Chapter I—The Warning

Chapter II—Sherlock Holmes Discourses

Chapter III—The Tragedy of Birlstone

Chapter IV—Darkness

Chapter V—The People of the Drama

Chapter VI—A Dawning Light

Chapter VII—The Solution

PART II—The Scowrers

Chapter I—The Man

Chapter II—The Bodymaster

Chapter III—Lodge 341, Vermissa

Chapter IV—The Valley of Fear

Chapter V—The Darkest Hour

Chapter VI—Danger

Chapter VII—The Trapping of Birdy Edwards

Epilogue

Illustrations

“What’s this, Mr. Holmes? Man, it’s witchcraft! Where in the name of all that is wonderful did you get those names?”

For an instant I could have sworn that the faintest shadow of a smile flickered over the woman’s lips.

“Watson, would you be afraid to sleep in the same room with a lunatic.”

“If your heart is as big as your body, and your soul as fine as your face, then I’d ask for nothing better,” said McMurdo.

It was all he could do to keep himself from screaming out.

“Oh, Jack, I implore you to give it up!”

“Not a sound, for your lives!” McMurdo whispered.

PART I

The Tragedy of Birlstone

Chapter I

The Warning

“I am inclined to think—” said I.

“I should do so,” Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently.

I believe that I am one of the most long-suffering of mortals; but I’ll

admit that I was annoyed at the sardonic interruption. “Really,

Holmes,” said I severely, “you are a little trying at times.”

He was too much absorbed with his own thoughts to give any immediate

answer to my remonstrance. He leaned upon his hand, with his untasted

breakfast before him, and he stared at the slip of paper which he had

just drawn from its envelope. Then he took the envelope itself, held it

up to the light, and very carefully studied both the exterior and the

flap.

“It is Porlock’s writing,” said he thoughtfully. “I can hardly doubt

that it is Porlock’s writing, though I have seen it only twice before.

The Greek e with the peculiar top flourish is distinctive. But if it is

Porlock, then it must be something of the very first importance.”

He was speaking to himself rather than to me; but my vexation

disappeared in the interest which the words awakened.

“Who then is Porlock?” I asked.

“Porlock, Watson, is a nom-de-plume, a mere identification mark; but

behind it lies a shifty and evasive personality. In a former letter he

frankly informed me that the name was not his own, and defied me ever

to trace him among the teeming millions of this great city. Porlock is

important, not for himself, but for the great man with whom he is in

touch. Picture to yourself the pilot fish with the shark, the jackal

with the lion—anything that is insignificant in companionship with what

is formidable: not only formidable, Watson, but sinister—in the highest

degree sinister. That is where he comes within my purview. You have

heard me speak of Professor Moriarty?”

“The famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as—”

“My blushes, Watson!” Holmes murmured in a deprecating voice.

“I was about to say, as he is unknown to the public.”

“A touch! A distinct touch!” cried Holmes. “You are developing a

certain unexpected vein of pawky humour, Watson, against which I must

learn to guard myself. But in calling Moriarty a criminal you are

uttering libel in the eyes of the law—and there lie the glory and the

wonder of it! The greatest schemer of all time, the organizer of every

deviltry, the controlling brain of the underworld, a brain which might

have made or marred the destiny of nations—that’s the man! But so aloof

is he from general suspicion, so immune from criticism, so admirable in

his management and self-effacement, that for those very words that you

have uttered he could hale you to a court and emerge with your year’s

pension as a solatium for his wounded character. Is he not the

celebrated author of The Dynamics of an Asteroid, a book which ascends

to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that it is said that there

was no man in the scientific press capable of criticizing it? Is this a

man to traduce? Foul-mouthed doctor and slandered professor—such would

be your respective rôles! That’s genius, Watson. But if I am spared by

lesser men, our day will surely come.”

“May I be there to see!” I exclaimed devoutly. “But you were speaking

of this man Porlock.”

“Ah, yes—the so-called Porlock is a link in the chain some little way

from its great attachment. Porlock is not quite a sound link—between

ourselves. He is the only flaw in that chain so far as I have been able

to test it.”

“But no chain is stronger than its weakest link.”

“Exactly, my dear Watson! Hence the extreme importance of Porlock. Led

on by some rudimentary aspirations towards right, and encouraged by the

judicious stimulation of an occasional ten-pound note sent to him by

devious methods, he has once or twice given me advance information

which has been of value—that highest value which anticipates and

prevents rather than avenges crime. I cannot doubt that, if we had the

cipher, we should find that this communication is of the nature that I

indicate.”

Again Holmes flattened out the paper upon his unused plate. I rose and,

leaning over him, stared down at the curious inscription, which ran as

follows:

534 C2 13 127 36 31 4 17 21 41 DOUGLAS 109 293 5 37 BIRLSTONE 26

BIRLSTONE 9 47 171

“What do you make of it, Holmes?”

“It is obviously an attempt to convey secret information.”

“But what is the use of a cipher message without the cipher?”

“In this instance, none at all.”

“Why do you say ‘in this instance’?”

“Because there are many ciphers which I would read as easily as I do

the apocrypha of the agony column: such crude devices amuse the

intelligence without fatiguing it. But this is different. It is clearly

a reference to the words in a page of some book. Until I am told which

page and which book I am powerless.”

“But why ‘Douglas’ and ‘Birlstone’?”

“Clearly because those are words which were not contained in the page

in question.”

“Then why has he not indicated the book?”

“Your native shrewdness, my dear Watson, that innate cunning which is

the delight of your friends, would surely prevent you from inclosing

cipher and message in the same envelope. Should it miscarry, you are

undone. As it is, both have to go wrong before any harm comes from it.

Our second post is now overdue, and I shall be surprised if it does not

bring us either a further letter of explanation, or, as is more

probable, the very volume to which these figures refer.”

Holmes’s calculation was fulfilled within a very few minutes by the

appearance of Billy, the page, with the very letter which we were

expecting.

“The same writing,” remarked Holmes, as he opened the envelope, “and

actually signed,” he added in an exultant voice as he unfolded the

epistle. “Come, we are getting on, Watson.” His brow clouded, however,

as he glanced over the contents.

“Dear me, this is very disappointing! I fear, Watson, that all our

expectations come to nothing. I trust that the man Porlock will come to

no harm.

“‘Dear Mr. Holmes,’ he says, ‘I will go no further in this matter. It

is too dangerous—he suspects me. I can see that he suspects me. He came

to me quite unexpectedly after I had actually addressed this envelope

with the intention of sending you the key to the cipher. I was able to

cover it up. If he had seen it, it would have gone hard with me. But I

read suspicion in his eyes. Please burn the cipher message, which can

now be of no use to you.

“‘FRED PORLOCK.’”

Holmes sat for some little time twisting this letter between his

fingers, and frowning, as he stared into the fire.

“After all,” he said at last, “there may be nothing in it. It may be

only his guilty conscience. Knowing himself to be a traitor, he may

have read the accusation in the other’s eyes.”

“The other being, I presume, Professor Moriarty.”

“No less! When any of that party talk about ‘He’ you know whom they

mean. There is one predominant ‘He’ for all of them.”

“But what can he do?”

“Hum! That’s a large question. When you have one of the first brains of

Europe up against you, and all the powers of darkness at his back,

there are infinite possibilities. Anyhow, Friend Porlock is evidently

scared out of his senses—kindly compare the writing in the note to that

upon its envelope; which was done, he tells us, before this ill-omened

visit. The one is clear and firm. The other hardly legible.”

“Why did he write at all? Why did he not simply drop it?”

“Because he feared I would make some inquiry after him in that case,

and possibly bring trouble on him.”

“No doubt,” said I. “Of course.” I had picked up the original cipher

message and was bending my brows over it. “It’s pretty maddening to

think that an important secret may lie here on this slip of paper, and

that it is beyond human power to penetrate it.”

Sherlock Holmes had pushed away his untasted breakfast and lit the

unsavoury pipe which was the companion of his deepest meditations. “I

wonder!” said he, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. “Perhaps

there are points which have escaped your Machiavellian intellect. Let

us consider the problem in the light of pure reason. This man’s

reference is to a book. That is our point of departure.”

“A somewhat vague one.”

“Let us see then if we can narrow it down. As I focus my mind upon it,

it seems rather less impenetrable. What indications have we as to this

book?”

“None.”

“Well, well, it is surely not quite so bad as that. The cipher message

begins with a large 534, does it not? We may take it as a working

hypothesis that 534 is the particular page to which the cipher refers.

So our book has already become a _large_ book, which is surely

something gained. What other indications have we as to the nature of

this large book? The next sign is C2. What do you make of that,

Watson?”

“Chapter the second, no doubt.”

“Hardly that, Watson. You will, I am sure, agree with me that if the

page be given, the number of the chapter is immaterial. Also that if

page 534 finds us only in the second chapter, the length of the first

one must have been really intolerable.”

“Column!” I cried.

“Brilliant, Watson. You are scintillating this morning. If it is not

column, then I am very much deceived. So now, you see, we begin to

visualize a large book printed in double columns which are each of a

considerable length, since one of the words is numbered in the document

as the two hundred and ninety-third. Have we reached the limits of what

reason can supply?”

“I fear that we have.”

“Surely you do yourself an injustice. One more coruscation, my dear

Watson—yet another brain-wave! Had the volume been an unusual one, he

would have sent it to me. Instead of that, he had intended, before his

plans were nipped, to send me the clue in this envelope. He says so in

his note. This would seem to indicate that the book is one which he

thought I would have no difficulty in finding for myself. He had it—and

he imagined that I would have it, too. In short, Watson, it is a very

common book.”

“What you say certainly sounds plausible.”

“So we have contracted our field of search to a large book, printed in

double columns and in common use.”

“The Bible!” I cried triumphantly.

“Good, Watson, good! But not, if I may say so, quite good enough! Even

if I accepted the compliment for myself I could hardly name any volume

which would be less likely to lie at the elbow of one of Moriarty’s

associates. Besides, the editions of Holy Writ are so numerous that he

could hardly suppose that two copies would have the same pagination.

This is clearly a book which is standardized. He knows for certain that

his page 534 will exactly agree with my page 534.”

“But very few books would correspond with that.”

“Exactly. Therein lies our salvation. Our search is narrowed down to

standardized books which anyone may be supposed to possess.”

“Bradshaw!”

“There are difficulties, Watson. The vocabulary of Bradshaw is nervous

and terse, but limited. The selection of words would hardly lend itself

to the sending of general messages. We will eliminate Bradshaw. The

dictionary is, I fear, inadmissible for the same reason. What then is

left?”

“An almanac!”

“Excellent, Watson! I am very much mistaken if you have not touched the

spot. An almanac! Let us consider the claims of Whitaker’s Almanac. It

is in common use. It has the requisite number of pages. It is in double

column. Though reserved in its earlier vocabulary, it becomes, if I

remember right, quite garrulous towards the end.” He picked the volume

from his desk. “Here is page 534, column two, a substantial block of

print dealing, I perceive, with the trade and resources of British

India. Jot down the words, Watson! Number thirteen is ‘Mahratta.’ Not,

I fear, a very auspicious beginning. Number one hundred and

twenty-seven is ‘Government’; which at least makes sense, though

somewhat irrelevant to ourselves and Professor Moriarty. Now let us try

again. What does the Mahratta government do? Alas! the next word is

‘pig’s-bristles.’ We are undone, my good Watson! It is finished!”

He had spoken in jesting vein, but the twitching of his bushy eyebrows

bespoke his disappointment and irritation. I sat helpless and unhappy,

staring into the fire. A long silence was broken by a sudden

exclamation from Holmes, who dashed at a cupboard, from which he

emerged with a second yellow-covered volume in his hand.

“We pay the price, Watson, for being too up-to-date!” he cried. “We are

before our time, and suffer the usual penalties. Being the seventh of

January, we have very properly laid in the new almanac. It is more than

likely that Porlock took his message from the old one. No doubt he

would have told us so had his letter of explanation been written. Now

let us see what page 534 has in store for us. Number thirteen is

‘There,’ which is much more promising. Number one hundred and

twenty-seven is ‘is’—‘There is’ “—Holmes’s eyes were gleaming with

excitement, and his thin, nervous fingers twitched as he counted the

words—“‘danger.’ Ha! Ha! Capital! Put that down, Watson. ‘There is

danger—may—come—very soon—one.’ Then we have the name

‘Douglas’—‘rich—country—now—at

Birlstone—House—Birlstone—confidence—is—pressing.’ There, Watson! What

do you think of pure reason and its fruit? If the green-grocer had such

a thing as a laurel wreath, I should send Billy round for it.”

I was staring at the strange message which I had scrawled, as he

deciphered it, upon a sheet of foolscap on my knee.

“What a queer, scrambling way of expressing his meaning!” said I.

“On the contrary, he has done quite remarkably well,” said Holmes.

“When you search a single column for words with which to express your

meaning, you can hardly expect to get everything you want. You are

bound to leave something to the intelligence of your correspondent. The

purport is perfectly clear. Some deviltry is intended against one

Douglas, whoever he may be, residing as stated, a rich country

gentleman. He is sure—‘confidence’ was as near as he could get to

‘confident’—that it is pressing. There is our result—and a very

workmanlike little bit of analysis it was!”

Holmes had the impersonal joy of the true artist in his better work,

even as he mourned darkly when it fell below the high level to which he

aspired. He was still chuckling over his success when Billy swung open

the door and Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard was ushered into the

room.

Those were the early days at the end of the ’80’s, when Alec MacDonald

was far from having attained the national fame which he has now

achieved. He was a young but trusted member of the detective force, who

had distinguished himself in several cases which had been intrusted to

him. His tall, bony figure gave promise of exceptional physical

strength, while his great cranium and deep-set, lustrous eyes spoke no

less clearly of the keen intelligence which twinkled out from behind

his bushy eyebrows. He was a silent, precise man with a dour nature and

a hard Aberdonian accent.

Twice already in his career had Holmes helped him to attain success,

his own sole reward being the intellectual joy of the problem. For this

reason the affection and respect of the Scotchman for his amateur

colleague were profound, and he showed them by the frankness with which

he consulted Holmes in every difficulty. Mediocrity knows nothing

higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius, and

MacDonald had talent enough for his profession to enable him to

perceive that there was no humiliation in seeking the assistance of one

who already stood alone in Europe, both in his gifts and in his

experience. Holmes was not prone to friendship, but he was tolerant of

the big Scotchman, and smiled at the sight of him.

“You are an early bird, Mr. Mac,” said he. “I wish you luck with your

worm. I fear this means that there is some mischief afoot.”

“If you said ‘hope’ instead of ‘fear,’ it would be nearer the truth,

I’m thinking, Mr. Holmes,” the inspector answered, with a knowing grin.

“Well, maybe a wee nip would keep out the raw morning chill. No, I

won’t smoke, I thank you. I’ll have to be pushing on my way; for the

early hours of a case are the precious ones, as no man knows better

than your own self. But—but—”

The inspector had stopped suddenly, and was staring with a look of

absolute amazement at a paper upon the table. It was the sheet upon

which I had scrawled the enigmatic message.

“Douglas!” he stammered. “Birlstone! What’s this, Mr. Holmes? Man, it’s

witchcraft! Where in the name of all that is wonderful did you get

those names?”

[Illustration: “What’s this, Mr. Holmes? Man, it’s witchcraft! Where

in the name of all that is wonderful did you get those names?”]

“It is a cipher that Dr. Watson and I have had occasion to solve. But

why—what’s amiss with the names?”

The inspector looked from one to the other of us in dazed astonishment.

“Just this,” said he, “that Mr. Douglas of Birlstone Manor House was

horribly murdered last night!”

Chapter II

Sherlock Holmes Discourses

It was one of those dramatic moments for which my friend existed. It

would be an overstatement to say that he was shocked or even excited by

the amazing announcement. Without having a tinge of cruelty in his

singular composition, he was undoubtedly callous from long

overstimulation. Yet, if his emotions were dulled, his intellectual

perceptions were exceedingly active. There was no trace then of the

horror which I had myself felt at this curt declaration; but his face

showed rather the quiet and interested composure of the chemist who

sees the crystals falling into position from his oversaturated

solution.

“Remarkable!” said he. “Remarkable!”

“You don’t seem surprised.”

“Interested, Mr. Mac, but hardly surprised. Why should I be surprised?

I receive an anonymous communication from a quarter which I know to be

important, warning me that danger threatens a certain person. Within an

hour I learn that this danger has actually materialized and that the

person is dead. I am interested; but, as you observe, I am not

surprised.”

In a few short sentences he explained to the inspector the facts about

the letter and the cipher. MacDonald sat with his chin on his hands and

his great sandy eyebrows bunched into a yellow tangle.

“I was going down to Birlstone this morning,” said he. “I had come to

ask you if you cared to come with me—you and your friend here. But from

what you say we might perhaps be doing better work in London.”

“I rather think not,” said Holmes.

“Hang it all, Mr. Holmes!” cried the inspector. “The papers will be

full of the Birlstone mystery in a day or two; but where’s the mystery

if there is a man in London who prophesied the crime before ever it

occurred? We have only to lay our hands on that man, and the rest will

follow.”

“No doubt, Mr. Mac. But how do you propose to lay your hands on the

so-called Porlock?”

MacDonald turned over the letter which Holmes had handed him. “Posted

in Camberwell—that doesn’t help us much. Name, you say, is assumed. Not

much to go on, certainly. Didn’t you say that you have sent him money?”

“Twice.”

“And how?”

“In notes to Camberwell post office.”

“Did you ever trouble to see who called for them?”

“No.”

The inspector looked surprised and a little shocked. “Why not?”

“Because I always keep faith. I had promised when he first wrote that I

would not try to trace him.”

“You think there is someone behind him?”

