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A Study in Scarlet., by A. Conan Doyle
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Study In Scarlet, by Arthur Conan Doyle

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: A Study In Scarlet

Author: Arthur Conan Doyle

Release Date: July 12, 2008 [EBook #244]
Last Updated: September 30, 2016

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A STUDY IN SCARLET ***

Produced by Roger Squires, and David Widger

</pre>

 

<h1>
A STUDY IN SCARLET.
</h1>

 

<h2>
By A. Conan Doyle
</h2>

<a href="#linknote-1" name="linknoteref-1" id="linknoteref-1">1</a>

<div class="mynote">

Original Transcriber’s Note: This etext is prepared directly from an
1887 edition, and care has been taken to duplicate the original exactly,
including typographical and punctuation vagaries.


Additions to the text include adding the underscore character to
indicate italics, and textual end-notes in square braces.


Project Gutenberg Editor’s Note: In reproofing and moving old PG files
such as this to the present PG directory system it is the policy to
reformat the text to conform to present PG Standards. In this case
however, in consideration of the note above of the original transcriber
describing his care to try to duplicate the original 1887 edition as to
typography and punctuation vagaries, no changes have been made in the
ascii text file. However, in the Latin-1 file and this html file,
present standards are followed and the several French and Spanish words
have been given their proper accents.


Part II, The Country of the Saints, deals much with the Mormon Church.

 
</div>

 

<hr />

 

<blockquote>

<big>CONTENTS</big>


 


<a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <big>A STUDY IN SCARLET.</big> </a>


 


<a href="#link1H_PART"> <big>PART I.</big> </a>


<a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES. </a>


<a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. THE SCIENCE OF DEDUCTION. </a>


<a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. THE LAURISTON GARDEN MYSTERY [6]
</a>


<a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. WHAT JOHN RANCE HAD TO TELL. </a>


<a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. OUR ADVERTISEMENT BRINGS A VISITOR.
</a>


<a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. TOBIAS GREGSON SHOWS WHAT HE CAN
DO. </a>


<a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS. </a>


 


<a href="#link2H_PART"> PART II. THE COUNTRY OF THE SAINTS </a>


<a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER I. ON THE GREAT ALKALI PLAIN. </a>


<a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER II. THE FLOWER OF UTAH. </a>


<a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER III. JOHN FERRIER TALKS WITH THE
PROPHET. </a>


<a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER IV. A FLIGHT FOR LIFE. </a>


<a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER V. THE AVENGING ANGELS. </a>


<a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER VI. A CONTINUATION OF THE REMINISCENCES
OF JOHN WATSON, M.D. </a>


<a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER VII. THE CONCLUSION. </a>


<a href="#link2H_4_0018"> ORIGINAL TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: </a>

</blockquote>

 

<hr />

 <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
 </a>

<h1>
A STUDY IN SCARLET.
</h1>

<a name="link1H_PART" id="link1H_PART">
 </a>

<div style="height: 4em;">
 
</div>
<h2>
PART I.
</h2>

(Being a reprint from the reminiscences of JOHN H. WATSON, M.D., late
of the Army Medical Department.) <a href="#linknote-2"
name="linknoteref-2" id="linknoteref-2">2</a>


<a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
 </a>

<div style="height: 4em;">
 
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER I. MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES.
</h2>

IN the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University
of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for
surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly
attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon. The
regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it,
the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that
my corps had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the
enemy’s country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in
the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in
safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties.


The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had
nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and
attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of
Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which
shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen
into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for the devotion
and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a pack-horse,
and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.


Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had
undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the
base hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied, and had already improved so far
as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little upon the
verandah, when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse of our
Indian possessions. For months my life was despaired of, and when at last
I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that
a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me
back to England. I was dispatched, accordingly, in the troopship
“Orontes,” and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health
irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government to
spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it.


I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air—or
as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a
man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London,
that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire
are irresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time at a private hotel
in the Strand, leading a comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending
such money as I had, considerably more freely than I ought. So alarming
did the state of my finances become, that I soon realized that I must
either leave the metropolis and rusticate somewhere in the country, or
that I must make a complete alteration in my style of living. Choosing the
latter alternative, I began by making up my mind to leave the hotel, and
to take up my quarters in some less pretentious and less expensive
domicile.


On the very day that I had come to this conclusion, I was standing at the
Criterion Bar, when some one tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round
I recognized young Stamford, who had been a dresser under me at Barts. The
sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London is a pleasant
thing indeed to a lonely man. In old days Stamford had never been a
particular crony of mine, but now I hailed him with enthusiasm, and he, in
his turn, appeared to be delighted to see me. In the exuberance of my joy,
I asked him to lunch with me at the Holborn, and we started off together
in a hansom.


“Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Watson?” he asked in
undisguised wonder, as we rattled through the crowded London streets. “You
are as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut.”


I gave him a short sketch of my adventures, and had hardly concluded it by
the time that we reached our destination.


“Poor devil!” he said, commiseratingly, after he had listened to my
misfortunes. “What are you up to now?”


“Looking for lodgings.” <a href="#linknote-3" name="linknoteref-3"
id="linknoteref-3">3</a> I answered. “Trying to solve the
problem as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a
reasonable price.”


“That’s a strange thing,” remarked my companion; “you are the second man
to-day that has used that expression to me.”


“And who was the first?” I asked.


“A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital. He
was bemoaning himself this morning because he could not get someone to go
halves with him in some nice rooms which he had found, and which were too
much for his purse.”


“By Jove!” I cried, “if he really wants someone to share the rooms and the
expense, I am the very man for him. I should prefer having a partner to
being alone.”


Young Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wine-glass. “You
don’t know Sherlock Holmes yet,” he said; “perhaps you would not care for
him as a constant companion.”


“Why, what is there against him?”


“Oh, I didn’t say there was anything against him. He is a little queer in
his ideas—an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I
know he is a decent fellow enough.”


“A medical student, I suppose?” said I.


“No—I have no idea what he intends to go in for. I believe he is
well up in anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist; but, as far as I
know, he has never taken out any systematic medical classes. His studies
are very desultory and eccentric, but he has amassed a lot of out-of-the
way knowledge which would astonish his professors.”


“Did you never ask him what he was going in for?” I asked.


“No; he is not a man that it is easy to draw out, though he can be
communicative enough when the fancy seizes him.”


“I should like to meet him,” I said. “If I am to lodge with anyone, I
should prefer a man of studious and quiet habits. I am not strong enough
yet to stand much noise or excitement. I had enough of both in Afghanistan
to last me for the remainder of my natural existence. How could I meet
this friend of yours?”


“He is sure to be at the laboratory,” returned my companion. “He either
avoids the place for weeks, or else he works there from morning to night.
If you like, we shall drive round together after luncheon.”


“Certainly,” I answered, and the conversation drifted away into other
channels.


As we made our way to the hospital after leaving the Holborn, Stamford
gave me a few more particulars about the gentleman whom I proposed to take
as a fellow-lodger.


“You mustn’t blame me if you don’t get on with him,” he said; “I know
nothing more of him than I have learned from meeting him occasionally in
the laboratory. You proposed this arrangement, so you must not hold me
responsible.”


“If we don’t get on it will be easy to part company,” I answered. “It
seems to me, Stamford,” I added, looking hard at my companion, “that you
have some reason for washing your hands of the matter. Is this fellow’s
temper so formidable, or what is it? Don’t be mealy-mouthed about it.”


“It is not easy to express the inexpressible,” he answered with a laugh.
“Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes—it approaches to
cold-bloodedness. I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of
the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand, but
simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea of the
effects. To do him justice, I think that he would take it himself with the
same readiness. He appears to have a passion for definite and exact
knowledge.”


“Very right too.”


“Yes, but it may be pushed to excess. When it comes to beating the
subjects in the dissecting-rooms with a stick, it is certainly taking
rather a bizarre shape.”


“Beating the subjects!”


“Yes, to verify how far bruises may be produced after death. I saw him at
it with my own eyes.”


“And yet you say he is not a medical student?”


“No. Heaven knows what the objects of his studies are. But here we are,
and you must form your own impressions about him.” As he spoke, we turned
down a narrow lane and passed through a small side-door, which opened into
a wing of the great hospital. It was familiar ground to me, and I needed
no guiding as we ascended the bleak stone staircase and made our way down
the long corridor with its vista of whitewashed wall and dun-coloured
doors. Near the further end a low arched passage branched away from it and
led to the chemical laboratory.


This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless bottles.
Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled with retorts,
test-tubes, and little Bunsen lamps, with their blue flickering flames.
There was only one student in the room, who was bending over a distant
table absorbed in his work. At the sound of our steps he glanced round and
sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure. “I’ve found it! I’ve found it,”
he shouted to my companion, running towards us with a test-tube in his
hand. “I have found a re-agent which is precipitated by hoemoglobin, <a
href="#linknote-4" name="linknoteref-4" id="linknoteref-4">4</a>
and by nothing else.” Had he discovered a gold mine, greater delight could
not have shone upon his features.


“Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said Stamford, introducing us.


“How are you?” he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength for
which I should hardly have given him credit. “You have been in
Afghanistan, I perceive.”


“How on earth did you know that?” I asked in astonishment.


“Never mind,” said he, chuckling to himself. “The question now is about
hoemoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of this discovery of mine?”


“It is interesting, chemically, no doubt,” I answered, “but practically——”


“Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years.
Don’t you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains. Come
over here now!” He seized me by the coat-sleeve in his eagerness, and drew
me over to the table at which he had been working. “Let us have some fresh
blood,” he said, digging a long bodkin into his finger, and drawing off
the resulting drop of blood in a chemical pipette. “Now, I add this small
quantity of blood to a litre of water. You perceive that the resulting
mixture has the appearance of pure water. The proportion of blood cannot
be more than one in a million. I have no doubt, however, that we shall be
able to obtain the characteristic reaction.” As he spoke, he threw into
the vessel a few white crystals, and then added some drops of a
transparent fluid. In an instant the contents assumed a dull mahogany
colour, and a brownish dust was precipitated to the bottom of the glass
jar.


“Ha! ha!” he cried, clapping his hands, and looking as delighted as a
child with a new toy. “What do you think of that?”


“It seems to be a very delicate test,” I remarked.


“Beautiful! beautiful! The old Guiacum test was very clumsy and uncertain.
So is the microscopic examination for blood corpuscles. The latter is
valueless if the stains are a few hours old. Now, this appears to act as
well whether the blood is old or new. Had this test been invented, there
are hundreds of men now walking the earth who would long ago have paid the
penalty of their crimes.”


“Indeed!” I murmured.


“Criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point. A man is
suspected of a crime months perhaps after it has been committed. His linen
or clothes are examined, and brownish stains discovered upon them. Are
they blood stains, or mud stains, or rust stains, or fruit stains, or what
are they? That is a question which has puzzled many an expert, and why?
Because there was no reliable test. Now we have the Sherlock Holmes’ test,
and there will no longer be any difficulty.”


His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over his heart
and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his imagination.


“You are to be congratulated,” I remarked, considerably surprised at his
enthusiasm.


“There was the case of Von Bischoff at Frankfort last year. He would
certainly have been hung had this test been in existence. Then there was
Mason of Bradford, and the notorious Muller, and Lefevre of Montpellier,
and Samson of New Orleans. I could name a score of cases in which it would
have been decisive.”


“You seem to be a walking calendar of crime,” said Stamford with a laugh.
“You might start a paper on those lines. Call it the ‘Police News of the
Past.’”


“Very interesting reading it might be made, too,” remarked Sherlock
Holmes, sticking a small piece of plaster over the prick on his finger. “I
have to be careful,” he continued, turning to me with a smile, “for I
dabble with poisons a good deal.” He held out his hand as he spoke, and I
noticed that it was all mottled over with similar pieces of plaster, and
discoloured with strong acids.


“We came here on business,” said Stamford, sitting down on a high
three-legged stool, and pushing another one in my direction with his foot.
“My friend here wants to take diggings, and as you were complaining that
you could get no one to go halves with you, I thought that I had better
bring you together.”


Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his rooms with me.
“I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street,” he said, “which would suit us
down to the ground. You don’t mind the smell of strong tobacco, I hope?”


“I always smoke ‘ship’s’ myself,” I answered.


“That’s good enough. I generally have chemicals about, and occasionally do
experiments. Would that annoy you?”


“By no means.”


“Let me see—what are my other shortcomings. I get in the dumps at
times, and don’t open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am
sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I’ll soon be right. What have
you to confess now? It’s just as well for two fellows to know the worst of
one another before they begin to live together.”


I laughed at this cross-examination. “I keep a bull pup,” I said, “and I
object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all sorts of
ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices when
I’m well, but those are the principal ones at present.”


“Do you include violin-playing in your category of rows?” he asked,
anxiously.


“It depends on the player,” I answered. “A well-played violin is a treat
for the gods—a badly-played one——”


“Oh, that’s all right,” he cried, with a merry laugh. “I think we may
consider the thing as settled—that is, if the rooms are agreeable to
you.”


“When shall we see them?”


“Call for me here at noon to-morrow, and we’ll go together and settle
everything,” he answered.


“All right—noon exactly,” said I, shaking his hand.


We left him working among his chemicals, and we walked together towards my
hotel.


“By the way,” I asked suddenly, stopping and turning upon Stamford, “how
the deuce did he know that I had come from Afghanistan?”


My companion smiled an enigmatical smile. “That’s just his little
peculiarity,” he said. “A good many people have wanted to know how he
finds things out.”


“Oh! a mystery is it?” I cried, rubbing my hands. “This is very piquant. I
am much obliged to you for bringing us together. ‘The proper study of
mankind is man,’ you know.”


“You must study him, then,” Stamford said, as he bade me good-bye. “You’ll
find him a knotty problem, though. I’ll wager he learns more about you
than you about him. Good-bye.”


“Good-bye,” I answered, and strolled on to my hotel, considerably
interested in my new acquaintance.


<a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
 </a>

<div style="height: 4em;">
 
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER II. THE SCIENCE OF DEDUCTION.
</h2>

WE met next day as he had arranged, and inspected the rooms at No. 221B,
<a href="#linknote-5" name="linknoteref-5" id="linknoteref-5">5</a>
Baker Street, of which he had spoken at our meeting. They consisted of a
couple of comfortable bed-rooms and a single large airy sitting-room,
cheerfully furnished, and illuminated by two broad windows. So desirable
in every way were the apartments, and so moderate did the terms seem when
divided between us, that the bargain was concluded upon the spot, and we
at once entered into possession. That very evening I moved my things round
from the hotel, and on the following morning Sherlock Holmes followed me
with several boxes and portmanteaus. For a day or two we were busily
employed in unpacking and laying out our property to the best advantage.
That done, we gradually began to settle down and to accommodate ourselves
to our new surroundings.


Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. He was quiet in his
ways, and his habits were regular. It was rare for him to be up after ten
at night, and he had invariably breakfasted and gone out before I rose in
the morning. Sometimes he spent his day at the chemical laboratory,
sometimes in the dissecting-rooms, and occasionally in long walks, which
appeared to take him into the lowest portions of the City. Nothing could
exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him; but now and again a
reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa
in the sitting-room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from
morning to night. On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant
expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him of being addicted
to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his
whole life forbidden such a notion.


As the weeks went by, my interest in him and my curiosity as to his aims
in life, gradually deepened and increased. His very person and appearance
were such as to strike the attention of the most casual observer. In
height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed
to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and piercing, save during
those intervals of torpor to which I have alluded; and his thin, hawk-like
nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision. His chin,
too, had the prominence and squareness which mark the man of
determination. His hands were invariably blotted with ink and stained with
chemicals, yet he was possessed of extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I
frequently had occasion to observe when I watched him manipulating his
fragile philosophical instruments.


The reader may set me down as a hopeless busybody, when I confess how much
this man stimulated my curiosity, and how often I endeavoured to break
through the reticence which he showed on all that concerned himself.
Before pronouncing judgment, however, be it remembered, how objectless was
my life, and how little there was to engage my attention. My health
forbade me from venturing out unless the weather was exceptionally genial,
and I had no friends who would call upon me and break the monotony of my
daily existence. Under these circumstances, I eagerly hailed the little
mystery which hung around my companion, and spent much of my time in
endeavouring to unravel it.


He was not studying medicine. He had himself, in reply to a question,
confirmed Stamford’s opinion upon that point. Neither did he appear to
have pursued any course of reading which might fit him for a degree in
science or any other recognized portal which would give him an entrance
into the learned world. Yet his zeal for certain studies was remarkable,
and within eccentric limits his knowledge was so extraordinarily ample and
minute that his observations have fairly astounded me. Surely no man would
work so hard or attain such precise information unless he had some
definite end in view. Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the
exactness of their learning. No man burdens his mind with small matters
unless he has some very good reason for doing so.


His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary
literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing.
Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he
might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when
I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of
the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in
this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round
the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could
hardly realize it.


“You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression of
surprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.”


“To forget it!”


“You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like
a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you
choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across,
so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at
best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty
in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful
indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but
the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a
large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to
think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any
extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of
knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest
importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful
ones.”


“But the Solar System!” I protested.


“What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently; “you say that we
go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth
of difference to me or to my work.”


I was on the point of asking him what that work might be, but something in
his manner showed me that the question would be an unwelcome one. I
pondered over our short conversation, however, and endeavoured to draw my
deductions from it. He said that he would acquire no knowledge which did
not bear upon his object. Therefore all the knowledge which he possessed
was such as would be useful to him. I enumerated in my own mind all the
various points upon which he had shown me that he was exceptionally
well-informed. I even took a pencil and jotted them down. I could not help
smiling at the document when I had completed it. It ran in this way—


SHERLOCK HOLMES—his limits.

<pre xml:space="preserve">
1. Knowledge of Literature.—Nil.
2. Philosophy.—Nil.
3. Astronomy.—Nil.
4. Politics.—Feeble.
5. Botany.—Variable. Well up in belladonna,
opium, and poisons generally.
Knows nothing of practical gardening.
6. Geology.—Practical, but limited.
Tells at a glance different soils
from each other. After walks has
shown me splashes upon his trousers,
and told me by their colour and
consistence in what part of London
he had received them.
7. Chemistry.—Profound.
8. Anatomy.—Accurate, but unsystematic.
9. Sensational Literature.—Immense. He appears
to know every detail of every horror
perpetrated in the century.
10. Plays the violin well.
11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.
</pre>

When I had got so far in my list I threw it into the fire in despair. “If
I can only find what the fellow is driving at by reconciling all these
accomplishments, and discovering a calling which needs them all,” I said
to myself, “I may as well give up the attempt at once.”


I see that I have alluded above to his powers upon the violin. These were
very remarkable, but as eccentric as all his other accomplishments. That
he could play pieces, and difficult pieces, I knew well, because at my
request he has played me some of Mendelssohn’s Lieder, and other
favourites. When left to himself, however, he would seldom produce any
music or attempt any recognized air. Leaning back in his arm-chair of an
evening, he would close his eyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle which
was thrown across his knee. Sometimes the chords were sonorous and
melancholy. Occasionally they were fantastic and cheerful. Clearly they
reflected the thoughts which possessed him, but whether the music aided
those thoughts, or whether the playing was simply the result of a whim or
fancy was more than I could determine. I might have rebelled against these
exasperating solos had it not been that he usually terminated them by
playing in quick succession a whole series of my favourite airs as a
slight compensation for the trial upon my patience.


During the first week or so we had no callers, and I had begun to think
that my companion was as friendless a man as I was myself. Presently,
however, I found that he had many acquaintances, and those in the most
different classes of society. There was one little sallow rat-faced,
dark-eyed fellow who was introduced to me as Mr. Lestrade, and who came
three or four times in a single week. One morning a young girl called,
fashionably dressed, and stayed for half an hour or more. The same
afternoon brought a grey-headed, seedy visitor, looking like a Jew pedlar,
who appeared to me to be much excited, and who was closely followed by a
slip-shod elderly woman. On another occasion an old white-haired gentleman
had an interview with my companion; and on another a railway porter in his
velveteen uniform. When any of these nondescript individuals put in an
appearance, Sherlock Holmes used to beg for the use of the sitting-room,
and I would retire to my bed-room. He always apologized to me for putting
me to this inconvenience. “I have to use this room as a place of
business,” he said, “and these people are my clients.” Again I had an
opportunity of asking him a point blank question, and again my delicacy
prevented me from forcing another man to confide in me. I imagined at the
time that he had some strong reason for not alluding to it, but he soon
dispelled the idea by coming round to the subject of his own accord.


It was upon the 4th of March, as I have good reason to remember, that I
rose somewhat earlier than usual, and found that Sherlock Holmes had not
yet finished his breakfast. The landlady had become so accustomed to my
late habits that my place had not been laid nor my coffee prepared. With
the unreasonable petulance of mankind I rang the bell and gave a curt
intimation that I was ready. Then I picked up a magazine from the table
and attempted to while away the time with it, while my companion munched
silently at his toast. One of the articles had a pencil mark at the
heading, and I naturally began to run my eye through it.


Its somewhat ambitious title was “The Book of Life,” and it attempted to
show how much an observant man might learn by an accurate and systematic
examination of all that came in his way. It struck me as being a
remarkable mixture of shrewdness and of absurdity. The reasoning was close
and intense, but the deductions appeared to me to be far-fetched and
exaggerated. The writer claimed by a momentary expression, a twitch of a
muscle or a glance of an eye, to fathom a man’s inmost thoughts. Deceit,
according to him, was an impossibility in the case of one trained to
observation and analysis. His conclusions were as infallible as so many
propositions of Euclid. So startling would his results appear to the
uninitiated that until they learned the processes by which he had arrived
at them they might well consider him as a necromancer.


“From a drop of water,” said the writer, “a logician could infer the
possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of
one or the other. So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is
known whenever we are shown a single link of it. Like all other arts, the
Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can only be acquired by
long and patient study nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to
attain the highest possible perfection in it. Before turning to those
moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest
difficulties, let the enquirer begin by mastering more elementary
problems. Let him, on meeting a fellow-mortal, learn at a glance to
distinguish the history of the man, and the trade or profession to which
he belongs. Puerile as such an exercise may seem, it sharpens the
faculties of observation, and teaches one where to look and what to look
for. By a man’s finger nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boot, by his
trouser knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his
expression, by his shirt cuffs—by each of these things a man’s
calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the
competent enquirer in any case is almost inconceivable.”


“What ineffable twaddle!” I cried, slapping the magazine down on the
table, “I never read such rubbish in my life.”


“What is it?” asked Sherlock Holmes.


“Why, this article,” I said, pointing at it with my egg spoon as I sat
down to my breakfast. “I see that you have read it since you have marked
it. I don’t deny that it is smartly written. It irritates me though. It is
evidently the theory of some arm-chair lounger who evolves all these neat
little paradoxes in the seclusion of his own study. It is not practical. I
should like to see him clapped down in a third class carriage on the
Underground, and asked to give the trades of all his fellow-travellers. I
would lay a thousand to one against him.”


“You would lose your money,” Sherlock Holmes remarked calmly. “As for the
article I wrote it myself.”


“You!”


“Yes, I have a turn both for observation and for deduction. The theories
which I have expressed there, and which appear to you to be so chimerical
are really extremely practical—so practical that I depend upon them
for my bread and cheese.”


“And how?” I asked involuntarily.


“Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one in the world.
I’m a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is. Here in
London we have lots of Government detectives and lots of private ones.
When these fellows are at fault they come to me, and I manage to put them
on the right scent. They lay all the evidence before me, and I am
generally able, by the help of my knowledge of the history of crime, to
set them straight. There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds,
and if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger ends, it is
odd if you can’t unravel the thousand and first. Lestrade is a well-known
detective. He got himself into a fog recently over a forgery case, and
that was what brought him here.”


“And these other people?”


“They are mostly sent on by private inquiry agencies. They are all people
who are in trouble about something, and want a little enlightening. I
listen to their story, they listen to my comments, and then I pocket my
fee.”


“But do you mean to say,” I said, “that without leaving your room you can
unravel some knot which other men can make nothing of, although they have
seen every detail for themselves?”


“Quite so. I have a kind of intuition that way. Now and again a case turns
up which is a little more complex. Then I have to bustle about and see
things with my own eyes. You see I have a lot of special knowledge which I
apply to the problem, and which facilitates matters wonderfully. Those
rules of deduction laid down in that article which aroused your scorn, are
invaluable to me in practical work. Observation with me is second nature.
You appeared to be surprised when I told you, on our first meeting, that
you had come from Afghanistan.”


“You were told, no doubt.”


“Nothing of the sort. I knew you came from Afghanistan. From long
habit the train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind, that I arrived
at the conclusion without being conscious of intermediate steps. There
were such steps, however. The train of reasoning ran, ‘Here is a gentleman
of a medical type, but with the air of a military man. Clearly an army
doctor, then. He has just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and
that is not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair. He has
undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly. His
left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner.
Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship
and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan.’ The whole train of
thought did not occupy a second. I then remarked that you came from
Afghanistan, and you were astonished.”


“It is simple enough as you explain it,” I said, smiling. “You remind me
of Edgar Allen Poe’s Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did exist
outside of stories.”


Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. “No doubt you think that you are
complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin,” he observed. “Now, in my
opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking
in on his friends’ thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an
hour’s silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some
analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as
Poe appeared to imagine.”


