_The Great Agra Treasure_
Our captive sat in the cabin opposite the iron box which he had done
so much and waited so long to gain. He was a sunburned,
reckless-eyed fellow, with a network of lines and wrinkles all over
his mahogany features, which told of a hard, open-air life. There
was a singular prominence about his bearded chin which marked a man
who was not to be easily turned from his purpose. His age may have
been fifty or thereabout, for his black, curly hair was thickly shot
with gray. His face, in repose, was not an unpleasing one, though
his heavy brows and aggressive chin gave him, as I had lately seen, a
terrible expression when moved to anger. He sat now with his
handcuffed hands upon his lap, and his head sunk upon his breast,
while he looked with his keen, twinkling eyes at the box which had
been the cause of his ill-doings. It seemed to me that there was
more sorrow than anger in his rigid and contained countenance. Once
he looked up at me with a gleam of something like humor in his eyes.
"Well, Jonathan Small," said Holmes, lighting a cigar, "I am sorry
that it has come to this."
"And so am I, sir," he answered, frankly. "I don't believe that I
can swing over the job. I give you my word on the Book that I never
raised hand against Mr. Sholto. It was that little hell-hound,
Tonga, who shot one of his cursed darts into him. I had no part in
it, sir. I was as grieved as if it had been my blood relation. I
welted the little devil with the slack end of the rope for it, but it
was done, and I could not undo it again."
"Have a cigar," said Holmes; "and you had better take a pull out of
my flask, for you are very wet. How could you expect so small and
weak a man as this black fellow to overpower Mr. Sholto and hold him
while you were climbing the rope?"
"You seem to know as much about it as if you were there, sir. The
truth is that I hoped to find the room clear. I knew the habits of
the house pretty well, and it was the time when Mr. Sholto usually
went down to his supper. I shall make no secret of the business.
The best defense that I can make is just the simple truth. Now, if
it had been the old major, I would have swung for him with a light
heart. I would have thought no more of knifing him than of smoking
this cigar. But it's cursed hard that I should be lagged over this
young Sholto, with whom I had no quarrel whatever."
"You are under the charge of Mr. Athelney Jones, of Scotland Yard.
He is going to bring you up to my rooms, and I shall ask you for a
true account of the matter. You must make a clean breast of it, for
if you do I hope that I may be of use to you. I think I can prove
that the poison acts so quickly that the man was dead before you ever
reached the room."
"That he was, sir! I never got such a turn in my life as when I saw
him grinning at me with his head on his shoulder as I climbed through
the window. It fairly shook me, sir. I'd have half-killed Tonga for
it, if he had not scrambled off. That was how he came to leave his
club, and some of his darts, too, as he tells me, which, I dare say,
helped to put you on our track; though how you kept on it is more
than I can tell. I don't feel no malice against you for it. But it
does seem a queer thing," he added, with a bitter smile, "that I, who
have a fair claim to nigh upon half a million of money, should spend
the first half of my life building a breakwater in the Andamans, and
am likely to spend the other half digging drains at Dartmoor. It was
an evil day for me when first I clapped eyes upon the merchant
Achmet, and had to do with the Agra treasure, which never brought
anything but a curse yet upon the man who owned it. To him it
brought murder; to Major Sholto it brought fear and guilt; to me it
has meant slavery for life."
At this moment Athelney Jones thrust his broad face and heavy
shoulders into the tiny cabin. "Quite a family party," he remarked.
"I think I shall have a pull at that flask, Holmes. Well, I think we
may all congratulate each other. Pity we didn't take the other
alive; but there was no choice. I say, Holmes, you must confess that
you cut it rather fine. It was all we could do to overhaul her."
"All is well that ends well," said Holmes. "But I certainly did not
know that the 'Aurora' was such a clipper."
"Smith says she is one of the fastest launches on the river, and that
if he had had another man to help him with the engines we should
never have caught her. He swears he knew nothing of this Norwood
business."
"Neither he did," cried our prisoner; "not a word. I chose his
launch, because I heard that she was a flyer. We told him nothing,
but we paid him well, and he was to get something handsome if we
reached our vessel, the 'Esmeralda,' at Gravesend, outward bound for
the Brazils."
"Well, if he has done no wrong, we shall see that no wrong comes to
him. If we are pretty quick in catching our men, we are not so quick
in condemning them." It was amusing to notice how the consequential
Jones was already beginning to give himself airs on the strength of
the capture. From the slight smile which played over Sherlock
Holmes's face, I could see that the speech had not been lost upon him.
"We will be at Vauxhall Bridge presently," said Jones, "and shall
land you, Doctor Watson, with the treasure-box. I need hardly tell
you that I am taking a very grave responsibility upon myself in doing
this. It is most irregular; but, of course, an agreement is an
agreement. I must, however, as a matter of duty, send an inspector
with you, since you have so valuable a charge. You will drive, no
doubt?"
"Yes, I shall drive."
"It is a pity there is no key, that we may make an inventory first.
You will have to break it open. Where is the key, my man?"
