the line, "I should like just to remember the order of the houses here.
It is a hobby of mine to have an exact knowledge of London. There is
Mortimer's, the tobacconist; the little newspaper shop, the Coburg
branch of the City and Suburban Bank, the Vegetarian Restaurant, and
McFarlane's carriage-building depot. That carries us right on to the
other block. And now, doctor, we've done our work, so it's time we had
some play. A sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then off to violin-land,
where all is sweetness, and delicacy, and harmony, and there are no
red-headed clients to vex us with their conundrums."
My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very
capable performer, but a composer of no ordinary merit. All the
afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect happiness,
gently waving his long thin fingers in time to the music, while his
gently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes were as unlike those of
Holmes the sleuth-hound, Holmes the relentless, keen-witted,
ready-handed criminal agent, as it was possible to conceive. In his
singular character the dual nature alternately asserted itself, and his
extreme exactness and astuteness represented, as I have often thought,
the reaction against the poetic and contemplative mood which
occasionally predominated in him. The swing of his nature took him from
extreme languor to devouring energy; and, as I knew well, he was never
so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been lounging in
his armchair amid his improvisations and his black-letter editions. Then
it was that the lust of the chase would suddenly come upon him, and that
his brilliant reasoning power would rise to the level of intuition,
until those who were unacquainted with his methods would look askance at
him as on a man whose knowledge was not that of other mortals. When I
saw him that afternoon so enwrapped in the music at St. James' Hall, I
felt that an evil time might be coming upon those whom he had set
himself to hunt down.
"You want to go home, no doubt, doctor," he remarked, as we emerged.
"Yes, it would be as well."
"And I have some business to do which will take some hours. This
business at Saxe-Coburg Square is serious."
"Why serious?"
"A considerable crime is in contemplation. I have every reason to
believe that we shall be in time to stop it. But to-day being Saturday
rather complicates matters. I shall want your help to-night."
"At what time?"
"Ten will be early enough."
"I shall be at Baker Street at ten."
"Very well. And, I say, doctor! there may be some little danger, so
kindly put your army revolver in your pocket." He waved his hand, turned
on his heel, and disappeared in an instant among the crowd.
I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbors, but I was always
oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with Sherlock
Holmes. He and I had heard what he had heard, I had seen what he had
seen, and yet from his words it was evident that he saw clearly not only
what had happened, but what was about to happen, while to me the whole
business was still confused and grotesque. As I drove home to my house
in Kensington I thought over it all, from the extraordinary story of the
red-headed copier of the "Encyclopaedia" down to the visit to Saxe-Coburg
Square, and the ominous words with which he had parted from me. What was
this nocturnal expedition, and why should I go armed? Where were we
going, and what were we to do? I had the hint from Holmes that this
smooth-faced pawnbroker's assistant was a formidable man--a man who
might play a deep game. I tried to puzzle it out but gave it up in
despair, and set the matter aside until night should bring an
explanation.
It was a quarter-past nine when I started from home and made my way
across the Park, and so through Oxford Street to Baker Street. Two
hansoms were standing at the door, and, as I entered the passage, I
heard the sound of voices from above. On entering his room, I found
Holmes in animated conversation with two men, one of whom I recognized
as Peter Jones, the official police agent; while the other was a long,
thin, sad-faced man, with a very shiny hat and oppressively respectable
frock-coat.
"Ha! our party is complete," said Holmes, buttoning up his pea-jacket,
and taking his heavy hunting coat from the rack. "Watson, I think you
know Mr. Jones of Scotland Yard? Let me introduce you to Mr.
Merryweather, who is to be our companion in to-night's adventure."
"We're hunting in couples again, doctor, you see," said Jones, in his
consequential way. "Our friend here is a wonderful man for starting a
chase. All he wants is an old dog to help him do the running down."
"I hope a wild goose may not prove to be the end of our chase," observed
Mr. Merryweather, gloomily.
"You may place considerable confidence in Mr. Holmes, sir," said the
police agent, loftily. "He has his own little methods, which are, if he
won't mind my saying so, just a little too theoretical and fantastic,
but he has the makings of a detective in him. It is not too much to say
that once or twice, as in that business of the Sholto murder and the
Agra treasure, he has been more nearly correct than the official force."