“I know there is.”

“This professor that I’ve heard you mention?”

“Exactly!”

Inspector MacDonald smiled, and his eyelid quivered as he glanced

towards me. “I won’t conceal from you, Mr. Holmes, that we think in the

C.I.D. that you have a wee bit of a bee in your bonnet over this

professor. I made some inquiries myself about the matter. He seems to

be a very respectable, learned, and talented sort of man.”

“I’m glad you’ve got so far as to recognize the talent.”

“Man, you can’t but recognize it! After I heard your view I made it my

business to see him. I had a chat with him on eclipses. How the talk

got that way I canna think; but he had out a reflector lantern and a

globe, and made it all clear in a minute. He lent me a book; but I

don’t mind saying that it was a bit above my head, though I had a good

Aberdeen upbringing. He’d have made a grand meenister with his thin

face and gray hair and solemn-like way of talking. When he put his hand

on my shoulder as we were parting, it was like a father’s blessing

before you go out into the cold, cruel world.”

Holmes chuckled and rubbed his hands. “Great!” he said. “Great! Tell

me, Friend MacDonald, this pleasing and touching interview was, I

suppose, in the professor’s study?”

“That’s so.”

“A fine room, is it not?”

“Very fine—very handsome indeed, Mr. Holmes.”

“You sat in front of his writing desk?”

“Just so.”

“Sun in your eyes and his face in the shadow?”

“Well, it was evening; but I mind that the lamp was turned on my face.”

“It would be. Did you happen to observe a picture over the professor’s

head?”

“I don’t miss much, Mr. Holmes. Maybe I learned that from you. Yes, I

saw the picture—a young woman with her head on her hands, peeping at

you sideways.”

“That painting was by Jean Baptiste Greuze.”

The inspector endeavoured to look interested.

“Jean Baptiste Greuze,” Holmes continued, joining his finger tips and

leaning well back in his chair, “was a French artist who flourished

between the years 1750 and 1800. I allude, of course to his working

career. Modern criticism has more than indorsed the high opinion formed

of him by his contemporaries.”

The inspector’s eyes grew abstracted. “Hadn’t we better—” he said.

“We are doing so,” Holmes interrupted. “All that I am saying has a very

direct and vital bearing upon what you have called the Birlstone

Mystery. In fact, it may in a sense be called the very centre of it.”

MacDonald smiled feebly, and looked appealingly to me. “Your thoughts

move a bit too quick for me, Mr. Holmes. You leave out a link or two,

and I can’t get over the gap. What in the whole wide world can be the

connection between this dead painting man and the affair at Birlstone?”

“All knowledge comes useful to the detective,” remarked Holmes. “Even

the trivial fact that in the year 1865 a picture by Greuze entitled ‘La

Jeune Fille à l’Agneau’ fetched one million two hundred thousand

francs—more than forty thousand pounds—at the Portalis sale may start a

train of reflection in your mind.”

It was clear that it did. The inspector looked honestly interested.

“I may remind you,” Holmes continued, “that the professor’s salary can

be ascertained in several trustworthy books of reference. It is seven

hundred a year.”

“Then how could he buy—”

“Quite so! How could he?”

“Ay, that’s remarkable,” said the inspector thoughtfully. “Talk away,

Mr. Holmes. I’m just loving it. It’s fine!”

Holmes smiled. He was always warmed by genuine admiration—the

characteristic of the real artist. “What about Birlstone?” he asked.

“We’ve time yet,” said the inspector, glancing at his watch. “I’ve a

cab at the door, and it won’t take us twenty minutes to Victoria. But

about this picture: I thought you told me once, Mr. Holmes, that you

had never met Professor Moriarty.”

“No, I never have.”

“Then how do you know about his rooms?”

“Ah, that’s another matter. I have been three times in his rooms, twice

waiting for him under different pretexts and leaving before he came.

Once—well, I can hardly tell about the once to an official detective.

It was on the last occasion that I took the liberty of running over his

papers—with the most unexpected results.”

“You found something compromising?”

“Absolutely nothing. That was what amazed me. However, you have now

seen the point of the picture. It shows him to be a very wealthy man.

How did he acquire wealth? He is unmarried. His younger brother is a

station master in the west of England. His chair is worth seven hundred

a year. And he owns a Greuze.”

“Well?”

“Surely the inference is plain.”

“You mean that he has a great income and that he must earn it in an

illegal fashion?”

“Exactly. Of course I have other reasons for thinking so—dozens of

exiguous threads which lead vaguely up towards the centre of the web

where the poisonous, motionless creature is lurking. I only mention the

Greuze because it brings the matter within the range of your own

observation.”

“Well, Mr. Holmes, I admit that what you say is interesting: it’s more

than interesting—it’s just wonderful. But let us have it a little

clearer if you can. Is it forgery, coining, burglary—where does the

money come from?”

“Have you ever read of Jonathan Wild?”

“Well, the name has a familiar sound. Someone in a novel, was he not? I

don’t take much stock of detectives in novels—chaps that do things and

never let you see how they do them. That’s just inspiration: not

business.”

“Jonathan Wild wasn’t a detective, and he wasn’t in a novel. He was a

master criminal, and he lived last century—1750 or thereabouts.”

“Then he’s no use to me. I’m a practical man.”

“Mr. Mac, the most practical thing that you ever did in your life would

be to shut yourself up for three months and read twelve hours a day at

the annals of crime. Everything comes in circles—even Professor

Moriarty. Jonathan Wild was the hidden force of the London criminals,

to whom he sold his brains and his organization on a fifteen per cent.

commission. The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It’s all

been done before, and will be again. I’ll tell you one or two things

about Moriarty which may interest you.”

“You’ll interest me, right enough.”

“I happen to know who is the first link in his chain—a chain with this

Napoleon-gone-wrong at one end, and a hundred broken fighting men,

pickpockets, blackmailers, and card sharpers at the other, with every

sort of crime in between. His chief of staff is Colonel Sebastian

Moran, as aloof and guarded and inaccessible to the law as himself.

What do you think he pays him?”

“I’d like to hear.”

“Six thousand a year. That’s paying for brains, you see—the American

business principle. I learned that detail quite by chance. It’s more

than the Prime Minister gets. That gives you an idea of Moriarty’s

gains and of the scale on which he works. Another point: I made it my

business to hunt down some of Moriarty’s checks lately—just common

innocent checks that he pays his household bills with. They were drawn

on six different banks. Does that make any impression on your mind?”

“Queer, certainly! But what do you gather from it?”

“That he wanted no gossip about his wealth. No single man should know

what he had. I have no doubt that he has twenty banking accounts; the

bulk of his fortune abroad in the Deutsche Bank or the Crédit Lyonnais

as likely as not. Sometime when you have a year or two to spare I

commend to you the study of Professor Moriarty.”

Inspector MacDonald had grown steadily more impressed as the

conversation proceeded. He had lost himself in his interest. Now his

practical Scotch intelligence brought him back with a snap to the

matter in hand.

“He can keep, anyhow,” said he. “You’ve got us side-tracked with your

interesting anecdotes, Mr. Holmes. What really counts is your remark

that there is some connection between the professor and the crime. That

you get from the warning received through the man Porlock. Can we for

our present practical needs get any further than that?”

“We may form some conception as to the motives of the crime. It is, as

I gather from your original remarks, an inexplicable, or at least an

unexplained, murder. Now, presuming that the source of the crime is as

we suspect it to be, there might be two different motives. In the first

place, I may tell you that Moriarty rules with a rod of iron over his

people. His discipline is tremendous. There is only one punishment in

his code. It is death. Now we might suppose that this murdered man—this

Douglas whose approaching fate was known by one of the arch-criminal’s

subordinates—had in some way betrayed the chief. His punishment

followed, and would be known to all—if only to put the fear of death

into them.”

“Well, that is one suggestion, Mr. Holmes.”

“The other is that it has been engineered by Moriarty in the ordinary

course of business. Was there any robbery?”

“I have not heard.”

“If so, it would, of course, be against the first hypothesis and in

favour of the second. Moriarty may have been engaged to engineer it on

a promise of part spoils, or he may have been paid so much down to

manage it. Either is possible. But whichever it may be, or if it is

some third combination, it is down at Birlstone that we must seek the

solution. I know our man too well to suppose that he has left anything

up here which may lead us to him.”

“Then to Birlstone we must go!” cried MacDonald, jumping from his

chair. “My word! it’s later than I thought. I can give you, gentlemen,

five minutes for preparation, and that is all.”

“And ample for us both,” said Holmes, as he sprang up and hastened to

change from his dressing gown to his coat. “While we are on our way,

Mr. Mac, I will ask you to be good enough to tell me all about it.”

“All about it” proved to be disappointingly little, and yet there was

enough to assure us that the case before us might well be worthy of the

expert’s closest attention. He brightened and rubbed his thin hands

together as he listened to the meagre but remarkable details. A long

series of sterile weeks lay behind us, and here at last there was a

fitting object for those remarkable powers which, like all special

gifts, become irksome to their owner when they are not in use. That

razor brain blunted and rusted with inaction.

Sherlock Holmes’s eyes glistened, his pale cheeks took a warmer hue,

and his whole eager face shone with an inward light when the call for

work reached him. Leaning forward in the cab, he listened intently to

MacDonald’s short sketch of the problem which awaited us in Sussex. The

inspector was himself dependent, as he explained to us, upon a

scribbled account forwarded to him by the milk train in the early hours

of the morning. White Mason, the local officer, was a personal friend,

and hence MacDonald had been notified much more promptly than is usual

at Scotland Yard when provincials need their assistance. It is a very

cold scent upon which the Metropolitan expert is generally asked to

run.

“DEAR INSPECTOR MACDONALD,” said the letter which he read to

us,—“Official requisition for your services is in separate envelope.

This is for your private eye. Wire me what train in the morning you can

get for Birlstone, and I will meet it—or have it met if I am too

occupied. This case is a snorter. Don’t waste a moment in getting

started. If you can bring Mr. Holmes, please do so; for he will find

something after his own heart. We would think the whole had been fixed

up for theatrical effect if there wasn’t a dead man in the middle of

it. My word! it _is_ a snorter.”

“Your friend seems to be no fool,” remarked Holmes.

“No, sir, White Mason is a very live man, if I am any judge.”

“Well, have you anything more?”

“Only that he will give us every detail when we meet.”

“Then how did you get at Mr. Douglas and the fact that he had been

horribly murdered?”

“That was in the inclosed official report. It didn’t say ‘horrible’:

that’s not a recognized official term. It gave the name John Douglas.

It mentioned that his injuries had been in the head, from the discharge

of a shotgun. It also mentioned the hour of the alarm, which was close

on to midnight last night. It added that the case was undoubtedly one

of murder, but that no arrest had been made, and that the case was one

which presented some very perplexing and extraordinary features. That’s

absolutely all we have at present, Mr. Holmes.”

“Then, with your permission, we will leave it at that, Mr. Mac. The

temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the

bane of our profession. I can see only two things for certain at

present—a great brain in London, and a dead man in Sussex. It’s the

chain between that we are going to trace.”

Chapter III

The Tragedy of Birlstone

Now for a moment I will ask leave to remove my own insignificant

personality and to describe events which occurred before we arrived

upon the scene by the light of knowledge which came to us afterwards.

Only in this way can I make the reader appreciate the people concerned

and the strange setting in which their fate was cast.

The village of Birlstone is a small and very ancient cluster of

half-timbered cottages on the northern border of the county of Sussex.

For centuries it had remained unchanged; but within the last few years

its picturesque appearance and situation have attracted a number of

well-to-do residents, whose villas peep out from the woods around.

These woods are locally supposed to be the extreme fringe of the great

Weald forest, which thins away until it reaches the northern chalk

downs. A number of small shops have come into being to meet the wants

of the increased population; so there seems some prospect that

Birlstone may soon grow from an ancient village into a modern town. It

is the centre for a considerable area of country, since Tunbridge

Wells, the nearest place of importance, is ten or twelve miles to the

eastward, over the borders of Kent.

About half a mile from the town, standing in an old park famous for its

huge beech trees, is the ancient Manor House of Birlstone. Part of this

venerable building dates back to the time of the first crusade, when

Hugo de Capus built a fortalice in the centre of the estate, which had

been granted to him by the Red King. This was destroyed by fire in

1543, and some of its smoke-blackened corner stones were used when, in

Jacobean times, a brick country house rose upon the ruins of the feudal

castle.

The Manor House, with its many gables and its small diamond-paned

windows, was still much as the builder had left it in the early

seventeenth century. Of the double moats which had guarded its more

warlike predecessor, the outer had been allowed to dry up, and served

the humble function of a kitchen garden. The inner one was still there,

and lay forty feet in breadth, though now only a few feet in depth,

round the whole house. A small stream fed it and continued beyond it,

so that the sheet of water, though turbid, was never ditchlike or

unhealthy. The ground floor windows were within a foot of the surface

of the water.

The only approach to the house was over a drawbridge, the chains and

windlass of which had long been rusted and broken. The latest tenants

of the Manor House had, however, with characteristic energy, set this

right, and the drawbridge was not only capable of being raised, but

actually was raised every evening and lowered every morning. By thus

renewing the custom of the old feudal days the Manor House was

converted into an island during the night—a fact which had a very

direct bearing upon the mystery which was soon to engage the attention

of all England.

The house had been untenanted for some years and was threatening to

moulder into a picturesque decay when the Douglases took possession of

it. This family consisted of only two individuals—John Douglas and his

wife. Douglas was a remarkable man, both in character and in person. In

age he may have been about fifty, with a strong-jawed, rugged face, a

grizzling moustache, peculiarly keen gray eyes, and a wiry, vigorous

figure which had lost nothing of the strength and activity of youth. He

was cheery and genial to all, but somewhat offhand in his manners,

giving the impression that he had seen life in social strata on some

far lower horizon than the county society of Sussex.

Yet, though looked at with some curiosity and reserve by his more

cultivated neighbours, he soon acquired a great popularity among the

villagers, subscribing handsomely to all local objects, and attending

their smoking concerts and other functions, where, having a remarkably

rich tenor voice, he was always ready to oblige with an excellent song.

He appeared to have plenty of money, which was said to have been gained

in the California gold fields, and it was clear from his own talk and

that of his wife that he had spent a part of his life in America.

The good impression which had been produced by his generosity and by

his democratic manners was increased by a reputation gained for utter

indifference to danger. Though a wretched rider, he turned out at every

meet, and took the most amazing falls in his determination to hold his

own with the best. When the vicarage caught fire he distinguished

himself also by the fearlessness with which he reentered the building

to save property, after the local fire brigade had given it up as

impossible. Thus it came about that John Douglas of the Manor House had

within five years won himself quite a reputation in Birlstone.

His wife, too, was popular with those who had made her acquaintance;

though, after the English fashion, the callers upon a stranger who

settled in the county without introductions were few and far between.

This mattered the less to her, as she was retiring by disposition, and

very much absorbed, to all appearance, in her husband and her domestic

duties. It was known that she was an English lady who had met Mr.

Douglas in London, he being at that time a widower. She was a beautiful

woman, tall, dark, and slender, some twenty years younger than her

husband; a disparity which seemed in no wise to mar the contentment of

their family life.

It was remarked sometimes, however, by those who knew them best, that

the confidence between the two did not appear to be complete, since the

wife was either very reticent about her husband’s past life, or else,

as seemed more likely, was imperfectly informed about it. It had also

been noted and commented upon by a few observant people that there were

signs sometimes of some nerve-strain upon the part of Mrs. Douglas, and

that she would display acute uneasiness if her absent husband should

ever be particularly late in his return. On a quiet countryside, where

all gossip is welcome, this weakness of the lady of the Manor House did

not pass without remark, and it bulked larger upon people’s memory when

the events arose which gave it a very special significance.

There was yet another individual whose residence under that roof was,

it is true, only an intermittent one, but whose presence at the time of

the strange happenings which will now be narrated brought his name

prominently before the public. This was Cecil James Barker, of Hales

Lodge, Hampstead.

Cecil Barker’s tall, loose-jointed figure was a familiar one in the

main street of Birlstone village; for he was a frequent and welcome

visitor at the Manor House. He was the more noticed as being the only

friend of the past unknown life of Mr. Douglas who was ever seen in his

new English surroundings. Barker was himself an undoubted Englishman;

but by his remarks it was clear that he had first known Douglas in

America and had there lived on intimate terms with him. He appeared to

be a man of considerable wealth, and was reputed to be a bachelor.

In age he was rather younger than Douglas—forty-five at the most—a

tall, straight, broad-chested fellow with a clean-shaved, prize-fighter

face, thick, strong, black eyebrows, and a pair of masterful black eyes

which might, even without the aid of his very capable hands, clear a

way for him through a hostile crowd. He neither rode nor shot, but

spent his days in wandering round the old village with his pipe in his

mouth, or in driving with his host, or in his absence with his hostess,

over the beautiful countryside. “An easy-going, free-handed gentleman,”

said Ames, the butler. “But, my word! I had rather not be the man that

crossed him!” He was cordial and intimate with Douglas, and he was no

less friendly with his wife—a friendship which more than once seemed to

cause some irritation to the husband, so that even the servants were

able to perceive his annoyance. Such was the third person who was one

of the family when the catastrophe occurred.

As to the other denizens of the old building, it will suffice out of a

large household to mention the prim, respectable, and capable Ames, and

Mrs. Allen, a buxom and cheerful person, who relieved the lady of some

of her household cares. The other six servants in the house bear no

relation to the events of the night of January 6th.

