thick-soled shooting-boots and a gray cloak, smokes Indian cigars, uses
a cigar-holder, and carries a blunt penknife in his pocket. There are
several other indications, but these may be enough to aid us in our
search.”
Lestrade laughed. “I am afraid that I am still a sceptic,” he said.
“Theories are all very well, but we have to deal with a hard-headed
British jury.”
“_Nous verrons_,” answered Holmes, calmly. “You work your own method,
and I shall work mine. I shall be busy this afternoon, and shall
probably return to London by the evening train.”
“And leave your case unfinished?”
“No, finished.”
“But the mystery?”
“It is solved.”
“Who was the criminal, then?”
“The gentleman I describe.”
“But who is he?”
“Surely it would not be difficult to find out. This is not such a
populous neighborhood.”
Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. “I am a practical man,” he said,
“and I really cannot undertake to go about the country looking
for a left-handed gentleman with a game-leg. I should become the
laughing-stock of Scotland Yard.”
“All right,” said Holmes, quietly. “I have given you the chance. Here
are your lodgings. Good-bye. I shall drop you a line before I leave.”
Having left Lestrade at his rooms, we drove to our hotel, where we
found lunch upon the table. Holmes was silent and buried in thought
with a pained expression upon his face, as one who finds himself in a
perplexing position.
“Look here, Watson,” he said, when the cloth was cleared; “just sit
down in this chair and let me preach to you for a little. I don’t quite
know what to do, and I should value your advice. Light a cigar, and let
me expound.”
“Pray do so.”
“Well, now, in considering this case there are two points about young
McCarthy’s narrative which struck us both instantly, although they
impressed me in his favor and you against him. One was the fact that
his father should, according to his account, cry ‘Cooee!’ before seeing
him. The other was his singular dying reference to a rat. He mumbled
several words, you understand, but that was all that caught the son’s
ear. Now from this double point our research must commence, and we will
begin it by presuming that what the lad says is absolutely true.”
“What of this ‘Cooee!’ then?”
“Well, obviously it could not have been meant for the son. The son, as
far as he knew, was in Bristol. It was mere chance that he was within
ear-shot. The ‘Cooee!’ was meant to attract the attention of whoever
it was that he had the appointment with. But ‘Cooee’ is a distinctly
Australian cry, and one which is used between Australians. There is a
strong presumption that the person whom McCarthy expected to meet him
at Boscombe Pool was some one who had been in Australia.”
“What of the rat, then?”
Sherlock Holmes took a folded paper from his pocket and flattened it
out on the table. “This is a map of the Colony of Victoria,” he said.
“I wired to Bristol for it last night.” He put his hand over part of
the map. “What do you read?” he asked.
“ARAT,” I read.
“And now?” He raised his hand.
“BALLARAT.”
“Quite so. That was the word the man uttered, and of which his son only
caught the last two syllables. He was trying to utter the name of his
murderer. So-and-so, of Ballarat.”
“It is wonderful!” I exclaimed.
“It is obvious. And now, you see, I had narrowed the field down
considerably. The possession of a gray garment was a third point
which, granting the son’s statement to be correct, was a certainty. We
have come now out of mere vagueness to the definite conception of an
Australian from Ballarat with a gray cloak.”
“Certainly.”
“And one who was at home in the district, for the Pool can only be
approached by the farm or by the estate, where strangers could hardly
wander.”
“Quite so.”
“Then comes our expedition of to-day. By an examination of the ground I
gained the trifling details which I gave to that imbecile Lestrade, as
to the personality of the criminal.”
“But how did you gain them?”
“You know my method. It is founded upon the observance of trifles.”
“His height I know that you might roughly judge from the length of his
stride. His boots, too, might be told from their traces.”
“Yes, they were peculiar boots.”
“But his lameness?”
“The impression of his right foot was always less distinct than his
left. He put less weight upon it. Why? Because he limped—he was lame.”
“But his left-handedness.”