"Oh, if you say so, Mr. Jones, it is all right!" said the stranger, with
deference. "Still, I confess that I miss my rubber. It is the first
Saturday night for seven-and-twenty years that I have not had my
rubber."
"I think you will find," said Sherlock Holmes, "that you will play for a
higher stake to-night than you have ever done yet, and that the play
will be more exciting. For you, Mr. Merryweather, the stake will be some
thirty thousand pounds; and for you, Jones, it will be the man upon whom
you wish to lay your hands."
"John Clay, the murderer, thief, smasher, and forger. He's a young man,
Mr. Merryweather, but he is at the head of his profession, and I would
rather have my bracelets on him than on any criminal in London. He's a
remarkable man, is young John Clay. His grandfather was a Royal Duke,
and he himself has been to Eton and Oxford. His brain is as cunning as
his fingers, and though we meet signs of him at every turn, we never
know where to find the man himself. He'll crack a crib in Scotland one
week, and be raising money to build an orphanage in Cornwall the next.
I've been on his track for years, and have never set eyes on him yet."
"I hope that I may have the pleasure of introducing you to-night. I've
had one or two little turns also with Mr. John Clay, and I agree with
you that he is at the head of his profession. It is past ten, however,
and quite time that we started. If you two will take the first hansom,
Watson and I will follow in the second."
Sherlock Holmes was not very communicative during the long drive, and
lay back in the cab humming the tunes which he had heard in the
afternoon. We rattled through an endless labyrinth of gas-lit streets
until we emerged into Farringdon Street.
"We are close there now," my friend remarked. "This fellow Merryweather
is a bank director and personally interested in the matter. I thought it
as well to have Jones with us also. He is not a bad fellow, though an
absolute imbecile in his profession. He has one positive virtue. He is
as brave as a bulldog, and as tenacious as a lobster if he gets his
claws upon any one. Here we are, and they are waiting for us."
We had reached the same crowded thoroughfare in which we had found
ourselves in the morning. Our cabs were dismissed, and following the
guidance of Mr. Merryweather, we passed down a narrow passage, and
through a side door which he opened for us. Within there was a small
corridor, which ended in a very massive iron gate. This also was opened,
and led down a flight of winding stone steps, which terminated at
another formidable gate. Mr. Merryweather stopped to light a lantern,
and then conducted us down a dark, earth-smelling passage, and so, after
opening a third door, into a huge vault or cellar, which was piled all
round with crates and massive boxes.
"You are not very vulnerable from above," Holmes remarked, as he held up
the lantern and gazed about him.
"Nor from below," said Mr. Merryweather, striking his stick upon the
flags which lined the floor. "Why, dear me, it sounds quite hollow!" he
remarked, looking up in surprise.
"I must really ask you to be a little more quiet," said Holmes,
severely. "You have already imperiled the whole success of our
expedition. Might I beg that you would have the goodness to sit down
upon one of those boxes, and not to interfere?"
The solemn Mr. Merryweather perched himself upon a crate, with a very
injured expression upon his face, while Holmes fell upon his knees upon
the floor, and, with the lantern and a magnifying lens, began to examine
minutely the cracks between the stones. A few seconds sufficed to
satisfy him, for he sprang to his feet again, and put his glass in his
pocket.
"We have at least an hour before us," he remarked, "for they can hardly
take any steps until the good pawnbroker is safely in bed. Then they
will not lose a minute, for the sooner they do their work the longer
time they will have for their escape. We are at present, doctor--as no
doubt you have divined--in the cellar of the city branch of one of the
principal London banks. Mr. Merryweather is the chairman of directors,
and he will explain to you that there are reasons why the more daring
criminals of London should take a considerable interest in this cellar
at present."
"It is our French gold," whispered the director. "We have had several
warnings that an attempt might be made upon it."
"Your French gold?"
"Yes. We had occasion some months ago to strengthen our resources, and
borrowed, for that purpose, thirty thousand napoleons from the Bank of
France. It has become known that we have never had occasion to unpack
the money, and that it is still lying in our cellar. The crate upon
which I sit contains two thousand napoleons packed between layers of
lead foil. Our reserve of bullion is much larger at present than is
usually kept in a single branch office, and the directors have had
misgivings upon the subject."
