'Here is the old man,' said he, holding out a heap of white hair. 'Here he is— wig, whiskers, eyebrows, and all. I thought my disguise was pretty good, but I hardly expected that it would stand that test.'
'Ah, you rogue!' cried Jones, highly delighted. 'You would have made an actor and a rare one. You had the proper workhouse cough, and those weak legs of yours are worth ten pound a week. I thought I knew the glint of your eye, though. You didn't get away from us so easily, you see.'
'I have been working in that get-up all day,' said he, lighting his cigar. 'You see, a good many of the criminal classes begin to know me—especially since our friend here took to publishing some of my cases: so I can only go on the war-path under some simple disguise like this. You got my wire?'
'Yes; that was what brought me here.'
'How has your case prospered?'
'It has all come to nothing. I have had to release two of my prisoners, and there is no evidence against the other two.'
'Never mind. We shall give you two others in the place of them. But you must put yourself under my orders. You are welcome to all the official credit, but you must act on the lines that I point out. Is that agreed?'
'Entirely, if you will help me to the men.'
'Well, then, in the first place I shall want a fast police-boat—a steam launch—to be at the Westminster Stairs at seven o'clock.'
'That is easily managed. There is always one about there; but I can step across the road and telephone to make sure.'
'Then I shall want two stanch men, in case of resistance.'
'There will be two or three in the boat. What else?'
'When we secure the men we shall get the treasure. I think that it would be a pleasure to my friend here to take the box round to the young lady to whom half of it rightfully belongs. Let her be the first to open it. Eh, Watson?'
'It would be a great pleasure to me.'
'Rather an irregular proceeding,' said Jones, shaking his head. 'However, the whole thing is irregular, and I suppose we must wink at it. The treasure must afterwards be handed over to the authorities until after the official investigation.'
'Certainly. That is easily managed. One
'Well, you are master of the situation. I have had no proof yet of the existence of this Jonathan Small. However, if you can catch him, I don't see how I can refuse you an interview with him.'
'That is understood, then?'
'Perfectly. Is there anything else?'
'Only that I insist upon your dining with us. It will be ready in half an hour. I have oysters and a brace of grouse, with something a little choice in white wines.—Watson, you have never yet recognized my merits as a housekeeper.'
Our meal was a merry one. Holmes could talk exceedingly well when he chose, and that
night he did choose. He appeared to be in a state of nervous exaltation. I have never known him
so brilliant. He spoke on a quick succession of subjects—on miracle plays, on mediæval pottery,
on Stradivarius violins, on the Buddhism of Ceylon, and on the warships of the future—handling
each as though he had made a special study of it. His bright humour marked the reaction from
his black depression of the preceding days. Athelney Jones proved to be a sociable soul in his
hours of relaxation, and faced his dinner with
When the cloth was cleared, Holmes glanced at his watch, and filled up three glasses with port.
'One bumper,' said he, 'to the success of our little expedition. And now it is high time we were off. Have you a pistol, Watson?'
'I have my old service-revolver in my desk.'
'You had best take it, then. It is well to be prepared. I see that the cab is at the door. I ordered it for half-past six.'
It was a little past seven before we reached the Westminster wharf, and found our launch awaiting us. Holmes eyed it critically.
'Is there anything to mark it as a police-boat?'
'Yes, that green lamp at the side.'
'Then take it off.'
The small change was made, we stepped on board, and the ropes were cast off. Jones, Holmes, and I sat in the stern. There was one man at the rudder, one to tend the engines, and two burly police-inspectors forward.
'Where to? asked Jones.
'To the Tower. Tell them to stop opposite to Jacobson's Yard.'
Our craft was evidently a very fast one. We shot past the long lines of loaded barges as though they were stationary. Holmes smiled with satisfaction as we overhauled a river steamer and left her behind us.
'We ought to be able to catch anything on the river,' he said.
'Well, hardly that. But there are not many launches to beat us.'
'We shall have to catch the Aurora , and she has a name for being a clipper. I will tell you how the land lies, Watson. You recollect how annoyed I was at being baulked by so small a thing?'
'Yes.'
'Well, I gave my mind a thorough rest by plunging into a chemical analysis. One of our
greatest statesmen has said that a change of work is the best rest. So it is. When I had
succeeded in dissolving the hydrocarbon which I was at work at, I came back to our problem of
the Sholtos, and thought the whole matter out again. My boys had been up the river and down the
river without result. The launch was not at any landingstage or wharf, nor had it returned. Yet
it could hardly have been scuttled to hide their traces, though that always remained as a
possible hypothesis if all else failed. I knew that this man Small had a certain degree of
'It seems to me to be a little weak,' said I; 'it is more probable that he had arranged his affairs before ever he set out upon his expedition.'
'No, I hardly think so. This lair of his would be too valuable a retreat in case of need for
him to give it up until he was sure that he could do without it. But a second consideration
struck me. Jonathan Small must have felt that the peculiar appearance
'But the launch? They could not have taken that to their lodgings.'