“You were yourself struck by the nature of the injury as recorded
by the surgeon at the inquest. The blow was struck from immediately
behind, and yet was upon the left side. Now, how can that be unless it
were by a left-handed man? He had stood behind that tree during the
interview between the father and son. He had even smoked there. I found
the ash of a cigar, which my special knowledge of tobacco ashes enabled
me to pronounce as an Indian cigar. I have, as you know, devoted some
attention to this, and written a little monograph on the ashes of 140
different varieties of pipe, cigar, and cigarette tobacco. Having found
the ash, I then looked round and discovered the stump among the moss
where he had tossed it. It was an Indian cigar, of the variety which
are rolled in Rotterdam.”
“And the cigar-holder?”
“I could see that the end had not been in his mouth. Therefore he used
a holder. The tip had been cut off, not bitten off, but the cut was not
a clean one, so I deduced a blunt pen-knife.”
“Holmes,” I said, “you have drawn a net round this man from which he
cannot escape, and you have saved an innocent human life as truly as
if you had cut the cord which was hanging him. I see the direction in
which all this points. The culprit is—”
“Mr. John Turner,” cried the hotel waiter, opening the door of our
sitting-room, and ushering in a visitor.
The man who entered was a strange and impressive figure. His slow,
limping step and bowed shoulders gave the appearance of decrepitude,
and yet his hard, deep-lined, craggy features, and his enormous
limbs showed that he was possessed of unusual strength of body and
of character. His tangled beard, grizzled hair, and outstanding,
drooping eyebrows combined to give an air of dignity and power to his
appearance, but his face was of an ashen white, while his lips and the
corners of his nostrils were tinged with a shade of blue. It was clear
to me at a glance that he was in the grip of some deadly and chronic
disease.
“Pray sit down on the sofa,” said Holmes, gently. “You had my note?”
“Yes, the lodge-keeper brought it up. You said that you wished to see
me here to avoid scandal.”
“I thought people would talk if I went to the Hall.”
“And why did you wish to see me?” He looked across at my companion with
despair in his weary eyes, as though his question was already answered.
“Yes,” said Holmes, answering the look rather than the words. “It is
so. I know all about McCarthy.”
The old man sank his face in his hands. “God help me!” he cried. “But I
would not have let the young man come to harm. I give you my word that
I would have spoken out if it went against him at the Assizes.”
“I am glad to hear you say so,” said Holmes, gravely.
“I would have spoken now had it not been for my dear girl. It would
break her heart—it will break her heart when she hears that I am
arrested.”
“It may not come to that,” said Holmes.
“What!”
“I am no official agent. I understand that it was your daughter who
required my presence here, and I am acting in her interests. Young
McCarthy must be got off, however.”
“I am a dying man,” said old Turner. “I have had diabetes for years. My
doctor says it is a question whether I shall live a month. Yet I would
rather die under my own roof than in a jail.”
Holmes rose and sat down at the table with his pen in his hand and a
bundle of paper before him. “Just tell us the truth,” he said. “I
shall jot down the facts. You will sign it, and Watson here can witness
it. Then I could produce your confession at the last extremity to save
young McCarthy. I promise you that I shall not use it unless it is
absolutely needed.”
“It’s as well,” said the old man; “it’s a question whether I shall live
to the Assizes, so it matters little to me, but I should wish to spare
Alice the shock. And now I will make the thing clear to you; it has
been a long time in the acting, but will not take me long to tell.
“You didn’t know this dead man, McCarthy. He was a devil incarnate. I
tell you that. God keep you out of the clutches of such a man as he.
His grip has been upon me these twenty years, and he has blasted my
life. I’ll tell you first how I came to be in his power.
“It was in the early sixties at the diggings. I was a young chap then,
hot-blooded and reckless, ready to turn my hand at anything; I got
among bad companions, took to drink, had no luck with my claim, took to
the bush, and in a word became what you would call over here a highway
robber. There were six of us, and we had a wild, free life of it,
sticking up a station from time to time, or stopping the wagons on the
road to the diggings. Black Jack of Ballarat was the name I went under,
and our party is still remembered in the colony as the Ballarat Gang.
