upon the second floor of the opium den, and who was certainly the
last human being whose eyes rested upon Neville St. Clair. His name
is Hugh Boone, and his hideous face is one which is familiar to every
man who goes much to the city. He is a professional beggar, though,
in order to avoid the police regulations, he pretends to a small
trade in wax vestas. Some little distance down Threadneedle Street,
upon the left-hand side, there is, as you may have remarked, a small
angle in the wall. Here it is that this creature takes his daily seat,
cross-legged, with his tiny stock of matches on his lap, and, as he is
a piteous spectacle, a small rain of charity descends into the greasy
leather cap which lies upon the pavement beside him. I have watched the
fellow more than once, before ever I thought of making his professional
acquaintance, and I have been surprised at the harvest which he has
reaped in a short time. His appearance, you see, is so remarkable that
no one can pass him without observing him. A shock of orange hair, a
pale face disfigured by a horrible scar, which, by its contraction,
has turned up the outer edge of his upper lip, a bull-dog chin, and a
pair of very penetrating dark eyes, which present a singular contrast
to the color of his hair, all mark him out from amid the common
crowd of mendicants, and so, too, does his wit, for he is ever ready
with a reply to any piece of chaff which may be thrown at him by the
passers-by. This is the man whom we now learn to have been the lodger
at the opium den, and to have been the last man to see the gentleman of
whom we are in quest.”
“But a cripple!” said I. “What could he have done single-handed against
a man in the prime of life?”
“He is a cripple in the sense that he walks with a limp; but in other
respects he appears to be a powerful and well-nurtured man. Surely your
medical experience would tell you, Watson, that weakness in one limb is
often compensated for by exceptional strength in the others.”
“Pray continue your narrative.”
“Mrs. St. Clair had fainted at the sight of the blood upon the window,
and she was escorted home in a cab by the police, as her presence
could be of no help to them in their investigations. Inspector Barton,
who had charge of the case, made a very careful examination of the
premises, but without finding anything which threw any light upon the
matter. One mistake had been made in not arresting Boone instantly, as
he was allowed some few minutes during which he might have communicated
with his friend the Lascar, but this fault was soon remedied, and he
was seized and searched, without anything being found which could
incriminate him. There were, it is true, some blood-stains upon his
right shirt-sleeve, but he pointed to his ring-finger, which had been
cut near the nail, and explained that the bleeding came from there,
adding that he had been to the window not long before, and that the
stains which had been observed there came doubtless from the same
source. He denied strenuously having ever seen Mr. Neville St. Clair,
and swore that the presence of the clothes in his room was as much
a mystery to him as to the police. As to Mrs. St. Clair’s assertion
that she had actually seen her husband at the window, he declared that
she must have been either mad or dreaming. He was removed, loudly
protesting, to the police-station, while the inspector remained upon
the premises in the hope that the ebbing tide might afford some fresh
clew.
“And it did, though they hardly found upon the mud-bank what they had
feared to find. It was Neville St. Clair’s coat, and not Neville St.
Clair, which lay uncovered as the tide receded. And what do you think
they found in the pockets?”
“I cannot imagine.”
“No, I don’t think you would guess. Every pocket stuffed with pennies
and half-pennies—421 pennies and 270 half-pennies. It was no wonder
that it had not been swept away by the tide. But a human body is a
different matter. There is a fierce eddy between the wharf and the
house. It seemed likely enough that the weighted coat had remained when
the stripped body had been sucked away into the river.”
“But I understand that all the other clothes were found in the room.
Would the body be dressed in a coat alone?”
“No, sir, but the facts might be met speciously enough. Suppose that
this man Boone had thrust Neville St. Clair through the window, there
is no human eye which could have seen the deed. What would he do then?
It would of course instantly strike him that he must get rid of the
tell-tale garments. He would seize the coat, then, and be in the act of
throwing it out, when it would occur to him that it would swim and not
sink. He has little time, for he has heard the scuffle down-stairs when
the wife tried to force her way up, and perhaps he has already heard
from his Lascar confederate that the police are hurrying up the street.
There is not an instant to be lost. He rushes to some secret horde,
where he has accumulated the fruits of his beggary, and he stuffs all
the coins upon which he can lay his hands into the pockets to make sure
of the coat’s sinking. He throws it out, and would have done the same
with the other garments had not he heard the rush of steps below, and
only just had time to close the window when the police appeared.”
