Arthur Conan Doyle
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Table of contents
Part I
Mr. Sherlock Holmes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
The Science Of Deduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
The Lauriston Garden Mystery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
What John Rance Had To Tell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Our Advertisement Brings A Visitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Tobias Gregson Shows What He Can Do. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Light In The Darkness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Part II
On The Great Alkali Plain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
The Flower Of Utah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
John Ferrier Talks With The Prophet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
A Flight For Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
The Avenging Angels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
A Continuation Of The Reminiscences Of John Watson, M.D. . . . . . . . . . 52
The Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
1
PART I.
(Being a reprint from the reminiscences of
John H. Watson, M.D.,
late of the Army Medical Department.)
CHAPTER I.
Mr. Sherlock Holmes
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 Bart’s. 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,” 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.”
5
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 coldbloodedness.
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 dissectingrooms
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, 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.
6
“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 wellplayed
violin is a treat for the gods—a badly-played
one—”
7
“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.
CHAPTER II.
The Science Of Deduction
We met next day as he had arranged, and inspected
the rooms at No. 221b, 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 stimu-
8
lated 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.
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.
9
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 slipshod
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
10
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.
11
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 villany 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.
CHAPTER III.
The Lauriston Garden Mystery
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, lacklustre
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
12
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.
“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 duncoloured
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.”
13
“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 illomened
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, middlesized,
broad shouldered, with crisp curling black
hair, and a short stubbly beard. He was dressed
14
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—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?”
15
“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—
RACHE.
“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
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,
16
“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.
CHAPTER IV.
What John Rance Had To Tell
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
17
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. “Patentleathers
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.
18
“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 seed 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 ag’in
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.”
19
“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.
CHAPTER V.
Our Advertisement Brings A Visitor
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 condonement 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
20
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.”
21
“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 comes ’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 Boh`eme. 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,
22
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 fourwheeler
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.
CHAPTER VI.
Tobias Gregson Shows What He Can Do
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
23
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.” 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 officiallooking
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,
24
as the strain upon the mind. You will appreciate
that, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, for we are both brainworkers.”
“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.’
“ ‘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
25
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.
26
“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—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.”
CHAPTER VII.
Light In The Darkness
The intelligence with which Lestrade greeted
us was so momentous and so unexpected, that
we were all three fairly dumbfounded. 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
27
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.
28
“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 the 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
29
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 outr´e 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.
30
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.”
31
PART II.
The Country of the Saints.
CHAPTER I.
On The Great Alkali Plain
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
ca ˜ nons; 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 huntinggrounds,
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.
35
“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 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. Mc-
Gregor, 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?”
“Of 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.
36
“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
37
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 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
38
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 forever 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.”
CHAPTER II.
The Flower Of Utah
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
39
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
40
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 allabsorbing
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?”
41
“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 ca ˜ non. 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.
CHAPTER III.
John Ferrier Talks With The Prophet
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 Vehmgericht, 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,
42
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 lightcoloured
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 heifers1,
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.
1Heber C. Kemball, in one of his sermons, alludes to his hundred wives under this endearing epithet.
43
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.
CHAPTER IV.
A Flight For Life
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 sittingroom.
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
44
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
45
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. Singlehanded,
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 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.
46
“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 grainland,
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
47
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 Ca˜non 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.
CHAPTER V.
The Avenging Angels
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 snowcapped
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
48
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 bighorn—
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
49
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:
JOHN FERRIER,
Formerly of Salt Lake City,
Died August 4th, 1860.
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 Ca˜ non, 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.
50
“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
51
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.
CHAPTER VI.
A Continuation Of The Reminiscences Of John Watson, M.D.
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
52
Holmes at once took the prisoner at his word, and
loosened the towel which we had bound round his
ankles. 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.
“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.
53
“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
54
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
poisons, 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
55
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 tomorrow’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. I 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
56
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 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,
blase 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.
CHAPTER VII.
The Conclusion
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 deduc-
57
tions 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 opin-
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ion 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 chance 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—
“ ‘Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi simul ac nummos contemplar in arca.’ ”
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