“Have you read Gaboriau’s works?” I asked. “Does Lecoq come up to your
idea of a detective?”


Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. “Lecoq was a miserable bungler,” he
said, in an angry voice; “he had only one thing to recommend him, and that
was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question was how to
identify an unknown prisoner. I could have done it in twenty-four hours.
Lecoq took six months or so. It might be made a text-book for detectives
to teach them what to avoid.”


I felt rather indignant at having two characters whom I had admired
treated in this cavalier style. I walked over to the window, and stood
looking out into the busy street. “This fellow may be very clever,” I said
to myself, “but he is certainly very conceited.”


“There are no crimes and no criminals in these days,” he said,
querulously. “What is the use of having brains in our profession. I know
well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or has ever
lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to
the detection of crime which I have done. And what is the result? There is
no crime to detect, or, at most, some bungling villainy with a motive so
transparent that even a Scotland Yard official can see through it.”


I was still annoyed at his bumptious style of conversation. I thought it
best to change the topic.


“I wonder what that fellow is looking for?” I asked, pointing to a
stalwart, plainly-dressed individual who was walking slowly down the other
side of the street, looking anxiously at the numbers. He had a large blue
envelope in his hand, and was evidently the bearer of a message.


“You mean the retired sergeant of Marines,” said Sherlock Holmes.


“Brag and bounce!” thought I to myself. “He knows that I cannot verify his
guess.”


The thought had hardly passed through my mind when the man whom we were
watching caught sight of the number on our door, and ran rapidly across
the roadway. We heard a loud knock, a deep voice below, and heavy steps
ascending the stair.


“For Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” he said, stepping into the room and handing my
friend the letter.


Here was an opportunity of taking the conceit out of him. He little
thought of this when he made that random shot. “May I ask, my lad,” I
said, in the blandest voice, “what your trade may be?”


“Commissionaire, sir,” he said, gruffly. “Uniform away for repairs.”


“And you were?” I asked, with a slightly malicious glance at my companion.


“A sergeant, sir, Royal Marine Light Infantry, sir. No answer? Right,
sir.”


He clicked his heels together, raised his hand in a salute, and was gone.


<a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
 </a>

<div style="height: 4em;">
 
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER III. THE LAURISTON GARDEN MYSTERY <a href="#linknote-6"
name="linknoteref-6" id="linknoteref-6">6</a>
</h2>

I CONFESS that I was considerably startled by this fresh proof of the
practical nature of my companion’s theories. My respect for his powers of
analysis increased wondrously. There still remained some lurking suspicion
in my mind, however, that the whole thing was a pre-arranged episode,
intended to dazzle me, though what earthly object he could have in taking
me in was past my comprehension. When I looked at him he had finished
reading the note, and his eyes had assumed the vacant, lack-lustre
expression which showed mental abstraction.


“How in the world did you deduce that?” I asked.


“Deduce what?” said he, petulantly.


“Why, that he was a retired sergeant of Marines.”


“I have no time for trifles,” he answered, brusquely; then with a smile,
“Excuse my rudeness. You broke the thread of my thoughts; but perhaps it
is as well. So you actually were not able to see that that man was a
sergeant of Marines?”


“No, indeed.”


“It was easier to know it than to explain why I knew it. If you were asked
to prove that two and two made four, you might find some difficulty, and
yet you are quite sure of the fact. Even across the street I could see a
great blue anchor tattooed on the back of the fellow’s hand. That smacked
of the sea. He had a military carriage, however, and regulation side
whiskers. There we have the marine. He was a man with some amount of
self-importance and a certain air of command. You must have observed the
way in which he held his head and swung his cane. A steady, respectable,
middle-aged man, too, on the face of him—all facts which led me to
believe that he had been a sergeant.”


“Wonderful!” I ejaculated.


“Commonplace,” said Holmes, though I thought from his expression that he
was pleased at my evident surprise and admiration. “I said just now that
there were no criminals. It appears that I am wrong—look at this!”
He threw me over the note which the commissionaire had brought. <a
href="#linknote-7" name="linknoteref-7" id="linknoteref-7">7</a>


“Why,” I cried, as I cast my eye over it, “this is terrible!”


“It does seem to be a little out of the common,” he remarked, calmly.
“Would you mind reading it to me aloud?”


This is the letter which I read to him——


“MY DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES,—


“There has been a bad business during the night at 3, Lauriston Gardens,
off the Brixton Road. Our man on the beat saw a light there about two in
the morning, and as the house was an empty one, suspected that something
was amiss. He found the door open, and in the front room, which is bare of
furniture, discovered the body of a gentleman, well dressed, and having
cards in his pocket bearing the name of ‘Enoch J. Drebber, Cleveland,
Ohio, U.S.A.’ There had been no robbery, nor is there any evidence as to
how the man met his death. There are marks of blood in the room, but there
is no wound upon his person. We are at a loss as to how he came into the
empty house; indeed, the whole affair is a puzzler. If you can come round
to the house any time before twelve, you will find me there. I have left
everything in statu quo until I hear from you. If you are unable to
come I shall give you fuller details, and would esteem it a great kindness
if you would favour me with your opinion. Yours faithfully,


“TOBIAS GREGSON.”


“Gregson is the smartest of the Scotland Yarders,” my friend remarked; “he
and Lestrade are the pick of a bad lot. They are both quick and energetic,
but conventional—shockingly so. They have their knives into one
another, too. They are as jealous as a pair of professional beauties.
There will be some fun over this case if they are both put upon the
scent.”


I was amazed at the calm way in which he rippled on. “Surely there is not
a moment to be lost,” I cried, “shall I go and order you a cab?”


“I’m not sure about whether I shall go. I am the most incurably lazy devil
that ever stood in shoe leather—that is, when the fit is on me, for
I can be spry enough at times.”


“Why, it is just such a chance as you have been longing for.”


“My dear fellow, what does it matter to me. Supposing I unravel the whole
matter, you may be sure that Gregson, Lestrade, and Co. will pocket all
the credit. That comes of being an unofficial personage.”


“But he begs you to help him.”


“Yes. He knows that I am his superior, and acknowledges it to me; but he
would cut his tongue out before he would own it to any third person.
However, we may as well go and have a look. I shall work it out on my own
hook. I may have a laugh at them if I have nothing else. Come on!”


He hustled on his overcoat, and bustled about in a way that showed that an
energetic fit had superseded the apathetic one.


“Get your hat,” he said.


“You wish me to come?”


“Yes, if you have nothing better to do.” A minute later we were both in a
hansom, driving furiously for the Brixton Road.


It was a foggy, cloudy morning, and a dun-coloured veil hung over the
house-tops, looking like the reflection of the mud-coloured streets
beneath. My companion was in the best of spirits, and prattled away about
Cremona fiddles, and the difference between a Stradivarius and an Amati.
As for myself, I was silent, for the dull weather and the melancholy
business upon which we were engaged, depressed my spirits.


“You don’t seem to give much thought to the matter in hand,” I said at
last, interrupting Holmes’ musical disquisition.


“No data yet,” he answered. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before
you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.”


“You will have your data soon,” I remarked, pointing with my finger; “this
is the Brixton Road, and that is the house, if I am not very much
mistaken.”


“So it is. Stop, driver, stop!” We were still a hundred yards or so from
it, but he insisted upon our alighting, and we finished our journey upon
foot.


Number 3, Lauriston Gardens wore an ill-omened and minatory look. It was
one of four which stood back some little way from the street, two being
occupied and two empty. The latter looked out with three tiers of vacant
melancholy windows, which were blank and dreary, save that here and there
a “To Let” card had developed like a cataract upon the bleared panes. A
small garden sprinkled over with a scattered eruption of sickly plants
separated each of these houses from the street, and was traversed by a
narrow pathway, yellowish in colour, and consisting apparently of a
mixture of clay and of gravel. The whole place was very sloppy from the
rain which had fallen through the night. The garden was bounded by a
three-foot brick wall with a fringe of wood rails upon the top, and
against this wall was leaning a stalwart police constable, surrounded by a
small knot of loafers, who craned their necks and strained their eyes in
the vain hope of catching some glimpse of the proceedings within.


I had imagined that Sherlock Holmes would at once have hurried into the
house and plunged into a study of the mystery. Nothing appeared to be
further from his intention. With an air of nonchalance which, under the
circumstances, seemed to me to border upon affectation, he lounged up and
down the pavement, and gazed vacantly at the ground, the sky, the opposite
houses and the line of railings. Having finished his scrutiny, he
proceeded slowly down the path, or rather down the fringe of grass which
flanked the path, keeping his eyes riveted upon the ground. Twice he
stopped, and once I saw him smile, and heard him utter an exclamation of
satisfaction. There were many marks of footsteps upon the wet clayey soil,
but since the police had been coming and going over it, I was unable to
see how my companion could hope to learn anything from it. Still I had had
such extraordinary evidence of the quickness of his perceptive faculties,
that I had no doubt that he could see a great deal which was hidden from
me.


At the door of the house we were met by a tall, white-faced, flaxen-haired
man, with a notebook in his hand, who rushed forward and wrung my
companion’s hand with effusion. “It is indeed kind of you to come,” he
said, “I have had everything left untouched.”


“Except that!” my friend answered, pointing at the pathway. “If a herd of
buffaloes had passed along there could not be a greater mess. No doubt,
however, you had drawn your own conclusions, Gregson, before you permitted
this.”


“I have had so much to do inside the house,” the detective said evasively.
“My colleague, Mr. Lestrade, is here. I had relied upon him to look after
this.”


Holmes glanced at me and raised his eyebrows sardonically. “With two such
men as yourself and Lestrade upon the ground, there will not be much for a
third party to find out,” he said.


Gregson rubbed his hands in a self-satisfied way. “I think we have done
all that can be done,” he answered; “it’s a queer case though, and I knew
your taste for such things.”


“You did not come here in a cab?” asked Sherlock Holmes.


“No, sir.”


“Nor Lestrade?”


“No, sir.”


“Then let us go and look at the room.” With which inconsequent remark he
strode on into the house, followed by Gregson, whose features expressed
his astonishment.


A short passage, bare planked and dusty, led to the kitchen and offices.
Two doors opened out of it to the left and to the right. One of these had
obviously been closed for many weeks. The other belonged to the
dining-room, which was the apartment in which the mysterious affair had
occurred. Holmes walked in, and I followed him with that subdued feeling
at my heart which the presence of death inspires.


It was a large square room, looking all the larger from the absence of all
furniture. A vulgar flaring paper adorned the walls, but it was blotched
in places with mildew, and here and there great strips had become detached
and hung down, exposing the yellow plaster beneath. Opposite the door was
a showy fireplace, surmounted by a mantelpiece of imitation white marble.
On one corner of this was stuck the stump of a red wax candle. The
solitary window was so dirty that the light was hazy and uncertain, giving
a dull grey tinge to everything, which was intensified by the thick layer
of dust which coated the whole apartment.


All these details I observed afterwards. At present my attention was
centred upon the single grim motionless figure which lay stretched upon
the boards, with vacant sightless eyes staring up at the discoloured
ceiling. It was that of a man about forty-three or forty-four years of
age, middle-sized, broad shouldered, with crisp curling black hair, and a
short stubbly beard. He was dressed in a heavy broadcloth frock coat and
waistcoat, with light-coloured trousers, and immaculate collar and cuffs.
A top hat, well brushed and trim, was placed upon the floor beside him.
His hands were clenched and his arms thrown abroad, while his lower limbs
were interlocked as though his death struggle had been a grievous one. On
his rigid face there stood an expression of horror, and as it seemed to
me, of hatred, such as I have never seen upon human features. This
malignant and terrible contortion, combined with the low forehead, blunt
nose, and prognathous jaw gave the dead man a singularly simious and
ape-like appearance, which was increased by his writhing, unnatural
posture. I have seen death in many forms, but never has it appeared to me
in a more fearsome aspect than in that dark grimy apartment, which looked
out upon one of the main arteries of suburban London.


Lestrade, lean and ferret-like as ever, was standing by the doorway, and
greeted my companion and myself.


“This case will make a stir, sir,” he remarked. “It beats anything I have
seen, and I am no chicken.”


“There is no clue?” said Gregson.


“None at all,” chimed in Lestrade.


Sherlock Holmes approached the body, and, kneeling down, examined it
intently. “You are sure that there is no wound?” he asked, pointing to
numerous gouts and splashes of blood which lay all round.


“Positive!” cried both detectives.


“Then, of course, this blood belongs to a second individual—<a
href="#linknote-8" name="linknoteref-8" id="linknoteref-8">8</a>
presumably the murderer, if murder has been committed. It reminds me of
the circumstances attendant on the death of Van Jansen, in Utrecht, in the
year ‘34. Do you remember the case, Gregson?”


“No, sir.”


“Read it up—you really should. There is nothing new under the sun.
It has all been done before.”


As he spoke, his nimble fingers were flying here, there, and everywhere,
feeling, pressing, unbuttoning, examining, while his eyes wore the same
far-away expression which I have already remarked upon. So swiftly was the
examination made, that one would hardly have guessed the minuteness with
which it was conducted. Finally, he sniffed the dead man’s lips, and then
glanced at the soles of his patent leather boots.


“He has not been moved at all?” he asked.


“No more than was necessary for the purposes of our examination.”


“You can take him to the mortuary now,” he said. “There is nothing more to
be learned.”


Gregson had a stretcher and four men at hand. At his call they entered the
room, and the stranger was lifted and carried out. As they raised him, a
ring tinkled down and rolled across the floor. Lestrade grabbed it up and
stared at it with mystified eyes.


“There’s been a woman here,” he cried. “It’s a woman’s wedding-ring.”


He held it out, as he spoke, upon the palm of his hand. We all gathered
round him and gazed at it. There could be no doubt that that circlet of
plain gold had once adorned the finger of a bride.


“This complicates matters,” said Gregson. “Heaven knows, they were
complicated enough before.”


“You’re sure it doesn’t simplify them?” observed Holmes. “There’s nothing
to be learned by staring at it. What did you find in his pockets?”


“We have it all here,” said Gregson, pointing to a litter of objects upon
one of the bottom steps of the stairs. “A gold watch, No. 97163, by
Barraud, of London. Gold Albert chain, very heavy and solid. Gold ring,
with masonic device. Gold pin—bull-dog’s head, with rubies as eyes.
Russian leather card-case, with cards of Enoch J. Drebber of Cleveland,
corresponding with the E. J. D. upon the linen. No purse, but loose money
to the extent of seven pounds thirteen. Pocket edition of Boccaccio’s
‘Decameron,’ with name of Joseph Stangerson upon the fly-leaf. Two letters—one
addressed to E. J. Drebber and one to Joseph Stangerson.”


“At what address?”


“American Exchange, Strand—to be left till called for. They are both
from the Guion Steamship Company, and refer to the sailing of their boats
from Liverpool. It is clear that this unfortunate man was about to return
to New York.”


“Have you made any inquiries as to this man, Stangerson?”


“I did it at once, sir,” said Gregson. “I have had advertisements sent to
all the newspapers, and one of my men has gone to the American Exchange,
but he has not returned yet.”


“Have you sent to Cleveland?”


“We telegraphed this morning.”


“How did you word your inquiries?”


“We simply detailed the circumstances, and said that we should be glad of
any information which could help us.”


“You did not ask for particulars on any point which appeared to you to be
crucial?”


“I asked about Stangerson.”


“Nothing else? Is there no circumstance on which this whole case appears
to hinge? Will you not telegraph again?”


“I have said all I have to say,” said Gregson, in an offended voice.


Sherlock Holmes chuckled to himself, and appeared to be about to make some
remark, when Lestrade, who had been in the front room while we were
holding this conversation in the hall, reappeared upon the scene, rubbing
his hands in a pompous and self-satisfied manner.


“Mr. Gregson,” he said, “I have just made a discovery of the highest
importance, and one which would have been overlooked had I not made a
careful examination of the walls.”


The little man’s eyes sparkled as he spoke, and he was evidently in a
state of suppressed exultation at having scored a point against his
colleague.


“Come here,” he said, bustling back into the room, the atmosphere of which
felt clearer since the removal of its ghastly inmate. “Now, stand there!”


He struck a match on his boot and held it up against the wall.


“Look at that!” he said, triumphantly.


I have remarked that the paper had fallen away in parts. In this
particular corner of the room a large piece had peeled off, leaving a
yellow square of coarse plastering. Across this bare space there was
scrawled in blood-red letters a single word—

<pre xml:space="preserve">
RACHE.
</pre>

“What do you think of that?” cried the detective, with the air of a
showman exhibiting his show. “This was overlooked because it was in the
darkest corner of the room, and no one thought of looking there. The
murderer has written it with his or her own blood. See this smear where it
has trickled down the wall! That disposes of the idea of suicide anyhow.
Why was that corner chosen to write it on? I will tell you. See that
candle on the mantelpiece. It was lit at the time, and if it was lit this
corner would be the brightest instead of the darkest portion of the wall.”


“And what does it mean now that you have found it?” asked Gregson
in a depreciatory voice.


“Mean? Why, it means that the writer was going to put the female name
Rachel, but was disturbed before he or she had time to finish. You mark my
words, when this case comes to be cleared up you will find that a woman
named Rachel has something to do with it. It’s all very well for you to
laugh, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. You may be very smart and clever, but the old
hound is the best, when all is said and done.”


“I really beg your pardon!” said my companion, who had ruffled the little
man’s temper by bursting into an explosion of laughter. “You certainly
have the credit of being the first of us to find this out, and, as you
say, it bears every mark of having been written by the other participant
in last night’s mystery. I have not had time to examine this room yet, but
with your permission I shall do so now.”


As he spoke, he whipped a tape measure and a large round magnifying glass
from his pocket. With these two implements he trotted noiselessly about
the room, sometimes stopping, occasionally kneeling, and once lying flat
upon his face. So engrossed was he with his occupation that he appeared to
have forgotten our presence, for he chattered away to himself under his
breath the whole time, keeping up a running fire of exclamations, groans,
whistles, and little cries suggestive of encouragement and of hope. As I
watched him I was irresistibly reminded of a pure-blooded well-trained
foxhound as it dashes backwards and forwards through the covert, whining
in its eagerness, until it comes across the lost scent. For twenty minutes
or more he continued his researches, measuring with the most exact care
the distance between marks which were entirely invisible to me, and
occasionally applying his tape to the walls in an equally incomprehensible
manner. In one place he gathered up very carefully a little pile of grey
dust from the floor, and packed it away in an envelope. Finally, he
examined with his glass the word upon the wall, going over every letter of
it with the most minute exactness. This done, he appeared to be satisfied,
for he replaced his tape and his glass in his pocket.


“They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains,” he
remarked with a smile. “It’s a very bad definition, but it does apply to
detective work.”


Gregson and Lestrade had watched the manoeuvres <a href="#linknote-9"
name="linknoteref-9" id="linknoteref-9">9</a> of their
amateur companion with considerable curiosity and some contempt. They
evidently failed to appreciate the fact, which I had begun to realize,
that Sherlock Holmes’ smallest actions were all directed towards some
definite and practical end.


“What do you think of it, sir?” they both asked.


“It would be robbing you of the credit of the case if I was to presume to
help you,” remarked my friend. “You are doing so well now that it would be
a pity for anyone to interfere.” There was a world of sarcasm in his voice
as he spoke. “If you will let me know how your investigations go,” he
continued, “I shall be happy to give you any help I can. In the meantime I
should like to speak to the constable who found the body. Can you give me
his name and address?”


Lestrade glanced at his note-book. “John Rance,” he said. “He is off duty
now. You will find him at 46, Audley Court, Kennington Park Gate.”


Holmes took a note of the address.


“Come along, Doctor,” he said; “we shall go and look him up. I’ll tell you
one thing which may help you in the case,” he continued, turning to the
two detectives. “There has been murder done, and the murderer was a man.
He was more than six feet high, was in the prime of life, had small feet
for his height, wore coarse, square-toed boots and smoked a Trichinopoly
cigar. He came here with his victim in a four-wheeled cab, which was drawn
by a horse with three old shoes and one new one on his off fore leg. In
all probability the murderer had a florid face, and the finger-nails of
his right hand were remarkably long. These are only a few indications, but
they may assist you.”


Lestrade and Gregson glanced at each other with an incredulous smile.


“If this man was murdered, how was it done?” asked the former.


“Poison,” said Sherlock Holmes curtly, and strode off. “One other thing,
Lestrade,” he added, turning round at the door: “‘Rache,’ is the German
for ‘revenge;’ so don’t lose your time looking for Miss Rachel.”


With which Parthian shot he walked away, leaving the two rivals
open-mouthed behind him.


<a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
 </a>

<div style="height: 4em;">
 
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER IV. WHAT JOHN RANCE HAD TO TELL.
</h2>

IT was one o’clock when we left No. 3, Lauriston Gardens. Sherlock Holmes
led me to the nearest telegraph office, whence he dispatched a long
telegram. He then hailed a cab, and ordered the driver to take us to the
address given us by Lestrade.


“There is nothing like first hand evidence,” he remarked; “as a matter of
fact, my mind is entirely made up upon the case, but still we may as well
learn all that is to be learned.”


“You amaze me, Holmes,” said I. “Surely you are not as sure as you pretend
to be of all those particulars which you gave.”


“There’s no room for a mistake,” he answered. “The very first thing which
I observed on arriving there was that a cab had made two ruts with its
wheels close to the curb. Now, up to last night, we have had no rain for a
week, so that those wheels which left such a deep impression must have
been there during the night. There were the marks of the horse’s hoofs,
too, the outline of one of which was far more clearly cut than that of the
other three, showing that that was a new shoe. Since the cab was there
after the rain began, and was not there at any time during the morning—I
have Gregson’s word for that—it follows that it must have been there
during the night, and, therefore, that it brought those two individuals to
the house.”


“That seems simple enough,” said I; “but how about the other man’s
height?”


“Why, the height of a man, in nine cases out of ten, can be told from the
length of his stride. It is a simple calculation enough, though there is
no use my boring you with figures. I had this fellow’s stride both on the
clay outside and on the dust within. Then I had a way of checking my
calculation. When a man writes on a wall, his instinct leads him to write
about the level of his own eyes. Now that writing was just over six feet
from the ground. It was child’s play.”


“And his age?” I asked.


“Well, if a man can stride four and a-half feet without the smallest
effort, he can’t be quite in the sere and yellow. That was the breadth of
a puddle on the garden walk which he had evidently walked across.
Patent-leather boots had gone round, and Square-toes had hopped over.
There is no mystery about it at all. I am simply applying to ordinary life
a few of those precepts of observation and deduction which I advocated in
that article. Is there anything else that puzzles you?”


“The finger nails and the Trichinopoly,” I suggested.


“The writing on the wall was done with a man’s forefinger dipped in blood.
My glass allowed me to observe that the plaster was slightly scratched in
doing it, which would not have been the case if the man’s nail had been
trimmed. I gathered up some scattered ash from the floor. It was dark in
colour and flakey—such an ash as is only made by a Trichinopoly. I
have made a special study of cigar ashes—in fact, I have written a
monograph upon the subject. I flatter myself that I can distinguish at a
glance the ash of any known brand, either of cigar or of tobacco. It is
just in such details that the skilled detective differs from the Gregson
and Lestrade type.”


“And the florid face?” I asked.


“Ah, that was a more daring shot, though I have no doubt that I was right.
You must not ask me that at the present state of the affair.”


I passed my hand over my brow. “My head is in a whirl,” I remarked; “the
more one thinks of it the more mysterious it grows. How came these two men—if
there were two men—into an empty house? What has become of the
cabman who drove them? How could one man compel another to take poison?
Where did the blood come from? What was the object of the murderer, since
robbery had no part in it? How came the woman’s ring there? Above all, why
should the second man write up the German word RACHE before decamping? I
confess that I cannot see any possible way of reconciling all these
facts.”


My companion smiled approvingly.


“You sum up the difficulties of the situation succinctly and well,” he
said. “There is much that is still obscure, though I have quite made up my
mind on the main facts. As to poor Lestrade’s discovery it was simply a
blind intended to put the police upon a wrong track, by suggesting
Socialism and secret societies. It was not done by a German. The A, if you
noticed, was printed somewhat after the German fashion. Now, a real German
invariably prints in the Latin character, so that we may safely say that
this was not written by one, but by a clumsy imitator who overdid his
part. It was simply a ruse to divert inquiry into a wrong channel. I’m not
going to tell you much more of the case, Doctor. You know a conjuror gets
no credit when once he has explained his trick, and if I show you too much
of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very
ordinary individual after all.”


“I shall never do that,” I answered; “you have brought detection as near
an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.”


My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in
which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as sensitive to
flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty.


“I’ll tell you one other thing,” he said. “Patent leathers <a
href="#linknote-10" name="linknoteref-10" id="linknoteref-10">10</a>
and Square-toes came in the same cab, and they walked down the pathway
together as friendly as possible—arm-in-arm, in all probability.
When they got inside they walked up and down the room—or rather,
Patent-leathers stood still while Square-toes walked up and down. I could
read all that in the dust; and I could read that as he walked he grew more
and more excited. That is shown by the increased length of his strides. He
was talking all the while, and working himself up, no doubt, into a fury.
Then the tragedy occurred. I’ve told you all I know myself now, for the
rest is mere surmise and conjecture. We have a good working basis,
however, on which to start. We must hurry up, for I want to go to Halle’s
concert to hear Norman Neruda this afternoon.”


