oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with
Sherlock Holmes. Here I had heard what he had heard, I had seen what
he had seen, and yet from his words it was evident that he saw
clearly not only what had happened, but what was about to happen,
while to me the whole business was still confused and grotesque. As
I drove home to my house in Kensington I thought over it all, from
the extraordinary story of the red-headed copier of the
“Encyclopædia” down to the visit to Saxe-Coburg Square, and the
ominous words with which he had parted from me. What was this
nocturnal expedition, and why should I go armed? Where were we
going, and what were we to do? I had the hint from Holmes that this
smooth-faced pawnbroker’s assistant was a formidable man—a man who
might play a deep game. I tried to puzzle it out, but gave it up in
despair, and set the matter aside until night should bring an
explanation.
It was a quarter past nine when I started from home and made my way
across the Park, and so through Oxford Street to Baker Street. Two
hansoms were standing at the door, and, as I entered the passage, I
heard the sound of voices from above. On entering his room I found
Holmes in animated conversation with two men, one of whom I
recognized as Peter Jones, the official police agent, while the
other was a long, thin, sad-faced man, with a very shiny hat and
oppressively respectable frock-coat.
“Ha! our party is complete,” said Holmes, buttoning up his
pea-jacket, and taking his heavy hunting crop from the rack.
“Watson, I think you know Mr. Jones, of Scotland Yard? Let me
introduce you to Mr. Merryweather, who is to be our companion in
to-night’s adventure.”
“We’re hunting in couples again, doctor, you see,” said Jones, in
his consequential way. “Our friend here is a wonderful man for
starting a chase. All he wants is an old dog to help him to do the
running down.”
“I hope a wild goose may not prove to be the end of our chase,”
observed Mr. Merryweather, gloomily.
“You may place considerable confidence in Mr. Holmes, sir,” said the
police agent, loftily. “He has his own little methods, which are, if
he won’t mind my saying so, just a little too theoretical and
fantastic, but he has the makings of a detective in him. It is not
too much to say that once or twice, as in that business of the
Sholto murder and the Agra treasure, he has been more nearly correct
than the official force.”
“Oh, if you say so, Mr. Jones, it is all right,” said the stranger,
with deference. “Still, I confess that I miss my rubber. It is the
first Saturday night for seven-and-twenty years that I have not had
my rubber.”
“I think you will find,” said Sherlock Holmes, “that you will play
for a higher stake to-night than you have ever done yet, and that
the play will be more exciting. For you, Mr. Merryweather, the stake
will be some £30,000, and for you, Jones, it will be the man upon
whom you wish to lay your hands.”
“John Clay, the murderer, thief, smasher, and forger. He’s a young
man, Mr. Merryweather, but he is at the head of his profession, and
I would rather have my bracelets on him than on any criminal in
London. He’s a remarkable man, is young John Clay. His grandfather
was a royal duke, and he himself has been to Eton and Oxford. His
brain is as cunning as his fingers, and though we meet signs of him
at every turn, we never know where to find the man himself. He’ll
crack a crib in Scotland one week, and be raising money to build an
orphanage in Cornwall the next. I’ve been on his track for years,
and have never set eyes on him yet.”
“I hope that I may have the pleasure of introducing you to-night.
I’ve had one or two little turns also with Mr. John Clay, and I
agree with you that he is at the head of his profession. It is past
ten, however, and quite time that we started. If you two will take
the first hansom, Watson and I will follow in the second.”
Sherlock Holmes was not very communicative during the long drive,
and lay back in the cab humming the tunes which he had heard in the
afternoon. We rattled through an endless labyrinth of gas-lit
streets until we emerged into Farringdon Street.
“We are close there now,” my friend remarked. “This fellow
Merryweather is a bank director, and personally interested in the
matter. I thought it as well to have Jones with us also. He is not a
bad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession. He has
one positive virtue. He is as brave as a bull-dog, and as tenacious
as a lobster if he gets his claws upon any one. Here we are, and
they are waiting for us.”
We had reached the same crowded thoroughfare in which we had found
ourselves in the morning. Our cabs were dismissed, and, following
the guidance of Mr. Merryweather, we passed down a narrow passage
and through a side door, which he opened for us. Within there was a
small corridor, which ended in a very massive iron gate. This also
was opened, and led down a flight of winding stone steps, which
terminated at another formidable gate. Mr. Merryweather stopped to
light a lantern, and then conducted us down a dark, earth-smelling
passage, and so, after opening a third door, into a huge vault or
cellar, which was piled all round with crates and massive boxes.