It was at eleven forty-five that the first alarm reached the small

local police station, in charge of Sergeant Wilson of the Sussex

Constabulary. Cecil Barker, much excited, had rushed up to the door and

pealed furiously upon the bell. A terrible tragedy had occurred at the

Manor House, and John Douglas had been murdered. That was the

breathless burden of his message. He had hurried back to the house,

followed within a few minutes by the police sergeant, who arrived at

the scene of the crime a little after twelve o’clock, after taking

prompt steps to warn the county authorities that something serious was

afoot.

On reaching the Manor House, the sergeant had found the drawbridge

down, the windows lighted up, and the whole household in a state of

wild confusion and alarm. The white-faced servants were huddling

together in the hall, with the frightened butler wringing his hands in

the doorway. Only Cecil Barker seemed to be master of himself and his

emotions; he had opened the door which was nearest to the entrance and

he had beckoned to the sergeant to follow him. At that moment there

arrived Dr. Wood, a brisk and capable general practitioner from the

village. The three men entered the fatal room together, while the

horror-stricken butler followed at their heels, closing the door behind

him to shut out the terrible scene from the maid servants.

The dead man lay on his back, sprawling with outstretched limbs in the

centre of the room. He was clad only in a pink dressing gown, which

covered his night clothes. There were carpet slippers on his bare feet.

The doctor knelt beside him and held down the hand lamp which had stood

on the table. One glance at the victim was enough to show the healer

that his presence could be dispensed with. The man had been horribly

injured. Lying across his chest was a curious weapon, a shotgun with

the barrel sawed off a foot in front of the triggers. It was clear that

this had been fired at close range and that he had received the whole

charge in the face, blowing his head almost to pieces. The triggers had

been wired together, so as to make the simultaneous discharge more

destructive.

The country policeman was unnerved and troubled by the tremendous

responsibility which had come so suddenly upon him. “We will touch

nothing until my superiors arrive,” he said in a hushed voice, staring

in horror at the dreadful head.

“Nothing has been touched up to now,” said Cecil Barker. “I’ll answer

for that. You see it all exactly as I found it.”

“When was that?” The sergeant had drawn out his notebook.

“It was just half-past eleven. I had not begun to undress, and I was

sitting by the fire in my bedroom when I heard the report. It was not

very loud—it seemed to be muffled. I rushed down—I don’t suppose it was

thirty seconds before I was in the room.”

“Was the door open?”

“Yes, it was open. Poor Douglas was lying as you see him. His bedroom

candle was burning on the table. It was I who lit the lamp some minutes

afterward.”

“Did you see no one?”

“No. I heard Mrs. Douglas coming down the stair behind me, and I rushed

out to prevent her from seeing this dreadful sight. Mrs. Allen, the

housekeeper, came and took her away. Ames had arrived, and we ran back

into the room once more.”

“But surely I have heard that the drawbridge is kept up all night.”

“Yes, it was up until I lowered it.”

“Then how could any murderer have got away? It is out of the question!

Mr. Douglas must have shot himself.”

“That was our first idea. But see!” Barker drew aside the curtain, and

showed that the long, diamond-paned window was open to its full extent.

“And look at this!” He held the lamp down and illuminated a smudge of

blood like the mark of a boot-sole upon the wooden sill. “Someone has

stood there in getting out.”

“You mean that someone waded across the moat?”

“Exactly!”

“Then if you were in the room within half a minute of the crime, he

must have been in the water at that very moment.”

“I have not a doubt of it. I wish to heaven that I had rushed to the

window! But the curtain screened it, as you can see, and so it never

occurred to me. Then I heard the step of Mrs. Douglas, and I could not

let her enter the room. It would have been too horrible.”

“Horrible enough!” said the doctor, looking at the shattered head and

the terrible marks which surrounded it. “I’ve never seen such injuries

since the Birlstone railway smash.”

“But, I say,” remarked the police sergeant, whose slow, bucolic common

sense was still pondering the open window. “It’s all very well your

saying that a man escaped by wading this moat, but what I ask you is,

how did he ever get into the house at all if the bridge was up?”

“Ah, that’s the question,” said Barker.

“At what o’clock was it raised?”

“It was nearly six o’clock,” said Ames, the butler.

“I’ve heard,” said the sergeant, “that it was usually raised at sunset.

That would be nearer half-past four than six at this time of year.”

“Mrs. Douglas had visitors to tea,” said Ames. “I couldn’t raise it

until they went. Then I wound it up myself.”

“Then it comes to this,” said the sergeant: “If anyone came from

outside—_if_ they did—they must have got in across the bridge before

six and been in hiding ever since, until Mr. Douglas came into the room

after eleven.”

“That is so! Mr. Douglas went round the house every night the last

thing before he turned in to see that the lights were right. That

brought him in here. The man was waiting and shot him. Then he got away

through the window and left his gun behind him. That’s how I read it;

for nothing else will fit the facts.”

The sergeant picked up a card which lay beside the dead man on the

floor. The initials V.V. and under them the number 341 were rudely

scrawled in ink upon it.

“What’s this?” he asked, holding it up.

Barker looked at it with curiosity. “I never noticed it before,” he

said. “The murderer must have left it behind him.”

“V.V.—341. I can make no sense of that.”

The sergeant kept turning it over in his big fingers. “What’s V.V.?

Somebody’s initials, maybe. What have you got there, Dr. Wood?”

It was a good-sized hammer which had been lying on the rug in front of

the fireplace—a substantial, workmanlike hammer. Cecil Barker pointed

to a box of brass-headed nails upon the mantelpiece.

“Mr. Douglas was altering the pictures yesterday,” he said. “I saw him

myself, standing upon that chair and fixing the big picture above it.

That accounts for the hammer.”

“We’d best put it back on the rug where we found it,” said the

sergeant, scratching his puzzled head in his perplexity. “It will want

the best brains in the force to get to the bottom of this thing. It

will be a London job before it is finished.” He raised the hand lamp

and walked slowly round the room. “Hullo!” he cried, excitedly, drawing

the window curtain to one side. “What o’clock were those curtains

drawn?”

“When the lamps were lit,” said the butler. “It would be shortly after

four.”

“Someone had been hiding here, sure enough.” He held down the light,

and the marks of muddy boots were very visible in the corner. “I’m

bound to say this bears out your theory, Mr. Barker. It looks as if the

man got into the house after four when the curtains were drawn, and

before six when the bridge was raised. He slipped into this room,

because it was the first that he saw. There was no other place where he

could hide, so he popped in behind this curtain. That all seems clear

enough. It is likely that his main idea was to burgle the house; but

Mr. Douglas chanced to come upon him, so he murdered him and escaped.”

“That’s how I read it,” said Barker. “But, I say, aren’t we wasting

precious time? Couldn’t we start out and scout the country before the

fellow gets away?”

The sergeant considered for a moment.

“There are no trains before six in the morning; so he can’t get away by

rail. If he goes by road with his legs all dripping, it’s odds that

someone will notice him. Anyhow, I can’t leave here myself until I am

relieved. But I think none of you should go until we see more clearly

how we all stand.”

The doctor had taken the lamp and was narrowly scrutinizing the body.

“What’s this mark?” he asked. “Could this have any connection with the

crime?”

The dead man’s right arm was thrust out from his dressing gown, and

exposed as high as the elbow. About halfway up the forearm was a

curious brown design, a triangle inside a circle, standing out in vivid

relief upon the lard-coloured skin.

“It’s not tattooed,” said the doctor, peering through his glasses. “I

never saw anything like it. The man has been branded at some time as

they brand cattle. What is the meaning of this?”

“I don’t profess to know the meaning of it,” said Cecil Barker; “but I

have seen the mark on Douglas many times this last ten years.”

“And so have I,” said the butler. “Many a time when the master has

rolled up his sleeves I have noticed that very mark. I’ve often

wondered what it could be.”

“Then it has nothing to do with the crime, anyhow,” said the sergeant.

“But it’s a rum thing all the same. Everything about this case is rum.

Well, what is it now?”

The butler had given an exclamation of astonishment and was pointing at

the dead man’s outstretched hand.

“They’ve taken his wedding ring!” he gasped.

“What!”

“Yes, indeed. Master always wore his plain gold wedding ring on the

little finger of his left hand. That ring with the rough nugget on it

was above it, and the twisted snake ring on the third finger. There’s

the nugget and there’s the snake, but the wedding ring is gone.”

“He’s right,” said Barker.

“Do you tell me,” said the sergeant, “that the wedding ring was _below_

the other?”

“Always!”

“Then the murderer, or whoever it was, first took off this ring you

call the nugget ring, then the wedding ring, and afterwards put the

nugget ring back again.”

“That is so!”

The worthy country policeman shook his head. “Seems to me the sooner we

get London on to this case the better,” said he. “White Mason is a

smart man. No local job has ever been too much for White Mason. It

won’t be long now before he is here to help us. But I expect we’ll have

to look to London before we are through. Anyhow, I’m not ashamed to say

that it is a deal too thick for the likes of me.”

Chapter IV

Darkness

At three in the morning the chief Sussex detective, obeying the urgent

call from Sergeant Wilson of Birlstone, arrived from headquarters in a

light dog-cart behind a breathless trotter. By the five-forty train in

the morning he had sent his message to Scotland Yard, and he was at the

Birlstone station at twelve o’clock to welcome us. White Mason was a

quiet, comfortable-looking person in a loose tweed suit, with a

clean-shaved, ruddy face, a stoutish body, and powerful bandy legs

adorned with gaiters, looking like a small farmer, a retired

gamekeeper, or anything upon earth except a very favourable specimen of

the provincial criminal officer.

“A real downright snorter, Mr. MacDonald!” he kept repeating. “We’ll

have the pressmen down like flies when they understand it. I’m hoping

we will get our work done before they get poking their noses into it

and messing up all the trails. There has been nothing like this that I

can remember. There are some bits that will come home to you, Mr.

Holmes, or I am mistaken. And you also, Dr. Watson; for the medicos

will have a word to say before we finish. Your room is at the Westville

Arms. There’s no other place; but I hear that it is clean and good. The

man will carry your bags. This way, gentlemen, if you please.”

He was a very bustling and genial person, this Sussex detective. In ten

minutes we had all found our quarters. In ten more we were seated in

the parlour of the inn and being treated to a rapid sketch of those

events which have been outlined in the previous chapter. MacDonald made

an occasional note; while Holmes sat absorbed, with the expression of

surprised and reverent admiration with which the botanist surveys the

rare and precious bloom.

“Remarkable!” he said, when the story was unfolded, “most remarkable! I

can hardly recall any case where the features have been more peculiar.”

“I thought you would say so, Mr. Holmes,” said White Mason in great

delight. “We’re well up with the times in Sussex. I’ve told you now how

matters were, up to the time when I took over from Sergeant Wilson

between three and four this morning. My word! I made the old mare go!

But I need not have been in such a hurry, as it turned out; for there

was nothing immediate that I could do. Sergeant Wilson had all the

facts. I checked them and considered them and maybe added a few of my

own.”

“What were they?” asked Holmes eagerly.

“Well, I first had the hammer examined. There was Dr. Wood there to

help me. We found no signs of violence upon it. I was hoping that if

Mr. Douglas defended himself with the hammer, he might have left his

mark upon the murderer before he dropped it on the mat. But there was

no stain.”

“That, of course, proves nothing at all,” remarked Inspector MacDonald.

“There has been many a hammer murder and no trace on the hammer.”

“Quite so. It doesn’t prove it wasn’t used. But there might have been

stains, and that would have helped us. As a matter of fact there were

none. Then I examined the gun. They were buckshot cartridges, and, as

Sergeant Wilson pointed out, the triggers were wired together so that,

if you pulled on the hinder one, both barrels were discharged. Whoever

fixed that up had made up his mind that he was going to take no chances

of missing his man. The sawed gun was not more than two foot long—one

could carry it easily under one’s coat. There was no complete maker’s

name; but the printed letters P-E-N were on the fluting between the

barrels, and the rest of the name had been cut off by the saw.”

“A big P with a flourish above it, E and N smaller?” asked Holmes.

“Exactly.”

“Pennsylvania Small Arms Company—well-known American firm,” said

Holmes.

White Mason gazed at my friend as the little village practitioner looks

at the Harley Street specialist who by a word can solve the

difficulties that perplex him.

“That is very helpful, Mr. Holmes. No doubt you are right. Wonderful!

Wonderful! Do you carry the names of all the gun makers in the world in

your memory?”

Holmes dismissed the subject with a wave.

“No doubt it is an American shotgun,” White Mason continued. “I seem to

have read that a sawed-off shotgun is a weapon used in some parts of

America. Apart from the name upon the barrel, the idea had occurred to

me. There is some evidence then, that this man who entered the house

and killed its master was an American.”

MacDonald shook his head. “Man, you are surely travelling overfast,”

said he. “I have heard no evidence yet that any stranger was ever in

the house at all.”

“The open window, the blood on the sill, the queer card, the marks of

boots in the corner, the gun!”

“Nothing there that could not have been arranged. Mr. Douglas was an

American, or had lived long in America. So had Mr. Barker. You don’t

need to import an American from outside in order to account for

American doings.”

“Ames, the butler—”

“What about him? Is he reliable?”

“Ten years with Sir Charles Chandos—as solid as a rock. He has been

with Douglas ever since he took the Manor House five years ago. He has

never seen a gun of this sort in the house.”

“The gun was made to conceal. That’s why the barrels were sawed. It

would fit into any box. How could he swear there was no such gun in the

house?”

“Well, anyhow, he had never seen one.”

MacDonald shook his obstinate Scotch head. “I’m not convinced yet that

there was ever anyone in the house,” said he. “I’m asking you to

conseedar” (his accent became more Aberdonian as he lost himself in his

argument) “I’m asking you to conseedar what it involves if you suppose

that this gun was ever brought into the house, and that all these

strange things were done by a person from outside. Oh, man, it’s just

inconceivable! It’s clean against common sense! I put it to you, Mr.

Holmes, judging it by what we have heard.”

“Well, state your case, Mr. Mac,” said Holmes in his most judicial

style.

“The man is not a burglar, supposing that he ever existed. The ring

business and the card point to premeditated murder for some private

reason. Very good. Here is a man who slips into a house with the

deliberate intention of committing murder. He knows, if he knows

anything, that he will have a deeficulty in making his escape, as the

house is surrounded with water. What weapon would he choose? You would

say the most silent in the world. Then he could hope when the deed was

done to slip quickly from the window, to wade the moat, and to get away

at his leisure. That’s understandable. But is it understandable that he

should go out of his way to bring with him the most noisy weapon he

could select, knowing well that it will fetch every human being in the

house to the spot as quick as they can run, and that it is all odds

that he will be seen before he can get across the moat? Is that

credible, Mr. Holmes?”

“Well, you put the case strongly,” my friend replied thoughtfully. “It

certainly needs a good deal of justification. May I ask, Mr. White

Mason, whether you examined the farther side of the moat at once to see

if there were any signs of the man having climbed out from the water?”

“There were no signs, Mr. Holmes. But it is a stone ledge, and one

could hardly expect them.”

“No tracks or marks?”

“None.”

“Ha! Would there be any objection, Mr. White Mason, to our going down

to the house at once? There may possibly be some small point which

might be suggestive.”

“I was going to propose it, Mr. Holmes; but I thought it well to put

you in touch with all the facts before we go. I suppose if anything

should strike you—” White Mason looked doubtfully at the amateur.

“I have worked with Mr. Holmes before,” said Inspector MacDonald. “He

plays the game.”

“My own idea of the game, at any rate,” said Holmes, with a smile. “I

go into a case to help the ends of justice and the work of the police.

If I have ever separated myself from the official force, it is because

they have first separated themselves from me. I have no wish ever to

score at their expense. At the same time, Mr. White Mason, I claim the

right to work in my own way and give my results at my own time—complete

rather than in stages.”

“I am sure we are honoured by your presence and to show you all we

know,” said White Mason cordially. “Come along, Dr. Watson, and when

the time comes we’ll all hope for a place in your book.”

We walked down the quaint village street with a row of pollarded elms

on each side of it. Just beyond were two ancient stone pillars,

weather-stained and lichen-blotched, bearing upon their summits a

shapeless something which had once been the rampant lion of Capus of

Birlstone. A short walk along the winding drive with such sward and

oaks around it as one only sees in rural England, then a sudden turn,

and the long, low Jacobean house of dingy, liver-coloured brick lay

before us, with an old-fashioned garden of cut yews on each side of it.

As we approached it, there was the wooden drawbridge and the beautiful

broad moat as still and luminous as quicksilver in the cold, winter

sunshine.

Three centuries had flowed past the old Manor House, centuries of

births and of homecomings, of country dances and of the meetings of fox

hunters. Strange that now in its old age this dark business should have

cast its shadow upon the venerable walls! And yet those strange, peaked

roofs and quaint, overhung gables were a fitting covering to grim and

terrible intrigue. As I looked at the deep-set windows and the long

sweep of the dull-coloured, water-lapped front, I felt that no more

fitting scene could be set for such a tragedy.

“That’s the window,” said White Mason, “that one on the immediate right

of the drawbridge. It’s open just as it was found last night.”

“It looks rather narrow for a man to pass.”

“Well, it wasn’t a fat man, anyhow. We don’t need your deductions, Mr.

Holmes, to tell us that. But you or I could squeeze through all right.”

Holmes walked to the edge of the moat and looked across. Then he

examined the stone ledge and the grass border beyond it.

“I’ve had a good look, Mr. Holmes,” said White Mason. “There is nothing

there, no sign that anyone has landed—but why should he leave any

sign?”

“Exactly. Why should he? Is the water always turbid?”

“Generally about this colour. The stream brings down the clay.”

“How deep is it?”

“About two feet at each side and three in the middle.”

“So we can put aside all idea of the man having been drowned in

crossing.”

“No, a child could not be drowned in it.”