This conversation had occurred while our cab had been threading its way
through a long succession of dingy streets and dreary by-ways. In the
dingiest and dreariest of them our driver suddenly came to a stand.
“That’s Audley Court in there,” he said, pointing to a narrow slit in the
line of dead-coloured brick. “You’ll find me here when you come back.”


Audley Court was not an attractive locality. The narrow passage led us
into a quadrangle paved with flags and lined by sordid dwellings. We
picked our way among groups of dirty children, and through lines of
discoloured linen, until we came to Number 46, the door of which was
decorated with a small slip of brass on which the name Rance was engraved.
On enquiry we found that the constable was in bed, and we were shown into
a little front parlour to await his coming.


He appeared presently, looking a little irritable at being disturbed in
his slumbers. “I made my report at the office,” he said.


Holmes took a half-sovereign from his pocket and played with it pensively.
“We thought that we should like to hear it all from your own lips,” he
said.


“I shall be most happy to tell you anything I can,” the constable answered
with his eyes upon the little golden disk.


“Just let us hear it all in your own way as it occurred.”


Rance sat down on the horsehair sofa, and knitted his brows as though
determined not to omit anything in his narrative.


“I’ll tell it ye from the beginning,” he said. “My time is from ten at
night to six in the morning. At eleven there was a fight at the ‘White
Hart’; but bar that all was quiet enough on the beat. At one o’clock it
began to rain, and I met Harry Murcher—him who has the Holland Grove
beat—and we stood together at the corner of Henrietta Street
a-talkin’. Presently—maybe about two or a little after—I
thought I would take a look round and see that all was right down the
Brixton Road. It was precious dirty and lonely. Not a soul did I meet all
the way down, though a cab or two went past me. I was a strollin’ down,
thinkin’ between ourselves how uncommon handy a four of gin hot would be,
when suddenly the glint of a light caught my eye in the window of that
same house. Now, I knew that them two houses in Lauriston Gardens was
empty on account of him that owns them who won’t have the drains seen to,
though the very last tenant what lived in one of them died o’ typhoid
fever. I was knocked all in a heap therefore at seeing a light in the
window, and I suspected as something was wrong. When I got to the door——”


“You stopped, and then walked back to the garden gate,” my companion
interrupted. “What did you do that for?”


Rance gave a violent jump, and stared at Sherlock Holmes with the utmost
amazement upon his features.


“Why, that’s true, sir,” he said; “though how you come to know it, Heaven
only knows. Ye see, when I got up to the door it was so still and so
lonesome, that I thought I’d be none the worse for some one with me. I
ain’t afeared of anything on this side o’ the grave; but I thought that
maybe it was him that died o’ the typhoid inspecting the drains what
killed him. The thought gave me a kind o’ turn, and I walked back to the
gate to see if I could see Murcher’s lantern, but there wasn’t no sign of
him nor of anyone else.”


“There was no one in the street?”


“Not a livin’ soul, sir, nor as much as a dog. Then I pulled myself
together and went back and pushed the door open. All was quiet inside, so
I went into the room where the light was a-burnin’. There was a candle
flickerin’ on the mantelpiece—a red wax one—and by its light I
saw——”


“Yes, I know all that you saw. You walked round the room several times,
and you knelt down by the body, and then you walked through and tried the
kitchen door, and then——”


John Rance sprang to his feet with a frightened face and suspicion in his
eyes. “Where was you hid to see all that?” he cried. “It seems to me that
you knows a deal more than you should.”


Holmes laughed and threw his card across the table to the constable.
“Don’t get arresting me for the murder,” he said. “I am one of the hounds
and not the wolf; Mr. Gregson or Mr. Lestrade will answer for that. Go on,
though. What did you do next?”


Rance resumed his seat, without however losing his mystified expression.
“I went back to the gate and sounded my whistle. That brought Murcher and
two more to the spot.”


“Was the street empty then?”


“Well, it was, as far as anybody that could be of any good goes.”


“What do you mean?”


The constable’s features broadened into a grin. “I’ve seen many a drunk
chap in my time,” he said, “but never anyone so cryin’ drunk as that cove.
He was at the gate when I came out, a-leanin’ up agin the railings, and
a-singin’ at the pitch o’ his lungs about Columbine’s New-fangled Banner,
or some such stuff. He couldn’t stand, far less help.”


“What sort of a man was he?” asked Sherlock Holmes.


John Rance appeared to be somewhat irritated at this digression. “He was
an uncommon drunk sort o’ man,” he said. “He’d ha’ found hisself in the
station if we hadn’t been so took up.”


“His face—his dress—didn’t you notice them?” Holmes broke in
impatiently.


“I should think I did notice them, seeing that I had to prop him up—me
and Murcher between us. He was a long chap, with a red face, the lower
part muffled round——”


“That will do,” cried Holmes. “What became of him?”


“We’d enough to do without lookin’ after him,” the policeman said, in an
aggrieved voice. “I’ll wager he found his way home all right.”


“How was he dressed?”


“A brown overcoat.”


“Had he a whip in his hand?”


“A whip—no.”


“He must have left it behind,” muttered my companion. “You didn’t happen
to see or hear a cab after that?”


“No.”


“There’s a half-sovereign for you,” my companion said, standing up and
taking his hat. “I am afraid, Rance, that you will never rise in the
force. That head of yours should be for use as well as ornament. You might
have gained your sergeant’s stripes last night. The man whom you held in
your hands is the man who holds the clue of this mystery, and whom we are
seeking. There is no use of arguing about it now; I tell you that it is
so. Come along, Doctor.”


We started off for the cab together, leaving our informant incredulous,
but obviously uncomfortable.


“The blundering fool,” Holmes said, bitterly, as we drove back to our
lodgings. “Just to think of his having such an incomparable bit of good
luck, and not taking advantage of it.”


“I am rather in the dark still. It is true that the description of this
man tallies with your idea of the second party in this mystery. But why
should he come back to the house after leaving it? That is not the way of
criminals.”


“The ring, man, the ring: that was what he came back for. If we have no
other way of catching him, we can always bait our line with the ring. I
shall have him, Doctor—I’ll lay you two to one that I have him. I
must thank you for it all. I might not have gone but for you, and so have
missed the finest study I ever came across: a study in scarlet, eh? Why
shouldn’t we use a little art jargon. There’s the scarlet thread of murder
running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel
it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it. And now for lunch, and
then for Norman Neruda. Her attack and her bowing are splendid. What’s
that little thing of Chopin’s she plays so magnificently:
Tra-la-la-lira-lira-lay.”


Leaning back in the cab, this amateur bloodhound carolled away like a lark
while I meditated upon the many-sidedness of the human mind.


<a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
 </a>

<div style="height: 4em;">
 
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER V. OUR ADVERTISEMENT BRINGS A VISITOR.
</h2>

OUR morning’s exertions had been too much for my weak health, and I was
tired out in the afternoon. After Holmes’ departure for the concert, I lay
down upon the sofa and endeavoured to get a couple of hours’ sleep. It was
a useless attempt. My mind had been too much excited by all that had
occurred, and the strangest fancies and surmises crowded into it. Every
time that I closed my eyes I saw before me the distorted baboon-like
countenance of the murdered man. So sinister was the impression which that
face had produced upon me that I found it difficult to feel anything but
gratitude for him who had removed its owner from the world. If ever human
features bespoke vice of the most malignant type, they were certainly
those of Enoch J. Drebber, of Cleveland. Still I recognized that justice
must be done, and that the depravity of the victim was no condonment <a
href="#linknote-11" name="linknoteref-11" id="linknoteref-11">11</a>
in the eyes of the law.


The more I thought of it the more extraordinary did my companion’s
hypothesis, that the man had been poisoned, appear. I remembered how he
had sniffed his lips, and had no doubt that he had detected something
which had given rise to the idea. Then, again, if not poison, what had
caused the man’s death, since there was neither wound nor marks of
strangulation? But, on the other hand, whose blood was that which lay so
thickly upon the floor? There were no signs of a struggle, nor had the
victim any weapon with which he might have wounded an antagonist. As long
as all these questions were unsolved, I felt that sleep would be no easy
matter, either for Holmes or myself. His quiet self-confident manner
convinced me that he had already formed a theory which explained all the
facts, though what it was I could not for an instant conjecture.


He was very late in returning—so late, that I knew that the concert
could not have detained him all the time. Dinner was on the table before
he appeared.


“It was magnificent,” he said, as he took his seat. “Do you remember what
Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and
appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of
speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by
it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when
the world was in its childhood.”


“That’s rather a broad idea,” I remarked.


“One’s ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature,”
he answered. “What’s the matter? You’re not looking quite yourself. This
Brixton Road affair has upset you.”


“To tell the truth, it has,” I said. “I ought to be more case-hardened
after my Afghan experiences. I saw my own comrades hacked to pieces at
Maiwand without losing my nerve.”


“I can understand. There is a mystery about this which stimulates the
imagination; where there is no imagination there is no horror. Have you
seen the evening paper?”


“No.”


“It gives a fairly good account of the affair. It does not mention the
fact that when the man was raised up, a woman’s wedding ring fell upon the
floor. It is just as well it does not.”


“Why?”


“Look at this advertisement,” he answered. “I had one sent to every paper
this morning immediately after the affair.”


He threw the paper across to me and I glanced at the place indicated. It
was the first announcement in the “Found” column. “In Brixton Road, this
morning,” it ran, “a plain gold wedding ring, found in the roadway between
the ‘White Hart’ Tavern and Holland Grove. Apply Dr. Watson, 221B, Baker
Street, between eight and nine this evening.”


“Excuse my using your name,” he said. “If I used my own some of these
dunderheads would recognize it, and want to meddle in the affair.”


“That is all right,” I answered. “But supposing anyone applies, I have no
ring.”


“Oh yes, you have,” said he, handing me one. “This will do very well. It
is almost a facsimile.”


“And who do you expect will answer this advertisement.”


“Why, the man in the brown coat—our florid friend with the square
toes. If he does not come himself he will send an accomplice.”


“Would he not consider it as too dangerous?”


“Not at all. If my view of the case is correct, and I have every reason to
believe that it is, this man would rather risk anything than lose the
ring. According to my notion he dropped it while stooping over Drebber’s
body, and did not miss it at the time. After leaving the house he
discovered his loss and hurried back, but found the police already in
possession, owing to his own folly in leaving the candle burning. He had
to pretend to be drunk in order to allay the suspicions which might have
been aroused by his appearance at the gate. Now put yourself in that man’s
place. On thinking the matter over, it must have occurred to him that it
was possible that he had lost the ring in the road after leaving the
house. What would he do, then? He would eagerly look out for the evening
papers in the hope of seeing it among the articles found. His eye, of
course, would light upon this. He would be overjoyed. Why should he fear a
trap? There would be no reason in his eyes why the finding of the ring
should be connected with the murder. He would come. He will come. You
shall see him within an hour?”


“And then?” I asked.


“Oh, you can leave me to deal with him then. Have you any arms?”


“I have my old service revolver and a few cartridges.”


“You had better clean it and load it. He will be a desperate man, and
though I shall take him unawares, it is as well to be ready for anything.”


I went to my bedroom and followed his advice. When I returned with the
pistol the table had been cleared, and Holmes was engaged in his favourite
occupation of scraping upon his violin.


“The plot thickens,” he said, as I entered; “I have just had an answer to
my American telegram. My view of the case is the correct one.”


“And that is?” I asked eagerly.


“My fiddle would be the better for new strings,” he remarked. “Put your
pistol in your pocket. When the fellow comes speak to him in an ordinary
way. Leave the rest to me. Don’t frighten him by looking at him too hard.”


“It is eight o’clock now,” I said, glancing at my watch.


“Yes. He will probably be here in a few minutes. Open the door slightly.
That will do. Now put the key on the inside. Thank you! This is a queer
old book I picked up at a stall yesterday—‘De Jure inter Gentes’—published
in Latin at Liege in the Lowlands, in 1642. Charles’ head was still firm
on his shoulders when this little brown-backed volume was struck off.”


“Who is the printer?”


“Philippe de Croy, whoever he may have been. On the fly-leaf, in very
faded ink, is written ‘Ex libris Guliolmi Whyte.’ I wonder who William
Whyte was. Some pragmatical seventeenth century lawyer, I suppose. His
writing has a legal twist about it. Here comes our man, I think.”


As he spoke there was a sharp ring at the bell. Sherlock Holmes rose
softly and moved his chair in the direction of the door. We heard the
servant pass along the hall, and the sharp click of the latch as she
opened it.


“Does Dr. Watson live here?” asked a clear but rather harsh voice. We
could not hear the servant’s reply, but the door closed, and some one
began to ascend the stairs. The footfall was an uncertain and shuffling
one. A look of surprise passed over the face of my companion as he
listened to it. It came slowly along the passage, and there was a feeble
tap at the door.


“Come in,” I cried.


At my summons, instead of the man of violence whom we expected, a very old
and wrinkled woman hobbled into the apartment. She appeared to be dazzled
by the sudden blaze of light, and after dropping a curtsey, she stood
blinking at us with her bleared eyes and fumbling in her pocket with
nervous, shaky fingers. I glanced at my companion, and his face had
assumed such a disconsolate expression that it was all I could do to keep
my countenance.


The old crone drew out an evening paper, and pointed at our advertisement.
“It’s this as has brought me, good gentlemen,” she said, dropping another
curtsey; “a gold wedding ring in the Brixton Road. It belongs to my girl
Sally, as was married only this time twelvemonth, which her husband is
steward aboard a Union boat, and what he’d say if he come ‘ome and found
her without her ring is more than I can think, he being short enough at
the best o’ times, but more especially when he has the drink. If it please
you, she went to the circus last night along with——”


“Is that her ring?” I asked.


“The Lord be thanked!” cried the old woman; “Sally will be a glad woman
this night. That’s the ring.”


“And what may your address be?” I inquired, taking up a pencil.


“13, Duncan Street, Houndsditch. A weary way from here.”


“The Brixton Road does not lie between any circus and Houndsditch,” said
Sherlock Holmes sharply.


The old woman faced round and looked keenly at him from her little
red-rimmed eyes. “The gentleman asked me for my address,” she said.
“Sally lives in lodgings at 3, Mayfield Place, Peckham.”


“And your name is——?”


“My name is Sawyer—her’s is Dennis, which Tom Dennis married her—and
a smart, clean lad, too, as long as he’s at sea, and no steward in the
company more thought of; but when on shore, what with the women and what
with liquor shops——”


“Here is your ring, Mrs. Sawyer,” I interrupted, in obedience to a sign
from my companion; “it clearly belongs to your daughter, and I am glad to
be able to restore it to the rightful owner.”


With many mumbled blessings and protestations of gratitude the old crone
packed it away in her pocket, and shuffled off down the stairs. Sherlock
Holmes sprang to his feet the moment that she was gone and rushed into his
room. He returned in a few seconds enveloped in an ulster and a cravat.
“I’ll follow her,” he said, hurriedly; “she must be an accomplice, and
will lead me to him. Wait up for me.” The hall door had hardly slammed
behind our visitor before Holmes had descended the stair. Looking through
the window I could see her walking feebly along the other side, while her
pursuer dogged her some little distance behind. “Either his whole theory
is incorrect,” I thought to myself, “or else he will be led now to the
heart of the mystery.” There was no need for him to ask me to wait up for
him, for I felt that sleep was impossible until I heard the result of his
adventure.


It was close upon nine when he set out. I had no idea how long he might
be, but I sat stolidly puffing at my pipe and skipping over the pages of
Henri Murger’s “Vie de Bohème.” Ten o’clock passed, and I heard the
footsteps of the maid as they pattered off to bed. Eleven, and the more
stately tread of the landlady passed my door, bound for the same
destination. It was close upon twelve before I heard the sharp sound of
his latch-key. The instant he entered I saw by his face that he had not
been successful. Amusement and chagrin seemed to be struggling for the
mastery, until the former suddenly carried the day, and he burst into a
hearty laugh.


“I wouldn’t have the Scotland Yarders know it for the world,” he cried,
dropping into his chair; “I have chaffed them so much that they would
never have let me hear the end of it. I can afford to laugh, because I
know that I will be even with them in the long run.”


“What is it then?” I asked.


“Oh, I don’t mind telling a story against myself. That creature had gone a
little way when she began to limp and show every sign of being foot-sore.
Presently she came to a halt, and hailed a four-wheeler which was passing.
I managed to be close to her so as to hear the address, but I need not
have been so anxious, for she sang it out loud enough to be heard at the
other side of the street, ‘Drive to 13, Duncan Street, Houndsditch,’ she
cried. This begins to look genuine, I thought, and having seen her safely
inside, I perched myself behind. That’s an art which every detective
should be an expert at. Well, away we rattled, and never drew rein until
we reached the street in question. I hopped off before we came to the
door, and strolled down the street in an easy, lounging way. I saw the cab
pull up. The driver jumped down, and I saw him open the door and stand
expectantly. Nothing came out though. When I reached him he was groping
about frantically in the empty cab, and giving vent to the finest assorted
collection of oaths that ever I listened to. There was no sign or trace of
his passenger, and I fear it will be some time before he gets his fare. On
inquiring at Number 13 we found that the house belonged to a respectable
paperhanger, named Keswick, and that no one of the name either of Sawyer
or Dennis had ever been heard of there.”


“You don’t mean to say,” I cried, in amazement, “that that tottering,
feeble old woman was able to get out of the cab while it was in motion,
without either you or the driver seeing her?”


“Old woman be damned!” said Sherlock Holmes, sharply. “We were the old
women to be so taken in. It must have been a young man, and an active one,
too, besides being an incomparable actor. The get-up was inimitable. He
saw that he was followed, no doubt, and used this means of giving me the
slip. It shows that the man we are after is not as lonely as I imagined he
was, but has friends who are ready to risk something for him. Now, Doctor,
you are looking done-up. Take my advice and turn in.”


I was certainly feeling very weary, so I obeyed his injunction. I left
Holmes seated in front of the smouldering fire, and long into the watches
of the night I heard the low, melancholy wailings of his violin, and knew
that he was still pondering over the strange problem which he had set
himself to unravel.


<a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
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<h2>
CHAPTER VI. TOBIAS GREGSON SHOWS WHAT HE CAN DO.
</h2>

THE papers next day were full of the “Brixton Mystery,” as they termed it.
Each had a long account of the affair, and some had leaders upon it in
addition. There was some information in them which was new to me. I still
retain in my scrap-book numerous clippings and extracts bearing upon the
case. Here is a condensation of a few of them:—


The Daily Telegraph remarked that in the history of crime there had
seldom been a tragedy which presented stranger features. The German name
of the victim, the absence of all other motive, and the sinister
inscription on the wall, all pointed to its perpetration by political
refugees and revolutionists. The Socialists had many branches in America,
and the deceased had, no doubt, infringed their unwritten laws, and been
tracked down by them. After alluding airily to the Vehmgericht, aqua
tofana, Carbonari, the Marchioness de Brinvilliers, the Darwinian theory,
the principles of Malthus, and the Ratcliff Highway murders, the article
concluded by admonishing the Government and advocating a closer watch over
foreigners in England.


The Standard commented upon the fact that lawless outrages of the
sort usually occurred under a Liberal Administration. They arose from the
unsettling of the minds of the masses, and the consequent weakening of all
authority. The deceased was an American gentleman who had been residing
for some weeks in the Metropolis. He had stayed at the boarding-house of
Madame Charpentier, in Torquay Terrace, Camberwell. He was accompanied in
his travels by his private secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson. The two bade
adieu to their landlady upon Tuesday, the 4th inst., and departed to
Euston Station with the avowed intention of catching the Liverpool
express. They were afterwards seen together upon the platform. Nothing
more is known of them until Mr. Drebber’s body was, as recorded,
discovered in an empty house in the Brixton Road, many miles from Euston.
How he came there, or how he met his fate, are questions which are still
involved in mystery. Nothing is known of the whereabouts of Stangerson. We
are glad to learn that Mr. Lestrade and Mr. Gregson, of Scotland Yard, are
both engaged upon the case, and it is confidently anticipated that these
well-known officers will speedily throw light upon the matter.


The Daily News observed that there was no doubt as to the crime
being a political one. The despotism and hatred of Liberalism which
animated the Continental Governments had had the effect of driving to our
shores a number of men who might have made excellent citizens were they
not soured by the recollection of all that they had undergone. Among these
men there was a stringent code of honour, any infringement of which was
punished by death. Every effort should be made to find the secretary,
Stangerson, and to ascertain some particulars of the habits of the
deceased. A great step had been gained by the discovery of the address of
the house at which he had boarded—a result which was entirely due to
the acuteness and energy of Mr. Gregson of Scotland Yard.


Sherlock Holmes and I read these notices over together at breakfast, and
they appeared to afford him considerable amusement.


“I told you that, whatever happened, Lestrade and Gregson would be sure to
score.”


“That depends on how it turns out.”


“Oh, bless you, it doesn’t matter in the least. If the man is caught, it
will be on account of their exertions; if he escapes, it will be in
spite of their exertions. It’s heads I win and tails you lose.
Whatever they do, they will have followers. ‘Un sot trouve toujours un
plus sot qui l’admire.’”


“What on earth is this?” I cried, for at this moment there came the
pattering of many steps in the hall and on the stairs, accompanied by
audible expressions of disgust upon the part of our landlady.


“It’s the Baker Street division of the detective police force,” said my
companion, gravely; and as he spoke there rushed into the room half a
dozen of the dirtiest and most ragged street Arabs that ever I clapped
eyes on.


“‘Tention!” cried Holmes, in a sharp tone, and the six dirty little
scoundrels stood in a line like so many disreputable statuettes. “In
future you shall send up Wiggins alone to report, and the rest of you must
wait in the street. Have you found it, Wiggins?”


“No, sir, we hain’t,” said one of the youths.


“I hardly expected you would. You must keep on until you do. Here are your
wages.” <a href="#linknote-13" name="linknoteref-13" id="linknoteref-13">13</a>
He handed each of them a shilling.


“Now, off you go, and come back with a better report next time.”


He waved his hand, and they scampered away downstairs like so many rats,
and we heard their shrill voices next moment in the street.


“There’s more work to be got out of one of those little beggars than out
of a dozen of the force,” Holmes remarked. “The mere sight of an
official-looking person seals men’s lips. These youngsters, however, go
everywhere and hear everything. They are as sharp as needles, too; all
they want is organisation.”


“Is it on this Brixton case that you are employing them?” I asked.


“Yes; there is a point which I wish to ascertain. It is merely a matter of
time. Hullo! we are going to hear some news now with a vengeance! Here is
Gregson coming down the road with beatitude written upon every feature of
his face. Bound for us, I know. Yes, he is stopping. There he is!”


There was a violent peal at the bell, and in a few seconds the fair-haired
detective came up the stairs, three steps at a time, and burst into our
sitting-room.


“My dear fellow,” he cried, wringing Holmes’ unresponsive hand,
“congratulate me! I have made the whole thing as clear as day.”


A shade of anxiety seemed to me to cross my companion’s expressive face.


“Do you mean that you are on the right track?” he asked.


“The right track! Why, sir, we have the man under lock and key.”


“And his name is?”


“Arthur Charpentier, sub-lieutenant in Her Majesty’s navy,” cried Gregson,
pompously, rubbing his fat hands and inflating his chest.


Sherlock Holmes gave a sigh of relief, and relaxed into a smile.


“Take a seat, and try one of these cigars,” he said. “We are anxious to
know how you managed it. Will you have some whiskey and water?”


“I don’t mind if I do,” the detective answered. “The tremendous exertions
which I have gone through during the last day or two have worn me out. Not
so much bodily exertion, you understand, as the strain upon the mind. You
will appreciate that, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, for we are both brain-workers.”


“You do me too much honour,” said Holmes, gravely. “Let us hear how you
arrived at this most gratifying result.”


The detective seated himself in the arm-chair, and puffed complacently at
his cigar. Then suddenly he slapped his thigh in a paroxysm of amusement.


“The fun of it is,” he cried, “that that fool Lestrade, who thinks himself
so smart, has gone off upon the wrong track altogether. He is after the
secretary Stangerson, who had no more to do with the crime than the babe
unborn. I have no doubt that he has caught him by this time.”


The idea tickled Gregson so much that he laughed until he choked.


“And how did you get your clue?”


“Ah, I’ll tell you all about it. Of course, Doctor Watson, this is
strictly between ourselves. The first difficulty which we had to contend
with was the finding of this American’s antecedents. Some people would
have waited until their advertisements were answered, or until parties
came forward and volunteered information. That is not Tobias Gregson’s way
of going to work. You remember the hat beside the dead man?”


“Yes,” said Holmes; “by John Underwood and Sons, 129, Camberwell Road.”


Gregson looked quite crest-fallen.


“I had no idea that you noticed that,” he said. “Have you been there?”


“No.”


“Ha!” cried Gregson, in a relieved voice; “you should never neglect a
chance, however small it may seem.”


“To a great mind, nothing is little,” remarked Holmes, sententiously.


“Well, I went to Underwood, and asked him if he had sold a hat of that
size and description. He looked over his books, and came on it at once. He
had sent the hat to a Mr. Drebber, residing at Charpentier’s Boarding
Establishment, Torquay Terrace. Thus I got at his address.”