'Quite so. I argued that the launch must be no great way off, in spite of its invisibility. I
then put myself in the place of Small, and looked at it as a man of his capacity would. He
would probably consider that to send back the launch or to keep it at a wharf would make
pursuit easy if the police did happen to get on his track. How, then, could he conceal the
launch and yet have her at hand when wanted? I wondered what I should do myself if I were in
his shoes. I could only think of one way of doing it. I might hand the launch over to some
boat-builder or repairer, with directions to make a trifling change in her. She would then be
removed to his shed or yard, and so be effectually concealed, while at the
'That seems simple enough.'
'It is just these very simple things which are extremely liable to be overlooked. However, I
determined to act on the idea. I started at once in this harmless seaman's rig and inquired at
all the yards down the river. I drew blank at fifteen, but at the sixteenth —Jacobson's—I
learned that the Aurora had been handed over to them two days ago by a wooden-legged
man, with some trivial directions as to her rudder. "There ain't naught amiss with her rudder,"
said the foreman. "There she lies, with the red streaks." At that moment who should come down
but Mordecai Smith, the missing owner? He was rather the worse for liquor. I should not, of
course, have known him, but he bellowed out his name and the name of his launch. "I want her
to-night at eight
'You have planned it all very neatly, whether they are the right men or not,' said Jones; 'but if the affair were in my hands I should have had a body of police in Jacobson's Yard, and arrested them when they came down.'
'Which would have been never. This man
'But you might have stuck to Mordecai Smith, and so been led to their hiding-place,' said I.
'In that case I should have wasted my day. I think that it is a hundred to one against Smith knowing where they live. As long as he has liquor and good pay, why should he ask questions? They send him messages what to do. No, I thought over every possible course, and this is the best.'
While this conversation had been proceeding, we had been shooting the long series of bridges which span the Thames. As we passed the City the last rays of the sun were gilding the cross upon the summit of St. Paul's. It was twilight before we reached the Tower.
'That is Jacobson's Yard,' said Holmes, pointing to a bristle of masts and rigging on the Surrey side. 'Cruise gently up and down here under cover of this string of lighters.' He took a pair of night-glasses from his pocket and gazed some time at the shore. 'I see my sentry at his post,' he remarked, 'but no sign of a handkerchief.'
'Suppose we go down stream a short way and lie in wait for them,' said Jones eagerly.
We were all eager by this time, even the policemen and stokers, who had a very vague idea of what was going forward.
'We have no right to take anything for granted,' Holmes answered. 'It is certainly ten to one
that they go down stream, but we cannot be certain. From this point we can see the entrance of
the yard, and they can hardly see us. It will be a clear night and plenty of light. We must
stay where we are
'They are coming from work in the yard.'
'Dirty-looking rascals, but I suppose every one has some little immortal spark concealed about him. You would not think it, to look at them. There is no a priori probability about it. A strange enigma is man!'
'Someone calls him a soul concealed in an animal,' I suggested.
'Winwood Reade is good upon the subject,' said Holmes. 'He remarks that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician. But do I see a handkerchief? Surely there is a white flutter over yonder.'
'Yes, it is your boy,' I cried. 'I can see him plainly.'
'And there is the Aurora ,' exclaimed Holmes, 'and going like the devil! Full speed ahead, engineer. Make after that launch with the yellow light. By heaven, I shall never forgive myself if she proves to have the heels of us!'
She had slipped unseen through the yard-entrance and passed behind two or three small craft, so that she had fairly got her speed up before we saw her. Now she was flying down the stream, near in to the shore, going at a tremendous rate. Jones looked gravely at her and shook his head.
'She is very fast,' he said. 'I doubt if we shall catch her.'
'We
We were fairly after her now. The furnaces roared, and the powerful engines whizzed and clanked, like a great metallic heart. Her sharp, steep prow cut through the still river-water and sent two rolling waves to right and to left of us. With every throb of the engines we sprang and quivered like a living thing. One great yellow lantern in our bows threw a long, flickering funnel of light in front of us. Right ahead a dark blur upon the water showed where the Aurora lay, and the swirl of white foam behind her spoke of the pace at which she was going. We flashed past barges, steamers, merchant-vessels, in and out, behind this one and round the other. Voices hailed us out of the darkness, but still the Aurora thundered on, and still we followed close upon her track.
'Pile it on, men, pile it on!' cried Holmes, looking down into the engine-room, while the
'I think we gain a little,' said Jones, with his eyes on the Aurora.
'I am sure of it,' said I. 'We shall be up with her in a very few minutes.'
At that moment, however, as our evil fate would have it, a tug with three barges in tow
blundered in between us. It was only by putting our helm hard down that we avoided a collision,
and before we could round them and recover our way the Aurora had gained a good two
hundred yards. She was still, however, well in view, and the murky, uncertain twilight was
settling into a clear, starlit night. Our boilers were strained to their utmost, and the frail
shell vibrated and creaked with the fierce energy which was driving us along. We had shot
through the pool, past the West India Docks, down the
'Fire if he raises his hand,' said Holmes quietly.
We were within a boat's-length by this time, and almost within touch of our quarry. I can see the two of them now as they stood, the white man with his legs far apart, shrieking out curses, and the unhallowed dwarf with his hideous face, and his strong yellow teeth gnashing at us in the light of our lantern.