We walked across the drawbridge, and were admitted by a quaint,

gnarled, dried-up person, who was the butler, Ames. The poor old fellow

was white and quivering from the shock. The village sergeant, a tall,

formal, melancholy man, still held his vigil in the room of Fate. The

doctor had departed.

“Anything fresh, Sergeant Wilson?” asked White Mason.

“No, sir.”

“Then you can go home. You’ve had enough. We can send for you if we

want you. The butler had better wait outside. Tell him to warn Mr.

Cecil Barker, Mrs. Douglas, and the housekeeper that we may want a word

with them presently. Now, gentlemen, perhaps you will allow me to give

you the views I have formed first, and then you will be able to arrive

at your own.”

He impressed me, this country specialist. He had a solid grip of fact

and a cool, clear, common-sense brain, which should take him some way

in his profession. Holmes listened to him intently, with no sign of

that impatience which the official exponent too often produced.

“Is it suicide, or is it murder—that’s our first question, gentlemen,

is it not? If it were suicide, then we have to believe that this man

began by taking off his wedding ring and concealing it; that he then

came down here in his dressing gown, trampled mud into a corner behind

the curtain in order to give the idea someone had waited for him,

opened the window, put blood on the—”

“We can surely dismiss that,” said MacDonald.

“So I think. Suicide is out of the question. Then a murder has been

done. What we have to determine is, whether it was done by someone

outside or inside the house.”

“Well, let’s hear the argument.”

“There are considerable difficulties both ways, and yet one or the

other it must be. We will suppose first that some person or persons

inside the house did the crime. They got this man down here at a time

when everything was still and yet no one was asleep. They then did the

deed with the queerest and noisiest weapon in the world so as to tell

everyone what had happened—a weapon that was never seen in the house

before. That does not seem a very likely start, does it?”

“No, it does not.”

“Well, then, everyone is agreed that after the alarm was given only a

minute at the most had passed before the whole household—not Mr. Cecil

Barker alone, though he claims to have been the first, but Ames and all

of them were on the spot. Do you tell me that in that time the guilty

person managed to make footmarks in the corner, open the window, mark

the sill with blood, take the wedding ring off the dead man’s finger,

and all the rest of it? It’s impossible!”

“You put it very clearly,” said Holmes. “I am inclined to agree with

you.”

“Well, then, we are driven back to the theory that it was done by

someone from outside. We are still faced with some big difficulties;

but anyhow they have ceased to be impossibilities. The man got into the

house between four-thirty and six; that is to say, between dusk and the

time when the bridge was raised. There had been some visitors, and the

door was open; so there was nothing to prevent him. He may have been a

common burglar, or he may have had some private grudge against Mr.

Douglas. Since Mr. Douglas has spent most of his life in America, and

this shotgun seems to be an American weapon, it would seem that the

private grudge is the more likely theory. He slipped into this room

because it was the first he came to, and he hid behind the curtain.

There he remained until past eleven at night. At that time Mr. Douglas

entered the room. It was a short interview, if there were any interview

at all; for Mrs. Douglas declares that her husband had not left her

more than a few minutes when she heard the shot.”

“The candle shows that,” said Holmes.

“Exactly. The candle, which was a new one, is not burned more than half

an inch. He must have placed it on the table before he was attacked;

otherwise, of course, it would have fallen when he fell. This shows

that he was not attacked the instant that he entered the room. When Mr.

Barker arrived the candle was lit and the lamp was out.”

“That’s all clear enough.”

“Well, now, we can reconstruct things on those lines. Mr. Douglas

enters the room. He puts down the candle. A man appears from behind the

curtain. He is armed with this gun. He demands the wedding ring—Heaven

only knows why, but so it must have been. Mr. Douglas gave it up. Then

either in cold blood or in the course of a struggle—Douglas may have

gripped the hammer that was found upon the mat—he shot Douglas in this

horrible way. He dropped his gun and also it would seem this queer

card—V.V. 341, whatever that may mean—and he made his escape through

the window and across the moat at the very moment when Cecil Barker was

discovering the crime. How’s that, Mr. Holmes?”

“Very interesting, but just a little unconvincing.”

“Man, it would be absolute nonsense if it wasn’t that anything else is

even worse!” cried MacDonald. “Somebody killed the man, and whoever it

was I could clearly prove to you that he should have done it some other

way. What does he mean by allowing his retreat to be cut off like that?

What does he mean by using a shotgun when silence was his one chance of

escape? Come, Mr. Holmes, it’s up to you to give us a lead, since you

say Mr. White Mason’s theory is unconvincing.”

Holmes had sat intently observant during this long discussion, missing

no word that was said, with his keen eyes darting to right and to left,

and his forehead wrinkled with speculation.

“I should like a few more facts before I get so far as a theory, Mr.

Mac,” said he, kneeling down beside the body. “Dear me! these injuries

are really appalling. Can we have the butler in for a moment?... Ames,

I understand that you have often seen this very unusual mark—a branded

triangle inside a circle—upon Mr. Douglas’s forearm?”

“Frequently, sir.”

“You never heard any speculation as to what it meant?”

“No, sir.”

“It must have caused great pain when it was inflicted. It is

undoubtedly a burn. Now, I observe, Ames, that there is a small piece

of plaster at the angle of Mr. Douglas’s jaw. Did you observe that in

life?”

“Yes, sir, he cut himself in shaving yesterday morning.”

“Did you ever know him to cut himself in shaving before?”

“Not for a very long time, sir.”

“Suggestive!” said Holmes. “It may, of course, be a mere coincidence,

or it may point to some nervousness which would indicate that he had

reason to apprehend danger. Had you noticed anything unusual in his

conduct, yesterday, Ames?”

“It struck me that he was a little restless and excited, sir.”

“Ha! The attack may not have been entirely unexpected. We do seem to

make a little progress, do we not? Perhaps you would rather do the

questioning, Mr. Mac?”

“No, Mr. Holmes, it’s in better hands than mine.”

“Well, then, we will pass to this card—V.V. 341. It is rough cardboard.

Have you any of the sort in the house?”

“I don’t think so.”

Holmes walked across to the desk and dabbed a little ink from each

bottle on to the blotting paper. “It was not printed in this room,” he

said; “this is black ink and the other purplish. It was done by a thick

pen, and these are fine. No, it was done elsewhere, I should say. Can

you make anything of the inscription, Ames?”

“No, sir, nothing.”

“What do you think, Mr. Mac?”

“It gives me the impression of a secret society of some sort; the same

with his badge upon the forearm.”

“That’s my idea, too,” said White Mason.

“Well, we can adopt it as a working hypothesis and then see how far our

difficulties disappear. An agent from such a society makes his way into

the house, waits for Mr. Douglas, blows his head nearly off with this

weapon, and escapes by wading the moat, after leaving a card beside the

dead man, which will, when mentioned in the papers, tell other members

of the society that vengeance has been done. That all hangs together.

But why this gun, of all weapons?”

“Exactly.”

“And why the missing ring?”

“Quite so.”

“And why no arrest? It’s past two now. I take it for granted that since

dawn every constable within forty miles has been looking out for a wet

stranger?”

“That is so, Mr. Holmes.”

“Well, unless he has a burrow close by or a change of clothes ready,

they can hardly miss him. And yet they _have_ missed him up to now!”

Holmes had gone to the window and was examining with his lens the blood

mark on the sill. “It is clearly the tread of a shoe. It is remarkably

broad; a splay-foot, one would say. Curious, because, so far as one can

trace any footmark in this mud-stained corner, one would say it was a

more shapely sole. However, they are certainly very indistinct. What’s

this under the side table?”

“Mr. Douglas’s dumb-bells,” said Ames.

“Dumb-bell—there’s only one. Where’s the other?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Holmes. There may have been only one. I have not

noticed them for months.”

“One dumb-bell—” Holmes said seriously; but his remarks were

interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.

A tall, sunburned, capable-looking, clean-shaved man looked in at us. I

had no difficulty in guessing that it was the Cecil Barker of whom I

had heard. His masterful eyes travelled quickly with a questioning

glance from face to face.

“Sorry to interrupt your consultation,” said he, “but you should hear

the latest news.”

“An arrest?”

“No such luck. But they’ve found his bicycle. The fellow left his

bicycle behind him. Come and have a look. It is within a hundred yards

of the hall door.”

We found three or four grooms and idlers standing in the drive

inspecting a bicycle which had been drawn out from a clump of

evergreens in which it had been concealed. It was a well used

Rudge-Whitworth, splashed as from a considerable journey. There was a

saddlebag with spanner and oilcan, but no clue as to the owner.

“It would be a grand help to the police,” said the inspector, “if these

things were numbered and registered. But we must be thankful for what

we’ve got. If we can’t find where he went to, at least we are likely to

get where he came from. But what in the name of all that is wonderful

made the fellow leave it behind? And how in the world has he got away

without it? We don’t seem to get a gleam of light in the case, Mr.

Holmes.”

“Don’t we?” my friend answered thoughtfully. “I wonder!”

Chapter V

The People of the Drama

“Have you seen all you want of the study?” asked White Mason as we

reentered the house.

“For the time,” said the inspector, and Holmes nodded.

“Then perhaps you would now like to hear the evidence of some of the

people in the house. We could use the dining room, Ames. Please come

yourself first and tell us what you know.”

The butler’s account was a simple and a clear one, and he gave a

convincing impression of sincerity. He had been engaged five years

before, when Douglas first came to Birlstone. He understood that Mr.

Douglas was a rich gentleman who had made his money in America. He had

been a kind and considerate employer—not quite what Ames was used to,

perhaps; but one can’t have everything. He never saw any signs of

apprehension in Mr. Douglas: on the contrary, he was the most fearless

man he had ever known. He ordered the drawbridge to be pulled up every

night because it was the ancient custom of the old house, and he liked

to keep the old ways up.

Mr. Douglas seldom went to London or left the village; but on the day

before the crime he had been shopping at Tunbridge Wells. He (Ames) had

observed some restlessness and excitement on the part of Mr. Douglas

that day; for he had seemed impatient and irritable, which was unusual

with him. He had not gone to bed that night; but was in the pantry at

the back of the house, putting away the silver, when he heard the bell

ring violently. He heard no shot; but it was hardly possible he would,

as the pantry and kitchens were at the very back of the house and there

were several closed doors and a long passage between. The housekeeper

had come out of her room, attracted by the violent ringing of the bell.

They had gone to the front of the house together.

As they reached the bottom of the stairs he had seen Mrs. Douglas

coming down it. No, she was not hurrying; it did not seem to him that

she was particularly agitated. Just as she reached the bottom of the

stair Mr. Barker had rushed out of the study. He had stopped Mrs.

Douglas and begged her to go back.

“For God’s sake, go back to your room!” he cried. “Poor Jack is dead!

You can do nothing. For God’s sake, go back!”

After some persuasion upon the stairs Mrs. Douglas had gone back. She

did not scream. She made no outcry whatever. Mrs. Allen, the

housekeeper, had taken her upstairs and stayed with her in the bedroom.

Ames and Mr. Barker had then returned to the study, where they had

found everything exactly as the police had seen it. The candle was not

lit at that time; but the lamp was burning. They had looked out of the

window; but the night was very dark and nothing could be seen or heard.

They had then rushed out into the hall, where Ames had turned the

windlass which lowered the drawbridge. Mr. Barker had then hurried off

to get the police.

Such, in its essentials, was the evidence of the butler.

The account of Mrs. Allen, the housekeeper, was, so far as it went, a

corroboration of that of her fellow servant. The housekeeper’s room was

rather nearer to the front of the house than the pantry in which Ames

had been working. She was preparing to go to bed when the loud ringing

of the bell had attracted her attention. She was a little hard of

hearing. Perhaps that was why she had not heard the shot; but in any

case the study was a long way off. She remembered hearing some sound

which she imagined to be the slamming of a door. That was a good deal

earlier—half an hour at least before the ringing of the bell. When Mr.

Ames ran to the front she went with him. She saw Mr. Barker, very pale

and excited, come out of the study. He intercepted Mrs. Douglas, who

was coming down the stairs. He entreated her to go back, and she

answered him, but what she said could not be heard.

“Take her up! Stay with her!” he had said to Mrs. Allen.

She had therefore taken her to the bedroom, and endeavoured to soothe

her. She was greatly excited, trembling all over, but made no other

attempt to go downstairs. She just sat in her dressing gown by her

bedroom fire, with her head sunk in her hands. Mrs. Allen stayed with

her most of the night. As to the other servants, they had all gone to

bed, and the alarm did not reach them until just before the police

arrived. They slept at the extreme back of the house, and could not

possibly have heard anything.

So far the housekeeper could add nothing on cross-examination save

lamentations and expressions of amazement.

Cecil Barker succeeded Mrs. Allen as a witness. As to the occurrences

of the night before, he had very little to add to what he had already

told the police. Personally, he was convinced that the murderer had

escaped by the window. The bloodstain was conclusive, in his opinion,

on that point. Besides, as the bridge was up, there was no other

possible way of escaping. He could not explain what had become of the

assassin or why he had not taken his bicycle, if it were indeed his. He

could not possibly have been drowned in the moat, which was at no place

more than three feet deep.

In his own mind he had a very definite theory about the murder. Douglas

was a reticent man, and there were some chapters in his life of which

he never spoke. He had emigrated to America when he was a very young

man. He had prospered well, and Barker had first met him in California,

where they had become partners in a successful mining claim at a place

called Benito Canyon. They had done very well; but Douglas had suddenly

sold out and started for England. He was a widower at that time. Barker

had afterwards realized his money and come to live in London. Thus they

had renewed their friendship.

Douglas had given him the impression that some danger was hanging over

his head, and he had always looked upon his sudden departure from

California, and also his renting a house in so quiet a place in

England, as being connected with this peril. He imagined that some

secret society, some implacable organization, was on Douglas’s track,

which would never rest until it killed him. Some remarks of his had

given him this idea; though he had never told him what the society was,

nor how he had come to offend it. He could only suppose that the legend

upon the placard had some reference to this secret society.

“How long were you with Douglas in California?” asked Inspector

MacDonald.

“Five years altogether.”

“He was a bachelor, you say?”

“A widower.”

“Have you ever heard where his first wife came from?”

“No, I remember his saying that she was of German extraction, and I

have seen her portrait. She was a very beautiful woman. She died of

typhoid the year before I met him.”

“You don’t associate his past with any particular part of America?”

“I have heard him talk of Chicago. He knew that city well and had

worked there. I have heard him talk of the coal and iron districts. He

had travelled a good deal in his time.”

“Was he a politician? Had this secret society to do with politics?”

“No, he cared nothing about politics.”

“You have no reason to think it was criminal?”

“On the contrary, I never met a straighter man in my life.”

“Was there anything curious about his life in California?”

“He liked best to stay and to work at our claim in the mountains. He

would never go where other men were if he could help it. That’s why I

first thought that someone was after him. Then when he left so suddenly

for Europe I made sure that it was so. I believe that he had a warning

of some sort. Within a week of his leaving half a dozen men were

inquiring for him.”

“What sort of men?”

“Well, they were a mighty hard-looking crowd. They came up to the claim

and wanted to know where he was. I told them that he was gone to Europe

and that I did not know where to find him. They meant him no good—it

was easy to see that.”

“Were these men Americans—Californians?”

“Well, I don’t know about Californians. They were Americans, all right.

But they were not miners. I don’t know what they were, and was very

glad to see their backs.”

“That was six years ago?”

“Nearer seven.”

“And then you were together five years in California, so that this

business dates back not less than eleven years at the least?”

“That is so.”

“It must be a very serious feud that would be kept up with such

earnestness for as long as that. It would be no light thing that would

give rise to it.”

“I think it shadowed his whole life. It was never quite out of his

mind.”

“But if a man had a danger hanging over him, and knew what it was,

don’t you think he would turn to the police for protection?”

“Maybe it was some danger that he could not be protected against.

There’s one thing you should know. He always went about armed. His

revolver was never out of his pocket. But, by bad luck, he was in his

dressing gown and had left it in the bedroom last night. Once the

bridge was up, I guess he thought he was safe.”

“I should like these dates a little clearer,” said MacDonald. “It is

quite six years since Douglas left California. You followed him next

year, did you not?”

“That is so.”

“And he had been married five years. You must have returned about the

time of his marriage.”

“About a month before. I was his best man.”

“Did you know Mrs. Douglas before her marriage?”

“No, I did not. I had been away from England for ten years.”

“But you have seen a good deal of her since.”

Barker looked sternly at the detective. “I have seen a good deal of

_him_ since,” he answered. “If I have seen her, it is because you

cannot visit a man without knowing his wife. If you imagine there is

any connection—”

“I imagine nothing, Mr. Barker. I am bound to make every inquiry which

can bear upon the case. But I mean no offense.”

“Some inquiries are offensive,” Barker answered angrily.

“It’s only the facts that we want. It is in your interest and

everyone’s interest that they should be cleared up. Did Mr. Douglas

entirely approve your friendship with his wife?”

Barker grew paler, and his great, strong hands were clasped

convulsively together. “You have no right to ask such questions!” he

cried. “What has this to do with the matter you are investigating?”

“I must repeat the question.”

“Well, I refuse to answer.”

“You can refuse to answer; but you must be aware that your refusal is

in itself an answer, for you would not refuse if you had not something

to conceal.”

Barker stood for a moment with his face set grimly and his strong black

eyebrows drawn low in intense thought. Then he looked up with a smile.