“One day a gold convoy came down from Ballarat to Melbourne, and we
lay in wait for it and attacked it. There were six troopers and six of
us, so it was a close thing, but we emptied four of their saddles at
the first volley. Three of our boys were killed, however, before we
got the swag. I put my pistol to the head of the wagon-driver, who was
this very man McCarthy. I wish to the Lord that I had shot him then,
but I spared him, though I saw his wicked little eyes fixed on my face,
as though to remember every feature. We got away with the gold, became
wealthy men, and made our way over to England without being suspected.
There I parted from my old pals, and determined to settle down to a
quiet and respectable life. I bought this estate, which chanced to be
in the market, and I set myself to do a little good with my money,
to make up for the way in which I had earned it. I married, too, and
though my wife died young, she left me my dear little Alice. Even when
she was just a baby her wee hand seemed to lead me down the right path
as nothing else had ever done. In a word, I turned over a new leaf, and
did my best to make up for the past. All was going well when McCarthy
laid his grip upon me.
“I had gone up to town about an investment, and I met him in Regent
Street with hardly a coat to his back or a boot to his foot.
“‘Here we are, Jack,’ says he, touching me on the arm; ‘we’ll be as
good as a family to you. There’s two of us, me and my son, and you can
have the keeping of us. If you don’t—it’s a fine, law-abiding country
is England, and there’s always a policeman within hail.’
“Well, down they came to the West country, there was no shaking them
off, and there they have lived rent free on my best land ever since.
There was no rest for me, no peace, no forgetfulness; turn where I
would, there was his cunning, grinning face at my elbow. It grew worse
as Alice grew up, for he soon saw I was more afraid of her knowing my
past than of the police. Whatever he wanted he must have, and whatever
it was I gave him without question, land, money, houses, until at last
he asked a thing which I could not give. He asked for Alice.
“His son, you see, had grown up, and so had my girl, and as I was known
to be in weak health, it seemed a fine stroke to him that his lad
should step into the whole property. But there I was firm. I would not
have his cursed stock mixed with mine; not that I had any dislike to
the lad, but his blood was in him, and that was enough. I stood firm.
McCarthy threatened. I braved him to do his worst. We were to meet at
the Pool midway between our houses to talk it over.
“When I went down there I found him talking with his son, so I smoked
a cigar, and waited behind a tree until he should be alone. But as I
listened to his talk all that was black and bitter in me seemed to
come uppermost. He was urging his son to marry my daughter with as
little regard for what she might think as if she were a slut from off
the streets. It drove me mad to think that I and all that I held most
dear should be in the power of such a man as this. Could I not snap the
bond? I was already a dying and a desperate man. Though clear of mind
and fairly strong of limb, I knew that my own fate was sealed. But my
memory and my girl! Both could be saved, if I could but silence that
foul tongue. I did it, Mr. Holmes. I would do it again. Deeply as I
have sinned, I have led a life of martyrdom to atone for it. But that
my girl should be entangled in the same meshes which held me was more
than I could suffer. I struck him down with no more compunction than if
he had been some foul and venomous beast. His cry brought back his son;
but I had gained the cover of the wood, though I was forced to go back
to fetch the cloak which I had dropped in my flight. That is the true
story, gentlemen, of all that occurred.”
“Well, it is not for me to judge you,” said Holmes, as the old man
signed the statement which had been drawn out. “I pray that we may
never be exposed to such a temptation.”
“I pray not, sir. And what do you intend to do?”
“In view of your health, nothing. You are yourself aware that you will
soon have to answer for your deed at a higher court than the Assizes.
I will keep your confession, and, if McCarthy is condemned, I shall be
forced to use it. If not, it shall never be seen by mortal eye; and
your secret, whether you be alive or dead, shall be safe with us.”
“Farewell, then,” said the old man, solemnly. “Your own death-beds,
when they come, will be the easier for the thought of the peace which
you have given to mine.” Tottering and shaking in all his giant frame,
he stumbled slowly from the room.
“God help us!” said Holmes, after a long silence. “Why does fate play
such tricks with poor, helpless worms? I never hear of such a case as
this that I do not think of Baxter’s words, and say, ‘There, but for
the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes.’”
James McCarthy was acquitted at the Assizes, on the strength of a
number of objections which had been drawn out by Holmes, and submitted
to the defending counsel. Old Turner lived for seven months after our
interview, but he is now dead; and there is every prospect that the son
and daughter may come to live happily together, in ignorance of the
black cloud which rests upon their past.