It was well that we had so clear a view of him. Even as we looked he plucked out from under
his covering a short, round piece of wood, like a school-ruler, and clapped it to his lips. Our
pistols rang out together. He whirled round, threw up his arms, and, with a kind of choking
cough, fell sideways into the stream. I caught one glimpse of his venomous, menacing eyes amid
the white
'See here,' said Holmes, pointing to the wooden hatchway. 'We were hardly quick enough with our pistols.' There, sure enough, just behind where we had been standing, stuck one of those murderous darts which we knew so well. It must have whizzed between us at the instant we fired. Holmes smiled at it and shrugged his shoulders in his easy fashion, but I confess that it turned me sick to think of the horrible death which had passed so close to us that night.
Our captive sat in the cabin opposite to the iron box which he had done so much and
waited so long to gain. He was a sunburned, reckless-eyed fellow, with a network of lines and
wrinkles all over his mahogany features, which told of a hard, open-air life. There was a
singular prominence about his bearded chin which marked a man who was not to be easily turned
from his purpose. His age may have been fifty or thereabouts, for his black, curly hair was
thickly shot with gray. His face in repose was not an unpleasing one, though his heavy brows
and aggressive chin gave him, as I had lately seen, a terrible
'Well, Jonathan Small,' said Holmes, lighting a cigar, 'I am sorry that it has come to this.'
'And so am I, sir,' he answered frankly.
'I don't believe that I can swing over the job. I give you my word on the book that I never
raised hand against Mr. Sholto. It was that little hell-hound Tonga who shot one of his cursed
darts into him. I had no part in it, sir. I was as grieved as if it had been my blood-relation.
I welted the little
'Have a cigar,' said Holmes; 'and you had best take a pull out of my flask, for you are very wet. How could you expect so small and weak a man as this black fellow to overpower Mr. Sholto and hold him while you were climbing the rope?'
'You seem to know as much about it as if you were there, sir. The truth is that I hoped to
find the room clear. I knew the habits of the house pretty well, and it was the time when Mr.
Sholto usually went down to his supper. I shall make no secret of the business. The best
defence that I can make is just the simple truth. Now, if it had been the old major I would
have swung for him with a light heart. I would have thought no more of knifing him than of
smoking this cigar. But it's cursed hard that I should be
'You are under the charge of Mr. Athelney Jones, of Scotland Yard. He is going to bring you up to my rooms, and I shall ask you for a true account of the matter. You must make a clean breast of it, for if you do I hope that I may be of use to you. I think I can prove that the poison acts so quickly that the man was dead before ever you reached the room.'
'That he was, sir. I never got such a turn in my life as when I saw him grinning at me with
his head on his shoulder as I climbed through the window. It fairly shook me, sir. I'd have
half killed Tonga for it if he had not scrambled off. That was how he came to leave his club,
and some of his darts too, as he tells me, which I dare say helped to put you on our track;
though how you kept on it is more than I can tell. I don't
At this moment Athelney Jones thrust his broad face and heavy shoulders into the tiny cabin.
'Quite a family party,' he remarked. 'I think I shall have a pull at that flask, Holmes.
Well, I think we may all congratulate each other. Pity we didn't take the other' alive;
'All is well that ends well,' said Holmes. 'But I certainly did not know that the Aurora was such a clipper.'
'Smith says she is one of the fastest launches on the river, and that if he had had another man to help him with the engines we should never have caught her. He swears he knew nothing of this Norwood business.'
'Neither he did,' cried our prisoner—'not a word. I chose his launch because I heard that she was a flier. We told him nothing; but we paid him well, and he was to get something handsome if we reached our vessel, the Esmeralda , at Gravesend, outward bound for the Brazils.'
'Well, if he has done no wrong we shall see that no wrong comes to him. If we are pretty
quick in catching our men, we are not
'We will be at Vauxhall Bridge presently,' said Jones, 'and shall land you, Dr. Watson, with the treasure-box. I need hardly tell you that I am taking a very grave responsibility upon myself in doing this. It is most irregular; but of course an agreement is an agreement. I must, however, as a matter of duty, send an inspector with you, since you have so valuable a charge. You will drive, no doubt?'
'Yes, I shall drive.'
'It is a pity there is no key, that we may make an inventory first. You will have to break it open. Where is the key, my man?'
'At the bottom of the river,' said Small shortly.
'Hum! There was no use your giving this unnecessary trouble. We have had work enough already through you. However, doctor, I need not warn you to be careful. Bring the box back with you to the Baker Street rooms. You will find us there, on our way to the station.'
They landed me at Vauxhall, with my heavy iron box, and with a bluff, genial inspector as my companion. A quarter of an hour's drive brought us to Mrs. Cecil Forrester's. The servant seemed surprised at so late a visitor. Mrs. Cecil Forrester was out for the evening, she explained, and likely to be very late. Miss Morstan, however, was in the drawing-room; so to the drawing-room I went, box in hand, leaving the obliging inspector in the cab.
She was seated by the open window,
'I heard a cab drive up,' she said. 'I thought that Mrs. Forrester had come back very early, but I never dreamed that it might be you. What news have you brought me?'
'I have brought something better than news,' said I, putting down the box upon the table and
speaking jovially and boisterously, though my heart was heavy within me. 'I
She glanced at the iron box.
'Is that the treasure then?' she asked, coolly enough.