“Smart—very smart!” murmured Sherlock Holmes.


“I next called upon Madame Charpentier,” continued the detective. “I found
her very pale and distressed. Her daughter was in the room, too—an
uncommonly fine girl she is, too; she was looking red about the eyes and
her lips trembled as I spoke to her. That didn’t escape my notice. I began
to smell a rat. You know the feeling, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, when you come
upon the right scent—a kind of thrill in your nerves. ‘Have you
heard of the mysterious death of your late boarder Mr. Enoch J. Drebber,
of Cleveland?’ I asked.


“The mother nodded. She didn’t seem able to get out a word. The daughter
burst into tears. I felt more than ever that these people knew something
of the matter.


“‘At what o’clock did Mr. Drebber leave your house for the train?’ I
asked.


“‘At eight o’clock,’ she said, gulping in her throat to keep down her
agitation. ‘His secretary, Mr. Stangerson, said that there were two trains—one
at 9.15 and one at 11. He was to catch the first. <a href="#linknote-14"
name="linknoteref-14" id="linknoteref-14">14</a>


“‘And was that the last which you saw of him?’


“A terrible change came over the woman’s face as I asked the question. Her
features turned perfectly livid. It was some seconds before she could get
out the single word ‘Yes’—and when it did come it was in a husky
unnatural tone.


“There was silence for a moment, and then the daughter spoke in a calm
clear voice.


“‘No good can ever come of falsehood, mother,’ she said. ‘Let us be frank
with this gentleman. We did see Mr. Drebber again.’


“‘God forgive you!’ cried Madame Charpentier, throwing up her hands and
sinking back in her chair. ‘You have murdered your brother.’


“‘Arthur would rather that we spoke the truth,’ the girl answered firmly.


“‘You had best tell me all about it now,’ I said. ‘Half-confidences are
worse than none. Besides, you do not know how much we know of it.’


“‘On your head be it, Alice!’ cried her mother; and then, turning to me,
‘I will tell you all, sir. Do not imagine that my agitation on behalf of
my son arises from any fear lest he should have had a hand in this
terrible affair. He is utterly innocent of it. My dread is, however, that
in your eyes and in the eyes of others he may appear to be compromised.
That however is surely impossible. His high character, his profession, his
antecedents would all forbid it.’


“‘Your best way is to make a clean breast of the facts,’ I answered.
‘Depend upon it, if your son is innocent he will be none the worse.’


“‘Perhaps, Alice, you had better leave us together,’ she said, and her
daughter withdrew. ‘Now, sir,’ she continued, ‘I had no intention of
telling you all this, but since my poor daughter has disclosed it I have
no alternative. Having once decided to speak, I will tell you all without
omitting any particular.’


“‘It is your wisest course,’ said I.


“‘Mr. Drebber has been with us nearly three weeks. He and his secretary,
Mr. Stangerson, had been travelling on the Continent. I noticed a
“Copenhagen” label upon each of their trunks, showing that that had been
their last stopping place. Stangerson was a quiet reserved man, but his
employer, I am sorry to say, was far otherwise. He was coarse in his
habits and brutish in his ways. The very night of his arrival he became
very much the worse for drink, and, indeed, after twelve o’clock in the
day he could hardly ever be said to be sober. His manners towards the
maid-servants were disgustingly free and familiar. Worst of all, he
speedily assumed the same attitude towards my daughter, Alice, and spoke
to her more than once in a way which, fortunately, she is too innocent to
understand. On one occasion he actually seized her in his arms and
embraced her—an outrage which caused his own secretary to reproach
him for his unmanly conduct.’


“‘But why did you stand all this,’ I asked. ‘I suppose that you can get
rid of your boarders when you wish.’


“Mrs. Charpentier blushed at my pertinent question. ‘Would to God that I
had given him notice on the very day that he came,’ she said. ‘But it was
a sore temptation. They were paying a pound a day each—fourteen
pounds a week, and this is the slack season. I am a widow, and my boy in
the Navy has cost me much. I grudged to lose the money. I acted for the
best. This last was too much, however, and I gave him notice to leave on
account of it. That was the reason of his going.’


“‘Well?’


“‘My heart grew light when I saw him drive away. My son is on leave just
now, but I did not tell him anything of all this, for his temper is
violent, and he is passionately fond of his sister. When I closed the door
behind them a load seemed to be lifted from my mind. Alas, in less than an
hour there was a ring at the bell, and I learned that Mr. Drebber had
returned. He was much excited, and evidently the worse for drink. He
forced his way into the room, where I was sitting with my daughter, and
made some incoherent remark about having missed his train. He then turned
to Alice, and before my very face, proposed to her that she should fly
with him. “You are of age,” he said, “and there is no law to stop you. I
have money enough and to spare. Never mind the old girl here, but come
along with me now straight away. You shall live like a princess.” Poor
Alice was so frightened that she shrunk away from him, but he caught her
by the wrist and endeavoured to draw her towards the door. I screamed, and
at that moment my son Arthur came into the room. What happened then I do
not know. I heard oaths and the confused sounds of a scuffle. I was too
terrified to raise my head. When I did look up I saw Arthur standing in
the doorway laughing, with a stick in his hand. “I don’t think that fine
fellow will trouble us again,” he said. “I will just go after him and see
what he does with himself.” With those words he took his hat and started
off down the street. The next morning we heard of Mr. Drebber’s mysterious
death.’


“This statement came from Mrs. Charpentier’s lips with many gasps and
pauses. At times she spoke so low that I could hardly catch the words. I
made shorthand notes of all that she said, however, so that there should
be no possibility of a mistake.”


“It’s quite exciting,” said Sherlock Holmes, with a yawn. “What happened
next?”


“When Mrs. Charpentier paused,” the detective continued, “I saw that the
whole case hung upon one point. Fixing her with my eye in a way which I
always found effective with women, I asked her at what hour her son
returned.


“‘I do not know,’ she answered.


“‘Not know?’


“‘No; he has a latch-key, and he let himself in.’


“‘After you went to bed?’


“‘Yes.’


“‘When did you go to bed?’


“‘About eleven.’


“‘So your son was gone at least two hours?’


“‘Yes.’


“‘Possibly four or five?’


“‘Yes.’


“‘What was he doing during that time?’


“‘I do not know,’ she answered, turning white to her very lips.


“Of course after that there was nothing more to be done. I found out where
Lieutenant Charpentier was, took two officers with me, and arrested him.
When I touched him on the shoulder and warned him to come quietly with us,
he answered us as bold as brass, ‘I suppose you are arresting me for being
concerned in the death of that scoundrel Drebber,’ he said. We had said
nothing to him about it, so that his alluding to it had a most suspicious
aspect.”


“Very,” said Holmes.


“He still carried the heavy stick which the mother described him as having
with him when he followed Drebber. It was a stout oak cudgel.”


“What is your theory, then?”


“Well, my theory is that he followed Drebber as far as the Brixton Road.
When there, a fresh altercation arose between them, in the course of which
Drebber received a blow from the stick, in the pit of the stomach,
perhaps, which killed him without leaving any mark. The night was so wet
that no one was about, so Charpentier dragged the body of his victim into
the empty house. As to the candle, and the blood, and the writing on the
wall, and the ring, they may all be so many tricks to throw the police on
to the wrong scent.”


“Well done!” said Holmes in an encouraging voice. “Really, Gregson, you
are getting along. We shall make something of you yet.”


“I flatter myself that I have managed it rather neatly,” the detective
answered proudly. “The young man volunteered a statement, in which he said
that after following Drebber some time, the latter perceived him, and took
a cab in order to get away from him. On his way home he met an old
shipmate, and took a long walk with him. On being asked where this old
shipmate lived, he was unable to give any satisfactory reply. I think the
whole case fits together uncommonly well. What amuses me is to think of
Lestrade, who had started off upon the wrong scent. I am afraid he won’t
make much of <a href="#linknote-15" name="linknoteref-15"
id="linknoteref-15">15</a> Why, by Jove, here’s the very
man himself!”


It was indeed Lestrade, who had ascended the stairs while we were talking,
and who now entered the room. The assurance and jauntiness which generally
marked his demeanour and dress were, however, wanting. His face was
disturbed and troubled, while his clothes were disarranged and untidy. He
had evidently come with the intention of consulting with Sherlock Holmes,
for on perceiving his colleague he appeared to be embarrassed and put out.
He stood in the centre of the room, fumbling nervously with his hat and
uncertain what to do. “This is a most extraordinary case,” he said at last—“a
most incomprehensible affair.”


“Ah, you find it so, Mr. Lestrade!” cried Gregson, triumphantly. “I
thought you would come to that conclusion. Have you managed to find the
Secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson?”


“The Secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson,” said Lestrade gravely, “was
murdered at Halliday’s Private Hotel about six o’clock this morning.”


<a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
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<h2>
CHAPTER VII. LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS.
</h2>

THE intelligence with which Lestrade greeted us was so momentous and so
unexpected, that we were all three fairly dumfoundered. Gregson sprang out
of his chair and upset the remainder of his whiskey and water. I stared in
silence at Sherlock Holmes, whose lips were compressed and his brows drawn
down over his eyes.


“Stangerson too!” he muttered. “The plot thickens.”


“It was quite thick enough before,” grumbled Lestrade, taking a chair. “I
seem to have dropped into a sort of council of war.”


“Are you—are you sure of this piece of intelligence?” stammered
Gregson.


“I have just come from his room,” said Lestrade. “I was the first to
discover what had occurred.”


“We have been hearing Gregson’s view of the matter,” Holmes observed.
“Would you mind letting us know what you have seen and done?”


“I have no objection,” Lestrade answered, seating himself. “I freely
confess that I was of the opinion that Stangerson was concerned in the
death of Drebber. This fresh development has shown me that I was
completely mistaken. Full of the one idea, I set myself to find out what
had become of the Secretary. They had been seen together at Euston Station
about half-past eight on the evening of the third. At two in the morning
Drebber had been found in the Brixton Road. The question which confronted
me was to find out how Stangerson had been employed between 8.30 and the
time of the crime, and what had become of him afterwards. I telegraphed to
Liverpool, giving a description of the man, and warning them to keep a
watch upon the American boats. I then set to work calling upon all the
hotels and lodging-houses in the vicinity of Euston. You see, I argued
that if Drebber and his companion had become separated, the natural course
for the latter would be to put up somewhere in the vicinity for the night,
and then to hang about the station again next morning.”


“They would be likely to agree on some meeting-place beforehand,” remarked
Holmes.


“So it proved. I spent the whole of yesterday evening in making enquiries
entirely without avail. This morning I began very early, and at eight
o’clock I reached Halliday’s Private Hotel, in Little George Street. On my
enquiry as to whether a Mr. Stangerson was living there, they at once
answered me in the affirmative.


“‘No doubt you are the gentleman whom he was expecting,’ they said. ‘He
has been waiting for a gentleman for two days.’


“‘Where is he now?’ I asked.


“‘He is upstairs in bed. He wished to be called at nine.’


“‘I will go up and see him at once,’ I said.


“It seemed to me that my sudden appearance might shake his nerves and lead
him to say something unguarded. The Boots volunteered to show me the room:
it was on the second floor, and there was a small corridor leading up to
it. The Boots pointed out the door to me, and was about to go downstairs
again when I saw something that made me feel sickish, in spite of my
twenty years’ experience. From under the door there curled a little red
ribbon of blood, which had meandered across the passage and formed a
little pool along the skirting at the other side. I gave a cry, which
brought the Boots back. He nearly fainted when he saw it. The door was
locked on the inside, but we put our shoulders to it, and knocked it in.
The window of the room was open, and beside the window, all huddled up,
lay the body of a man in his nightdress. He was quite dead, and had been
for some time, for his limbs were rigid and cold. When we turned him over,
the Boots recognized him at once as being the same gentleman who had
engaged the room under the name of Joseph Stangerson. The cause of death
was a deep stab in the left side, which must have penetrated the heart.
And now comes the strangest part of the affair. What do you suppose was
above the murdered man?”


I felt a creeping of the flesh, and a presentiment of coming horror, even
before Sherlock Holmes answered.


“The word RACHE, written in letters of blood,” he said.


“That was it,” said Lestrade, in an awe-struck voice; and we were all
silent for a while.


There was something so methodical and so incomprehensible about the deeds
of this unknown assassin, that it imparted a fresh ghastliness to his
crimes. My nerves, which were steady enough on the field of battle tingled
as I thought of it.


“The man was seen,” continued Lestrade. “A milk boy, passing on his way to
the dairy, happened to walk down the lane which leads from the mews at the
back of the hotel. He noticed that a ladder, which usually lay there, was
raised against one of the windows of the second floor, which was wide
open. After passing, he looked back and saw a man descend the ladder. He
came down so quietly and openly that the boy imagined him to be some
carpenter or joiner at work in the hotel. He took no particular notice of
him, beyond thinking in his own mind that it was early for him to be at
work. He has an impression that the man was tall, had a reddish face, and
was dressed in a long, brownish coat. He must have stayed in the room some
little time after the murder, for we found blood-stained water in the
basin, where he had washed his hands, and marks on the sheets where he had
deliberately wiped his knife.”


I glanced at Holmes on hearing the description of the murderer, which
tallied so exactly with his own. There was, however, no trace of
exultation or satisfaction upon his face.


“Did you find nothing in the room which could furnish a clue to the
murderer?” he asked.


“Nothing. Stangerson had Drebber’s purse in his pocket, but it seems that
this was usual, as he did all the paying. There was eighty odd pounds in
it, but nothing had been taken. Whatever the motives of these
extraordinary crimes, robbery is certainly not one of them. There were no
papers or memoranda in the murdered man’s pocket, except a single
telegram, dated from Cleveland about a month ago, and containing the
words, ‘J. H. is in Europe.’ There was no name appended to this message.”


“And there was nothing else?” Holmes asked.


“Nothing of any importance. The man’s novel, with which he had read
himself to sleep was lying upon the bed, and his pipe was on a chair
beside him. There was a glass of water on the table, and on the
window-sill a small chip ointment box containing a couple of pills.”


Sherlock Holmes sprang from his chair with an exclamation of delight.


“The last link,” he cried, exultantly. “My case is complete.”


The two detectives stared at him in amazement.


“I have now in my hands,” my companion said, confidently, “all the threads
which have formed such a tangle. There are, of course, details to be
filled in, but I am as certain of all the main facts, from the time that
Drebber parted from Stangerson at the station, up to the discovery of the
body of the latter, as if I had seen them with my own eyes. I will give
you a proof of my knowledge. Could you lay your hand upon those pills?”


“I have them,” said Lestrade, producing a small white box; “I took them
and the purse and the telegram, intending to have them put in a place of
safety at the Police Station. It was the merest chance my taking these
pills, for I am bound to say that I do not attach any importance to them.”


“Give them here,” said Holmes. “Now, Doctor,” turning to me, “are those
ordinary pills?”


They certainly were not. They were of a pearly grey colour, small, round,
and almost transparent against the light. “From their lightness and
transparency, I should imagine that they are soluble in water,” I
remarked.


“Precisely so,” answered Holmes. “Now would you mind going down and
fetching that poor little devil of a terrier which has been bad so long,
and which the landlady wanted you to put out of its pain yesterday.”


I went downstairs and carried the dog upstair in my arms. It’s laboured
breathing and glazing eye showed that it was not far from its end. Indeed,
its snow-white muzzle proclaimed that it had already exceeded the usual
term of canine existence. I placed it upon a cushion on the rug.


“I will now cut one of these pills in two,” said Holmes, and drawing his
penknife he suited the action to the word. “One half we return into the
box for future purposes. The other half I will place in this wine glass,
in which is a teaspoonful of water. You perceive that our friend, the
Doctor, is right, and that it readily dissolves.”


“This may be very interesting,” said Lestrade, in the injured tone of one
who suspects that he is being laughed at, “I cannot see, however, what it
has to do with the death of Mr. Joseph Stangerson.”


“Patience, my friend, patience! You will find in time that it has
everything to do with it. I shall now add a little milk to make the
mixture palatable, and on presenting it to the dog we find that he laps it
up readily enough.”


As he spoke he turned the contents of the wine glass into a saucer and
placed it in front of the terrier, who speedily licked it dry. Sherlock
Holmes’ earnest demeanour had so far convinced us that we all sat in
silence, watching the animal intently, and expecting some startling
effect. None such appeared, however. The dog continued to lie stretched
upon tho <a href="#linknote-16" name="linknoteref-16" id="linknoteref-16">16</a>
cushion, breathing in a laboured way, but apparently neither the better
nor the worse for its draught.


Holmes had taken out his watch, and as minute followed minute without
result, an expression of the utmost chagrin and disappointment appeared
upon his features. He gnawed his lip, drummed his fingers upon the table,
and showed every other symptom of acute impatience. So great was his
emotion, that I felt sincerely sorry for him, while the two detectives
smiled derisively, by no means displeased at this check which he had met.


“It can’t be a coincidence,” he cried, at last springing from his chair
and pacing wildly up and down the room; “it is impossible that it should
be a mere coincidence. The very pills which I suspected in the case of
Drebber are actually found after the death of Stangerson. And yet they are
inert. What can it mean? Surely my whole chain of reasoning cannot have
been false. It is impossible! And yet this wretched dog is none the worse.
Ah, I have it! I have it!” With a perfect shriek of delight he rushed to
the box, cut the other pill in two, dissolved it, added milk, and
presented it to the terrier. The unfortunate creature’s tongue seemed
hardly to have been moistened in it before it gave a convulsive shiver in
every limb, and lay as rigid and lifeless as if it had been struck by
lightning.


Sherlock Holmes drew a long breath, and wiped the perspiration from his
forehead. “I should have more faith,” he said; “I ought to know by this
time that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of deductions,
it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation.
Of the two pills in that box one was of the most deadly poison, and the
other was entirely harmless. I ought to have known that before ever I saw
the box at all.”


This last statement appeared to me to be so startling, that I could hardly
believe that he was in his sober senses. There was the dead dog, however,
to prove that his conjecture had been correct. It seemed to me that the
mists in my own mind were gradually clearing away, and I began to have a
dim, vague perception of the truth.


“All this seems strange to you,” continued Holmes, “because you failed at
the beginning of the inquiry to grasp the importance of the single real
clue which was presented to you. I had the good fortune to seize upon
that, and everything which has occurred since then has served to confirm
my original supposition, and, indeed, was the logical sequence of it.
Hence things which have perplexed you and made the case more obscure, have
served to enlighten me and to strengthen my conclusions. It is a mistake
to confound strangeness with mystery. The most commonplace crime is often
the most mysterious because it presents no new or special features from
which deductions may be drawn. This murder would have been infinitely more
difficult to unravel had the body of the victim been simply found lying in
the roadway without any of those outré and sensational
accompaniments which have rendered it remarkable. These strange details,
far from making the case more difficult, have really had the effect of
making it less so.”


Mr. Gregson, who had listened to this address with considerable
impatience, could contain himself no longer. “Look here, Mr. Sherlock
Holmes,” he said, “we are all ready to acknowledge that you are a smart
man, and that you have your own methods of working. We want something more
than mere theory and preaching now, though. It is a case of taking the
man. I have made my case out, and it seems I was wrong. Young Charpentier
could not have been engaged in this second affair. Lestrade went after his
man, Stangerson, and it appears that he was wrong too. You have thrown out
hints here, and hints there, and seem to know more than we do, but the
time has come when we feel that we have a right to ask you straight how
much you do know of the business. Can you name the man who did it?”


“I cannot help feeling that Gregson is right, sir,” remarked Lestrade. “We
have both tried, and we have both failed. You have remarked more than once
since I have been in the room that you had all the evidence which you
require. Surely you will not withhold it any longer.”


“Any delay in arresting the assassin,” I observed, “might give him time to
perpetrate some fresh atrocity.”


Thus pressed by us all, Holmes showed signs of irresolution. He continued
to walk up and down the room with his head sunk on his chest and his brows
drawn down, as was his habit when lost in thought.


“There will be no more murders,” he said at last, stopping abruptly and
facing us. “You can put that consideration out of the question. You have
asked me if I know the name of the assassin. I do. The mere knowing of his
name is a small thing, however, compared with the power of laying our
hands upon him. This I expect very shortly to do. I have good hopes of
managing it through my own arrangements; but it is a thing which needs
delicate handling, for we have a shrewd and desperate man to deal with,
who is supported, as I have had occasion to prove, by another who is as
clever as himself. As long as this man has no idea that anyone can have a
clue there is some chance of securing him; but if he had the slightest
suspicion, he would change his name, and vanish in an instant among the
four million inhabitants of this great city. Without meaning to hurt
either of your feelings, I am bound to say that I consider these men to be
more than a match for the official force, and that is why I have not asked
your assistance. If I fail I shall, of course, incur all the blame due to
this omission; but that I am prepared for. At present I am ready to
promise that the instant that I can communicate with you without
endangering my own combinations, I shall do so.”


Gregson and Lestrade seemed to be far from satisfied by this assurance, or
by the depreciating allusion to the detective police. The former had
flushed up to the roots of his flaxen hair, while the other’s beady eyes
glistened with curiosity and resentment. Neither of them had time to
speak, however, before there was a tap at the door, and the spokesman of
the street Arabs, young Wiggins, introduced his insignificant and
unsavoury person.


“Please, sir,” he said, touching his forelock, “I have the cab
downstairs.”


“Good boy,” said Holmes, blandly. “Why don’t you introduce this pattern at
Scotland Yard?” he continued, taking a pair of steel handcuffs from a
drawer. “See how beautifully the spring works. They fasten in an instant.”


“The old pattern is good enough,” remarked Lestrade, “if we can only find
the man to put them on.”


“Very good, very good,” said Holmes, smiling. “The cabman may as well help
me with my boxes. Just ask him to step up, Wiggins.”


I was surprised to find my companion speaking as though he were about to
set out on a journey, since he had not said anything to me about it. There
was a small portmanteau in the room, and this he pulled out and began to
strap. He was busily engaged at it when the cabman entered the room.


“Just give me a help with this buckle, cabman,” he said, kneeling over his
task, and never turning his head.


The fellow came forward with a somewhat sullen, defiant air, and put down
his hands to assist. At that instant there was a sharp click, the jangling
of metal, and Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet again.


“Gentlemen,” he cried, with flashing eyes, “let me introduce you to Mr.
Jefferson Hope, the murderer of Enoch Drebber and of Joseph Stangerson.”


The whole thing occurred in a moment—so quickly that I had no time
to realize it. I have a vivid recollection of that instant, of Holmes’
triumphant expression and the ring of his voice, of the cabman’s dazed,
savage face, as he glared at the glittering handcuffs, which had appeared
as if by magic upon his wrists. For a second or two we might have been a
group of statues. Then, with an inarticulate roar of fury, the prisoner
wrenched himself free from Holmes’s grasp, and hurled himself through the
window. Woodwork and glass gave way before him; but before he got quite
through, Gregson, Lestrade, and Holmes sprang upon him like so many
staghounds. He was dragged back into the room, and then commenced a
terrific conflict. So powerful and so fierce was he, that the four of us
were shaken off again and again. He appeared to have the convulsive
strength of a man in an epileptic fit. His face and hands were terribly
mangled by his passage through the glass, but loss of blood had no effect
in diminishing his resistance. It was not until Lestrade succeeded in
getting his hand inside his neckcloth and half-strangling him that we made
him realize that his struggles were of no avail; and even then we felt no
security until we had pinioned his feet as well as his hands. That done,
we rose to our feet breathless and panting.


“We have his cab,” said Sherlock Holmes. “It will serve to take him to
Scotland Yard. And now, gentlemen,” he continued, with a pleasant smile,
“we have reached the end of our little mystery. You are very welcome to
put any questions that you like to me now, and there is no danger that I
will refuse to answer them.”


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<h2>
PART II. The Country of the Saints.
</h2>

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<h2>
CHAPTER I. ON THE GREAT ALKALI PLAIN.
</h2>

IN the central portion of the great North American Continent there lies an
arid and repulsive desert, which for many a long year served as a barrier
against the advance of civilisation. From the Sierra Nevada to Nebraska,
and from the Yellowstone River in the north to the Colorado upon the
south, is a region of desolation and silence. Nor is Nature always in one
mood throughout this grim district. It comprises snow-capped and lofty
mountains, and dark and gloomy valleys. There are swift-flowing rivers
which dash through jagged cañons; and there are enormous plains, which in
winter are white with snow, and in summer are grey with the saline alkali
dust. They all preserve, however, the common characteristics of
barrenness, inhospitality, and misery.


There are no inhabitants of this land of despair. A band of Pawnees or of
Blackfeet may occasionally traverse it in order to reach other
hunting-grounds, but the hardiest of the braves are glad to lose sight of
those awesome plains, and to find themselves once more upon their
prairies. The coyote skulks among the scrub, the buzzard flaps heavily
through the air, and the clumsy grizzly bear lumbers through the dark
ravines, and picks up such sustenance as it can amongst the rocks. These
are the sole dwellers in the wilderness.