“Well, I guess you gentlemen are only doing your clear duty after all,

and I have no right to stand in the way of it. I’d only ask you not to

worry Mrs. Douglas over this matter; for she has enough upon her just

now. I may tell you that poor Douglas had just one fault in the world,

and that was his jealousy. He was fond of me—no man could be fonder of

a friend. And he was devoted to his wife. He loved me to come here, and

was forever sending for me. And yet if his wife and I talked together

or there seemed any sympathy between us, a kind of wave of jealousy

would pass over him, and he would be off the handle and saying the

wildest things in a moment. More than once I’ve sworn off coming for

that reason, and then he would write me such penitent, imploring

letters that I just had to. But you can take it from me, gentlemen, if

it was my last word, that no man ever had a more loving, faithful

wife—and I can say also no friend could be more loyal than I!”

It was spoken with fervour and feeling, and yet Inspector MacDonald

could not dismiss the subject.

“You are aware,” said he, “that the dead man’s wedding ring has been

taken from his finger?”

“So it appears,” said Barker.

“What do you mean by ‘appears’? You know it as a fact.”

The man seemed confused and undecided. “When I said ‘appears’ I meant

that it was conceivable that he had himself taken off the ring.”

“The mere fact that the ring should be absent, whoever may have removed

it, would suggest to anyone’s mind, would it not, that the marriage and

the tragedy were connected?”

Barker shrugged his broad shoulders. “I can’t profess to say what it

means,” he answered. “But if you mean to hint that it could reflect in

any way upon this lady’s honour”—his eyes blazed for an instant, and

then with an evident effort he got a grip upon his own emotions—“well,

you are on the wrong track, that’s all.”

“I don’t know that I’ve anything else to ask you at present,” said

MacDonald, coldly.

“There was one small point,” remarked Sherlock Holmes. “When you

entered the room there was only a candle lighted on the table, was

there not?”

“Yes, that was so.”

“By its light you saw that some terrible incident had occurred?”

“Exactly.”

“You at once rang for help?”

“Yes.”

“And it arrived very speedily?”

“Within a minute or so.”

“And yet when they arrived they found that the candle was out and that

the lamp had been lighted. That seems very remarkable.”

Again Barker showed some signs of indecision. “I don’t see that it was

remarkable, Mr. Holmes,” he answered after a pause. “The candle threw a

very bad light. My first thought was to get a better one. The lamp was

on the table; so I lit it.”

“And blew out the candle?”

“Exactly.”

Holmes asked no further question, and Barker, with a deliberate look

from one to the other of us, which had, as it seemed to me, something

of defiance in it, turned and left the room.

Inspector MacDonald had sent up a note to the effect that he would wait

upon Mrs. Douglas in her room; but she had replied that she would meet

us in the dining room. She entered now, a tall and beautiful woman of

thirty, reserved and self-possessed to a remarkable degree, very

different from the tragic and distracted figure I had pictured. It is

true that her face was pale and drawn, like that of one who has endured

a great shock; but her manner was composed, and the finely moulded hand

which she rested upon the edge of the table was as steady as my own.

Her sad, appealing eyes travelled from one to the other of us with a

curiously inquisitive expression. That questioning gaze transformed

itself suddenly into abrupt speech.

“Have you found anything out yet?” she asked.

Was it my imagination that there was an undertone of fear rather than

of hope in the question?

“We have taken every possible step, Mrs. Douglas,” said the inspector.

“You may rest assured that nothing will be neglected.”

“Spare no money,” she said in a dead, even tone. “It is my desire that

every possible effort should be made.”

“Perhaps you can tell us something which may throw some light upon the

matter.”

“I fear not; but all I know is at your service.”

“We have heard from Mr. Cecil Barker that you did not actually see—that

you were never in the room where the tragedy occurred?”

“No, he turned me back upon the stairs. He begged me to return to my

room.”

“Quite so. You had heard the shot, and you had at once come down.”

“I put on my dressing gown and then came down.”

“How long was it after hearing the shot that you were stopped on the

stair by Mr. Barker?”

“It may have been a couple of minutes. It is so hard to reckon time at

such a moment. He implored me not to go on. He assured me that I could

do nothing. Then Mrs. Allen, the housekeeper, led me upstairs again. It

was all like some dreadful dream.”

“Can you give us any idea how long your husband had been downstairs

before you heard the shot?”

“No, I cannot say. He went from his dressing room, and I did not hear

him go. He did the round of the house every night, for he was nervous

of fire. It is the only thing that I have ever known him nervous of.”

“That is just the point which I want to come to, Mrs. Douglas. You have

known your husband only in England, have you not?”

“Yes, we have been married five years.”

“Have you heard him speak of anything which occurred in America and

might bring some danger upon him?”

Mrs. Douglas thought earnestly before she answered. “Yes,” she said at

last, “I have always felt that there was a danger hanging over him. He

refused to discuss it with me. It was not from want of confidence in

me—there was the most complete love and confidence between us—but it

was out of his desire to keep all alarm away from me. He thought I

should brood over it if I knew all, and so he was silent.”

“How did you know it, then?”

Mrs. Douglas’s face lit with a quick smile. “Can a husband ever carry

about a secret all his life and a woman who loves him have no suspicion

of it? I knew it by his refusal to talk about some episodes in his

American life. I knew it by certain precautions he took. I knew it by

certain words he let fall. I knew it by the way he looked at unexpected

strangers. I was perfectly certain that he had some powerful enemies,

that he believed they were on his track, and that he was always on his

guard against them. I was so sure of it that for years I have been

terrified if ever he came home later than was expected.”

“Might I ask,” asked Holmes, “what the words were which attracted your

attention?”

“The Valley of Fear,” the lady answered. “That was an expression he has

used when I questioned him. ‘I have been in the Valley of Fear. I am

not out of it yet.’—‘Are we never to get out of the Valley of Fear?’ I

have asked him when I have seen him more serious than usual. ‘Sometimes

I think that we never shall,’ he has answered.”

“Surely you asked him what he meant by the Valley of Fear?”

“I did; but his face would become very grave and he would shake his

head. ‘It is bad enough that one of us should have been in its shadow,’

he said. ‘Please God it shall never fall upon you!’ It was some real

valley in which he had lived and in which something terrible had

occurred to him, of that I am certain; but I can tell you no more.”

“And he never mentioned any names?”

“Yes, he was delirious with fever once when he had his hunting accident

three years ago. Then I remember that there was a name that came

continually to his lips. He spoke it with anger and a sort of horror.

McGinty was the name—Bodymaster McGinty. I asked him when he recovered

who Bodymaster McGinty was, and whose body he was master of. ‘Never of

mine, thank God!’ he answered with a laugh, and that was all I could

get from him. But there is a connection between Bodymaster McGinty and

the Valley of Fear.”

“There is one other point,” said Inspector MacDonald. “You met Mr.

Douglas in a boarding house in London, did you not, and became engaged

to him there? Was there any romance, anything secret or mysterious,

about the wedding?”

“There was romance. There is always romance. There was nothing

mysterious.”

“He had no rival?”

“No, I was quite free.”

“You have heard, no doubt, that his wedding ring has been taken. Does

that suggest anything to you? Suppose that some enemy of his old life

had tracked him down and committed this crime, what possible reason

could he have for taking his wedding ring?”

For an instant I could have sworn that the faintest shadow of a smile

flickered over the woman’s lips.

[Illustration: For an instant I could have sworn that the faintest

shadow of a smile flickered over the woman’s lips.]

“I really cannot tell,” she answered. “It is certainly a most

extraordinary thing.”

“Well, we will not detain you any longer, and we are sorry to have put

you to this trouble at such a time,” said the inspector. “There are

some other points, no doubt; but we can refer to you as they arise.”

She rose, and I was again conscious of that quick, questioning glance

with which she had just surveyed us. “What impression has my evidence

made upon you?” The question might as well have been spoken. Then, with

a bow, she swept from the room.

“She’s a beautiful woman—a very beautiful woman,” said MacDonald

thoughtfully, after the door had closed behind her. “This man Barker

has certainly been down here a good deal. He is a man who might be

attractive to a woman. He admits that the dead man was jealous, and

maybe he knew best himself what cause he had for jealousy. Then there’s

that wedding ring. You can’t get past that. The man who tears a wedding

ring off a dead man’s—What do you say to it, Mr. Holmes?”

My friend had sat with his head upon his hands, sunk in the deepest

thought. Now he rose and rang the bell. “Ames,” he said, when the

butler entered, “where is Mr. Cecil Barker now?”

“I’ll see, sir.”

He came back in a moment to say that Barker was in the garden.

“Can you remember, Ames, what Mr. Barker had on his feet last night

when you joined him in the study?”

“Yes, Mr. Holmes. He had a pair of bedroom slippers. I brought him his

boots when he went for the police.”

“Where are the slippers now?”

“They are still under the chair in the hall.”

“Very good, Ames. It is, of course, important for us to know which

tracks may be Mr. Barker’s and which from outside.”

“Yes, sir. I may say that I noticed that the slippers were stained with

blood—so indeed were my own.”

“That is natural enough, considering the condition of the room. Very

good, Ames. We will ring if we want you.”

A few minutes later we were in the study. Holmes had brought with him

the carpet slippers from the hall. As Ames had observed, the soles of

both were dark with blood.

“Strange!” murmured Holmes, as he stood in the light of the window and

examined them minutely. “Very strange indeed!”

Stooping with one of his quick feline pounces, he placed the slipper

upon the blood mark on the sill. It exactly corresponded. He smiled in

silence at his colleagues.

The inspector was transfigured with excitement. His native accent

rattled like a stick upon railings.

“Man,” he cried, “there’s not a doubt of it! Barker has just marked the

window himself. It’s a good deal broader than any bootmark. I mind that

you said it was a splay-foot, and here’s the explanation. But what’s

the game, Mr. Holmes—what’s the game?”

“Ay, what’s the game?” my friend repeated thoughtfully.

White Mason chuckled and rubbed his fat hands together in his

professional satisfaction. “I said it was a snorter!” he cried. “And a

real snorter it is!”

Chapter VI

A Dawning Light

The three detectives had many matters of detail into which to inquire;

so I returned alone to our modest quarters at the village inn. But

before doing so I took a stroll in the curious old-world garden which

flanked the house. Rows of very ancient yew trees cut into strange

designs girded it round. Inside was a beautiful stretch of lawn with an

old sundial in the middle, the whole effect so soothing and restful

that it was welcome to my somewhat jangled nerves.

In that deeply peaceful atmosphere one could forget, or remember only

as some fantastic nightmare, that darkened study with the sprawling,

bloodstained figure on the floor. And yet, as I strolled round it and

tried to steep my soul in its gentle balm, a strange incident occurred,

which brought me back to the tragedy and left a sinister impression in

my mind.

I have said that a decoration of yew trees circled the garden. At the

end farthest from the house they thickened into a continuous hedge. On

the other side of this hedge, concealed from the eyes of anyone

approaching from the direction of the house, there was a stone seat. As

I approached the spot I was aware of voices, some remark in the deep

tones of a man, answered by a little ripple of feminine laughter.

An instant later I had come round the end of the hedge and my eyes lit

upon Mrs. Douglas and the man Barker before they were aware of my

presence. Her appearance gave me a shock. In the dining-room she had

been demure and discreet. Now all pretense of grief had passed away

from her. Her eyes shone with the joy of living, and her face still

quivered with amusement at some remark of her companion. He sat

forward, his hands clasped and his forearms on his knees, with an

answering smile upon his bold, handsome face. In an instant—but it was

just one instant too late—they resumed their solemn masks as my figure

came into view. A hurried word or two passed between them, and then

Barker rose and came towards me.

“Excuse me, sir,” said he, “but am I addressing Dr. Watson?”

I bowed with a coldness which showed, I dare say, very plainly the

impression which had been produced upon my mind.

“We thought that it was probably you, as your friendship with Mr.

Sherlock Holmes is so well known. Would you mind coming over and

speaking to Mrs. Douglas for one instant?”

I followed him with a dour face. Very clearly I could see in my mind’s

eye that shattered figure on the floor. Here within a few hours of the

tragedy were his wife and his nearest friend laughing together behind a

bush in the garden which had been his. I greeted the lady with reserve.

I had grieved with her grief in the dining room. Now I met her

appealing gaze with an unresponsive eye.

“I fear that you think me callous and hard-hearted,” said she.

I shrugged my shoulders. “It is no business of mine,” said I.

“Perhaps some day you will do me justice. If you only realized—”

“There is no need why Dr. Watson should realize,” said Barker quickly.

“As he has himself said, it is no possible business of his.”

“Exactly,” said I, “and so I will beg leave to resume my walk.”

“One moment, Dr. Watson,” cried the woman in a pleading voice. “There

is one question which you can answer with more authority than anyone

else in the world, and it may make a very great difference to me. You

know Mr. Holmes and his relations with the police better than anyone

else can. Supposing that a matter were brought confidentially to his

knowledge, is it absolutely necessary that he should pass it on to the

detectives?”

“Yes, that’s it,” said Barker eagerly. “Is he on his own or is he

entirely in with them?”

“I really don’t know that I should be justified in discussing such a

point.”

“I beg—I implore that you will, Dr. Watson! I assure you that you will

be helping us—helping me greatly if you will guide us on that point.”

There was such a ring of sincerity in the woman’s voice that for the

instant I forgot all about her levity and was moved only to do her

will.

“Mr. Holmes is an independent investigator,” I said. “He is his own

master, and would act as his own judgment directed. At the same time,

he would naturally feel loyalty towards the officials who were working

on the same case, and he would not conceal from them anything which

would help them in bringing a criminal to justice. Beyond this I can

say nothing, and I would refer you to Mr. Holmes himself if you wanted

fuller information.”

So saying I raised my hat and went upon my way, leaving them still

seated behind that concealing hedge. I looked back as I rounded the far

end of it, and saw that they were still talking very earnestly

together, and, as they were gazing after me, it was clear that it was

our interview that was the subject of their debate.

“I wish none of their confidences,” said Holmes, when I reported to him

what had occurred. He had spent the whole afternoon at the Manor House

in consultation with his two colleagues, and returned about five with a

ravenous appetite for a high tea which I had ordered for him. “No

confidences, Watson; for they are mighty awkward if it comes to an

arrest for conspiracy and murder.”

“You think it will come to that?”

He was in his most cheerful and debonair humour. “My dear Watson, when

I have exterminated that fourth egg I shall be ready to put you in

touch with the whole situation. I don’t say that we have fathomed

it—far from it—but when we have traced the missing dumb-bell—”

“The dumb-bell!”

“Dear me, Watson, is it possible that you have not penetrated the fact

that the case hangs upon the missing dumb-bell? Well, well, you need

not be downcast; for between ourselves I don’t think that either

Inspector Mac or the excellent local practitioner has grasped the

overwhelming importance of this incident. One dumb-bell, Watson!

Consider an athlete with one dumb-bell! Picture to yourself the

unilateral development, the imminent danger of a spinal curvature.

Shocking, Watson, shocking!”

He sat with his mouth full of toast and his eyes sparkling with

mischief, watching my intellectual entanglement. The mere sight of his

excellent appetite was an assurance of success; for I had very clear

recollections of days and nights without a thought of food, when his

baffled mind had chafed before some problem while his thin, eager

features became more attenuated with the asceticism of complete mental

concentration. Finally he lit his pipe, and sitting in the inglenook of

the old village inn he talked slowly and at random about his case,

rather as one who thinks aloud than as one who makes a considered

statement.

“A lie, Watson—a great, big, thumping, obtrusive, uncompromising

lie—that’s what meets us on the threshold! There is our starting point.

The whole story told by Barker is a lie. But Barker’s story is

corroborated by Mrs. Douglas. Therefore she is lying also. They are

both lying, and in a conspiracy. So now we have the clear problem. Why

are they lying, and what is the truth which they are trying so hard to

conceal? Let us try, Watson, you and I, if we can get behind the lie

and reconstruct the truth.

“How do I know that they are lying? Because it is a clumsy fabrication

which simply could not be true. Consider! According to the story given

to us, the assassin had less than a minute after the murder had been

committed to take that ring, which was under another ring, from the

dead man’s finger, to replace the other ring—a thing which he would

surely never have done—and to put that singular card beside his victim.

I say that this was obviously impossible.

“You may argue—but I have too much respect for your judgment, Watson,

to think that you will do so—that the ring may have been taken before

the man was killed. The fact that the candle had been lit only a short

time shows that there had been no lengthy interview. Was Douglas, from

what we hear of his fearless character, a man who would be likely to

give up his wedding ring at such short notice, or could we conceive of

his giving it up at all? No, no, Watson, the assassin was alone with

the dead man for some time with the lamp lit. Of that I have no doubt

at all.

“But the gunshot was apparently the cause of death. Therefore the shot

must have been fired some time earlier than we are told. But there

could be no mistake about such a matter as that. We are in the

presence, therefore, of a deliberate conspiracy upon the part of the

two people who heard the gunshot—of the man Barker and of the woman

Douglas. When on the top of this I am able to show that the blood mark

on the windowsill was deliberately placed there by Barker, in order to

give a false clue to the police, you will admit that the case grows

dark against him.

“Now we have to ask ourselves at what hour the murder actually did

occur. Up to half-past ten the servants were moving about the house; so

it was certainly not before that time. At a quarter to eleven they had

all gone to their rooms with the exception of Ames, who was in the

pantry. I have been trying some experiments after you left us this

afternoon, and I find that no noise which MacDonald can make in the

study can penetrate to me in the pantry when the doors are all shut.

“It is otherwise, however, from the housekeeper’s room. It is not so

far down the corridor, and from it I could vaguely hear a voice when it

was very loudly raised. The sound from a shotgun is to some extent

muffled when the discharge is at very close range, as it undoubtedly

was in this instance. It would not be very loud, and yet in the silence

of the night it should have easily penetrated to Mrs. Allen’s room. She

is, as she has told us, somewhat deaf; but none the less she mentioned

in her evidence that she did hear something like a door slamming half

an hour before the alarm was given. Half an hour before the alarm was

given would be a quarter to eleven. I have no doubt that what she heard

was the report of the gun, and that this was the real instant of the

murder.