'Yes, this is the great Agra treasure. Half of it is yours and half is Thaddeus Sholto's. You will have a couple of hundred thousand each. Think of that! An annuity of ten thousand pounds. There will be few richer young ladies in England. Is it not glorious?'
I think that I must have been rather overacting my delight, and that she detected a hollow ring in my congratulations, for I saw her eyebrows rise a little, and she glanced at me curiously.
'If I have it,' said she, 'I owe it to you.'
'No, no,' I answered, 'not to me, but to my friend Sherlock Holmes. With all the
'Pray sit down and tell me all about it, Dr. Watson,' said she.
I narrated briefly what had occurred since I had seen her last. Holmes's new method of search, the discovery of the Aurora, the appearance of Athelney Jones, our expedition in the evening, and the wild chase down the Thames. She listened with parted lips and shining eyes to my recital of our adventures. When I spoke of the dart which had so narrowly missed us, she turned so white that I feared that she was about to faint.
'It is nothing,' she said, as I hastened to pour her out some water. 'I am all right again. It was a shock to me to hear that I had placed my friends in such horrible peril.'
'That is all over,' I answered. 'It was
'It would be of the greatest interest to me,' she said. There was no eagerness in her voice, however. It had struck her, doubtless, that it might seem ungracious upon her part to be indifferent to a prize which had cost so much to win.
'What a pretty box!' she said, stooping over it. 'This is Indian work, I suppose?'
'Yes; it is Benares metal-work.'
'And so heavy!' she exclaimed, trying to raise it. 'The box alone must be of some value. Where is the key?'
'Small threw it into the Thames,' I answered. 'I must borrow Mrs. Forrester's poker.'
There was in the front a thick and broad hasp, wrought in the image of a sitting Buddha. Under this I thrust the end of the poker and twisted it outward as a lever. The hasp sprang open with a loud snap. With trembling fingers I flung back the lid. We both stood gazing in astonishment. The box was empty!
No wonder that it was heavy. The ironwork was two-thirds of an inch thick all round. It was massive, well made, and solid, like a chest constructed to carry things of great price, but not one shred or crumb of metal or jewellery lay within it. It was absolutely and completely empty.
'The treasure is lost,' said Miss Morstan calmly.
As I listened to the words and realized what they meant, a great shadow seemed to pass from
my soul. I did not know how this Agra treasure had weighed me down, until
'Thank God!' I ejaculated from my very heart.
She looked at me with a quick, questioning smile.
'Why do you say that?' she asked.
'Because you are within my reach again,' I said, taking her hand. She did not withdraw it. 'Because I love you, Mary, as truly as ever a man loved a woman. Because this treasure, these riches, sealed my lips. Now that they are gone I can tell you how I love you. That is why I said, "Thank God."'
'Then I say "Thank God," too,' she whispered, as I drew her to my side.
Whoever had lost a treasure, I knew that night that I had gained one.
A very patient man was that inspector in the cab, for it was a weary time before I rejoined him. His face clouded over when I showed him the empty box.
'There goes the reward!' said he gloomily. 'Where there is no money there is no pay. This night's work would have been worth a tenner each to Sam Brown and me if the treasure had been there.'
'Mr. Thaddeus Sholto is a rich man,' I said; 'he will see that you are rewarded, treasure or no.'
The inspector shook his head despondently, however.
'It's a bad job,' he repeated; 'and so Mr. Athelney Jones will think.'
His forecast proved to be correct, for the detective looked blank enough when I got to Baker Street and showed him the empty box. They had only just arrived, Holmes, the prisoner, and he, for they had changed their plans so far as to report themselves at a station upon the way. My companion lounged in his arm-chair with his usual listless expression, while Small sat stolidly opposite to him with his wooden leg cocked over his sound one. As I exhibited the empty box he leaned back in his chair and laughed aloud.
'This is your doing, Small,' said Athelney Jones angrily.
'Yes, I have put it away where you shall never lay hand upon it,' he cried exultantly. 'It is
my treasure, and if I can't have the loot I'll take darned good care that no one
'You are deceiving us, Small,' said Athelney Jones sternly; 'if you had wished to throw the
treasure into the Thames, it would
'Easier for me to throw, and easier for you to recover,' he answered, with a shrewd, side-long look. 'The man that was clever enough to hunt me down is clever enough to pick an iron box from the bottom of a river. Now that they are scattered over five miles or so, it may be a harder job. It went to my heart to do it, though. I was half mad when you came up with us. However, there's no good grieving over it. I've had ups in my life, and I've had downs, but I've learned not to cry over spilled milk.'
'This is a very serious matter, Small,' said the detective. 'If you had helped justice, instead of thwarting it in this way, you would have had a better chance at your trial.'
'Justice!' snarled the ex-convict. 'A pretty justice! Whose loot is this, if it is not ours?
Where is the justice that I should
Small had dropped his mask of stoicism, and all this came out in a wild whirl of words, while
his eyes blazed and the handcuffs clanked together with the impassioned movement of his hands.
I could understand, as I
'You forget that we know nothing of all this,' said Holmes quietly. 'We have not heard your story, and we cannot tell how far justice may originally have been on your side.'