In the whole world there can be no more dreary view than that from the
northern slope of the Sierra Blanco. As far as the eye can reach stretches
the great flat plain-land, all dusted over with patches of alkali, and
intersected by clumps of the dwarfish chaparral bushes. On the extreme
verge of the horizon lie a long chain of mountain peaks, with their rugged
summits flecked with snow. In this great stretch of country there is no
sign of life, nor of anything appertaining to life. There is no bird in
the steel-blue heaven, no movement upon the dull, grey earth—above
all, there is absolute silence. Listen as one may, there is no shadow of a
sound in all that mighty wilderness; nothing but silence—complete
and heart-subduing silence.


It has been said there is nothing appertaining to life upon the broad
plain. That is hardly true. Looking down from the Sierra Blanco, one sees
a pathway traced out across the desert, which winds away and is lost in
the extreme distance. It is rutted with wheels and trodden down by the
feet of many adventurers. Here and there there are scattered white objects
which glisten in the sun, and stand out against the dull deposit of
alkali. Approach, and examine them! They are bones: some large and coarse,
others smaller and more delicate. The former have belonged to oxen, and
the latter to men. For fifteen hundred miles one may trace this ghastly
caravan route by these scattered remains of those who had fallen by the
wayside.


Looking down on this very scene, there stood upon the fourth of May,
eighteen hundred and forty-seven, a solitary traveller. His appearance was
such that he might have been the very genius or demon of the region. An
observer would have found it difficult to say whether he was nearer to
forty or to sixty. His face was lean and haggard, and the brown
parchment-like skin was drawn tightly over the projecting bones; his long,
brown hair and beard were all flecked and dashed with white; his eyes were
sunken in his head, and burned with an unnatural lustre; while the hand
which grasped his rifle was hardly more fleshy than that of a skeleton. As
he stood, he leaned upon his weapon for support, and yet his tall figure
and the massive framework of his bones suggested a wiry and vigorous
constitution. His gaunt face, however, and his clothes, which hung so
baggily over his shrivelled limbs, proclaimed what it was that gave him
that senile and decrepit appearance. The man was dying—dying from
hunger and from thirst.


He had toiled painfully down the ravine, and on to this little elevation,
in the vain hope of seeing some signs of water. Now the great salt plain
stretched before his eyes, and the distant belt of savage mountains,
without a sign anywhere of plant or tree, which might indicate the
presence of moisture. In all that broad landscape there was no gleam of
hope. North, and east, and west he looked with wild questioning eyes, and
then he realised that his wanderings had come to an end, and that there,
on that barren crag, he was about to die. “Why not here, as well as in a
feather bed, twenty years hence,” he muttered, as he seated himself in the
shelter of a boulder.


Before sitting down, he had deposited upon the ground his useless rifle,
and also a large bundle tied up in a grey shawl, which he had carried
slung over his right shoulder. It appeared to be somewhat too heavy for
his strength, for in lowering it, it came down on the ground with some
little violence. Instantly there broke from the grey parcel a little
moaning cry, and from it there protruded a small, scared face, with very
bright brown eyes, and two little speckled, dimpled fists.


“You’ve hurt me!” said a childish voice reproachfully.


“Have I though,” the man answered penitently, “I didn’t go for to do it.”
As he spoke he unwrapped the grey shawl and extricated a pretty little
girl of about five years of age, whose dainty shoes and smart pink frock
with its little linen apron all bespoke a mother’s care. The child was
pale and wan, but her healthy arms and legs showed that she had suffered
less than her companion.


“How is it now?” he answered anxiously, for she was still rubbing the
towsy golden curls which covered the back of her head.


“Kiss it and make it well,” she said, with perfect gravity, shoving <a
href="#linknote-19" name="linknoteref-19" id="linknoteref-19">19</a>
the injured part up to him. “That’s what mother used to do. Where’s
mother?”


“Mother’s gone. I guess you’ll see her before long.”


“Gone, eh!” said the little girl. “Funny, she didn’t say good-bye; she
‘most always did if she was just goin’ over to Auntie’s for tea, and now
she’s been away three days. Say, it’s awful dry, ain’t it? Ain’t there no
water, nor nothing to eat?”


“No, there ain’t nothing, dearie. You’ll just need to be patient awhile,
and then you’ll be all right. Put your head up agin me like that, and then
you’ll feel bullier. It ain’t easy to talk when your lips is like leather,
but I guess I’d best let you know how the cards lie. What’s that you’ve
got?”


“Pretty things! fine things!” cried the little girl enthusiastically,
holding up two glittering fragments of mica. “When we goes back to home
I’ll give them to brother Bob.”


“You’ll see prettier things than them soon,” said the man confidently.
“You just wait a bit. I was going to tell you though—you remember
when we left the river?”


“Oh, yes.”


“Well, we reckoned we’d strike another river soon, d’ye see. But there was
somethin’ wrong; compasses, or map, or somethin’, and it didn’t turn up.
Water ran out. Just except a little drop for the likes of you and—and——”


“And you couldn’t wash yourself,” interrupted his companion gravely,
staring up at his grimy visage.


“No, nor drink. And Mr. Bender, he was the fust to go, and then Indian
Pete, and then Mrs. McGregor, and then Johnny Hones, and then, dearie,
your mother.”


“Then mother’s a deader too,” cried the little girl dropping her face in
her pinafore and sobbing bitterly.


“Yes, they all went except you and me. Then I thought there was some
chance of water in this direction, so I heaved you over my shoulder and we
tramped it together. It don’t seem as though we’ve improved matters.
There’s an almighty small chance for us now!”


“Do you mean that we are going to die too?” asked the child, checking her
sobs, and raising her tear-stained face.


“I guess that’s about the size of it.”


“Why didn’t you say so before?” she said, laughing gleefully. “You gave me
such a fright. Why, of course, now as long as we die we’ll be with mother
again.”


“Yes, you will, dearie.”


“And you too. I’ll tell her how awful good you’ve been. I’ll bet she meets
us at the door of Heaven with a big pitcher of water, and a lot of
buckwheat cakes, hot, and toasted on both sides, like Bob and me was fond
of. How long will it be first?”


“I don’t know—not very long.” The man’s eyes were fixed upon the
northern horizon. In the blue vault of the heaven there had appeared three
little specks which increased in size every moment, so rapidly did they
approach. They speedily resolved themselves into three large brown birds,
which circled over the heads of the two wanderers, and then settled upon
some rocks which overlooked them. They were buzzards, the vultures of the
west, whose coming is the forerunner of death.


“Cocks and hens,” cried the little girl gleefully, pointing at their
ill-omened forms, and clapping her hands to make them rise. “Say, did God
make this country?”


“In course He did,” said her companion, rather startled by this unexpected
question.


“He made the country down in Illinois, and He made the Missouri,” the
little girl continued. “I guess somebody else made the country in these
parts. It’s not nearly so well done. They forgot the water and the trees.”


“What would ye think of offering up prayer?” the man asked diffidently.


“It ain’t night yet,” she answered.


“It don’t matter. It ain’t quite regular, but He won’t mind that, you bet.
You say over them ones that you used to say every night in the waggon when
we was on the Plains.”


“Why don’t you say some yourself?” the child asked, with wondering eyes.


“I disremember them,” he answered. “I hain’t said none since I was half
the height o’ that gun. I guess it’s never too late. You say them out, and
I’ll stand by and come in on the choruses.”


“Then you’ll need to kneel down, and me too,” she said, laying the shawl
out for that purpose. “You’ve got to put your hands up like this. It makes
you feel kind o’ good.”


It was a strange sight had there been anything but the buzzards to see it.
Side by side on the narrow shawl knelt the two wanderers, the little
prattling child and the reckless, hardened adventurer. Her chubby face,
and his haggard, angular visage were both turned up to the cloudless
heaven in heartfelt entreaty to that dread being with whom they were face
to face, while the two voices—the one thin and clear, the other deep
and harsh—united in the entreaty for mercy and forgiveness. The
prayer finished, they resumed their seat in the shadow of the boulder
until the child fell asleep, nestling upon the broad breast of her
protector. He watched over her slumber for some time, but Nature proved to
be too strong for him. For three days and three nights he had allowed
himself neither rest nor repose. Slowly the eyelids drooped over the tired
eyes, and the head sunk lower and lower upon the breast, until the man’s
grizzled beard was mixed with the gold tresses of his companion, and both
slept the same deep and dreamless slumber.


Had the wanderer remained awake for another half hour a strange sight
would have met his eyes. Far away on the extreme verge of the alkali plain
there rose up a little spray of dust, very slight at first, and hardly to
be distinguished from the mists of the distance, but gradually growing
higher and broader until it formed a solid, well-defined cloud. This cloud
continued to increase in size until it became evident that it could only
be raised by a great multitude of moving creatures. In more fertile spots
the observer would have come to the conclusion that one of those great
herds of bisons which graze upon the prairie land was approaching him.
This was obviously impossible in these arid wilds. As the whirl of dust
drew nearer to the solitary bluff upon which the two castaways were
reposing, the canvas-covered tilts of waggons and the figures of armed
horsemen began to show up through the haze, and the apparition revealed
itself as being a great caravan upon its journey for the West. But what a
caravan! When the head of it had reached the base of the mountains, the
rear was not yet visible on the horizon. Right across the enormous plain
stretched the straggling array, waggons and carts, men on horseback, and
men on foot. Innumerable women who staggered along under burdens, and
children who toddled beside the waggons or peeped out from under the white
coverings. This was evidently no ordinary party of immigrants, but rather
some nomad people who had been compelled from stress of circumstances to
seek themselves a new country. There rose through the clear air a confused
clattering and rumbling from this great mass of humanity, with the
creaking of wheels and the neighing of horses. Loud as it was, it was not
sufficient to rouse the two tired wayfarers above them.


At the head of the column there rode a score or more of grave ironfaced
men, clad in sombre homespun garments and armed with rifles. On reaching
the base of the bluff they halted, and held a short council among
themselves.


“The wells are to the right, my brothers,” said one, a hard-lipped,
clean-shaven man with grizzly hair.


“To the right of the Sierra Blanco—so we shall reach the Rio
Grande,” said another.


“Fear not for water,” cried a third. “He who could draw it from the rocks
will not now abandon His own chosen people.”


“Amen! Amen!” responded the whole party.


They were about to resume their journey when one of the youngest and
keenest-eyed uttered an exclamation and pointed up at the rugged crag
above them. From its summit there fluttered a little wisp of pink, showing
up hard and bright against the grey rocks behind. At the sight there was a
general reining up of horses and unslinging of guns, while fresh horsemen
came galloping up to reinforce the vanguard. The word ‘Redskins’ was on
every lip.


“There can’t be any number of Injuns here,” said the elderly man who
appeared to be in command. “We have passed the Pawnees, and there are no
other tribes until we cross the great mountains.”


“Shall I go forward and see, Brother Stangerson,” asked one of the band.


“And I,” “and I,” cried a dozen voices.


“Leave your horses below and we will await you here,” the Elder answered.
In a moment the young fellows had dismounted, fastened their horses, and
were ascending the precipitous slope which led up to the object which had
excited their curiosity. They advanced rapidly and noiselessly, with the
confidence and dexterity of practised scouts. The watchers from the plain
below could see them flit from rock to rock until their figures stood out
against the skyline. The young man who had first given the alarm was
leading them. Suddenly his followers saw him throw up his hands, as though
overcome with astonishment, and on joining him they were affected in the
same way by the sight which met their eyes.


On the little plateau which crowned the barren hill there stood a single
giant boulder, and against this boulder there lay a tall man, long-bearded
and hard-featured, but of an excessive thinness. His placid face and
regular breathing showed that he was fast asleep. Beside him lay a little
child, with her round white arms encircling his brown sinewy neck, and her
golden haired head resting upon the breast of his velveteen tunic. Her
rosy lips were parted, showing the regular line of snow-white teeth
within, and a playful smile played over her infantile features. Her plump
little white legs terminating in white socks and neat shoes with shining
buckles, offered a strange contrast to the long shrivelled members of her
companion. On the ledge of rock above this strange couple there stood
three solemn buzzards, who, at the sight of the new comers uttered raucous
screams of disappointment and flapped sullenly away.


The cries of the foul birds awoke the two sleepers who stared about <a
href="#linknote-20" name="linknoteref-20" id="linknoteref-20">20</a>
them in bewilderment. The man staggered to his feet and looked down upon
the plain which had been so desolate when sleep had overtaken him, and
which was now traversed by this enormous body of men and of beasts. His
face assumed an expression of incredulity as he gazed, and he passed his
boney hand over his eyes. “This is what they call delirium, I guess,” he
muttered. The child stood beside him, holding on to the skirt of his coat,
and said nothing but looked all round her with the wondering questioning
gaze of childhood.


The rescuing party were speedily able to convince the two castaways that
their appearance was no delusion. One of them seized the little girl, and
hoisted her upon his shoulder, while two others supported her gaunt
companion, and assisted him towards the waggons.


“My name is John Ferrier,” the wanderer explained; “me and that little un
are all that’s left o’ twenty-one people. The rest is all dead o’ thirst
and hunger away down in the south.”


“Is she your child?” asked someone.


“I guess she is now,” the other cried, defiantly; “she’s mine ‘cause I
saved her. No man will take her from me. She’s Lucy Ferrier from this day
on. Who are you, though?” he continued, glancing with curiosity at his
stalwart, sunburned rescuers; “there seems to be a powerful lot of ye.”


“Nigh upon ten thousand,” said one of the young men; “we are the
persecuted children of God—the chosen of the Angel Merona.”


“I never heard tell on him,” said the wanderer. “He appears to have chosen
a fair crowd of ye.”


“Do not jest at that which is sacred,” said the other sternly. “We are of
those who believe in those sacred writings, drawn in Egyptian letters on
plates of beaten gold, which were handed unto the holy Joseph Smith at
Palmyra. We have come from Nauvoo, in the State of Illinois, where we had
founded our temple. We have come to seek a refuge from the violent man and
from the godless, even though it be the heart of the desert.”


The name of Nauvoo evidently recalled recollections to John Ferrier. “I
see,” he said, “you are the Mormons.”


“We are the Mormons,” answered his companions with one voice.


“And where are you going?”


“We do not know. The hand of God is leading us under the person of our
Prophet. You must come before him. He shall say what is to be done with
you.”


They had reached the base of the hill by this time, and were surrounded by
crowds of the pilgrims—pale-faced meek-looking women, strong
laughing children, and anxious earnest-eyed men. Many were the cries of
astonishment and of commiseration which arose from them when they
perceived the youth of one of the strangers and the destitution of the
other. Their escort did not halt, however, but pushed on, followed by a
great crowd of Mormons, until they reached a waggon, which was conspicuous
for its great size and for the gaudiness and smartness of its appearance.
Six horses were yoked to it, whereas the others were furnished with two,
or, at most, four a-piece. Beside the driver there sat a man who could not
have been more than thirty years of age, but whose massive head and
resolute expression marked him as a leader. He was reading a brown-backed
volume, but as the crowd approached he laid it aside, and listened
attentively to an account of the episode. Then he turned to the two
castaways.


“If we take you with us,” he said, in solemn words, “it can only be as
believers in our own creed. We shall have no wolves in our fold. Better
far that your bones should bleach in this wilderness than that you should
prove to be that little speck of decay which in time corrupts the whole
fruit. Will you come with us on these terms?”


“Guess I’ll come with you on any terms,” said Ferrier, with such emphasis
that the grave Elders could not restrain a smile. The leader alone
retained his stern, impressive expression.


“Take him, Brother Stangerson,” he said, “give him food and drink, and the
child likewise. Let it be your task also to teach him our holy creed. We
have delayed long enough. Forward! On, on to Zion!”


“On, on to Zion!” cried the crowd of Mormons, and the words rippled down
the long caravan, passing from mouth to mouth until they died away in a
dull murmur in the far distance. With a cracking of whips and a creaking
of wheels the great waggons got into motion, and soon the whole caravan
was winding along once more. The Elder to whose care the two waifs had
been committed, led them to his waggon, where a meal was already awaiting
them.


“You shall remain here,” he said. “In a few days you will have recovered
from your fatigues. In the meantime, remember that now and for ever you
are of our religion. Brigham Young has said it, and he has spoken with the
voice of Joseph Smith, which is the voice of God.”


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<h2>
CHAPTER II. THE FLOWER OF UTAH.
</h2>

THIS is not the place to commemorate the trials and privations endured by
the immigrant Mormons before they came to their final haven. From the
shores of the Mississippi to the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains
they had struggled on with a constancy almost unparalleled in history. The
savage man, and the savage beast, hunger, thirst, fatigue, and disease—every
impediment which Nature could place in the way, had all been overcome with
Anglo-Saxon tenacity. Yet the long journey and the accumulated terrors had
shaken the hearts of the stoutest among them. There was not one who did
not sink upon his knees in heartfelt prayer when they saw the broad valley
of Utah bathed in the sunlight beneath them, and learned from the lips of
their leader that this was the promised land, and that these virgin acres
were to be theirs for evermore.


Young speedily proved himself to be a skilful administrator as well as a
resolute chief. Maps were drawn and charts prepared, in which the future
city was sketched out. All around farms were apportioned and allotted in
proportion to the standing of each individual. The tradesman was put to
his trade and the artisan to his calling. In the town streets and squares
sprang up, as if by magic. In the country there was draining and hedging,
planting and clearing, until the next summer saw the whole country golden
with the wheat crop. Everything prospered in the strange settlement. Above
all, the great temple which they had erected in the centre of the city
grew ever taller and larger. From the first blush of dawn until the
closing of the twilight, the clatter of the hammer and the rasp of the saw
was never absent from the monument which the immigrants erected to Him who
had led them safe through many dangers.


The two castaways, John Ferrier and the little girl who had shared his
fortunes and had been adopted as his daughter, accompanied the Mormons to
the end of their great pilgrimage. Little Lucy Ferrier was borne along
pleasantly enough in Elder Stangerson’s waggon, a retreat which she shared
with the Mormon’s three wives and with his son, a headstrong forward boy
of twelve. Having rallied, with the elasticity of childhood, from the
shock caused by her mother’s death, she soon became a pet with the women,
and reconciled herself to this new life in her moving canvas-covered home.
In the meantime Ferrier having recovered from his privations,
distinguished himself as a useful guide and an indefatigable hunter. So
rapidly did he gain the esteem of his new companions, that when they
reached the end of their wanderings, it was unanimously agreed that he
should be provided with as large and as fertile a tract of land as any of
the settlers, with the exception of Young himself, and of Stangerson,
Kemball, Johnston, and Drebber, who were the four principal Elders.


On the farm thus acquired John Ferrier built himself a substantial
log-house, which received so many additions in succeeding years that it
grew into a roomy villa. He was a man of a practical turn of mind, keen in
his dealings and skilful with his hands. His iron constitution enabled him
to work morning and evening at improving and tilling his lands. Hence it
came about that his farm and all that belonged to him prospered
exceedingly. In three years he was better off than his neighbours, in six
he was well-to-do, in nine he was rich, and in twelve there were not half
a dozen men in the whole of Salt Lake City who could compare with him.
From the great inland sea to the distant Wahsatch Mountains there was no
name better known than that of John Ferrier.


There was one way and only one in which he offended the susceptibilities
of his co-religionists. No argument or persuasion could ever induce him to
set up a female establishment after the manner of his companions. He never
gave reasons for this persistent refusal, but contented himself by
resolutely and inflexibly adhering to his determination. There were some
who accused him of lukewarmness in his adopted religion, and others who
put it down to greed of wealth and reluctance to incur expense. Others,
again, spoke of some early love affair, and of a fair-haired girl who had
pined away on the shores of the Atlantic. Whatever the reason, Ferrier
remained strictly celibate. In every other respect he conformed to the
religion of the young settlement, and gained the name of being an orthodox
and straight-walking man.


Lucy Ferrier grew up within the log-house, and assisted her adopted father
in all his undertakings. The keen air of the mountains and the balsamic
odour of the pine trees took the place of nurse and mother to the young
girl. As year succeeded to year she grew taller and stronger, her cheek
more rudy, and her step more elastic. Many a wayfarer upon the high road
which ran by Ferrier’s farm felt long-forgotten thoughts revive in their
mind as they watched her lithe girlish figure tripping through the
wheatfields, or met her mounted upon her father’s mustang, and managing it
with all the ease and grace of a true child of the West. So the bud
blossomed into a flower, and the year which saw her father the richest of
the farmers left her as fair a specimen of American girlhood as could be
found in the whole Pacific slope.


It was not the father, however, who first discovered that the child had
developed into the woman. It seldom is in such cases. That mysterious
change is too subtle and too gradual to be measured by dates. Least of all
does the maiden herself know it until the tone of a voice or the touch of
a hand sets her heart thrilling within her, and she learns, with a mixture
of pride and of fear, that a new and a larger nature has awoken within
her. There are few who cannot recall that day and remember the one little
incident which heralded the dawn of a new life. In the case of Lucy
Ferrier the occasion was serious enough in itself, apart from its future
influence on her destiny and that of many besides.


It was a warm June morning, and the Latter Day Saints were as busy as the
bees whose hive they have chosen for their emblem. In the fields and in
the streets rose the same hum of human industry. Down the dusty high roads
defiled long streams of heavily-laden mules, all heading to the west, for
the gold fever had broken out in California, and the Overland Route lay
through the City of the Elect. There, too, were droves of sheep and
bullocks coming in from the outlying pasture lands, and trains of tired
immigrants, men and horses equally weary of their interminable journey.
Through all this motley assemblage, threading her way with the skill of an
accomplished rider, there galloped Lucy Ferrier, her fair face flushed
with the exercise and her long chestnut hair floating out behind her. She
had a commission from her father in the City, and was dashing in as she
had done many a time before, with all the fearlessness of youth, thinking
only of her task and how it was to be performed. The travel-stained
adventurers gazed after her in astonishment, and even the unemotional
Indians, journeying in with their pelties, relaxed their accustomed
stoicism as they marvelled at the beauty of the pale-faced maiden.


She had reached the outskirts of the city when she found the road blocked
by a great drove of cattle, driven by a half-dozen wild-looking herdsmen
from the plains. In her impatience she endeavoured to pass this obstacle
by pushing her horse into what appeared to be a gap. Scarcely had she got
fairly into it, however, before the beasts closed in behind her, and she
found herself completely imbedded in the moving stream of fierce-eyed,
long-horned bullocks. Accustomed as she was to deal with cattle, she was
not alarmed at her situation, but took advantage of every opportunity to
urge her horse on in the hopes of pushing her way through the cavalcade.
Unfortunately the horns of one of the creatures, either by accident or
design, came in violent contact with the flank of the mustang, and excited
it to madness. In an instant it reared up upon its hind legs with a snort
of rage, and pranced and tossed in a way that would have unseated any but
a most skilful rider. The situation was full of peril. Every plunge of the
excited horse brought it against the horns again, and goaded it to fresh
madness. It was all that the girl could do to keep herself in the saddle,
yet a slip would mean a terrible death under the hoofs of the unwieldy and
terrified animals. Unaccustomed to sudden emergencies, her head began to
swim, and her grip upon the bridle to relax. Choked by the rising cloud of
dust and by the steam from the struggling creatures, she might have
abandoned her efforts in despair, but for a kindly voice at her elbow
which assured her of assistance. At the same moment a sinewy brown hand
caught the frightened horse by the curb, and forcing a way through the
drove, soon brought her to the outskirts.


“You’re not hurt, I hope, miss,” said her preserver, respectfully.


She looked up at his dark, fierce face, and laughed saucily. “I’m awful
frightened,” she said, naively; “whoever would have thought that Poncho
would have been so scared by a lot of cows?”


“Thank God you kept your seat,” the other said earnestly. He was a tall,
savage-looking young fellow, mounted on a powerful roan horse, and clad in
the rough dress of a hunter, with a long rifle slung over his shoulders.
“I guess you are the daughter of John Ferrier,” he remarked, “I saw you
ride down from his house. When you see him, ask him if he remembers the
Jefferson Hopes of St. Louis. If he’s the same Ferrier, my father and he
were pretty thick.”


“Hadn’t you better come and ask yourself?” she asked, demurely.


The young fellow seemed pleased at the suggestion, and his dark eyes
sparkled with pleasure. “I’ll do so,” he said, “we’ve been in the
mountains for two months, and are not over and above in visiting
condition. He must take us as he finds us.”


“He has a good deal to thank you for, and so have I,” she answered, “he’s
awful fond of me. If those cows had jumped on me he’d have never got over
it.”


“Neither would I,” said her companion.


“You! Well, I don’t see that it would make much matter to you, anyhow. You
ain’t even a friend of ours.”


The young hunter’s dark face grew so gloomy over this remark that Lucy
Ferrier laughed aloud.


“There, I didn’t mean that,” she said; “of course, you are a friend now.
You must come and see us. Now I must push along, or father won’t trust me
with his business any more. Good-bye!”


“Good-bye,” he answered, raising his broad sombrero, and bending over her
little hand. She wheeled her mustang round, gave it a cut with her
riding-whip, and darted away down the broad road in a rolling cloud of
dust.