“If this is so, we have now to determine what Barker and Mrs. Douglas,

presuming that they are not the actual murderers, could have been doing

from quarter to eleven, when the sound of the shot brought them down,

until quarter past eleven, when they rang the bell and summoned the

servants. What were they doing, and why did they not instantly give the

alarm? That is the question which faces us, and when it has been

answered we shall surely have gone some way to solve our problem.”

“I am convinced myself,” said I, “that there is an understanding

between those two people. She must be a heartless creature to sit

laughing at some jest within a few hours of her husband’s murder.”

“Exactly. She does not shine as a wife even in her own account of what

occurred. I am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind, as you are

aware, Watson, but my experience of life has taught me that there are

few wives, having any regard for their husbands, who would let any

man’s spoken word stand between them and that husband’s dead body.

Should I ever marry, Watson, I should hope to inspire my wife with some

feeling which would prevent her from being walked off by a housekeeper

when my corpse was lying within a few yards of her. It was badly

stage-managed; for even the rawest investigators must be struck by the

absence of the usual feminine ululation. If there had been nothing

else, this incident alone would have suggested a prearranged conspiracy

to my mind.”

“You think then, definitely, that Barker and Mrs. Douglas are guilty of

the murder?”

“There is an appalling directness about your questions, Watson,” said

Holmes, shaking his pipe at me. “They come at me like bullets. If you

put it that Mrs. Douglas and Barker know the truth about the murder,

and are conspiring to conceal it, then I can give you a whole-souled

answer. I am sure they do. But your more deadly proposition is not so

clear. Let us for a moment consider the difficulties which stand in the

way.

“We will suppose that this couple are united by the bonds of a guilty

love, and that they have determined to get rid of the man who stands

between them. It is a large supposition; for discreet inquiry among

servants and others has failed to corroborate it in any way. On the

contrary, there is a good deal of evidence that the Douglases were very

attached to each other.”

“That, I am sure, cannot be true,” said I, thinking of the beautiful

smiling face in the garden.

“Well, at least they gave that impression. However, we will suppose

that they are an extraordinarily astute couple, who deceive everyone

upon this point, and conspire to murder the husband. He happens to be a

man over whose head some danger hangs—”

“We have only their word for that.”

Holmes looked thoughtful. “I see, Watson. You are sketching out a

theory by which everything they say from the beginning is false.

According to your idea, there was never any hidden menace, or secret

society, or Valley of Fear, or Boss MacSomebody, or anything else.

Well, that is a good sweeping generalization. Let us see what that

brings us to. They invent this theory to account for the crime. They

then play up to the idea by leaving this bicycle in the park as proof

of the existence of some outsider. The stain on the windowsill conveys

the same idea. So does the card on the body, which might have been

prepared in the house. That all fits into your hypothesis, Watson. But

now we come on the nasty, angular, uncompromising bits which won’t slip

into their places. Why a cut-off shotgun of all weapons—and an American

one at that? How could they be so sure that the sound of it would not

bring someone on to them? It’s a mere chance as it is that Mrs. Allen

did not start out to inquire for the slamming door. Why did your guilty

couple do all this, Watson?”

“I confess that I can’t explain it.”

“Then again, if a woman and her lover conspire to murder a husband, are

they going to advertise their guilt by ostentatiously removing his

wedding ring after his death? Does that strike you as very probable,

Watson?”

“No, it does not.”

“And once again, if the thought of leaving a bicycle concealed outside

had occurred to you, would it really have seemed worth doing when the

dullest detective would naturally say this is an obvious blind, as the

bicycle is the first thing which the fugitive needed in order to make

his escape.”

“I can conceive of no explanation.”

“And yet there should be no combination of events for which the wit of

man cannot conceive an explanation. Simply as a mental exercise,

without any assertion that it is true, let me indicate a possible line

of thought. It is, I admit, mere imagination; but how often is

imagination the mother of truth?

“We will suppose that there was a guilty secret, a really shameful

secret in the life of this man Douglas. This leads to his murder by

someone who is, we will suppose, an avenger, someone from outside. This

avenger, for some reason which I confess I am still at a loss to

explain, took the dead man’s wedding ring. The vendetta might

conceivably date back to the man’s first marriage, and the ring be

taken for some such reason.

“Before this avenger got away, Barker and the wife had reached the

room. The assassin convinced them that any attempt to arrest him would

lead to the publication of some hideous scandal. They were converted to

this idea, and preferred to let him go. For this purpose they probably

lowered the bridge, which can be done quite noiselessly, and then

raised it again. He made his escape, and for some reason thought that

he could do so more safely on foot than on the bicycle. He therefore

left his machine where it would not be discovered until he had got

safely away. So far we are within the bounds of possibility, are we

not?”

“Well, it is possible, no doubt,” said I, with some reserve.

“We have to remember, Watson, that whatever occurred is certainly

something very extraordinary. Well, now, to continue our supposititious

case, the couple—not necessarily a guilty couple—realize after the

murderer is gone that they have placed themselves in a position in

which it may be difficult for them to prove that they did not

themselves either do the deed or connive at it. They rapidly and rather

clumsily met the situation. The mark was put by Barker’s bloodstained

slipper upon the windowsill to suggest how the fugitive got away. They

obviously were the two who must have heard the sound of the gun; so

they gave the alarm exactly as they would have done, but a good half

hour after the event.”

“And how do you propose to prove all this?”

“Well, if there were an outsider, he may be traced and taken. That

would be the most effective of all proofs. But if not—well, the

resources of science are far from being exhausted. I think that an

evening alone in that study would help me much.”

“An evening alone!”

“I propose to go up there presently. I have arranged it with the

estimable Ames, who is by no means wholehearted about Barker. I shall

sit in that room and see if its atmosphere brings me inspiration. I’m a

believer in the genius loci. You smile, Friend Watson. Well, we shall

see. By the way, you have that big umbrella of yours, have you not?”

“It is here.”

“Well, I’ll borrow that if I may.”

“Certainly—but what a wretched weapon! If there is danger—”

“Nothing serious, my dear Watson, or I should certainly ask for your

assistance. But I’ll take the umbrella. At present I am only awaiting

the return of our colleagues from Tunbridge Wells, where they are at

present engaged in trying for a likely owner to the bicycle.”

It was nightfall before Inspector MacDonald and White Mason came back

from their expedition, and they arrived exultant, reporting a great

advance in our investigation.

“Man, I’ll admeet that I had my doubts if there was ever an outsider,”

said MacDonald, “but that’s all past now. We’ve had the bicycle

identified, and we have a description of our man; so that’s a long step

on our journey.”

“It sounds to me like the beginning of the end,” said Holmes. “I’m sure

I congratulate you both with all my heart.”

“Well, I started from the fact that Mr. Douglas had seemed disturbed

since the day before, when he had been at Tunbridge Wells. It was at

Tunbridge Wells then that he had become conscious of some danger. It

was clear, therefore, that if a man had come over with a bicycle it was

from Tunbridge Wells that he might be expected to have come. We took

the bicycle over with us and showed it at the hotels. It was identified

at once by the manager of the Eagle Commercial as belonging to a man

named Hargrave, who had taken a room there two days before. This

bicycle and a small valise were his whole belongings. He had registered

his name as coming from London, but had given no address. The valise

was London made, and the contents were British; but the man himself was

undoubtedly an American.”

“Well, well,” said Holmes gleefully, “you have indeed done some solid

work while I have been sitting spinning theories with my friend! It’s a

lesson in being practical, Mr. Mac.”

“Ay, it’s just that, Mr. Holmes,” said the inspector with satisfaction.

“But this may all fit in with your theories,” I remarked.

“That may or may not be. But let us hear the end, Mr. Mac. Was there

nothing to identify this man?”

“So little that it was evident that he had carefully guarded himself

against identification. There were no papers or letters, and no marking

upon the clothes. A cycle map of the county lay on his bedroom table.

He had left the hotel after breakfast yesterday morning on his bicycle,

and no more was heard of him until our inquiries.”

“That’s what puzzles me, Mr. Holmes,” said White Mason. “If the fellow

did not want the hue and cry raised over him, one would imagine that he

would have returned and remained at the hotel as an inoffensive

tourist. As it is, he must know that he will be reported to the police

by the hotel manager and that his disappearance will be connected with

the murder.”

“So one would imagine. Still, he has been justified of his wisdom up to

date, at any rate, since he has not been taken. But his

description—what of that?”

MacDonald referred to his notebook. “Here we have it so far as they

could give it. They don’t seem to have taken any very particular stock

of him; but still the porter, the clerk, and the chambermaid are all

agreed that this about covers the points. He was a man about five foot

nine in height, fifty or so years of age, his hair slightly grizzled, a

grayish moustache, a curved nose, and a face which all of them

described as fierce and forbidding.”

“Well, bar the expression, that might almost be a description of

Douglas himself,” said Holmes. “He is just over fifty, with grizzled

hair and moustache, and about the same height. Did you get anything

else?”

“He was dressed in a heavy gray suit with a reefer jacket, and he wore

a short yellow overcoat and a soft cap.”

“What about the shotgun?”

“It is less than two feet long. It could very well have fitted into his

valise. He could have carried it inside his overcoat without

difficulty.”

“And how do you consider that all this bears upon the general case?”

“Well, Mr. Holmes,” said MacDonald, “when we have got our man—and you

may be sure that I had his description on the wires within five minutes

of hearing it—we shall be better able to judge. But, even as it stands,

we have surely gone a long way. We know that an American calling

himself Hargrave came to Tunbridge Wells two days ago with bicycle and

valise. In the latter was a sawed-off shotgun; so he came with the

deliberate purpose of crime. Yesterday morning he set off for this

place on his bicycle, with his gun concealed in his overcoat. No one

saw him arrive, so far as we can learn; but he need not pass through

the village to reach the park gates, and there are many cyclists upon

the road. Presumably he at once concealed his cycle among the laurels

where it was found, and possibly lurked there himself, with his eye on

the house, waiting for Mr. Douglas to come out. The shotgun is a

strange weapon to use inside a house; but he had intended to use it

outside, and there it has very obvious advantages, as it would be

impossible to miss with it, and the sound of shots is so common in an

English sporting neighbourhood that no particular notice would be

taken.”

“That is all very clear,” said Holmes.

“Well, Mr. Douglas did not appear. What was he to do next? He left his

bicycle and approached the house in the twilight. He found the bridge

down and no one about. He took his chance, intending, no doubt, to make

some excuse if he met anyone. He met no one. He slipped into the first

room that he saw, and concealed himself behind the curtain. Thence he

could see the drawbridge go up, and he knew that his only escape was

through the moat. He waited until quarter-past eleven, when Mr. Douglas

upon his usual nightly round came into the room. He shot him and

escaped, as arranged. He was aware that the bicycle would be described

by the hotel people and be a clue against him; so he left it there and

made his way by some other means to London or to some safe hiding place

which he had already arranged. How is that, Mr. Holmes?”

“Well, Mr. Mac, it is very good and very clear so far as it goes. That

is your end of the story. My end is that the crime was committed half

an hour earlier than reported; that Mrs. Douglas and Barker are both in

a conspiracy to conceal something; that they aided the murderer’s

escape—or at least that they reached the room before he escaped—and

that they fabricated evidence of his escape through the window, whereas

in all probability they had themselves let him go by lowering the

bridge. That’s my reading of the first half.”

The two detectives shook their heads.

“Well, Mr. Holmes, if this is true, we only tumble out of one mystery

into another,” said the London inspector.

“And in some ways a worse one,” added White Mason. “The lady has never

been in America in all her life. What possible connection could she

have with an American assassin which would cause her to shelter him?”

“I freely admit the difficulties,” said Holmes. “I propose to make a

little investigation of my own to-night, and it is just possible that

it may contribute something to the common cause.”

“Can we help you, Mr. Holmes?”

“No, no! Darkness and Dr. Watson’s umbrella—my wants are simple. And

Ames, the faithful Ames, no doubt he will stretch a point for me. All

my lines of thought lead me back invariably to the one basic

question—why should an athletic man develop his frame upon so unnatural

an instrument as a single dumb-bell?”

It was late that night when Holmes returned from his solitary

excursion. We slept in a double-bedded room, which was the best that

the little country inn could do for us. I was already asleep when I was

partly awakened by his entrance.

“Well, Holmes,” I murmured, “have you found anything out?”

He stood beside me in silence, his candle in his hand. Then the tall,

lean figure inclined towards me. “I say, Watson,” he whispered, “would

you be afraid to sleep in the same room with a lunatic, a man with

softening of the brain, an idiot whose mind has lost its grip?”

[Illustration: “Watson, would you be afraid to sleep in the same room

with a lunatic.”]

“Not in the least,” I answered in astonishment.

“Ah, that’s lucky,” he said, and not another word would he utter that

night.

Chapter VII

The Solution

Next morning, after breakfast, we found Inspector MacDonald and White

Mason seated in close consultation in the small parlour of the local

police sergeant. On the table in front of them were piled a number of

letters and telegrams, which they were carefully sorting and docketing.

Three had been placed on one side.

“Still on the track of the elusive bicyclist?” Holmes asked cheerfully.

“What is the latest news of the ruffian?”

MacDonald pointed ruefully to his heap of correspondence.

“He is at present reported from Leicester, Nottingham, Southampton,

Derby, East Ham, Richmond, and fourteen other places. In three of

them—East Ham, Leicester, and Liverpool—there is a clear case against

him, and he has actually been arrested. The country seems to be full of

the fugitives with yellow coats.”

“Dear me!” said Holmes sympathetically. “Now, Mr. Mac and you, Mr.

White Mason, I wish to give you a very earnest piece of advice. When I

went into this case with you I bargained, as you will no doubt

remember, that I should not present you with half-proved theories, but

that I should retain and work out my own ideas until I had satisfied

myself that they were correct. For this reason I am not at the present

moment telling you all that is in my mind. On the other hand, I said

that I would play the game fairly by you, and I do not think it is a

fair game to allow you for one unnecessary moment to waste your

energies upon a profitless task. Therefore I am here to advise you this

morning, and my advice to you is summed up in three words—abandon the

case.”

MacDonald and White Mason stared in amazement at their celebrated

colleague.

“You consider it hopeless!” cried the inspector.

“I consider your case to be hopeless. I do not consider that it is

hopeless to arrive at the truth.”

“But this cyclist. He is not an invention. We have his description, his

valise, his bicycle. The fellow must be somewhere. Why should we not

get him?”

“Yes, yes, no doubt he is somewhere, and no doubt we shall get him; but

I would not have you waste your energies in East Ham or Liverpool. I am

sure that we can find some shorter cut to a result.”

“You are holding something back. It’s hardly fair of you, Mr. Holmes.”

The inspector was annoyed.

“You know my methods of work, Mr. Mac. But I will hold it back for the

shortest time possible. I only wish to verify my details in one way,

which can very readily be done, and then I make my bow and return to

London, leaving my results entirely at your service. I owe you too much

to act otherwise; for in all my experience I cannot recall any more

singular and interesting study.”

“This is clean beyond me, Mr. Holmes. We saw you when we returned from

Tunbridge Wells last night, and you were in general agreement with our

results. What has happened since then to give you a completely new idea

of the case?”

“Well, since you ask me, I spent, as I told you that I would, some

hours last night at the Manor House.”

“Well, what happened?”

“Ah, I can only give you a very general answer to that for the moment.

By the way, I have been reading a short but clear and interesting

account of the old building, purchasable at the modest sum of one penny

from the local tobacconist.”

Here Holmes drew a small tract, embellished with a rude engraving of

the ancient Manor House, from his waistcoat pocket.

“It immensely adds to the zest of an investigation, my dear Mr. Mac,

when one is in conscious sympathy with the historical atmosphere of

one’s surroundings. Don’t look so impatient; for I assure you that even

so bald an account as this raises some sort of picture of the past in

one’s mind. Permit me to give you a sample. ‘Erected in the fifth year

of the reign of James I, and standing upon the site of a much older

building, the Manor House of Birlstone presents one of the finest

surviving examples of the moated Jacobean residence—’”

“You are making fools of us, Mr. Holmes!”

“Tut, tut, Mr. Mac!—the first sign of temper I have detected in you.

Well, I won’t read it verbatim, since you feel so strongly upon the

subject. But when I tell you that there is some account of the taking

of the place by a parliamentary colonel in 1644, of the concealment of

Charles for several days in the course of the Civil War, and finally of

a visit there by the second George, you will admit that there are

various associations of interest connected with this ancient house.”

“I don’t doubt it, Mr. Holmes; but that is no business of ours.”

“Is it not? Is it not? Breadth of view, my dear Mr. Mac, is one of the

essentials of our profession. The interplay of ideas and the oblique

uses of knowledge are often of extraordinary interest. You will excuse

these remarks from one who, though a mere connoisseur of crime, is

still rather older and perhaps more experienced than yourself.”

“I’m the first to admit that,” said the detective heartily. “You get to

your point, I admit; but you have such a deuced round-the-corner way of

doing it.”

“Well, well, I’ll drop past history and get down to present-day facts.

I called last night, as I have already said, at the Manor House. I did

not see either Barker or Mrs. Douglas. I saw no necessity to disturb

them; but I was pleased to hear that the lady was not visibly pining

and that she had partaken of an excellent dinner. My visit was

specially made to the good Mr. Ames, with whom I exchanged some

amiabilities, which culminated in his allowing me, without reference to

anyone else, to sit alone for a time in the study.”

“What! With that?” I ejaculated.

“No, no, everything is now in order. You gave permission for that, Mr.

Mac, as I am informed. The room was in its normal state, and in it I

passed an instructive quarter of an hour.”

“What were you doing?”