'Well, sir, you have been very fair-spoken to me, though I can see that I have you to thank that I have these bracelets upon my wrists. Still, I bear no grudge for that. It is all fair and above-board. If you want to hear my story, I have no wish to hold it back. What I say to you is God's truth, every word of it. Thank you, you can put the glass beside me here, and I'll put my lips to it if I am dry.
'I am a Worcestershire man myself, born
'I wasn't destined to do much soldiering, however. I had just got past the goose-step, and
learned to handle my musket, when I was fool enough to go swimming in the Ganges. Luckily for
me, my company sergeant, John Holders, was in the water at
'I was, as you can imagine, pretty down on my luck at this time, for I was a useless cripple,
though not yet in my twentieth year. However, my misfortune soon proved to be a blessing in
disguise. A man named Abel White, who had come out there as an indigo-planter, wanted an
overseer to look
'Well, I was never in luck's way long.
'As it proved, however, there was no great safety there, either. The whole country was up
like a swarm of bees. Wherever the English could collect in little bands they held just the
ground that their guns commanded. Everywhere else they were helpless fugitives. It was a fight
of the millions against the hundreds; and the
'Nothing but the worst news came to us from every side—which is not to be wondered at, for if
you look at the map you will see that we were right in the heart of it. Lucknow is rather
better than a hundred miles to the east, and Cawnpore about as far to the south. From every
point
'The city of Agra is a great place, swarming with fanatics and fierce devil-worshippers of
all sorts. Our handful of men were lost among the narrow, winding streets. Our leader moved
across the river, therefore, and took up his position in the old fort of Agra. I don't know if
any of you gentlemen have ever read or heard anything of that old fort. It is a very queer
place the queerest that ever I was in, and I have been in some rum corners, too. First of all
it is enormous in size. I should think that the enclosure must be acres and acres. There is a
modern part, which took all our garrison, women, children, stores, and everything else, with
plenty of room over. But the modern part is nothing like the size of the old quarter, where
nobody goes, and which is given over to the scorpions and the centipedes.
'The river washes along the front of the old fort, and so protects it, but on the sides and
behind there are many doors, and these had to be guarded, of course, in the old quarter as well
as in that which was actually held by our troops. We were short-handed, with hardly men enough
to man the angles of the building and to serve the guns. It was impossible for us, therefore,
to station a strong guard at every one of the innumerable gates. What we did was to organize a
central guard-house in the middle of the fort, and to leave each gate under the charge of one
white man and two or three natives. I
'Well, I was pretty proud at having this small command given me, since I was a raw recruit,
and a game-legged one at that. For two nights I kept the watch with my Punjaubees. They were
tall, fierce-looking chaps, Mahomet Singh and Abdullah Khan by name, both old fighting men, who
had
'The third night of my watch was dark and dirty, with a small driving rain. It was dreary
work standing in the gateway hour after hour in such weather. I tried again and again to make
my Sikhs talk, but without much success. At two in the morning the
'My first thought was that these fellows were in league with the rebels, and that this was
the beginning of an assault. If our door were in the hands of the Sepoys the place must fall,
and the women and children be treated as they were in Cawnpore. Maybe you gentlemen think that
I am just making out a case for myself, but I give you my word that when I thought of that,
though I felt the point of the knife at my throat, I
'"Listen to me, Sahib," said the taller and fiercer of the pair, the one whom they called
Abdullah Khan. "You must either be with us now, or you must be silenced for ever. The thing is
too great a one for us to hesitate. Either you are heart and soul with us on your oath on the
cross of the Christians, or your body this night shall be thrown into
'"How can I decide?" said I. "You have not told me what you want of me. But I tell you now that if it is anything against the safety of the fort I will have no truck with it, so you can drive home your knife and welcome."
'"It is nothing against the fort," said he. "We only ask you to do that which your countrymen
come to this land for. We ask you to be rich. If you will be one of us this night, we will
swear to you upon the naked knife, and by the threefold oath which no Sikh was ever known to
break, that you shall have your fair share of the loot. A quarter of
'"But what is the treasure, then?" I asked. "I am as ready to be rich as you can be, if you will but show me how it can be done."
'"You will swear, then," said he, "by the bones of your father, by the honour of your mother, by the cross of your faith, to raise no hand and speak no word against us, either now or afterwards?"
'"I will swear it," I answered, "provided that the fort is not endangered."
'"Then my comrade and I will swear that you shall have a quarter of the treasure which shall be equally divided among the four of us."
'"There are but three," said I.
'"No; Dost Akbar must have this share. We can tell the tale to you while we wait them. Do you
stand at the gate Mahomet
'"There is a rajah in the northern provinces who has much wealth, though his lands are small.
Much has come to him from his father, and more still he has set by himself, for he is of a low
nature, and hoards his gold rather than spend it. When the troubles broke out he would be
friends both with the lion and the tiger—with the Sepoy and with the Company's Raj. Soon,
however, it seemed to him that the white men's
'"This pretended merchant, who travels under the name of Achmet, is now in the city of Agra, and desires to gain his way into the fort. He has with him as travelling-companion my foster-brother Dost Akbar, who knows his secret. Dost Akbar has promised this night to lead him to a side-postern of the fort, and has chosen this one for his purpose. Here he will come presently, and here he will find Mahomet Singh and myself awaiting him. The place is lonely, and none shall know of his coming. The world shall know of the merchant Achmet no more, but the great treasure of the rajah shall be divided among us. What say you to it, Sahib?"