“It certainly sounds feasible.”
“Well, we will take it as a working hypothesis for want of a better.
Boone, as I have told you, was arrested and taken to the station, but
it could not be shown that there had ever before been anything against
him. He had for years been known as a professional beggar, but his life
appeared to have been a very quiet and innocent one. There the matter
stands at present, and the questions which have to be solved—what
Neville St. Clair was doing in the opium den, what happened to him
when there, where is he now, and what Hugh Boone had to do with his
disappearance—are all as far from a solution as ever. I confess that I
cannot recall any case within my experience which looked at the first
glance so simple, and yet which presented such difficulties.”
While Sherlock Holmes had been detailing this singular series of
events, we had been whirling through the outskirts of the great town
until the last straggling houses had been left behind, and we rattled
along with a country hedge upon either side of us. Just as he finished,
however, we drove through two scattered villages, where a few lights
still glimmered in the windows.
“We are on the outskirts of Lee,” said my companion. “We have touched
on three English counties in our short drive, starting in Middlesex,
passing over an angle of Surrey, and ending in Kent. See that light
among the trees? That is ‘The Cedars,’ and beside that lamp sits a
woman whose anxious ears have already, I have little doubt, caught the
clink of our horse’s feet.”
“But why are you not conducting the case from Baker Street?” I asked.
“Because there are many inquiries which must be made out here. Mrs.
St. Clair has most kindly put two rooms at my disposal, and you may
rest assured that she will have nothing but a welcome for my friend
and colleague. I hate to meet her, Watson, when I have no news of her
husband. Here we are. Whoa, there, whoa!”
We had pulled up in front of a large villa which stood within its own
grounds. A stable-boy had run out to the horse’s head, and, springing
down, I followed Holmes up the small, winding gravel-drive which led to
the house. As we approached, the door flew open, and a little blonde
woman stood in the opening, clad in some sort of light mousseline de
soie, with a touch of fluffy pink chiffon at her neck and wrists. She
stood with her figure outlined against the flood of light, one hand
upon the door, one half-raised in her eagerness, her body slightly
bent, her head and face protruded, with eager eyes and parted lips, a
standing question.
“Well?” she cried, “well?” And then, seeing that there were two of
us, she gave a cry of hope which sank into a groan as she saw that my
companion shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.
“No good news?”
“None.”
“No bad?”
“No.”
“Thank God for that. But come in. You must be weary, for you have had a
long day.”
“This is my friend, Dr. Watson. He has been of most vital use to me in
several of my cases, and a lucky chance has made it possible for me to
bring him out and associate him with this investigation.”
“I am delighted to see you,” said she, pressing my hand warmly.
“You will, I am sure, forgive anything that may be wanting in our
arrangements, when you consider the blow which has come so suddenly
upon us.”
“My dear madam,” said I, “I am an old campaigner, and if I were not,
I can very well see that no apology is needed. If I can be of any
assistance, either to you or to my friend here, I shall be indeed
happy.”
“Now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said the lady, as we entered a well-lit
dining-room, upon the table of which a cold supper had been laid out,
“I should very much like to ask you one or two plain questions, to
which I beg that you will give a plain answer.”
“Certainly, madam.”
“Do not trouble about my feelings. I am not hysterical, nor given to
fainting. I simply wish to hear your real, real opinion.”
“Upon what point?”
“In your heart of hearts do you think that Neville is alive?”
Sherlock Holmes seemed to be embarrassed by the question. “Frankly,
now!” she repeated, standing upon the rug and looking keenly down at
him as he leaned back in a basket-chair.
“Frankly, then, madam, I do not.”
“You think that he is dead?”
“I do.”
“Murdered?”
“I don’t say that. Perhaps.”
“And on what day did he meet his death?”
“On Monday.”
“Then perhaps, Mr. Holmes, you will be good enough to explain how it is
that I have received a letter from him to-day.”
Sherlock Holmes sprang out of his chair as if he had been galvanized.
“What!” he roared.
“Yes, to-day.” She stood smiling, holding up a little slip of paper in
the air.
“May I see it?”
“Certainly.”
He snatched it from her in his eagerness, and smoothing it out upon
the table, he drew over the lamp, and examined it intently. I had left
my chair, and was gazing at it over his shoulder. The envelope was a
very coarse one, and was stamped with the Gravesend post-mark, and with
the date of that very day, or rather of the day before, for it was
considerably after midnight.