“You are not very vulnerable from above,” Holmes remarked, as he
held up the lantern and gazed about him.
“Nor from below,” said Mr. Merryweather, striking his stick upon the
flags which lined the floor. “Why, dear me, it sounds quite hollow!”
he remarked, looking up in surprise.
“I must really ask you to be a little more quiet,” said Holmes,
severely. “You have already imperilled the whole success of our
expedition. Might I beg that you would have the goodness to sit down
upon one of those boxes, and not to interfere?”
The solemn Mr. Merryweather perched himself upon a crate, with a
very injured expression upon his face, while Holmes fell upon his
knees upon the floor, and, with the lantern and a magnifying lens,
began to examine minutely the cracks between the stones. A few
seconds sufficed to satisfy him, for he sprang to his feet again,
and put his glass in his pocket.
“We have at least an hour before us,” he remarked; “for they can
hardly take any steps until the good pawnbroker is safely in bed.
Then they will not lose a minute, for the sooner they do their work
the longer time they will have for their escape. We are at present,
doctor—as no doubt you have divined—in the cellar of the city branch
of one of the principal London banks. Mr. Merryweather is the
chairman of directors, and he will explain to you that there are
reasons why the more daring criminals of London should take a
considerable interest in this cellar at present.”
“It is our French gold,” whispered the director. “We have had
several warnings that an attempt might be made upon it.”
“Your French gold?”
“Yes. We had occasion some months ago to strengthen our resources,
and borrowed, for that purpose, 30,000 napoleons from the Bank of
France. It has become known that we have never had occasion to
unpack the money, and that it is still lying in our cellar. The
crate upon which I sit contains 2000 napoleons packed between layers
of lead foil. Our reserve of bullion is much larger at present than
is usually kept in a single branch office, and the directors have
had misgivings upon the subject.”
“Which were very well justified,” observed Holmes. “And now it is
time that we arranged our little plans. I expect that within an hour
matters will come to a head. In the mean time, Mr. Merryweather, we
must put the screen over that dark lantern.”
“And sit in the dark?”
“I am afraid so. I had brought a pack of cards in my pocket, and I
thought that, as we were a _partie carrée_, you might have your
rubber after all. But I see that the enemy’s preparations have gone
so far that we cannot risk the presence of a light. And, first of
all, we must choose our positions. These are daring men, and though
we shall take them at a disadvantage, they may do us some harm
unless we are careful. I shall stand behind this crate, and do you
conceal yourselves behind those. Then, when I flash a light upon
them, close in swiftly. If they fire, Watson, have no compunction
about shooting them down.”
I placed my revolver, cocked, upon the top of the wooden case behind
which I crouched. Holmes shot the slide across the front of his
lantern, and left us in pitch darkness—such an absolute darkness as
I have never before experienced. The smell of hot metal remained to
assure us that the light was still there, ready to flash out at a
moment’s notice. To me, with my nerves worked up to a pitch of
expectancy, there was something depressing and subduing in the
sudden gloom, and in the cold, dank air of the vault.
“They have but one retreat,” whispered Holmes. “That is back through
the house into Saxe-Coburg Square. I hope that you have done what I
asked you, Jones?”
“I have an inspector and two officers waiting at the front door.”
“Then we have stopped all the holes. And now we must be silent and
wait.”
What a time it seemed! From comparing notes afterwards it was but an
hour and a quarter, yet it appeared to me that the night must have
almost gone, and the dawn be breaking above us. My limbs were weary
and stiff, for I feared to change my position; yet my nerves were
worked up to the highest pitch of tension, and my hearing was so
acute that I could not only hear the gentle breathing of my
companions, but I could distinguish the deeper, heavier in-breath of
the bulky Jones from the thin, sighing note of the bank director.
From my position I could look over the case in the direction of the
floor. Suddenly my eyes caught the glint of a light.