' In Worcestershire the life of a man seems a great and a sacred thing; but it is very
different when there is fire and blood all round you, and you have been used to meeting death
at every turn. Whether Achmet the
'"Consider, Sahib," said he, "that if this man is taken by the commandant he will be hung or
shot, and his jewels taken by the Government, so that no man will be a rupee the better for
them. Now, since we do the taking of him, why should we not do the rest as well? The jewels
will be as well with us as in the Company's coffers. There will be enough to make everyone of
us rich men and great chiefs. No one can know about the matter, for here we are cut off from
'"I am with you heart and soul," said I.
'"It is will," he answered, handing me back my firelock. "You see that we trust you, for your word, like ours, is not to be broken. We have now only to wait for my brother and the merchant."
'"Does you brother know, then, of what you will do?" I asked.
'"The plan is his. He has devised it. We will go to the gate and share the watch with Mahomet Singh."
'The rain was still falling steadily, for it was just the beginning of the wet season. Brown,
heavy clouds were drifting across the sky, and it was hard to see more than a stonecast. A deep
moat lay in front of our door, but the water was in places nearly dried up,
'Suddenly my eye caught the glint of a shaded lantern at the other side of the moat. It vanished among the mound-heaps, and then appeared again coming slowly in our direction.
'"Here they are!" I exclaimed.
'"You will challenge him, Sahib, as usual," whispered Abdullah. "Give him no cause for fear. Send us in with him, and we shall do the rest while you stay here on guard. Have the lantern ready to uncover, that we may be sure that it is indeed the man."
'The light had flickered onwards, now stopping and now advancing, until I could see two dark
figures upon the other side of the moat. I let them scramble down the sloping bank, splash
through the mire, and
'"Who goes there?" said I, in a subdued voice.
'"Friends," came the answer. I uncovered my lantern and threw a flood of light upon them. The
first was an enormous Sikh, with a black beard which swept nearly down to his cummerbund.
Outside of a show I have never seen so tall a man. The other was a little fat, round fellow,
with a great yellow turban, and a bundle in his hand, done up in a shawl. He seemed to be all
in a quiver with fear, for his hands twitched as if he had the ague, and his head kept turning
to left and right with two bright little twinkling eyes, like a mouse when he ventures out from
his hole. It gave me the chills to think of killing him, but I thought of the treasure, and my
heart set as hard as a flint within me. When he saw my white face he gave a little
'"Your protection, Sahib," he panted, "your protection for the unhappy merchant Achmet. I have travelled across Rajpootana that I might seek the shelter of the fort at Agra. I have been robbed and beaten and abused because I have been the friend of the Company. It is a blessed night this when I am once more in safety—I and my poor possessions."
'"What have you in the bundle?" I asked.
'"An iron box," he answered, "which contains one or two little family matters which are of no value to others, but which I should be sorry to lose. Yet I am not a beggar; and I shall reward you, young Sahib, and your governor also, if he will give me the shelter I ask."
'I could not trust myself to speak longer with the man. The more I looked at his fat,
'"Take him to the main guard," said I. The two Sikhs closed in upon him on each side, and the giant walked behind, while they marched in through the dark gateway. Never was a man so compassed round with death. I remained at the gateway with the lantern.
'I could hear the measured tramp of their footsteps sounding through the lonely corridors.
Suddenly it ceased, and I heard voices, and a scuffle, with the sound of blows. A moment later
there came, to my horror, a rush of footsteps coming in my direction, with a loud breathing of
a running man. I turned my lantern down the long straight passage, and there was the fat man,
running like the wind, with a smear of blood across his face, and close at his heels, bounding
like a tiger,
He stopped, and held out his manacled hands for the whisky-and-water which
'It was all very bad, no doubt,' said he. 'I should like to know how many fellows in my shoes
would have refused a share of this loot when they knew that they would have their throats cut
for their pains. Besides, it was my life or his when once he was in the
'Go on with your story,' said Holmes shortly.
'Well, we carried him in, Abdullah, Akbar, and I. A fine weight he was, too, for all that he was so short. Mahomet Singh was left to guard the door. We took him to a place which the Sikhs had already prepared. It was some distance off, where a winding passage leads to a great empty hall, the brick walls of which were all crumbling to pieces. The earth floor had sunk in at one place, making a natural grave, so we left Achmet the merchant there, having first covered him over with loose bricks. This done, we all went back to the treasure.