“Coarse writing,” murmured Holmes. “Surely this is not your husband’s
writing, madam.”
“No, but the enclosure is.”
“I perceive also that whoever addressed the envelope had to go and
inquire as to the address.”
“How can you tell that?”
“The name, you see, is in perfectly black ink, which has dried itself.
The rest is of the grayish color, which shows that blotting-paper has
been used. If it had been written straight off, and then blotted, none
would be of a deep black shade. This man has written the name, and
there has then been a pause before he wrote the address, which can only
mean that he was not familiar with it. It is, of course, a trifle, but
there is nothing so important as trifles. Let us now see the letter.
Ha! there has been an enclosure here!”
“Yes, there was a ring. His signet-ring.”
“And you are sure that this is your husband’s hand?”
“One of his hands.”
“One?”
“His hand when he wrote hurriedly. It is very unlike his usual writing,
and yet I know it well.”
“‘Dearest do not be frightened. All will come well. There is a
huge error which it may take some little time to rectify. Wait in
patience.—Neville.’ Written in pencil upon the fly-leaf of a book,
octavo size, no water-mark. Hum! Posted to-day in Gravesend by a man
with a dirty thumb. Ha! And the flap has been gummed, if I am not very
much in error, by a person who had been chewing tobacco. And you have
no doubt that it is your husband’s hand, madam?”
“None. Neville wrote those words.”
“And they were posted to-day at Gravesend. Well, Mrs. St. Clair, the
clouds lighten, though I should not venture to say that the danger is
over.”
“But he must be alive, Mr. Holmes.”
“Unless this is a clever forgery to put us on the wrong scent. The
ring, after all, proves nothing. It may have been taken from him.”
“No, no; it is, it is, it is his very own writing!”
“Very well. It may, however, have been written on Monday, and only
posted to-day.”
“That is possible.”
“If so, much may have happened between.”
“Oh, you must not discourage me, Mr. Holmes. I know that all is well
with him. There is so keen a sympathy between us that I should know if
evil came upon him. On the very day that I saw him last he cut himself
in the bedroom, and yet I in the dining-room rushed up-stairs instantly
with the utmost certainty that something had happened. Do you think
that I would respond to such a trifle, and yet be ignorant of his
death?”
“I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may
be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner. And
in this letter you certainly have a very strong piece of evidence to
corroborate your view. But if your husband is alive, and able to write
letters, why should he remain away from you?”
“I cannot imagine. It is unthinkable.”
“And on Monday he made no remarks before leaving you?”
“No.”
“And you were surprised to see him in Swandam Lane?”
“Very much so.”
“Was the window open?”
“Yes.”
“Then he might have called to you?”
“He might.”
“He only, as I understand, gave an inarticulate cry?”
“Yes.”
“A call for help, you thought?”
“Yes. He waved his hands.”
“But it might have been a cry of surprise. Astonishment at the
unexpected sight of you might cause him to throw up his hands?”
“It is possible.”
“And you thought he was pulled back?”
“He disappeared so suddenly.”
“He might have leaped back. You did not see any one else in the room?”
“No, but this horrible man confessed to having been there, and the
Lascar was at the foot of the stairs.”
“Quite so. Your husband, as far as you could see, had his ordinary
clothes on?”
“But without his collar or tie. I distinctly saw his bare throat.”
“Had he ever spoken of Swandam Lane?”
“Never.”
“Had he ever showed any signs of having taken opium?”
“Never.”
“Thank you, Mrs. St. Clair. Those are the principal points about which
I wished to be absolutely clear. We shall now have a little supper and
then retire, for we may have a very busy day to-morrow.”
A large and comfortable double-bedded room had been placed at our
disposal, and I was quickly between the sheets, for I was weary after
my night of adventure. Sherlock Holmes was a man, however, who, when
he had an unsolved problem upon his mind, would go for days, and even
for a week, without rest, turning it over, rearranging his facts,
looking at it from every point of view, until he had either fathomed
it, or convinced himself that his data were insufficient. It was soon
evident to me that he was now preparing for an all-night sitting. He
took off his coat and waistcoat, put on a large blue dressing-gown,
and then wandered about the room collecting pillows from his bed and
cushions from the sofa and arm-chairs. With these he constructed a sort
of Eastern divan, upon which he perched himself cross-legged, with an
ounce of shag tobacco and a box of matches laid out in front of him.