"Which were very well justified," observed Holmes. "And now it is time
that we arranged our little plans. I expect that within an hour matters
will come to a head. In the meantime, Mr. Merryweather, we must put the
screen over that dark lantern."
"And sit in the dark?"
"I am afraid so. I had brought a pack of cards in my pocket, and I
thought that, as we were a _partie carree_, you might have your rubber
after all. But I see that the enemy's preparations have gone so far that
we cannot risk the presence of a light. And, first of all, we must
choose our positions. These are daring men, and, though we shall take
them at a disadvantage, they may do us some harm, unless we are careful.
I shall stand behind this crate, and do you conceal yourself behind
those. Then, when I flash a light upon them, close in swiftly. If they
fire, Watson, have no compunction about shooting them down."
I placed my revolver, cocked, upon the top of the wooden case behind
which I crouched. Holmes shot the slide across the front of his lantern,
and left us in pitch darkness--such an absolute darkness as I have never
before experienced. The smell of hot metal remained to assure us that
the light was still there, ready to flash out at a moment's notice. To
me, with my nerves worked up to a pitch of expectancy, there was
something depressing and subduing in the sudden gloom, and in the cold,
dank air of the vault.
"They have but one retreat," whispered Holmes. "That is back through the
house into Saxe-Coburg Square. I hope that you have done what I asked
you, Jones?"
"I have an inspector and two officers waiting at the front door."
"Then we have stopped all the holes. And now we must be silent and
wait."
What a time it seemed! From comparing notes afterwards, it was but an
hour and a quarter, yet it appeared to me that the night must have
almost gone, and the dawn be breaking above us. My limbs were weary and
stiff, for I feared to change my position, yet my nerves were worked up
to the highest pitch of tension, and my hearing was so acute that I
could not only hear the gentle breathing of my companions, but I could
distinguish the deeper, heavier inbreath of the bulky Jones from the
thin, sighing note of the bank director. From my position I could look
over the case in the direction of the floor. Suddenly my eyes caught the
glint of a light.
At first it was but a lurid spark upon the stone pavement. Then it
lengthened out until it became a yellow line, and then, without any
warning or sound, a gash seemed to open and a hand appeared, a white,
almost womanly hand, which felt about in the center of the little area
of light. For a minute or more the hand, with its writhing fingers,
protruded out of the floor. Then it was withdrawn as suddenly as it
appeared, and all was dark again save the single lurid spark, which
marked a chink between the stones.
Its disappearance, however, was but momentary. With a rending, tearing
sound, one of the broad white stones turned over upon its side, and
left a square, gaping hole, through which streamed the light of a
lantern. Over the edge there peeped a clean-cut, boyish face, which
looked keenly about it, and then, with a hand on either side of the
aperture, drew itself shoulder-high and waist-high, until one knee
rested upon the edge. In another instant he stood at the side of the
hole, and was hauling after him a companion, lithe and small like
himself, with a pale face and a shock of very red hair.
"It's all clear," he whispered. "Have you the chisel and the bags? Great
Scott! Jump, Archie, jump, and I'll swing for it!"
Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the collar.
The other dived down the hole, and I heard the sound of rending cloth as
Jones clutched at his skirts. The light flashed upon the barrel of a
revolver, but Holmes' hunting crop came down on the man's wrist, and the
pistol clinked upon the stone floor.
"It's no use, John Clay," said Holmes, blandly, "you have no chance at
all."
"So I see," the other answered, with the utmost coolness. "I fancy that
my pal is all right, though I see you have got his coat-tails."
"There are three men waiting for him at the door," said Holmes.
"Oh, indeed. You seem to have done the thing very completely. I must
compliment you."
"And I you," Holmes answered. "Your red-headed idea was very new and
effective."
"You'll see your pal again presently," said Jones. "He's quicker at
climbing down holes than I am. Just hold out while I fix the derbies."
"I beg that you will not touch me with your filthy hands," remarked our
prisoner, as the handcuffs clattered upon his wrists. "You may not be
aware that I have royal blood in my veins. Have the goodness also, when
you address me, always to say 'sir' and 'please.'"
"All right," said Jones, with a stare and a snigger. "Well, would you
please, sir, march upstairs where we can get a cab to carry your
highness to the police station."