Adventure V
THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS
When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes cases
between the years ’82 and ’90, I am faced by so many which present
strange and interesting features that it is no easy matter to know
which to choose and which to leave. Some, however, have already gained
publicity through the papers, and others have not offered a field
for those peculiar qualities which my friend possessed in so high a
degree, and which it is the object of these papers to illustrate. Some,
too, have baffled his analytical skill, and would be, as narratives,
beginnings without an ending, while others have been but partially
cleared up, and have their explanations founded rather upon conjecture
and surmise than on that absolute logical proof which was so dear to
him. There is, however, one of these last which was so remarkable in
its details and so startling in its results that I am tempted to give
some account of it, in spite of the fact that there are points in
connection with it which never have been, and probably never will be,
entirely cleared up.
The year ’87 furnished us with a long series of cases of greater
or less interest, of which I retain the records. Among my headings
under this one twelve months I find an account of the adventure of
the Paradol Chamber, of the Amateur Mendicant Society, who held a
luxurious club in the lower vault of a furniture warehouse, of the
facts connected with the loss of the British bark _Sophy Anderson_, of
the singular adventures of the Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa,
and finally of the Camberwell poisoning case. In the latter, as may
be remembered, Sherlock Holmes was able, by winding up the dead man’s
watch, to prove that it had been wound up two hours before, and that
therefore the deceased had gone to bed within that time—a deduction
which was of the greatest importance in clearing up the case. All these
I may sketch out at some future date, but none of them present such
singular features as the strange train of circumstances which I have
now taken up my pen to describe.
It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales had
set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had screamed and the
rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in the heart
of great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our minds for the
instant from the routine of life, and to recognize the presence of
those great elemental forces which shriek at mankind through the bars
of his civilization, like untamed beasts in a cage. As evening drew in,
the storm grew higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed like a
child in the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the
fireplace cross-indexing his records of crime, while I at the other was
deep in one of Clark Russell’s fine sea-stories, until the howl of the
gale from without seemed to blend with the text, and the splash of the
rain to lengthen out into the long swash of the sea waves. My wife was
on a visit to her mother’s, and for a few days I was a dweller once
more in my old quarters at Baker Street.
“Why,” said I, glancing up at my companion, “that was surely the bell.
Who could come to-night? Some friend of yours, perhaps?”
“Except yourself I have none,” he answered. “I do not encourage
visitors.”
“A client, then?”
“If so, it is a serious case. Nothing less would bring a man out on
such a day and at such an hour. But I take it that it is more likely to
be some crony of the landlady’s.”
Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there came
a step in the passage and a tapping at the door. He stretched out his
long arm to turn the lamp away from himself and towards the vacant
chair upon which a new-comer must sit. “Come in!” said he.
The man who entered was young, some two-and-twenty at the outside,
well-groomed and trimly clad, with something of refinement and delicacy
in his bearing. The steaming umbrella which he held in his hand, and
his long shining waterproof told of the fierce weather through which he
had come. He looked about him anxiously in the glare of the lamp, and
I could see that his face was pale and his eyes heavy, like those of a
man who is weighed down with some great anxiety.
“I owe you an apology,” he said, raising his golden _pince-nez_ to his
eyes. “I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have brought some
traces of the storm and rain into your snug chamber.”
“Give me your coat and umbrella,” said Holmes. “They may rest here
on the hook, and will be dry presently. You have come up from the
south-west, I see.”
“Yes, from Horsham.”
“That clay and chalk mixture which I see upon your toe-caps is quite
distinctive.”
“I have come for advice.”
“That is easily got.”
“And help.”
“That is not always so easy.”
“I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes. I heard from Major Prendergast how
you saved him in the Tankerville Club Scandal.”
“Ah, of course. He was wrongfully accused of cheating at cards.”
“He said that you could solve anything.”
“He said too much.”
“That you are never beaten.”
“I have been beaten four times—three times by men, and once by a
woman.”
“But what is that compared with the number of your successes?”
“It is true that I have been generally successful.”
“Then you may be so with me.”
“I beg that you will draw your chair up to the fire, and favor me with
some details as to your case.”