In the dim light of the lamp I saw him sitting there, an old briar
pipe between his lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the corner of the
ceiling, the blue smoke curling up from him, silent, motionless, with
the light shining upon his strong-set aquiline features. So he sat as I
dropped off to sleep, and so he sat when a sudden ejaculation caused me
to wake up, and I found the summer sun shining into the apartment. The
pipe was still between his lips, the smoke still curled upward, and the
room was full of a dense tobacco haze, but nothing remained of the heap
of shag which I had seen upon the previous night.
“Awake, Watson?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Game for a morning drive?”
“Certainly.”
“Then dress. No one is stirring yet, but I know where the stable-boy
sleeps, and we shall soon have the trap out.” He chuckled to himself
as he spoke, his eyes twinkled, and he seemed a different man to the
sombre thinker of the previous night.
As I dressed I glanced at my watch. It was no wonder that no one was
stirring. It was twenty-five minutes past four. I had hardly finished
when Holmes returned with the news that the boy was putting in the
horse.
“I want to test a little theory of mine,” said he, pulling on his
boots. “I think, Watson, that you are now standing in the presence of
one of the most absolute fools in Europe. I deserve to be kicked from
here to Charing Cross. But I think I have the key of the affair now.”
“And where is it?” I asked, smiling.
“In the bath-room,” he answered. “Oh yes, I am not joking,” he
continued, seeing my look of incredulity. “I have just been there, and
I have taken it out, and I have got it in this Gladstone bag. Come on,
my boy, and we shall see whether it will not fit the lock.”
We made our way down-stairs as quietly as possible, and out into the
bright morning sunshine. In the road stood our horse and trap, with
the half-clad stable-boy waiting at the head. We both sprang in, and
away we dashed down the London Road. A few country carts were stirring,
bearing in vegetables to the metropolis, but the lines of villas on
either side were as silent and lifeless as some city in a dream.
“It has been in some points a singular case,” said Holmes, flicking the
horse on into a gallop. “I confess that I have been as blind as a mole,
but it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all.”
In town the earliest risers were just beginning to look sleepily from
their windows as we drove through the streets of the Surrey side.
Passing down the Waterloo Bridge Road we crossed over the river, and
dashing up Wellington Street wheeled sharply to the right, and found
ourselves in Bow Street. Sherlock Holmes was well known to the Force,
and the two constables at the door saluted him. One of them held the
horse’s head while the other led us in.
“Who is on duty?” asked Holmes.
“Inspector Bradstreet, sir.”
“Ah, Bradstreet, how are you?” A tall, stout official had come down the
stone-flagged passage, in a peaked cap and frogged jacket. “I wish to
have a quiet word with you, Bradstreet.”
“Certainly, Mr. Holmes. Step into my room here.”
It was a small, office-like room, with a huge ledger upon the table,
and a telephone projecting from the wall. The inspector sat down at his
desk.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Holmes?”
“I called about that beggarman, Boone—the one who was charged with
being concerned in the disappearance of Mr. Neville St. Clair, of Lee.”
“Yes. He was brought up and remanded for further inquiries.”
“So I heard. You have him here?”
“In the cells.”
“Is he quiet?”
“Oh, he gives no trouble. But he is a dirty scoundrel.”
“Dirty?”
“Yes, it is all we can do to make him wash his hands, and his face is
as black as a tinker’s. Well, when once his case has been settled, he
will have a regular prison bath; and I think, if you saw him, you would
agree with me that he needed it.”
“I should like to see him very much.”
“Would you? That is easily done. Come this way. You can leave your bag.”
“No, I think that I’ll take it.”
“Very good. Come this way, if you please.” He led us down a passage,
opened a barred door, passed down a winding stair, and brought us to a
whitewashed corridor with a line of doors on each side.
“The third on the right is his,” said the inspector. “Here it is!” He
quietly shot back a panel in the upper part of the door and glanced
through.
“He is asleep,” said he. “You can see him very well.”
We both put our eyes to the grating. The prisoner lay with his face
towards us, in a very deep sleep, breathing slowly and heavily. He was
a middle-sized man, coarsely clad as became his calling, with a colored
shirt protruding through the rent in his tattered coat. He was, as the
inspector had said, extremely dirty, but the grime which covered his
face could not conceal its repulsive ugliness. A broad wheal from an
old scar ran right across it from eye to chin, and by its contraction
had turned up one side of the upper lip, so that three teeth were
exposed in a perpetual snarl. A shock of very bright red hair grew low
over his eyes and forehead.