At first it was but a lurid spark upon the stone pavement. Then it
lengthened out until it became a yellow line, and then, without any
warning or sound, a gash seemed to open and a hand appeared; a
white, almost womanly hand, which felt about in the center of the
little area of light. For a minute or more the hand, with its
writhing fingers, protruded out of the floor. Then it was withdrawn
as suddenly as it appeared, and all was dark again save the single
lurid spark which marked a chink between the stones.
Its disappearance, however, was but momentary. With a rending,
tearing sound, one of the broad, white stones turned over upon its
side, and left a square, gaping hole, through which streamed the
light of a lantern. Over the edge there peeped a clean-cut, boyish
face, which looked keenly about it, and then, with a hand on either
side of the aperture, drew itself shoulder-high and waist-high,
until one knee rested upon the edge. In another instant he stood at
the side of the hole, and was hauling after him a companion, lithe
and small like himself, with a pale face and a shock of very red
hair.
“It’s all clear,” he whispered. “Have you the chisel and the bags?
Great Scott! Jump, Archie, jump, and I’ll swing for it!”
Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the
collar. The other dived down the hole, and I heard the sound of
rending cloth as Jones clutched at his skirts. The light flashed
upon the barrel of a revolver, but Holmes’s hunting crop came down
on the man’s wrist, and the pistol clinked upon the stone floor.
“It’s no use, John Clay,” said Holmes, blandly. “You have no chance
at all.”
“So I see,” the other answered, with the utmost coolness. “I fancy
that my pal is all right, though I see you have got his coat-tails.”
“There are three men waiting for him at the door,” said Holmes.
“Oh, indeed! You seem to have done the thing very completely. I must
compliment you.”
“And I you,” Holmes answered. “Your red-headed idea was very new and
effective.”
“You’ll see your pal again presently,” said Jones. “He’s quicker at
climbing down holes than I am. Just hold out while I fix the
derbies.”
“I beg that you will not touch me with your filthy hands,” remarked
our prisoner, as the handcuffs clattered upon his wrists. “You may
not be aware that I have royal blood in my veins. Have the goodness,
also, when you address me always to say ‘sir’ and ‘please.’”
“All right,” said Jones, with a stare and a snigger. “Well, would
you please, sir, march up-stairs, where we can get a cab to carry
your highness to the police-station?”
“That is better,” said John Clay, serenely. He made a sweeping bow
to the three of us, and walked quietly off in the custody of the
detective.
“Really Mr. Holmes,” said Mr. Merryweather, as we followed them from
the cellar, “I do not know how the bank can thank you or repay you.
There is no doubt that you have detected and defeated in the most
complete manner one of the most determined attempts at bank robbery
that have ever come within my experience.”
“I have had one or two little scores of my own to settle with Mr.
John Clay,” said Holmes. “I have been at some small expense over
this matter, which I shall expect the bank to refund, but beyond
that I am amply repaid by having had an experience which is in many
ways unique, and by hearing the very remarkable narrative of the
Red-headed League.”
* * * * *
“You see, Watson,” he explained, in the early hours of the morning,
as we sat over a glass of whiskey-and-soda in Baker Street, “it was
perfectly obvious from the first that the only possible object of
this rather fantastic business of the advertisement of the League,
and the copying of the ‘Encyclopædia,’ must be to get this not
over-bright pawnbroker out of the way for a number of hours every
day. It was a curious way of managing it, but, really, it would be
difficult to suggest a better. The method was no doubt suggested to
Clay’s ingenious mind by the color of his accomplice’s hair. The £4
a week was a lure which must draw him, and what was it to them, who
were playing for thousands? They put in the advertisement, one rogue
has the temporary office, the other rogue incites the man to apply
for it, and together they manage to secure his absence every morning
in the week. From the time that I heard of the assistant having come
for half wages, it was obvious to me that he had some strong motive
for securing the situation.”
“But how could you guess what the motive was?”
“Had there been women in the house, I should have suspected a mere
vulgar intrigue. That, however, was out of the question. The man’s
business was a small one, and there was nothing in his house which
could account for such elaborate preparations, and such an
expenditure as they were at. It must, then, be something out of the
house. What could it be? I thought of the assistant’s fondness for
photography, and his trick of vanishing into the cellar. The cellar!
There was the end of this tangled clue. Then I made inquiries as to
this mysterious assistant, and found that I had to deal with one of
the coolest and most daring criminals in London. He was doing
something in the cellar—something which took many hours a day for
months on end. What could it be, once more? I could think of nothing
save that he was running a tunnel to some other building.