'It lay where he had dropped it when he
'After we had counted our treasures we put them back into the chest and carried them to the
gateway to show them to Mahomet Singh. Then we solemnly renewed our oath to stand by each other
and be true to our secret. We agreed to conceal our loot in a safe place until the country
should be at peace again, and then to divide it equally among ourselves. There was no use
dividing it at present, for if gems of such value were found upon us it would cause suspicion,
and there was no privacy in the fort nor any place where we could keep them. We carried the
box, therefore, into the same
'Well, there's no use my telling you gentlemen what came of the Indian mutiny. After Wilson
took Delhi and Sir Colin relieved Lucknow the back of the business was broken. Fresh troops
came pouring in, and Nana Sahib made himself scarce over the frontier. A flying column under
Colonel Greathed came round to Agra and cleared the Pandies away from it. Peace seemed to be
settling upon the country, and we four
'It came about in this way. When the rajah put his jewels into the hands of Achmet he did it
because he knew that he was a trusty man. They are suspicious folk in the East, however: so
what does this rajah do but take a second even more trusty servant and set him to play the spy
upon the first? This second man was ordered never to let Achmet out of his sight, and he
followed him like his shadow. He went after him that night, and saw him pass through the
doorway. Of course he thought he had taken refuge in the fort, and applied for admission there
himself next day, but could find no trace of Achmet. This seemed to him so strange that he
spoke about it to a sergeant
'It was rather a queer position that we found ourselves in then. There we were all
'At last it seemed to me to have come. I was changed from Agra to Madras, and from there to
Blair Island in the Andamans. There are very few white convicts at this settlement, and, as I
had behaved well from the first, I soon found myself a sort of privileged person. I was given a
hut in Hope Town, which is a small place on the slopes of
'The surgeon, Dr. Somerton, was a fast, sporting young chap, and the other young officers
would meet in his rooms of an evening and play cards. The surgery, where I
'Well, there was one thing which very soon struck me, and that was that the soldiers used
always to lose and the civilians to win. Mind, Idon't say there was anything unfair, but so it
was. These prison-chaps had done little else than play cards ever since they had been
'One night he lost even more heavily than usual. I was sitting in my hut when he and Captain Morstan came stumbling along on the way to their quarters. They were bosom friends, those two, and never far apart. The Major was raving about his losses.
'"It's all up, Morstan," he was saying, as they passed my hut. "I shall have to send in my papers. I am a ruined man."
'"Nonsense, old chap!" said the other, slapping him upon the shoulder. "I've had a nasty facer myself, but—" That was all I could hear, but it was enough to set me thinking.
'A couple of days later Major Sholto was strolling on the beach: so I took the chance of speaking to him.
'"I wish to have your advice, Major," said I.
'"Well, Small, what is it?" he asked, taking his cheroot from his lips.
'"I wanted to ask you, sir," said I, "who is the proper person to whom hidden treasure should
be handed over. I know where half a million worth lies, and, as I cannot use it myself, I
thought perhaps the best thing that I could do would be to hand it over to the
'"Half a million, Small?" he gasped, looking hard at me to see if I was in earnest.
'"Quite that, sir—in jewels and pearls. It lies there ready for anyone. And the queer thing about it is that the real owner is outlawed and cannot hold property, so that it belongs to the first comer."
'"To Government, Small," he stammered, "to Government." But he said it in a halting fashion, and I knew in my heart that I had got him.
'"You think, then, sir, that I should give the information to the Governor-General?" said I quietly.
'"Well, well, you must not do anything rash, or that you might repent. Let me hear all about it, Small. Give me the facts."
'I told him the whole story, with small changes, so that he could not identify the
'"This is a very important matter, Small," he said at last. "You must not say a word to anyone about it, and I shall see you again soon."
'Two nights later he and his friend, Captain Morstan, came to my hut in the dead of the night with a lantern.
'"I want you just to let Captain Morstan hear that story from your own lips, Small," said he.
'I repeated it as I had told it before.
'"It rings true, eh?" said he. "It's good enough to act upon?"
'Captain Morstan nodded.
'"Look here, Small," said the Major. "We have been talking it over, my friend here and I, and
we have come to the conclusion
'"Why, as to that, gentlemen," I answered, trying also to be cool, but feeling as excited as he did, "there is only one bargain which a man in my position can make. I shall want you to help me to my freedom, and to help my three companions to theirs. We shall then take you into partnership, and give you a fifth share to divide between you."
'"Hum!" said he. "A fifth share! That is not very tempting."
'"It would come to fifty thousand apiece," said I.
'"But how can we gain your freedom? You know very well that you ask an impossibility."
'"Nothing of the sort," I answered. "I have thought it all out to the last detail. The only bar to our escape is that we can get no boat fit for the voyage, and no provisions to last us for so long a time. There are plenty of little yachts and yawls at Calcutta or Madras which would serve our turn well. Do you bring one over. We shall engage to get aboard her by night, and if you will drop us on any part of the Indian coast you will have done your part of the bargain."
'"If there were only one," he said.
'"None or all," I answered. "We have sworn it. The four of us must always act together."
'"You see, Morstan," said he, "Small is a
'"It's a dirty business," the other answered. "Yet, as you say, the money will save our commissions handsomely."
'"Well, Small," said the Major, "we must, I suppose, try and meet you. We must first, of course, test the truth of your story. Tell me where the box is hid, and I shall get leave of absence and go back to India in the monthly relief-boat to inquire into the affair."
'"Not so fast," said I, growing colder as he got hot. "I must have the consent of my three comrades. I tell you that it is four or none with us."
'"Nonsense!" he broke in. "What have three black fellows to do with our agreement?"
'"Black or blue," said I, "they are in with me, and we all go together."
'Well, the matter ended by a second meeting, at which Mahomet Singh, Abdullah Khan, and Dost
Akbar were all present. We talked the matter over again, and at last we came to an arrangement.