“He’s a beauty, isn’t he?” said the inspector.
“He certainly needs a wash,” remarked Holmes. “I had an idea that he
might, and I took the liberty of bringing the tools with me.” He opened
the Gladstone bag as he spoke, and took out, to my astonishment, a very
large bath-sponge.
“He! he! You are a funny one,” chuckled the inspector.
“Now, if you will have the great goodness to open that door very
quietly, we will soon make him cut a much more respectable figure.”
“Well, I don’t know why not,” said the inspector. “He doesn’t look
a credit to the Bow Street cells, does he?” He slipped his key into
the lock, and we all very quietly entered the cell. The sleeper half
turned, and then settled down once more into a deep slumber. Holmes
stooped to the water-jug, moistened his sponge, and then rubbed it
twice vigorously across and down the prisoner’s face.
“Let me introduce you,” he shouted, “to Mr. Neville St. Clair, of Lee,
in the county of Kent.”
Never in my life have I seen such a sight. The man’s face peeled off
under the sponge like the bark from a tree. Gone was the coarse brown
tint! Gone, too, was the horrid scar which had seamed it across, and
the twisted lip which had given the repulsive sneer to the face! A
twitch brought away the tangled red hair, and there, sitting up in
his bed, was a pale, sad-faced, refined-looking man, black-haired and
smooth-skinned, rubbing his eyes, and staring about him with sleepy
bewilderment. Then suddenly realizing the exposure, he broke into a
scream, and threw himself down with his face to the pillow.
“Great heavens!” cried the inspector, “it is, indeed, the missing man.
I know him from the photograph.”
The prisoner turned with the reckless air of a man who abandons himself
to his destiny. “Be it so,” said he. “And pray, what am I charged with?”
“With making away with Mr. Neville St.—— Oh, come, you can’t be
charged with that, unless they make a case of attempted suicide of it,”
said the inspector, with a grin. “Well, I have been twenty-seven years
in the force, but this really takes the cake.”
“If I am Mr. Neville St. Clair, then it is obvious that no crime has
been committed, and that, therefore, I am illegally detained.”
“No crime, but a very great error has been committed,” said Holmes.
“You would have done better to have trusted your wife.”
“It was not the wife, it was the children,” groaned the prisoner. “God
help me, I would not have them ashamed of their father. My God! What an
exposure! What can I do?”
Sherlock Holmes sat down beside him on the couch and patted him kindly
on the shoulder.
“If you leave it to a court of law to clear the matter up,” said he,
“of course you can hardly avoid publicity. On the other hand, if you
convince the police authorities that there is no possible case against
you, I do not know that there is any reason that the details should
find their way into the papers. Inspector Bradstreet would, I am sure,
make notes upon anything which you might tell us, and submit it to the
proper authorities. The case would then never go into court at all.”
“God bless you!” cried the prisoner, passionately. “I would have
endured imprisonment, aye, even execution, rather than have left my
miserable secret as a family blot to my children.
“You are the first who have ever heard my story. My father was
a school-master in Chesterfield, where I received an excellent
education. I travelled in my youth, took to the stage, and finally
became a reporter on an evening paper in London. One day my editor
wished to have a series of articles upon begging in the metropolis,
and I volunteered to supply them. There was the point from which all
my adventures started. It was only by trying begging as an amateur
that I could get the facts upon which to base my articles. When an
actor I had, of course, learned all the secrets of making up, and had
been famous in the greenroom for my skill. I took advantage now of
my attainments. I painted my face, and to make myself as pitiable as
possible I made a good scar and fixed one side of my lip in a twist
by the aid of a small slip of flesh-colored plaster. Then with a red
head of hair, and an appropriate dress, I took my station in the
busiest part of the city, ostensibly as a match-seller, but really as a
beggar. For seven hours I plied my trade, and when I returned home in
the evening I found, to my surprise, that I had received no less than
26_s._ 4_d._
“I wrote my articles, and thought little more of the matter until, some
time later, I backed a bill for a friend, and had a writ served upon
me for £25. I was at my wits’ end where to get the money, but a sudden
idea came to me. I begged a fortnight’s grace from the creditor, asked
for a holiday from my employers, and spent the time in begging in the
city under my disguise. In ten days I had the money, and had paid the
debt.