“So far I had got when we went to visit the scene of action. I
surprised you by beating upon the pavement with my stick. I was
ascertaining whether the cellar stretched out in front or behind. It
was not in front. Then I rang the bell, and, as I hoped, the
assistant answered it. We have had some skirmishes, but we had never
set eyes upon each other before. I hardly looked at his face. His
knees were what I wished to see. You must yourself have remarked how
worn, wrinkled, and stained they were. They spoke of those hours of
burrowing. The only remaining point was what they were burrowing
for. I walked round the corner, saw that the City and Suburban Bank
abutted on our friend’s premises, and felt that I had solved my
problem. When you drove home after the concert I called upon
Scotland Yard, and upon the chairman of the bank directors, with the
result that you have seen.”
“And how could you tell that they would make their attempt
to-night?” I asked.
“Well, when they closed their League offices that was a sign that
they cared no longer about Mr. Jabez Wilson’s presence—in other
words, that they had completed their tunnel. But it was essential
that they should use it soon, as it might be discovered, or the
bullion might be removed. Saturday would suit them better than any
other day, as it would give them two days for their escape. For all
these reasons I expected them to come to-night.”
“You reasoned it out beautifully,” I exclaimed, in unfeigned
admiration. “It is so long a chain, and yet every link rings true.”
“It saved me from ennui,” he answered, yawning. “Alas! I already
feel it closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long effort to
escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems
help me to do so.”
“And you are a benefactor of the race,” said I.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, perhaps, after all, it is of some
little use,” he remarked. “_‘L’homme c’est rien—l’œuvre c’est
tout_,’ as Gustave Flaubert wrote to Georges Sand.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ONE HUNDRED IN THE DARK
By Owen Johnson
THEY were discussing languidly, as such groups do, seeking from each
topic a peg on which to hang a few epigrams that might be retold in
the lip currency of the club—Steingall, the painter, florid of
gesture, and effete, foreign in type, with black-rimmed glasses and
trailing ribbon of black silk that cut across his cropped beard and
cavalry mustaches; De Gollyer, a critic, who preferred to be known
as a man about town, short, feverish, incisive, who slew platitudes
with one adjective and tagged a reputation with three; Rankin, the
architect, always in a defensive, explanatory attitude, who held his
elbows on the table, his hands before his long sliding nose, and
gestured with his fingers; Quinny, the illustrator, long and gaunt,
with a predatory eloquence that charged irresistibly down on any
subject, cut it off, surrounded it, and raked it with enfilading wit
and satire; and Peters, whose methods of existence were a mystery, a
young man of fifty, who had done nothing and who knew every one by
his first name, the club postman, who carried the tittle-tattle, the
_bon mots_ and the news of the day, who drew up a petition a week
and pursued the house committee with a daily grievance.
About the latticed porch, which ran around the sanded yard with its
feeble fountain and futile evergreens, other groups were eying one
another, or engaging in desultory conversation, oppressed with the
heaviness of the night.
At the round table, Quinny alone, absorbing energy as he devoured
the conversation, having routed Steingall on the Germans and
archæology and Rankin on the origins of the Lord’s Prayer, had
seized a chance remark of De Gollyer’s to say:
“There are only half a dozen stories in the world. Like everything
that’s true it isn’t true.” He waved his long, gouty fingers in the
direction of Steingall, who, having been silenced, was regarding him
with a look of sleepy indifference. “What is more to the point, is
the small number of human relations that are so simple and yet so
fundamental that they can be eternally played upon, redressed, and
reinterpreted in every language, in every age, and yet remain
inexhaustible in the possibility of variations.”
“By George, that is so,” said Steingall, waking up. “Every art does
go back to three or four notes. In composition it is the same thing.
Nothing new—nothing new since a thousand years. By George, that is
true! We invent nothing, nothing!”
“Take the eternal triangle,” said Quinny hurriedly, not to surrender
his advantage, while Rankin and De Gollyer in a bored way continued
to gaze dreamily at a vagrant star or two. “Two men and a woman, or
two women and a man. Obviously it should be classified as the first
of the great original parent themes. Its variations extend into the
thousands. By the way, Rankin, excellent opportunity, eh, for some
of our modern, painstaking, unemployed jackasses to analyze and
classify.”