Young Jefferson Hope rode on with his companions, gloomy and taciturn. He
and they had been among the Nevada Mountains prospecting for silver, and
were returning to Salt Lake City in the hope of raising capital enough to
work some lodes which they had discovered. He had been as keen as any of
them upon the business until this sudden incident had drawn his thoughts
into another channel. The sight of the fair young girl, as frank and
wholesome as the Sierra breezes, had stirred his volcanic, untamed heart
to its very depths. When she had vanished from his sight, he realized that
a crisis had come in his life, and that neither silver speculations nor
any other questions could ever be of such importance to him as this new
and all-absorbing one. The love which had sprung up in his heart was not
the sudden, changeable fancy of a boy, but rather the wild, fierce passion
of a man of strong will and imperious temper. He had been accustomed to
succeed in all that he undertook. He swore in his heart that he would not
fail in this if human effort and human perseverance could render him
successful.


He called on John Ferrier that night, and many times again, until his face
was a familiar one at the farm-house. John, cooped up in the valley, and
absorbed in his work, had had little chance of learning the news of the
outside world during the last twelve years. All this Jefferson Hope was
able to tell him, and in a style which interested Lucy as well as her
father. He had been a pioneer in California, and could narrate many a
strange tale of fortunes made and fortunes lost in those wild, halcyon
days. He had been a scout too, and a trapper, a silver explorer, and a
ranchman. Wherever stirring adventures were to be had, Jefferson Hope had
been there in search of them. He soon became a favourite with the old
farmer, who spoke eloquently of his virtues. On such occasions, Lucy was
silent, but her blushing cheek and her bright, happy eyes, showed only too
clearly that her young heart was no longer her own. Her honest father may
not have observed these symptoms, but they were assuredly not thrown away
upon the man who had won her affections.


It was a summer evening when he came galloping down the road and pulled up
at the gate. She was at the doorway, and came down to meet him. He threw
the bridle over the fence and strode up the pathway.


“I am off, Lucy,” he said, taking her two hands in his, and gazing
tenderly down into her face; “I won’t ask you to come with me now, but
will you be ready to come when I am here again?”


“And when will that be?” she asked, blushing and laughing.


“A couple of months at the outside. I will come and claim you then, my
darling. There’s no one who can stand between us.”


“And how about father?” she asked.


“He has given his consent, provided we get these mines working all right.
I have no fear on that head.”


“Oh, well; of course, if you and father have arranged it all, there’s no
more to be said,” she whispered, with her cheek against his broad breast.


“Thank God!” he said, hoarsely, stooping and kissing her. “It is settled,
then. The longer I stay, the harder it will be to go. They are waiting for
me at the cañon. Good-bye, my own darling—good-bye. In two months
you shall see me.”


He tore himself from her as he spoke, and, flinging himself upon his
horse, galloped furiously away, never even looking round, as though afraid
that his resolution might fail him if he took one glance at what he was
leaving. She stood at the gate, gazing after him until he vanished from
her sight. Then she walked back into the house, the happiest girl in all
Utah.


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<h2>
CHAPTER III. JOHN FERRIER TALKS WITH THE PROPHET.
</h2>

THREE weeks had passed since Jefferson Hope and his comrades had departed
from Salt Lake City. John Ferrier’s heart was sore within him when he
thought of the young man’s return, and of the impending loss of his
adopted child. Yet her bright and happy face reconciled him to the
arrangement more than any argument could have done. He had always
determined, deep down in his resolute heart, that nothing would ever
induce him to allow his daughter to wed a Mormon. Such a marriage he
regarded as no marriage at all, but as a shame and a disgrace. Whatever he
might think of the Mormon doctrines, upon that one point he was
inflexible. He had to seal his mouth on the subject, however, for to
express an unorthodox opinion was a dangerous matter in those days in the
Land of the Saints.


Yes, a dangerous matter—so dangerous that even the most saintly
dared only whisper their religious opinions with bated breath, lest
something which fell from their lips might be misconstrued, and bring down
a swift retribution upon them. The victims of persecution had now turned
persecutors on their own account, and persecutors of the most terrible
description. Not the Inquisition of Seville, nor the German Vehm-gericht,
nor the Secret Societies of Italy, were ever able to put a more formidable
machinery in motion than that which cast a cloud over the State of Utah.


Its invisibility, and the mystery which was attached to it, made this
organization doubly terrible. It appeared to be omniscient and omnipotent,
and yet was neither seen nor heard. The man who held out against the
Church vanished away, and none knew whither he had gone or what had
befallen him. His wife and his children awaited him at home, but no father
ever returned to tell them how he had fared at the hands of his secret
judges. A rash word or a hasty act was followed by annihilation, and yet
none knew what the nature might be of this terrible power which was
suspended over them. No wonder that men went about in fear and trembling,
and that even in the heart of the wilderness they dared not whisper the
doubts which oppressed them.


At first this vague and terrible power was exercised only upon the
recalcitrants who, having embraced the Mormon faith, wished afterwards to
pervert or to abandon it. Soon, however, it took a wider range. The supply
of adult women was running short, and polygamy without a female population
on which to draw was a barren doctrine indeed. Strange rumours began to be
bandied about—rumours of murdered immigrants and rifled camps in
regions where Indians had never been seen. Fresh women appeared in the
harems of the Elders—women who pined and wept, and bore upon their
faces the traces of an unextinguishable horror. Belated wanderers upon the
mountains spoke of gangs of armed men, masked, stealthy, and noiseless,
who flitted by them in the darkness. These tales and rumours took
substance and shape, and were corroborated and re-corroborated, until they
resolved themselves into a definite name. To this day, in the lonely
ranches of the West, the name of the Danite Band, or the Avenging Angels,
is a sinister and an ill-omened one.


Fuller knowledge of the organization which produced such terrible results
served to increase rather than to lessen the horror which it inspired in
the minds of men. None knew who belonged to this ruthless society. The
names of the participators in the deeds of blood and violence done under
the name of religion were kept profoundly secret. The very friend to whom
you communicated your misgivings as to the Prophet and his mission, might
be one of those who would come forth at night with fire and sword to exact
a terrible reparation. Hence every man feared his neighbour, and none
spoke of the things which were nearest his heart.


One fine morning, John Ferrier was about to set out to his wheatfields,
when he heard the click of the latch, and, looking through the window, saw
a stout, sandy-haired, middle-aged man coming up the pathway. His heart
leapt to his mouth, for this was none other than the great Brigham Young
himself. Full of trepidation—for he knew that such a visit boded him
little good—Ferrier ran to the door to greet the Mormon chief. The
latter, however, received his salutations coldly, and followed him with a
stern face into the sitting-room.


“Brother Ferrier,” he said, taking a seat, and eyeing the farmer keenly
from under his light-coloured eyelashes, “the true believers have been
good friends to you. We picked you up when you were starving in the
desert, we shared our food with you, led you safe to the Chosen Valley,
gave you a goodly share of land, and allowed you to wax rich under our
protection. Is not this so?”


“It is so,” answered John Ferrier.


“In return for all this we asked but one condition: that was, that you
should embrace the true faith, and conform in every way to its usages.
This you promised to do, and this, if common report says truly, you have
neglected.”


“And how have I neglected it?” asked Ferrier, throwing out his hands in
expostulation. “Have I not given to the common fund? Have I not attended
at the Temple? Have I not——?”


“Where are your wives?” asked Young, looking round him. “Call them in,
that I may greet them.”


“It is true that I have not married,” Ferrier answered. “But women were
few, and there were many who had better claims than I. I was not a lonely
man: I had my daughter to attend to my wants.”


“It is of that daughter that I would speak to you,” said the leader of the
Mormons. “She has grown to be the flower of Utah, and has found favour in
the eyes of many who are high in the land.”


John Ferrier groaned internally.


“There are stories of her which I would fain disbelieve—stories that
she is sealed to some Gentile. This must be the gossip of idle tongues.
What is the thirteenth rule in the code of the sainted Joseph Smith? ‘Let
every maiden of the true faith marry one of the elect; for if she wed a
Gentile, she commits a grievous sin.’ This being so, it is impossible that
you, who profess the holy creed, should suffer your daughter to violate
it.”


John Ferrier made no answer, but he played nervously with his riding-whip.


“Upon this one point your whole faith shall be tested—so it has been
decided in the Sacred Council of Four. The girl is young, and we would not
have her wed grey hairs, neither would we deprive her of all choice. We
Elders have many heifers, <a href="#linknote-29" name="linknoteref-29"
id="linknoteref-29">29</a> but our children must also be
provided. Stangerson has a son, and Drebber has a son, and either of them
would gladly welcome your daughter to their house. Let her choose between
them. They are young and rich, and of the true faith. What say you to
that?”


Ferrier remained silent for some little time with his brows knitted.


“You will give us time,” he said at last. “My daughter is very young—she
is scarce of an age to marry.”


“She shall have a month to choose,” said Young, rising from his seat. “At
the end of that time she shall give her answer.”


He was passing through the door, when he turned, with flushed face and
flashing eyes. “It were better for you, John Ferrier,” he thundered, “that
you and she were now lying blanched skeletons upon the Sierra Blanco, than
that you should put your weak wills against the orders of the Holy Four!”


With a threatening gesture of his hand, he turned from the door, and
Ferrier heard his heavy step scrunching along the shingly path.


He was still sitting with his elbows upon his knees, considering how he
should broach the matter to his daughter when a soft hand was laid upon
his, and looking up, he saw her standing beside him. One glance at her
pale, frightened face showed him that she had heard what had passed.


“I could not help it,” she said, in answer to his look. “His voice rang
through the house. Oh, father, father, what shall we do?”


“Don’t you scare yourself,” he answered, drawing her to him, and passing
his broad, rough hand caressingly over her chestnut hair. “We’ll fix it up
somehow or another. You don’t find your fancy kind o’ lessening for this
chap, do you?”


A sob and a squeeze of his hand was her only answer.


“No; of course not. I shouldn’t care to hear you say you did. He’s a
likely lad, and he’s a Christian, which is more than these folk here, in
spite o’ all their praying and preaching. There’s a party starting for
Nevada to-morrow, and I’ll manage to send him a message letting him know
the hole we are in. If I know anything o’ that young man, he’ll be back
here with a speed that would whip electro-telegraphs.”


Lucy laughed through her tears at her father’s description.


“When he comes, he will advise us for the best. But it is for you that I
am frightened, dear. One hears—one hears such dreadful stories about
those who oppose the Prophet: something terrible always happens to them.”


“But we haven’t opposed him yet,” her father answered. “It will be time to
look out for squalls when we do. We have a clear month before us; at the
end of that, I guess we had best shin out of Utah.”


“Leave Utah!”


“That’s about the size of it.”


“But the farm?”


“We will raise as much as we can in money, and let the rest go. To tell
the truth, Lucy, it isn’t the first time I have thought of doing it. I
don’t care about knuckling under to any man, as these folk do to their
darned prophet. I’m a free-born American, and it’s all new to me. Guess
I’m too old to learn. If he comes browsing about this farm, he might
chance to run up against a charge of buckshot travelling in the opposite
direction.”


“But they won’t let us leave,” his daughter objected.


“Wait till Jefferson comes, and we’ll soon manage that. In the meantime,
don’t you fret yourself, my dearie, and don’t get your eyes swelled up,
else he’ll be walking into me when he sees you. There’s nothing to be
afeared about, and there’s no danger at all.”


John Ferrier uttered these consoling remarks in a very confident tone, but
she could not help observing that he paid unusual care to the fastening of
the doors that night, and that he carefully cleaned and loaded the rusty
old shotgun which hung upon the wall of his bedroom.


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<h2>
CHAPTER IV. A FLIGHT FOR LIFE.
</h2>

ON the morning which followed his interview with the Mormon Prophet, John
Ferrier went in to Salt Lake City, and having found his acquaintance, who
was bound for the Nevada Mountains, he entrusted him with his message to
Jefferson Hope. In it he told the young man of the imminent danger which
threatened them, and how necessary it was that he should return. Having
done thus he felt easier in his mind, and returned home with a lighter
heart.


As he approached his farm, he was surprised to see a horse hitched to each
of the posts of the gate. Still more surprised was he on entering to find
two young men in possession of his sitting-room. One, with a long pale
face, was leaning back in the rocking-chair, with his feet cocked up upon
the stove. The other, a bull-necked youth with coarse bloated features,
was standing in front of the window with his hands in his pocket,
whistling a popular hymn. Both of them nodded to Ferrier as he entered,
and the one in the rocking-chair commenced the conversation.


“Maybe you don’t know us,” he said. “This here is the son of Elder
Drebber, and I’m Joseph Stangerson, who travelled with you in the desert
when the Lord stretched out His hand and gathered you into the true fold.”


“As He will all the nations in His own good time,” said the other in a
nasal voice; “He grindeth slowly but exceeding small.”


John Ferrier bowed coldly. He had guessed who his visitors were.


“We have come,” continued Stangerson, “at the advice of our fathers to
solicit the hand of your daughter for whichever of us may seem good to you
and to her. As I have but four wives and Brother Drebber here has seven,
it appears to me that my claim is the stronger one.”


“Nay, nay, Brother Stangerson,” cried the other; “the question is not how
many wives we have, but how many we can keep. My father has now given over
his mills to me, and I am the richer man.”


“But my prospects are better,” said the other, warmly. “When the Lord
removes my father, I shall have his tanning yard and his leather factory.
Then I am your elder, and am higher in the Church.”


“It will be for the maiden to decide,” rejoined young Drebber, smirking at
his own reflection in the glass. “We will leave it all to her decision.”


During this dialogue, John Ferrier had stood fuming in the doorway, hardly
able to keep his riding-whip from the backs of his two visitors.


“Look here,” he said at last, striding up to them, “when my daughter
summons you, you can come, but until then I don’t want to see your faces
again.”


The two young Mormons stared at him in amazement. In their eyes this
competition between them for the maiden’s hand was the highest of honours
both to her and her father.


“There are two ways out of the room,” cried Ferrier; “there is the door,
and there is the window. Which do you care to use?”


His brown face looked so savage, and his gaunt hands so threatening, that
his visitors sprang to their feet and beat a hurried retreat. The old
farmer followed them to the door.


“Let me know when you have settled which it is to be,” he said,
sardonically.


“You shall smart for this!” Stangerson cried, white with rage. “You have
defied the Prophet and the Council of Four. You shall rue it to the end of
your days.”


“The hand of the Lord shall be heavy upon you,” cried young Drebber; “He
will arise and smite you!”


“Then I’ll start the smiting,” exclaimed Ferrier furiously, and would have
rushed upstairs for his gun had not Lucy seized him by the arm and
restrained him. Before he could escape from her, the clatter of horses’
hoofs told him that they were beyond his reach.


“The young canting rascals!” he exclaimed, wiping the perspiration from
his forehead; “I would sooner see you in your grave, my girl, than the
wife of either of them.”


“And so should I, father,” she answered, with spirit; “but Jefferson will
soon be here.”


“Yes. It will not be long before he comes. The sooner the better, for we
do not know what their next move may be.”


It was, indeed, high time that someone capable of giving advice and help
should come to the aid of the sturdy old farmer and his adopted daughter.
In the whole history of the settlement there had never been such a case of
rank disobedience to the authority of the Elders. If minor errors were
punished so sternly, what would be the fate of this arch rebel. Ferrier
knew that his wealth and position would be of no avail to him. Others as
well known and as rich as himself had been spirited away before now, and
their goods given over to the Church. He was a brave man, but he trembled
at the vague, shadowy terrors which hung over him. Any known danger he
could face with a firm lip, but this suspense was unnerving. He concealed
his fears from his daughter, however, and affected to make light of the
whole matter, though she, with the keen eye of love, saw plainly that he
was ill at ease.


He expected that he would receive some message or remonstrance from Young
as to his conduct, and he was not mistaken, though it came in an
unlooked-for manner. Upon rising next morning he found, to his surprise, a
small square of paper pinned on to the coverlet of his bed just over his
chest. On it was printed, in bold straggling letters:—


“Twenty-nine days are given you for amendment, and then——”


The dash was more fear-inspiring than any threat could have been. How this
warning came into his room puzzled John Ferrier sorely, for his servants
slept in an outhouse, and the doors and windows had all been secured. He
crumpled the paper up and said nothing to his daughter, but the incident
struck a chill into his heart. The twenty-nine days were evidently the
balance of the month which Young had promised. What strength or courage
could avail against an enemy armed with such mysterious powers? The hand
which fastened that pin might have struck him to the heart, and he could
never have known who had slain him.


Still more shaken was he next morning. They had sat down to their
breakfast when Lucy with a cry of surprise pointed upwards. In the centre
of the ceiling was scrawled, with a burned stick apparently, the number
28. To his daughter it was unintelligible, and he did not enlighten her.
That night he sat up with his gun and kept watch and ward. He saw and he
heard nothing, and yet in the morning a great 27 had been painted upon the
outside of his door.


Thus day followed day; and as sure as morning came he found that his
unseen enemies had kept their register, and had marked up in some
conspicuous position how many days were still left to him out of the month
of grace. Sometimes the fatal numbers appeared upon the walls, sometimes
upon the floors, occasionally they were on small placards stuck upon the
garden gate or the railings. With all his vigilance John Ferrier could not
discover whence these daily warnings proceeded. A horror which was almost
superstitious came upon him at the sight of them. He became haggard and
restless, and his eyes had the troubled look of some hunted creature. He
had but one hope in life now, and that was for the arrival of the young
hunter from Nevada.


Twenty had changed to fifteen and fifteen to ten, but there was no news of
the absentee. One by one the numbers dwindled down, and still there came
no sign of him. Whenever a horseman clattered down the road, or a driver
shouted at his team, the old farmer hurried to the gate thinking that help
had arrived at last. At last, when he saw five give way to four and that
again to three, he lost heart, and abandoned all hope of escape.
Single-handed, and with his limited knowledge of the mountains which
surrounded the settlement, he knew that he was powerless. The
more-frequented roads were strictly watched and guarded, and none could
pass along them without an order from the Council. Turn which way he
would, there appeared to be no avoiding the blow which hung over him. Yet
the old man never wavered in his resolution to part with life itself
before he consented to what he regarded as his daughter’s dishonour.


He was sitting alone one evening pondering deeply over his troubles, and
searching vainly for some way out of them. That morning had shown the
figure 2 upon the wall of his house, and the next day would be the last of
the allotted time. What was to happen then? All manner of vague and
terrible fancies filled his imagination. And his daughter—what was
to become of her after he was gone? Was there no escape from the invisible
network which was drawn all round them. He sank his head upon the table
and sobbed at the thought of his own impotence.


What was that? In the silence he heard a gentle scratching sound—low,
but very distinct in the quiet of the night. It came from the door of the
house. Ferrier crept into the hall and listened intently. There was a
pause for a few moments, and then the low insidious sound was repeated.
Someone was evidently tapping very gently upon one of the panels of the
door. Was it some midnight assassin who had come to carry out the
murderous orders of the secret tribunal? Or was it some agent who was
marking up that the last day of grace had arrived. John Ferrier felt that
instant death would be better than the suspense which shook his nerves and
chilled his heart. Springing forward he drew the bolt and threw the door
open.


Outside all was calm and quiet. The night was fine, and the stars were
twinkling brightly overhead. The little front garden lay before the
farmer’s eyes bounded by the fence and gate, but neither there nor on the
road was any human being to be seen. With a sigh of relief, Ferrier looked
to right and to left, until happening to glance straight down at his own
feet he saw to his astonishment a man lying flat upon his face upon the
ground, with arms and legs all asprawl.


So unnerved was he at the sight that he leaned up against the wall with
his hand to his throat to stifle his inclination to call out. His first
thought was that the prostrate figure was that of some wounded or dying
man, but as he watched it he saw it writhe along the ground and into the
hall with the rapidity and noiselessness of a serpent. Once within the
house the man sprang to his feet, closed the door, and revealed to the
astonished farmer the fierce face and resolute expression of Jefferson
Hope.


“Good God!” gasped John Ferrier. “How you scared me! Whatever made you
come in like that.”


“Give me food,” the other said, hoarsely. “I have had no time for bite or
sup for eight-and-forty hours.” He flung himself upon the <a
href="#linknote-21" name="linknoteref-21" id="linknoteref-21">21</a>
cold meat and bread which were still lying upon the table from his host’s
supper, and devoured it voraciously. “Does Lucy bear up well?” he asked,
when he had satisfied his hunger.


“Yes. She does not know the danger,” her father answered.


“That is well. The house is watched on every side. That is why I crawled
my way up to it. They may be darned sharp, but they’re not quite sharp
enough to catch a Washoe hunter.”


John Ferrier felt a different man now that he realized that he had a
devoted ally. He seized the young man’s leathery hand and wrung it
cordially. “You’re a man to be proud of,” he said. “There are not many who
would come to share our danger and our troubles.”


“You’ve hit it there, pard,” the young hunter answered. “I have a respect
for you, but if you were alone in this business I’d think twice before I
put my head into such a hornet’s nest. It’s Lucy that brings me here, and
before harm comes on her I guess there will be one less o’ the Hope family
in Utah.”


“What are we to do?”


“To-morrow is your last day, and unless you act to-night you are lost. I
have a mule and two horses waiting in the Eagle Ravine. How much money
have you?”


“Two thousand dollars in gold, and five in notes.”


“That will do. I have as much more to add to it. We must push for Carson
City through the mountains. You had best wake Lucy. It is as well that the
servants do not sleep in the house.”


While Ferrier was absent, preparing his daughter for the approaching
journey, Jefferson Hope packed all the eatables that he could find into a
small parcel, and filled a stoneware jar with water, for he knew by
experience that the mountain wells were few and far between. He had hardly
completed his arrangements before the farmer returned with his daughter
all dressed and ready for a start. The greeting between the lovers was
warm, but brief, for minutes were precious, and there was much to be done.


“We must make our start at once,” said Jefferson Hope, speaking in a low
but resolute voice, like one who realizes the greatness of the peril, but
has steeled his heart to meet it. “The front and back entrances are
watched, but with caution we may get away through the side window and
across the fields. Once on the road we are only two miles from the Ravine
where the horses are waiting. By daybreak we should be half-way through
the mountains.”


“What if we are stopped,” asked Ferrier.


Hope slapped the revolver butt which protruded from the front of his
tunic. “If they are too many for us we shall take two or three of them
with us,” he said with a sinister smile.


The lights inside the house had all been extinguished, and from the
darkened window Ferrier peered over the fields which had been his own, and
which he was now about to abandon for ever. He had long nerved himself to
the sacrifice, however, and the thought of the honour and happiness of his
daughter outweighed any regret at his ruined fortunes. All looked so
peaceful and happy, the rustling trees and the broad silent stretch of
grain-land, that it was difficult to realize that the spirit of murder
lurked through it all. Yet the white face and set expression of the young
hunter showed that in his approach to the house he had seen enough to
satisfy him upon that head.


Ferrier carried the bag of gold and notes, Jefferson Hope had the scanty
provisions and water, while Lucy had a small bundle containing a few of
her more valued possessions. Opening the window very slowly and carefully,
they waited until a dark cloud had somewhat obscured the night, and then
one by one passed through into the little garden. With bated breath and
crouching figures they stumbled across it, and gained the shelter of the
hedge, which they skirted until they came to the gap which opened into the
cornfields. They had just reached this point when the young man seized his
two companions and dragged them down into the shadow, where they lay
silent and trembling.


It was as well that his prairie training had given Jefferson Hope the ears
of a lynx. He and his friends had hardly crouched down before the
melancholy hooting of a mountain owl was heard within a few yards of them,
which was immediately answered by another hoot at a small distance. At the
same moment a vague shadowy figure emerged from the gap for which they had
been making, and uttered the plaintive signal cry again, on which a second
man appeared out of the obscurity.


“To-morrow at midnight,” said the first who appeared to be in authority.
“When the Whip-poor-Will calls three times.”


“It is well,” returned the other. “Shall I tell Brother Drebber?”


“Pass it on to him, and from him to the others. Nine to seven!”


“Seven to five!” repeated the other, and the two figures flitted away in
different directions. Their concluding words had evidently been some form
of sign and countersign. The instant that their footsteps had died away in
the distance, Jefferson Hope sprang to his feet, and helping his
companions through the gap, led the way across the fields at the top of
his speed, supporting and half-carrying the girl when her strength
appeared to fail her.


“Hurry on! hurry on!” he gasped from time to time. “We are through the
line of sentinels. Everything depends on speed. Hurry on!”


Once on the high road they made rapid progress. Only once did they meet
anyone, and then they managed to slip into a field, and so avoid
recognition. Before reaching the town the hunter branched away into a
rugged and narrow footpath which led to the mountains. Two dark jagged
peaks loomed above them through the darkness, and the defile which led
between them was the Eagle Cañon in which the horses were awaiting them.
With unerring instinct Jefferson Hope picked his way among the great
boulders and along the bed of a dried-up watercourse, until he came to the
retired corner, screened with rocks, where the faithful animals had been
picketed. The girl was placed upon the mule, and old Ferrier upon one of
the horses, with his money-bag, while Jefferson Hope led the other along
the precipitous and dangerous path.


It was a bewildering route for anyone who was not accustomed to face
Nature in her wildest moods. On the one side a great crag towered up a
thousand feet or more, black, stern, and menacing, with long basaltic
columns upon its rugged surface like the ribs of some petrified monster.
On the other hand a wild chaos of boulders and debris made all advance
impossible. Between the two ran the irregular track, so narrow in places
that they had to travel in Indian file, and so rough that only practised
riders could have traversed it at all. Yet in spite of all dangers and
difficulties, the hearts of the fugitives were light within them, for
every step increased the distance between them and the terrible despotism
from which they were flying.