"At the bottom of the river," said Small, shortly.
"Hum! There was no use your giving this unnecessary trouble. We
have had work enough already through you. However, doctor, I need
not warn you to be careful. Bring the box back with you to the Baker
Street rooms. You will find us there, on our way to the station."
They landed me at Vauxhall, with my heavy iron box, and with a bluff,
genial inspector as my companion. A quarter of an hour's drive
brought us to Mrs. Cecil Forrester's. The servant seemed surprised
at so late a visitor. Mrs. Cecil Forrester was out for the evening,
she explained, and likely to be very late. Miss Morstan, however,
was in the drawing-room; so to the drawing-room I went, box in hand,
leaving the obliging inspector in the cab.
She was seated by the open window, dressed in some sort of white,
diaphanous material, with a little touch of scarlet in the neck and
waist. The soft light of a shaded lamp fell upon her as she leaned
back in the basket-chair, playing over her sweet, grave face, and
tinting with a dull, metallic sparkle the rich coils of her luxuriant
hair; one white arm and hand drooped over the side of the chair, and
her whole pose and figure spoke of an absorbing melancholy. At the
sound of my footfall she sprang to her feet, however, and a bright
flush of surprise and of pleasure colored her pale cheeks.
"I heard a cab drive up," she said. "I thought that Mrs. Forrester
had come back very early, but I never dreamt that it might be you.
What news have you brought me?"
"I have brought something better than news," said I, putting down the
box upon the table, and speaking jovially and boisterously, though my
heart was heavy within me. "I have brought you something which is
worth all the news in the world. I have brought you a fortune."
She glanced at the iron box. "Is that the treasure, then?" she
asked, coolly enough.
"Yes, this is the great Agra treasure. Half of it is yours and half
is Thaddeus Sholto's. You will have a couple of hundred thousand
each. Think of that! An annuity of ten thousand pounds. There will
be few richer young ladies in England. Is it not glorious?"
I think that I must have been rather overacting my delight, and that
she detected a hollow ring in my congratulations, for I saw her
eyebrows rise a little, and she glanced at me curiously.
"If I have it," said she, "I owe it to you."
"No, no," I answered; "not to me, but to my friend Sherlock Holmes.
With all the will in the world, I could never have followed up a clue
which has taxed even his analytical genius. As it was, we very
nearly lost it at the last moment."
"Pray sit down and tell me all about it, Doctor Watson," said she.
I narrated briefly what had occurred since I had seen her
last--Holmes's new method of search, the discovery of the "Aurora,"
the appearance of Athelney Jones, our expedition in the evening, and
the wild chase down the Thames. She listened, with parted lips and
shining eyes, to my recital of our adventures. When I spoke of the
dart which had so narrowly missed us, she turned so white that I
feared she was about to faint.
"It is nothing," she said, as I hastened to pour her out some water.
"I am all right again. It was a shock to me to hear that I had
placed my friends in such horrible peril."
"That is all over," I answered. "It was nothing. I will tell you no
more gloomy details. Let us turn to something brighter. There is
the treasure. What could be brighter than that? I got leave to
bring it with me, thinking that it would interest you to be the first
to see it."
"It would be of the greatest interest to me," she said. There was no
eagerness in her voice, however. It struck her, doubtless, that it
might seem ungracious upon her part to be indifferent to a prize
which had cost so much to win.
"What a pretty box!" she said, stooping over it. "This is Indian
work, I suppose?"
"Yes; it is Benares metal-work."
"And so heavy!" she exclaimed, trying to raise it. "The box alone
must be of some value. Where is the key?"
"Small threw it into the Thames," I answered. "I must borrow Mrs.
Forrester's poker." There was, in the front, a thick and broad hasp,
wrought in the image of a sitting Buddha. Under this I thrust the
end of the poker and twisted it outward as a lever. The hasp sprang
open with a loud snap. With trembling fingers I flung back the lid.
We both stood gazing in astonishment. The box was empty!
No wonder that it was heavy. The iron-work was two-thirds of an inch
thick all round. It was massive, well made, and solid, like a chest
constructed to carry things of great price, but not one shred or
crumb of metal or jewelry lay within it. It was absolutely and
completely empty.
"The treasure is lost," said Miss Morstan, calmly.
As I listened to the words and realized what they meant, a great
shadow seemed to pass from my soul. I did not know how this Agra
treasure had weighed me down until now that it was finally removed.
It was selfish, no doubt, disloyal, wrong, but I could realize
nothing save that the golden barrier was gone from between us.
"Thank God!" I ejaculated from my very heart.
She looked at me with a quick, questioning smile. "Why do you say
that?" she asked.
"Because you are within my reach again," I said, taking her hand.
She did not withdraw it. "Because I love you, Mary, as truly as ever
a man loved a woman. Because this treasure, these riches, sealed my
lips. Now that they are gone, I can tell you how I love you. That
is why I said, 'Thank God.'"
"Then I say, 'Thank God,' too," she whispered, as I drew her to my
side. Whoever had lost a treasure, I knew that night that I had
gained one.