“It is no ordinary one.”
“None of those which come to me are. I am the last court of appeal.”
“And yet I question, sir, whether, in all your experience, you have
ever listened to a more mysterious and inexplicable chain of events
than those which have happened in my own family.”
“You fill me with interest,” said Holmes. “Pray give us the essential
facts from the commencement, and I can afterwards question you as to
those details which seem to me to be most important.”
The young man pulled his chair up, and pushed his wet feet out towards
the blaze.
“My name,” said he, “is John Openshaw, but my own affairs have, as far
as I can understand it, little to do with this awful business. It is an
hereditary matter; so in order to give you an idea of the facts, I must
go back to the commencement of the affair.
“You must know that my grandfather had two sons—my uncle Elias and
my father Joseph. My father had a small factory at Coventry, which
he enlarged at the time of the invention of bicycling. He was the
patentee of the Openshaw unbreakable tire, and his business met with
such success that he was able to sell it, and to retire upon a handsome
competence.
“My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young man, and
became a planter in Florida, where he was reported to have done
very well. At the time of the war he fought in Jackson’s army, and
afterwards under Hood, where he rose to be a colonel. When Lee laid
down his arms my uncle returned to his plantation, where he remained
for three or four years. About 1869 or 1870 he came back to Europe,
and took a small estate in Sussex, near Horsham. He had made a very
considerable fortune in the States, and his reason for leaving them was
his aversion to the negroes, and his dislike of the Republican policy
in extending the franchise to them. He was a singular man, fierce and
quick-tempered, very foul-mouthed when he was angry, and of a most
retiring disposition. During all the years that he lived at Horsham I
doubt if ever he set foot in the town. He had a garden and two or three
fields round his house, and there he would take his exercise, though
very often for weeks on end he would never leave his room. He drank
a great deal of brandy, and smoked very heavily, but he would see no
society, and did not want any friends, not even his own brother.
“He didn’t mind me, in fact, he took a fancy to me, for at the time
when he saw me first I was a youngster of twelve or so. This would be
in the year 1878, after he had been eight or nine years in England. He
begged my father to let me live with him, and he was very kind to me
in his way. When he was sober he used to be fond of playing backgammon
and draughts with me, and he would make me his representative both with
the servants and with the tradespeople, so that by the time that I was
sixteen I was quite master of the house. I kept all the keys, and could
go where I liked and do what I liked, so long as I did not disturb him
in his privacy. There was one singular exception, however, for he had
a single room, a lumber-room up among the attics, which was invariably
locked, and which he would never permit either me or anyone else to
enter. With a boy’s curiosity I have peeped through the key-hole, but
I was never able to see more than such a collection of old trunks and
bundles as would be expected in such a room.
“One day—it was in March, 1883—a letter with a foreign stamp lay
upon the table in front of the Colonel’s plate. It was not a common
thing for him to receive letters, for his bills were all paid in
ready money, and he had no friends of any sort. ‘From India!’ said he,
as he took it up, ‘Pondicherry postmark! What can this be?’ Opening
it hurriedly, out there jumped five little dried orange pips, which
pattered down upon his plate. I began to laugh at this, but the laugh
was struck from my lips at the sight of his face. His lip had fallen,
his eyes were protruding, his skin the color of putty, and he glared at
the envelope which he still held in his trembling hand. ‘K. K. K.!’ he
shrieked, and then, ‘My God, my God, my sins have overtaken me!’
“‘What is it, uncle?’ I cried.
“‘Death,’ said he, and rising from the table he retired to his room,
leaving me palpitating with horror. I took up the envelope, and saw
scrawled in red ink upon the inner flap, just above the gum, the letter
K three times repeated. There was nothing else save the five dried
pips. What could be the reason of his overpowering terror? I left the
breakfast-table, and as I ascended the stair I met him coming down with
an old rusty key, which must have belonged to the attic, in one hand,
and a small brass box, like a cash-box, in the other.
“‘They may do what they like, but I’ll checkmate them still,’ said he,
with an oath. ‘Tell Mary that I shall want a fire in my room to-day,
and send down to Fordham, the Horsham lawyer.’