"That is better," said John Clay, serenely. He made a sweeping bow to
the three of us, and walked quietly off in the custody of the detective.
"Really, Mr. Holmes," said Mr. Merryweather, as we followed them from
the cellar, "I do not know how the bank can thank you or repay you.
There is no doubt that you have detected and defeated in the most
complete manner one of the most determined attempts at bank robbery that
have ever come within my experience."
"I have had one or two little scores of my own to settle with Mr. John
Clay," said Holmes. "I have been at some small expense over this matter,
which I shall expect the bank to refund, but beyond that I am amply
repaid by having had an experience which is in many ways unique, and by
hearing the very remarkable narrative of the Red-headed League."
* * * * *
"You see, Watson," he explained, in the early hours of the morning, as
we sat over a glass of whisky and soda in Baker Street, "it was
perfectly obvious from the first that the only possible object of this
rather fantastic business of the advertisement of the League, and the
copying of the 'Encyclopaedia,' must be to get this not over-bright
pawnbroker out of the way for a number of hours every day. It was a
curious way of managing it, but really it would be difficult to suggest
a better. The method was no doubt suggested to Clay's ingenious mind by
the color of his accomplice's hair. The four pounds a week was a lure
which must draw him, and what was it to them, who were playing for
thousands? They put in the advertisement, one rogue has the temporary
office, the other rogue incites the man to apply for it, and together
they manage to secure his absence every morning in the week. From the
time that I heard of the assistant having come for half wages, it was
obvious to me that he had some strong motive for securing the
situation."
"But how could you guess what the motive was?"
"Had there been women in the house, I should have suspected a mere
vulgar intrigue. That, however, was out of the question. The man's
business was a small one, and there was nothing in his house which
could account for such elaborate preparations, and such an expenditure
as they were at. It must then be something out of the house. What could
it be? I thought of the assistant's fondness for photography, and his
trick of vanishing into the cellar. The cellar? There was the end of
this tangled clew. Then I made inquiries as to this mysterious
assistant, and found that I had to deal with one of the coolest and most
daring criminals in London. He was doing something in the
cellar--something which took many hours a day for months on end. What
could it be, once more? I could think of nothing save that he was
running a tunnel to some other building.
"So far I had got when we went to visit the scene of action. I surprised
you by beating upon the pavement with my stick. I was ascertaining
whether the cellar stretched out in front or behind. It was not in
front. Then I rang the bell, and, as I hoped, the assistant answered it.
We have had some skirmishes, but we had never set eyes upon each other
before. I hardly looked at his face. His knees were what I wished to
see. You must yourself have remarked how worn, wrinkled, and stained
they were. They spoke of those hours of burrowing. The only remaining
point was what they were burrowing for. I walked round the corner, saw
that the City and Suburban Bank abutted on our friend's premises, and
felt that I had solved my problem. When you drove home after the concert
I called upon Scotland Yard, and upon the chairman of the bank
directors, with the result that you have seen."
"And how could you tell that they would make their attempt to-night?" I
asked.
"Well, when they closed their League offices that was a sign that they
cared no longer about Mr. Jabez Wilson's presence; in other words, that
they had completed their tunnel. But it was essential that they should
use it soon, as it might be discovered, or the bullion might be removed.
Saturday would suit them better than any other day, as it would give
them two days for their escape. For all these reasons I expected them to
come to-night."
"You reasoned it out beautifully," I exclaimed, in unfeigned admiration.
"It is so long a chain, and yet every link rings true."
"It saved me from ennui," he answered, yawning. "Alas! I already feel it
closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long effort to escape from
the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do so."
"And you are a benefactor of the race," said I. He shrugged his
shoulders. "Well, perhaps, after all, it is of some little use," he
remarked.
[Illustration]
V.--The Ransom of Red Chief[E]
_By O. Henry_
IT looked like a good thing: but wait till I tell you. We were down
South, in Alabama--Bill Driscoll and myself--when this kidnaping idea
struck us. It was, as Bill afterward expressed it, "during a moment of
temporary mental apparition"; but we didn't find that out till later.
There was a town down there, as flat as a flannel-cake, and called
Summit, of course. It contained inhabitants of as undeleterious and
self-satisfied a class of peasantry as ever clustered around a Maypole.