They soon had a proof, however, that they were still within the
jurisdiction of the Saints. They had reached the very wildest and most
desolate portion of the pass when the girl gave a startled cry, and
pointed upwards. On a rock which overlooked the track, showing out dark
and plain against the sky, there stood a solitary sentinel. He saw them as
soon as they perceived him, and his military challenge of “Who goes
there?” rang through the silent ravine.


“Travellers for Nevada,” said Jefferson Hope, with his hand upon the rifle
which hung by his saddle.


They could see the lonely watcher fingering his gun, and peering down at
them as if dissatisfied at their reply.


“By whose permission?” he asked.


“The Holy Four,” answered Ferrier. His Mormon experiences had taught him
that that was the highest authority to which he could refer.


“Nine from seven,” cried the sentinel.


“Seven from five,” returned Jefferson Hope promptly, remembering the
countersign which he had heard in the garden.


“Pass, and the Lord go with you,” said the voice from above. Beyond his
post the path broadened out, and the horses were able to break into a
trot. Looking back, they could see the solitary watcher leaning upon his
gun, and knew that they had passed the outlying post of the chosen people,
and that freedom lay before them.


<a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
 </a>

<div style="height: 4em;">
 
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER V. THE AVENGING ANGELS.
</h2>

ALL night their course lay through intricate defiles and over irregular
and rock-strewn paths. More than once they lost their way, but Hope’s
intimate knowledge of the mountains enabled them to regain the track once
more. When morning broke, a scene of marvellous though savage beauty lay
before them. In every direction the great snow-capped peaks hemmed them
in, peeping over each other’s shoulders to the far horizon. So steep were
the rocky banks on either side of them, that the larch and the pine seemed
to be suspended over their heads, and to need only a gust of wind to come
hurtling down upon them. Nor was the fear entirely an illusion, for the
barren valley was thickly strewn with trees and boulders which had fallen
in a similar manner. Even as they passed, a great rock came thundering
down with a hoarse rattle which woke the echoes in the silent gorges, and
startled the weary horses into a gallop.


As the sun rose slowly above the eastern horizon, the caps of the great
mountains lit up one after the other, like lamps at a festival, until they
were all ruddy and glowing. The magnificent spectacle cheered the hearts
of the three fugitives and gave them fresh energy. At a wild torrent which
swept out of a ravine they called a halt and watered their horses, while
they partook of a hasty breakfast. Lucy and her father would fain have
rested longer, but Jefferson Hope was inexorable. “They will be upon our
track by this time,” he said. “Everything depends upon our speed. Once
safe in Carson we may rest for the remainder of our lives.”


During the whole of that day they struggled on through the defiles, and by
evening they calculated that they were more than thirty miles from their
enemies. At night-time they chose the base of a beetling crag, where the
rocks offered some protection from the chill wind, and there huddled
together for warmth, they enjoyed a few hours’ sleep. Before daybreak,
however, they were up and on their way once more. They had seen no signs
of any pursuers, and Jefferson Hope began to think that they were fairly
out of the reach of the terrible organization whose enmity they had
incurred. He little knew how far that iron grasp could reach, or how soon
it was to close upon them and crush them.


About the middle of the second day of their flight their scanty store of
provisions began to run out. This gave the hunter little uneasiness,
however, for there was game to be had among the mountains, and he had
frequently before had to depend upon his rifle for the needs of life.
Choosing a sheltered nook, he piled together a few dried branches and made
a blazing fire, at which his companions might warm themselves, for they
were now nearly five thousand feet above the sea level, and the air was
bitter and keen. Having tethered the horses, and bade Lucy adieu, he threw
his gun over his shoulder, and set out in search of whatever chance might
throw in his way. Looking back he saw the old man and the young girl
crouching over the blazing fire, while the three animals stood motionless
in the back-ground. Then the intervening rocks hid them from his view.


He walked for a couple of miles through one ravine after another without
success, though from the marks upon the bark of the trees, and other
indications, he judged that there were numerous bears in the vicinity. At
last, after two or three hours’ fruitless search, he was thinking of
turning back in despair, when casting his eyes upwards he saw a sight
which sent a thrill of pleasure through his heart. On the edge of a
jutting pinnacle, three or four hundred feet above him, there stood a
creature somewhat resembling a sheep in appearance, but armed with a pair
of gigantic horns. The big-horn—for so it is called—was
acting, probably, as a guardian over a flock which were invisible to the
hunter; but fortunately it was heading in the opposite direction, and had
not perceived him. Lying on his face, he rested his rifle upon a rock, and
took a long and steady aim before drawing the trigger. The animal sprang
into the air, tottered for a moment upon the edge of the precipice, and
then came crashing down into the valley beneath.


The creature was too unwieldy to lift, so the hunter contented himself
with cutting away one haunch and part of the flank. With this trophy over
his shoulder, he hastened to retrace his steps, for the evening was
already drawing in. He had hardly started, however, before he realized the
difficulty which faced him. In his eagerness he had wandered far past the
ravines which were known to him, and it was no easy matter to pick out the
path which he had taken. The valley in which he found himself divided and
sub-divided into many gorges, which were so like each other that it was
impossible to distinguish one from the other. He followed one for a mile
or more until he came to a mountain torrent which he was sure that he had
never seen before. Convinced that he had taken the wrong turn, he tried
another, but with the same result. Night was coming on rapidly, and it was
almost dark before he at last found himself in a defile which was familiar
to him. Even then it was no easy matter to keep to the right track, for
the moon had not yet risen, and the high cliffs on either side made the
obscurity more profound. Weighed down with his burden, and weary from his
exertions, he stumbled along, keeping up his heart by the reflection that
every step brought him nearer to Lucy, and that he carried with him enough
to ensure them food for the remainder of their journey.


He had now come to the mouth of the very defile in which he had left them.
Even in the darkness he could recognize the outline of the cliffs which
bounded it. They must, he reflected, be awaiting him anxiously, for he had
been absent nearly five hours. In the gladness of his heart he put his
hands to his mouth and made the glen re-echo to a loud halloo as a signal
that he was coming. He paused and listened for an answer. None came save
his own cry, which clattered up the dreary silent ravines, and was borne
back to his ears in countless repetitions. Again he shouted, even louder
than before, and again no whisper came back from the friends whom he had
left such a short time ago. A vague, nameless dread came over him, and he
hurried onwards frantically, dropping the precious food in his agitation.


When he turned the corner, he came full in sight of the spot where the
fire had been lit. There was still a glowing pile of wood ashes there, but
it had evidently not been tended since his departure. The same dead
silence still reigned all round. With his fears all changed to
convictions, he hurried on. There was no living creature near the remains
of the fire: animals, man, maiden, all were gone. It was only too clear
that some sudden and terrible disaster had occurred during his absence—a
disaster which had embraced them all, and yet had left no traces behind
it.


Bewildered and stunned by this blow, Jefferson Hope felt his head spin
round, and had to lean upon his rifle to save himself from falling. He was
essentially a man of action, however, and speedily recovered from his
temporary impotence. Seizing a half-consumed piece of wood from the
smouldering fire, he blew it into a flame, and proceeded with its help to
examine the little camp. The ground was all stamped down by the feet of
horses, showing that a large party of mounted men had overtaken the
fugitives, and the direction of their tracks proved that they had
afterwards turned back to Salt Lake City. Had they carried back both of
his companions with them? Jefferson Hope had almost persuaded himself that
they must have done so, when his eye fell upon an object which made every
nerve of his body tingle within him. A little way on one side of the camp
was a low-lying heap of reddish soil, which had assuredly not been there
before. There was no mistaking it for anything but a newly-dug grave. As
the young hunter approached it, he perceived that a stick had been planted
on it, with a sheet of paper stuck in the cleft fork of it. The
inscription upon the paper was brief, but to the point:

<pre xml:space="preserve">
JOHN FERRIER,
FORMERLY OF SALT LAKE CITY, <a href="#linknote-22"
name="linknoteref-22" id="linknoteref-22">22</a>
Died August 4th, 1860.
</pre>

The sturdy old man, whom he had left so short a time before, was gone,
then, and this was all his epitaph. Jefferson Hope looked wildly round to
see if there was a second grave, but there was no sign of one. Lucy had
been carried back by their terrible pursuers to fulfil her original
destiny, by becoming one of the harem of the Elder’s son. As the young
fellow realized the certainty of her fate, and his own powerlessness to
prevent it, he wished that he, too, was lying with the old farmer in his
last silent resting-place.


Again, however, his active spirit shook off the lethargy which springs
from despair. If there was nothing else left to him, he could at least
devote his life to revenge. With indomitable patience and perseverance,
Jefferson Hope possessed also a power of sustained vindictiveness, which
he may have learned from the Indians amongst whom he had lived. As he
stood by the desolate fire, he felt that the only one thing which could
assuage his grief would be thorough and complete retribution, brought by
his own hand upon his enemies. His strong will and untiring energy should,
he determined, be devoted to that one end. With a grim, white face, he
retraced his steps to where he had dropped the food, and having stirred up
the smouldering fire, he cooked enough to last him for a few days. This he
made up into a bundle, and, tired as he was, he set himself to walk back
through the mountains upon the track of the avenging angels.


For five days he toiled footsore and weary through the defiles which he
had already traversed on horseback. At night he flung himself down among
the rocks, and snatched a few hours of sleep; but before daybreak he was
always well on his way. On the sixth day, he reached the Eagle Cañon, from
which they had commenced their ill-fated flight. Thence he could look down
upon the home of the saints. Worn and exhausted, he leaned upon his rifle
and shook his gaunt hand fiercely at the silent widespread city beneath
him. As he looked at it, he observed that there were flags in some of the
principal streets, and other signs of festivity. He was still speculating
as to what this might mean when he heard the clatter of horse’s hoofs, and
saw a mounted man riding towards him. As he approached, he recognized him
as a Mormon named Cowper, to whom he had rendered services at different
times. He therefore accosted him when he got up to him, with the object of
finding out what Lucy Ferrier’s fate had been.


“I am Jefferson Hope,” he said. “You remember me.”


The Mormon looked at him with undisguised astonishment—indeed, it
was difficult to recognize in this tattered, unkempt wanderer, with
ghastly white face and fierce, wild eyes, the spruce young hunter of
former days. Having, however, at last, satisfied himself as to his
identity, the man’s surprise changed to consternation.


“You are mad to come here,” he cried. “It is as much as my own life is
worth to be seen talking with you. There is a warrant against you from the
Holy Four for assisting the Ferriers away.”


“I don’t fear them, or their warrant,” Hope said, earnestly. “You must
know something of this matter, Cowper. I conjure you by everything you
hold dear to answer a few questions. We have always been friends. For
God’s sake, don’t refuse to answer me.”


“What is it?” the Mormon asked uneasily. “Be quick. The very rocks have
ears and the trees eyes.”


“What has become of Lucy Ferrier?”


“She was married yesterday to young Drebber. Hold up, man, hold up, you
have no life left in you.”


“Don’t mind me,” said Hope faintly. He was white to the very lips, and had
sunk down on the stone against which he had been leaning. “Married, you
say?”


“Married yesterday—that’s what those flags are for on the Endowment
House. There was some words between young Drebber and young Stangerson as
to which was to have her. They’d both been in the party that followed
them, and Stangerson had shot her father, which seemed to give him the
best claim; but when they argued it out in council, Drebber’s party was
the stronger, so the Prophet gave her over to him. No one won’t have her
very long though, for I saw death in her face yesterday. She is more like
a ghost than a woman. Are you off, then?”


“Yes, I am off,” said Jefferson Hope, who had risen from his seat. His
face might have been chiselled out of marble, so hard and set was its
expression, while its eyes glowed with a baleful light.


“Where are you going?”


“Never mind,” he answered; and, slinging his weapon over his shoulder,
strode off down the gorge and so away into the heart of the mountains to
the haunts of the wild beasts. Amongst them all there was none so fierce
and so dangerous as himself.


The prediction of the Mormon was only too well fulfilled. Whether it was
the terrible death of her father or the effects of the hateful marriage
into which she had been forced, poor Lucy never held up her head again,
but pined away and died within a month. Her sottish husband, who had
married her principally for the sake of John Ferrier’s property, did not
affect any great grief at his bereavement; but his other wives mourned
over her, and sat up with her the night before the burial, as is the
Mormon custom. They were grouped round the bier in the early hours of the
morning, when, to their inexpressible fear and astonishment, the door was
flung open, and a savage-looking, weather-beaten man in tattered garments
strode into the room. Without a glance or a word to the cowering women, he
walked up to the white silent figure which had once contained the pure
soul of Lucy Ferrier. Stooping over her, he pressed his lips reverently to
her cold forehead, and then, snatching up her hand, he took the
wedding-ring from her finger. “She shall not be buried in that,” he cried
with a fierce snarl, and before an alarm could be raised sprang down the
stairs and was gone. So strange and so brief was the episode, that the
watchers might have found it hard to believe it themselves or persuade
other people of it, had it not been for the undeniable fact that the
circlet of gold which marked her as having been a bride had disappeared.


For some months Jefferson Hope lingered among the mountains, leading a
strange wild life, and nursing in his heart the fierce desire for
vengeance which possessed him. Tales were told in the City of the weird
figure which was seen prowling about the suburbs, and which haunted the
lonely mountain gorges. Once a bullet whistled through Stangerson’s window
and flattened itself upon the wall within a foot of him. On another
occasion, as Drebber passed under a cliff a great boulder crashed down on
him, and he only escaped a terrible death by throwing himself upon his
face. The two young Mormons were not long in discovering the reason of
these attempts upon their lives, and led repeated expeditions into the
mountains in the hope of capturing or killing their enemy, but always
without success. Then they adopted the precaution of never going out alone
or after nightfall, and of having their houses guarded. After a time they
were able to relax these measures, for nothing was either heard or seen of
their opponent, and they hoped that time had cooled his vindictiveness.


Far from doing so, it had, if anything, augmented it. The hunter’s mind
was of a hard, unyielding nature, and the predominant idea of revenge had
taken such complete possession of it that there was no room for any other
emotion. He was, however, above all things practical. He soon realized
that even his iron constitution could not stand the incessant strain which
he was putting upon it. Exposure and want of wholesome food were wearing
him out. If he died like a dog among the mountains, what was to become of
his revenge then? And yet such a death was sure to overtake him if he
persisted. He felt that that was to play his enemy’s game, so he
reluctantly returned to the old Nevada mines, there to recruit his health
and to amass money enough to allow him to pursue his object without
privation.


His intention had been to be absent a year at the most, but a combination
of unforeseen circumstances prevented his leaving the mines for nearly
five. At the end of that time, however, his memory of his wrongs and his
craving for revenge were quite as keen as on that memorable night when he
had stood by John Ferrier’s grave. Disguised, and under an assumed name,
he returned to Salt Lake City, careless what became of his own life, as
long as he obtained what he knew to be justice. There he found evil
tidings awaiting him. There had been a schism among the Chosen People a
few months before, some of the younger members of the Church having
rebelled against the authority of the Elders, and the result had been the
secession of a certain number of the malcontents, who had left Utah and
become Gentiles. Among these had been Drebber and Stangerson; and no one
knew whither they had gone. Rumour reported that Drebber had managed to
convert a large part of his property into money, and that he had departed
a wealthy man, while his companion, Stangerson, was comparatively poor.
There was no clue at all, however, as to their whereabouts.


Many a man, however vindictive, would have abandoned all thought of
revenge in the face of such a difficulty, but Jefferson Hope never
faltered for a moment. With the small competence he possessed, eked out by
such employment as he could pick up, he travelled from town to town
through the United States in quest of his enemies. Year passed into year,
his black hair turned grizzled, but still he wandered on, a human
bloodhound, with his mind wholly set upon the one object upon which he had
devoted his life. At last his perseverance was rewarded. It was but a
glance of a face in a window, but that one glance told him that Cleveland
in Ohio possessed the men whom he was in pursuit of. He returned to his
miserable lodgings with his plan of vengeance all arranged. It chanced,
however, that Drebber, looking from his window, had recognized the vagrant
in the street, and had read murder in his eyes. He hurried before a
justice of the peace, accompanied by Stangerson, who had become his
private secretary, and represented to him that they were in danger of
their lives from the jealousy and hatred of an old rival. That evening
Jefferson Hope was taken into custody, and not being able to find
sureties, was detained for some weeks. When at last he was liberated, it
was only to find that Drebber’s house was deserted, and that he and his
secretary had departed for Europe.


Again the avenger had been foiled, and again his concentrated hatred urged
him to continue the pursuit. Funds were wanting, however, and for some
time he had to return to work, saving every dollar for his approaching
journey. At last, having collected enough to keep life in him, he departed
for Europe, and tracked his enemies from city to city, working his way in
any menial capacity, but never overtaking the fugitives. When he reached
St. Petersburg they had departed for Paris; and when he followed them
there he learned that they had just set off for Copenhagen. At the Danish
capital he was again a few days late, for they had journeyed on to London,
where he at last succeeded in running them to earth. As to what occurred
there, we cannot do better than quote the old hunter’s own account, as
duly recorded in Dr. Watson’s Journal, to which we are already under such
obligations.


<a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
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<div style="height: 4em;">
 
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<h2>
CHAPTER VI. A CONTINUATION OF THE REMINISCENCES OF JOHN WATSON, M.D.
</h2>

OUR prisoner’s furious resistance did not apparently indicate any ferocity
in his disposition towards ourselves, for on finding himself powerless, he
smiled in an affable manner, and expressed his hopes that he had not hurt
any of us in the scuffle. “I guess you’re going to take me to the
police-station,” he remarked to Sherlock Holmes. “My cab’s at the door. If
you’ll loose my legs I’ll walk down to it. I’m not so light to lift as I
used to be.”


Gregson and Lestrade exchanged glances as if they thought this proposition
rather a bold one; but Holmes at once took the prisoner at his word, and
loosened the towel which we had bound round his ancles. <a
href="#linknote-23" name="linknoteref-23" id="linknoteref-23">23</a>
He rose and stretched his legs, as though to assure himself that they were
free once more. I remember that I thought to myself, as I eyed him, that I
had seldom seen a more powerfully built man; and his dark sunburned face
bore an expression of determination and energy which was as formidable as
his personal strength.


“If there’s a vacant place for a chief of the police, I reckon you are the
man for it,” he said, gazing with undisguised admiration at my
fellow-lodger. “The way you kept on my trail was a caution.”


“You had better come with me,” said Holmes to the two detectives.


“I can drive you,” said Lestrade.


“Good! and Gregson can come inside with me. You too, Doctor, you have
taken an interest in the case and may as well stick to us.”


I assented gladly, and we all descended together. Our prisoner made no
attempt at escape, but stepped calmly into the cab which had been his, and
we followed him. Lestrade mounted the box, whipped up the horse, and
brought us in a very short time to our destination. We were ushered into a
small chamber where a police Inspector noted down our prisoner’s name and
the names of the men with whose murder he had been charged. The official
was a white-faced unemotional man, who went through his duties in a dull
mechanical way. “The prisoner will be put before the magistrates in the
course of the week,” he said; “in the mean time, Mr. Jefferson Hope, have
you anything that you wish to say? I must warn you that your words will be
taken down, and may be used against you.”


“I’ve got a good deal to say,” our prisoner said slowly. “I want to tell
you gentlemen all about it.”


“Hadn’t you better reserve that for your trial?” asked the Inspector.


“I may never be tried,” he answered. “You needn’t look startled. It isn’t
suicide I am thinking of. Are you a Doctor?” He turned his fierce dark
eyes upon me as he asked this last question.


“Yes; I am,” I answered.


“Then put your hand here,” he said, with a smile, motioning with his
manacled wrists towards his chest.


I did so; and became at once conscious of an extraordinary throbbing and
commotion which was going on inside. The walls of his chest seemed to
thrill and quiver as a frail building would do inside when some powerful
engine was at work. In the silence of the room I could hear a dull humming
and buzzing noise which proceeded from the same source.


“Why,” I cried, “you have an aortic aneurism!”


“That’s what they call it,” he said, placidly. “I went to a Doctor last
week about it, and he told me that it is bound to burst before many days
passed. It has been getting worse for years. I got it from over-exposure
and under-feeding among the Salt Lake Mountains. I’ve done my work now,
and I don’t care how soon I go, but I should like to leave some account of
the business behind me. I don’t want to be remembered as a common
cut-throat.”


The Inspector and the two detectives had a hurried discussion as to the
advisability of allowing him to tell his story.


“Do you consider, Doctor, that there is immediate danger?” the former
asked, <a href="#linknote-24" name="linknoteref-24" id="linknoteref-24">24</a>


“Most certainly there is,” I answered.


“In that case it is clearly our duty, in the interests of justice, to take
his statement,” said the Inspector. “You are at liberty, sir, to give your
account, which I again warn you will be taken down.”


“I’ll sit down, with your leave,” the prisoner said, suiting the action to
the word. “This aneurism of mine makes me easily tired, and the tussle we
had half an hour ago has not mended matters. I’m on the brink of the
grave, and I am not likely to lie to you. Every word I say is the absolute
truth, and how you use it is a matter of no consequence to me.”


With these words, Jefferson Hope leaned back in his chair and began the
following remarkable statement. He spoke in a calm and methodical manner,
as though the events which he narrated were commonplace enough. I can
vouch for the accuracy of the subjoined account, for I have had access to
Lestrade’s note-book, in which the prisoner’s words were taken down
exactly as they were uttered.


“It don’t much matter to you why I hated these men,” he said; “it’s enough
that they were guilty of the death of two human beings—a father and
a daughter—and that they had, therefore, forfeited their own lives.
After the lapse of time that has passed since their crime, it was
impossible for me to secure a conviction against them in any court. I knew
of their guilt though, and I determined that I should be judge, jury, and
executioner all rolled into one. You’d have done the same, if you have any
manhood in you, if you had been in my place.


“That girl that I spoke of was to have married me twenty years ago. She
was forced into marrying that same Drebber, and broke her heart over it. I
took the marriage ring from her dead finger, and I vowed that his dying
eyes should rest upon that very ring, and that his last thoughts should be
of the crime for which he was punished. I have carried it about with me,
and have followed him and his accomplice over two continents until I
caught them. They thought to tire me out, but they could not do it. If I
die to-morrow, as is likely enough, I die knowing that my work in this
world is done, and well done. They have perished, and by my hand. There is
nothing left for me to hope for, or to desire.


“They were rich and I was poor, so that it was no easy matter for me to
follow them. When I got to London my pocket was about empty, and I found
that I must turn my hand to something for my living. Driving and riding
are as natural to me as walking, so I applied at a cabowner’s office, and
soon got employment. I was to bring a certain sum a week to the owner, and
whatever was over that I might keep for myself. There was seldom much
over, but I managed to scrape along somehow. The hardest job was to learn
my way about, for I reckon that of all the mazes that ever were contrived,
this city is the most confusing. I had a map beside me though, and when
once I had spotted the principal hotels and stations, I got on pretty
well.


“It was some time before I found out where my two gentlemen were living;
but I inquired and inquired until at last I dropped across them. They were
at a boarding-house at Camberwell, over on the other side of the river.
When once I found them out I knew that I had them at my mercy. I had grown
my beard, and there was no chance of their recognizing me. I would dog
them and follow them until I saw my opportunity. I was determined that
they should not escape me again.


“They were very near doing it for all that. Go where they would about
London, I was always at their heels. Sometimes I followed them on my cab,
and sometimes on foot, but the former was the best, for then they could
not get away from me. It was only early in the morning or late at night
that I could earn anything, so that I began to get behind hand with my
employer. I did not mind that, however, as long as I could lay my hand
upon the men I wanted.


“They were very cunning, though. They must have thought that there was
some chance of their being followed, for they would never go out alone,
and never after nightfall. During two weeks I drove behind them every day,
and never once saw them separate. Drebber himself was drunk half the time,
but Stangerson was not to be caught napping. I watched them late and
early, but never saw the ghost of a chance; but I was not discouraged, for
something told me that the hour had almost come. My only fear was that
this thing in my chest might burst a little too soon and leave my work
undone.


“At last, one evening I was driving up and down Torquay Terrace, as the
street was called in which they boarded, when I saw a cab drive up to
their door. Presently some luggage was brought out, and after a time
Drebber and Stangerson followed it, and drove off. I whipped up my horse
and kept within sight of them, feeling very ill at ease, for I feared that
they were going to shift their quarters. At Euston Station they got out,
and I left a boy to hold my horse, and followed them on to the platform. I
heard them ask for the Liverpool train, and the guard answer that one had
just gone and there would not be another for some hours. Stangerson seemed
to be put out at that, but Drebber was rather pleased than otherwise. I
got so close to them in the bustle that I could hear every word that
passed between them. Drebber said that he had a little business of his own
to do, and that if the other would wait for him he would soon rejoin him.
His companion remonstrated with him, and reminded him that they had
resolved to stick together. Drebber answered that the matter was a
delicate one, and that he must go alone. I could not catch what Stangerson
said to that, but the other burst out swearing, and reminded him that he
was nothing more than his paid servant, and that he must not presume to
dictate to him. On that the Secretary gave it up as a bad job, and simply
bargained with him that if he missed the last train he should rejoin him
at Halliday’s Private Hotel; to which Drebber answered that he would be
back on the platform before eleven, and made his way out of the station.