“Well, not to make a mystery of so simple a matter, I was looking for

the missing dumb-bell. It has always bulked rather large in my estimate

of the case. I ended by finding it.”

“Where?”

“Ah, there we come to the edge of the unexplored. Let me go a little

further, a very little further, and I will promise that you shall share

everything that I know.”

“Well, we’re bound to take you on your own terms,” said the inspector;

“but when it comes to telling us to abandon the case—why in the name of

goodness should we abandon the case?”

“For the simple reason, my dear Mr. Mac, that you have not got the

first idea what it is that you are investigating.”

“We are investigating the murder of Mr. John Douglas of Birlstone

Manor.”

“Yes, yes, so you are. But don’t trouble to trace the mysterious

gentleman upon the bicycle. I assure you that it won’t help you.”

“Then what do you suggest that we do?”

“I will tell you exactly what to do, if you will do it.”

“Well, I’m bound to say I’ve always found you had reason behind all

your queer ways. I’ll do what you advise.”

“And you, Mr. White Mason?”

The country detective looked helplessly from one to the other. Holmes

and his methods were new to him. “Well, if it is good enough for the

inspector, it is good enough for me,” he said at last.

“Capital!” said Holmes. “Well, then, I should recommend a nice, cheery

country walk for both of you. They tell me that the views from

Birlstone Ridge over the Weald are very remarkable. No doubt lunch

could be got at some suitable hostelry; though my ignorance of the

country prevents me from recommending one. In the evening, tired but

happy—”

“Man, this is getting past a joke!” cried MacDonald, rising angrily

from his chair.

“Well, well, spend the day as you like,” said Holmes, patting him

cheerfully upon the shoulder. “Do what you like and go where you will,

but meet me here before dusk without fail—without fail, Mr. Mac.”

“That sounds more like sanity.”

“All of it was excellent advice; but I don’t insist, so long as you are

here when I need you. But now, before we part, I want you to write a

note to Mr. Barker.”

“Well?”

“I’ll dictate it, if you like. Ready?

“DEAR SIR.—It has struck me that it is our duty to drain the moat, in

the hope that we may find some—”

“It’s impossible,” said the inspector. “I’ve made inquiry.”

“Tut, tut! My dear sir, please do what I ask you.”

“Well, go on.”

“—in the hope that we may find something which may bear upon our

investigation. I have made arrangements, and the workmen will be at

work early to-morrow morning diverting the stream—”

“Impossible!”

“—diverting the stream; so I thought it best to explain matters

beforehand.

“Now sign that, and send it by hand about four o’clock. At that hour we

shall meet again in this room. Until then we may each do what we like;

for I can assure you that this inquiry has come to a definite pause.”

Evening was drawing in when we reassembled. Holmes was very serious in

his manner, myself curious, and the detectives obviously critical and

annoyed.

“Well, gentlemen,” said my friend gravely, “I am asking you now to put

everything to the test with me, and you will judge for yourselves

whether the observations I have made justify the conclusions to which I

have come. It is a chill evening, and I do not know how long our

expedition may last; so I beg that you will wear your warmest coats. It

is of the first importance that we should be in our places before it

grows dark; so with your permission we shall get started at once.”

We passed along the outer bounds of the Manor House park until we came

to a place where there was a gap in the rails which fenced it. Through

this we slipped, and then in the gathering gloom we followed Holmes

until we had reached a shrubbery which lies nearly opposite to the main

door and the drawbridge. The latter had not been raised. Holmes

crouched down behind the screen of laurels, and we all three followed

his example.

“Well, what are we to do now?” asked MacDonald with some gruffness.

“Possess our souls in patience and make as little noise as possible,”

Holmes answered.

“What are we here for at all? I really think that you might treat us

with more frankness.”

Holmes laughed. “Watson insists that I am the dramatist in real life,”

said he. “Some touch of the artist wells up within me, and calls

insistently for a well-staged performance. Surely our profession, Mr.

Mac, would be a drab and sordid one if we did not sometimes set the

scene so as to glorify our results. The blunt accusation, the brutal

tap upon the shoulder—what can one make of such a denouement? But the

quick inference, the subtle trap, the clever forecast of coming events,

the triumphant vindication of bold theories—are these not the pride and

the justification of our life’s work? At the present moment you thrill

with the glamour of the situation and the anticipation of the hunt.

Where would be that thrill if I had been as definite as a timetable? I

only ask a little patience, Mr. Mac, and all will be clear to you.”

“Well, I hope the pride and justification and the rest of it will come

before we all get our death of cold,” said the London detective with

comic resignation.

We all had good reason to join in the aspiration; for our vigil was a

long and bitter one. Slowly the shadows darkened over the long, sombre

face of the old house. A cold, damp reek from the moat chilled us to

the bones and set our teeth chattering. There was a single lamp over

the gateway and a steady globe of light in the fatal study. Everything

else was dark and still.

“How long is this to last?” asked the inspector finally. “And what is

it we are watching for?”

“I have no more notion than you how long it is to last,” Holmes

answered with some asperity. “If criminals would always schedule their

movements like railway trains, it would certainly be more convenient

for all of us. As to what it is we— Well, _that’s_ what we are watching

for!”

As he spoke the bright, yellow light in the study was obscured by

somebody passing to and fro before it. The laurels among which we lay

were immediately opposite the window and not more than a hundred feet

from it. Presently it was thrown open with a whining of hinges, and we

could dimly see the dark outline of a man’s head and shoulders looking

out into the gloom. For some minutes he peered forth in furtive,

stealthy fashion, as one who wishes to be assured that he is

unobserved. Then he leaned forward, and in the intense silence we were

aware of the soft lapping of agitated water. He seemed to be stirring

up the moat with something which he held in his hand. Then suddenly he

hauled something in as a fisherman lands a fish—some large, round

object which obscured the light as it was dragged through the open

casement.

“Now!” cried Holmes. “Now!”

We were all upon our feet, staggering after him with our stiffened

limbs, while he ran swiftly across the bridge and rang violently at the

bell. There was the rasping of bolts from the other side, and the

amazed Ames stood in the entrance. Holmes brushed him aside without a

word and, followed by all of us, rushed into the room which had been

occupied by the man whom we had been watching.

The oil lamp on the table represented the glow which we had seen from

outside. It was now in the hand of Cecil Barker, who held it towards us

as we entered. Its light shone upon his strong, resolute, clean-shaved

face and his menacing eyes.

“What the devil is the meaning of all this?” he cried. “What are you

after, anyhow?”

Holmes took a swift glance round, and then pounced upon a sodden bundle

tied together with cord which lay where it had been thrust under the

writing table.

“This is what we are after, Mr. Barker—this bundle, weighted with a

dumb-bell, which you have just raised from the bottom of the moat.”

Barker stared at Holmes with amazement in his face. “How in thunder

came you to know anything about it?” he asked.

“Simply that I put it there.”

“You put it there! You!”

“Perhaps I should have said ‘replaced it there,’” said Holmes. “You

will remember, Inspector MacDonald, that I was somewhat struck by the

absence of a dumb-bell. I drew your attention to it; but with the

pressure of other events you had hardly the time to give it the

consideration which would have enabled you to draw deductions from it.

When water is near and a weight is missing it is not a very far-fetched

supposition that something has been sunk in the water. The idea was at

least worth testing; so with the help of Ames, who admitted me to the

room, and the crook of Dr. Watson’s umbrella, I was able last night to

fish up and inspect this bundle.

“It was of the first importance, however, that we should be able to

prove who placed it there. This we accomplished by the very obvious

device of announcing that the moat would be dried to-morrow, which had,

of course, the effect that whoever had hidden the bundle would most

certainly withdraw it the moment that darkness enabled him to do so. We

have no less than four witnesses as to who it was who took advantage of

the opportunity, and so, Mr. Barker, I think the word lies now with

you.”

Sherlock Holmes put the sopping bundle upon the table beside the lamp

and undid the cord which bound it. From within he extracted a

dumb-bell, which he tossed down to its fellow in the corner. Next he

drew forth a pair of boots. “American, as you perceive,” he remarked,

pointing to the toes. Then he laid upon the table a long, deadly,

sheathed knife. Finally he unravelled a bundle of clothing, comprising

a complete set of underclothes, socks, a gray tweed suit, and a short

yellow overcoat.

“The clothes are commonplace,” remarked Holmes, “save only the

overcoat, which is full of suggestive touches.” He held it tenderly

towards the light. “Here, as you perceive, is the inner pocket

prolonged into the lining in such fashion as to give ample space for

the truncated fowling piece. The tailor’s tab is on the neck—‘Neal,

Outfitter, Vermissa, U.S.A.’ I have spent an instructive afternoon in

the rector’s library, and have enlarged my knowledge by adding the fact

that Vermissa is a flourishing little town at the head of one of the

best known coal and iron valleys in the United States. I have some

recollection, Mr. Barker, that you associated the coal districts with

Mr. Douglas’s first wife, and it would surely not be too far-fetched an

inference that the V.V. upon the card by the dead body might stand for

Vermissa Valley, or that this very valley which sends forth emissaries

of murder may be that Valley of Fear of which we have heard. So much is

fairly clear. And now, Mr. Barker, I seem to be standing rather in the

way of your explanation.”

It was a sight to see Cecil Barker’s expressive face during this

exposition of the great detective. Anger, amazement, consternation, and

indecision swept over it in turn. Finally he took refuge in a somewhat

acrid irony.

“You know such a lot, Mr. Holmes, perhaps you had better tell us some

more,” he sneered.

“I have no doubt that I could tell you a great deal more, Mr. Barker;

but it would come with a better grace from you.”

“Oh, you think so, do you? Well, all I can say is that if there’s any

secret here it is not my secret, and I am not the man to give it away.”

“Well, if you take that line, Mr. Barker,” said the inspector quietly,

“we must just keep you in sight until we have the warrant and can hold

you.”

“You can do what you damn please about that,” said Barker defiantly.

The proceedings seemed to have come to a definite end so far as he was

concerned; for one had only to look at that granite face to realize

that no ‘_peine forte et dure_’ would ever force him to plead against

his will. The deadlock was broken, however, by a woman’s voice. Mrs.

Douglas had been standing listening at the half opened door, and now

she entered the room.

“You have done enough for now, Cecil,” said she. “Whatever comes of it

in the future, you have done enough.”

“Enough and more than enough,” remarked Sherlock Holmes gravely. “I

have every sympathy with you, madam, and should strongly urge you to

have some confidence in the common sense of our jurisdiction and to

take the police voluntarily into your complete confidence. It may be

that I am myself at fault for not following up the hint which you

conveyed to me through my friend, Dr. Watson; but, at that time I had

every reason to believe that you were directly concerned in the crime.

Now I am assured that this is not so. At the same time, there is much

that is unexplained, and I should strongly recommend that you ask Mr.

Douglas to tell us his own story.”

Mrs. Douglas gave a cry of astonishment at Holmes’s words. The

detectives and I must have echoed it, when we were aware of a man who

seemed to have emerged from the wall, who advanced now from the gloom

of the corner in which he had appeared. Mrs. Douglas turned, and in an

instant her arms were round him. Barker had seized his outstretched

hand.

“It’s best this way, Jack,” his wife repeated; “I am sure that it is

best.”

“Indeed, yes, Mr. Douglas,” said Sherlock Holmes, “I am sure that you

will find it best.”

The man stood blinking at us with the dazed look of one who comes from

the dark into the light. It was a remarkable face, bold gray eyes, a

strong, short-clipped, grizzled moustache, a square, projecting chin,

and a humorous mouth. He took a good look at us all, and then to my

amazement he advanced to me and handed me a bundle of paper.

“I’ve heard of you,” said he in a voice which was not quite English and

not quite American, but was altogether mellow and pleasing. “You are

the historian of this bunch. Well, Dr. Watson, you’ve never had such a

story as that pass through your hands before, and I’ll lay my last

dollar on that. Tell it your own way; but there are the facts, and you

can’t miss the public so long as you have those. I’ve been cooped up

two days, and I’ve spent the daylight hours—as much daylight as I could

get in that rat trap—in putting the thing into words. You’re welcome to

them—you and your public. There’s the story of the Valley of Fear.”

“That’s the past, Mr. Douglas,” said Sherlock Holmes quietly. “What we

desire now is to hear your story of the present.”

“You’ll have it, sir,” said Douglas. “May I smoke as I talk? Well,

thank you, Mr. Holmes. You’re a smoker yourself, if I remember right,

and you’ll guess what it is to be sitting for two days with tobacco in

your pocket and afraid that the smell will give you away.” He leaned

against the mantelpiece and sucked at the cigar which Holmes had handed

him. “I’ve heard of you, Mr. Holmes. I never guessed that I should meet

you. But before you are through with that,” he nodded at my papers,

“you will say I’ve brought you something fresh.”

Inspector MacDonald had been staring at the newcomer with the greatest

amazement. “Well, this fairly beats me!” he cried at last. “If you are

Mr. John Douglas of Birlstone Manor, then whose death have we been

investigating for these two days, and where in the world have you

sprung from now? You seemed to me to come out of the floor like a

jack-in-a-box.”

“Ah, Mr. Mac,” said Holmes, shaking a reproving forefinger, “you would

not read that excellent local compilation which described the

concealment of King Charles. People did not hide in those days without

excellent hiding places, and the hiding place that has once been used

may be again. I had persuaded myself that we should find Mr. Douglas

under this roof.”

“And how long have you been playing this trick upon us, Mr. Holmes?”

said the inspector angrily. “How long have you allowed us to waste

ourselves upon a search that you knew to be an absurd one?”

“Not one instant, my dear Mr. Mac. Only last night did I form my views

of the case. As they could not be put to the proof until this evening,

I invited you and your colleague to take a holiday for the day. Pray

what more could I do? When I found the suit of clothes in the moat, it

at once became apparent to me that the body we had found could not have

been the body of Mr. John Douglas at all, but must be that of the

bicyclist from Tunbridge Wells. No other conclusion was possible.

Therefore I had to determine where Mr. John Douglas himself could be,

and the balance of probability was that with the connivance of his wife

and his friend he was concealed in a house which had such conveniences

for a fugitive, and awaiting quieter times when he could make his final

escape.”

“Well, you figured it out about right,” said Douglas approvingly. “I

thought I’d dodge your British law; for I was not sure how I stood

under it, and also I saw my chance to throw these hounds once for all

off my track. Mind you, from first to last I have done nothing to be

ashamed of, and nothing that I would not do again; but you’ll judge

that for yourselves when I tell you my story. Never mind warning me,

Inspector: I’m ready to stand pat upon the truth.

“I’m not going to begin at the beginning. That’s all there,” he

indicated my bundle of papers, “and a mighty queer yarn you’ll find it.

It all comes down to this: That there are some men that have good cause

to hate me and would give their last dollar to know that they had got

me. So long as I am alive and they are alive, there is no safety in

this world for me. They hunted me from Chicago to California, then they

chased me out of America; but when I married and settled down in this

quiet spot I thought my last years were going to be peaceable.

“I never explained to my wife how things were. Why should I pull her

into it? She would never have a quiet moment again; but would always be

imagining trouble. I fancy she knew something, for I may have dropped a

word here or a word there; but until yesterday, after you gentlemen had

seen her, she never knew the rights of the matter. She told you all she

knew, and so did Barker here; for on the night when this thing happened

there was mighty little time for explanations. She knows everything

now, and I would have been a wiser man if I had told her sooner. But it

was a hard question, dear,” he took her hand for an instant in his own,

“and I acted for the best.

“Well, gentlemen, the day before these happenings I was over in

Tunbridge Wells, and I got a glimpse of a man in the street. It was

only a glimpse; but I have a quick eye for these things, and I never

doubted who it was. It was the worst enemy I had among them all—one who

has been after me like a hungry wolf after a caribou all these years. I

knew there was trouble coming, and I came home and made ready for it. I

guessed I’d fight through it all right on my own, my luck was a proverb

in the States about ’76. I never doubted that it would be with me

still.

“I was on my guard all that next day, and never went out into the park.

It’s as well, or he’d have had the drop on me with that buckshot gun of

his before ever I could draw on him. After the bridge was up—my mind

was always more restful when that bridge was up in the evenings—I put

the thing clear out of my head. I never dreamed of his getting into the

house and waiting for me. But when I made my round in my dressing gown,

as was my habit, I had no sooner entered the study than I scented

danger. I guess when a man has had dangers in his life—and I’ve had

more than most in my time—there is a kind of sixth sense that waves the

red flag. I saw the signal clear enough, and yet I couldn’t tell you

why. Next instant I spotted a boot under the window curtain, and then I

saw why plain enough.

“I’d just the one candle that was in my hand; but there was a good

light from the hall lamp through the open door. I put down the candle

and jumped for a hammer that I’d left on the mantel. At the same moment

he sprang at me. I saw the glint of a knife, and I lashed at him with

the hammer. I got him somewhere; for the knife tinkled down on the

floor. He dodged round the table as quick as an eel, and a moment later

he’d got his gun from under his coat. I heard him cock it; but I had

got hold of it before he could fire. I had it by the barrel, and we

wrestled for it all ends up for a minute or more. It was death to the

man that lost his grip.

“He never lost his grip; but he got it butt downward for a moment too

long. Maybe it was I that pulled the trigger. Maybe we just jolted it

off between us. Anyhow, he got both barrels in the face, and there I

was, staring down at all that was left of Ted Baldwin. I’d recognized

him in the township, and again when he sprang for me; but his own

mother wouldn’t recognize him as I saw him then. I’m used to rough

work; but I fairly turned sick at the sight of him.

“I was hanging on the side of the table when Barker came hurrying down.

I heard my wife coming, and I ran to the door and stopped her. It was

no sight for a woman. I promised I’d come to her soon. I said a word or

two to Barker—he took it all in at a glance—and we waited for the rest

to come along. But there was no sign of them. Then we understood that

they could hear nothing, and that all that had happened was known only

to ourselves.