We were to provide both the officers with charts of the part of the Agra fort, and mark the
place in the wall where the treasure was hid. Major Sholto was to go to India to test our
story. If he found the box he was to leave it there, to send out a small yacht provisioned for
a voyage, which was to lie off Rutland Island, and to which we were to make our way, and
finally to return to his duties. Captain Morstan was then to apply for leave of absence, to
meet us at Agra, and there we were to have a final division of the treasure, he taking the
Major's share as well as his own. All this we sealed by the most solemn oaths that the mind
could think or the lips utter. I sat up all night with paper and ink,
'Well, gentlemen, I weary you with my long story, and I know that my friend Mr. Jones is
impatient to get me safely stowed in chokey. I'll make it as short as I can. The villain Sholto
went off to India, but he never came back again. Captain Morstan showed me his name among a
list of passengers in one of the mail-boats very shortly afterwards. His uncle had died,
leaving him a fortune, and he had left the army; yet he could stoop to treat five men as he had
treated us. Morstan went over to Agra shortly afterwards, and found, as we expected, that the
treasure was indeed gone. The scoundrel had stolen it all, without carrying out one of the
conditions on which we had sold him the secret. From that day I lived only for
'Well, I have set my mind on many things in this life, and never one which I did not carry
out. But it was weary years before my time came. I have told you that I had picked up something
of medicine. One day when Dr. Somerton was down with a fever a little Andaman Islander was
picked up by a convict-gang in the woods. He was sick to death, and had gone to a lonely place
to die. I took him in hand, though he was as venomous as a young snake, and after a couple of
months I got
'Tonga—for that was his name—was a fine boatman, and owned a big, roomy canoe of his own. When I found that he was devoted to me and would do anything to serve me, I saw my chance of escape. I talked it over with him. He was to bring his boat round on a certain night to an old wharf which was never guarded, and there he was to pick me up. I gave him directions to have several gourds of water and a lot of yams, cocoa-nuts, and sweet potatoes.
'He was stanch and true, was little Tonga. No man ever had a more faithful mate. At the night
named he had his boat at the wharf. As it chanced, however, there was
'Then a queer thought came into my head, and showed me where I could lay my hand on a weapon.
I sat down in the darkness and unstrapped my wooden leg. With three long hops I was on him. He
put his carbine to his shoulder, but I struck him full, and knocked the whole front of his
skull in. You can see the split in the wood now where I hit him. We both went down together,
for I could not keep my balance; but when I got up I found him still lying
'Well, if I were to tell you all the adventures that my little chum and I went through, you
would not thank me, for I would have you here until the sun was shining. Here and there we
drifted about the world, something
'One day, however, I got word that he was dying. I hurried at once to the garden, mad that he
should slip out of my clutches like that, and, looking through the window,
'We earned a living at this time by my exhibiting poor Tonga at fairs and other such
'I don't know that I have anything else to tell you. I had heard a waterman speak of the
speed of Smith's launch, the Aurora , so I thought she would be a handy craft for our
escape. I engaged with old Smith, and was to give him a big sum if he got us safe to our
'A very remarkable account,' said Sherlock Holmes. 'A fitting wind-up to an extremely interesting case. There is nothing at all new to me in the latter part of your narrative, except that you brought your own rope. That I did not know. By the way, I had hoped that Tonga had lost all his darts; yet he managed to shoot one at us in the boat.'
'He had lost them all, sir, except the one which was in his blow-pipe at the time.'
'Ah, of course,' said Holmes. 'I had not thought of that.'
'Is there any other point which you would like to ask about?' asked the convict affably.
'I think not, thank you,' my companion answered.
'Well, Holmes,' said Athelney Jones, 'you are a man to be humoured, and we all know that you are a connoisseur of crime; but duty is duty, and I have gone rather far in doing what you and your friend asked me. I shall feel more at ease when we have our story-teller here safe under lock and key. The cab still waits, and there are two inspectors downstairs. I am much obliged to you both for your assistance. Of course you will be wanted at the trial. Good-night to you.'
'Good-night, gentlemen both,' said Jonathan Small.
'You first, Small,' remarked the wary Jones as they left the room. 'I'll take
'Well, and there is the end of our little drama,' I remarked, after we had sat some time smoking in silence. 'I fear that it may be the last investigation in which I shall have the chance of studying your methods. Miss Morstan has done me the honour to accept me as a husband in prospective.'
He gave a most dismal groan.
'I feared as much,' said he. 'I really cannot congratulate you.'
I was a little hurt.
'Have you any reason to be dissatisfied with my choice?' I asked.
'Not at all. I think she is one of the most charming young ladies I ever met, and might have
been most useful in such work as we have been doing. She had a decided genius
'I trust,' said I, laughing, 'that my judgment may survive the ordeal. But you look weary.'
'Yes, the reaction is already upon me. I shall be as limp as a rag for a week.'
'Strange,' said I, 'how terms of what in another man I should call laziness alternate with your fits of splendid energy and vigour.'
'Yes,' he answered, 'there are in me the makings of a very fine loafer, and also of a pretty
spry sort of a fellow. I often think of those lines of old Goethe: '
'The division seems rather unfair,' I remarked. 'You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?'
'For me,' said Sherlock Holmes, 'there still remains the cocaine-bottle.' And he stretched his long white hand up for it.