“Quite right,” said Rankin without perceiving the satirical note.
“Now there’s De Maupassant’s _Fort comme la Mort_—quite the most
interesting variation—shows the turn a genius can give. There the
triangle is the man of middle age, the mother he has loved in his
youth and the daughter he comes to love. It forms, you might say,
the head of a whole subdivision of modern continental literature.”
“Quite wrong, Rankin, quite wrong,” said Quinny, who would have
stated the other side quite as imperiously. “What you cite is a
variation of quite another theme, the Faust theme—old age longing
for youth, the man who has loved longing for the love of his youth,
which is youth itself. The triangle is the theme of jealousy, the
most destructive and, therefore, the most dramatic of human
passions. The Faust theme is the most fundamental and inevitable of
all human experiences, the tragedy of life itself. Quite a different
thing.”
Rankin, who never agreed with Quinny unless Quinny maliciously took
advantage of his prior announcement to agree with him, continued to
combat this idea.
“You believe then,” said De Gollyer after a certain moment had been
consumed in hair splitting, “that the origin of all dramatic themes
is simply the expression of some human emotion. In other words,
there can exist no more parent themes than there are human
emotions.”
“I thank you, sir, very well put,” said Quinny with a generous wave
of his hand. “Why is the _Three Musketeers_ a basic theme? Simply
the interpretation of comradeship, the emotion one man feels for
another, vital because it is the one peculiarly masculine emotion.
Look at Du Maurier and _Trilby_, Kipling in _Soldiers Three_—simply
the _Three Musketeers_.”
“The _Vie de Bohème_?” suggested Steingall.
“In the real Vie de Bohème, yes,” said Quinny viciously. “Not in the
concocted sentimentalities that we now have served up to us by
athletic tenors and consumptive elephants!”
Rankin, who had been silently deliberating on what had been left
behind, now said cunningly and with evident purpose:
“All the same, I don’t agree with you men at all. I believe there
are situations, original situations, that are independent of your
human emotions, that exist just because they are situations,
accidental and nothing else.”
“As for instance?” said Quinny, preparing to attack.
“Well, I’ll just cite an ordinary one that happens to come to my
mind,” said Rankin, who had carefully selected his test. “In a group
of seven or eight, such as we are here, a theft takes place; one man
is the thief—which one? I’d like to know what emotion that
interprets, and yet it certainly is an original theme, at the bottom
of a whole literature.”
This challenge was like a bomb.
“Not the same thing.”
“Detective stories, bah!”
“Oh, I say, Rankin, that’s literary melodrama.”
Rankin, satisfied, smiled and winked victoriously over to Tommers,
who was listening from an adjacent table.
“Of course your suggestion is out of order, my dear man, to this
extent,” said Quinny, who never surrendered, “in that I am talking
of fundamentals and you are citing details. Nevertheless, I could
answer that the situation you give, as well as the whole school it
belongs to, can be traced back to the commonest of human emotions,
curiosity; and that the story of _Bluebeard_ and _The Moonstone_ are
to all purposes identically the same.”
At this Steingall, who had waited hopefully, gasped and made as
though to leave the table.
“I shall take up your contention,” said Quinny without pause for
breath, “first, because you have opened up one of my pet topics,
and, second, because it gives me a chance to talk.” He gave a
sidelong glance at Steingall and winked at De Gollyer. “What is the
peculiar fascination that the detective problem exercises over the
human mind? You will say curiosity. Yes and no. Admit at once that
the whole art of a detective story consists in the statement of the
problem. Any one can do it. I can do it. Steingall even can do it.
The solution doesn’t count. It is usually banal; it should be
prohibited. What interests us is, can we guess it? Just as an
able-minded man will sit down for hours and fiddle over the puzzle
column in a Sunday balderdash. Same idea. There you have it, the
problem—the detective story. Now why the fascination? I’ll tell you.
It appeals to our curiosity, yes—but deeper to a sort of
intellectual vanity. Here are six matches, arrange them to make four
squares; five men present, a theft takes place—who’s the thief? Who
will guess it first? Whose brain will show its superior
cleverness—see? That’s all—that’s all there is to it.”