“It was at that instant that the idea came to me. I was fairly dazzled

by the brilliance of it. The man’s sleeve had slipped up and there was

the branded mark of the lodge upon his forearm. See here!”

The man whom we had known as Douglas turned up his own coat and cuff to

show a brown triangle within a circle exactly like that which we had

seen upon the dead man.

“It was the sight of that which started me on it. I seemed to see it

all clear at a glance. There were his height and hair and figure, about

the same as my own. No one could swear to his face, poor devil! I

brought down this suit of clothes, and in a quarter of an hour Barker

and I had put my dressing gown on him and he lay as you found him. We

tied all his things into a bundle, and I weighted them with the only

weight I could find and put them through the window. The card he had

meant to lay upon my body was lying beside his own.

“My rings were put on his finger; but when it came to the wedding

ring,” he held out his muscular hand, “you can see for yourselves that

I had struck the limit. I have not moved it since the day I was

married, and it would have taken a file to get it off. I don’t know,

anyhow, that I should have cared to part with it; but if I had wanted

to I couldn’t. So we just had to leave that detail to take care of

itself. On the other hand, I brought a bit of plaster down and put it

where I am wearing one myself at this instant. You slipped up there,

Mr. Holmes, clever as you are; for if you had chanced to take off that

plaster you would have found no cut underneath it.

“Well, that was the situation. If I could lie low for a while and then

get away where I could be joined by my ‘widow’ we should have a chance

at last of living in peace for the rest of our lives. These devils

would give me no rest so long as I was above ground; but if they saw in

the papers that Baldwin had got his man, there would be an end of all

my troubles. I hadn’t much time to make it all clear to Barker and to

my wife; but they understood enough to be able to help me. I knew all

about this hiding place, so did Ames; but it never entered his head to

connect it with the matter. I retired into it, and it was up to Barker

to do the rest.

“I guess you can fill in for yourselves what he did. He opened the

window and made the mark on the sill to give an idea of how the

murderer escaped. It was a tall order, that; but as the bridge was up

there was no other way. Then, when everything was fixed, he rang the

bell for all he was worth. What happened afterward you know. And so,

gentlemen, you can do what you please; but I’ve told you the truth and

the whole truth, so help me God! What I ask you now is how do I stand

by the English law?”

There was a silence which was broken by Sherlock Holmes.

“The English law is in the main a just law. You will get no worse than

your deserts from that, Mr. Douglas. But I would ask you how did this

man know that you lived here, or how to get into your house, or where

to hide to get you?”

“I know nothing of this.”

Holmes’s face was very white and grave. “The story is not over yet, I

fear,” said he. “You may find worse dangers than the English law, or

even than your enemies from America. I see trouble before you, Mr.

Douglas. You’ll take my advice and still be on your guard.”

And now, my long-suffering readers, I will ask you to come away with me

for a time, far from the Sussex Manor House of Birlstone, and far also

from the year of grace in which we made our eventful journey which

ended with the strange story of the man who had been known as John

Douglas. I wish you to journey back some twenty years in time, and

westward some thousands of miles in space, that I may lay before you a

singular and terrible narrative—so singular and so terrible that you

may find it hard to believe that even as I tell it, even so did it

occur.

Do not think that I intrude one story before another is finished. As

you read on you will find that this is not so. And when I have detailed

those distant events and you have solved this mystery of the past, we

shall meet once more in those rooms on Baker Street, where this, like

so many other wonderful happenings, will find its end.

PART II

The Scowrers

Chapter I

The Man

It was the fourth of February in the year 1875. It had been a severe

winter, and the snow lay deep in the gorges of the Gilmerton Mountains.

The steam ploughs had, however, kept the railroad open, and the evening

train which connects the long line of coal-mining and iron-working

settlements was slowly groaning its way up the steep gradients which

lead from Stagville on the plain to Vermissa, the central township

which lies at the head of Vermissa Valley. From this point the track

sweeps downward to Bartons Crossing, Helmdale, and the purely

agricultural county of Merton. It was a single track railroad; but at

every siding—and they were numerous—long lines of trucks piled with

coal and iron ore told of the hidden wealth which had brought a rude

population and a bustling life to this most desolate corner of the

United States of America.

For desolate it was! Little could the first pioneer who had traversed

it have ever imagined that the fairest prairies and the most lush water

pastures were valueless compared to this gloomy land of black crag and

tangled forest. Above the dark and often scarcely penetrable woods upon

their flanks, the high, bare crowns of the mountains, white snow, and

jagged rock towered upon each flank, leaving a long, winding, tortuous

valley in the centre. Up this the little train was slowly crawling.

The oil lamps had just been lit in the leading passenger car, a long,

bare carriage in which some twenty or thirty people were seated. The

greater number of these were workmen returning from their day’s toil in

the lower part of the valley. At least a dozen, by their grimed faces

and the safety lanterns which they carried, proclaimed themselves

miners. These sat smoking in a group and conversed in low voices,

glancing occasionally at two men on the opposite side of the car, whose

uniforms and badges showed them to be policemen.

Several women of the labouring class and one or two travellers who

might have been small local storekeepers made up the rest of the

company, with the exception of one young man in a corner by himself. It

is with this man that we are concerned. Take a good look at him; for he

is worth it.

He is a fresh-complexioned, middle-sized young man, not far, one would

guess, from his thirtieth year. He has large, shrewd, humorous gray

eyes which twinkle inquiringly from time to time as he looks round

through his spectacles at the people about him. It is easy to see that

he is of a sociable and possibly simple disposition, anxious to be

friendly to all men. Anyone could pick him at once as gregarious in his

habits and communicative in his nature, with a quick wit and a ready

smile. And yet the man who studied him more closely might discern a

certain firmness of jaw and grim tightness about the lips which would

warn him that there were depths beyond, and that this pleasant,

brown-haired young Irishman might conceivably leave his mark for good

or evil upon any society to which he was introduced.

Having made one or two tentative remarks to the nearest miner, and

receiving only short, gruff replies, the traveller resigned himself to

uncongenial silence, staring moodily out of the window at the fading

landscape.

It was not a cheering prospect. Through the growing gloom there pulsed

the red glow of the furnaces on the sides of the hills. Great heaps of

slag and dumps of cinders loomed up on each side, with the high shafts

of the collieries towering above them. Huddled groups of mean, wooden

houses, the windows of which were beginning to outline themselves in

light, were scattered here and there along the line, and the frequent

halting places were crowded with their swarthy inhabitants.

The iron and coal valleys of the Vermissa district were no resorts for

the leisured or the cultured. Everywhere there were stern signs of the

crudest battle of life, the rude work to be done, and the rude, strong

workers who did it.

The young traveller gazed out into this dismal country with a face of

mingled repulsion and interest, which showed that the scene was new to

him. At intervals he drew from his pocket a bulky letter to which he

referred, and on the margins of which he scribbled some notes. Once

from the back of his waist he produced something which one would hardly

have expected to find in the possession of so mild-mannered a man. It

was a navy revolver of the largest size. As he turned it slantwise to

the light, the glint upon the rims of the copper shells within the drum

showed that it was fully loaded. He quickly restored it to his secret

pocket, but not before it had been observed by a working man who had

seated himself upon the adjoining bench.

“Hullo, mate!” said he. “You seem heeled and ready.”

The young man smiled with an air of embarrassment.

“Yes,” said he, “we need them sometimes in the place I come from.”

“And where may that be?”

“I’m last from Chicago.”

“A stranger in these parts?”

“Yes.”

“You may find you need it here,” said the workman.

“Ah! is that so?” The young man seemed interested.

“Have you heard nothing of doings hereabouts?”

“Nothing out of the way.”

“Why, I thought the country was full of it. You’ll hear quick enough.

What made you come here?”

“I heard there was always work for a willing man.”

“Are you a member of the union?”

“Sure.”

“Then you’ll get your job, I guess. Have you any friends?”

“Not yet; but I have the means of making them.”

“How’s that, then?”

“I am one of the Eminent Order of Freemen. There’s no town without a

lodge, and where there is a lodge I’ll find my friends.”

The remark had a singular effect upon his companion. He glanced round

suspiciously at the others in the car. The miners were still whispering

among themselves. The two police officers were dozing. He came across,

seated himself close to the young traveller, and held out his hand.

“Put it there,” he said.

A hand-grip passed between the two.

“I see you speak the truth,” said the workman. “But it’s well to make

certain.” He raised his right hand to his right eyebrow. The traveller

at once raised his left hand to his left eyebrow.

“Dark nights are unpleasant,” said the workman.

“Yes, for strangers to travel,” the other answered.

“That’s good enough. I’m Brother Scanlan, Lodge 341, Vermissa Valley.

Glad to see you in these parts.”

“Thank you. I’m Brother John McMurdo, Lodge 29, Chicago. Bodymaster

J.H. Scott. But I am in luck to meet a brother so early.”

“Well, there are plenty of us about. You won’t find the order more

flourishing anywhere in the States than right here in Vermissa Valley.

But we could do with some lads like you. I can’t understand a spry man

of the union finding no work to do in Chicago.”

“I found plenty of work to do,” said McMurdo.

“Then why did you leave?”

McMurdo nodded towards the policemen and smiled. “I guess those chaps

would be glad to know,” he said.

Scanlan groaned sympathetically. “In trouble?” he asked in a whisper.

“Deep.”

“A penitentiary job?”

“And the rest.”

“Not a killing!”

“It’s early days to talk of such things,” said McMurdo with the air of

a man who had been surprised into saying more than he intended. “I’ve

my own good reasons for leaving Chicago, and let that be enough for

you. Who are you that you should take it on yourself to ask such

things?” His gray eyes gleamed with sudden and dangerous anger from

behind his glasses.

“All right, mate, no offense meant. The boys will think none the worse

of you, whatever you may have done. Where are you bound for now?”

“Vermissa.”

“That’s the third halt down the line. Where are you staying?”

McMurdo took out an envelope and held it close to the murky oil lamp.

“Here is the address—Jacob Shafter, Sheridan Street. It’s a boarding

house that was recommended by a man I knew in Chicago.”

“Well, I don’t know it; but Vermissa is out of my beat. I live at

Hobson’s Patch, and that’s here where we are drawing up. But, say,

there’s one bit of advice I’ll give you before we part: If you’re in

trouble in Vermissa, go straight to the Union House and see Boss

McGinty. He is the Bodymaster of Vermissa Lodge, and nothing can happen

in these parts unless Black Jack McGinty wants it. So long, mate! Maybe

we’ll meet in lodge one of these evenings. But mind my words: If you

are in trouble, go to Boss McGinty.”

Scanlan descended, and McMurdo was left once again to his thoughts.

Night had now fallen, and the flames of the frequent furnaces were

roaring and leaping in the darkness. Against their lurid background

dark figures were bending and straining, twisting and turning, with the

motion of winch or of windlass, to the rhythm of an eternal clank and

roar.

“I guess hell must look something like that,” said a voice.

McMurdo turned and saw that one of the policemen had shifted in his

seat and was staring out into the fiery waste.

“For that matter,” said the other policeman, “I allow that hell must

_be_ something like that. If there are worse devils down yonder than

some we could name, it’s more than I’d expect. I guess you are new to

this part, young man?”

“Well, what if I am?” McMurdo answered in a surly voice.

“Just this, mister, that I should advise you to be careful in choosing

your friends. I don’t think I’d begin with Mike Scanlan or his gang if

I were you.”

“What the hell is it to you who are my friends?” roared McMurdo in a

voice which brought every head in the carriage round to witness the

altercation. “Did I ask you for your advice, or did you think me such a

sucker that I couldn’t move without it? You speak when you are spoken

to, and by the Lord you’d have to wait a long time if it was me!” He

thrust out his face and grinned at the patrolmen like a snarling dog.

The two policemen, heavy, good-natured men, were taken aback by the

extraordinary vehemence with which their friendly advances had been

rejected.

“No offense, stranger,” said one. “It was a warning for your own good,

seeing that you are, by your own showing, new to the place.”

“I’m new to the place; but I’m not new to you and your kind!” cried

McMurdo in cold fury. “I guess you’re the same in all places, shoving

your advice in when nobody asks for it.”

“Maybe we’ll see more of you before very long,” said one of the

patrolmen with a grin. “You’re a real hand-picked one, if I am a

judge.”

“I was thinking the same,” remarked the other. “I guess we may meet

again.”

“I’m not afraid of you, and don’t you think it!” cried McMurdo. “My

name’s Jack McMurdo—see? If you want me, you’ll find me at Jacob

Shafter’s on Sheridan Street, Vermissa; so I’m not hiding from you, am

I? Day or night I dare to look the like of you in the face—don’t make

any mistake about that!”

There was a murmur of sympathy and admiration from the miners at the

dauntless demeanour of the newcomer, while the two policemen shrugged

their shoulders and renewed a conversation between themselves.

A few minutes later the train ran into the ill-lit station, and there

was a general clearing; for Vermissa was by far the largest town on the

line. McMurdo picked up his leather gripsack and was about to start off

into the darkness, when one of the miners accosted him.

“By Gar, mate! you know how to speak to the cops,” he said in a voice

of awe. “It was grand to hear you. Let me carry your grip and show you

the road. I’m passing Shafter’s on the way to my own shack.”

There was a chorus of friendly “Good-nights” from the other miners as

they passed from the platform. Before ever he had set foot in it,

McMurdo the turbulent had become a character in Vermissa.

The country had been a place of terror; but the town was in its way

even more depressing. Down that long valley there was at least a

certain gloomy grandeur in the huge fires and the clouds of drifting

smoke, while the strength and industry of man found fitting monuments

in the hills which he had spilled by the side of his monstrous

excavations. But the town showed a dead level of mean ugliness and

squalor. The broad street was churned up by the traffic into a horrible

rutted paste of muddy snow. The sidewalks were narrow and uneven. The

numerous gas-lamps served only to show more clearly a long line of

wooden houses, each with its veranda facing the street, unkempt and

dirty.

As they approached the centre of the town the scene was brightened by a

row of well-lit stores, and even more by a cluster of saloons and

gaming houses, in which the miners spent their hard-earned but generous

wages.

“That’s the Union House,” said the guide, pointing to one saloon which

rose almost to the dignity of being a hotel. “Jack McGinty is the boss

there.”

“What sort of a man is he?” McMurdo asked.

“What! have you never heard of the boss?”

“How could I have heard of him when you know that I am a stranger in

these parts?”

“Well, I thought his name was known clear across the country. It’s been

in the papers often enough.”

“What for?”

“Well,” the miner lowered his voice—“over the affairs.”

“What affairs?”

“Good Lord, mister! you are queer, if I must say it without offense.

There’s only one set of affairs that you’ll hear of in these parts, and

that’s the affairs of the Scowrers.”

“Why, I seem to have read of the Scowrers in Chicago. A gang of

murderers, are they not?”

“Hush, on your life!” cried the miner, standing still in alarm, and

gazing in amazement at his companion. “Man, you won’t live long in

these parts if you speak in the open street like that. Many a man has

had the life beaten out of him for less.”

“Well, I know nothing about them. It’s only what I have read.”

“And I’m not saying that you have not read the truth.” The man looked

nervously round him as he spoke, peering into the shadows as if he

feared to see some lurking danger. “If killing is murder, then God

knows there is murder and to spare. But don’t you dare to breathe the

name of Jack McGinty in connection with it, stranger; for every whisper

goes back to him, and he is not one that is likely to let it pass. Now,

that’s the house you’re after, that one standing back from the street.

You’ll find old Jacob Shafter that runs it as honest a man as lives in

this township.”

“I thank you,” said McMurdo, and shaking hands with his new

acquaintance he plodded, gripsack in hand, up the path which led to the

dwelling house, at the door of which he gave a resounding knock.

It was opened at once by someone very different from what he had

expected. It was a woman, young and singularly beautiful. She was of

the German type, blonde and fair-haired, with the piquant contrast of a

pair of beautiful dark eyes with which she surveyed the stranger with

surprise and a pleasing embarrassment which brought a wave of colour

over her pale face. Framed in the bright light of the open doorway, it

seemed to McMurdo that he had never seen a more beautiful picture; the

more attractive for its contrast with the sordid and gloomy

surroundings. A lovely violet growing upon one of those black

slag-heaps of the mines would not have seemed more surprising. So

entranced was he that he stood staring without a word, and it was she

who broke the silence.

“I thought it was father,” said she with a pleasing little touch of a

German accent. “Did you come to see him? He is down town. I expect him

back every minute.”

McMurdo continued to gaze at her in open admiration until her eyes

dropped in confusion before this masterful visitor.

“No, miss,” he said at last, “I’m in no hurry to see him. But your

house was recommended to me for board. I thought it might suit me—and

now I know it will.”

“You are quick to make up your mind,” said she with a smile.

“Anyone but a blind man could do as much,” the other answered.

She laughed at the compliment. “Come right in, sir,” she said. “I’m

Miss Ettie Shafter, Mr. Shafter’s daughter. My mother’s dead, and I run

the house. You can sit down by the stove in the front room until father

comes along—Ah, here he is! So you can fix things with him right away.”

A heavy, elderly man came plodding up the path. In a few words McMurdo

explained his business. A man of the name of Murphy had given him the

address in Chicago. He in turn had had it from someone else. Old

Shafter was quite ready. The stranger made no bones about terms, agreed

at once to every condition, and was apparently fairly flush of money.

For seven dollars a week paid in advance he was to have board and

lodging.

So it was that McMurdo, the self-confessed fugitive from justice, took

up his abode under the roof of the Shafters, the first step which was

to lead to so long and dark a train of events, ending in a far distant

land.