Bill and me had a joint capital of about six hundred dollars, and we
needed just two thousand dollars more to pull off a fraudulent town-lot
scheme in Western Illinois with. We talked it over on the front steps of
the hotel. Philoprogenitiveness, says we, is strong in semi-rural
communities; therefore, and for other reasons, a kidnaping project ought
to do better there than in the radius of newspapers that send reporters
out in plain clothes to stir up talk about such things. We knew that
Summit couldn't get after us with anything stronger than constables and,
maybe, some lackadaisical bloodhounds and a diatribe or two in the
_Weekly Farmers' Budget_. So, it looked good.
We selected for our victim the only child of a prominent citizen named
Ebenezer Dorset. The father was respectable and tight, a mortgage
fancier and a stern, upright collection-plate passer and forecloser. The
kid was a boy of ten, with bas-relief freckles, and hair the color of
the cover of the magazine you buy at the news-stand when you want to
catch a train. Bill and me figured that Ebenezer would melt down for a
ransom of two thousand dollars to a cent. But wait till I tell you.
About two miles from Summit was a little mountain, covered with a dense
cedar brake. On the rear elevation of this mountain was a cave. There we
stored provisions.
One evening after sundown, we drove in a buggy past old Dorset's house.
The kid was in the street, throwing rocks at a kitten on the opposite
fence.
"Hey, little boy!" says Bill, "would you like to have a bag of candy and
a nice ride?"
The boy catches Bill neatly in the eye with a piece of brick.
"That will cost the old man an extra five hundred dollars," says Bill,
climbing over the wheel.
That boy put up a fight like a welter-weight cinnamon bear; but, at
last, we got him down in the bottom of the buggy and drove away. We took
him up to the cave, and I hitched the horse in the cedar brake. After
dark I drove the buggy to the little village, three miles away, where we
had hired it, and walked back to the mountain.
Bill was pasting court-plaster over the scratches and bruises on his
features. There was a fire burning behind the big rock at the entrance
of the cave, and the boy was watching a pot of boiling coffee, with two
buzzard tail-feathers stuck in his red hair. He points a stick at me
when I come up, and says:
"Ha! cursed paleface, do you dare to enter the camp of Red Chief, the
terror of the plains?"
"He's all right now," says Bill, rolling up his trousers and examining
some bruises on his shins. "We're playing Indian. We're making Buffalo
Bill's show look like magic-lantern views of Palestine in the town hall.
I'm Old Hank, the Trapper, Red Chief's captive, and I'm to be scalped at
daybreak. By Geronimo! that kid can kick hard."
Yes, sir, that boy seemed to be having the time of his life. The fun of
camping out in a cave had made him forget that he was a captive himself.
He immediately christened me Snake-eye, the Spy, and announced that,
when his braves returned from the warpath, I was to be broiled at the
stake at the rising of the sun.
Then we had supper; and he filled his mouth full of bacon and bread and
gravy, and began to talk. He made a during-dinner speech something like
this:
"I like this fine. I never camped out before; but I had a pet 'possum
once, and I was nine last birthday. I hate to go to school. Rats ate up
sixteen of Jimmy Talbot's aunt's speckled hen's eggs. Are there any real
Indians in these woods? I want some more gravy. Does the trees moving
make the wind blow? We had five puppies. What makes your nose so red,
Hank? My father has lots of money. Are the stars hot? I whipped Ed
Walker twice, Saturday. I don't like girls. You dassent catch toads
unless with a string. Do oxen make any noise? Why are oranges round?
Have you got beds to sleep on in this cave? Amos Murray has got six
toes. A parrot can talk, but a monkey or a fish can't. How many does it
take to make twelve?"
Every few minutes he would remember that he was a pesky redskin, and
pick up his stick rifle and tiptoe to the mouth of the cave to rubber
for the scouts of the hated paleface. Now and then he would let out a
war-whoop that made Old Hank the Trapper shiver. That boy had Bill
terrorized from the start.
"Red Chief," says I to the kid, "would you like to go home?"
"Aw, what for?" says he. "I don't have any fun at home. I hate to go to
school. I like to camp out. You won't take me back home again,
Snake-eye, will you?"
"Not right away," says I. "We'll stay here in the cave a while."