“The moment for which I had waited so long had at last come. I had my
enemies within my power. Together they could protect each other, but
singly they were at my mercy. I did not act, however, with undue
precipitation. My plans were already formed. There is no satisfaction in
vengeance unless the offender has time to realize who it is that strikes
him, and why retribution has come upon him. I had my plans arranged by
which I should have the opportunity of making the man who had wronged me
understand that his old sin had found him out. It chanced that some days
before a gentleman who had been engaged in looking over some houses in the
Brixton Road had dropped the key of one of them in my carriage. It was
claimed that same evening, and returned; but in the interval I had taken a
moulding of it, and had a duplicate constructed. By means of this I had
access to at least one spot in this great city where I could rely upon
being free from interruption. How to get Drebber to that house was the
difficult problem which I had now to solve.


“He walked down the road and went into one or two liquor shops, staying
for nearly half-an-hour in the last of them. When he came out he staggered
in his walk, and was evidently pretty well on. There was a hansom just in
front of me, and he hailed it. I followed it so close that the nose of my
horse was within a yard of his driver the whole way. We rattled across
Waterloo Bridge and through miles of streets, until, to my astonishment,
we found ourselves back in the Terrace in which he had boarded. I could
not imagine what his intention was in returning there; but I went on and
pulled up my cab a hundred yards or so from the house. He entered it, and
his hansom drove away. Give me a glass of water, if you please. My mouth
gets dry with the talking.”


I handed him the glass, and he drank it down.


“That’s better,” he said. “Well, I waited for a quarter of an hour, or
more, when suddenly there came a noise like people struggling inside the
house. Next moment the door was flung open and two men appeared, one of
whom was Drebber, and the other was a young chap whom I had never seen
before. This fellow had Drebber by the collar, and when they came to the
head of the steps he gave him a shove and a kick which sent him half
across the road. ‘You hound,’ he cried, shaking his stick at him; ‘I’ll
teach you to insult an honest girl!’ He was so hot that I think he would
have thrashed Drebber with his cudgel, only that the cur staggered away
down the road as fast as his legs would carry him. He ran as far as the
corner, and then, seeing my cab, he hailed me and jumped in. ‘Drive me to
Halliday’s Private Hotel,’ said he.


“When I had him fairly inside my cab, my heart jumped so with joy that I
feared lest at this last moment my aneurism might go wrong. I drove along
slowly, weighing in my own mind what it was best to do. I might take him
right out into the country, and there in some deserted lane have my last
interview with him. I had almost decided upon this, when he solved the
problem for me. The craze for drink had seized him again, and he ordered
me to pull up outside a gin palace. He went in, leaving word that I should
wait for him. There he remained until closing time, and when he came out
he was so far gone that I knew the game was in my own hands.


“Don’t imagine that I intended to kill him in cold blood. It would only
have been rigid justice if I had done so, but I could not bring myself to
do it. I had long determined that he should have a show for his life if he
chose to take advantage of it. Among the many billets which I have filled
in America during my wandering life, I was once janitor and sweeper out of
the laboratory at York College. One day the professor was lecturing on
poisions, <a href="#linknote-25" name="linknoteref-25" id="linknoteref-25">25</a>
and he showed his students some alkaloid, as he called it, which he had
extracted from some South American arrow poison, and which was so powerful
that the least grain meant instant death. I spotted the bottle in which
this preparation was kept, and when they were all gone, I helped myself to
a little of it. I was a fairly good dispenser, so I worked this alkaloid
into small, soluble pills, and each pill I put in a box with a similar
pill made without the poison. I determined at the time that when I had my
chance, my gentlemen should each have a draw out of one of these boxes,
while I ate the pill that remained. It would be quite as deadly, and a
good deal less noisy than firing across a handkerchief. From that day I
had always my pill boxes about with me, and the time had now come when I
was to use them.


“It was nearer one than twelve, and a wild, bleak night, blowing hard and
raining in torrents. Dismal as it was outside, I was glad within—so
glad that I could have shouted out from pure exultation. If any of you
gentlemen have ever pined for a thing, and longed for it during twenty
long years, and then suddenly found it within your reach, you would
understand my feelings. I lit a cigar, and puffed at it to steady my
nerves, but my hands were trembling, and my temples throbbing with
excitement. As I drove, I could see old John Ferrier and sweet Lucy
looking at me out of the darkness and smiling at me, just as plain as I
see you all in this room. All the way they were ahead of me, one on each
side of the horse until I pulled up at the house in the Brixton Road.


“There was not a soul to be seen, nor a sound to be heard, except the
dripping of the rain. When I looked in at the window, I found Drebber all
huddled together in a drunken sleep. I shook him by the arm, ‘It’s time to
get out,’ I said.


“‘All right, cabby,’ said he.


“I suppose he thought we had come to the hotel that he had mentioned, for
he got out without another word, and followed me down the garden. I had to
walk beside him to keep him steady, for he was still a little top-heavy.
When we came to the door, I opened it, and led him into the front room. I
give you my word that all the way, the father and the daughter were
walking in front of us.


“‘It’s infernally dark,’ said he, stamping about.


“‘We’ll soon have a light,’ I said, striking a match and putting it to a
wax candle which I had brought with me. ‘Now, Enoch Drebber,’ I continued,
turning to him, and holding the light to my own face, ‘who am I?’


“He gazed at me with bleared, drunken eyes for a moment, and then I saw a
horror spring up in them, and convulse his whole features, which showed me
that he knew me. He staggered back with a livid face, and I saw the
perspiration break out upon his brow, while his teeth chattered in his
head. At the sight, I leaned my back against the door and laughed loud and
long. I had always known that vengeance would be sweet, but I had never
hoped for the contentment of soul which now possessed me.


“‘You dog!’ I said; ‘I have hunted you from Salt Lake City to St.
Petersburg, and you have always escaped me. Now, at last your wanderings
have come to an end, for either you or I shall never see to-morrow’s sun
rise.’ He shrunk still further away as I spoke, and I could see on his
face that he thought I was mad. So I was for the time. The pulses in my
temples beat like sledge-hammers, and I believe I would have had a fit of
some sort if the blood had not gushed from my nose and relieved me.


“‘What do you think of Lucy Ferrier now?’ I cried, locking the door, and
shaking the key in his face. ‘Punishment has been slow in coming, but it
has overtaken you at last.’ I saw his coward lips tremble as I spoke. He
would have begged for his life, but he knew well that it was useless.


“‘Would you murder me?’ he stammered.


“‘There is no murder,’ I answered. ‘Who talks of murdering a mad dog? What
mercy had you upon my poor darling, when you dragged her from her
slaughtered father, and bore her away to your accursed and shameless
harem.’


“‘It was not I who killed her father,’ he cried.


“‘But it was you who broke her innocent heart,’ I shrieked, thrusting the
box before him. ‘Let the high God judge between us. Choose and eat. There
is death in one and life in the other. I shall take what you leave. Let us
see if there is justice upon the earth, or if we are ruled by chance.’


“He cowered away with wild cries and prayers for mercy, but I drew my
knife and held it to his throat until he had obeyed me. Then I swallowed
the other, and we stood facing one another in silence for a minute or
more, waiting to see which was to live and which was to die. Shall I ever
forget the look which came over his face when the first warning pangs told
him that the poison was in his system? I laughed as I saw it, and held
Lucy’s marriage ring in front of his eyes. It was but for a moment, for
the action of the alkaloid is rapid. A spasm of pain contorted his
features; he threw his hands out in front of him, staggered, and then,
with a hoarse cry, fell heavily upon the floor. I turned him over with my
foot, and placed my hand upon his heart. There was no movement. He was
dead!


“The blood had been streaming from my nose, but I had taken no notice of
it. I don’t know what it was that put it into my head to write upon the
wall with it. Perhaps it was some mischievous idea of setting the police
upon a wrong track, for I felt light-hearted and cheerful. I remembered a
German being found in New York with RACHE written up above him, and it was
argued at the time in the newspapers that the secret societies must have
done it. I guessed that what puzzled the New Yorkers would puzzle the
Londoners, so I dipped my finger in my own blood and printed it on a
convenient place on the wall. Then I walked down to my cab and found that
there was nobody about, and that the night was still very wild. I had
driven some distance when I put my hand into the pocket in which I usually
kept Lucy’s ring, and found that it was not there. I was thunderstruck at
this, for it was the only memento that I had of her. Thinking that I might
have dropped it when I stooped over Drebber’s body, I drove back, and
leaving my cab in a side street, I went boldly up to the house—for I
was ready to dare anything rather than lose the ring. When I arrived
there, I walked right into the arms of a police-officer who was coming
out, and only managed to disarm his suspicions by pretending to be
hopelessly drunk.


“That was how Enoch Drebber came to his end. All I had to do then was to
do as much for Stangerson, and so pay off John Ferrier’s debt. I knew that
he was staying at Halliday’s Private Hotel, and I hung about all day, but
he never came out. <a href="#linknote-26" name="linknoteref-26"
id="linknoteref-26">26</a> fancy that he suspected
something when Drebber failed to put in an appearance. He was cunning, was
Stangerson, and always on his guard. If he thought he could keep me off by
staying indoors he was very much mistaken. I soon found out which was the
window of his bedroom, and early next morning I took advantage of some
ladders which were lying in the lane behind the hotel, and so made my way
into his room in the grey of the dawn. I woke him up and told him that the
hour had come when he was to answer for the life he had taken so long
before. I described Drebber’s death to him, and I gave him the same choice
of the poisoned pills. Instead of grasping at the chance of safety which
that offered him, he sprang from his bed and flew at my throat. In
self-defence I stabbed him to the heart. It would have been the same in
any case, for Providence would never have allowed his guilty hand to pick
out anything but the poison.


“I have little more to say, and it’s as well, for I am about done up. I
went on cabbing it for a day or so, intending to keep at it until I could
save enough to take me back to America. I was standing in the yard when a
ragged youngster asked if there was a cabby there called Jefferson Hope,
and said that his cab was wanted by a gentleman at 221B, Baker Street. I
went round, suspecting no harm, and the next thing I knew, this young man
here had the bracelets on my wrists, and as neatly snackled <a
href="#linknote-27" name="linknoteref-27" id="linknoteref-27">27</a>
as ever I saw in my life. That’s the whole of my story, gentlemen. You may
consider me to be a murderer; but I hold that I am just as much an officer
of justice as you are.”


So thrilling had the man’s narrative been, and his manner was so
impressive that we had sat silent and absorbed. Even the professional
detectives, blasé as they were in every detail of crime, appeared
to be keenly interested in the man’s story. When he finished we sat for
some minutes in a stillness which was only broken by the scratching of
Lestrade’s pencil as he gave the finishing touches to his shorthand
account.


“There is only one point on which I should like a little more
information,” Sherlock Holmes said at last. “Who was your accomplice who
came for the ring which I advertised?”


The prisoner winked at my friend jocosely. “I can tell my own secrets,” he
said, “but I don’t get other people into trouble. I saw your
advertisement, and I thought it might be a plant, or it might be the ring
which I wanted. My friend volunteered to go and see. I think you’ll own he
did it smartly.”


“Not a doubt of that,” said Holmes heartily.


“Now, gentlemen,” the Inspector remarked gravely, “the forms of the law
must be complied with. On Thursday the prisoner will be brought before the
magistrates, and your attendance will be required. Until then I will be
responsible for him.” He rang the bell as he spoke, and Jefferson Hope was
led off by a couple of warders, while my friend and I made our way out of
the Station and took a cab back to Baker Street.


<a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
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<h2>
CHAPTER VII. THE CONCLUSION.
</h2>

WE had all been warned to appear before the magistrates upon the Thursday;
but when the Thursday came there was no occasion for our testimony. A
higher Judge had taken the matter in hand, and Jefferson Hope had been
summoned before a tribunal where strict justice would be meted out to him.
On the very night after his capture the aneurism burst, and he was found
in the morning stretched upon the floor of the cell, with a placid smile
upon his face, as though he had been able in his dying moments to look
back upon a useful life, and on work well done.


“Gregson and Lestrade will be wild about his death,” Holmes remarked, as
we chatted it over next evening. “Where will their grand advertisement be
now?”


“I don’t see that they had very much to do with his capture,” I answered.


“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence,” returned my
companion, bitterly. “The question is, what can you make people believe
that you have done. Never mind,” he continued, more brightly, after a
pause. “I would not have missed the investigation for anything. There has
been no better case within my recollection. Simple as it was, there were
several most instructive points about it.”


“Simple!” I ejaculated.


“Well, really, it can hardly be described as otherwise,” said Sherlock
Holmes, smiling at my surprise. “The proof of its intrinsic simplicity is,
that without any help save a few very ordinary deductions I was able to
lay my hand upon the criminal within three days.”


“That is true,” said I.


“I have already explained to you that what is out of the common is usually
a guide rather than a hindrance. In solving a problem of this sort, the
grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. That is a very useful
accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practise it much.
In the every-day affairs of life it is more useful to reason forwards, and
so the other comes to be neglected. There are fifty who can reason
synthetically for one who can reason analytically.”


“I confess,” said I, “that I do not quite follow you.”


“I hardly expected that you would. Let me see if I can make it clearer.
Most people, if you describe a train of events to them, will tell you what
the result would be. They can put those events together in their minds,
and argue from them that something will come to pass. There are few
people, however, who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolve
from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to
that result. This power is what I mean when I talk of reasoning backwards,
or analytically.”


“I understand,” said I.


“Now this was a case in which you were given the result and had to find
everything else for yourself. Now let me endeavour to show you the
different steps in my reasoning. To begin at the beginning. I approached
the house, as you know, on foot, and with my mind entirely free from all
impressions. I naturally began by examining the roadway, and there, as I
have already explained to you, I saw clearly the marks of a cab, which, I
ascertained by inquiry, must have been there during the night. I satisfied
myself that it was a cab and not a private carriage by the narrow gauge of
the wheels. The ordinary London growler is considerably less wide than a
gentleman’s brougham.


“This was the first point gained. I then walked slowly down the garden
path, which happened to be composed of a clay soil, peculiarly suitable
for taking impressions. No doubt it appeared to you to be a mere trampled
line of slush, but to my trained eyes every mark upon its surface had a
meaning. There is no branch of detective science which is so important and
so much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps. Happily, I have always
laid great stress upon it, and much practice has made it second nature to
me. I saw the heavy footmarks of the constables, but I saw also the track
of the two men who had first passed through the garden. It was easy to
tell that they had been before the others, because in places their marks
had been entirely obliterated by the others coming upon the top of them.
In this way my second link was formed, which told me that the nocturnal
visitors were two in number, one remarkable for his height (as I
calculated from the length of his stride), and the other fashionably
dressed, to judge from the small and elegant impression left by his boots.


“On entering the house this last inference was confirmed. My well-booted
man lay before me. The tall one, then, had done the murder, if murder
there was. There was no wound upon the dead man’s person, but the agitated
expression upon his face assured me that he had foreseen his fate before
it came upon him. Men who die from heart disease, or any sudden natural
cause, never by any chance exhibit agitation upon their features. Having
sniffed the dead man’s lips I detected a slightly sour smell, and I came
to the conclusion that he had had poison forced upon him. Again, I argued
that it had been forced upon him from the hatred and fear expressed upon
his face. By the method of exclusion, I had arrived at this result, for no
other hypothesis would meet the facts. Do not imagine that it was a very
unheard of idea. The forcible administration of poison is by no means a
new thing in criminal annals. The cases of Dolsky in Odessa, and of
Leturier in Montpellier, will occur at once to any toxicologist.


“And now came the great question as to the reason why. Robbery had not
been the object of the murder, for nothing was taken. Was it politics,
then, or was it a woman? That was the question which confronted me. I was
inclined from the first to the latter supposition. Political assassins are
only too glad to do their work and to fly. This murder had, on the
contrary, been done most deliberately, and the perpetrator had left his
tracks all over the room, showing that he had been there all the time. It
must have been a private wrong, and not a political one, which called for
such a methodical revenge. When the inscription was discovered upon the
wall I was more inclined than ever to my opinion. The thing was too
evidently a blind. When the ring was found, however, it settled the
question. Clearly the murderer had used it to remind his victim of some
dead or absent woman. It was at this point that I asked Gregson whether he
had enquired in his telegram to Cleveland as to any particular point in
Mr. Drebber’s former career. He answered, you remember, in the negative.


“I then proceeded to make a careful examination of the room, which
confirmed me in my opinion as to the murderer’s height, and furnished me
with the additional details as to the Trichinopoly cigar and the length of
his nails. I had already come to the conclusion, since there were no signs
of a struggle, that the blood which covered the floor had burst from the
murderer’s nose in his excitement. I could perceive that the track of
blood coincided with the track of his feet. It is seldom that any man,
unless he is very full-blooded, breaks out in this way through emotion, so
I hazarded the opinion that the criminal was probably a robust and
ruddy-faced man. Events proved that I had judged correctly.


“Having left the house, I proceeded to do what Gregson had neglected. I
telegraphed to the head of the police at Cleveland, limiting my enquiry to
the circumstances connected with the marriage of Enoch Drebber. The answer
was conclusive. It told me that Drebber had already applied for the
protection of the law against an old rival in love, named Jefferson Hope,
and that this same Hope was at present in Europe. I knew now that I held
the clue to the mystery in my hand, and all that remained was to secure
the murderer.


“I had already determined in my own mind that the man who had walked into
the house with Drebber, was none other than the man who had driven the
cab. The marks in the road showed me that the horse had wandered on in a
way which would have been impossible had there been anyone in charge of
it. Where, then, could the driver be, unless he were inside the house?
Again, it is absurd to suppose that any sane man would carry out a
deliberate crime under the very eyes, as it were, of a third person, who
was sure to betray him. Lastly, supposing one man wished to dog another
through London, what better means could he adopt than to turn cabdriver.
All these considerations led me to the irresistible conclusion that
Jefferson Hope was to be found among the jarveys of the Metropolis.


“If he had been one there was no reason to believe that he had ceased to
be. On the contrary, from his point of view, any sudden change would be
likely to draw attention to himself. He would, probably, for a time at
least, continue to perform his duties. There was no reason to suppose that
he was going under an assumed name. Why should he change his name in a
country where no one knew his original one? I therefore organized my
Street Arab detective corps, and sent them systematically to every cab
proprietor in London until they ferreted out the man that I wanted. How
well they succeeded, and how quickly I took advantage of it, are still
fresh in your recollection. The murder of Stangerson was an incident which
was entirely unexpected, but which could hardly in any case have been
prevented. Through it, as you know, I came into possession of the pills,
the existence of which I had already surmised. You see the whole thing is
a chain of logical sequences without a break or flaw.”


“It is wonderful!” I cried. “Your merits should be publicly recognized.
You should publish an account of the case. If you won’t, I will for you.”


“You may do what you like, Doctor,” he answered. “See here!” he continued,
handing a paper over to me, “look at this!”


It was the Echo for the day, and the paragraph to which he pointed
was devoted to the case in question.


“The public,” it said, “have lost a sensational treat through the sudden
death of the man Hope, who was suspected of the murder of Mr. Enoch
Drebber and of Mr. Joseph Stangerson. The details of the case will
probably be never known now, though we are informed upon good authority
that the crime was the result of an old standing and romantic feud, in
which love and Mormonism bore a part. It seems that both the victims
belonged, in their younger days, to the Latter Day Saints, and Hope, the
deceased prisoner, hails also from Salt Lake City. If the case has had no
other effect, it, at least, brings out in the most striking manner the
efficiency of our detective police force, and will serve as a lesson to
all foreigners that they will do wisely to settle their feuds at home, and
not to carry them on to British soil. It is an open secret that the credit
of this smart capture belongs entirely to the well-known Scotland Yard
officials, Messrs. Lestrade and Gregson. The man was apprehended, it
appears, in the rooms of a certain Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who has himself,
as an amateur, shown some talent in the detective line, and who, with such
instructors, may hope in time to attain to some degree of their skill. It
is expected that a testimonial of some sort will be presented to the two
officers as a fitting recognition of their services.”


“Didn’t I tell you so when we started?” cried Sherlock Holmes with a
laugh. “That’s the result of all our Study in Scarlet: to get them a
testimonial!”


“Never mind,” I answered, “I have all the facts in my journal, and the
public shall know them. In the meantime you must make yourself contented
by the consciousness of success, like the Roman miser—

<pre xml:space="preserve">
“‘Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi simul ac nummos contemplor in arca.’”
</pre>

<a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018">
 </a>

<div style="height: 4em;">
 
</div>
<h2>
ORIGINAL TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
</h2>

<a name="linknote-1" id="linknote-1">
</a>


1 (<a href="#linknoteref-1">return</a>) [ Frontispiece, with the
caption: “He examined with his glass the word upon the wall, going over
every letter of it with the most minute exactness.” (Page 23.)]


<a name="linknote-2" id="linknote-2">
</a>


2 (<a href="#linknoteref-2">return</a>) [ “JOHN H. WATSON, M.D.”: the
initial letters in the name are capitalized, the other letters in small
caps. All chapter titles are in small caps. The initial words of chapters
are in small caps with first letter capitalized.]


<a name="linknote-3" id="linknote-3">
</a>


3 (<a href="#linknoteref-3">return</a>) [ “lodgings.”: the period
should be a comma, as in later editions.]


<a name="linknote-4" id="linknote-4">
</a>


4 (<a href="#linknoteref-4">return</a>) [ “hoemoglobin”: should be
haemoglobin. The o&e are concatenated.]


<a name="linknote-5" id="linknote-5">
</a>


5 (<a href="#linknoteref-5">return</a>) [ “221B”: the B is in small
caps]


<a name="linknote-6" id="linknote-6">
</a>


6 (<a href="#linknoteref-6">return</a>) [ “THE LAURISTON GARDEN
MYSTERY”: the table-of-contents lists this chapter as “...GARDENS MYSTERY”—plural,
and probably more correct.]


<a name="linknote-7" id="linknote-7">
</a>


7 (<a href="#linknoteref-7">return</a>) [ “brought."”: the text has
an extra double-quote mark]


<a name="linknote-8" id="linknote-8">
</a>


8 (<a href="#linknoteref-8">return</a>) [ “individual—“:
illustration this page, with the caption: “As he spoke, his nimble fingers
were flying here, there, and everywhere.”]


<a name="linknote-9" id="linknote-9">
</a>


9 (<a href="#linknoteref-9">return</a>) [ “manoeuvres”: the o&e
are concatenated.]


<a name="linknote-10" id="linknote-10">
</a>


10 (<a href="#linknoteref-10">return</a>) [ “Patent leathers”: the
hyphen is missing.]


<a name="linknote-11" id="linknote-11">
</a>


11 (<a href="#linknoteref-11">return</a>) [ “condonment”: should be
condonement.]


<a name="linknote-13" id="linknote-13">
</a>


13 (<a href="#linknoteref-13">return</a>) [ “wages.”: ending quote is
missing.]


<a name="linknote-14" id="linknote-14">
</a>


14 (<a href="#linknoteref-14">return</a>) [ “the first.”: ending
quote is missing.]


<a name="linknote-15" id="linknote-15">
</a>


15 (<a href="#linknoteref-15">return</a>) [ “make much of...”: Other
editions complete this sentence with an “it.” But there is a gap in the
text at this point, and, given the context, it may have actually been an
interjection, a dash. The gap is just the right size for the characters
“it.” and the start of a new sentence, or for a “——“]


<a name="linknote-16" id="linknote-16">
</a>


16 (<a href="#linknoteref-16">return</a>) [ “tho cushion”: “tho”
should be “the”]


<a name="linknote-19" id="linknote-19">
</a>


19 (<a href="#linknoteref-19">return</a>) [ “shoving”: later editions
have “showing”. The original is clearly superior.]


<a name="linknote-20" id="linknote-20">
</a>


20 (<a href="#linknoteref-20">return</a>) [ “stared about...”:
illustration, with the caption: “One of them seized the little girl, and
hoisted her upon his shoulder.”]


<a name="linknote-21" id="linknote-21">
</a>


21 (<a href="#linknoteref-21">return</a>) [ “upon the”: illustration,
with the caption: “As he watched it he saw it writhe along the ground.”]


<a name="linknote-22" id="linknote-22">
</a>


22 (<a href="#linknoteref-22">return</a>) [ “FORMERLY...”: F,S,L,C in
caps, other letters in this line in small caps.]


<a name="linknote-23" id="linknote-23">
</a>


23 (<a href="#linknoteref-23">return</a>) [ “ancles”: ankles.]


<a name="linknote-24" id="linknote-24">
</a>


24 (<a href="#linknoteref-24">return</a>) [ “asked,”: should be
“asked.”]


<a name="linknote-25" id="linknote-25">
</a>


25 (<a href="#linknoteref-25">return</a>) [ “poisions”: should be
“poisons”]


<a name="linknote-26" id="linknote-26">
</a>


26 (<a href="#linknoteref-26">return</a>) [ “...fancy”: should be “I
fancy”. There is a gap in the text.]


<a name="linknote-27" id="linknote-27">
</a>


27 (<a href="#linknoteref-27">return</a>) [ “snackled”: “shackled” in
later texts.]


<a name="linknote-29" id="linknote-29">
</a>


29 (<a href="#linknoteref-29">return</a>) [ Heber C. Kemball, in one
of his sermons, alludes to his hundred wives under this endearing
epithet.]


 

<pre xml:space="preserve">

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